The Future of the Internet III

Presents survey results on technology experts' predictions on the Internet's social, political, and economic impact as of 2020, including its effects on integrity and tolerance, intellectual property law, and the division between personal and work lives

A framework for increasing business value from social media

Organisations are investing heavily in various social media applications. Several case studies show that such undertakings may be promising at first glance, but often amount to little. More attention has to be paid to the factors that influence the business value of a social media application. The paper proposes a framework which argues that the business value of a social media activity depends on having a correctly identified purpose of its implementation (scope and targeted benefits), on the technological solution and also on user involvement (user groups, users’ motivation and skills). The framework is evaluated with a longitudinal case study of a wiki in a software development company where an assessment of the business value of the wiki at two different points in time was made. The case study shows how the interplay of components led to failure at one time point and success at the other

Making sense of strangers' expertise from digital artifacts

In organizations, individuals typically rely on their personal networks to obtain expertise when faced with ill-defined problems that require answers that are beyond the scope of their own knowledge. However, individuals cannot always get the needed expertise from their local colleagues. This issue is particularly acute for members in large geographically dispersed organizations since it is difficult to know ?who knows what? among numerous colleagues. The proliferation of social computing technologies such as blogs, online forums, social tags and bookmarks, and social network connection information have expanded the reach and ease at which knowledge workers may become aware of others? expertise. While all these technologies facilitate access to a stranger that can potentially provide needed expertise or advice, there has been little theoretical work on how individuals actually go about this process. I refer to the process of gathering complex, changing and potentially equivocal information, and comprehending it by connecting nuggets of information from many sources to answer vague, non-procedural questions as the process of ?sensemaking?. Through a study of 81 fulltime IBM employees in 21 countries, I look at how existing models and theories of sensemaking and information search may be inadequate to describe the ?people sensemaking? process individuals go through when considering contacting strangers for expertise. Using signaling theory as an interpretive framework, I describe how certain ?signals? in various social software are hard to fake, and are thus more reliable indicators of expertise, approachability, and responsiveness. This research has the potential to inform models of sensemaking and information search when the search is for people, as opposed to documents

Absorptive, adopted and agile: A study of the digital transformation of Africa carriers

My thesis explores the cultural, social and management context of digital transformation for African carriers, and discusses the elements of social-cultural barriers, obstacles of digital adoption, innovation, organisation change, ecosystem and their influences. Existing studies are mainly based on the presumed conditions in developed markets, including the free market, rule by law, human capital without considering the social and historical obstacles, absorptive capacities of organisations and the influences of foreign ICT enablers. Using a qualitative research paradigm privileges the insiders’ perspective. I have examined the different backgrounds of digital transformation in Africa. Path dependence is a significant negative consequence of post-colonial social net and western knowledge dominant environment. Vested interest plus corruption slowed down the process of digital adoption while arbitrary administration causes unnecessary concerns for participants. Traditionalism of Africa is a trade-off between customs of tribes and influence of colonial power. The priority for carriers is reshaping the organisation to take advantage of existing strategic assets, while the improvement of value creation efficiency is carried out by activating the ability of individuals. The new value net breaks the previous development model of low interdependence, maximising the use of external resources based on complementary advantages and sharing. The value net inherits the advantages of flexibility, innovation, quick response, and risk reduction advantages of organisations. Meanwhile, it has 4 following unique characteristics in Africa: Extremely Various Needs of Customers, Cross-industry, Locally Adopted Business Model and High Sensitivity in Costs. Four aspects are examined in value proposition, core competence, incubation and co-value creation to enable value net synergies. My research contributes to the theory of the digital transformation in undeveloped countries, in particular how social relationships and cultural norms are inextricably linked with insiders’ understandings of digital transformation. It also contributes to emerging debate about digital maturity research paradigms and methodologies

The effectiveness of social media marketing communication for institutions of higher education

Thesis (MTech (Public Relations Management))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2019Several studies have been done showing that universities across the world are using social media platforms, to a lesser or greater degree, in their marketing communication strategies; however, the success of this recruitment method is relatively untested. In order to determine the effectiveness of social media marketing communication on potential university students’ selection of a university, first-year students from the University of Johannesburg were studied. Through a quantitative descriptive research study using a non-probability sampling technique and online electronic questionnaire, it was found that potential university students fall mainly within the Generation Z category (14 – 22 years old). Ninety-eight percent of the respondents in this study indicated that they used social media on a regular basis, however only 37.4% used social media in their choice of a university. More than half (58.3%) of the respondents visited university social media platforms prior to applying in order to look for information about the university, with 33% indicating that they visited these platforms to experience the culture of the university. The study has found that potential students do indeed visit multiple university social media platforms to compare university offerings, but that these platforms are currently not in the top five information sources that they consult in their university search process. Facebook is the most consulted social media platform for this purpose, taking the sixth place on the list of information sources consulted. This makes social media a definite contender in the blend of marketing communication tools a university can use to influence a potential student’s choice of study destination. The findings about these Generation Z potential university students, their use of social media, and their information requirements when researching higher education institutions, can provide valuable insights for university marketers and communicators

Expert Finding in Disparate Environments

Providing knowledge workers with access to experts and communities-of-practice is central to expertise sharing, and crucial to effective organizational performance, adaptation, and even survival. However, in complex work environments, it is difficult to know who knows what across heterogeneous groups, disparate locations, and asynchronous work. As such, where expert finding has traditionally been a manual operation there is increasing interest in policy and technical infrastructure that makes work visible and supports automated tools for locating expertise. Expert finding, is a multidisciplinary problem that cross-cuts knowledge management, organizational analysis, and information retrieval. Recently, a number of expert finders have emerged; however, many tools are limited in that they are extensions of traditional information retrieval systems and exploit artifact information primarily. This thesis explores a new class of expert finders that use organizational context as a basis for assessing expertise and for conferring trust in the system. The hypothesis here is that expertise can be inferred through assessments of work behavior and work derivatives (e.g., artifacts). The Expert Locator, developed within a live organizational environment, is a model-based prototype that exploits organizational work context. The system associates expertise ratings with expert’s signaling behavior and is extensible so that signaling behavior from multiple activity space contexts can be fused into aggregate retrieval scores. Post-retrieval analysis supports evidence review and personal network browsing, aiding users in both detection and selection. During operational evaluation, the prototype generated high-precision searches across a range of topics, and was sensitive to organizational role; ranking true experts (i.e., authorities) higher than brokers providing referrals. Precision increased with the number of activity spaces used in the model, but varied across queries. The highest performing queries are characterized by high specificity terms, and low organizational diffusion amongst retrieved experts; essentially, the highest rated experts are situated within organizational niches

To What Extent Has Information Security Professionalism Achieved Recognition?

The practice of securing information was until recently associated strongly with securing the Information Technology systems which store and process it. As it has developed as a specialised area of work however, particularly as the critical importance of human and social factors has increasingly been recognised, it has acquired an identity separate from that of computing. The separation has been sufficient for the formation of a new, distinct occupation, with specialised credentialing bodies being established to attest to practitioners’ professional competence. This study is the first empirical academic investigation into the professionalisation of UK Information Security. It considers attitudes towards professional status, the desirability and practicality of licensing, the current standing of the occupation and its prospects for the future. The analysis draws heavily from the substantial Sociology of the Professions, both from the structural and procedural theory of profession-forming and the later critiques of motivation, class and power. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with twenty-seven individuals comprising security analysts, managers, academics, professional bodies and the UK Government. Interviews took place between November 2012 and March 2015. Results are presented in two stages of analysis, using Actor–Network Theory as a theoretical lens. Whilst significant progress has been made towards forming a recognisable Information Security profession, its status is not yet comparable to more established peers. Aligned with US National Research Council findings but using a broader basis in professionalisation theory, the UK occupation was found to be too diffusely demarcated both internally and with respect to its bordering professions. It has yet to coalesce around distinct internal specialities with discrete qualification routes and establish the hierarchical arrangement of its major branches. Without such stratification of roles and a well-accepted claim to controlling a clearly demarcated body of knowledge, it is not possible to establish the boundaries of a graduate profession superior to any supporting para-professions, and thus position itself as requiring an advanced abstract education comparable to its peers. A rationalisation of credentials and institutions is required to produce a strong professional body which can advance the cause of the profession and properly establish and embed these roles. At present however – contrary to the tenor of much of the relevant sociology – neither the pursuit of professional status nor the exclusion of unqualified workers were found to be major motivators for current practitioners. By contrast government, the final arbiter of professional monopoly, is attempting urgently to increase the appeal of the profession to address a national skills shortfall, but is wary of direct market intervention in the form of licensing. Therefore, whilst change is rapid, significant impediments to full professional recognition remain