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2 Social Software Engineering Table 1.1 Classic Software 2 ◾ Social Software Engineering Table 1.1 Classic Software Development Project Problems People-Related Process-Related Product-Related Technology- Mistakes Mistakes Mistakes Related Mistakes Undermined Overly optimistic Requirement Silver-bullet motivation schedules gold-plating, i.e., syndrome, i.e., too many latching onto product features new technology or method that is unproven for project Weak personnel Insufficient risk Feature creep Overestimated management savings from tools or methods Uncontrolled Contractor Developer Switching tools problem failure gold-plating, i.e., in middle of employees use of project technology for the sake of using that technology Heroics Insufficient Push me–pull me Lack of planning negotiation, i.e., automated constantly source code changing control schedule Adding people to Abandonment of Research- late project planning under oriented pressure development, i.e., stretching limits of technology Noisy crowded Wasted time offices before project starts, i.e., approval and budgeting processes Friction between Shortchanged developers and upstream customers activities, e.g., requirements analysis, etc. Why Social Networking? ◾ 3 Table 1.1 (continued) Classic Software Development Project Problems Unrealistic Inadequate expectations design Lack of effective Short-changed project quality assurance sponsorship Lack of Insufficient stakeholder management buy-in controls Lack of user Premature or too input frequent convergence, i.e., product released too early Politics over Omitting substance necessary tasks from estimates Wishful thinking Planning to catch up later Code-like-hell programming Online-Time Warner had just started an important new project when a new presi- dent was installed. The new president did what all new presidents do. He engaged in a little housecleaning. Projects—and some people—were swept away. When the dust settled, the project manager faced a whole new set of priorities and a bunch of new team members. As you can see, today’s dynamically changing, and very volatile, business landscape can play havoc with software engineering efforts and going global adds an entirely new dimension to the mix. What we need, then, is a whole new paradigm of software development that places the human aspect at the center of software engineering. The Social Network Social networking is a hot topic. More than 30 billion pieces of content are shared on Facebook each month and Nielsen researchers say that consumers spend more than 5½ hours on social networking sites per day. So I am sure it doesn’t come as a surprise that social networking has made its way into the workplace. 4 ◾ Social Software Engineering Table 1.2 Success and Failure Factors Factors related to project Size and value Having clear boundary Urgency Uniqueness of project activities Density of project network (in dependencies between activities) Project life cycle End-user commitment Adequate funds and resources Realistic schedule Clear goals and objectives Factors related to project manager and leadership Ability to delegate authority Ability to trade off Ability to coordinate Perception of role and responsibilities Effective leadership Effective conflict resolution Relevant past experience Management of changes Contract management Situational management Competence Commitment Trust Other communication Factors related to project team members Technical background Communication Troubleshooting Effective monitoring and feedback Commitment Why Social Networking? ◾ 5 Table 1.2 (continued) Success and Failure Factors Factors related to organization Steering committee Clear organization and job descriptions Top management support Project organization structure Functional manager’s support Project champion Factors related to environment Competitors Political environment Economic environment Social environment Technological environment Nature Client Subcontractors As early as 2008, AT&T released the results of a research study it commissioned in Europe. The study conducted by Dynamic Markets found that the use of social networking tools led to an increase in efficiency. Of the 2,500 people surveyed in five countries, 65% said that use of these tools made them or their colleagues more efficient and 46% insisted that networking tools sparked ideas and creativity (AT&T, 2008). Deep Nishar is vice president of products and user experience at LinkedIn and manages a group of data researchers who look at everything from data center behav- ior to trends in search and mobile communications. His eclectic staff have experi- ence in such fields as brain surgery, computer science, meteorology, and poetry. According to Nishar, machine-based systems like Google can’t keep up with orga- nizing the data they capture. Interesting and important problems will be solved by looking at social networks (Hardy, 2010). In 1976, science fiction author Richard Dawkins coined the term meme to describe an idea that moves from person to person and onward. With social net- working tools, staff can check to see what ideas people discuss within an organiza- tion. Some refer to the activity as a “meme broadcast tool.” Where marketers have Twitter to communicate with people outside the company, business people can use services such as Yammer (yammer.com) to share information within a company, 6 ◾ Social Software Engineering discuss relevant issues, and more. Table 1.3 lists some of the more popular social networking tools in use today. Leading-edge organizations have already figured out how to make social network- ing profitable. SolarWinds, a network management company, built a 25,000-member user community of network administrators who help each other with various prob- lems. This allows the company to support a customer base of over 88,000 companies with only two customer support people. Cisco created employee councils and shifted decision making down to these levels through the support of collaborative technolo- gies. Indeed, Cisco’s CEO, John Chambers, insists that most of the progress made dur- ing the past 2 years has resulted from the use of collaborative and social technologies. When IBM transformed an Intranet into a social network, it provided each of IBM’s 365,000 employees a voice and identity that not only helped increase Table 1.3 Social Networking Tools Social networking Facebook, Friendster, LinkedIn, Ning, Orkut, Bebo, KickApps, OpenACircle, Vyew, MOLI, Fast Pitch!, Plaxo, Yammer, Eurekastreams.org, researchgate. net/ Publishing TypePad, Blogger, Wikipedia, Joomla Photo sharing Radar.net, SmugMug, Zooomr, Flickr, Picasa, Photobucket, Twitxr Audio iTunes, Rhapsody, Podbean, Podcast.com Video Youtube, Metacafe, Hulu, Viddler, Google Video, Brightcove Microblogging Twitxr, Twitter, Plurk Livecasting SHOUTcast, BlogTalkRadio, TalkShoe, Justin.tv, Live365 Virtual worlds There, SecondLife, ViOS, ActiveWorlds Productivity ReadNotify, Zoho, Zoomerang, Google Docs Aggregators Digg, Yelp, iGoogle, Reddit, FriendFeed, TiddlyWiki Rich site summary (RSS) RSS 2.0, Atom, PingShot Search Technorati, Redlasso, EveryZing, MetaTube, IceRocket, Google Search Mobile Jumbuck, CallWave, airG, Jott, Brightkite Interpersonal WebEx, iChat, Meebo, Acrobat Connect, Goto Meeeting, Skype Why Social Networking? ◾ 7 effectiveness and productivity but also helped workers transcend national cultures (How social networking, etc., 2009). IBM uses a variety of social networking tools. Long before Facebook graduated from college, IBM created its own internal social networking site called BluePages. It lists basic information about individual employees, their views, who reports to them, to whom they report, what organiza- tion they are in and what communities they are parts of. Employees can self-edit their listings and even add pictures. Clicking on an entry allows someone to send an instant message. Perhaps the most powerful feature is social tagging, also called social bookmark- ing. Clicking on an employee not only brings up identifying data, it also brings up his or her tags, i.e., blog feeds, RSS feeds, communities joined, social networks joined, recent forum entries, and wiki participation. Ethan McCarty, former editor in chief of IBM’s intranet, describes it, “If you think of the phases of the intranet and even Internet communication, first it’s about access to information, then it’s about transacting with it—like e-business—and now it’s more about people.” The people we refer to as the millennials come into the workplace with cell phones glued to their ears and fingers firmly glued to keyboards as they tweet and Facebook to friends and strangers alike. They think that talking on the phone is passé. Some don’t even have landlines. They communicate via social networks, instant messages, Twitter, and smartphones. However, their older brothers and sisters of Gen-Y are working to convince technology management of the values of these new technologies, according to a Forrester Research survey of 2,000 IT professionals. This isn’t all that surprising as a 2010 Pew report found that Internet users from all age groups increased their usage between 2008 and 2010. While 83% of those between 18 and 33 use social networking, those 45 and older more than doubled their Internet participation (Major trends, 2010). The Software Engineering Social Network The development of software systems has long been considered a social activity. Software is developed using a team model and the work is divided among the vari- ous team members. Several studies suggest that developers of large projects spend 70 to 85% of
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