Collab-Or-Ate

For my own research purposes, I’m using my fellow researchers’ tool, Many Eyes. Pretty cool!

And I need a place to save this, so why not use the blog?

from Le Monde, via overstated.

Earlier this week the Wall Street Journal had an article about the challenges facing today’s information worker in terms of job satisfaction.

In the information age, so much is worked on in a day at the office but so little gets accomplished. In the past, one could see the fruits of his or her labor immediately: a chair made or a ball bearing produced. But it can be hard to find gratification from work that is largely invisible, or from delivering goods that are often metaphorical. You can’t even make a mark on a paper in increasingly paperless offices. It can be even harder trying to measure it all. (Satisfaction’s a tough job, WSJ, 2/19/08)

This article rings true for me. When work becomes exceptionally busy with meetings, powerpoints, decision-making, and travel, it feels like there isn’t anything to show for it at the end of it all. But back in the good old days (before the Internets?), after hard work there would be stuff built! and things made! To get some of that old fashioned satisfaction I’ve spent my past five weekends installing shelving around the house, in part because we need it, but mostly because I’m finding it so satisfying to set about a project that results in something tangible.

So what is an information worker to do? Could social networking tools come to the rescue?

Sounds like a stretch, but hear me out. I’ve been thinking lately about who uses social networking tools. What types of workers are most drawn to these tools? If it is the case that project managers, the prototypical information workers, use social networking tools more than engineers, the prototypical builder in a software company, then it may be because SN tools offer them something lacking in their existing day-to-day work.

What do social networking tools offer information workers?

• measurement! you can count your friends! you can count your connectedness! most importantly you can compare yourself to others and see how you stack up. If you can track it, it feels like you are accomplishing something.
• using the skills you have, you can build something. An information worker, who is skilled in communication but not programming, can build a digital representation (a profile) of him/herself quite easily using a social networking site. Engineers don’t need the technical infrastructure of a social networking site to build a webpage, but project managers do.
• connecting and maintaining social networks. This is the most obvious one. Social networking sites are designed for this purpose and I believe it suits information workers perfectly. Part of their job is to stay connected with “key stakeholders” and maintain these relationships. SN tools are the way to do this in the information age.