Yesterday we organized a social media workshop for our expertise group –  a group of 16 colleagues with similar research interests. Although we frequently co-operate with one another in various ongoing research projects, and although we meet once a month as a group, we felt that knowledge sharing between group members could be improved. The first aim of the workshop was therefore to introduce and discuss various social media and their potential to facilitate knowledge sharing within the group.

Alike the Projective case we organized a ‘marketplace’, covering the walls of the meeting room with posters containing screenshots and descriptions (what is it? what can you do with it? what are benefits and drawbacks?) of various social media. It was fun to do this, especially since some colleagues had strong opinions in favour or against certain social media - lively discussions just had to follow. Surprisingly, it took a workshop like this for some colleagues to realize that they were already using the same social medium!

The second aim of the workshop was to initiate a series of trials, each trial centered around one social medium and lasting for period of two months. We therefore asked our group members to cast their votes: five bonus points to be freely assigned to those social media that they liked, thought to be beneficial, were curious about, etc.; and five penalty points to be assigned to those social media that they disliked, felt uncomfortable about, couldn’t see the use of, etc. During a brief coffee break we then summarized the results.

Much of the discussion that followed after the coffee break focused our first trial: should it be Twitter or Yammer? Proponents of Yammer argued that it has useful functionality that makes it very well suited as a platform to exchange knowledge and to find experts. Proponents of Twitter (four colleagues were already using it actively)  argued that Yammer enforces an arbitrary division between one’s professional network inside and outside the organization, practically forcing one to use Twitter and Yammer side by side.

For this reason the choice was made to start the first trial with Twitter. Over the next two months we and our expertise group colleagues will use the tool, regularly evaluating its impact on knowledge sharing. We will conclude the two month trial period with a workshop where we will also pick a tool for the next two-month trial. By that time, expect on update on this post.

Tags: experiment, knowledge sharing, social software, tools, twitter, workshop, yammer

Dit item is geplaatst door Ruud Janssen op 10 February 2009 om 15:46 in EN, team blog. Je kunt een reactie achterlaten, of een trackback op je eigen website opnemen.