engaging with the social web: a risks and opportunities framework

A centre of expertise in digital information management

www.ukoln.ac.uk

Engaging With The Social Web: A Risks and Opportunities Framework

Brian KellyUKOLNUniversity of BathBath, UK

UKOLN is supported by:This work is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 licence (but note caveat)

Acceptable Use PolicyRecording of this talk, taking photos, discussing the content using email, instant messaging, blogs, SMS, etc. is permitted providing distractions to others is minimised.

Acceptable Use PolicyRecording of this talk, taking photos, discussing the content using email, instant messaging, blogs, SMS, etc. is permitted providing distractions to others is minimised.

Resources bookmarked using 'mcg-2009' tag Resources bookmarked using 'mcg-2009' tag

Email:[email protected]

Twitter:http://twitter.com/briankelly/

Blog:http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/

http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/cultural-heritage/events/mcg-2009/http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/cultural-heritage/events/mcg-2009/


www.ukoln.ac.uk

2

Renaissance West Midlands workshop, Feb 2009

Renaissance West Midlands workshop, Feb 2009

MLA East of England workshop, Nov 2008

MLA East of England workshop, Nov 2008

Concerns identified in discussion group sessions at various UKOLN 1-day workshops for the cultural heritage sector

Concerns identified in discussion group sessions at various UKOLN 1-day workshops for the cultural heritage sector


www.ukoln.ac.uk

3

The Challenges

Challenges

Resources

ExpertiseTime

Money

Understanding

Legal Issues IT Services

Colleagues

Management

Accessibility

Sustainability

Reliability

Culturalissues

Technical Issues

Interoperability

Privacy, DPA, FOI, ..

Council


www.ukoln.ac.uk

4

Take-up Of New TechnologiesThe Gartner curve

Developers

Rising expectations

Trough of despair

Service plateau

Enterprise softwareLarge budgets…

Early adopters

ChasmFailure to go beyond developers & early adopters (cf Gopher)Need for:

• Advocacy• Listening to users• Addressing concerns• Deployment strategies• …

This talk looks at approaches for avoiding the chasm & reshaping the curve

This talk looks at approaches for avoiding the chasm & reshaping the curve


www.ukoln.ac.uk

5

Let’s Be Realistic

Ning allows you to set up and manage your own social network. Sounds great, doesn’t it?

But:• Will it have the

momentum to support thriving discussion?

• Might it not just be an automated aggregator of content

Over-hyping expectations


www.ukoln.ac.uk

6

Let’s Be Realistic

Want to provide a safe social networking environment?

You can with Ning.

But what of the pitfalls?

“Am I bovvered?”

Over-hyping expectations


www.ukoln.ac.uk

7

Accessibility Concerns

Aren’t Social Web services:

• Inaccessible to people with disabilities?

• Break accessibility guidelines (WCAG)

• Leave us liable to be taken to court?

People with disabilities are using Social Web services

People with disabilities are using Social Web servicesPeople with disabilities are using Social Web services – as are disability activists

People with disabilities are using Social Web services – as are disability activists

DDA: Institutions must take ‘reasonable measures’ to ensure PWDs aren’t discriminated against. Is it discriminatory to fail to provide services?

Accessibility


www.ukoln.ac.uk

8

Sustainability Concerns

What happens if Museum 2.0 services:• Are unreliable?• Change their terms and conditions (e.g start

charging)?• Become bankrupt

Things to remember:• Services may be unreliable e.g. Twitter• Market pressure is leading to changes to T&C – &

paid-for services may become free (e.g. Friends Reunited)

• Banks may go bankrupt too – but we still use them• Need for risk assessment and risk management

Sustainability


www.ukoln.ac.uk

9

Interoperability Issues

What happens if Social Web services host your data and:

• You can’t get the data back out?• You only get the unstructured or

poor quality data back out?• You can’t get the comments,

annotations, tags out?

There’s a need to:• Ensure data export capabilities or• Upload data from an alternative

managed sources• Understand limitations of data export /

import and make plans around limitations

Interoperability

How do we share knowledge & experiences?

How do we share knowledge & experiences?


www.ukoln.ac.uk

10

Deployment Strategies

I want to do use the Social Web but:

• The IT Services department bans it

• The council bans it• My boss doesn’t

approveArea of interest to UKOLN:

• “Just do it”• Subversive approach –

‘Friends of Foo’ if Foo can’t use it

• Encourage enthusiasts• Don’t get in the way

UKOLN briefing papers available with Creative Commons licence. (over 40 docs published)

UKOLN briefing papers available with Creative Commons licence. (over 40 docs published)

Organisational barriers


www.ukoln.ac.uk

11

The Council Firewall

The reality:• Useful Web services do get

blocked• There is dodgy/illegal/

dangerous material on the Web

• It may be simple to have a blanket ban

Suggested approaches:• We can accept certain levels

of risks• More sophisticated

responses are needed• We should share the

approaches we’ve taken

New Internet access policy for childrenFrom December 2008, children will be able to enjoy improved Internet access in all Portsmouth Libraries. The current “Walled Garden” arrangement will be discontinued. The Internet access offered will be similar to that provided in Portsmouth schools but we will also be allowing access to games, Web chat and social networking sites. For further information, please contact …

New Internet access policy for childrenFrom December 2008, children will be able to enjoy improved Internet access in all Portsmouth Libraries. The current “Walled Garden” arrangement will be discontinued. The Internet access offered will be similar to that provided in Portsmouth schools but we will also be allowing access to games, Web chat and social networking sites. For further information, please contact …

Feel free to respond to blog post at <http://blogs.ukoln.ac.uk/cultural-heritage/2009/02/24/access-to-social-sites-is-blocked/>

Organisational barriers


www.ukoln.ac.uk

12

Deployment StrategiesInterested in using Web 2.0 in your organisation?Worried about corporate inertia, power struggles, etc?There’s a need for a deployment strategy:

• Addressing business needs• Low-hanging fruits• Encouraging the enthusiasts• Gain experience of the browser tools• Staff training & development• Address areas you feel comfortable with• Workflow processes• Impact analysis and assessment• Risk and opportunity management strategy• Critical Friends & friendly critics• Culture of openness• …


www.ukoln.ac.uk

13

Headlines For 2010?

“Tories Win General Election”

“Drastic Cuts in Public Sector Funding”

“Market place to have increased role in public sector”

“Review of public sector Web services”

“Digital Lame Ducks condemned”


www.ukoln.ac.uk

14

Critical Friends

JISC U&I programme is encouraging establishment of “Critical Friends”

See <http://critical-friends.org/>See <http://critical-friends.org/>

Paul Walk (UKOLN) was described as a ‘critical friend’ of JISCSee <http://dev8d.jiscinvolve.org/2009/

02/10/five-minute-interview-paul-walk/>

See <http://dev8d.jiscinvolve.org/2009/02/10/five-minute-interview-paul-walk/>

But is such open debate encouraged?

See <https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind0903&L=MCG&T=0&F=&S=&P=19929>

See <https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind0903&L=MCG&T=0&F=&S=&P=19929>


www.ukoln.ac.uk

15

Critical Friends / Friendly Critics

Critical Friends:• Have a mission to make projects succeed• Balance informal approach with critical eye• Maintain confidentiality, frankness, sensitivity &

independence• May have a funded role

Friendly critics:• No formal responsibilities• Willing to discuss and engage• Will appreciate sensitivities, constraints, …

Unfriendly critics & hostile opponents:• You know what they are!


www.ukoln.ac.uk

16

Biases

Subjective factors

Towards a Framework

“Time To Stop Doing and Start Thinking: A Framework For Exploiting Web 2.0 Services”, Museums & the Web 2009 conference

IntendedPurpose

Benefits (various

stakeholdersRisks

(various stakeholders

Missed Opps. (various

stakeholdersCosts


• Sharing experiences

• Learning from successes& failures

• Tackling biases• …

• Critical friends / friendly critics

• Application to existing services

• Application to in-house development

• …


www.ukoln.ac.uk

17

Using The Framework

Use of approach in two scenarios: use of Twitter & Facebook

IntendedPurpose

Benefits (various

stakeholdersRisks



stakeholdersCosts


Community support

Rapid feedback

Justify ROIOrg. brand

Community-building

Low?

Twitter for individuals Organisational Fb Page

Marketing events,…

Large audiences

Ownership, privacy, lock-in

Marketing opportunity

Low?

Critical friends:• Paul Walk / Brian

Kelly blog posts)• MCG

discussionsLearning

• UKOLN cultural heritage guest blog post

• Conferences• Papers• …

Note personal biases!Note personal biases!


www.ukoln.ac.uk

18

Use The Framework Yourself

Feel free to you apply framework to:

• Services you’re planning

• Existing services• Large scale

initiatives (e.g. Creative Spaces)

IntendedPurpose

Benefits (various

stakeholdersRisks



stakeholdersCosts


What is the purpose? Who are the users?

What are the benefits? To whom?

What are the risks? To whom?

What are the risks of doing nothing?

What are the costs – to developers, to users,…

Remember the biases! Is the service really intended to sustain the service provider?

Remember the need for the critical friend and the need for sharing?


www.ukoln.ac.uk

19

Sharing Your Experiences (1)

There’s now an even greater need to share ideas, plans, decisions:

• Rapidly changing technical environment

• Best practices now yet established

• Changing political context

• …Developers at COPAC service use a blog to share technical decisions, experiences, etc.

Developers at COPAC service use a blog to share technical decisions, experiences, etc.


www.ukoln.ac.uk

20

Sharing Your Experiences (2)

Guest blog posts on UKOLN’s cultural heritage blog provide opportunity for sharing experiences

Note that PR-pieces are not welcome!

I knew nothing of blogs back then, and nor did our local authority. There were certainly no policies on them at the time, but a suggestions from one of our e-business staff led me at first to open a MySpace account. But this didn’t look good, so Google’s Blogger was tried instead.

I knew nothing of blogs back then, and nor did our local authority. There were certainly no policies on them at the time, but a suggestions from one of our e-business staff led me at first to open a MySpace account. But this didn’t look good, so Google’s Blogger was tried instead. So great were our webstats submitted under the now-

superceded system of “Best Value Performance Indicators” reported by local authorities, that the Audit Commission even questioned their veracity.

So great were our webstats submitted under the now-superceded system of “Best Value Performance Indicators” reported by local authorities, that the Audit Commission even questioned their veracity.

.. they declared our figures unsuitable for reflecting website usages by museums. … this decision might put the viability of the whole project into question … this could be a case of the statistics-gathering tail wagging the audience-focussed dog. But common sense prevailed …

.. they declared our figures unsuitable for reflecting website usages by museums. … this decision might put the viability of the whole project into question … this could be a case of the statistics-gathering tail wagging the audience-focussed dog. But common sense prevailed …


www.ukoln.ac.uk

21

Let The Public Know

“The paper sets out to answer this question by way of original research and experimentation on real data sets of museum objects, obtained from a number of UK museums by way of a Freedom of Information request.”

“The paper sets out to answer this question by way of original research and experimentation on real data sets of museum objects, obtained from a number of UK museums by way of a Freedom of Information request.”

Frankie Roberto as a friendly critic

Social services, communities, etc. are now being used to seek evidence of value-for-money. We need to be able to demonstrate appropriate processes are in place.

Social services, communities, etc. are now being used to seek evidence of value-for-money. We need to be able to demonstrate appropriate processes are in place.


www.ukoln.ac.uk

22

Openness & The Sector

We are experiencing:

• Promotion of culture of openness (e.g. Creative Commons)

• Political pressures for public sector to be ‘transparent’

• Legislation such as FOI

Implications for museums:

• Opening up data can enhance access, support innovation, …

• Need to be open about our policies, decisions, …

• This can enhance museum values of trust


www.ukoln.ac.uk

23

The Risks

Open government data:• Allows greater

accountability to the public (friends & enemies)

• Enables ‘mashup maestros’ to visualise the data

A map of MPs expenses claims – click on tag to get MPs name


www.ukoln.ac.uk

24

What You Can Do

You can:• Seek to open up your data (and start on

the easy aspects – your slides, perhaps)• Open up your development processes• Build on a culture of sharing ..• …but go beyond the MCG JISCmail list • Regard an FOI request as an opportunity

to be welcomed


www.ukoln.ac.uk

25

The future is exciting - but Curator Sapiens will need to address the challenges.

Conclusions

Acknowledgments to Michael Edson for the Web Tech Guy and Angry Staff Person post / comic strip

engaging with the social web: a risks and opportunities framework

Documents