Source: Pew Internet and America Life Project: "Networked Workers" Study
Michele Martin and Tony Karer have been blogging at the Work Literacy blog for several months now. Work Literacy is a network of individuals, companies and organizations who are interested in learning, defining, mentoring, teaching and consulting on the frameworks, skills, methods and tools of modern knowledge work. The topics they look at are what I might call social media literacy skills.
When I get out into the real world and come in contact with people who are no early adopters of Web 2.0 tools, I find that there are still many people who haven't heard of many of these tools - blogging, tagging, RSS, etc, let alone have incorporated them into their daily professional work practice. Mostly they are aware, but haven't experienced it.
Fast forward ten years from now, and the nonprofit workplace - maybe it is only five years from now - but will social media basic literacy be on the list of basic job skills?
Marshall Kirkpatrick at the Read/Write Web has two recent posts, one that analyzes some research and a second providing some great tips for incorporating social media into your work life in a productive way that can enhance your work.
Survey: Most Workplace Internet Use Remains Rudimentary: Marshall gives a good summary of what he thinks the implications are from this research. I'll just quote him here:
The gist of the analysis is that people who use the internet at work also use it to do work at home; it makes them more efficient but also increases the demands on their time. Any of us who live that kind of life could have told you that - but what we find more interesting is the surprisingly low number of people who say they use certain technologies at work.
Greg Sterling at the excellent blog SearchEngineLand pulls out some of the most salient data points from the survey and we'll excerpt further from his post below. We question both the definition of "networked worker" in the survey and Sterling's perspective on it, though.
Reading Blogs at Work: How and Why You Should Do It:
This is a fantastic post that gives us the why - first mover advantage, something that Chris Brogan has talked about. Marshall's tips for reading are all about listening. There's a few more strategy/tool ideas tools that I think are definitely worth incorporating into the WeAreMedia Listening for Nonprofits section. And, it has given me some inspiration for social media listening step-by-steps projects.
When do you think social media basic literacy skills -- reading blogs in an RSS reader and listening to what people are saying - will be come a standard part of the nonprofit job description - at least for someone doing marketing for the organization.
