This month’s Learning Circuits Big Question asks where is the best place to ask if you need input from people, what works and doesn’t work, what did you consider using, what was the outcome, ...
Continuing with my experiences with social networking, I have tried to use blogging to connect with people and get answers. However I haven’t been very successful in generating a dialog through my blogs. Perhaps my blog has very small readership, or perhaps people aren’t comfortable commenting.
As part of my journey in social networking I also started two communities – on Facebook and LinkedIn. Somehow it seemed harder to get a dialog on Facebook community but LinkedIn community got the dialog going quicker initially.
I recently sought inputs on a presentation I had to make. I posed the question on my LinkedIn community and didn’t get any response. I also sent a message to my Facebook community inbox instead of posting it to the group site. I got most response using this method. It makes me wonder if email is still the best form of social networking.
4 comments:
Kia ora Manish.
I recently had occasion to network with two groups. I used email and direct F2F with one group. The other I emailed.
The first group members - the active group who knew they were involved as project team members - each gave me a cursory feedback initially. I had to chase them up to get useful input from them. In the finish 3/4 of that group made useful contribution. But I got all the points for having to solicit those.
The second group, who were asked for advice, but were not chased up by me gave no input at all.
Now I do know from experience that people are all different in this regard. My suspicion is that there is a 'what's in it for me' factor. I'm still researching that one.
Ka kite
from Middle-earth
Hi Ken
Good to hear from you again. I think that if people think it is their 'work' to provide inputs then it is harder to get inputs. Somehow it is always hard to get responses when it is work related. However on social network sections, there are no obligations to respond. Few people will respond simply because they want to. I am sure if I calculate the percentage people responding (from the total people to whom the question was directed) in an open social network vs. the percentage of people responding in a 'work'/known network, the 'work'/known network would probably have a higher percentage. However if you have a larger network, the chance of getting a higher absolute number of responses is probably greater in a social network. And thus the need for a larger network I guess.
Kia ora Manish
It is good to be here. Thanks for the response.
I wonder at your sentence - "I am sure if I calculate the percentage people responding (from the total people to whom the question was directed) in an open social network vs. the percentage of people responding in a 'work'/known network, the 'work'/known network would probably have a higher percentage."
It seems to contradict the point you were making about it being "always hard to get responses when it is work related".
Or am I misunderstanding you?
Ka kite
The way I am looking at it, if I send out a request for 'work related' inputs to 10 people I know closely, perhaps 1 or 2 will respond. If I send out a request for inputs to a social network, I may get 5 responses from a group of 100. So while as a percentage, I got better response in the first case, in absolute numbers, I am likely to get a better response from a social group where there is no real obligation to respond in the first place.
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