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ID and Other ReflectionsSunday,'February'5,'2012
The$21st$Century$Curator
Source: go-gulf.com via Sahana on Pinterest
If Web 1.0 was about online access and Web 2.0 is about social
nets, Web 3.0 will be coring down to content that
really matters. ~wrote Martin Smith in the post, Curation - The
Next Web Revolution.
As mentioned by Harold Jarche in the slide share presentation,
NetWork, the internet changed everything—in volume,velocity,
virtualization and variability. And nowhere is this more evident
than in the content being created everysecond of every day. Take a
look at this infographic which captures what gets created on the
Internet every 60seconds very nicely:
http://pinterest.com/pin/247698048225202468/.
Not surprisingly, curation has become the next buzzword after
social business. With content coming at us with theforce of a
tsunami and the fury of a tornado, curators seem to have become our
saviours—our sense making guide.One post out of five I have been
reading in the past few months seem to be associated with curation
or its closecousins—aggregation and filtering. Even as I read, I
was tempted to apply some of the curation strategies and
puttogether this post. I like to build some context around the
links because—who knows—in the Internet world, a workinglink today
can be a dead link tomorrow.
Curation today takes on a new meaning in the context of
technological affordance, information abundance,diminishing
attention, hunger for contextual and timely information, and
constantly shifting, globally linkedlandscape. In this complex and
chaotic world, making sense can only be a constant endeavour,
pattern matching acrucial need. And this is what today’s curators
do—aided and inspired by technology.
I will not delve into the root of curation as traditionally
practiced by museum curators and librarians, which conferredon them
the status of an expert. And those thus anointed went on to shape
the taste and understanding of humanswho arrived at their domain.
For a deeper understanding of the rise of curation, I recommend
that you read StevenRosenbaum’s Curation Nation.
A little reflection reveals that curation is a way of life for
all of us—we are all curators. How we put our curation skills
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to use is what makes us unique. We are curating when we pick the
books that will adorn our shelves; we are curatingwhen we choose
our furniture; the store keeper is curating when s/he selects and
arranges the display. We are alsocurating when we choose what to
share with our Facebook friends. And in each type of curation, what
comes acrossare unique perspectives, a sense of pattern and a
representation the curator wants the world to see. But I
digress.
I want to focus on curation and the need we feel for it today
and some of the skills that make for a curator. I havealso
referenced some of the posts and articles that shaped my
understanding and thoughts around curation.
In the September of 2009, Rohit Bhargave wrote a post called the
Manifesto For The Content Curator: The Next BigSocial Media Job Of
The Future? . I stumbled across this quite recently. And one of the
most telling sentences thatleap out from the post is this: “…By
some estimates in just a few years we will reach a point where all
theinformation on the Internet will double every 72 hours.” While
the magnitude escapes the capacity of our mind’sability to
comprehend, this does beg the question: should we focus on creation
or curation? How do separate thewheat from the chaff? How do we
make sense? Bhargava goes on to define a Content Curator thus: A
Content Curatoris someone who continually finds, groups, organizes
and shares the best and most relevant content on a specific
issue
online. This then is an individual, who makes sense of the
deluge and presents it in a manner that is coherent,
easilyunderstood and relevant.
He followed this up later with The 5 Models Of Content Curation.
This post highlights the 5 potential models ofcuration as he calls
them, which are forms or manifestations of a curated output. You
may want to read the post for adetailed understanding, but here is
the gist of what he mentions: 1. Aggregation: Aggregation is the
act of curating the most relevant information about a particular
topic into asingle location.
2. Distillation: Distillation is the act of curating information
into a more simplistic format where only the mostimportant or
relevant ideas are shared.
3. Elevation: Elevation refers to curation with a mission of
identifying a larger trend or insight from smaller dailymusings
posted online.
4. Mashup: Mashups are unique curated juxtapositions where
merging existing content is used to create a newpoint of view.
5. Chronology: Chronology is a form of curation that brings
together historical information organized based ontime to show an
evolving understanding of a particular topic.
Here’s a visual representation of the model above taken from
Beth Kanter’s post: Best Practices for Content Curationfor
Nonprofits at Social Media for Nonprofits Conference.
Curating is also defined thus: … I mean curating in the sense of
organizing, editing, displaying, highlighting,captioning,
commenting on, and all of the activities you'd see associated with
telling a specific story from your point
of view…~ in the post, Curating Information as Content
Strategy.Aggregation is perhaps the most frequently seen
manifestation of curation because it is easier to do than the
rest.Aggregation can be automated by setting smart filters and
alerts. But while useful, it is lower on the value chain.However,
aggregation can be infused with greater depth as described in Is
Content Curation the New Black …many ofthe world's top websites and
blogs are largely curation-based. Lifehacker.com is a great
example. There's asmattering of their own stuff, a more substantial
article mixed in here and there. But it's largely about curating
the
The'21st'Century'Curator
If'Web'1.0'was'about'online
access'and'Web'2.0'is'about
social'nets,'Web'3.0'will'be
coring'down'to'content'that
really'matters.'~wrote'Ma...
My'Personalized'Agile'or'What'I
have'Learned'from'It
I'complete'exactly'3'months'at
ThoughtWorks'today.'While
this'has'been'a'momentous
career'shift'for'me,'I'may'not
have'written'a'blog'post'...
Lurking'is'Not'a'Static'State
Lurking'and'its'role''in
communities''has'been'on'the
forefront'of'my'mind'for'the
past'few'days.'It'has'received'a
lot'of'attention'in'the'...
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need-to-know info in the world of, well, life and tech
hacks.
Robert Scoble’s post, the 7 needs of real time curators, lists
what affordances technology and tools should offer acurator for
them to add true value—something beyond just aggregation. Excerpt
below: 1. Real-time curators need to bundle.2. Real-time curators
need to reorder things.3. Real-time curators need to distribute
bundles.4. Real-time curators need to editorialize.5. Real-time
curators need to update their bundles.6. Real-time curators need to
add participation widgets.7. Real-time curators need to track their
audience.It is difficult to deny anymore that curation is the need
of the hour. Whether we depend on others to provide us withcurated
content or we decide to become curators in our area(s) of expertise
or interest, the need for curation as asense making and PKM
activity is undeniable. This of course means that we should at
least be familiar with the basicsof curation and the technological
affordances.
The next natural question then is how does one begin to curate?
And here I found Tim Kastelle’s post, Five Forms ofFiltering
useful. Filtering as explained in the post, takes place in two
ways—the judgement-based or human and themechanical. Judgement
based filtering occurs at different levels—Naïve, Expert and the
Network. Mechanicalfiltering is driven by Heuristics and
Algorithms. Our interest and passion can take us from being a naïve
filterer tobeing an expert.
An expert on a topic may use any or a combination of the
curation forms mentioned above—aggregation, distillation,elevation,
mashup and chronology—to present their readers with a certain
perspective or overview. This is of coursesimilar to the PKM model
suggested by Harold Jarche.For effective curated output, pattern
recognition is essential. A good curator sees patterns before
others, can connectthe dots in seemingly disparate pieces of
information, and can distinguish between an important trend as
opposed to apassing fad. The one critical difference between PKM
and deliberate curation—as I see it—is that he former is
inwardfocused even while taking place in a networked world. The
latter is deliberately outward focused with the intent ofpresenting
a perspective or an insight or a trend to others. The steps
involved are similar while the desired outcomemay be different.
In conclusion:How do the skills of a curator apply in an
organizational context? More than ever before, as we know. In
globallydistributed and networked organizations engaged in doing
complex work, where exception handling is likely to be thenorm, it
is crucial for information flow to be transparent and to have folks
who can spot the patterns, connect thedots and provide that key
insight which keep an organization on the cutting edge. They may or
may not be officiallyconferred the title of curators. But the need
is irrefutable. Probably the biggest challenge facing organizations
todayis not the lack of data creation, but the lack of someone who
can connect all the floating dots—inside and outside
theorganization—that lead to meaningful decisions. While some
aspects can be automated—using analytics—it stillrequires a human
curator to recognize patterns and present the output.
Who are likely to be playing the role of key curators in an
organization? Most likely to be the community managers!With
organizations going the social business route and investing in a
social platform, community managers will soonbecome an essential
role. And community managers are the best placed to play the role
of curators as well. Oneinsight I gleaned from this post by
Bertrand Duperrin: Are curators the missing thing in enterprise 2.0
approaches?Curators are focused on information flows without
thinking they’re leading or managing any community. From whichI
draw the inference that curators need not be community managers,
but community managers should ideally havecuration skills or work
closely with curators to build a successful community.
As Clay Shirky said here: Curation comes up when search stops
working…[and] when people realize that it isn't justabout
information seeking, it's also about synchronizing a community.
More on the specific skills we need to develop to be effective
curators in my next post.
Reference: Content Strategy and Curation: A stack on
Delicious
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Posted by Sahana at 6:32 PM ShareThis
Labels: content strategy, curation, curator, pkm
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4$comments:
Cristina M. Feb 8, 2012 11:45 AM
A very good blog post: solid arguments and excellent tips on
curation. Thank you for sharing.
Reply
Sahana Feb 14, 2012 09:12 PM
Thank you for visiting my blog and for the kind comment,
Cristina. I do hope you will keep coming and will besharing your
insights and suggestions. I would also be very happy to know what
else you'd like to see in thisblog.
Reply
Mark Britz Feb 20, 2012 05:23 PM
Sahana, Better late than never on my comments here. You did very
well in curating a valuable piece on curationitself. I was
particularly drawn to your comment "They may or may not be
officially conferred the title of curators.But the need is
irrefutable." This is a critical point as in the short-term I see
few midsized orgs creating a jobdescription for this role and yet,
the ability to do it and have it done will be critical. I
whole-heartedly agree thatCommunity Manager(s) will be undertaking
this position almost unconsciously and likely with little
recognition fortheir work. You also hint that it will be "folks"
doing this work (plural). I see 2 types of CMs evolving. One
morefocused on the content and making content more
understandable/digestible..the other focused on the communitybeyond
the content. For example, here in the states we see two
sportscaster in the booth during sporting events- one sportscaster
provides the facts, an expert who can see and anticipate what the
audience will want to know.The other, the color commentary, one who
provides the emotional angle so key for connection to the event as
awhole. Food for thought.
Reply
Sahana Feb 20, 2012 06:15 PM
Mark, thank you for your comment and for the very thoughtful
points. I completely agree with you that the role ofthe CM itself
will diversify. It will happen almost without intent initially and
will then evolve in the ways you havementioned. My fear is that
while marketing is beginning to consider content strategy as one of
the keys toattracting customers, within the enterprise the need is
not yet clearly defined. I do believe that curators--theymay come
from anywhere in the enterprise but most likely to be CMs--will
bridge the gap and spot the patternbetween disparate information.
This role will increasingly become important--whether officially
recognized or not--as these folks will be the ones to spot emerging
trends, patterns in exceptions, edge cases that could beimportant
to the core...you get my point. I don't yet know how many
organizations will see the importance of sucha role in their
business strategy but eventually they will have to. Else, too much
valuable insight, knowledge andlessons and learned will pass by
leaving nobody any wiser.
Reply
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