Social networking is a fairly new trend which has just taken off over the past decade or so, it allows people to connect with “friends” online and let people of the online world know what your up to.
In the book Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom by Matthew Fraser and Soumitra Dutta, they talk about the positives and negatives of using these networks within the business world. They believe that social networking sites can be useful in creating and sustaining relationships at work, along with promoting the business itself. However social networking sites can become a problem and cause issues in certain working environments such as Schools. This is because it brings up the debate of whether or not a teacher should be allowed to share the information he/she finds on a pupils social networking profile, which then causes problems between the relationships of the teacher, pupil and parent. The journal Moral Spaces in Myspace: Preservice Teachers' Perspectives about Ethical Issues in social Networking, Teresa S Foulger, Ann Ewbank, Adam Kay Dutton Sharon Osborn Popp, Heather Lynn Carter looks in to this in more detail.
As a result of reading both the journal and novel i was intrigued to find out for myself what peoples thoughts and views were on “the effects social networking has on relationships within the workplace”. I think that the best possible method to do this would be to partake in interviews, as they would allow for first hand, primary evidence to be collected for analysis.
Interviews would be useful, as in depth information could be found within a relatively short period of time with only a small amount of people being needed to gain qualitative information.
The questions to be asked would have to be well thought out so that the desired information could be gained. The wording of the questions would also have to be taken in to account so that the questions didn't influence the interviewees answers.
Possible questions could be;
Are you a member of any social networking or blogging sites, if so which ones?
How often do you access these accounts?
What do you generally use these sites for?
Who do you generally communicate with on these sites?
Are you allowed to access these sites during school/college/uni/working hours? If so are you encouraged to be a member of one of these sites?
How many online friends do you have?
How many people make up your “group” of friends?
Do you think there should be an age limit on social networking sites, if so what?
What's your views on sharing information you've seen on a “friends” page with others?
These questions would hopefully create some valid data which would help to answer the question “the effects social networking has on relationships within the workplace”.
Where and when the interviews are held would have to be taken into consideration so that the most honest answers can be gained. Randomly stopping someone on the street may cause an issue as they may be in a rush to get somewhere and therefore give you the most minimalistic answers. They may also get the impression that the results aren't that important as where there being asked (in the street) isn't very formal but in saying this they may feel more comfortable to state exactly what's on there mind if in a less formal location as they may feel under less pressure.
The best possible way to interview people would be to ask people who are willing, then arrange a time and a place, (probably a room within the uni) to meet them and undergo the interviews.
To make them feel comfortable a small introduction would need to be made to let them know what is going on and that they weren't going to come to any harm and maybe a general chat before going straight in to the interviews to put them at ease. Signed consent would also be needed before the interviews could begin.
Issues may arise when choosing the people to interview, as ideally I would want to use people from a range of areas including schools, Universitys and both large and small companies. Getting consent from these places may cause problems as large companies may not want their employees giving away information about the company which could possibly put them in jeopardy. By making them aware that the interviews would be anonymous and that their company name would not be mentioned may make them feel more inclined to give permission. Similar issues may also arise with smaller companies where as in schools parental permission from parents would be needed, so letters explaining the interview process and consent forms would need to be given to pupils which they would then get signed by there parents before they could take part. This could be time consuming and not very effective as children aren't always that reliable so maybe information would need to be handed directly to the parents who could then put their children forward for the interviews.
The best way to avoid issues of consent would probably be to advertise the interviews and type of people I would want to interview, as then this would only attract people who were willing to take part in the first place. This could result in a lack of interest if not well advertised though. To avoid this, advertising in different mediums would have to be used to attract people from different walks of life.
Observations could also be a useful method for gaining information on “the effects social networking has on relationships within the workplace” but may not be as effective as interviews.
Observations would need to be taken within the working environment and would probably need to be carried out over several days, so it would be more time consuming than interviews. The way employers treat their staff and the relationships they have with them, if any would need to be observed and then compared to the way they treat employees who work in different branches and there only contact is via social networks or online. Observing the online relationships may be quite hard and therefore observations may need to be used along with interviews as the observations could be used for the face to face relationships and the interviews could be used for the online relationships. Consent and privacy may be an issue so people would need to be made aware there being observed and consent to it. This could then cause an issue as people may not act naturally.
I don't think it would be possible to overcome this problem so you would just have to aware that your results may not be completely accurate.
As a result I therefore think interviews would be the best method as they would work alone and allow in-depth information to be collected.
One of our recent studio briefs consisted of researching an area within the shipping forecast in my case the German Bight, to find out about the area itself and the area surrounding it to create some sort of landmark, attraction or cult to bring people to it. We could tackle the project from any angle we wished, playing either architect, engineer, or by just creating the brand for the area etc. My solution to this brief was to create a series of posters to attract people to the island of Helegoland situated within the German Bight. I decided to create a holiday destination where you build your own accommodation from lego, a kind of survival holiday with a twist and a bit more of a fun element added to it.
I could have used a mixture of research methods to help collect information for the project.
Mind maps would have been useful for most stages of the projects as they could be used to show all the information gained, and initial ideas to show which information would be most useful to take forward and develop ideas from. Mind maps allow for a clearer picture to be made and get your head around exactly what your going to do, which would have been helpful for carrying out this project. Discussions would also have been useful as they would of allowed for ideas to be bounced off others while listening to what other people had to say would hopefully help to inspire new ideas.
Reading a selection of books and using cross-search to search for journals would hopefully allow for a greater depth of information to be collected helping with the initial research stages. Although I doubt there would have been any journals on the German bight itself I could have used the journals to find other information relating to the project.
Interviews could be useful for getting information on the kind of things people look for when they go on holiday and the kind of things that attract them to a particular destination. The questions being asked during the interviews would have to be well thought out so not to influence the interviewees answers. In order to get the most accurate results the location and time of interviews would have to be well planned out to make the interviewees feel most comfortable and at ease, in the hope they would give the most honest answers.
As I created a series of posters for this project, visual experiments may have be useful to see which posters were most effective in giving off the required message. By showing people a selection of different poster ideas I would have gained information on the way the choice of colours, variations of layouts, slogans and logos affect an individuals opinion. After having done the visual experiments I would then be more knowledgeable in the subject and know what does and does not work. This would then supply me with the knowledge needed to create the most impacting poster, which would be most effective in attracting the correct target audience. I could also have experimented to see if by altering a certain aspect of the poster I could influence an individuals opinion and make them think/believe what I wanted them to.
A large amount of experiments may have to be carried out in order to gain the most reliable and effective results, which may have been time consuming. The experiments would still work with just a small sample of people but would maybe lack reliability as out of sheer coincidence all of the people used may agree or be affected by the same things, whereas a larger sample of people may alter those results and make the original information invalid. Despite this visual experiments would still have been a useful technique to use.
Observations in this case maybe would not have been the best method to use as there was not much to observe although if I had chosen to tackle the project as an architect and make the structure of a building for the German Bight instead of posters I could have observed the way people interact with buildings to get some ideas of what would be the best shape etc to use.
To develop my skills for better use in third year I need to realise that design studies and studio projects are interlinked and therefore the techniques learned are compatible with studio projects so I should use them. Every time I receive a new brief I will think to myself, which techniques will be most useful for this project and then use them. By regularly using these techniques I will gain a better understanding of how to properly carry them out and through trial and error I will know what works best to gain the most accurate results.
When I started this course I saw myself as a graphic designer and was determined that graphic designer would be my title when I left but I now realise that to tackle a design brief you need to view it from every angle as the best outcome may not always be a totally graphic design related one. Some briefs may result in a more successful outcome if a different approach and a more open minded view is taken on it ,so by mixing a range of different disciplines an innovative solution can be created. With this is mind I plan on using all the techniques learned within all future projects to achieve the best possible outcome.
Bibliography
Foulger, T, S, Kay, A, Ewbank, A, D, Popp, S, O, Carter, H, L (2009) Moral Spaces in Myspace: Presevice Teachers' Perspectives about Ethical issues in Social Networking
Fraser, M & Dutta, S (2008) Throwing sheep in the Boardroom: How Online Social Networking Will Transform Your Life, Work and world West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons Ltd
