Social Networking Competencies for Librarians and Community Managers No comments yet

The following abstract is from “Social Networking Literacy Competencies for Librarians: Exploring Considerations and Engaging Participation”, Contributed Paper, ACRL 14th National Conference, Pushing the Edge: Explore, Engage, Extend, 14th March 2009 by Joe Murphy and Heather Moulaison.

I thought it worth replicating and promoting here since it provides a consolidated perspective on some core competencies for social networking applicable to Librarians (the original intended audience) , and also Community of Practice facilitators/moderators or community managers who’s skill-set should embrace many aspects of the traditional Librarian role. The bracketed inserts are my own.

The following competencies are a suggested set of skills that librarians (and community managers) should possess as social networking literate information professionals capable of implementing library services and utilising information within social networking sites. These include skills for interacting with patrons within the sites, understanding and articulating the nature of social networking sites and their potential roles related to library services, creating presences and content, evaluating and applying information, and having the ability to assist patrons with gaining and applying these skills. Librarians (and community managers) possessing these skills are capable of efficiently and effectively navigating online social networking sites and applying their expertise to services with and within this now central realm for interacting with information.

Understanding and Articulating Social Networking Sites and Their Roles

The social networking literate librarian (and community manager) is capable of articulating the nature and roles of online social networking sites and their importance in scholarly research and communication, and the information cycle. Librarians (and community managers) should be familiar with a diversity of social networking sites and social media including those most relevant to their patrons. Librarians (and community managers) also need to be able to articulate the importance of online social networking sites and their applications for libraries to peers, administrators, and patrons.

Creating Content

The social networking literate librarian (and community manager) is capable of creating, contributing, and revising content in various formats including images, text, audio, video, links, and more within and beyond the presence of their library in a variety of social networking sites with various tools. This extends to creating the library presence including pages, groups, profiles, and applications.

Evaluating Information

The social networking literate librarian (and community manager) is capable of critically evaluating information encountered in social networking sites on the basis of authority, currency, and bias etc. Librarians (and community managers) also need to be able to assist patrons in gaining and applying these skills to evaluate information they encounter in various online social networks.

Applying Information Ethically and Legally

The social networking literate librarian (and community manager) applies information in social networking sites ethically and legally. They respect copyright and intellectual property of information encountered and applied in social networking sites, and conscious of the unique cultural norms. This includes applying information found in social networking sites to other media and applying information to projects within social networking sites.

Searching and Navigating

The social networking literate librarian (and community manager) knows how to effectively search and browse various online social networks for known and unknown contacts, and for information and resources in a variety of formats. This includes understanding the search tools available within the sites, knowledge of using outside search engines to search the sites, and an understanding of what information and fields are searchable. Skills for navigating and browsing within the sites and between a variety of individual networks and outside websites is also important.

Interacting

The social networking literate librarian (and community manager) is familiar with the diverse methods of communicating with social networking sites and is aware of and able to apply the unique cultural norms and expectations of each communication method. All social networking sites allow for varying degrees of interactivity that can serve as avenues for connecting with patrons.

Communication channels include messaging within the sites, posts on profile walls, comments on status updates, notes, pictures, posted items and blogs, and the sites’ various synchronous chat features.

Also important are the skills for interacting over the various mobile communication channels popular with some social networking sites. Librarians (and community managers) should posses the skills for interacting with patrons in these sites via smart phone applications, mobile webpages, email, software and third party clients, and text message.

Teaching

The social networking literate librarian (and community manager) is capable of teaching these skills to library patrons and peers. This includes guiding and training patrons through targeted aspects of social networking sites that arise in their use as resources and tools, teaching about the use of social networking sites for scholarly purposes, and teaching faculty and instructors about the role of social networking sites and considerations for issues affecting their students’ work.

Providing Services

The social networking literate librarian (and community manager) utilises a variety of online social networking sites to provide quality library services. They evaluate social network sites and choose which are most appropriate to establish a library presence in. They are capable of building and managing the library’s presence in the form of profiles or applications, developing work flows for services, marketing services, weeding spam, understanding and working with privacy levels, assessing the library’s presence and services, leveraging tagging and favouriting, understanding and engaging vendor and other third party applications, and being aware of relevant security topics. It is important that librarians are familiar with the steps and etiquette for initiating and responding to friend requests in building networks.

Flexibility

Flexibility is the defining skill for librarians (and community managers) engaging people and information through social networking sites. Librarians (and community managers) must be able to apply the above skills to unique and novel social networking sites as they emerge and evolve. Familiarity with each of the above skills in multiple social networking sites will help librarians (and community managers) be flexible in applying these skills to future sites and services.

The most important, and possibly hardest to develop, skill is the ability to look ahead, visualise, create, and manage robust library (and community) services in full consideration of and within social networking sites. This takes vision, creativity, and a constant thumb on the pulse of the social web, its users, and their behaviours.

The Knowledge Management Culture Shift 5 comments

Great blog post from Nick Milton , all about the Knowledge Management culture shift. I’d seen this before, but worth repeating since I think it encapsulates the key elements of collaboration in successful communities of practice, a key area of work I’ve been involved in for the past 4 years.  It’s a useful exercise to consider these points as both an individual and as part of a group/community exercise to gain a perspective of where you , your organisation or your community are on your KM journey:

• From “I know” to “We know”
• From “Knowledge is mine” to “Knowledge is ours”
• From “Knowledge is owned” to “Knowledge is shared”
• From “Knowledge is personal property” to “Knowledge is collective/community property”
• From “Knowledge is personal advantage” to “Knowledge is company advantage”
• From “Knowledge is personal” to “Knowledge is inter-personal”
• From “I defend what I know” to “I am open to better knowledge”
• From “not invented here (i.e. by me)” to “invented in my community”
• From “New knowledge competes with my personal knowledge” to “new knowledge improves my personal knowledge”
• From “other people’s knowledge is a threat to me” to “our shared knowledge helps me”
• From “Admitting I don’t know is weakness” to “Admitting I don’t know is the first step to learning”

Nick goes on to comment:

That shift from “I know” to “we know” – from “Knowledge is mine” to “Knowledge is ours” is a huge one, and counter-cultural to many of us. People can find it scary, but once it has been achieved, it is like living in a different, and far better, world.

Agree with that, and have never underestimated how difficult it is to achieve this cultural shift.

Within the context of communities of practice it reflects a view of knowledge as the property of human communities and places the emphasis on connections between people and cultivating, recognising and supporting a shared learning experience.

Bookmarks for May 24th through May 26th 1 comment

These are my links for May 24th through May 26th:

• Social Networking and Online Security: Replacing UserID and Password Logins with Open Source Web Identities | Suite101.com | Twine – Social Networking and Online Security: Replacing UserID and Password Logins … http://bit.ly/Dqhal #twine
• Chrome extensions draw near, but advanced HTML 5… – All Things Google – FriendFeed – Chrome extensions draw near, but advanced HTML 5 features recede | Webware – CNET http://ff.im/3g59a
• Communities and Collaboration – New blog post: Information Management in a Web 2.0 world http://bit.ly/2pBwBE
• http://votematch.co.uk – I came out closest to the UK Independence Party on http://votematch.co.uk (@votematch)
• Communities and Collaboration – New blog post: Bookmarks for May 11th through May 24th http://bit.ly/1EzCb

Information Management in a Web 2.0 world 10 comments

I’ve given a few talks and presentations recently to various groups and departments from the UK public sector on the dichotomy between the traditional and highly structured information management (IM) disciplines and the almost anarchic environment that we refer to as ‘Web 2.0′.  I’m reasonably familiar with both sides of this equation having spent most of my life as an information management professional before turning to the dark side about seven years ago to embrace the world of knowledge management. This in turn led me to discover (and enthusiastically adapt to) the world of social computing and to advocate the wonderful opportunities that Web 2.0 has given us to expand our social networks and share knowledge.

I don’t think I’ve got any special insights on the issue of IM vs. Web 2.0,  but I do see some potential areas of conflict and incompatibility. I’m only surprised by the fact that there seem to be so few others who have recognised that current information management solutions are not capable of meeting the demands of Web 2.0 applications and working practices. In this context, the ’solutions’ include Enterprise Content Management (ECM) systems, Document Management Systems, Electronic Document and Records Management (EDRM) systems and the policies and standards that underpin the business and operational processes.  I could add ‘Enterprise 2.0′ solutions to this list since some vendors appear to be using this label to infer something new or innovative, but under the hood it is quite often the same old EDRMS technology with perhaps support for tagging.

The few that I have encountered who share these concerns include James Lappin, and though I have never met him, Steve Bailey, who’s book ‘Managing the Crowd‘ puts the key issues across far more eloquently than I can.

I had never meant any of this to turn into a campaign, but the more I speak to the information management fraternity the more concerned I am that attitudes and habits have become so entrenched that there is no recognition that anything needs to change.  Needless to say, the Web 2.0 juggernaut is on its way, and it’s going to create some significant problems for information and records managers unless they begin to understand and address the issues now. Developing policies and standards takes time, and the IM policies and standards currently in use (e.g. BS ISO 15489)  are not fit for purpose for 21st century way of working, and especially for the emerging  Cloud Computing business models.

The presentation slides that I’ve been using are at the end of this post. If you haven’t got the time (or inclination) to look at these then the following abstract may give you a flavour of the session. I might add this these points are guaranteed to create a reaction amongst most IM professionals.  I’m willing to stand behind each one!

• The Freedom of Information Act (FoIA) makes no distinction on whether information is part of a record or not.
• DRM, EDRM (and the mis-labelled ‘Enterprise 2.0′) systems cannot resolve FoIA requests
• Enterprises don’t know what information is being created, stored and used outside the corporate firewall.
• The destruction of electronic information and records is tantamount to vandalism.
• Records managers and information professionals are applying 20th century policies and procedures to 21st century ways of working. The two are incompatible.

I will come back to the penultimate bullet point above – about destruction of electronic information and records – in a later post, because this is one of the most contentious points (given the reaction I’ve received so far), and clearly at odds with the hugely powerful and influential vendors in the EDRMS space.  For me it is the single most damaging aspect of current IM thinking, and entirely unnecessary in today’s world of virtually unlimited storage space.

In the presentation I use the analogy of the pre-15th century scribes and their potential modern day Records Managers equivalents.  The scribes were responsible for managing and preserving the wisdom of the ages on precious manuscripts. Records Managers could be said to do a similar function for modern day documents (paper and electronic). However, the difference today is that – in accordance with accepted practice and procedure – we allow the systematic destruction of knowledge and wisdom, based on a fairly subjective assessment of what is deemed ‘relevant’ in a contemporary society. In effect, shaping history as we want it to be seen by future generations, and not necessarily as it really was. Will we be judged and found wanting by future Historians who will questions (as I do) why we need to destroy knowledge? I think so. Do you?

Bookmarks for May 11th through May 24th No comments yet

These are my links for May 11th through May 24th:

• Beyond Web 2.0 and the Pragmatic Semantic Web 1.0 or Web 3.0? | Dugg Me – RT @DuggMe Beyond Web 2.0 and the Pragmatic Semantic Web 1.0 or Web 3.0? | Dugg Me http://bit.ly/X3kt1 (via @tweetmeme)
• Pimp my browser: how to turn Firefox into a blogging machine – Ars Technica – Some great Firefox add-ons can turn the browser into a powerful blogging tool, so we wanted to highlight a few of the best. Ars explores a handful of add-ons that bring everything from scrapbooking, sharing, and automated content discovery to our beloved open source browser.
• Home – Collaboration Project - Collaboration Project – The Collaboration Project is an independent forum of leaders committed to leveraging the interactive web and the benefits of collaborative technology to solve government's complex problems. Powered by the National Academy of Public Administration, this "wikified" space is designed to share ideas, examples and insights on the adoption of Web 2.0 technologies in the field of public governance.
• conversation matters: Knowledge Management: Where We've Been and Where We're Going – Part Two – In this series I‘ve classified the evolving landscape of knowledge management into three categories. The first category is leveraging explicit knowledge and is about capturing documented knowledge and building it into a collection – connecting people to content. The second category is about leveraging experiential knowledge and it gave rise to communities of practice and reflection processes. It is primarily focused on connecting people to people. The third category is leveraging collective knowledge and it is about integrating ideas from multiple perspectives. Its medium is conversation in both its virtual and face-to-face forms.
• Mash the State :: Getting government data to the people – A campaign to encourage UK government and public sector organisations to make their data available to the general public.

US Now film now online 2 comments

For anyone that has been following the US Now project the film is now online to watch.

For anyone else this is the background:

In a world in which information is like air, what happens to power? Us Now is a documentary film project about the power of mass collaboration, government and the Internet.

Us Now tells the stories of online networks that are challenging the existing notion of hierarchy.  For the first time, it brings together the fore-most thinkers in the field of participative governance to describe the future of government.

Us Now from Banyak Films on Vimeo.

Local Government Communities of Practice strategy wins award 4 comments

I’m pleased to announce that the IDeA CoP Platform won an award at the GC Awards yesterday evening. The award was for the best public sector project for collaborative working, and can be placed alongside the award we won at the National e-Government awards ceremony that took place in December 2008.

I’m particularly pleased for the IDeA Knowledge Management team who have been instrumental in getting Communities of Practice firmly established across the local government sector as means to encouraging more effective learning and sharing, which will in turn drive the development of good/next practice for service improvement.  And not forgetting the many CoP Facilitator’s who do such a good job in maintaining the energy for their CoPs and providing inspiration for their members.

For those who know me they will know I have little or no ego,  but in the absence of any recognition from IDeA, I would at least like to note that I was the original creator of the concept and have led the business and strategic development of the platform since its inception in 2005. I only mention this because I’ve been almost alone  in trying to promote this strategy over the past few years and was even beginning to doubt myself whether this would ever achieve the original vision for changing and improving working practices across the public sector. I think having this recognition from two independent awards bodies has renewed my self-belief and will provide a good foundation for taking the strategy forward.

The actual entry for the award is reproduced below:

Aims and Objectives

The IDeA’s Communities of Practice (CoPs) is a professional networking site that utilises web 2.0 technology to support the sharing of knowledge, know-how, skills and good practice across local government. Since its official launch in December 2007, CoPs has enhanced working practices across local government throughout the UK. Enabling officers and councillors to connect to peers, information and knowledge, across the nation, has driven the effectiveness and efficiency of the sector. Additionally, CoPs is now driving improvements across central government and the third sector as the site is expanding to other organisations who wish to realise the benefits of online collaborative working.

CoPs now has over 30,000 registered members and is growing at a rate of 100 new members a day, (a rate more than double that targeted at the beginning of the project). On the site there are over 700 individual communities managed by the IDeA, councils, civil service departments, and other public and third sector organisations. The individual communities range across areas such as countering extremism, health, migration, ICT and many more. By the end of 2009 CoPs is expected to exceed 50,000 members and support 1000 communities.

How the solution was developed

Local government accounts for the second largest proportion of public spending in the UK, and employs about 2.1 million people across over 700 service areas. Accordingly, this represents a vast variety of skills, knowledge, experience and expertise. Prior to the introduction of CoPs, however, the sector’s ability to share knowledge and expertise across organisational boundaries, and learn from each other in order to improve service delivery to local populations was limited and ad hoc. IDeA’s Communities of Practice has enabled all local councils to share and learn with and from each other. It is enabling local government to transcend traditional organisational boundaries, allowing colleagues in all different councils across the UK to work and collaborate together, to drive efficiency savings and improve the sector.

CoPs has enabled this learning and sharing through utilising collaborative, new social media (what has been referred to as Web 2.0) tools, such as wikis, blogs, forums and libraries, which allow users to contribute and generate their own content for the site. This has meant that costs associated with CoPs have been kept exceptionally low as the site’s consumers also act as producers.

CoPs was developed as a bespoke and secure platform designed for simplicity and accessibility and with it’s target government audience in mind. There is nothing directly comparable to the IDeA’s CoPs in terms of size and reach anywhere in the world. In the social networking sphere, sites such as Facebook and My Space share the same connective and collaborative spirit, but do not provide the trusted and private environment demanded by public sector professionals.

The creation and implementation of CoPs began in September 2006 when a pilot site was released. The pilot site had a limited number of pilot communities that were used to test the demand for the site and to ascertain what skills, interventions and techniques were needed to ensure that individual communities were vibrant, active and created value for members and the organisations they belonged to. The pilot site provided the evidence and learning that was needed to officially launch the current Communities of Practice site and ensure that it was a success. Building on the success and failures of the pilot the current CoP platform was launched in December to anyone across local government wanting either to join or create their own community, and as momentum has grown has also been opened to others across central government and the wider public sector.

In addition to the creation of the actual web-platform, implementation involved significant focus on upskilling and training of people to use CoPs. The idea recognised that often government IT projects had the potential to fail not because of the technology involved but because the people expected to use and gain value from the technology were not comfortable with or properly able to use the technology. As a consequence CoP training was made available on one level for all who wanted to create and manage a community (facilitators) and on another level for ordinary members or those wanting to know more about CoPs and how to use the site.

Outcomes and Benefits

CoPs has been making a difference to individuals using the site, local councils and local government and public sector more widely. In a recent evaluation exercise designed to understand how users had benefited from CoPs, a number of the site’s members were interviewed about their experiences. The research confirmed 8 major benefits being obtained which all increase government efficiency and lead to cost savings:

1. Saving time

“Using the website saves time. It’s possible to post something and get responses back from other members over a couple of weeks. Previously, you would talk to a few confidantes, then share things at conferences and it might be six months before you have the same level of strength in terms of that idea”

James Winterbottom, Performance Improvement Officer, Wigan Metropolitan Borough Council

2. Keeping up to date with the most current thinking

It’s just extremely useful to keep up to date, for example on current thinking and direction with regards to equality and cohesion policy. The policy changes a lot, there are different emphasis, directions and initiatives all the time.”

Ruth Hyde, Chief Executive, Broxtowe Borough Council

3. Progressing innovations

“Many of the online groups that we set up on the site either reflected new projects or were new groups working on a new priority that wasn’t covered under the business unit structure. It was a place for new projects and innovations to grow”

Noel Hatch, Projects and Research Lead, Innovation Unit, Kent County Council.

4. Sharing good practice and avoiding duplication of work

“It has been very useful in seeing the broad questions out there and to see how people are tackling big issues, Quite often we’re all doing the same bit of work, so it’s valuable to have a place where you can come together to discuss it.”

Stewart Martin, Community Leadership Policy Officer, Hertfordshire County Council

5. Connecting local and central government

“It’s useful as my main interface is central government so it’s a good forum to hear from local practitioners. It’s a good way of getting a feel for what the issues are for local authorities in relation to sustainability.”

Denny Gray, Policy Analyst, Sustainable Development Commission

6. Reducing carbon footprint

“It cuts down on meetings and travel, so in an age when local government is all about value for money, efficiency and sustainability, it fits well.”

Kanza Ahmed, National Management Trainee, Warrington Borough Council

7. Rapid induction to new roles and staff development

“It’s a fabulous resource for people in my position who move around placements. You get thrown into the deep end and are expected to swim, so it’s the first point of contact if you start a new project.”

Helen Burkhalter, Policy Officer, Denbighshire County Council

8. Building relationships and transcending organisational boundaries

“As a chief executive I tend to think of it (Communities of Practice) as a way of expanding my organisation, because now I can ask somebody a question about leadership and development in the region and they can go off and talk to other people on the Communities of Practice and come back with an answer. So we are expanding our own organisation’s boundaries to actually help each other across the region“.

Andrea Hill, Chief Executive, Suffolk County Council

What other organisations from public and private sectors have been involved?

The Scottish Improvement Service has entered into a major financial partnership with the IDeA to bring CoPs to Scotland, and financial arrangements have been made with other public sector organisations such as SOCITM and the NHS. Of the 650 individual communities, the IDeA itself only manages about 150, with various councils managing 275, the Scottish Improvement Service 50, NHS 100, and the remaining 75 are run by government organisations including: COI, BERR, NAO, Cabinet Office, OGC, Association of Chief Police Officers, Office for National Statistics, CLG, DfID and several more.

CoPs has membership from every single council in Wales, Scotland and England, and an estimated 7,000 further members from central government and other public sector bodies

So, a great example of how technology, process and people (and especially people!) can combine to bring about new and more effective ways of working, with real benefits to individuals through being able to find and connect with peers and experts, and more opportunities for adding value to public sector services.

Bookmarks for May 6th through May 11th No comments yet

These are my links for May 6th through May 11th:

• Turn your Google Services into a Powerful Personal Knowledge Management Toolkit at | SoulSoup | Blog on E-Learning, Usability, Knowledge Management etc. – Now with all the Google services – you can create your own PKM work flow. To date, the only tool missing in Google – a Social Bookmarking tool like Del.icio.us! Everything else is available! Great thing about that is – you can work with a single dashboard and log-in!
• Five Free Mashup Tools You Should Know About | Web 2.0 Journal – Mashups is a pretty broad term. A good definition for a mashup tool is a solution that allows developers to combine interesting data and then visualize that data through a web application

  Usually, mashups are web applications that can be created quickly using standard web services (e.g., REST) and components (e.g., Widgets).

• Communities of Practice | Home – @psfnick Why not just register at http://is.gd/ewsS and add events to Community Hub CoP.
• Communities and Collaboration – New blog post: Knowledge 2.0 for local government http://bit.ly/zodsz
• http://steve-dale.net/2009/05/06/bookmarks-for-may-3rd-through-may-6th/ – New blog post: Bookmarks for May 3rd through May 6th http://bit.ly/sBGHF

Online Information Conference – Call for Speakers No comments yet

For anyone who has not yet made a submission for the 2009 Online Conference, the deadline has now been extended to Friday 8th May.

The organisers want to hear from people and organisations that have transformed themselves to be more agile and flexible by exploiting open linked data and conversation streams.  They are looking for exciting, innovative applications as well as lessons learned from Twittering and mash-ups.  They want to show case organisations that are using semantic web techniques to create new and exciting resources. And what about managing the chaos of agile development and “always beta” deployments?  Have you learned how to guarantee privacy and security in this heady but chaotic world?

Do you have a story to tell?

- Maybe you’ve been involved in creating a new application for Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Yahoo or Google?

- Have you made the move to the semantic web to deal with the digital explosion and the need for greater “intelligence” in your information?

- Perhaps you’ve found ways to exploit new Online tools to transform the way your organisation does its business?

- Have you changed your management processes to cope with this “always connected world”?

Then why not share it with others?

Whether you work in business, libraries, academia or the public sector, good ideas are invariably transferable and we need to hear them.  The Online world is waiting to learn from the pioneers who have made it work.

This is your chance to be seen as one of the leaders – with your story reaching a global audience from over 40 countries.

For information on conference themes, making your submission, review criteria please click on the links in the below.

Online Information Conference Committee 2009

1. Review Criteria and Submission Requirements
2. Example Abstracts
3. Conference Themes
4. Delegate Profile
5. Conference Committee
6. Guidelines for Exhibitors
7. NOW Click here to submit your paper online

Please note: Deadline for submissions is now Friday 8th May

Knowledge 2.0 for local government 5 comments

I’ve recently signed up to LocalGovCamp, an ‘unconference’ for local government. Taking place on 20 June 2009, at the Fazeley Studios in Birmingham.

If there is the time and the interest, I am hoping to run a session on a major new initiative to bring new thinking about how good/best practice is developed and shared across the local government sector. Tired and dusty knowledge repositories have had their day. The new breed of social networking and social media tools offer more opportunities for connecting with peers and experts, and provide more dynamic, fresh and relevant ways to share knowledge and information.

The working project title is the ‘Knowledge Hub’, and it is part of a  major programme of work being managed by the IDeA and funded by the CLG.

The project is still at a very early stage, but conceptually it will combine elements of Communities of Practice with the benefits of mass collaboration and  ‘peer review after publication’ offered by products such as Wikipedia.  The Wikipedia model has rapidly matured over the past three years, becoming more trusted and relevant than the traditional (and much slower) authoritative publishing channels. It also offers a  ‘lighter touch’ and less mediated option for dissemination of knowledge in an environment that is increasingly influenced by rapidly changing external events (the credit crunch and swine flu being two recent examples).

The project is seeking help and support from councils and social innovators who would be willing to participate in prototyping solutions and helping to ‘pump prime’ the content for a ‘wikipedia-like’ system. Funding is available.

I’d be interested in hearing from anyone who may have an interest in attending this session, or from local council representatives who might be willing to participate in the early prototyping work, or from anyone else who may have interest in helping to develop a new ‘Knowledge Ecology’ for local government.