This time I want to share some thoughts about the other side – the asking. It seems this is not as easy as we may think. How often do you actually clearly ask for what you really need? The catch is of course in being clear when asking and more importantly in being clear with yourself what it is that you need, what you actually want to ask for from someone else.

So as a first step you should take time to consider what your need is. You may think this is easy. Take something in mind, and then ask yourself why you need this. What is the purpose of getting this? Then you will see that your need is not that your husband/wife does the dishes. Your need may be that the other acknowledges in actions that the household is a shared responsibility. Or your need could be to free time (by not doing the dishes) to do something for yourself (reading that book, going for a stroll). Or your need might be recognition: that the other, by doing the dishes, realises that this is a “job” and sees your investment. Or something else entirely. As you see, your real need may not be so self-evident as you may have thought before.

What is it you need?

Being clear about your need will help you identify what it is you should ask for. In the above example, it is not about today’s dishes (or as happens in my household – yesterday’s dishes…). It’s very possible that the other person could do the dishes as requested and still leave you dissatisfied. It is also possible that this person could meet your needs by doing something entirely different as your needs are more about dividing tasks (and sticking to the division), setting priorities and being seen and honoured for what you bring into the relationship. For example.

Once you’ve got this cleared up, it’s important to be clear in your request, too. Don’t assume that the other person understands things that you haven’t actually said, and will act accordingly. Invest a little of your time in phrasing your request, make sure that it’s clear and understood the way you meant it to be understood. Keep it as simple as “Pass me the salt please, would you?”. And keep it positive. After all it is a request, not complaining hour. If you want someone to hear your request and fulfil it it does not help much to start out by telling them they are not worth a shit, and never have been. At least for me that kind of opening would not be a strong motivator to give my time freely to doing the dishes … Instead I might become highly motivated to give you, wholeheartedly, a piece of my mind in return!

More on the difficult territories of phrasing requests later. For now, just try to find out the why behind what you are asking people and see if this helps to at least ask for the thing you really want – even if it may not yet be phrased perfectly! Good luck!

More often than not it is not so much the hidden expectations of others than bother us – after all, we can easily discard those as having been unrealistic, not communicated beforehand and simply not part of the deal we were striking. If a friend is going shopping anyway and brings some of our groceries with them, the deal is finished by us reimbursing the costs. Or is it?

Can you do it?

If you look at yourself, how often is it that you give something – time, attention, assistance for instance – freely? Really without any strings attached? Of course we would all initially say that this happens all the time. Why then, are we so often disappointed with others? If we were indeed giving freely and not expecting anything in return, how come we so often feel that others are letting us down? How come we are comparing our own investments with those of the receiver and finding them at fault? When she was in the hospital for a month I called her every day, and now that I have been fired from my job she called me only once!

If we are honest with ourselves we usually do expect something in return. Perhaps not on the spot, but still there are expectations that are often not met. And that’s when they start nagging at us: Why is she not calling me now that I need her attention? Why did I recommend her for a job and helped her get it and now that she can hire others she is forgetting about me? Why did I go to such length to buy a tailor-made birthday gift and is he buying me something he should know I don’t even like? Why did I invest hours of my time helping someone with excel if they never acknowledge that it was my help that gave them the edge in the bid?

Admit it: you, too, have had such thoughts at some point! OK, I have. I admit it. But less and less.

When I have looked at those situations I have come to realise that the main question you should always allow yourself time to consider is this: do I really want to do this? And don’t automatically say yes to that, but think about these sub-questions: Is it truly my own wish to do this? Can I give this freely? Do I have sufficient time and energy left to invest in this now? Will I feel tricked if the receiver simply thanks me, and that’s that? Why would I regret it if I don’t do it?

And the killer question: what’s in it for me, right now? Not: what will be in it for me if I do this and the receiver will subsequently do this or that, but what’s in it for me giving this right now? What if the transaction ends with your part of the deal (your phone calls, your recommendation for a job, your time investment in the birthday gift or the excel crash course for instance) – what will you have gained then? Will you have honoured a value that is important to you? Will you have done something you like to do? Will you have learned something new?

I found that it really helps to take time to consider such questions before deciding to do something or not to do it at this point in time. If you can get clear why you are giving something of yourself to another before you do it, you will find that whatever happens later on you will feel less disappointed with the other and will feel fewer regrets about what you have done. I know that’s true for me at least, even if I may not yet have perfected this practice.

To put it businesslike: your return on investment will be bigger because you will invest in the things that are right for you for the right reasons. Your decision about what to do will be about you and not about the other and his or her possible actions afterwards. Those are the kind of decisions that you will not regret later on because you will be able to remember vividly the reasons for doing what you did. These are decisions that do not have small print and do not have strings attached for either party.

Set yourself and the other free by trying to give genuinely freely – and see if you won’t feel a huge difference in satisfaction, as I certainly have when I managed to be 100% honest with myself!

Delicious is a tool you can use to bookmark web pages for yourself. You can tag them with key words or phrases so that you can find them back more easily later on. In order to do this, you need to set up a Delicious account.

Without account

Starting page of Delicious with search box

But even without account you can search what others have bookmarked with a certain tag. For instance, if you would want to find all bookmarked links related to the IAF Netherlands conference in 2012, you could search for the tag IAFNL12.

If you would do that, you would find the following overview in which you can see the tag you searched for, along with other tags used to bookmark these links (all underneath the links), you could see how many times these links were saved (on the left) and you could see other tags used on links tagged with IAFNL12 (column on the right).  Via the arrow or a click on the link you can view the page. The plus above the arrow on the right hand side can be used to save the link for yourself – but that requires an account of course.

Delicious - search results

Another way of searching you can do without account is to search for a person. For instance, if you know that my Delicious name is suzannebakker, you can go to www.delicious.com/suzannebakker and see what links I saved.

With account

Once you have made an account, you can start bookmarking web pages. In Firefox it looks like this in 2 steps:

Save link in Delicious

Saving a link - details you can add and edit

And, once you have saved a link, in your own overview it will look like this:

Saved link in Delicious - with description

To organise your links you can create so-called stacks. You can add a link to a stack when you save it, or you can add it later on – just as you may edit everything else later on.  You can add a description to a stack to let yourself and others know what the links in the stack are about, and you can easily share the link to your stack with others, for instance participants in your training who can then easily keep updated with materials related to the training as collected by you. They can decide to follow the stack so that they will know when you add a new link to it. Data on followers and views are provided. Here is what a stack could look like:

Example of a stack in Delicious

If you do not invite others to contribute to your stacks, links saved by others with similar tags will not show up in your own overview or in your stack. So for example, I have a stack with links related to IAFNL12, all tagged with IAFNL12. Others can view this stack, and others can save their own links using the same tag, IAFNL12. But if I have not invited them to contribute to my stack I will not see these bookmarked links unless I search for this tag or save the same links myself. However, if someone searches for “IAFNL12″ they will find all the links saved with this tag – both those that are in my stack and those that are not. So the fact that I have made a stack does not hinder anyone else who wants to save links or who wants to find saved links, but it does help me to have all those links organised in one place, and others can take advantage of that if they wish.

This is one of the things I like about Delicious – I can organise myself and inadvertently help others with that, while I can also get inspired by others who have bookmarked links on topics that I am interested in!

I hope this short explanation helps you get started and will enable you to get the most out of your own bookmarks and the power of the social web. Feel free to let me know if you have questions!

Survey Results

First impressions - quite strong (NL)

Interestingly, people formed quite strong opinions about others without ever having met. People were described as “young and not overly confident”, “enthusiastic”, “in control all the time”, “helpful” or “not accessible, judgemental”. Photos were an important basis for these impressions for 8 out of 11 respondents. They noticed that a person was not smiling and was looking down in their profile picture, and looked at clothes, too. “Formal or informal makes a big difference”, concluded one participant. For about half of the respondents the accompanying text and/or the style in which it was written was important as well. Observations include “concise & powerful”, “phrasing used”, “judgemental”, and “lack of nuance”. Not all people that found the content of the text important also focused on its style and vice versa.

Another thing that was important in forming an impression of someone was their activity in the internal learning environment (a Ning). Respondents were impressed by the activity of others (“fast replies”, “(s)he is really into it”) and by the fact that they contributed in different places in the Ning (“replies popped up everywhere”).

Remarkable was that personal profiles did not play a role in forming a first impression of others. This might be explained by the fact that the personal profiles were located on a separate page for each participant and were thus perhaps not as easily visible as the first introductions and profile pictures that appeared on the home page.

Impression adjusted as a result of ... interaction!

However strongly felt the first impressions were, respondents were open to adjust them and in fact did so: 64% changed their opinion about the person later on. This was mostly the result of (more) interaction online or face to face. More contact resulted in better understanding of the person and in a more positive impression.

Webinar

In the webinar participants mentioned that it was not easy to “reconstruct” their first impression – to analyse what was the basis for it.

One of the great things about connecting to (new) people online is that you have a possibility to reserve judgement as one of the participants said. There is time to think, you do not have to react immediately but can consider the best way to answer or deal with something. You can choose how to react. This is an immense difference with face to face confrontations with others, where you cannot always buy time and choose the best approach.

In the ensuing conversation about how people try to present themselves online it became clear that there are many challenges. The fact that you should consider all networks as essentially “public” makes people reticent and careful – in where they are active (LinkedIn and not Facebook for instance), what they share (mostly professional information) and how they share it (no typos!). This is especially the case for those that work in bigger organisations. Freelancers seem to feel they have a bit more time and freedom, and perhaps also a bigger need to present themselves online. Many of them actively use different social media for networking and contacts. However, they make a distinction between networks they use privately and networks where they are present professionally. In these networks they of course also take into account that their clients may see their contributions and profiles. In that sense, online connections to a large extent are still extensions of offline contacts and networks. Participants also find it easier to contribute in platforms where they actually know (some of the) people offline, too, and become so-called lurkers in networks where they are less familiar with other members.

Klout - to see how you're perceived

Most people have an idea about the impression they would like others to have from their social media presence. But the big majority is not yet very actively developing an image for themselves. For now, they focus on trying to be as authentic as possible – not so authentic as to scare people away but also not so much focused on getting an image across that it makes one look too eager and phony, either.

Of course there are all sorts of online tools using statistic information that can help you assess how engaged people are with you online and, depending on how much credit you give these tools, how you come across online. One of those tools is Klout. However, Klout does not (yet?) use LinkedIn as a source and as such might not be much help for those that focus on this professional network only.

And in the end you may still need to rely on actual people telling you that you might do well to exchange your profile picture for one with a smile or who can make you think about whether or not to have the same profile picture in all your networks…

There is definitely much more to be said on the matter of how you come across online and how you can align your online image with your authentic self. For me, the webinar and preparing for it formed a good start for thinking about this, and I certainly look forward to discovering more on this subject.

SynchTube

In SynchTube you can create a room to watch videos, chat and do polls. You can do this, without having an account! Once you’ve created the room, you can share the link and everyone who gets the link can enter the room. The room looks like this:

SynchTube - overview of a room

On the left hand side you will find the video. On the right hand side there is a space to chat. It is important to first type your name in the box “Enter a name” and then click “Join chat”. Otherwise you will remain “unnamed” as is shown at the top right hand side.

SynchTube - Poll

The arrow at the bottom right hand side points to where polls can be added. A poll needs to have at least 2 possible answers. Participants can click on the number in front of the answer of their choice and vote. Everyone can vote only once. The scores are immediately updated. The leader can close the poll and start a new one.

Polls can be created only by the “leader” of the room. Initially, this is the person who created the room, but this person can give others the leaders role by clicking on a name and choosing to make them leader. If you want to remove someone from the room, you can click on their name and choose “kick”.

SynchTube - Chat Space

While you’re watching a video or taking a poll, you can share thoughts in the chat space. In the picture you can see that I managed to name myself and joined the chat. Below the chat space there is a small bar to type your chat contributions.

Some tips

• You need at least 2, preferably 3, facilitators, even if you work with a small group only. The reason is that you need at least one person that will take care of all tech issues – like mishaps with SynchTube, people who have problems with Skype, etc etc – and one person that will do the actual facilitation of the discussion and work. If people are chatting and talking at the same time, it is practical to have a third person who will bring up issues from the chat into the discussion. So while you can save on time and expenses for travelling by working online, you may need more persons for facilitation than if you would have organised a face-to-face event.
• The tech person should (try to) deal with the tech problems without interfering in the session itself, to the extent this is possible. This means that the tech person may need to set up separate connections (phone, Skype, etc) with people that are experiencing problems, and that way may miss out on some of the content being shared.

• Be prepared for technical problems messing up your session especially at the start of the webinar. Meaning: allow space in the agenda for delays. And: be cool about it if and when it happens. Don’t panic the participants with your own panic!

• Try out the tech tools at least twice yourself and check the possibilities of the tools you’ve chosen to work with. For instance in this case we had originally thought to use GoogleHangout (via Google+). We tried it twice – the first time it worked excellently and the second time it did not work nearly as well without us having a clear clue as to the why. Also, we found out in the nick of time that GoogleHangout allows for maximum 10 people to join at any given time. And as we invited more than 10 participants and could not be sure enough of them would cancel to stay within the limit of 10, we decided to look for another tool that would allow for over 10 participants at the same time.
• Send participants clear instructions beforehand. If you will use a tool that you are not sure they have used before, send them a short guide of the tool. You can make screen shots from your test sessions to visualise certain elements of the tools and insert them in a written text if you cannot find a clear guide online.
• Let participants do some of the thinking before the webinar. In this case, we sent participants a link to a Prezi highlighting some of the questions to be tackled in the webinar as well as a link to an online survey (via FluidSurveys) through which we collected certain information already. We presented the results of the survey during the webinar and used this as a starting point for further exchange.

• Be clear on the order of things: we will start in Skype, then we will share a link to a SynchTube room and we will watch videos there, for instance. Let people know what to expect and give clear instructions: “Now we will go to SynchTube. Don’t forget to enter your name for the chat.”
• Be clear on the rules: once we move to SynchTube, mute your skype to avoid hearing echos. And make sure that everyone does this, too!

• During a Skype discussion, be sure to address certain questions to a specific person, and use their name. In a face-to-face event it is much easier to look at someone while addressing a question to the group. Obviously, this does not work on Skype.
• Be sure to check a chat, if you have any, regularly and refer to remarks made there.
• Create atmosphere in the beginning: do not start rightaway with going from one tool to the next. First establish that everyone is there and make sure that everyone knows what will happen, how and when.

An evaluation was conducted in Wallwisher and generated positive feedback:

Wallwisher Evaluation (in NL)

European Commission website has a section called Transparency

For instance, I thought it was very good that the European Commission shared Commissioners’ declarations regarding past and present positions, ownerships and income. Any potential conflict of interest is thus out in the open – for all to see.

You can of course wonder about the number of people that actually do see it – but on the other hand in this day and age social media make it that much easier to gain access to information. Whether you will use the opportunity is your own responsibility and choice.

So why am I now a bit more hesitant regarding transparency being good? The reason lies in recent publications by Dutch RTL News of expense receipts of members of the cabinet and key civil servants. In itself, I think it was very good that they used the law to get their hands on those expense receipts. And it sure is a fascinating read. My imagination started to run wild when I read that someone had 64 curtains cleaned, and 12 king size towels … And I got intrigued by the fact that also ministries receive reminders of late payments – and not even once! But going through the numerous receipts (and I haven’t even tried looking at them all) it became clear that at a certain point the officials in question had been made aware of the request to turn over receipts and had taken counter-measures. Invoices became much less specified. “Cleaning June”. “Restaurant costs”. Etc. Well, that does not tell you a whole lot.

I should hope that internal expense claims are more specified and clear – I don’t know how the internal control units could otherwise check whether expenses are reasonable or not. Guessing that this is indeed the case, there is a discrepancy between transparency on the inside and transparency towards the outside.

One might think that this discrepancy is caused by a wish to protect the privacy of the individuals concerned. However, I have a feeling that it is more connected to the fact that transparency to the outside is not viewed as a real need of the institutions and persons involved. It is not considered part of their core business to be transparent. In Simon Sineks words – they do not share the same “why” for being transparent as the journalists and citizens that ask to see these expense claims.

This is different for the European Commission – an institute that is under near constant attack from public opinion as being unnecessary, needlessly expensive and intrusive. Looking at the way the Commission and the individual Commissioners are engaging with the public via social media it is obvious that there is a clear perceived need for showing what you’re about, what you’re doing, and why, and how you are going about it. They may not yet do a perfect job in this respect, but it seems to me they are putting more effort into it than the Dutch ministries are.

So the heart of my hesitation seems to be caused not so much by transparency as a concept, but more by how it is treated and perceived, how it is practised. If it does not come out of an internal need, if it is not considered to be part and parcel of who you are, it becomes meaningless in how it is applied. That’s when you start sharing documentation that cannot have any real meaning to those that go to the trouble of perusing it. That’s when you are not focused on building relations and trust, but are more concerned with keeping the outside just there – on the outside. And I don’t think that’s where you should want your citizens or supporters to be. Not as a government, but definitely also not as an NGO. You should want people to be engaged and you can achieve that by letting them in and sharing with them what you are about. Transparency may not as such be your core business, but it is a powerful tool to prove that you providing value for money, to show where you need input and to share the road you want to take.

Yes, I still believe in meaningful transparency as a tool for being accountable and for engaging the outside world. But we should all take care that it is taken seriously, applied willingly and honestly, and judged carefully.

Positive example: ministry of Economic Affairs buys @ Unicef and shares clear invoice

Well, to a certain extent that is indeed true. However, project proposal writing has become such a highly specialised job that the people who are supposed to implement the planned activities which will achieve projected results need to “translate” the proposal into concrete steps to be taken.  Such project planning should include not just steps needed to implement the planned activities but should also specify steps to be taken to collect certain data and steps to compare these data with the targets set.

Project grant = money IF we do what was promised and prove it!

Before the project team can start planning, they will need to thoroughly understand the project as a whole: what are activities foreseen, what are the outputs to be generated by these activities, to which results will these outputs lead and ultimately what is the reason behind the project – what is the aim they should strive towards achieving? This understanding will bring perspective to the implementation and will shift the focus from simply trying to do what has been written down to doing what is needed in view of the bigger picture. It could well be that circumstances in the field are not as foreseen and that the planned activities alone will not lead to the desired results. For example, if you had planned an Internet-based e-learning intervention it is necessary that your target group can access this platform. If they for whatever reason cannot do so, you will need to rethink the intervention (and perhaps use an e-mail based platform) or you will need to add steps to enable your target group to go online (for instance organise Internet connections for them).

Grasping the above is basically understanding part of the Logical Framework. But there is another side to most Logical Frameworks or Monitoring Frameworks – the part in which targets, baselines and indicators are formulated along with sources of verification and the like. This is the part where many project teams can feel cheated by the person who created the framework: do we have to do this, too? Aren’t all these activities enough already? No, indeed, they are not. Because in order for a funder to reimburse costs incurred they will want to see some evidence that you have really achieved what you promised. And that is where the indicators and their friends come in. This part of the frameworks will help you collect data that can show clearly and without doubt that you have been successful in your implementation. It tells you what data to collect, where to find them, and when to collect them. And once you’ve got them, it provides you with standards that can show you whether you are on the way to achieving your targets or not.

Proving success - part 2 of Logical Framework

I use the phrase on the way on purpose – with help of the indicators you cannot only assess success at the end, but you can also monitor during project implementation. This gives you a chance to make adjustments as needed if you see that you are not getting where you planned to be at the end. These data collection and monitoring actions are not always included in the general project planning and thus will need to be added to the activity plan by the project team.

The final step in this project start up phase is of course to assign roles and divide concrete tasks, so that every member of the team will know what to do and when to do it.  As a result of the process of “getting” the project, they will by then also understand what other team members are up to, how their work is related to that of others and above all else, why they doing it all. This insight, more than the mere planning of own tasks assigned by a project leader, will result in a greater team feeling and a sense of responsibility.

In my experience it helps tremendously to hire an external facilitator for a day or possibly two to guide the project team through the project and build a real, responsible team in the process. Of course, being such external facilitator myself, you might expect me to make such a case. But having been a project manager, too, I really believe in having an external party with good understanding of project management take care of this task so that the project manager him or herself can take active part in the discussions and the work instead of being side tracked by having to pay attention to the process and ending up being the one voice not heard in it.

So what are those communities that we spoke about? A community is formed by a group of people with a common interest, value or goal, that build a joint identity. The community provides a sense of belonging and meaning, that is valuable to the members and that makes them want to contribute to the community itself as well.

Nancy White: 3 perspectives on a community

According to Nancy White, there are 3 types of stakeholders in relation to a community: the members, the leadership and the sponsors. The sponsors are for instance the organisations that are represented in the community by certain members. While a community should focus on its members and on offering value to them, it should definitely also pay attention to the needs of the organisations behind these members.

Balancing the needs of these stakeholders and of the community itself as a whole needs a clear view on what the community is actually about – what is the reason it exists, and what is its focus at a certain moment in time? What activities can suit that focus and what tools can be used to facilitate the work of the community?

Through their research into communities and their development, White, Wenger and Smith developed the so-called spidergram. The spidergram shows 9 possible orientations of a community at a certain point in time. The spidergram is not a static “test” that you take only once and that provides a roadmap for all time. As a community develops it may shift its orientation. Another important thing to note about the spidergram is that no community scores high on all orientations at the same time, not even a very well-developed one. In that sense, the spidergram does not provide an ideal direction.

So what then does the spidergram show? It basically shows you where the community is at, at this moment. What is the current focus of the community? This in turn can help you define the activities that will deliver the most value to the community and the most suitable tools to facilitate these activities.

These are the questions the spidergram can help you ask:

Example of a spidergram filled out

1. Are meetings important instruments for the community to discuss and decide on common viewpoints and steps to be taken?

2. Is the community focused on developing and implementing projects – sets of tasks that are related to each other and lead within a certain time frame to certain, defined and projected output and results? Mind you, a project does not need to be an externally financed official project, internal development of a new practice can also be considered a project.

3. Does the community reach out to expertise? This expertise can be available within the community, and be accessible for instance through an internal resource directory.

4. Is there space within the community to discuss “whatever it is that we need to talk about right now”? In spidergram terms, are there open-ended conversations? Interestingly, this orientation can be strong both in new and in mature communities!

5. Is the community working on producing common content? Like developing documents together, sharing information, capturing lessons learned. Content and projects rather often form a strong starting point of communities as the activities tend to bring people together for a very clear common purpose, that can inspire them to develop into a real community.

These 5 orientations focus on activities of a community. The 4 orientations below  focus on the relations within the community and the relations the community has with the outside world.

6. Is there space for members of the community to each have their own experience – is there space for individual participation? Even though togetherness is a crucial feature of a functioning community, every individual involved will have his or her own experience from this being together, will get out something different than the others. This could also be interesting for the others – to hear a different perspective of what was gained.

7. Is there some level of cultivation of the community? Is someone taking care of the togetherness? Is someone ensuring that new members get to know the others and get to know the community? Are things that need to be shared in fact shared?

8. What is the external focus of the community, the context? Is the community engaging with the outside world, or is it focused on its own goals and activities? There is no right or wrong in being either externally or internally oriented – some communities do not need to lobby with outside stakeholders to achieve their aims, while others could not reach their goals without strong ties to external parties. When scoring your spidergram be aware that an internal focus should be scored closer towards the bulls eye, whereas an external focus should be scored more towards the outside of the “circle”.

9. Are there different relationships within the community? Meaning, do people have one on one relations with other community members or are there small sub-groups of people that share also outside of the “official community channels”? Such relationships do not harm the community, provided of course they do not focus on nasty gossip about other community members, in fact they can help forge stronger ties within the community.

Each of these orientations can be supported by the community leadership or facilitators with different online and offline tools. In selecting and applying tools you should, however, keep in mind to bring value to both the members and their organisations.

 More information

• Blog Digital Habitats – stewarding technology for communities for more information on the research by Wenger, White & Smith and additional materials
• Blog post by Nancy White on Digital Habitats on En nu online. Here you can also download a chapter on the spidergram orientations
• Video by Nancy White on communities:

Pinterest

Content curation is not new – in fact it is at least as old as concepts like libraries and museums. So why is it so hot these days? Why are there all sorts of tools, like Pinterest, the hottest new kid in town, that can help you curate content? It must have something to do with the widespread feeling of information overload in combination with an ever increasing number of social media tools that give all of us the opportunity to collect our favourite content around us.

This personal collection of links, photos, ideas and thoughts that many of us create on Facebook for instance is a form of content curation. We are filtering for our Facebook friends and subscribers information that we find important, and are in turn using our friends and likes for consuming filtered information. This could help us make sense of all the information available to us on the web. After all, as I recently heard: information overload is filter failure. The human filter of our friends and others we follow should help us find that information that is useful for us, and to avoid that which we do not need so that we do not become too daunted by everything out there.

However, exactly the tools that help us focus on information important to us are also making it more and more difficult to remain focused. After all, most of us have profiles in different networks – LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Google+ probably being the most current ones. And each of these networks may have a different focus, a different network to maintain and follow.

One of my stacks on Delicious

Of course there are now tools to manage these different networks by enabling you to post an update in different profiles (for instance If This Then That) and to check updates of others in one environment (for instance Hootsuite). RSS readers can help us view updates of blogs and websites at a glance, in Delicious we can collect and organise bookmarks, and Instapaper allows us to collect things we would still like to read – some day.

Nevertheless, it seems about time for new solutions to be found to design and apply effective information filters. That is probably one of the reasons that content curation is getting more attention nowadays. After all, visiting all our social network museums and update libraries daily is getting more and more unmanageable while it seems as if it is equally impossible to skip any of them even for one day.

Rohit Bhargava describes 5 models for content curation. They are aggregation, distillation, elevation, mash up and chronology. It seems to me that some models are applied more widely (aggregation, distillation, chronology) than others (elevation, mash up). Maybe because getting to a level where you can elevate and mash up information gathered requires a solid command of that information first – to be acquired via aggregation, distillation and chronology. But perhaps also because a great number of readers find posts like “5 mistakes to avoid on Twitter” easier to digest than posts that explain the trends in perceived mistakes and the background of such trends.

Symbaloo collection by Joitske Hulsebosch

From my limited experience I can see two trends in content curation: to aggregate must-follow blogs and persons rather than ideas and tips, and to aggregate in a visual wayby for instance pinning photos to a pin board, as is done in Pinterest, or by collecting visuals of websites like in Symbaloo.

While I also enthusiastically explore and consume these tools, I also feel that what is missing is attention for elevating a mere collection of links to a meaningful vision and for prioritising which information to digest and which to discard. With growing connectedness, ever expanding networks and more and more tools to collect information and keep this collection accessible it becomes more complicated to figure out when and where to stop. Simple tricks that can help include:

• Reserving a specific period of time regularly for checking up your social media networks and for browsing
• Identifying 3-7 topics you will focus on
• Identifying a limited and clear range of people to follow in each network, based on your focus
• Focusing on a limited number of networks, while giving yourself time to try new ones for a month before deciding whether to continue using it or not
• Regularly re-evaluating your presence in and use of social media to make sure you are still where you want and need to be
• Viewing networks like Twitter as fountains – you can go there to drink, but if you do not drink, you do not need to catch up later

One of the clearest statements I heard on this recently comes from Joitske Hulsebosch. Basically she said that walking through a library does not stress out people as much as passing by content on the web. Somehow in a library we do not tend to have a feeling of needing to read each single book curated there and of inadequacy at realising this is never going to be possible. In a museum some of us will visit only the impressionists while others prefer to view classic painters like Rembrandt and Vermeer. And this is perfectly fine.

So the best advice probably is to be aware that not all curated content is curated for your personal consumption – just as the content you curate is not all of it there on your blog or profile page for each single visitor. And to be content with that. And to trust that if information is meant to reach you, it will.

A bit more on content curation

What can non-profits learns about content curation – a Storify by Beth Kanter

5 models for content curation – post by Rohit Bhargava

Non-profits on Pinterest – a Storify by Beth Kanter

It’s Filter Failure – post by Joitske Hulsebosch with great English language video of Clay Shirky on filter failure

The Filtering Facilitator – Prezi by Joitske Hulsebosch (in NL)