Jess’ E-Learning Blog

I’d just like to make a quick note to anyone reading my blog that anything I post under the category ‘reflection’ is just that – only a reflection based upon something that I’ve read or seen. Some of it might be correct, some of it won’t be. Please don’t take it as fact, I’m just thinking out loud

Thanks

I have an assignment group assignment due for my e-learning subject and our topic is the use of blogging in organisations, preferably in terms of learning and disseminating knowledge. As I was researching, I came across a post on Steve Rubel’s blog concerning top-down and bottom-up blogging in organisations. There were two articles in the trackback (a list of people who had referenced the article in their blog) for his post which interested me.

The first trackback made a comment that a problem with blogging for organisation is the ‘public image’ of blogging is so light and fluffy that it would undermine the integrity of the organisation to invest in it. This is a valid point that I have thought about. Even writing a blog for the sole purpose of education, I still find myself falling into slang, informality and ’storytelling’, all of which aren’t very professional or academic. How easy would it be for a blogging tool to encourage informality and outright bluntness as a part of the organisational culture?

Of course, I’m thinking of a large, bureaucratic organisation here, one who probably wouldn’t take a risk on something like blogging. However, a smaller, more creative, team-based or matrix organisation might make desire a more informal, networked culture and use blogging as a platform to build it. In which case, posting biscuit recipes for staff morning teas may not be such a bad idea.

The second track caught my eye purely because of the word ‘wikis’. It only interested me because I was not expecting it in a post concerning blogs. However, it started me thinking: wikis may produce similar results to blogging in organisations. While wikis encourage teamwork and learning through many individuals contributing to one page – which is a considerable bonus point in favour of wikis – could this interaction bring about a change in organisational culture? Is it because blogs are an electronic medium, processed and stored on the internet, which allows for the informality – and sometimes irrelevance - of the content? If that is so, then wikis could also have the same effect being that they are an electronic tool, used to create and disseminate knowledge throughout a group of people, much in the same way as blogs.