The above broadcast happened after I outlined this article on a MindMeister map, which I then prompted on my computer monitor behind my iPhone’s camera. If you have time to watch the video versus reading this article, you’ll notice a HUUUUGE difference in tone, as you have casual versus serious, respectively, in the two mediums.
Periscope is the Most-Awesome-Thing-Ever-of-the-Week
Periscope is new technology that lets anyone perform a live broadcast to an audience of strangers, friends, and acquaintances. It’s a free app that I run on my iPhone and whatever other platforms that the service is currently available on. Meerkat does the same thing, however, I like Periscope because Twitter bought them and there’s the potential for improvement.
Why I Like It
Periscope is a medium I hope that’s embraced by people.
Broadcasting Live
This is a great way to play to whoever wants to drop in, whether it’s strangers checking out random streams or friends that see the Tweet annoucement that you’re live.
You can be as organized as you want.
I can be as prepared as I want, talk for as long as I want, and talk about what’s at the top of my mind. I can prepare an academic type of talk (i.e. lecture) or I can be as casual as I want. (I made a joke on the stream about whether or not I am wearing pants.)
Live Interaction with People
This feature is something that I really love about Periscope. You get instant and live feedback from people. If you don’t disable it, you can also allow chatting, i.e. letting folks send comments or questions on the broadcast.
Heart me.
Viewers of your broadcast can tap their screens to send you little hearts as feedback and validation. I really like it.
Public Speaking Practice.
As you see with the above example (and the two that follow), you get to see the broadcast, warts and all. It’s a challenge for me to get rid of “um”s, but *poof!* it will be gone in 24 hours after I broadcast.
Annnnnnnd… it’s gone…
After 24 hours, your broadcast is deleted. For someone like me that likes to keep things timeless, this can be a good thing. If I mention something topical in the broadcast, it will become dated and relevant to the original audience at the time they were watching.
Desired Improvements
Fonts.
As a broadcaster. the fonts on the chat could be bigger. I find myself squinting and leaning in, as my contacts sit funny when I’m in the middle of speaking.
Portrait Recording Will Be The Fall of Humanity.
At present, broadcasts can only be done in Portrait Mode. This is just terrible, unfortunate, and reinforces terrible behavior.
Better Archiving.
Periscope lets your broadcast stay up for 24 hours before it is gone to the digital netherworld. While there is an option to save the recording to your camera roll, it does not include the commentary, hearts, and other actions that you see when broadcasting.
Timing… or Ain’t-No-Party-Like-A-West-Coast-Party-Cuz-A-West-Coast-Party-Don’t-Stop.
This isn’t a Periscope compliant, but just something that I can’t control but want to grieve about. There are times that I am feeling loose, creative, and I want to broadcast. However, if it’s 9 PM on the West Coast, it’s 12 AM (i.e. midnight) on the East Coast. The good thing is that anyone following me can see my broadcast until 9 PM, West Coast Time, the following day.
Periscope and Social Work Practice
Periscope has the potential for social workers to join in a face-to-face manner with others to talk about social work issues. It’s an intimate experience where you are interacting with whoever’s watching.
Giving talks on Relevant Issues
A person can talk about topical issues that are relevant to the day that they are broadcasting. This makes sense as to why broadcasts disappear after 24 hours.
Social Work Perspective
Someone can comment on what “Black Lives Matters” or how the breaking news of the day has meaning for practice or daily living. Talking about how something affecting everyone, for example, changes in the economy or law, is interesting. Social Workers are not cut from the same cloth, but I would have been curious to know what the perspective is of a social worker in the mid-west right after the #LoveWins decision went down and hear them explain what it means to them personally or in practice.
Add Depth to a Twitter Chat
If you run a twitter chat like #MacroSW, the moderator can introduce their topic, prompt discussion, deliver each question, and moderate or live-comment on the discussion. It literally adds a face to the discussion. Twitter chats are the greatest thing ever. There is potential for one moderator to interact with people chatting with them during the broadcast with the theme of practice, macro social work, mental health, or technology in social work practice 😉
Help Another Out
A use I can see being of great use to our community is people, of whatever accomplishment, stature, or significance, broadcasting inspirational thoughts, well-wishes, advice, or good-will to one another.
I’m still learning to love social media, but one of my FAVORITES so far is Periscope! #connection #socialworkdream
— Aisha Brothers (@AishaBrothers) August 22, 2015
[Ms. Brothers above, has a lovely daily scripture daily broadcast.]
For those of us in a certain niche, imparting knowledge or wisdom not only further promotes our interests, but has the potential to help other have the same interest, or at least be informed about it.
For Bloggers
One practice I will be doing until it becomes less trendy to do so is to make a Periscope on topics that I don’t really want to write a full blog post on or introduce the blog post I’ve just written. For me, face-to-face contact with an audience of my peers is important. Engaging with folks who like the content of the work I put out there is important for me. Plus, there’s the potential to get the stimulation of other peoples’ perspectives.
Considerations for Social Workers Using Periscope
Periscope is another medium on the internet in which your words, voice, and image can be broadcast to the world. And live forever
Ethical Considerations
It bears repeating to not gossip about clients. It’s ever so tempting to talk about the CARAAYZEEEEEEEUHHH day we had with a client going through x, y, and z. Personally, I see so much action at my job that it makes for interesting conversation. But it’s unethical. There is a difference between telling “war stories” and protecting the confidentiality of someone involved in a learning experience. Again, tread carefully and refer to Standard 1.07 (p) (see below).
Relevant Values Principles:
- Service: Social workers elevate service to others above self-interest.
- Social workers challenge social injustice: Social workers pursue social change, particularly with and on behalf of vulnerable and oppressed individuals and groups of people. (i.e. don’t perpetuate oppression of vulnerable groups)
- Dignity and Worth of the Person: Social workers treat each person in a caring and respectful fashion, mindful of individual differences and cultural and ethnic diversity.
- Integrity / Social workers behave in a trustworthy manner: Social workers act honestly and responsibly and promote ethical practices
Relevant Ethical Principles
- 1. SOCIAL WORKERS’ ETHICAL RESPONSIBILITIES TO CLIENTS\
- 1.01 Commitment to Clients: Social workers’ primary responsibility is to promote the well-being of clients.
- 1.04 Competence (c): When generally recognized standards do not exist with respect to an emerging area of practice, social workers should exercise careful judgment and take responsible steps […] to protect clients from harm.
- 1.07 Privacy and Confidentiality: (a) Social workers should respect clients’ right to privacy.
- 1.07 (c): Social workers should protect the confidentiality of all information obtained in the course of professional service, except for compelling professional reasons. [social media is not one of them.]
- 1.07 (h): Social workers should not disclose confidential information to third-party payers unless clients have authorized such disclosure.
- 1.07 (p): Social workers should not disclose identifying information when discussing clients for teaching or training purposes unless the client has consented to disclosure of confidential information.
- 1.12 Derogatory Language: Social workers should not use derogatory language in their written or verbal communications to or about clients. Social workers should use accurate and respectful language in all communications to and about clients.
- 5. SOCIAL WORKERS’ ETHICAL RESPONSIBILITIES TO THE SOCIAL WORK PROFESSION
- 5.01 Integrity of the Profession: (a) Social workers should work toward the maintenance and promotion of high standards of practice.
Assume that Anything You Put on the Internet Will Stay There Forever.
Every other day, it’s mentioned in the news that some newsmaker made an offensive comment that was later deleted from their twitter account. Sometimes people make poor decisions in what they communicate, and sometimes they make poor attempts at joking or satire.
I wish someone would endorse me on LinkedIn for shi*t-stirring. #SocialWork
— Ignacio Pacheco, MSW (@iSocialWorkTech) August 7, 2015
Periscope does not have built in functionality to save other peoples’ broadcast and there are YouTube videos that show you how you can do that. Just because there’s a 24-hour limit, doesn’t necessarily mean that your broadcast goes away forever.
Challenge To Social Workers
I want to see your beautiful faces. You can follow me on Periscope at: SocialWorkTech. Follow me, I’ll follow you, and let’s see what kind of wonderful things we can talk about! I’ll be using the hashtag #SocialWorkLive and encourage others to do the same. 
