Implementation Issues

All the services described in this infoKit offer exciting possibilities for organisations involved in all areas of education. However, although the services are generally easy to set up and use, organisations should think carefully about the wider issues involved. This is particularly important for those working in the BCE sector, who are likely to want to collaborate with different sectors, such as business, industry, voluntary sectors etc. While the flexibility of social software lends itself very well to such a scenario, potential legal and IPR issues are likely to be more sensitive than in other educational contexts.

Transparency from the Bottom Up!

Managing projects effectively is important and social software projects are no different. There are two main strategies that you can adopt when undertaking such a project.

• Bottom-up. The bottom-up approach consists of making the facilities available to people from the ground level and allowing it to progress (grow) of its own accord;
• Top down. A top down strategy consist of instructing people to use the software in their day-to-day jobs.

View more on these approaches in Suw Charman's blog posting, 'An adoption strategy for social software in enterprise'.

The preferred strategy by most is that of a bottom-up approach. This doesn't necessarily mean making it available to all staff, you can initially harbour a few pilot groups (view the project management infoKit for more on identifying stakeholders). The idea would then be to educate these users on how the software could be beneficial to their daily job, support any queries and act as an exemplar. From these pilots you will learn how people are using it, and you can begin to identify required goals for a full scale launch.

Another key point is not to prohibit the use of social software. Users may adopt the software and produce output in a way you have never thought of, providing new and innovative ideas. This approach offers greater sustainability as there is more chance of users continuing to use the software if it was their decision to use it in the first place.

The one thing your organisation must be ready to do is move towards a transparent culture. Implementing social software leaves no hiding place for any member of staff. A quote taken from a post in Euan Semples blog, 'The Obvious', on the impact the internet had on people is very similar to the way in which social software is impacting.

"As Levitt says: It is common for one party to a transaction to have better information than another party. In the parlance of economists, such a case is known as informational asymmetry. We accept as a verity of capitalism that someone (usually an expert) knows more than someone else (usually a consumer). But information asymmetries have been mortally wounded by the internet.

Try replacing "expert" with "manager" and "customer" with "staff" in the above statement." (Euan Semple, 2006)

Social software can often worry management especially in terms of a communications policy. It gives everybody the power to raise/and or discuss topics, ask questions, put their points forward, complain, praise etc. The way to look at this is you can't make everybody happy and if somebody does raise concerns or complain about certain things through this method then reply to them, socialise! There is greater credibility in confronting downfalls than there is in shying away from them. In the same light if someone praises you ask them what they liked, why they liked it and let them know of any plans to improve things further. It's very similar to 'word of mouth' which is an extremely powerful communication and marketing tool that can reap valuable rewards.

Another quick point to make is that your future employees are growing up in this type of culture. In order for any organisation to grow it must adopt future trends of which social software is one. View the Change Management infoKit for more on change.