Brian Kelly, UKOLN

IWR Information Professional of the Year

Resources bookmarked using ‘ucisa-2008-02' tag Resources bookmarked using ‘ucisa-2008-02' tag

UKOLN is supported by:

Communicating With Users Case Study:

The UK Web Focus Blog

http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/ucisa-2008-02/http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/ucisa-2008-02/

This work is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 licence (but note caveat)

About This Talk

This talk describes the approaches taken in setting up the UK Web Focus blog and describes strategies for IT Service departments in using blogs for engaging with their user communities.

About This Talk

This talk describes the approaches taken in setting up the UK Web Focus blog and describes strategies for IT Service departments in using blogs for engaging with their user communities.

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Contents

• About Me

• The UK Web Focus Blog Setting Up The Blog Blog Policies Delivering The Blog Evaluation

• Blogs For IT Service Departments Who’s Doing It? A Vision

• Conclusions

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About My Past

Employment History• Initially employed in Computer Centre at

Loughborough University from 1984-90• Information Officer at University of Liverpool

(1990-91) and University of Leeds (1991-5)• Senior Trainer at Netskills (1995-6)• UK Web Focus at UKOLN, University of Bath from

1996-UCISA Involvement

• Committee member of IUCC IUIC, ISG, TLIG, SDG, … in 1980s and 1990s

• Speaker at UCISA Management Conference, 2004 and 2008 and various UCISA TLIG/SDG events

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About My Present

UK Web Focus:• Discovered the Web in Dec 1992• Web evangelist in 1993-4• Currently employed as UK Web Focus:

Highlighting innovations to community Encouraging take-up of best practices Building sustainable Web management

community Promoting use of Web 2.0 to support

institutional objectives Addressing barriers to innovation

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The UK Web Focus Blog

UK Web Focus blog:• Set up on 1 Nov

2006• Hosted at

wordpress.com• Response to

embarrassment at Web 2.0 panel at ILI 2006 conf

• ‘Skunkwork’ (avoiding slow-moving editorial processes)

About The Blog

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Setting Up The Blog

Steps:• Register• Select name &

appearance• Publish

Next:• Publish posts• Register in

Technorati• Publicise (email, Web

pages, comments, …)

This is the easy part

About The Blog

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Blog Policies

How to transition from ‘skunkwork’ to embedded service:

Establish:• Blog policies • Scope of the blog• Target audience• Writing style• Procedures• Change control

UK Web Focus blog is written by an individual and has a conversational writing style. Feedback mechanisms and professional reputation helps to ensure suitability of contents.

UK Web Focus blog is written by an individual and has a conversational writing style. Feedback mechanisms and professional reputation helps to ensure suitability of contents.

About The Blog

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Blog Content

How Do You Get Content?

• Lots of things happening in Web 2.0!

• Read blogs from peers and contextualise

How Do You Make It Interesting?

• Aim to be a ‘thinker’ and not a ‘linker’ (there is a role for linkers, though)

• Engage in discussion (“X looks interesting, but it might mean Y. What do you think?”)

How Do You Find The Time?

• Blog posts related to other work activities – feedback improves quality of work

• Speculation (“thinking out loud”) provides opportunity to see if others have similar views

• Can I afford not to blog; not to engage with my users?

About The Blog

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Measuring UsageUsage

• Steady growth in usage in first 6 months

• Views by RSS not measured (likely to be high)

• Views in other aggregated services also not measured

Links• Steady growth in nos. /

status of links by blog in first 6 months

• Dapper service used to visualise trends in Technorati statistics

About The Blog

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Evaluation

Survey in Aug/Sep provided very useful feedback and confirmed that blog is providing a valuable service

…

…

About The Blog

But what are the implications of these experiences for the wider community?

But what are the implications of these experiences for the wider community?

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Vision For IT Services

A number of senior managers use blogs

• Michael Webb, University of Wales, Newport

• John Dale, University of Warwick

• Mark Sammons, University of Edinburgh

and some blogs from support staff:

Shouldn’t IT Service departments be leading use of blogs at strategic & operational level, for engaging with users & sharing best practices?

Shouldn’t IT Service departments be leading use of blogs at strategic & operational level, for engaging with users & sharing best practices?

Blogs & IT Services

• Chris Sexton, University of Sheffield

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Challenge For IT Services

http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2008/01/16/ucisa-award-for-uk-web-focus-blog/#comment-63841

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What Should We Prioritise?

Do we do the work and tell our users what we’ll do or won’t do ..

Blogs? IT Services says noFolksonomies? Library says noSkype? UKERNA says no

Blogs? IT Services says noFolksonomies? Library says noSkype? UKERNA says no

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Yer, like blog are well cool, but, OK so I swore at Kylie on her blog cos she’s a real slapper cos …

Yer, like blog are well cool, but, OK so I swore at Kylie on her blog cos she’s a real slapper cos …

Images from BBC

Yer, but, no, but, yer

.. or engage with our users & acknowledge the ambiguities described by Vicky Pollard

Do we assume all our users are like Vicky and plan for that?

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Blogs, Emails And Talks

A blog can be like an email

I haven’t got the time!!!I haven’t got the time!!!

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Blogs, Emails And Talks

A blog can be like an email or a slide in a talk

The opportunity:• IT Service blogs can be used to engage more

effectively with user communities• IT Service departments need to communicate

more effectively with users

The challenge• “We haven’t got time”

Some answers• Regard a blog post as email or a talk – you

have time for that• Share and discuss within the community

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Blogs, Emails And Talks

A blog can be like an email or a slide in a talk

Do you not have the time to write emails or give talks?

Do you not have the time to write emails or give talks?

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• Evaluating Your Blog

Supporting Each Other

Briefing documents which give advice on best practices for blogs are available (with Creative Commons licence):

Blogs & IT Services

• Launching Your Blog

• Building A Blogging Community• Addressing The Barriers • Quality Processes for your Blog

Content• Technical Issues For Your

Blogging Service• Library Uses For Blogs• ..

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Conclusions

Institutional Perspective• Setting up a blog is easy• Sustaining a blog needs content and motivation• A blog can (should) relate to other activities

(listening to users, floating ideas, etc.)• Don’t spend too much time evaluating blogs,

worrying about AUPs, …

Cross-Institutional Potential• Blogs can be for communicating with one’s peers

and not just end users• We have good channels for sharing (e.g. UCISA)

– blogs can build on this• Let’s do it!

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Questions

Any questions or comments: