Technogenii’s Blog
Kristina Schneider’s BlogArchive for web 2.0
A Qualitative Study of Five Authors of Five Blogs on Training and Development
This qualitative study of five authors of five blogs on training and development is my thesis which was defended on August 26 2008 and submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts (Educational Technology), Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Abstract
This study analyzed what it means to be a blogger in the field of training and development—an edublogger—as well as the credibility of blogs intended for the training community. The specific research questions were posed from the insider’s or emic perspective. The objective of this study was to attempt to paint a portrait of an edublogger and uncover areas for further research.
A phenomenological qualitative research design methodology was used in an attempt to observe the connections between edubloggers and their readers, which is in harmony of the spirit of the blogs as well as to understand the essence of experiences in the blogosphere. A grounded theory was constructed from a cross-case analysis—case studies were developed using interview transcripts of the 5 bloggers and artefact analysis of each of their blogs over a 4-month period—with the intention of identifying key phenomena.
Common themes related to the edubloggers’ motivations, writing style, community building and other general practices were uncovered as. In addition, a substantial set of emerging questions specifically relating to readership and the qualitative assessment of blog content were noted.
You Just Might Digg This!
What makes a blogger credible? What gives them authority? How do we measure their success?
In a blog post entitled Blog Metrics: Six Recommendations For Measuring Your Success, Avinash Kaushik, a Web Analytics Practitioner, writes about 6 ways to measure the impact of your blog. In summary, they are:
- Raw Author Contribution
- Holistic Audience Growth
- Conversation Rate
- “Citations” / “Ripple Index”
- Cost
- Benefit (ROI: Return on Investment)
His post is actual a very informative read. The approaches he discusses are however purely quantitative, except for a certain degree of qualitative metrics that might be included in the ROI analysis. He addresses non-traditional or unquantifiable values, which is similar to what I discussed in my blog post on consultants 2.0.
Digg.com
However, Tools that gather opinions on the quality of content have been emerging on the Web. An example of such a tool is Digg, a social media application that enables Internet readers to share the content they discover from anywhere on the Web with others. The way Digg works is that readers submit or “Digg” their appreciation of a Web resource. Other members of the Digg community will have access to the review and will either ignore it or “Digg” it themselves. When a resource receives a substantial amount of “Diggs”, it gets promoted to front page status. Digg explains its vision in the “about” section on the Digg Website:
And it doesn’t stop there. Because Digg is all about sharing and discovery, there’s a conversation that happens around the content. We’re here to promote that conversation and provide tools for our community to discuss the topics that they’re passionate about. By looking at information through the lens of the collective community on Digg, you’ll always find something interesting and unique. We’re committed to giving every piece of content on the web an equal shot at being the next big thing.
It would be interesting to find out how will tools like Digg affect the way content will be perceived on the Web? Even if the tools for critical analysis are available, will readers have the necessary critical analysis and thinking skills to utilize them properly?
I recently defended my thesis in which I analyzed what it means to be a blogger in the field of training and development—an edublogger—as well as the credibility of blogs intended for the training community. The specific research questions were posed from the insider’s or emic perspective.
The objective of this study was to attempt to paint a portrait of an edublogger and uncover areas for further research. This is one of those areas.
Informally, I’d find it very helpful to have your opinions now. What is your take on the potential of such tools? How does it relate to the raison d’être of blogging?
Defining the Consultant 2.0
A recent post entitled Dream to Reality: How I Quit My Day Job by Tina Su made me reflect on the evolution of my career vocation as well as life after the graduation—my thesis defence is tomorrow at noon. I have no plans to quite my day job any time soon. But I do want to make certain changes in order to be able to better balance my life and feel I’m getting the most out of it.
Tina Su seems to have made a vocation of blogging. She writes:
Through my quest to finding my passion, I discovered blogging as a platform where I can share ideas and lessons learned that are closest to my heart, as a way to serve others. For the first time in my life, I feel that I am living my life purpose.
I “digged” Tina Su’s blog post and remarked the following:
There is something to this blog post. I’m sort of halfway there – I’m working from home and blogging, developing a network and pursuing my passions on the side, planning for a moment where I can generate revenue with my opinion/online resources — it’s a kind of consultant 2.0. I most certainly appreciate the advice and tips.
Then of course, I got to thinking about what does consultant 2.0 mean? Has anyone else used this term? And how did they define it?
Noah D. Roth wrote a blog post in April 2007 entitled Consultant 2.0 where he gives a definition of what a Consultant 2.0 might be:
Today’s consultant- let’s call him Consultant 2.0- isn’t just looking for 3 years of consulting as a gateway to a line role in industry. [...] Consultant 2.0, working 80 hours per week at 80% travel, doesn’t have time for a second full time job looking for their next career move. And his next move is likely to be less-traditional. He may sacrifice cash for equity. Having been a generalist for most of his consulting career, Consultant 2.0 isn’t going to the first client who makes him an offer. He is choosing an industry and a role, and developing deep relationships with his own firms alumni network, and the recruiters who can get him in the door.
Next, Leslie Bradshaw has a consultant 2.0 category for her blog, and though she never uses the term specifically, in one post entitled The rise of the “influential 2.0″ and the “strategist 2.0″ and the … ok, you get the point she writes:
The “strategist 2.0″ – Strategists and consultants — such as those from the political, PR and advertising phyla — who make their money leveraging the influence, relationships, fundraising potential, Word-of-Mouth marketing, etc. from “the blogs” (and other online media, groups, networks, outlets, and so on).
Next, I found a slideshare presentation created a month ago by Pat Kitano on How Web 2.0 and Internet Transparency is Changing Management Consulting:
Last Monday, Dion Hinchcliffe wrote in his Web 2.0 Blog that Web 2.0 remains the top word used to describe Internet trends. He discusses offspring terms such as Advertising 2.0, Law 2.0, Library 2.0, Enterprise 2.0 and even Government 2.0 and remarks that:
At this point there are some that like to invoke Buzzword Bingo at such seemingly gratuitously coining of new terms, but I personally find this a crucially important point: The global network of the Web itself, which is shaped continually by the endless participation of hundreds of millions of users around the clock, is no more than a reflection of those that shape it (which are then shaped themselves by it.) That the principles of Web 2.0 cross all disciplines, types of business, types of government, languages, as well as types of people and culture has fostered an interesting phenomenon. Namely, each of these topical areas are in the various stages of translating how Web 2.0 transforms and improves what they do, from architectures of participation and harnessing collective intelligence to radical decentralization (with cloud computing being the most interesting new example) and open service ecosystems. (links in quote provided by Dion Hinchcliffe)
Google returned 7,540 results for “consultant 2.0″. There’s a machining calculator called Consultant 2.0. I don’t know why the author named it that way. Random.
I’m still not sure exactly what Consultant 2.0 really means yet, at least not for me. But if I try to define some common points, it involves:
- using blogs and other social media tools to build a reputation as well as a network
- sharing with others what I know, what I read, what I think, how I feel… by extension who I am
- being transparent and accessible
- having an opinion, recognizing other’s opinion, being able to compare and contrast them
- a lot of reading and writing
- being able to effectively evaluate information I find on the Web
- being confident, yet humble
- developing a balanced scorecard approach to evaluating the return on investment of the practices listed above that involves more then an immediate cash return
Anything else?
Visualizing the Transition from Learning 1.0 to Learning 2.0
On the wiki page devoted to VizThink’s Visual Learning Group, Brent Schlenker asked others represent the transition from Learning 1.0 to Learning 2.0.
I contacted Brent a few weeks ago, manifesting my interest to participate. I’ve got something brewing…
The Evolution of Workplace Learning
Peter Stoyko has already come up with an information graphic. It focuses on how social media/Web 2.0 tools have facilitated learning as well as how mapping and graphic/visual facilitation have facilitated learning.
I’m thinking there is a link between the two actually. I believe they feed one another somehow. I’m not sure how to formulate it yet, but it definitely has some of the following elements.
Technological improvements / Web 2.0 technologies make it easier to:
- produce visual elements
- display/host/manage visual elements
- organize information visually
- interact with others using an visual 3D avatar
Can you think of other links? It would most definitely help me out in developping my own information graphic.
Blog Design Study
Smashing Magazine present their findings of their study of top blogs.
- Part 1 discusses layout design and typographic settings.
- Part 2 discusses navigation design, information architecture, advertisements and functionality (RSS-feeds, tag clouds, pagination, etc).
What Smashing Magazine has to say about their study:
We have identified 30 design problems and considered solutions for each of the problems separately. We have posed 30 questions which we would like to answer with our blog survey. Below we present findings of our survey of popular blog designs — the results of an analysis of 50 popular blogs according to Technorati’s Top 100.
Also from Smashing Magazine is their helpful post on 15 Desktop Blogging Tools Reviewed. I actually wrote this post using BlogDesk. Not too bad, just took some getting used to. I will try ScribeFire (a Firefox plugin) for my next post.
Blog Content Pirates – Advice Needed on How to Deal with Them?
There is one word to describe how I feel at this moment: Ick.
And the reason is feel this way is because I discovered that the entire blog post I made yesterday was copied and pasted and reposted on someone else’s site. Oh, the heading states that I (or technogenii) as the source, but there is no link to my blog. Actually, I was able to discovered this incident because I linked to another one of my blog posts in that post and received a pingback request.
But even writing “Source: technogenii” in the headline, in my opinion, is not enough. I understand that because I’ve published my post in the public domain that it isn’t protected by copyright. But isn’t there some kind of an etiquette amongst bloggers? There is an ethical way to point to another source on the Web without republishing it without permission.
I’ve been blogging for about a month now. So I’m looking for the advice of more seasoned bloggers on how to deal with this time of online rip-off.
Information R/evolution
I’m almost done editing my 165+ page thesis which I’ll be defending at the end of the summer. When I look at this video, I cringe to think of what it was like to write a thesis back in the olden days!
