Tech 621 Lesson’s Learned – Ent 2.0 : Culture & a desire to Collaborate

After a semester in the trench, and now coming up from “the field” with some results to my brief research study – it seems that acceptance of Enterprise 2.0… or perhaps even Web 2.0 comes down to two key things based on my finds:

1. The culture you live/work in
2. The desire you (or your firm) has to collaborate with others

It sounds so simple, but simple rarely means easy.  It is simple for me to loose weight if I will just lay off the chips, walk 1/2 hour a day, and get my head in a positive mindset…  EASY???  uhhh, no – not really.

As I reflect back on the first days of class and re-read my first blog, I was coming from a place – a culture perhaps – that found little if any value in the Web 2.0 space.  I had observed its use by the so-called digital natives, and was not impressed at the value of Tweeting what you were eating where, incessantly checking Facebook for updates, or the need to spend hours creating “special” sites that reflected ones “unique image and personality”.  I came from a different time, and place  – a generation where efficiency, economy, and activity for PURPOSE was valued.  A place where the individual was not really viewed as unique at all – it was their contribution to the greater whole that gave them value.  Quite simply, the individual really didn’t matter, so why would I want to know what you were thinking, eating or listening to, 24/7?  What value could that possibly bring?

I cannot report that I am converted from my thinking entirely – that would just be a lie.  That said, the collaborative nature of Web 2.0 forced me into this alternative universe – this culture of intense sharing, exposing, listening.  Taking a moment (or for me, a semester) to examine how the tools, methods and ways of thinking/engaging MIGHT be used for the benefit of the “greater whole” lead me to really believe in Enterprise 2.0 – Web 2.0 for work.

I will forever be more of a listener than a Tweeter, a thinker rather than a blogger, a note taker that uses a pen and paper rather than Google docs, but thanks to my young friends and instructor in #tech621, I am definitely not relegated to the culture I once pledged allegiance to.  I value in a new and personal way, the fresh and lively exchanges that you have shared with me.  I have laughed until my face hurt at your inclass tweets, your LOL cats and your Vladerday photos.  I am forever beholding to the way each of you SHARED and collaborated with me to learn the tools, the terms, the sites and the right way to search using hashtags…  Lets face it, I now know what a hash tag is!!  BIG GROWTH for the gray haired GENXRECON!  You have reminded me through your actions how to simply listen and think without sharing is really an existence of isolation, with missed opportunities for learning, understanding and harvesting joy that can only come through developing a relationship… even if the relationship is born on Twitter : )

To value Web 2.0/Ent 2.0, you must have a sense of wonder, adventure and give value to the possibility of collaboration – the power of the individual to help create collective value through their own unique voice.

This morning I received a tweet to take a quiz on the kind of collaborator I was.  I was wishing I had taken it prior to the start of class, then again at the end to see what if any change had resulted.  That said, I smiled as I read the result summary which encouraged me to “spend more time in the system sharing and collaborating to set an example for your team”…  while also advising that I get along well with “the experts”.

Thank you – for being the experts that have enabled me to become an executive collaborator; never the ultimate Web/Ent2.0 user, but better informed, open and responsive to the possibilities.  I am not sure if this will be the last blog I ever write, but I am confident this will not be the last blog I read.

Until next – I will echo back to you the wisdoms you shared  and showed me over the months…

• Never Tweet before coffee or after beer
• Everyday is a day to celebrate Vladerday
• It’s ok to try new things and fail – keep trying, you might find something that works in a way you never envisioned
• If you need to blog it – then it matters, even if no one else comments
• Tweet like your life  depends on … because sometimes your grade does!
• A LOL cat can bring a smile to someone having a really crappy day
• Gen Y’s are really special…listen & learn with them…

Best to you all – THE GenXrecon

genxrecon’s Result: You’re the Executive. on quiz: What Type of Collaborator Are You? (By Central Desktop)

What Matters? Thoughts In Anticipation of our Final Presentation

It was Steve Jobs who said the following…

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.”   I am not sure he always spoke with such clarity – but this one is a good one to live by.

This quote spoke to me in anticipation of our final presentations this week as well.  What really mattered between the lines of text and figures in the research that we all poured over?  Is it something of value?  Are we satisfied with how it was completed, the results, what we learned?  Can we ever be satisfied with the work in progress we call our life work?  I am not sure.

That said, if in our project we learned about something truly interesting, if we managed to find even the smallest amount of curious joy in the process, then our work was a success and we should find satisfaction.  If not – keep looking.  Maybe it was just the wrong topic, the wrong method, a bad time for you.  Find what matters to you… and like Jobs said, you will know it when you find it.

The goal for me in this Friday’s presentation is to try and share the one nugget of gold “mined” from this term, and hopefully spark some interest and generate some curiosity.

RAA#5: Fostering Innovation in a Mashup-oriented Enterprise 2.0 Collaboration Environment

Soriano, J., & Lizcano, D. (2007). Fostering Innovation in a Mashup-oriented Enterprise 2.0 Collaboration Environment. Universidad Politecnica de Madrid. Madrid.

Purpose:  The purpose of this research was to promote the idea that workers in the firm are “co-producers” of the software services they are suppose to use each day, as well as the content it contains.

Methods:  The method used for the study was a case study analysis of Telefonica –  a firm that manages customer service trouble tickets through their large scale knowledge management team.  A detailed description of the company’s operating procedures, business concerns and existing IT limitations were elaborated upon.  The authors then described how in a “grassroots” movement, a portion of the organization created a Ent2.0 Mashup solution that allowed for better customer service and improved solution gathering.

Main findings: The main finding of this study were the descriptive aspects of the firm as they implemented Ent.2.0 tools that fostered collaboration and information sharing; namely how the firm was able to improve their organizational processing through the use of wikis and their “EZWeb” business mashup tool.  The authors suggest the following from this case analysis:

• associates must feel empowered to  support the content and personalizing aspects of the Ent.2.0 tools
• knowledge workers must be able to add their improvement ideas to the tools.
• community based collaboration activities need to be supported and fostered.
• for success, the IT department needs to begin to embrace the SoaS model (managing the services vs. deploying/supporting applications)

The authors also propose this agile and supportive process will reduce IT backlog activity, while creating operational flexibility and improving service.
Analysis:  I found this study informative in terms of being one of the few academic case studies that I was able to find on Ent.2.0.  Not only did it demonstrate to me one possible approach for a case study write up, but the writing style was clear – easy to read and was clearly “sign posted” with the key points they wanted you to consider and walk away with from the study.  They provided a great background of the company’s problem with current systems, and what lead to the initial inquiry of an Ent.20 solution to be sought out.

If there was a downside, they really didn’t have any “bad news” to report in this study.  Perhaps there just wasn’t any, but since they made a point to mention the implication that Ent.2.0 deployments will have on IT departments, I suspect they could have spent a bit of time discussing how the IT department of Telefonica probably wasn’t all smiles with this deployment.

I would strongly suggest this as a reading to learn about Ent.2.0 in the workplace, as well as a great example of case study.

RAA#4: Education Generation Net – Can U.S. Engineering Woo and Win the Competition for talent?

Chubin, D., Donaldson, K., Olds, B., Fleming, L. (2008). Education Generation Net – Can U.S. Engineering Woo and Win the Competition for talent? Journal of Engineering Education, July, 245-257.

Purpose:  The purpose of this research was to determine what matters to the next generation of engineers when considering long term life after school.

Methods:  The method used for the study was a comparative study looking across generations for attributes based on data collected from a wide variety of studies.  Some of the comparisons put forth were anecdotal in nature and did not have data to support the comparisons.

Main findings: There were MANY findings in this study, but here are some key points:

1. Generation Net students are self-directed learners who want outside classroom experience
2. Active and collaborative learning had the highest learning outcomes for Generation Net students
3. Generation Net more outwardly focused on how to impact the world.
4. Generation Net is increasingly interested in global experiences

Analysis:  This was one of the first pieces I came across in engineering education that began to discuss and think about engineering not as a homogeneous group, but as distinctly different people with different value systems, etc.  The literature review does an excellent job setting up the problem and creating a sense of urgency for the problem.

While there is little real analysis, there are some light statistics and one correlation table to highlight relationships found between students reasons for entering into engineering and their interaction with faculty.  I feel this piece was probably an icebreaker to get the conversation started by using a lot of highly regarded reference materials.

It really was a “call to action” piece for engineering educators to begin thinking about what we need to do differently to engage this new generation for the long haul.  I enjoyed seeing how these engineering educators viewed the situation from inside the academic setting out.

RAA#3 The Impact of Goal Focus, task type and group size…Collaborative learning discourses

R. Pfister & M. Oehl(2009). The impact of goal focus, task type and group size on synchronous net-based collaborative learning discourses. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 25, 161-176.

Purpose:  The purpose of this research was to determine if goal focus, type of task and group size affect learning outcomes and the use of chat based tools.

Methods:  The method used for the study was never specified however it was a form of mixed methods study involving 140 students volunteering to participate in learning group experiments in which their responses to various instructions were monitored and tracked.  Student  filled in a questionnaire regarding their computer experience, e-learning, chat and web enagement, and lab activity.  From that a regression model was formed.

Main findings: The main finding of this study suggest that task type and goal focus influence the overall collaboration effort, and the type of referencing and coding of messages.  Further, the addition of optional learning protocols assisted/supported collaborative learning.  Goal focus did NOT however have an impact of improved learning.  The type of task did NOT impact the type of referencing and typing activities.

Essentially, the learning protocol is more beneficial tor teaching tasks than learning tasks, and the larger the group, the better the learning outcome.

Analysis:  When I read this piece I was really hopeful to find some new nugget of information related to web based/collaborative learning; in particular so I could think about how to carry it forward to the industrial setting.  Unfortunately, the heavily jargoned study made it difficult to follow in spite of the fact that the researchers did a noble job of providing jargon definitions.

No where in the abstract or methods section did it discuss if the study results would be qualitative or quantitative in nature; you had to read through the entire article and review the tables to finally see it was a quantitative regression analysis.  In addition, the experiment was limited to a single recorded incident of about 45 minutes.  I am not sure how you assess if an intervention impacts learning after 45 minutes of time, so that was a bit of a problem for me with the study.

The origin of the article was Germany, so perhaps some of the nuance explaining the study was lost in translation.

There were some interesting findings and in the last 3 pphs of the study, the researchers finally shared the “so what” of the finding – of which were very clear and instructional to follow.  There seemed to be a lot going on in this research, and simplifying it may have not only lead to a clearer study, but cleaner results also.

Research Progress… road bump

Looking for advice,

At this point in the process, I have been continuing to look for business cases that discuss the launch in ENT2.0 for the purpose of my content analysis.  Part of the difficulty I have seen is the raw cases don’t really exist in press of any sorts – they have all be “pre-synthesized” by the authors such that an attempt toward coding seemed like I was coding the RESEARCHER/AUTHORS words and not the actual participants words.  I had not worried too much about this, because I had requested a journal 3 weeks ago from the Purdue Library that touted 70 cases of businesses….that I felt confident I could garner text from…

That was until I read this note from the LIBRARY yesterday!!

—–Original Message—–
From: Purdue Libraries Interlibrary Loan [mailto:ill@purdue.edu]
Sent: Thursday, November 03, 2011 2:30 PM
To: XXXXXXXX
Subject: Automated Interlibrary Loan Notification

Dear XXXXXXX,

A request you have placed:

Journal or Conference Title:  International journal of knowledge and learning.

Volume: 6  Issue:  4  Month:    Year: 2008

Pages:  595 – 612

Title: Enterprise 2.0: what models are emerging? The results from a 70 case-based research

Author: Mariano Corso A1, Antonella Martini A2, Andrea Pesoli A3

Year of Publication:

TN: 1015475

has been cancelled by the interlibrary loan staff for the following reason:   We could not fill your request by your deadline.

I am not someone that puts all their eggs in one basket, but I have to say I had never been let down by the univ. Library.  After picking myself up off the floor, I need to regroup and come up with a new plan to get some data, and get it fast.  I feel I have lost serious time; time I don’t really know how to get back.

Would love anyone’s advice…  meanwhile, I am thinking #occupyPULibray

RAA#2 Web 2.0 Implications on Knowledge Management

Levy, M. (2009). Web 2.0 implications on knowledge management. Journal of Knowledge Management, 13(1), 120-134.

Purpose:  The purpose of this research was to establish a connection between Web2.0 and the topic of knowledge managment (KM)in hopes of finding ways that Web 2.0 tools could be used to support and enable KM.

Methods:  The method used for the study was a methodological critique and comparison of articles related to Web 2.0 and KM from the time period of 2005-2007

Main findings: The main finding of this study suggest that Web2.o offers a new way of approaching KM, including a fresh batch of tools that might enable KM in ways not previously conceived.  The author suggests that both Wiki’s and Blog’s offer a way to capture knowledge and find experts, but in general Web 2.0 should be used because it is new and different from old

Analysis:  I found this study informative in terms of providing a lot of background and coverage of the various articles and themes reviewed.  That said, part of the issue for me with this study was my ignorance of never having read a research article using this methodological approach.  I really had no idea of what a “good” study should look like using this approach.  To me, it read more like a long literature review, followed by a commentary of claims by the author, of which these claims had very little research support.  To that end, it was beneficial to look comparatively at the Web2.0 principles verses the KM principles, to see where the overlap and similarities exist between this new and old approach.

While the detailed literature review sections seemed well done, the summary section seemed brief (~1 pg) in proportion to the total critique (11 1/2 pgs) and it felt very informal – even opinion like.  I would have liked more meat in this section in terms of why these differences and similarities are so important going forward.  Having the author say “something is out there, something is changing, adopt it smartly” leaves more than a bit to be desired.

Perhaps this is how these type of reports read, but after reading mostly quantitative based research I wasn’t sure what to make of the results.

RAA #1: Dogear Social Bookmarking

Millen, D. R., Feinberg, J., & Kerr, B. (2006). Dogear:  Social Bookmarking in the Enterprise. Paper presented at the CHI, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Purpose:  The purpose of this research was to establish user value of social bookmarking within business verses personal use.  To accomplish this, the researchers developed a social bookmarking tool for a field test deployment with the plan to analyze adoption behavior and user experience.  The tool was designed and customized in order to meet the needs of the targeted user audience, which were self identified as IT professionals/experts.  Design attributes included:  1) both personal and business links could be saved, sorted, viewed and 2) links could be made private, shared for particular groups or department use only.

Methods:  The method used for the study was a field test deployment of their bookmarking tool (Dogear), within a VERY large IT firm employing over 300,000 associates.  Word of mouth was used to promote use of the tool within the firm.  Both quantitative and qualitative data was collected for analysis.  The quantitative data was harvested from the activity logs of the users (clicks, creates, etc.) while qualitative data was harvested from intracompany blogs and direct emails to the researchers.

Main findings: The main findings of this study suggest that social bookmarking is a tool that can be adapted and may be considered beneficial in the business environment.  Most contributors commented that use of the tool did assist them in information finding.  The large number of user shared links (vs. private) seems to indicate user willingness to share information with co-workers, which may lead to community building by helping employees with common needs/interests find each other (expert location assistance). In addition the volume of posted links would tend to indicate a business need for information location and retrieval.

Analysis:  I found this study interesting and important in that it choose to deploy an actual beta Ent 2.0 tool into the real world of work.  Often I read research that appears meaningful to industry, only to read further into the article and discover the population used for analysis was college age research subjects rather than a representative population for the average firm.

That said, while the authors did deploy the tool into an enterprise setting, they chose an IT industry setting – which I feel is especially problematic when trying to gauge an IT based tool’s acceptance and “value”.  Perhaps it was just an unfortunate oversight, however I feel there is a case to suggest substantial population bias with this firm’s participation.  In this scenario, I am suggesting the bias is in favor of any IT based tool that would be presented.  This situation was made worse as many participants self reported as  “experts”, indicating even a higer level of IT user than “average”.  Had this tool been trialed in a consumer products, automotive, or any other non- IT based firm, I feel the evidence (which was very well presented) would have been much more compelling.

Engineers use Social Media? Interesting

I recently read an article by Information Week (Esther Shein July 16, 2010 11:12 AM) entitled “Engineers Use Social Media for Business”.

Really I wondered?  Engineers?  Who are these engineers, in what industry do they come from, what country, what generation?

Reading the article fully a few of those answers were revealed, and more…

Here are the crib notes of what I found interesting from this article:

• May 2010 survey of 1,153 mobility engineers  (I am personally unfamiliar with this discipline title)
• The engineers work in aerospace, automotive, and commercial-vehicle industries
• 55% of respondents said they use social media sites for work purposes
• Greater than 50% are allowed to access SMS during work hours
• 84% of respondents say they use LINKedIN
• 59%  use Facebook
• 30% use YouTube
• They proudly report that …”Age did not play a significant role in determining the popularity of one social media site over another, according to the survey findings, although mobility engineers who are 35 and under use YouTube more frequently — approximately 20% more than all other age groups”, adding… “In the 45-55 age group, LinkedIn was ranked the most popular.

Wait, did I blink and miss something?  Seems to me age DID in fact play a role in what SMS the varied age groups of mobility engineers were chooing to use.  If I am reading this right, this supports some of what I am seeing in distinct communication boundaries/bridges between the generations Boomer, X, and Millennial (Y) engineers.  The preference of YouTube vs LinkedIn has me wondering about a couple of questions…

1) How is social media is being used for teaching and learning (i.e. are the <35 year old mobility engineers cruising Youtube for that purpose, or something else?  Do they have a preference for visual learning?)

2)What about LinkedIn do GenX’ers find interesting and acceptable in the world of social media?  What purpose is this mass and public communication vehicle serving for them?

I will continue to give these questions more thought…  for now, they have me scratching my small and slowly developing Web 2.0 brain.

 Cited article link:  Engineers use social media  Enjoy!