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Blogs: the stickiness factor - story
This page documents history and progress of my work on the paper 'Blogs: the stickiness factor' for BlogTalk conference.
If you have to refer to this page, please, use http://blog.mathemagenic.com/blogtalk/story.html (it's short; redirected to this page).
[16 October 2003] I have to update links in the 'documentary' of paper progress adding recent posts. Will work on it.
Shortcuts:
- paper proposal, draft version (8 May), final version (26 September 2003) and presentation
- questionnaires: bloggers (blogs that linked to it) and would be bloggers (blogs that linked to it); an invitation to participate in a study in KnowledgeBoard community Newswire #053; list of the participants
- method: defining "would be bloggers", data collection method: comparision and choices, limits of generalisation, reasoning behind "bloggers=early adopters", "could be asked" questions and further research
- data + aggregation and preliminary discussion: job characteristics that support blogging (Q6), situations of blogging and not blogging (Q8, Q9), personal characteristics that support blogging(Q7), motivation (Q10, Q11), weblogging tools (Q3, Q13, Q14)
Why I'm doing this?
One thing about this study was clear for me from the beginning: I wanted to use my weblog to document the process. I'm curious to know what added value (or problems?) it will bring.
I also have more specific reasons to do it: One of the ways to achieve paper quality is to have thinking/writing process in public (I refer to it as to micro-level peer-review). This is especially important if you don't have many people in house who understand your topic deeply enough. [link]
I thought that this case is especially good for experimenting with using blogging as part of the study... It's also "backup plan" thinking - BlogTalk paper should be around 3 pages, so it's clear that I will not fit much there. But if I have some pieces described in my weblog I can more easily refer to it :) [link]
19 December 2002
Change management and blogs
I try to apply change management ideas to explain adoption of blogging and get the idea: It seems that I'm getting the topic to write about for BlogTalk :) Anyone to join?
Between
- I think and write and think and write before finally my proposal gets some shape
- I'm happy to realise that I can relate it to my PhD, so I can make it part of my work and get help of my mentor
27 February 2003
Difficult writing for BlogTalk
- Where I'm struggling to find the right tone and format for the paper
- writing for the web vs. writing for the print
- writing for bloggers vs. trying to make "academic standard" paper
Blogs: the stickiness factor proposal
- I post paper proposal as a story
BlogTalk proposal submitted
- Happy announcement and planning for the following steps
Between
- I get comments on my proposal
- I reflect and work on the questionnaire
28 March 2003
BlogTalk paper: would be bloggers
- I'm happy to find out that my proposal was accepted for a panel presentation
- I discuss types of weblogs I want to study and distinguish between professional weblogs and personal ones.
- I also distinguish between three groups (note, this is the second iteration - there are two groups in the paper proposal):
- "would be blogger - 1" - considering blogging
- "would be blogger - 2" - trying out
- bloggers
- I discuss how I will contact "would be bloggers"
Between
- I work on three questionnaires, e-mail for reviews, reflect on comments, discuss it with my mentor at work
- Between 1 and 6 of April I fight Radio upstreaming problems because I'm aware that I can hardly do this study without my weblog
10 April 2003
Blogging adoption questionnaires
Two questionnaires go public
BlogTalk paper: questionnaire choices
- I discuss my struggle with data collection method choosing between:
- Survey (web-based): most of the questions are multiple-choice
- Interview (e-mail and/or phone)
- I explain choices I made regarding target audience
- Leaving out the distinction between professional and personal weblogs
- Coming up with two questionnaires for people with and without a weblog
- merging between "would be blogger, who tries out blogging" and Blogger questionnaires
- adding some choices for each of the questionnaires
- observing that I ended up with 5 choices in total, similar to the stages of acceptance of innovation that triggered this whole study
- I note some other difficultite like formulating questions to cover all what I want to know and my English
BlogTalk paper: need your help to contact "would be bloggers"
- I realise that finding "would be bloggers" goes difficult, so I ask bloggers for help
11 April 2003
I make this page because I was thinking about it for a long time :)
BlogTalk paper: "would be bloggers" again and progress report
- I document some efforts to attract "would be bloggers" and announce this page
BlogTalk paper: motivation and assumptions
- I describe my motivation to do this study. In brief: I want to help "would be bloggers" to find if there is something for them in blogging.
- I describe my assumptions. I think that there are two important break points in the blogging adoption process:
- "First one is the moment of moving between thinking about starting a weblog and starting it. My experience is that many effects of blogging could be hardly explained before you tried it, so trying out is the best way to find "what's in it for me"."
- "The second break point is not a moment, but process of embedding blogging into your daily life - moving from trying out to regular use. I guess this process depends mainly on recognising and finding your own ways and motives to blog. For me the main danger at this stage is having "wrong weblog configuration" that does not allow discovering all benefits of blogging (e.g. without RSS and news aggregator person is less likely to discover social effects of blogging). "
- I suggest several things that can make blogging adoption process better.
16 April
Knowledge management, weblogs and action research (2)
- I suspect that my study for BlogTalk is action reserch
23 April
Back and BlogTalk paper news
24 April
BlogTalk paper: data overflow
29 April
BlogTalk paper: data
1 May
BlogTalk paper: generalisation
- I explain why the study results couldn't be generalised to the whole "blogosphere vs. rest of not bloggers"
BlogTalk paper: job characteristics that support blogging
- Aggregated responses for the Question 6
BlogTalk paper: motivation
- Aggregated responses for Questions 10 and 11 and preliminary conclusions
BlogTalk paper: weblogging tools
- Aggregated responses for Questions 3, 13 and 14 and preliminary conclusions
2 May
BlogTalk paper: cases of writing/not writing to a weblog
BlogTalk paper: personal characteristics that support blogging
BlogTalk paper: multiple-choice questions responses go on-line
5 May
BlogTalk paper is finished
8 May
BlogTalk paper: draft version goes on-line
10 May
BlogTalk paper: missing questions
- Comments by Sylvie Noël on questions that could be asked in the study and further research directions
BlogTalk paper: early adopters
- I discuss two possible reasoning for conclusions that many of current bloggers are early adopters: based on their numbers and based on their qualitative characteristics. I favor the second and provide links to additional reading to clarify characteristics of early adopters.
19 May
Not blogging time - just complaning that I don't have time to participate in many interesting discussions because of the paper :)
20 May
Why tool makers have to listen to feedback and institute social conventions
Related to my conclusions from the study. Will post more about it.
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