Time To Stop Doing and Start Thinking: A Framework For Exploiting Web 2.0 Services

Time To Stop Doing and Start Thinking: A Framework For Exploiting Web 2.0 Services Brian Kelly UKOLN University of Bath Bath, UK UKOLN is supported by: This work is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 licence (but note caveat) Acceptable Use Policy Recording of this talk, taking photos, discussing the content using email, instant messaging, blogs, SMS, etc. is permitted providing distractions to others is minimised. Resources bookmarked using ' mw2009-kelly-paper ' tag Email: [email_address] Twitter: http://twitter.com/briankelly/ Blog: http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/ http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/cultural-heritage/events/mw-2009/paper/

What We’re Familiar With
We’ve seen various examples of use of Web 2.0 in museums, libraries and archives contexts from the National Library of Wales. Wales, including:
Use of Facebook
Use of YouTube
Use of Google Maps
Use of a community Wiki
Examples taken from guest blog post by Paul Bevan on UK Web Focus blog http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykCAxSqziFY http://www.facebook.com/pages/Aber ... http://www.flickr.com/groups/cymru-wales/ http://www.ourwales.org.uk/index.php?...

Renaissance West Midlands workshop, Feb 2009 MLA East of England workshop, Nov 2008 Concerns identified in discussion group sessions at various UKOLN 1-day workshops for the cultural heritage sector

The Challenges Challenges Resources Expertise Time Money Understanding Legal Issues IT Services Colleagues Management Accessibility Sustainability Reliability Cultural issues Technical Issues Interoperability Privacy, DPA, FOI, .. Council

Take-up Of New Technologies
The Gartner curve
Developers Rising expectations Trough of despair Service plateau Enterprise software Large budgets … Early adopters
Chasm
Failure to go beyond developers & early adopters (cf Gopher)
Need for:
Advocacy
Listening to users
Addressing concerns
Deployment strategies
…
This talk looks at approaches for avoiding the chasm & reshaping the curve

The Backlash Is Predictable
When significant new things appear:
Enthusiasts / early adopters predict a transformation of society
Sceptics outline the limitations & deficiencies
There’s a need to:
Promote the benefits to the wider community (esp. those willing to try if convinced of benefits)
Be realistic and recognise limitations
Address inappropriate criticisms
Web 2.0: It’s a silly name. It’s just a marketing term. There are lots of poor Web 2.0 services. There wasn’t a Web 1.0. What follows it? It does have a marketing aspect – and that’s OK. It isn’t formally defined – it describes a pattern of related usage. There will be poor (and good) Web 2.0 services – just like anything else. Any usage will arrive at a follow-up term. Twitter? Another silly name. Trivial junk. Only for people with nothing better evolves to We must have a Twitter feed – impact; marketing; audiences; … and then (from the early adopters) It was meant to be fun. It’s been institutionalised, We want it back!

What Do We Mean By ‘Risk’?
“ Risk is a concept that denotes the precise probability of specific eventualities”
When should we take risks?
Never
If the probability is low
If the dangers are insignificant
If the context if appropriate
But what if human life is at risk:
In the army
Driving a car
Travelling on the train
…
We can’t ignore the context, the benefits (real and perceived)

Hitchhiker’s Guide
Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker’s guide described
“ an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea ”
and went on to add:
“ Many were increasingly of the opinion that they’d all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans. “

From ‘Curator Coelacanth’ to ‘Curator Sapiens’
Curator Coelancanth:
Rarely spotted in the wild (sometimes found in the depths of the museum). “ almost worthless ” - species that failed to take risks & evolve.
What species are you? Curator Raptor: Terrifying beast, rapidly destroying many of its competitors. However destruction of IT Servitus proved its own undoing. Species in grave danger of becoming extinct following an inability to respond to the rapidly changing climate. Curator Sapiens: Not as intimidating as its predecessor but has the agility & mental capacity to respond quickly to changing environment 

Beware The IT Fundamentalists
We need to avoid simplistic solutions to the complexities:
Open Standards Fundamentalist: we just need XML
Open Source Fundamentalist: we just need Linux
Vendor Fundamentalist: we must use next version of our enterprise system (and you must fit in with this)
Accessibility Fundamentalist: we must do WAI WCAG
User Fundamentalist: must do whatever users want
Legal Fundamentalist: it breaches copyright, …
Ownership Fundamentalist: must own everything we use
Perfectionist : It doesn't do everything, so we'll do nothing
Simplistic Developer : I've developed a perfect solution – I don't care if it doesn't run in the real world
Web 2.0 : It’s new; its cool!
IT Services Coelacanth Organisational culture

The Librarian Fundamentalists
Librarians who have failed to evolve:
Think they know better than the user e.g. they don't like people using Google Scholar; they should use Web of Knowledge (who cares that users find it easier to use Google Scholar & finds references they need that way?)
Think that users should be forced to learn Boolean searching & other formal search techniques because this is good for them (despite Sheffield's study).
Don't want the users to search for themselves (cf folksonomies) because they won't get it right.
They still want to classify the entire Web - despite the fact that users don't use their lists of Web links.
Want services to be perfect before they release them to users. They are uneasy with the concept of 'forever beta' (they don't believe that users have the ability to figure things out themselves and work around the bugs).
Library Coelacanth Organisational culture

Let’s Be Realistic
Ning allows you to set up and manage your own social network. Sounds great, doesn’t it?
But:
Will it have the momentum to support thriving discussion?
Might it not just be an automated aggregator of content
Over-hyping expectations

Want to provide a safe social networking environment?
You can with Ning.
But what of the pitfalls? “ Am I bovvered?” Over-hyping expectations

A UK National Archives Network Ning site is available
It is being used to support discussions such as a follow-up to a topic raised at meeting But do the concerns about numbers of participants & amount of discussions really matter? Can you identify success or failure without knowing purpose, investment, …? Over-hyping expectations

Accessibility Concerns
Aren’t Social Web services:
Inaccessible to people with disabilities?
Break accessibility guidelines (WCAG)
Leave us liable to be taken to court?
People with disabilities are using Social Web services People with disabilities are using Social Web services – as are disability activists DDA: Institutions must take ‘reasonable measures’ to ensure PWDs aren’t discriminated against. Is it discriminatory to fail to provide services? Accessibility

The Council Firewall
The reality:
Useful Web services do get blocked
There is dodgy/illegal/ dangerous material on the Web
It may be simple to have a blanket ban
Suggested approaches:
We can accept certain levels of risks
More sophisticated responses are needed
We should share the approaches we’ve taken
New Internet access policy for children From December 2008, children will be able to enjoy improved Internet access in all Portsmouth Libraries. The current “Walled Garden” arrangement will be discontinued. The Internet access offered will be similar to that provided in Portsmouth schools but we will also be allowing access to games, Web chat and social networking sites. For further information, please contact … Feel free to respond to blog post at < http://blogs.ukoln.ac.uk/cultural-heritage/2009/ 02/24/access-to-social-sites-is-blocked/> Organisational barriers

Sustainability Concerns
What happens if Archive 2.0 services:
Are unreliable?
Change their terms and conditions (e.g start charging)?
Become bankrupt
Things to remember:
Services may be unreliable e.g. Twitter
Market pressure is leading to changes to T&C – & paid-for services may become free (e.g. Friends Reunited)
Banks may go bankrupt too – but we still use them
Need for risk assessment and risk management
Sustainability

Interoperability Issues
What happens if Social Web services host your data and:
You can’t get the data back out?
You only get the unstructured or poor quality data back out?
You can’t get the comments, annotations, tags out?
Ensure data export capabilities or
Upload data from an alternative managed sources
Understand limitations of data export / import and make plans around limitations
Interoperability

Support Issues
I don’t have the time to:
Understand it all
Use the technologies
Embed technologies in daily working practices
Train my colleagues
Common Craft video clips
You can:
View them at work
Listen to the podcast on the Tube
Use them in training
Training & staff development Note UKOLN’s workshops for cultural heritage sector and briefing documents with CC licences

Measuring & Maximising Impact
What if your Library 2.0 services fails to have the expected impact?
Monitor impact
Maximise impact
Justify impact
Ensure ethical approaches are taken
Ensure incorrect assumptions aren’t made
Impact Assessment Further work in this area under development: e.g. using Twitter to ‘pimp’ up posts; ethical dimension; maximising impact vs maximising statistics; what should funders expect; … How does one achieve growth? What are the usage patterns for typical posts Note RSS traffic Why the long tail for this post?

Deployment Strategies
I want to do use the Social Web but:
The IT Services department bans it
The council bans it
My boss doesn’t approve
Area of interest to UKOLN:
“ Just do it”
Subversive approach – ‘Friends of Foo’ if Foo can’t use it
Encourage enthusiasts
Don’t get in the way
UKOLN briefing papers available with Creative Commons licence. (over 30 docs published)

Deployment Strategies
Interested in using Web 2.0 in your organisation?
Worried about corporate inertia, power struggles, etc?
There’s a need for a deployment strategy:
Addressing business needs
Low-hanging fruits
Encouraging the enthusiasts
Gain experience of the browser tools – and see what you’re missing!
Staff training & development
Address areas you feel comfortable with
Impact analysis and assessment
Risk and opportunity management strategy
…

Risk Management
JISC infoNet Risk Management infoKit:
“ In education, as in any other environment, you can’t decide not to take risks: that simply isn’t an option in today’s world. All of us take risks and it’s a question of which risks we take ”
Examples of people who are likely to be adverse stakeholders:
People who fear loss of their jobs
People who will require re-training
People who may be moved to a different department / team
People .. required to commit resources to the project
People who fear loss of control over a function or resources
People who will have to do their job in a different way
People who will have to carry out new or additional functions
People who will have to use a new technology

IWMW 2006 & Risk Management
IWMW 2006 has taken a risk management approach to its evaluation of Web 2.0 technologies:
Agreements : e.g. in the case of the Chatbot.
Use of well-established services : Google & del.icio.us are well-established and have financial security.
Notification : warnings that services could be lost.
Engagement : with the user community: users actively engage in the evaluation of the services.
Provision of alternative services: multiple OMPL tools.
Use in non-mission critical areas: not for bookings!
Long term experiences of services: usage stats
Availability of alternative sources of data : e.g. standard Web server log files.
Data export and aggregation: RSS feeds, aggregated in Suprglu, OPML viewers, etc.

Headline in the Guardian, 7 July 2007
The Risks Within The Sector The Guardian subsequently apologised for errors – the situation wasn’t as bad as reported  This was before the credit crunch and HEFCE’s John Selby warning of “ troubled financial times ahead for the educational sector ” 

Are We Repeating Our Mistakes
In 2000 the threats were the external challenges provided US universities. Today the threats are the external challenges provided by Google, etc.

Headlines For 2010? “ Tories Win General Election” “ Drastic Cuts in Public Sector Funding” “ Market place to have increased role in public sector” “ Review of public sector Web services” “ Digital Lame Ducks condemned”

Critical Friends
JISC U&I programme is encouraging establishment of “Critical Friends”
See <http://critical-friends.org/> Paul Walk (UKOLN) was described as a ‘critical friend’ of JISC See <http://dev8d.jiscinvolve.org/2009/ 02/10/five-minute-interview-paul-walk/> But is such open debate encouraged in other sectors? See <https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin? A2=ind0903&L=MCG&T=0&F=&S=&P=19929>

Let The Public Know
Frankie Roberto as a Critical Friend
“ The paper sets out to answer this question by way of original research and experimentation on real data sets of museum objects, obtained from a number of UK museums by way of a Freedom of Information request.” Social services, communities, etc. are now being used to seek evidence of value-for-money. We need to be able to demonstrate appropriate processes are in place.

Towards a Framework
“ Time To Stop Doing and Start Thinking: A Framework For Exploiting Web 2.0 Services ”, Museums & the Web 2009 conference
Biases Subjective factors Intended Purpose Benefits (various stakeholders Risks (various stakeholders Missed Opps. (various stakeholders Costs (various stakeholders
Sharing experiences
Learning from successes & failures
Tackling biases
…
Critical friends
Application to existing services
Application to in-house development
…

Using The Framework
Use of approach in two scenarios: use of Twitter & Facebook
Note personal biases! Intended Purpose Benefits (various stakeholders Risks (various stakeholders Missed Opps. (various stakeholders Costs (various stakeholders Community support Rapid feedback Justify ROI Org. brand Community- building Low? Twitter for individuals Organisational Fb Page Marketing events,… Large audiences Ownership, privacy, lock-in Marketing opportunity Low?
Critical friends:
Paul Walk / Brian Kelly blog posts)
MCG discussions
Learning
UKOLN cultural heritage guest blog post
Conferences
Papers
…

Use The Framework Yourself
Feel free to you apply framework to:
Services you’re planning
Existing services
Large scale initiatives (e.g. Creative Spaces)
What is the purpose? Who are the users? What are the benefits? To whom? What are the risks? To whom? What are the risks of doing nothing? What are the costs – to developers, to users,… Remember the biases! Is the service really intended to sustain the service provider? Remember the need for the critical friend and the need for sharing? Intended Purpose Benefits (various stakeholders Risks (various stakeholders Missed Opps. (various stakeholders Costs (various stakeholders

Conclusions
The Web Tech Guy and Angry Staff Person post provides a useful summary for this talk!
Acknowledgments to Michael Edson for this wonderful comic strip

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Time To Stop Doing and Start Thinking: A Framework For Exploiting Web 2.0 Services

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