Discovery
Donald Rumsfeld, whom you probably recognize as a political figure, has an autobiography titled “Known and unknown: A memoir” (Rumsfeld, 2011). The title is a play on a Rumsfeld’s comment during a press conference. He described knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns. The phrase in that context had to do with potential threats that we did not know existed. (I must credit the connection between the phrase unknown unknowns and what I will describe as discovery to Peter Morville)
Search works great when you know something about an area and have well defined information needs. You then have a sense of how to craft a query and when a hit on that query provides the information you require. Discovery, in contrast, suggests that there are benefits from encountering ideas that are not the answers to questions we have in the moment. With unlimited information available, we miss much that is relevant simply because we are unaware and if a little time is available we can benefit from some helpful suggestions.
One approach to discovery relies on the power of social relationships. In our face to face world, some might describe this as “networking” - the process of developing acquaintances with whom we might eventually exchange information and services. There is a social component to many online services. For example, when making an online purchase many services will indicate that others making this same purchase have also bought other products and then offer you a deal on these other products. We are stretching a bit to describe this as a social relationship. The relationship in this case exists only through interest in a common product. The company has analyzed patterns in the purchase histories of many customers and is now trying to use these patterns to help you discover something else that may be of interest. The assumption is that you can be matched with others based on a common interest and this common interest will extend beyond a single product. If this concept works for books, music, and wine, perhaps it can be applied to other areas as well. Here, we will focus on two discovery opportunities for educators and students we have not mentioned to this point; microblogs and social bookmarking. The core idea in both cases is to tap into feeds from individuals with interests similar to your own. The difference between similar and identical is important. Similarity offers a way to match individuals, but areas of unique experience or perspective offer opportunities for discovery. Reciprocity is also important in the use of these tools. When you contribute to a microblog or add to your own social bookmarking site, you offer suggestions that others matched with you may find useful. The idea is not so much to pick the brain of others, but to create a setting for tapping into a collective intelligence. Perhaps we should back up a bit just in case you are unfamiliar with microblogs or social bookmarking. Both will be covered in greater detail online, but a brief description of each will help you understand what such services have to do with discovery.
Discovery using a microblog: A blog is a web page of sorts consisting of chronologically ordered entries (often called posts) with more recent entries appearing at the top of the page. The term is a combination of “web” and “log” implying a series of entries often generated by a single author (see Projects for Learning). A microblog is a short form blog sometimes limited to posts consisting of as few as 140 characters. What could anyone have to say with so few words? It turns out people can offer a wide range of comments ranging from the inane to the clever. An advantage of such brief posts is that the comments from several individuals can be combined in a single feed and scanned quickly. Among the the various kinds of things many individuals comment on are recommendations for online resources of interest to them. A post in this case typically consists of a short comment and a link. So, by following a group of individuals interested in education and technology, I am likely to discover online resources that are unfamiliar to me.
The key in this case is to identify individuals with whom you have common interests. It takes some exploration, but the number of individuals you follow can be expanded over time. The services even attempt to help by making suggestions for whom you might follow. Our online resources will explore microblogs as a discovery tool in greater depth and offer more specific suggestions to help you get started.
Discovery using social bookmarking: Our sectionon Diigo - The social in social bookmarking - explains how you can identify others who publicly bookmark the same sites as you bookmark and then explore other sites they have bookmarked and identified with the same tags to discover resources you may not have explored. We mention it again here to demonstrate how the feature of exploring the bookmarks of others can lead to discovery.