Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Assignment for Tuesday Dec 6

If you've never set up a blog I invite you to try. It's really just a matter of naming it, picking a template, and then going. I usually do this live with the class but due to challenges last night went ahead and chose a name for ours and set it up:


I hope you all enjoyed our first session and appreciate your good humor about the challenges.
1. Most blog products offer widgets/gadgets, easy-to-add features like calendars, blog rolls, featured posts, etc. Please answer the poll question at right: What's your favorite tool?

2. Please add a comment (click on "commentsbelow). What do you see as opportunities for and challenges to using blogs or wikis (or other social tools) with your workforce and content? How would you overcome the challenges?

16 comments:

  1. The time it's going to take to create the content will pose a challenge for a small team. I could also see potential conflict with other 'wiki' sort of tools like knowledge bases and help articles. However, using a Wiki model with participation from a community of users could take some of the work off a small team.

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    1. We'll talk about this more later, but also think of who in your organization are content creators. Maybe they already blog or tweet a lot and know how those platforms work. Maybe they're amateur reporters or writers. Maybe they are lifelong learner types who come to every class that's offered. Can you "deputize" them from time to time?

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  2. In healthcare, I find that a constant obstacle is the fear of leaders from a security and compliance perspective. I've been slowly trying to help my organization get over this fear by starting small. For example, just in our HR department, I recently started a private Facebook group that allows the HR team to share resources, links to webinars and conferences, etc. This has gone over really well.

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    1. Hi Lotus! That's great news. I know organizations love the "enterprise wide" concept but really sometimes looking for small wins is the better way to get acceptance and ease fears. Glad that's working for you.

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  3. I am a Federal government employee, so I have to be careful how and what I post and who I follow on Facebook and Twitter. I use GovLoop and LinkedIn for professional relationships and my own knowledge and learning. I am also a member of RallyPoint, which is a SM site for military folks - Active Duty, Retired, and Vets.

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    1. I understand the issues with being in government jobs and how that can affect social media use. I am...mindful... but dn't have as many concerns as those in the Federal government. I like GovLoop and have seen Rally Point. What about your learners? What tools are they using? When you signed up for this program what kinds of tools did you have in mind? (We didn't talk about this much the other night but you may be thinking of internal tools like Sharepoint or some proprietary thing.)

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  4. We have an internal social platform that allows for us to create blogs/wikis. We have rich content producers, yet the challenge is active participation. We have tried incentives, open houses, and created job aids, yet it still seems like it is the same users all the time. We really need to work harder on selling the "WHY." I really liked what you said Jane during the session, "blogging requires planning." I have my own little site within our platform where I share my learning in social learning, and I have made a commitment to at least post once a month, and that even takes planning and mindful attention on my part. I know this program will give me some great ideas for content :). BH

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  5. In EVERY session I do people say that this is their biggest challenge. I think one of the issues facing us (and I mean "us" in the global sense, no stones being cast at you) is getting better at listening for what people want to talk about and where they want to talk about it. I'll be addressing this more in the coming weeks; maybe Lotus can offer some insight into what her people are doing with their initiative now.

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  6. Getting people to a site and actively participating is a challenge. My clients are notorious for being too busy, getting too many emails, having unpredictable schedules, and as a result not doing pre- or post-work for face-to-face training. So reaching them in a way that will catch their eye and get them interested enough to even click a link is something I'm constantly working on. The other component is getting them to understand that learning is a process, not an instance. They are used to showing up for a 4 or 8 hour training, getting their learning credits, and getting back to work. Anything else can seem like a burden to them. I'm currently building a Moodle site to serve as a platform to engage them before and after training and experimenting with both content and scheduling (what to ask of them and when).
    -MM

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    1. Nice to know I'm not alone with these challenges.

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  7. My work with small businesses and non-profit clients forces me to be creative in my approach to offer social media solutions. As my other peers have stated, it's more about getting them to trust and be confident that any one of the social media tools will be secure and meet their needs better than the current channel or process. It is my hopes that I can learn so of the tricks of the trade so that I can demonstrate the benefits of using the media. Learning how, why and when to use the tools is what interests me most about the session and I am hoping to become a "generalist" as it relates to the tools.

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  8. I'll respond to Mi An and Michael both now, and offer a sort of wrap-up comment: It is interesting that over the years I've watched conversation on this topic shift from barriers involving firewalls and legal issues to concentrating more on challenges with getting participation.

    We'll talk about this tomorrow in class, but meantime be thinking about:

    What do your people want to talk about? When they are all together in a room for a meeting or staff retreat or lunch or on a break during a class, what kinds of topics drive conversation? (Hint: It's probably not what your HR department believes they're talking about. No one's very interested in your unlawful harassment policy, believe it or not.) People talk about their work all the time.

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  9. Blogging for us at The Nature Conservancy would expose a few challenges, but primarily finding the time to post and driving enough traffic to the blog that would make it worthwhile. We are a non-profit and our team is lean....very lean. We already post and maintain several social media outlets, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, our internal social boards, articles, we write blogs for others - and we do all of this in addition to our "real" job which is training development. I think we are most interested in making sure we are using the tools we already have in place (the ones listed above) in the best way possible....also looking for tips and tricks to drive traffic and followers.

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  10. Our provincial health care has restricted the use of social media to resources within SharePoint. For example, we have access to SharePoint blogs as well as a provincial resource. Our team has used both with limited success - likely due to staff's busy schedules, and the vast array of information within the provincial blog. I suspect that the blogs would be more successful with someone to act as moderator/coordinator and to ensure that the topic is one that is focused and of interest to our team. I have not tried to start and external blog, although this is certainly an area of interest for me. I am not fluent in the various social media outlets, with the exception of a personal facebook site. I plan to attempt to set up an external blog so that I can test out this avenue of communication. cjr

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    1. Trying out an external blog will help you learn a bit about setup and options for management that you likely wouldn't get from Sharepoint. I don't really understand what you're hoping to do with it, though, if your organization won't let you use it?

      Also, given such tight restrictions, what did you need to get from the course? Today's the last day so I want to help you get what you need.
      Jane

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    2. Thanks for your response Jane. I hoped to be familiar with the options available for the use of social media in training. Often-time my learning happens outside of work, through such social networks as Linked-in or Facebook. I also have other community opportunities for education/training (i.e. I am the Safety Officer for our neighborhood and am on the Neighborhood Watch Team). All of these provide opportunities for working online collaboratively. I think there are many things you have mentioned that could be adapted to the SharePoint environment (e.g. blogs) - and universal "truths" that are shared in both environments (e.g. determining user needs, creative approaches, use of graphics etc.).I think what I need is additional time to practice these various mediums (e.g. at home) and transfer the learning to the work setting.

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