I have always believed in constructive criticisms. Actually they are a kind of feedback I appreciate most after sincere congratulations.

To be honest I did not find any hint of constructive criticism in the comment I received about my social media projects by the panel of lecturers who attended my presentation.
On the contrary it looked like a criticism meant to be a mere criticism without any hope in the hell of being helpful to me.

If they did not see that my social media agency having the possibility to exploit the opportunity to make social media campaigns on my own social network was a meaningful business idea, it’d better I speak with my main target group which are companies which already engaged in social media and social media campaigns and found them extremely profitable

In fact I have never presumed to pass on the knowledge on a so broad and growing industry, such as Social Media, in only 7 minutes because I consider “learning” a long and varied process.

Actually I live and work in social media since 11 years. My first approach was a long contribution to the successful Marketing List, directed by Elena Antognazza, many years ago. 11 years passed quickly but I did not waste any of them outside social media. I have always been in there.

As the panel of lecturers attributed the quality of being too open to my Social Network, I can only say thanks to them from the hearth.

Furthermore Blomap is a Generalist Social Network in terms of topics, so it wants to be wide open and leave users free to invent their own way to use it.

As for what differentiates Blomap from other social networks, well it is something I wrongly presumed it was clear as it is based on maps and blogs. Anyway to clarify it again: Blomap is completely based on Geo Localisation of content, people and networks.
You can check here the most interesting Google maps projects and tell me if Blomap already exists.

In general my strong advice to people not understanding a website is to use it.
In fact, we are not speaking of books that you can tell to other people in your own way.
On the contrary we are speaking of Social Media, the most innovative communication channels nowadays.
They are meant to be experienced.

In addition to that my best suggestion for people coming from other industries and approaching social media is to be on social media. If you are not there you cannot get the sense of it.
Well, none of the lecturers attending my presentation ever joined Blomap.

This is supposed to be my constructive criticism to the feedback I received from BCU on my social media projects.
It is due to be done according to my Social Media Natives project, so please do not stare in wonder and surprise. Students’ feedback is something lecturers and teachers from all over the world should start at least to consider to face and to properly answer it.

Hopefully they should consider it helpful to become better lecturers and teachers.
The time of lobbies is over in all industries.
As my lecturer Paul Bradshaw (who was not part of that panel) said: communities which do not want to be open and to continuously change are supposed to die soon.
I could not agree more because we live in the INTERACTION ERA.

What I could expect is a sort of revenge taken by reducing my marks on next assignment as my teacher 20 years ago did for 3 years starting when I told her the class wanted a different learning approach.
Well, I do not care because I am studying to learn.

Normally if someone does not get high marks is because he has not learnt. So it is a teachers’ work to make the student notice what he hasn’t learnt.
Of course my question is: what haven’t I learnt?

Do you think my question will be answered?
I am not so confident about that…are you?

I asked to a dear Italian friend of mine and one of my university classmates, whom I know since 15 years, to give me a little help to spread the word about and to add some content in Blomap, the online social network I have just launched.
My friend is a very nice and alive girl, a gifted PR and a journalist working at RAI, the Italian public television.

First issues she met in Italy is the fact that Blomap is in English.

Actually –I answered– Blomap lets users choose the language of each of their posts.
But English seems to be an insurmountable barrier and I could not agree more since the big boom Facebook has had after its localisation and translation in several languages.

So translating the few and basic content of Blomap is becoming a priority.
I hope users would agree that leaving the possibility of browsing the content in several languages could stay as further opportunity to be exploited by the many polyglots in the world.

In addition to that my friend tried to help me by copying and pasting in Blomap a review picked up in another website.
First, she posted it as comment to a post about another restaurant.
Then, after my suggestion to post the information in the right place, she properly posted it as a review.
Fortunately I checked the content because I found it a copy of another review belonging to another website.

So I had to write a new review in her place and ask her to post only real, trusty, original and quality content.

Her answer to my suggestion was: ‘I posted the banner of the website of that restaurant on Blomap by purpose, because it is right and fair to quote it and insert it otherwise we make “hidden” advertising in an international website. Kiss, your friend’.

My reply:“Dear friend, it is not as you said.
A banner is an ad space not a text content itself.
The search engines ban your website, if you copy and past text from a website into another.

In addition to that we just benefit people or companies if we make free advertising for them. Nevertheless I would speak of or make information in a community, instead of ‘advertising’.

Advertisements, which will be posted on Blomap in the future to financially support the website, will be concentrated on real and quality content and facts.

Even if Blomap mainly provides microblogging, those short texts must be useful and trusty for the users.

Then “hidden” advertising is something different from what you said. It occurs when someone pays someone else to concealing advertise a product, when and where advertising is forbidden or when you should have paid someone else. For instance there are many cases of those “hidden” ads in TV movies.

My question is: why do you find ‘hidden’ ads concerning Blomap and think that your copying and pasting of content from a website into another, without any reference to your source, would keep us safe from that?

Apart from that, the Web and specifically the Social Media industry is revolutionising everything.
To be short, since the speech about could be very long, all Media are gradually converging in the Web and in Social Media.

We are moving from the information era to the interaction era.

Do you remember our lecturers at the faculty of Communication Sciences at La Sapienza University in Rome announcing the Information era in the far 1998–2000?

You, my friend, as a young person working in the information industry, could become a spokesperson of all of that, but before doing that you should understand all new processes and dynamics in depth, otherwise you could get confused as it happened when you approched Blomap.’

At the end of our conversation I wondered: is it that a repropose of the discussion between mainstream and online journalists and media?
However, I have other anecdotes about the Italian interaction era I will tell you soon about. I am sure you will find them interesting.

The mark I got for the 1st assignment of the Media Enterprise Module at BCU as part of the Master in Online Journalism was 58% which is not so bad, because very closed to 60% which means “Evidence of understanding key module concepts and topics; a developing awareness of alternative positions; a developing skill of evidential reasoning; competent planning & organisation with minor lapses.”

However it is not a full 60% and the comment I received demonstrated that my Social Media projects were not completely understood by the panel who attended my presentation:
“Comment:
Presentation and report

The panel enjoyed your presentation but found it difficult to grasp the target audience for your concept and the business model. It is clear that you are very passionate about your idea and have been working hard to establish Blomap and Swissite International. However, I think that you need to consider the audience more careful when presenting and be sensitive to other people’s understanding or lack of knowledge of the area. The relationship between Swissite was not convincing although that was made more clear in your report. As discussed, you need to make your target audience (or audiences) very clear and distinctive in order to market your services effectively. You make assumptions about the potential market ‘waiting for these innovative projects or products’ which are not convincing. It is key for you to explore audience needs and behaviours in order to exploit gaps in the market and opportunities. As it stands Blomap is simply too open and I cannot see the market for it with so many existing social networks already available. The suggested uses you describe are to some extent already possible through existing applications and it is not clear why people would want to use blomap. Again, what is the benefit?

However, you have done some good research and have demonstrated your entrepreneurial skills in testing the concept and you are clearly learning from those developments.” Annette Naudine, Course Director
MA Media & Creative Enterprise.

Actually Annette Naudine is one of the most interesting teacher and lecturer I have ever had and I fully agreed that I have to choose my audience more carefully, but I had no other choices at the time and I had only 7 minutes to speak about 2 businesses and their interrelations. That means being short and essential.

Nevertheless neither the only comment:“so this is a job you can do wherever you are, this is interesting…” nor the only 2 questions “so how would you do this affiliate marketing?” and “what are the customers?”
made me enthusiastic. However, I answered and I think that my answers wrongly presumed to be understood.

I am still wondering what is the real support that Birmingham City University could give to a student who launched a project so ambitious on his feet? I hope to be answered over the year.

Apart from that, the concept of Blomap quickly changed after a week from the launch: from Global Travel Community to International Community and Online Global Journal because I have seen much more potential in Blomap after the launch.

I am posting below my presentation at Birmingham City University in order to share it with the world, because now it’s high time we made teaching and learning SOCIAL, otherwise the gap to fill in between teachers and new generation will become an unbridgeable ocean.

I am going to create a new blog about this topic to investigate what the Social Media Natives expect from their teachers or lecturers and what kind of learning system the new generation of student can approach better.
I am sure that an online social learning would be greatly appreciated by the new generation. I am not speaking of e-learning alone, this is only part of the new learning system. The topics here are SOCIAL LEARNING AND SOCIAL TEACHING.

You will be able to read my feedback on the comment I received, the executive summary and portfolio of evidence about my Social Media Prjects in the next days.

My Blog does not allow a perfect visualization of my presentation, please go to Prezi if you want to see it better, otherwise just try to get the most out of what you can see here.

Launch of Swissite International and Blomap at BCU.
So let me know what you think about my Social Media projects.