I am interested in social networking. More specifically, I am interested in how engineers are networking through online forums and blogs to gain and share technical data.
My interest is not so much in social networking as in professional networking. But with Web 2.0, I have a feeling the two aspects are linked in some way.
In the spirit of the topic and to learn more I started a discussion with Deirdre Walsh, who is online community manager with National Instruments. She is based in Austin, Texas, home of the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival of music and film, which I suspect is significant to the topic of social networking.
RW: Are discussion forums in the electronics design community really something new?
DW: Not really. As a company we have been involved with discussion forums for a decade or more. The way they are used has changed and we are building on this in new ways.
RW: How does it work? Do your engineers participate by answering users' questions?
DW: Yes, this is part of it, but we also find that engineers on the forums interact with each other. For example, 46% of questions on the forums are answered by support members and not NI.
RW: So this is really building a community where engineers interact?
DW: Yes. I see engineers interacting on our sites, but also on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.
RW: What is this online community?
DW: Within the community as a whole we see a number of groups emerging around specific specialist interests. These are characterised by product information and application area, or a specific geography - North America, Europe and Asia.
RW: How many special interest groups do you see in the NI community?
DW: At the last count, 250.
RW: Who controls the groups?
DW: They are controlled by the users and what information the engineers are looking for. Career networking is a common theme but there are many others. I like to think of the community as a whole as a large banqueting hall where there is a lot going on. Then the special interest groups within the community are like small house parties where members have shared interests and speak the same language.
RW: What is an interesting new development in the whole area of online communities?
DW: Twitter.
RW: I do a bit of that, but how can you use it in a more structured way?
DW: We can use it to engage with users in a direct and immediate way. This is not just pushing out information, but answering direct questions from engineers.
RW: So can it replace traditional product support activities via phone or e-mail?
DW: No, it complements these and works alongside the established support activities. I have a two-minute rule, which says that if one of our support engineers can answer a user question in two minutes or less, then Twitter is OK. But if not, then we will direct question to the traditional support channels, which are more appropriate.
RW: Have you identified specific yardsticks which tell you that the concept of online communities really is more than just an interesting idea and that they have commercial importance?
DW: There are many areas where online communities are becoming interesting to us. Most importantly they allow us to engage with engineers on many different levels. One of the most interesting is getting ideas for new products.
RW: How does that work?
DW: For the LabView environment we provide many application programs and through the online community we encourage members to submit their own ideas for new applications.
It has created an idea exchange where we get product feedback and the ideas go back into our R&D departments. So far we have at least five ideas from community members which are being worked on by the R&D department to be included in future releases of LabView.
Useful links
http://forums.ni.com/ni
http://twitter.com/labview
http://twitter.com/ewcom