Workplace Community Building through Micro-Blogging

Rheinard Korf & Steve LinquistTAFE Devlopment UnitUniversity of Ballarat TAFE

Every company has two organisational structures: The formal one is written on the charts; the other is the everyday relationship of the men and women in the organisation. Harold S. Geneen American Businessman and Author

Is this a familiar situation?

His eyes are shut, passionately yelling through a loud speaker to a crowd of people united in cause, but disparate in message.

KnownColor

It is often easy to share knowledge with co-workers at the same level.

But how does that knowledge reach employees situated at different levels of the organisation?

Do we communicate with those outside our level in the same manner or with the same ease?

Moving knowledge past your level

jaded one

Lateral communication allows for a spirit of collaboration and teamwork by empowering employees at every level of the organizational hierarchy to work effectively together.                                                 Source: Spillman, Mino & Rowles 2002

Bethany L King

Lateral Communication in a crisis

 In an organisational crisis employee communication: 1. Diversifies in regards to formal roles and contacts 2. Increases at an interpersonal level between those previously disconnected 3. Intensifies and spreads more widely throughout the entire company network.

Source: Diesner, Frantz & Carley 2005

Seeking Lateral Communication

Common technologies and strategies employed include: • Open Forums• Communities of Practice• Newsletters• Group emails• Mentoring Programs

Consequences and responses.....

"Too many emails to read"         "Ill get back to them later"

"Why doesn't he/she ever get back to me..." 

"I just need to know who to ask?"

marvin L

Adding Micro-Blogging to the list

Micro-blogging is often described as a cross between blogging and messaging.  Users send brief text updates (140 characters or below) on what they are possibly doing, reading, thinking etc. Other users can follow these comments as a means of informal education/news gathering. As Lee Lefever from CommonCraft puts it, "Real life happens between blog posts and e-mails", and this is where micro-blogging fits. Source: Commoncraft 2008

Micro-Sharing: An alternate term

Laura Fitton coined the term Microsharing and many prefer it to describe the concept.

"Microsharing reduces the emotional and intellectual distance between people and helps them become more engaged, connected, effective and collaborative."  Source: Pistachio Consulting 2009

 

How is Micro-Blogging Different to Email?

• Users can follow the activity of others without having to converse directly

 • The focus is on sending short bite sized (140 characters or

less) messages which get to the point • Conversations can be public and/or private

 • Information can be tagged and subsequently managed

How is micro-blogging commonly used by employees? 1. As part of a personal learning network Follow experts and co-workers posting information, resources etcTo reflect upon and share learning insightsTo seek and provide 'just in time' answers to problems etc2. Productivity Reducing emailSelf-profiling participationBuild relationships that enable quick responses to future problems  

  

Micro-Blogging Services

Yammer: organisation

Twitter: worldwide

When choosing a service ask yourself "who do you wish to communicate with?"

713 Avenue

Public Updates

Private Updates

Character Limit

@Replies

#Tags

Direct Message

Images

Attachments

SMS Updates

SMS Alerts

E-Mail Notifications

Groups

Group Messages

140 10 000

via 3rd party

US and UK only via TwitterWorldwide via 3rd party

protected modechoose who may follow

within same email domain

Ten suggestions for implementing Yammer

This is not an exhaustive list, simply 10 key suggestions

Register your company email domain at yammer.com.

Invite a small number of users initally enthusiastic toward new technologies 

Neil Crosby

Use #tags to enable users to instantly see the knowledge management potential 

Seek user input into the production of an A4 overview promoting the benefits of micro-blogging at work.  

leunix

Promote the yammer user guide and/or produce a short getting started tutorial   

http://www.yammer.com/guide

After a period of activity invite users whom you feel will invite other members 

Scoobay

Promote the groups function to facilitate network growth 

Express to management the productivity and knowledge management capabilities

minifig

Seek some form of endorsement from senior management

"Micro-Blogging is an ok activity..."

 "You will not be

sacked"

minifig

Encourage other users to promote following the co-workers they follow  

  

For example on Fridays post a tag #followfriday @user1, @user2, @user3, @user4

References Diesner, J, Frantz, T & Carley, K, 2005, 'Communication Networks from the Enron Email Corpus', Computational & Mathematical Organization Theory,vol. 11, no.3, pp. 201–228, viewed 8 May 2009, retrieved from SpringerLink.   

Hill, R 2009, Watching a Yammer network explode, viewed 8 May 2009, <http://www.rosshill.com.au/article/watching-a-yammer-network-explode/>.    

Pistachio Consulting 2009, What is micro-sharing, New York, viewed 8 May 2009, <http://pistachioconsulting.com/microsharing/>.   

Quotes Daddy 2009, Every company has two organizational structures, viewed 8 May 2009, <http://www.quotesdaddy.com/quote/596177/harold-s-geneen/every-company-has-two-organizational-structures-the>. 

 

 

 

   

References continued

 Spillan, J, Mino, M, and Rowles, S, 2002, 'Sharing organizational messages through effective lateral communication'. Qualitative Research Reports in Communication, vol. 3, no.4, pp. 96-104, viewed 8 May 2009, retrieved from Academic Search Premier. Common Craft 2008, Twitter in plain English , viewed 8 May 2009, <http://commoncraft.com/twitter>. 

 

 

 

   

More Information

Our bookmarks used to create this presentation can be found at:

http://delicious.com/tag/vistarksl