Article IV: Social Networking
Networking gets things done. For example people in network can help us in finding jobs, meeting new friends and finding partners. The problems in social networking in real world most of connections between people are hidden. Network has huge potential but it’s only valuable as people and connections that you can see. This problem is being solved type of website called social networking sites. These sites help to see connections in real world. These sites make connections visible.
4.1 Introduction to Social Networking
Social networking is a phenomena defined by linking people to each other in some way. Digg is a popular example of a social network. Users work together to rate news and are linked by rating choices or explicit identification of other members. Generally, social networks are used to allow or encourage various types of activity whether commercial, social or some combination of the the two.
(Wikipedia, 2008) A social network is a social structure made of nodes (which are generally individuals or organizations) that are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as values, visions, idea, financial exchange, friends, kinship, dislike, conflict, trade, web links, sexual relations, disease transmission (epidemiology), or airline routes. The resulting structures are often very complex. Social network analysis views social relationships in terms of nodes and ties. Nodes are the individual actors within the networks, and ties are the relationships between the actors. There can be many kinds of ties between the nodes. Research in a number of academic fields has shown that social networks operate on many levels, from families up to the level of nations, and play a critical role in determining the way problems are solved, organizations are run, and the degree to which individuals succeed in achieving their goals.
The most popular social networking sites are
Linkedin
Face book
My space
Youtube
What is Linkedin?
(Wikipedia, 2008)LinkedIn is a business-oriented social networking site founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003 mainly used for professional networking. As of December 2007, its site traffic was 3.2 million visitors per month, growing at an annual growth rate of about 485%.As of February 2008, it had more than 19 million registered users, spanning 150 industries. When you join, you create a profile that summarizes your professional accomplishments.
Through your network you can:
§ Find potential clients, service providers, subject experts, and partners who come recommended
§ Be found for business opportunities
§ Search for great jobs
§ Get introduced to other professionals through the people you know
4.2.Community of practice:
The concept of a community of practice (often abbreviated as CoP) refers to the process of social learning that occurs when people who have a common interest in some subject or problem collaborate over an extended period to share ideas, find solutions, and build innovations. It refers as well to the stable group that is formed from such regular interactions.
· (Wenger, 1998: 52) He prefers to explore practice as meaning in particular context: "practice is about meaning as an experience of everyday life" He states that it is meaning as an experience that interests him and that this is located in a process that he calls the 'negotiation of meaning'. The negotiation of meaning involves the interaction of two processes, participation and reification, which form a duality.
· KM is essentially about people and the earlier technology driven approaches, which failed to consider this, were bound to be limited in their success. One possible way forward is offered by Communities of Practice, which provide an environment for people to develop knowledge through interaction with others in an environment where knowledge is created nurtured and sustained.
Social networks can enable an organizationa to create an early warning system because today evry organization use social networking sites and made people to interact with those and take comments from the people so that the management know about the things and make decisions on that. So I think that social networking sites create early waring system to the organizations, and make sure knowledge gets to people who can act on time. Using social networking sites organizations can contact with the people and build relationships across boundaries of geography.
1.3 Social networks in my perspective:
social networks focus on establishing the online communities for people who share same interest and activities. Allow persons to spread news virally as quick as any social book marking service. In social networks friends with similar interest are also becoming extremely popular. The main reason to create these social communities to further promote brand presence and share news/events with their community. Social networks also help in knowledge management. In our engineering college we have one network where every one can share their knowledge with the other people and students post their quires in the community regarding the subject, jobs and may other. The people who know the information they give reply. Even lectures are also share their views and interests in the community. This helps a lot for the students. I found that many organizations also use the communities.
1.4 Reflections on my group learning
In seminar we discussed that social networks are help full in forming online communities for the peoples who share same interests, and discussed about blogs, wiki, and linkedin. In seminar session I got one intresting point that through the social networking sites improve the way individuals think collectively, moving from knowledge sharing to collective knowing.
References:
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinkedIn
2. http://www.topicguru.net/?c1=webmaster&c2=glossary
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network#Applications
4. http://informationr.net/ir/8-1/paper142.html
5. http://www.rheingold.com/Associates/onlinenetworks.html
Thursday, 6 March 2008
Artical IV
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I like the bold statement that "networking gets things done"! I don't know if I agree with it, but it is a memorable idea and I will think about it.
What I know I disagree with as an absolute, unqualified statement is "Network has huge potential but it’s only valuable as people and connections that you can see." You might be able to argue that organisations might find them more valuable if they could see into them, but it's because they are valuable that organisations are now interested to see if social network tools can be used to exploit them further.
To emphasise this, I'll mention 'water-cooler discussions' where people happen to bump into each other when getting a drink while at the office. Because of normal social rules they say hello to each other, enquire of their health and happiness and start to talk about current work for the organisation (or sometimes activities outside the organisation). 15 minutes or more may pass by and the colleagues may part without any conclusion to their conversation. However, months later an organisational need may be causing one of those people difficulty but they will remember something from the water-cooler conversation that gets them on the right path to solving their problem.
Smart organisations know that water-cooler or coffee-bar discussions go on and they are relaxed about the apparently unproductive time spent in them. Organisations are hoping that with social network tools they can do the equivalent of listening in on the water-cooler discussions.
If your description of social networks comes from another source you must reference the source. (Make sure you use quote marks or a different font.) If your own, please consider the use of "structure" as it tends to imply and external setting of relationships.
A final point: you wrote "KM is essentially about people and the earlier technology driven approaches, which failed.." That sounds like an argument to get rid of KM. I believe it comes from thinking that the randomly emergent knowledge that appears in social networks is valid whereas as deliberately sought-out and organized knowledge (e.g. based on information systems) is not. I think they are compatible because they both offer an organisation the possibility of taking decisions and actions to achieve their goals.
Post a Comment