Leveraging Collaborative Environments

Meet Scott, age 28, with a Dunkin' Donuts cup costume, a web site, a MySpace page and an archive of compelling brand content that, by the way, happens to rank number four in a Google search for the brand name. Scott is among the legions of brand enthusiasts who are knocking down the walls of the traditional "us versus them" brand relationship, demanding to be let in and be a part of the brand experience.

Key, Rob. Communication World Bulletin (2007). Articles>Web Design>Collaboration>Social Networking

Ready for Life in Transparencyville?

Before you jump up and down about social media and the wonderfully transparent world it is creating, consider the consequences. There’s just no way to prevent those outside your walls from looking in. Leaky information, errant e-mails and inappropriate instant messages now have the capacity to become very, very public. If there's one lesson that communicators need to take away from the new social media, it's how to operate in a world of transparency.

Fernando, Angelo. Communication World Bulletin (2007). Articles>Web Design>Collaboration>Social Networking

Wanted/Needed: UX Design for Collaboration 2.0

There is plenty of hype about “Collaboration 2.0” at the moment, but the bugle is being blown too loudly, too soon. Take, for instance, the Enterprise Collaboration Panel at last year’s Office 2.0 Conference. Most of the discussion was really about communication rather than collaboration, with only a hint that beyond forming a social network (“putting the water cooler inside the computer”) there was still a lack of software that actually helped groups of people get the work done. What’s missing from the discussion is any formulation of what the process of collaboration entails; there’s no model from which collaborative applications could arise. If we can figure out a model then we in the UX community should be able to make a significant contribution to it.

Clarke, Matthew C. Boxes and Arrows (2009). Articles>Web Design>Collaboration>Social Networking

Discovering Magic

Wouldn’t it be a little magical if, when you signed up for a new site, it said something like, “We notice you have a profile photo on Flickr and Twitter, would you like to use one of those or upload a new one?” Glenn Jones created a JavaScript library called Ident Engine that can help you do just that.

Jones, Glenn. List Apart, A (2009). Articles>Web Design>Social Networking>Collaboration