Question 51 of 365: What do we model in our networks?

Question 39 of 365: What data points are we missing?

All of the data points matter. The ones that fit neatly inside of your daily life are just as important as the ones that lay way outside of it. The information that causes us to go forward unabated is no less valuable than the stuff that makes us cautious. The problem is, sometimes you do not have all of the data.

Specifically, in terms of the people that I know, there are huge gaps in skill set and experience. While I have access to a great many people through my professional social networks, there is much more that ties them together than separates them. Each of them has more than a passing interest in technology. Many, if not most, have some interest in teaching and learning. And, nearly everyone I associate myself with is working on creating, writing, coding, connecting, presenting or some other productive pursuit. These things that join them all together as “my network” also mean that I am missing out on huge amounts of information and people that do not fit these roles. While I can go out of my way to collect voices that go against my own ideas, even those people will be passionate creators of content, have an interest in learning, and probably care about technology. Those voices are not new data points; they just provide a new outlook on the same data.

I ran into an amazing tool for visualizing all of the data points in my network, and it really brought home just how homogeneous my network is. The tool is called Gist and once you give it access to gmail, twitter, linkedin, and facebook, it will analyze all of your contacts and conversations to see the patterns of how your network acts and reacts. It literally shows you just how important each contact is to your working and waking life. You can adjust this importance if you like, but the default data is pretty telling for me.

The most important people in my network according to Gist are all involved in Online Teaching and Learning, more specifically, the online school in my district. While this is not surprising, it means that on any given day, the data points that I get to consider are all working on the same things that I am working on. They are working toward the same goals, bringing only the small differences in their experiences to the table.

So, now that I know exactly just how insular my network is. Here are the following things I would like to add in order to gain a much richer perspective on my own existence:

• A fortune 500 CEO
• Some kids who make up games for fun in the middle of a large metropolitan city
• Professionals who do not speak english (Google has a pretty good translation feature now)
• A cohort of happily retired individuals
• Someone like LeVar Burton (Actor, eloquent speaker, fan of reading)
• People who struggle to understand technology
• Baseball players who toil in the minor leagues for 10 years or more
• People recently divorced (I literally can count on one hand the number of people in my close network that have gotten divorced. While that may be an anomaly, perhaps it has something to do with the number of people in my close network that are children of divorced parents)
• Functionally illiterate people with good paying jobs

And there are lots of other data points that I think would add value to my outlook for technology, learning, and entrepreneurship. While I love that Gist can show me all of the holes in my network, I have not yet been able to figure out how to fill them. That kind of a service would be one that I would be very interested in.

I would like to imagine a world in which I can say that I have all of the data points required in order to speak and act in my own best interest. While I can say that I do that right now, I believe that without hearing the stories and understanding the background of lives outside of my daily existence, I can’t really know what will lead me to greater understanding of education, the economy, politics, or humanity. I feel like those things are worth knowing, too.

Perhaps social networks are structured all wrong for this type of pursuit, though. If I want to find people who are nothing like me; how would I go about doing that? Facebook is set up to connect me with the people that I already know, LinkedIn connects me to people that I work with, and Twitter is a wildcard but it has a specific userbase that mostly fits with my worldview. Maybe it is time for a social network to be created that puts together all of the stakeholders on any given subject, especially the ones that are not traditionally listened to. Perhaps there is room for a network to grow around getting everyone to the table, not just those with an inclination to show up. I want a social network to exist for the simple function of telling the most complete version of a story possible. That is a story I would read.

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• Climbing up the social ladder … (heyjude.wordpress.com)

Question 26 of 365: Is treading water dangerous?

As far as metaphors go, there are no greater cliches than using treading water to represent staying in one given place in your personal or professional life. However, every once in a while, the metaphor is warranted, so I hope you will not begrudge me using it. I use it now not to describe whether or not treading water is lame or counterproductive. I think that it is fairly obvious that not having a direction or reaching for something is a universally panned activity. At the very least, we pay lip service to trying to find your passion, and swimming against the current as if they were they were virtuous in their own right.

My invocation of this metaphor is much more centered on the idea that treading water is quite probably dangerous in addition to generally being a bad tactic for achieving what you want in your life.

Imagine for a moment that there are two people in an office. This office has a number of IT professionals, trainers/teachers, management, and support staff. It is generally a high functioning office in that people show up to meetings on time, everyone seems to like each other enough to be civil, and people get paid on time. The first person in this office does not blog, tweet, podcast, post status updates on facebook or connect with anyone on LinkedIn in a professional capacity. The second person does have this kind of connected online presence. Both get a decent amount of work done within their teams and they have been reviewed well in the past few years. Up until this point, there is very little difference between the two of them.

I would like to make the case that the person who does not have an online presence is treading water. While he may be advancing his career, there is no record outside of the office that this is the case. His general direction is measured based upon exactly what the company’s general direction is. So, while the company may be moving forward (perhaps even as a result of his efforts), he is still really in the exact same spot within the company. The ocean waves are moving, not him.

I would also like to make the case that the second person has a direction. Through her daily tweets and weekly blog posts, she is reflecting on what has transpired within her job. She is asking questions and finding answers for what is going on within her profession. Her forward momentum always outpaces that of the company. Even when the company has a major setback, her network keeps her legs churning and her arms moving through the water with intense energy.

So, why is the first person dangerous for treading water?

This first person is dangerous because you can’t tread water forever. Eventually you have to reach solid ground or you will drown. This person is even more dangerous because he will drown others while he is trying to stay afloat.

If you have no external voice through a modern network, you are easily outsourced. If your company doesn’t know that losing you will have the effect of losing all of the experts that go along with you, you are sunk. If your work stays within the confines of the company, credit is easily obfuscated.

Treading water isn’t a strategy for the future, it is simply a method of keeping your head above water. The danger of not posting or preparing a presence online is that you cannot represent yourself or your company to the people that need to see it. You cannot be an advocate for the things that your school district needs in order to to keep on working. In essence, if you are not sharing what it is that is important to you and your office, you are going to bring it down. If you have other competitors (and you are kidding yourself if you think you don’t), they will win. If you can’t place yourself into the great evaluative system that is the web, there is little chance for people to see that you have any value.

While this metaphor may be wearing quite thin at this point, I think it bears repeating. If you are treading water in your job or in your life, you are a danger to yourself and others.

Social Networking for a Non-Profit

I was asked to give a presentation on Social Networking for Non-Profits and more specifically, facebook, and so here is my best shot at a number of resources that get at the core of this subject.

1. The unavoidable Common Craft video on Social Networks
2. A summary of a bit of research on Non-Profits using Social Networks. (Direct Link to Research)
3. The few documents that make the most sense for this topic:

• Facebook Pages for Non-Profits
• Facebook for Non-Profit Beginners
• Facebook Pages for Viral Marketing
• Promote your Cause on Facebook
• 8 Secrets of Effective Online Networking
• Determining your Organization’s Social Networking Needs

1. Important resources and blogs for Nonprofits and social media:

• Beth Kantor’s Blog
• Tech Soup – The Technology Place for NonProfits
  
• Using Social Networks to Create Social Change Presentation:
Using Social Networks for Social Change: Facebook, MySpace and More

View more presentations from Ivan Boothe.

I will be updating this list over the next day or so, but let me know if there are any glaring omissions.

Who are “they”?

In a post from a few days ago, a reader of this blog asked a very simple question:

I would ask why are they less willing and who are the “they”? You often refer to asking the right questions and so I would encourage you to ask Who and Why before How.

This was in reference to my need for non-power-users to pilot the online learning spaces that I am creating. So, Jamie, I would like to outline exactly who I am looking for whenever I plan a pilot for a new learning space. I would like to do so in the form of a classified ad, just for fun.

Wanted: Beginning Teacher-Learner for long-term learning commitment

1. Must love students and all of their quirks. Must love talking to them and wanting to make sure that they are getting the most out of their education. Must know that they have something to teach you.
2. Should be afraid of at least one button on the computer.
3. Not having administrative rights to your school computer, a plus.
4. Doesn’t mind engaging in active reflection on personal habits and teaching habits.
5. Must have taught or been taught before the invention of computerized grading programs.
6. E-mail should be a second language.
7. Needs to be comfortable asking questions.
8. Is not immediately interested in blogs, wikis, twitter, or social networks.
9. Finds traditional PD boring, but has had at least one good PD experience in the last 2 years.
10. Must read for pleasure.

These are the factors I am most looking for in teachers who are going to push the limits of online spaces. They are wise enough to know that not everything is important, yet they are still thirsty for the knowledge of how to do things better. I would like to turn it back on you, Jamie. What do you look for in partners that push you to be better?

Another Senior Project: Social Network Research

I don’t have a lot of time to write this post (crazy things happen when I get excited about an idea) , but I really want to share this resource.

This project is for a Senior to do research on Social Networking. It is very well formatted and asks for some real accountability from the students. They actually have to create a social network to analyze, not simply piggy back on existing (and somewhat less desirable networks). I would love to see more projects like this one that ask students to think critically about the technologies that they use and come up with some conclusions that can be shared with the rest of the learning community.

Social Networking in schools doesn’t require just a little bit of thought. It requires a lot. From all stakeholders.