Are we Smarter than a 5th Grader? Who has the better MySpace Page you or them?

In December 2007, if you would have asked me what is a Social Network, I would have said that it was a person who belonged to a group such as toastmasters, a fraternity/sorority, or college clubs. Boy was I wrong!!!! After taking a class in social networking at American University, my eyes were open to a whole new world and I mean a new world. A social network services according to wikipedia is the use of software to build online social networks or communities to allow groups with similar interest the opportunity to share ideas or experiences. There are sites such as MySpace and Facebook that use to be used for friends to communicate with one another. There are other sites such as LinkedIn which is utilized more for networking with friends, dating, or even HR reps to build a network for job opportunities. Blogging is another popular tool used in social networking. Listed below is a stat of page hits for popular social network services.
















As time passed, social networks continued to grow and also evolved to more sophisticated environments, so did these social networks user base change. No longer were the sites just used for friend to friend collaboration but they began evolving into tools to be used for marketing and educational purposes. 3-D environments such as Second Life, which allows users to create avatars to represent their personalities. The avatar character allows them to interact with other avatars in either socializing, dating, shopping, and everyday living. This allows people to live in two different worlds one the real world where the user may not do a lot of social interaction and the second life where their alter egos come out and they feel as though they can be themselves. This picture speaks to what social networking websites are being used for currently:

















As social networks continue to grow in popularity especially for our current and next generation of the worlds workforce, there is a need to educate our non social network users. These users tend to be our upper level management, our older generation and people like me who dont use computers much other than at work. How do we educate these people? Classes are a perfect way to educate our behind the times users. If we dont take time to learn these new technologies how will we be able to relate to the next generation such as our children or our junior staff. I did a google search on social networking classes and the first listing I found was for a class at American University (ITEC333), Social Networking & Business taught by Professor Melander. This class introduces you to social networks and also shows how social networks are playing a big role in how businesses do work currently and in the near future. This class needs to be taught at all colleges especially in the business schools since this technology is being adopted by companies in a growing rate. Harvard has taken this technology to an another level by having classes inside second life. I think teaching people about this technology is great and needs to be looked at by more schools. There are a couple of questions that I have. How far will social networks evolve? Will virtual worlds over take day to day human contact? Are we really falling into the matrix?





Images From:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/images/comscore.jpg
http://www.brianoberkirch.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/value-added-services-portable-social-networks.png

Videos From YouTube:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Lbr03HaC-6E
http://youtube.com/watch?v=hC2oE6aUvRI

Nice to meet you. Do you have a card or an Avatar?

Do you remember the days of running into people that you know and you exchange business cards that looked like the one on the right? Here you found the basic information company name, position, telephone numbers, company website, and business address. Most of the time you would place those business cards in your wallet or purse and you might reach out and contact the person but most likely not. Since social networks such as LinkedIn, MySpace, and other social networks the content on business cards began changing. Here we have a business card which captures the owners blog site. These cards now make it easy to either join that persons
network or to just be able to see what the person actually does outside of work. How many times have you received a persons business card and the card has a title that made you wonder what in the world do they do? Most of the time when you ask them about it the job title does not reflect what that person really does. Also, what about the person that is between jobs and cannot give you a business card because they are looking for a job and you might know some possible contacts that they could use to help them find opportunities. That is why it is ideal to add your social networking information on the business card because you could then link that person with the right person to help them to possibly find a job opportunity.

Now that virtual worlds have been created and people have Avatars', the business card makers had a new market that had not been explored. People can now have business cards made that has their avatar character on it. One site www.moo.com, allows you to develop cards that are more for fun that allow you to have others to meet you in another world such as Second Life. Whats next passing out business cards in the virtual world?

As the world embraces technology more and more, it is seeming as though people are spending more and more of their lives within the virtual world. Its seem as though that business cards will fade out like the rotary telephone, we will just be able to enter in peoples linkedIn Ids' or Second life handles into each others cell phones. Do you think we can survive without Technology? How many people do you know that dont have either a cell phone or computer?

Make sure you know how to trade business cards, if you dont know here is a tutorial:




Images From:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEl9qNFock7SWefpI-cjvcutVfR67TpZXJTGQFEE8NkBB6alkkErsoIC6t0TeBACN-renDROnoXult7sxOMY2AzHu2OtOy3WxxXS4Rz_Om3NSOMCxTn_6k6hxeK-0xK6WlVPvvTY1sxc0/s320/OMBBizCards.jpg
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAJCabqIJg67L0Gs3CmWt4pksPVrOry_QLJHe-YgqtfIMKM62fEy0lFdx8afDHiZ4gwUuzNtUe1yyNXu48_Iad_ymWvmbt_52YmBGdwJoEZHp3JrR3m-K_B_Uo521F9LvhXZgEgSUW-OY/s320/blog_bc_front.gif
Videos From:
http://www.youtube.com/v/ffubVIVh1-8&rel=1

Oxymoron = Social Networking + The Federal Government

After reading a couple of the articles about Informal Networks and Social Networks, I had to smile and say that I have only seen these techniques successful in Corporate America. Maybe I am wrong but from the agencies I have dealt with and speaking with other people that work within other Federal Government Agencies, the biggest complaints that I have heard are that the agencies work in a stove pipes (meaning they don't collaborate well or at all).

As a contractor for Defense and Government Contractor, I was able to see the benefits of Social Networking. Our company utilized the Customized Response Method described in the Harvard Business Review "A Practical Guide to Social Networks" by Cross, Liedtka, and Weiss [1] in our Research and Development Programs. The company was able to merge technologies and expertise by keeping everyone inside of the company abreast of what projects were being implemented and the company encouraged collaboration about suggestions on how to make the project/technology better. This was done through forms of internal newsletters as well as there were brown bag seminars that each project would give an information session about what their product/technology could provide.

Working as a Contractor for the Federal Government for the last nine years I have seen how Social Networking has failed. Some of the failure was due to Managements' lack of understanding of what the real goal of creating a Social Network within their departments as well as lack of knowledge at the management/leadership level about the teams that they are leading and also influences of the contractors working for the various programs within the government.

1. How do you overcome the hurdles that the government is faced with to build a successful Social Network?

Looking at the governments current make up, most of your upper management are usually older men who usually have served in the military and have been promoted to their current position usually by years of service in the government not necessarily their expertise in that field. This poses a problem because they tend to hire a lot of their friends or comrades who also don't necessarily have the experience or knowledge base needed to do the job well. So they end up hiring contractors, which sometimes done as a favor, to come in and tell them what they need to do to make their program successful. This is the blind leading the blind.

There is also the case that multiple contractors are hired to do the same type of work for different programs under the same office. The contractors tend to convince the government official representing their program that collaboration is not a good idea for fears that the quality of work that is being provided does not reflect what the contractor is charging the government. One thing that I noticed while contracting for the government was that there was no uniformity or baseline on how programs were implemented within the government. My question is how can this be fixed when most of the issues of why collaboration wont work lies with leadership.

If you look at how the government works most of the leadership that is in place is through a Who knows Who and not How Much you know.

Can this be Fixed?