My family listen to NZ Radio a lot. Current affairs progs are now all available, free, as podcasts (bits) on their site. When someone misses a broadcast they wanted to hear, their dismay is ameliorated with, "I can always access the podcast".
Of course, this event rarely actually happens. So not only has bits reduced the value of some things, it also shelves the possibility of their use.
I'd already realised this was happening last century when people would stock up on videoed TV programs that they would never have the time to watch because they were watching the broadcasts - a time debt that was not able to be paid.
The same (actually) applies to reading blogs. As Sue Waters pointed out to me about indexing blogs, "people don't use blogs that way".
I completely agree with Ken that content seems to stream by and if you miss the stream, it somewhat gets lost later as there's the continuous flood. I believe that things will eventually circle back to it, especially if it is important.
But it concerns me that Ken may be giving up on our mutual quest to figure out alternative views of blog content. This is something I discussed in my post - Index Page where I describe the core challenge as:
How do we create resources on our blogs that will help a new reader or a search visitor understand what's on a blog and orient themselves?
Sue Waters responded previously:
Most of the time they are a lot of work for minimal return so you really do need to consider whether the time spent is good R.O.I.
Think about it. How often do you go to another person's blog to find specific information? Guaranteed either never or seldom. And the main people who you would return to are those that you know provide informative posts.
Reality of a blogger is we are only as good as our last post :) .
With good use of search, categories and tags on posts combined with making each post count is probably time better spent than creating index pages (however they can be useful for the blogger themselves).
In terms of the ROI of spending time making other views, I have a slight advantage in that I can get automated views of my blog via eLearning Learning and have it do interesting things. My goal is still to figure out what the views are of a blog that can help make it more accessible. Get that into eLearning Learning. And then make that available to other bloggers. Thus, the ROI becomes high because the Investment is small (zero).
In looking back at Sue's comments, I actually go quite a bit to blogs as sources of specific information. That's a big part of the value of eLearning Learning.
I do think that use of categories/tags is part of the answer, but I'm hopeless when it comes to that. And I'm not willing to go back and tag older posts.
I'm hoping there's still some interest and thoughts on what should emerge as alternative views of blog content.
Some specific questions:
1. Would it be helpful to have a tag cloud view instead of the long list view of a blog content as shown in my sidebar that is auto-generated by eLearning Learning?
2. Are there a set of views that are combinations of recent, best of, organized by keywords, essentially the information we have via eLearning Learning that would be compelling to first timers, or for going back through a topic, etc.?
By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers….96% of them have joined a social network
Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web
1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media
Always love to see this. And I like to add that the marriages that came from eHarmony (roughly 1% in US) will be better than those that came through other means.
2009 US Department of Education study revealed that on average, online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction
1 in 6 higher education students are enrolled in online curriculum
80% of Twitter usage is on mobile devices…people update anywhere, anytime…imagine what that means for bad customer experiences?
There's quite a bit in the book that really resonates with me:
We can't help it: We value atoms more than bits.
Bits want to be free.
A common theme throughout the book is that people naturally understand the differences between bits and atoms. We somewhat intuitively understand that near-zero marginal cost is true for bits. Thus, they treat content delivered as bits as having less value than the equivalent atoms version.
Chris tells us:
It's time to stop treating bits like atoms and assuming the same limitations hold.
There's definitely a lot of questions raised by the book that will undoubtedly add to my thoughts around New Learning Solutions:
What are the versions of offerings that can have different prices?
Because of downward price pressure on anything that is bits and relatively undifferentiated, what are the ways that offerings can include other differentiating aspects?
Where can users add value back into the system?
What are network effects that we can leverage for greater value?
Where do network effects outside a single organization instance help drive value?
As I do presentations where I discuss Tools and Methods for Knowledge Work, I find myself wondering about adoption levels of these tools, and the following pendulum definitely describes how my feelings swing back and forth:
Social Software Deployment Levels
Over the past few years, there's definitely been greater deployment of social software in the Enterprise. Dion Hinchcliffe declared 2009 - The year of the shift to Enterprise 2.0. Reported numbers vary widely …
98% of those surveyed are using Enterprise 2.0 technologies for internal communication and collaboration within their company. The most popular technologies used are instant messaging (74%), wikis and team workspaces (67%), and blogs (51%).
And my personal experience is that it's pretty rare to run into an organization that is not at least planning on adopting some social software solutions. And I'm certainly seeing a lot of SharePoint.
Deployment vs. Adoption
But it's important to keep in mind that deployment of social software does not mean adoption / use. A new report by web usability guru Jakob Nielsen tells us:
A main finding from our study's interviews is that most companies are not very far along in a wholesale adoption of Web 2.0 technologies.
But the same report tells us:
Social software is not a trend that can be ignored. It's affecting fundamental change in how people expect to communicate, both with each other and the companies they do business with.
Email Comparison
Often people cite the adoption of email as a technology adoption cycle with the claim that social software will follow a similar path. Certainly, email went through a bit of a similar early pattern where there was sporadic adoption, lots of debate, executives that had their secretaries (they were not administrative assistants at the time) print their email and put it in their inbox (and I mean an actual inbox).
Eventual adoption of email was a certainty. Once enough people in the organization adopted email, it was very hard for any individual to avoid adopting it. It would just be too inefficient not to adopt it. You were somewhat forced into learning the skills required. Typing, basic computer use, email etiquette. Of course, this was over the course of several years.
Distributed Content Editing
In thinking about various social software, I'm not so sure that I believe that adoption is nearly so neat. Some technologies seem like they will reach tipping points in organizations where resistance will become hard. There will be enough people using the technology that it will reach a tipping point where you pretty much have to adopt it. An example of that is the adoption of Distributed Content Editing via an agreed to technology such as Wiki, Shared SharePoint Documents, Google Docs, etc.
Once a work team agrees that will be how they collaborate on a given piece of content, it becomes very inefficient for an individual within the team to not adopt the same technology. Sending a Word document in an email when there's a collaboratively editable version of the content somewhere else causes enough pain that the group forces the use of the new technology through peer pressure. Once enough people in the organization adopt that as the approach, it becomes hard for other forms to exist.
I personally expect that the days of emailing around documents will be long forgotten. Instead, the model shown by Google Docs with an email that alerts you to a shared document being the norm and successive alerts coming via email or RSS about changes. You won't think of things like the location of the document (local, email attachment, network drive, SharePoint) or multiple versions in files at all.
Oh, and real-time editing with multiple authors will be standard.
Discussion Group Software Comparison
While I believe that adoption of tools for distributed content editing is a sure thing, in looking at other tools, I suspect that adoption patterns are going to be quite different. Many of the tools that we include in the list of social software are things that may be more like discussion group software. This software has been around for many years. There is a network effect with the adoption of discussion groups. If enough people in a group adopt it's use, then it becomes more valuable and progressively harder to remain a part of the group and not adopt the use of the software.
Adoption of discussion group software certainly has followed a very different path than email.
It's pretty rare where work teams and certainly not organizations have made it the norm to adopt the software. Instead, it's most often left up to the individual to make a personal choice about adoption and adoption level. Lurking is considered legitimate peripheral participation. Not reading everything is often okay. The adoption pattern is quite different than adoption of email or collaborative content editing.
I'm wondering if there aren't quite a few of the tools that we discuss as social software that will follow this kind of adoption. A prime example are blogs. Blogging is somewhat a personal/network version of discussion groups. I would guess that it will have limited adoption – but that's not to say that even with limited adoption it doesn't bring value. In fact, part of the comparison is that discussion groups and blogging both bring value with limited adoption.
Social Networks
With this slightly different lens, I'm wondering what this means for the adoption of social networks as a means of expertise location. If you look at what I've said above, I'm asking:
What's the pressure from others in the organization or work team to adopt?
What happens if you don't or partially adopt?
In the case of email and collaborative content editing, pressure is high and partial adoption doesn't work.
In the case of discussion groups and blogs, pressure is generally low and partial adoption is generally okay.
With social networks there will be some level of pressure to participate. If you want to be seen as an expert in the organization, you really need to play along. However, you can likely get away with only partial adoption. You may not really use it as a means of finding expertise yourself. So, while I feel there's tremendous value in social networks as a means of expertise location, I'm currently thinking that adoption is going to be a bit like adoption of LinkedIn. Widely varying levels of participation, even for those who are registered.
Social Bookmarking
Social Bookmarking has a stronger pressure level when it's adopted by a work team. If you are tasked with research, and you don't share what you find via a social bookmarking system, the team likely will put pressure on you to do so. The perceived utility (PU) of social bookmarking is not that high, it's perceived ease of use (PEOU) is high and with the network effect, it would seem that social bookmarking should be something that gains widespread adoption.
However, that's not what I'm seeing out there. Awareness of these tools is lower than other forms of social software. IT organizations are adopting these more slowly.
This seems like a long-term winner. Am I missing something?
Questions
In previous looks at this, I've relied more on the traditional TAM model looking at things like Perceive Utility and Perceived Ease of Use. What I'm talking about in this post is that we need to take into account work team and organization network effects that bring pressure as an important factor in adoption. We also need to recognize what adoption might look like (partial).
All that said, a bit of this is crystal ball gazing.
What will social software use look like inside organizations in 3-5 years?
Where tools should IT be providing and organizations be facilitating and support?
Should organizations encourage adoption?
I can't say that I'm not going to swing back and forth on the pendulum a bunch more times. I certainly am curious what people think around this.
I'm looking to find lots of examples of where informal or social learning has been used successfully in the workplace and where it was led by the L&D organization. This can either be already written up, or it can be the name of a person and organization where it was done.
Can you provide me pointers?
If you would be more comfortable, feel free to send me information via an email: akarrer@techempower.com.
. There's a lot he gives you to think about and definitely a lot that relates to the 