Here’s a collection of fairly profound stats from a presentation given recently by social media guru Louis Gray. These select items show those of us in education where businesses are focusing their attention and the skills needed by modern graduates.

Yesterday I was lucky enough to get to facilitate a fascinating discussion during ASTE 2010. I’d prepared an hour worth of presentation, but halfway through the questions from participants were so interesting we spent most of the time discussing the issues rather than listening to the presenter (me).

We talked about a number of elements including the paradigm shift we’re currently in the middle of, how the fundamental way that knowledge is managed is changing, and how businesses are using social media to maintain customer relationships. And chiefly, we discussed the hurdles our schools are facing when integrating social media into the classroom in an attempt to better prepare students for the “real” world they’re about to enter.

The slides below provide visual support for the discussion. This talk also borrows heavily from Larry’s Lessig’s TED talk “How Creativity is Being Strangled by the Law” (embedded below).

And here’s the TED talk by Larry Lessig:

Here’s a Wordle made from the ASTE 2010 preconference and conference sectional descriptions, the ASTE webpage, and keynote/speaker biographies. [Click to enlarge].

Are you a Buzzer or not? Please answer this one question informal poll asking if you’re disabling Buzz in your Gmail account, or if you’re going to leave it enabled:

With the release of Google Buzz, there’s oodles of speculation at what Google is aiming for. Facebook’s popularity is soaring, and now they’ve announced they’ll be launching a webmail product to compete with Gmail. So, is Google threatened by Facebook? Heck yea!

The social media wars are heating up! Google already has a humongous user base, and Buzz automatically links into existing Gmail contacts, giving people an instant social network. How well the mass of non-tech Gmail users will take to Buzz remains to be seen, they might find it one to many improvements to an already great product. And whether or not those who’ve already invested time and sweat into Twitter and Facebook will consider switching? Only time will tell… but it’s bound to be an exciting 2010.

Here’s a short video excerpt from the 2010 Teens in Tech conference.

Teens In Tech Conference 2010 from ReadWriteWeb on Vimeo.

Today I was fortunate enough to get to address the entire Hoonah middle and highschool student body. I talked to them a bit about Online Success.

My main effort was to impress upon them that this stuff known as Web 2.0 can actually be more than just fun and games. And that they have a choice… they can choose to spend their time learning how to use it for academic gain, or they can just fritter it away. Indeed, in a few years many of the businesses they think they may want to work for will be hiring and valuing those employees who understand how to professionally nurture customer relationships and knowledge sharing in social media environment.

We talked about being safe online as well as thinking twice before posting things that might make them look bad.

I also tried to explain just how much of an opportunity they have in front of them. I reminded them just how lucky they are to go to a school where the administration understands the importance of the modern web and makes sure students and teachers have access to it (yes, Facebook is open on their network!).

Here are the slides I used for part of my time with them. The real substance of our talk was in the conversation, but you might be able to use the presentation as a jumping off point in your school or environment.

A friend of mine published on her blog a list of things she just loves, to give folks out there ideas for Christmas gifts, not for her, but for others in your life. I thought it was such a groovy idea I decided to a similar post of my own. Having recently seen our house burn with all our belongings in it, I’ve had a chance to acquire some new stuff. Most of it hand selected by me, after careful deliberation, spec-analyzing, and testing out. So without further adieu, I bring you Ryan’s List of Stuff I Really Like:

SmugMug. At $35/year it’s a low price for unlimited online secure photo storage. There’s no limit to the size or quality of your pics, and it’s easy enough to upload out of iPhoto or Picasa. It’s a weight off my shoulders knowing that I don’t have to worry about backing up our favorite photos.

Kuhl Pants. I love love love my Kuhl “Kuhldry” pants. So much so that I own three pairs and they’re basically the only pants I wear. They’re light, durable, great for travel, look nice enough to wear to work, and of course my primary requisite: comfy. (PS: order from Zappos for free return shipping if you don’t like ‘em)

This is the deodorant I’ve used since before I hit puberty. I’ve tried many others, but this is the smell I like. I only wish I could find it in sub 3oz containers so TSA would stop confiscating it!

North Face “Surge” laptop backpack. This holds my 15″ MacBook laptop in a padded compartment, very easy to remove for airport security, and has all the other bells and whistles of a modern, “performance” backpack. It doesn’t have wheels, but makes up for it by fitting my body so well that it’s almost a pleasure to lug around heavy loads.

North Face “Hedgehog” Shoe w/ Boa. OK this is a controversial subject, but I love these shoes. Not only do they fit me really well, but the Boa wire thingy I find very handy. It tightens on my foot uniformly, doesn’t stretch like laces, and makes it very easy to “tie” and “untie” my shoes using one hand while standing up. Yes, I wear these to work.

Makita Lithium Ion Impact Driver. Not that I’m doing much household upkeep these days, but if I did this is the first tool I’d reach for. Not only is the impact-ness powerful enough to drive long screws into solid wood (I’ve used it to mount kitchen cabinets), but it’s lightweight, charges quickly, and just feels so damn sexy to hold. Incidentally, this tool not only survived our house fire but still works to this day!

Sesame Honey Cashews from Trader Joes. Love love love ‘em! We don’t have a Trader Joes where I live, which is probably a good thing else I’d gorge on these way to often. Everytime a friend goes to there, tho, I ask ‘em to bring me back these luscious lil nuggets. They go great with…. anything!

Dropbox is one of my favorite computer utilities. I have it installed on four of my computers and my iPhone. It provides secure online storage. I use it to store all kinds of files, and it makes it a breeze for me to edit a document on my laptop, then pick up where I left off with the same document from my work computer. The free account provides 2GB, which is enough for my current needs, but if you need more you can upgrade.

Many of our more venerable educators, administrators, and board members think that Social Networking (aka Twitter, Facebook, MySpace) is a fad of sorts. They are surprised when I tell them these should be integrated into their curricula. When they ask why, I tell them that companies are hiring people who know how to properly use these tools.

Since many of them often don’t believe me, here’s a “real world” example:

After we lost all our belongings in a house fire over the summer, and winter has rolled around, I find I have no winter boots. So I send out a casual post to my social network:

When I make a post it gets delivered to everyone who is “following” me (both on Twitter and Facebook). So about 800 people were able to see my note about the new snow in Juneau. One of them replied:

To which I replied:

And now things get interesting. Because Twitter is an open social network, you can tune in to public conversations. You can even save search results so that you’ll be notified whenever a key word appears. This is what smart businesses do. They monitor the social stream for mentions of their brand, so they can stay in touch with their community.

I was surprised, and impressed, to see that Zappos noticed my post and sent me a nice reply. Zappos is a great online store, and they prove it by being savvy enough to tune into the public Twitter stream. They even gave me a nice smiley face =).

But that’s not where the story ends. Later that night I finally selected the boots I wanted to try and placed the order. After I did so I replied to @Zappos_Service:

And they responded with a nice, personal message:

But they’re not the only savvy company monitoring the stream, because this morning I got this message, also with a nice smiley face:

The interaction with not only the vendor, but the manufacturer of the boots was a great experience for me. It solidified my faith in both brands and gives me the feeling that they’re not just faceless corporations but people wanting to connect with customers. This feeling makes me happy, and those companies know it’s a worthy investment because a happy customer is a repeat customer.

So if you are surprised when you learn that companies are hiring people with social networking skills, don’t be.

Jane Hart shares with us a list compiled recently when 278 “learning professionals” were asked their top 10 tools for learning. Then she made a slideshow of the list:

Here in Alaska, Apple’s “genius” model for repairs is broken for two reasons. First because we’re not just rural, we’re expansive and rural. We don’t have simple mountain ranges, we have mountain fields. When you get to the top you don’t look down into the valley, you look across to the next mountain, and the ones behind it.

There are two Apple Stores in Alaska. The Mac Haus and the Alaska Mac Store. Both have shops in Anchorage and Fairbanks. If you don’t live in the big city, you can’t drive your broken Mac into an Apple Store. You have to ship it. In our case, the nearest qualified Apple repair center is, as the crow flies, 600 miles away.

The second problem with the Genius Model is this whole notion of a “genius”. I’ve been to Apple stores in Seattle, London, San Franciso and I’ve talked with the staff. Many of them are truly well versed in Apple’s products and troubleshooting. In Alaska? Not so much. In fact the most knowledgeable Apple experts I’ve met in Alaska work in schools.

In mid-August of this year one of our six month old Apple 24″ LED displays up and died. It simply wouldn’t power on.

Over the years we’ve sent in plenty of Apple laptops for repair. This is generally a painless process. You call them up, they do some troubleshooting over the phone, when they deem it needs repair they send you a box. Shipping is prepaid. You slap the laptop in the box, put it in the mail, and a couple weeks later it comes back fixed. No muss, no fuss, no extra cost to the consumer.

With anything other than laptops, this is not the case.

It took me two hours on the phone with Apple just to get to the point where I knew where the monitor needed to go. At first they gave me the address of a local store. So I called the store and they told me they didn’t service Apple products. I called Apple back and they told me that no, in fact that local store was indeed a service center. I called the local store back, and they reassured me in terse terms that they did not fix Apple stuff, only sold it. So, back on the phone with Apple, they gave me a list of the nearest service centers. Coincidentally, this was the same list I found when I searched Google. The Apple rep on the phone couldn’t give me much more help, so I selected one service center at random.

We didn’t have the original box the monitor came in, so I asked Apple to send us out a box for it. They couldn’t do this. I called foul and stamped my feet, reminding them how much business our agency’s recommendations drive their way. They claimed it was impossible to send out a box, something about China, production, and blah blah. I gave up and packaged the monitor myself, carefully.

The Apple tech on the phone wasn’t able to set up any sort of RMA (Return Merchandise Authorization) with the repair center, or pave the way for me at all. It was up to me to make all arrangements. Once I got them on the phone, the Alaska Mac Store gave me their shipping address and told me to leave a note in the box so they would know who sent it. With most RMA’s, there’s a form you print out, with an assigned number on it for tracking the repair. In this case, nothing of the sort, just the pink Post-It note I affixed to the monitor.

So I shipped it out, with insurance, to the tune of $60. Since I’m a busy guy, it was easily forgotten. Three weeks later I had a voicemail from the Alaska Mac Store. They had a monitor with our name on it, and wanted to know what to do with it. Apparently my original phone call with them wasn’t logged or shared with their repair staff. So I called them back and answered their question: “please fix it”. A couple weeks later I received a call that it needed a new logic board, which Apple was sending up. A couple weeks after that they left me another voicemail, the monitor was fixed, and how did I want to pay for return shipping. I returned the call and gave them a credit card number over the phone to pay $42 for return shipping. Another week later the monitor arrived, in perfect working order.

Leaving the coordination in the hands of the customer is a disappointing contrast to other warranty repair options with other companies I’ve worked with. In this day and age, I’ve just come to expect more, especially from a company like Apple whose brand tends to set the bar higher.

My advice if you’re in rural Alaska? Don’t buy Apple iMacs or big Apple monitors unless you’re comfortable with the idea of shipping them out for repair yourself. Instead stick with MacBooks, or the Mac Mini which can be easily shipped. For monitors go with standard flat screen options from “normal” vendors. Or, if you really want that Apple Cinema display, remember to keep the box and packing materials for at least as long as the warranty.