Shirky on Social Software Summit Clay Shirky writes in OpenP2P.com about using In-Room Chat as a Social Tool at the Social Software Summit many of us have been guessing about.
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The in-room chat created a two-channel experience -- a live conversation in the room, and an overlapping real-time text conversation. The experiment was a strong net positive for the group. Most social software is designed as a replacement for face-to-face meetings, but the spread of permanet (connectivity like air) provides opportunities for social software to be used by groups who are already gathered in the same location. For us, the chat served as a kind of social whiteboard...
The core observation, though, is that under certain conditions, groups can find value in participating in two simultaneous conversation spaces, one real and one virtual. |
The article discusses some specific advantages:
- It changed interrupt logic
- "Note to self" became "Note to world"
- High-quality text annotation
- Less whispering, more
whispering
- Alleviated boredom
The primary disadvantage is how adding a parallel unmoderated mode of communication changes the logic of interruption.
I have two major takeaways from this article: a difference in the definition of social software and applicability of these tools to enhance meetings.
I have a broader definition of social software than that presented by this article, Social Software adapts to its environment, instead of requiring its environment to adapt to software. I believe this is more deeply rooted in applying social network theory to software design. Whereas this experiment focused on using software to enhance social dynamics. As Seb noted in his social software wiki, the question may be: How will the Web change how we interact socially? I hope I am contributing progressively rather than regressing or diverging. So I pose this question to you -- are these definitions and opportunities divergent? For now or will they converge?
Meetings within an organization are primarily status contests. See Owens, D. A. & Bob Sutton (2000) Meetings as status contests: Negotiating order in on-going workgroups, In M. Turner (Ed.) Groups at work: Advances in theory and research. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum, in press. In this paper they define interruption as a primary move an actor can use in status negotiations. Specifically those with higher status use interruption to mediate moves made by others to enhance their status.
Outside an organization, say in a conference where there is no hierarchy, the dynamics can allow chnages in interruption logic. This was the case at Supernova as well, where the parallel universe of blogging added value. But it required real adjustment, and interruption served to add as well as detract from the learning and social experience.
As social software, as exemplified by communication tools that complement social interaction evolves -- the key question is how much software forces a change in behavior (a cost) to create new functions (a benefit), or are their complementary adaptions to social, personal and cultural norms. In other words, are we on the verge of a new way of processing or is there a more evolutionary path?
1:28:15 PM 
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