Experimenting with the technology

Ken Thompson specialises in network communications and collaboration. Asked how best to engage people, Ken came up with this analogy: “ go back to my experience of learning to fly a light aircraft and sitting in the cockpit with the instructor, hoping at the start that by watching the instructor I could pick up the skills and then realising, no, I have to start taking some risks and get my hands dirty”.

Writing in 1997, Steve Snow, one of the pioneers of online community networks, urged those starting a project to “just do it”, saying: “it takes a dash of ‘devil-may-care’ to make it happen, a belief that the power and urgency of the concept demands that you do this. Perhaps a less intense way of saying the same thing would be this: “Don’t let anyone tell you you cannot do this.” Make friends, forget enemies; collaborate with anyone that will have you; be clear about partnerships; choose volunteers carefully; build on what’s here; look out for opportunities; and look after yourself.

The best way to promote use of technologies is to help people try it – starting at the top. Ian Hughes works for IBM, evangelising the potential of social technologies, and when he is asked how to help organisations use these new tools he says, “I need you, the person who has asked the question, to experience this stuff. Go to blogger.com, create a simple blog – anonymously if you want – and start blogging ... about what you had for dinner, about a fishing trip, just so you felt what it’s like when you pressed that button, published to the world, and shared what you are doing”.

If you haven’t experienced social media you may think it is about sharing information ... “but it is not, it is about sharing who you are and what you do and what you are interested in, because that’s what connects people. People connect with people. The technology is merely a way to facilitate that.” He finds people assume someone will simply come in and install lots of tools and get everyone blogging and sharing – but it starts with the people – that’s you, right now – not the technology.

Steph Gray is a civil servant responsible for social media and new technology deployment. He’s produced his own guide to getting started with social technologies, from a UK public sector angle.He argues that organisations should be “equipping some brave pioneers with the equivalent of media training or putting some smartboards in meeting rooms, not putting a phone on everyone’s desk and expecting them to use it all day long.”

You are that brave pioneer. Time to get stuck in. The Companion section of this handbook outlines a whole host of different things to read, and more importantly tools to try out, to get you started...