Social Networks & Second Life: how social networking can enhance information services & professional activities; Workshop for LIANZA 2009

March 2009

General motivations for participating in social networking  Communication – a new way to interact with others near and far and share thoughts, opinions, pictures, etc.  Anticipated Reciprocity - contribute valuable information; expect that one will receive useful help and information in return  Increased Recognition - individuals want recognition for their contributions  Sense of efficacy – contributors believe that they have had some effect on this environment or community

Business-related motivations for participating in social networking  Communication – a way to interact with current and potential colleagues and business associates  Share knowledge –  contribute valuable information  expect that one will receive useful help and information in return  Leverage to connect people with content and learning tools  Demonstrate expertise – share knowledge and experience in a new way besides participating in conferences and face- to-face professional meetings

Social Networks Challenges  Lack of standards among various systems, so cannot easily interact between them and must duplicate work to post information in a profile  Time and effort to participate can easily take over from other responsibilities  Security, privacy and trusting others are big issues, particularly for teens and young adults

Intellectual Property Rights Complexity Continues Information Owners’ Legal Information Custodians’ Social Information Users’ Financial

Social Networks & Second Life  Practice session  Why would YOU use these and where?

Be where your users are!

 Very good for professional connections  Good to connect with colleagues within an organization and in your industry.  Easy to search to find others with similar responsibilities or in organizations or companies of interest to you.  However, starting to include advertising on screens www.linkedin.com

www.facebook.com  Good for professional and personal connections  application links to Twitter & other networking tools  easy to add photos and video  Must join to view substantial information about a person, see photos  But you can send URL link to provide access to photo ‘album’ without viewer having to join Facebook

USC Science & Engineering Library • Overview of location & services • Key staff listed • News and links to blogs and other interactivity http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2229750605

www.flickr.com  Popular for pictures and very short videos  Easy to upload items, provide descriptions and tagging  Uploads monitored to ensure safety level compliance  Creative Commons a way to provisionally share photos  Used by organizations to post photos of events and meetings  ‘Pro’ accounts include usage statistics and graphs with links

www.plaxo.com www.xing.com Good for professional contacts, similar to LinkedIn Generally more international participants and businesses

 A self-described ‘reputation’ site where people enter their knowledge of you and can agree to be a reference.  Your profile gets ‘repscore’ levels depending upon the amount of information included as well as the number of people connected to you www.naymz.com

 Not necessarily an appropriate site for business. However, if you want a presence with the age group demographics then your organization needs a profile  Look and feel of profile can be radically changed to whatever user wants  Concern that having a profile on this site was enabling a lot of spam to be sent to members. Now addressed. www.myspace.com

 Service to communicate, stay connected through exchange of quick, short messages.  Users write short updates, often called "tweets" of 140 characters or fewer.  Messages posted to profile or blog, sent to followers, searchable on Twitter search  Librarians post conference speaker’s comments in real time to blogs and friends http://www.twitter.com

Why Twittering presentations or meetings can be a good thing Benefits of back channel to audience Benefits to speaker  Helps audience members focus  Typing means you are  Audience gets more content provoking interest  Audience members can get more  Your colleagues can questions answered on the fly answer questions for you  Audience can participate  You’ll get immediate feedback  Audience can innovate – build on each others’ thoughts  They won’t fall asleep  Don’t have to be physically present to participate  Can connect with people  Can do something else Adapted from “How to present while people are twittering” Posted by Tamar Weinberg 23 Feb 2009 http://pistachioconsulting.com/twitter-presentationations/

 Create your own social network  Existing networks searchable  Easily built by anyone http://about.ning.com/product.php

Social Networks & Second Life  Practice session  Which of these would YOU use first or at all? How?

Online Safety & Security Important  Encourage conversation about social networks with staff, faculty, students, and patrons  Do not publicly post your detailed information  Whatever information you put in a social network will be seen by people worldwide, unless you place levels of permissions or filtering  People are not always who they say they are. Be careful about adding strangers to your friends list. It is OK to deny a friend request!  Can invite your friends and some have tools to enable you to upload your e-mail address books by entering your userid and password. Be careful  Before entering login information, ALWAYS look at URL of page directed to login to make sure in social networking tool and not somewhere else

The Conversation Prism http://www.flickr.com/photos/briansolis/2735401175/

Second Life 3-D Social Network

Why Second Life? Pros Cons  Compared to RL (real world)  Startup is not easy & takes video- or tele-conferencing time  Users feel ‘together’  Gamelike more than business like  Fosters creativity  No ‘physical’ boundaries  No standards across multiple virtual world applications, so  Collaboration in new and no transferability of technical interesting ways or operational details, or  You can fly! content Adapted from: “The Parallel Information Universe” by Mike Eisenberg Library Journal May 1, 2008 p. 23

Why else Second Life? Possibilities Dangers  Digital information services  Safety and credibility  RL library services representation with more flexibility  ROI a question  ‘Fantastic Voyage’ information  Cost in time, effort, money interaction – be within the over long term information  Broader and perhaps easier access  Longevity of SL as ‘the’ virtual to multi-cultural, international world of choice content ‘staffed’ by their local professionals  A new level of multimedia, distance learning capabilities Adapted from: “The Parallel Information Universe” by Mike Eisenberg Library Journal May 1, 2008 p. 23

Basic steps to start in SL  Get an avatar  Main website (http://secondlife.com) OR  SL community site Orientation Station is good for business professionals (http://secondlife.com/join)  Download client software  Log into Second Life  Go through Orientation Island  Explore – visit Cybrary City with all the library sites  Set your home location as a base for future entries

Social Networks & Second Life  Practice session  How would YOU use Second Life in your organization?

Second Life Home Page

Operations start with land June 8, 2008

Second Life Time to sign on and fish around! http://www.secondlife.com

Cybrary City Good way to see the variety of structures, services and tools used

Charlotte & Mecklenberg County Public Library Focus on outreach to youth Implemented 2006 Very successful http://www.plcmc.org/teens/secondlife.asp

SLA in SL Create whatever wanted and imagined Building with open roof Fire pit meeting space

Reception desk or Reference desk, some similar functions in the virtual world  Focal point to steer people traffic for meeting registration, reference services, enrollment verification for education or training sessions

Meeting & Learning Spaces Only restriction is imagination Video and audio possible, along with interactive chat

Sun’s Library Team in Virtual Worlds • Wonderland  Sales pilot, building a library space with information, activities and scheduled learning sessions • Second Life  Knowledge sharing events such as Employees Connect chat series, Safari sessions  Library & Research Space  Bookstore  New hire pilot  Information experts • Collaboration, meetings, learning events, activities With permission Sun Microsystems

 An experimental learning environment and community created by Sun Learning Services to make learning about Solaris immersive, easy, and fun!  Office hours, expert chats, learning activities  http://blogs.sun.com/solariscampus

Virtual diversity book launch meeting  Launch ‘party’ for book on diversity  Global participation  Current, retired and former IBM employees included  Example of how a meeting can be done in SL  Business ‘environment’ so policies on appearance & behavior in force

Virtual world guidelines sample 1. Engage – relationship building, learning, collaboration 2. Use your good judgment 3. Protect your – and your organization’s – good name 4. Protect others’ privacy 5. Make the right impression – avatar appearance 6. Protect your organization’s and others’ intellectual property 7. Conduct business in VW only with proper authorization 8. Be truthful and consistent Adapted from IBM virtual world guidelines http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/research_projects.nsf/pages/virtualworlds.IBM VirtualWorldGuidelines.html

r ty Holiday Pa Casual reception with an awards meeting enables business and fun to be combined

Business Marketing in SL http://www.ibm.com/3dworlds/businesscenter/us/en/

Additional Sources  Infoisland for librarians  Tour of infoisland on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTQkzfz5osQ  HealthInfo Island  Land of Lincoln – Teen Grid

Additional Sources  YouTube training videos: search ‘second life’  Public libraries in SL http://slpubliclibraries.org/  University classes on Second Life, various institutions that are often open to all – many have registration fees  See SLA, ALA, ACRL and other blogs for info on library-related social networks and Second Life activities

In review: Social networks, including Second Life, can Add to awareness of services by broader client set Enable new ways to communicate internally and outwardly between staff and clients Provide new and expanded skills and education Virtual worlds an added ‘environment’ for interaction

Questions?

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Social Networks & Second Life: how social networking can enhance information services & professional activities; Workshop for LIANZA 2009

by Richard P Hulser Consulting on Jul 17, 2009

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Social Networks & Second Life: how social networking can enhance information services & professional activities; Workshop for LIANZA 2009 — Presentation Transcript