Motivation

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=Social Awareness= "Essentially awareness of social situations is about carefully considering what people want, and planning to communicate with them in a way that is intended to meet that need." (Connelly, M.) Understanding what other people think about you and situations you're in, can be key to resolving problems that come up during an e-learning project, or to preventing problems from coming up. A person who can step into a room, situation or organization and understand how best to approach each person present to make them feel happy and appreciated has high levels of social awareness. Social awareness is very important to project managers because it is their job to foresee and prevent problems in a project, and the best way to do that is to have an awareness of how best to work with team members who are all going to be part of a successful project. Having social awareness means having:
 * **"Empathy**: understanding the other person’s emotions, needs and concerns.
 * **Organizational Awareness**: the ability to understand the politics within an organization and how these affect the people working in them.
 * **Service**: the ability to understand, anticipate and meet the needs of clients and customers." (Connelly, M.)

Social awareness in e-learning can be particularly difficult and important. For example, different online platforms have different social norms, and if you're not aware of the specific norms, or if you're unaware that there are distinct norms in different platforms, you can quickly be recognized as an outsider and be shut out of conversations intentionally or unintentionally. Think of the use of mentions using the @ symbol on Twitter, if you aren't socially aware of the organizational norms of Twitter, which include responding to people using their name preceded by the @ symbol, then when you respond, they'll likely never see it, and the conversation will end. Part of social awareness is digesting any social cues you can physically see, or hear. People's tone, inflection and body posture are all missing in most online environments where classrooms are very text based. Novice's of emotional intelligence are likely to miss many social cues, so it is doubly important that students and project managers in e-learning environments improve or have high innate levels of social awareness.
 * Social Awareness in E-Learning**

Improving Social Awareness
There are a few simple steps that you can apply to almost any conversation in order to be more socially aware. Much of it just involves taking time to be in the moment. That may sound a bit hippie dippy, but try applying the principles below for just one conversation a day and see what a difference it makes.


 * 1) Make Time for people - Some call this active listening. Stop what you're doing and focus solely on the person talking to you and what they're saying. Take it to the next level by asking them to go somewhere (lunch) to talk.
 * 2) Ask & Confirm - If you think you've done step 1, ask a follow-up question to confirm you understood correctly and to dig a little deeper on the topic. The person might have some feelings about what they're saying.
 * 3) Don't Judge, Judger - We all judge people, but try holding off and consider the emotions of the person telling you something before forming an opinion about the content of what they're saying. Try to make your responses non-judgmental, you're much more likely to have that person talk to you again. (Crompton, M. August, 2010)

Social Awareness In Action
Consider a situation where you are managing a project and considering different outside vendors for a database tool. Your organization has specific needs which correspond to specific product features. One vendor seems to have a great product, but every time you call, they act like they've never heard what you told them about your organizational needs and they keep trying to sell you an add-on that would be useless. The other vendor has a product that does the job, but might not have the some of the splashy elements and features the other product has, however the contact person always remembers what features are most important to your group and talks about customizing their product to your needs. Most likely you will choose the vendor who has organizational awareness and social awareness, knowing that they are more likely to listen and present you with a final product that most closely meets your needs.