Month: July 2011

Categories
Reflections

The Social Everything

(Note: If you don’t have a sense of humour, please don’t read this post and do your readings instead – it will probably be better time spent)

I’m on a roll, third blog post for the week… I’m not on the ball, I’m just inspired to be irreverent, which happens when you take two online classes and ask yourself why you are spending so much time indoors when there is so much sun OUTdoors. On days like these, I also reflect only the disjunct between school and what happens in the working world. So much of school work is hypothetical which is good for thinking about things but there is always this thin line where you know you have crossed when you start obsessing over how many blog posts you have made for the week, how many tweets you have tweeted and of course how many wiki edits you have made.

Thankfully, my ability to be irreverent shows that I am not there yet.

Let’s talk about “the social everything” – a term Anita and I coined today over a delicious dim sum meal (great moments of epiphany happens over food) where we were engaging in social food bonding. Social is big business, the social web, social media and if we go towards the internet of things, you might even have social household appliances! Many companies are realising the power of social media and are leveraging on it to reach out to more people either through direct advertising on social media platforms or creating a social media presence for themselves to engage people beyond the transactional. Social is the new business buzz word.

However, social is nothing new, it has just been given a new face. In China, businessmen secure deals over dinner and drinks, mutual partnerships have their roots in good business relationships, good customer service is about building good relationships with your clients; building relationships is intricately linked to building good social networks and not necessarily online. One of the dangers of social media is the assumption that if you are on it, you are building relationships. That is only partially true. Social media cannot replace real world interactions – the irony is that the convenience of it sometimes devalues the effort. It’s as simple as wishing a friend Happy Birthday over Facebook as opposed to sending a physical birthday card. Social media can be a start, a gateway but if you want meaningful relationships, you have to put in more effort than typing words over the internet.

Likewise physical classes as opposed to online classes. While there are benefits to online classes, they cannot replace physical classes in the area of relationship building. At the end of the day, content will only take you so far and if you have all the content in your head without the social skills to make it relevant to the people around you, you will only achieve limited success. It is better to have less content and more social skills than more content and less social skills (unless you want to become an academic). Getting the best grades, rushing to be first, proving yourself academically is only going to get you a piece of paper at the end of the day. Everything else after is social.

Categories
Blogging Recommendations

When Government Agencies Meet Social Media

A part of me thinks government agencies (especially those with higher state functions like defense and finance) and social media is somewhat of an oxymoron. On the other hand, libraries, media, cultural departments and anything to do with the arts and information are perfect matches for social media. However, regardless of the function of the agency, I believe that social media can benefit government agencies.

The first reason would be transparency. Maybe not quite a Facebook account but a blog by the agency explaining policy decisions can go a long way in reaching out to the public as well as getting their buy-in, especially if it is an unpopular policy change. But policy changes do not happen all the time so the blog can be used to, for example, give tips on tax filing, “inside information” on how to get the most out of a call and generic information pertaining to the agency that is useful for people to know. If there is value in the information provided, there will be readers.

The second reason would engagement with the public. With feedback channels that are properly serviced by employees in place – like the comment sections in blogs – agencies appear less bureaucratic and reflect the core principle of the civil service which is to serve the public.

However, if government agencies are going to do this, it cannot be token – there must be a genuine desire to engage the public. The danger of course is that comments from members of the public can easily overwhelm the staff maintaining the blog but done well, it can a long way in getting the people’s support. There is no unreasonable person, there is only an ignorant one.

I remember our former health minister had a blog which he used to explain some policy decisions. It was an unpopular policy but the unpopularity was a result of people not understanding it fully. The blog reached out to those who were social media literate. In turn, they explained what they read to others who did not follow the health minister’s blog. Useful entries were shared on other social media platforms like Facebook so people did not actually have to follow everything that he wrote because the important ones do filter to the community. Eventually, when the policy was approved, there was considerably less resistance than there was at the beginning. But of course, the blog wasn’t all of it. It was a conscious and continuous effort of the health ministry to reach out to the people.

Social media can of course be used internally within agencies for information sharing and to meet organisational communication needs. However, at this point, it seems that it is mostly internal blogs from where I come from, which are primarily for communication. Due to the sensitivity of government information, free social media platforms are not really used and unless these platforms can be commissioned securely, I don’t see it happening as yet.

Categories
Wikis

Learning to Collaborate over Wikis

(Almost) everyone who is an active user of the internet knows Wikipedia but when I ask non-librarian/ non-geek friends, few know about free wikis like Wikispaces that they can use for collaborative work. I only discovered it because the library board decided to send all librarians for a new media crash course to bring everyone, regardless of age, up to date with the various tools out there that was supposed to aid with our work.

I was delighted to discover wikis!

My husband and I used it to plan our wedding. I used it to plan outings with large groups of friends where everyone, instead of sending 101 emails, just had to update whether they were attending on the page and state what they were going to contribute if we were having picnics. In short, it was great for collaborating where planning an event was concerned.

Then I got to research projects – that was not as straightforward as planning and where Wikipedia succeeds collaboratively, wikis with small groups do not always do as well. Wikipedia has the privilege of a large pool of people editing it simultaneously and independently. When the Sendai earthquake and tsunami happened, it only took 12 hours for the Wikipedia entry to be created and two days later, there were more than 500 updates with almost 150 references. Now that’s remarkable. If the Wisdom of Crowds theory is correct, then Wikipedia does really well precisely because it has a large pool of contributors. It’s a good bet that none of the contributors knew each other and everyone added what they believed was the best available content for the page.

In small group wiki collaborations. There isn’t the benefit of anonymity and often the fear of offending someone by “correcting” that person’s entry gets in the way. Occasionally, discussion about what to include in the wiki happens outside the medium and often through email. Each person usually tries justifies the changes they make so that no one would be offended. While the intent is the same — everyone wanting to contribute what they believe is best — the process is different, diplomacy changes the wiki experience. Contributing to a wiki requires one to relinquish control – each contributor needs to understand that whatever they put out there is going to be changed whether they like it or not. Trust is also required – each contributing member needs to believe that everyone is going to make changes that will only improve the wiki. Without these two things, collaborating on a wiki project will not be as efficient as it can potentially be.

If I had to come up with a wiki collaboration manifesto, it would be this:

1. In the spirit of collaboration, I will not seek to control the outcome of the wiki project but work towards improving it step by step through editing.

2. I will respect the work of those who contribute to the wiki and trust that every change made is made to improve the wiki.

3. I will understand that different people contribute differently, some more, some less and every contribution is valid with equal value.

4. I will not impose my value judgement on the work that others do even if it is different from the way I would have done them and instead, build on their changes to make the wiki better.

5. I will respect the work of people I use and cite them appropriately to acknowledge their part in my creation of content.

and lastly,

6. All content created on the wiki is done with the desire to share information freely.

 

Categories
Reflections Virtual Reality

When Social Media becomes a Crutch

I have never actively participated in Second Life – I tried it for a course but never got the hang of it (partly because it was not intuitive to me) and it felt like too much of an effort to create another world to live in for yourself. Living in any “world” requires work. You need to spend time to build relationships, you need to understand the rules that govern a place and adapt. I couldn’t understand why anyone would be addicted to Second Life at that time and reading stories of people who found the kind of “acceptance” they could not find in the real word or used it to escape made me wary of such “models” of reality.

Second Life is no longer as popular as it once was but I thought it was a useful place to start thinking about things, simply because it makes such a close attempt to model itself after the physical world; with land that you can buy with real currency and actual businesses having a presence there. The thing that bugged me the most was the claim that it was inclusive and allowed misfits in real life to forge an identity for themselves and to be who they really are. This article here is written by someone who says that “in SL we can not only find the opportunity to fit in but can do so openly and without fear of being treated as outcasts, or of separating ourselves and becoming remote from the world around us“. In some ways, this is a good thing but part of me wonders if it takes them further away from reality because now that they have a place, there is no need for them to work on their social skills in real life. These skills are important – they are the skills that get you a job, allow you to work with your colleagues, interact with people – and to develop them in the virtual world at the expense of the physical world does seem to me to be unhealthy.

Linking this to online identities: Dividing between the personal and professional and presenting two different facades is a matter of choice and I do not have any issues with that but what I think is not healthy is when the online identity becomes a crutch, something people lean on to present the self they would like to imagine themselves as. If this becomes a stepping stone towards them being the person they want to be, that’s good but if it becomes an excuse to avoid the physical world, then it isn’t.

Now that Second Life has fallen out of fashion, I wonder about all these people who found refuge there. What has happened to them.? Do they move themselves to another social media platform? Do they find themselves thrown back into real life and disliking the world they live in even more? I do not see Facebook to be all consuming the way Second Life is – it does not try to create for you a “second life” but I have known people who were really unpleasant in real life but amazingly friendly and thoughtful in the virtual world. How not to be when there are birthday reminders? Being thoughtful has suddenly become a lot easier.

Additional Note: This post is a little late – just slightly past the deadline for it but as they say, better late than never.

Categories
Reflections Wired World

When plugging-out gives you connection withdrawal syndrome

Over the weekend, I took a short break and hopped over to Vancouver Island to visit friends, took long walks and enjoyed the natural scenery – it was fresh air and a welcomed change from staring at the computer from morning to night. Unfortunately, I was suffering from a connection withdrawal syndrome. Every few hours or so, I would wonder about the tweets and blog posts I missed, the forum posting requirements that I have yet to fulfill… it hindered my ability to enjoy my time on the island to my fullest capacity.

I am not always like that. I don’t have a smart phone, my ipad is wi-fi only and I am perfectly capable of going on a long vacation and leaving the world behind. In short, I enjoy being plugged-out. It is important because there is simply too much going on and to try to follow every single online update would be to fry your own mental circuits. Enough is enough – the world goes on without you and you are no lesser for missing one update. In fact, being away allows me to listen to my own thoughts. When I am online, I am bombarded with everyone’s thoughts and after a while, I am not sure which ones belong to me and which ones came from the great big cyberverse.

So why did I feel such anxiety over the weekend? Was it because all of a sudden my online activities were graded and the opportunity cost of not being active online suddenly becomes greater? Or was it because I spent an excessive amount of time online in the three days before that I had gotten used to being plugged-in and removing it felt like something was ripped from me? I personally thought it was the former and that is very much centered around the word “opportunity cost”. It stems from the fear of missing some quintessential update which is in turn linked to how you are perceived. In an online class, it translates to “participation” which has a grade. In the online social universe, it would be missing someone’s updates that would have made you a better friend had you wished them “happy birthday” or “congratulations” or a word of sympathy for some misfortune. Part of it sounds silly (trust me – I know) but I have been at the lashing end before, being told that I was a lesser friend for not “expressing” my care and concern over the social universe. In retrospect, it’s hilarious but it was not funny when it was happening and it certainly shows that social media has redefined our expectations in relationships, especially if both parties are wired. I certainly do not think making token remarks on friends’ updates makes you a better friend so I do not see why not doing it makes you a lesser one.

That said, circling back to the first point. There are two worlds, the physical and the online one – they are not substitutes for one another and people are learning to live with both. The online world should not come at the expense of the physical world and if taking a break causes you to have withdrawal symptoms, then it probably is a signal that you need to get more fresh air. A sunny day may not be there tomorrow but the computer most likely will.

Categories
Gadgets

I wish I could eat my ipad… (but then I would have to buy another one)

I wonder what the nutritional value of an ipad is – does it have the value of fast food which is wildly popular but terribly unhealthy or that of a hearty wholesome meal that not only tastes good but is good for the body as well?

I swing between being embarrassed that I own an ipad and openly talking about it and its capabilities. Embarrassed because I dislike being lumped with the gadget crazy crowd who prides in having what the latest technology has to offer but I also acknowledge that I do like the ipad very very much. Perhaps I am being hypocritical but in my defense, I never owned an iphone and probably never will. My ipad was a gift to my father who in turn gave it to me because he didn’t know how to use it. I suspect when he discovers its full capabilities, he’s going to want it back but for now, it’s mine.

The ipad changed a lot of the way I did things and it is a great example of how the medium defines the content and in some ways supersedes it. The ipad itself is an empty shell but lends itself to be adapted for different things, whether it’s surfing the web, reading, note-taking, gaming and I would say cooking as well. I never liked bringing my computer to school because I  didn’t like typing my notes – I like to draw circles, scribble and draw maps – the ipad allows me to do all of these without pen and paper or the weight of a laptop. Reading academic papers has never been easier because I download them straight into the device which allows me to annotate them as well. Reading the news has also been easier with news aggregators that allow you to “flip” pages just as you would a physical paper.

The ipad appeals to my visual and kinesthetic self and is amazingly intuitive. I have never felt such great fondness for a computing device. I am a lover of physical books and traditional crafts but instead of competing with my interests, the ipad allows me to develop them – make lists of books while on the move, digitally draw out a new craft project, edit my photos or collect my ideas for a new piece of writing. As testimony to its intuitive nature, my grand aunt who is in her 70s is able to easily use it. Now that is what I call affordance.

I should also mention I cook with the ipad too – with youtube videos showing me how to prepare a meal step-by-step. At times like these, it is propped on the kitchen table as an aid to the terrible cook that I am.

Anyway, this is a lovely article on how the ipad has been used in different ways: How the ipad revolution has transformed working lives

Photo Note: There are 2 ipads because when there was 1, my husband and I had to squabble over it. We decided that in this case, 2 is better than 1 and now we play board games together over wi-fi.

Categories
Blogging Reflections

Hello world!

Hi! I’m Felicia, an MLIS (Masters of Library and Information Science) student at the University of British Columbia. This blog was created for the class LIBR559m which deals with social media and information professionals. You can read more about my personal self in the about page.

Since this blog is primarily about social media, I would like to start by sharing my own personal experience with it. I started blogging since 2002 which is almost 10 years ago. In those early days, it was often an avenue of self validation. It was wonderful to be able to share one’s thoughts about something that happened and have people respond – my young adult self found it wonderfully assuring. Privacy meant very little then though I was conscious about not making disparaging remarks about others. As I grew older, I found that I did not relish the thought of people I was unfamiliar reading my blog which resulted in the move to private blogs. That caused readership to drop. People could not see it in their RSS feed and most found it a hassle to log in. When readership dropped, I felt less inclined to post anything. These days, I just use Facebook.

I realised then that blogs are written to be read, they are not personal diaries or a place to write long academic papers (as a friend of mine used to do) unless readership means nothing to the blogger which then begs the question of “why publish it?” It’s a wonderful tool when used correctly but many have run into problems like school teacher Natalie Munroe who got flagged for insulting her students on her blog (see article here).  I also realised that issues of privacy matter more the older you grow. Blogging did not happen in my early teenage years so I did not have a whole lot of “floating information” to delete and even then, erasing that footprint was difficult. I wonder about the children and teenagers of today who would have started at a younger age. By the time privacy matters to them, would it be too late for them to remove their digital footprint?

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