Stephen Dale's Posterous - Passionate about the social web, collaboration, learning, sharing and trying to make sense of an increasingly complex world.
It’s no secret that social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have found tremendous enthusiasm among businesses and enterprises. With Facebook, a company can freely advertise and conduct focus group research. It can draw traffic to a website and effectively engage with a loyal consumer base. It can create communication opportunities between employees, partners, and affiliates.
Many businesses have, in fact, embraced social media to such a degree that they seek to implement a social networking platform of their own. These internal social networks are accessible only to employees and include message boards, profile pages, file sharing software, and private communication applications – not dissimilar from a public social media system.
Internal social networks offer numerous collaboration benefits for the average enterprise. They allow for quick, fluid, and constant communication, thereby making it easier for employees to coordinate at all times. They encourage feedback, proposals, and ideas from all workers, thus opening the door for innovation in any shape or form. They furthermore integrate well with cloud computing platforms and allow files to be shared and transmitted in a secure manner. And, finally, they can contribute to the culture and sense of community that a company seeks to foster. Instead of having to stand near the water cooler or sit around in conference chairs, employees can feel integrated even when removed from the office.
There are two main concerns that prevent many managers from implementing an internal network. First, implementation difficulties and security challenges stand to pose headaches even after adoption occurs. Second, it is often feared that employees, when given access to an internal social network, will only become less productive during the workday as a result. Both of these concerns ultimately boil down to money, as business decisions usually do. Are the costs of installing and maintaining the system worth those peripheral benefits – benefits that may only be offset by productivity losses in the first place?
While this question is a valid one, it is likely that these concerns will only continue to diminish in the future. When internal social networks integrate further with cloud computing software, businesses will increasingly view the joint security and implementation costs to be worthwhile ones. When social networking becomes an even more dominant business tool, companies will more and more often realise that collaboration between employees is just as important as communication between consumers. And in this manner, the challenges posed by internal networks will – slowly but surely – be surmounted and overcome.
I’ve recently re-vamped the social media/social networks training that I do on behalf of TFPL. The training has always been about using the social web for personal and professional development, (and anyone outside of marketing and comms may argue that this is what it’s really for!) but I wanted to re-emphasise the value for those interested in Personal Knowledge Management (PKM).
Details of the course are on the TFPL website (link above), but replicated here:
Introduction:
There is a desire to develop more effective knowledge sharing and a culture of collaboration in most organisations, but little recognition of what this means in terms of staff development and overcoming barriers to change. The enormous growth of social media tools and social/professional networks over the past few years has created new opportunities and new challenges for people and organisations that want to embrace this dynamic world of social interaction and fluid knowledge flows. However, It is not widely recognised that collaboration and knowledge sharing are skills and practices that rarely get taught. It’s something we may learn on the job in a hit or miss fashion. Some people are natural at it. Others struggle to understand it.
This one-day course provides a practical and detailed introduction to social media and social/professional networks that will enable delegates to have a greater understanding of their context for use and deployment within their organisation and for personal and professional development.
Outcomes:
An understanding of social media tools and social networks, and their context for engagement and knowledge sharing
An understanding of the three-step process to personal knowledge management: seeking; sense-making; sharing *
Developing an approach to more effective management of information ? avoiding information overload.
Using free web tools for discovery, research and engagement.
Knowing how to overcome the barriers to knowledge sharing and build a trusted network.
Programme:
Overview of the social web
Creating and maintaining your personal profile
Seeking, listening and observing: an introduction to social bookmarking, aggregators and tracking tools.
Sense-making: an introduction to blogs & blogging, wikis, Twitter, Yammer, Facebook, Google+
Social capital, trust and reputation.
Sharing and participating: an introduction to social networks and Communities of Practice for personal and professional development.
Creating and personalising your KM routines and digital environment for enhanced learning and professional development
Practical exercises and examples of the Social Web in action
Teaching style:
Highly interactive workshop and lecture
Who should attend?
Those who wish to understand and engage with the Social Web as an environment for personal learning, professional development and effective collaboration.
I should add that apart from the scheduled events organised by TFPL (next training event is on 2nd October 2012), I can schedule and run the training to meet specific needs of people and organisations, using the organisation’s in-house facilities or an external training venue. Just let me know your requirements and I’ll provide a quote.
These training courses tend to fill up quite quickly, so get on your computer and book now if you’re interested!
* The “Seeking, Sense-making, Sharing model is based on the work of Harold Jarche.
The above named article has been published in the most recent issue of Business Information Review. Regretably, under the terms of agreement I signed with the publishers (Sage), I’m not allowed to post the full article here. However, the following is an abstract, and many of the screen shots I used in the article can be found on my Slideshare presentation.
Abstract:
The volume of information continues to grow at an exponential rate; new products, social networks and web services appear almost daily. Government and public bodies are releasing more data for public scrutiny; companies are becoming more radical in the way they create and use information; global news and events reach us in near real time, 24/7. Professional and social networks proliferate. We are awash with data and information. This article describes five simple steps we can take and some of the tools we can use to become more effective in managing and using digital information and the social web for personal learning and development.
I hope that some of you will find this article helpful in equiping you with the tools and processes to better manage the daily information flood!
I wanted to touch on another of the key features being delivered by the new system, the ‘Social Graph’ and ‘Activity Stream’. These are intimately related and hence it makes sense to discuss them as one feature or capability.
Social Graph
A social graph in its broadest context is the mapping of everyone and how they are related. The term is usually used to refer to online identities, e.g. as used within social networks.
As of 2011, the largest social graph in the world is Facebook’s,which contains the largest number of defined relationships between the largest number of people among all websites due to the fact that it is the most widely used social networking service in the world.(Source: Wikipedia).
Concern has focused on the fact that Facebook’s social graph is owned by the company and is not shared with other services, giving it a major advantage over other services and disallowing its users to take their graph with them to other services if they wish to do so, such as when a user is dissatisfied with Facebook. Google, has attempted to offer a solution to this problem by creating the Social Graph API, released in January 2008,which allows websites to draw publicly available information about a person to form a portable identity of the individual, in order to represent a user’s online identity.
You can see what your Facebook social graph looks like by adding the Social Graph App. Mine looks like this:
If you’re a member of the LinkedIn network (an open standards network), you can generate your own social graph here.
Mine looks like this:
The first release of the Knowledge Hub will not support a graphical representation as shown in the examples above, but the system itself will maintain the data representation, which will be used for managing the activity stream described below. A graphical representation will be considered for a future release.
The Knowledge Hub is an open platform that is adopting Open Standards wherever relevant and possible. We will be exploring the use of Friend Of A Friend (FOAF) standards for creating a Web of machine-readable pages describing people, the links between them and the things they create and do. FOAF defines an open, decentralised technology for connecting social Web sites, and the people they describe.
Activity Stream
The activity stream is a chronologically ordered list of activities of ‘friends’ or contacts that have been mapped to the ‘Social Graph’ for each individual user. Facebook users will no doubt be familiar with the activity stream (referred to as the ‘News Feed’ in Facebook) showing what their friends are doing and saying. Only people who are in the user’s social graph (i.e. those who have been confirmed as ‘friends’) will show up in the activity stream.
Any and all actions are logged in the activity stream such as writing or commenting on a blog, uploading a document or photo, confirming attendance at a meeting, joining a new workspace or group etc. The system will automatically create an activity stream (or ‘digital footprint’) for each user, based on the actions they carry out. Each user will see an aggregated stream of activities for all of the people in their social graph, and for the workspaces that they have joined. Filters will be available for showing the activities for a specific user (who must be either part of your social graph or a member of one of the workspaces you have joined), or updates from the members of a workspace to which you belong, or just your own updates (a ‘Me’ filter). It will also be possible to block updates from a specific user, e.g. if you find their activities irrelevant or overwhelming!
So, what’s the benefit of all of this?
Activity streams are ubiquitous to any social network; I’ve mentioned Facebook, but they are also present in LinkedIn, Friendfeed, Twitter and just about any other social network you can mention. The activity stream provides information and intelligence about events that are likely to be relevant to a user and the broader workspace.community members. The user’s social graph is built up over time and includes people who the user has specifically identified as ‘people of interest’, for example:
a shared interest or hobby
working for the same organization
working in the same location or region
having a similar job
an expert in a topic you are following
a thought leader
etc.
We expand our networks and our knowledge by social interaction, i.e. we learn from others. When we’re in meetings we pick up lots of information from the tacit conversations we have with our colleagues. The activity streams we see in these virtual spaces are fulfilling a similar function, albeit far more powerful, because we can pick up on ALL the conversations and activities from a group as opposed to just the people we have had the time to talk to in a meeting.
For example, how useful might it be to know that your colleague had just joined a community of practice that you were completely unaware of, but given you both have similar jobs is likely to be as relevant to you as it is to your colleague? Or to know that another colleagues have just posted information about a conference that is looks highly relevant to you?
There are many other tools, facilities and capabilities embedded into the Knowledge Hub, but in my opinion, the most powerful and useful of them all is the activity stream, because it provides the ‘glue’ that links otherwise unconnected actions and events together, providing both a lens and a filter on the things that are most likely to be of interest to you.
For the next Knowledge Hub post I’ll talk about some of the exciting developments around the App Store.
I am very pleased to have been invited to speak at the Public Health Information Network (PHIN) conference in Atlanta, Georgia, taking place between 30th August and 3rd September. This will be my second visit to Atlanta, having been there in May this year to meet with staff at the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) to share knowledge about the UK local government Communities of Practice, a strategy I developed for the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) in 2005 and which continues to thrive with over 35,000 users at the last count.
PHIN/CDC are in the process of developing collaboration tools to support geographically dispersed professionals working in the field of public health informatics, and Communities of Practice (CoPs) are a key part of this strategy. This is the primary reason I’ve been asked to attend, and I’ll be talking about the lessons we’ve learnt in developing the CoP Platform for local government. The focus of my presentation will be on the issues around measuring value of social networks and Communities of Practice. I think this will fit in quite well with the goals and objectives of the conference, repeated here:
Goal To build a public health informatics community through the sharing of promising practices and lessons learned.
Objectives
Extend the reach of innovative public health informatics practices.
Summarize current issues and trends in the field of public health informatics.
Translate issues and opportunities in public health informatics and health information technology for public health practitioners and policy makers.
Facilitate the development of a community focused on accelerating the field of public health informatics.
Validate public health informatics activities at national, state and local levels through open source collaboration and community building.
Integrate knowledge gained to leverage resources for sustainability of information technology, workforce development, and human capital.
A full programme of the conference is available online if anyone is interested. I’m speaking on the last day of the main conference, Wednesday 2nd September. I will make my slides available on Slideshare after the conference, and (access to Internet permitting) will provide regular Tweets on any the issues.
I was asked by the Network of government library and information specialists (NGLIS) to run a workshop session on Social Media Tools for their 2009 Conference, held in London 3rd June 2009. I thought this might be an ideal opportunity to run the Social Media Game that David Wilcox and Beth Kanter had developed.
I enlisted the support of my colleague Dave Briggs, who I know had run this game before, and set about preparing the cards in accordance with the guidelines on the SocialMedia Wiki. A copy of the cards is included in the attached PDF.
The following is a detailed explanation of the process we followed for the workshop which others may want to adopt or adapt if they are considering using this game, which I can recommend as a fun way of learning about the benefits and implications of using social media tools for engagement and collaboration.
Purpose of the workshop.
A simple but fun game that enables participants to discuss the merits of different social media tools and their utility and effectiveness in solving various real-world problems. The workshop will help delegates get a better appreciation of social media tools and the issues that need to be considered when deploying the tools in different situations.
Process
Step1:
The delegates were split into three teams of roughly 7 people in each team. Each team was asked to describe a scenario (a project, problem or requirement) related to their work environment. This was set out on an A3 piece of paper structured as follows:
Scenario – a description of the issue/problem.
Location - scope of influence, e.g. within a department, across depts., local, regional, national.
People - the people affected by the issue/problem.
Other considerations – any other influences or issues that might be relevant to resolving the issue/problem)
Each team was then asked to think of a number between 7 and 15 and write this number on their respective A3 sheets. The reasoning for this is given later.
Step 2:
One member from each team was asked to join one of the other teams and explain the scenario to that team. In effect they were acting as a ‘customer’ and the team they had just joined were now ‘consultants’. Each team was now working on one of the other team’s scenarios and not the one they developed themselves.
Each of the teams was given a set of social media cards, one side of which defined the functionality and on the other side an explanation of the application and the considerations for its use. Each team then set about solving the problem described in the scenario using a selection of the cards. Each of the cards had a points weighting which represented a nominal budget for using that particular feature. At this stage the number defined in step 1 was revealed as the budget for each consultancy team. Each team were required to deliver their solution within this budget, or to justify to their ‘customers’ any reason for exceeding the budget.
Step 3:
Having worked out their respective solutions each team explained their reasoning to the team that had originally generated a scenario, i.e. their customers. The customers were then asked to verify whether the solution met their requirements and could ask the consultant to clarify any points. Any budget overrun had to be justified by the consultants and agreed by the customers.
Step 4:
The final part of this game was a plenary feedback session on any lessons learnt and whether the teams had found the process useful in gaining a better understanding of how social media tools can be used to solve real-world problems, why some social media tools would not be appropriate in some circumstances.
I can recommend this game to anyone who wants to introduce the concepts of social media to their audience whilst at the same time making it a collaborative and fun learning process.
The following abstract is from “Social Networking Literacy Competencies for Librarians: Exploring Considerations and Engaging Participationâ€, 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.
Twitter is the fastest growing social network at the moment and gaining increasing credibility as the ‘killer app’ for 2009. Here Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, speaking at TED, describes how the project got started and how its development is continually shaped by user-driven innovations. From its original concept as a simple messaging tool it is increasingly being used to gather and disseminate information on news-breaking events. Sharing of information through the use of of hashtags is just one of the many user innovations discussed in the video.
The open API has fired the ingenuity of many small start-ups and entrepeneurs, and I see an incresing number of new applications being developed in the coming months (I’ve lost count of the number of ‘top 100 Twitter apps’ tweets from the twitterverse). It’s great to see such a buzz, and think that we’re well into the ‘Early Majority’ phase of the Everett Rogers diffusion model. As more people use it, more innovative ideas are developed with potential benefit for everyone. It will interesting to see how many new Twitter apps get developed this year. I’m guessing several thousand!
The IDeA Communities of Practice platform (CoPs) won first prize in its category at the National e-Government Awards in the prestigious setting of at the Guildhall, London on Tuesday 20th January. The e-Government awards are supported by the Cabinet Office, SOCITM and SOLACE, and recognise excellence in public sector IT and transformational e-Govt projects.
See also John’s IDeA Blog for photos of John Hayes, Michael Norton, Lawrence Hall and me picking up the award.
CoPs was short-listed as finalist in two categories, and won under ‘e-Government Excellence: Professionalism & Leadership’ (Leading e-Government strategies and professional development which contribute to achieving positive transformation).
There were 588 entrants to the e-government awards, with CoPs being one of only 11 winners receiving the UK’s highest level commendation for the best e-government and technology-driven services. It was also pleasing to hear Gordon Brown, in his recorded speech for the evening, reference the good work that online communities had been achieving for government over the previous year.
This is some recognition (at last!) for the work I’ve been engaged on at the IDeA for these past 3 year’s, ably supported by the Knowledge Management team, and not forgetting all of the many excellent community managers and facilitators who keep the communities buzzing.
The CoP platform currently supports over 26,000 registered users across the UK public sector, and more than 600 individual CoPs, collaborating on policy initiatives, developing good/next practice for public sector service improvement or just sharing knowledge and ideas.
There was a brief mention in Gordon Brown’s videolink speech about on-line communities. I’d like to thik he had the CoP platform in mind when he said it!
I came across this potentially useful compilation of the 100 most popular sites mashing up and remixing Twitter, as measured by the number of bookmarks at Del.icio.us. Thanks to the Museum of Modern Betas Labs for this list.
