We regularly connect with people online. We keep in touch. We make new friends. But can we actually learn anything that’s professionally useful? Is it possible for our online networks, professional or personal, to help us become smarter people and more effective professionals with some level of certain regularity? Instead of stumbling across the occasional jewel, is there a way to come close to a guarantee?
Consider this. Subject matter experts around the world are already using social bookmarking sites like Digg and Delicious to gather, screen, categorize and share relevant, insightful content. Prominent bloggers and Twitterers, like Guy Kawasaki, spend hours each day scouring the internet and linking to remarkably valuable content on their blogs and twitter feeds. And some companies are using Yammer to stream relevant news and other materials to employees on their closed internal networks. And let’s not forget powerful news aggregators like Google Reader that can put thousands of information sources at our fingertips and let us search all that content for even the most obscure word or phrase.
Do ask; do tell…Army encourages soldiers to speak up
Grant Toups
August 18th, 2009
One of the findings in practically every recent study on social media is that in older companies cutting edge social media initiatives are sometimes harder to get off the ground because of the powerful muscle memory formed from years of success. But, as many communicators in these companies undoubtedly know, the way we operate is changing and communicators at all levels of the corporate world find themselves fighting that muscle memory of broadcast-style push communications techniques. Certainly this generalization doesn’t apply to every company; it may not even apply to most, but for some it seems a formidable challenge.
But support for the social media buy-in proposition is coming from an unlikely source … the U.S. Army.
A recent New York Times piece explored a new pilot program of wikis launched by the Army for developing a number of its field manuals. These “rules of the road” documents were historically written by military thinkers at the various educational and training institutions across the country. The pilot program allows for editing and adding content by any active soldier, from Private to General, using technology similar to Wikipedia while requiring that each entry be attributed to someone. (more…)
Tags: Commentary, Social Media
No Comments »