I wanted to share with you a short article from 18Feb.2008, eWeek (see www.eWeek.com &/or see a video on Web 2.0 in the WorkPlace that was put up in Dec.07).  The article, Enterprises eye Web 2.0 skills suggests that although most IT depts have resisted Web 2.0 skills, as we continue looking for ways to save money, these technologies may help save money and promote innovation.  “Web 2.0 is likely to make enterprise inroads first in places where information worker problems remain unresolved, such as helpdesk ticket resolution, IT project management, documentation tracking and e-mail.”   Other areas include RSS deployment and the use of blogs and wikis for knowledge workers.  Personnally, I don’t see the connection with e-mail but using these tools to facilitate project communication makes some sense to me.  What do you think?  Mark

Money Magazine’s Feb.2007 edition (p.105), has a short article with a word of caution regarding social networks. The title is “Stay away from LinkedIn and Facebook. Joining a social network is asking for trouble.” The article then actually suggests “…getting your feet wet” by starting with LinkedIn “which is geared toward professionals.” The article also suggests using Facebook but says you should monitor your site in case someone else adds a note… and says you should become familiar with how to manage privacy settings. Contrary to the title, the article advocates using good judgement when using a social networking site and posting information. I would think this would be obvious…  Mark

In the January 2008 edition of Scholastic Administr@tion (yes, the @ sign is in the title), the Executive Editor, Kevin Hogan, pointed out that a July 2007 study showed that 96% of children with Internet access between the ages of 9 & 17, have used social-networking sites and 71% of them use this technology weekly.  Hogan went on to point out that professionals associated with the education field need to understand this technology better & he recommended starting Facebook &/or MySpace accounts and learning to use them, not just to understand what students are doing with them but to improve communications with students and parents.

I found this very compelling as I have been very focused on “team collaboration” tools for the last few years here at the Madison Metropolitan School District.  I attended a workshop on social-networking near Chicago last fall and made a personal commitment to learn more about how to use these “Web-2” tools.  In Nov.07, I created a Linkedin account and then in Dec.07, I started a site where I can share Web links: http://del.icio.us/MarkEvans.  By early Jan.08, I created a blog, http://teamsnprojects.blogspot.com/ both to share ideas on managing teams, but more importantly right now, to learn more about how to use this technology.  I’ve also created a Facebook account, but now figure I should be hiring a 10 year old to show me more about how to use it.

The key is that we as Certified Public Managers^® have the ongoing responsibility to be life-long-learners and model the effective use of new technologies which can continue to improve our personal and organizational effectiveness in serving the public.  Toward that end, we in the Wisconsin Society of Certified Public Managers^® will spend some of our effort in 2008 within the context of our meetings and organizational communications to use and learn more about Web 2 tools.

If you have thoughts on this issue, please add your comments to this blog.  If you have reservations about using these tools, voice them.  If you have experience using these tools you can share, please do so.  Together, we are going to learn more about this topic.  One thing is clear: new employees entering our workforce coming from our schools and colleges, will likely already be very experienced with these tools.

Mark Evans, WSCPM President