Communities and Collaboration

Social Ecology: Evolution or Revolution? Part1

Posted on January 10, 2013 by Steve Dale

This is first in what I plan to be series of posts about the evolving social ecology, which embraces social media, social networks, communities of practice, enterprise collaboration technologies, social business and anything to do with social learning, collaboration, cooperation and sharing. Quite a wide remit I know, but I believe there is common thread flowing through all of these topics, memes and disciplines, namely the empowerment of people to take responsibility for their own personal and professional development.

The social ecology influences just about everything we do. From the way we communicate, get information, buy and sell, travel, live and learn, to our very health and wellbeing. For those who thrive on change this is might be perceived as just part of human evolution. For those less comfortable with the rapid and disruptive effects it is having on their lives, it might feel more like a revolution, i.e. something they can’t control or influence – and hence the title for this series of posts.

People, Environment or Technology?

Though we might like to think that “it’s the people, not the technology that matters”, the truth is that the two are now so inexorably linked in the developed world that it’s difficult to imagine how we could get anything done if technology was taken out of the equation.

Technology is changing the way organisations communicate with their employees, partners, stakeholders and customers. Email was the essential business tool in the 1980s, but we are now living in a world where people want to communicate and share on social networks such as Facebook, Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn. The Cloud has opened up opportunities for much more work to be done away from the traditional office environment. In fact, more and more knowledge workers expect data and information to be available anywhere, anytime and on any device.

This demand has fuelled the enormous growth in mobile and web Apps, and accessing and downloading apps is now a familiar and trusted process for owners of mobile devices (e.g. smartphones and tablets). More than six billion mobile phones are in use worldwide, enabling users to socialise online wherever they go and inspiring a new range of leisure and business applications. Smartphone adoption, which is projected to reach 50 per cent of consumers globally by 2015, will bring more than 1 billion new users online who may never access the Web from a personal computer. (McKinsey. The Social Economy: Unlocking value and productivity through social devices, July 2012).

Against this background we’re seeing enormous amounts of unorganised content being generated by social media; everyone is potentially a publisher. To quote Clay Shirky “Publishing is no longer a job; it’s a button”.

And if it’s so easy to publish, it’s even easier to share – just one click of a button and it’s shared with all of your Facebook/Twitter/Google+ followers. Your network of friends and followers will in turn share with their networks. Tweets beget more tweets, which might stimulate new comments and new Tweets. And so it goes on. According to various reports, information is doubling every two years. By 2020 the world will generate 50 times the amount of information it now has (source: IDC). How to make sense of this information torrent and separate that important signal from all of the noise?

Social networks continue to grow and proliferate. Facebook has set the benchmark for on-line sharing and has become the foghorn of human consciousness. Google+ continues to gain traction and Twitter has established itself as the place for real-time news, where timeliness trumps accuracy. Professional journalism is becoming niche, as people increasingly rely on social media for news and not the traditional newsprint and TV media channels. How does this affect our perceptions of truth and reality? Who do we trust and how credible are our sources?

Social networks enable a wider range of connections and opportunities to find people and develop relationships. How best to manage these relationships? There are a bewildering variety of methods and tools: how to choose and learn to use?

Is the future likely to be as I’ve previously described as Personalised, Mobile and Appified ?

Key Challenges and Opportunities

So, to set the scene and agenda for future posts in this series, and with thanks to David Wilcox for inspiring these points, these are what I consider to be the key challenges and opportunities for anyone who wants to survive and thrive in this emergent social ecosystem:

Social media is generating enormous amounts of unorganised content: how to make sense of that.
Social networks enable a wider range of connections: how to find people and develop relationships.
New forms of collaboration are made possible by social media and networks: how to organise and manage.
There are a bewildering variety of methods and tools: how to choose and learn to use.
The new ways of making sense, connecting, collaborating, and using technology throw up the need for new skills: what are the new roles and the new skills?
The emphasis on open access and sharing changes where value may reside: so what are the new business models?
Social capital is becoming increasingly important in establishing trust and credibility in the virtual world: how do we increase or measure our social capital?

I will attempt to answer as many of these questions as I can in this series of posts over the coming weeks. In the mean time, comments and views are always welcome, particularly if you think I’ve missed an important facet of the social and collaborative landscape.

Social Ecology -a definition:

Social ecology advocates a reconstructive and transformative outlook on social and environmental issues, and promotes a directly democratic, confederal politics. As a body of ideas, social ecology envisions a moral economy that moves beyond scarcity and hierarchy, toward a world that reharmonizes human communities with the natural world, while celebrating diversity, creativity and freedom. Source: Wikipedia

Posted in Knowledge Management, Social Business, social web | Tagged KM, socbiz, social ecology, Social Media | 5 Comments

Is Social Media Making Us Less Social?

Posted on December 20, 2012 by Steve Dale

We are increasingly being flooded – bombarded even – by news and information from an ever-increasing number of social media channels. Increasingly, news is coming to us through our friend and interest networks, via Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and LinkedIn especially. Our cognitive powers in making sense of it, finding the signal within the noise, have never been more challenged.

Some people talk of information anywhere, anytime, but in fact, isn’t it more a case of information everywhere all the time? You can’t get away from it.

There was an article in the press recently querying: “Are you an “Infomaniac”?

According to the article:

34% check their smartphone after sex,
23% go on Twitter more than 10 times a day,
51% check social network sites at dinner,
62% use their phones while shopping and
42% will stop a conversation if their phone beeps.

One person was quoted: “Sometimes I wake up in the night and reach for my phone so I can do a Tweet”.

And another: “I take pictures of my food, my feet….pretty much anything and post it online”.

Yes, I think I’m following a few people like that, which reminds me I must do a bit of ‘weeding’ on my Twitter account!

Some other useful (?) statistics that seem to reinforce this sense of “information pervasiveness”:

The average Briton now has 26 Internet accounts for everything from email and bank services to online shopping, social media sites, Skype and Paypal.
The average worker checks his email inbox 36 times every hour.
1 in 3 smartphone owners would rather give up sex than their mobile phone (Pew Research)
90% of 18 – 29 year olds say they will sleep wit their phone in or beside their bed (Pew Research)
1 in 10 say they are woken at least a few times per week by calls, texts or emails (Pew Research)

This all seems to reinforce the growing phenomenon of FOMO, pronounced FO-MO, meaning ‘fear of missing out’. These people want or need to be connected to their email and social media channels 24 x 7. And apparently there is another new phobia you can add to the list of human paranoia – Nomophobia. It’s the fear of losing your cell/mobile phone!

But whilst we complain about information overload and having no time to do the quality things in life, we are at the same time adding to the volume. Everyone has a voice and everyone wants to be heard. Which reminds me of the quote by Clay Shirky “publishing isn’t a job any more, it’s a button”.

And if it’s so easy to publish, it’s even easier to share – just one click of a button and it’s shared with all of your Facebook/Twitter/Google+ followers. And your network of friends and followers will in turn share with their networks. Tweets beget more tweets, which might stimulate new comments and new Tweets. And so it goes on. No wonder we’re drowning in information, and social media has made it all so easy. But are we losing something in this morass of news and information, made possible by simple one-click interfaces and frictionless sharing?

I only realised through a conversation with a friend that her relationship with her now ex-boyfriend, was predicated on a whole new protocol of ‘Unfriending’ on Facebook. You no longer have to have a face-to-face discussion to end a relationship; it can all be done with a click of a button!

Perhaps this one-button-does-everything mentality that we’re now so used to is making us less social and more insensitive to the feelings of others? We have a paradox where social media is reinforcing anti-social behaviour.

It will be interesting to see what 2013 brings in terms of new and shiny social media tools and social networks, but it doesn’t take a philosopher to predict that the cycle of news and information propagation is going to get faster, more people are going to get connected to the Internet, more people will have a voice, and finding that signal amongst all of the noise is going to get that much harder.

Maybe we should think about what we’re losing – the social skills that help us establish trust and understanding with our fellow human beings, and rediscovering those quality conversations. A New Year’s resolution maybe?

Happy Christmas!

Posted in Information Management, Social Media | Tagged fail, Information Management, socbiz, Social Media | 4 Comments

The Evolution Of Social Media

Posted on November 30, 2012 by Steve Dale

There has been a lot of hype around social media, social networks and social business, much of it unhelpful in getting real understanding what this is all about. For some people, “social” will always mean frivolity and time wasting. For others, social media just means marketing and communications. Predating all of this hype, social learning networks and communities of practice have long existed as ecologies that would encourage collaboration and knowledge sharing. Off-line knowledge sharing communities have been around since the Middle Ages, where crafts and skills were honed, and perhaps best exemplified by the many Worshipful Companies – from bakers to candle-stick makers!

What has happened over the past several years is that social technology has made it easier than ever before to find, connect and engage with “experts” and people with similar interests. This trend was encouraged by Andrew McAfee in 2006 who coined the term “Enterprise 2.0” to describe how the strategic integration of social technologies into an enterprise’s intranet, extranet and business processes could improve decision making. This has given new life to learning, sharing and personal development. Enlightened organisations have recognised that investment in social technology and (most importantly) the organisational development that must accompany it in order to nurture and embed a collaborative culture, can overcome the limitations of silo’d structures that inhibit information flows and opportunities for innovation. However, it’s still unfortunate that in many cases social media platforms are seen as technology projects and not as part of a wider and more embracing strategic organisational development project. It’s only when poor adoption rates become apparent that organisations begin to focus on behaviours, education and training

Put simply, we’re all still on the learning curve on how to build and sustain a truly collaborative culture, and must be continually reminded that technology is an enabler and not the solution. The paradox is that most collaboration projects are still IT-led and any involvement from HR or knowledge/information professionals is at best incidental.

In a broader context, the pervasive and ubiquitous availability of social media in almost all aspects of daily life, from the way we communicate, get information, buy and sell, travel, live and learn is adding to the pressure on organisations to provide a more porous interface between internal (behind the firewall) and external services. Knowledge workers are increasingly making their own decisions on what tools, products and services that they need to work more effectively and will become increasingly disaffected if these are not available within the work environment. We’re already at the point where mobile platforms (smartphones, laptops, tablets) are outstripping sales of traditional desktops, and workers who can’t access social networks such as Twitter or Facebook on their office PC are just as likely to use their Smartphone to get access. Some organisations are adapting to this challenge and embracing more mobile and agile working strategies by implementing ‘bring your own device’ (BYOD) projects, with all of the security implications this entails.

What I’m hoping for in 2013:

Organisations start to think about what problems they are trying to solve before implementing a technology “solution”.
Collaboration and knowledge sharing are recognised as skills to be learnt and behaviours to be encouraged as part of a wider organisation development plan, rather than as a nebulous outcome on the back of an IT project.
Organisations listen more to what tools their staff need to do their jobs, rather than assume that one-size-fits-all.
Organisations embrace the benefits of more agile working and accept that not everyone needs to be in the office all of the time.

Well….I can hope!

Posted in collaboration, Enterprise 2.0, Knowledge Management, Social Business, Social Media | Tagged collaboration, KM, KMers, socbiz, Social Media | 4 Comments

Social Media: It’s not the Wild West after all!

Posted on November 16, 2012 by Steve Dale

If there is one good thing to come out of the Newsnight fiasco, which resulted in the irresponsible and inaccurate smearing of Lord McAlpine on social networks, it’s the challenge to the long-held assumption that Tweeting or blogging defamatory or libellous material cannot be policed, and that those who propagate and repeat such mis-information cannot be held to account. As Lord McAlpine’s lawyers progress their legal case against the BBC and those considered to have been responsible for incorrectly identifying him on social networks, it may cause quite a few people to reflect on their behaviour. This is the moment when it can be clearly shown and understood that people cannot be libelled or harassed with impunity just because the defamation is published online and by individuals rather than on paper or by large organisations. The idea that the world wide web is the Wild West and immune from the law is – at long last – being seriouslsy challenged.

I think Sally Bercow should be particularly worried, since her tweet on 4th November: “Why is Lord McAlpine trending? *Innocent face*” was deliberately meant to start a feeding frenzy, which it did. I hope she’s got some good legal insurance (actually, on reflection, I hope she hasn’t!).

What many people seem to forget is that having a social media account, e.g. on Facebook or Twitter brings with it a certain responsibility. After all, these social networks bring incredible reach and potential access to an audience of billions. Other than age restrictions imposed by some vendors, you don’t need any special skills, no training, no licence and you don’t have to demonstrate any competence before you can establish an account and begin pumping out your message to the world. This is all well and good, and reinforces the democratisation of voice and freedom of speech. But this doesn’t mean you can say (write) anything you want. Yes, there will always be trolls, but that doesn’t mean we have to accept them or to not pursue them through the courts if they harass, incite hatred or libel people. A few short sharp shocks, as is promised in the pending legal action brought by Lord McAlpine, will perhaps remind social media users that they have moral and legal obligations and cannot sit behind a computer screen detached and immune from the consequences of their actions.

Think twice before you post that blog, or tweet/re-tweet that message! Do you trust your sources?

Posted in Social Media, Standards, Twitter | Tagged smtrng, socialmedia, Twitter | Leave a comment

Optimize Your Website for Mobile

Posted on November 15, 2012 by Steve Dale

Guest blog by Mary Reed.

Smart phone users are more likely to purchase goods or services from a mobile-optimized website, according to the Google Mobile Ads. This is evidence that mobile-optimized pages are more important than ever, even for small businesses. Smart phones aren’t just for “Angry Birds” and “Words With Friends” anymore; all kinds of businesses are earning customers through simple, well-designed mobile platforms. You don’t have to write code to jump in on the mobile action, though; user-friendly tools will help mobile newbies through the tough stuff.

Small is More Mobile

Most major brand names have made mobile-optimized web a part of their widespread marketing campaigns, along with apps and more traditional forms of media. However, small businesses have been slow to follow. According to an SMB DigitalScape study, 98 percent of small and medium-sized businesses do not have mobile-optimized sites. The same study said that half of mobile users would use a business less often if its website wasn’t mobile friendly.

If these businesses knew mobile-search stats, they might change their tunes. According to Screenwerk.com, Google said that 50 percent of mobile search is local in nature. Put it all together and we’ve got a mobile population searching locally and following results to non-mobile pages, which turn them off — something is missing.

Mobile is Only Growing

If you believe the mobile web is a fad that won’t amount to much, think again. According to a market-research report, smart phone usage in the United States reached more than 100 million units in 2011 and will reach nearly 154 million units by 2015. As network speeds continue to increase, consumers will do more searching and shopping on mobile devices. Internet-wide mobile optimization seems imminent; it’s only a question of which businesses take advantage of the untapped market.

Right now, some young companies are using the mobile surge to their advantage. Used-car dealer DriveTime has a three-button mobile-landing page that entices users to explore its services, which include shopping for vehicles, online approvals and a location finder. A short description of its business and clickable phone number make this optimized page about as user friendly as can be.

Getting Started

If you’re looking to optimize your website for mobile, you don’t need to start from scratch. Tools like zinadoo.com and mobisitegalore.com help mobilize websites without hassle. Once you design a mobile layout, automatic tools translate designs into code and guide you on how to integrate your mobile website.

Keys to a Great Mobile Site

Effective mobile sites capture users’ attention and raise their likelihood of engagement. An ineffective site will drive consumers away, even the ones that would have used the traditional page on their phones. You should have a sense of urgency to create a mobile page, but don’t rush through the design.

Consider these tips as you mobilize your website:

Simple navigation: Mobile phones are small and difficult to use for many. A simple navigation will attract smart phone users longer and increase the chance of interaction. Provide large buttons for the user to navigate the site.

Speed: Mobile consumers hail speed over all other virtues. If you’re mobile site doesn’t load quickly, the ticking time bombs in their heads will send them to a site that does. Try limiting the amount of pictures and videos on your mobile site, they may look impressive, but performance is the ultimate benchmark.

Posted in Mobile Working | Leave a comment

Social Collaboration: it’s the people not the technology, stupid!

Posted on October 25, 2012 by Steve Dale

I was recently reflecting on my personal experience as a knowledge management consultant in deploying enterprise and business collaborations solutions over the past several years. I’ve seen various buzz-words and labels come and go, and witnessed the morphing of Enterprise Content, Document and Records Management Systems (ECM’s, EDM’s, ERM’s) into varieties of Enterprise 2.0, social CRM, Social Intranets and – more recently – Enterprise Social Media and Social Business solutions.

But regardless of what labels we give to the technology, the one constant feature is the people, i.e. the staff, the workers, the users. The continuing paradox is that, despite all the evidence of poor adoption rates; the accepted wisdom that “build it and they will come” doesn’t really work, and the oft’ repeated mantra that “it’s not the technology, it’s the people that count”, most collaboration strategies are treated as technology projects and not organisational development (OD) projects. Putting in a shiny new enterprise collaboration system is unlikely to change behaviours that have been conditioned by corporate culture, and less likely to be successful if it’s not integrated with the business processes – and yes, that includes email! Becoming “social” and sharing knowledge is not something that is solved by technology; it’s something that is solved by addressing behaviours. Sure, technology can be an enabler, but it has to be part of a wider and more holistic change programme.

This was certainly the case when I was asked to deliver a strategy for more effective learning and sharing across local government in 2005, which resulted in the delivery of an award-winning community of practice platform that ultimately supported over 120,000 users and more than 1000 communities by 2011. The technology was only one (fairly small) component of the project. Most of the effort went into winning hearts and minds in local authorities that this was the right thing to do, and encouraging staff to narrate their work and share good practice. It was also underpinned by training, coaching and mentoring on how to manage and facilitate on-line communities – activities that don’t often feature in technology-driven projects.

So, with the benefit of some hindsight and experience, coupled with a more contemporary view of emerging trends, the following sums up what I think are the key factors in the emergent social collaboration ecosystem:

Collaboration is about people and behaviours; technology is an enabler, not a solution.
Engagement with and adoption of social collaboration technologies should be part of a wider organisational change programme. HR should be as much involved as IT.
Seek out, support and encourage your ‘network weavers’ and collaboration advocates as part of your social collaboration strategy. Every organisation has them but, dependent on culture, they may be considered disruptive (but social technology is, by its very nature, disruptive). These are your “Trojan mice” who will stimulate those parts of the organisation that you can’t reach.
Knowledge repositories are places where knowledge goes to die. They may still be relevant to researchers but are places of last resort for knowledge workers. Knowledge workers want instant access to expertise, information and knowledge, and increasingly rely on social networks and search engines to find it.
It’s never been easier to connect with people with same/similar interests, or to find answers from “experts”. Anyone who is not yet fully engaged with the social web is at a distinct disadvantage.
‘Buy’ is trumping ‘build’, but systems integrators are key. Collaboration technology is increasingly powerful and flexible and can be adapted to all but the most specialised needs. However, integration with legacy systems and business processes still requires specialist knowledge.
There is a growing call for products and services that help us manage the information torrent. All of the leading collaboration technology vendors now provide aggregation, filtering, trending, and personalisation capabilities. Look for features available in web products/services such as Bottlenose, Strawberryj.am, Prismatic, Twylah etc. in Enterprise solutions.
There’s no such thing as privacy on the web – get over it!
The web has been with us for almost 20 years, social media and social networks for over 10 years. Any workers (managers, supervisors, staff) who still claim to be digital technophobes in 2012 are a lost cause. Focus effort on those who see the benefits of on-line interaction.
The future is mobile and ‘appified’. More and more work is being done on the move; the growth of BYOD and COPE initiatives are weakening the ties and dependencies on the ‘lobotomised’ corporate PC in the corporate workplace. Any enterprise collaboration solution must support agile and mobile working.

If I were a CEO deploying a social collaboration strategy, I would be looking for something far more expansive than a technology solution. The 80:20 rule would seem to be appropriate; if the technology accounts for 20% of budget, 80% should be devoted to organisational development. I wonder how many more failed collaboration projects it will take before this philosophy takes hold?

What do you think?

Posted in collaboration, Knowledge Management, Social Business, Social Enterprise, Social Media, social web | Tagged collaboration, socbiz, Social Media, social networks | 3 Comments

Protecting Your Online Reputation

Posted on October 1, 2012 by Steve Dale

Guest blog by Jennifer Smith

We seldom think about our reputation when we post online. Nevertheless, with each forum or chat room, we are leaving footprints for everyone to see, and anyone can reach conclusions about us. They may or may not be true, but perception is reality in the minds of readers who cannot ask us questions.

It doesn’t take many posts on a politics board for people to determine our political beliefs. It is easy to determine that we are liberal or conservative after a few posts. It is also easy to determine how well we can deal with issues. We settle them in an agreeable manner, or we may begin calling names when others disagree with us. If a prospective employer sees a post in which we have called someone a liar in capital letters, he will think twice about hiring you.

With fewer than ten posts, a prospective employer can tell how we might react to disagreements in work situations. We cannot always hide behind our anonymity because someone may eventually discover our identities. How embarrassed would that make us feel when our friends know what we have posted? Are we going to post, “I don’t like working for that incompetent bum.”?

Online reputations are as important as our workplace reputations. We want people to think that we are honest, sincere, competent and intelligent. We also want them to know that we can admit being wrong and accept defeat gracefully. These are the traits that are possessed by people who have good interpersonal skills.

If we are operating an Internet business, our reputations reach a higher level. Any business that offers a service or product must be certain that the quality of the product or service is equal to or better than the price charged. When dealing with online customers, we should treat them as though meeting their needs is the most important thing we can do. If we are concerned about our online reputation, consult people in the industry like Michael Fertik, CEO of Reputation.com, who has extensive experience in protecting the reputations of Internet users. Not only does he provide suggestions for protecting our reputations, but he can also restore reputations that have been compromised on the Internet.

Since our reputations are the most important possession that we have, we should write every post as though our mothers were watching over our shoulders. Remember, never put in writing anything that you wouldn’t say to someone face to face!

Posted in Guidelines | Tagged reputation | Leave a comment

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