personal side of social media: learning from weblogs

Lilia Efimova Telematica Instituut

iceberg.telin.nlblog.mathemagenic.com

Personal side of social media:learning from weblogs

23 June 2008, Telematica Instituut, Enschede, NL

Study 1. Developing ideas through blogging

• Reconstructing my own blogging practices– Weblog as a personal knowledge base– Weblog as an aid for moving from fuzzy feelings to

finished results

• Weblog archives as a starting point– Coding: chapter relevance, meta-blogging entries

• Analysis writing


Weblog as a knowledge base

• Creating – Ideas that I don't know where to use, but don't want

to forget– Might be useful for others– I could benefit from a feedback or want to promote

• Organising – Chronological– Running titles, links to own posts– Categories and tags

• Maintaining

• Retrieving– Location-based browsing – Search– Patterns

From fuzzy feelings to finished results: awareness and articulation

• Reading others in short bursts, awareness of what's going on

• Low-threshold posting, short entries

• "Pressure and pleasure" of an audience: extra motivation to capture ideas, to write in full sentences,

to contextualise

• Non-threatening organisation system: relate to existing posts, flexible tagging

From fuzzy feelings to finished results: sense-making

• Writing as developing an idea: mangrove effect

• Organising to relate, to understand, to see patterns

• Social– An opportunity for a feedback– "Refactoring at the backstage"

Everyday grounded theory

From fuzzy feelings to finished results: turning into products

• Need for integrating into a bigger whole

• Kick-start

– Getting in the flow of writing

– Non-scientific drafts

– Getting things out of the way

• Reusing

• Trying out multiple ways to structure an argument

• Feedback

• Notification/pre-print channel

Blogging: personal or social?

• Half-baked ideas, work-in-progress – not polished texts

• Short posts, lots of linking

• Selfish tagging



Study 2. Conversations by KM bloggers

• 34 weblogs in 2004, 6320 posts

– KM blogger community, semi-snowballing sample starting from my own weblog

• Using tOKo (www.toko-sigmund.org) to map weblog conversations defined as sets of linked posts

– Conversations with others – links between weblogs

– Conversations with self – links within weblogs

– Conversations with self and others – links within and between weblogs

• With Anjo Anjewierden and Robert de Hoog

http://www.toko-sigmund.org/


Conversations with others


Conversations with self


Conversations with self and others: personal profiles


Conversations with self and others: mega-conversation

Insights from urban studiesplausible reason to be in public

Among the requirements that are satisfied, in part, in public spaces are the need for contact, the need for knowledge, and the need for stimulation. […] Satisfying these is seldom as goal-oriented and deliberate as with the more basic physical needs, such as eating, drinking, sleeping and so on. For example, adults seldom go to town with the expressed intention of satisfying the need for stimulation or the need for contact. Regardless of the true purpose may be, one goes out for a plausible, rational reason – to shop, to take a walk, to get some fresh air, to buy a paper, to wash the car, and so forth

Jan Gehl, "Life between buildings"

Insight from urban studies: safe place to linger

At the edge of the forest or near the façade, one is less exposed than if one is out in the middle of a space. One is not in the way of anyone or anything. One can see, but not be seen too much, and the personal territory is reduced to a semicircle in front of the individual. When one's back is protected, others can approach only frontally, making it easy to keep watch and to react, for example, by means of a forbidding facial expressions in the event of undesired invasion of personal territory.

Jan Gehl, "Life between buildings"


Insight from urban studies: emergent social activities


Implications for design

• Comfortable, protected space

• Conditions for longer-term activities meaningful for an individual

• Easy switch between inward and outward oriented activities

• Opportunities for low-intensity contact without commitment

• "Shared space" in between to move social activity when it grows

More

• Relevant links and more context

• More on my research

– At my blog: blog.mathemagenic.com

– Published: iceberg.telin.nl

– Contact: [email protected]

personal side of social media: learning from weblogs

Technology

weblog conversations

weblogs conversations

self links

personal knowledge base

personal profiles23

fuzzy feelings

results weblog archives

blogging practices weblog