End-of-Semester Blog: Theory

Issue: How to increase user interactivity at the North Carolina Biotechnology Center’s Web site.

Possible Solution: Provide more interplay with the Biotechnology Center staff and Web site visitors through blogs and message boards.

When visitors arrive to the North Carolina Biotechnology Center Web site, they are looking for the employment board and the company directory. Web statistics easily confirm those pages are the most desirable targets on the Web site.

Visitors will spend up to five minutes looking for a job or a certain company, but no more than 45 seconds on the rest of the Web site. That is a problem considering the Biotechnology Center leaders view the Web site as a major tool to communicate with its constituents.

 

I hope to increase the time visitors spend clicking through the site, but more importantly, I want to encourage more two-way communication between the Biotechnology Center’s staff and industry stakeholders through blogs and message boards.

Let Us Blog

I envision the Biotechnology Center having a blog for each of its three main programs:

• Business Development
• Education and Training
• Science Development

As Brian Carroll wrote in the Writing for Digital Media study book, “blogs can make organizations who use them more accessible, answerable and transparent.” With that in mind, I envision the blogs would be written weekly by Biotechnology Center employees first, but then the roster of writers would grow to include high school and university science teachers and local industry leaders, among others.

The blogs could explain and enlighten biotechnology for visitors and make information palatable for people wanting to learn more about the industry. Readers could then leave valuable comments. The key is to provide context on a variety of issues by:

• Commenting on common mistakes committed by those applying for Biotechnology Center research grants and business loans
• Explaining the impact of a new drug
• Providing a transcript of a speech or a panel presentation
• Offering further explanation on how a Biotechnology Center grant will help a small start-up company

I will also look to include more topics after I attend the Jan. 20 North Carolina Science Blogging Conference. Of course, I can dream about the Biotechnology Center’s blogs matching the content and popularity of Microsoft’s splendid blog, Channel 9.

But I’ll be content, for now, with having blogs encompassing various viewpoints that strengthen the Biotechnology Center’s mission to support the industry through communication and education.

Meet Me at the Bulletin Boards

Besides offering blogs, the Biotechnology Center could maintain message boards to foster more interaction with lawmakers, scientists, business executives, students, teachers, and yes, the taxpayers.

Message boards often succeed because a sense of community often develops around forums or boards that feature regular users (The Virtual Community by Howard Rheingold.) The Biotechnology Center’s Education and Training staff could moderate a few boards to facilitate discussions with teachers from around the state.

For instance, the community college instructors in BioWork, a two-year program designed to train entry-level technicians for careers in biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and chemical manufacturing, could discuss teaching tips and textbook evaluations. Educators enrolled in the Biotechnology Center’s popular Biotechnology Workshops for Educators could also discuss current science topics and offer insight into new lab activities.

I hope that by writing blogs and maintaining discussion boards, visitors will look to ncbiotech.org as a virtual coffeehouse where people will meet to exchange ideas and information that will strengthen the biotechnology community.

Module Week 11 Assignment: The Blog

Battling the Rain at Shakori Hills

Note: I covered the third day of the Shakori Hills Grassroots Festival of Music and Dance (Oct. 8, 2006)

SILK HOPE, N.C. — For the second year in a row, the annual Shakori Hills Grassroots Festival of Music and Dance has been dubbed by some attendees as “Mudfest 2006.” Here in the parking lot of the 72-acre festival grounds, cars are covered in a soupy mix of mud and grass. And now a light drizzle grows in intensity as I gingerly move through the muck to the main gate.

But the weather doesn’t affect the mood of the ticket checker adored with dreadlocks, a yellow jacket and corduroy pants. The man continues to spin a hula hoop with stretched arms as if to welcome the rain.

Dance With Me

No dance partner? This isn’t a problem it seems at the Dance Tent where it takes only a few moments before you are engulfed by a large circle of barefoot dancers. I am paired with Elizabeth, an organic farmer who closely resembles actress Alexis Bledel. We spend the next 10 minutes learning the basic shag steps, but several missteps later, I realize my lack of rhythm makes it hard for me to succeed.

A Trip to “Antarctica”

There have been some great concept albums. The KISS classic, Destroyer comes to mind. The Who’s Tommy. Radiohead’s OK Computer. But the Never, based in Pittsboro, may be the first band to craft a storybook album focusing on a nuclear bomb and witches.

Antarctica centers on a young lad, Paul, who travels to the city to return the device to its owner. The book’s authors, the five-piece alternative band, handle the material with aplomb. The gentle guitar strumming and sunny harmonies provide a welcome contrast to the weather, and the music plays out well with the band’s young fans sitting in front of the stage. Behind them, a few kids shake their heads and flap their arms near a screen showing 40 different oil paintings from the book.

“Finger Billiards”

Billy Stevens sips hot chocolate from a biodegradable cup as he points out two teenage boys wandering to an open Carrom table.

“They’re back, so that means they are hooked,” he says with a smile.

Stevens can appreciate the addictiveness of the game that seems to attract newbies who can easily lose an hour playing on the square wooden board with four corner pockets. Commonly referred to as “finger billiards,” the game’s objective is simple.

Stevens tells me a player must flick a “striker” at black and white checkers, and victory is achieved when the 10 pieces, including a red one, dubbed the queen, find themselves in the pockets.

The game is a welcome distraction for some festival attendees who seek a break from the non-stop bluegrass and folk music dominating the festival. As the new players find, Carrom moves briskly and strategy plays a major role. Stevens, who is ranked 20th in the Carrom world rankings, tries to showcase the sport to anyone who wants to learn. That is why he’ll delay eating dinner for another hour just so he can hover around the nine tables and gently offer encouragement and tips to players.

“You’re flicking too hard,” he says. “Try guiding the striker.”

Stevens believes Carrom’s popularity could grow beyond the game shops into a wider market. There is no sarcasm in Stevens’ voice when he said the game would work well on ESPN next to the pool and poker programming. So Stevens is looking for an investor to fund his enthusiasm for the game to more lucrative heights. To build thousands of Carrom boards. To fund Carrom teams.

“To make $10 million, you need to invest $2 million,” he says. “And that is all I am looking for.”

And that makes demonstrations like the one here at Shakori Hills vital to growing the game. A sure draw would have been a 12-person tournament featuring some top players from the Southeast. But, alas, the cold rain stopped those plans.

“Out of the Rain”

The Duhks, (pronounced “ducks”) with their mix of gospel, roots, folk and bluegrass music, are made for Shakori Hills. Sure, their intensive instrumental skills and great vocal harmony are all over the map, but that’s a good thing.

They are also a sight to behold. Lead singer Jessica Havey is covered with tattoos and multi-percussionist Scott Senior plays like Animal from the Muppets. The group shined with an upbeat version of the Leonard Cohen tune Everybody Knows complete with a driving drum beat and the call-and-response of Death Came a Knockin’ is a highlight. But the song that drew the most cheers was the aptly named, Out of the Rain.

Module Week 10: Writing Assignment

The Wonder Stuff
Construction for the Modern Vidiot

The Wonder Stuff’s concoction of majestic guitars mixed with sneering New Wave sensibilities topped with lyrical wit should have propelled the group into the lap of pop royalty.

For nearly a decade the formula worked as the Stourbridge, England, natives became stars at home, starting with 1988’s “Eight Legged Groove Machine.” With a reputation for an invigorating live show led by singer Miles Hunt success seemed like a given.

But those plans for world domination went askew as mid-level pop hits sustained the Wonder Stuff for only so long (U.S. audiences were indifferent) before the band crumbled in 1994.

Six years later, the Wonder Stuff have returned with its resurrection gloriously captured in Construction for the Modern Vidiot, a collection culling performances from 2000 to 2002 at the Forum and the Longest Day and Fleadth festivals.

The popular choices are included as the songs flow seamlessly from the bounce of “Who Wants to Be a Disco King” to Martin Bell’s fiddle push of “Ten Trenches Deep” to a revved-up version of John Lennon’s “Gimmie Some Truth.”

The DVD also showcases the band’s maturation from a guitar-based outfit singing about cartoon boyfriends and circle squares to one reveling in the steadfast instrumental additions of mandolins and violins. Lyrically, Hunt moved from bratty lines (“I didn’t like you very much when I met you/And now I like you even less” from “Unbearable”) to mature heart stompers (“there are no words to illustrate/a marijuana trip away/confided all I had to say/only to watch it drift away” from “Storm Drain”).

All of which point out that Hunt and company operate in a separate phylum from their peers. They don’t aim to write national working-class anthems like Pulp, and the quintet doesn’t have the identity and humor issues afflicting Radiohead.

The Wonder Stuff is simply a group of cheeky buggers who forge ahead crafting pop songs, a feat few do better. And as “Construction for the Modern Vidiot” proves, the Groove Machine has returned to fine form.

Week Eight Assignment: Pitchfork Content

Write another post detailing online content you will create for your organization or publication.

Ok. So I wrote an entire blog detailing how Pitchfork posts reviews that can be overwrought and hard to understand at times. So I will aim to remedy this by writing a  review on the new DVD from the British band, The Wonder Stuff.

The Wonder Stuff have released seven albums, but no real  coverage from Pitchfork so I will write a review between 400 to 800 words that uses clear language but still offers the detailed analysis synonymous with the Web site. Writing a review will allow me to complete my class assignment and produce a work sample that I hope will entice the Pitchfork editors to hire me as a music reviewer.

Here are the other requirements:

Send a sample review of a recent album from your collection– preferably one that’s been released in the past six months, and that we don’t presently have a review of in our archive. If we decide to hire you, it’ll be your first review for the site, so we’ll need it to be written specifically for Pitchfork (it can’t have been previously published), and between 400-800 words in length.

Week Eight Assignment: Semiotic Analysis

Write a post or two that explores how semiotic analysis might help us plan our content, Web pages and sites.

As a web content editor of the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, my job duties center on simply and clearly presenting information online on our various business and education programs. So it is fitting that www.ncbiotech.org and other sites I work on would benefit from semiotic analysis in the area of navigation.

The challenge is to create signals allowing the user to easily navigate through a Web site. Just as a newspaper reporter must summarize an event using clear language, the Web writer must design pages with the audience in mind to eliminate any confusion relating to the site’s navigational hierarchy. (And that means no “mystery meat” navigation.)

Web writers must also exercise cultural sensitivity in selecting and using icons and metaphors. For instance, when thinking of hyperlink colors, the Web writer should understand the color red symbolizes valor and might in Malaysia, but many African countries equate red with death. (Carroll, “Writing for Digital Media” Study Book)

Semiotics can be valuable in allowing the web editor to choose the proper colors, words and symbols to link web pages together. I have realized semiotics is about making choices—using visual (graphics and illustrations) and verbal cues (hypertexts and headlines) to guide the visitor through the site.

In his research paper, The Relevance of Semiotics to the Internet: How Web Designers use Metaphors in Web Development” Grant Sherson summarized a relevant study by Elissa D. Smilowitz :

“Web pages that use good integrated metaphors have been shown to communicate better facilitate performance and significantly reduce functional errors by those using it.”

A Web writer or designer who chooses to use commonly used icons will convey a clearer message. Looking at my Microsoft Word toolbar, I see scissors signifying “cut.” A printer icon “to print.” A sheet of paper for “new document.” Success in communicating on the World Wide Web ultimately rests in designing symbols all visitors can understand like the home, right and left arrow keys found on most browsers.

Semiotics analysis can also help to expand our vocabulary to look beyond pictorial symbols. In his web blog, web designer Mark Boulton discussed the organization of information writing as he quoted a friend:

“’Words matter’, she said. ‘Probably more than anything. You can have a bad design, but if the words are right and in the right place, the user will generally find what they need’ … the conclusion from this conversation was that words are also signs on the web. The right word in the right place – isn’t that what navigation is all about? Context.”

Module Week Six: Point of View

Pitchfork has served as the pre-eminent music taste-maker since its 1995 debut covering artists such as Robert Pollard, Ryan Adams and Broken Social Scene.

It seems everyone tied to the music industry from artists to the label executives themselves visit the site daily to discover the “Next Big Thing.” The site averages more than 160,000 readers per day and more than 1.3 million unique visitors per month (J. Freedom du Lac) coming from these four main groups:

• Music “snobs”
• Record buyers
• College radio stations
• Label music executives

As the site content editor and writer, I will continue to offer content in the form of music reviews, interviews and news briefs all aimed at music buyers in the 18-to-45 year-old age range.

Challenges

The site could be improved in two areas: diversity in music coverage and clearer writing. Pitchfork has catered to indie-guitar rock scene for more than 11 years, but the site lags behind its main rivals, Tiny Mix Tapes and PopMatters in covering folk, hip hop and electronic artists.

Onto another matter. Pitchfork has based its reputation on music reviews, but the editors have endured ridicule and criticism for what its detractors deem as a “narrow view of independent music, favoring lo-fi indie rock over any other genre, and giving undue value to obscurity” (Itzkoff) written in an elitist tone.

An anonymous poster on the online blog, MESH Magazine, said:

“Right on, man. Those pretentious (expletive) are showcasing their liberal arts BA’s more than anything else. The reviews of a lot of the stuff they dump on makes no sense taken in tandem with half the crap on there. One of these replies called you ‘ungrateful’!? What the hell are we supposed to be grateful for? And have you ever seen an independent music site with more (expletive) ad’s than these (expletive)?”

In the East Bay Express, writer Rob Harvilla likened the writing to “a dense, hugely overwritten, utterly incomprehensible brick of critical fruitcake.” (J. Freedom du Lac).

A review of the Metallica album, St. Anger, proves Harvilla’s point:

“A banana spider bit into Ktulu the Mule’s heel. The animal reared. The cart spilled its contents, the CDs and myself, into the dust. A safety cut the electrical field protecting ‘St. Anger.’ As the cart master attempted to rein the bucking animal, I slipped a disc into my overalls.”

Pitchfork does revel in its humor. The staff posted a short video clip of a monkey in response to the Australian band Jet’s latest album, and bloggers and readers approved:

• Oh man, that had me rolling! Finally, a P’Fork review I can understand…
  Keith (08:41 PM on 10.05.06)
• Finally a Pitchfork review that I can actually follow!
  Keith (08:43 PM on 10.05.06)
• Ha! Mike – I didn’t read your comment before I posted mine. I’m glad I’m not the only one. I personally can’t stand their usual reviews.

The site’s content can greatly improve with contributors writing simpler sentences and focusing on principles taught in basic journalism and classes. And the site could be retooled to increase the site’s loading time, which the World Wide Web statistic site Alexa.com, labeled as “very slow” with an average load time of 6.4 seconds.

Articles Cited:

1. Du Lac, Freedom J. “Giving Indie Acts A Plug, or Pulling It Pitchfork Web Site Rises as Rock Arbiter.” The Washington Post. 30 April 2006.
2. Itzkoff, Dave. “The Pitchfork Effect.” Wired. Septemember 2006.

I will create online content using the Associated Press style guide.

Module Week Six: Same Article, New Headline

1. Eight Words:

Homeland Security: Indiana Offers Most Potential Terrorist Targets

2. Six Words:

Top Terrorist Target? Database Cites Indiana.

3. Six-word headline and eight-word subheadline.

Homeland Security Inspector Blasts Anti-Terrorism Database:
Zoos, Flea Markets Among Listed Potential Terrorist Targets.

Module Week Six Assignment: New Headline

Assignment: Rewrite The Headline From Your Writing Sample With This Week’s Module In Mind.

My first headline was sprinkled with a Doomsday sensibility. The new version is a bit more playful and captures the tone of my article much better.

New: Online Communication: Get the Message?

Old: The Demise of Online Communication.

Module Week Six Assignment: Lists

Assignment: Find A Web Article That Could Be Improved With Lists.

Original

Lollapalooza Lineup Announced at SXSW

March 16, 2006

The Red Hot Chili Peppers will help Perry Farrell build his “field of dreams” this summer when they headline the 2006 Lollapalooza festival.

During an early morning press conference in Austin, Tex., at South by Southwest, Perry Farrell announced that the lineup for the 2006 event — which also includes big-name acts like Kanye West, Wilco, Death Cab for Cutie and the Flaming Lips — would feature more than double the bands, two more stages and one more day.

Also included in the lineup are the Raconteurs, Ween, Queens of the Stone Age, Manu Chao, Common, Matisyahu, Sonic Youth, Thievery Corporation, Sleater-Kinney, Broken Social Scene, Blues Traveler, the New Pornographers, the Secret Machines, Panic! at the Disco, She Wants Revenge, Coheed and Cambria, Iron & Wine, the Dresden Dolls, Editors, the Go! Team, Gnarls Barkley, Stars, Hard-Fi, Feist, the Hold Steady, Mates of State, Wolfmother, the Subways, Living Things, Be Your Own Pet, Towers of London, Hot Chip, and a massive list of others.

Having started as a touring festival in 1991, Lollapalooza grounded itself in Chicago for two days last year with a lineup that included headliners the Pixies, as well as bands like the Arcade Fire, Donosaur Jr., the Killers, Kaiser Chiefs, and Brian Jonestown Massacre. This year, the festival will hold its ground once again at Chicago’s Grant Park from August 4-6.

Despite the changes made to the festival in the last two years, including turning it into a “destination festival” rather than a traveling one, Farrell insisted, “We’ve maintained its original heart and soul. With the breathtaking Chicago skyline as our backdrop, we found a perfect location to build our field of dreams.”

Tickets went on sale beginning at 9:00 A.M. today at $130 for a three-day pass.

Edited Version:

The Red Hot Chili Peppers will help Perry Farrell build his “field of dreams” this summer when they headline the 2006 Lollapalooza festival.

During an early morning press conference in Austin, Tex., at South by Southwest, Perry Farrell announced that the lineup for the 2006 event — which also includes big-name acts like Kanye West, Wilco, Death Cab for Cutie and the Flaming Lips — would feature more than double the bands, two more stages and one more day.

The following are just some of the 130 bands scheduled to perform:

• The Raconteurs
• Ween
• Queens of the Stone Age
• Manu Chao
• Common, Matisyahu
• Sonic Youth
• Thievery Corporation
• Sleater-Kinney
• Broken Social Scene
• Blues Traveler

For a complete list, visit the official Lollapalooza Web site.

Having started as a touring festival in 1991, Lollapalooza grounded itself in Chicago for two days last year with a lineup that included headliners the Pixies, as well as bands like the Arcade Fire, Dinosaur Jr., the Killers, Kaiser Chiefs, and Brian Jonestown Massacre. This year, the festival will hold its ground once again at Chicago’s Grant Park from August 4-6.

Despite the changes made to the festival in the last two years, including turning it into a “destination festival” rather than a traveling one, Farrell insisted, “We’ve maintained its original heart and soul. With the breathtaking Chicago skyline as our backdrop, we found a perfect location to build our field of dreams.”

Tickets went on sale beginning at 9 this morning at $130 for a three-day pass.

Module Week Six: Rewriting Poor Headlines

Assignment: Find Three Examples Online of Poor Headlines Used as Links. Note: I have included links to the articles.
Headline: Sprinkle Spruces up Peppers With Mexican Zing
Problem: The alliteration renders this headline hard to comprehend. One must read the headline twice. Possibly offensive. It would best to avoid “Mexican zing” construction.
Solution: Hampstead Resident Revels In Her Cooking Versatility.

Headline: Class 2A-1A District 1 Golf: Carroll’s big day at Black Rock
Problem: The headline is full of abbreviations and the relationship between Carroll and the golf division is unclear. Is Carroll a last name? A school name? A county?
Solution: Carroll County Golf Teams Score Well At District Championships.

Headline: “Assume the position – Tiers of Joy in Competitive Championship.”
Problem: Awkward. Pun is not clever and the headline does not reveal information on the subject. Possibly offensive.
Solution: Retooled Football Division Will Strengthen Championship Format.