Using Social Tools to build informal communities

1. Using Social Tools to build informal communities David Gurteen NLB, Singapore 11 August 2009

2. Who am I? Early years KM Facilitator – Knowledge Cafes – Talks – Workshops Knowledge Community – Website – Knowledge Letter

3. My Style Informal Interaction Engagement Conversation Hand polls Q&A

4. Your style   Engage with me Ask questions Take notes TTDs I will ask you to share one TTD

5. Who are you? Name? Job Function? Favourite social tool? Your passion? I will go first 

6. Rough Agenda  10:00 – 10:30 Introduction  10:30 – 11:00 Twitter for communities  11:00 – 11:15 Conversation about Twitter  11:15 – 11:30 Twitter Q&A  11:30 – 12:00 Knowledge Circle on Social Tools

7. Engagement

8. Scientific paradigm Cause and effect Order Theory Concepts Neatness Scientific language Spreadsheets and Powerpoint Tables and Graphs

9. Human paradigm  Fragmented  Messy  Emotional  Conversation  Human interaction  Social  Everyday language  Creatures of habit & passion not logic

10. Think for yourself Beware prescriptions Beware certification Beware case studies Beware academia and theory Beware consultants

11. Don’t do KM You don’t “do KM” … you solve business problems and develop business opportunities with KM tools and techniques You don’t “do Social Tools” either! Start with the business outcome you wish to achieve And ask how can Social Tools help!

12. The best way to make sense of the world is through engagement, conversation and play

13. The best way to understand social tools is through actually using them!

14. My Community 16,000 people in 154 countries Everyone should build their own community!

15. Why do I bother?

16. I give in order that I may receive!

17. What I give Give stuff and point to stuff – Both my stuff and stuff of others – Website, newsletter, RSS feeds, email etc Give my help and support I collaborate with people Connect members to other members Run free events e.g. Knowledge Cafes I use social tools extensively to do this

18. What I receive  Find like minds – Connect with them and build relationships – In order to achieve things  Learn from them  Have fun with them  Gain their help and support  Spread ideas that are important to me  Market and sell my stuff *** – consultancy, talks, knowledge cafes, workshops  Again social tools play a major role

19. Most important benefit is the relationships

20. Relationship building process Find an interesting person Establish connection with them • • Build a relationship through social tools Do stuff together Go to 3 • • •

21. Connection Process  Find a like mind – Sometimes trip over them, sometimes search  Enter in my contacts database  Google them & find a reason to communicate  If no response back off else – Connect on LinkedIn, Dopplr, FaceBook – Invite them to join my community & receive newsletter  Subscribe to their blog and Twitter feeds  Meet them face to face at first opportunity

22. Three principals

23. I want to share knowledge!

24. I want to be transparent and open

25. I want to be found and connected to wherever I am!

26. Social Tools are at the heart of my community!

27. How I use Twitter to build and support my community And how you can use it too!

28. Twitter What ever I say I cannot do it justice Huge ecosphere (the TwitterSphere) It’s not about what you had for breakfast It’s not a just a publishing tool Like blogs in the early days it is misunderstood Great for networking & building communities Google it & play with it to understand it

29. Twitter uses A means of mass broadcasting and receiving short “messages” Inform people “what is new” Announcements Point people to interesting things Keep people informed of activity or status Ask questions

30. Twitter Basics Post Tweets to a blog 140 characters A Tweet can include a URL and #tags You can follow people; they can follow you Messages sent through browser, sms, im or third party application Limited conversational capability

31. How to get followers Follow people! Find a big names in your field And follow their followers Either blindly or selectively But over 2,000 people there are limits I don’t follow: people without a photo, bio or intersting tweets unless I know them

32. How I use Twitter  To read -Tweetdeck  To publish – Tweetdeck, Bitly  To connect – Follow interesting people  To interact - @reply, DM  To ask questions  To invite people to my events  To meet people  To build relationships

33. Building my community Tweet news items several times a day Tweet personal events/thoughts less often Retweet RT really interesting stuff Use DMs to reply If @reply then try to preserve context Use Bitly to track what interests people

34. Bit.ly Standard Twitter URL shortener But much more Tracks real-time statistics on click-throughs If you open an account will allow you to see all your URLS and their stats! Tool bar accessory to enable easy tweeting

35. Building my community Sensitive to time zones Repeat Tweets to hit different time zones Always attribute Search columns in TweetDeck for KM #KM tag Publish news and quotations

36. RSS to Twitter I have 3 Twitter accounts  DavidGurteen: my regular Twitter account GurteenNews: what’s new on my website GurteenQuotes: quote of the day Take an rss feed & turn into a Twitter feed – rsstotwitter.com – twitterfeed.com

37. Building my community I have conversations in Facebook over Tweets posted in Twitter! Have published lists of KM Tweeters on my website Exploring what my new iPhone can offer

38. Complementary tools Thousands of them – just Google If you can think it there is a tool to do it! TweetDeck Twitteriffic for iPhone or Mac Twittercounter Bit.ly All sorts of widgets

39. Understanding Twitter Create an account Start to play with it Google for uses, business applications, complementary tools etc Follow people/orgs like TechCrunch, Mashable, Robin Good Use social tools to learn!

40. Social Tools

41. Social Tools Social Tools enable you to find people, and to connect and collaborate with them through computer-mediated communication to form communities

42. Allow you to … Publish, find and read stuff Find people and be found yourself Connect and build relationships Have group discussions Work together 1. 2. 3. 4. The best social tools enable you to do all of these things but typically have one dominant function 5.

43. Publish, find, read  Blogs  Delicious  Twitter  SlideShare  Scribd  Calameo  Flickr  YouTube  Odeo  Podcasts  Newsletters  RSS feeds/readers

44. Connect and build relationships  LinkedIn  Facebook  Twitter  Email  Instant Messaging  SMS  Skype  iPhone

45. Find people and be found Google Search LinkedIn, Facebook Dopplr Google Latitude Brightkite Plazer

46. Have group discussions Ning Google and Yahoo groups LinkedIn and Facebook groups Twitter Listservs dimdim

47. Work together Wikis Google Docs

48. Knowledge Circle

49. An opportunity to ask me specific questions about how I use social tools and how you might use them yourself.

50. www.gurteen.com David Gurteen Gurteen Knowledge Tel: +44 7774 178 650 Email: david.gurteen@gurteen.com