ORG COMM

1st Final Project Installment Due This Week

Remember that the first installment of the final project is due on your project blog this week, Wednesday, Dec. 1: details are here.

Regular Class Will Resume on Wednesday

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving holiday! We will not meet as a full class tomorrow (Monday). The students in my group will attend, but the rest of you should come on Wednesday.

A Little Pre-Thanksgiving Break Break

I have decided to make the last Study Guide post (due this Sunday night) optional. It is the one on "Organizational Culture." You can still do it, and if you do I'll grade it and count it in place of your lowest Study Guide post grade. So it's now sort of like extra credit.

Blogger Down: Sunday Night, Nov.14

I have received messages from several of you that Blogger's server is down. I'll give you until tomorrow (Monday) night to post.

Betting on Tools that Power Blogs

Betting on Tools that Power Blogs

Here come corporate blogs! Geez, it was more fun when the big guys didn't know about it.

Blogs can be a huge time saver for big organizations, says Bill Dennehey, a process analyst at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. The facility is using a blog-management package from Open Text (OTEX ) in Waterloo, Canada. It has allowed Dennehey to post questions in a blog that reaches other tech managers in a few minutes. In the past, he'd spend hours ending out e-mail and tracking them down. Now he can get a response as fast as they can read his message.

Software that trolls blogs looking for useful information also is getting attention. Cymfony, a startup in Newton, Mass., sells software that big companies are using to scan blogs for relevant information. A pharmaceutical company, for example, may want to look through blogs written by doctors, nurses, and patients about a new drug. Customers are paying anywhere from $30,000 to $100,000 for Cymfony's product.

(Via BusinessWeek Online.)

Bruce Sterling on Social Networks

Check out this Wired article by the science fiction writer Bruce Sterling. He reviews what he saw at the Ars Electronica festival in Austria. Apparently Social Network Analysis stole the show. Sterling is impressed, but finds reasons for concern.

Science's Next Big Score:

In the hands of law enforcement officials, social network analysis is like a chainsaw, both useful and dangerous. Saddam Hussein was captured with the aid of link diagrams that revealed his vulnerable connections, not just to the major malefactors in his government but to low-ranking yet highly trusted bodyguards, chauffeurs, and fellow tribesmen. On the other hand, imagine what malevolent authorities with a McCarthyite bent might do with such a tool: "Several Web pages link your site, Volvo Owners for Free Expression, to those of terrorists. Surely this proves something."

(Via Wired)

Done Grading

Okay, I finished grading the following four Study Guide Blog assignments, which brings us up to date:

1. WEBLOGS, AGGREGATORS, & WIKIS IN THE ORG
2. NETWORK ANALYSIS OF COURSE BLOGS (VISUAL CHART)
3. COMMAND & CONTROL MODEL / GLOBAL ASSEMBLY LINE
4. SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS

As usual, feel free to contact me with questions about your grades. And to reiterate, I will accept late posts until the end of the semester (I reserve the right to count off points though).

We have two more Study Guide Blog assignments this semester, and then our final projects for which you will use your Project Blog.

Grading Tuesday and Wednesday

Still haven't graded that backlog of assignments. I'm determined to knock it out over the next two days. Guaranteed!

Grades

I will be catching up on grading over the next few days. Check your grade blogs over the weekend.

Wikis in PR

Interesting article which is relevant to the upcoming study guide assignment:

Wikis in PR:

PR Week has piece on using wikis in PR, including signs you might want to consider a wiki:

• A press release went out with an error because the deadline was approaching and a change wasn't implemented
  Interesting piece which is relevant to the next study guide assignment:
• Your clients look for you to be an early adopter of networking and social technology coming through the pipeline
  
• You often have projects that require the constant feedback of multiple users in different countries
  
• You've deleted the 20th office-wide e-mail by noon, and not one has had information pertaining to you
  
• Your intranet is too bulky and expensive for your needs

I fundamentally believe the role of PR is changing because of social software, a disruption felt earlier than other sectors because information is their business. Employees of client organizations have always had the means to communicate directly with the outside world, with email it became much easier, and blogs provide persistent amplification.

The new opportunity for PR is to serve more than management and information officers. Blogs don't mean the ability to sell new crisis communications practices. They mean a responsibility to work deeper in the organization to provide media training and help navigate appropriate implicit or explicit policies. Of course, this media training isn't about staying on message. Its helping people understand the implications of their messages while establishing a backchannel of conversation within the enterprise about how it relates to the outside world.

(Via Ross Mayfield's Weblog.)