www.norfolkblurb.co.uk

Social networking within the workplace

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Tom Gaskin

Employer: Norfolk County Council (NCC)

Job: Project Coordinator of Norfolk Blurb, NCC’s website for young people

Key Duties:

Developing eParticipation tools and web provision for children and young people

Experimenting with new media to improve outcomes for children and young people

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STAND UP!

Stay standing unless you have never ever looked at a social networking site

Sit down if you don’t have a social networking profile

Sit down if you have less then 20 friends

Sit down if you don’t check your profile at least once a day

Sit down if you don’t check your profile at least five times day

“Over 60% of 13 -17 year olds have profiles on social networking sites.

(Davies & Cranston, 2008:05)

Many young people are spending upwards of two hours a night on online social networking activities.”

Current social networking practice• Text Pal online, a safe social networking facility

purposely built to provide a space for young people to make friends and provide peer support

• Collaborating online, young people from the B.O.B editorial team worked together on the 2008 edition of the B.O.B (Best of Blurb) magazine using a Facebook application

• Encouraging regular contacts to create professional social networking pages in order to maintain contact and promote events, meetings etc.

• Building a database of young people on Facebook to consult and promote events and activities.

Research

DigizenMethods of using social networking sites in formal and informal education http://www.digizen.org/socialnetworking/

Youth Work and Social NetworkingNYA research led by Tim Davies

http://blogs.nya.org.uk/ywsn/2008/09/final-report-available.html

Social networking within the workplace

http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=4800&cdvn=news&newsarticleid=26293

National framework and local policy and

guidance is being developed

Meanwhile…

We can begin to utilise social

networking sites (SNS) in the

following ways:

Professional networking (with colleagues NOT service users)

Promotion (developing

groups, hosting public events)

These are all low in the level of risk

They do not require any active engagement of service users

High level of risk

Includes the active engagement of service users through:

Networking with service users (particularly children and

young people)

Creating opportunities for and encouraging

discussion Providing a public interface for the

council

Let’s do it!

Let’s play it!

The future…

Online resources

www.virtuallydetached.wordpress.comTom Gaskin’s professional Blog reflecting on the use of social networking sites as tools for work with children and young people

www.ukyouthonline.orgNetwork of professionals interested in the use of social networking sites and web 2.0 technology within a variety of organisations

Evaluation