Collab-Or-Ate

Updated 3/24/10: The lazyweb works! List is much improved.

I want to compile a comprehensive list of related work done on understanding how people use social networking tools at companies. Do you know of any additional research on the use of social software by employees? Please let me know.

I’m looking for papers that study social network sites (SNSs) and other social software (blogs, wikis, social bookmarking, microblogging) and how employees use them. The criteria is that the site has to have a profile page with a user’s articulated social network and the user has to be using it as part of their work life.

Publications on the use of social software inside the workplace:

A Wu, DiMicco, J.M., Millen, D.R. (2010) “Detecting Professional versus Personal Closeness Using an Enterprise Social Network Site.“ Proceedings of CHI 2010, April 2010.

Barnes SJ., Böhringer M, Kurze C, Stietzel J (2010) Towards an understanding of social software: the case of Arinia. Proceedings of the 43rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-43), Koloa, Kauai, Hawaii.

Blaschke, S. & Stein, K. (2008). Methods and Measures for the Analysis of Corporate Wikis. Proceedings of the 58th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association (ICA), May 22-26, Montréal.

Böhringer, M. & Richter, A. (2009): Adopting Social Software to the Intranet: A Case Study on Enterprise Microblogging.
Proceedings 9. fachübergreifende Konferenz Mensch und Computer (M&C 2009), Berlin.

Brzozowski, M. WaterCooler: exploring an organization through enterprise social media. Proc. Group 2009.

Brzozowski, M., Sandholm, T., and Hogg, T. Effects of feedback and peer pressure on contributions to enterprise social media. Proc Group 2009.

Chen, J., Geyer, W., Dugan, C., Muller, M, Guy, I. Make new friends, but keep the old: recommending people on social networking sites. Proc. CHI 2009.

DiMicco, J.M., Millen, D. (2007) “Identity management: Multiple presentations of Self in Facebook.” Note, Proceedings of the ACM GROUP Conference, Sanibel Island, FL, Nov 2007.

DiMicco, J.M., Geyer, W., Dugan, C., Brownholtz, B., Millen, D.R. (2009) “People Sensemaking and Relationship Building on an Enterprise Social Networking Site.” Full Paper, Proceedings of the 42nd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS ‘09), January 2009.

DiMicco, J.M., Millen, D.R. (2008) “People Sensemaking with Social Networking Sites.” Sensemaking Workshop, Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2008), Florence, Italy, April 2008.

DiMicco, J.M., Millen, D.R., Geyer, W., Dugan, C. “Research on the Use of Social Software in the Workplace.” Workshop on Social Networking in Organizations, Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW 2008), November 2008.

DiMicco, J.M., Millen, D.R., Geyer, W., Dugan, C., Brownholtz, B., Muller, M. “Motivations for Social Networking at Work.” Proc CSCW 2008, San Diego, CA, November 2008.

Dugan, C., Geyer, W., Muller, M., DiMicco, J.M., Brownholtz, B., Millen, D.R. “It’s All ‘About You’ – Diversity in Online Profiles.” Note, Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW 2008), San Diego, CA, November 2008.

Ehrlich, K., Shami, S. Microblogging Inside and Outside the Workplace. Proc. ICWSM ‘10.

Farzan, R., DiMicco, J.M., Brownholtz, B. (2009) “Spreading the Honey: A System for Maintaining an Online Community.” Full Paper, Proceedings of the ACM GROUP Conference, Sanibel Island, FL, May 2009.

Farzan, R., DiMicco, J.M., Brownholtz, B. (2010) “Mobilizing Lurkers with a Targeted Task.” Proceedings of the 4th Int’l AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media (ICWSM ‘10), May 2010.

Farzan, R., DiMicco, J.M., Millen, D.R., Brownholtz, B., Geyer, W., Dugan, C. (2008) “Results from Deploying a Participation Incentive Mechanism within the Enterprise.” Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2008), Florence, Italy, April 2008.

Farzan, R., DiMicco, J.M., Millen, D.R., Brownholtz, B., Geyer, W., Dugan, C. (2008) “When the experiment is over: Deploying an incentive system to all the users.” Symposium on Persuasive Technology, In conjunction with the AISB 2008 Convention, Aberdeen, Scotland, April 2008.

Freyne, J., Jacovi, M., Guy, I., Geyer, W. Increasing engagement through early recommender intervention. Proc RecSys 2009.

Fuchs-Kittowski F, Klassen N, Faust D, Einhaus J (2009) A Comparative Study on the Use of Web 2.0 in Enterprises. Proceedings 9th International Conference on Knowledge Management and New Media Technology, Graz.

Geyer, W., Dugan, C. Inspired by the Audience – A Topic Suggestion System for Blog Writers and Readers. Proc. CHI 2010.

Geyer, W., Dugan, C., DiMicco, J.M., Millen, D.R., Brownholtz, B., Muller, M. (2008) “Use and Reuse of Shared Lists as a Social Content Type.” Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2008), Florence, Italy, April 2008.

Guy, I., Jacovi, M., Shahar, E., Meshulam, N., Soroka, V. and Farrell, S. Harvesting with SONAR: the value of aggregating social network information CHI ‘08, ACM, Florence, Italy, 2008.

Happel H, Treitz M (2008) Proliferation in Enterprise Wikis. Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on the Design of Cooperative Systems (COOP’08).

Hasan, H. and Pfaff, C.C., The Wiki: an environment to revolutionise employees’ interaction with corporate knowledge. In Proc OZCHI ‘06 (2006), 377-380.

Holtzblatt, L., Damianos, L., and Weiss, D. Factors Impeding Wiki Use in the Enterprise: A Case Study. Proc. CHI 2010, ACM Press (2010)

Hsu, C.-L. and Lin, J. C.-C. (2008) Acceptance of blog usage: The roles of technology acceptance, social influence and knowledge sharing motivation, Information & Management, 45, 1, 65-74.

Ip, K. F. R. and Wagner, C. (2008) Weblogging: A study of social computing and its impact on organizations, Decision Support Systems, 45, 2, 242-250.

Jackson, A., Yates, J.A. and Orlikowski, W. Corporate Blogging: Building community through persistent digital talk. Proc. HICSS ‘07 (2007).

Kim, S.T., Lee, C.K. and Hwang, T. Investigating the influence of employee blogging on IT workers’ organisational citizenship behaviour. International Journal of Information Technology and Management, 7, 2 (2008), 178-189.

Kuhn, S. SelectMinds Abstract for CSCW 2008 Workshop: Social Networking in Organizations. Workshop on Social Networking in Organizations, Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW 2008), November 2008.

Millen, D.R., Feinberg, J. and Kerr, B., Dogear: Social bookmarking in the enterprise. In Proc CHI ‘06 (2006), 111-120.

Muller, M.J., Freyne, J., Dugan, C., Millen, D.R., & Thom-Santelli, J. Return On Contribution (ROC): A metric for enterprise social software. Proc. ECSCW 2009.

Muller, M.J., Millen, D.R., & Feinberg, J. Information curators in an enterprise file-sharing service. Proc. ECSCW 2009.

Richter, A., Koch, M. Challenges of the Use of Social Networking Services in (German) Enterprises. Workshop on Social Networking in Organizations, Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW 2008), November 2008.

Richter, A.; Ott, F.; Kneifel, D; Koch, M. (2009): Social Networking in einem Beratungsunternehmen.
In: Proceedings 9. fachübergreifende Konferenz Mensch und Computer (M&C 2009), Berlin.

Richter, A., Riemer, K. Corporate Social Networking Sites – Modes of Use and Appropriation through Co-Evolution. 20th Australasian Conference on Information Systems, 2009.

Romeo, P. The D Street Case Study. Workshop on Social Networking in Organizations, Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW 2008), November 2008.

Shami, N. S., Ehrlich, K. and Millen, D. R. Pick me! Link selection in expertise search results. In Proc. CHI 2008, ACM Press (2008), 1089-1092

Shami, N. S., Ehrlich, K., Gay, G. and Hancock, J. T. Making sense of strangers’ expertise from signals in digital artifacts. In Proc. CHI 2009, ACM Press (2009), 69-78

Skeels, M.M. and Grudin, J. When Social Networks Cross Boundaries: A case study of workplace use of Facebook and LinkedIn. Proc. GROUP 2009, ACM Press (2009), 95-104.

Stein, K. and Blaschke, S. (2009). Corporate Wikis: Comparative Analysis of Structures and Dynamics. In Hinkelmann, K. and Wache, H., editors, Proceedings of the 5th Conference on Professional Knowledge Management, Lecture Notes in Informatics, pages 77–86, Bonn. Gesellschaft fu ̈r Informatik.

Stein, K. and Blaschke, S. (2010). Interlocking Communication: Measuring Collaborative Intensity in Social Networks. In Memon, N. and Alhajj, R., editors, Social Network Analysis and Mining: Foundations and Applications. Springer, Berlin.

Steinfeld, C., DiMicco, J.M., Ellison, N., Lampe, C. (2009) “Bowling Online: Social Networking and Social Capital within the Organization.” Full Paper, Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Communities and Technologies (C&T 2009), State College, PA, June 2009.

Thom-Santelli, J. and Millen, D.R. Learning by Seeing: Photo Viewing in the Workplace. Proc. CHI 2009, ACM Press (2009), 2081-2090.

van Ham, F., Schulz, H., DiMicco, J.M. (2009) “Honeycomb: Visual Analysis of Large Scale Social Networks.” Full Paper, Proceedings of INTERACT 2009, Uppsala, Sweden, August 2009.

Yardi, S., Golder, S., Brzozowsi, M. Blogging at work and the corporate attention economy. Proc CHI 2009, ACM Press (2009).

Zhang, J., Qu, Y., Cody, J., Wu, Y. A Case Study of Micro-blogging in the Enterprise: Use, Value, and Related Issues. Proc CHI 2010, ACM Press (2010).

The most-emailed NYTimes story today is about online profiles and privacy: “How Privacy Vanishes Online”. This article highlights the futility in adjusting privacy controls:

In social networks, people can increase their defenses against identification by adopting tight privacy controls on information in personal profiles. Yet an individual’s actions, researchers say, are rarely enough to protect privacy in the interconnected world of the Internet.

You may not disclose personal information, but your online friends and colleagues may do it for you, referring to your school or employer, gender, location and interests. Patterns of social communication, researchers say, are revealing.

Something we’ve been thinking about lately are the people you actually forgot you friended. You may have had a brief interaction with them which was meaningful in the moment, so led to immediate friending, following or exchange of contact information. But as time and space increased, you forget the specifics of the interaction and when you look at the person’s name it doesn’t trigger a memory for you. Have you looked at your friend lists lately and can you remember who everyone is? What are you revealing about yourself to those people? Do you mind sharing your life with non-familiar strangers? On the flip side, are you keeping up with the lives of any total strangers just because they are on one of your friend lists? (If you can’t relate at all to these issues, maybe you have a better social memory than I do? Or you are more selective in your friending from the start?)

I find this to be a particular problem for me on LinkedIn because I meet people at professional conferences and then never see them again. Another aspect of this is if the stranger is an infrequent posters (or limits the visibility of their posts), then there is nothing to remind me that I’m following them. They are silent wallflowers that may or may not be observing my posts.

Let’s say you go through the effort to pick out these strangers on your friend list. Then there is the whole issue of not wanting to offend these people by de-friending them. What if this total stranger remembers your meeting and hopes to reconnect again? What if they have been following your updates and when you defriend them are painfully aware you have removed them? Or what if they have no idea who you are either, and is just too polite to de-friend you? Awkward!!