engagement and action

Some organisations have jumped on the Web 2.0 bandwagon without little understanding of the change that is required to move to a participatory environment.

In the emerging social ecosystem, conversations are two way and depending on the context, there is an expectation that the exchange will have an associated outcome or action.

A great example of two-way action orientated engagement is offered by Arizona State University Libraries in the following interactions between @ASULibraries and library users @os1123 and @SuperMo.

Social media used to create a social conversation

Yesterday (19 March 2010) I attended a Social Media (Marketing) Clinic at Hub Melbourne and gleaned a few points on telling your story via social media channels:

• craft a story that has emotion
• connect people to core values
• invite participation
• have notable content

The Big Conversation, through their YouTube clips provides a great example of the use of story to bring awareness to the community about a social issue, or capture the community's imagination to become involved.

The aim of The Big Conversation is to "start a broad dialogue, through small group conversations, on values in Australia - what they are currently, what we want them to be, and what we need to do to get there."

Your invitation to have a dialogue 

The Big Conversation is happening

online social networking at the dinner table

Reflecting on my previous post about conversations I call to mind table etiquette at our house; shirt on, hats off and no mobile phones. The first two still occur, however no mobile phones is variable, which is indicative of how mobile technologies and online social networking (OSN) are pervading our life.

As I've grown accustomed to text message alerts my tolerance level for interruptions to the dinner conversation has improved. At the same time people are improving in their OSN table etiquette and interestingly, OSN is becoming part of the table conversation.

When I was recently out at a Japanese restaurant I noticed the number of mobile phones on tables (including ours). One conversations at a nearby table included checking out  something (possibly a website) on an iphone in response to as a question. At our table I took a photo of the beautifully presented meal and sent to my son, who immediately responded with a request to be flown down to Melbourne to join us for dinner. This response was shared with the rest of the table and triggered quite an interesting and divergent conversation.

I still see antisocial dinner table behaviour; people in their own world listening to their ipod or playing a mobile gaming devise, but I take consolation in the fact that they may be socialising online.

What I still can't get used to is hats on at the diner table!

podcast on the impact of social media in your organisation

Charlene Li interviewed by Richard Wallis
Online Information Conference UK 2009
13 November 2009
Time: 42:30

The Impact of Social Media in your organisation




Reflections on the podcast

True dialogue without control (12:00)
The hard part is having a true dialogue. This means that you need to define the relationship that you (your organisation) has with clients, which also indicates that you need to understand who your clients are (client/market segmentation).  What is even harder for most organisations is giving up control!

Social interaction for a purpose (13:20)
Social interactions will vary depending on the sector (and as previously indicated the audience/client/customer/market); however these interactions should be frequent and ongoing in order to enable key drivers for social engagement: sharing of information and knowledge for decision making, and improvement in organisational transparency.

Dialogue to mobilise action (15:00)
Governments are now focusing on encouraging dialogue to engage to constituents to take action, for example data.gov collaboration (24:30)

It’s not about giving up control (16:00)
Those in the field of academia who are questioning a demise in their authority haven’t grasped the notion that these tools aren’t about breaking down authority, but about having to teach and lead in a different way.

It’s also about a cultural change (18:00)
Change in technology facilitates sharing at scale, which brings about a cultural change which may be difficult to translate into the work environment where a particular culture already exists.
You need to understand and anticipate how internal change will occur through social media (and example is the changing role of market research (35:00) - what type of research, what qualifies as quality data; i.e. twitter responses?  )

On sharing (20:00)
Sharing is happening in parallel with and driven by social networking

Orchestrated openness (21:00)
While tools such as Twitter speed up collaboration, people cooperating to produce solutions should be supported through orchestrated openness (rules, guidelines, etc.) as decision making and information sharing openness (metadata, standards, etc.) are not tool driven.

Social media as an enabler for change (26:00)
An example is the change in conference presentations by twittering.  Twitter feedback allows presenter to better understand what interests audience, how they are interpreting speeches, allows adjustment by presenter (before and also for next presentation).

Three top tips (31: 20)
1. Know your audience to spark the right conversation >> where are they, what are they doing, how social are they, are they talking about same thing
2. Define your strategy >> learn, diagloue, innovate
3. Understand and anticipate how internal change will occur through social media

A new media business model (37:00)
The media business model is being challenged and is threatening the established craft; though there is opportunity to develop an respond to the new emerging journalism. A key is to understand the new business model which has shifted from a content business to an audience business.

An expectation of availability (40:00)
Social technology will become more and more pervasive and if these technologies are not where people are, people will question why, as there is an expectation of availability no matter the location.

a social media conversation

Social media fueling our conversations...

source: http://www.pamorama.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/artoflistening.jpg

What's next....

courtesy of http://www.savagechickens.com

Online Learning Journal INF506 - Assessment item 1

(a) What is social networking

Social networking is the interaction that occurs between a group or groups of people (social networks) who are connected through a shared purpose, ideas, interests or common activity.

With the ever improving information communication and technology landscape, in particular the emergence of online social networking services and social software tools (social media tools and collaborative software), social networking is occurring globally as well as locally, with online engagement being driven from the grass roots level.

This divergence from a traditional top down, controlled approach to technology, information and stakeholder engagement has slowly but pervasively triggered a (2.0) revolution in stakeholder-centric online engagement across enterprise, education, health, government and not-for-profit.

Online social networking is therefore emerging as not only a way to create, build and sustain an online presence within one or many online user-generated communities, but also as a means of providing formal and informal opportunities for two way engagement, collaboration and knowledge sharing by mobilising social capital.

(b) List what social networking technologies and sites you already use

I have used various social networking tools for both business and personal use.

Below I've listed the applications I currently use

Blogging: blogger

Wikis: zoho, wikimedia

Microblogging: Twitter, Yammer

Photosharing: FlickR, Picasa

Slidesharing: SlideSharing

Social bookmarking: del.cious, connotea, diigio

Social networks: Facebook, Plaxo

Business networks: LinkedIn, Yahoo Groups, Meetup, Yammer

I have experimented with or used other applications; for example, blogging platforms Word Press and EduBlog and Curls social bookmarking. I have also implemented and used various socialising widgets such as ratings, comments and discuss, geo-tagging, presence maps.

I hate to think what my 'lost' digital footprint is!

(c) Describe what you expect to learn from completing INF506

I am interested in exploring social networking and web 2.0 from the perspective of an enterprise (or community). I wish to better understand the communication ecology that has occurred because of the new and emerging social technologies, how these technologies can be utilized as business (or community) enablers and what individual, group or enterprise changes need to occur.

As a sideline to the above I would expect to learn about the opportunities (e.g. SNS and tools for disaster management) and issues (e.g. online identity rights, user-generated content ownership) associated with online social networking.

getting real on twitter for real offline engagement

Amanda Palmer (punk rocker) has a handle on how to use social media tools to engage and interact. In an interview on ABC Art Nation, Amanda talks about how Twitter revolutionised her online and offline engagement. While she has a blog, Facebook page, and website, the short, quick messaging offered by Twitter meant that she was able to instantly and virally let fans know where she was going to perform without the cost of major marketing. Additionally, Palmer indicates that authentic engagement is about speaking (tweeting) in your real voice rather than a 'branded voice'.

This new form of viral 'real' fan engagement is further discussed by Kevin Kelly in his post The stars of a 1,000 true fans; however he cautions about the longterm profitability associated with this type of marketing. On the flip side, Palmer says that without Twitter her life would be more predictable, more organised, but... not as much fun, nor as spontaneous.

An anthropological view of technology

Kevin Kelly's post Ethnic Technology, highlights the anthropological aspects of adoption, adaption and use of technologies; that is the interplay of the meaning that an individual and a community draw from technology interactions, the communities choice of technologies and an individual's personal technological preferences.

Kelly's view is helpful in analysing various aspects of online social networking and social media as it focuses on the behavioural and social aspects of interaction with a technology, rather than the technology itself. Kelly's view also sits well with the knowledge management perspective of technology as an enabler rather than the driver.

Mike Milley's comment on Kelly's post further highlights the behavioural aspects (social life) of social networking through "viral peer-to-peer encouragement" to assist with take up of social networking services and other technologies, especially when there is "adoption fatigue" of new products and user interfaces.

source: http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/clip_178_web.jpg

Preservation of online user generated content

An interesting point raised by Marcus Bank in Blog Posts and Tweets: the next frontier for grey literature is that that user-generated content created in web 2.0 applications such as blogs and microblogs are now a critical source of professional information (p. 220, para. 3) and as this form of realtime communication (as opposed to tradtional print publications which are often out of date once published) is increasing, there needs to be consideration around preserving web 2.0 content (p. 220, para. 5).

While there are proponents of preservtion (global and personal) of internet content, questions raised when Library of Congress acquired Twitter archives are worth considering as part of the preservation debate: (a) the quality and value of conent; (b) ownership and copyright; and (c) privacy.

Reference: Bank, M. (2010). Blog posts and tweets: the next frontier for grey literature In D. Farace & J. Schöpfel (Eds.) Grey literature in library and information studies, pp. 227-238. [Adobe Digital Electronic versions]. doi: 10.1515/9783598441493. Available from: http://www.alia.eblib.com.au/