The most comprehensive summary I’ve read so far on Microsoft’s foray into social networking via their Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007 (MOSS 2007) product. The article is an extract from a forthcoming white paper written by three Microsoft gurus – Eric Charran, Dino Dato-on and Greg Lang.
The article seems a bit too preoccupied with the profiles, active directory and people search facilities at the expense of how they’ve implemented tools such as RSS, wikis and blogs. However, it does seem to be a vast improvement over the facilities offered on Sharepoint 2003. Given the usual complexity that Microsoft seem to automatically build into the deployment of any of their products, it looks like it could meet the social networking requirements of most organisations, provided that networking and collaboration is limited to within the organisation’s firewall. My guess is that it would be hugely expensive to deploy as a social networking solution across and between organisations, e.g. for connecting councils in local government or for collaboration between agencies and learning providers in the education sector. Sector-wide social networking solutions for business still seem to be limited platforms such as GovX or I&DeA, and products such as Blogtronix and CommunityServer. Still, given the huge investment that many organisations have already made in Microsoft’s Office products, I anticipate a huge take-up for MOSS 2007. I just hope they’ll also recognise its limitations for (social) networking outside the firewall.
Search, information, cetgorisation, tagging, social bookmarking, social media – it’s all here in another excellent video from Mike Wesch.
I attended a very useful session the other day, organised by my colleagues over at the I&DeA ,which brought a number of experienced community of practice facilitators together to their share knowledge and experience with two fairly new CoP facilitaors. One was seeking ideas on how he could generate more activity and interest within his CoP, the other was about to launch a CoP newsletter and wanted to pick up any tips on how best to go about this.
The session was organised using a traditional KM technique called a ‘Peer Assist’. The outcome from the session was a list of ideas and actions that the two ‘receivers’ could take away, with the confidence in knowing that these ideas were firmly rooted in the practical knowledge and experience of their peers .
The process is described below for anyone who would like to give it a try. There is also a very useful video showing the process in operation.
What is a Peer Assist?
A Peer Assist can be organised in a workshop or meeting form to gain knowledge and insight from people in other teams before embarking on a project or activity. Essentially it seeks to encourage a flow of knowledge and experience, and consists of a receiver(s) – those seeking assistance – and a group of peers – those sharing their knowledge and expertise. The time-frame of this activity depends on the subject matter and number of attendees in proportion to the project, so can be anything from two hours to a full day.
How do you run a Peer Assist?
There is no right or wrong way to hold a peer assist. However, a recommended and simple method that works well involves a number of steps:
1. Appoint a facilitator – someone from outside the team who ensures that the meeting participants reach their desired outcome.
2. Select the participants – select participants who have diverse knowledge, skills, and experience. There is no hard and fast rule about minimum or maximum numbers but the right participants are particularly important.
3. Share information – divide the meeting time into four parts:
• clarify purpose – during the first part, the receiver(s) presents the context, history and future plans regarding the problem. They should be clear about what they hope to achieve (eg we are setting up a project on xx and want to check what has been done already in this area).
• encourage the peers to ask questions and give feedback – in the second part the peers discuss the receiver’s situation and share ideas and experiences. The receiver should simply listen.
• analyse what you have heard – the third part of the meeting is for the receiver(s) to then analyse and reflect on what they have learned, and to examine options. The peers should take a back seat.
• present the feedback and agree actions – in the final part of the meeting, the peers present their feedback to the receiver(s) and answer any questions. Their presentation will respond to the analysis they have heard and be along the lines of ‘what we have learned from previous work, what options we see, and what has worked elsewhere’.
An excellent article on del.icio.us and social bookmarking. From a Librarian as well! I take back what I said in an earlier posting on this topic!
Interesting things happening at Google, with much speculation that they intend making a more serious and focussed foray into the social media arena. The recent purchase of Jaiku (similar to Twitter, but with more features), and the growing interest in Orkut – their current social networking site – may make uncomfortable reading for the folks over at Facebook, if the report by the Scolbleizer is anything to go by. I have to admit that I do like most of what Google do, and indeed use most of their web applications. However, they do seem to have a scatter-gun approach to acquisitions, so I’m hoping this latest Web 2.0/social media/social networking/communities buying spree will ultimately provide a more integrated (or rational) environment for their products.
