c.Figallo

I was inspired recently by this post by Adrian Chan on his Gravity 7 blog.  He describes a curious social dynamic that shows up vividly in social media – flow.

In the early days of the WELL, when we were first involved in – and simultaneously observing – the participation of members in multiple conversations on a wide range of topics, we found that we could configure our software so that members could build itineraries for their visits, and that a well-designed itinerary (the so-called “conflist”) – along with some selections of conversations to visit or ignore – could provide the flow necessary for a quick, efficient and satisfying session – a min-tour of their favorite communities and discussions. In brief interrupts of their work days, WELL members could take a quick dive into the WELL with minimal distraction and maximum flowiness.

That was how it worked with the relatively tiny population of the pre-Web WELL and the comparatively primitive text-only interface of Picospan. Today, the  social flow for a typical user must map across numerous platforms and communities at a variety of paces.

The idea of a lifestream or an information stream is getting a lot of attention with the massive adoption of social software with the “status report” format. Users post their latest activity or discovery or witnessed event. Others respond or ignore and then post their own status. It all blends together in a stream of reports and responses. If you’re in the stream, you’re reporting, reading and sometimes responding or repeating items to your own audience.

Watching “from the river’s edge,” as Adrian describes it, puts enough distance between the user and the conversation that information and learning can be drawn from it. Reports flowing in the stream may contain nuggets of information – links to blog posts, to videos, to people, to websites – that can be snagged and put to use. These nuggets can be passed along to different communities, maybe outside of that particular stream or for sure outside of that community.

Flow is an important element of social interaction and there are ways that a tool can be configured or a suite of tools can be related so that the user experience brings a maximum of it. When interested clients express fear of a scattering of attention and a sinkhole for work hours, I explain the goal of flow and how it turns those concerns upside down.