(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
[chronicle] The innovation and production of the future is about taking part in the masses' knowledge and value creation, but the lack of digital competence of individual and backward employers can help Norwegian workers not make full use of the new Internet.
Several workplaces have now closed the internet access to Facebook, while others are threatening to dismiss employees who use Facebook. But is using Facebook at work the same as wasting working hours? The issue was the front page article in Ny Tid on 1 June. My contention, however, is that this is not just about Facebook, it's about the internet as a phenomenon, users' digital expertise and backward employers who are unable to see the potential of the internet.
More and more jobs in complex and knowledge-oriented professions, often project-based involving multiple partners. In such a job context, the requirements for communication and content sharing are often important prerequisites for success. Managing and utilizing the Internet is also a key resource for individual participation, and society's value creation, economic growth and development.
The latest developments on the web.
Facebook is today Norway's third largest website and represents the latest development of the internet, also called web 2.0. By Web 2.0 is meant participation in social networks, collaboration and user-generated content production and content sharing over the web. Facebook is one of many networks where different communication and information methods merge into one and the same web service. Facebook enables the efficient development of unique social networks.
At the same time, various publishing tools, e-mail, chat, picture library, blog, calendar et cetera are included in the same solution. This provides opportunities for efficient and cost-effective communication, information and content sharing between people, even in a job context. Facebook works for many as an adjunct to email, but is a richer medium because the possibilities are more numerous.
For young people, the email is soon redundant; communication and content sharing in social networking sites and on MSN apply. The possibilities are more numerous and communication is faster than by e-mail. This development has also reached parts of the working life.
In addition to Facebook, it is being received by other and Norwegian online communities such as Nettby, Biip, HamarUngdom and Underskog, which have not received the same media attention. Underforest is a typical example of an online community that can work well in a job context. Not only can you build networks where both locally and globally, you can also market important seminars, reports, events and art production. In addition, you can quickly get answers to questions you might have from other competent people in the network. As a participant in the networks you get access to social capital. When the networks get big enough, you will meet in groups of unique knowledge and skills that you need there and then. The networks act as collective intelligence or the knowledge of the masses. For example, at Underskog you can post issues and statements in blogs. In short, more competent people will answer these with relevant posts and references to articles and other content on the web.
The Wikipedia web dictionary is an expression of how successful the web is. 2.0 can be in bringing together a global network of resources to continuously update and expand a vast knowledge base. Wikipedia is a testament to the knowledge potential of the masses.
In the book Wikinomics – How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams point out that the new Internet will lead to a form of mass collaboration, which will change how services and products are invented, produced and distributed. In other words, Facebook and other online communities can function as a tool for information, learning, production and social interaction with other colleagues, if used correctly. Of course, such a form of work is not relevant for everyone, as Trygve Aas Olsen from Journalisten pointed out in Ny Tid on 1 June, but for an increasing number of complex and knowledge-related professions, this will be very important.
Digital competence.
The Internet is a 2.0-hour world of digital temptations that includes far more than just Facebook. With web 2.0, the internet is also about interaction and content production for each individual, which further emphasizes the need for digital competence in the form of critical and creative use by the individual. Web XNUMX and broadband development erase traditional distinctions between producer and consumer, spectator and participant. Self-regulation and creativity in internet use have therefore become a key element of digital competence, also called the fourth-base skill alongside reading, calculating and writing. For, according to the philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt in the book On Bullshit, our capacity to both produce our own bullshit and to receive others is greater than ever. The users themselves must therefore be able to distinguish the essential from the essential, the true from the false. Self-evaluation, attitudes and quality assurance of own and others' media production are therefore useful keywords, in addition to utilizing communication in the networks in such a way that it does not go beyond the job, but contributes to the job.
Today we see how the e-mail is quickly filled up with so-called spam and that colleagues and others uncritically send e-mails as a copy to others. Unnecessarily many hours on the online newspapers' sports pages or in front of the cabal is also not an unknown employer problem.
Abuse of the digital work tools is therefore not a Facebook problem, but a digital competence problem and / or an employer problem. Many employers are too stubborn to see the actual benefits and potential of effective use of social networking sites.
A collective boost is needed in which employers and the government initiate concrete measures to raise the digital competence to stimulate employees to take advantage of the opportunities that lie in web 2.0 and the nature of online communities. Only in this way can the employer and society bear the fruits of the new Internet and the huge ICT investments that are now being made both in the public and private sectors.
