Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
1
Social Media for CrowdSourcing & Collaboration
Social Media for Government Conference, July 13, 2011
Lisa M. Cole, NCI Center for Biomedical Informatics and IT
Closing the Gap:
Who are we? . . .• The National Cancer Institute - The National Cancer Institute (NCI) is part
of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is one of 11 agencies that constitute the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The NCI, established under the National Cancer Institute Act of 1937, is the Federal Government's principal agency for cancer research and training.
• CBIIT – The Center for Biomedical Informatics and Information Technology administers several computational biology programs under NCI, including caBIG® . CBIIT also provides the IT service infrastructure and support for all NCI computer users.
• caBIG®– Cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid - The mission of caBIG® is to develop a collaborative information network that accelerates the discovery of new approaches for the detection, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of cancer. caBIG® has developed a tightly knit user community of bioinformaticians who participate and collaborate via a series of online and social tools
Where are we going today? . . .
1. Briefly define what we mean by the terms crowdsourcing, collaboration, and ideation (yes there is some overlap!)
2. Explore categories of tools, as well as a few of the specific ones NCI & CBIIT have used, and any lessons learned, particularly with enterprise wiki’s and social media integration.
3. How to think strategically about which tools to use
4. How to close the feedback loop on input from stakeholders, and why it’s important
5. Twenty tips for Gov 2.0 Cluetrain style (one-page handout)
6. Good Reads
PowerPoint Twitter Feedback SlideUse Presentation Mode to view, Click this header to give mouse control back to PowerPoint, change slide, etc. Check the “alternate format” to see more tweets! http://www.sapweb20.com/blog/powerpoint-twitter-tools/
© SAP 2009 / Page 4
Collaboration
To work jointly with others or together especially in an intellectual endeavor .
(“Share what you know, discover what you don’t. . .” ) Confluence tagline
Why Collaborate?
Clay Shirky video: “Future Transformations” from UsNowFilms.
Us Now is a documentary film project about the power of mass collaboration, government, and the Internet. Us Now tells the stories of online networks that are challenging the existing notion of hierarchy. For the first time, it brings together the foremost thinkers in the field of participative governance to describe the future of government.
Why Collaborate?
“If you can create an encyclopedia using a million people who’ve never met but the quality is as good as the Encyclopedia Britannica, what else could you create?”
“There’s a whole new model emerging where we all become part of the government.”
“. . . I’m talking about UNBUNDLING and RE-CONSTITUTING what IS a government”
“. . . A revolution doesn’t happen when a society adopts new tools, it happens when a society adopts new BEHAVIORS”
Why Collaborate?Lisa’s personal take: All knowledge going forward will evolve to the model of collaborative knowledge acquisition and management/curation
Our children are learning the language of collaboration starting in elementary school with group and “Team Projects” etc.
Our educational institutions prize collaborative learning. More colleges and public school systems now using Google Apps for document sharing, group calendaring, email, etc. (special Educational version). MCPS a pioneer.
Metrics are coming: “Collaborative Intelligence” is a measure of the collaborative ability of a group or entity. Knowledge derived from collaborative efforts is affected by the development of the World Wide Web, collaborative groupware such as Skype, NetMeeting, WebEx, and many other factors, although the overall effect of these developments is disputed.
Collaboration Success Factors
1. A culture that supports the use of social media, understands that there’s a learning curve (yes, some mistakes will be made), and understands the pros, cons, time, and resources that it will take. Not just a fad (but not a sliver bullet, either!) , also requires commitment to transparency (at least with a lower case “t”!) and diversity of opinion. Once you open the door, you cannot go back!
2. A commitment to aligning business processes with the use of social media collaboration tools: How will this fit with our work flow and organizational model? What does success look like & how will we measure it? Will we use the review/filter & delegate model, or empower all?
3. The desire (and resource commitment) to LEARN and KEEP LEARNING about the use of social media and collaboration tools, as the landscape is constantly changing.
Collaboration Success Factors
4. Begin with the End in Mind – How will you close the feedback loop in your collaboration, crowdsourcing, and ideation efforts? If you don’t use peoples’ ideas, etc. how will you communicate the value of the process and the cross-pollination that occurred? This will keep trust and motivation alive.
5. Get up close and personal with your IT and systems colleagues, as well as your legal folks – you’ll need them. They may be risk averse, and you may often feel that they’re out to get you, but they really aren’t: that’s just the world they live in, and a balance will need to be found. Talk opportunity costs and about risks of doing vs. risks of NOT doing social media.
6. Evolutionary, Not Revolutionary – Go for gradual, small steps and wins. Start internally if your people are nervous. Test-drive. Try the “MVP” approach (“minimally viable product”): Show or tell a concept in rough form, solicit feedback, and then iterate on that idea. Train as you go.
Collaboration – Hellooo, What’s Out There?• Multiple tools to work collaboratively via social media.
• Microblogging (Twitter, Yammer, SocialText, MangoSprings, etc.)
• Wikis – MediaWiki, PBwiki, Confluence, etc. Editing, sharing, socializing, “watching” and tagging content, as opposed to more permanent content curation & display of a website or CMS.
• Intranets (hybrid).
• MicroSoft SharePoint.
• Google Apps for Government.
• Scientific Social Sites (Epernicus.com, ResearchGate, etc.)
Collaboration
Three principal objectives of public engagement:
• 1. Decision making: including participation in planning, resource allocation, and policy development.
• 2. Action: meaning citizen participation in the implementation of programs, for example, direct involvement in gathering data and evidence; participating in advocacy efforts, surveillance, and implementation of public campaigns.
• 3. Accountability: allowing the public to monitor and evaluate public or private sector compliance with decisions taken. For each one of these objectives, engagement can be measured along a continuum that has been loosely defined as having five levels:
Collaboration
For each one of these objectives, engagement can be measured along a continuum that has been loosely defined as having five levels:
A collaboration platform should support all five levels of engagement. This means that the technology has to enable the following capabilities:
Collaboration Platform Must Have’s:
• Share information in electronic data and audiovisual formats.
• Allow citizens and/or other stakeholders to gather and submit research or surveillance data in a variety of formats from structured data to open-ended or unstructured information.
• Bring people together to support dialogue, decision making, and different sorts of group processes, in both real-time and asynchronous settings.
• Support for groups of varying sizes.
• Accessibility to a wide range of people with varying levels of experience with and access to technology.
Collaboration: NCI Examples• “Collaborate” internal Confluence wiki for all NCI (behind firewall, need VPN if
no government laptop). Governed by LDAP.
• NCI External/Public Facing Confluence wiki (outside the firewall). Anyone can register.
• Multiple Twitter accounts for divisions and centers, coordinated by the Office of Communications and Education. CBIIT recently launched its own Twitter account, and three of its seven academic Knowledge Centers have them also.
• Intranets (hybrid) – NCI Intranet plus individual Divisions & Centers’ intranets.
• *Wikis/Blogs – MediaWiki, PBwiki, Confluence.
Note: These are connected as much as possible, promoted across channels
Stakeholders & Granularity: Closing the Gap
Consumers, Patient Community, Researchers (that benefit from but don’t directly use tools)
NCI Confluence Wiki External vs Internal
Integrating Twitter into Confluence Wiki
CBIIT MediaWiki vs. Confluence Wiki
• Enterprise social structures and collaboration platforms will always evolve and devolve, as new tools, priorities, and processes appear.
• We began the Knowledge Center enterprise wiki on Media wiki.
• Well known (via Wikipedia) and familiar features.
• Growth in complexity and collaborative volume, and need to streamline the technology stack gradually made it necessary to consider moving to a wiki platform with more granularity in terms of permissioning structure for teams and projects, and more flexibility for editing and socializing content.
• Decision reached to migrate from Media Wiki to Confluence.
• Halfway through that migration process.
Collaboration Tools: Strategic ?’s to Ask Note: Trying to keep this section both tool- and platform-agnostic:
Ask the following strategic questions about prospective tools:
•Are there government/GSA terms of service?
•Is the tool Section 508 compliant?
•Are the moderation and privacy settings highly customizable?
•Are there diverse plugins and/or extensions available?
•Is it multimedia/widget/macro friendly?
•Can it accommodate both outside and inside the firewall instances?
•How will I promote it’s use?
Collaboration Tools: Strategic ?’s to Ask• What kind of tech stack is needed to support it? Tech support from vendor?
•What kind of analytics are available, if any? search function?
•Is there a live chat or socialization component? Ie., Flowdock plugin for real-time group chat integrates/imports RSS, email, and Twitter.
•Is it open source or commercial? Can my IT folks handle it and will they willingly support and champion it from a systems perspective? Which fits with our culture and resources the best? Are there political issues around it?
•How important is document output and formatting (a wiki weak link)?
•Who will be the permissioning and information architecture gurus? Answer depends on richness and variety of teams and team structures/objectives.
•How will this collaboration tool be integrated with the other parts of our online presence, our social media strategy, and our mobile plans?
Collaboration Tools: ?’s to Ask
TRAINING, TRAINING, TRAINING!!!??!?!!??
Collaboration & Your Users: ?’s to Ask
• How can we meet our stakeholders where they are, given the research we’ve done about them, including their tech skills and culture? What platforms are they already using? Can we leverage those or at least connect to them?
• How can we make the user experience convenient and clear, as well as rich and rewarding? What are the resource trade-offs?
• Do our users have any experience with enterprise collaboration tools? Positive or negative? If negative, how to handle?
• Can we put together a user group to help us test navigation, information architecture, desired feature set, promotional strategy, etc.?
• What kind of content will be so compelling it will drive our stakeholders to the collaboration site(s) we are building?
• Who will maintain that content and build processes around it?
The Dark Side of Collaboration Tools
•Almost ANY form of collaborative activity takes more time and costs more in terms of resources than a command-and-control approach
•With crowdsourcing especially, there is little in the way of governance, contracts, etc.
•Usually little or no compensation with crowdsourcing, so sustaining engagement and motivation is key (advent of prize-challenges)
•Large-scale project management of a crowdsourced project can be a real challenge
•HOWEVER, the rewards in terms of engagement and empowerment of stakeholders usually outweigh the risks.
CrowdSourcing
The act of outsourcing tasks, traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, to an undefined, large group of people or community (a “Crowd”) through an open call. In other words, leveraging people.
Generic CrowdSourcing Tools
• CNN “iReport”: I Report is a user-generated section of CNN.com, where the stories come from citizen journalists. CNN has vetted only the stories marked with the "CNN" badge. Most cities now also have citizen pot-hole reporting capabilities.
• SETI@home : The first and largest distributed computing initiative. Currently the largest distributed computing effort with over 3 million users. Participate by running a program that downloads and analyzes signals from the Alameda, NM huge telescopes scanning the galaxy for signs of life.
• WikiPedia: Online open editing dictionary platform.
• CrowdMap: Collect data, map it, build a timeline … data visualization
• GoWalla: Think geo-location like Foursquare but with badges. (As they say it: “Check in with Gowalla on your phone to stamp your Passport at each place you visit. It’s pretty much like stamping your passport in real life.”)
Generic CrowdSourcing Tools• “Amazon Mechanical Turk” Functionality - Mechanical Turk offers access
to a virtual community of workers that are available to help you accomplish your business goals. A robust set of APIs and command line tools enable you to programmatically distribute tasks that require human intelligence to a widely distributed, on-demand workforce.
• MeetWays- Enter two addresses and find the halfway point … great for meeting sources, co-workers, clients or ….
• Quora: Think WikiPedia meets Yahoo Answers … it’s free, it’s public, it’s easy to search and it’s still growing (As they said it: “A continually improving collection of questions and answers created, edited, and organized by everyone who uses it.”)
• Storify: We really like this one. You can build a multimedia story using the social media conversation that has been part of your reporting (As they said it: “Turn what people post on social media into compelling stories … that can be embedded anywhere.”)
NCI/CBIIT CrowdSourcing Examples
1. “Provocative Questions” Website by NCI Director, Dr. Harold Varmus
• For ideation, socialization, collaboration, and funding allocation to solve the most elusive and perplexing questions about cancer.
2. Participation in HHS “Health 2.0 Developer Challenge” Code-athon
• Your agency is probably involved in many other “open gov” crowdsourcing initiatives.
3. Program Committee for Annual Meeting (possible use of ideation software so that the user committee can actually help do the planning work).
Provocative Questions Website
Crowdsourcing Critical Success Factor Model Strategies to harness the collective intelligence of the crowd , by Ankit Sharma
Ideation
Ideation is the creative process of generating, developing, and communicating new ideas, where an idea is understood as a basic element of thought that can be either visual, concrete, or abstract. Ideation is all stages of a thought cycle, from innovation, to development, to actualization. (Come up with great ideas, vs. “do work.”)
Ideation Examples
• Multiple tools to collect, categorize, process, and have community vote/rank ideas, suggestions.
• UserVoice, IdeaScale, Get Satisfaction, and PubliVate (for “Challenges”) are just a few, with many more listed in the pdf file on The Collaboration Project website: www.collaborationproject.org.
• Government’s new “prizes” policy intended to jumpstart crowdsouring initiatives.
NCI/CBIIT Ideation Examples
• White Paper Topic development at Joint NCRI/NCI Conference in London, using IdeaScale.
• http://biomedicalinformaticswithoutborders.ideascale.com/
• Provocative Questions Website.
• Blog Features of Confluence Wiki.
Ideation Strategy
• Think strategically about how their use fits into your organization’s culture and strategic planning process, what you will do with the most popular ideas, and how you will close the feedback loop (what happened to their submitted ideas?)
• Ask the following:
• Private or public ideation site?
• Are there government/GSA terms of service?
• Is it Section 508 compliant?
• Are the moderation and privacy settings highly customizeable?
• How will we promote it?
• What will drive it?
Food For Thought . . .
"Knowledge is only one factor among many influences that are likely to guide how individuals reach judgments, with ideology, social identity, and trust often having stronger impacts.”
Bubela, Nisbet et al. (2009) Nature Biotech
Some Good Reads . . . . . .
1. Tactical Transparency: How Leaders Can Leverage Social Media to Maximize Value and Build their Brand (J-B International Association of Business Communicators) by Shel Holz
2. The Art of Community: Building the New Age of Participation (Theory in Practice) by Jono Bacon O’Reilly Media
3. Enterprise 2.0: New Collaborative Tools for Your Organization's Toughest Challenges by Andrew McAfee
4. Groundswell, Expanded and Revised Edition: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff
5. Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, by Clay Shirky
