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