Grown up digital

I read the book 'Grown up digital' by Don Tapscott. I was curious to understand more about the generational differences. I've definitely not grown up digital; I almost missed the introduction of digital technologies because I was living in a village in Mali that did not even have telephone or electricity...

Often when I mention generational differences, people start whiping the issue under the carpet by refering to their grandma who is 86 and skypes with her daughter in Australia. I have a mother who can't really learn how to handle her phone, let alone her email and a daughter of 7 who has profiles on various sites like webpet and hyves (and has won a price with a blogpost about a book :) and I'm somewhere in between. So I do think there are differences. What are the real generational differences and how will they influence collaboration at the workplace?

The book is based upon a research program which involved interviews with close to 10,000 people in 12 countries. Despite that good basis, I grew a little tired of the examples of the children of Tapscott, though they are great illustrations. The Tapscott kids are not examplary for a whole generation. I have the feeling there are more differences between the use of internet within the 'netgeneration' that could have been explained in more detail. The book is one big attempt to prove the point that the netgeneration is really different from other generations (like my own). OK, I agree, but how about differences within the netgeneration?

Nevertheless I enjoyed reading it and I gained some very useful insights from the book where it links to my own observations:

1. The social media technology is a given for the netgeneration.
A great phrase is "technology is technology only for people who are born before it was invented". and "Learning a new way of communicating is hard work.. established patterns of thinkng must change to accomodate the new technology". For the netgeneration (born between 1977-1997) new technologies are like air. They can't understand others are so obsessed with it. This is really funny and true. All the writing about the enormous shift in communication patterns are from the people who are not did not grow up with the new social media; they are still amazed at what's possible (including me!). Skyping with a webcam: I still think it's exciting. For a netgener it's normal. Like a washing machine is normal to me and I don't talk about it (till I went to Kenya and did my own hand washing...). That brings along a huge difference in perception. For netgeneration respondents email is a more formal method of communication. So we all know how to send mails, but use and perceive it differently. It's hard to be fully comfortable with a technology if you haven't grown up with it- it takes a personal change process. See the story about my grandma on the phone. I can learn to twitter, but may use it differently than netgeners- so there is a difference.

2. Brains get wired differently.
'listening to an audio book leaves a different set of memories than reading does'. It is hence clear that the netgeneration (and our?) brains get wired differently. More research is needed, but IQ scores are on the rise. Tapscott is convinced that you need similar skills as before the web, but you need more skills. A book guides you from beginning to the end, but on the internet, you have to click and make your own decisions. Online reading is hence more complex than offline reading. It's an area that needs research.

3. The netgeneration may shake up hierarchies.
Or is it social media that already shakes hierarchies? On page 158 the example of Chris Rasmussen is introduced, 33 years old. Through blogging, he got noticed and invited to panels where others are appointed by majors or governors. He gained a reputation on merit, not on age or rank or a preset careerflow. Social media is hence shaking up hierarchies. The netgeners themselves will do some shaking too. At home and at school, the netgeneration may have some knowledge (about the technology) that parents and teachers don't have. Changing power relations. My mother was taught to use her mobile by some secondary school students (after I had given up :). Parents and teachers don't automatically earn respect because they know everything the youngsters don't know.

4. And this leads to some netgenophobia.
Netgenophobia is the irrational and morbid fear of youth, especially with regards to their use of the internet. Part of the fear is because of the unknown, part is because of the shaking of hierarchies mentioned under point 3 I believe. During the period of read the book, I met so many people of my age that confirmed the fact that there is some phobia, I notice a lot of fear (cyberbullying, everything is open, everything is so fast, online pedophiles). Take the example of the schooldoctor telling my daughter not to add any new people to her online network that she may not know. (and what do I do??). I have the impression I think differently about participation online because I engage in it myself (unlike the majority of my age). Though I do understand that there are dangers, the dangers also exist in real life and I fully agree with Tapscott's advice that we'd help children more in dealing with these, rather than block or limit access to certain technologies. Though cyberbullying happens, we may help cultivate a positive behaviour. It may only worsen the situation when certain use of the internet is blocked- there are plenty of other ways to bully. But for this type coaching about online behaviour, we need to understand more about online interaction as parents and teachers first.

5. It's the first global generation and less prejudiced
An enormously optimistic last difference: this generation is very global and more tolerant about differences between people. Both as a result of technology and globalisation/immigration, they might be the most tolerant and least prejudiced generation. (Geert Wilders is probably not of the netgeneration :). The tolerance is supported by some figures. 91% of the netgen respondents agree that interracial dating is acceptable, compared to 50% of the GI generation that reached adulthood during world war II (pretty tolerant for that time by the way).

10 online icebreakers

For the third time I was going through all my resources- files and bookmarks to find online icebreakers. I thought I'd do myself (and you) a favour by listing the most interesting ones. 10 online icebreakers (the picture relates to number 10!):

1. Two Lies and A Truth. Ask participants to list three interesting things about themselves. (I own two iguanas; I once shook hands with Tom Cruise; and I love to waterski.) Two must be lies and one must be true. Other participants must vote to determine which interesting thing is the truth. The participant with the most incorrect votes wins. Alternatively participants could be put into small groups and find out through teamwork what the truths and lies are. An other alternative game is three truths and a lie.

Source: Using online icebreakers to promote student/teacher interaction

2. Childhood Dream. Ask the participants to share their childhood dream (what they wanted to be or do when they grew up) and then ask them to reflect on how this correlates with their current aspirations.

Source: Using online icebreakers to promote student/teacher interaction

3. Miscomm-puter-unication. Ask the participants to share their most embarrassing mishap using a computer. Share your own experience, for example, replying to the wrong person in an email. This will loosen them up and cause a few to chuckle before embarking on a whole new way of thinking…using technology instead of paper and pen

Source: Using online icebreakers to promote student/teacher interaction

4. Three words. Ask participants to write a story together. The rule is that everyone is only allowed to put up three words. They are allowed to post again if at least one other participant has put up three words. At the end of the exercise you can summarize the whole story of even read it and post it as an audio file or a video.

Source: Nancy White’s online facilitation course.

5. Six degrees of separation. Ask each participant to find out how he/she is linked to another participant through 5 others because they have some kind of connection. The solutions needs to be posted and should look like this: me > Jeffrey > Donna > Patricia > Hans > Sherry with an explanation of the connections. In finding the answers, participants have to interact and ask a lot of questions to each other. It may easily take a week. A shorter variation of this exercise may be to ask participants to find one other person they have some kind of connection with. (a participant they did not know before).

Source: CPsquare’s foundations of communities of practice online course.

6. Personal Cards. Ask participants to make a card representing themselves using trading cards: http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/deck.php. After making a card they can post it online. You can ask them to prepare a card about a specific aspect of their lives or their own style. For instance, their own communication or learning style.

Source: Trading cards

7. What’s on your reading list? Ask participants to make a picture o f some of the books they have recently read or are currently reading. By sharing the books you are reading you tell something about yourself.

Source: Dorine Ruter, ecollaboration list.

8. Would you rather? Ask participants some 'Would you rather' questions and let them answer them. After this participants can make up their own would you rather questions. Come up with a list of Would you Rather Questions or use some of these:
• Would you rather always win pie-eating contests or always win wheelbarrow races?
• Would you rather be a deep sea diver or an astronaut?
• Would you rather be able to hear any conversation or take back anything you say?
• Would you rather be invisible or be able to read minds?
• Would you rather be the most popular or the smartest person you know?
• Would you rather be the sand castle or the wave?
• Would you rather give up your computer or your pet?
• Would you rather never use the internet again or never watch TV again?
• Would you rather not be able to use your phone or your e-mail?

Source: Teampedia icebreakers for online teams

9. Same and different Put the participants in groups - and ask participants to find something that the group has in common (eg 'everyone has been to France' and something that is unique to each person in the group (eg 'plays waterpolo', 'speaks Greek', 'was born in Leeds').

Source: Comment on Kirsten Thompson’s blogpost

10. Video messages. You can ask participants to make a video message for each other using Bubblejoy (www.bubblejoy.com). It is easy to do, but it does require a webcam and some experience in using a webcam. After recording a message, you can send it via email. It is possible to ask participants to copy the link and post it online for the other participants.

Source: comment on the ">Bamboo project blog

Everyone is a non-profit?

This month's question of Netsquared is: What do you think the role of nonprofit organizations is in the changing world of social media? They start off with this video of Clay Shirky answering the question. Well, if Clay Shirky has answered it, what can I add?? He is basically saying that the lateral connections that are possible as a result of social media are far more radical than the changing relation between non-profits and their members. So the question for non-profits is: What do you do about those lateral connections? Which are beneficial to us or to our cause? Suggest to them that you, 15 people, could get together and work together. You can watch Clay Shirky explain it in the video below.

So what do I think? I can answer this for development organisations, as that's the sector where I have experiences. In a way social media make it easier for each individual to become a non-profit. We can all start a fundraising session on our blogs, we can organise a twestival for a charitable cause. Is this an important change that development organisations should watch out for?

To answer this question it may be good to look at the private initiatives by individuals and the professional development organisations. Initially development organisations ignored the private initiatives, but they have slowly realized that it has its powers and needs to be cultivated because it is so important for creating a broader commitment for development cooperation. So in the Netherlands, joint initiatives like Linkis and Impulsis were started by development organisations to support the private initiatives. Lau Schulpen of CIDIN did a study into private initiatives in Ghana and Malawi. Some of his findings:

• The private initiatives work in splendid isolation
• There is lack of sustainability of the intiatives
• There is little accountability over results. Learning levels are low.

This is ofcourse a different situation than Clay Shirky talks about. These private initiatives are not using social media. Are not connected and are not sustainable. So what could be the role of the professional non-profit development organisations? Now some thinking outloud; there could be two ways if professional organisations see a role for themselves to create synergy:

1. They could leverage social media (like helpalot, a social network for charities or Nabuur trying to get people north and south to help) to facilitate connections around themes and geographical areas. This is probably in line with what Clay Shirky says, but the difference is that a lot of people are NOT yet participating through social media. In this case the non-profits need to think strategically what to look for, how to create communities around certain causes- align energy- link private initiatives and (paid) professionals, with the professionals as experts. Get private initiatives online and share, but this needs to start face-to-face and it is a cultural change from the current isolated initiatives. What can we gain from this? A wider understanding of development work, more private funding better aligned to certain causes probably.
2. You could also see the private initiatives as charities, working on welfare, and the professional organisations as working on development issues. In this case, it is better to create separate lateral connections. Maybe help private initiatives to use social media to communicate with their charities in the south. Stimulating learning between professionals is also happening by organisations like Agri-ProFocus and PSO.
3. Taking Shirky's view that fast lateral connections ARE happening online through social media, non-profits could also start with listening online to what's happening. Did you know about twestivals? Do you know global voices? Beth Kanter has a good blogpost about listening. Organisations and individuals north and south are sharing more online, but are we listening or are we only sharing? How much time do we want to invest in this? How to avoid becoming overwhelmed? After listening ideas for facilitation may come up, with their mission in mind. But keep in mind that this is a minority group.

I'm not sure this makes sense to the original question or is too specific to the development sector. I guess in our case we cannot assume that we are all a non-profit. But we can also not ignore the fact that we might all become a non-profit in the future, working voluntary towards causes we have some emotional ties with.

Launch of communities and networks connections website

Tony Karrer and Nancy White have been collaborating to make the communities and networks connection website which brings content from various places the web together on the topic of communities and networks. Today is the official launch. My blog will be part of the network of blogs feeding into the website. I'm happy that I'm part of it because I seem to be doing a lot of different things, but this is the core of my work and expertise.

The site is similar in structure to the elearning site. I'm not sure how I will use the site, but I guess I will add the feed of the site to my RSS reader. As Tony mentions: "it is a network to form something that's not quite a community. I see it as being aimed at the 95% of people who don't subscribe to blogs but are interested in this content. It's a way they can more easily find that content. It's also an aide to bloggers in terms of organizing their content."

Ofcourse you can also use the search function or the sidebar to find bloggers you didn't know yet, like the endless knots weblog. Or search on the left sidebar to find content on a particular topic like twitter. Just click and try!

Do wikis change development work?

Friday 13th was well and safely spent in Utrecht where ICCO organised a session with David Weekly, the founder of Pbwiki. I wrote a somehow faithful summary for the icollaboration weblog (which is starting to look more like my blog than a teamblog...but never mind since I believe in making what's happening in the group accessible online!).

I will use this space to elaborate more on my own thinking and my sceptism. Though I'm a social media adopter, I also have my reservations. For one thing, it was interesting to understand from David Weekly what the online wiki niche is. Large companies have their own online packages and stuff (like sharepoint) but that wikis like pbwiki come in handy for cross company collaboration. People in large companies are setting up wikis because the other applications run behind firewalls that are not accessible to partners in other companies. In development, this is a different case. Large organisations may have applications, but smaller development organisations in the north or organisations in the south may not have invested in any systems. Wikis (free or for a small sum of money) are then a good solution that empower people to set up wikis to collaborate with others online. If you know how to work with wikis and have a certain level of access to the internet that it. Easy and free= empowering?

However, I have the impression that so few people like working with wikis and are comfortable working with wikis that the real revolution that Shirky promised, worldwide collaboration at scales we have never seen, is still very far ahead for development. The wiki examples are more online libraries build by a few enthousiastic persons than representing a new way of collaborating. It looks cool to put a conference online is a wiki, but how does it support learning and decision making? Maybe I'm putting my expectations of wikis too high in a way. And we may not have investigated it enough.

My worry is that if development organisations set up wikis to do the same work they used to do- it might not change anything substantially in the distribution of powers in the current development process. I guess that needs more, a vision of what to build or collaborate on (like wikipedia had ofcourse a great vision of becoming an online encyclopedia), and a process to bring stakeholders together around that vision in a new manner. Or the other way around, having a spontaneous collaboration. But maybe a much larger group needs to be comfortable working with wikis and other collaborative tools before that happens. Being overoptimistic may be counterproductive.

Ofcourse a wiki is only a tool, like a hammer, and anyone is free to use it as he/she wishes. But somehow the tools seems really powerful in the hands of a community. Like the km4dev wiki is a growing resource and dynamic repository. But it's not easy to stimulate people to make their hands dirty. And many may learn more from the verbal interactions than looking at the wiki so we should not overestimate the importance. It's a gut feeling that we should not measure change by the number of wikis, but by how the wikis changed the participation in the processes, and the truth is that we might exclude people too. I'm fearing too that partners organisation may start wikis because they have the feeling some donors are suddenly into wikis. But that may be diverting attention from what we should really focus on. Any ideas? Do you share my concerns?

Networks for Humanitarian Aid

On Saturday I did a session about networks and communities of practice for the alumni of the NoHA masters. The NoHA masters is an eighteen months course in international humanitarian assistance, co-organised by 7 European universities. Since their interests in networking were very broad; including personal networking strategies, network facilitation and working with networks in the field of humanitarian aid, I started with an exercise about self-organisation and an introductory presentation. In the exercise I asked 10 volunteer to line themselves up according to ascending age. This was easy for them to do, and shows the self-organising power of humans. If you understand this, you will work differently with networks.

Presentatie Noha

View more presentations from joitske. (tags: aid practice)

After this, we discussed in smaller groups on the basis of various questions. How are we using networks in our work for humanitarian aid? How could we leverage them more? What are the pitfalls? And what are our personal network strategies? In my group, I noticed that not everyone is convinced that you can learn how to network. I don't consider myself a natural networker, but I've learn to network professionally. An interesting case was shared of a coordination meeting between humanitarian aid organisations that continues for years, and doesn't not seem to yield much value to the participants in terms of learning and innovation. Ofcourse, coordination is necessary, but it would be an interesting challenge to see how we could make more of those routine/boring gatherings that all participants see as an obligation.

Afterwards I had nice discussions with the leading committee of the alumni association. Their biggest challenge is to foster ties between the different years and to focus on the practice when members are working at many different levels, varying from field to policy level. Miguel from Spain raised the cultural differences at national level. Cultures (at national but also organisational levels) differ in their inclination towards professional networks and associations and the types of networks you invest in. In Spain for instance, the kinship networks (families) are very important and people invest quite some time in those. In the Netherlands, associations thrive and it is common to take up a voluntary position.

Learning from mistakes versus learning from feedback

On the knowledge management for development list there was a discussion about learning from mistakes. Matt Moore pointed to the mistakebank ning platform. I decided to join because I was curious to understand whether you can really learn from mistakes. Some of the examples I felt were rather blunders. For instance, I bumped into another cyclist today- that was clearly my mistake or rather blunder but nothing that you can really learn from, unless maybe to watch out more carefully but hey this is life... so you just say sorry.

And can we only learn from our own mistakes or also other people's mistakes? Through the mistakebank I found a blogpost citing Eleonore Roosevelt who said "learn from the mistakes of others, you can't live long enough to make them all yourself" which was contrasted with the idea that you can only learn from your own mistakes. That would imply we can observe others, their mistakes, and incorporate that in our own practices.

However, most mistakes are not as obvious as bumping into another cyclist. Most mistakes may go unnoticed, may not be recognised like mistakes by the mistaker (did I hear someone mention Bush??) or only by some and not by others. Or the effect of the 'mistake' may take long to become visible. I went back to Kenya where I worked and found out the whole irrigation scheme we built was flooded again because the water levels had risen. And at times it is easy to label something as mistake in retrospect.

In terms of changing practices, learning from honest feedback may be more important, in the form of spontaneous feedback or in organised processes like After Action Reviews. Today I got positive feedback about my blog by being mentioned in this list of knowledge management bloggers. I also got positive feedback after a meeting I conducted "may I give you a huge compliment for this meeting" someone said spontaneously. Since I became freelancer I got much more positive feedback than when I was an employee. I have the impression it is much harder to create a culture of feedback in organisations, after all, it is quite sensitive and may alter your relationships. I also got feedback recently I don't recognize. Hence, it's important the receiver recognises the feedback in order to act upon it, by giving clear examples.

Maybe we need to distinguish levels and types of mistakes? Or rather talk about experiments? Or is it more worthwhile to improve feedback? And how do we learn from mistakes as organisations?

Collaboration across divisions is unnatural

We're writing a booklet in Dutch about the possibilities of web2.0 tools to foster learning and collaboration in knowledge-intensive organisations. I'm struggling a little whether the tools are just helpful and nice, helping you to do your regular work. Or whether they hold the potential to turn over the way knowledge workers collaborate in organisations. On the one hand I don't think it is an automatic process- you introduce a wiki and hoops, the various departments that used to have such diferent attitudes start to collaborate. On the other hand it is true that fervent web2.0 workers are very open to share what they know and to respond to questions. Having lots of those people would make a different workplace, wouldn't it?

So I found a great article about boundaries in organisations. (Boundaries Need Not Be Barriers). I really liked it because it highlights the psychological difficulties to collaboration across groups within organisations. It's not natural to work across departments since we have an intergroup bias towards other groups, favouring our own group. This is complemented with a territorial need of groups. Territory includes physical space and other tangible and intangible objects. Groups may see themselves as possessors of certain knowledge and may restrict their information exchange to what they consider as 'their' members (the ingroup). The final barrier is that people are poor negotiators across groups or departments. We first think of how to get a large piece of the pie and don't think about enlarging the pie for the whole organisation.

What managers or leaders can do to stimulate collaboration across boundaries (often very needed!) is to emphasize group goals but at the same time organizational goals at a higher level. Furthermore showing that collaboration can yield a more secure place in the organisation instead of lead to insecurity. Lastly, people need to learn how to negotiate and identify win-win opportunities. It's a skill to look at the broader picture and see how we can all create a larger pie.

It's clear that collaboration is not as natural as it seems through the web2.0 tools. Possibly web2.0 tools can help to connect people across divisions, and help see the larger picture and identify opportunities to collaborate...

Wikis as a repository for an online community

Via Nancy White I found his funny video talking about blogs versus wikis. It matches well with my previous post about an online community using a mailing list, with a wiki as a repository. Why? Because I have experiences with an online community using a mailing list, teleconferences and a weblog as a repository. It could have been a wiki too.

The choice between the two probably depends on personal preferences and experiences (do members have more experiences/habits of reading weblogs or working with wikis?). Stories are probably better for a blog, and frequently asked questions are more easily structured in a wiki. In the video, wikis are shown as more democratic. That might be a consideration too. Do you want a really large group to work the repository? Then a wiki might be easier than a teamblog.
Enjoy the video!

Wiki as repository for a virtual community

Through a comment on a blogpost by Nancy White I found this article about a virtual community using a discussion list (listserv) in combination with a wiki. The wiki serves as a collaborative repository. You can access the article here if you want to read it in full.

I've been advising a community where using an online discussion forum where few people had experience with a wiki. We started a wiki to put knowledge products together. Though it was hard to get people to work on the wiki, it was very attractive to some because of its structure as compared to the discussion forum that may look very chaotic. So I'm a little jealous that the community in this article has such an active wiki process. But it does provide a clear picture of what's possible!

The community is a help-based community discussing the applied use of CSS, hence a technical topic. The interesting part is the analysis of how the wiki helps with the social processes of keeping the conversation on-topic and avoiding holy wars. Because the email list is a push technology and the wiki more a pull technology, more off-topic discussions can be allowed on the wiki than on the mailing list, hence it provides a space to address wider needs. Holy wars are redirected to the wiki and because members are forced to summarize their arguments into an information product, the wars are used more constructively.

The wiki also has helped in the process of retaining the old members. It helps to introduce new people by having a place to redirect them when they pose 'old questions' that have been discussed before. As a result, the questions on the mailing list can remain focused on new problems. The wiki also worked to attract new members because people find the wiki and become interested in the mailing list.

By the way, CPsquare is organising a conference about wikis for communities. You can track the resources by following http://delicious.com/tag/waatwaat.

Web2.0 security risks: driving is dangerous too!

I interviewed Rolf Kleef of Nivocer for my Dutch blog and a booklet that we are writing about web2.0 for learning and collaboration. It really made me rethink my online sign up behaviour and see that I usually don't see any dangers.

I asked Rolf what the most important dangers are if you look at web2.0 from an IT/management perspective. He outlined the following 5 security issues.

1. The risk of bringing virusses on board when you are working with pieces of software that you have to download (eg. skype)
2. The risk of giving outsiders access to your company confidential information. All connections can potentially give access to everything that your office computer has access to.
3. The use of your broadband capacity. Some applications like skype use the bandwidth of the whole network. In case you have a quotum, this may lead to higher costs.
4. Loss of information. If crucial information is stored in web2.0 services online, you don't have a garantee that your data will be available when the services goes bankrupt.
5. A non-technical risk is the risk posed by employees posting information about your company to web2.0 sites.

With regards to the fourth, we discussed the fact that conversational data like in twitter may not be crucial information, it is dynamic, so you may run the risk of loosing that information. However, the information about your twitter network may be important social capital, so you may want to make backup copies of your twitter network at times.

It all sounds super risky. But as Rolf said: "driving on the highway is dangerous too", the risks should not lead to the conclusion that web2.0 is too dangerous. So how to reduce those risks if you believe in the potential of working with web2.0? We discussed 3 major strategies an organisation may adopt:

• Develop a living code of conduct for use of web2.0 site and above all what and how employees share.
• Create awareness about these risks amongst employees, help them make good decisions and employ a good password strategy. Help them to be conscious about what they share in public on the web and what in password protected environments. And what not at all.
• Work with software with web2.0 functionalities behind the firewall for optimum security. Ofcourse there is the downside that you may not be able to integrate with other professionals outside the organisation. So a two-prone strategie might work best (internal in-house software for confidential information and external services for networking).

Rolf also had some tips about passwords, which I will share in a separate blogpost.

When NOT to use social network sites

At times, when I read too much web2.0 stuff, I get concerned about the positive cases and the hype. Is it really so revolutionary? Is being a good professional and reading a good book not more important than being able to produce a lot of crap online? In one of those moods I found the Techsoup article: Should your organisation use social network sites?

I liked the down-to-earth tone and the audacity to say that an organisation might decide not to use social network sites. Some of the situations your organisation might find itself in:

1. You're still trying to get a handle on basic software infrastructure
2. Your target audiences aren't using social network tools
3. You don't have time to experiment with something that might not work
4. You're not willing to deal with technologies that don't work as well as they could
5. You're not ready to invest in gaining a real understanding of the medium
6. You want clear editorial control over your brand and message

I think I would put number 5 as number 1. If you want to explore whether or not to invest your time, try understanding social networks and their cultures.

Visual thinkers in Sesamestreet

Via Sibrenne's blog (in Dutch) I found this great video illustrating what visual thinking is. I think I'm a visual thinker and that makes it hard for me to listen to podcasts without getting distracted. Videos work much better! After my months summer holiday I forgot one of my bankpass codes and I felt very stupid. Ofcourse I feel too young to start writing them down :). I then read about visualizing your code, for instance an eight as a snowman. Or visualizing it as a ladder; from 3 to 4 one step up. So this is what I did with two new codes. Enjoy!

Social media- changing the world from the edge?

Christina Merl, whom I know from CPsquare, interviewed me last year about my experiences with social media in the development sector. She wrote an article for the rural development news from Agridea with the title: social media- changing the world from the edge? If you are interested you can read it online here. The pictures look great in black and white! Let's see if I can a quote that is not too embarrassing....

How can social media support learning processes?
There are many ways in which social media can support learning processes. They can support individual learning, team learning, organisational learning and cross-organisational learning via networks and communities of practice. For example, my own learning process is supported by blogging. I blog about what interests me and read blogs of people in knowledge management. That keeps me thinking and developing my own ideas. An important mindset of people participating in the online exchange in social media is to be comfortable with having intimate conversations in public spaces. That means those conversations are opened up to be listened to. Likewise, listening into other circles helps you to understand the world, broaden your view and learn about your interests and unexpected things. I tend to believe that social media will change learning processes of professionals in organisations and allow for more cross-fertilization of ideas. Furthermore, it is much easier to network online through social media. I had two old friends from Ghana and Mali on a Skype chat this morning. If we didn’t have Skype, I would probably lose touch. One of them helped me to find a water expert in Mali for a friend working with OXFAM in the US. The barrier to ask questions and help each other is very low. However, the basis for such contact via social media is often still face-to-face contacts.

You might also prefer to read some of the other articles from rural development news, which you can find here.

Web2.0 as alternative to watching television

I'm trying to compile a short presentation on how to create structure in the web2.0 chaos for people who are not web2.0 adepts. It will probably start with the recognition that web2.0 offers a personalized experience, and that you can help people to filter and aggregate and navigate. I haven't found many relevant materials, but during my search I found this video.

I'm a big fan of Clay Shirky and I found another brilliant speech (roughly 15 minutes) through the boondoogle blog. Shirky start refering to the industrial revolution and the fact that gin was probably the most critical technology during that revolution. It took some (gin drinking) time before the revolution got crystallized. In the 20th century the big challenge is managing freetime, leisure. It takes some time to see freetime as an asset. Everyone started to watch television. But now web2.0 offers other ways to use the cognitive surplus created by the surplus of freetime. All over the world 1 trillion hours per year is spent on watching television. We are now just entering the early phases of the revolution with presentation of cases like wikipedia. The huge potential of carving the cognitive surplus through cheap tools is yet to be exploited. If you have the time, watch Shirky explain this!

Happy 2009!

Crash course in Dutch to understand this new year's card:

Luchtig = Light

Creatief = Creative

Vreedzaam = Peaceful

Relaxed = Relaxed

I admire all the blogger that give away their highlights of the year, the most frequently read blogposts etc. I don't have any data whatsoever, so no highlights!

How do you introduce a web2.0 way of working in your organisation?

Guess who these two gentlemen are? They are two of the 'civil servants2.0' or rather the initiators of such a project within the ministry of agriculture in the Netherlands. I interviewed them and posted it in my Dutch blog, but since their lessons about introducing web2.0 in a (civil service) organisation are very relevant I'm going to cross-blog it.

The initiative started with a small (roughly 10) group of people from different departments, but it started from the information policy side. They wanted to create room to discuss the implication of an open, web2.0 way of working as a strategic change for the ministry. They started with the joint drafting of a plan: in a wiki because they wanted to walk the web2.0 talk. In the meantime, they worked on influencing the various management layers. Almost two years later, Davied was appointed full-time project leader of 'civil servant2.0'. They formulated 4 critical success factors looking back at the process so far:

1. The small but growing network they created was crucial. It created its own dynamics and energy.


2. Creation of support throughout the layers of the organisation by means of informal contacts rather than using the formal decision-making ways.


3. Recruting and working with people with enthusiasm and energy. Not investing time in people who are not interested at all. (but remain aware of those people at all times)


4. Collaboration and interaction with other organisations (the 'outside') has had a positive influence on putting web2.0 high on the agenda.

Interestingly enough, this could read like advice for any change trajectory... I'd be happy to explore more in-depth how you can design the introduction trajectory as a change process.. What's special about this process as compared to other change processes?

The networked student and knowledge worker

Irene Hanraets alerted me about this video about the networked student by wdrexler:



The way the networked student uses web2.0 services is basically the way I use them. So it could be the knowledge worker2.0 too. I wonder though, about individual paths and diversity. I don't think learning by blogging works for every student, or does it? I also wonder what it takes in terms of knowing what direction you want to take. In my experience you have to be quite focused (and not loosing any serendipity at the same time) not to waste a lot of time. What do you think?

And what does it mean for education. I'm teaching too, but the blog idea I introduced didn't take off naturally and I didn't have time to guide it properly. So it would need sufficient guidance from teachers to make it really useful..

Social media for 'draagvlakversterking'

Last Thursday I had a great day with communication specialists (and a few technologists) of the Dutch development sector at the Context Masterclass about 'web2.0 for draagvlakversterking'. This really completely untranslatable word refers to the creation of support for development cooperation- apparently that is a science in itself :). The day started with two presentations, an introduction into web2.0 by Sandra van Heeswijk and the experiences of Nabuur as a platform where neighbours in north and south can collaborate. I was asked to help with the interactive workshop.

We played the Dutch social media game in 3 groups of 10 people. After the game we organised peer coaching in small groups of 4 behind the computer. People could show each other examples of how they used web2.0 for 'draagvlakversterking' and/or ask each other for informal advice. The game was inspired by the social media game developed by Beth Kanter and David Wilcox. In itself an example of how web2.0 can help you do your work! I used the motivation that people wrote before the workshop to tailor the cards towards the questions in the group. It worked really well, in my group the first card already started a 20 minutes discussion! At the end of the day we discovered by reading twitters that it was snowing outside in Utrecht :). From the evaluation I noticed that it opened people's eyes to the complexity of 'using' web2.0 and realized web2.0 is not a panacea. They appreciated the realism, attention for the difficulties and risks involved. Some learned that working with web2.0 is not equivalent to building your own communities, but that your strategies may include making use of other online spaces like hyves, facebook or twitter.

A few questions that I remember:

• How to deal with the paradox of 'promoting' something and the spontaneous nature of web2.0 conversations?
• Where are the spontaneous online conversations about development cooperation or our topics taking place?
• How are trusted sources constructed within web2.0?
• Is there prove that using web2.0 tools works to create 'draagvlak'?
• and... where to start?

Talking about where to start I showed a few people the graph of museum2.0 about how much time does web2.0 take? On the techsoup site Jacob Colker answers the question: "If my nonprofit were to start using only one of these (web2.0) technologies, which one should we adopt?" Jacob's answer was 'start blogging'. For draagvlakversterking I'd say: start following what's discussed about your organisation, your campaign or your causes online, using tools like technorati (for blogs) or socialmention.

Some interesting web2.0 examples that I learned about (or already knew) in the context of 'draagvlakversterking', with a few exceptions Dutch-based:

• Doenersnet ( a ning platform started by OXFAM NOVIB)
• 1procentclub ( a social network for people who want to devote 1% of their time)
• Helpalot (a social network for charities)
• JongOS ( a ning platform for professionals in development cooperation)
• KIVA (lending directly to enterpreneurs in the south)
• Nabuur (neighbours al over the world helping each other)
• Our future network on Hyves by Pax Christi
• HIVOS blogs (on their website)
• HIVOS.net (Knowledge integration, learning and capacity building for development)
• Dederdekamer (for concerned citizen)
• Change.org (gathers people around causes)
• Couchsurfing ( a worldwide network for making connections between travelers and the local communities they visit)
• Voordewereldvanmorgen (Heb je een goed idee waarmee je bijdraagt aan de wereld van morgen?) via Rolf Kleef
• Geefsamen (Start je eigen actie voor een goed doel)
• Endpovertyblog (daily log of experts from around the world promoting the Millennium Development Goals and the global fight against poverty)
• Een (Samen maken we een einde aan armoede)

Great to notice that Doenersnet and JongOS make use of the easily available NING service rather than building their own (expensive) social network site. Other interesting examples?

My scientist blog

Via Cindy, I discovered Typealyzer, a fun tool that analyzes Swedish and English blogs.

This is a scientist blog.

"The Scientists enjoy theoretical work that allows them to use their strong minds and bold creativity. Since they tend to be so abstract and theoretical in their communication they often have a problem communcating their visions to other people and need to learn patience and use conrete examples."

More interesting is the graph with the parts of your brain at work while writing. Mine is high on thinking and low on feeling. That is something I recognize: I don't easily write about my feeling on my English blog, my Dutch blog tends to be slightly more personal. Maybe because it has a smaller readership? Or because it is my mothertongue? Unfortunately Typealyzer did not work for my Dutch blog, I'd be happy to see analyze it and see any differences....

Is my blog too scientific or do you like the strong focus on thoughts?