Is there no substitute for face-to-face?

I’ve been having numerous conversations about how there is no substitute for face-to-face communication. And I understand this – we’ve been using the medium of the face-to-face for a lot longer than we’ve been using any other form of communication. We can see and sense each other in physical real-time 3D, and have all those rich qualities engaged. Yet face-to-face is not always possible, practicable or affordable – for business and personal – in our globalised world. So what to do?

I’ve been musing on the multi-layered approaches that communications mediums now offer us. The different types of relationships this means and enables, particularly in what is now called the ‘social’ environment. So we have social media, social networking, social business, social CRM, social marketing, the list goes on. They all mean different things to different people. What does this really mean as a movement?

To me it speaks of the changing nature of relationships and their potential beyond the borders and reach of the face-to-face. There is only so much time and ability to always connect in the face-to-face. Yet individuals and organisations collectively can do so much more in the virtual realm. It’s not a substitute for face-to-face – it’s a value-add or it's a new dimension, and can keep relationships going on many different levels. Levels that we have not seen before. Some might think these are not ‘real’ relationships in the way we have traditionally thought of them. Many of us are not comfortable with this.

Face-to-face communication has been around as long as humans have been on the planet. It’s ancient. The newer forms enabled by the web have been around for what, just over 10 years? And only in the last few years has this last round of ‘social’ communication become mainstream – it’s no longer a case of ‘if’, it’s now ‘when’ will you dip your toe in the waters of these mediums – both the shallows and the depths.

It's opened up the potential to go beyond the physical. Some people I connect with online, e.g. via Twitter, I may rarely or never meet in person. Yet this does not dis-count the value of the connection. I now have the opportunity to share knowledge, find out what they are working on and how this relates to my interests. And I can be selective about who I do and don’t follow, just as I am in face-to-face life.

I believe people and organisations will become better at using and managing these, and bring their human face-to-face behaviours into the virtual. It’s already happening, it’s all part of how we keep our relationships connected – and that can be business-to-consumer as well as consumer-to-consumer, manager-to-team, colleague-to-colleague and friend-to-friend. They happen on many different levels, when face-to-face is not a viable option. Or to introduce a new dimension that can be useful and meaningful to whatever it is. The guiding principle is to participate as if we were face-to-face – and keep it real.

So as a ‘consumer’, I can feel connected to a brand that makes the products I need and like, and can even participate in co-creation. Much has been said of Lego in this regard, where you can design your own Lego kit, and have it made up for you and share with other enthusiasts; or even the well-known Old Spice example
where the Old Spice guy (and of course his team) made real-time customised video messages upon request via Twitter and YouTube. The success of these kinds of approaches is that on some level, a real connection is made. Even if it is kind of transient and for fun (or to build an authentic brand connection).

We are social creatures and how we relate to each other is what drives us (and the organisation) forwards (or backwards, depending on the constructiveness of the relationship). Best that we all understand how to use it ‘for good’ in our multi-dimensional world. That goes for face-to-face as well as virtual. And that we keep our web of relationships connected using whatever medium makes sense for us and ‘fit for purpose’.

Is the virtual really real?

Once upon a time, I studied virtual communication. Whenever I mentioned this, a common response was ironic laughter. ‘You mustn’t have much to talk about,’ the thinking went, ‘because it’s not really communicating, is it?’ In their eyes the irony was that the virtual couldn’t possibly be ‘real’ communication by ‘real’ people.

Yet the knowledge that we’re in a ‘virtual revolution’ is so common now, there’s even a TV series about it.  Its tagline is “how 20 years of the web has reshaped our lives”. Forever. And the curious thing to me is that in our human history, each time there is a huge shift (and new tools) in the way we connect and share what we know or think, it takes some time for our social customs to catch up.

In using these new tools, some people get very concerned that our brains are being changed for the worse, that it signals the downfall of civilization as we know it and it regresses human behaviour. For these ‘disruptive innovations’  introduce a new way of being together, fundamentally changing the status quo, power balance, business models and our jobs too. But do they actually make us less human? Isn’t it up to each of us to ‘be real’ and choose our behaviours? With people as well as how we work in organisations?

I recently discussed this at the Melbourne Knowledge Management Leadership Forum (in the ‘Ignite’ format – a fast-paced 5 minute presentation). My slides are below.

Our reality is also our virtual experience

View more presentations from Helen Mitchell.

A curious thing – the word ‘virtual’ has its roots in something very human and real indeed: it means “having the essence or effect”  and it comes from the Medieval Latin for ‘virtue’: “moral excellence and righteousness; goodness”.

So my thinking here is that the underlying behaviours and emotions that make us human remain the same – as do our motivations to behave or feel a certain way. Only the technology changes. And unless we really connect, it is not real. Not the fact that we might be physically co-located.

We’re all now familiar with the telephone. Yet the social customs of the telephone took a long time to become clear. Arranging social gatherings by telephone used to be considered vulgar, the proper etiquette was by a mailed letter. Bad behaviour was rife – we’d now call it ‘flaming’. In America in around 1910, some cities passed laws allowing authorities to fine or even jail those who behaved badly on the telephone.  To encourage civil behaviour AT&T created the “telephone pledge” which said “I believe in the Golden Rule and will try to be as Courteous and Considerate over the Telephone as if Face to Face”.

A wonderful early example of this is in the 1910 advertisement below. It starts off by saying "Courteous and considerate co-operation is as essential at the telephone as in the office or home"…

The social history of the telephone makes fascinating reading – there's some great passages here in this book by Claude S Fischer.

So the more things change, the more they stay the same. So too it is with using new communication mediums it seems! Social media is the one we’re grappling with now. It amplifies human behaviour – the good and the bad. It’s up to us to use it constructively and find the right balance.

So perhaps it’s about putting the ‘virtue’ back into ‘virtual’. And to not worry about the medium so much. Jump in, find where the people are, participate and create the meaning and connections for ourselves.

Delicious, yet it’s leaving an odd taste

If I have a major reflection on the past week’s revelations around the “sunsetting” of the Delicious social bookmarking service, it’s that while some things may not generate cash, they do generate highly valuable goodwill. While a service may not be a “strategic fit” for the organization, somewhere and somehow it is a strategic fit for the people who use and love it.

This seems to have happened with Delicious. Much has been said about the value and loss of Delicious, and what might be going on inside Yahoo:

• Read Write Web: R.I.P. Delicious you were so beautiful to me
• Mashable: Former Yahoo Exec: “Delicious Is in Peril,” Sale Unlikely
• Techcrunch: Why Sunsetting Delicious Matters
• And from Yahoo itself on the Delicious blog: What’s next for Delicious

For me, one of the biggest observations is how Yahoo’s trust and reputation have been compromised, and it didn’t take very long from when the story broke on Twitter.

I’ve used Delicious since around 2004, firstly for my Masters research, where I compiled all my references for writing my papers, and have used it since as a safekeeping place for articles and tags I want to remember. I loved it, it was easy, it met a need. For me, it’s been integrated into all my online reading – through the various browser toolbars that made it so easy to save and tag at a click. I’d tried other things, but nothing seemed to have the stickiness of Delicious for me. It had become a habit.

Fast forward through to the breaking story of last Friday, Melbourne time, which I discovered first thing in the morning via the flurry of tweets around rumors that Yahoo were closing down Delicious. Firstly to find out if it really was true, then the “oh no” moment through to finding out what were the alternatives. To me this says that many people valued and used, relied on and even loved the service.

Such is the nature of the current web, and having valuable memories in ‘the cloud’, where things can change and disappear – inconvenient, yet a reality. The interesting thing to me is the immediate impact on trust in Yahoo, and the multiple services it offers. Through association, the thinking seemed to be “if Yahoo can do that to Delicious, what could they do to all the other services?” Data, lists and tags are being hastily extracted, exported, backed-up offline and looking for new homes.

Definitions were loose as the story emerged. When it first came out, sunsetting meant “closing down”. Then after a little while, it meant “find a buyer”. Of course I don’t have all the information; yet something doesn’t add up here for me. Maybe it’s all down to interpretation, but the messages from Yahoo have not been clear enough to its (more than 5 million) Delicious users, and I am one of them.

On the web (and in life), some things need to be ‘for free’, to be a hook, to complement paid services or just because it makes sense to give something to the community of users. I believe these models can work together in business. The challenge is in deciding what, where and how ‘free services’ strategically fit in, and how the value of goodwill is handled. In my view, this challenge is here to stay, and each organization will need to sort this out along with how it communicates in the environment of social media, where small leaks can have big consequences.

Striking sparks of interest

I've been lately musing on creativity and satisfaction - in work, at home, for fun, for business, for career. How do each of us find the thing where we feel connected to what we are doing, with a sense of purpose and meaning?

Many paths of exploring ideas around this have led me to the writings of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a professor of psychology who is very well-known for his work into "flow", including "human strengths such as optimism, creativity, intrinsic motivation, and responsibility". (his work was referenced in Dan Pink's recent book Drive)

(Side note: According to the articles I've read, you pronounce his name as "Mee-high CHICK-sent-me-high-ee". Apparently those that know Csikszentmihalyi, call him 'Mike'. )

In one of the articles I read, Csikszentmihalyi shared some suggestions on how to live a more creative life. And I'm thinking too, that through practising these tips, those connections we look for might be found also. So here they are:

Enhancing your creativity and happiness

• Try to be surprised by something every day.
• Try to surprise at least one person every day.
• Write down each day what surprised you and how you surprised others.
• When something strikes a spark of interest, follow it.
• Recognize that if you do anything well it becomes enjoyable.
• To keep enjoying something, increase its complexity.
• Make time for reflection and relaxation.
• Find out what you like and what you hate about life.
• Start doing more of what you love and less of what you hate.
• Find a way to express what moves you.
• Look at problems from as many viewpoints as possible.
• Produce as many ideas as possible.
• Have as many different ideas as possible.
• Try to produce unlikely ideas.

I practised no. 4 today (When something strikes a spark of interest, follow it). It drew me through many paths on the web to the journal article where these tips were published, and I've shared them here, with you.

Are there aliens on social media?

Watching the 7.30 Report segment The global water cooler about the popularity of social media and social networks, I was prepared for the worst.

You know, that social media and social networks are causing the downfall of civilisation, that our brains are all going to slowly (or quickly) deteriorate as we keep using them to connect, that we will steadily un-evolve and lose all our social and communication skills with humankind. We will stop working and being productive, and contributing to society in ways that we deem as human and constructive. The normal kind of report you see in the mainstream media about this newfangled virtual communication thing.

Thankfully, it was not that, it had some interesting things to say and presented two sides to the story. Which I thought ended on the note that most sensible people were in favour of the whole thing.

At one point Kerry O’Brien mentions that “critics also wonder whether time spent in the virtual world is coming at the expense of real human contact” (my emphasis). Understanding that the meaning might be in the semantics:  if I didn’t have a real human being on the other end of my virtual social network, I wonder what it might be (apart from a bot or alien). And I would hope I’d pick that up pretty quickly and not friend or follow them/it. Because authentic people speak in human voices, and it is really necessary to ‘be human’ online to develop trust and connection.

Social media is not likely to be your sole source of relationship. It’s how it all ties together. Look for example, at the success of #coffeemornings and #socialmelb (among others). Connections and friendships might start online or offline, but they transcend the medium, and we have such a choice of communication mediums these days. The tools that make up social media are among these, of course. For myself, sometimes I forget where I had the conversation, was it F2F or online? And it doesn’t matter - for when I do see that person F2F again, we have kept the relationship going in-between the times we meet in a ‘media-rich’ environment, aka face-to-face.

The points that the neuroscientist made on the 7.30 Report like…“It's (an) ‘all about me’ culture where you just have to publicise you're cleaning your teeth or you're putting your socks on or whatever”…is from a narrow viewpoint. This kind of thing can happen face-to-face too. Social media can be used for both good and evil, and the banal. Just like pretty much anything can.

And what of those people for whom face-to-face is not an option? If it’s a choice between ‘nothing’ and ‘online’ to keep a friendship going, virtual communication is better than none. Tools like Facebook in particular are a testament to that. I’m thinking travellers, expats, families/friends separated by geography, etc.

And there is evidence to support that rather than decreasing our social ties and connections, use of virtual communication actually increases it, and our social and literacy skills along with it. Research organisation Pew Internet has some interesting reports here and here.

There seems to be a pattern that when new communication technologies such as the printing press, television, web and now Web 2.0 come around, we think it will set us backwards. Then we find the balance.

We’re human. We can be really really very good at wasting time, whether it watching television, reading romantic novels, ‘surfing the web’, gossiping on the phone or even shopping. I’m pretty sure we’d be able to find time to waste time no matter what the medium.

It’s up to us to know when to switch on, and when to switch off. And when it’s useful and when it’s not. These things are not technology issues, they’re people issues. We’ll invent some other marvellous communication medium sometime soon.

Now, where are those aliens again? ;-)

Learning to change culture

To me, culture seems like gossamer, hard to touch and see; even define. It can be oddly attractive as it settles around you, even comforting. Yet it can pervade the environment so surely, that when something needs to change, it may as well be fishing line.

So when myself and Tony Gleeson  were planning how to prepare our session on ‘Changing your organisational learning culture to ensure eLearning adoption’ at this week’s eLearning Connected Forum (Ark Group), we knew we needed to challenge our own thinking about what that means.

The priority of the session was to get people talking, to light the conversational fire. And as well offer something of our own experience into the mix. We framed the conversation with a statement that we hoped would get people talking, even from polar opposites. So we put up one slide that said ‘eLearning as we know it is dead. What do YOU think?’.

We talked about the changes that are happening around learning: social learning, informal learning, participatory culture, virtual spaces, next generation elearning. Our focus was that the people in the room held the keys to understanding these issues around the discussion themes:

• Value: what is the value of next generation elearning to your business and employees?
• Audience: what (and who) is the right audience for next generation elearning? Is this just for 'the young people'?
• Change strategies: what change management activities would you use to implement next generation elearning successfully? What would you do to break down resistance to change?

I loved the energy in the room. It was clear that people wanted to get talking as soon as possible, because once they started, it was challenging to get them back into the room for the group sharing bit! (thank goodness for microphones).

I noted the main themes on the whiteboard…

And some of the take-outs:

• It’s about being truly ‘Learner-centric’: ensure the value for the audience
• What creates value for the learner? There are now more options to suit learner needs
• Learner determines the meaning: connectedness is the key
• Create hunger and intrigue; then learners will identity value for themselves
• The language we use needs to change too
• Next-generation elearning helps to maintain equity for those in remote locations
• Its not the age of the people, its the age of the organisational culture that is the issue
• The power of networks: we need to value this, use & extend it
• Be more inclusive of IT people: involve them in strategy development, planning, etc
• Lets drop the ‘e’ from ‘elearning’
• It's about knowledge generation
• The ideal learning culture is emergent, collective, with transparency

Self-directed learning came up a lot in the conversation. I like this – I think it’s evolving where there is much more choice about when and how we learn. Learning doesn’t even seem like learning; it’s just part of the flow. Our own preferences can drive the learning. We can participate and be involved. Culture change starts with us.

Did I miss anything?

Holiday reading, how far have I got?

About a month before breaking for the end-of-year period, I started compiling my list of books to read.

This may seem counter-intuitive since I am such a fan of following clues and links of people on the web via Twitter and blogs, etc; however at this time of year I really enjoy the expanse of time created by holidays and lying around reading a hard copy paper book (purchased online of course).

So here is the list I've been reading through. Considering I've only finished one and I'm going back to work on Monday, this reading is going to extend w-a-y past my annual leave.

• Change by Design (Tim Brown): now this is the one I have finished reading. The concepts here are familiar to me, as I believe they dovetail neatly into other types of thinking that revolve around human needs, and then meeting them in innovative ways. Even in my former career in the performing arts, the study of human motivation and actions was a fundamental part of the 'design' of a character, to then elicit a response in the audience as a result of the performance.
  I think that human-centred design is pretty much fundamental to everything, even more so in the 'knowledge age.' I found Tim Brown's approach to design thinking useful and straightforward, especially the way he explains the concepts through visuals.
• Enterprise 2.0 (Andrew McAfee): I've just started this one. It's a great read so far, it has some great case studies and of course he's a key guru for Enterprise 2.0 and the practicalities around how it transforms organisations.
• The Cluetrain Manifesto (Levine, Locke, Searls, Weinberger): An oldie and a goodie, prophetic, insightful and entertaining. It's been published free online for years, yet I felt the need to have a hard copy. I read it years ago and I'm looking forward to revisiting it.
• Digital Habitats (Wenger, White, Smith): Another one I'm looking forward to. I've followed Etienne Wenger's work for years, and I participated in a few activities with Nancy White when she was in Melbourne last year. Great ideas and thinking in different ways about communities.
• Drive (Dan Pink): Actually, this one was a late inclusion, I only discovered it last week when doing one of my regular scans, following clues for interesting material. It follows a theme I'm fascinated by, human motivation, particularly our intrinsic motivators to connect and share what we know with each other, and why we want to achieve and learn together.

So that's it for now, I have lots to occupy me and prepare me for reading and reflection into 2010!

I've been avoiding my blog...or have I just been tweeting?

I knew it was a while since I posted, but really, since March is kind of embarrassing.

I have been doing a lot of thinking about it, and also reflecting on the use of micro-blogging and communally watching television via Twitter.

For those in Australia, this has been particularly evident in Masterchef. This show was a creeper for me. I watched some of the earlier episodes, and then maybe twice a week, then all of a sudden, I couldn't stop. Then I discovered that others were likewise addicted to watching - and sharing their experiences via Twitter. The show finished last Sunday, and the conversation continues.

I find fascinating this expression of getting together and in actuality, talking (and sometimes yelling) at the TV together. I joined in myself - and quickly found that I had to manage my twittering to be only in ad breaks, so I could concentrate on the show itself.

People tweeted about their favourite (and non-favourite) contestants, what they cooked on the show, shared photos of their own food creations, kept others up-to-date about progress and just generally revelled in the shared experience of what good food (and a competition around it) means to us.

So to what end, and what function? Well, community around shared experience springs to mind. Also, similar to conference/event tweeting, I found the updates very useful one night of the finals when I couldn't watch the show. I did get a sense of the atmosphere, activity and progress through the collective thoughts of a diverse group of people. And it was fun.

It's interesting to note too the spread of Twitter - more and more it's a mainstream activity - every day I see another established organisation promoting their Twitter handle and see increased use of it in general. And particularly for television shows. It's a great 'low barriers to entry' conversational tool.

For me, it's taken the place in many cases over my blogging....hence the long hiatus here!

Distilling my thoughts on the Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum

A month on, I continue to reflect on the content and conversation from the Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum (also known by the Twitter hashtag e2ef); and observe how this plays out.

There are a number of interrelated themes that have stuck with me:

• People and technology: it's culture change and trust in people
• The need for executive support; and the ‘grass-roots’ business ready to adapt
• The myth of ‘it’s time-wasting’ compared to the real business value to be gained
• Work/life balance: the blending of the work and personal
• Make the tools easy to use: If you have to ‘train’ people to use them, there’s something wrong
• Implement through rapid prototyping, iterative cycle, i.e. ‘Have a go, find what sticks, make it better’

What’s been sticking with me lately is the culture of trust and people, and how issues surrounding this can be a barrier to using Enterprise 2.0.

My thinking around this is that in business today, there are so many standard or traditional type procedures which have been in existence for a long time, in some cases decades: where both internal and external communication for an organisation is easily controlled and managed; where systems have a long implementation and testing process. And Enterprise 2.0 shakes this up, where the tools flatten the entire control aspect and make things visible and easy.

That can be confronting for many people, and not only those in management. Old habits die hard, even if a better option emerges. Open minds more readily try out and accept a new way of doing an established activity and I believe that this is where we are now – finding those open minds.

There are so many new ways of doing things, to communicate, to get work done. We’re in the midst of a phase that has some parallels with that earlier killer app, email. I’m thinking back to the recent past where, in the absence of alternatives, email became the default communication tool for pretty much everything. An essential business tool.

Yet I remember when email came into use (at least where I was working) in the 1990s. At the time, the company had one (that’s right, one) external email address. A few times a day someone had the task of checking the email account to see if any messages had come in.

The underlying thinking seemed to be that if everyone had an email address, they’d be wasting time emailing their friends and not working. Like it is with the phone at work. And the web. There are so many tools and distractions.

Again, the underlying assumption seems to be that people can’t really be trusted to focus and do their work. But what if people are using these new tools to do their work, and more efficiently?

So coming back to the e2ef and the conference program and speakers. Here are some of the many things that resonated with me…

• Enterprise 2.0 is creating the next phase of organisations, helping us create new organisations. You cannot map this out – it’s experimentation. It’s about learning lessons and applying what was learned. (Ross Dawson)
• Rigid controls discourage participation and serendipity (Peta Hopkins, Bond University)
  
• Don’t be afraid, just be honest (Nathan Wallace, Janssen-Cilag)
  
• A new era that challenges our concepts of hierarchy, privacy, and what’s in/out of the firewall. A culture of sharing rather than blame. Get people to focus on the value of the outputs rather than the inputs – this helps deal with the ‘myth of time-wasting’. Email has become the electronic equivalent of snail mail. (JP Rangaswami, BT Design)
  
• Bandwidth and security issues are people issues, not technical issues (Peter Williams, Deloitte Digital)
  
• Expect that people can handle social interaction – we’ve been doing it for a long time. Expect to have a group of people who are adults. The dynamic around people and technology – it’s connecting people, so it’s about how they interact and how they feel. (David Backley, Westpac)

(On the Enterprise 2.0 blog Ross Dawson has provided links to speaker presentations)

So to me, all of this says that no matter what the technology, there are human beings behind it. We have needs, we work things out, and we engage and are effective to the level of our own capacity and desires. It doesn’t matter if new tool comes along and people start using it – the behaviour and the culture (for good or for bad) would have been there all along. The tool simply makes it more visible.

And in all of this, failure is part of the equation. Human beings learn from their mistakes. This is no different in the environment of Enterprise 2.0. And this environment is providing us with a huge opportunity - to do things differently, to find the knowledge and advice we need quickly, and collaborate and learn from each other, no matter where we might be located.

I tweeted a whole lot during e2ef; and on reading back, I found this one: “sometimes need to put things out there and see what happens, how it works. Culture change – ‘fail fast, fail cheap' - and learn”.

Keep tweeting it up

I’ve been musing lately about Twitter. Particularly going home on the train. Twittering or reading tweets is a good diversion on public transport, way better than the MX (free afternoon newspaper). I also wrote a blog post in my head going home on the train, but didn’t actually write it down, so I’m trying to reconstruct it here.

I was talking to some of my work colleagues recently and showing them Twitter. I showed them some tweets and described how I use it to stay in touch with people, information and up-to-the-minute thinking. While showing them the Twitter screen on my mobile phone, I used the now-familiar (to me) terms like '@ handles', ‘followers’, ‘following', ‘retweeting’; or ‘RT’, and didn’t think much about it. Then one person turned to the other bemused, saying "it’s a whole other language, isn’t it".

I have friends who aren’t yet on Facebook, so when I talk about Twitter, I can get eyes going momentarily blank – as I see them trying to comprehend what I’ve said…I’ve gone too far into the language of the tool (think about the meaning of ‘I wrote on their wall’, ‘poked him’ or ‘status update’ if you’ve never seen Facebook).

At work with my team, we’ve noted that in a time period of 10 minutes we could communicate any number of ways: face-to-face, Yammer, email and Twitter. This may seem absurd to the uninitiated, but it happens so frequently that often I don’t even think about it. For us, these things have become regular work tools.

So it’s interesting to me that when I discuss these new communication/collaboration/learning tools, some people express in wonder where do I find the time, or have an immediate negative reaction to the concept, or are even offended. Yet I’ve also seen this change when they try it out and see what works for them, i.e. they find their own meaning and context (and their network of people online).

I’m not a particularly early adopter; it’s just that I find it fascinating how people communicate and collaborate – what they say and do, what works, what doesn’t. And how we work it out together. And how often these networks, in particular Twitter, operate on ‘the kindness of strangers’.

In my case, I’ve grown to know people through Twitter. There are some I’ve met briefly face-to-face and then follow. When I do see them in person again, conversation is easy, there is more personal context because we’ve been seeing our conversations online. I’ve met people through Twitter and then later on face-to-face, and with some I don’t remember how I met them first. There’s a blurring between the virtual and the F2F. I’ve had Twitter exchanges with people on the other side of the world, who I probably never will meet.

And since I’ve had web access on my mobile I’ve understood more and more the power of these social networking tools and their potential to connect people – anytime, anywhere – you don’t need to go to a desktop and take the time to log in.

Several recent examples show the real and practical use of Twitter on web-enabled mobile devices. I’m thinking about the bushfire crisis in Victoria, where both ABC Radio 774 and cfa_updates posted (and continue to post) alerts and information via Twitter that can help people keep informed.

Twitter seems fast approaching mainstream. In my local newspaper The Age, there have been many recent articles about it (including a good one explaining the ‘how to’ and why to’).

This article also talks about celebrity twitterers, and quotes Stephen Fry’s thoughts on Twitter in his blog, which I like so much I’m going to RT it here: “I love how Twitter confirms my all too often assaulted belief that most humans are kind, curious, knowledgeable, tolerant and funny. The absurd constraints of the 140 character tweet seem oddly to bring out the best in wit, insight and observation.”

Thanks Stephen, I agree. :-)

(and BTW, I'm @helmitch on Twitter)

Onward into 2009

Back to work tomorrow after three weeks’ glorious break and recharge. I needed it after a very big year of projects, discoveries and learnings in Web 2.0 and social media.

During my downtime I consciously decided to also take a break from participation online, including mobile, as much as possible. It was a test to find out what draws me in most. So what happened?

Well I did stay pretty much away from things, but after a while, I was drawn back to the web, because…I like it and use it to stay connected to what people are thinking and doing – both for work and personal.

I lurked quite a bit, and could stave off those feelings to participate…until today.

So on reflecting about my experiment, here’s what I found over the past few weeks. It’s not exhaustive or scientific, of course:

• I really like Facebook to find out what people have been up to, particularly personal friends and their updates – and I did respond occasionally. For me it’s a virtual access point with people I already know face-to-face.
• I like Twitter so I can stay across what people are thinking and doing in my areas of professional interest. Often there are great tip-offs about blog posts, links to information, etc. Twitter’s great for providing an access point to people who do what you do, as well as leading thinkers, authors and practitioners who tweet. I may not have met these people F2F and they may not know me.
• I played around on Linkedin a bit updating my profile, etc. I did this too with Facebook re my profile.
• I took the time to read blog posts more fully than I normally do, including watching videos. Great way to immerse myself in a topic area when I had few time constraints.
• I did look at my work email now and then on my mobile, although I resisted doing anything with what I saw (apart from one urgent thing). The magnetic draw of having the BlackBerry email there is just too tempting to resist looking at it from time to time!
• I thought about other things I’m connected to (e.g. Second Life, Flickr), but didn't really do anything.

I noted in my lurking that quite a few people were cleaning up their RSS readers and so forth.

That is something I will need to do – I have way too many RSS subscriptions to meaningfully get across them all. Realistically I read about a third of my 51 feeds. Will I have the courage to edit??

So tomorrow it will be full on into things again, with 2009 bound to bring lots of change, challenges and connections along the way. Happy new year!

Looking back, and looking forward to participation

I recently had one of those experiences of looking back with fresh eyes on some work that I did more than two years ago...and thinking it was OK! ;-)

In this case, I re-read parts of a mini-thesis I wrote for my masters study in virtual communication at RMIT University in 2006. Back then, I found the emerging landscape of Web 2.0 and user generated content fascinating (and I still do).

During my research scoping, I found that ‘participatory media’ was becoming increasingly influential on the web. As I needed to make the paper have a business focus, I chose to research the impact of participatory media on brands. What’s happened now is that this term has been overshadowed by its alternative ‘social media’. (I think because it’s easier to spell and say!)

Apart from a few people at work and some friends, I’ve never really shared my research paper, so I thought I’d do so now. Feel free to take a look, tell me what you think.

It's called 'Brand engagement through participatory media'. Some of the examples might be old, however I think they're still useful and relevant. Here’s a few bits from the abstract:

• "This research paper examines the influence that participatory media such as blogs, online social networks and virtual worlds can have on the effectiveness of an organisation’s branding strategies. It considers the history and suitability of the web for participation and the relevance of participatory media for branding, particularly in a highly competitive and media-fragmented environment. It explores the shifts in consumer behaviour, technology and the growth of online communities that are driving the changes to a ‘participatory culture’. "

• "The research shows that through using participatory media, opportunities can be created to engage and build relationships and a deeper connection with an organisation’s brand. The analysis culminates in a set of starting points to guide an organisation in formulating participatory media strategies to develop positive relationships with consumers, therefore contributing to engagement with the brand."

Research paper - Brand engagement through participatory media

NB: One of the examples I used in my paper was Weird Al Yankovic’s video clip White and Nerdy, which landed on YouTube in August 06.

Apart from being completely hilarious (especially for Gen X I think), at the time of research the video was tracking at around 10 million views - a lot by any measure. Looking at it today, White and Nerdy has well over 41 million views – that has to be a record somewhere!

More angles on learning and collaboration

This week I presented at Comview, the annual conference of the VCTA, (business and commerce education). They wanted to hear about real life examples about what we (i.e. CPA Australia) were doing with blogs, wikis, online learning, etc with our members.

Each time I present I learn something about my audience. Interesting, yet unsurprising stats with this one. In a room of about 65 accounting teachers, I had a handful who’d blogged, a few who had used social media / web 2.0 tools in their classrooms, one who’d gone to Second Life and about a third of the room on Facebook.

Nearly all hands went up when I asked if their students or children were on Facebook.

I learned too that there is a growing movement among teachers (including accounting teachers) to use social media / Web 2.0 in the classroom. Comview had a number of sessions dedicated to engaging students using Web 2.0 tools. Questions and conversations during my session also showed this growing interest.

Those 'early adopters' recognise that their students live on this type of communication, and there are teachers who are 'evangelists' about using it to engage their students in the learning. To me, this shows a great opportunity for teachers and their students to engage and create an immersive and 2-way learning situation…and make it really fun.

Not necessarily age-related, there seems to be a 'technology adoption generation gap' where some teachers feel too time-poor to use these type of tools with their students - even though the benefit leads to students' greater attention. (this issue of course is not isolated to teachers only)

The whole online collaboration movement using social media, networks and Web 2.0 is fast evolving in the workplace, and more and more I see clear patterns in how it’s being used (or not used, or trying to be used), over and above pure social interaction.

I hear this a lot when discussing using social media in the enterprise for ‘real work’…. “But when will I find the time”, and “Where do you find the time for all of this”. We're in the midst of how to 'prove' the business value.

I think the key that we will find soon enough is – “What does this replace – where is it better, how does it help me to do my job more effectively?” and by doing this – save time, more engagement, better results.

After all, what did we do before the web? Before email? Before mobile phones? Before personal computers? Before answering machines? Before the telephone?

Things do find a balance, and I think we’re in the real midst of change with all of these virtual communication, connection and collaboration tools.

Going virtual in Second Life - why?

Last week marked the launch of a significant project that our team have been working on for months – our first ever event in a virtual world. I’ve been a fan of the potential of virtual worlds for a while. I was first fascinated by it in 2006 for research, then became a user in 2007, then on to immersion in 2008 with our event. Here's a snapshot of the venue (photo credit: Marcus Coghlan).

One of the aspects I love about the web is its ability to connect people no matter where they are in the world. One of the challenges with virtual communication is that not everyone experiences it in the same way, and the variation in the richness of the experience is widely skewed.

For example, if you’re in a chat/IM, you experience each other as a line of text and a user name. Especially if you have had no previous contact with each other, you can be left wondering who this person is and what they really mean. There are very few non-verbal clues.

With a teleconference, at least you have voice quality and inflection, but it’s disembodied. A videoconference is better, but like all before it, it’s two dimensional, and doesn’t work well with a large group.

In my experience too, often videoconferences include groups of people who are face-to-face in a meeting room, with one or two others brought in from the various locations. This means that all experience their meeting environment differently.

Some cannot see the other VC participants properly (e.g. if it is a large group and the lighting is not adequate in the room); plus if you are the only person remote on videoconference, you have an inferior experience to those who there majority of people are sitting. And to me, this is where virtual worlds come in.

The promise of virtual worlds (and I recognise that we are not quite there yet), is that you are all in the same environment together. It is an immersive, visual, rich environment. In the case of Second Life, you have a number of communication tools, including voice and IM.

This becomes four options as you can have one-to-one IM and voice call, as well as many-to-many voice and IM, where all can hear and see. Plus as a participant you experience each other as a physical presence through your avatar.

For our session, participants responded well. Feedback to date shows they valued the event, content and experience – we had them logging in from all over Australia and the world, including the UK and USA. Broadband and other technicalities aside, they all experienced the same environment, no matter where they were logging in from.

And it was in real-time, 3D, where each person’s avatar provided a visual and spatial indication of them as a person; and the event as an occasion, where interaction and Q&A were a natural part of proceedings. A much richer experience than if this was a webinar, videoconference, or video recording of a session.

In the case of our event, we had two speakers hosted in our conference venue:

Lindy McKeown (Decka Mah) presented on the educational aspects and uses of virtual worlds in a learning environment; while Lee Hopkins (Lee Laperriere), spoke about how business and accountants were using Second Life. I will post again with more info on their presentations, as we’re presently having our machinima of the event edited.

For myself (Helene Markova), I MC'd the event. More on this later too – I learned a lot from this experience, it was great!

For more reviews of the session, you can go to Lee Hopkins' wrap-up on the event, as well as our team members Alex Dalidakis and Mick Leyden, who have blogged their thoughts.

Also see our Flickr tag cpaaustralia-sl for photos, and watch our promo video below of our SL environment fly-through. And do visit our CPA Congress Centre in Second Life.

Reflections on rearranging my social media

I've had an RSS reader for years. I originally used it when doing research for my Masters. It was a highly useful tool as I was researching things that were 'of the moment'. Now I use it for keeping up to date with things 'of the moment'.

The trouble is, I now have more than 50 feeds....and do I keep up with all of them? No. But do I want to trash some of them? ...ummm...that would be No. Because I might find them useful sometime! :-)

Forrester's ladder of participation classifies 6 categories - creators, critics, collectors, joiners, spectators, inactives. I fit into 5 of these categories. I started out as a collector...now I'm all of the active categories.

What this means for me is that I now have lots of things to maintain...and I find that it's the housekeeping and interior design that's always on my 'to-do' list.

For example - make my blog look nice and express who I am, add some fun gadgets; for delicious - tidy up my tags (I think I have too many); for Flickr, upload, tag and sort my images, remember to Twitter, check my Facebook, Linkedin, etc.

I'm wondering what I did with my time before social media...

Finding moments to add to my blog

One of the challenges I face in my work is keeping up to date, and writing my blog.

I view blogging and engaging in social media as an integral part of what I do as a virtual communications professional. If I don't understand it and know what it means, how will I be able to initiate strategies and lead a team in making projects happen?

I like to have something well-thought-out to say. I'm going to change this slightly, as it's inhibiting me writing posts. Sometimes it's about just starting something and seeing what happens next. Even it it's shorter.

So - I just found a great little badge on Lee Hopkin's SL blog - it's a badge that integrates with Flickr. I use my Flickr account to store all the images I take in my travels around Second Life (this too, is missing some updating!). So I've added it to my blog gadgets.

Here's to my continued blogging!

A new day, a new blog

I'm being a fickle blogger and a platform-hopper...I've just transported myself away from trying out Vox through helmitch.vox.com.

I ended up not liking Vox because it wanted anyone who read my blog to be a member of Vox before they could comment. Nothing like putting hurdles in the way of participation!

So I'm over here now, where I hope it will be a lot more friendly. Turns out I already had a Blogger account. That was from a subject in my Masters study at RMIT (of virtual communication) a few years ago, where we had a class blog.

See you soon.