NASAsphere Pilot Findings Released
A while ago (May 2008), I posted NASA Employees Test the Social Water that I was leading a social networking pilot for NASA. Well, after several more months, the report is cleared by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and ready to be discussed in an open forum.
Many NASAsphere participants also participate on OpenNASA, so I figured this is a great place to post the release notice. The success of the pilot was a group effort and a great experience for me. I am grateful to those people who support open communication and communication technologies in NASA. While I can no longer say that I am a contractor for NASA, I can say I am still a friend of NASA and desire to help in anyway possible. One way for me to contribute to the success of NASA, is to share the findings and experiences from the NASAsphere pilot with you. In my opinion, they are meaningful to the organization and to the supporting cast of employees and contractors.
Get a copy of the report at: NASAsphere Report
Below are some experts from the report.
WHY SOCIAL NETWORKING at NASA?
Because NASA is more that just one expert and one center. New ideas and new solutions for NASA’s complex missions require input from a geographically dispersed community of knowledge workers. By providing an online social network, NASA creates a collective intelligence and learning community for and by NASA knowledge workers that disseminates mission-related information broadly and quickly. In order to investigate how NASA knowledge workers would use and apply online social networking in the NASA environment, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Knowledge Architecture and Advanced Technologies team developed and implemented a social networking pilot, called NASAsphere.
Here are some of the highlights represented by numbers:
- Participants grew from 78 to 295 people by the end of the 60-day pilot.
- 541 answers/comments occurred on 79 questions.
- 93% of the questions answered were by people from a different center than asked the question.
- 52% of the participants completing the survey recommended implementation for civil servants and contractors.
- At least 2 people from every NASA center, including Wallops, and Headquarters, participated.
I also want to share more qualitative thoughts and experiences from the pilot. NASAsphere created a sense of community online by allowing participants to create profile of themselves by themselves. For the first time, there was a place to upload a profile picture and talk about experiences and likes not generated from a NASA employee system. People got to know each other better with open communication, asking questions and discussing ideas. People loved that a face was put to a name and a voice.
One potential issue for NASA and social networking is the average age of employees, at 47 years. Would older generations of employees and contractors use a social networking platform to talk to other people in NASA? The answer is YES. The NASAsphere community said that attitude, openness, willingness to embrace new things, having an ageless attitude, and having an attitude that can overcome fears were what makes online social networking ageless. This was a really awesome discussion that people shared online in and open forum.
I am not a big Twitter person–reading or posting or following–so I really enjoyed hearing from Kim Ennico’s Twitters during the pilot. At that time she was participating in testing for the LCROSS mission. I know Kim and also helped support the LCROSS proposal when I was at NASA Ames Research Center in the New Business Office. It was interesting to me to see a “day-in-the-life” of a NASA scientist and to see a NASA Ames project come to life.
I wish all the NASA employees and contractors well. I miss you.
2 Responses to “NASAsphere Pilot Findings Released”
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Skytland on February 26th, 2009
Celeste, thank you so much for this invaluable post. We miss you as well but hope that you stay involved via openNASA until you come back and work with us again. I can tell you, from all the conversations I’ve personally had in the past few days, that there is a lot of work going on at the agency in regards to an online social network for NASA. You’re leadership and willingness to take a risk via the NASAsphere project has had a huge impact on the agency and I think its something to really be proud of. NASAsphere has really kick started some innovation and I think its now only a matter of time before something prevails. I love your thought on why social networking at NASA: “Because NASA is more that just one expert and one center.” Exactly.
Pam on March 31st, 2009
I just found your site somewhat by accident so if my comment is a bit off topic please forgive me. I remember when I was in 5th grade in the late 60’s the day we had someone from NASA visit our school. Boy, what that exciting even to a girl who had no dreams of flying to the moon. What I think about the social networking is that it can open up conversations to young kids who don’t get the opportunity to have a visit from a live NASA person. So I think the social networking would be great for Junior/High school kids to be involved with. BTW, one of the fun parts of that visit was getting to taste the space food!