A Networked Life – Ton Zijlstra on Social Networking
Ton Zijlstra describes himself as a networked individual in a networked world. With a background in electronic engineering and philosophy of science, he has been working in knowledge management for ten years. He focuses on increasing people's ability to act through the effectivity of their knowledge work, learning and tools, previously for a consultancy firm in the Netherlands, and, since the end of 2007, as an independent consultant. He has worked with major government institutions, both multinational corporations and SMEs, as well as in higher and primary education, and also takes part in research projects.
OEB: When and how when did you get involved with learning technologies and social networking?
Ton Zijlstra: About eight years ago when I started working in Knowledge Management, I became active in online communities. From 2002 I kept a weblog and have been active in many online social platforms since. I have been online daily since 1989 (but then it was primarily e-mail/newsgroups/telnet chat)
OEB: How much time do you spend in online (or offline) networks per day?
Ton Zijlstra: How much time do I spend breathing? I can't really quantify it. I work as an independent consultant, in different settings, with different clients in different teams all the time. My networking activities are a continuous thing, never really switching off.
OEB: What do you value most about it and about social media in general?
Ton Zijlstra: I connect to lots of people. These people are my source of news, my source of learning, as well as the people I work with. Social media allow me to sustain a myriad of connections with people who are important to me that I could not otherwise sustain. Social media allow me to be fully in touch, in sync and in flow with my peers.
OEB: The use of social media for knowledge work and learning is increasing. However doesn't it create more work sometimes to stay up to date with all the networks e.g. people sending you e-mail invitations to groups, online events, links, resources, papers you have to read, etc.? Do you have a strategy to avoid such an overload?
Ton Zijlstra: Information overload does not exist. Failing information strategies do exist. We were brought up with information strategies based on scarcity. We live in times of information abundance. Social media are the prototype and answer that let us build our new information strategies. My strategy to avoid overload is to embrace social media entirely. I do not watch television, don't read any newspapers or magazines anymore, nor do I read books related to my profession; I hear it all through my networks. The authors are in my network, and I usually hear things much quicker and more nuanced. I trust my networks to give me the feedback to detect those patterns.
OEB: Social Media is all about participation. Where do you see its potential
to really make a difference in our society?
Ton Zijlstra: Social media reduce the cost of sharing to zero, the cost of group forming to zero, time and distance for communication have both collapsed to zero. This means that people can take much more control over their lives in general. If I have a concern, I can easily form a group with people who share my concern and move to collective action to address it.
This is not an effect as such of social media but the logical consequence of mobile communications and internet as infrastructures. The endpoint of that infrastructure is me; I am my own address. That is a very fundamental shift in society. Infrastructures, such as trains, telephone and airlines used to have places as endpoints; now it is people. It empowers layers of society that weren't empowered before. It will create shifts in what and who we see as elites in our society. We haven't yet begun to see the real systemic impact of that.
OEB: Mr Zijlstra, many thanks for your time.
Ton Zijlstra will join Clive Shepherd in the Plenary Session "Generation Y: More of the Same or a Whole New Species of Learner?" on Thursday, December 4th, 17:45 - 19:15.
Ton Zijlstra’s blog http://www.zylstra.org/blog/
September 29, 2008
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