Is This Sustainable?
I participate in a vibrant, flowing, organic and energetic online community of learning practice. For close to a year, we’ve convened night and day, despite differences in time zones. Some of us are available to share, learn and discuss our work up to fourteen hours a day. I am beginning to question whether or not this is ultimately sustainable, and if not, should I have a disaster recovery plan in place?
In examining my social/professional networking activities, I’ve learned there’s a fine line between work and play, so fine, that I believe they are intimately entwined and can’t be separated. We learn as we play. We also naturally transition between the two modes as the network demands. I’ve noticed when some are working after hours, the rest of us are more than willing to jump in with discussion, advice, resources and shared experiences. During working hours, there is also a frequent turn toward play to relieve the pressures of office experience.
Here are some of the questions I’ve been asking myself:
- Do I need to catch every link, the first time it is shared?
- Do I need to test every new tool?
- Do I have to respond to every request for help?
- Should I automatically jump into “work” mode when I’m in the middle of play time, such as on weekends and evenings?
- How do my actions affect the choices and activities of others?
- What would I do if Twitter disappeared?
- Would I be more productive in my personal/professional life with a lower level of online engagement?
- What has this social/professional networking activity replaced in my life?
My two concerns about sustainability revolve around the people and the technology. The people are the most important part of my network. We are so actively engaged in the pursuit of knowledge, that I wonder if we will soon burn out. The intellectual stimulation keeps me hooked and it is extremely distasteful to think of letting go of something so exciting and vital to my learning experience. But, I have to wonder what I would lose if I did not pursue every learning opportunity.
My second concern is about the technology. I predict we will soon reach a saturation point where the supply so outweighs the demand, that many of these tools we depend on will simply disappear. We tout the need to find free and accessible tools, but we must consider the business model behind them. Unless we are willing to host and self-support these applications, someone, somewhere needs to make money in order to sustain it. I dread the chaotic day when we all have to jump ship and debate how to reassemble our community. This leads me to my disaster recovery plan.
I am going to take a look at my networking activities and identify the ten most important people and the ten most important tools to my networked learning journey. I will attempt to build deeper connections with all of them. For the people, I want to have alternate contact information, in case the technology fails and I still desire engagement. For the tools, I will more fully explore their capabilities, but also their business models, funding sources, technology support and future plans. I am also beginning to restrict my online time and need to constantly engage in work-related activities. I’ll be disconnecting in the evenings in an attempt to restore more balance.
March 6th, 2008 at 11:48 am
I suspect the answer is fleeting, but I would say “No” for the first four questions. If you are swimming in the right network, if you miss something new or don’t respond to a question, someone else will. So try and experiment- when you are “in” the mix, try not responding and let someone else.
Does it mean you are less a technical professional if you dont help everyone? No. Do you lose your reputation points of someone else finds the new video streaming site first? No.
I rest, rely on my network. And I take breaks from them. So keep your eye on that personal balance, but even when I am full on later in the evening, I end up muttering “I can stop at any time”
Tools will disappear, appear on a regular basis. rather than worrying whether Spiffr has enough cash in the bank, any site where I put my content, I have my originals. I never lose a thing. And… I do weight my interests towards ones where I can export my stuff out. I can yank all my photos out of flickr. I can export my del.icio.us links as data that can be put somewhere else. I think we ought to be stressing good content management practices rather then putting our faith or lack of faith in mysterious companies.
March 6th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Those are some good critical questions all of us twitter-holics should ask ourselves. So here are my answers:
No, although I like to fool myself that I do.
No. I’ll hear about the good ones from someone else
Not every one, but I try to be as generous as I can
No, but like many of us you have a thin line between fun and work. Many of my responsibilities at work are fun so the lines blur easily. If you figure out a solution to this, let us all know (if you want to - see answer above)
In many complex ways, but I try to do right by those to whom my actions affect most directly - family, friends and students
Get more sleep, get more work done but I’d miss many of my friends who I engage with via Twitter
Only slightly - it has been noted that, pre-online presence, I tended to live inside my head a lot. Mentally withdrawing from real life is a natural tendency of mine anyway.
Not much. My closest friends don’t live close to me, so I don’t spend a lot of time socializing in real life. Professionally, my online activities generally add to my productivity because of the connection I can make with those in related positions or with similar professional concerns.
Thanks for putting those questions up for my (brief) consideration.
March 6th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
These are great questions. And my answers are:
I try to catch as many links as possible because I’m afraid I will miss a good one. But if I miss one, I’m sure someone will bring it up again.
I don’t try out every tool because I feel overwhelmed.
I don’t respond to every help because I feel there are so many more people who are more knowledgeable than me.
Work and play time hold different places for me and I try not to let them overlap unless my work is so much fun it feels like play.
I don’t think I’m influential enough that my actions will impact anyone else but myself but I would like to think I do.
I would really miss twitter because for the first time in my career I feel “connected.”
I believe this online engagement has actually improved productivity.
My networking activity has replaced time for digital scrapbooking and reading books. I still read, but not as many books as I used to.
March 6th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
“Somewhere, someone needs to make money in order to sustain it”. I believe in open content, but worry like you about the sustainability of the tools that tend to go with. The free tools we see today survive either through advertising or a pay-for-enhanced-service model (although we’re still trying to ascertain the Twitter business model). There is a business model to support the “free” that we receive.
We can vision a world where there is no admission ticket to the content, but I can’t vision a world where the house it resides in is self-supporting. Can you?
March 6th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
No
No
No
No, but as a faculty-staff hybrid, I understand the compulsion
If you left this space, I’d miss your posts and tweets.
I’d have to go back to finding all the good links myself.
On productivity: Yes and no. I might have more time to read and write, but I think my reading online helps me grow professionally, too–just in a different direction.
For me, hobbies. Especially crafty ones. But a digital life inspires a different kind of creativity, you know?
March 8th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
I’ve been asking myself these same questions, or very closely related, and have made a conscious effort in February and March to scale back. Some noticed, some didn’t, and I think I’ve been more productive (as in actually producing _stuff_ - papers, content in SL, emails answered, etc.) as a result, but I also feel a little less “in the loop” as a result. I know it’s about finding the right balance, but who’s to say what the right balance is?
Twitter has also changed for me as I tipped over 600 people that I follow. I no longer know or have a personal sense of everyone who tweets, it feels less like a group conversation among friends and more like having a few quick shouted conversations in a very large, very crowded place.where I know some of the people but not most of them. I still think the _quality_ of the information is good - I actually am choosy about who I follow in return to being followed - it’s just a little less infused with some undefinable personal connection that made it feel more.. intimate and friendly. I am now very conscious that every tweet is archived, that they aren’t just read by my internet friends but possibly by the people at work or who knows even. I’m definitely reassessing how much I share, how much personal information I post, and how much time I spend following up on every random link that passes me by.
I feel like I’m rambling a bit, but two things to finish up. 1) You are one of the people I “met” on Twitter early on who I feel I developed some kind of true connection with despite the ethereal/tenuous/chance nature of our messages to one another. It happened through strange coincidences of timing and with several different media and somehow with just the limited exposure we’ve had to one another, we have a real sense of knowing something important about each other - we have common goals, common passions, common concerns. We both love to share, to inspire people, to teach, and we’re both driven to learn and absorb as much as we possibly can so we CAN share. If you disappeared from Twitter tomorrow, if I never spoke to you again in any medium, I know you are out there doing good work and every time I remember it or think of you I will be inspired again, and feel reassured again that I’m not the only one doing this work and caring about it so much. The technology may be transient, but our effects on one another are not.
2) Robert Scoble taught me something very important. He taught me to have some faith in the wisdom of the crowd, learn to step back and look at the bigger picture, see the ebb and flow of memes and what interests the people who interest you, and use that as a guide. If it’s something important, it will come around again. That has changed my behavior because I am conscious of myself, now, as part of the filter. Every piece of information that crosses my eye, I decide whether or not I should pass it on, and I hope others are learning to be discerning too. I’m trying to figure out not only how to use all of these tools for my own benefit, but also how to be of best utility to others - how to be a _good_ node in the network, not just _a_ node in the network. I think that is a side of the equation that gets a little neglected in all the “how to” information being passed around. Yes signing people up is good, yes teaching the technology is good, but am I doing enough to teach them how to be good givers and not just good takers? Do I know myself?
Enjoy your thoughts as always. =)
March 12th, 2008 at 7:15 am
* No, you probably don’t need to catch every link the first time it is shared
* No, rely on your network to test new tools, then see which ones might be of use to you
* No - you can’t heal the world, so why try to?
* No, save play time for play time - it is healthy
* Prioritize who matters and make decisions based on that
* Twitter is a great way of meeting and connecting with people, but those that you really connect with, you probably have other contact information (or you are getting it as you said you would with your top contacts).
* I think you gain a lot from your online engagement, but you hit the nail on the head when you said it comes down to balance - reserving time for each that are separate.
* Your last question is one that I struggle with right now, because being on maternity leave I find that I have become a bit of an introvert because I feel I have nothing valuable to contribute to conversations. I am using my networks as my socializing, meeting new people and business networking. I feel more invigorated doing this and getting the intellectual stimulation that really lacks from being at home.
I love your idea about looking at all of these questions critically and finding balance.