The Water Cooler

With the world’s information at our fingertips begging for us to search for it, what could make this super-technological information age better?  How about information that finds you.  That’s what technologies created by Google and yahoo now do.  It’s now possible to use a web application that aggregates search results, filters and sorts RSS feeds, and allows the results to be displayed on your home page or any page you can edit.  Somehow this seems too good to be true.  No work research right?  Well not exactly, while these tools will save you time in the long run, perpare to spend some time up front setting all of this up.

To do this, here is a summary of what you have to do:

• 1. Subscribe to a web aggregator like Netvibes or iGoogle. You can use this tool to subscribe to regular RSS feeds and add fun applications such as Weather, email, twitter and even facebook.
• 2. Search Yahoo Pipes to see if someone has already made a pipe that gathers the information you are looking for. Keep in mind you can clone and tweak it if it’s not exactly what you are looking for.
• 3. If you can’t find a pipe, run a search for all of the blogs or news feeds on a particular topic. You might hit a gold mine and find that someone has created a list of all the blogs or news pages about a topic. Copy all the URLs onto a text page or spread sheet.
• 4. Create a Yahoo pipe that combines all the feeds into one. Paste the urls into a Fetch site feed module or a Fetch feed module. Be sure to add a filter that looks for the key terms you want and a sort module to put the newest posts first. You can also add a Yahoo or Google search feed into the mix. There may even be library databases that generate search feeds to add more scholarly articles to the mix.
• 5. Save and run your feed, then click on the “get as a badge” button, and click on the aggregator you use, if yours is not listed, click on the embed code. Copy the code and drop it into your favorite webpage or aggregator in an html box to create a badge that will always give you the latest information on the topic of your choice.
• 6. You’re done, obviously I have left out several complicated steps using Pipes, read the pipe documentation for tips on creating efficient pipes.

Now the filtered information comes to you.  No more sorting through hundreds of web pages looking for current news.  No more going to several sites each day to get your information.  Your information is delivered to your doorstep in the form of a fully customizable newspaper.  The best part is that no trees were sacrificed and no money was spent!

There has been some buzz about how to leverage different social networking tools to increase communication ties between people in a work environment.  This is especially a good idea when a department is large or spread out geographically and thus finds it difficult for people to meet at their conveniently centralized water cooler, conference room, or break room.  It can be very useful to know what a colleague is working on so you don’t duplicate her work, don’t interfere inadvertently with the goal of her work, and can share ideas and tips to make the outcome of her work better.  Public social networks such as facebook, myspace, and others could be utilized to share information between colleagues, however, they are more social and can be perceived as a procrastination time sink than a productivity tool. 

To make proper use of a social network for work, the tool needs to be separate from these well known web applications.  Many folks may be apprehensive to share their social network pages with employers or professional colleagues.  While I’m a firm believer that you should never post anything on the web that you wouldn’t want your mother-in-law to see, sometimes even benign information about your social life can be distracting toward the professional world you work in.  This coupled with the fact that a social network dedicated to work might be an easier sell to managers and directors who might see myspace and facebook as a procrastination tool rather than a productivity tool. 

I think we have to be careful, however, not to take ’social’ away from social networking.  Some fun information about colleagues should be shared so that we get to know each other.  It is always easier to work on a team when you know the teammates well.  Even something as simple as knowing their likes or dislikes is useful.  This information can give team members information that can be used to relate to each other and help build a more cohesive team.  There seems to be an invisible line between what’s appropriate for a work social network and what’s appropriate for other more general networks.  At first it might seem difficult to distinguish between the two types of networks, however, I believe the mores of a work environment, whether spelled out in policy, or assumed implicitly will govern the work network to keep a certain professionalism that may not be present in the general social networks.

Useful network tools within the social network could include many of the Web 2.0 applications we use every day.  An editable profile that list job duties and report structures is useful so that colleagues in a large department know who to contact for what.  A social network is often better than just a directory as the duties that define what our job is often changes dynamically depending on the tasks that need to be accomplished.  A micro-blogging system such as twitter is also a handy feature.  Using this tool, members could state what they are working on and how they are doing.  This feature is central to the network as it lets everyone know who is doing what at any particular time and if they have questions or need help.  This is much better than email because often times you don’t know who to email when you have a question.  Team workspace such as a wiki or discussion board also could be used to allow folks to keep meeting minutes, setup agendas, or discuss matters outside of the conference room.

Social bookmarking and public web aggregators could also be employed to share what people are reading.  Articles from these tools could spark discussions and direct members toward an important topic that might have been overlooked if it was not shared via the network.  Because we cannot always keep up on what’s up and coming all of the time, a sharable repository such as the bookmarks and subscribed rss feeds will allow for the whole team to keep up with what’s new in their fields.  

A work oriented social network should not replace face to face meetings, but augment them.  Small amounts of time taken to update wikis or discussion boards could have large benefits to the overall productivity of face to face meetings as many of the logistics could be worked out online.  If managed carefully, a meeting leader could create the agenda, ask for updates, and start a pre-discussion online so that when the face to face meeting begins, no time is wasted bringing members up to speed and the meeting can jump directly to the real issues that need to be worked out.

So this all sounds wonderful, what’s holding us back?  The biggest drawback toward a system like this is buy in. If members are not using the tools, don’t know how to use them, or don’t believe it will work, then it will not be successful.  A proper design and roll out and support structure needs to be in place before jumping in with both feet.  Also, like any network, it is only going to be as valuable as the number of people using it.  Therefore, a small department or organization will not be able to benefit as much.