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Recipe For Book marking Success Is Del.icio.us, by Bob Grassberger, Ph.D.
No one has given me more tips for using the internet and technology in my classes or for training than my friend Bob Grassberger. If you aren’t using social bookmarking for personal and professional success yet you should be. This article will get you started.
In a 2005 study, Dr. Gloria Mark of University of California at Irvine found that employees averaged about 11 minutes between interruptions. Further, those 11 minutes of focused time were subdivided into multiple tasks of about 3 minutes each. It fascinates me to think that in this “Knowledge Era” where our value added is created through our thinking, that we have such fragmented blocks of time to concentrate. Indeed, in an era where we are deluged with information, the scarce commodity has become our attention. In my estimation, most of the social networking tools, especially the synchronous tools like IM and Twitter, just further subdivide our already strained attention. I have little time for the interruptions that most of the new technologies create in my life.
However, one social networking tool that I am enamored with is social bookmarking. I believe that social bookmarking tools actually enhance my productivity and augment my work.
Succinctly, social bookmarking tools allow us to:
· Bookmark URL’s of interest that we can then access from anywhere · Attach key words to bookmarked sites and search by our key terms later · Group the key words we’ve attached into “subject folders” · Annotate our bookmarks to provide more information about what can be found at a web site · Share our bookmarks who have similar interests · See web sites bookmarked by others with similar interests
There are a multitude of social bookmarking tools but some of the better known are Reditt, Digg, and del.icio.us (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_software). I began using del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us/) in my class about three semesters ago as a way my students could share web sites of interest with other class members.
Del.icio.us is a free product that allows users to save web sites of interest to their individual accounts. The del.icio.us icon resides on the task bar of your web browser. When you want to bookmark a site, you just click on the icon.
There are several things that differentiate del.icio.us from the standard bookmarking function on your browser. Perhaps most importantly, in my opinion, is the ability to attach key words (called tags). Currently, I have 136 sites bookmarked in my IE browser. For the life of me I can’t figure out what many of them are irrespective of the intricate hierarchy of folders and subfolders I have created.
By attaching tags that are meaningful to me, I can quickly find and pull up any web sites I previously found of interest. This function alone is worth its weight in gold. Also, because del.icio.us is a social bookmarking site, I can see tags created by others who have already bookmarked a site and use these tags as my key words as well. This is a very cool function when you’re working at 1 am and those synapses are firing at a decreased rate.
Further, as my computer geek buddies say, my bookmarks are “stored in the cloud”. That means that I can access my bookmarks from any machine from anywhere on the planet as long as I have Internet access. I travel a lot and this is huge for me. I can be in the office of a client in Amman and pull up a site of interest from her machine by accessing my del.icio.us account.
I can also annotate a bookmark to give me more information as to what is on that site. I often just cut and paste a couple of relevant lines from the web site into the annotation box but you can write paragraphs of your own if you desire. In my class, we used this function to create an annotated bibliography of web sites. My students were graded on it as if it were an annotated bibliography of written materials.
The interface of del.icio.us is deceptively simple, but there are some powerful tools built into that interface. I especially like the ability to bundle tags that are related under a single term – it’s like putting all the related items into a labeled container. For example, all of the tags that are for my class are collected under a heading OLIT_593, the course call letters.
I can also organize my tags in a variety of ways. My personal preference is as a cloud where the key words I have applied most frequently are in a bigger, bolder font – the individual tags are like stars of differing magnitudes in an alphabetically ordered cloud. So, for example, on my site (http://del.icio.us/rgrass) you will see than the tag ‘demographics’ (19 bookmarks) is larger and bolder than the tag ‘design’ (4 bookmarks).
Del.icio.us is a “social” bookmarking site so it is important to remember that what you bookmark can be seen by everyone. However, there is a way to keep your bookmarks private. When I bookmark a web site, I can concurrently click a checkbox keeping that site from being publicly shared. There is also an edit function that allows me to modify the annotation, the key words, and/or the privacy status.
If you have hobbies or special interests (say for example, gourmet cooking), it is the social nature of del.icio.us that makes it such a jewel. On any site that I del.icio.us bookmark, I can also see a record of how many other people have bookmarked that same site. Clicking on that link takes me to the comments that others have used to annotate that site. After reading those comments, I can click on the link under a comment and I am directed to the commenter’s del.icio.us site.
This is the pinnacle of serendipity – in our example, I would be able to see what others, who have an interest similar to mine (e.g., gourmet cooking), have found and bookmarked. In creativity research, they talk of the “peanut butter cup” theorem – a fortuitous intersection of two things that had never been put together before resulting in something new. Because of the social nature of del.icio.us, I have access to places and perspectives (del.icio.us boasts 3 million members as of September 2007) I would have never been able to find with all of my refinements of refinements of searches on Google. And, since the bookmarked sites are annotated, rather than going to each site, I can just read the annotations to determine if this site is of interest.
Del.icio.us also allows me to select others in my network. So, I can find and add to my network other people who have an interest in gourmet cooking and be alerted when they add new bookmarks. In my class, we all joined each others networks so that we could see when something new was added by someone in the class.
Del.icio.us also has a subscription function. By telling del.icio.us key words that interest me, anytime another user adds a tag that matches that key word, I can see that addition on my subscriptions page.
Overall, del.icio.us is a simple, functional tool that is beginning to gain legs with those who have special interests or are members of unique communities of practice. Where collaborative work is valued and as the datasmog becomes increasingly dense, social bookmarking is a tool that can actually add to our work productivity.
-------------------------------------------- Bob Grassberger is the Principal of i-Nexus, a consultancy helping clients plan for changes in the workplace and the workforce. Trained in economics and in organizational learning, he has authored or coauthored over 90 research studies. Dr. Grassberger holds a part-time appointment at New Mexico State University working in international rural development and teaches “The Future of Work” at the University of New Mexico. He was formerly the Chief Operating Officer of the Vitel Corporation. He can be reached at rgrassberger@comcast.net. --------------------------------------------
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