It’s so exciting how Information Today is using its content management system to build a community for their conference events that I’m using Google’s doodle to celebrate with some fiddling! Yes today is the 332nd birthday of Antonio Vivaldi, an Italian composer. But I digress, something unusual for me, right?
So go to the Computers in Libraries 2010 website and click on speakers. You can now reach those speakers through Twitter, Facebook, their blog, or LinkedIn when they update their speaker page. Check out Joe Murphy and myself, Jane Dysart, to get the idea. Computers in Libraries 2010 also has a wiki to build more community, and this year has a special section — 25th anniversary memory bank. If you have a vibrant memory of a past Computers in Libraries conference, please share it!
I just love what social media is adding to the 2010 Olympics! From the thousands of tweets from the #Olympics Twitter feed, to YouTube videos, to Facebook, social media is definitely enriching my experience of the Vancouver Winter Olympics. Amazing.
My favorite tweets so far are from the people calling curling “ice shuffleboard” but the number of tweets supporting the athletes is truly incredible. On Facebook, I became a fan of Vancouver 2010 Olympics and last night right after the Canada/Swiss hockey game, they posted asking who had seen the game. Within 4 minutes I and three hundred others had responded that we liked it! Every time I refreshed my screen it went up by 50+ people and within 24 minutes over 1500 “liked” the post and a third had made comments. After 10 hours, over 3,500 “liked” the post and 1,150+ had made comments about the post. YouTube has a rich base of videos about the Olympics but several of my favorites include commercials about future young athletes and Canada’s first gold medal on home soil, but I also love Shaun White’s gold medal big air performance with amazing spins, flips and twists (all together!).
So social media is definitely engaging and bringing the world together over wonderful global events. Yeah!
Interesting to see the new style of Google doodle for the 21st Winter Olymics and fantastic to see all the wonderful international athletes gather in my country — 82 nations are represented. As my friend Stephen says,”with all their positive attitues and karma all in one place. They set an example that everything is possible.” I certainly believe that too!
How exciting to see how social media is affecting the games this year . The twitter feed was amazing during the opening ceremonies — seemed like 1000 tweets per minute at #olympics. I couldn’t keep up but had a good time reviewing some very funny comments!
Since my son used to do “spinny, flippy things” on a snowboard I particularly loved the beginning of the opening ceremonies with the snowboarder at the top of a pristine hill, racing down amid dramatic views, flying through a maple leaf llighted by many torch bearers, and culminating in the indoor venue (a first for the Olympics) of the opening ceremonies, B.C. Place. I do hope that segment gets posted on YouTube, as I’d love to see it again.
However, it is also a very sad beginning to this great event with the death of a 21 year old athlete, Nodar Kumaritashvill. Great to see that today’s Google doodle is indeed a luger.
There’s no tougher time slot to speak in at a conference than that dreaded “post lunch.” Humour & good story telling always helps. And that’s what Susan Reisinger & Gregor McLeod brought as they presented “Tools for Knowledge-sharing: Wiki Success Case Study for the US Navy’s Global Distance Support Centre. Imagine for a moment trying to implement technology to deploy highly sensitive information in an extraordinarily security conscious environment — oh, with no budget. And, that the information may be about how to move a cat from one country to another, or it may be about informing next of kin that their family member is deceased. Oh — and that many of the influencers in the organization have “tribal knowledge” and have been chiefs who held that information. Those information holders know quite a bit, and they know who to know & who does know. You definitely want them on board (no pun intended.)
The platform chosen had to have an easy access and easy to use, & allow ppl to attach documents; it had to have a training application, as well as a way to relay and highlight new, hot information - and threads for discussions. The wiki supports 20 ppl working in the call centre that are responding to the requests of more than 250,000 ppl. Wow.
The answer? the wiki — a commercial wiki was free, with access controlled via the internet. It met all the criteria, plus it could be customized by any call centre to meet its unique needs. Usage can be tracked and refinements made based on experiece. It has been an easy access into the 2.0 environment for people that don’t text on their phones, probably haven’t heard of Twitter and are dubious of Facebook. The disadvantage has been security, but no classified information has been put on the wiki; like other government agencies, wikis are making their way into their internal intranets — they are looking at using Sharepoint, and they’ve seen a significant shift in the attitude towards collaborative tools like this in the past year. Another disadvantage was that there is currently no way for the wiki to interact with their crm; this will be a huge step forward for knowledge sharing when this connection can happen.
What have they learned?
- That if they ask ppl what they need on the wiki, those same ppl will then use the wiki
- they did start with content they already had, and then began enhancing that content that may be outside the standard environment — that “tribal knowledge”
- that after a while, ppl will start to ask for content to be added to the wiki
- that a “gate keeper” works in some environments, like the navy
- that giving the wiki prominence as the authoritative source works in engaging ppl
- having a signle authority to review and manage content frequently is critical
- all 20 ppl in the call centre will be engaged in the upkeep
- “even the most resistant will embrace
the wiki when they see how easy it is, and how
it helps them do their job.”
The wiki allowed them to have a son in Iraq r
espond to his family that he was “ok” within 45 minutes of them hearing on the news that his unit had come under fire. That works.
Reisinger and McLeod at KMWorldUS Navy Global Distance Support Centre wiki
Gordon Vala-Webb’s (Nat’l Director, KM, PriceWaterhouseCoopers Canada) session on Knowledge Sharing Using Social media Tools in the Enterprise has already given me some pause for thought…..he’s talking about the difference between networking and collaborating in a team/work environment. Hm…..it makes perfect sense, as Gordon would, I just hadn’t thought about it. When ppl network, they do so voluntarily, and the actual outcome of their networking is unknown. But when they collaborate in a work environment, they aren’t doing so as volunteers and the output is the end goal. Those are very different starting points for people, and drive their behaviours. There’s a difference between team work and net work.
So what? Well, the issues today that clients want help with require a very broad perspective & broad network; yet ppl won’t net work at work & express their opinions if they don’t feel safe to do so. I picture ppl on a highwire with a “net” to save them if they fall off. Is that a metaphor for net working on the wire, or wireless, as the case may be?
“Ambient Awareness” Gordon says, is really the need to have some sense of what else is out there in order to connect when needed. That’s net working. Email is still the #1 social collaborative tool in all organizations — I’d say beyond organizations too, but I may be wrong. Team collaboration spaces have only a 14% adoption rate — and that’s for all age groups. why? these spaces are obviously not how ppl want to work together & connect. Do you fight email? If email is “where knowledge goes to die” then how is it a collaboration tool? Because everyone uses it……..
The alternative is to get a tool that does “everything”; what would that be? He used a wonderful metaphor of a swiss army knife - that does many things, just nothing really well. Social media is just the same. Social or shared messaging or micro blogging within the organization helps build ambient awareness - commenting back & forth on each others comments - but it doesn’t really do anything very well. Social media within the enterprise may work the same as it does outside the firm, but the consequences are very different; how it differs depends very much on leadership & the culture they want to create.
Next steps? First, figure out where your organization is — who, in your organization is interested in this capability & where you are in terms of a relationship with them. Next, you need to map out who you need to connect with — you can’t do this alone, & you’ll need friends in legal, technology, etc. Finally, you need to have some sort of strategy for moving this forward. Just as in chess, you need a strategy & you need to adapt that strategy depending on what happens. Move & adapt, move & adapt. Strategy isn’t easy — & is about making decisions in the face of uncertainty. Social media is uncertain for organizations - & although it may still be at the swiss army knife stage, not doing anythings really well, it is in it’s early stages, and organizations need to start to deal with it.
Helene Blowers posted a wonderful note today about a social media strategy framework. Being a strategy junkie, I agree with Helene that Ross Dawson’s framework is excellent as it leads an organization from its priorities through governance (ye gads! someone actually considers governance early in a strategy!!) through to “listening” while engaging (there’s a concept — listening — to honestly hear what people are saying, or not saying…).
It also prompts me to explore the notion that many libraries are still rather ‘iffy’ about social media, particularly Facebook & Twitter, because they perceive these to be “social media” and somehow that just doesn’t “fit” for them — somehow “social media” makes them uncomfortable. Stephen Abram & Helene are absolutely correct — libraries, particularly CEO’s or Directors, have to engage themselves in these media before developing their strategy. But to engage means they have to first accept. And some are lightyears from accepting. A few weeks ago when I was working with a group on integrating social media into their processes and services, a senior librarian negatively retorted to me that these “things aren’t all good — there’s a real dark side to them.” At which point I responded, “yep, there’s a dark side to cars when people hit and kill innocent people, too, yet you drive a car. So what’s your point?”
And then it hit me (the point, not the car), that libraries have to see Facebook & Twitter & other social media not as “social media” (discomfort), but rather as “connecting networks” (a bit more comfort) and “non-traditional publishing platforms” (oh yeah…lots more comfort!). That’s what they are, right? Look at the volume of content on Facebook & Twitter. It’s unbelievable. My connections on both sites “connect” me with more content than any library would have ever imagined. When I positioned Facebook as a publishing platform, the pixels in eyes started to widen.
Libraries are - and want to be - gathering places for people to connect with content, with ideas, with knowledge, with experts, and with other people to learn new things, solve problems, explore issues and entertain themselves. If they begin to accept that sites like Facebook enlarge their capacity as that gathering place, both physically and virtually, to connect people with content, then they will move much faster along that continuum from acceptance to engagement.
“Adopting technologies without a strategy results in wasted time & effort”. How many times have you said this? Check out KMWorld 2009 keynote speaker Charlene Li’s slides. Some great tips. Her theme, “the future of business requires a holistic approach to adopting and integrating emerging technologies” is the same message Rebecca and I use with our clients – Organizations have to have a big detailed picture of where they are going before the strategies to get there can be put in place. And that’s way before technology, people and other structures are put in place.
I love Charlene’s slide of 4 focus areas surrounding the client: enterprise strategy, customer strategy, leadership & management, innovation & practices. Her tips, which I think apply more broadly than just tech planning:
* Leaders must let go of control but not relinquish command, create sandbox convenants to allow risk taking, creat a culture of sharing & model it
* organizations must connect to customers on their own terms, develop internal processes to connect with customers in real time, integrate the customer voice across the whole enterprise
* enterprises must allow all units to pilot new technologies & processes, design process scenarios around user roles, invest in innovation
* to innovate, organizations must fail fast & fail smart, inject fresh external thinking, enable safe places where mistakes and learning is encouraged.
If you are doing anything in the learning arena (either formal or informal learning - just helping people “get it” in terms of doing something or knowing something), be sure to follow Jane Hart’s E-learning Pick of the Day, and link to her other sites and blogs as well, including her homebase, Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies, and Social Media in Learning. Her August update of “Top Tools for Learning 2009″ lists the top 10: Twitter, Delicious, Google Reader, Google Docs, Slideshare, Wordpress, YouTube, Skype, Google Search and Audacity. Fast up & coming, Hart says, is prezi - which we hope to try out in the next few weeks. We’ll let you know how it goes. Have any of you tried prezi yet? I’ve been experimenting a bit with it….embarrassing as it is, I get a bit whoozi with the screen moving around so much - but the possibilities are fantastic - and I’m sure this old powerpoint dog can learn some new tricks!
“The strategy talks about an updated digital experience, a new learning model that helps people with their “lifelong learning journeys,” and the creation of a Smithsonian Commons—a new part of our digital presence dedicated to stimulating learning, creation, and innovation through open access to Smithsonian research, collections and communities.” Check out Edson’s post for more about the transparent process and to see more details of SI’s web & new media strategy.
Nancy Dixon just blogged about A-Space, a Facebook-like space for the US intelligence community. She mentioned this to me a few months ago when we were finalizing her participation in KMWorld 2009 and I’m really pleased to see the executive summary in this post and the full 30 page study here. It talks about how A-Space is shaping the analysts’ work bringing in cogintive diversity. It emphasizes:
A-Space is an environment in which analysts collaboratively create new meaning out of the diverse ideas and perspectives they collectively bring to an issue. Through this collaboration, analysts have the potential to break through long held assumptions to provide new ways of thinking about complex problems.
Networked relationships on A-Space provide a stream of cognitively diverse information without the costly time investment that maintaining strong ties requires.
A-Space is reinforcing the value of asking questions of colleagues, providing analysts the means to uncover flaws in their own data and reasoning.
A-Space is providing analysts a set of new practices to: 1) build cross agency networks, 2) gain situational awareness, and 3) hold discussions of interpretation, that operate in parallel with the normal production process. These new practices constitute an emerging model that provides a level of cognitive diversity not previously available.
The non-hierarchal nature of A-Space, results in analysts feeling that it is okay to offer their thinking even if it is not completely formed or thought through, increasing the speed of product development by eliminating faulty hypotheses early on and quickly settling on those that are viable.
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