Peter Kim offers an interesting observation on the way social networking relates to the qualities of Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon and the insight offered by Michel Foucault that Bentham’s design served as an exemplar for organizational discipline in the industrial age. Peter notes that Bentham’s design made prisoners uncertain whether the prison guards were watching their behavior at any particular moment. He also points out that the design of modern cube farms in offices not only foster collaboration but also afford observation by managers and peers.
E-Learning 2.0 and Employee Access to Social Network Sites
September 26, 2008
5 Comments | 
Collaboration, Community 2.0, e-Learning 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Social Media, Social Networks, Web 2.0 | Tagged: e-Learning 2.0, elearning 2.0, panopticon, social networking, Web 2.0 | 
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Posted by Larry Irons
Ethnography and Second Life
September 25, 2008
I don’t usually discuss books or reports without contextualizing the discussion. However, I’ve just begun reading a book that merits mention before digesting how it fits either strategically or tactically with experience design issues.
Skilful Minds first discussed virtual anthropology several years ago noting the following.
The term points to the ability of customer researchers to now tap into the stories about personal experience that increasing numbers of people are providing online…But, keep in mind that the people offering their stories and experiences for your edification are not doing it for you.
3 Comments | Customer Communities, Digital Ethnography, Ethnography, Experience Design, User Experience | Tagged: Experience Design, second life, virtual anthropology, Web 2.0 | Permalink
Posted by Larry Irons
Social Software, Community, and Organization: Where Practice Meets Process
September 18, 2008
Ross Mayfield of SocialText recently pointed to a longstanding issue involving the relationship of organizational practices and organizational processes. He offered a discussion of distributed collaboration and community, specifically on the question of which organizational stakeholder is the most effective leader of community (internal and external) initiatives. Ross suggests that even though we may see the emergence of a Chief Community Officer to align and coordinate internal and external communities, communities are more likely to arise around organizational processes as 360 degree process communities.
In my view, approaching distributed collaboration from the standpoint of community alone, especially communities internal to the enterprise, is overly restrictive. Collective understanding and collaborative understanding, as Thomas Vander Wahl makes clear, are different parts of what he refers to as the social sofware stack. Without getting overly picky, let me agree with Ross’ point that the development of internal communities in enterprises will most likely occur around the way process owners manage routine work and its exceptions. Nevertheless, the distinction Ross makes, following Mike Gotta, about the difference between processes (how work is supposed to get done) and practices (how work actually gets done) really indicates a need to keep in focus the range of connections and interactions that social software enables.
9 Comments | Collaboration, Community 2.0, e-Learning 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Innovation, Social Media | Tagged: Collaboration, Community 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Social Media, social software, Web 2.0 | Permalink
Posted by Larry Irons
Skilful Minds 