American Chemical Society ACS Network & Social Collaboration Presentation to the Lehigh Valley Local Section Christopher McCarthy, Social Media Manager,

American Chemical Society

ACS Network & Social CollaborationPresentation to the Lehigh Valley Local Section

Christopher McCarthy, Social Media Manager, M&SA

Christine Brennan Schmidt, Sr. Product Manager, WSO

January 30, 2014

American Chemical Society 2

Social - What is it?

• Definition: of, relating to, or characteristic of the experience, behavior, and interaction of persons forming groups

• It implies that we are interacting

• It is NOT unprofessional

Social Media, Networking, & Collaboration

• Online

– Media – sharing/transmitting information (blogs, Twitter)

– Networking –building relationships with other people (Facebook, LinkedIn)

– Collaboration –working together, creating something new

• Often these three words get used interchangeably


Why is Social Important

• More and more used in business settings

• Facilitates people working together

– Overcomes barriers of time and geography

– Inclusive

• Better efficiency

• Leverages the synergies found in a group


ACS Network – What is it?

• Social platform of the ACS

– Hybrid platform which allows for both networking and collaboration

– Does not require ACS membership

– Includes most ACS members

• Functionality to promote discussions, networking, document collaboration, and events

www.acs.org/network


Why the ACS Network

• Licensed by ACS for the chemical community

– ACS owns the content

• Uses the ACS ID

– Same credentials for most ACS systems

• Functionality is being developed with the chemical community in mind

– Integrating with other ACS systems is being explored

• Continuity as leadership changes

– ACS support of groups and materials

• Blending of tools that you see on social media, networking and collaboration sites

• It is different from Facebook and LinkedIn


ACS Network: CollaborationGroups

• Place where you put content for your organization

• Discussions, blogs, documents, photos, videos, ideas, events

• Anyone can set up

• Four types

– Open – anyone can see and participate

– Member – anyone can see, but must join the group to participate

– Private – Can see that group exists but must have permission (invitation) to join the group to participate

– Secret – No one except members of the group (and invitees) can see the group

• Customize Overview (home) page

• (live demo: www.acs.org/network)


Example Group


What is being done with groups?

• Discussions – between meetings talk about ideas, concepts, or anything covered in face-to-face meetings

• Agendas and Meeting Minutes

– Upload or create documents or sets of documents online

– Have the members of your group review and comment

• Control when documents are open for commenting

– Repository for latest version

• Awards and Grant selection

• Selecting Ideas


Documents

• Commenting available

– Set for a time period

• Set who can edit document

– Can set if approval is required

• Versioning


Private Content

• When content is created, it is either placed in a group or forum or it can be private

• Private content is good when working with a small group of people

– Create a document and give access to 2 or 3 others

– When finished, open it up to the entire group or forum.

• Authors can discuss content with author comments before publishing content to a group or forum.

– No one but authors can see the author comments

• Can control always who can edit a piece of content


Document Collaboration

Uploaded Documents

• Upload a Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPoint file or a PDF

• Renders an online version (Flash-based)

• Inline commenting

• Downloadable

Online Documents

• Created using online editor

• Edit by others online

• Compare versions online


Online DocumentsComparing and Managing Versions


Uploaded Document


Grant or Award Selection

• Help facilitate grant/award application review

• Each application can be uploaded

• Vote up or down using the “Like” button

• Rate the document with Star-ratings

• Or use a spreadsheet the reviewers make entries into


Selecting Ideas

• Single selection – Use a Poll

– Multiple things to choose – only one answer

• Multiple items (prioritize) – Ideas

– Enter items individually

– Users discuss, then vote (which results in points)

– Higher points indicate higher popularity


Ideation example


Tagging (and Categories)

• Tagging is the most important way to make sure content is found

• Categories and tags are useful for sorting content within a group

– Better than putting documents in individual folders


Streams – Organize the content most important to you


Navigating to Your Preferences

• Email Notifications under Preferences


ACS Network as a Social Media Networking tool

• Use Open Group to push out information to the masses.

• Announcements for Events

– Information including description, time, place, URL, contact info, etc.

– Group Calendar

• Share photos or videos of events

– Might be a group effort

– Photos contributed to albums

As others become more interested in content, engagement rises, conversations increase, and people start connecting.


Your Profile for Networking

• Networking implies your connecting with people.

• Users can create a profile

– Can include pictures, info about education, experience, expertise, career

– Privacy on many of the items (open to public, to registered users, to friends, to no one)

– Recommend tagging


The profile


Making the Connection:Adding Contacts

• Contacts

– Search based on local section, division

– Invite a user to become a contact

– Label your contacts

• Helps sorting and communicating to subsets of contacts (colleagues, fellow committee members, former students, etc.)


A Closer Look at Contacts


Following and Status updates

• Let your friends know what is important to you

– Provocative article

– Worthwhile event

• Remind them what’s important


Events and Calendaring


Comments on an event


Videos and Photo Albums

• Photo Albums and Videos are great ways capture an event and share it with others.

• Visual is fun.

• Helps engage members.

• Contribute their own photos.

• Serves as a record of the activity


Complementary Channels

• Social media works best by using multiple channels to reach out to your audience.

• Use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn

– Promote an event

– Highlight a discussion

– Announce a deadline

• Use other modes

– Texting

– E-mail promotions

• Different tools make more sense for different content. Think about your audience, your content, and your desired results.


Toolkits

• Targeted at specific audiences

– Local Section: www.acs.org/ls-network-kit

– Technical Division: www.acs.org/td-network-kit

– Committees: www.acs.org/committee-network-kit

– Student Chapters: www.acs.org/student-network-kit

• Online version has hyperlinks to support documents which explain in detail how functionality works.

• Find list of toolkits in ACS Communities forum


Need help?

• Help Forum on ACS Network

• Send email to [email protected]

• Contact us directly

• Christine Brennan Schmidt

– Senior Product Manager, Web Strategy & Operations

– [email protected]

• Christopher McCarthy

– Social Media Manager, Membership & Scientific Advancement

– [email protected]
