Personal InfoCloud

Four Rings of Enterprise Social Tools

The four elements really have to work together to make for a successful services that people will use and continue to use over time. Yes, I am using a venn diagram for the four rings as it helps point out the overlaps and gaps where the implementations can fall short. The overlaps in the diagram is where the interesting things are happening. A year ago I was running into organizations with self proclaimed success with deployments of social tools (blogs, wikis, social bookmarking, forums, etc.), but as the desire for more than a simple set of blogs (or whichever tool or set of tools was selected) in-house there is a desire for greater use beyond some internal early adopters. This requires paying close attention to the four rings.

Tools

The first ring is rather obvious, it is the tools. The tools come down to functionality and features that are offered, how they are run (OS, rack mount, other software needed, skills needed to keep them running, etc.), how the tools are integrated into the organization (authentication, back-up, etc.), external data services, and the rest of the the usual IT department checklist. The tools get a lot of attention from many analysts and tech evangelists. There is an incredible amount of attention on widgets, feeds, APIs, and elements for user generated contribution. But, the tools do not get you all of the way to a successful implementation. The tools are not a mix and match proposition.

Interface & Ease of Use

One thing that the social software tools from the consumer web have brought is ease of use and simple to understand interfaces. The tools basically get out of the way and bring in more advanced features and functionality as needed. The interface also needs to conform to expectations and understandings inside an organization to handle the flow of interaction. What works for one organization may be difficult for another organization, largely due to the tools and training, and exposure to services outside their organization. Many traditional enterprise tools have been trying to improve the usability and ease of use for their tools over the last 4 to 5 years or so, but those efforts still require massive training and large binders that walk people through the tools. If the people using the tools (not administering the tools need massive amounts of training or large binders for social software the wrong tool has been purchased).

Sociality

Sociality is the area where people manage their sharing of information and their connections to others. Many people make the assumption that social tools focus on everything being shared with everybody, but that is not the reality in organizations. Most organizations have tight boundaries on who can share what with whom, but most of those boundaries get in the way. One of the things I do to help organizations is help them realize what really needs to be private and not shared is often much less than what they regulate. Most people are not really comfortable sharing information with people they do not know, so having comfortable spaces for people to share things is important, but these spaces need to have permeable walls that encourage sharing and opening up when people are sure they are correct with their findings.

Sociality also includes the selective groups people belong to in organizations for project work, research, support, etc. that are normal inside organizations to optimize efficiency. But, where things get really difficult is when groups are working on similar tasks that will benefit from horizontal connections and sharing of information. This horizontal sharing (as well as diagonal sharing) is where the real power of social tools come into play as the vertical channels of traditional organization structures largely serve to make organizations inefficient and lacking intelligence. The real challenge for the tools is the capability to surface the information of relevance from selective groups to other selective groups (or share information more easily out) along the way. Most tools are not to this point yet, largely because customers have not been asking for this (it is a need that comes from use over time) and it can be a difficult problem to solve.

One prime ingredient for social tool use by people is providing a focus on the people using the tools and their needs for managing the information they share and the information from others that flow through the tool. Far too often the tools focus on the value the user generated content has on the system and information, which lacks the focus of why people use the tools over time. People use tools that provide value to them. The personal sociality elements of whom are they following and sharing things with, managing all contributions and activities they personally made in a tool, ease of tracking information they have interest in, and making modifications are all valuable elements for the tools to incorporate. The social tools are not in place just to serve the organization, they must also serve the people using the tools if adoption and long term use important.

Encouraging Use

Encouraging use and engagement with the tools is an area that all organizations find they have a need for at some point and time. Use of these tools and engagement by people in an organization often does not happen easily. Why? Normally, most of the people in the organization do not have a conceptual framework for what the tools do and the value the individuals will derive. The value they people using the tools will derive needs to be brought to the forefront. People also usually need to have it explained that the tools are as simple as they seem. People also need to be reassured that their voice matters and they are encouraged to share what they know (problems, solutions, and observations).

While the egregious actions that happen out on the open web are very rare inside an organization (transparency of who a person is keeps this from happening) there is a need for a community manager and social tool leader. This role highlights how the tools can be used. They are there to help people find value in the tools and provide comfort around understanding how the information is used and how sharing with others is beneficial. Encouraging use takes understanding the tools, interface, sociality, and the organization with its traditions and ways of working.

The Overlaps

The overlaps in the graphic are where things really start to surface with the value and the need for a holistic view. Where two rings over lap the value is easy to see, but where three rings overlap the missing element or element that is deficient is easier to understand its value.

Tools and Interface

Traditional enterprise offerings have focussed on the tools and interface through usability and personalization. But the tools have always been cumbersome and the interfaces are not easy to use. The combination of the tools and interface are the core capabilities that traditionally get considered. The interface is often quite flexible for modification to meet an organizations needs and desires, but the capabilities for the interface need to be there to be flexible. The interface design and interaction needs people who have depth in understanding the broad social and information needs the new tools require, which is going to be different than the consumer web offerings (many of them are not well thought through and do not warrant copying).

Tools and Sociality

Intelligence and business needs are what surface out of the tools capabilities and sociality. Having proper sociality that provides personal tools for managing information flows and sharing with groups as well as everybody as it makes sense to an individual is important. Opening up the sharing as early as possible will help an organization get smarter about itself and within itself. Sociality also include personal use and information management, which far few tools consider. This overlap of tools and sociality is where many tools are needing improvement today.

Interface and Encouraging Use

Good interfaces with easy interaction and general ease of use as well as support for encouraging use are where expanding use of the tools takes place, which in turn improves the return on investment. The ease of use and simple interfaces on combined with guidance that provides conceptual understanding of what these tools do as well as providing understanding that eases fears around using the tools (often people are fearful that what they share will be used against them or their job will go away because they shared what they know, rather than they become more valuable to an organization by sharing as they exhibit expertise). Many people are also unsure of tools that are not overly cumbersome and that get out of the way of putting information in to the tools. This needs explanation and encouragement, which is different than in-depth training sessions.

 

Sociality and Encouraging Use

The real advantages of social tools come from the combination of getting sociality and encouraging use correct. The sociality component provides the means to interact (or not) as needed. This is provided by the capabilities of the product or products used. This coupled with a person or persons encouraging use that show the value, take away the fears, and provide a common framework for people to think about and use the tools is where social comfort is created. From social comfort people come to rely on the tools and services more as a means to share, connect, and engage with the organization as a whole. The richness of the tools is enabled when these two elements are done well.

The Missing Piece in Overlaps

This section focusses on the graphic and the three-way overlaps (listed by letter: A; B; C; and D). The element missing in the overlap or where that element is deficient is the focus.

Overlap A

This overlap has sociality missing. When the tool, interface, and engagement are solid, but sociality is not done well for an organization there may be strong initial use, but use will often stagnate. This happens because the sharing is not done in a manner that provides comfort or the services are missing a personal management space to hold on to a person's own actions. Tracking one's own actions and the relevant activities of others around the personal actions is essential to engaging socially with the tools, people, and organization. Providing comfortable spaces to work with others is essential. One element of comfort is built from know who the others are whom people are working with, see Elements of Social Software and Selective Sociality and Social Villages (particularly the build order of social software elements) to understand the importance.

Overlap B

This overlap has tools missing, but has sociality, interface, and encouraging use done well. The tools can be deficient as they may not provide needed functionality, features, or may not scale as needed. Often organizations can grow out of a tool as their needs expand or change as people use the tools need more functionality. I have talked with a few organizations that have used tools that provide simple functionality as blogs, wikis, or social bookmarking tools find that as the use of the tools grows the tools do not keep up with the needs. At times the tools have to be heavily modified to provide functionality or additional elements are needed from a different type of tool.

Overlap C

Interface and ease of use is missing, while sociality, tool, and encouraging use are covered well. This is an area where traditional enterprise tools have problems or tools that are built internally often stumble. This scenario often leads to a lot more training or encouraging use. Another downfall is enterprise tools are focussed on having their tools look and interact like consumer social web tools, which often are lacking in solid interaction design and user testing. The use of social tools in-house will often not have broad use of these consumer services so the normal conventions are not understood or are not comfortable. Often the interfaces inside organizations will need to be tested and there many need to be more than one interface and feature set provided for depth of use and match to use perceptions.

Also, what works for one organization, subset of an organization, or reviewer/analyst will not work for others. The understanding of an organization along with user testing and evaluation with a cross section of real people will provide the best understanding of compatibility with interface. Interfaces can also take time to take hold and makes sense. Interfaces that focus on ease of use with more advanced capabilities with in reach, as well as being easily modified for look and interactions that are familiar to an organization can help resolve this.

Overlap D

Encouraging use and providing people to help ease people's engagement is missing in many organizations. This is a task that is often overlooked. The tools, interface, and proper sociality can all be in place, but not having people to help provide a framework to show the value people get from using the tools, easing concerns, giving examples of uses for different roles and needs, and continually showing people success others in an organization have with the social tool offerings is where many organization find they get stuck. The early adopters in an organization may use the tools as will those with some familiarity with the consumer web social services, but that is often a small percentage of an organization.

Summary

All of this is still emergent and early, but these trends and highlights are things I am finding common. The two areas that are toughest to get things right are sociality and encouraging use. Sociality is largely dependent on the tools, finding the limitations in the tools takes a fair amount of testing often to find limitations. Encouraging use is more difficult at the moment as there are relatively few people who understand the tools and the context that organizations bring to the tools, which is quite different from the context of the consumer social web tools. I personally only know of a handful or so of people who really grasp this well enough to be hired. Knowing the "it depends moments" is essential and knowing that use is granular as are the needs of the people in the organization. Often there are more than 10 different use personas if not more that are needed for evaluating tools, interface, sociality, and encouraging use (in some organizations it can be over 20). The tools can be simple, but getting this mix right is not simple, yet.

Social Tools Are Great Aids for Change

Stewart Mader brought this to mind again in his post Onboarding: getting your new employees cleared for takeoff, which focusses on using wikis (he works for Atlassian and has been a strong proponent of wikis for years and has a great book on Wiki Patterns) as a means to share and update the information that is needed for transitions and the joining of two organizations.

I really like his write-up and have been pushing the social tools approach for a few years. The wiki is one means of gathering and sharing information. It is a good match with social bookmarking, which allows organizations that are coming together have their people find and tag things in their own context and perspective. This provides finding common objects that exist, but also sharing and learning what things are called from the different perspectives.

Communication Build Common Ground

Communication is a key cornerstone to any organization working with, merging with, or becoming a part of another. Communication needs common ground and social bookmarking that allows for all context and perspectives to be captured is essential to making this a success.

This is something I have presented on and provided advice in the past and really think and have seen that social tools are essentials in these times of transition. It is really rewarding when I see this working as I have been through organization mergers, going public, and major transitions in the days before these tools existed. I can not imaging thinking of transitioning with out these tools and service today. I have talked to many organizations after the fact that wished they had social bookmarking, blogs, and wikis to find and annotate items, provide the means to get messages out efficiently (e-mail is becoming a poor means of sharing valuable information), and working toward common understanding.

One large pain point in mergers and other transitions is the cultural change that brings new terms, new processes, new workflow, and disruption to patterns of understanding that became natural to the people in the organization. The ability to map what something was called and the way it was done to what it is now called and the new processes and flows is essential to success. This is exactly what the social tools provide. Social bookmarking is great for capturing terms, context, and perspectives and providing the ability to refind these new items using prior understanding with low cognitive costs. Blogs help communicate people's understanding as they are going through the process as well as explain the way forward. Wikis help map these individual elements that have been collectively provided and pull them together in one central understanding (while still pointing out to the various individual contributions to hold on to that context) in a collaborative (working together with one common goal) environment.

Increasing Speed and Lowering Cost of Transition

Another attribute of the social tools is the speed and cost at which the information is shared, identified, and aggregated. In the past the large consulting firms and the slow and expensive models for working were have been the common way forward for these times of change. Seeing social tools along with a few smart and nimble experts on solid deployments and social engagement will see similar results in days and a handful of weeks compared to many weeks and months of expensive change management plodding. The key is the people in the organizations know their concerns and needs, while providing them the tools to map their understanding and finding information and objects empowers the individuals while giving them knowledge and the means to share with others. This also helps the individuals grasp that are essential to the success and speed to the change. Most people resent being pushed and prodded into change and new environments, giving them the tools to understand and guide their own change management is incredibly helpful. This decreases the time for transition (for processes and emotionally) while also keeping the costs lower.

Selective Sociality of Villages

The piece that resonated along similar threads to Robert's post is Susan Mernit's "Twitter & Friend Feed: The Pleasure of Permissions". Susan's post brings to light the value of knowing who you are sharing information with and likes the private or permission-based options that both Twitter and FriendFeed offer. This selective sociality as known Local InfoCloud of people and resources that are trusted and known, which we use as resources. In this case it is not only those with whom we listen to and query, but those with whom we share. This knowing who somebody is (to some degree) adds comfort, which is very much like Robert Patterson and Luis Suarez#039; villages where people know each other and there is a lot of transparency. Having pockets where our social armor is down and we can be free to share and participate in our lives with others we know and are familiar to us is valuable.

I am found these two pieces quite comforting as they reflect much of what I see in the physical community around me as well as the work environments I interact with of clients and collaborators. The one social web service I have kept rather private is Twitter and I really want to know who someone is before I will accept them as a connection. This has given me much freedom to share silly (down right stupid - in a humorous way) observations and statements. This is something I hear from other adults around kids playgrounds and practices of having more select social interactions on line in the services and really wanting to connect with people whom they share interests and most often have known (or followed/listened to) for sometime before formally connecting. Most often these people want to connect with the same people on various services they are trying out, based on recommendation (and often are leaving a service as their friends are no longer there or the service does not meet their needs) of people whom they trust. This is the core of the masses who have access and are not early adopters, but have some comfort with the web and computers and likely make up 80 to 90 percent of web users.

Remote Presentation Feelings

While the remote video presentation is normal for many people inside their large organizations and I have presented at meetings and conferences where my presentation was provided to other location on live video feed (my recent Ann Arbor trip to present at STIET was HD broadcast to Wayne State in Detroit), this home office to conference presentation was new to me. The presentation and video link used Adobe Connect, which allowed me to see whom I was talking to, manage my slides, text chat, and see myself. This worked quite well, much better than I expected. I did have my full slide presentation in lightroom view set up in Keynote on my external monitor on the side and used Awaken on the side monitor as well to help with timing.

The ability to get feedback and watch the attendees body language and non-verbal responses was insanely helpful. I have given webinars and done phone presentations where I had not visual cues to the audience responses, which I find to be a horrible way to present (I often will expand on subjects or shorten explanations based on non-verbal feedback from the audience). Adobe Connect allowed this non-verbal feedback to be streamed back to me, which completely allows me to adjust the presentation as I normally do.

One thing that was a wee bit difficult was having to change focus (I suppose that comes with use and experience), but I would watch audience feedback while presenting, peek to the side to see where I was with time and slides (to work in the transitions), but would then try to look at the camera to "connect". Watching myself on the video feedback the moments I would try to connect through the camera I would open my eyes wide as if trying to see through my iSight and boy does that come across looking strange on a close range camera. I also (unknown to myself until recently watching a video of another presentation I had done) use a similar facial expression to add emphasis, I am realizing with a camera as close as it is for web presentation also really looks odd. I am sort of used to listening to myself (normally to write out new analogies I use or responses to questions), but watching myself in playback from that close of a range is really uncomfortable.

One thing I really missed in doing this web video presentation was extended interaction with the attendees. I rather enjoy conferences, particularly ones with this focussed a gathering as it makes for great socializing with people passionate about the same subjects I am passionate about. I like comparing note, perceptions, and widely differing views. It helps me grow my knowledge and understandings as well as helps change my perceptions. Live face-to-face conversation and sharing of interests is an incredibly value part of learning, experiencing, and shaping views and it is something I greatly enjoy attending conferences in person. I am not a fan of arriving at a conference just prior to a presentation, giving the presentation, and then leaving. The personal social interaction is valuable. The video presentation does not provide that and I really missed it, particularly with the people who are so closely tied to my deep interest areas as this workshop was focused.

New Content in Presentation

This presentation included a lot of new content, ideas, and concepts that I have not really presented or written about in as open of a forum. I have received really strong positive feedback from the Faces of Perception, Depth of Perception, and Perception Matrix when I have talked about it with people and companies. I have included this content in the book on social bookmarking and folksonomy I am writing for O&Reilly and pieces have been in public and private workshops I have given, but it was long past time to let the ideas out into the open.

The components of perception came about through reading formal analysis and research from others as well as not having a good models myself to lean on to explain a lot of what I find from social computing service providers (web tools in the Web 2.0 genre as well as inside the firewall Enterprise 2.0 tools) as tool makers or service owners. The understandings that are brought to the table on a lot of research and analysis is far too thin and far too often badly confuses the roles and faces of the tool that are being reviewed or analyzed. In my working with tool makers and organizations implementing social tools the analysis and research is less than helpful and often makes building products that meet the user needs and desires really difficult. I am not saying that this conceptual model fixes it, but from those who have considered what it shows almost all have had realizations they have had a less than perfect grasp and have lacked the granularity they have needed to build, analyze, or research these social tools.

I am hoping to write these perspectives up in more depth at some point in the not too distant future, but the video and slides start getting the ideas out there. As I have been walking people through how to use the tools I have been realizing the content needed to best us the model and matrix may take more than a day of a workshop of even a few days to get the most complete value from it. These tools have helped me drastically increase my value in consulting and training in the very short time I have used them. Some are finding that their copying of features and functionality in other social services has not helped them really understand what is best for their user needs and are less than optimal for the type of service they are offering or believe they are offering.

Object-Centered Sociality

It was through reading Jyri Engeström's blog post about "Why some social network services work and others don't — Or: the case for object-centered sociality" that I came to have familiarity with Karin Knorr Cetina's object-centered sociality. It was through the repeated mentioning of this Knorr Cetina concept by Rashmi Sinha in her presentations and from personal conversations with Rashmi that the ideas deep value sunk in (it is a concept central to Rashmi and Jon Boutelle's product SlideShare).

Knorr Cetina's work brings into view the individual and the object as central elements in social interaction. She proposes physical objects, around which discussions take place help focus and start conversation and other social interaction between and among people. In her and Urs Bruegger's  journal article "The Market as an Object of Attachment: Exploring Postsocial Relations in Financial Markets" in Canadian Journal of Sociology 25, 2 (2000): 141-168, they state:

One characteristic of the present situation is that perhaps for the first time in recent history it appears unclear whether other persons are, for human beings, the most fascinating part of their environment. Objects may also be the risk winners of the relationship risks which may authors find inherent in contemporary human relations.

The short of this is the person may not be the sole focus and possibly the person is not the focus of social interaction as the objects being discussed in social interactions is the focus for the people and take the role of the most interesting element in the social discourse.

When we look at social web services like Flickr we see the photos that a person takes and shares are the focus of social interaction. It is around these objects that the conversation takes place. Jyri Engeström calls these objects of social focus "social objects".

It is these social objects that are in need of being accounted for in a visualization of the social software stack. While in Germany for the most recent IA Konferenz I wanted to include his more fleshed out understanding of the social software stack, in this case it is actions or components that comprise sociality from the perspective on an individual in a social environment. I really wanted a graphic that brought these elements together so I could talk through it more easily in a workshop on the foundations of social software and tagging. The visual model is this Venn diagram that I put together sitting in the hallway for an hour or so. While it is not as interesting as Gene's graphic, for me it is a much better representation of the important components in social software if your goal is wanting your service/software to work optimally.

Explaining the Graphic

Yes, the inclusion of the object into the graphic is given a central focus  equal to that of identity. Identity and the object are the two important elements that comprise the social software stack. All elements that are represented in the graphic may or could be seen by others and are triggers for social interaction with other people (yes, the interaction can be with just other objects, but that is another subject I am not addressing in this writing). This ability to see all the elements represented is the social aspect of the software service. The overlaps are where there are direct interactions. But, there is a specific order to the revealing and relevance of each of the elements after the identity and object are shown.

The order is important because if one leaves out an element (or does not account for the elements in some manner) the next step is really not going to be capable of being fully realized and there will be a weakness in the social software. I can not stress this enough, this is not a list of items to pick from, but if you want to have reputation in the system there previous elements really need to be in place or accounted for through using an outside service that can be pointed to or brought into the service through using an outside service.

Order of the Elements

The order is: Identity and Object; Presence; Actions; Sharing; Reputation; Relationships; Conversation; Groups; and Collaboration.

The colors were chosen so the bridging elements were orange and fit with the color scheme of my company and the usual slide templates I use when presenting (orange with blue highlights, text, and accents). After I built the graphic I realized the similarity to a finance industry logo, but when playing with other color combinations the graphic lost its punch and also did not fit within the color scheme of my long used slide template, so I have left the colors alone.

The Central Focus

Identity

Identity is comprised of the information about the person using the social software tool. Often the identity is a built upon profile information such as name, username, location, personal website, e-mail, photo or avatar, and sometimes the person's age. These pieces help others recognize the person and can carry associations from other interactions and/or services to the current service (that is if the individual wants this cross-service tracking). Contact information is normally required for setting up an account so the service (and the people running the service) can communicate with the person. Sometimes the contact information is shared if the person using the service permits the sharing of the contact information with other people using the software/service.

Identity is also augmented through the inclusion of usernames on other services and sites the person contributes to or has an account on. This cross-service identity helps people who use other services to find their friends and contacts more easily. The cross-service identity also helps tie others understanding of the identity and possibly reputation as understood by other people. Cross-service identity connecting can also be used for aggregating content that an identity shared on another service into a new service.

Identity is included in the focus on object-centered sociality as it is people who are being social around the object. It seems that there is a codependent relationship between the person (their perceptions as expressed through their interest and actions around and about an object). The identity is a pivot to learn more about these understandings for a richer understanding by those reading/consuming what has been shared. This is much like the object is a pivot to find others who have interest in the same type of things.

Object

The object is the core focus of object-centered sociality and in this representation with one identity interacting it is part of the the codependent at the core of the graphic. The object is the center of the sociality. The object is what is being shared with others. This shared object may be a photo, bookmark/link, video, statement, or other matter. The object may be digital or non-digital in nature. Lastly, the object can also be what is being built in a collaboration-focussed effort.

Active Elements

Now that we have the cornerstone set of the two main components for sociality we can start looking at the elements around these two components. Again, these actions and elements are in a specific order that build upon the previous elements. These are active elements because they are either actions or are the result of sets of actions.

Presence

The identity is often built around static profile information, but people are not static as they have lives they lead and people have locations and tasks they perform that provide context for understanding perspective of statements or related actions. Presence can be a simple as Twitter's question of "what are you doing?" It can also be location, time, availability, and/or activity. These provide others a glimpse of understanding, or at least a hint of the identity's perspective.

In the case of Twitter and similar services the statement of presence is not necessarily related to another object, but the presence statement in and of itself acts as the object. In the case where presence is the object, the object is directly related to the person and not an external object. The presence statements may or may not be shared with others as the understanding is quite helpful information for the individual for later recollection as to why they made other statements or actions.

Actions

Using stated presence or the inferred presence, as the actions connote presence around an object that action is taking place around. The actions are what is being done as an expression communicating  to one's self or to others what they understand. This may be as simple as just expressing interest (even if the interest is negative). These actions are expressions of the person's understanding can take the form of annotation, messaging, modification of the object, commenting, rating, tagging, flagging or favoring, storing, naming, etc. The actions are tied to the person who is taking the action and linked to the object around which they are taking the action. These actions are are in most cases the some form of adding data or meta data to or around the object.

In social bookmarking in del.icio.us the object is the link expressed as the URL and the person is taking the action of saving the link and is likely also annotating and tagging that link for at least their own retrieval.

The actions always include the identity and the object (which may be the person's own identity and presence). Actions may or may not be shared with others. As many services provide public, selective, and private access to the information and actions.

Sharing

The act of sharing is where we finally start fully acknowledging social actions. The presence and actions elements can be private, if the person behind the identity wishes. Sharing is the social action that opens up the capability for all others (or only others whom have been given permission) to see their actions and possibly presence around an object. This can also include opening access to an object for others to see and others to add their annotations and actions around the object. This includes open annotations of other's openly shared objects or objects shared to a closed community to which the person has access.

Reputation

Shared presence and actions are the elemental building blocks for reputation. Reputation can build upon something as simple as existence on a service, by having an identity there. Reputation grows based on the interpretation of others based on shared presence and actions.

The actions that build reputation can be through the content that has been created by that identity. Others' understanding grows through seeing annotations that are by an identity (ratings, notes, comments, what is shared, etc.). Others also see actions that have been attributed to the identity, which may not be the direct actions that are seen, but can be actions of stating a relationship, joining a group, rewards (top contributor, etc.), or other indirectly perceived action.

The volume of actions also builds reputation. This can be the breadth of actions or breadth of subjects covered. Volume can also be depth of actions. Depth is how many in a subject area and/or the depth of understanding showed on a subject.

The breadth and depth lead to understanding of quality. Quality is often attributed by others based on their own perceptions and understanding. Perceptions, as we know, vary from person to person and that builds trends of reputation. Quality is also interpreted through perception. These interpretations are can be reflected in what others actions taken around an identity (identity can be the focal object in this activity) such as rating contributions made by an identity, favoriting/holding on to the actions of an identity (comments, their favorites, etc.), electing to follow the actions through subscribing or other similar actions, etc. Others may also write about an identity to express and understanding of the identity.

Relationships

Based on reputation people chose to interact with that identity. Through interaction  relationships are established or built. This may be explicitly stated in some manner (the "connection" or "collaborator" or "friend" distinctions in some social services are examples). Relationships may also be an inferred relationship based upon actions. The inferred relationship is through another's actions of following, subscribing to actions, annotating an object, or other actions.

Relationships may be causal (as result of actions) or intended. The breadth of the relationship needs also be considered. A relationship between people or their identities can be based only on a precise subject matter or many distinct subjects in a granular social manner. The relationship may be more broad-line by encompassing most subjects that around a person and their identity.

There is rich derived value that can be built upon through identifying and understanding the granular subjects of common interest between people. The relationship can be one that is expansive, in that one person or both are learning and exploring new ideas and material through the shared experiences and shared understanding of the other. Understanding that a relationship is only as broad as a similar interest(s) (it does not have to be the same polarity (like/dislike)) such as for acoustic bebop jazz will help framing the relationship for what is shared, followed, and interaction made around.

Conversation

A relationship predicated on some understanding of reputation (remembering that it may be a rather thin understanding of reputation) provides a good foundation the next stage, conversation. The conversation is most often with an identity about or around an object.

The conversation may be a 2-way or multi-directional. This communication may be a synchronous live conversation or asynchronous over time (message boards or other services what allow comments or time ordered annotations. The conversation in a social environment is open and often around an object (keeping in mind the object may be a person's presence statements as in Twitter).

These conversations may be structured through form-based forums or listserves. The conversations may be free-form as in Consumating'sflirting through tagging or other open communication structures.

Groups

It is in the conversation (derived from relationships based on reputation) that people with similar interest come to the point where they want a more formal relationship so to have more focussed communication and sharing and these people form a group. The group is a sub-set of the whole service, as in Ma.gnolia's groups for sharing social bookmarks (Ma.gnolia's groups can be open to all or they can be closed and not seen). The sharing is a collective understanding of the group with each individual identity openly sharing their actions around that subject matter or interest. The group is normally comprised of trusted listeners who have a relatively strong understanding of reputation. The group is a collective voice what accounts for each voice. There does not have to be a common goal other than sharing information around (tightly or broadly clinging to the subject of interest) and each voice matters in the group.

Collaboration

Groups working often leads to collaboration where not only are people openly sharing information as individuals, but aim to work together to build objects. One example of this is a wiki where there the object is the development of a page or set of pages built through a collaborative process. The collaborative process has one goal (explaining a subject in the case of a wiki) and the group works with a single focus and intentionally becomes a single voice. The object being built may be text content, video with different production tasks and skills needed, other media, an application or service, or other object (physical or digital). Central to collaboration is an understanding of what is being built. Collaboration is most often iterative though building upon what is there with the goal of improving it.

Summary

A walk through the elements in the social software stack should provide an understanding of the progressive relationship between the elements. The aim is for this to be used a guide to think through building and implementing social software. I talk to many organizations that are trying to get to collaboration but are missing some or many pieces of the social software stack that collaboration is built upon. Not all of the elements need to be in the same tool, but they need to be accounted for in an environment that is collaborating.

Those not building collaborative services will also greatly benefit from understanding at what stage their social software service or tool is aiming to serve and ensuring all of the preceding elements are included or accounted for in the service.

Lastly, but not least it is important to understand what is the object of focus in the social software tool or service. This social object is part of the starting foundation and the better the understanding of the object and how it works in the service or tool the better the whole of the project/product will be in the end.

The Dire Need for Portable Social Networks

When Alex states:

Beacon had me so freaked out that I walked through what would happen if I simply removed my account (my natural, gut reaction). The fact is, I'd lose contact with a lot of people instantly. There's no easy way for me to take my data out and apply it somewhere else. There is no friend export and there isn't anywhere suitable for me to go.

I think we need portable social networks (or Social Network Portability as it is also known) before we need the social graph. Part of the interest in the social graph (mapping the relationships) is based on Facebook, but Facebook is a really poor interface for this information, it has some of the connections, some of the context, but it is not granular and does not measure strength (strong or weak ties) of relationships on a contextual and/or a preferential interest level. This social graph does little to help us move from one social software service to another other than to show a linkage.

There are strong reasons for wanting and needing the Portable Social Network. One is it makes it easy to drop into a new social software service and try it with social interactions with people whom we are already having social interactions. Whilst this is good it is also really important if something tragic or dire happens with a social software service we are already using, such as it is shut down, it is no longer performing for us, or it has given us a reason to leave through loss of trust. As I noted in the past (Following Friends Across Walled Gardens") leaving social software services is nothing new (even predates people leaving Delphi for Prodigy and Prodigy for AOL, etc.), but we still are not ready for this seemingly natural progression of moving house from one walled off social platform for another.

The Call for Action for Portable Social Network is Now

I am finding many of my friends have put their Facebook account on in hibernation (Facebook calls it &#quot;deactivation") and many have started taking the painful steps of really getting all of their information out of Facebook and planning to never go back. My friends have not sorted out what robust social software platform they will surface on next (many are still using Flickr, Twitter, Pownce, Tumblr and/or other options along with their personal blogs), but they would like to hold on to the digital statements of social relationship they made in Facebook and be able to drop those into some other service or platform easily.

One option could a just having a Smart Address Book or as Tim O'Reilly states Address Book 2.0. I believe that this should be a tool/service should have the relationships private and that privacy is controlled by the individual that owns the address book, possibly even accounting for the privacy request of the person whose address is in the address book. But, this is one option of many.

The big thing is we need Portable Social Networks now! This is not a far off in the future need it is a need of today.

Now With More Complexity

But, what we have today is even more complex and difficult as we are often holding conversation across many of these technologies. The communication streams (the back and forth communication between two or more people) are now often not contained in on communication channel (channel is the flavor or medium used to communicate, such as AIM, SMS, Twitter, e-mail, mobile phone, etc.).

We are seeing our communications move across channels, which can be good as this is fluid and keeping with our digital presence. More often than not we are seeing our communication streams fracture across channels. This fracturing becomes really apparent when we are trying to reconstruct our communication stream. I am finding this fracturing and attempting to stitch the stream back together becoming more and more common as for those who are moving into and across many applications and devices with their own messaging systems.

The communication streams fracture as we pick-up an idea or need from Twitter, then direct respond in Twitter that moves it to SMS, the SMS text message is responded back to in regular SMS outside of Twitter, a few volleys back and forth in SMS text, then one person leaves a voicemail, it is responded to in an e-mail, there are two responses back and forth in e-mail, an hour later both people are on Skype and chat there, in Skype chat they decide to meet in person.

Why Do We Want to Stitch the Communication Stream Together?

When they meet there is a little confusion over there being no written overview and guide. Both parties are sure they talked about it, but have different understandings of what was agreed upon. Having the communication fractured across channels makes reconstruction of the conversation problematic today. The conversation needs to be stitched back together using time stamps to reconstruct everything [the misunderstanding revolved around recommendations as one person understands that to mean a written document and the other it does not mean that].

Increasingly the reality of our personal and professional lives is this cross channel communication stream. Some want to limit the problem by keeping to just one channel through the process. While this is well intentioned it does not meet reality of today. Increasingly, the informal networking leads to meaningful conversations, but the conversations drifts across channels and mediums. Pushing a natural flow, as it currently stands, does not seem to be the best solution in the long run.

Why Does Conversation Drift Across Channels?

There are a few reasons conversations drift across channels and mediums. One reason is presence as when two people notice proximity on a channel they will use that channel to communicate. When a person is seen as present, by availability or recently posting a message in the service, it can be a prompt to communicate. Many times when the conversation starts in a presence channel it will move to another channel or medium. This shift can be driven by personal preference or putting the conversation in a medium or channel that is more conducive for the conversation style between people involved. Some people have a preferred medium for all their conversations, such as text messaging (SMS), e-mail, voice on phone, video chat, IM, etc.. While other people have a preferred medium for certain types of conversation, like quick and short questions on SMS, long single responses in e-mail, and extended conversations in IM. Some people prefer to keep their short messages in the channel where they begin, such as conversations that start in Facebook may stay there. While other people do not pay attention to message or conversation length and prefer conversations in one channel over others.

Solving the Fractured Communication Across Channels

Since there are more than a few reasons for the fractured communications to occur it is something that needs resolution. One solution is making all conversations open and use public APIs for the tools to pull the conversations together. This may be the quickest means to get to capturing and stitching the conversation thread back together today. While viable there are many conversations in our lives that we do not want public for one reason or many.

Another solution is to try to keep your conversations in channels that we can capture for our own use (optimally this should be easily sharable with the person we had the conversation with, while still remaining private). This may be where we should be heading in the near future. Tools like Twitter have become a bridge between web and SMS, which allows us to capture SMS conversations in an interface that can be easily pointed to and stitched back together with other parts of a conversation. E-mail is relatively easy to thread, if done in a web interface and/or with some tagging to pull pieces in from across different e-mail addresses. Skype chat also allows for SMS interactions and allows for them to be captured, searched, and pulled back together. IM conversations can easily be saved out and often each item is time stamped for easy stitching. VoIP conversations are often easily recorded (we are asking permission first, right?) and can be transcribed by hand accurately or be transcribed relatively accurately via speech-to-text tools. Voice-mail can now be captured and threaded using speech-to-text services or even is pushed as an attachment into e-mail in services as (and similar to) JConnect.

Who Will Make This Effortless?

There are three types of service that are or should be building this stitching together the fractured communications across channels into one threaded stream. I see tools that are already stitching out public (or partially public) lifestreams into one flow as one player in this pre-emergent market (Facebook, Jaiku, etc.). The other public player would be telecoms (or network provider) companies providing this as a service as they currently are providing some of these services, but as their markets get lost to VoIP, e-mail, on-line community messaging, Second Life, etc., they need to provide a service that keeps them viable (regulation is not a viable solution in the long run). Lastly, for those that do not trust or want their conversation streams in others hands the personally controlled application will become a solutions, it seems that Skype could be on its way to providing this.

Is There Demand Yet?

I am regularly fielding questions along these lines from enterprise as they are trying to deal with these issues for employees who have lost or can not put their hands on vital customer conversations or essential bits of information that can make the difference in delivering what their customers expect from them. Many have been using Cisco networking solutions that have some of these capabilities, but still not providing a catch all. I am getting queries from various telecom companies as they see reflections of where they would like to be providing tools in a Come to Me Web or facilitating bits of the Personal InfoCloud. I am getting requests from many professionals that want this type of solution for their lives. I am also getting queries from many who are considering building these tools, or pieces of them.

Some of us need these solutions now. Nearly all of us will need these solutions in the very near future.

Personal Planets

Why a personal planet? We have an incredible amount of information that passes before out eyes and that is generated by our simple actions.  Emily did a great job showing the breadth of feeds generated.  This seems a simple thin thread.  What if we could quickly scan that thread and annotate it to make it easier to refind.

Planets are relatively easy to build and it should be easy to share for others to build upon. Personally, I am really surprised there are not thousands of these out there already.  Now to start tinkering a wee bit this week.

Overview of the Local InfoCloud

The Local InfoCloud started as an idea of information that was physically close. What is stored or accessed by physical location (information that is physically close) as in an Intranet or location-based information accessed on your mobile device. The more I thought about it and chatted with others it became clear it was more than physical location, it is information resources that are familiar and easier to access than the whole of the web (Global InfoCloud) as a framing concept.

As the my understanding began to lean toward familiarity as a core component of the definition of Local InfoCloud, the term began to embrace the social and community aspects (I am working on shying away from the term community as it is a broadly used term and I am trying to be a little more precise). Interactions with people, services, networks, applications, etc. that are familiar are means of bringing information closer to us as people with data, information, and media needs. The Local InfoCloud eases access. It eases the ability to find and refind information. It is information that is closer to us, not necessarily in physical proximity, but in the ability to access, in which familiarity is bread.

I spent much time considering changing the label from local to community or social, but there were elements that did not perfectly fit that either. Location-based services may be created by a service, but understanding the mindset, terminology, dialect, and cognitive frameworks that are germane to that physical location the information can be structured to resemble or mirror the social elements of understanding in that place. I will get to a better understanding of this when I talk about the Location aspect of the Local InfoCloud. As well, thinking in the Model of Attraction framework the Local InfoCloud is that which is attracted closer to us than the Global InfoCloud.

Important Attributes

There are some attributes that are important to the Local InfoCloud and separate it from the Global InfoCloud and ease the ability to integrate or draw the information and/or media in to the Personal InfoCloud.

Familiarity

As mentioned above familiarity is an essential attribute. Familiarity can be through vocabulary and terminology used to describe or discuss information and objects that people are trying to find and use. The taxonomy or germane ontologies are important to understand as they help ease the connection between the person seeking the information and objects and those providing it.

Access

Access to a resource is very important as it is in the ease of access that we rely on the Local InfoCloud. There is information that is in systems or in locations that others can not get to (that would make it in other's Eternal InfoCloud), but ability to get to the information is important. The ability to get back to the information (through password locked systems, access only by location, etc.) that dictates access is a key attribute.

Structure

Structure is a key attribute in the seeking, finding, and refinding information and objects. In a physical neighborhood we know that a corner store is on the corner, but in a portal we know that movie reviews have a certain URL structure and/or that we can click on a Entertainment button/link to get to the page that links to the movie reviews. Reading one movie review in a familiar site we know how to get to other movie reviews. These browsing structures allow the person to interact and attract information to their screen easily.

Known Actions

Known actions are the element in peoples lives that provide patterns that can be repeated to get to what the person desires. Many times people know how to get to, or more appropriately get back to what they are interested in through indirect connections. A favorite resource may be on a friend's link page as they have not set a direct means to connect to that source or to even draw that information to them to cut down the effort expended. Applications and location-based information are other environments that depend upon known actions to connect people to that which they desire.

Consistency

Consistency is a main attribute driver to our use and reuse of a component in the Local InfoCloud. Consistency breeds familiarity as people learn the terminology, can bookmark, use the known actions to get back to information, or guess how to get access to other items of interest. Having URL structures that are consistent provides a means to get at open information as well as permits the person to restructure means to keep that information closer to them (external social bookmarking as an example).

Copy, Point & Tether

Copy, Point & Tether are actions that a person can take to move information from a Local InfoCloud to the Personal InfoCloud. The attributes are germane to the Personal InfoCloud, but also have importance in the Local InfoCloud often the Local InfoCloud embraces these concepts to ease these actions.

When a person finds data, information, or media objects of interest they most often do one of three things: Copy the item to keep it close (hard drive, flash drive, scan to a drive, scrape to a drive, etc.); Point to the location where the information is located (bookmark, link, blog, wiki, etc.); or Tether the item which is desired by copying or pointing, but then setting a means to get notified when that item has been changed, updated, moved, etc. through tools like RSS/ATOM, e-mail, a pinging service, etc. The tethering is insanely important for items that are anything but completely static over the very long-term (think years not shorter) and it will be getting its own long write-up in the future (subscribe to the RSS here to tether your interest to the future content).

Components

Now we can look at the components that can comprise the Local InfoCloud. Each of these have one or more of the attributes. The components are digital and physical in nature. Components may or may not be exclusive, as some Local InfoCloud resources may be comprised of more than one component.

Location

Location was the first component of the Local InfoCloud I considered. Location is important as the physical place has characteristics that draw various attributes together. Location often has a familiarity with terms and language that frame the items within it. The structure of the physical surroundings play an important part in how and where things are located in that location. Tools that are implemented by location are kiosks, GPS/location-based information systems, games that use physical space to provide rewards or clues, language translation tools that are needed in a location, physical location can provide, ease, hinder or censor access to information, and access points to get information can be germane to location (mobile devices need local permissions to access services, etc.).

Friends (and Family)

There is one area that is often over looked as friends and family are not always digital resources, but can provide incredible means of information. Knowing a friend (or she has a good friend) who is an expert in the subject that we need understanding of is very helpful. We can call or visit that person, but we can also e-mail, chat, or have a video conversation with the person to get access to the information or knowledge. In social networks it is common that people will use those whom they are most familiar as a resource to get access to stored knowledge or use the person as a ready pointer to how to get the items they need. Access and familiarity are very strong attributes with friends and family. Often we do not have to tap the person to get the information, but the friend will e-mail us a pointer that they believe we have an interest in consuming. We can save e-mail (as that pointer or container of information is structured by a face or name we have known connections and have put them in context, much in the way they do with us.

A person's preferred method becomes a known action for us. We know the times we can tap somebody with a question or what tools they prefer to communicate using. We know friends who love to talk and their best means of interaction is the phone or an audio chat, while others are more apt to respond to e-mail, text chat, text messaging on their mobile device, or respond to a blog post. Over time we learn not only what is easy to get from whom, but the best means to interact to get the what we desire.

Near in Thought

We have resources that we rely upon because we have similar taste, interest, and/or perspectives on the genre or facet of life the resource covers, more directly these resources are near in thought to us. Politics is an easy example as the terminology used in and around the items we are seeking is known to us and we have expectations that we will like or agree with what is provided from that resource. Beyond politics we have resources with similar interests, perspectives and taste that help filter and provide easier access to items we desire. These resources are not only familiar but they often are structured in a manner that we understand the naming conventions for categories and other resource are easy for use to use and predict what will be brought closer to us through actions. These resources may be whole web sites, journals, writers, blogs, periodicals, etc.

Affiliations

In our life we belong to many groups. These groups have their own terminology and structures for things. Some of these affiliations will be easy to grasp how to access the resources at first opportunity, while others will come through enculturation of learning the structures and terminology. Through consistancy of the affiliations we increase our ability to use these resources to our benefit.

Organizations

Organizations are things we can belong to or join, like a knitting group, local chapter of a national affinity society, etc. These memberships in the organizations allow greater interaction with others with similar interests and/or needs. Organizations can have gated resources that are only access through membership or affiliation with that group.

Work

Work was the initial driver behind the Local InfoCloud as it was information and resources on an Intranet that was the initial understanding of local. But, work also has its own terminology, known actions, and structure. Over time we learn the resources, both digital, physical, and human that provide us access to information and knowledge.

Social Software

Social software can be device-based or network-based (web, internet, intranet, etc.) and the software builds consistency, structure, and known actions over time. If the software is built well the hurdles will be low to understanding how to get at the items we want and need. The software connects people and provides individuals the ability to contribute content and connect with others with similar interest and needs. Social software may connect people over time in an asynchronous manner as a person can leave an answer to a question at one point in time, but everybody with that same question or interest will have the capability to get to the same answer and potentially connect with that person as a known expert/resource through time.

The software becomes the conduit for connecting people and the data, information, and media the people share and/or discuss and augment. It also provides the means to connect people who are near in thought. It is one means for us to share things we would like feedback on. Social software mitigates distance for connecting people around common interests and can mitigate time as we do not need to be on at the same time to interact. Some examples are online discussion groups, listserves, social bookmarking, social networking, blogs, chat software, etc.

Portals

Portals in this meaning are the large aggregation sites that collect information and media into a familiar interface. Tools like AOL, Yahoo, news sites, aggregated shopping sites, etc. are portals with familiar structures that are consistent. Portals make a learnable interface to a variety of data, information, and media objects. Some are interest-based, while others are extremely broad. Similar to a newspaper or magazine the portal has one set of structures to grasp and access remains constant over time. We will easily know where to find movie reviews, car sales, discussion lists, various genre of news, etc.

Wrap-up

This is still a work in progress to some degree. Feedback on these attributes and components is always welcome. There may be some editing to this page, but more than likely the modifications will be in pages and posts that follow-on under this Local InfoCloud category.