As a continuation to Alison’s post on Working Wikily, I am moved to share my top three take-aways from attending a webinar offered today by Heather McLeod and Diana Scearce, keepers of the Working Wikily blog and consultants at the Monitor Institute.
Peg’s Take-Aways from the Working Wikily webinar on June 8, 2010:
First, I am clearer and more able to take in the advice of experts like McLeod and Scearce thanks to a couple of reminders about the true significance of terms that get tossed around a lot:
- Social network: people connected by relationships. Note: connected primarily by relationships, not by technology tools. McLeod and Scearce echo Clay Shirky’s advice to remember that’s it’s about people assisted by technology. I can get behind that. We certainly echo that advice at NPower Seattle, where we start every website and database project by mapping the relationships and communication needs that the technology will support.
- Working Wikily: this one I’m making up a bit based on the examples offered by McLeod and Scearce. I think it’s an emerging way of relating and communicating whose key ingredients are greater openness, transparency and decentralized decision-making. Emerging means I get to practice, learn from mistakes, and try again, right? I can get behind that.
Secondly, I’m clearer about why I am challenged by working wikily. You bet I am. Scares the daylights out of me some days because I’m used to working with defined teams and I’m used to holding decisions kind of private until they’re “fully baked.” In fact, I place a value on more controlled and private processes as being responsible. Another challenge is that it seems to take lots of time. McLeod and Scearce shared a whole list of reasons why it’s hard, including:
- Brand and message control
- Privacy concerns
- Dealing with information overload
- Learning and leveraging new technologies
Thirdly, I see the value of working wikily. If there’s value, I’m willing to try it. I desire to make the shift not only because I am newly convinced that working wikily works, but because making the shift to relating and communicating “wikily” is what will keep the organizations I’m involved with current instead of becoming irrelevant, or worse, extinct. Thanks to McLeod and Scearce , I see that working wikily has a positive side that I’m excited about, including this list of potential outcomes shared on the webinar:
- Weaving communities
- Accessing diverse perspectives
- Building and sharing knowledge
- Mobilizing people
- Coordinating resources and action
Interested in learning more? You can follow the conversation about working wikily on the Working Wikily blog, and browse a summary article at the Stanford Social Innovation Review blog . And NPower’s Social Media training is a great starting point to learn more about the technology tools and how to use them effectively.
I’d love your comments, questions and thoughts here. What do you think? Can you become a convert like me and get behind working wikily? How would you describe the role of technology in social networks – is it primary or secondary to relationships?