Week 6
Week 6 - Role of people in curation
The basis of content curation is your own network, the resources you use and how you connect them. Every network and every community lives from and with the people who contribute to it. The different roles that people play in networks can be divided into consumers, experts, connectors and catalysts (cf. Harold Jarche, <https://jarche.com/; <https://jarche.com/2017/05/the-world-needs-knowledge-catalysts/).
Visualization by Katrin Mäntele \@kleinerw4hnsinn (CC BY)
Consumers use their networks to obtain information. They read posts to expand their knowledge without necessarily collecting, enriching, and sharing it. collect, enrich and share it. Of course, we are all also always consumers in our networks, especially when we are dealing with a new topic or with topics that (at the moment) only interest us marginally.
Experts penetrate and understand their subject areas in detail. But they are not necessarily good at summarizing and sharing their knowledge. In curating, an expert is often simply someone who knows more about a topic than you do. To develop as an expert curator, you can practice talking, writing, summarizing, and sharing more about your subject area in simple(er) words.
Connectors are good networkers, know many people, get into conversation easily with everyone and bring people together. In curating, they help to see and build new connections and draw attention to interesting topics, approaches, and opinions. To develop as a connector to a curator, you can develop and practice your skills of enriching knowledge and sharing it with added value. It is also important to consider when, where, and with whom you share your content.
Catalysts are good at enriching knowledge, making knowledge connections visible and passing on knowledge, but also at connecting people, ideas and organizations. Catalyzing in this sense is the fine art of knowledge management and content curation. Only a few people are good catalysts; a basic prerequisite is that they are good curators.
Kata 9: In the tasks in week 1, you have already thought about your network and certainly made contact with various experts in one way or another. Now think together about how you can recognize connectors in your networks (e.g. Xing/LinkedIn, Twitter) and how this becomes visible in their contributions? In the group or alone, think about what you can do to become better connectors. Take on two or three points and practice them over the next four weeks.
Kata 10: Analyze your networks -- who are the experts, who are the connectors, and do you know any catalysts? What activities characterize each of them and how would you assign these activities to the roles. Make a table or overview and summarize your analysis in it.
Kata 11: What role do you play in your networks? What role would you like to play? What do you lack to play this desired role?
Deepening kata: If you have time and want to, draw a network with the most important people on your topic. Work out what their strengths are and whether and how they relate to each other. Think about how you can best approach the catalysts and how you can best reach out to them. Start curating their content, in the sense of "curating the curators".