• 09:41 Web 2.0 is now employed as techno-marketing gob­bledy­gook meant to obfus­cate ordi­nary peo­ple into… tinyurl.com/2be58n @somewhatfrank #
• 09:54 @jed­hal­lam cheers and thanks for find­ing this www.liberatemedia.com/resource/ … not pretty, but packed w/ links and resources #
• 10:12 Sta­tus sto­ries: “This isn’t about brands telling their story to the masses, but help­ing indi­vid­u­als tell sto­ries.” tinyurl.com/37tgfp #
• 10:47 @aman­dachapel the sto­ries that may be inter­est­ing to you may not be inter­est­ing to me, whereas mass media imposes sto­ries on every­one alike #
• 10:56 @aman­dachapel com­mer­cial imper­a­tive vets for sto­ries, thereby cater­ing to low­est com­mon denom­i­na­tor in order to please the most #
• 11:05 @aman­dachapel lol! don’t put words in my mouth. I’m not advo­cat­ing sub­sti­tu­tion, but greater choice #
• 11:07 Tak­ing a break, back after lunch … later, tweeps #
• 11:50 @aman­dachapel In the­ory but not in prac­tice; MSM com­pet­ing for the ad buck leads to pop­u­lar rather than intel­lec­tual choices, for exam­ple #
• 11:52 @aman­dachapel I don’t feel intel­lec­tu­ally dimin­ished by the stuff I read online, much of which is writ­ten by con­tacts and friends. Do you? #
• 11:56 @aman­dachapel Let’s close: dis­cussing MSM v. Social Media in 140 char­ac­ter sound­bites is aca­d­e­mic and ulti­mately, fruit­less #
• 16:05 “Social cap­i­tal pro­vides actors in the net­work with access to broader sources of infor­ma­tion at lower costs.” tinyurl.com/25w6xz #
• 16:17 Note to self: the mutu­ally con­structed story/fiction about objects forms the social ties that bind (and cap­i­tal), not the object per se #
• 16:45 Uploaded Brazil mix to Mux­tape alexdc.muxtape.com/ @nicolau @brbreslin #
• 16:49 @ben­trem Ads not only con­tent abt objects, but frame­works thru which objects are trans­lated into social rela­tions tinyurl.com/2appq7 #
• 16:54 @nico­lau @lkomatsu Thanks! I saw Seu Jorge play three times in Paris in 2005, always awe­some. @brbreslin saw him in Miami last yr. #
• 21:00 @sass Beam us both to Vegas! And live long and pros­per! @jchutchins #

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• 08:29 Best one I’ve run across tinyurl.com/2axqts #
• 11:58 CNN’s Polly LaBarre clearly explains cowork­ing tinyurl.com/3byk2q (video) #
• 12:37 @rafe Will Friend­Feed add a way to sort friends into groups? Also, how about improved mobile access? Thanks! #
• 12:59 You real­ize the Hillary-Obama internecine feud’s more abt Media than abt them, right? Con­tro­versy sells. TV speaks to emo­tion, not intel­lect #
• 15:03 Accord­ing to Richard Florida’s map, there are more sin­gle women than men on the East Coast … via @stoweboyd #
• 15:05 “Per­cent­age of chart which resem­bles Pac-man” via @ross … LOL #
• 15:07 oops, for­got to link to Pac-man chart tinyurl.com/2aqmx3 #
• 15:28 And here’s my pre­vi­ously omit­ted link to Richard Florida’s Sin­gles Map flickr.com/photos/stoweboyd/2379444257/ via @stoweboyd #
• 16:14 WHAT??? Did @hillaryclinton just tweet this? “I have a pro­posal – I chal­lenge Sen­a­tor Obama to a bowl-off, win­ner takes all.” #
• 16:28 @she­lis­rael clar­i­fies Loren’s ( @1938media ) angle twitter.com/shelisrael/statuses/781023334 #
• 16:44 Socialth­ing works if I remove Twit­ter. So Twit­ter on Twhirl and Flickr and FB on SocialTh­ing = fol­low­ing ~ 2,700 con­tacts across 3 ser­vices #
• 16:48 “Legacy is greater than cur­rency” says @garyvee … check it out tinyurl.com/33txq2 (video) #
• 16:49 @dav­e­fleet I’m fol­low­ing 1,400 peo­ple on Twit­ter and if floods my Socialth­ing. Twit­ter is much bet­ter left to Twhirl or Friend­Feed. #
• 16:54 @indiekid thanks, there’s great value in see­ing Flickr, FB and other stuff from my friends w/o these get­ting lost in a flood of tweets #
• 17:16 @warhawke socialth­ing and friend­feed are sim­i­lar ser­vices, w/ dif­fer­ences in lifestream aggre­ga­tion, friend­ing and pri­vacy set­tings #
• 17:18 @metophile Over­all @barackobama has used the inter­net much more effec­tively than @hillaryclinton Do you think it’s just demop­graph­ics?. #
• 17:44 @warhawke I’m try­ing both and I’ll prob­a­bly stick with both. The first one that allows you to group friends, wins. @socialthing @friendfeed #
• 18:23 South Florida tweet­ers: Miami Tweetup sched­uled at 4 p.m. Sat. 4/19 at Monty’s SoBe (300 Alton Rd.) … with spe­cial out of town­ers too! #
• 18:29 GNE! “Just like in real life, 3 differently-hued bars rep­re­sent the inte­ger val­ues of your energy, mood and karma” tinyurl.com/2pnfak #
• 19:13 Learn­ing the vocab­u­lary & vested inter­ests around the issue of water reveals opp­tys for con­nec­tions and com­mu­nity build­ing, to affect change #
• 19:22 @joi con­grats on your new role at CC! tinyurl.com/32wju9 #
• 20:31 Kim Grin­feder from the U.of Miami has done an out­stand­ing job with The Water Project’s site www.1h2o.org/ and this may evolve fur­ther #
• 21:07 AFAIK @shelisrael ini­ti­ated the dis­cus­sion on cor­po­rate adop­tion of social media. If you’re into cor­po­rate com­mu­nity build­ing, fol­low Shel #

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• 14:01 @jame­sat­babyspot @brbreslin Twitterberry’s good for see­ing @ replies, but crit­i­cally miss­ing direct mes­sages. Doh. #
• 14:02 @sass dude, enjoy Vegas #
• 14:06 @cindyli I’v been pretty happy with a 70-200mm lens for the Canon, most of my lat­est pics have been taken with that (flickr.com/photos/adc) #
• 14:13 Retweet @dbrowell ” @jowyang I think some see Twit­ter as an every­man RSS feed; like people-watching in the mall or air­port” … Agreed! #
• 14:16 Pro­pos­als for web2expo NYC are due tomor­row -> have you sub­mit­ted yours yet? www.web2expo.com/ny (via @msg ) #
• 14:24 @jowyang DMs are cer­tain to be seen, like e-mail. @ replies are not as sure to be seen and carry lower rec­i­p­ro­cal oblig­a­tion to reply #
• 14:29 @blog­world @steverubel so then what do you call media w/o social affor­dances? Soli­tary media? #
• 14:50 @archim­age Social media ser­vices deliver more value to you when you have friends. Twit­ter, Friend­Feed, soc­nets, etc. are not much fun alone. #
• 14:53 @ryan­car­son Con­grats on the good news! #
• 15:42 @steverubel say­ing all media is social is like say­ing all banks are retail. It’s clearly not the case. Dis­tinc­tions are nec­es­sary and use­ful #
• 16:25 @steverubel w/ time, social media will trump MSM + the kid’s table anal­ogy will be a moot point; car­ry­ing ads doesn’t inval­i­date the social #
• 16:41 @Scobleizer Two requests for Friend­Feed: group­ing friends, like you can on FB. And a 140 char­ac­ter count­down on com­ment field tin … #
• 17:38 @acarvin I liked you obladi-oblada-life goes on exam­ple to explain Bit­Tor­rent on NPR #
• 20:57 @eve11 @shelisrael My pol­icy: if you can be iden­ti­fied w/ real name or blog link, you @reply peo­ple and you don’t spam, I’ll fol­low you back #

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• 14:01 @jame­sat­babyspot @brbreslin Twitterberry’s good for see­ing @ replies, but crit­i­cally miss­ing direct mes­sages. Doh. #
• 14:02 @sass dude, enjoy Vegas #
• 14:06 @cindyli I’v been pretty happy with a 70-200mm lens for the Canon, most of my lat­est pics have been taken with that (flickr.com/photos/adc) #
• 14:13 Retweet @dbrowell ” @jowyang I think some see Twit­ter as an every­man RSS feed; like people-watching in the mall or air­port” … Agreed! #
• 14:16 Pro­pos­als for web2expo NYC are due tomor­row -> have you sub­mit­ted yours yet? www.web2expo.com/ny (via @msg ) #
• 14:24 @jowyang DMs are cer­tain to be seen, like e-mail. @ replies are not as sure to be seen and carry lower rec­i­p­ro­cal oblig­a­tion to reply #
• 14:29 @blog­world @steverubel so then what do you call media w/o social affor­dances? Soli­tary media? #
• 14:50 @archim­age Social media ser­vices deliver more value to you when you have friends. Twit­ter, Friend­Feed, soc­nets, etc. are not much fun alone. #
• 14:53 @ryan­car­son Con­grats on the good news! #
• 15:42 @steverubel say­ing all media is social is like say­ing all banks are retail. It’s clearly not the case. Dis­tinc­tions are nec­es­sary and use­ful #
• 16:25 @steverubel w/ time, social media will trump MSM + the kid’s table anal­ogy will be a moot point; car­ry­ing ads doesn’t inval­i­date the social #
• 16:41 @Scobleizer Two requests for Friend­Feed: group­ing friends, like you can on FB. And a 140 char­ac­ter count­down on com­ment field tin … #
• 17:38 @acarvin I liked you obladi-oblada-life goes on exam­ple to explain Bit­Tor­rent on NPR #
• 20:57 @eve11 @shelisrael My pol­icy: if you can be iden­ti­fied w/ real name or blog link, you @reply peo­ple and you don’t spam, I’ll fol­low you back #

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• 23:16 So now we’re at the house­warm­ing of Miami Brik-O-Lodge, Miami’s 1st cowork­ing com­mu­nity! Lodge-warming, that is #
• 23:22 Over­heard “Spokeo should be called spooky-o” LOL! #
• 12:51 Speak­ing on a “Social Media / Web 2.0″ panel today at Microsoft spon­sored Busi­ness & Tech con­fer­ence at FIU tinyurl.com/2xau8t #
• 13:17 Miami’s first cowork­ing space, looks nice tinyurl.com/338hu2 via @alexdesigns #
• 16:24 On the panel right now, it’s being mod­er­ated by @zameer #
• 17:19 Social Media panel went great, got a few new Twit­ter con­verts Thanks, @zameer , for orga­niz­ing and mod­er­at­ing this ses­sion. #
• 17:22 Now watch­ing Demian Bel­lu­mio of Cyloop.com latin soc­net for music, for­merly elhood.com; 50 FTE; cap­i­tal raised $13M #
• 20:17 Who knew the folks at FIU were so nice? And awe­some to see Miami-based Cyloop enjoy such suc­cess hoodiny.com #

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• 23:15 @trishussey agreed, Twit­ter­berry is *very* lim­ited, it doesn’t even dis­play direct mes­sages … #
• 23:21 @sass ASUS eee rawks! I got one a cou­ple of weeks ago #
• 08:12 @San­droDel­Mundo Wel­come to Twit­ter! Hope you’re enjoy­ing Floripa, what a won­der­ful place to be tinyurl.com/3baqlh #
• 09:21 @f so true … Twit­ter used to be more like IRC but many are pro­tect­ing their tweets #
• 09:25 @fred­wil­son Reply­ing on Twit­ter via friend­feed is the way to go, it makes the con­ver­sa­tion more man­age­able #
• 10:14 “If the inter­net has ever had a sin­gle defin­ing fea­ture, it is its social nature.” quot­ing @dalziel in tinyurl.com/2l6b9e #
• 12:34 @tech­no­sailor Good luck, man tinyurl.com/36bf9j #
• 15:05 Knight Foun­da­tion funds major, $60M local arts ini­tia­tive in So Fla tinyurl.com/29pj8x #
• 15:21 Enjoy­ing these street mar­ket­ing tips from Fresh­Books tinyurl.com/2bj393 #
• 16:10 “Life out of bal­ance” (kooy­anisqatsi), on Flickr tinyurl.com/2n2tw7 #
• 16:22 @rolfk­leef are you involved w/ Nabuur.com? @chrisheuer pointed me to it, I’d love to talk about Nabuur w/ you. #
• 17:13 @mis­s­rogue nice new look on HPC, con­grats #
• 21:01 Co-presented w/ @montgomery the “evo­lu­tion of com­mu­ni­ca­tion and oppor­tu­ni­ties in social media” #
• 21:02 Now learn­ing about Brik-o-lodge, 1st Miami cowork­ing com­mu­nity #

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• 11:17 Met over break­fast with @onajide of miamiartexchange.com , mak­ing great strides bring­ing the South Florida art com­mu­nity together #
• 11:57 Twit­bin has racked up 971,000 logged-in hours in less than a year; that’s over 40,000 days! Con­grats to @brbreslin @xavierb and @twitbin #
• 14:20 Get­ting inspired by nabuur.com — an online vol­un­teer and non-microloan type of kiva.org #
• 14:33 I’m stunned by this num­ber: Orkut’s largest com­mu­nity has 7.890.942 mem­bers! tinyurl.com/2bhswq #
• 14:37 @chrisheuer If you remem­ber who was inter­ested in Nabuur, please let me know. Maybe it was one of the chaps with the MOO crew in Austin? #
• 14:43 @rslux True, it’s an under­state­ment to say there’s a fair amount of spam in Orkut. And yet, there’s *NO* spam in that group’s forum … #
• 14:46 @the­dud­edean How do you get your Google account hacked in Orkut? Do you have a link to that? #
• 14:57 @the­dud­edean thanks for the head’s up, time to change Google pass­word again … #
• 15:43 NTen.org is hold­ing its first 501 Tech Club meetup in SW Fla, March 28th, 6:30pm at Cal­is­toga Bak­ery Cafe in Naples — via @annaliese_h #
• 16:17 LOL! Retweet­ing @marcuscouch ” @JasonCalacanis I think at 5K Friends there is a Boss Fight before the game ends.” #
• 17:34 Busi­ness plan: done. Lunch: now. Web­site text: next. Pre­pare pre­sen­ta­tion: later. Whew! #
• 17:50 @bokardo @soldierant good point, met­rics should account for behav­ioral growth by both social media users and the web­ser­vice itself #
• 19:28 @gap­ingvoid A ta santé ! www.gapingvoid.com/bootpic001.jpg #
• 20:40 @hyku Kudos for a great Blo­gOr­lando 2007, I’m look­ing for­wards to the next one this fall #

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• 23:14 Well writ­ten and illus­trated blog posts are a plea­sure to read; here’s an analy­sis of “The Evo­lu­tion of Web­sites” tinyurl.com/2lnzhu #
• 23:17 busi­ness plan first and fore­most; pre­sen­ta­tion on evo­lu­tion of com­mu­ni­ca­tion and impacts on social media next pri­or­ity #
• 11:17 Met over break­fast with @onajide of miamiartexchange.com , mak­ing great strides bring­ing the South Florida art com­mu­nity together #
• 11:57 Twit­bin has racked up 971,000 logged-in hours in less than a year; that’s over 40,000 days! Con­grats to @brbreslin @xavierb and @twitbin #
• 14:20 Get­ting inspired by nabuur.com — an online vol­un­teer and non-microloan type of kiva.org #
• 14:33 I’m stunned by this num­ber: Orkut’s largest com­mu­nity has 7.890.942 mem­bers! tinyurl.com/2bhswq #
• 14:37 @chrisheuer If you remem­ber who was inter­ested in Nabuur, please let me know. Maybe it was one of the chaps with the MOO crew in Austin? #
• 14:43 @rslux True, it’s an under­state­ment to say there’s a fair amount of spam in Orkut. And yet, there’s *NO* spam in that group’s forum … #
• 14:46 @the­dud­edean How do you get your Google account hacked in Orkut? Do you have a link to that? #
• 14:57 @the­dud­edean thanks for the head’s up, time to change Google pass­word again … #
• 15:43 NTen.org is hold­ing its first 501 Tech Club meetup in SW Fla, March 28th, 6:30pm at Cal­is­toga Bak­ery Cafe in Naples — via @annaliese_h #
• 16:17 LOL! Retweet­ing @marcuscouch ” @JasonCalacanis I think at 5K Friends there is a Boss Fight before the game ends.” #
• 17:34 Busi­ness plan: done. Lunch: now. Web­site text: next. Pre­pare pre­sen­ta­tion: later. Whew! #
• 17:50 @bokardo @soldierant good point, met­rics should account for behav­ioral growth by both social media users and the web­ser­vice itself #
• 19:28 @gap­ingvoid A ta santé ! www.gapingvoid.com/bootpic001.jpg #
• 20:40 @hyku Kudos for a great Blo­gOr­lando 2007, I’m look­ing for­wards to the next one this fall #

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• 23:14 Well writ­ten and illus­trated blog posts are a plea­sure to read; here’s an analy­sis of “The Evo­lu­tion of Web­sites” tinyurl.com/2lnzhu #
• 23:17 busi­ness plan first and fore­most; pre­sen­ta­tion on evo­lu­tion of com­mu­ni­ca­tion and impacts on social media next pri­or­ity #
• 11:17 Met over break­fast with @onajide of miamiartexchange.com , mak­ing great strides bring­ing the South Florida art com­mu­nity together #
• 11:57 Twit­bin has racked up 971,000 logged-in hours in less than a year; that’s over 40,000 days! Con­grats to @brbreslin @xavierb and @twitbin #
• 14:20 Get­ting inspired by nabuur.com — an online vol­un­teer and non-microloan type of kiva.org #
• 14:33 I’m stunned by this num­ber: Orkut’s largest com­mu­nity has 7.890.942 mem­bers! tinyurl.com/2bhswq #
• 14:37 @chrisheuer If you remem­ber who was inter­ested in Nabuur, please let me know. Maybe it was one of the chaps with the MOO crew in Austin? #
• 14:43 @rslux True, it’s an under­state­ment to say there’s a fair amount of spam in Orkut. And yet, there’s *NO* spam in that group’s forum … #
• 14:46 @the­dud­edean How do you get your Google account hacked in Orkut? Do you have a link to that? #
• 14:57 @the­dud­edean thanks for the head’s up, time to change Google pass­word again … #
• 15:43 NTen.org is hold­ing its first 501 Tech Club meetup in SW Fla, March 28th, 6:30pm at Cal­is­toga Bak­ery Cafe in Naples — via @annaliese_h #
• 16:17 LOL! Retweet­ing @marcuscouch ” @JasonCalacanis I think at 5K Friends there is a Boss Fight before the game ends.” #
• 17:34 Busi­ness plan: done. Lunch: now. Web­site text: next. Pre­pare pre­sen­ta­tion: later. Whew! #
• 17:50 @bokardo @soldierant good point, met­rics should account for behav­ioral growth by both social media users and the web­ser­vice itself #
• 19:28 @gap­ingvoid A ta santé ! www.gapingvoid.com/bootpic001.jpg #
• 20:40 @hyku Kudos for a great Blo­gOr­lando 2007, I’m look­ing for­wards to the next one this fall #

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Sergeant Jalo­nen must have spent his child­hood in a con­crete sandbox

After I grad­u­ated from col­lege, I com­pleted manda­tory mil­i­tary ser­vice in the Finnish Army. The year-long expe­ri­ence yielded intense expe­ri­ences, life­long friend­ships and lots of sto­ries. One of them comes to mind: Jalo­nen and I were the first two sol­diers from our com­pany to be pro­moted to the rank of Sergeant. While I was pro­moted for tech­ni­cal skills in field oper­a­tions, Jalo­nen was cho­sen because he was a strict dis­ci­pli­nar­ian, as tough as nails. So tough was he, that our company’s sol­diers con­cluded among them­selves that he must have spent his child­hood in a con­crete sandbox!

Sur­round­ings and sit­u­a­tions affect your behavior

I never gave this story much thought except to joke about it with my friends.  Aside from the humor, how­ever, the sug­ges­tion is that a child­hood spent play­ing in con­crete sand­box will toughen you up. Were they too quick to judge? What part of Jalonen’s per­son­al­ity is attrib­ut­able to a dif­fi­cult child­hood, and what part is attrib­ut­able to the sit­u­a­tion of being in the army?

In “Blink,” Mal­colm Glad­well describes how peo­ple tend to over-emphasize personality-based expla­na­tions for behav­iors and dis­re­gard sit­u­a­tional ones (see fun­da­men­tal attri­bu­tion error). For instance, it’s tempt­ing to stereo­type a work col­league by say­ing “she’s tough nego­tia­tor.” How­ever, that same per­son may be seen dif­fer­ently by friends and fam­ily, who might describe the same per­son by aspects not nec­es­sar­ily shown at work: “fun-loving, car­ing, gen­er­ous, etc.” Uni­ver­sity of Oslo pro­fes­sor Ole Hanseth fur­ther explains,

You do not go about doing your busi­ness in a total vac­uum but rather under the influ­ence of a wide range of sur­round­ing fac­tors. The act you are car­ry­ing out and all of these influ­enc­ing fac­tors should be con­sid­ered together. This is exactly what the term actor net­work accom­plishes. An actor net­work, then, is the act linked together with all of its influ­enc­ing fac­tors (which again are linked), pro­duc­ing a network.

Can your phys­i­cal sur­round­ings act as an influ­enc­ing fac­tor on your behav­ior? Social Sci­en­tist Roger Barker exten­sively researched see Archi­tec­tural Psy­chol­ogy and found that, quite obvi­ously, “In a store, peo­ple assume their roles as cus­tomers; in school and church, proper behav­ior some­how already resides coded in the place”.

The object-centered environment

A store and a wed­ding are social objects (because they’re con­ver­sa­tion starters and top­ics for peo­ple). They are also object-centered envi­ron­ments. You step into a sit­u­a­tion that struc­tures your behav­ior. Both phys­i­cal struc­tures like stores, churches and pub­lic parks and sit­u­a­tional events like wed­dings, soc­cer games and flash­mobs con­di­tion the par­tic­i­pants’ behav­ior to per­form a cer­tain objec­tive col­lec­tively with like-minded others.

Work is a com­mon form of social object as well as an object-centered envi­ron­ment. When you go to work, you “plug-in” to an envi­ron­ment where you then social­ize with your col­leagues and cus­tomers, because you work at the same place. If you telecom­mute, you’re still “plugged in” to the work you do with your col­leagues. For instance, traders around the world plug in to finan­cial mar­kets. Such envi­ron­ments are rich social objects, both pos­i­tively and neg­a­tively. Think about the num­ber of var­ied work-related con­ver­sa­tions you’ve had over the years!

Mould­ing your environment

In Roger Barker’s research, the places were clearly iden­ti­fied with a set loca­tion and pur­pose, like a hard­ware store, a high school, a denom­i­na­tional church or a finan­cial mar­ket, like the Chicago Board of Trade (see Karin Knorr-Cetina’s paper on “The Mar­ket as an Object of Attach­ment”). But what about when you per­form a dif­fer­ent activ­ity in a loca­tion gen­er­ally meant for some­thing else? For exam­ple, a wed­ding may be per­formed nearly any­where. In Hawaii, Florida and the many other coastal areas, wed­dings may be car­ried out on a beach. In this case, the wed­ding super­sedes the beach-going activ­ity and con­di­tions the guests’ behav­ior. The wed­ding rit­ual is gen­er­ally stan­dard within cul­tures, and every­one knows what to expect: gath­er­ing, union, bless­ing, and cel­e­bra­tion. Other exam­ples include a birth­day party in a play­ground, pub­lic man­i­fes­ta­tions in city streets, flash­mobs in a store, doing work inside a Starbuck’s, Tup­per­Ware din­ners in someone’s liv­ing room, street soc­cer games, rock con­certs inside Sec­ond Life, clas­si­cal con­certs inside a church and a Bar­Camp in a con­cert hall. Each of these activ­i­ties bring peo­ple together around a shared object or objec­tive, they include their own rit­u­als, and they are per­formed in a cer­tain way. The objec­tive of the gath­er­ing super­sedes the pur­pose of the loca­tion and the envi­ron­ment is molded to suit the gathering’s pur­pose. Chairs are placed, tables are setup, goal­posts are erected in a field, and so on (see “Place­mak­ing, the way in which all human beings trans­form the places they find them­selves into the places where they live”).

Bernard Hunt, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of HTA Archi­tects Ltd, talks about life in phys­i­cal spaces:

The phys­i­cal form of a place is only one side [of the coin]. The way life is lived in it, and the com­mon pur­pose around which that life revolves, is the other. And from cave dwellers to loft liv­ers human beings have always used places to achieve their com­mon pur­pose .… Some­how things were eas­ier when that pur­pose was pro­tec­tion against the ele­ments, defence from attack and con­trol of dis­ease. Suc­cess­ful place­mak­ing seemed to hap­pen when what was built was in direct response to imper­a­tives like defence and topog­ra­phy and also when it was done unself­con­sciously by dif­fer­ent peo­ple at dif­fer­ent times.

Barry Smith, Depart­ment of Phi­los­o­phy at the Uni­ver­sity of Buf­falo, writes:

A physical-behavioural unit such as a reli­gious meet­ing, a ten­nis cham­pi­onship or a sea bat­tle is an intri­cate com­plex of times, places, actions, and things. Its con­stituents can include both man-made ele­ments (build­ings, streets, cricket fields, books, pianos, libraries, the bridges and engine-rooms of bat­tle­ships) and also nat­ural fea­tures (hills, lakes, waves, par­tic­u­lar cli­matic fea­tures, pat­terns of light and sound). These fea­tures and ele­ments may be fur­ther restricted to a highly spe­cific com­bi­na­tion of, say, a par­tic­u­lar room in a par­tic­u­lar build­ing at a par­tic­u­lar time with par­tic­u­lar per­sons and par­tic­u­lar objects dis­trib­uted in a par­tic­u­lar pat­tern. In gen­eral, how­ever, it is a form of generic depen­dence which pre­vails in the realm of physical-behavioural units; a judge must hear and decide the case, but it need not be this judge; the cap­i­tal city must be located some­where, but it need not be located in this spot (and in time of war it may be relocated).

So whether the sit­u­a­tion is dic­tated by the pur­pose of the loca­tion or the pur­pose of the gath­er­ing, you behave accord­ing to the appro­pri­ate cul­tur­ally estab­lished rules you’ve learned. You have learned how to behave in a store and how to behave in a wed­ding.

What role for space in online com­mu­nity building?

In a dis­cus­sion thread in Jere­miah Owyang’s Com­mu­nity Strate­gists group in Face­book, Jonathan Trenn men­tions:

“I think this is an excel­lent ques­tion, but what con­cerns me is that we are not talk­ing about com­mu­ni­ties here…we’re talk­ing com­mu­nity plat­forms. Impor­tant distinction.”

This begs the ques­tion: to what extent is the plat­form an inte­gral part of the com­mu­nity? To what extent does the plat­form fos­ter or con­di­tion com­mu­nity behav­ior? Offline, a bas­ket­ball court may be an inte­gral part of a local com­mu­nity, just like a bingo hall, church, com­mu­nity cen­ter, gro­cery store, etc. If you take away such spaces, you would expect the com­mu­nity to change, because you would restrict the dif­fer­ent areas and rea­sons for peo­ple to find each other and inter­act based on their shared inter­ests. Does this same dynamic play online? To what degree does the archi­tec­ture, fea­tures and tools of the com­mu­nity spaces you pro­vide fos­ter or restrict com­mu­nity inter­ac­tion? (see Karin Knorr-Cetina’s work on “The Mar­ket as an Object of Attach­ment” is worth fur­ther read­ing for the notions of “wants and lacks”, “attach­ment” and “embed­ded­ness” in community.)

The way the online space is designed has wide rang­ing impli­ca­tions for com­mu­nity inter­ac­tion. “Social Design” deci­sions include whether to allow peo­ple to cre­ate a pro­file page, upload a pic­ture, write a bio, tag their con­tent, add book­marks on con­tent and peo­ple, com­ment on oth­ers’ cre­ations, add friends, deter­mine pri­vacy set­tings, invite friends, pub­lish to other plat­forms, cre­ate and mod­er­ate groups, browse pro­files and con­tent, “pivot” from one page to another, have per­son­al­ized URLs, receive email noti­fi­ca­tions of activ­ity, vote and rate con­tent, engage in phatic com­mu­ni­ca­tion, receive a mini-feed of friends’ activ­ity after login, clas­sify friends, par­tic­i­pate in pub­lic forums, and so on. These design deci­sions affect space, because each of these actions and activ­i­ties have a place­holder on the website.

Unlike a media like TV, mag­a­zines and other tra­di­tional media, social media is highly par­tic­i­pa­tory and cre­ated through the active con­tri­bu­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion of peo­ple inter­act­ing with each other. Each design deci­sion and how it is expressed on the web­site, leads to far-reaching impli­ca­tions for the com­mu­nity. And if these deci­sions are not made and cer­tain fea­tures are not pro­vided, the com­mu­nity will find a way to either adapt their space or to find other spaces where they may engage in con­ver­sa­tion and activity.

Back to Jalonen’s con­crete sandbox

To tell you the truth, mil­i­tary ser­vice is not such a pleas­ant expe­ri­ence. There are thou­sands of con­straints on space, time and pri­vacy. Your iden­tity is formed daily in front of oth­ers through your behav­ior and actions. Hero­ics are per­formed and tiny hacks are found to break the rigid­ity. We found a way to build friend­ships and com­mu­nity, regard­less of the hard­ships. Over­all, how­ever, rel­a­tively few cher­ish the envi­ron­ment enough to want to make a career of it. It is not so much that Jalonen’s youth was spent in a con­crete sand­box, but that the army sit­u­a­tion itself was a fig­u­ra­tive con­crete sandbox.

Are your service’s users stuck in a con­crete sand­box? How do your website’s fea­tures fos­ter or hin­der iden­tity for­ma­tion, per­sonal expres­sion, pro­file dis­cov­ery, and com­mu­nity inter­ac­tion between peo­ple? Can the com­mu­nity appro­pri­ate and form the space to fit their needs? How might dif­fer­ent cul­tures appro­pri­ate the same website?

This post high­lights the impor­tance of design deci­sions in online com­mu­nity build­ing. Answer­ing these and sim­i­lar ques­tions with an eye to community-building, and before the first trace is drawn, deter­mines to a large extent the community-building and word-of-mouth poten­tial of your web service.

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