Tell Your Tale With Storify No comments yet

A Story To Tell

There are many people out there with a story to tell and with the many and variegated formats of expression available on the web those stories have a far higher likelihood of being told today than ever before. Whether it is a daring account of a money transfer which makes a mockery of current interest rates, or a detailed account of events over a lifespan, stories are cropping up in threads, posts and blogs with an ever increasing frequency.

The Skill of Telling a Story

There are many who still bemoan the death of oral tradition. That say social media has performed a death knell on the art form of human expression which was routinely performed at the water cooler, locker room or barstool. This skill of relating a tale with a mixture of suspense and expression which leaves the listener with a general sense of fulfilment, through the general babble of social media has been slowly ebbing away incoherently. Storify is a website which clearly seeks to redress this balance and allow users to tell stories by drawing in information, images, videos, podcasts and references from across the web to create stories with depth, dynamism and relevance. It allows users to create a new kind of story.

In Time Top 50

Launched in April 2011, Storify combines features or elements from a range of social media websites from the likes of Tumblr, Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter to create a story telling medium which allows users to draw on a range of resources to create a tale which can then be easily hooked up to all of the above. Although it has yet to become the latest trend, it has a plethora of users from across the globe and Time has placed it in the top 50 websites of 2011.

Two Sided Interface

The website operates in a two sided interface which allows you to compose your tale on one side and draw on existing resources from the web on the other. As is the current standard you can login using your Facebook or twitters account. The design is neat and easy to use with drag and drop handling which works equally well on a tablet, smartphone or laptop. You can search for and find content in the right-hand panels of the page and drag them across into the left-hand panel where you can compose your story.

Layout is Simple and Easy to Use

As stated the layout is simplicity itself. The interface includes a generous portion of whitespace and clear, easy to use functionality. On the right hand is the media panel which allows you to search for content using popular sources like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and Flickr. The search panel is also linked to Google to allow for full web search for content. The layout is in a tabbed format which allows content specific searches for information such as comments or images. When your search is successful you simply drag in the content that you want and add it to your story. A neat feature is the inclusion of bookmarking through the ‘Storify this’ function. This will add selected items to the storypad which will remain there until you select it to include in a story. Completed stories can be distributed directly to inboxes via email, uploaded onto Facebook or Twitter, or embedded onto a website or blog.

Copyright Issues

As with all stories through the history of time the issue of source, origin and ownership is one which is often questioned. As such the developers of Storify have addressed the issue slightly differently than some other similar curation services like Pinterest. The company does not hold any of the content that users curate on its servers. Instead the content that you access is uploaded from its original location. Through significantly intriguing algorithms the pages are uploaded expediently and the out sourcing of page content generally does not slow down the loading of stories. All posted content is also attributed to the source of origin.

Notification

In addition Storify does allow users the option to give the original creator notification when their content is being used. Currently this option is only enabled for content that has been curated from twitter. The creators have said that they wish to expand this feature to include a much wider range of content sources in the near future.

WordPress Plugin

WordPress users will be pleased to know that there is a Storify plugin that integrates all of Storify’s curation facilities within the WordPress dashboard.

Overcoming The Challenges of Internal Social Networking No comments yet

Guest Blog by Jennifer Smith

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.

Engaging the Social Web for Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) 3 comments

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.

Future Trends in Social Media & Social Networks 1 comment

I recently co-presented a session for NetIKX on “future trends in social media & social networks” with Geoffrey Mccaleb, with a solo follow-up Webinar for the Knowledge and Innovation Network (KIN). The content for this presentation was gleaned and curated from numerous sources, including books, white papers, vendor websites, industry reports and numerous blogs. In other words, not an insignificant research project in its own right.  I only mention this to illustrate one point – whether or not you agree with the content of the presentation, the data and trends described have – where possible – been validated against at least three different sources, and have not been artificially manipulated or otherwise obscured by personal opinion. Facts (if they are facts) on numbers of users for each social network are based on data made public by the vendors themselves, and oft-repeated by the industry press. It’s difficult to challenge this data where there is no independent reference source.

The Slides

The slides are available on Slideshare and embedded at the end of this blog. The following points provide some additional context to each slide.

1.  Cover slide – The Future
2. Wordle picture of the overall content.
3. Let’s start with some statistics
4. Big numbers with a common trend – they’re all getting bigger! Two thirds of the world’s population visits a social network at least once a month.  Facebook has 800 million users and is projected to reach 1 billion users by the end of 2012.  With the rollout of its Timeline feature, and the development of apps that integrate with it, Facebook’s strategic focus is now to encourage users to spend more time on the site, sharing more information with their social contacts. Data mainly sourced from  http://royal.pingdom.com/2012/01/17/internet-2011-in-numbers/
5. At present, Google+ reaches 90 million global visitors, accounting for 5 percent of the global social networking audience. While this early adoption bodes well for Google+, whether or not the network can sustain this growth and a strong level of engagement among users will be better indicators of its success in the future. Google+ might emerge as a social networking leader in its own right in the years to come, but exactly how big it will be remains to be seen. Twitter reports 225 million accounts (note that an “account” might not be a physical person; bots make up some of this number). LinkedIn reports 132 million users (mainly B2B). Data sourced from Comscore , CNN and phill.co . There’s some interesting commentary about the accuracy of Google’s data at Venturebeat.
6. With more than 800 million users, Facebook is running into a nice problem to have: There are only so many more people to add. While the site will continue to grow in emerging markets that are only now getting online, Mark Zuckerberg has shifted the conversation to sharing and engagement, arguing that sharing on Facebook grows exponentially and that users will double the amount they share each year. That sharing is driving users to spend more time on site — the average Facebook user now spends nearly 7.5 hours on the site each month, up from 4.5  hours just two years ago. With the arrival of Timeline, increased focus on media and entertainment consumption, and continued growth in social games, engagement will surge even further in 2012. Also see: “Facebook adds Pinterest + 59 new apps”
7. New models for engagement. Based on an original ideas by Dion Hinchcliffe. Ambient communication – Today, everyone can talk to anyone, just about anywhere for nearly (thought not at) at zero cost. Global information flows – The largest, fastest growing, and most freely flowing source of information available is the Internet. This trend will only continue into the future as all information platforms move online. Social computing – Social models for communication, collaboration, and business are proving to be more effective and fundamentally better than non-social ones. Market discontinuity – There is both space and demand for major changes in the way we do things in business today.
8. Nearly 1 in every 5 minutes spent online is now spent on social networking sites – a stark contrast from when the category accounted for only 6 percent of time spent online in March 2007. Time spent on social networking sites gained ground during this time by taking share predominantly from web-based email and instant messengers, reflecting its emergence as another primary communication channel for users. Ornoklassniki is a Russian Social Networking website. Sina Weibo is a Chinese site. Data sourced from Comscore.
9. While sites like Digg and Reddit have been around for years, a new crop of sites like Polyvore, Svpply and, most notably, Pinterest are allowing people to organize their favourite discoveries from around the web into themed collections that friends and contacts can follow. Pinterest has seen phenomenal growth over past 12 months, proving that social media continues to evolve, bringing new opportunities for multimedia social platforms. It appears that sites that offer new and personalised user experiences can have a major influence on social sharing and internet traffic. There’s a very useful introduction to Pinterest in this Slideshare presentation from the US Army (yes, surprising who’s using this stuff!).
10. Content curation is the organising, filtering and “making sense of” information on the web and sharing the very best with your network. Examples include paper.li, scoop.it, Flipboard and Storify. If you want to get further information about content curation, read this article by Robin Good – What Makes A Great Curator Great…
11. Collaborative Consumption describes the rapid explosion in swapping, sharing, bartering, trading and renting being reinvented through the latest technologies and peer-to-peer marketplaces in ways and on a scale never possible before. Examples given included Barclays Bikes, Zipcar, Airbnb and TaskRabbit – but there are many hundreds of other P2P services out there, and growing exponentially. Incidentally, the most requested task on TaskRabbit is for assembling IKEA furniture, so if you’re an expert on that, go earn yourslef some money! Specifically, much of the material originates from the book “What’s Mine Is Yours” by Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers. Reputational Capital (i.e. who can we trust) will be increasingly important the more that we use the internet for transactional services.
12. Big Data – ok, not specific to social media or social networks, but big enough to impact both.
13. Big data are datasets that grow so large that they become awkward to work with using on-hand database management tools. Difficulties include capture, storage, search, sharing, analytics ,and visualising. This trend continues because of the benefits of working with larger and larger datasets allowing analysts to spot business trends, prevent diseases and combat crime. Though a moving target, current limits are on the order of terabytes, exabytes and zettabytes of data.Scientists regularly encounter this problem in meteorology, genomics, connectomics, complex physics simulations,  biological research, Internet search, finance and business informatics. Data sets also grow in size because they are increasingly being gathered by ubiquitous information-sensing mobile devices, “software logs, cameras, microphones, RFID readers, wireless sensor networks and so on. One current feature of big data is the difficulty working with it using relational databases and desktop statistics/visualization packages, requiring instead “massively parallel software running on tens, hundreds, or even thousands of servers.”The size of “Big data” varies depending on the capabilities of the organisation managing the set. “For some organizations, facing hundreds of gigabytes of data for the first time may trigger a need to reconsider data management options. For others, it may take tens or hundreds of terabytes before data size becomes a significant consideration.” NB. Bus stop photo:  Bus users in Blackburn can now receive up-to-the minute information on the whereabouts of their buses following the launch of a pilot project by Blackburn with Darwen Council and bus operator Transdev Lancashire United.
14. The increasing use of visualisation techniques,  infographics and smart analytics that enable complex data to be presented in new and interesting ways.
15. Some people – wrongly – see gamification simply as the process of adding points, badges or rewards to the learning process and instantly creating engagement, interactivity and motivation for learning. When done correctly, gamification provides an experience that is inherently engaging and, most importantly, promotes learning. The elements of games that make for effective gamification are those of storytelling, which provides a context, challenge, immediate feedback, sense of curiosity, problem-solving, a sense of accomplishment, autonomy and mastery. Examples here include Big Door, Gamify-it, Scvngr and Badgeville.
16. It would be remiss to say nothing about the trend towards mobile platforms. People are now free from the shackles of the office PC.
17. We’re now at least 3 years into the next major technology trend – mobile.
18. Morgan Stanley made the prediction in 2010 that mobile platforms would outstrip sales of traditional desktop systems within 5 years. The enormous success of Apple’s iPhone and iPad may even have accelerated this timescale.
19. More people own mobile phones than toothbrushes!  There will be 7 billion mobile phones by 2012 – more than the global population. More than 4 billion people around the world now use cell phones, and for 500 million the web is a fully mobile experience.
20. Apps – not just for gamers any more. Apps offer an entirely new business model. Users are now far more comfortable using apps for solving business problems and organisations are developing apps that are providing a richer experience for users of their on-line services. Also an opportunity to lower transactional costs (e.g. when compared to telephone or F2F support). Users have no particular loyalty to apps, and will discard the ones that no longer serve a useful purpose and download or update the the ones that do.
21. The traditional vendor software development priorities of designing for the PC with (maybe) the mobile platform in mind are being reversed; any new product or application must work (and be optimised for) mobile platforms, with (maybe) the PC in mind.
22. The trends reinforce the view that apps are becoming ubiquitous in how we work and play. Users are comfortable with the software distribution and update models offered by app stores.
23. Location-based services (LBS). Product and service providers are realising the value and potential to make information services highly personalised. One of the best ways to personalise information services is to enable them to be location based. An example would be someone using their smart phone or tablet to search for a restaurant. The LBS application would interact with other location technology components to determine the user’s location and provide a list of restaurants within a certain proximity to the mobile user. Services such as Foursquare go one step further and link location with your social network, so that you can see if you have any friends within your vicinity. Other examples include using a GPS-equipped smartphone to reveal your location and in return offered special promotions from nearby businesses, or the Easy:park – smartphone app, which enables payment via smartphone and a countdown timer showing how long is left. A future release will find an available parking slot based on your GPS location – a must for the city motorist!
24. Augmented reality (AR) is a live, direct or indirect, view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data. It is related to a more general concept called mediated reality, in which a view of reality is modified (possibly even diminished rather than augmented) by a computer. As a result, the technology functions by enhancing one’s current perception of reality. Examples shown here include New York Nearest Places,  Golfranger GPS Rangefinder, Cyclopedia, Panaramascope, Theodolite, Starchart.

Summary

The remaining slides summarise the overall trends:

Bookmarks associated with the presentation can be seen at: http://groups.diigo.com/group/ki-network/content/tag/webinar06jan12

Other blog posts from the session:

• NetIKX
• Information Today

I hope this information is of some use – whether you’re dipping your toes into or fully immersed in the Social Web!

The Sunday Times Social List No comments yet

I’m still undecided about these services and applications that purport to measure your social influence (or social equity), mainly because there is very little transparency of the algorithms they use to determine where you rank amongst the “crowd” (understandable I guess, to avoid people manipulating their score), but do I really want to add to my stress levels if I suddenly see my ranking going through the floor?

However, I will admit to dabbling with this stuff, mainly to try and discover whether there is something useful to be learned, or some benefit to be gained. I could imagine that if I was amongst the top ten in the social list I might get some interesting offers from various marketing departments to push their products – but do I want to do that with social media? NO! But I can see this might be a driver for some people.

I subscribed to Klout some time ago, and though I try not to get too obsessive about by my score I’m intrigued to find out what it may actually mean and what activities have an influence on it. For example, can quality of content be assessed and weighted above quantity? I’m not one of the people who like to Tweet about what they’ve had for breakfast, or what they’re thinking now. The algorithms are supposedly based on engagement and reach, which may partly resolve the quality issue (assuming that someone who tweets about their breakfast is not going to get re-tweeted to any significant degree).

Anyway, I felt compelled to try out the recently launched The Sunday Times Social List a “definitive and ever evolving list of who’s who in the world of social networking” according to the blurb. I know I’ll never get onto the Sunday Times Rich List, so maybe this is the next best thing – to be socially rich is not without some merit.

Drawing information from the four biggest social networks – Foursquare, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook – The Sunday Times Social List system adds up your social networking activity and measures how much interest it generates amongst your friends and colleagues in order to work out how well you score.

Free to join, participants simply need to link up whichever social networks they use and want to be included. Every morning The Sunday Times Social List will make its calculations.

To help people see where they are in the grand scheme of things, they are allocated a rank when they join and a badge that goes with it. This could change from ‘Fledgling’ through to the top spot, ‘Titan’, over time, depending on how well they are doing.

If anyone has any views on these services – good or bad – I’d be interested to hear from you. As I said, I’m still trying to work out whether social equity does have a value, and if so how should it be used for the greater good.

Online Information Conference – Interview with Knowledgespeak No comments yet

The Online Information Conference is scheduled to run from 30th November to 2nd December. This is my first year as Conference Chairman, so mixed feeelings at present of anticipation and trepidation! The following is a pre-conference interview I gave to Knowledgespeak.

1. Can you briefly talk about the Online Information? Also, can you share with us any interesting events / trends for the 2010 Conference?

Online Information is the largest UK event dedicated to the information industry, providing an annual meeting place for more than 9,000 attendees from over 40 countries across the globe.  This unique free-to-attend event consists of an exhibition with more than 200 international exhibitors, an extensive educational show floor seminar programme, plus a range of exciting and stimulating show features.  Focusing on new technologies and key sectors, the show covers 6 different subject areas: Content Resources, ePublishing Solutions, Library Management, Content Management, Search Solutions and Social Media.

Online Information feature areas are set to be a major highlight of the 2010 event.  The XML Pavilion, launched in 2009, is back and the Library Management Zone is being introduced for the first time, adding a new dimension to the event.  The all new Library Management Zone plays host to exhibitors covering Library Systems, Library Security and RFID, and offers visitors the chance to view a wide range of library products.  The Library Management Zone has been introduced to give exhibition visitors the opportunity to get to grips with new systems and technologies designed specifically for library environments.  Other established and highly popular feature areas include, Global Business Information Forum and the European Librarians Theatre and International Forums. There will be a high percentage of new services and products for attendees to see with many regular high profile exhibitors showing new and evolved products plus we are delighted to welcome a high number of new exhibiting companies to Online this year.

2. The 2009 Online Information conference focused on innovation and emerging technologies. Briefly talk about this year’s theme – Discover new ways of working in the linked and social web.

I think most of us will agree that the velocity of change, both social and technological – has increased over the past 10 years and shows no sign of slowing down. The internet is giving us unprecedented access to information, and knowledge. New tools, applications and social networks are opening up opportunities for people to connect and collaborate far more effectively than ever before. Traditional red brick business models are gradually being replaced by lightweight “micro” businesses that use web services to provide scalability and agility.

Coupled with this we’re seeing a revolution in the use of open and linked data. Driven primarily by the public sector in response to the expectations of citizens for greater transparency in government, social innovators are using this data to create value-added applications, e.g. linking socio-demographic data with maps to show visual hot-spots.

All of this is driving rapid behaviour change in both society and the workplace. What can we discover from users and organisations that are in the midst of these changes? How are users and business adapting to this changing information and technology landscape. What innovative new products and working practices are emerging from the disruptive effects of these changes? This year’s conference will be looking at all of these issues, with presentations and an insight from some of the industry’s leading thinkers.

3. The 2010 conference features four tracks that will address important industry trends, technologies and other pressing issues. Can you briefly talk about these individual track sessions?

Of course I would be glad to, in no particular order:

Exploiting open and linked data
Introduced as a track in its own right in 2009 and of growing importance especially in the public sector; open and linked data is creating new opportunities for information professionals and the creation of new information services and products

Harnessing opportunity from the social web and the cloud

Although the use of social media is now mainstream in many organisations there are still barriers and limitations that are preventing the benefits of social media to be fully realised. This track gets to the heart of the issues with many real world experiences.

Information Professionals demonstrating value and impact

In economically straitened times when information services are under scrutiny information professionals need to be able to demonstrate value and impact to justify their existence, focus will be on challenges facing academic libraries and new projects that are using cutting edge technologies to deliver positive bottom line results.

New platforms and user behaviours for delivering content

Focusing on using mobile and the cloud to deliver information services, how are libraries and organisations using these technologies, what are the opportunities, how will these technologies change the future role of the information professional?

4. How, in your opinion, have the needs of information-consumers evolved in the recent few years? How is the Online Information Conference evolving accordingly?

As noted earlier, the internet is giving us unprecedented access to information, and knowledge. Over the past several years we’ve seen the barriers to publishing lowered, which has triggered enormous growth in non-curated information, e.g. from personal blogs and Twitter feeds. Consumers now expect information to be delivered in almost real-time, which continues to be a challenge for the traditional publishing models. We can perhaps recall that the first pictures and information from the 7/7/05 London bombings came from people at the scene, via blogs and tweets from mobile devices. Everyone is now a potential news reporter. Coupled with this we have the “Google effect”, where the perception is that information can be found within seconds of a search query being submitted. Accuracy and objectivity of the information has become secondary to speed and access.

Curated knowledge and information sources, e.g. media, information vendors, academic institutions, have come under increasing pressure to show their value. This is driving innovative ways of delivering information and new products (e.g. Library services) through digital channels, with many of these organisations tapping into the social web to connect with and get closer to potentially new consumers.

The Online Information Conference maintains links with people, experts and organisations across the whole spectrum of knowledge and information creation, curation and publication in order to identify emerging trends and innovations. This ensures that for each conference we have a blend of practice-based experience and thought leadership from recognized experts. In this way, we maintain an eye on the future whilst utilizing the vast experience of the present and past to provide context to where the industry is headed, and how information consumers will be affected.

5. Lately, we have seen that new leaders are emerging with the vision to adapt or change their business models to embrace the opportunities created by the social web and the cloud. What are the implications of these generational changes in technology and online networks and do you see the Online Conference as a venue for sharing information about these changes?

Take-up and adoption of social computing is following the standard Rogers Adoption/Innovation Curve (Innovators, Early Adopters, Early Majority, Late Majority, Laggards). Cloud computing is probably still at the early adopters stage, though one could argue that the social web is now well within the bell curve of early and late majority. Some commentators have likened the disruptive effects of social computing to the industrial revolution of the early 19^th century. The main difference now is that whereas large Enterprise used to lead technology innovation, it’s now being driven bottom-up by users and consumers. We’re now all connected and far more willing and able to share knowledge and co-create.

The technology we use at home is often far more advanced than what we use in the workplace. We’re using mobile devices (iPhones etc.) that give us instant access to the web, and have a choice of literally hundreds of thousands of applications that support our on-line activities and lifestyles. Some business leaders and organisations (e.g. Amazon) recognized this shift to consumerism long before we used the term “social web” or “Web 2.0″ and developed or adapted business models that could leverage this increasing connectivity and scalability of the web. The phenomenon was adequately described in Chris Anderson’s book “The Long Tail”.

So, whether we’ve realized it or not, consumers are now driving the technology revolution and business is trying to keep up. Organisations and businesses that fail to grasp the opportunities of the social web will be at a disadvantage to those that do. We’re already seeing evidence of this in various research reports.[1]

We can therefore anticipate further and rapid “socio-technology” change going forward. One emerging trend is the increase in “micro-businesses”, i.e. those that can service large numbers of customers with limited resources, utilising web services to provide scalability (e.g. witness the number of businesses that have been created on the back of Twitter).

The Online Information Conference will continue to monitor and analyse the knowledge and information management landscape, and through our extensive network of industry practitioners, academics and thought leaders, will provide a place and time to share knowledge and facilitate honest debate about the impact of the social web.

Thriving as a 21st Century Information Professional No comments yet

I will be addressing the Network for Information and Knowledge Exchange (NetIKX) members at their meeting on Wednesday 29^th September about the challenges and opportunities facing information professionals in today’s information rich, time poor environment. To some extent this is going back to my roots, having been more closely involved in the dark arts of knowledge management (and specifically on-line communities) these past few years. However, information management and knowledge management are two sides of the same coin, and I’ve always made the connections between them when talking about either.

I quite like simple definitions, so for anyone confused by the terms “information management” and “knowledge management”, here’s a useful pointer:

Information Management is about organising stuff..

..Knowledge Management isn’t!

So, having cleared up any confusion there, I’ll just mention that my presentation to NetIKX will be about organising yourself to become more knowledge aware. The full synopsis (an oxymoron?) of the presentation is as follows:

The volume of information continues to grow at an exponential rate; new tools, products and web services appear almost daily. The recession has hit hard but nothing seems to stem the tide of innovation. If anything, the economic climate has fuelled even greater innovation and allowed companies to be even more radical in the way they use the information tools and platforms now available. These are challenging times for the information professional. We all need to be able to work smarter, acquiring and developing the skills to become more effective knowledge and information workers. The talk/presentation will pinpoint the tools and behaviours that can help us develop and sharpen our skills and embrace the opportunities for collaboration and knowledge sharing now available. Specifically:

• how to develop the filters and lenses to overcome ‘information overload’
• understanding the barriers to engagement and collaboration and how to overcome them
• how we can break down the information/knowledge silos that exist in the organisation
• how ‘Web 2.0′ and ‘Social Media’ tools can support personalized learning and self development

I will make the slides available on slideshare subsequent to the meeting, but don’t want to spoil any surprises (and there are some) by posting prematurely. Suffice to say I’ve identified five key steps to help information professionals make the most of the information-rich environment we now live in, and how to tap into and connect with the ‘networks of knowledge’ that are fast becoming the fundamental DNA of the social web. On a slightly more provocative note, I will also challenge the perception that we are indeed information rich and time poor; trends over the past several hundred years have given us increasingly more leisure time – it comes down to how we as individuals use this time. Much food for thought!

If any of this stirs your interest or curiosity, come along to the session on 29^th September.

A note from the organisers:

If you are a NetIKX Member there is no charge. Non Members are welcome to attend at a charge of £50. If you have not attended a NetIKX meeting before we are offering a reduced fee of £25, refundable if you join, so that anyone interested in joining NetIKX can come along and try us out. join NetIKX now

Web 2.0 tools for facilitating knowledge management 3 comments

Having run a number of social media workshops for UK Local Government over the past few months, I will be focusing specifically on how social media and social networking (Web 2.0) can support the development of personal learning – ‘Knowledge Management’ at the forthcoming TFPL training event on 24th March 2010 – open to both public and private sector organisations.

There has been considerable interest in this training so I’m anticipating that there may be a few more courses shceduled in the coming year.

Details of the training below:

introduction:

There is a growing recognition but not yet a consensus about integrating Web 2.0 technologies into an organisation’s workflows and business processes. There is a desire to develop more effective knowledge sharing and a culture of collaboration amongst staff, but little recognition of what this means in terms of organisational change. Successful organisations need to be agile and able to adapt to an increasingly volatile environment. They are more likely to achieve this where conversations can flow and opportunities exist for collaboration and co-creation. In essence, we all need to be collaboration ‘superstars’. The problem is, collaboration is a skill and set of practices that rarely gets 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 Web 2.0 tools and techniques that will support more effective collaboration and knowledge sharing, and will give greater confidence to staff that may be on the periphery of the socio-technology changes that are becoming increasingly prevalent in both their professional and private lives.

outcomes:

• An understanding of social networks and social media and the overlap between personal and professional identities.
• An understanding of the barriers to knowledge sharing and collaboration and how these can be overcome.
• Creation of a personalised social computing toolkit to support on-going learning and development in collaborative tools and techniques.

programme:

• Social networks, privacy, digital orientations and the increasing overlap between personal and business networking.
• Risk and rewards in on-line engagement and collaboration.
• What does effective collaboration look like and what skills are needed to be an effective collaborator?
• Micro-blogging (e.g. Twitter) and its role as a business tool.
• Social Media Game – a fun game which introduces delegates to the various social media tools, how they can be used to solve real business problems, and the pros and cons of the deployment of these tools.
• The power of social bookmarking for knowledge sharing and collaboration.
• A practical introduction to Web 2.0 collaboration tools, including Google Apps, Blogs and Wikis.
• A practical introduction to social networks and social media, including Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr and Slideshare.
• Tools and techniques for developing and fostering successful communities of practice.
• Building a personalised collaboration toolkit.

Please contact me or TFPL if you are interested in attending a future course, or having a tailored training event for your organisation.

Say No To Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) 6 comments

No to IE6

I’ve often wondered why there isn’t more of a groundswell of discontent amongst users who have no other choice but to use Internet Explorer version 6 (IE6) as their interface to the web world. I’m thinking primarily of public sector workers who probably had this installed on their PCs several years ago along with the perfunctory use of Sharepoint.  I have to assume that in most cases they don’t know what they are missing with Social Web enabled browsers such as Firefox or Chrome.  Maybe there are some (a minority?) who do use alternative or more up to date browsers on their home PCs and laptops who do feel the frustration of stepping back in time whenever they enter their workplace, but I don’t think they have yet organised themselves into a sufficiently powerful lobbying group that will create the conditions for change.

Thanks to the efforts of Tom Watson MP, at least the issue has been given some focus in central government, subsequent to a series of parliamentary questions he raised requesting information about plans to upgrade from IE6. The underlying reason for the requests was that IE6 is not only less secure than later versions of the browser, but it limits or prevents staff making effective use of social media. Tom quite rightly thought that this was a potential staff productivity issue.  It’s slightly paradoxical that the one department who should be most worried about security is the only department that has no plans for upgrading.

MOD sticks with insecure browser: According to parliamentary written answers received by Labour MP Tom Watson, the majority of departments still require staff to use IE6. Most have plans to upgrade to the more secure IE7, and some to IE8, but the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has no plans to change.

But where is the voice of Local Government?  Who is lobbying for change in local councils? It’s all very quiet over at the LGA, “the voice of the local government sector” to quote from their website.  Maybe they don’t see this as cost-saving measure, which is perhaps understandable if you take the short term (some may argue ‘myopic’) view.  I’m assuming here that reluctance to upgrade from IE6 is likely to be because of cost; most internal websites (e.g. intranets) within Gov/Local Gov will have been tailored to work with the IE6 browser, and since IE6 did not follow W3C standards (Microsoft deciding at the time that they were above following any standard other than their own), any other browser type (Firefox, Opera, Safari etc.) would not render the content correctly. They (Microsoft) have since seen the error of their ways and have fallen into line with globally agreed standards when they released IE7 and IE8. The problem will be making changes to all of the legacy websites to work correctly with a new browser version.

From this perspective yes, there is a cost, but what appears to have been forgotten is that any new web services or enhancements to existing websites have to be made backwards compatible to IE6. I can speak with a bit of authority here because I’ve been involved with the development of the IDEA Communities of Practice platform over the past 5 years. I know for a fact that for every change and enhancement to the website, around 15-20% of the cost goes into making it work with IE6. I estimate this to have cost almost £100k over the 5 years. If we took these same figures, i.e. 15-20% of website development costs going into ensuring compatibility with IE6, multiplied by the 400 or so local authority websites (and not even counting the fire services, the police and other agency websites) we end up with a pretty significant cost.  I’m not quite sure how this squares with the LGA’s priority for 2009/100 of “Efficiency and value for money”.

But don’t take my word for it. Perhaps this article from Craig Grannell sums the issue up more succinctly than I can, abstract below:

Craig Grannell asks designers and developers if it’s finally time to take IE6 behind the shed and shoot it.

Many argue that IE6 hinders development, due to the number of hacks required to get sites working in it. Opera web evangelist Bruce Lawson goes further, squarely blaming IE6 for “hindering the development of the web”, due to its lack of support for advanced CSS and XHTML. Many in the industry tell such tales: horror stories of a third of a site’s development time taken up by dealing with IE6; major display issues requiring a partial site rebuild, despite everything looking fine in all other browsers; elements randomly disappearing entirely due to the ‘hasLayout’ bug. “If anything, things will get worse, since we’re now battling three versions: 6, 7 and 8,” says Tom Muller of Kleber. “They all display content slightly differently and we regularly work up a site in Firefox or Safari, only to spend a day figuring out why our valid, semantic code doesn’t render correctly in Internet Explorer.”

But aside from cost, there is the other issue I alluded to at the start of this article, i.e. productivity of staff.  We’re increasingly recognising the power of social media tools and the social web to connect people with similar interests; to improve collaboration and knowledge sharing; to get a better understanding of what people think about gov/local gov services and how they can be improved.  We need to give staff working in the public sector access to the same tools and facilities that ordinary citizens are using to connect, share and collaborate.  Doing nothing is not an option, and is likely to make the gap between technologies that are available a private user and what is available to a public sector worker even greater.  Fore example:

YouTube to stop IE6 support: YouTube will no longer support Internet Explorer 6, TechRadar can confirm, with Google beginning to roll out warnings to those accessing the video site that they should update to a better browser.

Google Docs, Google sites dropping support for IE6

And I’m sure we’re going to be seeing a lot of similar announcements in the coming year.

So, what do we do about it (if we’re passionate enough about the topic)?

1. I’d like to see a similar survey to that instigated by Tom Watson for central government, but this time getting information on council plans for upgrading from IE6. However, I assume this may have to be through the Freedom of Information route, since I’m not aware if or how a parliamentary question would solicit this information – unless CLG were obliged to supply it on behalf of all local councils in England and Wales.
2. In anticipation of cost being the main barrier for most councils, I’d like to see a policy agreed whereby staff could use an alternative browser for accessing social media websites and as a general productivity tool, whilst still using IE6 for accessing internally-dependent websites, thus circumnavigating the issues of cost. If necessary, and to accommodate the natural desire of IT departments to lock down all installed software, staff or their department could make the business case for having Firefox installed and then IT enable this as a Group Policy.
3. I’d  be interested to know where SOCITM stood on this issue, and whether they felt passionate enough about it to be a catalyst for change. After all, they are representing the IT managers. I have in fact written to them recently to solicit their views on all of this.

Other than this, I can only encourage those who are directly affected by their company’s/organisation’s reluctance to recognise this as an important issue to be tackled this year, to lobby their managers for change, and to join together in making more a of a noise. Maybe a bit of crowd-sourcing in the Social Web!

Discovering the value of Social Networks and Communities of Practice 4 comments

There has been much written about measuring the value of online communities such as Social Networks or Communities of Practice.  However, most pundits tend to think of measuring value from a purely financial perspective, i.e. the Return on Investment (ROI).  Clearly this is an important factor, but it’s not the only factor that should be considered. Surprisingly few organisations consider the value that is being created by having better informed and more knowledgeable staff, or the potential value of getting closer to customers and local communities. These latter factors are quite difficult to measure in terms of ROI, and will normally take more than one business cycle (e.g. a financial year) before any meaningful financial measures can be made. Unfortunately – and especially in today’s financial climate – organisations plan around 1 or 2 year business years, whereas online communities will not usually be time-limited, and very rarely be driven by finance and budgets. Allowing for the relatively small cost of bandwidth and technology, conversations are – for the most part – deemed to be free.

I was pleased to see that Matt Rhodes over at Freshnetworks did refer to non-financial ROI, though I would have liked to have seen more emphasis on the value that is generated for the members of these online communities, rather than the usual social media impact measures (numbers of page hits, numbers of conversations etc.) – important as these are, and adequately illustrated in the accompanying presentation.

I have taken a slightly different approach to the issue of how the value of online communities is measured, giving more emphasis to the discovery of value rather than the dispassionate assembly of a series of metrics – financial or otherwise. I should also add that the perspective is on public sector communities since this is where I’ve been primarily engaged over the past few years. The main points are covered in a presentation I gave to the Public Health Information Network Conference earlier this year and reproduced below:

1. We need to distinguish between cost and value.

I used the humble nutmeg to illustrate this point. Weight for weight more valuable than gold in 17th century Europe. The spice was held to have powerful medicinal properties. It rocketed in price when physicians in Elizabethan London claimed that their nutmeg pomanders were the only certain cure for the plague. So, cost was very high, but the value? Well, despite the assertions of the medical experts of the day, it certainly didn’t cure the plague!

The point is reinforced by the following quotations:

I conceive that the great part of the miseries of mankind are brought upon them by false estimates they have made of the value of things.
Benjamin Franklin 1706-1790.

A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.

Oscar Wilde 1854 – 1900.

2.  We are more likely to find and create value from the communities we choose for ourselves than the communities we are compelled to join.

I have argued that one of the key characteristics of a Community of Practice is the fact that the members are self-selected, i.e. they are there because they want to be there and not because they have to be there. They may select to become members because they share the same interests, passions and goals as the other members. A successful CoP will create value for the members – either collectively in terms of working towards a common goal or objective, or personally, e.g. through self-development or sharing knowledge.

3. We are re-discovering networks and communities and through them, re-learning how to have conversations.

It’s sad fact that 20^th century working practices and pressures of modern life have led to a sense of personal isolation. Mass production, prescriptive and repetitive tasks and limited social opportunities in the workplace have created a workforce conditioned to think and act as a corporate entity, limiting individual aspirations and creative thought.  The opportunities for sharing information and knowledge have been gradually eroded over the past 50 years; social clubs have closed; people don’t have the time (or money) to regularly socialise after work; we are increasingly driven by task-oriented emails.

What is sometimes forgotten is that professional communities, where good and notable practice is shared amongst fellow artisans, are still flourishing today in the form of Worshipful Companies (over 800 in London alone), with most having existed for many hundreds of years. Communities of Practice are not new; they’ve just discovered they can exist in a virtual world. The key issue for many people though, is learning how to have on-line conversations.  The following points from one of the slides are worth re-iterating:

• We don’t know what we don’t know
• People don’t learn from content – they learn from other people.
• We don’t know the value of knowledge until it is shared
• We need to find where the conversations are happening….and join in!

And…

Dialogue is NOT:

• Discussion, deliberation, negotiation
• Committee, team, task or working group
• Majority wins, minority dominance, groupthink

Dialogue IS:

• Free-flowing exchange of ideas among equals
• All ideas are solicited and are considered
• Best ideas rise to the top

4. ROI doesn’t just mean ‘Return on Investment’

I’ve taken the liberty of using something I once heard Euan Semple say: “Keep the I small and the R will look after itself”. I think this is a good mantra because anyone worth their salt in the Social Media/Social Web world knows that implementing a social media strategy doesn’t have to cost a fortune. The days of multi-million pound corporate websites is fast diminishing, and anyone with this amount of money to spend is going to be quite rightly questioned on ROI – and they better make sure they have the answers.

I’ve given some alternative definitions for ROI, such as:

• Return on Influence
• Return on Interaction
• Return on Impact

These are the things which should be measured for value, and add a different dimension to the traditional financial measures.

5. Recognise that value to the organisation is different from value to the individual.

There is an over-emphasis on measuring value of online communities from the organisational perspective. I’ve given a (financial) example in the slides, using cost savings of online conferences as an example.  However, it is important to remember that there is also a value to the individual in being a member of an online community, and this aspect often goes unrecognised (and unmeasured). The value or benefit to a community member is quite difficult to measure (the member may not be able to articulate or recognise what knowledge they have gained from the community) and any outcomes may not be easily aligned with corporate goals (e.g. job satisfaction). It is nevertheless important to consider this dimension in any overall value measurement. Qualitative metrics can provide some answers, but it’s also useful to examine quantitative data to gain a better understanding of the community itself, e.g.:

• Number of community members
• Number of contributions
• Number of contributors
• Number of inactive users

Having a Social Network Analysis (SNA) application is even better, since this can reveal who the key ‘nodes’ are in the community chatter. It’s a useful discipline to consider what would happen to the online community if these community members decided to leave the community. Dependency on one or two ‘power’ contributors should be recognised as a risk.

The presentation concludes with a number of lessons learnt from the IDeA CoP platform , which has now been active (and by all measures, successful) for over 3 years. It’s always useful to have a distilled list of “do’s” and “don’ts”, herewith reproduced:

Do…

• ..identify and look after your facilitators – they are quite often the difference between successful and unsuccessful communities
• ..let users drive their own experimentation and use of tools.
• ..target and support areas that have a clear desire and need.
• ..build trust and relationships face to face where possible.
• ..condition your managers for failure – not every CoP is going to be successful.
• ..use online conferences and ‘Hot Seats’ to build membership growth and encourage conversations.

Don’t…

• ..think you can force people to collaborate
• ..assume everyone understands how to use  Web2.0/social media tools.
• ..assume everyone knows how to contribute.
• ..worry about the ‘lurkers’.
• ..let command, control or hierarchy hamper or kill your community
• ..set unrealistic targets

I hope this has been helpful to anyone involved with social networks or communities of practice, and particularly those who need to show that their online communities are delivering value. Just remember there is more to ROI than finance!