Microblogging potential impacts on informal communication and collaborative work

1
Micro-blogging - potential impacts on informal
communication and collaborative work

• Dejin Zhao Mary Beth Rosson
• Penn State University
• dzhao,mrosson_at_ist.psu.edu

2
Overview

• Micro-blog
• Anticipated impacts on informal communication
• Interview study
• Preliminary findings
• Discussion

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Micro-blogging

• What is a micro-blog?
• A new emerging form of communication, powered by
  online CMC tools (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, Jaiku,
  Pownce)
• Allow individuals to broadcast information
  through brief updates
• With their audience/subscribers (e.g., friends,
  colleagues, other interested observers) 3.
• Unique communication behaviors people seem to
  use micro-blog to share information about
  themselves that they probably wont do through
  other communication media
• Small little things, happening around peoples
  daily life and work activities
• Live information, e.g., what they are doing,
  thinking, reading, and experiencing
• They believe are interesting and might be
  valuable to others as well, but just not enough
  to share through other communication channels
  (e.g., emails, IMs, or blogs).
• Emotionally, people achieve greater cyberspace
  presence, out there, and feel one more layer of
  connection with others and the world 3, 5.

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Micro-blogging in work settings

• Position Micro-blog might potential become an
  important informal communication medium at work,
  with consequent mediating impacts on
  collaborative work.
• Problems and needs Corporate settings need
  better CMC support of informal communication
  among employees more than ever
• Informal communication is critical to
  collaborative work and organization success
  (e.g., opportunistic valuable information
  sharing, common ground, connectedness) 7
• Less informal communication opportunities, as
  communication patterns shifts from primarily FTF
  communication to more online mediated
  communication (e.g., more work done remotely,
  time famine, and concerns of interruptions)
• Computer-mediated informal communication
  essential as part of this, but still an open
  research problem
• E.g., social/visual cues in CMC seems not to help
  much 8.
• Other efforts examining social networking and
  public displays within organizations
• Two classes of anticipated impacts of
  micro-blogging
• Informational effects improved opportunistic
  valuable information sharing and expertise
  seeking, building and maintaining common ground
• Social and emotional effects enhancing the
  feeling of connectedness among co-workers.

5
Pilot project an interview Study

• To investigate the questions of a) how people
  micro-blog at work, b) what consequential effects
  micro-blogging have or might have on
  collaborative work, and c) how it might be
  improved?
• Semi-structured interviews with participants
  (expected 20 people), from a large software RD
  Business Unit, with roles of both managers and
  workers in software engineering, product
  management, marketing , and sales.
• About the interview questions
• Participants are asked about their experiences
  using Twitter with co-workers
• Problems and issues encountered, opinions and
  anticipated feature needs either/or relevant to
  work.
• Questions asked from both information sender and
  receiver perspective
• Participants asked more generally about their
  perceptions of micro-blogs, compared with other
  communication media available

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Preliminary findings Consequences of Twitter use

• Opportunistic valuable information sharing a
  segment marketing manager once posted about his
  bad luck of setting demos in a marketing event,
  others respond similar experiences, and one of
  the guys organized an further meeting to exchange
  and learn from each others experiences.
• Work-related info/articles sharing marketing
  people often post work related news, product
  managers post about new features of competitors
  or other relevant products.
• Common ground building people replying to a
  co-workers updates/opinions sometimes are just
  for alerting him/her that they read it, or agree
  with the opinions.
• Perceptions of others work a product manager
  needs to collaborate with a marketing guy in a
  new project. By reading their work-related
  updates in Twitter, he gains insights into how
  their teams work.

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Preliminary findings Technological affordances

• Broadcasting and voluntary reading
• Makes it easier for users to share information
  that they probably would not do otherwise
• Fulfill peoples needs of checking others
  status, reading and responding is not demanded,
  subscribe based on interests, reply if they find
  topics interesting or have sth to share
• Simple, easy, and pervasive access
• Reduce threshold (low cost) to share
• Update as things happening and thoughts crossing
  minds
• Check whenever they get a moment (e.g.,
  in-between meetings)

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Preliminary findings Issues and problems

• Privacy some people concerned about broadcasting
  social or work status to everyone on their
  follower list
• Security some people said he might post more
  client and task sensitive information to an
  internal micro-blog, and would want to see
  similar posts from others.
• Integration people would like to have a more
  integrated way to stay in touch with people
  inside and outside organization
• e.g., co-workers, clients and sales partners,
  other friends in the same industry
• Value people sometimes not sure what might be
  interesting to update for subscribers, especially
  at start

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Discussion future research

• Academia investigation of micro-blogging as a
  social activity
• What is motivation for micro-blogging (e.g.,
  social emotional needs, individual/culture/backgro
  und difference factors)?
• What are its consequential effects (both
  cognitive and emotional effects in both
  individual and group levels)
• What are the technological affordances of
  communication channel and how do they relate to
  peoples usage and needs?
• Further investigation of corporate micro-blogging
  subject to implementation inside the
  organizations
• Use and impacts likely also to be affected by the
  specific organizational settings (e.g.,
  organizational structure, communication
  structure, organizational culture, nature of work
  activities, and individual differences)
• In a word, micro-blogging could become a useful
  medium for supporting informal intra-organization
  communication across different organizational
  levels.
• The nature of status updating might enact a
  variety of communication needs at work
• May impact other organizational issues (e.g., job
  satisfaction, creativity and innovation, and
  strategic management).

10

• Thank You

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