nteresting to hear what's going on among a highly specialised group of researchers in CI. Thinking how much more successful such a research network could be, for building critical mass in (especially) new and rapidly changing research fields. For goodness sake, here we all are re-inventing the wheel - yet even with my "other" hat on as having a central interest in e-Learning strategy (including use of Moodle) at Unitec - and here I am listening to Patricia Arnold from the University of Applied Science in Munich, talking about exactly the same challenges there! Must invite her to the e-Learning Futures Conference (ICeLF) we are hosting at Unitec next year....
27 October 2010
Open educational resources or closed Learning Management Systems - Patricia Arnold
nteresting to hear what's going on among a highly specialised group of researchers in CI. Thinking how much more successful such a research network could be, for building critical mass in (especially) new and rapidly changing research fields. For goodness sake, here we all are re-inventing the wheel - yet even with my "other" hat on as having a central interest in e-Learning strategy (including use of Moodle) at Unitec - and here I am listening to Patricia Arnold from the University of Applied Science in Munich, talking about exactly the same challenges there! Must invite her to the e-Learning Futures Conference (ICeLF) we are hosting at Unitec next year....
Doug Schuler keynote: Community Informatics Research Network, Monash University, Prato Italy
Doug Schuler's keynote at today's conference opening leads me to think the research activity I've engaged in in recent years, as well as the extension of it through the role I take at Unitec (strategically orienting itself very much toward serving community needs) and now being an invited member of the Auckland Computers in Homes Steering Group, positions me well within the ambit of the CIRN network. Here in Prato, Doug's comments to a gathering of internatonal community internet activists are focusing on the need, now, to mobilise as a network rather than continue to have a localised focus. Leadership (shared?) is required, that will help to 'frame' what we do with cyberspace. It's not enough to find community informatics interesting & study it – it needs to be framed it in a larger sense.
This is all timely and good to hear. How do we use what we are learning about CI – how do we focus it on our community? "Civic intelligence", Schuler argues, is ultimately what we are about – trying to increase it – in a collective way.
How do we structure our network? How do we put the sort of structure on our networks that will get the work done without becoming that rigid hierarchy that we don’t like, that has all the wrong features? Dynamic leadership – or no leaders? Alternatives include - issues as nodes; shared projects. How do we organise the technologies we use?
Some possible uses of this more strategic CI approach include that it will enable us to find the information that we need – papers, projects, people, events. It's there but we have to searhc for it. It's not necessarily central, Schuler argues; we can find it – but there’s not a ‘there’ there (with a nod to John Perry Barlow). We could... share policy documents; identify other people with similar interests; develop and test theories; find others with whom to collaborate; facilitate larger research projects less expensively by sharing the load more broadly and intelligently; create and manage projects and campaigns; make our work more accessible to the world as well as more legitimate, necessary possible and effective; build our community.
This all resonates so wel with where I find myself in the terms outlined at the beginning of this post. Schuler suggest that for this new energised CI network to be effective, it needs to be easy to join – eg sign up and you’re on board – with some small commitment (rather than just communicating with the network). In this way we can create an enormous resource.
This is all timely and good to hear. How do we use what we are learning about CI – how do we focus it on our community? "Civic intelligence", Schuler argues, is ultimately what we are about – trying to increase it – in a collective way.
How do we structure our network? How do we put the sort of structure on our networks that will get the work done without becoming that rigid hierarchy that we don’t like, that has all the wrong features? Dynamic leadership – or no leaders? Alternatives include - issues as nodes; shared projects. How do we organise the technologies we use?
Some possible uses of this more strategic CI approach include that it will enable us to find the information that we need – papers, projects, people, events. It's there but we have to searhc for it. It's not necessarily central, Schuler argues; we can find it – but there’s not a ‘there’ there (with a nod to John Perry Barlow). We could... share policy documents; identify other people with similar interests; develop and test theories; find others with whom to collaborate; facilitate larger research projects less expensively by sharing the load more broadly and intelligently; create and manage projects and campaigns; make our work more accessible to the world as well as more legitimate, necessary possible and effective; build our community.
This all resonates so wel with where I find myself in the terms outlined at the beginning of this post. Schuler suggest that for this new energised CI network to be effective, it needs to be easy to join – eg sign up and you’re on board – with some small commitment (rather than just communicating with the network). In this way we can create an enormous resource.
02 June 2010
Outages, apologies and media scrums
Notes from Nick and Mark’s “insights,stories and lessons from inside one of the biggest stories of recent months: the multiple outages that hit Telecom’s XT network.” PRiNZ conference “Taming the Tiger” 28-29 May 2010
Often funny and dry, Nick and Mark offered a list of the key elements of crisis communication management – lessons learned from having to deal with several “outages” of the XT network over just a few weeks this year. They recommend Andrew Griffin’s book “New Strategies for Reputation Management”.
Prepare your leader/s. They need training to develop self-awareness, so they know their own strengths and weaknesses
Simplify the crisis manual. Make it user-friendly.
Understand powers and limitations. That is, the people involved in the crisis communication need to know who makes decisions, so that they don’t over-step each other’s roles
Watch the team dynamics. The other part of behavioural crisis management. The team that know one another, have rehearsed together, perform better when the occasion demands. In the case of XT – the geographical disjoint was a weakness in this regard.
Communicate early and often, e.g. first update within 2 hours of the crisis; 2-hourly updates; shorter time frame for social media. Team members need to understand how the crisis will be seen / reported by the media.
Don’t forget your own people. Don’t assume they won’t be emotionally affected. Example – abuse of call centre staff. Communication and leadership needed for the staff dealing with the public…at Telecom, a movie was made showing how everyone (Telecom employees) was dealing with the outages and public backlash/media attention etc. Showed a real hands-on response – people just getting on and dealing with it. The movie was put on the Telecom intranet to show staff what was being done – affirming, encouraging, positive. CE (Paul Reynolds) was shown as leaderly – a role model: “Be truthful… ‘Fess up… This is not acceptable.” This in-house movie proved to be great company-wide communication that brought everyone together with a sense of purpose.
Own the crisis. Focus on the stakeholders that matter.
Practise, practise, practise. For Telecom XT – 5 outages in 3 months!! There is no substitute in preparedness for having been put through your paces on a regular basis. (Ironically, the day after this presentation, Mark was being interviewed again on National Radio, after the latest crisis: in Otorohanga, the 111 service was non-operational for 3 hours….causing unacceptable delay in emergency service for someone who needed an ambulance…)
Show, don’t tell. Don’t just tell the media you care or that you are doing everything you can – show them. No empty commitments. Front up – daily – pull all advertising – pay compensation – make changes.
Often funny and dry, Nick and Mark offered a list of the key elements of crisis communication management – lessons learned from having to deal with several “outages” of the XT network over just a few weeks this year. They recommend Andrew Griffin’s book “New Strategies for Reputation Management”.
Prepare your leader/s. They need training to develop self-awareness, so they know their own strengths and weaknesses
Simplify the crisis manual. Make it user-friendly.
Understand powers and limitations. That is, the people involved in the crisis communication need to know who makes decisions, so that they don’t over-step each other’s roles
Watch the team dynamics. The other part of behavioural crisis management. The team that know one another, have rehearsed together, perform better when the occasion demands. In the case of XT – the geographical disjoint was a weakness in this regard.
Communicate early and often, e.g. first update within 2 hours of the crisis; 2-hourly updates; shorter time frame for social media. Team members need to understand how the crisis will be seen / reported by the media.
Don’t forget your own people. Don’t assume they won’t be emotionally affected. Example – abuse of call centre staff. Communication and leadership needed for the staff dealing with the public…at Telecom, a movie was made showing how everyone (Telecom employees) was dealing with the outages and public backlash/media attention etc. Showed a real hands-on response – people just getting on and dealing with it. The movie was put on the Telecom intranet to show staff what was being done – affirming, encouraging, positive. CE (Paul Reynolds) was shown as leaderly – a role model: “Be truthful… ‘Fess up… This is not acceptable.” This in-house movie proved to be great company-wide communication that brought everyone together with a sense of purpose.
Own the crisis. Focus on the stakeholders that matter.
Practise, practise, practise. For Telecom XT – 5 outages in 3 months!! There is no substitute in preparedness for having been put through your paces on a regular basis. (Ironically, the day after this presentation, Mark was being interviewed again on National Radio, after the latest crisis: in Otorohanga, the 111 service was non-operational for 3 hours….causing unacceptable delay in emergency service for someone who needed an ambulance…)
Show, don’t tell. Don’t just tell the media you care or that you are doing everything you can – show them. No empty commitments. Front up – daily – pull all advertising – pay compensation – make changes.
27 May 2010
Taming the tiger
At the PRiNZ conference today, high points include hearing more about "conversational marketing" from Jake Pearce, who finished his presentation with video about the t-shirt company Threadless Jake's illustration of how success can be built on making people feel as though they are part of the business - they have a stake in it. Threadless is one of the fastest-growing companies in the US. They treat their customers like they belong to a club. Artists submit their ideas for t-shirt designs to the website; winners (decided by voting on the site) get their designs printed plus prize money plus rights to the design for keeps & the t-shirt goes on sale. Artists/customers are welcome in the company's head office. The art / the t-shirts become the marketing. Consumers are also producers here. Roles are blurred. "A design team of thousands....And what are they paid? Nothing!"
Brand trust and loyalty have gone down the tubes. Who do people trust now? Each other, says Jake. Word of mouth advocacy is what sticks. And the kind of people who respond well to so-called conversational marketing are Gen C - the 'influencers'. They want a sense of control. Gen C can be seen here in a video narrator Cody Shuttleworth calls a 'Looksy' - about what his digital world means to him as a 19 year old: "We're creating a documentary about Generation C; the generation of digital creatives who are rethinking the way we communicate. A 'Looksy' is a short user-generated video which answers one simple question: What does your digital world look like?"
Brand trust and loyalty have gone down the tubes. Who do people trust now? Each other, says Jake. Word of mouth advocacy is what sticks. And the kind of people who respond well to so-called conversational marketing are Gen C - the 'influencers'. They want a sense of control. Gen C can be seen here in a video narrator Cody Shuttleworth calls a 'Looksy' - about what his digital world means to him as a 19 year old: "We're creating a documentary about Generation C; the generation of digital creatives who are rethinking the way we communicate. A 'Looksy' is a short user-generated video which answers one simple question: What does your digital world look like?"
20 May 2010
Breathe
Hello blog, I'm back. I left you in a sort of cryogenic freeze for a while. Now I find you still here, waiting patiently. Don't deserve you, do I. Let me thaw you out, breathe a fog of words over you. I see it's been almost a year since I left you to fend for yourself. I've shrugged a few monkeys off my back that weighed heavier and heavier for a while. Life returns to something more like normal. The urge to let the words flow in some form other than the bloodless prose of a thesis begins to surge. That's all. I'll be back soon to keep you warm.
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