Government use of social media - reporting what we already knew...

A friend at the very useful National Library for Health recently sent me the Government Review of Social Media Use, which reflects my research findings into the use of social media and which is, in reality, a fine description of the problem of electing individuals who crave power to represent us.

The Social Media Review was commissioned in March 2007 by the Permanent Secretary for Government Communication, to provide information on the current and planned use of social media in government. Its aims were to

• assess the strengths and weaknesses of government communication activity in this area
• identify examples of good practice within the wider communication network
• identify barriers and opportunities
• make recommendations on how government communicators can build their capability to
  engage more effectively with the public using social media
• identify communication structures, processes and resources that may need to be
  enhanced or refocused to facilitate better working

A couple of things caught my attention when reading it...

It mentions the command and control culture prevents them civil servants from

"having access to the tools and networks they have come to expect in their private lives."

This I found in my own research, that my organisation was wary of losing control of its communications with "the masses", leading to negative media attention and public uproar. This is very clearly demonstrated in the review, where it states

"...the use of some social media – particularly blogs and social networking sites – could open up individuals, departments, the Civil Service and Ministers to extreme scrutiny, criticism and negative media comment."

Again, the media impacts negatively on the culture of the public sector, leading to the opposite of what is required, a culture of open and transparent debate and communication.

It amused me that this report stated that public servants are warey of social media due to the fact that it "puts communication into the hands of the many" and for every gain to the reputation of a department, there is the danger that policy differences be exposed or misinterpreted and "circulated widely". Funny...I always thought the government was based on on electing representatives of the "many" to voice their opinion? I thought that that was what representative meant? Is that wrong?

Maybe this is a chance to develop policy WITH the electorate? The reality of it all seems the wrong way around to me...but then I am only one of the "many".

The report also notes the lack of understanding of the skills and resources required to manage online communities, blogs etc, another misconception about online communities and social networking....it takes some very refined skills to make it work effectively.

Jeremy Gould. a civil servant running websites for a UK government department notes also, that government colleagues are blind to the value that could be gained from joining in with existing debate, and bemoans the fact that they are just

"... desperate to have a shiny blog/wiki/forum (delete as appropriate), not interested in examining interaction online with existing communities or partnering. They just WANT A BLOG, NOW!"

This to me is a complete failing to maximise on a potential collaboration between the people and the people elected to represent them and a misunderstanding of the true nature of social media. David Milliband may have a popular blog, have been interviewed on Second Life, and wax lyrical about the potential of Web 2.0, but his colleagues it seems, are still living in the dark ages (but we all knew that now didn't we).

It's NOT fluffy - misconceptions about knowledge management

If one more person says "you do the fluffy stuff" when talking about the human element of knowledge management I'm going to scream...

Why is it, that anything to do with people is termed "fluffy". It makes it sound all kittens, pink and soft. It's not. People are interesting, complex, and above all, very very difficult to fathom. They are multifacted self directed objects, with their own thoughts, motivations, likes, dislikes, habits and beliefs. How on earth can dealing with or understanding them be "fluffy".

Knowledge managers who do not think codification and storage of knowledge is the way to go are not the only people who have this ridiculous label. Anyone working in training and development, social work, psychology, will all have been told they "do that fluffy stuff".

In terms of knowledge management, when we talk about communities, and networks, we are talking about the way people really learn. Numerous studies have demonstrated that we learn most of what we know about how to do our jobs by talking to one another, by communicating our experiences with others. However, this is seen as "fluffy" - because it isn't quantifiable? Because we can't see the knowledge being shared? It doesn't mean it's not happening...and that we may be able to harness/cultivate it for positive gain.

There are still people who believe that collecting "knowledge" is the way to go in knowledge mangement, that a database full of documents, a spreadsheet of comments, is what is needed. I would argue that this is not knowledge, but information. Information devoid of context, knowledge reduced in complexity, is of little use in comparison with a conversation or story giving depth and clarity. As Jay Cross so succinctly put it in his book Informal Learning,

"You can no more capture true knowledge in a repository that you can trap lightening in a box". (p64)

So what is so "fluffy" about people sharing knowledge without storing it in a repository...maybe "fluffy" is a euphemism for "I don't understand what you are talking about so I'll give it a name which makes it seem easy and harmless".

Then again, if "fluffy" really means complex, difficult to understand, but vital if we're going to share knowledge effectively, then I'm happy.

Rant over...

Seeing the bigger picture – the problem with focusing on technology

We understand everything from a position of prior knowledge, and make assumptions based on that knowledge. These two videos illustrate this point beautifully – one is the old Guardian advert from the 80’s, promoting the paper’s unbiased views, the other, a video cartoon using familiar images (!) as a starting point, and creating something completely different from them. In both cases, it’s the bigger picture that is important, not your initial assumptions.

We tend to jump to conclusions based on our existing knowledge and prior experiences, to focus on just one part of what we are seeing and experiencing to such an extent that we sometimes fail to see the bigger picture – this I feel is the case with social networking and our dependance on technology. I feel we are spending too much time thinking and talking about web 2.0, enterprise 2.0, library 2.0 etc etc, and not enough time understanding the human element of the changes that are occuring in work and business, and indeed, in our social lives at this time. We are concentrating on what we know, focusing in on just one part of the picture. I’m guilty of this as much as the next person, but it’s starting to concern me.

Yes, the internet helps us to connect and share and communicate and collaborate – but are we doing this to the deteriment of having quality, real life interactions? The bigger picture has technology as ELEMENT of what’s happening. It’s an enabler, not an end in itself. Email has reduced the number of telephone calls we make, texting is the communication tool of choice for millions of people – what about conversation? I spend more time on Facebook than I do meeting up with the people I’m communicating with!

The bigger picture – surely it’s about humanity and not technology? Maybe we should all get out more….

Moroccan Adventure

Having finished my dissertation, my hubby and I decided to get away, and a cheap flight to Morocco was too much of an opportunity to turn down.

Little did I know that I'd be on a crash course in communication. I came back being able to speak a smattering of French, a smidgen of Berber and a wee bit of Moroccan Arabic. In fact, I realised more than ever, that we are all the same, wherever we live.

I managed to communicate despite having no idea what people were saying and picked up language without really knowing how. It was a real lesson in situated learning - without being immersed in the language, I don't think I'd ever have learned as much. The same goes for the culture of Morocco - staying in a Riad with a Moroccan housekeeper who was adamant that I'd learn how to pour mint tea in an acceptable way brought the culture to life and I'm now equipped to at least visit a Moroccan home without showing myself up and not pouring the first cup of tea back in the pot!

They say travel broadens the mind - I can certainly see why.

Dissertation complete!

Well, I've finished the dissertation - thanks to everyone who helped form my thinking by comments to this blog - you've been invaluable. Off to Morocco for 2 weeks now, will get straight back into the blog on my return. I've really missed blogging but had to focus on writing...

See you soon...

Helen x

Informal learning - identifying bad practice

Being a huge advocate of organisations paying more attention to informal learning, I've been attempting to raise awareness with practitioners of project managers of possible ways of learning. Then I had a sudden crisis of confidence. What if they are learning not the most effective ways to do things, but are validating bad practice.

I'm not saying that this happens, just that it's a possibility. In any gathering where practice experiences are shared, it's surely possible that there are more novices than experienced practitioners. If the experienced practitioner is advocating a practice which is not necessarily the most effective way to do things, or indeed, advocating bad practice of some sort, how are the novices to know that they should not adopt that practice? How do they identify "good" practice, when they have nothing to compare it against? After all, we don't know what we don't know. And who has the authority to identify good practice.

I return then to the concept of communties and networks, as it seems that the more contact novices have with ways of working, the more likely they are to identify mulitple ways of acting, and so be able to make their own decisions about what is good and bad practice. Without multiple contacts with multiple ways of working, their options for choosing an effective approach are lessened, another argument for the concept of Connectivism and networked learning, as advocated by George Siemens. It also appears to indicate that any community of practice must have a mix of novices, experts and all those in between, which in itself has implications for the moderation or management of communities to gain the best result for organisations.

Is it then the role of the community facilitator or coordinator to maintain a mix of skills and abilities in any given group, and if so, how do they go about identifying these? Maybe a community coordinator can direct the make up of a community to some an extent, but the development of skills in critical reflection and relationship building is far more empowering, and may better enable novices to consider critically any practice they come across. In addition, skills in network development will help them identify more individuals from which they can learn multiple ways of working.

Community of practice activity

Those of you coordinating an online community will know how depressing it can be to see that your most active members sometime just disappear. This, according to Wenger, McDermott and Synder in their book, Cultivating Communities of Practice, is normal.

Active members may move away for a time, depending on time, life changes, lack of interest in current topics, all manner of reasons. Conversely, those who only read but don't take part in discussions, may suddenly become very active, posting and commenting when once they were invisible to all but those with access to site usage data.

My own community has been changeable in terms of participation, with people moving from very active to inactive and vica versa. The diagram below shows this movement across 2 months. The colour labels are to show the anonymised logons.

So it's comforting to know that people do naturally participate to a greater or lesser extent, however there is one important element that must be considered if this is to without the collapse of the community - that there is something to motivate people to move to a more active role.

Percentage wise, Wenger et al suggest that activity rates are as follows:

• Core = 10-15% - participants who post, encourage activity, get involved often
  
• Active = 15-20% - participants who are sometimes involved, ie commenting occasionally
  
• Peripheral = 65-75% - people who read, sometimes known as "lurkers" - although this isnt a term I would encourage as these people are far more valuable than the term suggests.

Jakob Nielson's much referenced article on participant inequality indicates that this is a far higher level of participation than most sites experience. He suggests that the following is the case, and the following is more the case.

"User participation often more or less follows a 90-9-1 rule:

• 90% of users are lurkers (i.e., read or observe, but don't contribute).
• 9% of users contribute from time to time, but other priorities dominate their time.
• 1% of users participate a lot and account for most contributions: it can seem as if they don't have lives because they often post just minutes after whatever event they're commenting on occurs. "

Those who read but don't contribute are important, as I have said before, but without the active and core members, there's nothing to read! This really is a problem if your community is tending towards the 90-9-1 percent rule, rather than the 75-15-10 rule that Wenger predicts.

So...

although it's nice to know that your most prolific contributor leaving the group is not the end of the world, that others will change role and fill their shoes, without something to engage with, people won't move from their peripheral role to a more active level of participation.

The important thing then is to make sure your community is motivated by giving them a purpose.