Woche 1
Week 1 - Role of networks & communities
Wir alle leben und arbeiten in Gemeinschaften und Netzwerken. Mit dem Internet und den sozialen Medien they have become larger, more spatially distributed and more international. The opportunities to build relationships, access and share knowledge have thus become much richer and more diverse. On the other hand, our working world is becoming more specialized, complex and interwoven. An individual can usually no longer know everything that is necessary to solve a complex task and is dependent on a good network that gives her/him quick access to relevant information. Good networking skills have thus become one of the most important competencies for the 21st century - and also a fundamental requirement for any content curator.
Networks & communities are elementary for curators: They can be sources of relevant, valuable content and experts or the starting point for researching and collecting such sources and finding experts. In a further step, a content curator always acts as a "human filter" who, guided by his or her own interests and knowledge background, filters relevant and interesting information and content from a large quantity.
Here are a few examples of curators and well-curated pages:
- The Corporate Learning Community: <https://colearn.de/ - Learning network for corporate learning with contributions and activities by, for and with the community (German)
- Dr. Jochen Robes (www.weiterbildungsblog.de) - Developments on (digital) learning and continuing education (German)
- Stefan Pfeiffer u.a. (https://cxoku rator.com/) - curated information on IT topics, such as cloud, artificial intelligence and IT security - with a weekly livemeeting (9vor9) (English)
- Klaus Eck (<https://pr-blogger.de/) - Specialist for online marketing and PR with many good channels (German)
Kata 1: Create a collection of all networks and communities around the topics you are interested in (private or professional) and to which you belong. Then look at this list: Where are you a listener / reader and why? Where are you active and do you contribute yourself?
Kata 2: In the next step, consider (possibly also for a curation topic) which content, people and networks you would like to have (more) contact with and create a list for this. Think about how you can get in touch with the content, people and networks step by step (follow topics or people, like content, connect with them in social networks, contact them etc.).
Discuss the different ways to do this in the Circle and share recommendations. Make a plan on how to build this contact in the next 4 weeks.
A good first step as orientation for this is the advanced Twitter search. Helpful in this context are also the exercises from Working out Loud (week 1 and Week 2) or the lernOS Basic Guide.
Enhancement kata: If you have a little more time for this first step, do the following networking exercise to get an overview of how diverse your networks are and how you use them.
Knowing how wide or narrow your networks are and how you use the knowledge in those networks helps you better understand your own learning and work. Do you primarily ask people who are similar to you, who do the same thing professionally as you do, who you know well and can ask directly? What impact does that have on the information you get and the knowledge you draw from it?
Answer the following questions looking at the last 4 to 6 months and enter up to 4 people for each question. The same persons can also stand for several questions. The questions are focused on your professional network and professional issues, but you can also adapt these questions to reflect your personal environment and life.
- Who do you talk to most when it comes to normal professional questions and small support, e.g. for special detailed knowledge, to proofread a text or a presentation, for brainstorming, etc.?
- Who do you turn to when you want to solve a difficult / complex professional problem?
- who do you talk to when you want to advance an important project or idea in your company? Who do you contact to get the necessary resources, approvals and support for the project?
- with whom do you exchange ideas if you want to open up a completely new field of topics or tasks?
- with whom do you exchange the most information about new developments and trends in your profession/specialty?
- with whom do you have the most informal contact in your job, for talking, going to lunch and also talking about things outside the office?
How many of 24 possible names are on your list? Now look at the structure of your network with the following questions: How many of the people are:
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older than you
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about your age
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younger than you
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your gender
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other gender
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work at the same location / in the same office
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work at another location/city
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work in another country
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work in the same department / organizational unit
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work in a different department / organizational unit
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work in another company
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have the same specialty as you
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have a different area of expertise
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work on the same hierarchical level as you
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work on a hierarchy level below you
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work on a hierarchy level above you
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not applicable
This exercise was compiled, shortened, and adapted based on the Network exercise from Harold Jarche\'s Personal Knowledge Mastery Online Workshops.