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"In their newest study, they show that independent of the content of an article about a new technological development, the tone of comments posted by other readers can make a significant difference in the way new readers feel about the article's subject. The less civil the accompanying comments, the more risk readers attributed to the research described in the news story. "The day of reading a story and then turning the page to read another is over," Scheufele says. "Now each story is surrounded by numbers of Facebook likes and tweets and comments that color the way readers interpret even truly unbiased information. This will produce more and more unintended effects on readers, and unless we understand what those are and even capitalize on them, they will just cause more and more problems." If even some the for-profit media world and advocacy organizations are approaching the digital landscape from a marketing perspective, Brossard and Scheufele argue, scientists need to turn to more empirical communications research and engage in active discussions across disciplines of how to most effectively reach large audiences."

"Effective teamwork among an organization's top management makes employees happier and more productive, with positive benefits to the organization."

More and more executives are experimenting with open innovation initiatives. Stefan Lindegaard outlines some potential knock-on effects-both good and bad.

Alexis de Tocqueville observed nearly 200 years ago that American civic associations served as "schools of democracy" where members learned the skills of citizenship. A recent study by Indiana University faculty member Matthew Baggetta and several colleagues suggests that such organizations are more effective if they embrace that Tocquevillian role. The study found that associations that invest in recruiting, training and engaging volunteer leaders do a much better job than others of representing the interests and beliefs of their members -- even if they lack extensive resources for advocacy -- said Baggetta, assistant professor in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at IU Bloomington.

"The researchers were trying to find out what effect exposure to such rudeness had on public perceptions of nanotech risks. They found that it wasn't a good one. Rather, it polarized the audience: Those who already thought nanorisks were low tended to become more sure of themselves when exposed to name-calling, while those who thought nanorisks are high were more likely to move in their own favored direction. In other words, it appeared that pushing people's emotional buttons, through derogatory comments, made them double down on their preexisting beliefs."

"A new study that seeks to understand how new, kid-focused online venues effect adolescence says that social media forums can promote forms of social and identity development. Those skills, the study says, can help encourage civic involvement later in life. "

"Done well, on-line professional development is as effective as face-to-face professional development.  These results are promising for our CSLearning4U project. In particular, the benefit that Barry Fishman saw is what we were most hoping for, based on our studies with Klara Benda - it's all about fitting into the teachers' lives."

Despite a shaky economy, many web companies are in hypergrowth.  This is reminiscent of the five-year period over a decade ago when companies like Amazon, Netscape, eBay, Yahoo, Google and PayPal were built. One challenge, which isn't new, is the battle for consumer attention.  If you're looking to grow your user base, is there a best way to cost-effectively attract valuable users?  I'm increasingly convinced the best way is by harnessing a concept called social proof, a relatively untapped gold mine in the age of the social web. What is social proof?  Put simply, it's the positive influence created when someone finds out that others are doing something.  It's also known as informational social influence.

Many businesses have invested in multi-channel campaign management systems, giving them the ability to execute campaigns across e-mail, direct mail, and the Web seamlessly. We classify our campaigns as transactional, promotional, and experiential, among others. When we look at reports, we often compare campaign performance against previous campaigns or similar programs running in parallel. While this focus on campaign management has made e-mail one of the most profitable direct channels in the marketer's arsenal, it has clouded our view of something more important: relationship management. If e-mail marketers are focusing on campaign-level strategy and execution, who is left to focus on the broader relationship between the brand and consumer and how content, cadence, and channel preference all come together to create a relationship of trust between the brand and the consumer? Let's look at some examples of how a focus on the relationship changes the way we look at the programs we run and inevitably makes e-mail campaigns more effective.

The formal idea of co-creation as a business practice has been around for at least 8 or 9 years now, and has been written about extensively by the late CK Prahalad, Venkat Ramaswamy and Francis Goullart. I have had conversations with the last two, and i think that the effective marriage of new media, co-creation and the rise of participatory culture are important things for organizations to pay attention to.

Feedback from friends posted publicly on people's profiles also tend to be overwhelmingly positive, which can further boost self-esteem, said Hancock, who co-authored a paper published Feb. 24 in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking."Unlike a mirror, which reminds us of who we really are and may have a negative effect on self-esteem if that image does not match with our ideal, Facebook can show a positive version of ourselves," Hancock said. "We're not saying that it's a deceptive version of self, but it's a positive one."It may be one of the reasons why Facebook has 500 million users, who spend more than 700 billion minutes per month communicating with their friends via photos, links and status updates."For many people, there's an automatic assumption that the Internet is bad. This is one of the first studies to show that there's a psychological benefit of Facebook," Hancock said.

Though this study is informative and interesting, there are some serious limitations that should be taken into account if we are to generalize its results to all situations of collective action (like organizations). We may do a longer writeup some time in the future, but here are a few questions that it raises: Oh, and here is a link to the original paper: http://ow.ly/3VaS4 -----Is this a problem of the technology, or of fluency with the technology?---- "This is the danger with lean media, and is especially frustrating because it implies that if a willingness to cooperate can be effectively conveyed to other group members-perhaps an easier problem to fix than curing opportunistic intent-the problems of non-cooperation..they just did not know if they could rely on others to reciprocate." (p. 119) These conclusions suggest that fluency with a medium and the norms of communication through that medium may play a significant role in trust. In other words, if i am not good at communicating my intent to cooperate within the limitations of any medium (including face-to-face speech), i will have a hard time building trust. ----Are all digital media still as "lean" as email was in 2005?--- This study bases its concept of "media richness" on 1986 work by Daft and Lengel which suggested a continuum of media richness that contains face-to-face on the "rich" end and things like reports on the "lean" end. The assumption that social media, MMORPG's, digital collaboration platforms, etc are also at the lower end with email is very, very questionable.  ----Can we generalize the behavior of business students to all situations of collective action?---- The participants were all upper-level business students from the early 2000's, who are socialized and train to deal with colle

----Norms of anonymity may have changed since 2005---- There seems to have been an increase in people using digital technologies (especially social media) as a way to build their identity, rather than anonymize it. In fact, services have sprung up to provide people with personal landing pages (http://lifehacker.com/#!5534456/five-best-personal-landing-pages). If this is true, then there is likely a corresponding pressure to build and maintain trust in a world of digital trails and easy search.

Communication technologies that help people stay connected to the workplace are often seen as solutions to balancing work and family life. However, a new study in the March issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior suggests there may be a "dark side" to the use of these technologies for workers' health-and these effects seem to differ for women and men.

It's easy for early adopters and social media enthusiasts to get caught up in the latest and greatest tool available but many companies are still seeking a basic foundation. According to Harvard Business Review Analytic Services, only 12 percent of companies surveyed felt their organizations were using social media effectively.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke today announced the launch of a new government initiative aimed at promoting digital literacy resources and collaboration. The federal Digital Literacy Initiative represents a major advance toward implementing the Knight Commission's recommendations for enhancing the information capacity of individuals through new collaborations, public policies and investments in technology. The centerpiece of the initiative is the DigitalLiteracy.gov portal, an online hub for librarians, educators, and other digital literacy practitioners to share content and best practices. It recognizes that Americans cannot compete globally without the skills and understanding to use technology and information effectively.

The results of this research project reveal that female directors are willing to tackle tough issues that are often considered unpalatable by all-male boards. Female board participation is also found to lead to more effective board communication with investors. The presence of female directors in monitor positions on audit and corporate governance committees also makes for more transparent reporting and earnings quality. There is evidence that boards with female directors promote greater vigilance over financial reporting, exhibit greater independence of though and ensure a more rigorous monitoring process.

Much has been written about employee motivation and retention. It's written by folks who actively use words like motivation and retention and generally don't have a clue about the daily necessity of keeping your team professionally content because they've either never done the work or have forgotten how it's done. These are the people who show up when your single best engineer casually and unexpectedly announces, "I'm quitting. I'm joining my good friend to found a start-up. This is my two weeks' notice." You call on the motivation and retention police because you believe they can perform the legendary "diving save". Whether it's HR or a well-intentioned manager with a distinguished title, these people scurry impressively. Meetings that go long into the evening are instantly scheduled with the disenfranchised employee. It's an impressive show of force, and it sometimes works, but even if they stay, the damage has been done. They've quit, and when someone quits they are effectively saying, "I no longer believe in this company". What's worse is that what they were originally thinking was, "I'm bored". Boredom is easier to fix than an absence of belief.

When bad news needs to be shared, management scholars have shown that the response is influenced by how bad the news is, what is said, and who says it. New research by Terry Cobb, management associate professor in the Pamplin College of Business, focuses on what makes such communications effective or successful.

HR and IT are not working together in ways the workforce needs, and L&D professionals are hard pressed to demonstrate the impact of their efforts on individual performance and bottom-line results. The professionals of the incoming generation, Gen Y, are demanding a complete overhaul of how you connect with them, coach them and teach them, but only about one-quarter of new managers get the effective coaching or training they need when assuming their new role. What do your learners find outside of your company? They find that IT and training play together quite well. For example, Apple's store has over 300,000 apps, thousands of which deliver on-the-fly tutorials plus developmental and assessment tools tailored to every need, many of which are free.