Earlier this year in March, Facebook launched the On This Day feature that shows a user his or her Facebook content from that same day from years past. Status updates, tagged photos, wall posts from friends, funny drawings, meme videos you commented on, etc. all from years gone by are presented in reverse chronological order for your nostalgic perusal.
You might have noticed this feature via the notifications Facebooks provides to the memories you have waiting to see. If not, you can find the feature is found on your Facebook homepage under the Apps section on the left or by going directly to your On This Day page after logging in.
Facebook only enables one to view the One This Day content one day at a time. I can see the business reasoning behind this decision, as it keeps people (like me) clicking back daily. Also it is more powerful to view past content on the anniversary of its posting than during a binge reminiscence. Still, if one really wants this to take a LONG trip down memory lane they could just pour through their activity log.
The content on one's On This Day page is only available to the user in this format (friends could still access any content you've given them access to via it's original historic placement. But Facebook has a Share button that enables one to repost with or without new commentary. I know I'm not the only one who is using this feature, as I'm seeing this content appearing in my feed with increasing frequency.
Lest we be reminded of anything too painful, Facebook provides settings for us to exclude posts from specific days or people. As always, Facebook also make sit easy to delete any old items one deems too painful or too boring to linger on. (If only Facebook could excise unpleasant memories and people so deftly and dispassionately.)
I was one of the first Facebook users when they opened up to non-students, so I've used it for many years. As an addicted user for most of this time, I consequently have a LOT of prior posts.
Prior to the launch of this feature, however, other than looking at my past photos (as this is how I do my family photo albums now), I have almost never reviewed any of my prior Facebook content. As with my daily conversations offline and on, my words and images passed into the ether never really to be heard from again.
That is until Facebook launched this feature. Since they launched it, I have checked it every day. In a way that I never conceived of before this, it provides a chronicle of my life and times. Posted are my accomplishments and losses, my thoughts on politics and pop culture, new friendships (but not unfriendings), and funny things and family memories. There are photos, videos, links, notes, and rantings by me or others that I reposted. At no time during these years did I think I was saving something for prosperity or archiving my lifestreaming.
Over the years, I have thought of keeping a journal (man's term for diary) and had a few haphazard efforts using Word docs, emails and even a diary mobile app. In the end, these efforts were all quickly abandoned as I ultimately found that I didn't want to rehash my daily events and feelings. I found writing such autobiographical accounts to not only be a chore, but more importantly it dredged up stuff that I was probably best moving past quickly. I have never wanted to reread any of my past journal entries for similar reasons.
Perhaps it was my format and approach to diarying that I felt was de rigueur that provided an uninspiring and restrictive structure. I probably got my sense of what a diary should contain from movies and TV, as in "Dear Diary: Today, I did the following...".
Yet Facebook posts don't have any such constraints and can flow more organically. My posts arise spontaneously based on my responses to events in my life and content I encounter daily. So I might post about a big event - getting an award or milestone anniversary - but also about a new movie or cool website.
I tend not to post about the deeply negative and personal parts of my life as I'm private that way. This probably explains why my experience of the On This Day feature is much more positive than others have written about. (See such accounts in The Debrief, TechCrunch, and Globe and Mail. My deeply personal thoughts and internal life are not represented on Facebook as they were in when I did proper diarying, but it was this type of content that was too painful - and dull - to document and relive, so I'm okay with it not be present in my Facebook history.
In the end, what I have are vast and eclectic reflections on almost all the substrate of my life. The diversity of topics of these posting provide a good reflection of the diversity of things in my life. I want to see and be reminded of these things.
So for me Facebook is an easy to keep journal (diary) kept in a less restrictive and more fun manner.
But that's not what makes it really something different. What makes Facebook posts unlike any sort of diary is that posts are read and commented upon by others. Previously diaries only became social media when one's pesky sibling found it and mockingly read aloud the embarrassing bits.
The comments by friends, family, even acquaintances provides the social dimension that is central to almost everyone's life. Hermits aside, we have always shared our experiences and thoughts on our life and times with others, but this was often not documented (especially since letter writing died out). Our old-style diaries might record social interactions - even conversations - with others, but it was always from our own perspective and using our own words. But Facebook in all its seldom editted glory gives people a forum for commentary on our lives. Now these interactions with the many others in our lives are recorded too. (And again, this is a source of contention with some users of this feature.)
Since this feature launched I have rarely missed accessing it, sometimes logging into Facebook just to access this. I have also started posting things mostly for their future historic value to me. My posting volume has gone up considerably as a result. I am worried that I am TMIing my friends.
With this future history posts, I have considered making them private. However, I like the social interactions with friends that my postings solicit, so I have left them open. Still, it is rather sad to post something and then get zero responses or even a minimal-effort required "Like".
I love this feature so much that it leads to a big concern. My prior diaries were completely mine. Even my forays into digital diarying were in non-proprietary formats that could be easily read by other software. But now my diary is owned - at least in part - by a third party. Facebook, I learned in writing this post, does allow one to download the complete records of one's account, but I can't imagine how any other software would be able to present it in a meaningful or usable manner (let me know if there is).
I'm happy to stay with Facebook as I find it an overall great service with an unbeatable price. But as more and more of my life is comprised within Facebook and archived by them too, I worry about what happens when Facebook is no longer around or still offering this type of service. Companies don't last forever, but I want my memories to.
Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Thursday, October 01, 2015
Unfriending is Unprofessional and Unnecessary
According to a recent Australian regulatory decision, unfriending a coworker on Facebook can add up to workplace bullying. There were other actions leading up to this, but unfriending was key (see CNET for details).
Just recently, and without provocation, I was similarly bullied!
I noticed this when a friend posted something to Facebook and tagged another person. When I went to go to my "friend's" page, I couldn't access it. I checked my friend list and sure enough I had been unfriended!
I probably have been unfriended by others before. In the early days of social media I, like most people, wantonly sent friend requests to people I barely knew or knew from long, long ago in a galaxy far away. I did end up interacting rather regularly via social media with some of those people, but by and large these very weak ties were not maintained. Of my 200+ friends on Facebook, I probably only interact with less than 30 in a given month. So if people unfriended me over the years, I really didn't notice.
I did notice this person unfriending me, however, as we have had a continual workplace relationship and collegial ties that have persisted for years. I thought we got along really well both offline and online and we never had any incidents. Possibly, this person just accidentally unfriended me or went through some massive friend purge in which I was engulfed. Or maybe I'm just a creep and I don't belong there.
Either way, considering that I must have continual business dealings (albeit limited) with this coworker her action is therefore quite unprofessional.
I wouldn't call it bullying - but it definitely seems mean-spirited, and more importantly it is unnecessary!
I'm going to give this person the benefit of the doubt and assume the unfriending wasn't personal and was possibly an accident. Otherwise unfriending someone is sending a direct and unequivocal message that you refuse to have further interactions with this person. This is not appropriate workplace behaviour. This is only acceptable if it has based on some sort of horrible dealings, which would be better dealt with by talking to your Human Resources department.
Facebook is a dominant form of social interaction (and likely THE dominant form) among friends, family, and coworkers, so closing this off is sending a very strong message of hostility. I don't believe most people realize how powerful a message it is (including digital media experts, as this case may be). I have often heard people talk about unfriending people very casually. We may not like how Facebook and other social networking sites have pervaded the workplace and so many spheres of our life, but we have to find ways to deal with this reality.
Some people choose to avoid social networking sites altogether. This is an effective tactic, but it is a blunt option that blocks one from lots of interactions that could be beneficial to one personally and professionally. Others choose to have multiple accounts or use pseudonyms to keep their lives and people apart - but this becomes unwieldy and too much effort to maintain.
Instead, there is a solution that achieves the same ends, but in a low-key and diplomatic fashion. People just need to take a few minutes to make use of the excellent privacy and group settings that Facebook and similar sites offer. Consequently, there is no point nowadays to unfriending someone (barring heinous acts) ever again.
First, set up various "list" of Facebook friends. I suggest having different lists for close friends, family, coworkers, and acquaintances at the very least. Facebook even has preset lists for some of these. You can then designate what members of a list have access to - as little or as much of your stuff as you decide. You can then target content to list by by type of content (e.g. all photos) or a specific piece of content (e.g. okay, even acquaintances can see this picture of me meeting this big shot). Facebook has a preset list called "Restricted" which only receives access to content you make public.
Then when you post status updates, photos, anything to Facebook it can be easily and quickly targetted to lists. Facebook even remembers your preference and makes that a default.
You can thereby easily and regularly segment portions of your life. Coworkers don't need to see family photos and your close friends don't need to hear about that interesting new article of interest to only those in your esoteric profession.
There is no need therefore to unfriend someone! Instead you can send someone down to restricted purgatory where they receive and can view little or no social media content from you.
And if you don't want to hear from them, you can remove them from your news feed via Facebook's "Unfollow" feature. You still remain "friends" but they are now dead to you in your social media stream. The great thing is that the person will likely not notice any of this and a working (or family) relationship can be peacefully maintained without the person ever knowing any differently.
To successfully pull this off, I recommend posting some stuff for all groups to see. There are many types of posts that you can benefit from more people seeing - such as promotional posts about an event, accomplishment, or company. For this reason, I also recommend making some Facebook posts public.
I am a little shocked that a digital media expert has behaved this way to me and didn't know enough about her field to make astute use of the website. It will be hard for me to not think much less of her personally and professionally as a result.
So learn from her mistake!
And if I am a creep, don't let me know that I don't belong - just make me "Restricted" and I'll never be the wiser.
Just recently, and without provocation, I was similarly bullied!
I noticed this when a friend posted something to Facebook and tagged another person. When I went to go to my "friend's" page, I couldn't access it. I checked my friend list and sure enough I had been unfriended!
I probably have been unfriended by others before. In the early days of social media I, like most people, wantonly sent friend requests to people I barely knew or knew from long, long ago in a galaxy far away. I did end up interacting rather regularly via social media with some of those people, but by and large these very weak ties were not maintained. Of my 200+ friends on Facebook, I probably only interact with less than 30 in a given month. So if people unfriended me over the years, I really didn't notice.
I did notice this person unfriending me, however, as we have had a continual workplace relationship and collegial ties that have persisted for years. I thought we got along really well both offline and online and we never had any incidents. Possibly, this person just accidentally unfriended me or went through some massive friend purge in which I was engulfed. Or maybe I'm just a creep and I don't belong there.
Either way, considering that I must have continual business dealings (albeit limited) with this coworker her action is therefore quite unprofessional.
I wouldn't call it bullying - but it definitely seems mean-spirited, and more importantly it is unnecessary!
I'm going to give this person the benefit of the doubt and assume the unfriending wasn't personal and was possibly an accident. Otherwise unfriending someone is sending a direct and unequivocal message that you refuse to have further interactions with this person. This is not appropriate workplace behaviour. This is only acceptable if it has based on some sort of horrible dealings, which would be better dealt with by talking to your Human Resources department.
Facebook is a dominant form of social interaction (and likely THE dominant form) among friends, family, and coworkers, so closing this off is sending a very strong message of hostility. I don't believe most people realize how powerful a message it is (including digital media experts, as this case may be). I have often heard people talk about unfriending people very casually. We may not like how Facebook and other social networking sites have pervaded the workplace and so many spheres of our life, but we have to find ways to deal with this reality.
Some people choose to avoid social networking sites altogether. This is an effective tactic, but it is a blunt option that blocks one from lots of interactions that could be beneficial to one personally and professionally. Others choose to have multiple accounts or use pseudonyms to keep their lives and people apart - but this becomes unwieldy and too much effort to maintain.
Instead, there is a solution that achieves the same ends, but in a low-key and diplomatic fashion. People just need to take a few minutes to make use of the excellent privacy and group settings that Facebook and similar sites offer. Consequently, there is no point nowadays to unfriending someone (barring heinous acts) ever again.
First, set up various "list" of Facebook friends. I suggest having different lists for close friends, family, coworkers, and acquaintances at the very least. Facebook even has preset lists for some of these. You can then designate what members of a list have access to - as little or as much of your stuff as you decide. You can then target content to list by by type of content (e.g. all photos) or a specific piece of content (e.g. okay, even acquaintances can see this picture of me meeting this big shot). Facebook has a preset list called "Restricted" which only receives access to content you make public.
Then when you post status updates, photos, anything to Facebook it can be easily and quickly targetted to lists. Facebook even remembers your preference and makes that a default.
You can thereby easily and regularly segment portions of your life. Coworkers don't need to see family photos and your close friends don't need to hear about that interesting new article of interest to only those in your esoteric profession.
There is no need therefore to unfriend someone! Instead you can send someone down to restricted purgatory where they receive and can view little or no social media content from you.
And if you don't want to hear from them, you can remove them from your news feed via Facebook's "Unfollow" feature. You still remain "friends" but they are now dead to you in your social media stream. The great thing is that the person will likely not notice any of this and a working (or family) relationship can be peacefully maintained without the person ever knowing any differently.
To successfully pull this off, I recommend posting some stuff for all groups to see. There are many types of posts that you can benefit from more people seeing - such as promotional posts about an event, accomplishment, or company. For this reason, I also recommend making some Facebook posts public.
I am a little shocked that a digital media expert has behaved this way to me and didn't know enough about her field to make astute use of the website. It will be hard for me to not think much less of her personally and professionally as a result.
So learn from her mistake!
And if I am a creep, don't let me know that I don't belong - just make me "Restricted" and I'll never be the wiser.
Friday, September 05, 2014
Idle Moments
As I posted a couple days ago, I've quit Facebook. But now I find myself frequently with times throughout the day when I have a few free minutes and need something to occupy them with.
Everyone has such idle moments - time when it isn't feasible or desirable to do productive or deeply engaging activities. They occur while waiting for appointments, riding the subway, during TV commercials, sitting on the john, etc.
Social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram can be excellent snacks to satiate these idle moments. But as I indicated in my prior post, I find my Facebook use to be overall more negative than positive. And I never particularly liked Instagram and Twitter's firehouse of content (much of it visual and textual diarrhoea).
I have also found good mobile app games, but I find they get boring or overly frustrating after a few weeks. For instance, this summer I discovered the trivia contest app, Quiz Up, but abandoned it after a few weeks when I earned all the realistically attainable titles and rewards. (Quiz Up is a great app, but they direly need to rethink how they keep players beyond the initial novelty usage phase.)
A new book (recommended oddly enough by a friend via Facebook), The End of Absence by Michael Harris discusses how our always-connected to social and information networks has resulted in a "absence itself-of silence, wonder and solitude" that is important to have time for contemplation and freedom. Silent moments, however, don't work for me- I have a nonstop interior monologue that provides an endless supply of worries and problems that I must constantly keep at bay.
So I'm feeling good about giving up Facebook, but I don't know what to do with these idle moments now!
Any suggestions for great ways to occupy a few minutes of free time (both wired and unconnected) would be greatly appreciated.
Everyone has such idle moments - time when it isn't feasible or desirable to do productive or deeply engaging activities. They occur while waiting for appointments, riding the subway, during TV commercials, sitting on the john, etc.
Social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram can be excellent snacks to satiate these idle moments. But as I indicated in my prior post, I find my Facebook use to be overall more negative than positive. And I never particularly liked Instagram and Twitter's firehouse of content (much of it visual and textual diarrhoea).
I have also found good mobile app games, but I find they get boring or overly frustrating after a few weeks. For instance, this summer I discovered the trivia contest app, Quiz Up, but abandoned it after a few weeks when I earned all the realistically attainable titles and rewards. (Quiz Up is a great app, but they direly need to rethink how they keep players beyond the initial novelty usage phase.)
A new book (recommended oddly enough by a friend via Facebook), The End of Absence by Michael Harris discusses how our always-connected to social and information networks has resulted in a "absence itself-of silence, wonder and solitude" that is important to have time for contemplation and freedom. Silent moments, however, don't work for me- I have a nonstop interior monologue that provides an endless supply of worries and problems that I must constantly keep at bay.
So I'm feeling good about giving up Facebook, but I don't know what to do with these idle moments now!
Any suggestions for great ways to occupy a few minutes of free time (both wired and unconnected) would be greatly appreciated.
Wednesday, September 03, 2014
Closing the Facebook
A few days ago, I signed back into Facebook after a month long self-imposed exile. In an effort to improve my work-from-home efficiency, I had my wife change my password and not give it to me. I did the same with my email and Twitter accounts (I still haven't signed back onto Twitter, but I couldn't live without email beyond a couple days.)
In terms of improving efficiency, the effect was negligible - an expert procrastinator can always find pressing distractions. But the Facebook vacation did offer a personal experiment. I haven't gone more than a week without accessing Facebook since I became a member years ago. My usage has grown exponentially over the years, particularly when I got a smartphone and also when I started working from home. Pre-exile, I was visiting Facebook several times a day to read posts and comments and I would post at least once a day.
Over the years, I've read a lot of criticism and thought they were ignoring the positive aspects. For people geographically or socially isolated (e.g. moving away from friends or suffering from social phobia), Facebook can serve a vital social function.
It can also be a great way to share information from people who share similar interests and viewpoints (although such homophily can also limit the depth and diversity of information one gets exposed to - see this article for more). It can also provide entertainment and information for the many otherwise idle moments of life.
Considering these and other benefits and also considering my prior addiction-level usage, I thought I would go into heavy Facebook withdrawal. Much to my surprise, however, I didn't miss Facebook.
Not Missing Facebook
Other than a slight desire a few times to share a particularly great photo of my kid doing something novel, I never missed Facebook once.
It's not like my life during the Facebook break was busier or more fullfilling than before. During that time I also didn't interact any more or less with my friends face-to-face than normal, as some Facebook quitters insist will happen.
Even before my Facebook exile, I had started to feel that Facebook was becoming less interesting and meaningful. Most of the people I knew had reduced posting their quality and volume of posts and comments. With a few notable exceptions, the bulk of posts in my feed (aside from ads) were pictures of people's food, trip photos, with the occasional cartoon, George Takei post, or cat meme thrown in. Don't get my wrong, I love cat videos, cute baby pictures, and George Takei.
Upon my return to Facebook rather than feel like I had missed out on great stuff and connection with friends, I questioned why was I had been using Facebook in the first place?
But I was still surprised why I didn't miss Facebook considering how much I loved it before. So I googled quitting Facebook for others' thoughts on this.
Why Quit Facebook?
It turns out that lots of people have quit Facebook and found it similarly relieving. So I gathered some of their points below to help explain why giving up or reducing Facebook can be beneficial. I don't share all these points, but they present some keen insight into the effects of using and not using Facebook:
One writer, just swore off using the Like button on Facebook but found meaningful results:
The points raised by these writers and myself are consistent with a study ran by Pew. It turns out many people take a Facebook break - and many go back to it. Beyond the people who reported being too busy to use Facebook (21%), other people noted that they had lost interest in Facebook (10%), found that the quality of content was not compelling (10%), found the site was too full of gossip and drama (9%), or that they were spending too much time on Facebook (8%).
Although my Facebook break did not have the desired effect of improve my work efficiency, it did allow me some time to reflect on my usage and consider the effects Facebook was having on me. I strongly recommend other Facebook addicts consider a similar break.
In the end, I can't imagine quitting Facebook completely as it is a dominant communication channel and cultural outlet. But I do intend to limit my use to once every two or three days - and go from there.
In terms of improving efficiency, the effect was negligible - an expert procrastinator can always find pressing distractions. But the Facebook vacation did offer a personal experiment. I haven't gone more than a week without accessing Facebook since I became a member years ago. My usage has grown exponentially over the years, particularly when I got a smartphone and also when I started working from home. Pre-exile, I was visiting Facebook several times a day to read posts and comments and I would post at least once a day.
Over the years, I've read a lot of criticism and thought they were ignoring the positive aspects. For people geographically or socially isolated (e.g. moving away from friends or suffering from social phobia), Facebook can serve a vital social function.
It can also be a great way to share information from people who share similar interests and viewpoints (although such homophily can also limit the depth and diversity of information one gets exposed to - see this article for more). It can also provide entertainment and information for the many otherwise idle moments of life.
Considering these and other benefits and also considering my prior addiction-level usage, I thought I would go into heavy Facebook withdrawal. Much to my surprise, however, I didn't miss Facebook.
Not Missing Facebook
Other than a slight desire a few times to share a particularly great photo of my kid doing something novel, I never missed Facebook once.
It's not like my life during the Facebook break was busier or more fullfilling than before. During that time I also didn't interact any more or less with my friends face-to-face than normal, as some Facebook quitters insist will happen.
Even before my Facebook exile, I had started to feel that Facebook was becoming less interesting and meaningful. Most of the people I knew had reduced posting their quality and volume of posts and comments. With a few notable exceptions, the bulk of posts in my feed (aside from ads) were pictures of people's food, trip photos, with the occasional cartoon, George Takei post, or cat meme thrown in. Don't get my wrong, I love cat videos, cute baby pictures, and George Takei.
Upon my return to Facebook rather than feel like I had missed out on great stuff and connection with friends, I questioned why was I had been using Facebook in the first place?
But I was still surprised why I didn't miss Facebook considering how much I loved it before. So I googled quitting Facebook for others' thoughts on this.
Why Quit Facebook?
It turns out that lots of people have quit Facebook and found it similarly relieving. So I gathered some of their points below to help explain why giving up or reducing Facebook can be beneficial. I don't share all these points, but they present some keen insight into the effects of using and not using Facebook:
[Quitting Facebook meant that] I've sequestered myself from the content that moves me to compare my haves/have nots to others' and overanalyze my life and my choices.Jordan K. Turgeon Huffington Post
In getting rid of my account I had no option but to send personal e-mails, texts, cards, letters, and make phone calls, and have the quality and substantive contact that is impossible to achieve through Facebook. While the amount of contact I make with individuals on a daily basis has, of course, decreased, the quality of that contact has been greatly improved and I have started to re-establish meaningful friendships with those whom, despite social networking, I had lost touch.Abigail O'Reilly, Little Red Ranting Hood
After posting [on Facebook or Twitter], I would just move on, like a junkie moving from score to score, always looking for the next high and rarely enjoying or examining the one I was having. Posting on Facebook or Twitter just lets me flit my nails across the surface of my writing itch. Then I'd move to the next mini-moment, without ever letting whatever I was experiencing resonate within me.Maile Keone, Huffington Post
What we want when others view us [on Facebook, per a study] they learned, is praise. It's gratifying when people "Like" and/or comment on your new profile photo. The problem is that, when they don't grace you with "Likes" or comments, it makes you feel less valuable.Araceli Cruz, Fusion.net
[One of the main things I don't miss about Facebook is] the wasting of time. True story, I finish work about a half hour early each day, thanks to my not having Facebook. In between writing posts, I'd always log in, see what was up, and then I'd inevitably wind up going down some rabbit hole into someone's life I haven't physically seen in 15 years.Nicole Fabian-Weber, The Stir
All this social sharing has too often ruined my ability to be present and live in the moment. It’s easy to start viewing the world in terms of what will make a great status update. Or taking photos only for the sake of letting other people share in a moment. We soon find ourselves viewing every thing we do in life through the lens of our smartphone. Constantly reporting our lives rather than living them. Only valuing activities to the extent that they can be captured and shared online.Mathew Warner, The Radical Life
One writer, just swore off using the Like button on Facebook but found meaningful results:
I had been suffering a sense of disconnection within my online communities prior to swearing off Facebook likes. It seemed that there were fewer conversations, more empty platitudes and praise, and a slew of political and religious pageantry. It was tiring and depressing. After swearing off the Facebook Like, though, all of this changed. I became more present and more engaged, because I had to use my words rather than an unnuanced Like function. I took the time to tell people what I thought and felt, to acknowledge friend’s lives, to share both joys and pains with other human beings.Elan Morgan, Medium.com
The points raised by these writers and myself are consistent with a study ran by Pew. It turns out many people take a Facebook break - and many go back to it. Beyond the people who reported being too busy to use Facebook (21%), other people noted that they had lost interest in Facebook (10%), found that the quality of content was not compelling (10%), found the site was too full of gossip and drama (9%), or that they were spending too much time on Facebook (8%).
Although my Facebook break did not have the desired effect of improve my work efficiency, it did allow me some time to reflect on my usage and consider the effects Facebook was having on me. I strongly recommend other Facebook addicts consider a similar break.
In the end, I can't imagine quitting Facebook completely as it is a dominant communication channel and cultural outlet. But I do intend to limit my use to once every two or three days - and go from there.
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Prince Edward Island Gets Social Media
Yesterday, I participated in a Facebook event that was so effective and enjoyable that I thought I should share the details, as I think more organizations can benefit from hosting these types of events.
It was a 3-hour group chat, via Facebook's comments feature, with Prince Edward Island (PEI) representatives and tourists. I've participated in chats with organizations before, but this one was different as it offered a range of expert opinions and had a real conversational and personal style.
The organization organizing the event was PEI Tourism, but there were other host organizations from across PEI, such as tour operators, hotels, a heritage association, as well as locals in-the-know.
What I particularly liked about it was that it was a great big conversation about PEI with a bunch of different voices and perspectives. Many of the people writing had a genuine appreciation of PEI and an individual style that came through in their responses.
There is a ton of travel info available nowadays. I still love guidebooks and online resources are equally useful. If anything, there is often too much travel info available - but it's often generic in advice and bland in style. So attempting to get specific or non-mainstream information can be difficult.
This chat offered a chance to get the info I needed. I posted two questions and quickly got great answers. The responses included my name in their replies. This not only alerted me of the reply, but populated my Facebook feed with this.
It would be great if companies, regularly offered Q&A services. I understand this can be expensive to offer, so most companies don't even attempt this and instead rely on FAQ pages or a user base to field questions. These methods sometimes work, but I've seen lots of instances of questions posted that receive no replies, spam, flaming, or useless info. I noticed Tourism PEI always offers the ability to get answers online from a real staff member - but this is really rare nowadays.
But getting answers to my questions wasn't the only reason I thought the PEI Facebook chat was so effective. I also benefited from others' questions and answers and I enjoyed reading other people's fond memories of past PEI visits. This serendipitous discovery of info not only helped me learn more about my future travel destination but also get a sense of the personality and history of the island.
I also liked how the PEI hosts included links to further info or pictures. For example, PEI Museum and Heritage shared a link to their Flickr collection of scanned PEI postcards and asked if we ever received any. As a deltiologist I love looking at retro and kitsch postcards, and I went and checked my collection (some great old ones but so far no matches).
Finally, another useful element was the format of the chat. As it was online, I (or others) can read the chat and investigate further at any time (unlike other "chat" formats such as conferences or some Internet Relay Chats).
From a business perspective, there are numerous benefits to hosting this type of event.
First in terms of finances, such events can directly increase sales. For example, I received recommendations for restaurants that I will definitely be going to (instead of just cooking in our cottage rental). Indirectly, it helps foster a pleasant attitude to the brand, that will likely have future financial benefits.
In terms of promotion, by using Facebook the event uses Facebook's existing user base and social features that easily, and often automatically, extends the reach of such an event.
The conversational quality and earnest responses of this event were essential to this event not coming across as one big shill. This in turn makes the recommendations received more credible and (at least for me) more actionable.
I was really impressed with this event, not only for the serving my needs so well but for representing the ideal of what social media can achieve.
It was a 3-hour group chat, via Facebook's comments feature, with Prince Edward Island (PEI) representatives and tourists. I've participated in chats with organizations before, but this one was different as it offered a range of expert opinions and had a real conversational and personal style.
The organization organizing the event was PEI Tourism, but there were other host organizations from across PEI, such as tour operators, hotels, a heritage association, as well as locals in-the-know.
What I particularly liked about it was that it was a great big conversation about PEI with a bunch of different voices and perspectives. Many of the people writing had a genuine appreciation of PEI and an individual style that came through in their responses.
There is a ton of travel info available nowadays. I still love guidebooks and online resources are equally useful. If anything, there is often too much travel info available - but it's often generic in advice and bland in style. So attempting to get specific or non-mainstream information can be difficult.
This chat offered a chance to get the info I needed. I posted two questions and quickly got great answers. The responses included my name in their replies. This not only alerted me of the reply, but populated my Facebook feed with this.
It would be great if companies, regularly offered Q&A services. I understand this can be expensive to offer, so most companies don't even attempt this and instead rely on FAQ pages or a user base to field questions. These methods sometimes work, but I've seen lots of instances of questions posted that receive no replies, spam, flaming, or useless info. I noticed Tourism PEI always offers the ability to get answers online from a real staff member - but this is really rare nowadays.
But getting answers to my questions wasn't the only reason I thought the PEI Facebook chat was so effective. I also benefited from others' questions and answers and I enjoyed reading other people's fond memories of past PEI visits. This serendipitous discovery of info not only helped me learn more about my future travel destination but also get a sense of the personality and history of the island.
I also liked how the PEI hosts included links to further info or pictures. For example, PEI Museum and Heritage shared a link to their Flickr collection of scanned PEI postcards and asked if we ever received any. As a deltiologist I love looking at retro and kitsch postcards, and I went and checked my collection (some great old ones but so far no matches).
Finally, another useful element was the format of the chat. As it was online, I (or others) can read the chat and investigate further at any time (unlike other "chat" formats such as conferences or some Internet Relay Chats).
From a business perspective, there are numerous benefits to hosting this type of event.
First in terms of finances, such events can directly increase sales. For example, I received recommendations for restaurants that I will definitely be going to (instead of just cooking in our cottage rental). Indirectly, it helps foster a pleasant attitude to the brand, that will likely have future financial benefits.
In terms of promotion, by using Facebook the event uses Facebook's existing user base and social features that easily, and often automatically, extends the reach of such an event.
The conversational quality and earnest responses of this event were essential to this event not coming across as one big shill. This in turn makes the recommendations received more credible and (at least for me) more actionable.
I was really impressed with this event, not only for the serving my needs so well but for representing the ideal of what social media can achieve.
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Putting Facebook and Flickr on the Map
Online user-generated maps aren't new - they exploded years ago when Google Maps released their API in 2005. I've used web-based mapping services to build my own maps for everything from the places I've visited via TripAdvisor to a list of my favourite bakeries via foursquare.
Of the various user-generated maps, the type I most frequently use is maps of my photgraphs. For a long time, I've been adding the location of the photos I upload to Flickr and Facebook, but only recently started exploring the functionality.
Both Facebook and Flickr have really useful and fun photo map features, but neither meets all my needs completely.
Facebook Maps
What I like about Facebook maps is that is easy to use. You don't need to know the address of a photo's location to map it. One can add the location by either dropping the photo on a map (a common enough feature) or enter its name and Facebook automatically will find matches (with good accuracy). One can also batch identify the location of photos based, which speeds up the process. I also like how Facebook doesn't have a cap on how many photos one can upload without having to pay, unlike Flickr.
One of the most useful elements that Facebook's maps offer is that every location automatically links to a Facebook page with info about the location and if friends have been there. The content is mostly populated with Wikipedia entries, but I can see this growing into an interesting hub of place-info.
There are downsides to using Facebook maps. I don't like how when you click on a map to see a geolocated photo, it opens a small window that does not proportionality resize or centre the image, so inevitably the picture is displayed poorly. Facebook only has a map view, instead of also having an Earth view as most online maps now have.
The biggest problem with Facebook is critical mass. If my friends represent a snapshot of Facebook users, almost no one is mapping their photos (or other life-events as Facebook enables). I checked out my friends' maps and they are virtual deserts. It could be a great way to learn more about one's friends or gain some collective insight on places, but that value is only realized if enough people use it.
Also, although it is fairly easy to add location details to Facebook, it isn't easy to access this information. There needs to be a way to explore friends maps without having to go to each friend's page and click on their maps. It's social media, so the maps should enable collective display. Finally, the nature of Facebook - sharing info amongst friends vs. the world-at-large - means that it isn't feasible to share or export one's map or even photos.
Flickr Maps
I haven't used Flickr for years as I reached their 200 free images cap and don't want to pay. But I wanted to experiment with their mapping feature so I deleted a bunch of old pictures and gave it a try - here's my Flickr map.
As far as I have found, Flickr has the best, publicly-viewable user photos mapping service (let me know if there are better ones out there). But I have had trouble with Flickr map being buggy and not displaying some geotagged photos and with it locking up frequently.
It is also way more difficult than other online map services to geotag a specific location. It doesn't accept the names of places (e.g. organization name or point of interest) or longitude and latitude coordinates, so one needs to know the specific street address to get the map to recognize the location.
Once mapped though, it is easy to view photos on a map. But Flickr doesn't allow one to customize their map beyond sorting by most recent or "interesting" or searching. One can't have more than one map or customize their map by a specific set or some category.
I really like Flickr's Places feature. Unlike Facebook Maps, the "Places" feature represents a vibrant social media effort. It displays the collective photos of a place either by recent or "interesting" (Flickr's secret sauce sorting algorithm). It also displays a map of the place that if clicked on opens up to display the geotagged photos charted on a map. Places also offers relevant groups and keywords. Flickr Places' page for Fergus, Ontario is a good example.
Flickr doesn't enable their map to be embedded in another site, for that they do enable third-party apps.
iMapFlickr & MyPics Map
What Flickr lacks in extensive functionality, it makes up for fostering a wealth of third-party apps (via their "App Garden"). I found a couple, MyPicsMap and iMapFlickr that offer the map functionality that can be embedded in another site.
I tried out these apps on a new page of this blog, My Photos. Both apps are free, offer some cool features, and are easy to use. They both allow one to display a Flickr collection or set overlaid on a map. Both use Google Maps and therefore offer zooming, scrolling, and map, satellite and terrain views.
On the top of the page, my travel photo highlights are displayed via MyPicsMap. I like how it uses a thumbnail version of my photo overlaid on a map, so that one can quickly scan the world to see the global highlights.
MyPicsMap doesn't allow one to customize the default view and for some reason it chooses the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. It also seems to have faulty display as my images of India and most of Europe do not show up unless one zooms in.
iMapFlickr does allow one to customize the view of the map that is embedded and some other display options (such as height, colours, default map view, etc.).
Instead of offering a thumbnail of a photo overlaid on a map, iMapFlickr displays a flag and then has a scrolling photo viewer below the map (similar to Flickr's map). This isn't as much fun for worldwide photos, but works great when trying to display photos mapped in close proximity. I used iMapFlickr for my local photos (it's the map of Toronto, below my travel photos on My Photos page).
Facebook, Flickr, iMapFlickr, and MyPics Map offer some impressive functionality. Facebook has the existing social network that has tremendous sharing potential and Facebook also integrates well with specific place pages. Flickr's has great photos of most places and some cool third-party functionality such as the latter two mentioned. But none of these services offer the degree of customization and social integration I'd like.
Also, I'd love to see functionality that enables these to be converted into an individual location-based service. Still looking for someone to offer that service.
Of the various user-generated maps, the type I most frequently use is maps of my photgraphs. For a long time, I've been adding the location of the photos I upload to Flickr and Facebook, but only recently started exploring the functionality.
Both Facebook and Flickr have really useful and fun photo map features, but neither meets all my needs completely.
Facebook Maps
What I like about Facebook maps is that is easy to use. You don't need to know the address of a photo's location to map it. One can add the location by either dropping the photo on a map (a common enough feature) or enter its name and Facebook automatically will find matches (with good accuracy). One can also batch identify the location of photos based, which speeds up the process. I also like how Facebook doesn't have a cap on how many photos one can upload without having to pay, unlike Flickr.
One of the most useful elements that Facebook's maps offer is that every location automatically links to a Facebook page with info about the location and if friends have been there. The content is mostly populated with Wikipedia entries, but I can see this growing into an interesting hub of place-info.
There are downsides to using Facebook maps. I don't like how when you click on a map to see a geolocated photo, it opens a small window that does not proportionality resize or centre the image, so inevitably the picture is displayed poorly. Facebook only has a map view, instead of also having an Earth view as most online maps now have.
The biggest problem with Facebook is critical mass. If my friends represent a snapshot of Facebook users, almost no one is mapping their photos (or other life-events as Facebook enables). I checked out my friends' maps and they are virtual deserts. It could be a great way to learn more about one's friends or gain some collective insight on places, but that value is only realized if enough people use it.
Also, although it is fairly easy to add location details to Facebook, it isn't easy to access this information. There needs to be a way to explore friends maps without having to go to each friend's page and click on their maps. It's social media, so the maps should enable collective display. Finally, the nature of Facebook - sharing info amongst friends vs. the world-at-large - means that it isn't feasible to share or export one's map or even photos.
Flickr Maps
I haven't used Flickr for years as I reached their 200 free images cap and don't want to pay. But I wanted to experiment with their mapping feature so I deleted a bunch of old pictures and gave it a try - here's my Flickr map.
As far as I have found, Flickr has the best, publicly-viewable user photos mapping service (let me know if there are better ones out there). But I have had trouble with Flickr map being buggy and not displaying some geotagged photos and with it locking up frequently.
It is also way more difficult than other online map services to geotag a specific location. It doesn't accept the names of places (e.g. organization name or point of interest) or longitude and latitude coordinates, so one needs to know the specific street address to get the map to recognize the location.
Once mapped though, it is easy to view photos on a map. But Flickr doesn't allow one to customize their map beyond sorting by most recent or "interesting" or searching. One can't have more than one map or customize their map by a specific set or some category.
I really like Flickr's Places feature. Unlike Facebook Maps, the "Places" feature represents a vibrant social media effort. It displays the collective photos of a place either by recent or "interesting" (Flickr's secret sauce sorting algorithm). It also displays a map of the place that if clicked on opens up to display the geotagged photos charted on a map. Places also offers relevant groups and keywords. Flickr Places' page for Fergus, Ontario is a good example.
Flickr doesn't enable their map to be embedded in another site, for that they do enable third-party apps.
iMapFlickr & MyPics Map
What Flickr lacks in extensive functionality, it makes up for fostering a wealth of third-party apps (via their "App Garden"). I found a couple, MyPicsMap and iMapFlickr that offer the map functionality that can be embedded in another site.
I tried out these apps on a new page of this blog, My Photos. Both apps are free, offer some cool features, and are easy to use. They both allow one to display a Flickr collection or set overlaid on a map. Both use Google Maps and therefore offer zooming, scrolling, and map, satellite and terrain views.
On the top of the page, my travel photo highlights are displayed via MyPicsMap. I like how it uses a thumbnail version of my photo overlaid on a map, so that one can quickly scan the world to see the global highlights.
MyPicsMap doesn't allow one to customize the default view and for some reason it chooses the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. It also seems to have faulty display as my images of India and most of Europe do not show up unless one zooms in.
iMapFlickr does allow one to customize the view of the map that is embedded and some other display options (such as height, colours, default map view, etc.).
Instead of offering a thumbnail of a photo overlaid on a map, iMapFlickr displays a flag and then has a scrolling photo viewer below the map (similar to Flickr's map). This isn't as much fun for worldwide photos, but works great when trying to display photos mapped in close proximity. I used iMapFlickr for my local photos (it's the map of Toronto, below my travel photos on My Photos page).
Facebook, Flickr, iMapFlickr, and MyPics Map offer some impressive functionality. Facebook has the existing social network that has tremendous sharing potential and Facebook also integrates well with specific place pages. Flickr's has great photos of most places and some cool third-party functionality such as the latter two mentioned. But none of these services offer the degree of customization and social integration I'd like.
Also, I'd love to see functionality that enables these to be converted into an individual location-based service. Still looking for someone to offer that service.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Is Facebook an Echo Chamber?
Researchers at Facebook this week published the results of an extensive research project examining the popular conception that social networking sites promulgate a singularity of information sources and voices - creating an echo chamber. With the ongoing demise of broad information sources, such as the newspaper, and the increasing usage of social media (e.g. Facbeook, Twitter, LinkedIn) and other news feeds as the primary, or only, source of news, people are not exposed to anywhere near the same diversity of issue coverage as they used to.
So the study, Rethinking Information Diversity in Networks, is an important contribution in understanding this area. It is truly impressive in its design, scale (millions of Facebook users), and dazzling graphs. The study found that:
Facebook's study is really useful - but they are a couple claims that differ from my experience.
One, is that the nature of information on Facebook is diverse. It may be vast and it may be broad, but I found that with rare exceptions, the information circulated falls into maybe four categories. To me, I mostly see my social circle accounts, entertainment news & commentary, political news & rants, and occasionally news of the odd (okay it's me sharing those stories).
I am also not sure that those we are less close to, i.e. "weak ties", are necessarily that dissimilar and thus expose use to novel information. I don't doubt the value of weak ties in sharing information, but I still think the information falls into common categories and still tends to roughly entail a common voice or political leaning. Weak ties are still similar to individuals or they wouldn't be a tie at all. People on social network sites certainly friend indiscriminately, even wantonly, but we don't usually friend our polar opposites.
There is no doubt that the Internet exposes us to a greater diversity of voices than older media allowed. And the Internet definitely has improved the ability to share information - I did find out about this study through a friend's posting on Facebook. I'm still not convinced, however, that we are receiving anywhere near the diversity of coverage of issues and viewpoints that we need.
So the study, Rethinking Information Diversity in Networks, is an important contribution in understanding this area. It is truly impressive in its design, scale (millions of Facebook users), and dazzling graphs. The study found that:
even though people are more likely to consume and share information that comes from close contacts that they interact with frequently (like discussing a photo from last night’s party), the vast majority of information comes from contacts that they interact with infrequently. These distant contacts are also more likely to share novel information, demonstrating that social networks can act as a powerful medium for sharing new ideas, highlighting new products and discussing current events.Before I settled on my current research topic, I planned to research if the Internet promotes homophily and how to facilitating serendipitous information. I, as with many others, believe that access to a diversity of information sources and voices is important for an informed society and hence good government.
Facebook's study is really useful - but they are a couple claims that differ from my experience.
One, is that the nature of information on Facebook is diverse. It may be vast and it may be broad, but I found that with rare exceptions, the information circulated falls into maybe four categories. To me, I mostly see my social circle accounts, entertainment news & commentary, political news & rants, and occasionally news of the odd (okay it's me sharing those stories).
I am also not sure that those we are less close to, i.e. "weak ties", are necessarily that dissimilar and thus expose use to novel information. I don't doubt the value of weak ties in sharing information, but I still think the information falls into common categories and still tends to roughly entail a common voice or political leaning. Weak ties are still similar to individuals or they wouldn't be a tie at all. People on social network sites certainly friend indiscriminately, even wantonly, but we don't usually friend our polar opposites.
There is no doubt that the Internet exposes us to a greater diversity of voices than older media allowed. And the Internet definitely has improved the ability to share information - I did find out about this study through a friend's posting on Facebook. I'm still not convinced, however, that we are receiving anywhere near the diversity of coverage of issues and viewpoints that we need.
Friday, July 08, 2011
Good Things Grow in Ontario
In a act of self-promotion (or rather, for my daughter) I'm going to blog about a social media campaign and urge you to vote for my daughter. But it is a great campaign and rather novel for Ontario.
Recently at the Canada Day celebrations at Queen's Park, Toronto the Ontario government agency, Foodland Ontario, had a booth set up. We were drawn to them as they were offering free samples. It is a truism that free food will always draw a crowd. I'd previously encountered Foodland Ontario for their TV commercials and there useful awhile Twitter account (great recipes using local produce).
So once we had our cucumbers and dip, we noticed they had a video setup for a song contest. The contest is "Sing and Win". Contestants sing the Foodland jingle and compete in an online voting contest for the chance to win free groceries. They had a mini-studio set up with a video camera, lights, and audio mixer. Videos are them uploaded to Facebook (via YouTube) where people can vote daily for their favourite. As the recordings were done so professionally, the final videos are refreshingly good technical quality.
Considering my tone deafness, I didn't feel anyone deserved having to hear me caterwaul. But my young daughter jumped at the chance to perform (I think she's the reincarnation of Ethel Merman). Participating in the contest was a lot of fun, as was watching other people sing. But any campaign that builds upon people's narcisstic joy at seeing and sharing stuff about themselves or their kids is guaranteed to succeed.
So within a couple days of the event the video was uploaded, we eagerly watched it and voted. This campaign has such incredible viral potential - of course, everyone would want to share their videos and get their friends to vote for them. But here's the problem - it is way too difficult to direct friends to a specific video for them to vote.
The process is cumbersome and vague. I think using Facebook is great as really almost everyone who is online on Canada is on it. But to participate in this campaign one has to friend the Foodland Ontario Facebook page, then one has to select the venue (Queen's Park) then scroll through pages of videos to find the specific one. I would have liked to be able to send friends directly to the video to watch and vote.
One shouldn't have to friend a company to participate. I think if this restriction was gone it might be possible to pass on a link directly to the video and the participation levels would be much higher. This is essential both from a contestant and company perspective. As a contestant, I want as many of my friends to vote as possible. From a marketing perspective, the more people that are aware of Foodland Ontario and engage with their brand the greater the campaign success.
To be fair, it seems like this problem is on Facebook's end, as I'm not sure one can interact with a company on Facebook unless one friends them. People may be reluctant to do this as not only is it another step (each obstacle thrown at people will entail a certain level of drop-out) but also people might be concerned that friending a company entails being spammed with their messages (as has happened to me).
Even if this barrier was removed, it would still not be possible to link directly to the video. I'm not sure why this is the case as YouTube assigns each video a unique identifier.
In the end though, Foodland Ontario's "Sing and Win" campaign makes excellent use of social media - but some technical obstacles really prevented it from being much more viral and effective than it could be.
Now here's my plug to vote for my daughter:
Recently at the Canada Day celebrations at Queen's Park, Toronto the Ontario government agency, Foodland Ontario, had a booth set up. We were drawn to them as they were offering free samples. It is a truism that free food will always draw a crowd. I'd previously encountered Foodland Ontario for their TV commercials and there useful awhile Twitter account (great recipes using local produce).
So once we had our cucumbers and dip, we noticed they had a video setup for a song contest. The contest is "Sing and Win". Contestants sing the Foodland jingle and compete in an online voting contest for the chance to win free groceries. They had a mini-studio set up with a video camera, lights, and audio mixer. Videos are them uploaded to Facebook (via YouTube) where people can vote daily for their favourite. As the recordings were done so professionally, the final videos are refreshingly good technical quality.
Considering my tone deafness, I didn't feel anyone deserved having to hear me caterwaul. But my young daughter jumped at the chance to perform (I think she's the reincarnation of Ethel Merman). Participating in the contest was a lot of fun, as was watching other people sing. But any campaign that builds upon people's narcisstic joy at seeing and sharing stuff about themselves or their kids is guaranteed to succeed.
So within a couple days of the event the video was uploaded, we eagerly watched it and voted. This campaign has such incredible viral potential - of course, everyone would want to share their videos and get their friends to vote for them. But here's the problem - it is way too difficult to direct friends to a specific video for them to vote.
The process is cumbersome and vague. I think using Facebook is great as really almost everyone who is online on Canada is on it. But to participate in this campaign one has to friend the Foodland Ontario Facebook page, then one has to select the venue (Queen's Park) then scroll through pages of videos to find the specific one. I would have liked to be able to send friends directly to the video to watch and vote.
One shouldn't have to friend a company to participate. I think if this restriction was gone it might be possible to pass on a link directly to the video and the participation levels would be much higher. This is essential both from a contestant and company perspective. As a contestant, I want as many of my friends to vote as possible. From a marketing perspective, the more people that are aware of Foodland Ontario and engage with their brand the greater the campaign success.
To be fair, it seems like this problem is on Facebook's end, as I'm not sure one can interact with a company on Facebook unless one friends them. People may be reluctant to do this as not only is it another step (each obstacle thrown at people will entail a certain level of drop-out) but also people might be concerned that friending a company entails being spammed with their messages (as has happened to me).
Even if this barrier was removed, it would still not be possible to link directly to the video. I'm not sure why this is the case as YouTube assigns each video a unique identifier.
In the end though, Foodland Ontario's "Sing and Win" campaign makes excellent use of social media - but some technical obstacles really prevented it from being much more viral and effective than it could be.
Now here's my plug to vote for my daughter:
- Visit Foodland Ontario on Facebook and "Like" them
- Go to the "Sing and Win" contest page via the icon on the right
- Select the venue "Queen's Park Canada" on the right
- Go to page 6 of the videos (via the arrow on the right)
- Watch the "Nora F" video and click the vote button
- Visit every day to vote again
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Is Privacy an Outdated Concept?
I attended a talk tonight at UofT's iSchool Institute by Canadian science fiction author Robert Sawyer. He spoke on his belief of the outdated notion of privacy. In writing this blog post a paradox of privacy of mine occurred to me - I was hesitant to use his name as whenever I name a person or company on this blog, I inevitably receive an email or comment from them (okay this hasn't always proven the case as with my mentions of Beyonce or Shakira). Even though I publish this article in a public space, it still feels like an invasion when I hear from the people I'm talking about. I often find myself censoring myself so that I can maintain my sense of broadcasting my private thoughts.
I realize this behaviour is at odds with itself - but as raised in tonight's talk we (particularly my generation) are in a transitional phase from a having sense of privacy to the realization that privacy is dead. Sawyer argued that we only ever protected our privacy for two reasons: shame and wrong-doing. When societal values were more restrictive we guarded our personal lives to fit in and prevent societal repercussions. As more things become tolerable in our society this is no longer necessary. The latter point is where Sawyer mostly focused. He noted that with destructive weaponry becoming more powerful and harder to detect, it will become increasingly possible for those full of hate or for mad scientists to annihilate humanity. So notions of privacy must be put aside for our protection and preservation. He asked, can we now truly afford privacy?
Sawyer noted, however, that this is largely a moot point anyway as corporations already have access to extensive information about us. And moreover we have willing given companies our privacy (whether or not we were beguiled to do so).
An audience member objected that people do not in fact wittingly give up their privacy. I wanted to chime in that this was not necessarily true as I have given up a lot of private info about myself to the mobile app Foursquare fully knowing what I was giving up. Hell, I was even hopeful that giving up this info would result in more corporate invasion of my "private space" to offer me even paltry deals. Air Miles knows tons about me, and I LOVE all the free trips I've gotten from them.
Some of the audience were rankled by Sawyer's provocative assertion that privacy is dead (or rather reassertion as he and other technologists have noted this for years). Sawyer noted that already the boat has sailed on this (or as he said the "aircraft carrier") and it is impossible now to stop people from releasing info to companies. Instead he argued that we need to learn how to live with this new reality and to enact policy against the misuse of personal info.
I agree with Sawyer that people are too busy and too impressed with using tech like Facebook or Google to start en masse to recapture and to assert their privacy. Some believe that caring about protecting privacy is a generational one - as witness to the tons of Facebook users who don't ever change their default settings and then publish the most intimate details of their lives. I don't feel that this is generational. I may not post drunken photos of myself but in general I don't really care about privacy discussions or policy.
The only reason I went to see Sawyer speak on this topic tonight is that I loved the TV series based on his book FlashForward and that my wife recommended him as a speaker after hearing him speak on the human rights of clones and robots.
Still the privacy session was interesting and Sawyer read amply from his works. Including a new trilogy (begins with Wake) on what happens when the world wide web gains intelligence. Now that is a topic I care about.
I realize this behaviour is at odds with itself - but as raised in tonight's talk we (particularly my generation) are in a transitional phase from a having sense of privacy to the realization that privacy is dead. Sawyer argued that we only ever protected our privacy for two reasons: shame and wrong-doing. When societal values were more restrictive we guarded our personal lives to fit in and prevent societal repercussions. As more things become tolerable in our society this is no longer necessary. The latter point is where Sawyer mostly focused. He noted that with destructive weaponry becoming more powerful and harder to detect, it will become increasingly possible for those full of hate or for mad scientists to annihilate humanity. So notions of privacy must be put aside for our protection and preservation. He asked, can we now truly afford privacy?
Sawyer noted, however, that this is largely a moot point anyway as corporations already have access to extensive information about us. And moreover we have willing given companies our privacy (whether or not we were beguiled to do so).
An audience member objected that people do not in fact wittingly give up their privacy. I wanted to chime in that this was not necessarily true as I have given up a lot of private info about myself to the mobile app Foursquare fully knowing what I was giving up. Hell, I was even hopeful that giving up this info would result in more corporate invasion of my "private space" to offer me even paltry deals. Air Miles knows tons about me, and I LOVE all the free trips I've gotten from them.
Some of the audience were rankled by Sawyer's provocative assertion that privacy is dead (or rather reassertion as he and other technologists have noted this for years). Sawyer noted that already the boat has sailed on this (or as he said the "aircraft carrier") and it is impossible now to stop people from releasing info to companies. Instead he argued that we need to learn how to live with this new reality and to enact policy against the misuse of personal info.
I agree with Sawyer that people are too busy and too impressed with using tech like Facebook or Google to start en masse to recapture and to assert their privacy. Some believe that caring about protecting privacy is a generational one - as witness to the tons of Facebook users who don't ever change their default settings and then publish the most intimate details of their lives. I don't feel that this is generational. I may not post drunken photos of myself but in general I don't really care about privacy discussions or policy.
The only reason I went to see Sawyer speak on this topic tonight is that I loved the TV series based on his book FlashForward and that my wife recommended him as a speaker after hearing him speak on the human rights of clones and robots.
Still the privacy session was interesting and Sawyer read amply from his works. Including a new trilogy (begins with Wake) on what happens when the world wide web gains intelligence. Now that is a topic I care about.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Facebook and the Problem of Collapsed Identity
Privacy controls in social networking sites seems to be endlessly discussed. Facebook seems to regularly tinker with its user privacy controls and many users routinely ignore them.
One thing that I feel is missed in privacy discussions is that it is not a binary conception - either I’ll keep things just to me, my friends or network or I’ll share it. Such decisions are a foundational privacy issue. However, the information I want to share is often more complicated. It’s not a question of whether a user is an online recluse or virtual exhibitionist.
There are some types of information that is suitable to share in some contexts and with some types of people and then not with others. The Internet collapses barriers that otherwise kept various aspects of our identity separate. There used to be a clear distinction between work, home, political or religious spaces, etc. These barriers are being further collapsed online as Facebook increasingly becomes the defacto platform for all online social networking. Almost everyone I know is on Facebook - from my young and old relatives, work colleagues, old school friends, casual acquaintances, etc.
The benefits of sites like Facebook are that everyone is using it (critical mass) but the problem is that everyone is using it. Problems have been found with this particularly when work and social life collide online (e.g. cases of employees fired for criticizing employers, prospective employers not hiring due to seeing drunken photos, parents learning TMI about their kids’ leisure activities).
I love the term participatory surveillance as it encompasses the desire many of us have to share our personal details, stories, images, and mundane status updates online. The accompanying term should be induced voyeurism, as it is hard to not take note as this parade of info passes by on our social networks sites. But just because someone wants to share information, doesn’t mean they want to share it with everyone they know (and don’t know) online and have friended.
Facebook is gradually improving its privacy controls, but they haven’t made much progress on allowing users to segment the various dimensions of their identity. I have made groups in Facebooks for my friends based on whether I know them from work, school, family, professional associations, or are essentially strangers (friended as they share similar interests or friends). Other than restricting the photographs I upload based on these groups, there is little else I can do to recontextualize the various elements of my social life.
Could website features or user norms mitigate collapsed identities? Could any such features be sufficiently usable so users actually use them? Already privacy controls are often seldom used, would this just be further distractions?
The rich context available offline and spatial barriers preserved distinct identities. This will be difficult to replicate online, so from a longitude perspective will user behaviour adapt. Will collapsed identities become the norm?
One thing that I feel is missed in privacy discussions is that it is not a binary conception - either I’ll keep things just to me, my friends or network or I’ll share it. Such decisions are a foundational privacy issue. However, the information I want to share is often more complicated. It’s not a question of whether a user is an online recluse or virtual exhibitionist.
There are some types of information that is suitable to share in some contexts and with some types of people and then not with others. The Internet collapses barriers that otherwise kept various aspects of our identity separate. There used to be a clear distinction between work, home, political or religious spaces, etc. These barriers are being further collapsed online as Facebook increasingly becomes the defacto platform for all online social networking. Almost everyone I know is on Facebook - from my young and old relatives, work colleagues, old school friends, casual acquaintances, etc.
The benefits of sites like Facebook are that everyone is using it (critical mass) but the problem is that everyone is using it. Problems have been found with this particularly when work and social life collide online (e.g. cases of employees fired for criticizing employers, prospective employers not hiring due to seeing drunken photos, parents learning TMI about their kids’ leisure activities).
I love the term participatory surveillance as it encompasses the desire many of us have to share our personal details, stories, images, and mundane status updates online. The accompanying term should be induced voyeurism, as it is hard to not take note as this parade of info passes by on our social networks sites. But just because someone wants to share information, doesn’t mean they want to share it with everyone they know (and don’t know) online and have friended.
Facebook is gradually improving its privacy controls, but they haven’t made much progress on allowing users to segment the various dimensions of their identity. I have made groups in Facebooks for my friends based on whether I know them from work, school, family, professional associations, or are essentially strangers (friended as they share similar interests or friends). Other than restricting the photographs I upload based on these groups, there is little else I can do to recontextualize the various elements of my social life.
Could website features or user norms mitigate collapsed identities? Could any such features be sufficiently usable so users actually use them? Already privacy controls are often seldom used, would this just be further distractions?
The rich context available offline and spatial barriers preserved distinct identities. This will be difficult to replicate online, so from a longitude perspective will user behaviour adapt. Will collapsed identities become the norm?
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Social Media Marketing Conference
Today was the first day of OpenDialogue's Social Media Marketing conference in Toronto, at the Old Mill, where amidst the old world eclectic setting, we tried to make sense of the new media chaos that is social media. As if symbolizing the lingering role of old technology disrupting the promise of the digital age, an ornate chandelier obstructed the PowerPoint presentations from being fully viewable. Still, the Old Mill is the best location of any Toronto conference I have ever been to, not only for the beautiful building, natural setting, proper tables, but most importantly: comfy chairs and ample personal space. (Here’s a cardinal rule for conference organizers: if you expect people to sit all day, do not have crappy, hard plastic chairs stacked so tightly together I can’t exhale without knocking over my neighbour’s knee-straddled laptop.)
As one who follows social media developments, I’ve heard a lot of hype but haven’t seen a lot of proof on how it is actually transforming business. Today’s speakers presented case studies of impressive use of social media delivering business results and offered useful best practices and insight into the medium. I’ll focus on the points that particularly intrigued me.
NutriSystem presented on their Canadian launch. They recruited Canadian bloggers to try their products, for free, and blog about the results. That takes a lot of courage as bloggers are known for being opinionated and irrational at times (not this blogger of course). NutriSystem, and the bloggers themselves, were open and transparent about this arrangement, and NutriSystem did not direct or influence what the bloggers had to say, so there were no charges of “pimping”. According to NutriSystem, the bloggers delivered messages consistent with the company’s and were effective in generating interest and sales.
Perennial conference presenter Bryan Segal from comScore presented impressive statistics on Canada’s adoption of social media. Canadians have the highest rates of social media page views and visit durations and “Canada is a Facebook and YouTube nation” declared Bryan. I was dying to know why he felt we have such fondness (or in my case addiction) of social media, but figured it was too academic a question for this marketing-focused crowd.
Adrian Capobianco of Quizative offered a lot of useful guidance on social media, so I’ll just bullet his words:
• The Pope is into social marketing, are you?
• Should you be listening to social media? Absolutely? Should you be participating? Maybe.
• Social media is changing so fast it’s like running on sand instead of concrete
• Social media is popular as it is relevant, immediate, self expression, conversational, real, human
• To maximize engagement, reward contributions with badges/visibility, rankings, points, contests, discounts, gifts, cash
• Marketing structure is often campaign based, but social media is iterative & ongoing
• Companies using social media need to have an employee anointed to listen and empowered to respond
Focusing on the rewards of online niche marketing , Andrew Cherwenka from Trapeze described how highly targeted social networks are present in the mass social networks, like Facebook. I was impressed by his campaign he described for a car company. For a relatively small sum of money, they launched a microsite for a specific car, accessed from the main car company site. That microsite then feed to channels/groups on Facebook, YouTube, and Flickr where user fans could post their own content in an organized, social fashion. They advertised to initially get word out but then involvement snowballed.
Making similar innovate use of existing social media, Wayne MacPhail, presented how an Ontario charity made incredible use of wikis, delicious, Google, and Flickr, to enables individual across its many local chapters to organize and produce their own content. As he pointed out, what resulted was the “opposite of the tragedy of the commons” as there was a high degree of participation and surprisingly little negative behaviour. To get this level of involvement, they did have to do some one-on-one in-person training and have instructional aids, but with some inventive use of existing, free services (such as Flickr’s slideshows, Google Maps, RSS feeds from delicious) the users themselves were inspired and able to do it themselves.
Overall, the conference today had a lot useful advice to offer companies on how to enter social media, but the examples cited today and, in generally hyped by social media enthusiasts are that it enables companies to now have earnest conversations and responsive action with their customers. This is rather utopian and not new, as companies have been able to do this through their telephone and email customer support - and we all know how mixed this media service has been. We are at a social media conference, so we do need to hype cases where companies did have the culture to be open to this, but as some presenters acknowledge social media participation (everyone should be monitoring) is not for every company – and this, I would argue, is the main reason why.
I opened this post describing the irony of discussing new media at the Old Mill. In another old vs. new analogy: before I left for the conference this morning my four year old daughter asked me incredulously if I was going to be talking about YouTube for my work (she LOVES it, BTW). As an Internet vet (ten years last month) it makes me so happy that I can reply to her that yes I was going to talk about YouTube and yes this was my job – how cool is that!
As one who follows social media developments, I’ve heard a lot of hype but haven’t seen a lot of proof on how it is actually transforming business. Today’s speakers presented case studies of impressive use of social media delivering business results and offered useful best practices and insight into the medium. I’ll focus on the points that particularly intrigued me.
NutriSystem presented on their Canadian launch. They recruited Canadian bloggers to try their products, for free, and blog about the results. That takes a lot of courage as bloggers are known for being opinionated and irrational at times (not this blogger of course). NutriSystem, and the bloggers themselves, were open and transparent about this arrangement, and NutriSystem did not direct or influence what the bloggers had to say, so there were no charges of “pimping”. According to NutriSystem, the bloggers delivered messages consistent with the company’s and were effective in generating interest and sales.
Perennial conference presenter Bryan Segal from comScore presented impressive statistics on Canada’s adoption of social media. Canadians have the highest rates of social media page views and visit durations and “Canada is a Facebook and YouTube nation” declared Bryan. I was dying to know why he felt we have such fondness (or in my case addiction) of social media, but figured it was too academic a question for this marketing-focused crowd.
Adrian Capobianco of Quizative offered a lot of useful guidance on social media, so I’ll just bullet his words:
• The Pope is into social marketing, are you?
• Should you be listening to social media? Absolutely? Should you be participating? Maybe.
• Social media is changing so fast it’s like running on sand instead of concrete
• Social media is popular as it is relevant, immediate, self expression, conversational, real, human
• To maximize engagement, reward contributions with badges/visibility, rankings, points, contests, discounts, gifts, cash
• Marketing structure is often campaign based, but social media is iterative & ongoing
• Companies using social media need to have an employee anointed to listen and empowered to respond
Focusing on the rewards of online niche marketing , Andrew Cherwenka from Trapeze described how highly targeted social networks are present in the mass social networks, like Facebook. I was impressed by his campaign he described for a car company. For a relatively small sum of money, they launched a microsite for a specific car, accessed from the main car company site. That microsite then feed to channels/groups on Facebook, YouTube, and Flickr where user fans could post their own content in an organized, social fashion. They advertised to initially get word out but then involvement snowballed.
Making similar innovate use of existing social media, Wayne MacPhail, presented how an Ontario charity made incredible use of wikis, delicious, Google, and Flickr, to enables individual across its many local chapters to organize and produce their own content. As he pointed out, what resulted was the “opposite of the tragedy of the commons” as there was a high degree of participation and surprisingly little negative behaviour. To get this level of involvement, they did have to do some one-on-one in-person training and have instructional aids, but with some inventive use of existing, free services (such as Flickr’s slideshows, Google Maps, RSS feeds from delicious) the users themselves were inspired and able to do it themselves.
Overall, the conference today had a lot useful advice to offer companies on how to enter social media, but the examples cited today and, in generally hyped by social media enthusiasts are that it enables companies to now have earnest conversations and responsive action with their customers. This is rather utopian and not new, as companies have been able to do this through their telephone and email customer support - and we all know how mixed this media service has been. We are at a social media conference, so we do need to hype cases where companies did have the culture to be open to this, but as some presenters acknowledge social media participation (everyone should be monitoring) is not for every company – and this, I would argue, is the main reason why.
I opened this post describing the irony of discussing new media at the Old Mill. In another old vs. new analogy: before I left for the conference this morning my four year old daughter asked me incredulously if I was going to be talking about YouTube for my work (she LOVES it, BTW). As an Internet vet (ten years last month) it makes me so happy that I can reply to her that yes I was going to talk about YouTube and yes this was my job – how cool is that!
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Social Internetworking
How the Internet Can Help Organizations Benefit From Social Networking
When Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty followed the trend of employers banning Facebook at work and banned it for Ontario civil servants, he asserted “I just don't really see how it adds value to the work you do in the workplace” (Flavelle, 2007). This was a provocative challenge to social networking sites (SNS) to justify their usefulness within the workplace. While niche SNS such as LinkedIn, Xing, and Plaxo do cater only to professional networking, overall there has not been much research on the value SNS and related technologies offer workplaces. It is my position that rather than being only a distraction to employees, Internet-enabled social networking offers considerable value to professionals and organizations.
I will first discuss the value of social networking within organizations, particularly the importance of SNS and related online technologies to establishing and maintaining useful connections with a diverse array of individuals with whom one is distantly connected (“weak ties”) and will then analyze how SNS permits employees to find, maintain, and connect to valuable weak ties on a greater scale than was previously possible.
Value of Online Social Networking
The field of social network analysis has demonstrated the value of discovering existing network structures within organizations so as to optimize networks to improve communications, resource flow, and foster innovation (Liebowitz, 2007). With the advent of affordable SNS and related online technologies, organizations are now more readily able to utilize the power of social networks, as prior spatial, temporal, and racial or social position constraints are lessened (Wellman, 1997).
In addition, these technologies enable “connections between people where none existed, and… builds new weak tie networks” (Haythornthwaite, 2005, p. 139). Weak ties, a term coined by Granovetter to denote those with whom we are not closely tied, such as friends of friends, casual acquaintances, and former co-workers or classmates, offer advantages over strong ties in that weak ties expose one to a greater breadth and more novel experience, opinion, and thoughts (Cheney, Christensen, Zorn, & Ganesh, 2004). Research has found that when employees posed questions electronically to all staff, obtaining the correct answer was not related to contacting a greater number of people but rather contacting a greater diversity of people (Constant, Sproull & Keisler, 1996). In addition, Cross and Parker claim research shows that “more diversified networks are associated with early promotion, career mobility, and managerial effectiveness” (2004, p. 11). Thus there are numerous possible advantages to organizations actively encouraging the use of online social networking in the workplace.
Find Useful Contacts
In a large or geographically-dispersed organization, employees may not know their fellow co-workers. Even smaller companies may have departmental silos or gatekeepers preventing access to needed information or resources. The ability to seek information or collaborate with coworkers is hampered when employees are not even aware of or are unable to connect with applicable coworkers (Cross & Parker, 2004). Companies such as Accenture have built electronic systems to allow employees to find relevant expertise. Liebowitz found such expertise locators, or “online yellow pages of expertise,” enables people to connect via shared interests, find necessary resources, and get answers to questions (2007, p. 17). Design firm Organism achieved similar results by tying the company directory to its corporate wiki, in which every employee maintains their own profile page listing their skills, experience, and projects (Li & Bernoff, 2008). Organism also built its own social networking features so that employees can list their friends (in social networking parlance any added contact is deemed a “friend”) for referrals and recommendations for project assignments. Many SNS by default display one’s contacts to one’s friends (although this can usually be restricted if desired), so that organizations can achieve similar results without building their own platform.
In addition, some SNS offer automatic linking based on interests or experience; alternatively, one can search the site using company names, locations, or keywords to find applicable friends (often called first degree contacts) friends of friends (second degree contacts) and friends of friends of friends (third degree contacts). Ellison, Steinfield, and Lampe found in a study of Facebook users that the features of SNS did make it easier for people to convert a latent tie into a weak tie (2007).
Maintain Weak Ties
Although strong ties tend to be supported by offline efforts (Wellman, 1997), Internet technologies can support weak ties effectively. As strong ties by their nature need more effort to maintain, maintaining weak ties can consist simply of keeping in touch with one another and possessing updated contact information. This can be easily achieved via SNS as one can quickly and easily add contacts (some with or without confirmation) and then receive access to their profiles and ongoing updates. Ellison et al. found that these SNS features and the low social cost of connecting online did allow users to “crystallize relationships that might otherwise remain ephemeral” (2007, p. 1143).
In addition to enabling people to easily make a record and keep track of a large number of contacts, Ellison et al. also found that socially-inhibited people were more able to network online as it “lower[s] the barriers to participation so that students who might otherwise shy away from initiating communication with or responding to others are encouraged to do” (2007, p. 1162). Offline one is limited by time and spatial barriers such that maintaining many ties is problematic and thus one will loose contact with some weak ties. Various researchers have hypothesized that Internet-based technology allows one to maintain significantly more ties than could be achieved exclusively through offline efforts (Donath & Boyd, 2004; Ellison et al., 2007).
Connecting and Sharing Information Online
While finding and maintaining weak ties is important, when the need arises to call upon the assistance of a weak tie, how can one be assured that the person will respond? Interestingly, one factor that limits sharing of information is greatly lessened online, as for those who have not previously meet in real life, the lack of visual cues online has been found to lessen discrimination based on race, gender, social status, and social similarity (Constant et al., 1996; Sproull, Conley, & Moon, 2005; Wellman, 1997). This has been found to be a liberating experience for some who are now able to connect at a different level than they were previously able to offline.
Researchers have found that “an electronic tie combined with an organizational tie is sufficient to allow the flow of information between people who may never have met face-to-face” (Garton, Haythornthwaite, & Wellman, 1997, Ties, ¶3). Online prosocial behaviour has been observed in various studies (Constant et al., 1996, and Sproull et al., 2005) in which people were found to offer aid to help achieve organizational goals, for altruistic reasons, as well as for self-esteem and recognition. Such was the case for Best Buy when they implemented open-source software to connect all employees. In fact, for Best Buy only achieving a small portion, ten percent, of employees using the software proved to be sufficient to enable employees to help each other (Li & Bernoff, 2008).
For targeted information requests, particularly to high level executives or difficult-to-reach people, more aid may be needed. This is where referrals and recommendations offered by some SNS provide a means for one to know that the information request comes from “someone [who] is connected to people one already knows and trusts [as this] is one of the most basic ways of establishing trust with a new relationship” (Donath & Boyd, 2004, p.72). LinkedIn is an exemplar in this regard as not only does it enable contacts to write online testimonials about ties, but they also facilitate brokered second degree and third degree contact introductions. Online social networking has been shown to offer effective communication whether a request comes directly from a weak tie, indirectly from a second or third degree contact, or from a stranger.
Conclusion
While online social networks do offer organizations the potential for employees to be better able to find, maintain, connect, and share information with valuable contacts, there are some important caveats. In both the Best Buy and Organism cases, their success was related to having an easy to use interface and achieving a critical mass of users (Li & Bernoff, 2008).
Another caveat is that with some SNS, such as Facebook, their original focus was on personal social networking. With the increasing adoption of Facebook in workplaces, it has introduced new challenges, such as one’s boss and workplace colleagues receiving access to previously off-limits, and possibly inappropriate, personal details and photographs (Dunfield, 2008). One possible solution, other than opting for more professional-oriented SNS like LinkedIn, would be to segments one’s SNS into groups and restrict various types of information based on these groups, as Facebook allows.
A further consideration for organizations is whether to make their online service public, to be better able to tap into important external contacts, such as possible suppliers or partners, or keep it private, so as to prevent employees being poached by recruiters. Finally, the crucial factor determining the success of online social networking in workplaces as found by researchers (Haythornthwaite, 2005; Constant et al., 1996; Li & Bernoff, 2008) is in creating the organizational culture that will support and foster participation.
References
Cheney, G., Christensen, L. T., Zorn, T. E., & Ganesh, S. (2004). Organizational communication in an age of globalization: Issues, reflections, practices (pp. 156-163). Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press.
Constant, D., Sproull, L., & Kiesler, S. (1996). Kindness of strangers: The usefulness of electronic weak ties for technical advice [Electronic version]. Organization Science, 7(2), 119-135.
Cross, R. L., & Parker, A. (2004). Hidden power of social networks: Understanding how work really gets done in organizations. Boston, MA.: Harvard Business School Press.
Donath, J., & Boyd, D. (2004). Public displays of connection. BT Technology Journal, 22(4), 71-82.
Dunfield, A. (2008, July 9). Buddying up to the boss on Facebook [Electronic version]. Globe and Mail. Retrieved September 06, 2008, from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080709.wcafacebook09/BNStory/Technology/home/?pageRequested=all
Ellison, N., Steinfield, C., & Lampe, C. (2007). Benefits of Facebook "friends:" Social capital and college students' use of online social network sites [Electronic version]. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(4), 1143-1168.
Flavelle, D. (2007, May 04). Worries follow rise of Facebook [Electronic version]. Toronto Star. Retrieved September 06, 2008, from
http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/210313
Haythornthwaite, C. (2005). Social networks and Internet connectivity effects [Electronic version]. Information, Communication & Society, 8(2), 125-147.
Garton, L., Haythornthwaite, C., & Wellman, B. (1997). Studying online social networks [Electronic version]. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 3(1), 0-0.
Li, C., & Bernoff, J. (2008). Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social technologies. Boston, MA.: Harvard Business Press.
Liebowitz, J. (2007). Social networking: The essence of innovation. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press.
Sproull, L., Conley, C., & Moon, J. (2005). Prosocial behaviour on the net. In Y. Amichai-Hamburger, The Social Net: Understanding Human Behavior in Cyberspace. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press.
Wellman, B. (1997). An electronic group is virtually a social network. In S. Kiesler (Ed.), Culture of the Internet (pp. 179-205). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
When Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty followed the trend of employers banning Facebook at work and banned it for Ontario civil servants, he asserted “I just don't really see how it adds value to the work you do in the workplace” (Flavelle, 2007). This was a provocative challenge to social networking sites (SNS) to justify their usefulness within the workplace. While niche SNS such as LinkedIn, Xing, and Plaxo do cater only to professional networking, overall there has not been much research on the value SNS and related technologies offer workplaces. It is my position that rather than being only a distraction to employees, Internet-enabled social networking offers considerable value to professionals and organizations.
I will first discuss the value of social networking within organizations, particularly the importance of SNS and related online technologies to establishing and maintaining useful connections with a diverse array of individuals with whom one is distantly connected (“weak ties”) and will then analyze how SNS permits employees to find, maintain, and connect to valuable weak ties on a greater scale than was previously possible.
Value of Online Social Networking
The field of social network analysis has demonstrated the value of discovering existing network structures within organizations so as to optimize networks to improve communications, resource flow, and foster innovation (Liebowitz, 2007). With the advent of affordable SNS and related online technologies, organizations are now more readily able to utilize the power of social networks, as prior spatial, temporal, and racial or social position constraints are lessened (Wellman, 1997).
In addition, these technologies enable “connections between people where none existed, and… builds new weak tie networks” (Haythornthwaite, 2005, p. 139). Weak ties, a term coined by Granovetter to denote those with whom we are not closely tied, such as friends of friends, casual acquaintances, and former co-workers or classmates, offer advantages over strong ties in that weak ties expose one to a greater breadth and more novel experience, opinion, and thoughts (Cheney, Christensen, Zorn, & Ganesh, 2004). Research has found that when employees posed questions electronically to all staff, obtaining the correct answer was not related to contacting a greater number of people but rather contacting a greater diversity of people (Constant, Sproull & Keisler, 1996). In addition, Cross and Parker claim research shows that “more diversified networks are associated with early promotion, career mobility, and managerial effectiveness” (2004, p. 11). Thus there are numerous possible advantages to organizations actively encouraging the use of online social networking in the workplace.
Find Useful Contacts
In a large or geographically-dispersed organization, employees may not know their fellow co-workers. Even smaller companies may have departmental silos or gatekeepers preventing access to needed information or resources. The ability to seek information or collaborate with coworkers is hampered when employees are not even aware of or are unable to connect with applicable coworkers (Cross & Parker, 2004). Companies such as Accenture have built electronic systems to allow employees to find relevant expertise. Liebowitz found such expertise locators, or “online yellow pages of expertise,” enables people to connect via shared interests, find necessary resources, and get answers to questions (2007, p. 17). Design firm Organism achieved similar results by tying the company directory to its corporate wiki, in which every employee maintains their own profile page listing their skills, experience, and projects (Li & Bernoff, 2008). Organism also built its own social networking features so that employees can list their friends (in social networking parlance any added contact is deemed a “friend”) for referrals and recommendations for project assignments. Many SNS by default display one’s contacts to one’s friends (although this can usually be restricted if desired), so that organizations can achieve similar results without building their own platform.
In addition, some SNS offer automatic linking based on interests or experience; alternatively, one can search the site using company names, locations, or keywords to find applicable friends (often called first degree contacts) friends of friends (second degree contacts) and friends of friends of friends (third degree contacts). Ellison, Steinfield, and Lampe found in a study of Facebook users that the features of SNS did make it easier for people to convert a latent tie into a weak tie (2007).
Maintain Weak Ties
Although strong ties tend to be supported by offline efforts (Wellman, 1997), Internet technologies can support weak ties effectively. As strong ties by their nature need more effort to maintain, maintaining weak ties can consist simply of keeping in touch with one another and possessing updated contact information. This can be easily achieved via SNS as one can quickly and easily add contacts (some with or without confirmation) and then receive access to their profiles and ongoing updates. Ellison et al. found that these SNS features and the low social cost of connecting online did allow users to “crystallize relationships that might otherwise remain ephemeral” (2007, p. 1143).
In addition to enabling people to easily make a record and keep track of a large number of contacts, Ellison et al. also found that socially-inhibited people were more able to network online as it “lower[s] the barriers to participation so that students who might otherwise shy away from initiating communication with or responding to others are encouraged to do” (2007, p. 1162). Offline one is limited by time and spatial barriers such that maintaining many ties is problematic and thus one will loose contact with some weak ties. Various researchers have hypothesized that Internet-based technology allows one to maintain significantly more ties than could be achieved exclusively through offline efforts (Donath & Boyd, 2004; Ellison et al., 2007).
Connecting and Sharing Information Online
While finding and maintaining weak ties is important, when the need arises to call upon the assistance of a weak tie, how can one be assured that the person will respond? Interestingly, one factor that limits sharing of information is greatly lessened online, as for those who have not previously meet in real life, the lack of visual cues online has been found to lessen discrimination based on race, gender, social status, and social similarity (Constant et al., 1996; Sproull, Conley, & Moon, 2005; Wellman, 1997). This has been found to be a liberating experience for some who are now able to connect at a different level than they were previously able to offline.
Researchers have found that “an electronic tie combined with an organizational tie is sufficient to allow the flow of information between people who may never have met face-to-face” (Garton, Haythornthwaite, & Wellman, 1997, Ties, ¶3). Online prosocial behaviour has been observed in various studies (Constant et al., 1996, and Sproull et al., 2005) in which people were found to offer aid to help achieve organizational goals, for altruistic reasons, as well as for self-esteem and recognition. Such was the case for Best Buy when they implemented open-source software to connect all employees. In fact, for Best Buy only achieving a small portion, ten percent, of employees using the software proved to be sufficient to enable employees to help each other (Li & Bernoff, 2008).
For targeted information requests, particularly to high level executives or difficult-to-reach people, more aid may be needed. This is where referrals and recommendations offered by some SNS provide a means for one to know that the information request comes from “someone [who] is connected to people one already knows and trusts [as this] is one of the most basic ways of establishing trust with a new relationship” (Donath & Boyd, 2004, p.72). LinkedIn is an exemplar in this regard as not only does it enable contacts to write online testimonials about ties, but they also facilitate brokered second degree and third degree contact introductions. Online social networking has been shown to offer effective communication whether a request comes directly from a weak tie, indirectly from a second or third degree contact, or from a stranger.
Conclusion
While online social networks do offer organizations the potential for employees to be better able to find, maintain, connect, and share information with valuable contacts, there are some important caveats. In both the Best Buy and Organism cases, their success was related to having an easy to use interface and achieving a critical mass of users (Li & Bernoff, 2008).
Another caveat is that with some SNS, such as Facebook, their original focus was on personal social networking. With the increasing adoption of Facebook in workplaces, it has introduced new challenges, such as one’s boss and workplace colleagues receiving access to previously off-limits, and possibly inappropriate, personal details and photographs (Dunfield, 2008). One possible solution, other than opting for more professional-oriented SNS like LinkedIn, would be to segments one’s SNS into groups and restrict various types of information based on these groups, as Facebook allows.
A further consideration for organizations is whether to make their online service public, to be better able to tap into important external contacts, such as possible suppliers or partners, or keep it private, so as to prevent employees being poached by recruiters. Finally, the crucial factor determining the success of online social networking in workplaces as found by researchers (Haythornthwaite, 2005; Constant et al., 1996; Li & Bernoff, 2008) is in creating the organizational culture that will support and foster participation.
References
Cheney, G., Christensen, L. T., Zorn, T. E., & Ganesh, S. (2004). Organizational communication in an age of globalization: Issues, reflections, practices (pp. 156-163). Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press.
Constant, D., Sproull, L., & Kiesler, S. (1996). Kindness of strangers: The usefulness of electronic weak ties for technical advice [Electronic version]. Organization Science, 7(2), 119-135.
Cross, R. L., & Parker, A. (2004). Hidden power of social networks: Understanding how work really gets done in organizations. Boston, MA.: Harvard Business School Press.
Donath, J., & Boyd, D. (2004). Public displays of connection. BT Technology Journal, 22(4), 71-82.
Dunfield, A. (2008, July 9). Buddying up to the boss on Facebook [Electronic version]. Globe and Mail. Retrieved September 06, 2008, from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080709.wcafacebook09/BNStory/Technology/home/?pageRequested=all
Ellison, N., Steinfield, C., & Lampe, C. (2007). Benefits of Facebook "friends:" Social capital and college students' use of online social network sites [Electronic version]. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(4), 1143-1168.
Flavelle, D. (2007, May 04). Worries follow rise of Facebook [Electronic version]. Toronto Star. Retrieved September 06, 2008, from
http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/210313
Haythornthwaite, C. (2005). Social networks and Internet connectivity effects [Electronic version]. Information, Communication & Society, 8(2), 125-147.
Garton, L., Haythornthwaite, C., & Wellman, B. (1997). Studying online social networks [Electronic version]. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 3(1), 0-0.
Li, C., & Bernoff, J. (2008). Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social technologies. Boston, MA.: Harvard Business Press.
Liebowitz, J. (2007). Social networking: The essence of innovation. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press.
Sproull, L., Conley, C., & Moon, J. (2005). Prosocial behaviour on the net. In Y. Amichai-Hamburger, The Social Net: Understanding Human Behavior in Cyberspace. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press.
Wellman, B. (1997). An electronic group is virtually a social network. In S. Kiesler (Ed.), Culture of the Internet (pp. 179-205). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Summer Camp - Facebook Style
I'm addicted to Facebook, I unapologetically admit.
Rather than be contrite, I delight in addicting my friends, and just this week I rejoiced in converting 3 hold-outs! I've blogged about my Facebook addiction before, but prior to last night my addiction was practiced at home alone.
Last night, I went to Facebook Camp Toronto 4. It was a free event (my favourite kind) at MaRS, which also hosted Mesh and is shaping itself as the spot for Internet and technology. There were hundreds of people attending, mostly developers. Toronto, it was pointed out, has the largest Facebook developer base in the world - not to mention one of the largest networks. While not a developer, my addiction and recent research fueled my desire to attend.
The speakers were excellent, including reps from the Palo Alto company itself, as well as three third-party application developers. Here were the main points for me:
1) Facebook will very soon (next week, perhaps) be doing a significant redesign. Mostly, the redesign will allow users to clean up, organize, and have more control over their Profile page. My profile page was getting so crowded that I had to delete things just to clean up. This won't be necessary anymore, but the downside is there won't be the one main page per person , rather a series of tabbed pages. Here's more info on the changes (must be a member of Facebook to see).
2) Facebook is getting serious about advertising. We knew Facebook would soon be vamping up its efforts to monetize its userbase, but they've got some really promising tools to make the actions more relevant to users. Basically, ads can by "hyper-targetted" based not only on demographics but also interests and other Facebook profile data. As a user, I think this will help make advertising relevant to me - I'd love to see ads for any Xena Warrior Princess products or services that may be out there, for example.
3) New fun apps keep getting are added to Facebook regularly. There were three presentations of Canadian-made Facebook apps, all of which seem to be very promising and potentially addictive:
a) Mouse Hunt - a quick and easy game (with great artwork)
b) Praize'n'raze - allows you to vote for your favourite local services
c) Slangbook - enter and vote on your favourite slang
I haven't had a chance to check them all out. But what I love about Facebook applications is that with various websites that require social participation, it is difficult to get one's social contacts there. For example, I am an ardent user of del.icio.us, Digg, and OurFaves but I can't convince my friends to join. My friends are on Facebook and so getting them to use various web applications is much esaier, and thus realizing the value and fun.
I saw the developers, Jerome Paradis and Kim Vallee, of one of my favourite Facebook applications, Status Competition, were at the camp last night. Status Competition is so effective and fun because it fits my Facebook behaviour. I like to quick check into Facebook about 1-2 times a day to see what's happening with my friends and I love to interact with the content in various ways. I love Status Competition because not only can you see at a glance the various status updates of your friends, but you can give a vote to the ones you enjoy and designate your feelings on the posting from "cool", "funny", "weird", "sad", "confusing" or "meh". The competition is mostly for bragging rights, but it's not whether you win or lose, it's how often you update your status (at least once a day is my preference).
It's great to see such cool Internet stuff happening in Canada. We may not have a company like Facebook in Canada, but apparently we have some great application developers here.
Rather than be contrite, I delight in addicting my friends, and just this week I rejoiced in converting 3 hold-outs! I've blogged about my Facebook addiction before, but prior to last night my addiction was practiced at home alone.
Last night, I went to Facebook Camp Toronto 4. It was a free event (my favourite kind) at MaRS, which also hosted Mesh and is shaping itself as the spot for Internet and technology. There were hundreds of people attending, mostly developers. Toronto, it was pointed out, has the largest Facebook developer base in the world - not to mention one of the largest networks. While not a developer, my addiction and recent research fueled my desire to attend.
The speakers were excellent, including reps from the Palo Alto company itself, as well as three third-party application developers. Here were the main points for me:
1) Facebook will very soon (next week, perhaps) be doing a significant redesign. Mostly, the redesign will allow users to clean up, organize, and have more control over their Profile page. My profile page was getting so crowded that I had to delete things just to clean up. This won't be necessary anymore, but the downside is there won't be the one main page per person , rather a series of tabbed pages. Here's more info on the changes (must be a member of Facebook to see).
2) Facebook is getting serious about advertising. We knew Facebook would soon be vamping up its efforts to monetize its userbase, but they've got some really promising tools to make the actions more relevant to users. Basically, ads can by "hyper-targetted" based not only on demographics but also interests and other Facebook profile data. As a user, I think this will help make advertising relevant to me - I'd love to see ads for any Xena Warrior Princess products or services that may be out there, for example.
3) New fun apps keep getting are added to Facebook regularly. There were three presentations of Canadian-made Facebook apps, all of which seem to be very promising and potentially addictive:
a) Mouse Hunt - a quick and easy game (with great artwork)
b) Praize'n'raze - allows you to vote for your favourite local services
c) Slangbook - enter and vote on your favourite slang
I haven't had a chance to check them all out. But what I love about Facebook applications is that with various websites that require social participation, it is difficult to get one's social contacts there. For example, I am an ardent user of del.icio.us, Digg, and OurFaves but I can't convince my friends to join. My friends are on Facebook and so getting them to use various web applications is much esaier, and thus realizing the value and fun.
I saw the developers, Jerome Paradis and Kim Vallee, of one of my favourite Facebook applications, Status Competition, were at the camp last night. Status Competition is so effective and fun because it fits my Facebook behaviour. I like to quick check into Facebook about 1-2 times a day to see what's happening with my friends and I love to interact with the content in various ways. I love Status Competition because not only can you see at a glance the various status updates of your friends, but you can give a vote to the ones you enjoy and designate your feelings on the posting from "cool", "funny", "weird", "sad", "confusing" or "meh". The competition is mostly for bragging rights, but it's not whether you win or lose, it's how often you update your status (at least once a day is my preference).
It's great to see such cool Internet stuff happening in Canada. We may not have a company like Facebook in Canada, but apparently we have some great application developers here.
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
Negotiating Multifaceted Identity Online in Social Networking Websites
Our real-world identities can be multifaceted and contextually fragmented - we behave one way at work, and another when drinking with friends. Yet social-networking websites collapse “relationship types and contexts into the ubiquitous ‘Friend’” (Boyd, 2007, p.134). Thus one’s online social network friends, regardless of context (e.g. work, family, church, school) all receive, by default, the same information. This online flattening of offline relationships has progressed without adequate means to negotiate this experience. For example how to present one facet of personality, or persona, to one's friends vs. one's workplace colleagues. Some users have responded by replacing “cool” customizations with those more appropriate for business, thus sacrificing facets of identity to present an overall safe, sanitized persona (Boyd, 2007, p.143). New methods of encoding and decoding online identity/identities, whether new societal norms or technological solutions, are required to allow people to enjoy these websites and avoid clashes of real-world and online identities.
Many of these issues were documented by danah boyd in her study of the rise of Friendster, the first prominent social-networking website and inspiration for the more popular MySpace and Facebook. Friendster, boyd noted, by offering users a standard template to populate allows users the experience of “writing yourself into being” (Boyd, 2007, p.145) but within defined parameters. Yet truthfulness in these profiles has varied. Some users, boyd found, enjoyed exploring aspects of their identity through degrees of fiction; others assumed full truthfulness from those in their network (Boyd, 2007, p.150).
This unresolved tension continues to hound social-networking websites as seen by the recent Story2Oh! Facebook controversy. A Toronto writer, Jill Golick, created fictional characters and set up corresponding Facebook profiles, all labeled fictional (Golick, 2008a). These characters then sent friend requests to Toronto’s web community. While such a friend request allows one to view that person’s profile, some indiscriminately “friended,” missing the fiction label and then “didn’t realize till later that these were characters and not real people….The blurring of the lines between reality and fiction caused a lot of furor” (Golick, 2008b). Some responded by indicating feelings of betrayal and transgression of online norms; Facebook responded by deleting the accounts. Similar events were found by boyd in the “Fakester” controversy, highlighting that while profiles may allow for “performance of identity” (Boyd, 2007, p.141) all users are not yet accustomed to this.
Norms and technology are developing to address these issues. In March 2008, Facebook introduced the ability to group friends by user-defined type and designate what they can see (Gleit, 2008). While this resolves boyd’s issue of singular relationship types and collapsed context, this feature only allows users to remove details from view, it does not allow one to tailor online identity as one can in the real world. Offline, people can share certain photographs with friends and other sorts with family, but this feature either turns photographs on or off based on type. Still, technical features such as this and developing user norms, such as not friending strangers, begin to enable people to express multifaceted identity through a singular website.
References
Boyd, D. (2007). None of this is real: Identity and participation in Friendster. In Karaganis J. (Ed.), Structures of Participation in Digital Culture (pp. 88-110). New York: Social Science Research Council.
Gleit, N. (2008). More privacy options. The Facebook Blog. Retrieved May 11, 2008 from http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=11519877130
Golick, J. (2008a). Deleted from Facebook. Story2Oh.com. Retrieved May 09, 2008 from http://story2oh.com/2008/04/30/deleted-by-facebook
Golick, J. (2008b). I hear ya. Story2Oh.com. Retrieved May 09, 2008 from http://story2oh.com/2008/05/01/i-hear-ya/
Many of these issues were documented by danah boyd in her study of the rise of Friendster, the first prominent social-networking website and inspiration for the more popular MySpace and Facebook. Friendster, boyd noted, by offering users a standard template to populate allows users the experience of “writing yourself into being” (Boyd, 2007, p.145) but within defined parameters. Yet truthfulness in these profiles has varied. Some users, boyd found, enjoyed exploring aspects of their identity through degrees of fiction; others assumed full truthfulness from those in their network (Boyd, 2007, p.150).
This unresolved tension continues to hound social-networking websites as seen by the recent Story2Oh! Facebook controversy. A Toronto writer, Jill Golick, created fictional characters and set up corresponding Facebook profiles, all labeled fictional (Golick, 2008a). These characters then sent friend requests to Toronto’s web community. While such a friend request allows one to view that person’s profile, some indiscriminately “friended,” missing the fiction label and then “didn’t realize till later that these were characters and not real people….The blurring of the lines between reality and fiction caused a lot of furor” (Golick, 2008b). Some responded by indicating feelings of betrayal and transgression of online norms; Facebook responded by deleting the accounts. Similar events were found by boyd in the “Fakester” controversy, highlighting that while profiles may allow for “performance of identity” (Boyd, 2007, p.141) all users are not yet accustomed to this.
Norms and technology are developing to address these issues. In March 2008, Facebook introduced the ability to group friends by user-defined type and designate what they can see (Gleit, 2008). While this resolves boyd’s issue of singular relationship types and collapsed context, this feature only allows users to remove details from view, it does not allow one to tailor online identity as one can in the real world. Offline, people can share certain photographs with friends and other sorts with family, but this feature either turns photographs on or off based on type. Still, technical features such as this and developing user norms, such as not friending strangers, begin to enable people to express multifaceted identity through a singular website.
References
Boyd, D. (2007). None of this is real: Identity and participation in Friendster. In Karaganis J. (Ed.), Structures of Participation in Digital Culture (pp. 88-110). New York: Social Science Research Council.
Gleit, N. (2008). More privacy options. The Facebook Blog. Retrieved May 11, 2008 from http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=11519877130
Golick, J. (2008a). Deleted from Facebook. Story2Oh.com. Retrieved May 09, 2008 from http://story2oh.com/2008/04/30/deleted-by-facebook
Golick, J. (2008b). I hear ya. Story2Oh.com. Retrieved May 09, 2008 from http://story2oh.com/2008/05/01/i-hear-ya/
Monday, May 05, 2008
Facebook In Reality
I'll admit I'm ashamed of my Facebook behaviour, which is a combo of voyeur delight, narcissism fetish, and retro-teenage idiocy. But at least I'm not alone - this video skit by "Idiots of Ants" hilariously nails the Facebook insanity.
But I'm not ready to give up my addiction yet.
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Put Facebook to Work
Here is one of my mini-assignments. As it pertains to the Web and as I got a reasonably good mark on it, I'll share it...
The Ontario government in May, 2007, banned civil servants from accessing Facebook at work. Premier Dalton McGuinty described his reasons for blocking it: “I just don't really see how it adds value to the work you do in the workplace” (Flavelle, 2007). Many bandwagon-riding companies apparently shared McGuinty’s assessment, and Facebook was quickly banned at many workplaces. If McGuinty and other employers do not value workplace morale, workflow efficiency, or workforce communication, then they might have a point. With guidance, however, Facebook can be an effective corporate tool. It fosters co-worker cohesion, opens up communication, and remedies bureaucracy.
Michael Geist, an Internet scholar at the University of Ottawa, agrees that companies have misunderstood Facebook:
Facebook was banned in many workplaces due to perceptions that staff was spending too much time on it. Some employees will always find ways to abuse company time, but this does not render any technology useless; instead, it means that these employees should be disciplined. Critiques that Facebook would become a gossip mill could be countered by establishing clear guidelines for its use and content. A perceived lack of control inclines some companies to try to build their own social network or to suggest that their intranet suffices. However, aside from the substantial cost to build and maintain these types of platforms, compared to Facebook’s zero cost, these efforts are prone to wither, due to a notorious lack of support and no organic capacity for growth that Facebook has. New recruits, particularly younger ones, are already using this tool and expect prospective employers to allow it. These workers have experience creating and sustaining thriving Facebook communities and want to bring Facebook to work with them. With planning and supervision, Facebook can be put to work for most companies.
It is recognized by companies that co-workers’ social relationships are invaluable for business operations, but corporate events are often too poorly attended or too infrequent to be very effective. Some companies have already set up their own Facebook networks and groups, based on social, project, and team lines. Co-workers can then share personal and career details, get to know each other better, develop rapport, and build trust online. This social networking can also be extended to include clients, partners, and other work contacts. Facebook is available around the clock to help employees connect when, and where, they want.
Communicating at most offices is problematic. There is distrust of officially-sanctioned news and complaints that communications are only top down and one way. Communicating on Facebook is easy, as it enables personal and group blogs, sharing of links and information, group and individual messages, and discussions. Geographic barriers are also a communication barrier, as more companies have global, multi-site, or virtual offices. Facebook bridges both distance and hierarchy. It allows multi-channel and targeted communications in which any employee can participate. Established guidelines will inspire employees to be constructive, and if employees feel that they are connected and heard, they will remain positive contributors.
Bureaucracy or silo-mentality at many workplaces makes the daily process of getting work done difficult. Often co-workers do not know one another, and with a lack of trust, work does not move as smoothly as it could. In other cases, employees are not even aware that co-workers possess the experience or skills needed for specific projects. With a nourished workplace Facebook community, employees have the online opportunity to build knowledge and rapport that can than be taken offline to help operations hum.
Banning Facebook is counterproductive. By improving communication, developing relationships, and increasing cooperation, Facebook provides an existing, organic environment for companies to help achieve a more efficient and engaged workforce. Facebook could turn out to be the hardest-working employee of all.
References
Flavelle, D. (2007, May 04). Worries follow rise of Facebook. Retrieved November 29, 2007, from http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/210313.
Geist, M. (2007, May 07). Facing up to Facebook fears. Retrieved November 29, 2007, from http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/1925/135/.
The Ontario government in May, 2007, banned civil servants from accessing Facebook at work. Premier Dalton McGuinty described his reasons for blocking it: “I just don't really see how it adds value to the work you do in the workplace” (Flavelle, 2007). Many bandwagon-riding companies apparently shared McGuinty’s assessment, and Facebook was quickly banned at many workplaces. If McGuinty and other employers do not value workplace morale, workflow efficiency, or workforce communication, then they might have a point. With guidance, however, Facebook can be an effective corporate tool. It fosters co-worker cohesion, opens up communication, and remedies bureaucracy.
Michael Geist, an Internet scholar at the University of Ottawa, agrees that companies have misunderstood Facebook:
The attempts to block Facebook or punish users for stating their opinions fails to appreciate that social network sites are simply the Internet generation’s equivalent of the town hall, the school cafeteria, or the workplace water cooler... The answer does not lie in banning Facebook or the other emerging social media sites, but rather in facing up to Facebook fears and learning to use these new tools to engage and educate. (Geist, 2007)
Facebook was banned in many workplaces due to perceptions that staff was spending too much time on it. Some employees will always find ways to abuse company time, but this does not render any technology useless; instead, it means that these employees should be disciplined. Critiques that Facebook would become a gossip mill could be countered by establishing clear guidelines for its use and content. A perceived lack of control inclines some companies to try to build their own social network or to suggest that their intranet suffices. However, aside from the substantial cost to build and maintain these types of platforms, compared to Facebook’s zero cost, these efforts are prone to wither, due to a notorious lack of support and no organic capacity for growth that Facebook has. New recruits, particularly younger ones, are already using this tool and expect prospective employers to allow it. These workers have experience creating and sustaining thriving Facebook communities and want to bring Facebook to work with them. With planning and supervision, Facebook can be put to work for most companies.
It is recognized by companies that co-workers’ social relationships are invaluable for business operations, but corporate events are often too poorly attended or too infrequent to be very effective. Some companies have already set up their own Facebook networks and groups, based on social, project, and team lines. Co-workers can then share personal and career details, get to know each other better, develop rapport, and build trust online. This social networking can also be extended to include clients, partners, and other work contacts. Facebook is available around the clock to help employees connect when, and where, they want.
Communicating at most offices is problematic. There is distrust of officially-sanctioned news and complaints that communications are only top down and one way. Communicating on Facebook is easy, as it enables personal and group blogs, sharing of links and information, group and individual messages, and discussions. Geographic barriers are also a communication barrier, as more companies have global, multi-site, or virtual offices. Facebook bridges both distance and hierarchy. It allows multi-channel and targeted communications in which any employee can participate. Established guidelines will inspire employees to be constructive, and if employees feel that they are connected and heard, they will remain positive contributors.
Bureaucracy or silo-mentality at many workplaces makes the daily process of getting work done difficult. Often co-workers do not know one another, and with a lack of trust, work does not move as smoothly as it could. In other cases, employees are not even aware that co-workers possess the experience or skills needed for specific projects. With a nourished workplace Facebook community, employees have the online opportunity to build knowledge and rapport that can than be taken offline to help operations hum.
Banning Facebook is counterproductive. By improving communication, developing relationships, and increasing cooperation, Facebook provides an existing, organic environment for companies to help achieve a more efficient and engaged workforce. Facebook could turn out to be the hardest-working employee of all.
References
Flavelle, D. (2007, May 04). Worries follow rise of Facebook. Retrieved November 29, 2007, from http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/210313.
Geist, M. (2007, May 07). Facing up to Facebook fears. Retrieved November 29, 2007, from http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/1925/135/.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Online Pix Sites Are Something to See
Even before I had a digital camera I posted my photos online. This was back in 1999 and I had to scan each picture (and each scan took at least 3 minutes), optimizing them and then uploading through a dial-up connection (painful) to Excite's photo service. Excite went under and I moved my pictures to Yahoo Photos.
Yahoo Photos allowed good album organization, privacy controls, and simple photo editting. But there wasn't a good way to share pictures. Yes, I could make my photos public and, more recently, you could add friends to your photo network, but there were, and still are it seems, few people that were using Yahoo as a social network. I could email my photos, but over the last three years most of my pix have been of my baby and while I think every little thing she does is photo-worthy (at one point I worried all the flash photography I was doing of her would give her cataracts) I didn't want to inflict endless (and I mean A LOT) pix of her on everyone I knew.
So when Facebook came along, I thought it was a great way to post photos, because if my friends wanted to look at kid pix they could but they weren't forced too. I could also send photos out for people not on Facebook to view - great for grandparents. And commenting is cool too. But otherwise Facebook's photo service is pretty vanilla.
Last month, I got a notice that Yahoo Photos was finally shutting down. They encouraged me to move instead to Flickr, which Yahoo has owned for awhile but ran in parallel to their own service. I was dubious, even though Flickr is one of the biggest Canadian online success stories. So I moved my pix over but didn't bother to check out Flickr at all.
Recently, I had to write an article on Toronto's outdoor art and I needed a way to easily transfer my photos from home to work, so I uploaded them to Flickr. This was the beginning of me falling in love with Flickr.
I love Flickr's organization methods, specifically their albums and tagging (they also have collections which I don't know what they are yet). I love how you can download alternative sizes of the image and reference the photo's URL (as I've done below). I love how it shows all my camera details that I've never seen before.
Flickr also has a way-cool interactive map feature. You can "geotag" your photos to an exact location in the city and view it on a map, satellite image or hybrid. The one problem is that you can't identify the locations as the numbers refer to the number of pix at that spot. Also, it appears there is only one map per account and they can't be divided into sets.
I wish there was a way to automatically post my Flickr pix to Facebook! (If there is let me know.)
Since I spent so long on the outdoor art article and it was this article that started my Flickr affair, I have included it below. All thumbnails are hosted on Flickr and they link to the larger version on Flickr.
Exercise and edification
Downtown Toronto has many works of outdoor art (by outdoor art, I don’t mean that guy outside the Eaton Centre posing as a golden Elvis statue). Here are some sculptures & murals that are fun, famous or freaky.
For locations see the numbers below and view this map Or, I also have a Flickr map of these and other works of outdoor art.
1) Deconstruction Workers
"Monument to Construction Workers" by Margaret Priest and the Building Trade Unions
Each panel in this work represents a facet of buildings. It is located in Cloud Garden Park along with a large waterfall, a conservatory and rowdy skateboarders.
11) Upwardly Mobile
"City People" by Catherine Widgery
A series of mobiles and murals of average people lead up to a raised parkette over part of the Royal York hotel, where one will probably not encounter average people.
2) He Will Rock You
A golden idol of rock god Freddie Mercury to promote the Queen musical "We Will Rock You" at the Pantages theatre.
12) Splitting Headache
"Pi" by Evan Penny
The title could refer to the mind-bending effects of solving Pi. I like to use this as a funky bench.
3) Toronto’s Most Controversial Artwork
"The Archer" by Henry Moore
One of Toronto’s first public artworks and the public wasn't happy to fork for it, ultimately losing an election for the then-mayor. But after this tumultuous beginning arose a beautiful relationship with the City and Moore, resulting in the AGO having the best Moore collection.
13) Moove Over
"The Pasture" by Joe Fafard
This beloved herd of cattle, a reminder of our agrarian roots, is a humourous counterpoint to TD Centre's bleak minimalism.
4) Gumby Goes to Heaven
"Per Ardua Ad Astra" by Oscar Nemon
Toronto’s most criticized outdoor artwork. Meant as an air force memorial (the actual title is the motto of the RCAF), it looks like Gumby in one of his trademark elastic stretches.
14) (Dis)Honouring Capitalism
Toronto Stock Exchange frieze by Charles Comfort
Built during the Depression to praise capitalism, it subtly critiques it, however, with such images as a stockbroker with his hand in a worker's pocket.
5) You Support Justice
"Pillars of Justice" by Edwina Sandys
Built by Winston Churchill's granddaughter, it symbolizes citizens' role in the justice system with a missing pillar for you to assume your role in helping uphold justice.
15)Rampaging Elephant
"Tembo, Mother of Elephants" by Derrick Hudson
Lifelike elephant with two babies in tow. I have no idea what this is meant to represent.
6) Shadow of Himself
"Lineal Order" by George Boileau
This pathetic man and his spindly shadow serve to scare one to attendance at the church next door.
16) Market Crash
"Encounter" by William McElcheran
Two fat cat businessman so absorbed in their affairs they only connect when they crash into one another.
7) Fountain of Useless Information
"The Poet, The Fever Hospital" by Bernie Miller
Neat fountain, cool location and intriguing name though as one art historian puts it "interpretation is open to all" or in my words "it defies explanation".
17) Shrine to Hockey
"Our Game" by Edie Parker
Two sculptures by the Hockey Hall of Fame commemorate hockey's hallowed status, including the legendary 1972 Canada-Russia series.
8) Killer Freaky Bunnies
"Remembered Sustenance" by Cynthia Hurley
These strange creatures are for the site's daycare and a reminder of childhood imagination - however nightmarish and traumatizing that may be.
18) Happy Face Icon Is Now Art
"Immigrant Family" by Tom Otterness
The happy face icon has a body, a wife and child, though his current circumstance are nothing to smile about.
9) Another Crazy Glenn
"Glenn" by Ruth Abernethy
Famous pianist Glenn Gould's infamous eccentricities are reflected in this statue in front of the CBC.
19) Whaling Wall
"Heavenly Waters" by Wyland
This huge mural located on a Redpath Sugar building on the shores of Lake Ontario, show whales swimming about, which I've yet to see in said lake.
10) Simcoe Monument
"Campsite Founding" by Brad Golden & Lynne Eichenberg
One of the only monuments to our history, it documents our City and Province’s founder John Graves Simcoe and his wife, Elizabeth Posthuma.
20) Beer O'Clock
The wall of P.J. O'Briens displays a frothy beer and a clock with the wrong time, as if to say time doesn’t matter, it's always beer o'clock.
Yahoo Photos allowed good album organization, privacy controls, and simple photo editting. But there wasn't a good way to share pictures. Yes, I could make my photos public and, more recently, you could add friends to your photo network, but there were, and still are it seems, few people that were using Yahoo as a social network. I could email my photos, but over the last three years most of my pix have been of my baby and while I think every little thing she does is photo-worthy (at one point I worried all the flash photography I was doing of her would give her cataracts) I didn't want to inflict endless (and I mean A LOT) pix of her on everyone I knew.
So when Facebook came along, I thought it was a great way to post photos, because if my friends wanted to look at kid pix they could but they weren't forced too. I could also send photos out for people not on Facebook to view - great for grandparents. And commenting is cool too. But otherwise Facebook's photo service is pretty vanilla.
Last month, I got a notice that Yahoo Photos was finally shutting down. They encouraged me to move instead to Flickr, which Yahoo has owned for awhile but ran in parallel to their own service. I was dubious, even though Flickr is one of the biggest Canadian online success stories. So I moved my pix over but didn't bother to check out Flickr at all.
Recently, I had to write an article on Toronto's outdoor art and I needed a way to easily transfer my photos from home to work, so I uploaded them to Flickr. This was the beginning of me falling in love with Flickr.
I love Flickr's organization methods, specifically their albums and tagging (they also have collections which I don't know what they are yet). I love how you can download alternative sizes of the image and reference the photo's URL (as I've done below). I love how it shows all my camera details that I've never seen before.
Flickr also has a way-cool interactive map feature. You can "geotag" your photos to an exact location in the city and view it on a map, satellite image or hybrid. The one problem is that you can't identify the locations as the numbers refer to the number of pix at that spot. Also, it appears there is only one map per account and they can't be divided into sets.
I wish there was a way to automatically post my Flickr pix to Facebook! (If there is let me know.)
Since I spent so long on the outdoor art article and it was this article that started my Flickr affair, I have included it below. All thumbnails are hosted on Flickr and they link to the larger version on Flickr.
Exercise and edification
Downtown Toronto has many works of outdoor art (by outdoor art, I don’t mean that guy outside the Eaton Centre posing as a golden Elvis statue). Here are some sculptures & murals that are fun, famous or freaky.
For locations see the numbers below and view this map Or, I also have a Flickr map of these and other works of outdoor art.
1) Deconstruction Workers "Monument to Construction Workers" by Margaret Priest and the Building Trade Unions
Each panel in this work represents a facet of buildings. It is located in Cloud Garden Park along with a large waterfall, a conservatory and rowdy skateboarders.
11) Upwardly Mobile"City People" by Catherine Widgery
A series of mobiles and murals of average people lead up to a raised parkette over part of the Royal York hotel, where one will probably not encounter average people.
2) He Will Rock YouA golden idol of rock god Freddie Mercury to promote the Queen musical "We Will Rock You" at the Pantages theatre.
12) Splitting Headache"Pi" by Evan Penny
The title could refer to the mind-bending effects of solving Pi. I like to use this as a funky bench.
3) Toronto’s Most Controversial Artwork"The Archer" by Henry Moore
One of Toronto’s first public artworks and the public wasn't happy to fork for it, ultimately losing an election for the then-mayor. But after this tumultuous beginning arose a beautiful relationship with the City and Moore, resulting in the AGO having the best Moore collection.
13) Moove Over"The Pasture" by Joe Fafard
This beloved herd of cattle, a reminder of our agrarian roots, is a humourous counterpoint to TD Centre's bleak minimalism.
4) Gumby Goes to Heaven"Per Ardua Ad Astra" by Oscar Nemon
Toronto’s most criticized outdoor artwork. Meant as an air force memorial (the actual title is the motto of the RCAF), it looks like Gumby in one of his trademark elastic stretches.
14) (Dis)Honouring CapitalismToronto Stock Exchange frieze by Charles Comfort
Built during the Depression to praise capitalism, it subtly critiques it, however, with such images as a stockbroker with his hand in a worker's pocket.
5) You Support Justice"Pillars of Justice" by Edwina Sandys
Built by Winston Churchill's granddaughter, it symbolizes citizens' role in the justice system with a missing pillar for you to assume your role in helping uphold justice.
15)Rampaging Elephant"Tembo, Mother of Elephants" by Derrick Hudson
Lifelike elephant with two babies in tow. I have no idea what this is meant to represent.
6) Shadow of Himself"Lineal Order" by George Boileau
This pathetic man and his spindly shadow serve to scare one to attendance at the church next door.
16) Market Crash"Encounter" by William McElcheran
Two fat cat businessman so absorbed in their affairs they only connect when they crash into one another.
7) Fountain of Useless Information "The Poet, The Fever Hospital" by Bernie Miller
Neat fountain, cool location and intriguing name though as one art historian puts it "interpretation is open to all" or in my words "it defies explanation".
17) Shrine to Hockey"Our Game" by Edie Parker
Two sculptures by the Hockey Hall of Fame commemorate hockey's hallowed status, including the legendary 1972 Canada-Russia series.
8) Killer Freaky Bunnies"Remembered Sustenance" by Cynthia Hurley
These strange creatures are for the site's daycare and a reminder of childhood imagination - however nightmarish and traumatizing that may be.
18) Happy Face Icon Is Now Art "Immigrant Family" by Tom Otterness
The happy face icon has a body, a wife and child, though his current circumstance are nothing to smile about.
9) Another Crazy Glenn"Glenn" by Ruth Abernethy
Famous pianist Glenn Gould's infamous eccentricities are reflected in this statue in front of the CBC.
19) Whaling Wall"Heavenly Waters" by Wyland
This huge mural located on a Redpath Sugar building on the shores of Lake Ontario, show whales swimming about, which I've yet to see in said lake.
10) Simcoe Monument "Campsite Founding" by Brad Golden & Lynne Eichenberg
One of the only monuments to our history, it documents our City and Province’s founder John Graves Simcoe and his wife, Elizabeth Posthuma.
20) Beer O'ClockThe wall of P.J. O'Briens displays a frothy beer and a clock with the wrong time, as if to say time doesn’t matter, it's always beer o'clock.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Web 2.0 Mash Ups
Recently, two of my greatest loves on the Internet have just married another one of my greatest Internet loves. Marriages made in cyber-heaven and I'm blissfully happy!
Facebook, which I am still addicted to, now integrates really nicely with you dear blog and with my beloved del.icio.us tagging.
While I am rather reluctant to hoist all my stuff on otherwise innocent friends, I do like to have some audience for what I believe to be some cool, meaningful work I've been doing online.
Rather than try and get the audience to come to me, it's better to go to where the market is: Facebook!
del.ico.us built a custom application to syndicate your bookmarks (only the ones you choose to share) onto your Facebook profile page and if you choose to also on Facebook's stalker page.
Facebook allows you to publish all your blog postings, granted in vanilla format, into Facebook via importing them as Notes. Facebook then automatically checks every two hours for new updates and publishes them.
While my blog readership is growing very slowly (and I have no idea who some of the subscribers and visitors are, which is a good sign) it's great to have another venue as well.
My del.ico.us work I've been dying to make better use of (eg. see "Net News" on the right). There is a promising Network ability on del.ico.us but I don't know anybody seriously using it (other than Eden). If you'd like to join My Network please do so.
I also got excited when another love of mine, this one an offline one, seemed to have a cool Facebook application. The new Vampires application seemed cool but just sucked, truthfully. (Note for those "Zombies" who bit me and want me to feast on some fresh, tasty brains - forget it. Zombies are beyond my mandate.)
Otherwise this Web 2.0 mash-ups have been a beautiful thing!
Facebook, which I am still addicted to, now integrates really nicely with you dear blog and with my beloved del.icio.us tagging.
While I am rather reluctant to hoist all my stuff on otherwise innocent friends, I do like to have some audience for what I believe to be some cool, meaningful work I've been doing online.
Rather than try and get the audience to come to me, it's better to go to where the market is: Facebook!
del.ico.us built a custom application to syndicate your bookmarks (only the ones you choose to share) onto your Facebook profile page and if you choose to also on Facebook's stalker page.
Facebook allows you to publish all your blog postings, granted in vanilla format, into Facebook via importing them as Notes. Facebook then automatically checks every two hours for new updates and publishes them.
While my blog readership is growing very slowly (and I have no idea who some of the subscribers and visitors are, which is a good sign) it's great to have another venue as well.
My del.ico.us work I've been dying to make better use of (eg. see "Net News" on the right). There is a promising Network ability on del.ico.us but I don't know anybody seriously using it (other than Eden). If you'd like to join My Network please do so.
I also got excited when another love of mine, this one an offline one, seemed to have a cool Facebook application. The new Vampires application seemed cool but just sucked, truthfully. (Note for those "Zombies" who bit me and want me to feast on some fresh, tasty brains - forget it. Zombies are beyond my mandate.)
Otherwise this Web 2.0 mash-ups have been a beautiful thing!
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