Social Media and Virtual Communities

Catalog Description

This is a course for the students with a strong interest in new technologies and how they may be used to create new business opportunities, particularly new social networking media. Topics covered will include social networking and how the business world leverages them, virtual worlds and technologies, skills in designing and implementing social media for business value.

Vision

As Disney describes it, to some degree we will "imagineer" the future of business in this course... what would you do in business if anything were possible? Look at how highly Microsoft values the social networking and virtual community components of Yahoo! as a competitive factor against Google. Why? Seecomments from Ray Ozzie, Chief Software Architect at Microsoft. The future is integrated and collaborative. Look at how firms are now using Facebook, My Space, Linkedin, and other networking tools to improve knowledge flow and enable marketing and hiring processes. Where will these tools go next? There are already tools for specific communities, such as doctors, to share cases and best practices. They may even get paid for their contributions (see the medical portalSermo as an example).

Class Web Sites

(SharePoint): https://community.bus.emory.edu/course/social_communities/

(Drupal):  http://commons.dominict.net (sign up for an account)

Topics & Discussion Questions

0 Introduction

  • What are social media? 
  • Why do they matter to us today in business and society?

1 The Power of Social Media

  • Why do humans collaborate? 
  • What is the nature of collaboration? 
  • What innate need do social media fill? 
  • Can we thrive without them in today's business world?
  • What sorts of collaboration may social media enable? 
  • Who gets connected? Why?
  • How do social media "flatten" the world?

2 How to Interact with Social Media

  • Why does mode of interaction matter?
  • How much does it matter?
  • What are the emerging modes and technologies for interacting?

3 Social Media Invade Privacy

  • How does privacy matter to you, and how will it be affected by involvement with Social Media?
  • How do consumers/employees perceive privacy concerns within social media? 
  • What tradeoffs govern the policy decisions around privacy assurance?
  • What is the Social Graph, and how does it impact privacy?

4 Social Gaming and Learning

  • Can you have fun and learn at the same time? 
  • Is learning and fun enhanced by interaction with others?  Why? How?
  • Can we make business into a social game?  What would it look like?  How would it work?  Why would it work?  What are the risks?

5 Humanity Increases

  • How are social media making society better? 
  • How do these applications deal with privacy concerns? 
  • Why are they effective?
  • Researchers predicted social liberation and the emergence of ideal democracy and human liberation in Network Nation in 1979 when looking at the Internet.  How are social media making this happen? 
  • Why are they simply an extension of this vision? 
  • What comes next? 
  • What is still missing?

6 New Business Models Emerge

  • (topics from previous will carry over)
  • What are businesses doing with social media that is novel and powerful?
  • How are these new applications hitting the top/bottom line?

Project Presentations “20% Time”

  • On this day, we will introduce each other to what we are doing in project 1.  Share your work, any insights gained, challenges faced.  The goal is to help each other learn what is happening.

Debate 1: The Singularity

7 Advertising Models Overturned

  • What happens when you no longer control the message and media outlets? 
  • How do you harness social media?  Who is doing this well?  What are they doing?
  • What are the opportunities and threats of social media advertising?  What if we decide to just ignore it?

8 R & D Models Overturned

  • How are social media impacting research and development? 
  • Why is it critical to develop strong, user-enabled collaboration capabilities for R & D?
  • What are key design elements for effective R & D implementations of social media?

9 Morals Erode and Skills Degrade

  • Is there a dark side to enabling social media? 
  • Will these media lead to anarchy and moral degradation?
  • What sorts of problems are happening now? 
  • How can we recognize them/ avoid them?
  •  Project Work/Update Time

10 Businesses Lose / Regain Control

  • Social media are here to stay.  Businesses are struggling to manage them and reap the potential gains from them.  What do they need to know to make the designs and management more effective and less risky?
  • What can we do when control seems to be slipping away?  Is throwing the off switch a possibility?  What else is there?

SocialMedia Design Clinic & Project Work Days

Today is about making things happen.  We will explore how to build and manage social media technologies today.

Project Presentations

  • Teams 1-2 present their projects the first day.  3-4 present on the second day.  Invite your sponsor to join us in class.
 
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