Austin Falley

An old boss of mine used to explain the process of managing a large project with a simple line: “Let’s eat this elephant one bite at a time.”

Since September, I’ve been handling the rather tedious process of converting my work’s website from its old HTML format to Drupal, a content management system not unlike WordPress.

At the start of the project, the thought alone of all that work made me want to curl up and nap. Luckily, with the help of two communications interns and a web intern, that website will go live this week.

We managed this enormous project (and maintained sanity) with the perspective that no task is impossible when broken up into manageable chunks. Now we have a much-improved website and the satisfaction of a finished job.

Go ahead. Start biting. You’ll get used to the taste of that elephant.

The super-hip, mobile-optimized photo platform Instagram has secured its success in the social media space with the introduction of web profiles. Quite similar to Facebook’s newest look — cover photo and all — Instagram’s web profiles are long overdue to avid Instagrammers (like me!).

The sleek interface and brilliant rotating cover photo feature allows for a smooth skim of every photo you’ve upload to the site. Users can add likes and comments, making the platform even more social than before.

This digital scrapbook gives you instant access to your favorite Instagrams, which, for me, induced immediate nostalgia of the sights, events and memories I’ve documented on the platform since I first downloaded the app.

Instagram continues to set itself apart from its competitors. Check out Nike’s beautiful web profile.

Advantage: Instagram.

Twitter is a tool, not a replacement for real conversation.

#big3pr

The more I travel the country, the more I realize just how fortunate I am to be from Kansas. No, it’s not a short drive to the beach. We might pay a little more for sushi, too. But I can continue to explore the world knowing what’s waiting for me when I return, and I couldn’t be happier about that.

2012 commencement, The University of Kansas

Interior ceiling shot of the Campanile at the University of Kansas in Lawrence

This weekend brought tragedy to the music industry on the eve of its biggest night, the 2012 Grammy awards, when legendary vocalist Whitney Houston was found dead in her Beverly Hills hotel suite. She was 48.

Her death is an example of a growing list of national news stories that broke through social media. According to Mashable.com, Twitter broke the news of Houston’s death 27 minutes before it was announced by the press. It was first reported by a man who tweeted the news to his 14 followers. The Associate Press official Twitter account tweeted the news at 4:57 p.m., 27 minutes later, which was retweeted more than 10,000 times.

According to data from Topsy Labs, the first full hour after the news broke saw almost 2.5 million tweets and retweets, peaking at more than 1,000 tweets per second. Topsy Labs says hundreds of thousands mourned Houston’s death by posting more than 3,000 video recordings of her songs.

More and more, social media users are leveraging their collective power to accelerate the spread of important news and information. While Twitter has been known to spread false rumors in the past, those rumors are debunked quickly in the social ecosystem.

Twitter users are staying informed and connected, and they’re using the platform to be thought-leaders and engaged members of the world.

Follow @BreakingNews and @AssociatedPress, among others, to watch history unfurl in real-time.

I recently joined the cult known as “Team iPhone.”

Having owned an iPod since high school, my leap into Team iPhone wasn’t a culture shock until I started using one particular app: Instagram.

Instagram is an Apple-specific (for now) photo sharing app that allows you to snap a photo, apply a filter and share with with others in your online community, whether on Instagram’s feed itself or through your Facebook page, Twitter feed or blog.

Barack Obama recently joined the Instagram community, and NPR did a great piece on its emerging popularity. News organizations are quickly realizing the app’s photojournalism potential.

The creators say they got the idea from using old Polaroid cameras as kids, which were marketed as “instant” photos. They also saw these snapshots as telegrams you could send to others, and so explains where Instagram got its name.

Another photo sharing platform? Who cares? Sure, Instagram is the newest photo app in a long line of photo sharing applications. But here’s how Instagram sets itself apart from the pack: It puts the “social” in photo sharing.

Unlike Flickr and similar photo platforms, Instagram is inherently designed to share snapshots with your online community. Within seconds of taking a picture, a beautifully filtered image is quickly uploaded to your photo stream. Little by little, you begin to paint a portrait of your life via stunning, vintage-looking photos. Sharing across other platforms is equally as streamlined, and uploading images is optimized to be fast and efficient.

By focusing on the social component of photo sharing, Instagram’s creators have given iPhone users the perfect avenue to communicate with a crisp, cool snapshot what 140 characters wouldn’t even begin to describe.

Download Instagram. Share the world around you, and enjoy what the world is sharing with you.

At the University of Kansas, where I ply my trade as communications coordinator for the business school, Foursquare engagement has dramatically increased this semester thanks to a university-wide campaign.

The “Rock Chalk Check-in Challenge” encouraged freshmen and new students to download the Foursquare app and use it to check-in at locations across campus during Hawk Week (a week-long marathon of “Welcome to KU” events, orientation and Jayhawk-pride.) Students unlocked free drinks, KU swag, discounts and badges (using the hashtag #ku4sq) to be eligible to win the grand prize: an iPad.

And the campaign was a success for the business school, too.

According to my Foursquare statistics, Summerfield Hall (the business school’s building) received 211 total check-ins from Aug. 3 to Sept. 2. This time last year, the school was lucky to receive three check-ins in a week.

That’s a massive increase in online engagement among our students.

Interestingly, 9 percent of these check-ins were sent to Twitter and 21 percent sent to Facebook with 85 percent of the check-ins coming from ages 18-25 (our student demographic.)

As Foursquare gains popularity on campus, students find incentives like giveaways to explore campus, experience unfamiliar territory at KU and, hopefully, encourage their friends to check-out all that the University of Kansas has to offer.

It’s a beautiful campus, and with this clever social media campaign, a new class of Jayhawks experience the wonders of Mount Oread.