ICT Social Networking Blog: Assignment 2

Showing posts with label Assignment 2. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Debrief on the POD Exercise

3 stages of interaction called socialization, alliance building and forming a team to do the work.

The background writing for the exercise (as well as the final recommendations) can be found both as part of this blog and on the Blue Group Ning. All of this material is to be considered when evaluating my contribution to Blue's work This post is just a personal debrief of the POD work structured according to one of the questions on the sample exam paper.

Socialisation

'To get social' with people you've never met or seen for me was a real problem. Fortunately another Blue member (Sarah) had somehow 'decided' that we would use a Ning as the main communication platform and had set it up for us. After inviting everyone, she was a bit vague on what to do next. I made contact with her and suggested we use Skype on a regular Wednesday night to get a better quality communication. Because Sarah had done so much in establishing the project, I aimed at trying to establish a timeline and the various roles that other POD members would play. I published this on the Ning forum.

Alliance Building

By this time, Sarah and I had started to work on the project (as if no other people would come forward). However, soon Andrew and Tyrone replied to their invitations and supported the work that Sarah and I had done. I then published a forum posting for each of the POD questions. Over the previous few weeks, I had collected lots of bookmarks that would help us. My posts included the best links and tried to link bookmarks to particular questions. I also posted a draft set of dot points that covered the main points of question one. Sarah replied to this post with a very expanded and improved version. In the meantime, Andrew had provided his own set of bookmarks and comments linked to each question.

Forming a team

We knew a team was building when we realised that with only a week to go, we were well on track according to the schedule we had set ourselves. At the final meeting, Andrew got us using Google docs, which enabled us to edit all drafts into a final set of recommendations. It's lucky there were only 4 of us because it got a bit complicated when everyone wanted a say. At this stage, I felt I had done enough and didn't want to get in the way of the others. I sort of sat back and watched the document write and edit itself in front of my eyes. It was amazing. I thought the final doc was a pretty good version of what we all thought and did in the activity. I thought the activity was great because it gave us a real and practical way of engaging as an online community and developing a POD.

Saturday, October 10, 2009

How is a work-related social network developed and sustained?

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.

How do Web 2.0 tools (blogs, wikis, podcasts and video lectures) complement such social networks?

Top 100 Tools for Learning 2009 - Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/recommended/index.html

Twitter, Delicious, Google Reader, Google Docs and Youtube were voted (in order) as the top five 'Tools for Learning ' in 2009. It is interesting to note that all are open source products, all are products that search and compile knowledge according to the direction of the user rather than purport to be static 'Walled Cities' of information such as Encyclopedia Britannica or even Microsoft Expedia which is updated periodically. Even Wiki only made 17 on this list.

My point here is that the choice of tools for a network needs to be based on 'services' rather than software. It doesn't matter what the software is, it just needs to respond easily, efficiently to the needs of the network. It needs to be scalable, cross platform, cheap enough for many users and it must be able to be configured completely by the IT departments of the companies that use it.

Information

One of the most important function is establishing the project network is to compile and present the key project documents. As well as including purpose, goals, roles and timelines more supporting documents will be created and discovered as the process rolls out. A project wiki would be an important platform in order to compile and co-ordinate the key information. Wiki rules require that all information is annotated and the sources documented. The project moderator should also monitor the evolution of the wiki.

Discussion

In addition to key information, an important project process is discussion. This can occur asynchronously as blogs and forums or synchronously as video conferencing, skype sessions or chat rooms. Each technology has pros and cons. Blogs and forums ensure that the information is presented so that it can be evaluated and debated and that people can add comments and further pieces of information in the form of links, posts, images, video files etc that enrich the initial posts.

Synchronous communication is especially useful for multi location 'brainstorming'. Disadvantages are that these platforms are that not all systems allow archiving, the conversations (even if they are moderated/lead and that users agree to use 'threads' during the session) need to be 'digested' or processed in order to distill all the good interaction and eliminate lots of typos. This requires more project time (and therefore money).

Documentation

In question 1, I suggested that the CIO and IT manager need to be supported by other senior level management. One crucial manager should be the Knowledge Manager (KM). The KM's project responsibility would be to propose the information architecture for the project and then update this container with fresh information from all project sources so that all stakeholders could access the 'freshest' information.

In many cases this can be an automated process through Web 2.0 tools including Delicious (for archiving urls), log stats and other dynamic database data presented using graphical user interfaces (GUI) and Twitter (to keep users updated on the locations and activities of key project stakeholders. In other cases, the KM will need to filter and compile all project information into project knowledge that can be accessed and acted upon.

Project management

There are many project management software products and the company might have several products on its network. However, in order to manage the project well, the information needs to be available in one place on the network. The information needs to be updated and acted upon often by people who are spread all over the world. Webex is one tool that is suitable for allowing access to project management information by several stakeholders simultaneously across networks. Webex allows stakeholders to take turns in 'driving' the software in order to ensure their role is understood and documented at a very 'deep' level.

Testing and authentication

A crucial part of project management is the testing and authentication of products and systems that the company is responsible for either to support its own operations or that of their clients. Network tools to facilitate this process include polls, data analysis tools, video files depicting user experience and podcasts presenting voice interview of product testing. The results of this testing will affect the progress of the project through the milestones in the project management cycle. The presentation of testing and evaluation materials on the network can motivate company employees, ensure that project decisions are transparent and provide the opportunity for easy and repeated analysis in solving problems as part of the 'extreme programming' method of product development.

What are the issues involved with using social networks for professional development in the workplace?

Purpose, timeline and goals

It is essential that the purpose of the network be clear and understood by all members. The purpose should translate to a timeline, a set of milestones leading to goals and how each member is expected to contribute.

Management and Moderation

The network needs to be effectively managed and moderated so that the network purpose remains central to member activity. The CIO and IT manager are nominally the personalities who drive the network but a network is as only as valuable as the contributions of its users so these leaders should be supported by other management especially the company directors and board, a realistic budget that is flexible enough to respond to the challenges of the project. Additionally the network leaders should be supported by parallel levels of management especially Human Resources and Workflow architects to ensure that the time required by users to contribute to the network is acknowledged either through financial or promotional opportunities.

Membership experience needs to be monitored continuously to ensure users are satisfied and inspired to deliver the outcomes. This would be a key role for both the CIO and the IT Manager. The CIO could focus on the quality of the user interaction with the network while the IT Manager could provide quantative data (through application server logs) to measure the direction and scale of interaction. As users become more focussed and efficient with the process, they should be given more ambitious tasks and encouragement. This can be done in association with the moderator. A moderator needs to be appointed and given the time and resources to actively drive the network through a continuous monitoring, evaluation and recommendation cycle. The CIO and IT Manager should not necessarily be the moderator. Maybe a specially appointed project manager needs to do this.

Technical ability of the users

Depending on whether the company is in the business of ICT, the technology ability of users needs to be addressed. If the technical challenges of contributing to the network are onerous or unrealistic, users will be less likely to contribute and the quality of their interactions will be seriously compromised. In order to prevent this, resources should be committed to user education through training materials, coaching, mentoring and 'buddy' systems. The network software should be evaluated for usability as a key adoption requirement.

Budget

Finally, the cost of the system and its maintenance need to be considered. Some systems are so cost prohibitive that only large multinational companies can afford them. Fortunately there are also many open source systems that can be configured to deliver much the same service - even if several systems need to be cobbled together to provide a network page that is really a mashup.

privacy, technology level of members, expense, incentives