In the Future Workspaces Projective case a group of volunteers is experimenting with social media. The objective of this experiment is to assess whether social media can support knowledge sharing and social cohesion within a dispersed department. After an initial workshop in which different types of social media were introduced and discussed, the decision was made to experiment with three different social media. For the first experiment Twitter was chosen.

The group members created Twitter accounts, invited each other as contacts and started using the tool without any prior training. After one month of experimenting with the tool we held an evaluation workshop with them.

Questionnaire

The workshop started with a brief questionnaire to assess the ease of use, costs and benefits of Twitter. The outcome indicated that the tool was actively used during the test period and they perceived the tool easy to use. Although Twitter rated poorly as a tool for traditional knowledge management (finding experts and finding information on a specific topic), it rated moderately well as a tool for informal knowledge sharing and getting to know each other.

Sharing experiences

As a next step, we asked the group to share experiences: what worked well, what not, how did Twitter fit their working practices. A summary of their statements:

• “Easy to use”
• “Quick way to contact your colleagues”
• “Nice to read”
• “The more busy, the less Twitter”
• “Got to know my colleagues better”
• “Does not provide insight in what my colleagues are good at”
• “All contributions are in a timeline, it does not provide an overview”
• “Cannot find anything back”
• “Sometimes forgot to use it for days”
• “Mood sometimes too jolly”
• “Questions regarding work often too long for a Tweet”
• “Sometimes not enough activity”

Conclusions

Twitter is a tool that is easy to use and fun as well. There is moderate perceived value for sharing knowledge withing the department. Since it is not easy to have an overview of who is writing on what topics, the tool is not suitable to find experts within a group or finding specific information (the aims of traditional knowledge management). However, the tool did help the group to get to know each other, thereby stimulating informal knowledge sharing. Since the tool was not embedded in their daily working practices, contributions were irregular over time and usually of an informal nature. Contributions resulted in a follow-up not so much online, but rather face-to-face at the office. The perceived risk of using Twitter in a business environment is that it either leads to no contributions or to so many contributions that one loses track.

Tags: in sync, in touch, knowledge sharing, social software, web2.0

Dit item is geplaatst door external author op 3 February 2009 om 15:46 in EN, team blog. Je kunt een reactie achterlaten, of een trackback op je eigen website opnemen.