Amplifying Archaeology By Nicolas R.

Laracuente Twitter: @archaeologist

Wait you dont know anything about Prince Madoc? What kind of archaeologist are you?

To the Library!
Chariots of the Gods (Dniken1970) Creekside (Carmean 2010) Kentucky Archaeology (Lewis 1997) Random Webb and Funkhouser Reports E-books

So I went to the library and saw This particular audience frequented the public library - I wanted to see how much information on "real" archaeology was available through the public library system. I searched a random selection of Kentucky County Libraries online catalogs using the keywords "archaeology" and "Kentucky Archaeology" Archaeology yielded a lot of psuedo-archaeology (a book on Prince Madoc and things like Chariots of the Gods) in addition to general archaeology at a global level (pyramids and things like that) Nearly every library had copies of Creekside, most libraries had a copy of Kentucky Archaeology, other than that is was random

Quick to the Booktable!

$408 1 copy of everything on Booktable
120 Counties in Kentucky

$48,960 1 copy of everything to central

branch of each library

So is the answer to ensure that every library has a complete set of all of the Kentucky Archaeology booklets that are available? It is nearly $50,000 to get one set to each county and this doesn't even cover putting multiple branches of the different libraries

Pat ourselves on the back?

Is this really making the impact we want? Kentucky Archaeology was published in 1996 so 17 years 10 checkouts?!? Was it the same person checking it out 10 times because they read really slow? Maybe everyone that is interested already owns a copy? Or people use the reference copy?

Some of these things are already available for free get your library card and ebook reader and search for kentucky archaeology survey booklets - tell others that they exist and incorporate these materials into lesson plans. Is there a way to tell who is checking these materials out? Is there a way to assess how successful this is?

So lets make a facebook page! problem initially we are only talking to our friends and friends of friends (other archaeologists). But Facebook is a great place to post a variety of material people from many different walks of life are using it. Your approach to facebook can be assessed. Here is a portion of the Kentucky Archaeology Facebook page - you can see right at the beginning of March there was a massive spike in traffic to this page. Figure out what you did this day and try to replicate it. Was it a particular topic, a video instead of text post. Determine what was successful and what the audience positively responded to and continue doing that.

What about Twitter - it might be strangers but they are strangers with similar interest to yours. It takes time to build an audience that gets outside of your normal circles. Twitter was designed with a 160 charater limit in order for the tweets to travel quickly between a variety of devices integrating posters, photos, video, or larger bodies of text require linking with other sites (Flickr, Scribd, Facebook, etc.) using link shorteners (bit.ly and others) and assessing your social media ecosystem (socialbro, klout, etc).

Well I could start a blog - there are ways to go about it and ways that should be avoided. -Implementing social media strategies while the contracts for work are being drawn up is good submitting something to the employer is great (provided they are posting it on their own active website) - ensuring that everyone is comfortable with what is being posted is critical for posts within the contract/CRM world, authors need to be cognizant of the relationship between what they post in a personal space and what they post in an 'official' space

Potential reach of this tweet was over 3000 people including a whole network of people that I ve never interacted with before. In reality only a fraction opened it, but I did get an email from a Kentuckian living in England who came across this and was appreciative of hearing about research from a distance.

Fortunately this material can be 'evergreen' by sharing the link with people and making it visible for google searches this poster is at nearly 600 downloads - it can be extended by keeping these visitors in the loop on future developments in the project. You've done the work share it instead of letting it gather dust

Relationship between Middle Savagery and other Blogs during 2011 Blogging Archaeology Session at SAA

http://electricarchaeology.ca/2011/03/17/visualizing-archaeology-blogging-or-is-anybody-listening/

Part of the effective use of implementation of a social media is being conscious of our place in the system and what other resources are available. That puts us in a position for the best use of time and money for maximum impact. Check out Shawn's work at electricarchaeology to understand how you can determine your 'place' in a virtual ecosystem.

Creating an Outreach Ecosystem

Develop a Web Presence Link and Maintain other web tools What are your main themes? Respond to comments

There are no magic bullets - certain places in the ecosystem are going to be best suited for certain things. Interested in early agriculture? Check out Living Archaeology Weekend - civil war here is camp nelson and links to other sites that discuss Civil War Archaeology. Interacting with high traffic sites (Professional organization websites, established blogs like "middle savagery" or archaeology.about.com, or university websites) puts more tendrils out to the wider web - it might reach different audiences than you normally interact with and provide new opportunities that you have not taken advantage of before.

Optimizing the Outreach Ecosystem

Network with high traffic nodes Engage multiple audiences

Guerrilla Archaeology

Mesh the real world with virtual elements

LImited ourselves to social media is also a mistake - we will get more audiences but there will still be isolates. Each element of what we are doing should be integrated with each other - this informs each other but it also increases out knowledge of what is happening in Kentucky Archaeology so we can refer people with interests to the correct places. Limiting ourselves to the virtual is also a mistake, put twitter handles at the end of presentations, or on business cards you exchange at meetings, point people to your website through an op-ed in your local paper, respond to people and set up new face to face interactions using your virtual network

http://www.qrcfun.com/qr-codes-catalogingarchaeological-pieces-qr-code-artist/

The point is by adding a social media element to things that we are already doing we extend the conversation past a single face to face interaction and whatever misconceptions that brings continued conversations increase sticky knowledge, that is, things we want people to know and value building this scaffolding help people reach the big ideas we were aiming for

So what now? (and how much does it cost?)

Link to what already exists (free) Photos/Video during field / lab (free + time) New website material (variable time / $) Network to amplify signal (free + time)

Identify isolated audiences and how to reach them

The web elements of the ecosystem are often free but will require time - there will be other elements that are costly but their impact will be amplified through the combination with social media.

Future elements for the Outreach Ecosystem Radio KY Archaeology Month Scavenger Hunts / Marathons Service Learning Projects
The point is that we need to identify bridges to audiences that might not otherwise value archaeology and figure out how to fund or at least support activities in these areas.

A link to this presentation (with presentation notes) is posted www.twitter.com/archaeologist

With a little thought, every thing we do can be included in this outreach ecosystem.