Monday, September 8, 2008
Social Networks
It is ironic that the latest blog on Learning Town (a site developed by Elliott Masie) is on Leveraging Social Networks for Learning. Our organization focuses on Pharmaceutical, Biotech, and Medical Device Companies, so Social Networks are very difficult to bring into thier world. The critical challenges / road blocks we run into is surrounding regulation, medical/legal constraints, and concerns. I believe it is only a matter of time before even these industries will be using social networks to share data, exchange information and improve on interactions with both internal and external clients. I would appreciate any ideas, additional to what Dr. Nic has discussed on restricting postings, as to how Social Networks can be used in a highly regulated industry such as the area of Pharmaceutical or BioPharma. Thanks for your comments.
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4 comments:
I think this is a very interesting concept. Sometimes I wonder how effective Social Networks are for production. As an educator, I see the development of social networks inside education as a distraction. My reason lies in the fact that teachers feel overwhelmed in maintaining their daily duties of educating our students. What would happen if we had teachers getting involved with their students via social networking?
We all know how quickly time goes by when we are researching or socializing on the net. Would the amount of time lost on the social networks be a benefit for our students? I suppose the answer is the same answer for all technologies: If the teacher knows how to manage a classroom full of students and propose a meangingful lesson that engages students in a higher level of learning, then the teacher may be capable of making sure the tool is being used productively and efficiently to further student understanding.
I want to think outside the box, but sometimes the practicality of some of these new tools just seems so far outside the box. I'm interested to hear what others have to say about your post, because it definitely makes me think!
I thought this post was really interesting, because I've worked at a huge pharma company (GSK), and I also worked at a non profit that developed educational offerings for the pharma industry.
What was interesting with GSK is this program they developed to use "viral marketing" by way of undergraduate students on campus. The program is now defunct, and the casualty of layoffs, but aside from a company developed web portal, GSK also relied heavily upon Facebook to keep in touch with their contracted college students nationwide. Facebook wasn't so much the tool to educate the students, but it was used to keep everyone well connected, and aware of learning opportunities.
Jenna, do you think this connection through facebook was more beneficial and effective than somethings old like email? I'm curious to know how facebook increased the capabilities of making the college students more connected and aware of learning opportunities. Did the company have a page? Did they send emails through facebook?
Hi again Heather-
Facebook was more effective than email- in fact, I think they started with email, and migrated communication to Facebook, because students weren't reliably checking email, but they could be relied upon the check their Facebook accounts. Each person on the company team used a Facebook account, and would post updates regarding team efforts, as well as message people in Facebook about opportunities. FB had the added benefit of of getting additional people interested in the program.
I can't get into the real nitty gritty of it all without violating the confidentiality agreement I signed, but Facebook was an essential tool throughout the program- both for the company communicating with the contracted students, and for those contracted students to communicate events/opportunities to their peers.
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