Building a successful social network (particularly in Professional Development) means aligning the people with the purpose through clear and mutual aims and objectives, reward and acknowledgment for contribution, clarity and access to information and feedback, leadership, celebration of achievement, technology support and training.
This post points to two websites that illuminate how social networks can be developed and sustained.
Connectivism
Firstly, George Siemans in 'Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age' retrieved from http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm says
"The pipe is more important than the content within the pipe. Our ability to learn what we need for tomorrow is more important than what we know today. A real challenge for any learning theory is to actuate known knowledge at the point of application. When knowledge, however, is needed, but not known, the ability to plug into sources to meet the requirements becomes a vital skill. As knowledge continues to grow and evolve, access to what is needed is more important than what the learner currently possesses."
What he means is that the quality of the connection (ie number of connections, the number of different connections, the timeliness of the knowledge) is more important than the knowledge itself.
Getting members active and addicted
Secondly, in 'Community building: Getting members active and addicted | Community Building retrieved from http://www.communityspark.com/community-building-getting-members-active-and-addicted/ Martin Reed presents several practical strategies for sustaining an online community. Some of these that I believe are most valuable in a closed system dedicated to the professional development of its members are:
Engage at every opportunity
All members should post, chat, complain, email, emote, ask, refer etc. as much as possible. Every interaction affects the quality, flexibility and integrity of the network.
Delegate community building tasks
The manager of the network need to find things for users to do. It might mean sharing experience, voting in polls, online questionnaires, contributing to blogs - anything to move users from being lurkers to being participants.
Earn and retain trust
Ensure you have strong, clear community guidelines that you enforce professionally and impartially. It’s hard to earn trust, but very easy to lose.
Get involved. Be contactable and approachable
You need to get involved in the community. Why should you expect members to get involved if you can’t be bothered to do so yourself? You need to be visible. Don’t be anonymous – be sure to share information about yourself.
The subject matter of your community and your aims and goals should determine how involved you are in your community. Regardless of how involved you are, you should always be approachable and contactable.
Be aware and follow up. Show concern.
It is not much use if you are on the fastest network in the world if you take eons to reply to anything. If a person needs to know something they usually need to know it yesterday. Understand and respond to their urgency and they'll hopefully do the same for you. The pipe will get bigger as a result.
Create a ‘dummies’ guide
No matter how easy you think your community is to use, some people will still be confused. You need to cater to these people. Ensure you have guides on how to use the community and make them easy to find! Have a section for frequently asked questions. Even better, create videos so people can see how to use the community.
Conclusion
Its interesting that all of the above discussion does not refer to the 'magic bullet' a system of piece of software that will 'build a community in a day'. All of the points raised above are just about quality professional interaction in a 21st century connected world.
No comments:
Post a Comment