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RoundTable 2 - by KKnight

Page history last edited by kknight 15 years, 10 months ago

 

RoundTable 2

by: Kim Knight

 


TH -

  • all computing is social; social artifacts created through socially determined processes
  • collaboration / communication / community intertwined with history of computing
    • early systems dependent upon sharing
  • twitter, myspace, etc. d/n = question of new form; not fundamentally changing the nature of computation, but changing the form
    • increase # / frequency of social contacts
    • medium of contact changes as well 
    • opportunity for shared projects
  • proliferation of free / open source software tools allow individuals/organizations to create sites/applications for collaboration / communication
  • how do you take collaboration and turn it into a constituency?
    • how do you takea group working on a project and create an awareness of shared position, etc.
    • patientslikeme - people who share medical conditions talking about conditions but also sharing data
      • data collection becomes a point of advocacy
        • demanding treatment, inclusion in clinical trials, etc.
  • fundamental challenges in thinking about soc computing from an advocacy standpoint
    • privacy
      • participation in Todd's projects often places a participant at risk
        • arrest in Zimbabwe, etc.
    • how is participation structured?
      • what are the rules of engagement?

 

  • disclaimer: intentionally provocative in order to jumpstart conversation and to overcome the post-lunch stupor
  • An Example:
    • PK has written an article and in the process of a book-length project about this example
    • Internet Bubble - army of well-motivated , well-financed people setting out to (make money?)
      • disastrous exercise in social computing
        • a market is fundamentally social
        • behavioral realities of trading/transactions unknown / ignored
          • lack of interest in behavioral realities resulted in a failure to model
          • also a failure to harvest "extant social wisdom in the existing systems"
            • people were unaware of really clever ways of handling problems
            • no place for unknown social wisdom
              • reciprocal favor-giving in propane market - unknown and therefore systems built with no place for reciprocity
    • all computing is inefficiently / insufficiently social
      • How social is social computing, really?
  • "Rule #1 - The sociology is MORE important than the technology" (Valids Krebs, Orgnet.com)
  • "Social Software is 90% social and 10% software"  (Matthew Mahoney, SocialText)

 

  • AYL - re: PK's rules - is this the case?  Should it be?
    • CP question - where do things like graphics fit in? whole range of "in-between" things that we might call social
      • AYL - complicates the binary
  • MW - what is the "social" that counts for 90% of the equation?
    • why is it assumed that the creation / writing of software isn't also a social dprocess?
    • PK - agrees but who is Matthew Mahoney and what is SocialText?
      • not researchers but someone trying to earn money saying this
      • deploy their tool in a business enterprise setting
    • AYL - Valdis Krebs - 3 degrees of separation; activists trying to bringa corrupt landlord to justice; used data mining to expose an entire conspiracy operating in the background; if the social network of the conspiracy were tracked, you found that 3 degrees of separation close the circuit between the conspirators.  Ah-ha moment - need to be able to see beyond 1 - 2 degrees of separation; a social issues; technology facilitated what could have been done with enough footwork
  • AF - agrees with 90/10 ratio
    • wants to turn it around - that 10%, software, still really important
      • collective action efforts contingent on core features - communication, coordination, etc.
        • software makes those features efficient
  • KA - why assign a weight; leapfrog taking place
    • software co-opted for social setting; software designed for social settings
    • change in ratio as communities change / adapt
  • AYL - changing behaviors of Prius drivers b/c instant feedback - mpg competitions; mileage jocks
  • LS - software determines ground rules of the community
    • tweaks in design of software can completely alter the behavior of the community
      • example: discussion on talk pages on Wikipedia: changed the way people interacted, the way they worked together,
        • removing the discussion from the collectively authored text shifts the dynamic of the way the software is used and changed the nature of the community; less of a free-for-all
      • AYL - are these kinds of consequences predictable?
        • LS - sometimes, but only sometimes
      • LS - 90/10 true because social software creates a community
        • d/n fully realize that Wikipedia was a community in addition to an editorial project
          • no real "ah-ha" moment; gradual realization
          • collaborative software (as distinct from other kinds of social software) creates a community
          • social bookmarking sites as examples of social software w/ a low level of interaction required for interesting / useful results
            • aggregation more than collaboration
  • NvH - iceberg 90% invisible, 10% visible; people pull social software in the direction they want; not always obvious how the invisible portion affects the visible
    • invisible work and articulation work - work people do to make sure things work
    • AYL - necessity for inefficiencies - where informal, wisdom-generation happens
      • Gene ? - Trapped in the Net
        • "being in the bubble" - situational awareness ; if technologies, etc. are misdesigned you cannot have situational awareness
  • TH - software to support existing communities vs. nascent communities / build communities
  • JE - discussions of community
    • ability to not rely on pre-existing homogeneous communities
      • heterogeneous and crossing communities
      • TH's Chinatown project
        • TH - allows immigrants to access services and neighborhood network
          • recruited community members / residents
      • TH's project need to recruit people already a member of the community
    • MoveOn's post-katrina housing database
      • based on people's differences
      • failure of reliance on set, homogeneous communities during disaster
      • build communities, but also take advantage of connecting different community
        • hesitates to think it is all about community
    • TH - solidarity is the missing key term - disparate communities willing to stand in solidarity
      • MoveOn - immediate tactical objectives plus longer term strategy of building constituencies
    • AYL - this bears directly on the projects of the social computing group
      • strong feedback from office of research - need strong diversity argument needed in the proposal
        • we need to show the way that we will cultivate a diverse pipeline
        • interestint to think of htis as a social networking / computing issue
  • BC - one of the reason that sofrware is only 10% is because there is a lot of good open source software (vs. previous situations)
    • AYL - choice between long term careful building of software platforms vs. bottom-up, build it quick, and see what sticks
  • AZ - two comments
    • designing software - how much power do the designers have to increase / decrease the percentage of social in the equation
      • imposes designer's p.o.v.s but does not necessarily represent the community
    • McLuhan - how social can the platform be?  really only one mode vs. the reality of multi-modal communication
    • AYL - connects to JD's comments re: responsibility / power of designers in affecting the field of social computing
      • JD agrees; you should think it through and make your best predictions; users will always appropriate and surprise you
        • AYL - who gave you the power?  Why should you have it? (devil's advocate question)
          • JD - IBM's Beehive
            • everyone can control exactly how they appear
            • eventually put something on everyone's profile page that people did not choose to have there
              • banner that indicated an invite to an elite event
              • people rejected it / reacted negatively
                • vocal uprising of objection which is then responded to, which sometimes generates more protest
                • communities are very powerful
                • designers can set ground rules, but after that point, you don't have as much control as you might like
              • AYL - decision / authority work backwards
                • peer review - you have the authority first, allows you to make decisions
                • web - you put something up, evaluated after the fact
                • unwarranted authority - no one has actually given you the authority; someone ahs to do it; you make the decision and afterwards your authority is evaluated
              • JD - people ended up calling for governance after the system was developed
                • H.R. is already sort of the governance system
                • AYL - also happening in IBM Second Life
                  • normal social arrangements / cues missing in Second LIfe - Clayton Childress worked on this in pedagogical settings
                • RH - is it possible to do a social study of how people are working with technologies to inform better design; or is subversion / repurposing unavoidable? 
                  • NvH - you can never predict
                  • TH - procedures for doing just that
        • TH - in many cases these are not research / pet projects
          • designers constrained by revenue models, etc.
            • also true in non-profit sector
        • LL - the whole conversation about designer authority is dialectic between perfectibility (not gonna happen) and "fixity from above"
          • by definition the dialectic is emergent
            • some groups will want more self/governance, others will want more loose governance
            • no singular solution
            • user pushback is not noise; the use is the technology
          • can't think of possibilities / way ahead w/o framing it in terms of waht already exists
            • also have to realize big hand of the designer is very embedded in what we are talking about here
        • CP - resident medievalist!
          • determinism and free will - drive to exercise free will is omnipresent
            • engineers among us are trying to be determinist
          • AYL - right to the heart of social computing
            • times that we want to be fully plugged into our social communities
            • times we want to be free

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