Collaborative Thinking

It takes a village to raise a social network

Great metaphor by Liz Lawley (see below) people should remember if they are involved in the user experience, design and community-building aspects of social networks:   

Macworld | Researchers help define next-generation social networking

“One thing that’s very broken in the social tools we have right now is context and boundaries and a sense of who I want to share what with,” said Liz Lawley, director of the laboratory for social computing at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Many social-networking sites essentially force users to become part of a huge community, or they force users to choose whether someone else is a friend or not, with no other subtleties defining that relationship, she noted.

“People want to create villages and they’re being forced into cities. That’s creating a huge tension in social interactions,” she said. Lawley and other academic researchers spoke at the Microsoft Research annual Faculty Summit, an event that brings together academics, government workers and Microsoft researchers to discuss new fields of computer-science research.

Macworld | Researchers help define next-generation social networking

Communication (and Coordination?) in a Modern, Complex Organization

I love the opening quote:

"The social system is an organization, like the individual, that is bound together by a system of communication." − Norbert Wiener (1948, p. 24)

The PDF is worth reading (follow the citation link below to download the paper).

First Look: July 29, 2008 ― HBS Working Knowledge

Which groups are most likely to communicate with others in a large organization, regardless of social-and physical-boundaries? Turns out that women, mid- to high-level executives, and members of the executive management, sales, and marketing functions are those most likely to build bridges, according to new research by Harvard Business School's Adam Kleinbaum, Toby Stuart, and Michael Tushman. The scholars base their findings on an analysis of millions of e-mail messages, e-calendar meetings, and teleconferences in a geographically dispersed, multiunit enterprise. "We measure three general types of boundaries: organizational boundaries (strategic business unit and function memberships), spatial boundaries (office locations and interoffice distances), and social categories (gender, tenure within the firm)," they write.

Communication (and Coordination?) in a Modern, Complex Organization

Authors:	Adam M. Kleinbaum, Toby E. Stuart, and Michael L. Tushman

Abstract

This is a descriptive study of the structure of communications in a modern organization. We analyze a dataset with millions of electronic mail messages, calendar meetings and teleconferences for many thousands of employees of a single, multidivisional firm during a three-month period in calendar 2006. The basic question we explore asks, what is the role of observable (to us) boundaries between individuals in structuring communications inside the firm? We measure three general types of boundaries: organizational boundaries (strategic business unit and function memberships), spatial boundaries (office locations and inter-office distances), and social categories (gender, tenure within the firm). In dyad-level models of the probability that pairs of individuals communicate, we find very large effects of formal organization structure and spatial collocation on the rate of communication. Homophily effects based on sociodemographic categories are much weaker. In individual-level regressions of engagement in category-spanning communication patterns, we find that women, mid- to high-level executives, and members of the executive management, sales and marketing functions are most likely to participate in cross-group communications. In effect, these individuals bridge the lacunae between distant groups in the company's social structure.

First Look: July 29, 2008 ― HBS Working Knowledge

Reference Architecture For Social Network Sites

Today and tomorrow I will be finalizing the reference architecture document below. “Templates” illustrate infrastructure and act as blueprints organizations can leverage as they make decisions on IT architecture. The focus on architecture makes templates one of my more favorite documents to work on. While I can’t share the lower-level analysis and specifics that describe the architectural components of a social network site (clients will be able to access this information when it comes out on the Burton Group site), the introductory portion of the report is contained below. I feel that it is important to openly “share back” this level of detail since the document extends some great work undertaken by danah boyd and Nicole B. Ellison.

Some terms below (e.g., infrastructure services model, service end points, and activity services) would actually link to other documents that discuss those topics. I removed those links to avoid confusion (those documents are only accessible by clients). If you are a client, I encourage you to schedule a dialog to discuss social networking trends in general, or specific project(s) you are undertaking in this area.   

My original concept for this document was outlined here in case you are curious to see how my thinking evolved during the writing process.

Templates always begin with a question (often based on what clients are asking us):

What are the architectural components of a social network site?

A social network site is a web site that:

• Acts as a destination hub for individuals to establish relationships with co-workers and by doing so, enable them to jointly build, or expand, their professional and social networks
• Includes different tools for people to interact with each other, contribute information to the site, participate in different site activities, and build a sense of community in an informal and voluntary manner
• Contains specific components that allow people to:
  • define an online profile (or persona)
  • list their connections (e.g., friends and colleagues)
  • receive notifications on the activities of those connections
  • participate in group or community activities
  • control permission, preference and privacy settings
• Is considered a service end point in terms of collaboration, communication and content infrastructure (respectively)
  • Service endpoints are applications or sites that interact with published interfaces of collaboration services entities.
• Draws on activity services in terms of collaboration, communication and content infrastructure (respectively)
  • Activity services help provide generalized automation services, including analytics, and event or pattern correlation functions
• Integrates with related infrastructure platforms to complete the end-to-end system (e.g., directory, security, and integration services)

Facebook’s soaring popularity has encouraged employees, human resource groups, line-of-business managers, and C-level executive teams to request an internal version of the popular consumer site (e.g., a “corporate Facebook”). However, there are no generally agreed-upon industry practices to guide IT organizations regarding what architectural components need to be included to qualify a web site as a successful intranet replica of the popular consumer site.

This template provides such a reference architecture model. It begins with a set of baseline requirements established by danah boyd and Nicole B. Ellison. The authors’ analysis identifies key repeating characteristics found across consumer social network sites. Their assessment helps establish a common baseline for architects to understand which capabilities need to be included within an enterprise social network site. Burton Group recognizes this baseline as a starting point for social network sites deployed for employees (“actors” in social network terms):

• A visible profile within a bounded system which describes the actor
• A public or semi-public display of connections between that actor and their relations (e.g., “friends”)
• An ability for people to traverse those connections (e.g., to view profiles associated with the list of “friends”)

Although boyd’s and Ellison’s research does not explicitly identify the following characteristics as core functions, Burton Group believes that the capabilities below should also be included within a social network site:

• A means for other members to participate, interact and contact the actor (e.g., e-mail, instant messaging, chat rooms, blogs, and message boards)
• An aggregated collection of entries streamed into a chronological feed that reflect the interactions and activities of an actor
• A set of permission and usage controls for that actor to manage their own visibility (search), relationships with other members (profile viewing), and how they prefer to interact or be contacted by other members (messaging)

Mapping these attributes into the architectural components listed below enables enterprise architects, infrastructure planners, application developers and user experience teams to implement a social network site that emulates consumer counterparts:

• Profiles
• Social Graph
• Participation Tools
• Social Presence
• Relation Controls

To orchestrate and manage these components, a social site application services layer is necessary (provided by a vendor or developed by the IT organization).

Social Network Site Template Diagram

Social Network Site Template Description

This template illustrates what architectural components should be included within a social network site, the relationship between those components, and how such components interact with other infrastructure services. A social network site is a web site that minimally includes the following capabilities:

• Profiles
• Social Graph
• Participation Tools
• Social Presence
• Relation Controls

To complete the list of required components, an application services layer that aggregates, manages, and delivers capabilities to employees is also required:

• Social Site Application Services

This template represents a logical architecture. The social network site model depicted in this template is one that is centralized. That is, all capabilities are managed by the social network site. Tools within participation tools however might not adhere to this constraint and can be a valid exception. Distribution of site components to enable social networking within other applications and on remote sites is outside the scope of this template. Finally, readers should note that while templates do not describe physical implementations, such efforts can leverage this document as an architectural guide.

A Lasting Legacy

Very sad news ? but what a lasting legacy not only for his family but for the rest of us who were moved by the video and his life story.

'Last Lecture' professor, Randy Pausch, dies at 47 - USATODAY.com

Randy Pausch, the Carnegie Mellon professor who became a YouTube phenomenon with his "Last Lecture," died Friday of complications from pancreatic cancer. He was 47. He died at his home in southern Virginia.

RELATED: Professor Pausch's life, 'Lecture' go from Web to book

VIDEO: See 'Last Lecture' on YouTube

PHOTOS: Randy Paush's life in pictures

AUDIO: Hear a clip from 'Lecture'

'Last Lecture' professor, Randy Pausch, dies at 47 - USATODAY.com

Updated: Community and Social network Vendor Blogs

In an earlier post, "Community and Social Network Vendor Blogs", I provided a list of vendors that had public-facing blogs. I missed the Lithium blog (my bad). The folks at HiveLive have recently launched a blog and I forgot to include Ringside Networks. I added iCohere to the list of vendors that do not have a public-facing blog but based on a comment in the original post, it sounds like that situation might be resolved this year. So - the list has been updated (I updated the original post here).

Let the man play...

I’ve been a Packer fan since I was 8 years old (circa 1966). I’ve been through the glory years and the “let me hide and suffer in misery” years. As much as it the current situation might be be difficult or uncomfortable due to poor communication, lack of understanding and (gasp) ego ? Brett can still play the game, and play it at a level better than most QBs in the game.

Let the man play…   

FOX Sports on MSN - Jason Whitlock - Hey Ted, I'm here to help

Hi, my name is Jason Whitlock. I'm sure you've heard of me. My reputation in football circles is well established.

I'm the guy who told Bill Belichick to stick with Tom Brady over Drew Bledsoe years ago. When Bill Polian was debating Peyton Manning vs. Ryan Leaf, I was the voice on the phone at 2 a.m. the morning of the draft assuring Polian that Manning was the right choice. I told Parcells to take a long look at an undrafted quarterback from Eastern Illinois.

I know quarterbacks, how they think, what motivates them and whether they're any good.

You're in a jam in Green Bay with Brett Favre. You need me. You need my guidance, my expertise. If you're not careful, you're going to continue to mismanage this situation and go down in history as the dumbest general manager in the history of professional sports.

FOX Sports on MSN - Jason Whitlock - Hey Ted, I'm here to help

I know it's Friday, but can I have an online community by Monday?

Interesting analysis and data coming out from a study (see below). My initial thought though however is: why is this a surprise? For those that covered this space in the late nineties (Dot Com 1.0) we went through a very similar experience. There was a very high degree of irrational exuberance by companies wanting to launch online communities. Most failed. Now we’re back using terms like social media and social networks. One can make the case that the technology can enable a better user and group experience but the fundamentals of relationship and community-building are not advanced by better tooling. This is very hard work. I would recommend you sign up for the BeeLine Labs report (last citation link below).    

Business Technology : Why Most Online Communities Fail

One of the hot investments for businesses these days is online communities that help customers feel connected to a brand. But most of these efforts produce fancy Web sites that few people ever visit. The problem: Businesses are focusing on the value an online community can provide to themselves, not the community.

Most corporate-sponsored online communities are virtual ghost towns

That’s according to Ed Moran, a Deloitte consultant who just completed a study of more than 100 businesses with online communities. Not surprisingly, these sites failed to gain traction with customers. Thirty-five percent of the online communities studied have less than 100 members; less than 25% have more than 1,000 members ? despite the fact that close to 6% [Note: error in original story, 6% mot 60%] of these businesses have spent over $1 million on their community projects. “A disturbingly high number of these sites fail,” Moran tells us.

Business Technology : Why Most Online Communities Fail

SitePoint Blogs ? Study: Why Most Online Communities Fail

• Businesses are being enticed by fancy technology. Mesmerized by bells and whistles, many business are foolishly blowing their entire budgets on technology. Moran’s advice is to reach out to community members and let them do your R&D for you, rather than blowing it on fancy tech you may not really need. If the goal of a community associated with a brand is to get people to evangelize your products or services, put money and time into reaching out them rather than developing a fancy site.
• Lack of proper management. The Deloitte study found that 30% of online communities have just part-time employees in charge, and most have just a single PR person running the show. Advice: hire a social community manager with experience running and building an online community. Managed communities are a lot less likely to grow organically the way general mainstream social networks do, so you need someone who knows how to build one in charge. My former colleague Marshall Kirkpatrick wrote a great post earlier this week about the merits of online community managers.
• The wrong measurement metrics. Moran noticed that most businesses are measuring the success of their communities in the wrong way. Though their stated goals are usually to create viral, word-of-mouth marketing and increase brand loyalty, the metric they use to gauge success is unique visitors. If all you’re after is growing visits to the site, then you’re missing the point. You’re not trying to compete with mainstream social networks, so you don’t need to chase eyeballs. Rather you need to build interaction and create a level of comfort among your most loyal users so they will evangelize your products for you. The best way to measure this might be by looking at things like blog mentions and Twitter tweets.

SitePoint Blogs ? Study: Why Most Online Communities Fail

Beeline Labs ? The 2008 Tribalization of Business study

THE MAJOR TAKEAWAYS

#1: Communities are about Delivering Game-Changing Results

• Communities can increase revenue per customer dramatically, i.e., 50%
• Communities will increase product introduction success ratios
• Communities amplify everything you do- increasing effectiveness and decreasing costs

#2: The Rise of the CMO 2.0?

• Communities should be an important part of the CMO’s toolset (but for many large companies - there is an under-investment and scale problem)
• Companies should evolve the role of the CMO into Chief Community Officer (but that will require drastic changes in attitude and approach to marketing)
• If done properly, communities will transform the way marketing works (reduced costs, improved effectiveness, new opportunities)

#3: The Need for New Management Thinking

• Mismatch between community goals and associated investments
• Major gaps between Community Goals and what is being measured
• Communities have yet to combine with major talent initiatives
• Communities will transform most business processes

#3.5: The Worst Practices Enjoy Wide Adoption

• The “build it and they will come” fallacy
• The “let’s keep it small so it doesn’t move the needle” phenomenon
• The “not invented here” syndrome

Beeline Labs ? The 2008 Tribalization of Business study

Leveraging Employee Social Networks

These are the slides I will reference tomorrow for a webinar on social networks offered by the Human Capital Institute. There is still time to register if you are interested in the topic.

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IM Standards: Vendor's Are In A Different Reality

How many years have we been talking about interoperability standards for IM and presence? Why has the SIP/SIMPLE specification evolved so slowly? Why are vendors implementing their own versions of “rich presence” vs. working through the standards process (SIMPLE specifically)? Why do vendors find it so difficult to aggregate and federate presence in a fair and bi-directional manner without trying to gain an advantage by not sharing its extensions (Microsoft appears especially guilty here)? Why does Sametime cling to its proprietary protocol internally? Why does Microsoft not support XMPP in its gateway? Why do most communication vendors (e.g., Cisco) find XMPP so radioactive?

I think the Avaya/Jabber partnership should be specifically called out. Avaya really should be congratulated on its effort to shear off presence into its own server and aggregate both SIP/SIMPLE and XMPP. That is such a breadth of fresh air…

Seriously … the situation is an embarrassment to the industry. I wish vendors would stop whining or try to explain it away and “just do it”.

Michael Osterman posted an interesting piece today on Network World, "Standardizing instant messaging protocols". Basically, he makes the point that technology adoption increases rapidly after an industry settles on a single standard. And he wonders if the fact that we have two standards for IM interoperability, SIP and XMPP, has held back the overall market.
It's an interesting thought. And just to fact check the article, Sametime supports both XMPP and SIP in our Public IM Gateway. (Mike only included us in the SIP camp.)

The Sametime Blog

Next Document: Reference Architecture For Social Network Sites

What are the architectural components of a social network site?

Implementing an internal “corporate Facebook” web site has become a frequent request to IT organizations from employees, line-of-business managers, human resource groups, and C-level executive teams. However, there are few commonly accepted practices regarding what architectural components need to be included in such a web site to qualify it as an internal version of the popular consumer site, Facebook. This reference architecture template begins with a set of baseline requirements established by danah boyd and Nicole B. Ellison. The authors’ analysis identifies key repeating characteristics found across consumer social network sites. Their analysis helps establish a common baseline for architects to understand what attributes need to be included in a social network site. Burton Group recognizes these attributes as inherent traits social network sites deployed within the enterprise should minimally provide to its employees (“actors” in social network terms):

• A visible profile within a bounded system which describes the actor
• A public or semi-public display of connections between that actor and their relations (e.g., “friends”)
• An ability for people to traverse those connections (e.g., to view profiles associated with the list of “friends”)

Although boyd’s and Ellison’s research does not explicitly identify the following attributes as core functions, Burton Group believes that such capabilities should also be included within a social network site definition:

• A means for other members to particiapte, interact and contact the actor (e.g., e-mail, instant messaging, chat rooms, blogs, and message boards)
• A set of controls for that actor to manage his/her own visibility (search, profile viewing)
• A set of controls for that actor to manage how they prefer to interact or be contacted by other entities (e.g., messages)

Mapping these attributes into the architectural components listed below can assist enterprise architects, infrastructure planners, application developers and other audiences to design a social network site:

• Profiles
• Social Graph
• Participation Models
• Social Presence
• Relation Controls

Template Diagram: