Unit Structures: Adopting Communication Practice

Adopting Communication Practice
Posted 7/10/2007 01:28:00 PM |

Over on the O'Reilly Radar Blog, I came across a piece by Peter Brantley entitled "Working in Facebook." In it, Brantley discusses a topic I often think about - how we adopt and carry forward technical skills. He argues that the skills students are learning in social networking tools will remain with them as "normal" communications practice as they move forward in their career. He says:

First, this is a fundamentally important shift generationally in what we expect from our software productivity tools. The grad students and young faculty using Facebook have used MySpace, and been Facebook members through their whole adolescent and adult school experiences. They are taking this experience with them into their work. The work of the people that I see most often is in research and teaching. But the lesson is broader: this generation will be working collaboratively in tools like Facebook. In schools, in corporations, in small non-profits, in community centers - people will collaborate and work together in social applications. And that is going to be as natural to them as email and text messaging.
Second, regardless of the ultimate fate of Facebook, the set of characteristics that it has established - the sense of community; user control over the boundedness of openness; support for fine grained privacy controls; the ability to form ad-hoc groups with flexible administration; integration and linkage to external data resources and application spaces through a liberal and open API definition; socially promiscuous communication - these will be carried with us into future environments as expectations for online communities. Facebook is an empty wasteland for people who have not climbed over the hump of use. For those who have active community within it, it is this generation's Lotus 1-2-3.

While I agree with Brantley's premise, I take issue with a few points. First, Facebook has only been around since late 2004, and really only became broadly accessible in 2005 - certainly not enough time for grad students and young faculty to be users "through their whole adolescent and adult school experiences." Furthermore, I find there is little academic collaboration inside of Facebook at the graduate level. Facebook acts as a social nexus to find and connect with fellow students, but I'd dispute that many of us are actively and meaningfully working in Facebook. Sure, we can create groups, but the Facebook groups tools are poor at best, and ill-equipped to serve academic needs.

However, the key is that Facebook is a point of centrality on a campus. From this point, well-designed tools could truly serve the student base - there's a lot of opportunity to develop such tools with the Facebook API. This is certainly an area where monetizing the API is quite possible - the amount of money schools spend on substandard learning- and course-management tools is so immense that even a fraction of the market is extremely valuable.

Back to Brantley's point, though, I too agree that the skills students develop using social networking tools will persist throughout their lives - both social and professional. The social communication tools we use when we're developing relationships (say, during college) become the tools of a lifetime. The practice of communicating and forming identity in social networks are normal, and we will continue to use these skills going forward. For those not "socialized" in these tools, the adoption process will be challenging (though not unlike non-email users picking up email). However, this sort of communication - using social networks and associated techniques - is past the point of becoming normal. For a large swath, it is normal, and teachers and designers should work on incorporating these methodologies going forward - the are inevitable.

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11 Comments: (Post a Comment)

At July 10, 2007 3:18 PM, Anonymous said...: I think http://www.zooped.com is way better than myspace
At July 10, 2007 6:33 PM, Priscilla S. said...: I agree with the fact that institutions will need to start looking more into the social networking world. The incoming students and emloyees are going to be experts in that area, they might as well exploit it. I know that a lot of the online schools have some kind of community feel; but, it's no where near that of facebook/myspace. Even traditional schools could benefit from a social networking system of some kind.
At July 10, 2007 9:29 PM, firefly said...: What I see happening is many internet sites are eventually going to get into some sort of trouble ...
I've recently had some problems on blogs with folks that don't want me there ...
Social networking should remain in parks or movie theaters!
At July 11, 2007 10:07 AM, Anonymous said...: It looks like facebook is going towards becoming a portal. I had never heard of Zoho before (its a competitor for Google docs), and they are creating applications to use their suite in facebook. I cannot see people writing their calculus answers in the same place as they are talking to their friends but then again who would have guessed something like the zombie tool would have been used.

I wont use it myself, but I am interested to see if other people do, along with all the other new things coming through facebook.
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At July 11, 2007 2:14 PM, Renegade said...: Interesting blog! Bookmarked.

Check out Renegade's BS
At July 11, 2007 9:47 PM, LOVE AND IMMIGRATION CRIER said...: That theory sounds true but if you happen to take into consideration the law of physics that says "anything that goes up must come down" then the lessons will not stay.
It is same as me proclaiming that life will start again from Africa but there will be no physical slaves any more.Wisdom comes with age
At July 12, 2007 8:48 AM, Keith said...: Facebook representatives state that the site is now worth
at least $8 billion, and continuing to grow like a ninja on steroids.

You are very right in saying that social networks are the inevitable future. I find your arguments to be very succinct and poignant.
At July 12, 2007 11:15 AM, Whitney said...: I find it fascinating that, as some here are discussing the value of learning social skills through online networking sites, one anonymous poster has spammed the comment section with 9/11 conspiracy. Not only are students learning the basic networking job skills through myspace, or facebook, or whatever -- they're also learning how to engage in a dialogue in an appropriate, thoughtful manner. The lesson lost on anonymous drives it home for the rest of us.
At July 12, 2007 11:19 AM, fred said...: I'll clean up that spam..lately I've been getting a ton of spam, and its hard to keep up with. Thanks for sharing tho!
At July 14, 2007 1:53 AM, firefly said...: carmun: does the book talk about mainly teens reading the Facebook or all folks?
Teens won't learn like we did in books but will wrongly on the pc Imo!
At July 14, 2007 3:13 PM, Kevin Prentiss said...: Fred - we're just a few weeks away from launching our tool following your thoughts.

I'll send you a link when we are done . . . I would love to hear your typically incisive critiques.