social media? collaboration!

Corporate Communications Today

Course Module 2: Social Media? Collaboration.

24.10.2012

Susanne Robra-Bissantz

WS 2012/13 | Prof. Dr. Susanne Robra-Bissantz | Corporate Communications Today| Seite 2

Course Modules

CM 1

Social Media

CM 3

„Marketing“

CM 2

Cooperation

CM 4

Innovation

CM 5

Knowledge

CM 6

Web Society

Welcome to our second module!

This time, we try a conventional slide share. Use the opportunity to discuss what you don‘t understand!... in our next chat ...


Now that we know, that Social Media is something new – and that different forms of it do exciting things (from your presentations) ...

Let‘s take a closer look to the „Crime Scene“ – on what really and in general „happens“ on the platforms.

There are different stories about that ...


Stories - about what happens in Social Media ...

• Social Media Companies, like Facebook or Google

only try to make money with our data.

• Social Media harm individuals as they lead to social

isolation and at most superficial relationships.

• For individuals as well as organisations, Social Media

may lead to libel and slander.

• Social Media are a serious threat for society and

democracy.


Stories - about what happens in Social Media ...

• Social Media Companies, like Facebook or Google

only try to make money with our data.

• Social Media harm individuals as they lead to social

isolation and at most superficial relationships.

• For individuals as well as organisations, Social Media

may lead to libel and slander.

• Social Media are a serious threat for society and

democracy.

Or – can we write

another story?


First – in order to find out, what is possible –

let‘s have a Look at the Basic Elements of Social Media ...


Basic Elements of Social Media

Profile…..

……..

• Characteristics• Interests• Skills, Likes• Preferences

News about me …… what I do right now … … who / what I like …

News about Friends andGroups – Activities and Likes

FriendsGroups

Ideas, Opinions,Contributions Articles

My Knowledge …… our shared KnowledgeMy Opinion …… your and our Opinion

Here you are: a kind of „summary“ of different Social Media Platforms...

Networking like in facebook

Sharing knowledge like in Wikipedia.

Posting thoughts like in Twitter.


Basic Elements of Social Media ...

Profile…..

……..




FriendsGroups



In the green area people interconnect. They build groups, find (their) friends and stay connected. They follow each others‘ activities to stay in contact.

In a blue area, ideas, knowledge or opinions are contributed. They are shared and discussed. In Wiki-Articles, as tweets etc.

In the area, marked in red, I fill in my profile with personal and emotional aspects. My interests, my likes. Additionally I contribute what I‘ doing.

... Explained ...


Basic Elements of Social Media ...

Profile…..

……..




FriendsGroups



Do you think that „friends“ is the proper word for these connections? Dunbar‘s number (150) is

the maximal number of people with which you can have a relationship ... Will it increase?

Connections don‘t have to be established by searching a person and „liking“ him/her. Connections may also result from conversations. From finding interesting contents and becoming interested in the writer...

Like in „real life“, common thoughts and activities may provoke, that someone is interested im me...

Are you really interested in every cup of coffee your „friend“ is drinking?

And some more aspects to think about...


But what are these Elements of Social Media good for?


Many connections andweak ties (e.g. friends of

friends) rise the probabiliy to find partners

Social Media enable Connections with Partners in order to follow Shared Aims

Summarized: Functions of Social Media!

• Find Friends, Experts, Like-minded People

• Foster Contacts• Build Groups• Act in Groups

Network:

From Persons to Groups

• Spread News• State Ideas, Opinions

and Experiences• Discuss• Share Knowledge

Knowledge:

From Ideas to Documents

• Tell about you and your Activities (in real time)

• Present Skills/Interests: Private/Professional

• Add Likes and Opinions

Social Closeness

From me to my Life

Groups find and select important Information, they

work together on joint knowledge

Social Media lead to Mutual Support and Joint Action

Private Bits, Emotions and timely Information about you

result in Trust and Relatedness.

Social Media provoke relationships that are

voluntary, personal and loyal

.


Many connections andweak ties (e.g. friends of

friends) rise the probabiliy to find partners

Social Media enable Connections with Partners in order to follow Shared Aims

Summarized: Functions of Social Media!

Groups find and select important Information, they

work together on joint knowledge

Social Media lead to Mutual Support and Joint Action

Private Bits, Emotions and timely Information about you

result in Trust and Relatedness.

Social Media provoke relationships that are

voluntary, personal and loyal

.

Network:

From Persons to Groups

Knowledge:

From Ideas to Documents

Social Closeness

From me to my Life

Social Media enable Cooperation and Collaboration• Functions resemble the theoretical characteristics of Cooperation (next slide)• For Cooperation / Collaboration with and through Information (slide after that)


Cooperation / Collaboration from a theoretical Perspective

Definition:

Cooperation means

• mutual support of independent systems (cooperation)• joint efforts of task owners (collaboration)• with shared/common aims• based on relatedness

Characteristics and mechanics:

• Trust: cognitive and emotional trust in persons as well as in IC-Systems• Connection: Awareness and Context• Motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic – social appreciation, belonging, self efficacy• Coherence: only temporary and autonomily selected mechanisms – less control

green areas...

blue areas...

red areas...


Cooperation with and through information: Changes in the „Information Cycle“

pro-duce

provide

prepro-cess

docu-ment

search

use

Information (Data, Knowledge) …

From classify

From save

From navigate

From distribute

To taggingTo find

To interact

To network

From collect

To presentFrom expatiate

To create ... in Blogs

... in YouTube

... via Twitter

... in Wikis

black: traditionalblue: in Social Media


Changes in the „Information Cycle“: lead to new Guidelines

pro-duce

provide

prepro-cess

docu-ment

search

use


taggingfind

interact

network

present

create

Shrinks for knowledge

Virtual Kitchenettes

Knowledge Panini

Drawers End

„Give knowledge and get other knowledge for it“

„Meet by chance, learn news and other things...“

„Don‘t lock knowledge up - categorized“

„Get some help in understanding different contexts of knowledge“

New Guidelines...


Changes in the „Information Cycle“: lead to new opportunities

pro-duce

provide

prepro-cess

docu-ment

search

use


taggingfind

interact

network

present

create

Shrinks for knowledge

Virtual Kitchenettes

Knowledge Panini

Drawers End

Contexts are built/used

Occasions to communicate rise

And two new basicOpportunities ...


Summarized: Social Media offer the chance of cooperation ...

Social Media enable new and better cooperation of

humans.

Society

Media

Politics

Companies

Markets


But where are possibilities for cooperation or even collaboration?

N.B.: what is the difference between cooperation and collaboration?


Cooperation in Organisations and beyond

Organisations

Private Consumers

In Organisations:• There is Cooperation ...• ... but mostly hierachical coordinated• Todays IT-Systems mostly support

„Processes“ and no Collaboration

• Social Media and Collaboration Mechanics support Collaboration, e. g. in Knowledge- oder Ideamanagement

Beyond Organisations:• There is basically no cooperation • But e. g. customers use Social Media ...• ... is there a possiblitity to collaborate?

• Collaboration Mechanics can lead to discussion, networking and collaboration with customers.


But how can we realize cooperation and collaboration?

„We have already set up a Blog for customers and a Wiki for our employees.“

„We will introduce social Media shortly, our IT department works on it ...“

„We are everywhere in Social Media: in facebook, in twitter, even in Google+ ...“






This is not the right way.

Social Media always has to have a reason. A reason that lies in Cooperation and Collaboration. You want to cooperate with someone. With customers, because you think, that you get better ideas for your product, with employees, because you want to share knowledge better.



The Task, therefore, is „Cooperation Engineering“, that defines

• Goals of the Collaboration (who?, why?) • Collaboration Concepts and -mechanisms – and afterwards...• An IT-System with Social Media Functions: social relatedness, networking ...

But don‘t forget to consider the situation: in your organisation, regarding the people (employees, management, customers) as well as todays and future technologies.





Collaboration Engineering

Psychological and social Situation

Collaboration Success

Human Behaviour

System Behaviour

Tech

nica

l Situ

atio

n

Org

anisational Situation

Collaboration Engineering i.e.S.

4. Collaboration1. Collaboration

Environment

3. Collaborationmechanics

2. Collaborationgoal

Collaboration Engineering has to deal with the whole system, in the organisation, with humans, and with the technology. It can not be planned perfectly, as the behaviour of humans in their contexts influences the final success.

In a narrow context cooperation engineering consists of 1. analysing the collaboration environment (in the organisation), 2. defining the cooperation goal, 3. realizing cooperation mechanics (e. g. discussion) and 4. collaboration.

Then the System Elements collaborate (Humans, Organisation etc. The system behaviour reveals whether collaboration reaches its goals. If not, the Collaboration cycle (1. – 4.) has to be started again.

• Technical situations are e.g., whether the company has already decided about a Social Media Platform, whether it is principally innovative – in its IT-Department, and whether data protection etc. is discussed.

• Organisational situations are e. g., whether there is a culture of collaboration in the organisation, whether management and work council support social media and cooperation.

• A psychologial situation is e. g. whether the employees are ready for cooperation, whether they can work with being open, sharing and transparent.


But why shoud an organisation collaborate?

Collaboration?!?

employees support each others

a collective intelligence appears

knowledge is shared

... because collaboration may

change „processes“

they take part...

... and that voluntarily

they are motivated ...

... because collaboration may change humans

they are open and share ...

… towards relationships

… towards social closeness

… towards transparancy


change the culture…… towards trust

… regarding costs

…regarding reputation

… and because collaboration may

have success...… regarding quality

…regarding innovations


But why shoud an organisation collaborate?

Collaboration?!?

employees support each others

a collective intelligence appears

knowledge is shared


change „processes“

they take part...

... and that voluntarily

they are motivated ...

... because collaboration may change humans

they are open and share ...

… towards relationships

… towards social closeness

… towards transparancy


change the culture…… towards trust

… regarding costs

…regarding reputation

… and because collaboration may

have success...… regarding quality

…regarding innovations

• a waste of time

• useless information

• purely virtual relationships

• dumbing down

• isolation

• transparent citizens

…

But why are people often sure, that collaboration means ...


New MediumCollaboratio

n as an attitude

Social Media

The answer lies in this formula:• Social Media are a new medium – as described in Course Module 1. • Additionally Social Media ask for collaboration as an attitude.

And collaboration is not that easy. In order to truely collaborate you have to respect a couple of difficult aspects of collaboration. In doing so, collaboration becomes an attitude.


The difficult aspects of collaboration are ...

Collaboration as an

attitude

Voluntariness

Trust

Coherence

Respect

Heterarchy

Responsibility


The difficult aspects of collaboration are ...

Collaboration as an

attitude

Voluntariness

Trust

Coherence

Respect

Heterarchy

Responsibility

Think about these, with the following slides...


Collaboration and Heterarchy

Nestle, when critizised the first time in Facebook stated: „we set the rules“ when they tried to forbid accusations.

Other companies just erase disagreeable comments from customers in facebook.

Is this collaboration? Does this show true „heterarchy“? What may be wrong?


Collaboration and Coherence

What has this to do with Collaboration?

At work: „We open a platform where we can

share our ideas and thoughts“.

In private: „I‘m sitting here in this xxx-cafe, I‘m

looking forward to the Rizzi-exhibition tonight

and I‘m drinking a „Hugo““.

At work: „I want my employees to work

according to their own rules. I don‘t controll

milestones.“


Collaboration and voluntariness

„We open a company-wiki. Every employee has to contribute weekly: his skills, what he has done, what he is up to etc.“

Is this Collaboration? What happens to voluntariness, when such rules exist?


Collaboration and trust

Company:

When we ask for complaints, we will get them.

What shall we do, when loads of infamies will be contributed?

Employee:

I‘m supposed to react to complaints.

But what happens, when I write something wrong?

The company considers to open a blog for customer complaints. Here is what it thinks about.

How would you answer, if you act on the assumption of collaboration and trust?


Collaboration and responsibility

Collaboration and e. g. heterarchy mean, that every individual counts. Every opinion, every comment has his right to be written down.

But in a consequence collaboration also means, that every individual is important and responsible for what happens on social media plattforms.

Those, who contribute form the medium and what happens there.


Collaboration and respect

The new medium needs new conventions, e. g. regarding respect. What would you do...

... if you observe a group, that is talking negatively about your company?

... if you find embarrassing fotos of your employee

... or, if your chef tries to become your friend on facebook?

Try to compare this to „real life“.


Your next deliverable:

Am I / are you collaborative? – A small empirical study.

Please carry out an empirical study on how collaborative selected people (from your company or in your private environment are.

1. Think about questions that you want to ask, in order to find out, how collaborative someone is. Use the sources and the video and your own private thoughts. (Questions? Chat on 25.10.)

2. Collect all your individual thoughts into one questionaire. Remember to add a question like „I think that I‘m collaborative“ and/or ínclude your own opinion about the collaborativeness of the person you want to ask. (Online on 06.11., Chat on 08.11.)

3. Carry out the empirical study. Which characteristics of persons lead to collaborativeness? Who in your environment is how collaborative?

4. Please summarize your results (together). (Online 20.11., Chat 22.11.)

social media? collaboration!

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