Social Networks

Introductory presentationSocial Networking: Simple? Fast? Scalable?1. Outline of Introductory ModuleWhy use social networks in various fields?What are the uses for social networks by field for various components:Discussion, social presence, finding answers, gaining affinitiesHow to make simple systemsSeveral examples from DG and other sites; go over examples from Virtual Realities and DrupalTry Drupal Gardens and Second LifeReport next time your findingsThree example areas: business, education and affinity groupsPerhaps surprisingly, business, education and affinity group creation share many common attributes in social media scaling. For example:People learning from each other. In education, there is a strong movement toward this position; in business, customers supporting customers is a strong method for enhancing a product. In affinity groups, trading specialized knowledge is core.Scaling via web access is ubiquitous, but especially important in online education where the medium is the method.Other disciplinary areas can be easily explainedSee book on examples (in Drupal Gardens site)BusinessReaching people with an interest in your productProviding discussions about things that people need to know in the space of your project.Serving customersProviding help to customersJIRA-like trouble reportsEducation and Quality (from wikipedia)Education in the largest sense is any act or experience that has a formative effect on the mind, character or physical ability of an individual. In its technical sense, education is the process by which society deliberately transmits its accumulated knowledge, skills and values from one generation to anotherStudies from the US suggest that the quality of teachers is the single most important factor affecting student performance, and that countries which score highly on international tests have multiple policies in place to ensure that the teachers they employ are as effective as possible.Quality in business, engineering and manufacturing has a pragmatic interpretation as the non-inferiority or superiority of something. Quality is a perceptual, conditional and somewhat subjective attribute and may be understood differently by different people. Consumers may focus on the specification quality of a product/service, or how it compares to competitors in the marketplace. Producers might measure the conformance quality, or degree to which the product/service was produced correctly.What can we do in online education? (and education general?)Create student groups located worldwide; enhance their communication and learning togetherTap guest speakers anywhere; record and liveImprove organization of materialsDiscuss relationship and contrast with wikisWhat is contrast with Google Wave(Wave tracks a sequence of events) is that important? Why? Should we plug GW into our work?What is your opinion about mashups, anyway?AffinityMaintaining and organizing large groups of members and/or simply people interested in a core topicExamples see book in DGSloan ConsortiumHow to make interested people aware.Methods used for start-upViral methodsLinkages to multiple channelsChannel reinforcementOnline to onground connectivity

Scalabilityscalability is a desirable property of a system, a network, or a process, which indicates its ability to either handle growing amounts of work in a graceful manner or to be readily enlarged.[1] ..An analogous meaning is implied when the word is used in a commercial context, where scalability of a company implies that the underlying business model offers the potential for economic growth within the company. -- from wikipedia.Commentary: the above definition can be refined to cover almost any discipline. Originally specified for software and telecom, the definition can fit almost any area.Education and Business scalabilityBusinessReaching more customers at a lower costProviding interactivity among customersUsing technology effectivelyEducationReaching more students at a lower costProviding interactivity among studentsUsing technology effectivelyHow?: Scaling via Social Networking mechanisms Barriers to scaling with traditional social networking sitesBuilding a social networking siteTraditionally expensiveLengthy processOften doesnt work wellIsnt self-adjustingPopulating a social networking site requires a lot of effortGetting buy-inHow to scale upWhats the problem?Site building is hard for the average joe/jillFiguring out what to do on a site is hard, too.Together, is almost insurmountable to scale to large numbers

Are there good solutions?In a word: maybe possible passable, but not very clear.The social media common outletsFacebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, Delicious, youTube, Twitter, slideshare, flicker, a variety of wikis, learning spaces (LMS) and many others (add your favorite).The robust website built by professionalsHard, tedious, expensiveThe distributed solutionUse common outlets, distributed community of interest sites, and an adjustable core controller site that brings people to (1) pay (for business) or (2) learn (for education).Scalability Concept:Micro social networking sites driving membership in a main siteMain Membership site: login requiredPaid: list value addWebinar SitesConferencesSN discussionVRsitesFree communitiesOf practiceSome example membership page value addsValue adds for paying membership in an organization can be many. For example:Ability at access addition materialsDiscounts for activities (e.g. on-ground, conference, online conferences, webinars, etc.) or productsDrawings for prizesFinding a working group of like minded peopleAbility to join the governance of the organizationAbility to make money from being a memberSee advertisements for jobsPlace advertisementsOffer a workshop, get a percentage

Freemium methodologyFree useful things for social networkingDrive free members to paid membersProvide excellent value proposition for paidDrive to paid via just enough

Freemium is a business model that works by offering basic Web services, or a basic downloadable digital product, for free, while charging a premium for advanced or special features.[1][2] The word "freemium" is created by combining the two aspects of the business model: "free" and "premium". The business model has gained popularity with Web 2.0 companies.[3]

Drupal is gaining prominence for site building:

Serving the big .edus

Sloan-C page built in 5 minutes

Freemium Social Networking for Business and EducationBusinessProduct loyaltyOutreach done by customersPlatform and tuning done by companyEducationBetter student servicesBetter peer learningPlatform and learning tuning done by instructor/institution.. examplesVirtual Worlds: how well do Virtual Realities promote Social Networking?Realistic, student-centered combined asynchronous and synchronous learning experiences. Hypothesis create high quality learning in a virtual world, improve social presence.Connections between a virtual world and real world why?

Sloan-C Headquarters in Second Life

Questions (perhaps for your blog?)What is similarity between Ning and Drupal?Is Drupal Gardens a Moodle-killer? Why or why not?Both Drupal and Moodle are open source what does that mean to you? Benefits, drawbacks?Discuss plausibility of social networking becoming a part of global education? Your views?How do the thoughts about education as an open resource mesh with open source things? Will the commercial suppliers persist? Views?

ExercisesExplore your chosen field of expertise and do a google/bing search about what is being done with social networking in your field and post in your blog. Read others blogs and connect with people who have a common interest.Read the Drupal.org site slightly. Look at a youtube video and slideshare presentation report in your blogExample drupalgardens.com same as previous exercise.