Introduction Social Networks Virtual Organizations Communities of Practice Technology Acceptance Model Social Media for Emergency Management What does the future hold?

1. Online Social Networks to Support Community Collaboration Workshop Connie White and Linda Plotnick connie.m.white@gmail.com , linda.plotnick@gmail.com 7/21/2009 1 Online Social Networks to Support Community Collaboration

2. Introduction Outline Introduction Social Networks Virtual Organizations Communities of Practice Technology Acceptance Model Social Media for Emergency Management What does the future hold? http://www.twitter.com/iranelection 7/21/2009 2 Online Social Networks to Support Community Collaboration

3. Introduction The aim of this workshop is to examine: The possibilities and potential applications Online Social Networking Sites have for communities in a variety of complex problem domains. How communities can transfer their needs to an online environment is underexplored and is the scope of this workshop. How communities and organizations are using these networks to replace and augment traditional avenues of communication, The types of communities that may benefit the most, and What untapped functionalities may exist. What does the future hold for SNS? Will SNS change the way we work in the future? 7/21/2009 Online Social Networks to Support Community Collaboration 3

4. Social Networks defined “a set of people (or organizations or other social entities) connected by a set of social relationships, such as friendship, co-working or information exchange” (p.2). Garton, L. Haythornthwaite, C. and Wellman, B. Studying Online Social Networks. JCMC 3 (1) June 1997. Online Social Networks to Support Community Collaboration 4

5. Applicable in Social As Well As in Information Systems “Virtual organization integrates and generalizes several specialized constructs useful in the design of computer systems and networks. Virtual memory, virtual machines, and virtual circuit routing are well-known examples; less evident perhaps is that virtual reality also belongs to this family of constructs. But virtual organization has an even wider scope, in that it is also useful in modeling social systems.” (p32) Mowshowitz, Abbe. Communications of the ACM Volume 40 , Issue 9 Pages: 30 - 37 , 1997 Online Social Networks to Support Community Collaboration 5

6. Communities of Practice Defined by Wenger, “Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis.” Wenger, E., McDermott, R. And Snyder, W. “Cultivating Communities of Practice”, Havard Business School Press, Boston, Massachusetts, 2002. Online Social Networks to Support Community Collaboration 6

7. Updated Definition for SNS “We characterize a social network as links from people to other people, groups or information objects. Such objects may be messages, photos, videos, wall postings, notifications, current activities, events, widgets, etc. Such links might be created by intelligent agents or by the users. A wall posting is a public communication, like a blog, associated with a SNS individual member or group.” White, C., Plotnick, L., Kushma, J., Hiltz, S.R., and Turoff, M. (2009) An Online Social Network for Emergency Management, ISCRAM. Online Social Networks to Support Community Collaboration 7

8. Technology Acceptance Model One theory that explains the explosion of use of social media. Online Social Networks to Support Community Collaboration Venkatesh, V., Morris, M. G., Davis, G. B., & Davis, F. D. (2003). User acceptance of information technology: Toward a unified view. MIS Quarterly, (27:3), 425-478. 8

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10. The Design of an Online Social Network Site for Emergency Management: A One-Stop Shop AMCIS, 2009. Online Social Networks to Support Community Collaboration 10

11. Online Social Network for Emergency Management Damage assessment and disaster intelligence Citizen engagement or citizen input Collaborative exercise design and development Collaborative problem solving Training or exchange of training material Consultation for real-time decision making Best practices exchange Planning or exchange of planning material Peer exchanges among and with CERT members New document evaluation and review 7/21/2009 Online Social Networks to Support Community Collaboration 11

12. Barriers To Use The need to verify and “scrub” the data, The need to bridge cultural differences to enable collaboration, The need to avoid information overload, The need for reliability and accessibility, and The need to attract users (in particular emergency managers). 7/21/2009 Online Social Networks to Support Community Collaboration 12

13. Objectives of Workshop What functionality would be required, What issues (and how to overcome them) exist that can impede their use. Explore the potential use of Online Social Networking to support more complex entities in the future and forecast what potential they hold for domains and uses not yet envisioned 7/21/2009 Online Social Networks to Support Community Collaboration 13