Nearly all aspects of our life, whether personal, social or professional, require planning ahead. Planning is an efficient and methodical manner to assess and prioritize needs and can be utilized to answer questions such as: who? How many? Where? When and by whom? Social behavior, in contrast, is not monitored according to efficiency or rationality yet in many cases nevertheless requires planning.
Our work environment features many tools that can be of assistance (such as structured work plans) yet are these tools sufficient for quickly and efficiently recruiting participants? Do these tools enable knowledge sharing and discussion? The need to incorporate social sharing elements into the classic planning paradigm has led to the emergence of a new term: social planning, to which we add "sharing". The term is generally used to describe the planning of social services or efforts to enhance the quality of communal life. Let's assume that the workplace is a community which holds social meetings and promotes shared goals.
Let's examine the way in which sharing social planning is implemented in a working environment.
The goal: setting up a professional desktop
Participants: all organization workers
First stage in the process: collecting data
If all data is stored in one place, this stage is simple. What if it is scattered throughout several systems or personnel? If we relate to all knowledge holders as a community, we are actually facing a chance to recruit them all to an activity and cooperate via "social planning". Optimal social planning will define a work plan (goals, objectives, methods, duration, resources, etc.) and assist in deciding on ways to improve communication between community members in the following ways:
Locating strengths and weaknesses
Recruiting community members in order to come up with solutions
Creating a welcoming meeting space for discussion and problem solving
Attaining a consensus on shared issues or activities
Retaining synchronization, cooperation and a systematic approach throughout all departments.
Research on social trends, based on the results of needs charting and examining the relevant changing subjects for a wide range of communities, has raised the need for simplifying the planning procedure. For this purpose several technological solutions were developed, e.g. the MASH application which enables planning and managing events which involve a community or group of people/partners easily and efficiently.
Defining the personal profile is the key. Each user has two different profiles he/she must customize: 'friend' and 'acquaintance'. A 'friend' profile is intended for socially oriented events such as weekend bike riding or hiking, while an 'acquaintance' profile is intended for colleagues and work-oriented activities such as thinking tanks. This simple action paves the road for quick and ways planning, managing and execution.
I wish you luck.
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