SPSBOS - Learning through collaboration and the wisdom of crowds
1. Learning Through Collaboration
and the Wisdom of Crowds
SharePoint as an Organizational Learning Tool
Theresa Eller | theresaeller@gmail.com | @SharePointMadam
2. “Learning is a social process.”
James Surowiecki | Author of The Wisdom of Crowds
3. Who is Theresa Eller?
Experience & Education
• Situs (Houston, TX)
• BA in Public Relations
• MA in Teaching & Learning with
Technology
• Toastmasters International Member
(since 2001)
@SharePointMadam
theresaeller@gmail.com
SharePoint Career Path
• First SharePoint Site was WSS
• Site Owner for Training site
• Finance Site Collection Owner
• Corporate Trainer for SharePoint 2010
• InfoPath/Electronic Forms Advocate
• Farm Admin/Production Support
• SharePoint Consultant
• SharePoint Analyst
4. Our Agenda Today
Explicit &
Tacit
Knowledge
The
Wisdom of
Crowds
Work Like
A Network
Jellybean
Experiment
Social &
ECM in
SharePoint
& Yammer
Convert
Content
Into
Knowledge
6. Tacit Knowledge
• Knowledge that can’t be easily summarized or conveyed to
others
• Specific to a particular place, job, or experience
• Tremendously valuable
7. Explicit Knowledge
• Documented knowledge
• Articulated knowledge, expressed and recorded as words,
numbers, codes, mathematical and scientific formulae, and
musical notations
• Easy to communicate, store, and distribute
• Found in books, on the web, and other visual and oral means
Source: http://www.businessdictionary.com
9. The Wisdom of Crowds
“…under the right circumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent,
and are often smarter than the smartest people in them.”
James Surowiecki | Author of The Wisdom of Crowds
10. The Wisdom of Crowds
• Collective or group intelligence
• #SPHelp or SPYAM
• Online customer reviews
• Three conditions necessary for the crowd to be wise
• Diversity
• Independence
• Decentralization
11. Diversity
• “…contributes not just by adding different perspectives to
the group but also by making it easier for individuals to say
what they really think.”
12. Independence
• “The smartest groups…are made up of people with diverse
perspectives who are able to stay independent of each
other.”
13. Decentralization
• “…power does not reside in one central location…”
• Opposite of top-down management
• Crucial to tacit knowledge
• “…encourages independence and specialization…while still
allowing people to coordinate their activities and solve
difficult problems”
• Intelligent results require aggregating information
14. Decentralization Example: Linux
• Owned by no one
• People work on what they’re
interested in
and ignore the rest
• Single most important challenger
to Microsoft
15. Collective Intelligence Example: Google
• [Collective intelligence is] “the reason the Internet search
engine Google can scan a billion Web pages and find the one
page that has the exact piece of information you were
looking for.”
16. Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?
• Friends and relatives, collectively identified as “experts,”
guessed correctly 65% of the time
• Polls of the audience—random people with nothing better to
do—guessed correctly 91% of the time
17. Work Like A Network
“We believe the future of work is founded upon open, discoverable information
sharing and constant collaboration that ultimately turns companies into networks.
Today’s enterprise social and unified communication experiences are just the
beginning.”
Jeff Teper | Tranforming work, Transforming Office | Blog post on Feb. 17, 2014
23. How Many Jellybeans?
“A classic demonstration of group intelligence is the jelly-beans-in-the-
jar experiment, in which invariably the group estimate is superior to the
vast majority of the individual guess.”
James Surowiecki | Author of The Wisdom of Crowds
24. Guess To Win
• Complete this quick Excel Survey for your chance to
win the jar of jellybeans
http://1drv.ms/PZz5Uo
25. How To Win
• Blog post:
How to win a jellybean guessing contest
http://diggy.wordpress.com/2007/03/07/how-to-win-a-
jellybean-counting-contest/
26. Social & ECM in SharePoint
“Social networks...allow people to connect and coordinate with each
other without a single person being in charge.”
James Surowiecki | Author of The Wisdom of Crowds
28. Newsfeeds
• User’s dashboard
• What’s relevant to the user
• What’s happening with everyone
• How to get contextually-relevant content from across the entire
SharePoint environment
• Share status updates
• Mention other users using @name
• Multiple #tags in a single post
Source: http://www.chrisweldon.net/blog/2012/12/18/sharepoint-2013-tagging-social-tags/
29. Tags
Hashtags
• Easy way to #tag
conversations and
comments
• Always public
• Use Tags & Notes board to
see previous #tags
• Supported in Yammer but
not integrated with SP
Keywords
• Pre-Populated terms
specified in Managed
Metadata
• Example: Ask Me About in
MySites
Source:
http://www.chrisweldon.net/blog/2012/12/18/sharepoint
-2013-tagging-social-tags/
30. Community Sites
• Meant to replace distribution lists in Exchange
• Enhanced version of discussion boards
• Focus on conversations
• Encourage shared interests
• Promote gamification through badges & reputations
• Portal lists all available community sites
31. Content Types & Metadata
Candy Type Brand Color Flavor Size Shape
Wonka Green Apple Small Round
Wonka Red Cherry Small Round
Mars
Chocolate
Brown Milk
Chocolate
Full Size Rectangular
Mars
Chocolate
Brown Milk
Chocolate
Fun Size Rectangular
Jelly Belly Red Strawberry
Jam
Small Oval
Jelly Belly Green Margarita Small Oval
32. Convert Content Into Knowledge
“What you’d like is a way for individuals to specialize and to acquire local knowledge–which
increases the total amount of information available in the system–while also being able to
aggregate that local knowledge and private information into a collective whole.”
James Surowiecki | Author of The Wisdom of Crowds
33. Convert Content Into Knowledge
• Conversations happen online via
• Newsfeeds
• Community Sites
• Yammer