Social Profiles
At the center of the Social Web and the shared activities that define it are the online personas of participants: More than with prior anonymous discussion boards or cloaked personas, it’s an actual identity that is of value in a business context, since it is generally the motivation of an individual to be noticed as such that drives social participation in the first place. Though detailed personal information is (still) generally not available except to trusted friends or colleagues, the use of a real name or photo in one’s social profile is becoming common. Along with any optionally provided information, the result is a basis for understanding who it is that is actually participating.
The Profile as a Social Connector
cipant matters little beyond the requirements of the task at hand. In a social context, by comparison, the interaction occurs between the participants as much or more than it does (overtly) between a specific participant and the application or platform. It’s not just that someone is doing something as with a transaction site: On the social web, that person wants to be noticed (talked about) or joined with while doing it.
Basic tasks aside from uploading a photo, for example, the majority of the interactions involve profile-based connections or exchanges: curating a photo, extending and confirming a friend request, modifying a wiki document, or sharing a review. Each of these requires a certain degree of assurance that the identity of the other person(s) involved is reasonably well understood, and at least partly so that the person committing the action will be noticed by someone for having done that particular thing
Premiere Global: A Practical Example of Profiles
In my experience working with Atlanta-based Premiere Global (PGi) on the implementation of a community, the role of the social profile in activating and sustaining the community is particularly instructive as regards the role of the profi le in a community application. This particular project—a developer’s community built around PGi’s communications API—was intended to bring independent developers and internal PGi experts together in a collaborative venue that would spur the development of new and innovative communications applications
The Profile and the Social Graph
Recall the discussion of the social graph in Chapter 2, The New Role of the Customer. Looking ahead, Chapter 11, “The Social Graph, will provide an in-depth treatment. For now, understand that the social graph includes the set of profiles that describe the Social Business Ecosystemâ members of a social network and the interactions, activities, and relationships that connect specific profiles on the Social Web. Visit Gramhir to find out more information
In perhaps the simplest view, the social graph defines the way in which one profile is connected to another, through a friendship relationship perhaps. Because the profile itself is tied to a person however vaguely that profile may have been defined there is a sense of accountability and belonging that translates into shared responsibility between those so connected. This relationship might be highly asymmetric: Robert Scoble’s individual fans may get more from him than he gets from any one of them. Nonetheless, there is a set of rules and expectations that define these relationships, and in doing so set up the value-based transaction and knowledge exchange that ultimately occurs between participants on the Social Web.
