The document discusses social comfort and how to increase adoption of social software. It argues that social comfort comes from three parts: people, tools, and content. To build comfort with people, it suggests finding similarities and transparency. For tools, it recommends sharing in comfortable spaces through gradual social progressions. With content, striking a balance of personal and shared is key while being empathetic to others. The overall goal is to rethink social interactions and map tools to human needs and values like trust, respect, and comfort rather than technical implementations.

1. Getting More Out of Social with
Focus on Social Comfort
Thomas Vander Wal - InfoCloud Solutions, Inc.
26 March 2012
IA Summit 2012 :: New Orleans, Louisiana

2. Who is Thomas?

3. Non-digital Story

4. Commonwealth Club
of California

5. Understanding Social Software
for Mainstream Adoption

6. “I don’t want to be the company idiot!”

7. Look to human
social interactions

8. Social Scripts

9. Rethink how tools
map to human needs

10. What is Trust?

11. Too many
components to trust

12. Stop using
the term trust

13. Encourage the use
of words that
describe trust

14. Respect Comfort
Dependable Valued
Honest Treasured
Loved Believable
Consistent Etcetera...

15. Social Comfort

16. 3 Parts of
Social Comfort
• People
• Tools
• Content

17. Social Comfort
with People

18. Elements of
Social Software

19. Relationships
Reputation
Conversation
Groups
Sharing
Identity Object
Collaboration
Actions
Presence

20. Collaboration
Groups
Conversation
Relationship
Reputation Build
Order
Sharing
Actions
Presence
Identity Object

21. Collaboration
Groups
Traditional
Groupware Conversation
Relationship
Reputation Build
Order
Sharing
Actions
Presence
Identity Object

22. Who Are These People?

23. Paradox of Familiarity
• Familiarity through working together
• Familiarity through reputation
• Hallway familiarity

24. Building Comfort
with People
• Similar interest
• Similar life stories
• Similar experiences

25. Consumating’s
“Quirkiness Factor”

26. Transparency

27. Profiles

28. Build profiles from the
viewers perspective

29. What are things that
would erode comfort?

30. Social Comfort
with Tools

31. Walled Gardens vs.
Open Sharing

32. Sharepoint default

33. Lack of comfort with
open sharing

34. Comfortable spaces
with permeable walls

35. Social Reticence of a Click

36. “How broadly are my
activities shared”

37. “What do others think
‘this’ means”

38. What do the features
and functions of the
tools/service do?

39. When we...

40. Offer
Approve
Interest
Hold On

41. Social Progressions

42. Spark

43. Campfire

44. Bonfire

45. Torch

46. Social Comfort
with Content

47. 100% of content that is
potentially sharable

48. Content Sharing
Paradox

49. When people need to find
“others like me”
This is often the trigger
eroding fears around
social comfort

50. The more personal the
issue, the more difficult
it is to attain social
comfort

51. Externally Focussed
Social Empathy
• Sharing may hurt others
• Not wanting to “rock the boat”
• Whistle blowing concerns

52. Social Comfort
as a Whole

53. Thank You!

54. Credit of Other’s Photos
• Commonwealth Club, by Steve Rhodes photo of Lowell
Bergman - http://www.flickr.com/photos/ari/389255633/sizes/l/

55. URL: http://infocloudsolutions.com
E-mail: thomas@infocloudsolutions.com
AIM: vanderwal
Skype: tjvanderwal
Twitter: @vanderwal or @infocloud
InfoCloud Solutions, Inc. - 2012