Thomas Vander Wal
16 November 2016
KM World - Washington, DC
Using Lenses to Right Fit Social & Collaboration
Who is Thomas?
Designing, developing, and / or
managing social platforms since
1996
Model of Attraction (2002)
Come to Me Web (2004)
Folksonomy (2004)
60+ Social Lenses (2008)
Connected
Company (2010)
Too often collaboration & social
start with a tool or service first
Today that is taking it
backwards or upside down
Find which side is up, your needs, what
the tool does, and how it may be used
In short, it is learning to see
And learn the shape of things
Breaking Down Internal
Social / Collaboration
Common connected working space
Knowledge sharing
Working out loud
Knowledge and Work Flows
Email: Where knowledge
goes to die
Knowledge
R. I. P.
Closed Nodes
• Top down
• Approval-centric
• Slow to spread
• Slow to change
• Knowledge buried
• Training focussed
• Email
• Document repository
• White papers
• Policy documents
Open Nodes
• Emergent
• Sharing-centric
• Nimble and adaptive
• Constantly changing
• Knowledge searchable

and linked
• Helping focussed
• Open digital conversation
• Collaborative and collective

living documents
• All history and transitions 

viewable and available
• Conversations around objects

link to object with objects 

often in clear sight
In the long run, what went into
making the decision has more
value than the decision.
Understanding Social

Through Lenses
Social Progressions
Spark
Campfire
Bonfire
Torch
Organizations with 1 social platform have
a high probability of having 2 or more
One size fits all works for…
No One
Differing Perspectives
Personal
Collective
Team / Group / Community / Network
Cooperative
Collaborative
Collective Cooperative
Team / Group / Community / Network
Collaborative
Social Working Array
Communication Layer
Social Scaling
• Humans are mostly social by nature. But, often not social at scale.
• Most people are most comfortable interacting with a small group of
others they know and comfort decreases as group size grows
• Humans naturally build groups and clusters to ease interacting with
large groups
• Understand what social types fit best at what scale
31
Right Fitting Digital Work Activities to Appropriate Scale
Network
Community
Group
Team / Small
Group
Collective
 Cooperative:
Team
Cooperative:
Group
Cooperative:
Community
Cooperative:
Network
Collaborative

IncreaseScale
Types of Digital Work Activities
Team Needs
Tasks
Team

Fit
Process & 

Planning
Progress
Status
Calendar
Comms
Shared

Resources
Decisions
Walled Gardens vs. Open Sharing
Closed groups as default
Lack of comfort with open
sharing
Comfortable spaces with
permeable walls
Donald Appleyard’s “Livable Streets”
It is essential to get the
foundation right
Solid Skills on the Team
Community
Manager
Social
Interaction
Designer
Social
Scientists
Knowledge
Manager
UX / User
Research
IT Dev /
Integrator
Change
Manager
There will be problems?
Services Go Away
Redundancy Failover
Constant 

change is

the norm
Plan For…
Security
Privacy /
Permissions
Scaling
Many Pieces in One System
Integration /
Interoperation
Umbrella

Service
Need
Community /
Collaboration
Manager
Tool Selection and Review
6 Month Tool
Reviews
Stability &
Long Term
Assessments
Vendor
Assessments
High Level Map for 

Tool Selection and Review
Thank you!
URL: www.vanderwal.net
Blog: www.personalinfocloud.com
E-mail: thomas@vanderwal.net
Skype: tjvanderwal
Twitter: @infocloud

Using Lenses to Right Fit Social & Collaboration