Opportunity and risk in social computing environments

Opportunity and risk in social computing
environments
Centre for Social Informatics, Edinburgh Napier
University
 Dr Hazel Hall, Reader
 Shooresh Golzari, Intern

TFPL Ltd, London
 Melanie Goody, Director of Consultancy
 Belinda Blaswick, Consultant

Centre for Social Informatics
Social informatics
 Design and use of information and communication technologies
taking into account institutional and cultural contexts
CSI focus
 Sociotechnical interaction at different levels of the organisation at
different stages of the system life-cycle
Staffing
 8 members based at Edinburgh, plus associates
 Home to the International Teledemocracy Centre
Reputation
 85% research output international/world class (RAE 2008)

Edinburgh Napier University
John Napier
 C16th mathematician and philosopher
 Decimal point, logarithms
 Born 1550 Merchiston Tower
Craiglockhart
 1916-1919 military hospital
 Meeting of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried
Sassoon 1917
 Owen’s Anthem for Doomed Youth and
Dulce et Decorum Est
Today
 13,500 students
 Research excellence in a number of areas

TFPL Ltd, London
Services
 Recruitment
 Consultancy
 Training
 Including networks and events
 TFPL Connect, SharePoint Summits
Scope
 Knowledge management
 Information management
 Records management
 Content management
 Library and information services management

Edinburgh Napier – TFPL connection
Track record of joint research - TFPL

 Royal Academy of Engineering secondment 2006
 E-information roles (with Blaswick) – ASIS&T 06
 Maximising value from communities consortium

Track record of joint research – Hall & Goody
 Outsourcing of research and information services (2005/6
LIRG/Elsevier Research Award)
 KPMG as case study for doctoral work
 http://www.dcs.napier.ac.uk/~hazelh/esis/hazel_publications.html#phd

Room demographics
Who uses what for purposes of collaborative work?
 Blogs?
 Wikis?
 Social networking?
 Instant messaging?
 Microblogging?

Anyone think this is trivial?
 Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7RrHXNyONc

Purposes of the study
Establish main opportunities and risks of social
computing tools within organisations for collaborative
work purposes, as perceived by information and
knowledge management professionals

 Meet general interest of TFPL’s client base
 Inform TFPL’s training and consultancy portfolio
 Serve as pilot for larger, externally-funded piece of work

 Possible repeat study summer 2009


 Licensed collaborative work platforms
 SharePoint (Microsoft)
 Lotus Notes and Quickplace (IBM)
 E-rooms (Documentum)
 “Mature” social software applications, e.g. instant messaging,
blogs, wikis
 Newer Web 2.0 applications, e.g. social networking, microblogging


 Focus to date mainly on freely available social software for
personal use
 Academic studies treat “older” applications in non-corporate
environments, e.g. educational settings
 Few studies on internal social computing environments
 Lack of extant literature on newer tools, e.g. social networking and
microblogging applications


 Rather than:
 Journalists, e.g. concern over vulnerable groups
 Educational researchers, e.g. goal of enhancement of classroom
environment
 Public relations professionals, e.g. efforts to improve corporate
communications

Research focus 1
Scale of implementation

 Organisational uptake of social computing
 Levels of adoption
 Degree of access to tools
 In general
 By tool
 By tool function

 Attitudes of IM/KM staff to social computing
 In general
 By tool

Research focus 2
Perceived opportunities: anticipated and actual

 Literature review highlighted:

 increased collaboration
 improved productivity
 enhanced IM practice
 positive cultural change

Research focus 3
Perceived risks: feared and realised

 Literature review highlighted:

 lowered productivity - time-wasting
 erosion of IM practice, e.g. for archiving and accessing exchanges
 compromised security
 antisocial behaviour

Research activities – 12 weeks summer 08
Literature review Weeks 1-2

Design of data collection
Weeks 3-8
tools and data collection
Web-based survey
Focus groups
Telephone interviews

Data analysis Weeks 8-12
Quantitative – Excel
Qualitative – manual
Weeks 10-12
Writing up

Data subjects
Population
 TFPL contacts
 Direct, e.g. clients, attendees at SharePoint Summits
 Indirect, e.g. through the Scottish Information Network

Invitation to participate
 Face-to-face at TFPL Connect meeting June 2008
 Survey and focus groups: by e-mail invitation
 Possible to attend focus group, but not complete survey
 Interviews: volunteers left contact details on survey

Study contributions
Data set Data derived from Number of
contributions
1 Web-based survey 57 Survey majority
from public sector
2 London focus group 13 organisations.

Organisation size =
3 Glasgow focus group 12
median 725
employees.
4 Interviews 14
96*

*It was possible to make more than one contribution to the research, e.g. all
who were interviewed completed the survey (96-14=82); similarly it was
possible to complete the survey anonymously and attend a focus group.

Data collected, recorded & analysed
Set Data collected Recording and analysis
1 Tool uptake within Excel for analysis of quantitative data.
organisation; governance of Qualitative data coded up and analysed
tools; attitudes to opportunity manually.
and risk; challenges;
demographic data
2&3 Participant reactions to, and Recorded as Word files and content
discussions of, preliminary integrated into report under main themes
results of web-based survey. as derived from analysis of survey data.
Also posted to TFPL blog, e.g.
http://blog.tfpl.com/tfpl/2008/07/index.htm
l

3 Participant experience of Recorded as Word files and content
implementation: as executed, integrated into report under main themes
planned or not yet undertaken as derived from analysis of survey data.

Hazel and Shooresh based at
Focus group held at Napier in Edinburgh
IDOX offices in Glasgow
(31/07/08)

Respondents to web- Melanie and Belinda based at
based survey (07- TFPL in London
14/07/08) and
participants in telephone
interviews (28/07 Focus group held at
-01/08/08) based across IDOX/TFPL offices in London
the UK (23/07/08)

Uptake of social computing 1
Range in levels of adoption

 From non-provision...
 ... to sophisticated implementations that integrate “consumer”
applications with licensed systems
 Sense that study may have come “too early”
 High number of “don’t know” and “neutral” responses to survey
questions
 Two thirds of respondents who provided additional free text comments
at end of survey noted impacts on social computing initiatives in their
organisations were yet to be felt
 Interviewees cautious in drawing firm conclusions

Uptake of social computing 2
Levels of access – survey respondents with access
 Higher levels in public sector (yet greater deployment in private)
 Licensed plus “consumer” tools: 57.7%
 Licensed system only: 31.7%
 “Consumer” tools only: 11.5%
 Organisations that restrict access: 24%

Encouragement to adopt social computing tools
 26.5% “high”
 32.4% “moderate” Public sector organisations more
 41.2% “low” enthusiastic than private

Enthusiasm amongst IM and KM staff 1
Levels of enthusiasm for social computing amongst IM
and KM staff = high
 Increases collaboration and improves productivity in general
 Facilitates knowledge and information sharing
 Connects individuals and groups
 Widens communication channels
 Enhances IM practice
 More obvious and better organisation of resources
 Consolidation of material and reduction of silos
 24 hour access
 Induces positive cultural change (especially social networking)
 Widens employee choice  retention (social networking)
 55% involved in decision making around social computing tools

Enthusiasm amongst IM and KM staff 2
“Top” tools
 Wikis for information sharing
 NB “information”
 Blogs for connecting individuals and groups, and widening
information channels
 Unite physically separated team members
 Provide outlet for promotion of on-going work to a wide audience
 Open up conversations
 Route to feedback on activities
 Social networking
 Culture
 Employee choice

Implementation concerns 1
Low organisational encouragement in the deployment of
tools

 41% “low” encouragement
 Few efforts in change management and training, even where there
has been heavy investment

Implementation concerns 2
Biggest risk
 Failure to capitalise on opportunities offered by social computing
tools due to poor implementation management
 Respondents familiar with this risk from earlier experiences, e.g.
intranet developments from mid-90s onwards
 This risk is not considered in the literature

 “Like most things it’s about cultural change. A tool (however clever)
can be used well/badly. Therefore usual considerations apply
around what purpose does it serve, selling it to the business,
understanding business benefits/risks, giving staff skills to use
[it/them] properly, providing standards and guidance around use,
encouraging good practice.”

Less prominent risks
IM problems
 Information sprawl (but not overload); archiving; means of
accessing archives; (version control and information quality)
Compromised security
 (Legal infringement and disrepute theoretically valid, though not
realised in practice); some leakage of confidential information
Lowered productivity
 Coping with IM problems; failure to adopt social computing tools
 “If employees are going to waste time, they do not need social
computing tools to do it”
(Anti-social behaviour)

Top tools for IM and KM professionals
Rank Tool Opportunities Risks posed
1 Wikis Information sharing; IM Information quality in terms
practice; productivity of wiki accuracy; leakage of
confidential data
2 Blogs Connecting individuals & Disrepute; leakage of
groups; widening confidential data
communication channels
3 Social Positive cultural change & Leakage of confidential data
networking widened employee choice

Tool availability & usefulness
Availability Usefulness
Wikis Wikis
Blogging Blogging
Social networking Instant messaging
Instant messaging Social networking
Microblogging Microblogging

Tool availability, usefulness & usage
Availability Usefulness Usage
Wikis Wikis Social networking
Blogging Blogging Instant messaging
Social networking Instant messaging Wikis
Instant messaging Social networking Blogging
Microblogging Microblogging Microblogging

Tool availability, usefulness & usage
Availability Usefulness Usage
Wikis Wikis Social networking
Blogging Blogging Instant messaging
Social networking Instant messaging Wikis
Instant messaging Social networking Blogging
Microblogging Microblogging Microblogging

 Ready availability of a tool does not guarantee popularity
 Under-exploitation of most valuable tools?
 “[All of the tools] support [collaboration] in different ways and are
limited mainly because of uptake rather than limitations of the tool
itself”
 Microblogging barely on the radar, yet consider its offerings…

Microblogging
Elements of social networking
 End user determines source of information flow based on “social
network” that he/she builds
Elements of instant messaging
 Interactions are brief and to the point, real time, “familiar” format
Elements of wiki
 Public nature of conversations encourages collaborative building of
new knowledge
Elements of blogging
 Microblog, with easy linking to other resources

Microblogging
Elements of social networking
 End user determines source of information flow based on “social
network” that he/she builds
Elements of instant messaging
 Interactions are brief and to the point, real time, “familiar” format
Elements of wiki
 Public nature of conversations encourages collaborative building of
new knowledge
Elements of blogging
 Microblog, with easy linking to other resources
Potential to meet needs of IM/KM professional and user
preferences together?

5 stages of Twitter acceptance
http://www.slideshare.net/minxuan/how-twitter-changed-my-life-presentation
1. Denial
“I think Twitter sounds stupid. Why would anyone care what other people are
doing right now?”
2. Presence
“OK, I don’t really get why people love it, but I guess I should at least create an
account.”
3. Dumping
“I’m on Twitter and use it for pasting links to my blog posts and pointing people
to my press releases.”
4. Conversing
“I don’t always post useful stuff, but I do use Twitter to have authentic 1x1
conversations.”
5. Microblogging
“I’m using Twitter to publish useful information that people read, and to
converse 1x1 authentically.”

Reminder of context of findings
Findings align to priorities of information management
roles: providing access to resources and information
governance
 Wikis as open tools for the capture of knowledge made explicit in
the form of information are rated highest
 Collaborative value of social networking applications is less
“visible”
Other groups, other priorities
 e.g. in the same organisations Human Resources staff may see
greater evidence of inappropriate use of tools
Timing
 Microblogging not mainstream in summer 2008

Priorities of information and knowledge
management professionals

Know the value of social computing
 Attendance at focus groups to enhance knowledge
Sell message on value to the organisation
Play an active role in implementation planning
 Choice of tools
 Management of roll-out
 Design of governance guidelines
Become mediators in social computing business
environments
Explore microblogging

“Discussion” exercise part 1
1. Generate “Tweet fountain” for your table
 http://www.ukeig.org.uk/conf2009/index.html
Steps
 Individuals need Twitter user names: help invent names for those
who do not already have them (You are one another’s followers)
 As individuals write tweets on post-its: one 140 character tweet
(English or French) per post-it, including user name
 Observations/thoughts: “Going to check out Zotero after seminar”
 News/PR: “My organisation is doing X”
 Information delivery (current awareness): “Here’s a great resource…”
 Questions: “Does anyone know about Y?”
 Arrange tweets on the wall in order of appearance

“Discussion” exercise part 2
Steps
 If you would like to respond to a tweet generated by one of the
people you “follow” (i.e. same table members), do so with post-its.
Preface them with @username at the top so it’s clear to which
tweet you are responding.

 Switch tables (together)
 Check what the other tables have been “discussing”
 See if there are individuals whose contributions are such that you would
like to “follow” them
 If appropriate (and not too chaotic), add responses to the tweet fountains
of the other tables

Example
hazelh Learnt quite a bit about Zotero this morning

PB Concerned that life is too short to get involved with
Twitter
Emilie Can anyone recommend a good X for doing Y in a
small commercial library?
Pascal Looking for reference site for Yammer installation
David Anyone at SLA members’ day like to take same bus
home after today’s session?
hazelh @Pascal
Think they use it at one of the big cell phone
companies?
Dawn @David
Can give you a lift if you’re heading north?

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