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When social means business: the potential of social computing tools to support collaborative work as

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Title: When social means business: the potential of social computing tools to support collaborative work as


1
  • When social means business the potential of
    social computing tools to support collaborative
    work as part of the organisational information
    infrastructure
  • Dr Hazel Hall
  • Reader in Social Informatics
  • Centre for Social Informatics
  • School of Computing
  • Edinburgh Napier University

2
Room demographics
  • Who uses what for purposes of collaborative work?
  • Blogs?
  • Wikis?
  • Social networking?
  • Instant messaging?
  • Microblogging?

3
Purposes of the TFPL-Napier study
  • Establish main opportunities and risks of social
    computing tools within organisations for
    collaborative work purposes, as perceived by
    information and knowledge management
    professionals
  • Meet general interest of TFPLs client base
  • Inform TFPLs training and consultancy portfolio
  • Serve as pilot for larger, externally-funded
    piece of work

4
Focus on social computing tools
  • Establish main opportunities and risks of social
    computing tools within organisations for
    collaborative work purposes, as perceived by
    information and knowledge management
    professionals
  • Licensed collaborative work platforms, e.g.
    SharePoint (Microsoft), Lotus Notes and
    Quickplace (IBM), E-rooms (Documentum)
  • Mature social software applications, e.g.
    instant messaging, blogs, wikis
  • Newer Web 2.0 applications, e.g. social
    networking, microblogging

5
Focus on collaborative work purposes
  • Establish main opportunities and risks of social
    computing tools within organisations for
    collaborative work purposes, as perceived by
    information and knowledge management
    professionals
  • Focus to date
  • Freely available social software for personal use
  • Academic studies that treat older applications
    in non-corporate environments, e.g. educational
    settings
  • Few studies on internal social computing
    environments
  • Lack of extant literature on newer tools, e.g.
    social networking and microblogging applications

6
Focus on perceptions of IKM community
  • Establish main opportunities and risks of social
    computing tools within organisations for
    collaborative work purposes, as perceived by
    information and knowledge management
    professionals
  • Rather than
  • Journalists, e.g. concern over vulnerable groups
  • Educational researchers, e.g. goal of enhancement
    of classroom environment
  • Public relations professionals, e.g. efforts to
    improve corporate communications

7
Research focus 1 scale of implementation
  • Organisational uptake of social computing
  • Levels of adoption
  • Degree of access to tools
  • In general
  • By tool
  • By tool function
  • Attitudes of IM/KM staff to social computing
  • In general
  • By tool

8
Research foci 2 3 opportunity risk
  • Anticipated actual, feared realised
    (literature review)

9
Research activities 12 weeks 2008
10
Hazel Hall and Shooresh Golzari based at Napier
in Edinburgh
Focus group held at IDOX offices in Glasgow
(31/07/08)
Melanie Goody and Belinda Blaswick based at TFPL
in London
Respondents to web-based survey (07-14/07/08) and
participants in telephone interviews (28/07
-01/08/08) based across the UK
Focus group held at IDOX/TFPL offices in London
(23/07/08)
11
Data subjects
  • Population
  • TFPL contacts
  • Direct, e.g. clients, attendees at SharePoint
    Summits
  • Indirect, e.g. through the Scottish Information
    Network
  • Invitation to participate
  • Face-to-face at TFPL Connect meeting June 2008
  • Survey and focus groups by e-mail invitation
  • Possible to attend focus group, but not complete
    survey
  • Interviews volunteers left contact details on
    survey

12
Study contributions
Survey majority from public sector organisations.
Organisation size median 725 employees.
It was possible to make more than one
contribution to the research, e.g. all who were
interviewed completed the survey (96-1482)
similarly it was possible to complete the survey
anonymously and attend a focus group.
13
Data collected, recorded analysed
14
Uptake of social computing for collaborative work
  • Range in levels of adoption

Sophisticated implementations with integrated
consumer licensed applications
Non-provision
15
Uptake of social computing for collaborative work
  • Range in levels of adoption

Sophisticated implementations with integrated
consumer licensed applications
Sense that the study came too early High
number of dont know and neutral responses to
survey questions Two thirds of respondents who
provided additional free text comments at end of
survey noted that the impacts of social computing
were yet to be felt Interviewees were cautious
in drawing firm conclusions
Non-provision
16
Access and encouragement
17
Access and encouragement
Public sector Higher levels of access and
encouragement Private sector Greater levels of
actual usage Restricted use Reported by 24
survey respondents Change management investment
concerns Even/especially in cases of high
financial outlay
18
Enthusiasm amongst IM and KM staff
  • Levels of enthusiasm for social computing for
    collaborative work amongst IM and KM staff high
  • Increases collaboration and improves productivity
    in general
  • Facilitates knowledge and information sharing
  • Connects individuals and groups
  • Widens communication channels
  • Enhances IM practice
  • More obvious and better organisation of resources
  • Consolidation of material and reduction of silos
  • 24 hour access
  • Induces positive cultural change, e.g. widened
    employee choice ? retention

19
The biggest risk?
20
The biggest risk?
  • Failure to capitalise on opportunities offered by
    social computing tools due to poor implementation
    management
  • Respondents familiar with this risk from earlier
    experiences, e.g. intranet developments from
    mid-90s onwards
  • This risk is not considered in the literature

Like most things its about cultural change. A
tool (however clever) can be used well/badly.
Therefore usual considerations apply around what
purpose does it serve, selling it to the
business, understanding business benefits/risks,
giving staff skills to use it/them properly,
providing standards and guidance around use,
encouraging good practice.
21
Less prominent risks
  • IM problems
  • Information sprawl (but not overload) archiving
    means of accessing archives (version control and
    information quality)
  • Compromised security
  • (Legal infringement and disrepute theoretically
    valid, though not realised in practice) some
    leakage of confidential information
  • Lowered productivity
  • Coping with IM problems failure to adopt social
    computing tools
  • If employees are going to waste time, they do
    not need social computing tools to do it
  • (Anti-social behaviour)

22
Top tools for IM and KM professionals
23
Tool availability usefulness
24
Tool availability, usefulness usage
25
Tool availability, usefulness usage
26
Tool availability, usefulness usage
27
Tool availability, usefulness usage
  • Ready availability of a tool does not guarantee
    popularity
  • Under-exploitation of most valuable tools?
  • Microblogging is barely on the radar, yet
    consider its features

28
Microblogging
  • Elements of social networking
  • End user determines source of information flow
    based on social network that he/she builds
  • Elements of instant messaging
  • Interactions are brief and to the point, real
    time, familiar format
  • Elements of wiki
  • Public nature of conversations encourages
    collaborative building of new knowledge
  • Elements of blogging
  • Microblog, with easy linking to other resources

29
Microblogging
  • Elements of social networking
  • End user determines source of information flow
    based on social network that he/she builds
  • Elements of instant messaging
  • Interactions are brief and to the point, real
    time, familiar format
  • Elements of wiki
  • Public nature of conversations encourages
    collaborative building of new knowledge
  • Elements of blogging
  • Microblog, with easy linking to other resources

Plus elements of conversation, providing 1.
Meta-knowledge 2. Problem reformulation 3.
Validation 4. Legitimisation
30
5 stages of Twitter acceptance
http//www.slideshare.net/minxuan/how-twitter-chan
ged-my-life-presentation
Denial
I think Twitter sounds stupid. Why would anyone
care what other people are doing right now?
31
5 stages of Twitter acceptance
http//www.slideshare.net/minxuan/how-twitter-chan
ged-my-life-presentation
Presence
OK, I dont really get why people love it, but I
guess I should at least create an account.
Denial
I think Twitter sounds stupid. Why would anyone
care what other people are doing right now?
32
5 stages of Twitter acceptance
http//www.slideshare.net/minxuan/how-twitter-chan
ged-my-life-presentation
Dumping
Im on Twitter and use it for pasting links to my
blog posts and pointing people to my press
releases.
Presence
OK, I dont really get why people love it, but I
guess I should at least create an account.
Denial
I think Twitter sounds stupid. Why would anyone
care what other people are doing right now?
33
5 stages of Twitter acceptance
http//www.slideshare.net/minxuan/how-twitter-chan
ged-my-life-presentation
Conversing
I dont always post useful stuff, but I do use
Twitter to have authentic 1x1 conversations.
Dumping
Im on Twitter and use it for pasting links to my
blog posts and pointing people to my press
releases.
Presence
OK, I dont really get why people love it, but I
guess I should at least create an account.
Denial
I think Twitter sounds stupid. Why would anyone
care what other people are doing right now?
34
5 stages of Twitter acceptance
http//www.slideshare.net/minxuan/how-twitter-chan
ged-my-life-presentation
Conversing
I dont always post useful stuff, but I do use
Twitter to have authentic 1x1 conversations.
Microblogging
Im using Twitter to publish useful information
that people read, and to converse 1x1
authentically.
Dumping
Im on Twitter and use it for pasting links to my
blog posts and pointing people to my press
releases.
Presence
OK, I dont really get why people love it, but I
guess I should at least create an account.
Denial
I think Twitter sounds stupid. Why would anyone
care what other people are doing right now?
35
Back to the biggest risk wrong implementation
  • Challenge of understanding changes in the
    environment where social may mean business
  • Organisational level
  • Lack of investment/partial investment/restricted
    access
  • Lack of investment in change management
  • Personal level
  • Dont know/ neutral/caution
  • Consider your own forays into social computing
  • Work/social conversation
  • Accounts and identities
  • Microblogging issue today parallels e-mail 15-20
    years ago?

36
and parallels with the telephone
  • Illustrated with this clip from Topsy Turvy

http//www.youtube.com/watch?v7z9cpzz6Cp0
37
Implications for information and knowledge
management professionals
  • Explore the value of social computing
  • Sell right message on value to the organisation
  • Play an active role in implementation planning
  • Choice of tools
  • Management of roll-out
  • Design of governance guidelines
  • Become mediators in social computing business
    environments
  • Explore microblogging

38
More Gilbert Sullivan
  • Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre explore
    Facebook our final conference treat

http//www.youtube.com/watch?vx7RrHXNyONc
With thanks to Kev Sutherland
39
  • When social means business the potential of
    social computing tools to support collaborative
    work as part of the organisational information
    infrastructure
  • Dr Hazel Hall
  • Reader in Social Informatics
  • Centre for Social Informatics
  • School of Computing
  • Edinburgh Napier University
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