Example - wikis, blogs, instant messaging, collaborative office and crowdsourcing

Wiki
A wiki is a website which allows its users to add, modify, or delete its content via a web browser usually using a simplified markup language or a rich-text editor. Wikis are powered by wiki software. Most are created collaboratively.

Wikis serve many different purposes, such as knowledge management and notetaking. Wikis can be community websites and intranets, for example. Some permit control over different functions (levels of access). For example, editing rights may permit changing, adding or removing material. Others may permit access without enforcing access control. Other rules may also be imposed for organizing content.

Ward Cunningham, the developer of the first wiki software, WikiWikiWeb, originally described it as "the simplest online database that could possibly work."[4] "Wiki" (pronounced [ˈwiti] or [ˈviti]) is a Hawaiian word meaning "fast" or "quick".

Characteristics

• Editing wiki pages

There are many different ways in which wikis have users edit the content. Ordinarily, the structure and formatting of wiki pages are specified with a simplified markup language, sometimes known as wikitext (for example, starting a line of text with an asterisk often sets up a bulleted list). The style and syntax of wikitexts can vary greatly among wiki implementations, some of which also allow HTML tags. Designers of wikis often take this approach because HTML, with its many cryptic tags, is not very legible, making it hard to edit. Wikis therefore favour plain-text editing, with fewer and simpler conventions than HTML, for indicating style and structure. Although limiting access to HTML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) of wikis limits user ability to alter the structure and formatting of wiki content, there are some benefits. Limited access to CSS promotes consistency in the look and feel, and having JavaScript disabled prevents a user from implementing code that may limit access for other users.

• Navigation

Within the text of most pages there are usually a large number of hypertext links to other pages. This form of non-linear navigation is more "native" to wiki than structured/formalized navigation schemes. That said, users can also create any number of index or table-of-contents pages, with hierarchical categorization or whatever form of organization they like. These may be challenging to maintain by hand, as multiple authors create and delete pages in an ad hoc manner. Wikis generally provide one or more ways to categorize or tag pages to support the maintenance of such index pages.

Most wikis have a backlink feature, which displays all pages that link to a given page.

It is typical in a wiki to create links to pages that do not yet exist, as a way to invite others to share what they know about a subject new to the wiki.

• Linking and creating pages

Links are created using a specific syntax, the so-called "link pattern" (also see CURIE). Originally, most wikis used CamelCase to name pages and create links. These are produced by capitalizing words in a phrase and removing the spaces between them (the word "CamelCase" is itself an example). While CamelCase makes linking very easy, it also leads to links which are written in a form that deviates from the standard spelling. To link to a page with a single-word title, one must abnormally capitalize one of the letters in the word (e.g. "WiKi" instead of "Wiki"). CamelCase-based wikis are instantly recognizable because they have many links with names such as "TableOfContents" and "BeginnerQuestions." It is possible for a wiki to render the visible anchor for such links "pretty" by inserting spaces, and possibly also reverting to lower case. However, this reprocessing of the link to improve the readability of the anchor is limited by the loss of capitalization information caused by CamelCase reversal.

• Searching

Most wikis offer at least a title search, and sometimes a full-text search. The scalability of the search depends on whether the wiki engine uses a database. Some wikis, such as PmWiki, use flat files. MediaWiki's first versions used flat files, but it was rewritten by Lee Daniel Crocker in the early 2000s to be a database application. Indexed database access is necessary for high speed searches on large wikis. Alternatively, external search engines such as Google Search can sometimes be used on wikis with limited searching functions in order to obtain more precise results. However, a search engine's indexes can be very out of date (days, weeks or months) for many websites.

Blogs
A blog (a portmanteau of the term web log) is a discussion or information site published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete entries ("posts") typically displayed in reverse chronological order so the most recent post appears first. Until 2009 blogs were usually the work of a single individual, occasionally of a small group, and often were themed on a single subject. More recently "multi-author blogs" (MABs) have developed, with posts written by large numbers of authors and professionally edited. MABs from newspapers, other media outlets, universities, think tanks, interest groups and similar institutions account for an increasing proportion of blog traffic. The rise of Twitter and other "microblogging" systems helps integrate MABs and single-author blogs into societal newstreams. Blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

The emergence and growth of blogs in the late 1990s coincided with the advent of web publishing tools that facilitated the posting of content by non-technical users. (Previously, a knowledge of such technologies as HTML and FTP had been required to publish content on the Web.)

Although not a must, most good quality blogs are interactive, allowing visitors to leave comments and even message each other via GUI widgets on the blogs, and it is this interactivity that distinguishes them from other static websites. In that sense, blogging can be seen as a form of social networking. Indeed, bloggers do not only produce content to post on their blogs but also build social relations with their readers and other bloggers.

Many blogs provide commentary on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries; yet still others function more as online brand advertising of a particular individual or company. In education blogs can be used as instructional resources. These blogs are referred to as an Edublog. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability of readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (art blogs), photographs (photoblogs), videos (video blogs or "vlogs"), music (MP3 blogs), and audio (podcasts). Microblogging is another type of blogging, featuring very short posts.


Instant messaging
Instant messaging (IM) is a form of communication over the Internet, that offers an instantaneous transmission of text-based messages from sender to receiver. In push mode between two or more people using personal computers or other devices, along with shared clients, instant messaging basically offers real-time direct written language-based online chat. The user's text is conveyed over a network, such as the Internet. It may address point-to-point communications as well as multicast communications from one sender to many receivers. More advanced instant messaging allows enhanced modes of communication, such as live voice or video calling, video chat and inclusion of hyperlinks to media.

Definition
Instant messaging falls under the umbrella term online chat, since it is also text-based, bi-directionally exchanged, and happens in real-time. IM is distinct from chat in that IM is based on clients that facilitate connections between specified known users (often using a contact list, buddy list, or friend list). Online 'chat' includes web-based applications that allow communication between (often directly addressed, but anonymous) users in a multi-user environment.

Collaborative office
The individualized high-walled office is gradually morphing into something more open, personal, and less intimidating than the beige maze-like people warrens of the past 40 or so years. And, it's even starting to happen in Buffalo, albeit at a slower pace than on both coasts.

Collaboration
The corporate buzzword is "collaborative," as in a realization that people in an office work together as a team and that the sum is greater than its parts. People working together instead of standing on tiptoe to see if colleagues showed up today might improve productivity and creativity.

People in the office design and furnishing business hereabouts admit the cubicle walls are getting lower or are disappearing, designs are becoming more open, and the atmosphere more interactive and flexible. Simultaneously, for many their total work area is being downsized.

"The walls are getting lower to facilitate communications between various people in the office. It goes hand-in-hand with looking at an office in a holistic way and seeing how it all works together. Employers are looking at teams of employees, not just people functioning in individualized roles," says Paul Murrett, sales manager at Prentice Office Equipment in Buffalo. "They view the workplace as a tool to enhance productivity," not just as a place to work, he adds.

Open design
"There's been a change in the industry. Instead of private offices with high outside walls, employers want their employees to have more natural light and better HVAC (heating, ventilating and air conditioning) circulation, and made cubicles more open and airy," adds James Spano, owner of Buffalo Office Interiors.

So, what's happened is they've been lowering or removing partitions, adding some frosted glass here and there for privacy and making the whole place more flexible, to encourage collaboration between employees. And, they've come to realize that the inflexibility of the old partitions was a hindrance to such things as reconfigurations to accommodate new work technology stemming from electronic communication.

Economic concerns
Despite all the talk about collaboration, mobility, and brushing elbows with co-workers, there are some very pragmatic and economic reasons for abandoning the pre-Vietnam cubicles. In that the office furniture industry exercises a very vested interest � a desire to sell more office furniture.

The economics of square-foot rental space is one motivator for change. "With what's going on in the economy companies are asking if they really need 8-by-10-foot work spaces with guest chairs for everyone," Spano points out. Some find 6-by-8 works all right, at least for some employees.

"Everything's on casters, so you can move things out to an area for conference space. And, they want acoustical panels they can move around. That makes it easier when there's a need to install new telecommunications or data lines.

Crowdsourcing
Crowdsourcing is a process that involves outsourcing tasks to a distributed group of people. This process can occur both online and offline. The difference between crowdsourcing and ordinary outsourcing is that a task or problem is outsourced to an undefined public rather than a specific body, such as paid employees.

Crowdsourcing is related to, but not the same as, human-based computation, which refers to the ways in which humans and computers can work together to solve problems. These two methods can be used together to accomplish tasks.


Crowdsourcing is a distributed problem-solving and production model. In the classic use of the term, problems are broadcast to an unknown group of solvers in the form of an open call for solutions. Users—also known as the crowd—submit solutions. Solutions are then owned by the entity that broadcast the problem in the first place—the crowdsourcer. The contributor of the solution is, in some cases, compensated either monetarily, with prizes, or with recognition. In other cases, the only rewards may be kudos or intellectual satisfaction. Crowdsourcing may produce solutions from amateurs or volunteers working in their spare time, or from experts or small businesses which were unknown to the initiating organization.

Those who use crowdsourcing services, also known as crowdsourcing, are motivated by the benefits of crowdsourcing, which are that they can gather large numbers of solutions or information and that it is relatively inexpensive to obtain this work. Users are motivated to contribute to crowdsourced tasks by both intrinsic motivations, such as social contact and passing the time, and by extrinsic motivations, such as financial gain.

Due to the blurred limits of crowdsourcing, many collaborative activities, online or not, are being considered crowdsourcing when they are not. Another consequence of this situation is the proliferation of definitions in the scientific literature. Different authors give different definitions of crowdsourcing according to their specialities, losing in this way the global picture of the term.

Social collaboration - Concept, Features

Social collaboration refers to processes that help multiple people interact, share information to achieve any common goal. Such processes find their 'natural' environment on the internet, where collaboration and social dissemination of information are made easier by current innovations.

Sharing concepts on a digital collaboration environment often facilitates a "brainstorming" process, where new concepts may emerge due to the contributions of individuals, professional or otherwise. A crucial concept behind social collaboration is that 'ideas are everywhere.' Individuals are able to share their ideas, as it is not limited to professionals, but rather the general public who wishes to become involved.

Social collaboration is related to social networking, with the distinction that social collaboration is more group-centric than individual-centric. Social networking services generally focus on individuals sharing messages in a more-or-less undirected way and receiving messages from many sources into a single personalized activity feed. Social collaboration services, on the other hand, focus on the identification of groups and collaboration spaces in which messages are explicitly directed at the group and the group activity feed is seen the same way by everyone.

Social collaboration may refer to time-bound collaborations with an explicit goal to be completed or perpetual collaborations in which the goal is knowledge sharing (e.g. community of practice, online community).

Social collaboration is similar to crowd sourcing as it involves individuals working together toward a common goal. Andrea Grover, curator of the 2006 crowd sourcing art show, Phantom Captain: Art and Crowd sourcing, explained in an interview that collaboration among individuals is an appealing experience, because participation is "a low investment, with the possibility of a high return." Social collaboration appeals to young entrepreneurs because of this notion.


Features
1 – moving from a focus on organizing and managing training (which includes e-learning and blended learning) FOR others, to helping  individuals and teams address their OWN performance problems.

2 – recognizing that most learning already happens in the workplace – informally and socially – as people connect and work with one another – as well as outside the organization in their professional networks. It means encouraging everyone to take responsibility for their own continuous learning and professional development.

3 – helping people work and learn effectively in this networked era (and within a social business), by developing their own Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) skills. PKM is “a set of processes, individually constructed, to help each of us make sense of our world & work more effectively”, and is therefore a fundamental skill in social and collaborative learning

4 – identifying the underlying root cause of  a learning or performance problem by working with the teams involved in order to identify the best solution that will work for them – not just by organising what is in effect a “social training” solution for them.

5 – measuring success in terms of performance outcomes – not in testing against learning objectives, or in course completions or “bums on seats” in classrooms.

6 – realising that even when there is a need for more structured approaches to collaborative learning, it is not just telling people to learn socially, but encouraging them to have a more active part in either  facilitating or supporting the process and sharing their knowledge and experiences.

7 – recognizing that even when there is a need for new content, this doesn’t have to be provided top-down, in sophisticated formats, but may better be achieved by helping teams create their own content and share it with one another. It also doesn’t need to be moderated or managed by L&D, but in fact should by moderated by the group members themselves.

8 – providing support to  groups to build and sustain their OWN communities of practices – rather than doing it for them, forcing them to participate in them and trying to monitor and tracking their activity.

9 – helping teams to work collaboratively, sharing knowledge and narrating their work – by modelling the new collaboration and community skills. So it’s not just training teams how to use the social tools, but helping them to use them in the context of carrying out their work.

10 – fostering connections across the organization to build collective intelligence – which might start in on boarding/induction but will be an ongoing process

11 – understanding that the technology that powers collaborative learning in the social workplace needs to be one that enables conversations, knowledge sharing and collaboration (not manages learning) and in fact needs to be the VERY SAME that is used to power the work in the organization – not a separate learning management system or platform that tracks “learning” activity in a few courses, or traps knowledge in a separate system from where work takes place.

12 – appreciating that the role of L&D is therefore much more about managing an enterprise community than managing a learning management system, and involves a whole range or activities.

Communicating through Social Networking Groups

Social media is about more than marketing and branding — it’s quickly becoming an essential part of customer outreach for brands. In addition to using social platforms to monitor conversations about their industry, competitors, and products, companies are increasingly reaching out to to their customers via the social Web to communicate messages about what they have to offer. In fact, social media is transforming the way organizations communicate — the many social tools that are available today are very cost-effective compared to traditional approaches such as email and online advertising. Blog posts and tweets enable businesses to create communities, offer immediate feedback or assistance, and promote their products and services.

A surprising number of companies of all sizes have yet to use social media as a communication tool. Socialcast has compiled an interesting infographic that visualizes data from many  sources, including eMarketer, the Center for Marketing at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, and Nielsen, about how Fortune 500 companies use social media. The majority of companies studied found social platforms such as blogging, social networking, and online video to be successful. (In March of last year, I shared some data about about how Fortune 100 companies were using social media at the time.)

Communicating through Digital and Social Media

Today, everyone from teenagers to seniors are using digital media to communicate about the issues that are important to them. Social media, in particular, can be a creative way to tell your story to a targeted audience.

Digital media, however, does not work in a vacuum. For it to be effective, it should be integrated into a larger communications plan.

Social Media Tools

Blogs

Blogs are a perfect place to tell your story – they do well in search results and can drive media attention. If your organization already has one, incorporate it into your plans. Write about projects, new ideas, and volunteers making a difference and use it to recruit new volunteers or keep your current network up-to-date and inspired.

Keep it simple and don't be afraid to try new things. A post could be anything from a single photo to a how-to guide, to a top-ten list, to a behind-the-scenes look at the planning process. Get creative!

The best person to write an organization's blog is the person who is most excited to write it. Find someone that loves to write, is excited about blogging.

Post often and consistently. There are all kinds of theories about how often to post on your blog. The most important thing is to be consistent. You don't have to write once a day, but once a week is good. The rule of "quality not quantity" is important to remember. This will also keep your volunteers excited and revved up for the big day in January.

Listen, respond, and engage with those who leave comments. Blog comments are the ideal response tool. They provide a mechanism for you to receive responses from the public, while allowing for a larger audience to see your response.

Facebook

A Facebook page can help volunteers become more deeply connected to your mission. They can add themselves as fans, write on your wall, upload photos, and join other fans in discussion groups.

You can send updates to your fans regularly, which allows you to stay connected with volunteers throughout the year and keep them informed about other opportunities to serve with your organization.

Twitter

Twitter is a microblogging network that allows you to make a post of 140 characters of text or less. It asks you to answer the question "What are you doing?" However, it can be used for a variety of other mini-posts including links to websites. Twitter also has its own terminology:

The quick posts are known as "tweets"

When people post messages, they are "tweeting"

When someone subscribes to your posts, they are "following you" and becomes one of your "followers"

Twitter can also be used via mobile devices and can provide an instantaneous connection to volunteers.

Social Networking- Concept, Features

A social network is a social structure made up of a set of actors (such as individuals or organizations) and the dyadic ties between these actors. The social network perspective provides a clear way of analyzing the structure of whole social entities. The study of these structures uses social network analysis to identify local and global patterns, locate influential entities, and examine network dynamics.

Social networks and the analysis of them is an inherently interdisciplinary academic field which emerged from social psychology, sociology, statistics, and graph theory. Georg Simmel authored early structural theories in sociology emphasizing the dynamics of triads and "web of group affiliations." Jacob Moreno is credited with developing the first sociograms in the 1930s to study interpersonal relationships. These approaches were mathematically formalized in the 1950s and theories and methods of social networks became pervasive in the social and behavioral sciences by the 1980s. Social network analysis is now one of the major paradigms in contemporary sociology, and is also employed in a number of other social and formal sciences. Together with other complex networks, it forms part of the nascent field of network science

A social network is a theoretical construct useful in the social sciences to study relationships between individuals, groups, organizations, or even entire societies (social units, see differentiation). The term is used to describe a social structure determined by such interactions. The ties through which any given social unit connects represent the convergence of the various social contacts of that unit. This theoretical approach is, necessarily, relational. An axiom of the social network approach to understanding social interaction is that social phenomena should be primarily conceived and investigated through the properties of relations between and within units, instead of the properties of these units themselves. Thus, one common criticism of social network theory is that individual agency is often ignored, although this may not be the case in practice (see agent-based modeling). Precisely because many different types of relations, singular or in combination, form these network configurations, network analytics are useful to a broad range of research enterprises. In social science, these fields of study include, but are not limited to anthropology, biology, communication studies, economics, geography, information science, organizational studies, social psychology, sociology, and sociolinguistics.

Social Networking Architecture
Social networking is based on a certain structure that allow people to both express their individuality and meet people with similar interests. This structure includes having profiles, friends, blog posts, widgets, and usually something unique to that particular social networking website -- such as the ability to 'poke' people on Facebook or high-five someone on Hi5.

Profile. This is where you tell the world about yourself. Profiles contain basic information, like where you live and how old you are, and personality questions, like who's your favorite actor and what's your favorite book. Social networks dedicated to a special theme like music or movies might ask questions related to that theme.

Friends. Friends are trusted members of the site that are allowed to post comments on your profile or send you private messages. You can also keep tabs on how your friends are using social networking, such as when they post a new picture or update their profile. Friends are the heart and soul of social networking. It should be noted that not all social networks refer to them as 'friends' -- LinkedIn refers to them as 'connections -- but all social networks have a way to designate members as trusted.

Groups. Most social networks use groups to help you find people with similar interests or engage in discussions on certain topics. A group can be anything from "Johnson High Class of '98" to "People Who Like Books" to "Doors Fans". They are both a way to connect with like-minded people and a way to identify your interests. Sometimes, groups are called by other names, such as the 'networks' on Facebook.

Discussions. A primary focus of groups is to create interaction between users in the form of discussions. Most social networking websites support discussion boards for the groups, and many also allow members of the group to post pictures, music, video clips, and other tidbits related to the group.

Blogs. Another feature of some social networks is the ability to create your own blog entries. While not as feature-rich as blog hosts like WordPress or Blogger, blogging through a social network is perfect for keeping people informed on what you are up to.

Widgets. A popular way of letting your personality shine through is by gracing your social networking profile with web widgets. Many social networks allow a variety of widgets, and you can usually find interesting widgets located on widget galleries.

Example - MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn and Friendster, Creating a Group.

Features of Social Networks

1. User-based: Before social networks like Facebook or MySpace became the norm, websites were based on content that was updated by one user and read by Internet visitors. The flow of information was in a single direction, and the direction of future updates was determined by the webmaster, or writer. Online social networks, on the other hand, are built and directed by users themselves. Without the users, the network would be an empty space filled with empty forums, applications, and chat rooms. Users populate the network with conversations and content. The direction of that content is determined by anyone who takes part in the discussion. This is what make social networks so much more exciting and dynamic for Internet users.
2. Interactive: Another characteristic of modern social networks is the fact that they are so interactive. This means that a social network is not just a collection of chat rooms and forums anymore. Websites like Facebook are filled with network-based gaming applications, where you can play poker together or challenge a friend to a chess tournament. These social networks are quickly becoming a pastime that more people are choosing over television - because it's more than just entertainment, it's a way to connect and have fun with friends.
3. Community-driven: Social networks are built and thrive from community concepts. This means that just like communities or social groups around the world are founded on the fact that members hold common beliefs or hobbies, social networks are based on the same principle. Within most modern online social networks today, you'll find sub-communities of people who share commonalities, such as alumni of a particular high school, or an animal welfare group. Not only can you discover new friends within these interest based communities, but you can also reconnect with old friends that you lost contact with many years ago.
4. Relationships: Unlike the websites of the past, social networks thrive on relationships. The more relationships that you have within the network, the more established you are toward the center of that network. Like the concept most pyramid schemes are focused on, within online social networks, the concept really works in a powerful way. When you have just 20 contacts and you publish a note or an update on that page, that content proliferates out across a network of contacts and sub-contacts that's much larger than you may realize.
5. Emotion over content: Another unique characteristic of social networks is the emotional factor. While websites of the past were focused primarily on providing information to a visitor, the social network actually provides users with emotional security and a sense that no matter what happens, their friends are within easy reach. Whether suffering through divorce, break-up or any other family crisis, people are finding that the ability to jump online and communicate directly with a circle of friends provides a great deal of support in an otherwise unmanageable situation.