Appropriate time to talk social

Well yes it has been a while... In fact 2 years with of a while! The last post I wrote was actually in 2009 titled "social networking who cares"... Now it feels like that post as 100 years ago!! Just about anyone who could read this post should know what social networking is right?!?

As for me, I started playing with social networking back in the archaic days of Friendster. Now MySpace is nearly dead, many of us are Facebooking (legal use in verb form?), Wave was a joke.... But google+ just what will google+ bring us?? Well too early to say... But the "hangout" feature sure looks cool. Just promise me that it'll mostly work on my iPad okayz??

I've been in for less than 24 hrs and while it seems slick I'm not really sure it's worth the effort... Once invites open and more folks get on we'll really start to se what it can do.

What ever tools you're using.... Here's to happy social networking folks...

Social Networking - who cares?

If there were ever a loaded question - this could be one!

So a friend (ok many friends) have said things to me like, "What's the point of FaceBook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc?! Who cares?! Who needs to know all of this stuff anyhow.... I'm at home, I'm at work, I'm eating... whatever..." Based on those questions / protests I thought I would write about just this idea... Social Networking - Who cares, and, why is it even important anyway?

As a telecommuter who works across many timezones and geographic regions, I had my own reasons for believing there is some kind of magic connecting glue produced in Social Networking land. So I thought I'd try to build on that and start with some reading to learn more.

In a recent study done by Microsoft regarding 'why people used social networking tools' the following results were found:

1. Keep in touch with family and friends (75%) [part of this is keeping up with the joneses who already have one - eg. my mate uses it, so I'll get one too]
2. Being "nosey" - 62%
3. Express my opinions and views (55%)
4. Meet people with similar interests (49%)
5. Specific reason, documenting trip to wedding, etc (13%)
6. It's a good way to date (7%)
[Source: Social Networking Statistics]

These findings seem logical and accurate enough (at least based on what I've seen). However upon further reading it has become clear to me that there's something bigger going on here.

Quite possibly the biggest advantage and change that social networking brings about is - the ability to easily form groups with NO cost - where cost can be defined as money, time and effort. These groups then allow for one-to-many or many-to-many communication with ease never before possible.

This is a distinct change from the past where media tools (like Television or Movies) provided only a one-to-many type communication AND in that setting there was no channel for reciprocal (or back and forth type) communication options. The many-to-many communication ability (fostered by social networking tools) provides power and value to masses through a group communication or group setting which they did not have prior to the tools existence. Additionally, as the tools are asynchronous (as in - people don't need to match times available like on the phone) and not geographically or physically bound there is a much greater ability to spread a message further and wider then ever before. Those messages and subsequent reactions can therefore grow and linger for a much longer period of time.

" Groups of people are complex, in ways that make those groups hard to form and hard to sustain: much of the shape of traditional institutions is a response to those difficulties. New social tools relieve some of those burdens, allowing for new kinds of group-forming, like using simple sharing to anchor the creation of new groups..."
[Source: p26. Here Comes Everybody]

In his book, Here Comes Everybody, Clay Shirky provides stories and evidence that social networking tools allow people to gather, easily, at no cost, asynchronously, and with no geographical barriers to participation. These stories include:

• A woman who lost her phone and how she and a friend were able to gain attention, gather information, break through bureaucracy, and get the phone back
  
• How a group of catholics were able to make progress on institutional battles with the Vatican as never seen before
• The formation, evolution and maintenance of Wikipedia (a labour of love so to speak)

With a good set of tools, little to no funding, little to no time given by any ONE person, collective group sharing and subsequent action - powerful things can happen.

It's also important to remember that humans use of technology will ALWAYS lag behind that technology. So, we are lucky to be in a time where we are watching communication evolve and thereby have the chance to possibly watch society evolve as well.

Cheers and happy Social Networking.

Additional Resources:
Weblinks to the real life stories in Here Comes Everybody
- page 1
- page 2

Managing the Stresses Inherent to Telecommuting

I found an interesting table at the link below that shows some methods to dealing with the challenges and stresses that are inherently coupled with telecommuting. Isolation can be a big one. I find I often buy coffees just to get out and talk / interact with another human being.... There are pro's and con's to every situation... and telecommuting is no different. Perhaps this table will be interesting to others out in the world who are also working from their home spaces regularly ;-).

http://www.pc.ibm.com/ww/healthycomputing/stress.html

PROJECTCONNECTIONS.COM - Free helpful resources and tools for Program and Project Managers

http://www.projectconnections.com/index.html

PROJECTCONNECTIONS.COM - Here's a good site for Program and Project Managers. It's loaded with Templates, Articles and Papers for review and use. There is a small catch that you have to register for the site to access the materials. On the good side membership is free so there are no hidden costs for basic access. (None that I've found yet anyhow.)

I'm currently reading the paper "Best Practices from Experiences in Facilitating Virtual Meetings." The paper lists 9 lessons of virtual meetings that managers need to understand. The paper also provides best practice recommendations for each of the 9 lessons to help Managers effectively work through issues.

Enjoy the site!

On working with teams virtually...

Yesterday I said I didn't think much in-depth thought had been given to the issues arising from the advent of telecommuting and virtual teams. Of course, (thanks to Google) I'm finding that there are lots of great thinkers meditating on these issues daily.

Here's a great blog I found today called:

Working with People We Can't Be With
http://www.michaelsampson.net/

I'm currently reading this article which has started to outline the A-Z of virtual teams.
http://www.michaelsampson.net/2008/03/a-z-of-virtua-1.html

Enjoy!

iTelecommute - Opening Thoughts....

Ok, so the title is silly... iThis and iThat... But really. I telecommute. This is the inagural post for my new blog that will cover topics that may be interesting to telecommuters, employers, virtual organizations and more.

Let's face it. Telecommuting is new, but not totally unheard of. In fact, I know of at least one big technology giant out there who requires their employees to explain why they NEED a cubicle. This is a total departure from the more common scenario where employees have to explain why they NEED to telecommute.

The Truth About Telecommuting - Telecommuting is not only an excellent option for the technology professional of today, but I whole heartedly believe, that it will be ESSENTIAL to the technology workforce of tomorrow. Why? To put it simply ... globalization. Given that the world is becoming smaller through communication tools, we now are seeing massive projects on a multi-national, multi-cultural and - worth mentioning - a multi-time zoned scale. The human 'tendency' is to collaborate.. to work together, to solve problems and create a 'better' existence for all in the community.

This is a slight shift in thinking for the players and massively increases the variety of the distribution of the players as well. Before the advent of the public adoption of the internet much of the population could not 'collaborate' on ideas and innovations so freely. Now, we can.

The societal and virtually driven changes of who we are and how we do business have occurred at such a rapid pace, however, that I don't believe industries, management, heck - people even, have had a chance to stop and analyze what's going on here, what is the best way (or ways) to communicate and form relationships in the virtual office.... hmmm what is the virtual office and how does this trend effect the world as we know it.

So, these thoughts are why I started the iTelecommute blog for telecommuters and about telecommuters. I'm envisioning forthcoming articles and topics like ranging from - How does telecommuting effect your office moral and relationships? How can we connect with our virtual office mates? Virtual Office best practices. To GoogleApp or to not GoogleApp... iGoogle tools that work 'fer me!... and so on.

Thanks for reading,

Joni