The role of the Technolgy Steward

0 0
Read Time:1 Minute, 54 Second

Catching up on some recent blogs (have been out of circulation during the Christmas break), and picked up an interesting article on the Definition of a Technology Steward  on the Learning Alliances Blog by John Smith. The definition given is:

“Technologystewards are people with enough experience of the workings of acommunity to understand its technology needs, and enough experiencewith technology to take leadership in addressing those needs.Stewardship typically includes selecting and configuring technology, aswell as supporting its use in the practice of the community.”

Interesting from the prospective that I guess I’m fulfilling this role for the public sector Communities of Practice environment being managed by the Improvement & Development Agency – IDeA. The current release (Phase1) provides fairly basic functionality for the social media toolkit, though with the advantage of providing a fully integrated environment for community collaboration. The next release, due to be implemented in February 2007, will deliver improved editing tools, support for RSS and newsfeeds, better alert facilities, tag clouds and synchronous collaboration (e.g. on-line meetings) – amongst many other things.

John goes on to say in his article that …”nobody wakes up spontaneously and says to themselves “I’m a technology steward!” Very true in my case, but would agree that having such a function or role does ensure that the technology supports rather than leads the development of the community. It’s important to remember that the community will be a mix of users familiar with social media tools (wiki, blogs etc) and those that are not. I’ve tried to ensure that all of the facilities are simple and intuitive to use, quite often at the expense of building in elaborate functions that would only be of benefit to a very small number of users.  An over-elaborate, feature-rich interface may suit the ‘expert’ bloggers, but can be at best a distraction, and at worst a disincentive to engage for those who are fairly new to this form of virtual collaboration and knowledge sharing. The technology steward has to ensure that  the environment  meets the needs of the majority of the users. and not just the techies.

This will be my last posting for this year, so I’d like to wish all of my readers a very happy and peaceful New Year!

About Post Author

Stephen Dale

I’m a life-long learner with an insatiable curiosity about life. I love travel, good food, and good company. I’m happy to share what I know with others….even the interesting stuff! My outlook on life is pretty well captured in this quote from a book about the legend of King Arthur: “The best thing for being sad,” replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, “is to learn something. That’s the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.” ― T.H. White, The Once and Future King So much to learn, so little time!
Happy
Happy
0 %
Sad
Sad
0 %
Excited
Excited
0 %
Sleepy
Sleepy
0 %
Angry
Angry
0 %
Surprise
Surprise
0 %
Previous post Seasonal Greetings
Next post Shared Services continue to disappoint

Average Rating

5 Star
0%
4 Star
0%
3 Star
0%
2 Star
0%
1 Star
0%

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.