Bonnie Zink

Knowledge mobilization, writing, and social media top the discussion list.

Bonnie Zink - Knowledge mobilization, writing, and social media top the discussion list.

Knowledge mobilization and measurement tweechat #KMbChat

#KMbChat

#KMbChat March 2013

The latest tweetchat on knowledge mobilization was another success. On March 28, 2013 knowledge mobilizers gathered via Twitter and shared their knowledge, discussed challenges knowledge professionals face, and celebrated successes.

The Participants:

Knowledge mobilizers joined #KMbChat from Toronto (Ontario), Antigonish, (Nova Scotia), Minneapolis (Minnesota), and many points in between. They are professionals working directly or indirectly with knowledge and help form the connections that matter. Anyone interesting in learning how to tell a story with knowledge and moving it into the hands of those who can use it to affect positive social change is welcome to join by following the #KMbChat hashtag.

Unfortunately, I missed March’s #KMbChat. I would like to take a moment to thank Lyndsay Foisey for moderating the tweetchat. She is a wealth of knowledge and experience and we are privileged that she us so willing to share it with us. Don’t forget to follow Lyndsay on Twitter: @Lyndsay_Foisey.

The Questions:

The daily practice of a knowledge mobilizer is filled with creating connections and activities that help promote the creation of and the sharing of knowledge. We often wonder how successful our activities are. Measuring our activities is the only way to find out. With this in mind, #KMbChat’s knowledge mobilizers discussed:

  1. What’s the difference between monitoring and measuring your #KTE (social) efforts?
  2. Is it important to determine whether you are measuring the use of knowledge or the impact of knowledge?
  3. How important are  your goals and objectives when determining your evaluation strategy?
  4. What hard or soft metrics are valuable when determining the success or failure of #KTE or #KMb efforts?
  5. What are your favourite measurement tools?

These questions inspired conversation and sharing, but the most interesting part of these tweetchats are the side conversations and the ability for people to connect with each other. Discussion is only the beginning!

The #KMbChat:

The full transcript of the March 28, 2013 tweetchat on measurement is available in an easy to read and manage PDF:

March 28, 2013 -#KMbChat Measurement

The #KMbChat topics vary and we want to help you discover the knowledge among your colleagues and to enable you to add your own voice and experience to the wealth of knowledge out there. Invite your friends and colleagues to join us on the fourth Thursday of each month.

The next #KMbChat is April 24, 2013 at noon (EST). 

Let us know what you’d like to talk about by leaving a comment or by emailing me at bonnie@bonniezink.com.

Happy Mobilizing!

Community Manager: Hive mentality or recognized profession?

0988359901Buzzing Communities: How to Build, Better, and More Active Online Communities“
by Richard Millington
Pulbished by: FeverBee
Review by Bonnie Zink
$9.99 (CDN) ISBN: 278-0-9333599-0-1
The time has come for community management to become a professional discipline,” writes Richard Millington, London-based community management authority and founder of FeverBee.com, home to the Pillar Summit – an exclusive community management training course – and the leading online resource blog about communities. Millington is known for advocating for change in the way we build and manage communities and for providing thoughtful, concise, and useful information on how to manage communities successfully.
Millington’s latest book, Buzzing Communities: How to Build Bigger, Better, and More Active Online Communities (Amazon.ca), holds true to this well-established reputation. It is an easy-to-follow “how-to” manual about the management of online communities. Each chapter provides a well-organized list of actionable items and encourages community managers to rethink the “why,” the “what,” and the “how” of our daily activities. A thorough read of this book not only encouraged me to ponder the mechanics of what I do as a community manager, but also to consider this:
  • Isn’t it time we consider ourselves as professionals by working towards showing and proving the success of our efforts?  

 

In today’s increasingly networked and digitized world professionals seek out quality and valuable experiences. They come together over ideas and causes. They share these experiences with and learn from other colleagues around the world. They find that they are part of a community that not only helps them meet their professional goals, but also encourages them to step a little further down the learning path, appreciate acquiring new knowledge a little more, and to use the knowledge and experiences of professionals around the world to improve their daily practice. Ultimately, this is why we join communities, but why do we stay involved?
It is well known, and generally agreed upon, that communities are no longer bound by geography. Through the magic of technology professionals collaborate, connect, and create with anyone, anywhere, and at anytime. They do this by joining online communities that grow up around place, interests, causes, and shared practices. Have you ever wondered who keeps these communities running smoothly? Who keeps the content fresh? Who encourages new membership and facilitates continued connectivity among existing members?
The answer is the behind-the-scenes community manager. We have toiled in the darkness of the hive since the concept of community began. We are the worker bees behind the community. We organize. We create. We encourage. The time has come for us to step out of the shadows of the hive and show the value of what we do. Many of us have questioned the “how” of showing value and Millington provides us with not only the answers, but how to turn our efforts to the activities that result in success for ourselves, our profession, and our communities.
Millington shows us in each well-organized chapter how to measure success. He provides a list of actionable information that show community managers the value of what they do, how to measure that value, and how to use those measures to improve their community. Showing value is about planning where you want to go, setting goals or benchmarks that show where you are, and implementing the activities that help you to reach your goals. It is about measuring the right activities at the right time. It is about putting effort into those activities that lead to success. It is also about demonstrating value through cold, hard facts.
Millington relies on scholarly research to support eight concepts that every community manager ought to consider: Strategy, Growth, Content, Moderation, Events & Activities, Relationships and Influence, Business Integration, and User Experience. After explaining what these concepts are and why they are important, Millington provides tips on how to implement them to improve your community, and then follows up with specifics on how to measure your success. Millington then shows these concepts in action by exploring how a number of thriving online communities use these concepts to both provide increased value to the community as well as to show the value (or return on investment) of belonging to the community and the community manager’s activities.
Millington describes online communities as those that “allow for the detailed development of relationships that form the basis of connections.” Although social media opens the door to new relationships, allows access to new ideas, and even helps facilitate collaboration between colleagues, social media does not allow for the time and effort necessary for the formation of strong relationships or connections. Recognizing this, Millington stresses that communities need a healthy dose of real time interaction. Events “play an essential role in the growth and development of communities,” says Millington. They allow for fun and bonding and make the connections stronger.
 
Buzzing Communities finishes with a review of the importance of situating your community within the proper ecosystem, considering a community’s competition (existing online communities), considering the audience (or members), and closes with a wrap-up of what community management success looks like. This book will help community managers improve their practice, become more proactive and less reactive, prove the value of their activities. Buzzing Communities will help you to develop better communities and show clients and organizations how valuable you really are!
  • Keep the conversation going and connect with Richard Millington on Twitter: @RichMillington

Knowledge mobilization (#KMb or #KTE) and social media

 

#KMbChat

#KMbChat

Twitter has come a long since its humble beginnings in 2006. It has evolved from a simple microblogging service to an integral part of communication tool boxes everywhere. It is now one of the top ten most visited websites on the Internet, boasts more than 500 million registered uses who create over 340 million tweets daily, and has become known as the short message service (SMS) of the Internet.

Twitter now occupies the top spot in my learning plan. It brings me closer to thought leaders in my industry and allows me to share what I learn in a quick and easy format that has the power to connect everyone who cares about a specific topic. As a knowledge mobilizer, it is important for me to continuously learn and share what I learn with colleagues around the globe and Twitter allows me to do this. What better way to carry out connecting, learning, and sharing than through a tweet chat?

What is a tweet chat?

Tweet chats, pre-arranged chats that happen on Twitter through the use of Twitter updates (known as tweets) that include a predefined hashtag (#) to link these tweets together in a conversation, have been around nearly as long as long as Twitter itself. The only rule to a tweet chat is that your comments, questions, and knowledge must fit into 140 characters or less and that includes your Twitter handle. You are no doubt thinking that this is not enough room to share what you know. I’m here to tell you that you will be amazed at how much knowledge can be packed into a tweet.

Where are the knowledge moiblization themed tweet chats?

On February 28, 2013 at noon (EST) we kicked off our first knowledge mobilization themed twitter chat. Fifty knowledge mobilizers from around the world followed #KMbChat and shared their experiences and knowledge with each other. The official twitter handle of these chats, @KMbChat, distributed timed and prepared questions open to anyone following the hashtag to answer. The participation level was very high and each of us took away at least one new nugget of knowledge. These chats are scheduled on the fourth Thursday of every month, with the next happening on March 28, 2013.

Check out a handy PDF where we discussed social media and the knowledge mobilization process on February 28, 2013. 

Why join this (or any) tweet chat?

The reasons are complex, and (like Natalie Houston) I don’t pretend to understand them all,  but we like Twitter. She summarizes the why’s and how’s of participating in a tweet chat, so I won’t repeat them here.  Some of the highlights include:

  • We like the short and easy to read content of Twitter.
  • We like to follow people that we find interesting, rather than becoming their friend.
  • We can easily join a community of like-minded people and instantly form the basis of relationships that matter and that give value to us.
  • We can quickly access news, research, and other resources.
  • Twitter is all about sharing ideas and collaboration, where other social media platforms are more about sharing in a more personal way.

I particularly like the way Tom Scheinfeldt explains the draw of Twitter in Stuff Digital Humanists Like: Defining Digital Humanities by its Values. He notes that the openness of Twitter’s communication model readily lends itself to the exchange of ideas. This is the comment that resonates most with me. The exchange of ideas is at the core of what knowledge mobilization is all about; therefore, Twitter is an instant hit among my fellow knowledge mobilizers around the world.

We may be working in different disciplines, have different job titles, call this process of sharing and connecting by different terms, and live in different regions, but we are all eager to learn and share what we learn. Twitter seems to satisfy this need and serves to bring us all together.

When is the next #KMbChat?

Now that the very first #KMbChat is in our past, we are looking forward to the next on March 28, 2013 at noon (EST). We have yet to decide on a topic, but we are committed to making this an experience that knowledge mobilizers enjoy and look forward to. Twitter and tweet chats are part of my continuous learning plan and I hope they (or at least this one) finds a place in yours.

Continuing the conversation…

  • What are some of your favourite tweet chats to follow? 
  • What knowledge mobilization topics would you like to discuss during #KMbChat?
  • What are your top three best practices when it comes to using social media to mobilize your knowledge?

You and Social Media – A Good Match

As professionals, it has always been part of our job to absorb information “evaluate it, synthesize it, and portray the results” ( Allan Johnson, Assistant Professor in English Literature at the City University of Hong Kong) in an engaging and relevant way to audiences (supervisors, colleagues, wider society). In today’s increasingly digital and networked society, we now have access to tools that make this process easier and more efficient. These tools are known as social media and it is social media that not only helps to collect the information we need, but is key to the process of sorting and sharing it.

For over five years, I have been working to help people just like you to network with peers, connect with institutions and experts, build relationships with the media and communities, and tell their stories through both traditional (research reports, fact sheets, publications) and new media (Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, blogs). I’m constantly testing the latest tools, connecting with communities, both online and off, and reading up on the latest research and best practices. I put this knowledge into practice for people like you each and every day. Whether you are a seasoned professional or at the beginning of your career, I believe social media has the power to help you:

  1. tell your story: People connect with other people, not research summaries, reports, or grant applications. Social media helps humanize your research and allows you to show the world why it matters. Talking about your research makes you and your research more accessible and likable. Sharing your passions and establishing that personal connection makes it easy for everyone to connect with you, the personality behind the research, and get excited about the work that you do.
  2. establish your expertise: The work you do, the time you spend doing it, and your passion about what you do sets you apart.  Broadcasting your expertise via social media and sharing your knowledge through blogging and other channels establishes your expertise and allows the world to view you as an expert in your field. Joining discussions and sharing resources  helps you become known as the one to turn to when answers are needed.
  3. build and join communities: By making yourself available, reaching out to stakeholders and interested individuals and sharing your knowledge, you strengthen your community. Social media allows you to form new relationships, provides a place where those connections can connect with each other, and fosters opportunities to create a deeper discussions by increasing the number of voices participating in the conversations that matter to you.
  4. establish relationships that matter: Social media helps you to get your message out there, share your knowledge, and promote your research to new audiences. Strategically connecting with interested stakeholders and individuals is powerful and ultimately amplifies your message. Connect with:
    • experts and thought leaders in your field
    • other like-minded individuals
    • community-based organizations
    • government representatives and decision-makers
    • other institutions and businesses
  5. expand your own knowledge base: Are you looking for a particular resource? Need help figuring out the best tool to get the job done? Looking for new team members? Are you interested in exploring funding opportunities? Chances are the answers lie within your network. Building your network has already connected you with many experts and thought leaders in your field of interest and they are perfectly positioned to help you find the answers you need. They do this much faster than if you were investigating the questions on your own; therefore, social media allows you to do more, faster.

Social media enables us to share what is happening in our lives, in our professions, and in our communities with a broader, truly world-wide, audience. Social media allows us to listen to and connect with others that share our passions and interests. We now have the opportunity to instantly converse with other professionals, researchers, organizations, institutions, and thought leaders in any given field at any given time. These conversations provide the base on which we build relationships and it is these relationships that allow us to share our passions and interests and broaden our own knowledge base . It is this reciprocity and sharing that makes social media so powerful and the perfect tool to help you get your message out there.

Post your questions and stories in the comment section below and join the conversation.

  • Are you ready to connect with the world? Do you need help getting started?
  • Are you already achieving success through social media? 
  • Are your activities on social media producing the results you want?

 

Friends with Benefits

I spend my days scouring the internet for valuable resources to share with you. I’m always giving the latest digital tools a try, connecting with communities on my smart phone and computer, and researching, reading, collecting and curating resources and publications that help me improve my daily practice. I put this knowledge to work for my clients each and every day.

Social media is a central pillar to my activities as a community-based knowledge mobilizer, writer, community of practice facilitator, and social media strategist. It allows me to stay connected to you, my clients, friends, and family. Social media encourages me to always be a continuous and curious learner, to learn new techniques, and to incorporate different perspectives into my daily practice. The tools and techniques I learn from you, my colleagues and connections (both online and off), have enabled me to become a full participant in today’s fast paced and increasingly networked knowledge society.
It also occurred to me that you might find a curated list of the social media tools and advice that I use of value. So, I’m working on it as you read this posting. My intent is to curate a list of tools and resources that help us do our jobs and live our lives. It is a continuously evolving list of best practices that is informed by you, my colleagues and other social media experts. The first addition to this list is a recently released video entitled “Friends with Benefits: The Complex Employee Relationship in the Social Era.” Recently, I realized that I’m sitting on a great resource list of tools and techniques that help me put this knowledge into practice. I thought that I ought to begin crafting posts that share these resources with you. I’ve already curated a popular list of stellar knowledge mobilization/knowledge translation tools.

Tonnes of information exists on the “how-to” of social media, social media strategy, social media policy, and best practices when using social media tools. Blog posts, advice columns, podcasts, and videos are plentiful; each with its own perspective on an array of topics. There are, however, some areas that lack attention. Conversations around the social organization and social employees are just beginning. David Armano puts it well when he wrote,

The reality is that, while [workplaces] want to separate employees and the work they do from their personal lives, [professional and personal] have really become intertwined, and technology usage even supports this.

This gives rise to the question of whether organizations ought to subscribe to a “big brother” type of leadership and ban social media use among its employees or whether they ought to nurture a culture of trust where employees are trained as ambassadors of their organizations and encouraged to use the tools at hand (social media – internally and externally). This is a debate worthy of further exploration.

This video, featuring David Armano (a highly influential voice on the subject of all things social), Chris Heuer from Deloitte (and Social Media Club) and Phoebe Venkat (head of social at ADT Security Services, invites us to think about this less explored conversation. Whether you manage employees, are an employee of a socially supportive (or non-supportive) organization, or wishing to the join the conversation about the blending of professional and personal, this conversation is for you.

The topic of a social workforce and social business is filtered through the following lens:

Social Workforce Lens

Internal to internal (employees using social technologies behind the firewall)
Internal to external (employees talking about their work/companies out in the open)
External to external (employees engaging with multiple stakeholders externally—outside of the company walls).

While you  watch, I invite you to think about the following and leave your thoughts and comments on this page.

Are you social? What’s your favourite tool?

Is your organization social? Are you encouraged to be social internally and externally while acting as an ambassador for your organization? Have you received training to act in the best interst of your organization both online and off?

Do you think personal and professional ought to be allowed to flow freely across the personal and professional threshold or remain separate?

Getting your message heard in an increasingly networked world

The Who, the What, and the Why of Social Media: webinar delivered to the Thoracic Network of Alberta and North West Territories on September 21, 2012 via Air Exchange continuing education webinar.

Knowledge Translation: The Heart of the Innovation Journey

KT: The Heart of the Innovation JourneyEach year, just after Thanksgiving (Canada), the Research Transfer Network of Alberta (RTNA) hosts a conference that brings KT professionals together and provides us with opportunities to connect, collaborate, and create around knowledge translation/mobilization and the processes involved in moving knowledge into action.

This year, KT professionals from across Canada and the United States gathered in Banff, Alberta at the RimRock Hotel for the KT: The Heart of the Innovation Journey. I invite you to read my summary, leave your thoughts, and help move this knowledge into action.

Thank you to David Phipps, for inviting me to guest blog about this experience on Mobilize This! (http://researchimpact.wordpress.com), one of the most well-read and expertly crafted KT blogs out there.

Visit the full posting: http://researchimpact.wordpress.com/2012/10/31/kt-the-heart-of-the-innovation-journey-le-coeur-du-parcours-de-linnovation/

 

Community-Engaged Scholarship: Teaching, Research, and Service “Reconsidered” with Barbara Holland

 

What it is community-engaged scholarship (CES)? How do we do it better? How do we recognize it? What value does it provide to both the academy and communities? These are just a few of the questions answered by Barbara Holland during a series of talks and workshops brought to the University of Saskatchewan community by the office of the Vice President Research, the office of Outreach and Engagement, University Advancement, and Rewarding Community-Engaged Scholarship: Towards the Transformation of University Policies and Practices (a Canadian University Partnership on CES).

Barbara Holland is a world-renowned consultant, author, and speaker. She is well known for her expertise in the areas of organizational change in higher education with a specific emphasis on the implementation and assessment of community-based learning, engaged scholarship, and community-campus partnerships.  She brought her expertise to Station 20 West: Community Enterprise Centre on October 23, 2012 where campus and community joined to discover just what community-engaged scholarship is all about.

According to Holland,

…community engagement describes the collaboration between higher education institutions and their larger communities (local, national, global) for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity.

It is a method of teaching, learning, and researching that involves “others” outside of academia while recognizing community-based expertise, wisdom, insights, and lived experiences. It is thought that bridging the divide between the academy and the communities in which it serves is key in developing collaborative partnerships that best fit the research question, problem, or learning goal of all parties involved.

As I listened, discussed, and learned from Holland and the audience, it struck me that her definition of CES and that of integrated knowledge translation (iKT), developed by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), are very similar. CIHR describes integrated knowledge translation (KT) “as a dynamic and iterative process,” which takes place “within a complex system of interactions between researchers and knowledge users.” Both the CES and iKT definitions seem to allow for the movement of knowledge, but fall short regarding the value of co-creating knowledge through collaborative academic and community partnerships.

I was also struck by the realization that CESand the process of knowledge mobilization (KMb) may strive to meet the same ends. Both strive to connect academics with their communities and place emphasis on the value of building relationships that matter. It is the process of KMb, though, that

…supports collaboration between knowledge producers (academic and community-based), which allows for greater access to existing knowledge and the opportunity to co-produce new knowledge.  It is the mobilization of this new knowledge that informs decisions about policy, professional practice, and social services. It is all about using knowledge to create innovative solutions that improve the communities where we live, work, and play. (Bonnie Zink, 2012)

I put to you, now, the question of whether CES and KMb are indeed working towards the same ends. Are these two processes interchangeable concepts that see both the academy and community duplicating similar practices to reach the same end goals?  Is CES a continuum of activity consisting of many inter-related parts with KMb as one part of that overall activity?

Weigh in with your thoughts in the comment section below and let’s continue the conversation.

 

Favourite Learning Tools of 2012

Jane Hart, Collaboration Consultant and internationally known speaker and writer on the use of social technologies for collaborative learning and working, is seeking our opinion on the Top Tools for Learning 2012.

For the past six years, Ms. Hart has compiled a list of top learning tools, which is created from the contributions of learning professionals from around the world. The 2011 list included tools like Moodle, Prezi, Google Reader, Yammer, Ted Talks, and a host of other tools that we use to share and learn each and every day.

Casting your vote is easy – you can Tweet it, post it, or privately fill out a short survey. Voting remains open until 12 noon BST (=GMT+1) Sunday 30 September 2012.For a complete list rules and more information, please visit the Learning in the Workplace blog.

So, what is a “learning tool?” Ms. Hart notes that learning tools are:

…tools you use for teaching, training, or creating learning content/solutions for others, and/or a tool you use for your own personal or professional learning.

Ms. Hart has inspired me to think through the tools that I use in my own daily practice. Although we need only pick one for the vote, I’d like to share my top ten favourite learning tools (in no particular order) that I use at home, at work, and in my communities.

  1. Google+ is relatively new to the social media club. It is gaining popularity due to its powerful tools that include the ability to filter the information you share and receive based on circles, seamless integration with other Google tools, and high quality live video via Google+ Hangouts.
  2. SlideShare is an easy way to share your knowledge and presentations. People can view your slides before, during, or after your presentation, which avoids the needs to print them out. Slides are easily shared through links and SlideShare has a powerful analytics feature that helps you figure out what works and what doesn’t.
  3. WordPress is a free tool that allows you manage blogs and websites. It powers this website and also my knitting blog, Stitching in Saskatoon, both of which are core to my self directed professional development and learning. I read your blogs through WordPress and share my knowledge while exploring ideas through posting updates.
  4. Twitter is one of the most popular micro-blogging platforms. It allows me to share my knowledge and interests with you as well as connect with new knowledge around the globe.
  5. Diigo is a social bookmarking service where I can keep track and organize web content that I find interesting and useful. I can share stacks of bookmarks via a web link, participate in communities, and even work collaboratively with colleagues to build a knowledge base of topic related information.
  6. Gimp is an open-source (free to use) image manipulation software that runs on most platforms. It takes the best of design and photo manipulation tools and places them into a very easy to use interface that allows me to edit images and create new images for use in presentation slides.
  7. Flickr is my favourite photo sharing platform. Whether I’m looking for an image to use in a presentation or storing my memories, Flickr is a tool to help me collect and share. It helps me build community and connect with like-minded individuals around the world.
  8. Evernote is a powerful note taking tool that helps me reduce the amount of paper I create and use, stay organized (professionally and personally), and reduces the time I spend searching for the important information in my life. Anything I capture (hand writing, voice, photo, web links, PDFs, scanned documents) is completely searchable and easily found. I have access to my information anytime, anywhere, and from any device.
  9. LiveScribe Smart Pen is, by far, one of my favourite gadgets. It captures what I write and hear – in real time – and allows me to return to a conversation by merely tapping pen to paper. It has changed the way I participate in meetings and conversations. No longer do I have to frantically scribble to capture exact quotes or struggle to write and capture information at the same time. I am now fully engaged in the moment armed with the confidence that I have not missed a word. The pencasts are easily searched, stored, and digitally shared.
  10.  LinkedIn is a powerful social network that helps me stay connected with professionals across the world. LinkedIn’s groups help us connect with each other and allow us to share information. I learn something new each and every time I log into LinkedIn and participate in a conversation.
Many on this list not only help me continuously learn, but help me stay organized and productive. I discover new tools every day and expect you do as well. I invite you to share your favourite tools in the comments below.

 

 

 

“The WHO, the WHAT, and the WHY of Social Media”

Improve your digital literacy skills and join the discussion.

This webinar will help you decide which tools work for you, who your audience is, and what to say on Twitter and Facebook.

There is no charge for this event, but registration is a must. Register early to secure your seat.

Social Media Webinar by Bonnie Zink

Join us for “The WHO, the WHAT, and the WHY of Social Media”