October 2007 - Posts
I've been experimenting with Facebook -- like some 18.5 million others. My four main conclusions (and an observation) follow:
- It has personal social value -- that is, I enjoy keeping up with my friends, and almost friends.
- At the moment, it's not much good for anything else.
- That's good enough for Facebook
- There's more to life.
Personal Social Value: I do enjoy the richer personal social dimension online social networking has added to my life. No doubt about it. Facebook's activity focus has made them the social computing mind share leaders. Most other players are just collections of personal expression features. (As an aside, "almost friends" is an interesting dimension. I have to believe that having hundreds of almost friends cuts back on the time you can devote to actual friends. Not a trade-off I want to make, not to mention an unfortunate message to send to everyone on your list.)
Not good for anything else: I've tried, but (speaking only for myself of course) I can't find another redeeming value. There are examples outside of Facebook for every more specialized app I've tried that are superior in every way. Moving between tabs on my browser is not sufficiently difficult for me to consider putting up with second class services. Facebook as one-stop social computing shopping is, for me -- so far -- nonsense.
That's good enough: At least for them, and in fact for me -- for those things I use it for. They're serving a need nearly as fundamental as food and shelter and doing a fine job of it.
There's more to life: So much more, in fact, that I lack the words to describe it.
For example, in my own information worker world my simple RSS reader continues to deliver more value than Facebook and all its apps combined. The gap is dramatic. I could go on and on about how weak FB is in terms of association management, and how limited in terms of association type. I'll save that observation, and the opportunities it makes clear, for another post.
I'm not in any way suggesting Facebook is vulnerable because it doesn't do all things for all people. Assuming nothing dramatic happens, ridicules as that assumption is, I think they can look forward to open road ahead. On top of that, if they open their API and data stores further, we all could end up with a free jumpstart on more focused social computing experiences. (With all that said, I'd love the opportunity to compete with them. Note: that would be compete, not copy, and not race.)
What I am saying is that with or without Facebook there remain enormous opportunities in the social computing space. FB is only social computing of the (relatively) strong tie kind: cool, but not the end of the story.
I recently asked a Facebook question regarding the perceptions my friends have of the value of Facebook for the information worker in terms of capturing and managing information. Not one of my friends answered that Facebook had any significant value today in that regard. However every one that responded (so far) has said it would, or could, someday deliver said value. To what extent do we permit the idea that someday FB could do something to impact our decisions today?
Yesterday came across the following quote. I think it's relevant.
"Have you ever seen in some wood, on a sunny quiet day, a cloud of flying midges -- thousands of them -- hovering, apparently motionless, in a sunbeam? ...Yes? ...Well, did you ever see the whole flight -- each mite apparently preserving its distance from all others -- suddenly move, say three feet, to one side or the other? Well, what made them do that? A breeze? I said a quiet day. But try to recall -- did you ever see them move directly back again in the same unison? Well, what made them do that? Great human mass movements are slower of inception but much more effective."
Windows Live Spaces at a crossroads: will the US catch up to the world?
It's hard to watch. Really.
Of course some would argue that Blogger or WordPress or even Windows Live Spaces aren't "Social Networking sites", and if you mean that they're not like Facebook, then you're probably right.
Hmmm...
Audio Interview with Nova Spivack about Twine
"Google's mission is to organize the worlds information. Our mission is to organize your information."
That makes too much sense.
I can't wait to see Twine. Nova has some interesting things to say and the service sounds great. It appears they're identifying customers as individuals, connecting them (to each other and to data), and giving them the means to interact. What I haven't heard anything about yet -- the only part that appears to be missing -- is reward and recognition systems. I wonder how that will work.
In any event, the personal, practical, professional, use of the social layer remains, with a few exceptions, wide, open, and unclaimed, territory.
My social network popped this one to the top recently. It's from Craig's Rantings.... It's about a customer's revelation, and a video metaphor: http://craig.cmehil.com/2007/10/understanding.html.
I can't see much of Twine. It's in private beta. So clearly, it's too soon to say for sure, but from the spin they sound like they've started in the right place and have a good idea where they want to go. I've signed up for the beta.
I wonder if they'll let me in? Know anybody over there?
I forget the exact quote, and I'm too lazy to look it up, but it goes something like this: yesterday's luxuries are today's necessities.
That's one of the things I was thinking of when I read this post from Online Spin called "Are you suffering from Socialnetworkitis?. The point of the post is that keeping up with all the new social computing tools is exhausting for some of us.
Why are some of us so exhausted? I don't think it would be fair to say it affects all of "us", not by a long shot, but you can't deny that many of us are having that experience. I think there are two ways to understand it.
The first is that it's a new habit -- a new personal and group process. And new processes don't simply replace old processes. Old processes die hard. Therefore many of are now operating both old processes and new social computing based processes concurrently. This is evident in the referenced post. Here's a quote:
First, my work and personal email accounts. Yes, in fact, these are perhaps my most important online social networks, and certainly the ones I’m most active in.
We're drawn back into email culture, because for many of us, email is a frighteningly, deeply, embedded tool in our work processes. I think there's an interesting discussion around whether or not email is really a good fit for the category of social computing in the first place. However that goes, it's clear to me that the newer social computing tools have the potential to replace email in a majority of use cases -- and for the better. And that's only one example. However, changes of that sort take a while if we have to wait on the users themselves to change. Recall this quote:
...accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
How long? Bear this in mind: the younger generations aren't enmeshed in the processes that form a big part of the social fabric underlying business culture today. I suspect the 18-24-year-olds, who use the new tools, with new processes built around them, will outcompete the laggards and put them into early retirement -- or at least force them into adapting.
The second reason is that the new tools remain immature, and so are the associated processes. To be clear, while 18-24-year-olds have all the raw materials to effect new business processes, there are few examples of any working models yet. Immature tools, and people just learning how to use them, don't combine to make a relaxing, restful, experience.
I get the socialnetworkitis feeling. I do. Do I want a cure? Sure, but there's another quote that comes to mind to describe my feelings in that regard. It has the phrase "cold, dead, fingers" in it.
I've been giving more thought lately to successful innovation in a large organization. Having been successful, not-so-successful, and having failed, on a variety of teams in a number of different areas, I'm feeling good about this hypothesis. I'm a little bashful about even calling it a hypothesis, it seems so obvious and perhaps a little trite. But, anyway, here it is. Tell me what you think.
Not exactly magical, but it helps me think about some things. I work in a company dominated -- utterly and completely -- by "How to do it People". The engineering focus at Microsoft is almost complete. The other, and largely separate, contingent is the "How to present it People" -- marketing. Both are "hows": heads and tails of the same coin really, though they'd fight to the death denying it. In some places there is a planning function. They're the closest we get to "What to do People". However, in most cases they're dominated by either one or another of the "hows". Generally that relegates them to the creation of MRDs and PRDs and, while valuable (I've authored a few myself), aren't the really valuable work of the "whats". And of course, there are exceptions all around.
What, you may ask, does a "what" do? To put it succinctly, if not clearly, a "what" overlays disparate conceptual maps and identifies new patterns that have potential value. It's a skill. (Well, in fairness, I must believe it is given that I've spent so long working on it. So if it's not, I'd be the last to know and probably wouldn't admit it even then.) They take ideas from one place, and apply them in another. Sometimes ideas quite distant, sometimes ideas relatively closely related. Tagspace and Claimspace are personal, though not perfect, recent examples. Tagspace = social bookmarking + site tagging. Claimspace = longtail + social recognition.
To an average "how", discussion with an inexperienced "what", quickly becomes difficult. "How's" are all over analyzing what the successful "whats" have been up to and how to do those things better. Successful "whats", after all, create a new lexicon. It's easy to talk about what Amazon did, or sort of still does, what Google is doing, or the current buzz, what Facebook is all about. Just think of all the new words and phrases we have from those companies. Easy, that is, now that those things exist. "Whats" on the other hand, live in the lexicon creation world. "Whats" are wired that way. To a "how" that discussion seems entirely impractical -- somewhere way out there.
Organizations start off with some balance, and then (I think this is generally true) quickly become "how" dominated. It's the sensible thing to do -- really. Or was. Now that business cycles, at least in the online space, appear to be shortening, that MO may need rethinking. But are they really shortening?
Anyway, putting together a team that values the contribution of both the "hows" and the "whats" is a requirement if any organization intends to experience more than one wave of innovation. If Apple hadn't done it -- or should we say if Jobs hadn't done it -- I'd wonder if it was possible. I suspect it takes a supreme act of corporate will. I wonder if it requires desperation.
Tier Three Design, or if you like you could call it a social layer, is going mainstream. I even blogged about it recently -- something I don't do until I'm confident the idea is well on its way and there's no competitive advantage to holding onto it.
(As an aside, I realize that last comment runs somewhat counter to the "transparency" you associate with a blog. But nurturing new ideas is my stock in trade, and I have to be careful with my intellectual property. Still, it's a personal problem because it means my blogs are always six months behind.)
Don't get me wrong, I'm not claiming any original insight here -- certainly not of the conception kind. People were talking about the "social web" back in 1998 with surprising prescience overall, even if the the details didn't turn out as was envisioned. (It seems "software agents" remain a bad prognostication bet.) There have been lots of others.
Anyway, at this point, it's getting hard to ignore the writing on the virtual wall.
Chris Anderson, for instance, has recently referred to social networking as a "feature, not a destination". That understates the case, but it's headed in the right direction.
In a similar vein, Steve Rubel recently expressed his view that "portals will win the social networking wars". Actually, I don't quite know what he means by "win". If he means continue to play a big role, I'm there. If he means dominate to the exclusion of many others -- I think he's wrong. (My bet, there will be countless "successful" social networking endeavors. Human associations are infinitely variable.
So, perhaps it's time to stretch the idea just a bit further. I say the "social" layer will envelop not only web sites, and many web services, but even traditional desktop products.
I've been waiting for someone to integrate attention stream data with a more general social networking service. I'm really curious how it will work out. Check out Slifeshare.
Tracking browser behavior is a curious thing. A while back, during my days with Microsoft.com, I met with a couple of the folks behind the Attention Trust organization. At that time, I had the opportunity to examine someone else's browsing history (with their permission, of course). It was astonishing how much crap there was in the mix.
To its credit Slifeshare seems to have added features to mitigate much of the noise. You can filter sites, and go into private mode.
I've joined, but I have no Slifeshare acquaintances, so at the moment, there's not much point.
To it's embarrassment, Slifeshare only ships with support for the Mac, and the Firefox browser -- unless I missed something. I haven't yet read their blog, so I don't know if this is just some sort of retro MS bigotry, or a curious take on business strategy. I'm willing to believe there's an inordinate percentage of FF and Mac users among early adopters than is the case generally, but I don't believe they're in the majority. If anyone has data that says otherwise, I'm ready to stand corrected.
As you may know, I count myself (someone must) among those focused on the realization of the social web. It's an exploration and a service -- the two things I'm most passionate about. Anyway, a necessary part of that effort will be the redesign of the web user experience along social lines. And the first step in that direction is to breath a little life into the UI.
So what would that mean? What would it look like? Let's start simple and leave out the interaction component -- the social engagement component -- and focus only on life in basic design. I've been studying the work of Christopher Alexander lately. I believe this quote of his provides a clue to assessing the life in things -- even in things of the web designed kind:
One aspect of this structure is the "wabi-to-sabi" of Zen teaching: the Japanese concept of beauty which is best translated as "rusty beauty." These things are all beautiful, but they are all damaged. Life itself is damaged, and nothing which is perfect can be truly alive.
The following is, I believe, an example of the difference between what's rusty beauty and what's not:
Life:
This is in my front yard and the kids actually hang there sometimes.
No life:
This is not mine, but I own something like it another part of my yard. The old-fashioned tire swing in the front sees a lot more action.
Examples in web design are trickier if only because professionals seem to be trained to deliver anything but life. Professional "practice", commonly held beliefs regarding professionalism, appear to get in the way. That's further complicated by the tier two, or content, focus that dominates the web design, and web usage, mind set today -- though of course the latter is quickly changing.
With all that said, here are some examples of the inorganic: machine-like thing one; we-are-Vista-resistance-is-futile example two. I picked on Microsoft, but I could have picked any two, three, or fifty pages at random from any corporate site in the world and got the same results. Those are just two of billions of pages we might have selected.
As an aside, I have reason to believe the first example is coming around -- before I left, we were pushing simple things like by-lines and photo's of contributors. Little things like that go a long way towards humanizing a site. "Microsoft" doesn't publish a thing -- only the real people that work there create and publish. For example, where does your eye go on this page? The photo's, however, have to be real.
I'm just certain the lovely folks above were caught right in the middle of a session with our Home Products. Does anybody actually like to see photos of usually colorful and always attractive people pretending to be engaged in stereotypically fun and meaningful activities?
MySpace, unsurprisingly, offers a number of examples of both living and less alive sites (I just can't bring myself to expose examples of "less alive" individual Myspace sites -- though you might consider my own MySpace. I've done nothing whatever with it. I'm just not a Myspace kind of guy). It is, of course, the very unruliness of Myspace properties that the quote from Alexander suggests can contribute to "life". And it's that same unruliness that makes a lot of people cringe -- though perhaps they cringe less because of any inherent failure of the sites themselves and more because of the blatant disregard for the status quo in web design they represent. Criticism is a common reward for taking the path less traveled.
Still, professional web design is far from hopeless. Even tier two designs can "look alive". I visited the venerable CSS Zen Garden site in search of examples of rusty life. Sadly, despite attractive fonts, colors, and tasteful graphics, I got no sense of life from the landing page itself. Elegance in Simplicity struck me the same way -- a bit like the room in your mom's house you weren't allowed to enter. Several others did, however, feel more alive to me:
I was torn over Lily Pond.
In closing I should point out that it's not at all clear (to me at least) that Alexander himself would concede that "life" is even possible in virtual spaces. I'd like to ask him.
And it may be that my view here is tempered by a reaction against the apparently contrived, and an equal and opposite pull in the direction of authenticity. Sure "authenticity" sounds good, and "apparently contrived" sounds bad, but it's tough to know how much is lasting change, or the natural evolution of a more "fit" solution, and how much is counter-culture claptrap. I suppose we can only do the best we know and let time sort it out. For the time being, it's Wabi-sabi for me. That should only take a lifetime or two.
I've moved to the Office Live team and I couldn't be happier about it.
For years now I've been focused on social computing solutions in one way or another. Most recently, I've lead a team of product managers defining next generation social computing tools: new forums, combined social bookmarking and site tagging solutions, social recognition systems, and more. Now I have the opportunity to put technology to use to support a community for which I have primary responsibility. (And you never know, we might just sneak a new social "utility", or two, into the mix.)
Specifically, and in the near term, I'll be building out community for the Office Live team focusing first on support solutions for the new Workspaces service. We're only open for "pre-registration" at the moment, but service availability isn't far off.
Workspace is useful out the door and will only get better. It's especially interesting for me given that the audience for it will consist of people far more engaged in the new online social experience than was the case way back when I last had direct community engagement responsibilities.
What's first? A Workspace team blog -- of course. That shouldn't take long. Expect to see it in the next three to four weeks.