Building Social Capital: A Canberra Microcosm

Social Entrepreneurship assignment for my Leadership, Innovation and Change class.

My research into communications networks suggests that social capital can be developed by providing opportunities for people to learn, grow and excel. I have found that developing social capital requires leaders to 'let go of the reins' and allow people to make mistakes so they may learn from their experiences. Consequently, this approach informs my teaching philosophy, which requires universities to provide a safe space for students to make mistakes so they may learn through practice and take these lessons learned into the broader community after graduation. This philosophy sits well with the expectations which businesses and the community have of university graduates. Indeed, the Business Council of Australia suggested a few years ago that university graduates were being prepared for academic careers, not for professional work in the broader community, and were lacking in the areas of communication, innovation and leadership. Here I outline an approach which has proven very successful, in terms of learning outcomes (and also very popular with students), in a recent approach to providing students with tangible, real-life experience in leading, innovating and communicating though curriculum design.

I consider leadership, innovation and communication skills to be 'generic' skills which sit alongside the technical skills which are usually taught in university courses. Recently, there have been calls for a greater focus on generic skills teaching in all university courses. Some teaching research (conducted with colleagues at the University of Canberra) considered approaches to teaching generic skills and attributes which graduates are expected to possess. One area which appeared difficult to teach, practise or assess is that graduates should be able to 'take initiative and demonstrate leadership'. As a Duntroon graduate, leadership was taught in an off-line environment - effectively removing candidates from the 'real world' while leadership was taught, practised and assessed on an ongoing basis. Obviously, the cost per student is significantly higher in this environment than what it should reasonably cost to educate university students - indeed, the focus of a military institution is quite distinct from the civilian higher education sector.

Nonetheless, I struggled with some ideas on how to teach, practise and assess leadership within the confines of an on-campus unit during the traditional university semester. The principles I developed to underpin such an initiative were that: (1) the approach should be, for the most part, budget-neutral; (2) students should be provided with a safe space to practise leadership, particularly so that 'mistakes' would not affect their future prospects negatively; (3) the activity could be assessed without overly increasing teachers' or students' workloads; (4) students could select the activity as an option, instead of the usual asessment items (so that students who work and are unable to spend time on campus outside the normal requirements could opt out of the initiative); and (5) the activity could be conducted within the normal semester timeframe and still enable students to achieve the learning outcomes of the unit.

Having organised numerous campus events over the last few years, I discovered that many students developed leadership skills by organising and running events which added to the campus culture. Innocuous activities such as running 'Battle of the Bands' competitions, assisting with marketing projects, and organising debates and seminars exposed students to the practical issues involved in planning, organising, and leading as well as motivating others to assist in their cause. Such students have since become leaders within the university and local communities, taking the lessons learnt on campus into the broader society.

Based on my experiences on campus, I implemented an assessment item to replace a group essay and the final test with a leadership activity in the unit Leadership, Innovation and Change LIC). In groups of three to four, students were required to run a campus event and to write a reflective group essay on their event, drawing upon the leadership theories and approaches covered in the unit. The event was to be designed by the students or selected from a list of possible activities, many involving community engagement activities at the University's Open Day. The projects run by students included:

• Aboriginal Art Exhibition - held at AITSIS
• Candid Candidates - bringing ACT election candidates to the campus in the week before the election to inform the campus community about their policies and election campaigns
• LIC Spring Clean - collecting used clothing for the Salvation Army, Anglicare and St Vincent de Paul
• Open Day Marketing Project - developing a competition and marketing materials for Open Day
• Save-a-Mate - creating awareness and recruiting students to volunteer for the Red Cross Save-a-Mate campaign during Open Day
• UC Ambassadors - developing the information, procedures and activities to be conducted during Open Day and managing the campus ambassadors on the day
• Improving Morale - a workplace-based activity where the student was supported by their employer to run a team event in the workplace

Many of the events were very ambitious, and some came close to the edge of the 'safe space', particularly the groups which negotiated off campus activities or venues or 'very' public events. Nevertheless, many students stated to me that 'this is what uni is meant to be about' and they were very confident in their ability to run their activity successfully. The results were very surprising and the events proved to be very successful and I highlight the major events below.

Aboriginal Art Exhibition. A group consisting of an Aboriginal, Indian and Chinese student (in their words: 'as diverse as it gets') organised a public exhibition of artworks by Michael and Dale Huddleston, two prominent Australian artists, at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. The opening of the event was attended by approximately 80 people from the university and local communities. Ngunnawal Senior Elder Aunty Agnes led the welcome to country, with the Senior Curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art at the National Gallery of Australia, Brenda Croft, opening the event. The students were able to make the event a success and received very positive feedback from participants. There is a possibility that this will become an annual event at the University. The students reported a much greater understanding of leadership in a variety of cultural contexts and the usefulness of developing trust and establishing a shared vision.

Candid Candidates. Two students arranged for a number of ACT election candidates to speak in the UC Refectory on their election platform and policies. The response from candidates was overwhelming, requiring the students to amend the event by allocating an equal amount of time for each party to speak. The audience was encouraged to ask questions of the candidates. This event attracted media attention, with the students giving interviews on ABC FM, 2CC, and the event was covered by WIN News. The event was opened by the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Stephen Parker, and proved very successful. The students reported the need for clear communication in organising numerous candidates and developing their negotiation skills as the event evolved. The media coverage provided the students with an opportunity to enhance their media interview skills and to develop their professional networks.

LIC Spring Clean. This event received coverage in UC's Monitor magazine and is likely to become an annual event on the campus. The students developed their professional networks and learnt the value of establishing trust and credibility to enable the event to get off the ground.

Overall, the leadership activities proved very successful. The practical aspect and the reflective group paper enabled students to better understand the theoretical aspects of leadership, and learn through experience. The outcomes of the activities led to much deeper learning and a real-life understanding of leadership. Not surprisingly, students suggested that there should be more experiential learning in the curriculum as they felt the learning outcomes were more tangible and useful in their professional practice. The next step will be to develop more rigorous documentation for the 'learning contracts' and assessment criteria. The biggest lesson for me was that I, too, need to 'let go of the reins' and let the students perform. The results from this project suggest that students, if allowed to do so, can build social capital and extend the learning experience beyond the boundaries of the campus. In an era where universities are focused on 'community engagement', the project results suggest that students should be given more opportunities to represent their place of study in the public eye. This will not only build social capital within the university community, but help to prepare society's future leaders for public life.

UC students use Twitter to report on the ACT election

Julie Posetti, lecturer in journalism at the University of Canberra, led a group of journalism students in a gig to report on the ACT election on 18 October 2008. Apparently this technique has been used for reporting on fashion shows and the like, but to receive election updates from people in my local community was definitely something different. I was sceptical at first, as I have not found twitter to be particularly useful until now.

So, while sitting in the lounge room watching the SBS doco on Bob Dylan, I was able to get up-to-the-minute reports and keep track of the election on the laptop without changing channels. I still think that twitter has some severe limitations, but, like most applications, it really depends on how connected your friends and community are with the particular application.

The local imperative is often overlooked, but it is becoming increasingly obvious that particular local conditions determine the success of particular applications and means of communication. I am using the term 'varieties of particularism' (borrowed from moral philosophy) to describe this phenomenon. While the nomenclature of older debates such as 'centralisation versus decentralisation' and 'regionalism versus nationalism (in a geographic sense)' still hold true geographically, advances in communication have certainly created dimensions which are no longer limited to geography alone. Certainly, earlier media technologies achieved a similar effect, but talking on the telephone and watching television at the same time is far from convenient.

The various applications such as Facebook, MSN messenger and now (as I found tonight) twitter, move us away from the controlled media to which we have become accustomed. This can only be good because it allows people to access information in ways which are more meaningful. Now if I could only get rid of the advertisements on SBS...

Social Networking Tools: Concepts and Practice

Designing an online course, University of Canberra, 15 December 2021

Social networking tools such as Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and Buzz are challenging the dominance of traditional media. Recently on radio 2CC in Canberra, I was asked to comment on the use of Facebook and Youtube by politicians, especially in relation to Queanbeyan mayoral candidate Tim Overall's posting of an election message on Youtube. Overall's foray into the realm of cyberspace adopted the use of traditional, or 'heritage' media, to draw attention to the Youtube advertisement. After making my comments, I reflected on the different approaches to using 'new' media and I document my thoughts here.

As a starting point, there are two distinct classes of new media users: (1) the digital native, or those who use social networking tools and Youtube on a regular, sustained basis. This class of user is typically young (or those who grew up using the technology), tech-savvy, and familiar with the integration of the various applications such as Blogger, Facebook and Youtube. Digital natives (especially in Australia) are likely to use Facebook for networking, Youtube for watching various home-made and non-commercial videos, and MySpace for listening to their favourite bands. While there are other applications, in my experience this pattern appears to best represent the current trend; and (2) the digital immigrant, those who adopted the technology later in life or who use the Internet as an adjunct to heritage media and more traditional means of communication such as email and telephones. These classifications are contentious as there are obviously tech-savvy people who might be classified as digital immigrants and digital natives who are not-so-competent. Nevertheless, the classifications are useful here to generalise about the way that the two classes actually use the Internet.

Overall stated that a 21 year old constituent had suggested that younger generations were more likely to see a political message if it appeared on Youtube, rather than in the heritage media. This prompted Overall to enter the digital realm as part of his campaign strategy. However, there is no obvious link to Overall's campaign advertisement from social networking tools or the other popular realms through which digital natives are likely to navigate. That is not to say that using heritage media to 'pull' people to new media cannot be effective. John Howard used this technique and attracted many viewers to a Youtube message in his unsuccessful election campaign last year. Nonetheless, this technique is more likely to attract, or be noticed by, digital immigrants rather than digital natives (or the target audience). Indeed, digital natives are more likely to listen to FM (rather than AM) radio. This means that despite his digital campaign, the approach adopted by Overall is inadvertently targeted at digital immigrants.

A similar scenario exists in the US election campaign. At the time of writing, Barack Obama has 1,702,531 supporters on Facebook while John McCain has (comparatively) only 297,646. Obama's Facebook page features prominent links to 33 Youtube videos, whereas McCain's page has fewer Youtube links which are located further down the page. Obama also has popular pages for supporters in many individual states, which means that digital natives have potentially more opportunities to see his messages. 'Pages' are a relatively new application in Facebook which overcome the problems associated with having individuals sign up as 'friends'. Enrolling 'friends' rather than 'supporters' was an issue for Rudd's Kevin 07 campaign because at the time he was limited to having only 5,000 friends per individual profile. Senator Bob Brown has taken advantage of Facebook 'pages' and leads Australian politicians with 6,169 supporters at the time of writing.

To be successful (if success is measured by the number of viewers or supporters), it appears that campaigns must do much more than rely on heritage media to 'pull' viewers to their message (at the time of writing, Overall's Youtube message has had only 125 viewers). My emerging theory on taking advantage of the viral nature of social networking tools is that the campaigner (or their teams) must become digital natives themselves. This means becoming active on the most popular social networking tools, blogging, and establishing a stable 'group' which can help to spread the message. This approach is very similar to that mentioned in much of the online learning literature about using contemporary communications technologies to develop a useful learning environment.

So how can campaign teams target digital natives specifically? It appears that the six degrees of separation phenomenon is a reality in cyberspace. I am constantly surprised by the number of people I see on Facebook who share several mutual friends with me yet I do not know them. I have also been surprised by the number of old high school friends - many I haven't seen in twenty years - who are friends with people I know now. This suggests that one can reach a vast number of people by engaging with people they already know, and then letting the viral nature of social networking take its course. However, much like systems theory's view (based on the laws of thermodynamics) one cannot direct a living system, only disturb it. This is problematic for those who wish to control the means of communication. Indeed, attempting to control a social network tends to dissipate the network as social networks tend to resist central control.

An approach which I have found useful is to start with a stable group of 'friends' and then provide interesting links to blogs, videos and invitations to events. Remembering that networks resist central control, it is better to rely upon people's natural curiosity and provide enticing snippets of information or updates to one's user profile which draw other users to the message. Approaches which 'push' the message will simply be regarded as spam and will not be popular with digital natives. The challenge, then, is not too different from the challenge which traditional marketeers face - how to get people to hear the message.

Digital natives are quite discerning and the last thing they want to see in cyberspace is the type of advertising currently seen on both free-to-air and pay TV - the constant repitition of annoying advertisements which are more likely to attract Homer Simpsons than thinking, discerning digital natives. Indeed, one of the reasons digital natives prefer cyberspace is that they can simply go elsewhere with a click if they don't like what they see. The trick is to give them something they want, rather than to use the 'we'll be right back after this message' capture technique. This annoying television habit simply doesn't work in cyberspace - there are too many channels and too many messages and, unlike digital immigrants, digital natives will know the difference.