Tag: community

Jesus as a Social Marker? (or, How to Build a Community)

Posted on July 17, 2011 by Doug Belshaw

This is a scheduled post whilst I’m on holiday in the UAE – my apologies if I don’t respond to comments straight away!

In my last post I highlighted Hugh McLeod’s work on Social Objects, pointing out just how useful an idea and way of conceptualising the world it is. Hugh does, however, go one step further in the form of ‘Social Markers’. He gives many examples in this post but Example F stood out for me:

“After a year of personal trauma, you decide that yes, indeed, Jesus Christ is your Personal Saviour. You’ve already joined a Bible reading class and started attending church every Sunday. Next thing you know, you’ve made a lot of new friends in your new congregation. Suddenly you are are awash with a whole new pile of Social Objects. Jesus, Church, The Bible, the Church Picnics, the choir rehearsals, the Christmas fund drive, the cookies and coffee after the 11 o’clock service, yes, all of them are Social Objects for your new friends to share.”

The implication is that Social Objects work within your particular circle as anchors around which to have discussions. Outside that circle and when dealing with strangers, Social Objects serve as Social Markers as a kind of shorthand. “I’m a Christian” serves as three-word way of expressing a whole worldview, expected way of acting, and (perhaps) engenders a level of trust.

That certainly seems a persuasive argument from a secular point of view as to the utility of churches in the 21st century. But I’m not really interested in whether or not the sacred can be classified with the profane in the realm of Social Markers; what I’m interested in is the concept of Social Markers and to what extent they can be explicitly agreed upon in advance. In his post, Hugh uses the example of well-known tech blogger Robert Scoble who, he believes, acts as a Social Marker:

“When I visit San Francisco I am always surprised how often the name of my friend, Robert Scoble comes up in random conversation, unprompted by myself. Why is that? Why is he so well known? Is his blog REALLY that good? Is he REALLY that smart and interesting?

Well, I could give a whole stack of reasons to explain why I think Robert’s success is well-deserved. But one major reason that his blog’s traffic is so high, and his name so well-known, is that his personal brand has somehow managed to become a Social Marker inside the Silicon Valley ecosystem. The same could also be said for Mike Arrington, Paul Graham or Mark Zuckerberg. Dropping their names into random conversations allows people to quickly and efficiently contextualize themselves.”

And, of course, as soon as someone become a Social Marker, they’ve got it made. People position and, to some extent, define themselves in relation to the Social Marker. They have an opinion on them/it, they have a relationship with the Social Marker – as does the person they’ve just met. These relationships with the Social Marker are then bridged forming a new connection based upon common ground.

Social Markers are nothing new and people have attempted to find some form of commonality, presumably, since the dawn of (human) time. Where it was probably more useful in the way of life preservation, it’s now a handy way to establish yourself as a node on a network and gain instant social cachet. In both examples the use of Social Markers is method of positioning.

So, you want to be a Social Marker? Easy. Do this:

Decide on something you’re interested in. Find out what it’s called. If it hasn’t got a name, make one up. If it’s new, take every opportunity to explain to others what it is.
Become known for that thing. This can be as easy as expressing an interest in something, asking people to share examples with you, and re-sharing them back (in a curated form) with the wider community.
Tell people what to do with your stuff. Share this, amplify that. Seth Godin is awesome at, essentially, instructing people how to share his ideas and brand.
Big up other people.When people use your ideas, express something you find useful, or share what you’ve created, collated or curated, thank them. Celebrate the formation of a community around an idea.
Don’t charge fans Social Markers are, naturally, usually paid for their opinions and work in their area of expertise. Don’t charge the fans to make money, charge the people who want bespoke work or publishers. Don’t milk the community dry.

Who do *you* know who’s a social marker?

Image CC BY-NC-SA nathangibbs

The future of learning organizations: What do we mean by ‘attendance’?

Posted on April 19, 2011 by Doug Belshaw

At the JISC Conference 2011 I presented with JISC Digital Media on Using Digital Media to Improve Teaching and Learning. For my part of the presentation I used the question of what we mean by ‘attendance’ as a framework:

Using Digital Media to Improve Teaching and Learning [slideshare id=7267139&sc=no]

View more presentations from Doug Belshaw

This was picked up by the editors of JISC Inform and tomorrow I’m being interviewed for an upcoming issue of the online magazine. I’ve been asked the following questions, and below that I’ve written up notes in preparation into some kind of coherent format.

How do you think student attendance relates to their performance?
How do you think students measure their engagement/ attendance?
How do lecturers and other educational professionals measure student attendance?
How would you define ‘attendance’? Which definition works best?
What are the issues associated with measuring attendance when students don’t have to be physically present – for example when they are accessing courses online or using mobile learning technology like an educational iphone app?
How can wise technology use help overcome those issues?
What needs to change about the way we approach teaching and learning to get over this?

In my presentation at the JISC Conference I pointed out that dictionary definitions of ‘attendance’ can be organised into three main categories. The first is attention-based and involves applying your mind to a thing as well as some form of effort. This is obviously something that we want in learning organizations* and we often call this ‘engagement’.

The second type of attendance centres around the idea of service. This is what many would see as a rather 19th-century idea of subservience: somebody waiting upon the actions or decisions of a superior. I would suggest that learning organizations might want to move away from this kind of definition of ‘attendance’.

Third, and finally, comes the definition of attendance as involving community. That’s to say individuals are present at an event that relies upon interaction around a resource or proceeding. Live concerts, court summons and webinars can all be examples of attendance as community.

If attendance is best conceptualised as attention-based and community-based then what does this mean for learning organizations? Does it mean the death of the lecture? Is it possible to measure these types of attendance in the way that you can with the service-based conception?

A while ago, John Popham got me thinking when he mentioned, almost en passant, that learning organizations coud be using something like Foursquare or Facebook Places for registration. This fits in well with, for example, Jesse Schell’s work on the ‘gameification’ of life that’s happening through Facebook, iPhone/Android apps and social media in general.

Technology, therefore, is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for social changes to take place. For example: there were mobile phones powerful enough to do what the original iPhone did before 2007 but it took the idea of ‘apps’ for the use of smartphones to really take off. In that sense, it’s the culture and social norms around technology that matter rather than the devices and communications technologies themselves.

Increasingly, and especially in a market-driven learning organizations like that being created in the UK, educational institutions are going to be forced to go where they can get the most engagement. Take the London School of Business and Finance, for example, who have recently launched a Facebook MBA Application. As ReadWriteWeb puts it:

When Bill Gates said recently that in the next five years the best education will be found online, I’m not sure he was thinking about Facebook as the educational platform of the future. But the London School of Business and Finance is, and today the school announces a new course that will make its MBA course materials available online for free, delivered via a Facebook app.

Of course, if you want to actually get your MBA, you’ll have to fulfill the pre-requisites for the program (you need the equivalent of a Bachelor’s Degree) and you’ll have to pay for the credits and examinations, offered through the University of Wales. The LSBF MBA will cost you £11,500 for British students and £14,500 for overseas students.

The three areas I’m researching at JISC infoNet** – Open Educational Resources (OERs), mobile learning and digital literacies (the latter also for my doctoral thesis) – are part of wider changes that I think can be understood using the ‘attendance framework’. Constant contact, previously only possible through physical co-location, leads to interaction, and interaction to engagement.

The first thing from my research is that I think we’re seeing a move away from the educator’s right to lecture towards the learner’s right to learn in personalised and tailored ways. This, along with the ability to use OERs within iTunesU, OpenCourseware, etc. for marketing purposes means learning organizations can justify less face-to-face ‘broadcast’ time and more interaction time. There are, nevetheless, proscribed numbers of ‘contact’ hours which, unfortunately only count if face-to-face. That will undoubtedly change and, as with the example of Michael Sandel’s Justice course at Harvard, prospective students will be able to base their decision on which learning organization to attend based on observable teaching and learning experiences.

The second area, mobile learning, is – as I mentioned in these video interviews – a trojan horse for new ways of working and learning. We now take for granted having a device in our pockets that can help us communicate with or broadcast to almost anyone in the world. The opportunities for peer-to-peer learning, as Graham Brown Martin points out in The Napsterfication of Learning, are huge. If post-compulsory learning organizations don’t ensure they have a compelling value proposition, mobile learning could propel them towards a crisis of relevance.

My third area of research is digital literacies, a much-misunderstood topic and one which will soon be the subject of a JISC call for funding. Two of the key things holding back learning organizations from embracing new ways of teaching and learning are the inter-related issues of institutional culture and staff competencies in the digital arena. The two go hand-in-hand: there’s not need for the latter if the former decrees it’s ‘business as usual’. It’s up to those in the senior leadership of learning organizations to convince staff that it’s certainly not ‘business as usual’ and that we’re entering a brave new world where we’re making up the ‘rules’ (if there are any) as we go along.

In conclusion, then, the future isn’t in ‘virtual attendance’ via some kind of Second Life-style ‘avatar as self’. The future of learning institutions is in moving away from service-based definitions of attendance and towards attendance as attention and community. Using that kind of framework or organising schema will help whether there is a business case for continuing existing practices or, indeed, encouraging new ones. Embracing OERs, mobile learning and digital literacies looks to me like the mark of a forward-thinking learning organization.

* I prefer the term ‘learning organizations’ to ‘educational institutions’. Feel free to mentally substitute the latter for the former if you wish.

** A reminder that my research is available at: http://dougbelshaw.com/research

Weeknote #22

Posted on October 9, 2010 by Doug Belshaw

This week I have been mostly…

Talking to people

I’ve interviewed more people for the JISC mobile and wireless technologies review I’m undertaking and had my first appraisal on Thursday. The latter was more of a chat – a positive one showing I’m valued. I’m now 25% through my 2-year contract at JISC infoNet in an uncertain economic climate.

What next? Who knows! I’m happy in my current role and not concerned in the slightest about my future prospects. I’ve long since stopped even pretending that I know where my career’s heading – apart from going with what interests me and keeping my family financially secure, of course.

Disillusioned with corporate e-learning

The Oxford E-Learning ‘Debate’ was largely a waste of time. I’ve explained why on my conference blog here.

Realising the importance of community

I voted Liberal in the General Election, mainly in protest against the quite frankly dangerous Michael Gove. That didn’t work. Still, at least the Conservatives’ Big Society gambit seems to offer more than just swingeing cuts. Community is important. That’s why Hannah’s volunteering at the local fair on tomorrow and I’m joining the PTA at my son’s school next week.

Frustrated with my MacBook Pro

The thing I’ve loved about using a Mac every day since 2006 is that it’s usually a frustration-free experience. No crashing. No viruses. No constant maintenance. For some reason, almost every application seems to now crash on my MacBook Pro and it looks like I’m going to have to do a Windows-like reinstall. Let’s just hope it’s not going to turn into a bi-monthly thing (as it was when I used PCs…)