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Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
Knowledge Arciteture and Technology Task
Report written by: Celeste Merryman
JPL Pilot Team:
Celeste Merryman, pilot manager, Computer Sciences Corporation, NASA JPL
Dougals Hughes, project manager, NASA JPL
Copyright 2008 California Institute of Technology, Government Sponsorship Acknowledged
Version‐8/20/08 CL#08‐4654
Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 4
1. INTRODUCTION 11
1.1 FEDERAL AGENCY CASE STUDY 11
1.2 NASA APPLICATION 12
1.3 PHASE 1 RESEARCH SCOPE 13
1.4 PHASE 2 RESEARCH SCOPE 13
2. METHODOLOGY 14
2.1 PHASE 1 14
2.1.1 PARTICIPANTS 14
2.1.2 PILOT OVERVIEW 14
2.2 PHASE 2 15
2.2.1 PARTICIPANTS 15
2.2.2 PILOT OVERVIEW 16
3. RESEARCH FINDINGS 16
3.1 PHASE 1 AND 2 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 16
3.1.1 WOULD NASA EMPLOYEES AND CENTER CONTRACTORS PARTICIPATE IN SOCIAL NETWORKING
PILOT? 18
3.1.2 WOULD SOCIAL NETWORKING BE USED BY MULTIPLE GENERATIONS? 18
3.1.3 WOULD NASA EMPLOYEES AND CENTER CONTRACTORS USE SOCIAL NETWORKING TO
DISCUSS WORK-RELATED TOPICS? 20
3.1.4 WOULD NASA EMPLOYEES AND CENTER CONTRACTORS FIND SOCIAL NETWORKING USEFUL
ENOUGH TO INVITE THEIR COLLEAGUES? 23
3.1.5 WOULD NASA EMPLOYEES AND CENTER CONTRACTORS FIND SOCIAL NETWORKING A USEFUL
WAY TO INTERACT WITH OTHER NASA EMPLOYEES AND CONTRACTORS? 25
3.2 PHASE 2 FINDINGS 28
3.2.1 TECHNICAL CAPABILITIES 28
3.2.2 CROSS-CENTER PROGRAMS OR PROJECTS 28
3.5 OTHER FINDINGS 30
3.5.1 EASE OF USE 30
4. DISCUSSION 32
4.1 CREATED A SENSE OF COMMUNITY 33
4.2 ENHANCED CONNECTIONS 33
4.3 USED FOR NASA BUSINESS 34
4.3.1 MAKING AND SHARING CONNECTIONS 34
4.3.2 SHARING A “DAY-IN-THE-LIFE” OF A NASA SCIENTIST 34
4.3.3 ASKING WHERE TO FIND CRITICAL INFORMATION AND DATA TO SUPPORT A NASA TASK 35
4.4 IMPACT OUTSIDE OF NASA 36
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Table of Contents continued
5. RECOMMENDATIONS 37
5.1 RECOMMENDATIONS AND POTENTIAL FUTURE USE BY PARTICIPANTS 37
5.1.1 RECOMMENDATIONS BY PARTICIPANTS 37
5.1.2 POTENTIAL FUTURE USE BY PARTICIPANTS 38
5.2 RECOMMENDATIONS TO NASA FOR IMPLEMENTATION 39
5.2.1 IMPLEMENTATION PHASE 1 39
5.2.2 IMPLEMENTATION PHASE 2 40
REFERENCES 42
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Executive Summary
W HY S OCIAL N ETWORKING
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.
R ESEARCH Q UESTIONS
Would NASA employees and center contractors participate in social networking
pilot?
Would NASA employees and center contractors find social networking a useful
way to interact with other NASA employees and contractors?
Would social networking be used by multi generations?
Would NASA employees and center contractors use social networking to discuss
work related topics?
Would NASA employees and center contractors find social networking useful
enough to invite their colleagues?
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Executive Summary
W HAT IS NASA SPHERE
NASAsphere is an online social network
that enables employees to move across
physical boundaries established by
disparate locations of centers, to move
across traditional communication
boundaries established by organizations,
and to move outside personal networks,
in order to share and foster collective
intelligence for the betterment of
conducting NASA business. Eighty-
seven people responded to an inquiry to
join the pilot.
HOW IT WORKS
As described by a
NASAsphere participant:
“The network of a
conversation spreads
based on its topic rather
than by person-to-person
sharing.”
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Executive Summary
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS TO NASA
R ESEARCH F INDINGS
NASAsphere Participants
By the end of the pilot, at
least one person from every
NASA center participated.
Figure 1 below, presents
NASAsphere participants by
NASA center. NASAsphere
participants invited 398 of
their colleagues from
around NASA, with 55%
acceptance rate. The
NASAsphere community
grew from 78 activated
accounts to 295 by the end
of the 60-day pilot.
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Executive Summary
RESEARCH FINDINGS
NASAsphere Participant Activity – Questions, Ideas, Pages, Group
Numbers of answers and comments posted in response to “questions,” “ideas,” and
“pages” shows people sharing knowledge and collaborating. See Figure 2 for actual
participation numbers. Ninety-three percent (93%) of the questions answered were by
people different center than that of the person who posted the question.
93% of answers
were from a different
NASA center
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Executive Summary
RESEARCH FINDINGS
Participants and NASAsphere’s Future
In a NASAsphere participant user experience survey, participants were asked “What do
you recommend should happen with NASAsphere?” “How frequently would you read
NASAsphere?” and “How frequently would you contribute to NASAsphere?” Figure 3
below shows the survey responses based on the 53 people that responded.
Figure 3. Response percentages on questions from the NASAsphere Participant User Experience
Survey.
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Executive Summary
Summary Findings & Conclusions
The findings from the pilot are presented in more detail in the body of the report. Below
is summary of the findings in broad categories (see Figure 4 below).
Figure 4. Summary of the findings and conclusions from the NASAsphere pilot.
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Executive Summary
RECOMMENDATIONS
The recommendations are discussed in greater detail in the body of the report. Figure 5
is a high-level summary of the recommendations based on information from the
NASAsphere pilot.
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Report
1. Introduction
Social networking activity on the World Wide Web is growing. Per Bob Ivins, Executive VP of
International Markets at comScore, “Literally hundreds of millions of people around the world
are visiting social networking sites each month and many are doing so on a daily basis. It would
appear that social networking is not a fad but rather an activity that is being woven into the very
fabric of the global Internet.” Federal agencies, such as Centers for Disease Control, the
Environmental Protection Agency, NASA, the intelligence community, and the Transportation
Security Administration are using online social networking to reach out to the public as a form of
communication.” (Kash, 2007, Zyskowski, 2008) The Centers for Disease Control has a
presence on MySpace, and is focusing on ways to connect its experts with “recoginzed bloggers
in the healthcare field, e-game events, and alerts to cell phones. (Kash, 2007) The
Transportation Security Administration has used its offical TSA blog to counter mistruths and to
teach the public about what it does and why. (Zyskowski, 2008) NASA is also using public-
facing social networking to reach out to the public about the NASA missions through such
vehicles as an offical NASA Facebook group and “Explorer Island” and “CoLab” space in
Second Life.
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form virtual teams, and quickly make complete intelligence assessments.” (McConnell, 2007)
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environment very well. Spira suggests the following three high-level tenets to consider when
trying to create a sharing platform for knowledge workers: create one-environment for all tasks;
create friction-free knowledge sharing, making it easy to share knowledge without thinking about
it; and create an embedded community where people are able to communicate and collaborate
contextually. Along these suggestions, phase 1 design of the NASAsphere pilot focused on
making knowledge sharing easy to do for the participants and keeping the technology barriers
down. The phase 2 design focused on sharing between two existing sets of data.
The company and product utilzed for this pilot, Socialcast, is a very strong proponent of
integrating existing content. Socialcast has a host of web services available and utilizes open
APIs and RSS feeds to pull in content for other social media sites, like, blogs, Del.icio.us,
Google Reader, LinkedIn and more. For phase 2 of the pilot, the purpose was to leverage the
techncial capability of Socialcast and connect to existing NASA connent through APIs and or
RSS feeds. Phase 2 targeted NASA content that was publicly available and included the names
of NASA researchers and description their research. The goal was to increase the robustness
of the NASAsphere profiles to include published research and thus building a richer expertise
body of knowledge. NASA's Scientific and Technical Information (STI) was found to have an
RSS feed and was the technical NASASphere integration focus for phase 2. Phase 2 continued
with the existing NASAsphere community and participants were allowed to continue inviting
collegues.
2. METHODOLOGY
2.1 Phase 1
2.1.1 Participants
The target participant number for starting the NASAsphere pilot was 100 with representation
from a variety of NASA centers and workforce organizations. Invitations were sent out to some
existing group lists in NASA including NASA Knowledge Management list (approximately 100
people), NASA Engineering Network Environmental Test and Validation community of practice
(approximately 57 people), NASA Lessons Learned Steering Committee (approximately 12
people), and a smattering of other NASA Engineering Network communities of practices. An
invitation posting was also placed on InsideNASA. In addition, individuals circulated invitation e-
mails to their personal social networks. The resulting participant list included 87 people,
representing Ames Research Center (n=11), Glenn Research Center (n=8), Goddard Space
Flight Center (n=13), Headquarters (n=6), Jet Propulsion Laboratory (n=8), Johnson Space
Center (n=20), Kennedy Space Center (n=7), Langley Research Center (n=9), Marshall Space
Flight Center (n=3), Stennis Space Center (n=2). Participants represented a variety of workforce
organizations, such as public affairs, information management, librarians, education/outreach,
human capital, knowledge management, collaboration technology, engineering, scientists, and
procurement.
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To deliver NASAsphere, the project utilized the COTS product Socialcast because it had a well-
developed pilot program, and was an enterprise class product with the potential of hosting
inside the NASA firewall infrastructure. Socialcast provided a hosted and restricted pilot
environment for NASAsphere. For more information about the server security at Socialcast see
the “Socialcast Client Data Security Information” section in the Appendix A. The Socialcast
product was rebranded as “NASAsphere” for the purpose our pilot. The pilot was designed to
operate for 30 calendar days of user participation in Phase 1 and an additional 30 calendar days
for Phase 2.
The original 87 participants were provided a user participation document describing the duration
of the pilot, “rules of engagement,” a list of minimum participation activities, as well as a list of
ideas for additional participation activities to do if they were interested. See below more details.
Rules of Engagement:
• Participants are not allowed to post copyrighted material on the site.
• Only individuals with a nasa.gov e-mail address will be allowed to become members.
• Only content related to work will be allowed to be posted.
• “Favorites” and personal information are allowed in the “Profile.”
Minimum amount of networking participation:
• Ask/post five questions or ideas;
• Answer/comment on at least two (more if you can) questions or ideas; and
• Update your personal profile.
Participants were given a list of additional things they could do if they chose:
• Create a your own “Groups” and invite people; and/or
• Create your own “Pages” and add content, and allow people to contribute; and/or
• Upload “Photos;” and/or
• Whatever else you can find interest in doing.
The rules of engagement were posted on the login page of NASAsphere for all participants to
read. However, unless an original participant explained the participation activities to the
individuals they invited, the subsequent invitees were not aware of the request.
During the pilot, participants were supported via a number of methods. On the first day of the
pilot, the vendor provided technical support to participants who might have issues like logging in
for the first time to NASAsphere. Four WebEx meetings, one per week, were set up on various
topics related to how to use the features of NASAsphere. The meetings were recorded for later
reuse. The pilot coordinator and the vendor were assigned the task of monitoring NASAsphere
participation in order to catch and solve technical issues, as well as catch improvement
suggestions related to the pilot and/or the product. The pilot coordinator was also available via
phone and e-mail.
2.2 Phase 2
2.2.1 Participants
Phase 2 continued with the existing NASAsphere community and participants (n=264) were
allowed to continue inviting collegues.
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3. Research Findings
In order to investigate social networking in the NASA environment, it was important to utilize two
sources of data sets; data from the social networking activity and data from the feedback
collected via the NASAsphere User Experience Evaluation. The complete NASAsphere User
Experience Evaluation responses and findings are found in Appendix C – NASAsphere User
Experience Evaluation. The research questions established for Phase 1 of the pilot also apply
through the Phase 2. The data and findings presented in this section cover the full 60 days of
the pilot. The Phase 2 Findings section specifically deals with the additional technical
capabilities researched and tested during that part of the pilot.
Phase 1 covered the period May 12, 2008 through June 10, 2008. Phase 2 covered the period
June 11, 2008 through July 11, 2008. The research findings are discussed below.
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Figure 1. Graph of NASAsphere participants by NASA center at the start and end of the pilot.
Number
Organization
(N=295)
Not Declared 5
Aeronautics Research 11
Office of the Chief Engineer 9
Office of the Chief Information Officer 31
Education/Public Outreach 23
Exploration Systems 45
Human Capital 18
Public Affairs 33
Science 34
Space Operations 32
Innovative Partnerships 16
Infrastructure Services/Operations 11
Office General Counsel 2
Information Management 21
Procurement 4
Table 1. Breakdown of NASAsphere participants by NASA organization.
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Figure 6. Graph representing the number of unique participants who posted questions or
answered/commented on questions.
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The generation Y cohort is of concern to employers (Yan, 2006), as the older generation Y
members enter the workforce and the baby boomer cohort members are nearing retirement
age. (NAS Recruitment Communications, 2006) This is also a concern for NASA. One reason
for the concern by employers derives from the technology expectations of a generation raised
with computers with easily available Internet access. (Yan, 2006; NAS Recruitment
Communications, 2006) Generation Y, however old they may be, as a group they have been
described as “techno-savvy” and “connected 24/7” (Deloitte, 2008) and have expectations that
they will find the same technology in their work lives that they use in their personal lives.
How generations approach technology in the workforce is important to NASA. To find out how
the social networking fairs in a sample of the NASA workforce, this pilot researched the simple
question, “would social networking be used by multiple generations?” The age of the
NASAsphere participants was purposely not collected during the pilot to avoid age-related bias,
so the answer needed to be approached differently. One way to find out qualitatively what
people thought, was to post the question to the NASAsphere community, asking, “What are your
thoughts on the adoption of social networking in NASA? Is it just for Gen Yers, or can us older
folks do it too?” Twenty-seven answers were posted in response to this question. The answers
were categorized into “generation Y” or “anyone” and revealed that 24 agreed that social
networking is for anyone regardless of age. The three remaining answers were placed into an
“other” category of general statements not attached to one category or the other. Some
participants that responded to this question stated in their comments, that qualities and attitude
are key to participating in social networking (see Table 2 below). The full-text of the answers are
shown in Appendix B - Postings and Responses from NASAsphere.
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Figure 7. The NASAsphere User Experience Evaluation responses to the question “From what
generation would you categorize yourself?”
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Figure 8. Results of a tag cloud analysis on keyword tags used by NASAsphere participants.
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Figure 9. The NASAsphere User Experience Evaluation responses to the statement ”Please rate each
statement.”
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Phase 2 started
June 11th
Figure 10. Graph of invitations sent by NASAsphere participants and invitations accepted.
In addition to invitation activity, NASAsphere participants were asked two related questions on
the NASAsphere User Experience Evaluation. Figure 11 below shows the responses from the
question that asks participants if they “told others about NASAsphere.” Of the 51 people that
answered this question, 76.4% said they had told others about NASAsphere.
Figure 11. The NASAsphere User Experience Evaluation responses to the question “I told others about
NASAsphere.”
NASAsphere participants were also asked if they “invited” others to NASAsphere. Of the 51
people who answered “yes” to this question, 57.4% said they had invited others. Figures 12
below show responses from the question that asks participants if they “invited others to
NASAsphere.” Based on a review of the data from the user experience evaluation and the
invitation activity data, the findings support the notion that “yes” NASA employees and
contractors did find NASAsphere useful enough to invite their colleagues.
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Figure 12. The NASAsphere User Experience Evaluation responses to the question “I invited others to
NASAsphere.”
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Figure 13. The NASAsphere User Experience Evaluation responses to the question “How useful was it
to interact with other NASA employees and contractors on NASAsphere?”
3.1.5.3 Productivity
Management of organizations are frequently interested in tools, processes, and steps that
increase the productivity of its employees. To find out what the NASAsphere participants
thought about work productivity, a question was placed on the NASAsphere User Experience
Evaluation stating “NASAsphere increased my work productivity by saving me…” A combined
28% said it saved “minutes” or “hours.” Seventy-two (72%) percent of the 50 responses, said
that NASAsphere “did not save me time at all.” The results from the question are presented in
Figure 14 below.
Figure 14. The NASAsphere User Experience Evaluation responses to the question “NASAsphere
increased my work productivity by saving me…”
Sixteen people added “comments” in response to this question. Comments captured via this
question revealed that some found NASAsphere to be helpful to productivity and some did not.
Examples of “Supportive” and “Critical” comments related to productivity and NASAsphere are
found in Table 5 below. For a complete listing of all 16 comments captured, see Q10 in
Appendix C – NASAsphere User Experience Evaluation.
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“Critical” “Supportive”
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3.1.5.4 Summary
Overall, it appears that the findings support the notion that NASA employees and contractors
found NASAsphere useful. With regard to “productivity” however, the majority of the
participants completing the NASAsphere User Experience Survey do not believe NASAsphere
saved them time in getting their work done. A few people stated that use of NASAsphere has
the potential to save them time if there were more participants and more content relevant to
their particular jobs. NASAsphere also provided benefits to participants by providing a
mechanism of making connections and contacts with the “unknown knowledge workers” of
NASA, in other words, those people who you do not know who have information you need.
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Figure 19. The NASAsphere User Experience Evaluation responses to the statement “Please rate the
degree of ease for completing the activities below.”
In anticipation that some people would rather read and lurk on NASAsphere, a follow-up
question was asked on the NASAsphere User Experience Evaluation to find out why people
did not post questions or ideas. Twenty-nine people answered the question, “If you did not
post ideas or questions, what were your reasons?” and responders were allowed to select
more statement. “Just wanted to read and learn” and “Work related constraints (not enough
time)” were the most selected statements at 44.8% (n=13) for each, respectively. “Still learning
about social networking” was selected nine times. Figure 20 below shows the question and
responses. Comments captured by the “other” option are provided in Figure 21 below.
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Figure 20. The NASAsphere User Experience Evaluation responses to the question “If you did not post
ideas or questions, what were your reasons?”
Figure 21. The NASAsphere User Experience Evaluation comments captured for the question “If you
did not post ideas or questions, what were your reasons?”
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4. Discussion
Wells, a Research Fellow at the A Pew Internet & American Life Project, recently released a
memo entitled “A Portrait of Early Internet Adopters.” (2008) In it she reminds us that social
networking is not a new and that people have been networking via the computer since the late
1970 electronic bulletin board systems, Usenet, chat rooms, and threaded discussions. In the
early days of the Internet, networking activities were “serial connections” like people querying
systems, one-to-one communications, and highly defined communities. (Wells, 2008)
Currently, Web 2.0 enabled technology are easier to use and allow more people to share and
create content at much faster rates to a much broader audience at simultaneously. Web 2.0
enabled technologies are migrating from the consumer and student populations to the business
world. (Shuen, 2008) When implemented in the business environment, employees use online
social networking to connect with colleagues and collaborate cross-departments making
innovation easer and faster; they talk “about things that have an impact on the business,"
(Shuen, 2008)
The Knowledge Architecture and Advanced Technologies task at NASA Jet Propulsion
Laboratory developed and implemented a social networking pilot, called NASAsphere, to
investigate adoption and use of Web 2.0 enabled online social networking by NASA knowledge
workers. Social networking is important to 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.
The NASAsphere pilot focused on answering the following questions:
Would NASA employees and center contractors participate in social networking pilot?
Would NASA employees and center contractors find social networking a useful way to
interact with other NASA employees and contractors?
Would social networking be used by multi generations?
Would NASA employees and center contractors use social networking to discuss work
related topics?
Would NASA employees and center contractors find social networking useful enough to
invite their colleagues?
Over the 60 days of the pilot, the NASAsphere community grew from 78 to 295 people.
Analysis of the social networking data and the feedback captured via the NASAsphere User
Experience Evaluation support agreement to each of the research questions. Overall,
NASAsphere participants seemed to enjoy there experience and could see benefit from having
NASAsphere implemented.
This comment, captured via the NASAsphere User Experience Evaluation, expresses the
impression NASAsphere had on this individual and potentially NASA as a whole:
This is setting a foundation for positive changes in areas that must change more
rapidly e.g., exciting and motivating youth/new hires, cross-Agency mentoring
and training, telework accessibility, project collaboration, less fear of reprisal (not
as much fear speaking out with support group or online), green! (saves paper,
gas, flights), cost efficient (time and money), improved knowledge management,
demonstrate we act on our values, builds trust because is transparent and real,
removes hierarchical barriers in management and allows immediate
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allowed pilot participants to share contact information like instant messaging and cell phones
numbers. When reviewing the questions and comments people posted, it was obvious that
people used NASAsphere to discuss not only where to find specific data, but also as
mechanism to get to know what people know and who knows it in NASA. NASAsphere enabled
NASA knowledge workers to meet people in their own disciplines from other centers. It also
allowed people just to get to know each other and put a face to a name.
Here is a quote from a participant, captured via a NASAsphere User Experience Evaluation
open-ended question asking respondents to share thoughts or experiences about NASAsphere,
relating the story of what it was like connecting to other NASA knowledge workers:
I thoroughly enjoyed this, especially the mini-bios on everyone, you can see
where you have similarities or connections. Plus looking at other folks'
connections gives you new ideas of people to talk to. I thoroughly enjoyed it as a
networking site and a place to share a few ideas and comments and questions. I
haven't gotten it into my "routine" to check it every day, which I think I eventually
would. But I spend a long time there when I am there (when I have free time).
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published by its knowledge workers on public social media Web sites. Some 28 NASAsphere
participants added Twitter services, sharing their 2013 Tweets.
Figure 15. Screen capture of Kimberly Ennico’s Twitter activity, a dairy of her work on LCROSS read
from inside NASAsphere.
4.3.3 Asking where to find critical information and data to support a NASA
task
David Miranda, a young Engineering Trainee in the IT Mission Support group, Office of the
Chief Information Officer at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, needed data so he could create a
physics-based simulation of the lunar surface. He posted his question to NASAsphere and
received the name of an expert and sources for data. The three people who responded were
not from his center--one was a Librarian Technician from Headquarters, one was a Librarian
from Goddard Space Flight Center, and the other was a Space Vehicle Systems Engineer from
Johnson Space Center. NASAsphere helped connect David to NASA knowledge workers who
had the information he needed. A screenshot of David Miranda’s question is found below in
Figure 16.
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Figure 16. Screenshot of David Miranda’s question “Where can I find Lunar Terrain Data?” posted on
NASAsphere.
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questions that were asked through NASASphere, were answered by a user in a different branch in
the organization! For more information, contact Celeste Merryman at
celeste.merryman@jpl.nasa.gov, 408-752-9956. (Thon & Steinhauser, 2008)
The NASAsphere pilot vendor partner, Socialcast also recognized something special about
NASAsphere. Socialcast organizes several pilots for customers annually and was impressed by
the content and activity exhibited by the NASAsphere participants. NASA was invited to partner
with Socialcast in a conference presentation at the 2008 KM World conference, in the
“Innovation Solutions & KM Practices” session to discuss the pilot experiences and findings.
5. RECOMMENDATIONS
This section is comprised of information collected from the NASAsphere participants, as well as
implementation recommendations by the NASAsphere pilot project manager. In addition, open-
ending participant feedback was collected via the NASAsphere User Experience Evaluation and
can be found in Appendix C under the Question 20 “thoughts or experiences” and Question 21
“suggestions for the future.”
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Figure 17. The NASAsphere User Experience Evaluation responses to the question “What do you
recommend should happen with NASAsphere?”
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words found in Figure 18 below. The height of the word indicates the most frequently occurring
word. The actual word frequency is found to the right of the word.
Figure 18. Figure XXXX. Tag cloud analysis of the NASAsphere User Experience Evaluation for the
question “How would you use NASAsphere in the future?”
Overall, people seemed interested in using NASAsphere for connecting with other NASA
knowledge workers to collaborate, to network, to work cross-center or organizations on projects,
to ask others questions, and to discuss ideas. To view the full-text, alphabetized list of what
responders listed, see Appendix C, question 17 “How would you use NASAsphere in the
future?”
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References
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Retrieved August
18, 2008, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/generation
Baker College, Effective Teaching and Learning Department. (2004). Teaching Across
Generations. Baker College, Effective Teaching and Learning Department. Baker College.
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http://www.deloitte.com/dtt/article/0,1002,sid%253D26551%2526cid%253D120906,00.html
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Ivins, B. (2007, July 31). Press Release - Social Networking Goes Global. Retrieved March 27,
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after 9/11. Retrieved June 26, 2008, from Office of the Director of National Intelligence:
http://dni.gov/testimonies/20070910_testimony.pdf
NAS Recruitment Communications. (2006). Generation Y: The Millennials. Retrieved August 18,
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Pettus, J. Q. (2007). Information Resources Management Strategic Plan. NASA, Office of the
Chief INformation Officer. NASA.
Sevastopulo, D. (2007). US launches 'Myspace for spies'. Retrieved from
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Spira, J. B. (2005, June). Time to (re) innovate the office? KMWorld.
Thon, S., & Steinhauser, L. (2008, July 29). NASA Social Networking Pilot Generates Significant
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Wells, A. T. (2008, February 6). A Portrait of Early Internet Adopters: Why People First Went
Online -- and Why They Stayed. Retrieved August 18, 2008, from Pew Internet & American Life
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from Federal Computer Weekly: http://www.fcw.com/print/22_13/features/152474-1.html
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1. Application Security
• Network Security: All application servers are located behind Cisco ASA firewalls which
are configured to limit user access to only protocols and methods as required for the
usage of the application service.
• Credential Encryption: 128‐bit Secure socket layer data encryption is used for all user
login sessions. All users' user IDs and passwords are transmitted with encryption.
• Layered Data Model with Application only access: The application is separated into
layers which separate the application from the client data. Everyone who logs into the
application only has access to the application layer.
• Monitoring: On an ongoing daily basis, port scans and network intrusions detection
systems are used by our network team to identify any issues or vulnerabilities within our
network. Any suspect authorization attempts are logged and investigated immediately.
• Data Record Management: Data record management and audit trails are maintained
within the Socialcast application. We track every data record put into the system by
detailed user and time‐stamp.
• Data Backup: All client data is backed up daily with hourly incremental updates.
Backups are stored offsite at our secondary data center location (managed by
Rackspace) which is 100 miles from our primary data center.
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12. Anyone can do it, but there has to be a good reason to visit a network, or no one will. I have
profiles in multiple social networking sites (as I'm sure you all do, too) but I only go to them for
very specific reasons, and very rarely, if ever, just to look around. If there's information I need, or
some activity going on in the network, then I'm there. I think that this is true for all generations, in
NASA and outside of NASA.
13. Us older folks are just that...but many are excited about the opportunity to learn new things and
always exploring new ways to enhance communication. I for one am up for it!
14. Similar to the answers below I think anyone can do it they just need to invest a little time like
anything new to get acquainted. I'm sure there was probably the same question and concerns
when email was first implemented.
15. I agree with Jeanne - you have to be open-minded and adaptive, regardless of age. You just have
to want to use it. I do think that some users who are unfamiliar with this sort of interface will
benefit from more assistance and information as they learn. We have to make sure that our
networks don't assume that users are familiar with Facebook and other sites.
16. Like the others, I don't see this as a generational thing. I know that we send people from one
center to another so that they can get a feel for how the whole agency works, & I think that we
can do some of that with social networking.One of the things that I'm hoping we can do is make
people aware of the huge spread of expertise & information that's scattered through the agency.
17. Of course, I agree with the comments here. I generally think that age is just a number - how you
*feel* age-wise translates into how you perceive your surroundings, how you act, what you're
willing to take on, etc. If you'll forgive the personal example, my mom is in her late 60's and shops
for books online, watches You Tube, still loves Star Trek and Star Wars, and is going to a big
geeky convention with me this summer. =) And that same 'ageless' attitude can come into play at
work as well - employees of any age can get involved in, enjoy, and benefit from social
networking. I do think that an area where Gen Y'ers may play a bigger role is not necessarily
'marketing' this type of tool (we can all play a big role in that, regardless of age), but in how we
present and market *ourselves* and our use of this type of tool. I think we have our own set of
stereotypes to break out of, and need to make sure that we present this type of thing as a
professional tool and not a purely social application. And maybe we all need to help in busting the
myths about the tool or application, and not the age of the users. All that being said, I know ALL
of us here in the pilot are excited about this, and I'm looking forward to all of us being able to
show that this type of tool can be useful, usable, and productive at work.
18. I agree. I think it is about attitude, overcoming fears and not fully understanding usefulness of
new tools. If there is something of interest to a person but they are scared to post items they will
start to read at least and eventually chime in. It may take some time and hand holding but that is
understandable. We should help those who ask for it.
19. To respond to Stephanie Stockman's message, I couldn't agree more, but strongly disagree, too.
You're absolutely right, anyone can participate in social networking if they expend a little effort at
learning the app. But is NASA any different! Heck yes! NASA employees (and contractors, etc.)
should be WAY above the curve! We're the cream of the (electronic) crop, guys!
20. Sorry Stephanie, just using your answer to make a tongue-in-cheek comment there.
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21. I agree with the group... it can be for everyone. I love that my father is on Facebook. He may only
log on every so often, but it is another connection point between us... especially when he is living
an ocean away in France. At work, it is a way to bridge the generational gap within our teams.
How does the PI for a mission connect with the new grad student or Post Doc. This could be the
first step... with many positive outcomes as a result. Sure, it takes a bit more convincing... how
many sheep do I have to throw at my Project Scientist before he throws one back... 10 and
counting... but again, its another connection.
22. Great reading all the comments from everyone. An insight I just had - perhaps social networking
tools, like this one, Facebook, etc...are the gap closers between generations. They provide a way
for different kinds of people, at different levels of SN knowledge, and provides a platform, to get
on the "same page" so to speak.
23. I for one agree and I'd probably be surprised if anyone on this initial pilot project would disagree
since we all value social networking enough to do this... it would be interesting though to see
what others think about this outside of this group, though I don't know the best way to find that
out?
24. It's for everyone who has a desire to use it, I believe. I'm a Baby Boomer who bought the first
128K Mac and have been hooked on technology ever since. As the years go by, however, it's
harder to keep up. Some of it is technology advancement, much of it is the different ways that
new generations communication and interact. It's just different. Like when telephones and TVs
first came out - only more complex, IMHO. So while I try hard, and want, to keep up, understand
it's more of a challenge for us old guys, not because we're getting dumber (although I might be,
actually) but because of the nature of change. Eventually things and people catch up (the
learning curve). In the not too distant future what we are doing now will seem so ... old fashioned.
But look forward to aging, guys. Studies show older people are happier! And you know what, I
am.
25. Social networking is for everyone. I know people of all different ages who enjoy exploring the
internet and using social-networking sites. Everyone can join in the fun!
26. I don't see this as being a generational thing. However, it may take some "encouragement" to get
older gen - xers and boomers to open their eyes to the possibilities.
27. With all the work on CONSTELLATION being spread around the Agency to all centers, I think an
informal network such as this is FANTASTIC for fostering the sharing of knowledge. I don't see it
as being a substitute for formal lanes of communication, bu rather enhancing them. I know there
are security concerns around using venues like FaceBook and etc., so a secure internal one
sounds like a winner to me.
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The research described in this paper was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California
Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration.
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