1. Lee Bryant, BlogTalk 2, July 2004
Informal, joined up knowledge sharing using connected weblogs in pursuit of Mental Health service improvement
Lee Bryant, BlogTalk 2, July 2004

2. What am I going to talk about?
Weblogs as personal and social knowledge sharing tools
How to stimulate and support a social knowledge sharing network
Getting Started: identifying and encouraging potential blogging ‘voices’ in knowledge networks
How we support individual and collective modes within a social software-based knowledge community
Some observations on our methodology, conclusions & links
Notes available on SubEthaEdit now, on the Wiki later or mail me….

3. 1 :: Weblogs as personal and social knowledge sharing tools

4. Some barriers to online knowledge sharing
Knowledge is a social construct - not just ‘content’ to be managed
Too focused on content creation vs. linking people
Formality of systems, tools and process
Metadata/“Metacrap” - top-down view not user view
Divergent conceptual models of communication, KM, e-learning and other software
KM Software vendors lock us in to command and control systems, yet KM consultants speak of “knowledge ecology” and systems thinking

5. Lessons from Social Software
Informality of weblogs / wikis encourages participation
Aggregation: manage feeds NOT content items
Bottom-up emergent metadata promotes self-representation and user involvement in categorisation
Weblogs and Wikis promote ‘loosely joined’ markup and linking culture rather than content recreation
Simple conceptual models for personal publishing

6. Social Software is not just online social networks and weblogs, but loosely coupled software that is…
Social in the way it is conceived
Social in its purpose
Social in the way it behaves

7. 2 :: How to stimulate and support a social knowledge sharing network in the real world

8. Case Study: National Institute for Mental Health in England
Aims:
cut across multiple, conflicting perspectives and interests
help people in different organisations & disciplines work together to improve mental health services & experiences.
Key challenges:
Multiple perspectives - political issues of representation
Highly devolved organisation with roots locally, in the field
Low level of IT awareness and exposure beyond & lists
Cultural ‘legacy’: long meetings, -centric comms, etc.
Integration: their work involves multiple organisations

9. A social engagement approach
Scope project --> map network --> define objectives together
Use a project weblog to learn their issues and language and to help teach them ours (knowledge transfer)
Participative design: let users shape their system
Patient seeding of Weblog-driven local ‘feeder’ sites to get early adopters blogging ‘close to home’ where comfortable
Develop the platform with pilot user groups
Phased launch from core users -> partners -> public
Training and support through events, demos, support

10. Who are we trying to reach & why?

11. Offline networking & communications
Based on the target groups identified by the mapping, we undertook extensive offline networking among Mental Health professionals and service users to understand their content and interaction needs, and introduce people to blogging…

12. 3 :: Getting started: identifying and encouraging potential blogging ‘voices’ in networked organisations

13. Keep it local, keep it simple, keep it real
Setup ‘feeder’ blogs within local corporate Web sites
Train and mentor staff to allow direct posting to public sites
Prove benefits of open dialogue through user feedback
Aggregate upwards when they are ready - don’t scare them!

14. Early wins: ‘feeder’ blogs

15. Early wins: ‘feeder’ blogs
bme.nimhe.org.uk

16. 4 :: … and then finally we build something

17. The NIMHE knowledge community
kc.nimhe.org.uk

18. Understanding individual and group needs
For each network we try to understand individual and collective needs: what types of groups are best in each case?
This also drives a content plan to support groups with appropriate RSS, news & resource feeds

19. Anatomy of a personal profile

20. Personal Home Page

21. Personal Weblog Links to related classification nodes
Quick and easy posting
Syndicate via RSS or ‘grab’ using aggregator
Ability to bring in feeds from external blog
Links to groups you are part of

22. Anatomy of a Group Group Statement Group weblog Open space (wiki)
Directory
Aggregator
Categories
Events
Syndication
Admin
(Groups are public or private; both types by invitation or request only)

23. Multi-faceted, multi-perspective metadata
Faceted top-down metadata combined with emergent bottom-up

24. Total aggregation & syndication
Every blog, person, org, classification node, saved search, etc has an XML feed and these can be combined into aggregated feeds & used outside the system

25. 5 :: Some observations on our methodology, conclusions & links

26. General observations
A balanced approach of networked individualism and free-style group forming can unleash dialogue and collective action
Manage feeds, not items: informal k-logs, feed aggregation and bottom-up metadata can help solve the content problem
Online social networking works best for a specific common purpose, not for its own sake
Engage with people on their own terms and build the network person by person, group by group
Embrace rather than deny complexity: ‘Small pieces, loosely joined’ is more resilient than command and control

27. Summary of our methodology
Start with deep, embedded engagement - stimulate, challenge, educate; encourage personality & voices
Participative design: don’t just consult - let users design
‘Feeder’ blogs can get early adopters blogging ‘close to home’ and grow outwards from there
Modular development of the platform using web services - throw away what doesn’t work and build on what does
Phased rollout: core users -> partners -> public
Training and support through events, demos, support
Solve real problems and make friends - don’t sell software

28. Some Links http://kc.nimhe.org.uk (invite only for now)
(original Project Weblog with background docs)
(active local feeder site)
(active local feeder site)
(public consultation weblog)
(background on NIMHE)
(collaboration site about improvement knowledge)
(headshift weblog)