Ok, so this was my final essay at Birmingham City University, and was an evaluation of the SMAG Project. Loads and loads of learning!

1. PROJECT REVIEW
INTRODUCTION
The objectives of this project were to
• Trace the growth of social media usage in Nigeria,
• Conduct an enquiry into the use of social media by four of the eighteen
presidential aspirants in the just concluded elections.
• Offer a fresh perspective on the role of the media as a catalyst for national
development and make recommendations in that regard.
• Isolate the gaps in the usage of social media during the elections and make
recommendations on how better the opportunities social media affords can be
harnessed.
Basically, this project sought to answer the question, “using social media, how can I get
the citizens to be more democratically engaging building up to and during the next
elections”?
To answer that question I set up the SMAG (Social Media And Governance) Lab where
using qualitative research methods I sampled opinions. Qualitative research is “a type
of scientific research that
 Seeks answers to a question
 Systematically uses a predefined set of procedures to answer the question
 Collects evidence
 Processes findings that were not determined in advance
 Produces findings that are applicable beyond the immediate boundaries of the
study.” (Family Health International)
The SMAG LAB
The Social Media And Governance (SMAG) Lab is an adaptation of the ‘Living Labs’
concept developed by Professor William J. Mitchell of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology Media Lab and School of Architecture. This research concept is a user-
centred set up where the target audience are not merely respondents, but partners in
an environment that allows for open innovation. In other words, the ‘respondents’
bring their creativity and diversity to the research, and that was what I achieved by
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2. asking young people severally to proffer solutions to what they perceived as poor
usage of social media either by aspirants to various offices, or the electoral body itself.
The Target Audience
The demographic for the audience was digitally enabled young people aged 18 – 35.
This demographic was chosen on the back of statistics that show that out of an
estimated 150 million Nigerians, 87million own mobile phones that can send and
receive text messages, 44million have internet access, 3 million are on Facebook, and
approximately 60, 000 on Twitter. Of these figures, 70% of the people utilizing social
media are within the 18-35 age bracket.
(Pie chart courtesy www.socialbakers.com)
Finally, the choice of a website (www.chiomachuka.com) as the mode of submission is
hinged on three reasons. One, I wanted to create a repository of facts, figures and
observations I could present to clients and also draw from in crafting social media
solutions as I plan to set up a consulting firm at the end of my study. Secondly, as part
of my professional and personal development goals, I wanted to strengthen my hands
at building Wordpress websites.
The second reason is my response to some technical deficiencies I discovered handling
a live brief for my Social Media as Practise assignment. (Please find my evaluation of
that assignment in the Appendices)
The third and most important reason was to keep in line with contextual practise.
Research and research findings (especially of this nature) are stored online to ensure
easy access. The website in time aims to be another ‘YouGov’ (today.yougov.uk) and
closer home, another ‘African Scene’ (www.africanscene.co.za). YouGov is a platform
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3. where public opinion and consumer behaviour are measured via polls, surveys, etc. and
recorded. They also have a TellYouGov service that allows the public to send emails,
tweets and text messages with their opinions without having to wait for a poll. The site
is multi-authored and features content on politics, culture, and consumerism.
African scene on the other hand is a South African based platform where African and
international events/occurrences that ordinarily won’t be broadcast by traditional
media are discussed. A multi-authored weblog, content on this site is diverse, and
ranges from politics, the environment, to culture.
A feature on both websites which I have now incorporated on mine is online polls.
Some advantages of this according to Carbonaro, Bainbridge and Wolodko (2002) are
that they have the advantage of “built in security methods and user-friendly editing
features (e.g. copy and paste, data processing, storage and display)”
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4. EVALUATION
Reflections
In studying what my country did right or wrong with its usage of social media, I had to
stop a to evaluate my approach, the way I managed the project (scheduling my hours,
archiving the information gathered, etc.), how I interacted with and drew support with
people in the industry, the challenges I faced in putting this together, and how the
project positioned me as a social media consultant in my country.
The decision in favour of qualitative research was taken in light of the definition above,
translated as me studying the effect social media as a phenomenon (and tool) had, is
having, and will have on the behaviour, attitude, and choices of Nigeria’s electorate.
Also, because people respond to the same questions in different ways in different
situations, qualitative research provided the best opportunity to test severally over a
range of contexts. The contexts include interviews, a Twitter conference, and a radio
programme. The evidence collected was deposited on my website,
www.chiomachuka.com (Please find portfolio in the appendices).
The immediate challenge when I travelled to Nigeria was realising that I would need to
balance some of the promises made in my proposal against the realities on ground.
Perhaps I expected too much; that we used new media for an election did not
automatically make it any easier to access our leaders. In the proposal I had mentioned
I would interview four of the presidential aspirants; after countless emails and phone
calls didn’t yield any answers, I ended up studying their use of Twitter. (Please find
pictures and analysis in the official report). It was about finding what wouldn’t work and
replacing it with the next best, feasible option.
Why didn’t I just do this project as a dissertation, gather up all the information into one
research document? The distinguisher between projects and dissertations is
participation. Rather than just collating information I participated actively in the
research; by moderating the Twitter conference, appearing as a guest on a radio
programme championing the cause of social media, consulting at a one day social
media surgery, and then making recommendations based on the whole process.
Again as a social media consultant, it is my responsibility to educate, to shine the light
on grey areas around usage.
Then, I believe that the choice of Professor Williams Living Lab model was brilliant; it
was the inspiration for a project rather than a dissertation. Moving away from the role
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5. of researcher – respondent to researcher/participant – partner/participant was a very
different experience but it was rewarding because the members of the lab would make
suggestions and offer help that a normal respondent wouldn’t.
Again I think the idea of leaving the responses in their original format i.e. tweets,
videos, both in the report and on the website (good number of recommendations came
from the users) makes it a more credible research document.
Limitations
One major limitation to this study is time and the most visible manifestation of that is
the nature of the project means that instead of wrapping up (even at this time), I’ve had
to keep working at it. The project is live and on-going and keeps evolving by the day.
Another limitation was my inability to reach the presidential aspirants (please find
copy of a letter sent to one of the aspirants in the appendices). In retrospect, I think I
should have structured my interviews around their aides (which would have been
easier to accomplish if I expended as much energy as I did on their principals).
Not securely backing up the information I gathered was a big mistake especially with
using a new recording device, and became a limitation because I lost a valuable
resource in the form of a one hour focus group discussion that cost me time and money
to organize. Familiarising myself with my equipment beforehand and transferring
recorded material to secure storage devices is something I would definitely do if I did
this project again. A fall out of not doing this is the trouble I’ve had transferring the
recorded audio files on to the website, which is currently being resolved
Management of the process
Project management according to David Cleland (1990:21) is “the process of planning,
organizing, actuating, and controlling an organizations’ operations in order to achieve a
coordination of the human and material resources essential to the effective attainment of
objectives”. For this project I largely utilised PRINCE 2 project management techniques
which I used in my Production Labs module because it was effective. Visual aids were
particularly helpful, using little cue cards posted around to remind me of meetings,
interviews, etc.
Also, at the beginning of the project I broke it down into small manageable stages so
instead of working to a big picture I focused on reaching each stage, and then moving
on to the next.
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6. Back to interaction with relevant industry professionals, I got in touch with Nicholas
Holzherr, CEO of Qrky, a QR codes solutions company in Birmingham when I started
the project, because I wanted to utilize QR codes in the study. He agreed to help but
after a number of lengthy discussions about accessibility, available knowledge on the
use of QR codes by my audience (especially on the scale I wanted to administer them),
etc., we decided I drop the idea and focus on more accessible means of interaction, like
Twitter, or even text messaging.
Those discussions, already existing research on the matter, and the Social Media
Review Meeting I attended (see blog post in the appendices), led me to start developing
a model for using text messages as a social tool in Nigeria. The model which can be
found in the official report will function like a social enterprise; no money is to be made
from it. It will be open to funding from credible local and international organizations
with no political affiliations whatsoever to ensure its credibility and transparency. This
model can be found in the report, but not on the website to protect the copyright.
Still on interacting with professionals, organizing and publicising the #SMAG
conference helped me meet different bloggers and PR people. By the date of the event,
there were seven websites carrying the information on the conference I had prepared.
Some of them are below.
In organizing the #SMAG conference I learnt to use Cover IT Live, which I had only used
once as a producer at a Birmingham City University event in June. It was tricky, but the
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7. fact that I set it up a whole week before the event, published it to the website etc.
helped me see what worked and what didn’t, and it was also a great, very professional
looking archiving tool.
Just in case, I also set up an account with TwapperKeeper to archive the tweets with the
#SMAG hash tag. The difference between the two tools was while Cover It Live enabled
people to join in or just watch the event (all the tweets collated at one);
TwapperKeeper provided an analysis at the end of the people who tweeted. The
disadvantage with TwapperKeeper is it pulled any tweet with the #SMAG which gives
an inaccurate analysis. Cover It Live pulled tweets from only the event but doesn’t
provide the analysis feature. A link to the TwapperKeeper archive is
http://twapperkeeper.com/hashtag/SMAG?
sm=8&sd=5&sy=2011&shh=06&smm=00&em=8&ed=5&ey=2011&ehh=17&emm=45
&o=d&l=50000&from_user=&text=&lang=, and the analysis is below.
Note that the total twitterers I had in the conference were about 70, not 882 as
represented above. I believe the problem was in me trying to get every last tweet from
the conference and so the parameters pulled in tweets from another conference with
the same hash tag. Learning curve from that is to make a hash tag for a Twitter event as
distinct as possible using letters and words.
This project has changed a lot from what I proposed it would be. For example, in the
project proposal I mentioned that the website would go live only after submission.
Apart from the feedback from my tutor which disagreed with that, I found that if I had
waited to hand in the project before working on the website, it would have defeated the
personal and professional goal of learning how to build Wordpress sites, which I have
thoroughly enjoyed learning.
Perhaps the greatest thing working on this project did was it has made me very
confident as a social media consultant. Learning new technical skills, trying them out on
my website, the research, everything just makes me feel like I know what I would do
when I get a brief from a client, regardless of their specifications.
Personal and professional development
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8. When I set out to work on this project, the underlying goal was to position myself as a
social media consultant in my country, and by extension Africa. This project was
supposed to amongst other things, expose me to such a wealth of information to be able
to give informed recommendations on how different institutions can use social media
depending on the focus of their business and the their target audience.
I have grown through this research experience, and it has exposed time management
and problem solving skills I wasn’t even aware of. It has also increased the number of
industry professionals I know, and inspired the creation of the business model briefly
described in the official report.
On positioning me a social media consultant, working in the SMAG Lab has made me
the go-to person for virtual events. A good example was the 5th of September 2011
when the recently appointed Minister for Youth Development in Nigeria announced
that he would be holding a ‘tweet meet’ on the 8th. Attendees at my #SMAG Conference
(5th August, 2011) retweeted it and copied me.
I ended up not only having a conversation and tweeting a few ideas, but writing an
article on the learning experience from organizing mine which has since been given to
the Minister.
An adaptation of that article, which I uploaded to the website, can be found in the
Appendices.
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9. This project has also equipped me with technical skills, and afforded me the
opportunity of gaining mastery of the Wordpress platform. Having built my site
(www.chiomachuka.com) by trial and error, seeking help/advice from web designers
and several messages on support forums I know what works, and what will not.
I also know about sourcing themes and self-hosting. That has armed me to make the
right call for a client on whether to self-host or fly with Wordpress, and design their
site should wear, depending on their business.
The amount of knowledge garnered from this project has also greatly increased my
confidence as a social media practitioner. Not only do I have a Facebook detailing what
services I can offer (https://www.facebook.com/CC.Consulting.Services), but as my
contribution to the body of knowledge on Web 2.0 I have started a mini classroom on
the website based on an online course I recently started doing.
Working on the SMAG project also taught me time management especially in dealing
with other people and their schedules. Getting hold of some of the interviewees
involved countless phone calls and readjustments to my schedule because their plans
changed, or they just forgot they were to grant me an interview.
This project most importantly taught me that any functionality seen on a website is
achievable on mine; all I have to do is search for it, and try it out till it looks (and
works) like what I saw. Example of this learning was with configuring the CC.
Consulting Services page on Facebook. After I had made it, I had a look around pages
belonging to other people under the Professional Services category. Noticing the
LinkedIn and Contact apps on a few of them, I spent the rest of the evening searching
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10. the web till I found the way to have them on my page. I look forward to being the page
that others visit to see what new functionalities they can add to theirs.
The need to back up any multimedia is a learning curve that has become etched in my
memory as a result of this project. Losing the audio for the focus group discussion
resulted in a deficiency in the testing carried out in the SMAG Living Lab.
I’ve also become a lot more proficient in working on my own, setting goals for myself
and managing those goals even in the face of changes to the schedule or contingencies I
didn’t anticipate. I accept that in choosing some of my interviewees (the presidential
aspirants) I didn’t have a back up plan but talking to their aides was better than
nothing, and worked out well in the end.
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11. Areas For Further Research
I have isolated three areas that my research could not address due to logistics and time
constraints.
The first deals with measuring the impact Social Media had on people in rural areas
who are not only digitally excluded, but also are illiterate. At the launch of a $6million
National Literacy programme between the United Nations Educational Scientific and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and Nigeria on the 6th of May 2011, Irina Bokova,
Director-General of UNESCO said, “Although Nigeria has made considerable progress
towards Education for All, illiteracy remains a major problem, with an estimated 50
million adults who cannot read or write. Furthermore, some 8.6 million Nigerian
primary-age children are out-of-school.” The tweet below could be another angle to the
study
A follow up to that study and another demographic to be explored would be people
without any knowledge of Twitter. According to the European Union Election
Observation Mission (EU EOM) preliminary report (2011:5), there were 73million
registered voters after the voters registration exercise conducted by the Independent
National Electoral Commission (INEC). Out of that number, 60, 000 are on Twitter. That
presupposes that that word of mouth, peer pressure, and traditional media (influenced
by social media) all played a role in the change in voter behaviour for the 2011
elections. How can that be measured? What percentage was the most effective?
The third area for research is one of the questions I asked during the course of this
study but did not receive a definite answer to. How can social media be adapted to
cater to the vast population who are literate but not online? How can more accessible
tools like text messaging be harnessed? And for the illiterate, are there any options
around media dark kits and town hall meetings?
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