Matt Weber’s description of IBM’s social media platform was fascinating. At the places where I’ve worked, we’ve had a clunky intranet directory for trying to find people. I’ve worked in very large organisations, and for the most part, it is a complete mystery to me who most people are, and what most people do! Sure, I’ve seen some colour-coded organisational charts, and have seen my box appear on some of them, but it seems very formal and rigid. The affordances of a social networking site would be far more effective for finding people.

I love the idea of a Social Networking Site for within an organisation. For me, it would make the other employees seem more human, which may seem slightly counter-intuitive given that it’s a digital space, rather than a physical space.

Traditional organisations have been structured with a head or CEO, with a small number of people who report to him or her. Then there are a number of people reporting to one of the people reporting to the CEO etc. etc., until you make your way down to several people at the bottom. In a library setting, this is usually the shelvers and the library assistants.

Here’s a kind of traditional structure:

Image from: http://1u88jj3r4db2x4txp44yqfj1.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/chart.jpg

In the same talk, Nicole Ellison mentioned that it’s important to know who knows what. But she went on to say it’s becoming more important to know who knows who!

Traditionally, those at the top of the hierarchy tend to have more experience and know more (of the ‘what’ stuff). They are usually remunerated handsomely. Those on the bottom of the hierarchy tend to have less experience and to know less (of the ‘what’ stuff). They are usually on or near minimum wage.

If organisations shift to valuing more of who knows who, then perhaps these traditional hierarchies will be flattened. Perhaps this change in value, with the help of the tool of an organisational social networking site, would allow employees to meet others and work on projects that suit them the best, rather than working on projects within the bounds of their rank. If being connected to people is valued, then perhaps this would also have ramifications for how staff be remunerated. Following the recession, I’ve seen more and more highly qualified people struggling to get jobs. Sometimes they are ‘lucky’ to gain a position at the bottom of the hierarchy, despite knowing a lot of the ‘what’ stuff.

I would welcome a structural shift in libraries from being based on hierarchies to wirearchies.

Image taken from http://wirearchy.com/2013/05/09/co-creating-as-disruption-to-the-dominant-cultural-framework/wirearchy-gv-logo-normal-size-jpg/

This would allow the leveraging of social capital to help get things done! It may even help increase the value of libraries. Let’s give it a go!

This post is about experiences related to the course.

Before I took this course, I realised that I spent too much time on my social media accounts. I thought that with this tendency, along with being a member of Gen Y, I would be naturally inclined to take on a role, such as this one.

However, this course, along with an unusual event, has made me reconsider.

If I had to create public content on a social media account, and be responsive to subsequent comments, I think I would be very, very busy! The discussion forum has given me a taste for this.

I enjoy the discussion forum for this course, but it is a lot of work keeping up with it, while I work full-time and take another masters course at home. At times, I have needed to focus on my work or to write a paper for my other course.

Sometimes the forum is very busy, when I am very busy. I left it for two days at one point and there were 56 messages to read when I next logged in! Recently I attended a special family event in Auckland for the weekend. I had trouble logging into UBC connect on my phone and so I used my Mum’s tablet. This wasn’t ideal, but I was at least able to log in while I was out of town. A weekend away is nice, but becomes challenging when you have digital profiles to monitor. I wanted to be meaningfully present with my family, but I had to check in with my online courses. This gave me a taste for what it would be like if I was responsible for a social media account. Am I able to allow myself to switch off?

I love to mull. I love to think about ideas in terms of other ideas I’ve had, especially across disciplines that are not traditionally related. I love to ‘chew the fat’. Being immediately responsive to an idea within a week is a real challenge. Sometimes I don’t have an opinion on something yet, even though I want to. The digital world doesn’t always allow time to chew the fat. A social media professional would need to be able to understand many topics inside out, and be able to formulate a succinct, intelligent response immediately.

Another event this week made me realise that I might not want to be responsible to the media. One morning this week I woke up to discover that I was in the national news. A response I had given to an information request from a member of the public was on page 2 of our local newspaper and the main headline on our national news website! I had not given permission for my name to be published. The words that were attributed to me were actually provided to me by someone else! I was just the messenger! I wasn’t happy at all with the way I was portrayed. What startled me was that the online story was updated and changed every few minutes throughout the morning. The digital world moves fast. I felt completely out of control!

Someone plastered it on my facebook wall (which I removed half an hour later). My phone and email went ballistic. The bombardment overwhelmed me. The General Manager and his office spent the morning trying to control the media. I don’t come across looking bad at all, but I didn’t like the way it played out, especially without my permission. It was a verrry trite story and it was a verrry slow news day to make national news!

But this experience made me realise that being responsible for information that is being smeared around the public domain may not actually be my cuppa tea!

These two recent experiences would not be typical of working as a social media professional. But the taste for it has made me realise that it would be a very demanding job being responsible for an organisation’s online presence!