Community Relations 2.0

Forgive me tonight, there are several ideas I want to explore in my blog post tonight, so forgive me if it seems somewhat disjointed!

Firstly, this week I had the opportunity to read Professor Kane's article on "Community Relations 2.0" (don't worry Professor Kane I really enjoyed it and found it to be very insightful). The article, coauthored by several members of the information systems department here at BC, was written to explore the ways in which community outreach has changed due to the persistent rise in social media. What the article did really well, was pick a focus. Rather than use numerous industries dealing with the evolution of social media, the article stuck with the healthcare industry, making note that the findings based on the healthcare industry could be likened to a wide array of industries. The article through a focus in healthcare, breaks down the enhanced power of social media into four specific ways: Deep relationships, rapid organization, improved creation and synthesis of knowledge and better filtration of knowledge.

Now onto the good stuff. The first thing I wanted to discuss stems from a quote provided in the article, "40% of Americans say they have doubted a medical professionals opinion or diagnosis because it conflicted with information they'd found online". I read that and went, WOW 40% is a lot of people, especially when you consider a time when you were told, don't believe everything you read on the internet. Now obviously the reliability of information on the internet has increased immensely since its inception, especially when you consider the stunning accuracy of Wikipedia. In a recent study done by Lara Devgan from Johns Hopkins University, " a sample of Wikipedia medical articles did not contain a single egregious factual error... the vast majority were considered by researchers to be appropriate references for patients". So here in lies my thought, how do you balance the trained knowledge of a professional who has real life experience and attend at least eight years of college to enter into the provision of medical care with the increasing reliability of information online that is not only been proven to be accurate, but progress more quickly in the acquisition of new information and knowledge? While I most certainly see the value in online communities like Patientslikeme.com and the ability to aggregate and share medical information, I still question the safety of patients who take it upon themselves to generate "the first real-time, real-world open and non-blinded study", especially when the trial occurs within months and not years. I think my interest with this subject matter stems from the fact that we aren't sending doctors to medical school for nothing and while there is value in the collective information that can be found on the internet I feel like I have has skepticism about its validity drilled into my head. In my mind just because Web MD. says it doesn't make it true.

The next and completely independent thought I would like to explore is actually some what related to my blog post from last week. For those who missed it, I decided to play the devils advocate and explore the negative impacts of technology and social media on our generation's interaction with our peers. Another aspect of technology and social media that I did not cover, but came up in the lead example in Professor Kane's article, was this idea of today's "hyperconnected world". Connectivity has its pros to be sure, the world is smaller for one and information travels across the globe and back in the blink of an eye. BUT, this connectivity is demanding more and more of our time. As tools and social media become more and more mobile, there is this perception that someone is available ALL the time. No longer does the workday consist of a 9 to 5 day, rather through Twitter, texting, Facebook, email and thousand other tools people are expected to read and respond to queries and complaints any time day or night. Lets just put it this way, just because it is the weekend does not stop an angry blogger from posting a comment at 3am on Sunday morning about a grievance it has with a company. One of the "Mandates for the Social Media Team" in this article is to "continually survey the online landscape to identify potential threats", the issue of course here being the continually. This continual ability to be connected and in contact with those from work really seems to blur the lines between ones time at work and time OFF from work. Social media of course waits for no one.

Thinking about this blurred line, brings me back to last nights conversation about limited access to Gmail, Facebook, Twitter and other communication tools at work. Thinking about our conversation in conjunction with this expectation of perpetual connectivity, whether you are in the office or not, makes me question if its fair for companies to deny their employees the right to access their personal lives within the office, when a company at any given time can encroach upon their personal lives?

One final idea I wanted to touch upon, which was mentioned in "The Mandate for the Social Media Team" was Mandate number 3 "Engage Online Communities". I thought this mandate really encapsulated why Communispace gets it right. The reason they have found success is because the communities they create allow for companies to develop an online presence, so that "people can talk to [them], not just about [them]". Providing customers for a forum that allows them to feel listened to is essential to succeed in harnessing the powers of social media. At the end of the day it is all about the costumer and whether or not they feel satisfied with a company. If a customer is dissatisfied with a company or specific product, a company can use this negative and further improve their company by listening to their customers and giving them what they want. But again it is this idea of a two way conversation, rather than an angry outcry from the consumer.

I don't have a final question for the week, but I think there are several strewn throughout my post!