By Dennis D. McDonald

For the seven day period ending September 2, 2010, the following were, in descending order, this web site’s most popular Managing Technology posts:

1. Getting Real about Project Management, Collaboration, and Communication
2. Cookies, Imrworldwide, and Nielsen Netratings: What’s the Connection?
3. What’s the Difference Between Innovation and Creativity?
4. A Short Definition of “Strategic Planning”
5. Honest, I’m Not Opposed to Location Based Services!
6. How To Develop a Business-Aligned Social Media & Social Networking Strategy
7. Banners and Widgets for Nonprofits and Volunteer Organizations, Part 1
8. Using WRITEBOARD, a Web-Based Collaborative Document Authoring Tool
9. Challenges Facing Recovery.gov and the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board
10. Needed: Managing Variety in Technology Adoption Rates

Copyright (c) 2010 by Dennis D. McDonald. Dennis’ contact information is here.

By Dennis D. McDonald

I’ve recently learned — and re-learned — some useful lessons while working with clients and teams on projects and large proposals. These include:

• People adopt technology at different rates.
• People collaborate and communicate in many different ways.
• Some people don’t know how to collaborate.
• Technology is a collaboration tool, not a collaboration solution.
• Management needs to lead adoption and use of communication and  collaboration technologies.

My use of information technology to support project management seems to have come naturally. As an early-on gadget lover I gravitated towards data sharing technologies, web based publishing, and eventually to social media and social networking.

I’ve also found it’s a mistake to assume others share these same values. Even if they express willingness to collaborate, some project staff may require help from management or other team members learning how to use technology to support collaboration, especially if they’ve come together from a variety of organizations or backgrounds.

A typical project situation is where staff are working from many different locations and time zones on a time based project of some kind. Examples are developing a report, creating a proposal, developing a plan, or building and rolling out a product or application of some kind. Figure 1 displays a simple overview of how communication, collaboration, and project management can interact in such situations.

Figure 1. Project Collaboration map

All activities takes place in a “project sponsor” environment — a company, a government agency, a temporary team of companies or individuals, or some other group of resources bright together to accomplish a common objective. The three overlapping areas shown in Figure 1 are Management (guiding, leading, directing), Collaboration (working together to accomplish a common objective), and Communication (sharing information). I put a “gold star” at the intersection of the three.

It’s not sufficient for project management to focus only on managing project activities, deliverables, schedules, and budgets. Management may need to orchestrate how people communicate and collaborate, hence the gold star. This means providing leadership not only in defining tasks, responsibilities, and expectations — typical “project manager” duties — but also leading in the sharing of  information and in working together with different individuals and groups to accomplish necessary objectives.

Management needs to provide and use the tools:

• If a collaborative document creation and editing system is being used to create a complex document, management needs to (a) use the tool itself, (b) make it known to those refusing to use the tools that they could be threatening the project’s schedule and budget by imposing extra costs, and c) make sure everyone knows how to use the tool! (If you’ve ever had to integrate changes made to separate Microsoft Word documents the day before a large proposal is due you’ll know what I mean!)
• If a common calendaring or resource tracking system is available to staff members, management needs to (a) use the tool, (b) require its use when groups or individuals don’t make the effort to schedule group activities using the tool, and c) make sure everyone knows how to use the tool! (For example, don’t just toss a Basecamp application into a large mixed group and expect everyone to know how to configure and use it!)

Look again at Figure 1. You’ll see a lot of space outside the “gold star” intersection. Not all communication or collaboration can — or should — take place with the knowledge or involvement of management, and not all communication involves collaboration and vice versa. People are going to use their existing tools and skills; you wouldn’t expect anything different from any group of professionals, would you?

I still maintain, based on my own experience, that if management does not pay attention to the intersection of all three, project failure can result. Some of this management involvement involves imposing structure and discipline and making responsibilities and expectations clear and understood by all. This is partly so that spontaneous “outside the gold star” collaboration and communication emerge within a shared context — even if the actual methods adopted by staff are unique or even incompatible with what others are doing.

For example, a senior member of the team may only know about how to use email and attachments to share files and may resist using a shared document using collaborative when working with a large group. Inevitably the problem of incompatible versions or out of sync revisions rears its ugly head, usually at the worst possible time.

Even more subtle issues come into play when sharing documents even from a central location. File naming conventions need to be enforced and that means that someone may have to play the role of the enforcer. Also, despite ubiquity of Microsoft Office applications there will arise incompatibilities due to multiple versions of Word or lack of universal access to tools such as Visio. Some one usually has to step in to convert, or standardize — or impose order. And when that happens in a temporary or volunteer situations, feathers can get ruffled if things aren’t approached diplomatically.

It’s always useful to remember that, just because you define a process and provide an underlying set of tools to support that process, not everyone will understand or be ready — or willing — to apply that process. What do you do if you’re managing a proposal and a key volunteer member doesn’t follow the process — “fire” him or her? Or suck it up and figure out a work-around?

Remember, it’s called “collaboration” for a reason. It’s about working together towards a common goal.

Keeping that in mind really helps when you need to balance the seemingly obvious advantages of standard systems and procedures with the reality that team members’ communication and collaboration behavior are learned over a long period of time and may be very difficult to change overnight.

Copyright (c) 2010 by Dennis D. McDonald

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By Dennis D. McDonald

Honest, I’m not against location based services!

• If you want to embed details of your geographic location in all messages emerging from your portable, mobile, or static communication device, that’s fine with me.
• If you want to receive and take advantage of such data when you’re out and about, that’s fine with me, too.
• If you’re a business desiring to take advantage of such information that’s freely and openly available on various channels and frequencies, go right ahead.

I understand the advantages, I really do. There are many situations where location information, whether actively or passively generated, can be enormously helpful (see illustration). After all, one of the oldest and truest sayings is “birds of a feather flock together.” There’s nothing anyone can do or say to change that.

I do have two requests:

1. Let me opt out of openly advertising my physical location as a condition of using your web site, networking service, or communication system. I completely understand how dependent my cellphone service depends on such data being automatically tracked, but please don’t make me advertise such data without some acknowledgement on my part. Facebook’s enablement of some control over location specific account information is a positive step, I think.
2. Don’t assume I want to know from second to second where you are on Twitter. I like Twitter and enjoy the free service immensely, but its increasing use as a spamming platform is annoying. Having to wade through numerous Foursquare “I’m now mayor of..” announcements is also getting bothersome. If I’m following you on Twitter I’m more interested in your ideas than your location.

Copyright (c) 2010 by Dennis D. McDonald

By Dennis D. McDonald, Ph.D.

I wrote Sometimes a phone is just a phone and a web site is just a web site because different people adopt different technologies at different rates. Those rates depend on need, cost, peer influence, job responsibilities,  and many other factors.

Today lots of interest is swirling around mobile and semantic technologies. The former enables access to communication and data services from anywhere via increasingly powerful smartphones that are really small computers. The latter enables better communication and interoperabilty across different systems including human, computer, and organizational.

For some folks being an “early adopter” is a way of life. But not everyone is an early adopter or tied in — yet — to the “mobile revolution.” Not everyone “needs” the latest app or the latest Android phone, just as not everyone “needs” the latest edition of a print newspaper or the last novel by Stieg Larson.

Both technologies have evangelists, early adopters, snake oil sellers, devotees, honest practitioners, skeptics, and footsoldiers. I “believe” in them both since I see the advantages.

But I’m also wary about the difficulties involved in getting everybody together on the same page when new technologies and technology-based services are introduced. As problems get larger and involve more and more groups, technologies, and systems in their solution, the challenge of supporting efficient communication and collaboration can increase as well. While technology is important, it’s also the personal and organizational changes that are enabled by that technology that requires time, attention — and money.

It’s just no longer realistic to get everyone together in one physical location, the way it was with the Manhattan Project. Now in solving complex problems we have to deal with people, systems, and organizations all over the world. Based on my own background in technology-related research, development, and project management, I’m a  firm believer in the benefits that technology can provide.

But I’m also concerned that not placing enough attention on the human and organizational aspects of technology adoption can strangle the benefits that technology-enabled collaboration and innovation can bring to solving a problem.

One thing that’s needed is management of the interfaces among systems and processes that are incompatible or which require conversion or translation that may — initially — be too expensive to automate.

One example of this is a complex project where group communication and collaboration are often required but where it is unrealistic — for political or economic reasons, perhaps — for all participants to use the same network based system for sharing information on a one-to-one or group basis. Some folks just won’t be willing to give up email and attachments no matter how much expense or friction this causes to the rest of the team. Others who have a “meeting mindset” will feel uncomfortable making decisions without being face to face.

Accommodating such real-world variations in communication and collaboration style requires planning, time, patience, and money, even in military and other hierarchically-structured environments. In some cases adoption of common languages and technologies can promote more efficient communication and collaboration.

But as long as we need to have different types of organizations, roles, and personalities involved solving complex problems, we’ll need to accommodate a variety of communication styles and preferences. Managing this requires more than just new technology; it also requires that we incorporate communication and collaboration management into any complex project.

Copyright (c) 2010 by Dennis D. McDonald

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I’ve been researching which smartphone to buy after my current Verizon agreement (and its associated dumbphone) expire. I’m not interested in broadcasting my whereabouts to everyone (no Foursquare for me) but I do recognize the value of mobile maps, search, and occasional email on the go.

I know the world is going mobile just as I know that young folks don’t like talking on the phone. With my eyesight, though, I really need a big screen, and with my frequent document creation work, I don’t see using a device with a 4” screen and a toy keyboard to do serious writing (Twitter not included).

I want a reliable phone with occasional web and email access. But reading the Android fanboy literature about all the different Android incarnations out there is troubling. I know full well I’ll be buying a computer and I resist having to deal with another platform and learning curve, like the early days of Windows and hardware-enabled bifurcations that enabled.

I’m not a software developer. I just want to work and communicate without having to worry whether the next app I download is going to lock up my phone when I most need it.

I’m reminded of the time I landed with my family in Frankfurt, rented a shiny new German car — and couldn’t figure out how to start the engine. I just want to, as they say, “grab the phone and go.”

As far as on-the-go social networking is concerned, I admit I’ll probably be carrying over my current level of activity and engagement. But web access on the go is critical. That’s where I’m coming from on the saying “sometimes a web site is just a web site.” I don’t want to have to register, become a member of a network, and decide on differing levels of privacy every time I go to a new site. If I’m on the go I just want to go there, do my thing, and leave, and that does not include getting locked into a Google or Facebook infrastructure. (Not that Apple doesn’t lock you in either…)

It’s like shopping — I avoid shopping malls whenever I can; meandering around from shoe store to shoe store drives me nuts. Let me find a store that has what I want, I’ll go and buy it, and leave.

The web’s the same. Sometimes I’m into “social,” sometimes I’m not.

Don’t force me into quicksand when I just want to skate along the surface!

Copyright (c) 2010 by Dennis D. McDonald 

“… and a good cigar is a smoke.”

In simpler times, elections settled things. You voted for a candidate. If that candidate lost you gritted your teeth and waited for the next election. In between elections you wrote letters and contributed money to your party. Maybe you even went door to door or made phone calls.

Now in today’s “new media world” we have so many opportunities to participate and voice our opinions interactively and in real time that it’s easy to forget about the meaning of voting.

Say your candidate lost the last election. Now if you are loud and well organized enough you can delay and derail the winner’s policies, appointments, and legislative actions almost indefinitely. And in between elections the pundits, rabble rousers, and so-called “opinion leaders” — even lowly bloggers like me — can fill the media with information and opinions that can drive out not just the opinions of opponents but the facts as well.

Forget reasoned debate and thoughtful deliberation. If my online “friends” and I can scream loud enough maybe we’ll get your guy ignored, marginalized — even fired!

So, what is it, then, that distinguishes mob rule based gridlock from democracy?

One thing is the willingness to listen. This requires civility, politeness, and maybe even some humility; you have to be willing to say something like “Maybe I’m wrong but I’ll hear you out even though my tribe says you’re full of hot air.”

How likely is such humility to emerge in an environment where each one of us can craft our own media, our own like-minded communities, and our own social experiences that reflect only our own experiences, expectations, comfort zones, and prejudices?

It’s tough. But there are two groups where I think there might be hope.

The first consists of the young people growing up in a digital environment where from a young age they learn to selectively control their media environments. Examples are drops in popularity of voice phone calls among younger people and increased use of socialized web based video; they’re screening out and controlling how they communicate and manage information overload.

Yes, this gives them a way to “screen out” everything they’re not interested in, including voting. In my “glass half full” mentality, though, this also means they know how to navigate today’s complex media environment much more effectively than those of us who grew up with radio, television networks. and newspapers.

Yes, tyrants and demagogues can use new media just as patriots can; my money is on the patriots.

The second group that fills me with hope consists of immigrants to the U.S. from cultures where traditional family values and respect for authority and learning are prized.

Based on my own anecdotal observations such immigrants bring a traditional set of values to the U.S. that are less likely to respond to the political whims of the moment. Theirs might be a society where respect for law, authority, and legality are very real, even as they navigate the slings and arrows thrown down by our Dominant White Culture. Most encouraging to me is — again anecdotally — that many immigrants to the U.S. seriously view education and schooling as the way to get ahead.

In a society where “dumb” is still valued in some quarters, such educational initiative shouldn’t be discouraged through indiscriminant discrimination.

Copyright (c) 2010 by Dennis D. McDonald. Click the button to share this on Twitter:

I’ve been using Twitter since its beginning. I enjoy it. Right now I’m “following” 885 people and 1,568 are “following” me. Mostly it’s people in the DC area, people interested in topics like project management, e-Government and collaboration, social media practitioners, and a smattering of academics and consultants whose specialties or interests overlap in some way with mine.

I tend to follow people (as opposed to corporate accounts) and I’ve stopped following many social media “gurus” whose use of Twitter and their bajillions of followers offers no real opportunity for actual communication or engagement. I frequently reply to tweets I’ve read. The give and take is interesting and informative — and occasionally funny. I also post my new blog posts and book and movie reviews as well as links to news articles I find of interest (e.g., space, science, engineering, etc.) 

Twitter right now has been running a “Who to follow” (WtF) feature. In a prime spot in the right hand column whenever I log in I see two recommendations. Usually it’s an obvious recommendation (Bill Gates, Guy Kwasaki, Chris Brogan, etc.) or a DC- or Nothern-virginia area person selected, no doubt, based on my interest in Federal government issues or my announced residence here in Alexandria VA. 

I find the Who to Follow feature annoying. As with a similar feature provided by Facebook, there is no indication why this person is recommended. (Is Bill Gates recommended because he’s a philanthropist or because he’s, well, Bill Gates?)

I’ve noticed that several of the recommendations for social media gurus have been people I no longer follow — Guy Kawasaki, god bless him, is one of the them. I no longer follow Guy but I wish him well. But he’s showed up in my “Who to Follow” recommendation three times so far over the last week. so I suspect he’ll show up some more. (An exception to my “no gurus” rule is Jeremiah Owyang, a personal friend.)

My guess is that Twitter’s Who to Follow feature will be dropped eventually from its prime location and replaced with some sort of advertising. That’s fine with me — silent, un-animated ads that are in fact targeted to my eclectic interests, as long as they are not annoying, are fine with me; we all have to make a living.

But — and I know this makes me sound awfully old fashioned — I would appreciate it very much if Twitter were to change the name of the feature to “Whom to Follow.” 

Copyright (c) 2010 by Dennis D. McDonald

Here are some data on U.S. deaths by age group based on deaths per 100,000 of population:

What got me thinking about this was the July 21 episode of This Week in Google and the very interesting discussion by Leo Laporte and company about attempts to capture for re-use, analysis, and publishing the “fire-hose” of behavioral and transaction data emerging from sources such as Buzz, Twitter, and Facebook.

Assuming that ownership and privacy issues are addressed and such “fire-hose” sources eventually become generally available, it seems likely that any given “data stream” created from online engagement will necessarily include data generated by or about dead people, especially as use of online communications continues to spread among adults.

My family Rolodex, personal email list, and web based contact tracking system already include a number of family, friends, and  neighbors who have died during the past few years. While I haven’t yet created folders and tags such as “deceased” to cover them, I do occasionally come across the need to refer to them. Also, if you are the parent of a teenager in high school, you are already undoubtedly aware of the very real statistics on teenage deaths from traffic accidents, drugs, and random violence.

At any given time a certain percentage of online transactions in any group or “community” will be associated with dead people. Just as commercially-sold mailing lists are constantly “cleaned” to remove changes brought about by moves, jobswitching, and deaths, so too might be the case with the buying and selling of products or services that purport to represent the transactions, behaviour, or “conversations” of certain fuzzily-defined populations. Who — if anyone — will be responsible for “cleaning up” data on online transactions to ensure the transactions actually represent a “live” population? Google? Facebook? Twitter? The family of the deceased?

Of course, the web is already littered by datasets, pages, and sites that are (literally) moribund due to the death or mobility of the originator, so extension of this phenomenon to web based social networks is to be expected. The Grim Reaper, after all, is always with us; think about that next time you click “reply” on Twitter!

Copyright (c) 2010 by Dennis D. McDonald. Dennis invites you to comment below or to email him at ddmcd@yahoo.com. His Twitter address is http://twitter.com/ddmcd.

Thanks to a tweet by @tacanderson I stumbled across the blog post Sunk Costs by venture capitalist Fred Wilson.

Wilson’s article is basically a repeat of the old advice, “don’t throw good money after bad” when there’s no hope of recovering what you’ve already sunk into a failing project or product.

What if part of the cost has been investment in developing a social network based “community” of potential vendors or customers for the failing product or service? Should you just cut ties with them and walk away from them under the assumption that they are also part of the “sunk cost”?

That will depend on the “halo” surrounding each connection. Is it solely tied to the failed product or service? Or is part of that “halo” also tied to your company, organization, and/or reputation?

If the latter is true, trying to just sever all social media connections could get messy. Some people who are invested in the relationship might not be willing to let you make a clean break; after all, admitting failure in public could reflect on their reputation as well as yours.

On the other hand, trying to redirect or channel the old community’s enthusiasm could take time and money away from the new things that need to be done. No one wants to be the last rat off a sinking ship, no matter how attractive you make the ship.

What to do?

One approach is honesty. When the old project fails, be honest and say so. If there’s no immediate way to transfer the investment you and the community have already made is online social engagement to another product or service, also say so and set a date beyond which online resources, features, and services will no longer be available.

Needless to say, the nature of the relationship you’ve had with the community up till now will impact you going forward as you work through shutting down and/or transferring services.

If it’s any consolation, one of the things you learn about any corporate system is that shutting them down or retiring them is rarely “free.” You don’t just walk in and click the “off” switch on a server running and old and moldy legacy application. There’s data to be preserved, privacy issues  to be addressed (if personal file are included), and last but not least, there are the training and transfer costs associated with shifting users of the old system to a new or replacement system.

The same is true of the communities we build around products and services under development; it’s hard to just walk away.

Copyright (c) 2010 by Dennis D. McDonald

I’ve decided to “unfriend” the Washington Post discussions on Facebook.

Let me explain. I already subscribe to the paper edition which is delivered every morning — usually by 6 am — to my home in Alexandria Virginia. If I’m home I’ll browse through it at breakfast, starting with the editorials and comments section. I’ll even post links to it in my own blog posts (here’s an example).

But I’ve also been tracking the Post via Facebook and have on several occasions jumped into the discussion. I enjoy the discussions — usually. Maybe it’s because I’ve always enjoyed “letters to the editor.” The give and take of ideas is always fun and enlightening. Plus, it’s not unusual for me to see something posted there that I missed the first time through the paper edition.

Lately though I’ve been increasingly disturbed by the crudeness of some of the comments on Facebook and the tendency to reduce discussions to counter-insults.

Don’t get me wrong. I can tolerate differences in opinion. But thinly disguised racism and frequent name calling just don’t shed light on matters.

I guess it was naive of me at one time to think that people would be less willing to make outrageous and inflammatory statements if they had to sign their names to online commentary.

Comments in the Washington Post Facebook discussion threads have convinced me otherwise.

I probably shouldn’t be surprised by this. Any completely open discussion venue has the potential for veering into lowest-common-denominator diatribes. Perhaps the increasingly social nature of online communications is removing more traditional social control methods based on common assumptions regarding politeness and decorum. I expect this when reading comments in aggressively liberal or conservative blogs; it’s disappointing when the same behavior patterns are repeated with established institutions such as the Washington Post.

I guess I am old fashioned. I just don’t think it’s necessary to insult people to make a point.

Just as I tend to avoid Fox and MSNBC commentators, I’ll now be avoiding the Facebook Washington Post discussions on Facebook as well.

Discussion question (feel free to comment below): I realize that Facebook is “free” of subscription fees and that, as a baby-boomer, I may not fit the “desirable demographic profile” for online subscriptions.  My question is: Would people be willing to pay for online access to newspaper based discussion forums if they knew they were moderated and that crudeness, vulgarity, idiocy, and race-baiting were “moderated out”?

Copyright (c) 2010 by Dennis D. McDonald

I’ve been researching how to measure the impact of improved collaboration on Federal procurement processes, starting with development of a “concept map” that organizes the major issues.

Recently I had the good fortune to interview Mike Del-Colle, Accenture’s Senior Manager, Federal Contract Policy Compliance. I met Dell-Colle earlier this year at a meeting of the ACT/IAC Acquisition SIG and he graciously agreed to be interviewed. He made several very important points during our conversation that I wanted to report.

Are you improving or changing existing processes?

First, Del-Colle says that it makes a big difference whether you are using collaboration and communication technologies to improve existing processes or to change existing processes. The example he gave concerned the process formalities surrounding large DoD based procurements (and for some large NASA and DoE procurements). Much research and documentation goes into an initial assessment of the market for certain types of products and services. This market research phase, according to Mike, is an example where using documented communications and messages associated with use of collaboration and networking technologies would help support and even improve an existing process.

This certainly makes sense to me. How you measure “doing things better” and “doing things differently” often differ. For example, the former suggests process metrics as being important while the latter suggests outcome metrics as being more important; I’ve tried to capture both of these in the model.

Collaboration extends throughout contract management

Another point made by Del-Colle was that the use of collaborative systems for procurement management extends beyond contract award and extends into contact management. The sharing of information, the working to common goals, and the allocation of work across different teams doesn’t stop when the contract is awarded. These processes all must continue, albeit in modified form.

Yes, this does mean that relationships do change when, for example, responsibility for a contract on the vendor side shifts from a capture team to a delivery team. This is all the more reason, I believe, that sharing of information is critical so that the learning that about customer requirements and operational realities that emerges during proposal, award, and negotiations stages doesn’t get lost when the work moves from marketing to operations.

Procurement and Project Management

The points made by Del-Colle during our interview won’t be a surprise to experienced project managers since the importance of collaboration and information sharing has been long recognized as essential for successful project outcomes. In fact, some experts have explicitly connected project management and contract management; an example is shown in the presentation Procurement Project and Program Alignment by Michael Bevis, Competency and Certification Manager, Federal Acquisition Institute. Bevis devotes significant detail to discussing stakeholder communications and their importance to procurement processes.

This is similar to my own discussions of the role social media and social networking can play in project management; for an example see How Can Collaboration Systems and Social Media Complement Agile Project Management?

Practical questions

Once of the issues raised by the need for collaboration and information sharing across organisational and system boundaries is the impact on technology support. Telephone, email, and instant messaging are usually available to provide “plain vanilla” communication and collaboration frameworks. One question is how to move beyond these tools to collaborating and sharing in realtime when different groups use different collaboration tools. What if, for example, one groups uses SharePoint, another uses Jive, and a third uses a remotely hosted tool like Ning or Groupsite? Do you force everyone to use the same tool? Do you opt for lowest-common-denominator interfaces to allow for data and document sharing across systems? Or do you allow everyone to use the tools they feel comfortable with and provide, as unobtrusively as possible, administrative support to facilitate interfaces and data exchange between different systems?

These are tough questions and are typical of why I’m trying to look objectively at the contribution collaboration can make to acquisition processes.

Copyright (c) 2010 by Dennis D. McDonald

Chris Mooney’s June 27 Washington Post editorial If scientists want to educate the public, they should start by listening provides a short course on the complexities of a major problem facing the United States: willful scientific ignorance. Unfortunately, I don’t think Mooney’s suggestion that “better communication” on the part of scientists will overcome the problem.

Yes, some Americans still believe the earth is only a few thousand years old and that dinosaurs and humans once walked the earth together. I’m not referring to that type of ignorance. Obviously some people are willing to limit their own personal conceptions of God to what they themselves can understand. That’s their right. I think it’s more likely that God created everything and gave humans the brains and ability to gradually figure out how things work using scientific methods — but I’ll never be able to “prove” that since that’s more a religious than scientific question.

The “willful scientific ignorance” I’m referring to is more complex. It’s based, I think, on the often negative  interaction between politics and science that Mooney refers to. Political leanings do appear to have some bearing on one’s approach to understanding and acting on scientific findings. We live in a complex society where we have delegated much authority to government; science is only one of the factors that informs public policy, much of which is devoted to managing what happens in the future.

One problem is that many people just don’t understand that science isn’t just about figuring out what is and isn’t true. Real science often does not exist in a black and white/true or false dichotomy. “Doing science” often involves a long slog where, for every major breakthrough and world-changing “ah-ha” moment, there are thousands of small advances that, taken by themselves, might mean little but which occasionally are coalesced into major breakthroughs.

Examples of such profound breakthroughs are Newton’s understanding of gravity, Darwin’s observation of the workings of natural selection and, more recently, the understanding of how plate tectonics operate.

But much of science involves small steps that only seem to generate more questions and probabilities, not certainties. Politicians and government officials in their desire to manage the future can become frustrated by the messiness of real science.

A case in point: recent experience with H1N1. Everything I read last year about the potential for a catastrophic H1N1 outbreak couched such predictions with probabilities and uncertainty. Yet we now have people pointing to the LACK of a catastrophic outbreak — so far — as “evidence” that “scientists don’t know what they’re talking about.”

In an atmosphere of such aggressive anti-intellectualism and happy ignorance I don’t see how scientists can overcome ignorance with more and better listening or communication. Communication requires two parties. If one side doesn’t understand — or want to understand — that the real world of science is a constant but gradual quest for knowledge that doesn’t guarantee outcomes, no amount of quality communication and listening will suffice.

We’re talking about different world views here where, increasingly, ignorance appears to be prized and another where ignorance is the enemy. In the Unites States, I fear, ignorance appears to be winning.

Copyright (c) 2010 by Dennis D. McDonald

“Web 2.0” is one of those terms that just won’t die. Even as some have tried to invent and sell newer-sounding terms like “web 3.0,” there are still many for whom the underlying concepts of “web  2.0” and social media are new, unfamiliar, or ready to be revisited after an initial or limited exposure.

I recently had an opportunity to provide an updated definition of “web 2.0” for a project I’m consulting on. The project, managed by the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), is called Changing the Conversation: From Research to Action. I had written about this project’s precursor in 2008’s Can Social Media Help Change the Public’s Perception of the Engineering Profession? The current project, funded by the National Science Foundation, has these objectives:

1. Develop, with significant engineering community input, an online “toolkit” containing messaging-related resources, community-building applications, and other resources to support the project goal;
2. Facilitate dialog between organizations that have developed implementation strategies for the new engineering messages and influential stakeholders in the engineering community that have not yet implemented the messages.
3. Create and disseminate an “Action Plan” that will guide adoption and use of the online toolkit and encourage coordinated outreach to the public by the broader engineering community.

I’m advising on the use of “web 2.0” techniques to support project management and outreach efforts which are supported by the project’s own content management system and web site, both of which are under development. These resources will focus on the communication of positive messages to students, teachers, and parents about Engineering as a career.

I was asked recently to supply a definition of “web 2.0” to help participants understand and appreciate how we’re planning to use a range of communication and collaboration tools to support the project. Starting with definition included in 2007’s Using a Blog for a “Web 2.0” Presentation instead of PowerPoint this is what I wrote:

The term “web 2.0” is nearly a decade old and describes two important dimensions of web based communication:

1. Web 2.0 as Technology Platform. When used this way, Web 2.0 refers to the ways computer hardware, software, and networks can be used to deliver sophisticated interactive processes over the World Wide Web to anyone with an Internet connection. Hallmarks of Web 2.0 technology are (1) the rapidity with which sophisticated interactive data-handling applications can be developed, (2) the ease with which data from different systems can be combined for access over the web, and (3) relative independence from specific types of computers, operating systems, or mobile devices.
2. Web 2.0 as Communication Process. When used this way, Web 2.0 refers to the ways people can use the web to easily publish information (sometimes called “content”) online, share that information with others, and develop relationships and communicate interactively with people who share common interests. Often these behaviors are individualistic, spontaneous, and highly decentralized.

“Social media” as a companion term to “web 2.0” refers to the increasingly open and social nature of web based communications. Sometimes traditional media adopt “social media” characteristics, an example being when a newspaper not only publishes its original content online but also encourages readers to discuss its articles online and, in some cases, to add and report events alongside postings by professional journalists.

Perhaps the most significant feature of “web 2.0” systems is that just about anyone can use them to share and discuss almost any topic. They don’t require the same level of support that older and more structured websites, computer networks, and software applications require. Using today’s online resources (like the ones discussed below) just about anyone can publish online and carry on extended conversations with groups with like-minded individuals. These groups can be large, small, temporary, or permanent.

One of the single most significant byproducts of this “ease of use” of social media and web 2.0 based systems is how availability of such systems can shift the balance of power from system creators to system users. Once something is published online and discussions and conversations start taking place, traditional concepts of centralized control, ownership, and authority can become irrelevant. The resulting ascendancy of the role of the “community” over hierarchical authority requires an adjustment.

I followed the above with discussions of how specific tools such as blogs, Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter can be used to support the Changing the Conversation project.

As I was writing the above I was struck by how much has changed since 2007. We’ve seen the rise of Facebook and Twitter as well as corporate adoption of “enterprise 2.0” collaboration systems. We’ve also seen the rapid adoption of social media to support public relations and advertising.

Add to these the rise of location-supported mobile applications, increasing market share for “smartphones,” and the rapid evolution of competing platforms like iPhone and Android. The result is an increasingly complex media landscape in which a project such as NAE’s Changing the Conversation and its website will need to operate.

However we define terms, today’s rich media landscape is where tomorrow’s engineers are growing up. Using these tools to reach them with factual and positive information about Engineering just makes sense.

Copyright (c) 2010 by Dennis D. McDonald

More than 5 years ago my first exposure to “web 2.0” based professional networking was via Linkedin. As an independent IT management consultant it seemed natural  to use web based networking to grow and develop professional relatiomships. Combined with my blogging I embarked on a  rewarding series of professional experiences that have continued to this day.

I was recently brought up short, though, by what I read in this morning’s Washington Post in Joe Davidson’s Federal Diary column titled Survey may show whether managers adhere to banned practices. Davidson discusses a recent report by the US Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) titled Prohibited Personnel Practices - A Study Retrospective.

The report focuses on a set of “prohibited personnel practices” in order to determine how well Federal personnel management is functioning in areas such as job discrimination and whistleblowing. What caught my attention was “number two” in the report’s official list of “prohibited personnel practices”:

(2) Solicit or consider any recommendation that is not job-related and based on personal
knowledge of the employee or applicant;

The key phrase here is “personal knowledge.” Would it be correct to conclude that informal communications such as those supported by various social networks might be viewed as “prohibited practices” if these communications appear to involve communications between potential Federal managers and employees? What if such networks are explicitly being used because they do support more informal communications that effectively bypass — or ignore — formal organization boundaries? And what if these informal communications result in “personal knowledge” about potential Federal employees by those involved in hiring?

The report concentrates on reporting trends in Federal workforce survey-reported perceptions of job discrimination, whistleblowing, and unfair hiring practices. I do wonder how the prohibited practice “Solicit or consider any recommendation that is not job-related and based on personal knowledge of the employee or applicant” will be interpreted in the upcoming survey of Federal employees that the MSPB will be sponsoring. Use of social networks by Federal employees is growing; reading through group discussions on the social network GovLoop shows that. Also, any jobsearch consultant or coach worth his or her salt has to address how professionally oriented social networking is a key element in any job search; just look at all the Federal employees who are active on Linkedin.

Of course, not everyone has openly embraced “web 2.0” communications in support of all Government processes; my own research into the use of collaboration tools in support of Federal acquisitions attests to that. Change takes time. As users of social media and social networking have found in the private sector, employees need to understand and embrace corporate policies about what can and cannot be discussed openly. The same is probably true for Federal employees.

Hopefully appropriate regulations and processes are being developed and implemented so that Federal hiring practices can be managed fairly while still enabling Federal employees to take advantage of the communication benefits offered by social media and social networking.

Copyright (c) 2010 by Dennis D. McDonald. Contact Dennis by email at ddmcd@yahoo.com.

One of the things I do is help people plan how to use collaboration systems and social media. Sometimes one deliverable is a project schedule describing a sequence of tasks and associated costs. If the project involves creating content and monitoring and engaging with external communities, I try to model the projected costs based on different assumptions tied to metrics reflecting core content creation, time spent reading selected feeds and other sources, and engaging meaningfully on external or  related networks or communities.

One response I sometimes get is “That much, huh? Can’t we just start with a Facebook group?”

The answer is obviously “yes.” But lurking in the back of my mind is the question of quality and scaling especially if I’m dealing with specialized professional populations where different groups need to be treated individually. Establishing a trusted relationship (and a professional “presence”) with each group takes time. While it may be easy to automate certain research and monitoring activities, it’s not so easy to automate relationship development and trust.

My theory is that sometimes it’s easier for small and large organizations to create social media programs that support engagement with multiple communities. It’s trickier for middle size organizations.

For small organizations leadership is accustomed to engaging directly with the different groups in their value chain. For larger organizations senior management can organize to ensure that engagement activities are professionally managed and done in ways consistent with corporate philosophy.

For mid-size organizations it’s harder. They have to engage in regularizing and standardizing a wide range of corporate processes. They don’t have the resources to do this that larger organizations have. Outsourcing and cloud based technology support may be helpful in some instances but when it comes to using social media to engage honestly and truthfully with customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders, outsourcing is not as much of an option.

Which gets us back to when it makes sense to be truthful about the costs of social media. One advantage of downplaying total costs is that “baby steps” can be taken at first and the organization can learn. The downside of that approach is that opportunities can be lost especially in competitive situations. Being too comprehensive about costs, on the other hand, runs another risk; a negative reaction can put the whole plan on hold if lower cost options aren’t also covered by the plan.

Sometimes what’s needed is a middle ground where a phased plan is guided by a long-term strategy so that wasted effort is minimized and costs can be related to ongoing benefits. That approach can work; clients never like “sticker shock” no matter what kind of process or system is being proposed. The challenge is then to start small while ensuring that long term implications are understood and appreciated.

Copyright (c) 2010 by Dennis D. McDonald