County Government Gets Social

Good news.

In a posting on their website, Catawba County North Carolina the public information officer writes about, "Catawba County now using new social internet networks to reach younger, and more "wired" citizens" The NC Association of County Commissioners also included a story about it in their publications, "Tuned in or turned off by social media".

The bottom line is that the Catawba County government sees Facebook, Twitter, and blogging as good ways to reach their citizens. They've even created a Catawba County, NC Facebook page and have it linked from the lower right corner of the Catawba County website at: www.catawbacountync.gov.

I hope other counties (like Buncombe, NC) look at this and stop blocking their employees from accessing tools like Skype, Facebook, instant messaging, Blogger and many, many more. In my opinion, blocking sites like these is just cutting off lines of communications. They might as well remove the phones because someone might make personal calls during business hours. There are places where access to these type sites might be prudent to block, but in today's world, government networks are not one of them. These tools are the communications and information sharing tools of today. Not using them means you are not going to be communicating with significant portions of your clientele.

Along the same lines - in the county where I work, they removed all the games that came with Windows (or at least removed them from the Start menu). Do they really think that the employee who spends too much time playing games on the computer is going to stop playing games and work harder because they can't play on their computer? This is just non-sense to think that they aren't going to bring a book in or a hand-held device from home and play or figure out how to get to the games without going through the Start menu.

You can't manage people this way. You've got to address the real issues behind the problems. You've got to lead them, inspire them to achieve and do a better job. All that taking these 'distractions' away from everyone does is hurt the productivity of the real hard workers. Researchers at the University of Melbourne concluded that "surfing the internet at work boosts productivity".

Jacqui Cheng wrote in Ars Technica, "People who are able to spend 20 percent or less of their time surfing the Internet at work are more productive than those who don't, according to research from the University of Melbourne. Small Internet breaks help workers focus better, though Internet addicts still have a problem.".

Short breaks to handle personal business or just clear the head makes a worker more productive and creative the rest of the day.

Taking away the communications tools of today from your employees is putting you farther and farther away from the people they need to be communicating with and making them less productive, efficient and does nothing to help the image of your organization.

Way to lead the way Catwaba County!!! Let's hope more follow your lead.

That's my rant for the day... :)

Are you a 21st Century Learner, Teacher or Both?

Wendy Drexler created and shared the following video. In a 5 minute CommonCraft inspired video, she does an excellent job of explaining what connected learning is all about. Check out Wendy's blog to read about the Connectivism project for which she developed this and to read the many comments that she has already received.

While she is referring to k-12 school learners and teachers, I think everything she is talking about applies to anyone , especially knowledge workers - regardless of their student status. We are all learners and we are all teachers.





For a great example of how this 21st Century Learner/Teacher stuff works: I found this from an article on Matt Montagne's blog "Digital Down Low", which I found from a Google Alert about a link to my blog on Lori Sheldon's "Blogs I Follow" class wiki page. She and I have been following each other for quite some time in Twitter and have exchanged several helpful messages via twitter when I found that she was doing some really cool stuff with Web 2.0 in her K-12 schools.

I've shared the Wendy Drexler's Video via Delicious, Facebook and YouTube and now, hopefully, I've added a little to it in this blog. I'll also be crossposting it on the NCCE TechTalk.

4 Steps to getting started with social networking

There are probably thousands of pages written about 'how to get started with social networking'. Recently, I read Floyd Davenport's "Adopting Social Media". In it he linked to Chris Brogan's article "If I Started Today". Anne Adrian wrote "Getting Started in Conversations" more than a year ago. All of these are good reads.

Being that my job is to teach knowledge workers how to use technology to make their jobs easier and better, I felt that I needed to (wanted to) write something to encourage anyone not already using social networking to get started. There are so many ways these tools can help just about anyone today.

Floyd wrote, "Desire has to come from the individual perspective of value. How I feel about and use social media doesn’t always translate well to my colleagues. At the same time, I interpret Knowledge not as how to use technology, but how to make the change within your own time-constrained and political environment."

If you aren't already using some of these tools, how can I get YOU to desire to use social networking? The ways I'm trying to do it include:

• being there (in the social network) first - so when you are ready to join, you have someone to connect with
• demonstrate its effectiveness
  
• sharing my content
  
• evangelize about the virtues of social networking
• teach 'how'

What would it take to get you or someone you know to 'want' to start social networking? Please use the comments in this post to share your insight and advice (or comment in FriendFeed)

How to get started
If you are not already social networking, I'd recommend the following sites to get you started with social networking.

Use a Feed Reader to read content. There are many out there. I use Google Reader. Then, whenever you see the feed icon in the browsers location panel or button bar for a page you are interested in, subscribe to that page's feed. If you are using a home page for your browser that never changes, use your Feed Reader to be your home page.

Add your comments and opinions to blog posts that you read. Start by commenting on blogs written by people you know. A note to say 'good article' as a way to get your feet wet and to let them know someone is reading their post.

Use delicious.com - a social bookmarking site - to share your bookmarks/favorites. (Pete Flores and I recently recorded a podcast about delicious.( Install the delicous buttons (if you are using Firefox or MS Internet Explorer) and upload the bookmarks/favorites from all the browsers and computers you use. Stop using your browsers' bookmarks/favorites and only use delicious. Then, start sharing the sites you want by not checking the "Do not share" box. To me, this is the easiest way to get started because it doesn't require that you join an existing network and you can choose to share what you want. Also, the benefits are immediately apparent.

Look for others delicious users that are tagging the type sites you are interested in - find people in your field or hobby that are using delicious and add them to your network. Then, subscribe to your network's feed in your feed reader. This way, you will know whenever they tag a new page.

Start growing your network - tell those who would be interested in knowing what you are bookmarking (colleagues, specialists, friends with common interests) that they can find your bookmarks in delicious and encourage them to share their bookmarks. Chances are, these are the same people you would want to know about what they are bookmarking.

Start your own blog. You have a unique perspective that others could benefit from knowing. Everyone has something to teach, so why not you? Even if nobody ever reads your blog, use it to improve your writing skills and help organize your own thoughts. You might be pleasantly surprised by who finds it interesting. I've talked to many bloggers who say it is great therapy.

Advice for social networking

• Break down the walls between your personal and your professional life. Aren't the people you work with your friends? Getting to know them on a personal level will (in most cases) improve your working relationships with them.
• Be willing to share in order to build relationships. Remember the first thing someone asks when you haven't seen them for a while? What have you been doing/reading/working on? Why wait between face-to-face visits. Let those that care find out as it happens.
• Realize that you have something of value to add to 'the conversation'.
  
• Have fun.
• Be yourself.
• Make friends.
  

Are you still working the same way?

I liked the article "Productivity 2.0: How the new rules of work are changing the game" from Zen Habits and wanted to share it more widely. (If you are following my Delicious, you'd have already seen it there too.) In it they make some good observations and some that I need to adopt.

Here are the 8 rules to whet your appetite , but the article is worth reading in its entirety.

1. Don’t Crank - Work With Deeper Focus.
2. Minimize Out Meetings and Planning Overplanning — Just Start.
3. Paperwork is out — automate with technology.
4. Don’t multi-task — multi-project and single-task.
5. Produce less, not more.
6. Forget about organization — use technology.
7. Out with hierarchies — in with freedom.
8. Work fewer hours, not more.

I read about this in the PSU College of Agriculture's Information Technologies eNews volume 108. They do a great job and I always learn a lot from reading their stuff. Vince's Lighter Side and Interesting Links are always worth checking out!

Can the generations work together?

Several observations make me question if the older generation can work with the new generation (or visa versa). IMHO, I think a lot of the problems are related to a lack of respect and understanding for each other's communication preferences. I am generalizing here and am using 'generations' to identify people, regardless of their age, who use the tools and have the preferences generally associated with the different generations.

Last week when my grandmother passed away, my oldest son chose to be with her at the end while my youngest chose not to remember her that way. This was the right decision for each of them. Soon after she passed, my oldest text messaged his brother to let him know. While he was doing this, my mother (who was just coming back to the room) saw this and made a comment about it. If he had been talking to his brother on the phone, I think she would have understood what he was doing. But she and many others in the generations that didn't grow up with text messaging don't understand the way the others prefer to communicate.

I have to admit that I would rather talk to someone than text them from my phone. This probably has to do with the fact that I haven't become proficient at texting (I need to get a phone with letters big enough for me to see without my reading glasses or get contacts).

Just from my personal observations, I'd say that most people under 25 prefer texting to talking on the phone.

Another story: A year or two ago, my family was heading to South Carolina to go camping, but when we got to the campground, it was full. My youngest son mentioned that one of his friends (not a 'close friend', but one he likes) was camping with her family (who we know pretty well) was camping at a nearby campground this weekend. They texted back and forth and soon we were camping just a few sites away and spent a great weekend with them. My sons' 'network' of friends are so much more rich than mine was at their ages - and even now at my age, that I'm jealous. They make friends when I take them to conferences and they maintain and grow those relationships throughout the year. When they go to the conference the next year, their friends are there and they pick up from yesterday, not last year. How do they do this? They use Facebook and MySpace.

They are much more comfortable sharing more of their life. And because of this, they have more friends, are more connected to them and they have stronger relationships.

One of my biggest regrets is losing touch with many of the friends I've made in the past. My goal for the near future is to get back in touch with many of them and rekindle those relationships - especially if they are using social networking tools.

Yesterday, I had lunch with a coworker and she told a story where someone asked if her daughter's college was closed because of snow. The mother didn't know, but another coworker (younger generation) in the next room overheard and said yes, the school was closed and told them what the daughter was doing this morning. She knew because she was friends with the daughter on Facebook.

We talked about how the younger generations are using email to communicate with 'old people' and use other tools to communicate with each other.

Paul Glazowski wrote Study: Surfing Social Networks at Work Could Be Good for You. I've been holding this trying to think of a good way to get it out to those IT departments that are blocking things like instant messaging, social networking sites, sharing sites and the like and even games because they think they are going to stop employees from 'wasting time'. IMHO, this couldn't be more counter-productive. Yes, there will be employees that will waste time using these tools, but do they honestly believe that by taking these tools away the employees that would waste time with these tools will become more productive? I think not. They are going to bring crossword puzzles, books, or their cell phone to the office or just spend their time hanging around the water cooler. And the ones that are working hard will be less productive because they have fewer tools to work with. The time-wasting employees need to be addressed administratively, not by blocking IT tools.

Another observation is the blurring of the work/personal boundaries for the new generation of knowledge workers. If you are working behind a counter, then yes, you need to be there at certain times. But, if you are a knowledge worker and are most productive at 4:00 AM and enjoy bike riding, why do you need to be at desk from 9-5 during the winter when it gets dark at 5:30? I think the new generation of workers 'get' and want the Freerange enterprise that Kevin Gamble describes.

Back to the title of this article - if you find yourself with the characteristics of the 'older generation' (regardless of your age), it is time to explore the advantages of the tools the 'younger generation'. It is hard for us to change our work habits, but by taking small steps, it can be done. The first step is to work to gain an understanding of the tools.

I think this is the longest post I've ever written. Maybe I ought to change the title of the blog to "Ramble On"... but that's already taken...