Social E-Things

During the IAP period I will be teaching a MIT course for credits on Social Media. This is an opportunity to learn about Social Media from AgeLab‘s Joseph Coughlin and the co-founders of the MIT Social Media Club – Azamat Abdymomunov and myself.

Joseph F. Coughlin, AgeLab Director

Starting on Thursday Jan 20 at 9am, course ESD.942 Social Media: Trust, Information Seeking & Systems Innovation in the Digital Age, will focus on understanding the impact of social media and underlying social networks on public trust, individual decision-making and systems innovation. Cases will include examination of social media as a research tool and its influence on individual
information seeking behaviors and the changing nature of advice in healthcare, financial services, selected other domains and collaborative innovation across business and government.

MIT Social Media Club Co-founders Rafael Marañón-Abreu and Azamat Abdimomunov

Students can already register for this course for credits at MIT Websis, Units: 1-0-2 (P/D/F). Non students interested attending as listeners are also welcome and should sign in the following form in order to receive reading materials and course notifications.

• Registration for credits
• Registration as a listener
• Survey

Lecture: 9am-1pm on Jan 20 (E51-149), 21 (E51-149), 26 (E51-315), 27 (E51-315), 28 (E51-149)

CONTACT INFORMATION

COURSE SYNOPSIS

Social media is changing the social environment for government, business, health care, education sectors, etc. How basic principles of trust, collaboration and value creation evolve in the digital age.  What remains constant and what evolves over time?  This course focuses on recognizing these basic patterns in the digital age and help to gain competitive advantage from understanding dynamics of social media.

The course should be especially useful for students who hope to:

-          Understand the landscape and changing dynamics of social media

-          Understand basic skills and tools of social medial

-          get introduction into basic patterns of information and knowledge management

-          Understand cutting-edge potential of social media in unexpected sectors of our society such as health care, academic research, corporate identity, local communities, family

The course will consist of five lectures presented by Joseph Coughlin, Director of the MIT AgeLab and Azamar Abdymomunov and Rafael Marañón-Abreu, SDM´10 and founders of the MIT Social Media Club. There will be at least one visiting lecturer who will participate in the course and help present a particular case.

Five domain will be considered: Health & Wellbeing, Finance, Safety and  Organization Development. Each domain will present an example of social media applications in different sectors of our society. In each case, the group will take several stage approaches:

- Influence

- Information seeking and Validation

- Check and Balance

- Power of Share Knowledge

- Change and Transformation

- Learning

- Dialog

During the class, the instructors will facilitate the wide range of newest social media tool to build trust and promote collaboration inside and outside the class.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

General

Students will be able to understand the impact of social media and underlying social networks on public trust, individual decision-making and systems innovation. By examining several cases studies of social media such that they will be able to

• Use social media as a research tool
• Recognize its influence on individual information seeking behaviors
• Observe the changing nature of advice in
  • Healthcare and well-being
  • Financial services,
  • Safety
  • Organization development
• Familiarize with collaborative innovation across business and government.

Public Trust

Students should be able to

• explain what a public trust is and how social networks emerges
• demonstrate the influence of lead users in the digital age
• explain what a -social media lead user – is, how it creates value and competitive advantage
• identify the common features of a generic —, and create one specialized for a given product
• identify where public trust sits in social media and its role in establishing value and competitive advantage

Individual decision-making

Students will be able to

• define decision-making in a social media context
• identify the elements that make us to deal with decision in digital environments, critique them, and learn from them

System Innovation

Students will be able to

*        compare existing digital media approaches to system innovation

*        create new approaches

*        analyze old and new approaches, and synergize a “best” approach

*        think creatively and “out-of-the-box” when necessary

*        develop a personal framework set for successful system innovation by using digital tools

LECTURE CONTENT: