TeamPark book (english) part 2, platform and method

TeamPark
platform and method
Patrick Savalle, Wim Ho and and Arnd Brugman

Sogeti innovation and inspiration

TeamPark
Platform and Method
2nd (revised) edition

Patrick Savalle
Wim Hofland
Arnd Brugman

2010
Sogeti

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“The ant is a collectively intelligent and individually stupid animal; man is the
opposite.”
Karl von Frisch

Foreword
The birth of the TeamPark method occurred over a year ago. Since
then, we have chalked up many workshops, conferences, presentations, discussions,
projects and many, many comments from domestic and international organizations.
All this accumulated experience has been as far as possible incorporated in this
revised English edition. The method has been tried and tested, but it’s still surpris-
ingly fresh, as demonstrated by reactions from the field that it continues to
attract.

We are grateful for the assistance of all those who read the previous book and
provided us with commentary. In particular, our thanks go out to Albert Hoitingh
for his inspiration and notes on personas and scenarios.

A great deal of inspiration from reading about and, in particular, applying Team-
Park.

Wim Hofland, Rotterdam, 1 March 2010

Foreword for version 1.0
The setting was a weekly meeting of Innovatie & Inspiratie, the innova-
tion consultants from Sogeti. The immediate cause: a request from a customer to
organize an inspiration session about Web 2.0 and its impact on existing organiza-
tions. Only the first of five topics on this day. At I&I, we are innovative and live
innovation. We do it and we are it. Our adrenaline level is far above average. Dis-
cussions appear chaotic and tend to be contentious. This is nothing new for us, but
takes bystanders some getting used to. “Is everything all right there?”

Within five minutes, TeamPark 0.1 was born TeamPark is a method for arriving
at a successful social software solution for an enterprise. It turned out that all
ingredients were available on the net in one form or another. All existing exam-
ples and techniques were incredibly popular, and all the secrets were plain for
all to see. But no one “saw” it.

Foreword 7

Only the right question in the right context gave us the answer. So obvious, so
ordinary that we quickly passed over it. Only a “hey wait a minute” alerted us
at that moment to the fact that we had something wonderful close at hand.

This moment of insight was followed by innumerable brainstorming sessions,
mind maps and inspirations. The idea became a method. Periods of services doubt,
high-flown future expectations, but, most of all, reflection interchanged with each
other. Ultimately, TeamPark 1.0 was the result. An inspiration!

Wim Hofland, Rotterdam, 15 May 2009

8 TeamPark

Content
Foreword 7
Foreword for version 1.0 7

1 The intelligent organization 13
More than just social 14
Promises, Promises 16
The tool kit 17

Part 1 Platform 19

2 Social platform 21
s.o.c.i.a.l. 23
Social design 25
The 1% rule 26
The ideal crowd 27
The not so ideal crowd 28

3 Stimulus rich 31
Activity 32
Presence 33
Identity 33
Relations 33
Groups 34
Reputation 34
Sharing / content 36
Conversation 36
Challenges 36
Social character 36
Weighting based on visibility 38
Analysis: the existing situation 39
Synthesis: the target situation 40

Content 9

4 Organic 43
Group formation 43
Social tagging and folksonomy 45
Absence of synchronous communications 48

5 Collaborative 51
General tools 52
Special tools 53

6 Intelligent 57
Be aware of the Matthew effect 58
Collaborative filtering 60
Reputation or karma 63

7 Adaptive 67
Evolution vs. Intelligent Design 67
Which processes? 69
Which employees? 70
Which resources? 70

8 Linked 73
rss and web services 74
Widgets 74
Social bookmarking 75

Part 2 Method 77

9 TeamPark 79
Awareness 80
Strategy 82
Implementation 84
Life 85

10 Awareness 89
Workshops, seminars and presentations 90
Presentations 90
Workshops 91
The “Do-it-together” workshop 91
The pr campaign 93
Roadmap 94
Recommendations for the ensuing process 95

10 TeamPark

11 Strategy 97
Formulating vision and core values 98
The Vision Game 98
Drawing up an initial social graph 99
Cultivating the social seeds 101
Human factors and identifying personas 102
Identifying candidate processes 107
Identifying candidate scenarios 108
Who has the latest version? 108
Package Selection, poc and Planning 110

12 Implementation 113
Selecting catalysts 115
Socializing (Stigmergizing) processes 117
Stigmergizing processes 117
Designing training programs 120
Train the trainers 120

13 Life 123
Best Practices 124
Training and instruction 125
Install parties 127
Workshops 128
Life hacking 129
Floor walking 130
Catalysis 131
Organize! 132
Bookmarking and Activity streaming 133
Satisfaction 134
Community Management 134
Moderation and content monitoring 135
Measurements 137

Final Word 143

Content 11

1
The intelligent
organization
Enterprise 2.0, dubbed “The Intelligent Organization” by us, is an organ-
ization with a living organic dimension that supplements the bureaucratic (formal)
structure. The Intelligent Organization has the technical and conceptual possibilities
that enable it to make large-scale and continuous use of special talent and disorgan-
ized contributions. We are here talking about such means of communications as wikis,
social bookmarking, tag clouds, activity streams, forums and blogs, but especially also
about a combination of all these media and their integration in a platform.

In contrast to employees that only participate in carefully top-down controlled
processes according to job profiles and fixed workflows, Enterprise 2.0 employ-
ees must also be permitted to arrive at usable results in a more organic, bottom-
up manner. They must be able to function in a stigmergic environment that allows
them to work together independently of each other without direct communica-
tion, an environment in which direct control is unnecessary. All in all, this type
of work setting evidently involves a new paradigm. “2.0” is in many respects the
opposite pole of the “1.0” way in which companies are currently working.

In every company, it is possible to identify processes that do not thrive well
in a bureaucratic structure.

The localization of people, content, and expertise, the utilization of special
talents and the maintenance of usable innovation: many things run more
smoothly when use is made of an organization’s social dimension. Many
tasks can be performed better by organizing employees not just in teams but

The intelligent organization 13

also in communities. An organization that also makes use of wikis, forums,
social networks, crowdsourcing, question and answer facilities and other
“2.0” media has an advantage over its competitors.

This type of organization is what we are calling the “Intelligent Organiza-
tion.”

The Intelligent Organization

More than just social
The basis of the Intelligent Organization is the so-called heterarchy.
What we propose is to view the company as a coin in which heads stands for the
current functional side and tails for the new social side. Two sides of the same
company.

An Intelligent Organization is more than just an organization with social life. It
is a magnet for all types of new concepts and technologies, such as:

14 TeamPark

• Social communications and collaboration (what we are talking about in this
book)
• Knowledge management
• “The new way of working” or “Unified Collaboration and Communication,”
a location dependent communication and collaboration solution specifically
for the functional side of the organization.
• New infrastructural solutions like Enterprise Service Bus (esb), Enterprise
Service Hubs (esh) and a new more agile and scalable manner of application
development.
• New user interfaces such as portals and widget platforms
• Mash-up technology that enables employees to combine existing and new
functionality.

The combination is logical. Formal teams have limitations that impede their
manner of working but that can be overcome by social communities. Access to
as much knowledge as possible is important in undertaking this development.
Normally speaking, knowledge is largely organized along the lines of the organ-
izations vertical structure, as revealed by the organizational chart. Over the long
term, this regimentation has restrictive effects on an organization as a whole, as
information increasingly flows through what is now being diagrammed as a social
graph. In addition, if we want to allow the crowd and communities to be organ-
ized in an organic way, they must not be obstructed by pre-defined patterns of
information and knowledge. At the same time much unsanctioned knowledge
quickly becomes mere noise. There must consequently be a mechanism to distin-
guish relevant knowledge from noise. Use can be made of “the wisdom of the
crowd” for such purpose, as well as 2.0 tools as aggregation and collaborative
filtering. Knowledge management in the traditional organization is therefore
clearly different from the 2.0 organization, which is much “flatter.” The platform
must therefore take this into account, by means of a site-wide wiki, for example,
and “enterprise search.” But also by implementing a form of social tagging and
rating; providing people and content with self-generated keywords and having
the crowd select content on the basis of quality.

To obtain productive results, there must of course be collaboration. Character-
istic of the social side is the ad hoc character of most work and the appropriate
communicative and collaborative possibilities associated with it. There is a wide
range of types and means of communication required in order to integrate every-


thing in the community platform. The new way of working plays an important
role in this. The traditional form of collaboration is however based on fixed work
flows, direct / synchronous communications and central control that is unsuited
to social or mass collaboration. On the social side, communication occurs through
the environment. By leaving instructions, knowledge, signposts and other stimuli
in the environment, other people can collaborate without mutual coordination
and without the necessity for central control.

Promises, Promises
What might be expected from the Intelligent Organization in contrast
to the normal organization?

Flexibility: The self-organizing and self-controlling capacity would have certainly
been useful to many organizations during the economic recession that started in
2008. The inertness of large organizations was and is visible everywhere. And
that is paradoxical as it is precisely in large companies with a large crowd and
extensive social networks that the benefits of the social dimension are entirely
predictable and reliable. Social collaboration works better with large numbers.

Improved efficiency: We have been busy transforming our companies into well-
oiled machines in which everything is perfectly coordinated. Increased optimization
is hardly structurally possible. Still there remain numerous processes that do not
perform well. Some processes were never intended to be executed in bureaucratic
structures, and they can benefit from the socialization process. The new paradigm
for collaboration also offers new possibilities for business process improvement,
a systematic approach to the optimization of organizational processes.

Satisfaction: Employees want to have more power to determine how they organ-
ize their own lives. Fixed working hours and work locations make such self-
determination difficult. Employees also want to perform a greater variety of
work. Although this is difficult in an optimized bureaucracy, a social organiza-
tion, renders it all so simple. Employees can immediately make use of their
individual talents in their work, a form of self-involvement that leads to all types
of improvements, as well as satisfaction and pride.

In sum, the advantages of the Intelligent Organization are as follows;

16 TeamPark

A more effective and efficient organization due to greater flexibility, more
effective communication and collaboration.

Better integration and use of people, resources, knowledge and expertise
by self-organizing processes.

Satisfied employees that are able to work in their own manner, in their time
and at their location.

A collective consciousness with a sharper perception of society, trends, cus-
tomers and fellow employees.

The tool kit
For our own acquisition and project execution, we make use of an
extensive set of materials. Many of our customers use this material in the same basic
form, with slight “rebranding” of their own.

This set of tools is simply available to everyone under the same creative-commons
license as this book. See the conditions at the beginning of this book.

As an additional condition, we asked everyone to contribute their own material
to our slideshare group: http://www.slideshare.net/group/TeamPark

The basic material consists of:

• A general PowerPoint presentation entitled “TeamPark”
• A presentation entitled “Social Platform Design”
• The A3 poster “The Intelligent Organization” (the framework)
• The A3 poster “The TeamPark Process” (services)
• The A4 poster “Elevator Pitch”
• Both sections of this book

More material about the Intelligent Organization and TeamPark is also available
at http://TeamPark.org


2
Social platform
An important instrument of an Intelligent Organization is the social
platform: the environment in which employees leave signals like ants leave phe-
romones to coordinate their collective work. The hope and assumption is that oth-
ers will follow in their footsteps and, as a result, meaningful collaboration will occur.
What the environment of the nest is for ants, the social platform is for the Intel-
ligent Organization. When considering social software, most people immediately
think of Facebook and MySpace, while asking themselves what an organization
would be able to do with this type of software. To begin with, such websites are not
representative of the corporate social sites we envision. Additionally, these websites
often lack what we have identified as an “aggregation mechanism,” so that collabo-
ration exists without easily identifiable “results.” In this part, we will investigate the
necessary ingredients for a successful corporate social platform.

To start with, there is of course the all-important definition: What is a social
platform?

A social platform is a platform that stimulates and facilitates group interac-
tion and that uses the wisdom of the crowd for purposeful means.

A platform is not in itself social but requires certain characteristics in order to
attain this quality. In this part, we will go over these requirements in detail. Obvi-
ously, a social environment, any social environment, must have a certain vitality.

Social platform 21

How many empty clubs, restaurants or bars have you entered because you
thought you would experience a pleasant evening in them? The place to be, that
is what the environment must certainly become in order to attain success. It must
be attractive, pleasurable, inspiring, free and never threatening,

To take the analogy a step further, what do you look for in a social hot spot?
“Signs of life” without a doubt! There is a reason that restaurants sit their cus-
tomers at tables that are highly visible from outside. You want to see that other
people are enjoying themselves inside.

Once opening the door, you of course want to know if the place is for you. What
are these people doing here? What are they on about? Is this the place for me?
What makes it “the talk of the town”?

It is no different in the case of the Intelligent Organization’s social platform. The
first impression must be that there is a lot going on. Chance visitors must be able
to see at a glance if the place is something for them. But there is still more
required. Just as in the case of ants, it is not enough to be merely running around
in circles but pathways have to be marked, mechanisms must exist to direct and
facilitate emerging group performance, etc.

How should your social platform actually be constructed and which elements
should it contain? Whatever we think and ultimately build, the underlying
assumption must be that people will want to use the platform without being
required to use it by their job description and without having to be sent notices
all day long reminding them that something interesting has been added or
updated. It must be a corporate hang out that allows people to feel that they
belong together and are part of the gang. It is not difficult to conceive of what
such a social hub might require, as the building blocks that give a website a social
character are often obvious. A website such as the online yellow pages is not very
social, nor is it meant to be. There is no way of discovering what is happening,
who else is online, what other things are going on or where there might be
opportunities for collaboration. A social environment has to contain all these
types of signals. Once you can detect the presence of others, observe what they
are doing, and follow the various activities, everything immediately becomes
more social. Right away, the perception is entirely different, as the signals create
an interactive climate. The actions or interactions that actually occur and the

22 TeamPark

results generated by the various activities will then largely depend on where the
designer of the environment has placed the emphasis. In this respect, the website
design is crucial, both in terms of its layout and interaction, but even more so in
terms of it social design: the way it stimulates interaction between the visitors.

All the signals that a social environment issues will encourage people to enter
into conversations and to produce content to share with each other.

A conversation is quickly initiated by permitting users to comment on news items.
Various types of conversations can be supported by various web elements, rang-
ing from instant messaging to chat boxes, activity streams and forums.

If a very great deal of content is being added, it is important to weigh and filter
it so that only the most popular, interesting, highly rated or current content is
displayed. Such a practice avoids an incomprehensible flash flood of material
and promotes quality.

Once a social website acquires a large number of participants, there is naturally
a tendency to form sub-communities around specialized topics or interests. If
groups are too large, an individual’s initiatives get lost in the void, resulting in a
growing sense of anonymity. A good social website encourages the creation of
ideally-sized groups.

Finally, there must be adequate mechanisms to enable proper utilization of the
wisdom of the crowd. These are called aggregation mechanisms. Just allowing
participation and collecting ugc (User Generated Content) is not enough because
most of it will be of average quality from which valuable items need to be dis-
tinguished.

S.O.C.I.A.L.
The important characteristics of a flourishing, living social platform
can be appropriately specified using the acronym s.o.c.i.a.l. (what else could it
be).

Social platform 23

This acronym can be used to test if a platform is suitable as a social platform.
Each letter stands for a specific quality that such an environment must possess.
They are:

• Stimulus rich – the platform must provide users with the appropriate stimuli
and present them with signals in order to provoke interaction.
• Organic – the platform must enable users to share and structure their data and
activities according to their own conceptions.
• Collaborative – the platform must possess the appropriate peer-2-peer facilities
and other means of collaboration for the tasks to be performed; it must offer
the right stigmergic mechanisms.
• Intelligent – the platform must make it possible to distinguish quality from
noise by means of aggregations, filters and weightings.
• Adaptive – the platform must be adapted to its environment, its users and its
processes (tasks) that have to support it; in other words, the environment must
fit into the organizational structure.
• Linked – the platform must be linked to relevant external environments and
networks in the most seamless and unobtrusive manner possible.

These basic qualities will be further explained in the following chapters.

s.o.c.i.a.l. as a key to evaluating social platforms

More specific information on this topic can be found in the slide-share presenta-
tion “Social Platform Design” (http://www.slideshare.net/group/TeamPark).

24 TeamPark

Social design
Crowds cannot be told what to do. Crowds cannot be controlled in a
direct or centralized manner. Crowds gather on their own and individuals in such
a crowd make their own localized decisions. Even though such gatherings may be
channeled, this type of management works entirely differently from the employee
control practiced by purely bureaucratic organizations from a centralized command
center. A little prompting in the form of an inquiry into wishes by, for example, a
moderator does not pose any problems, as it will certainly be acceptable to everyone.
Its effectiveness is, however, minimal. Truly effective crowd management must be
different; it must be more “organic.” Every crowd undergoes continuous evolution
and can be subtly manipulated as a result. Just as evolution in nature, the evolution
of crowds is not a process that is centrally controlled, but one that nevertheless
follows a very clear pattern. The most important conditions for an internet com-
munity / crowd are imposed by the website design, the interaction as well as the
social design. Social design is a new discipline that combines the already existing
disciplines of graphic design and interaction.

• Graphic design is concerned with the layout of the website: its look.
• Interaction design involves the interaction between the website and the user;
its feel.
• Social web design involves the interaction among users that the website (plat-
form) initiates and maintains.

Social design1 is based on the psychology of crowds. It begins by setting up a
platform with the appropriate features possessing the specified mix of character-
istics and stimuli. Below, we will discuss how this works in detail. Once the plat-
form exists, an equally important step follows: its forced evolution. Subtle adjust-
ments in the navigation and functionality of a site or in the social concept behind
it can drive and compel the evolution of the community. In principle, social design
is a continuous process because the dynamics of the crowd changes in response.

The most obvious factors in this regard concern the choice of functionality and
the placement of the various web elements on the pages. It goes without saying
that the most striking elements will exercise the greatest influence. If a website
generates too little discussion, the adjustment that first comes to mind concerns
adding an appropriate web element (such as “last 10 reviews” or “most dis-

1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_design

Social platform 25

cussed”) to increase the visibility of a discussion and reduce the thresholds inhib-
iting it. If a website generates too much uncontrolled discussion, consideration
can be given to displaying comments in random order so that people can no
longer respond to each other directly. For each undesired effect, there is often a
way of devising a manner in which to redirect it. Conversely, desired effects and
high-grade content, which we will call “quality”, must be stimulated. People who
do their best must be visibly rewarded. It is in this way that a community can be
managed and that, ultimately, the desired return is obtained.

Channeling a community’s direction of movement by stimulating the desired
behavior and making undesired behavior unattractive is an ongoing process.
Many social mechanisms are included on the social website and each mechanism
is subject to influence. Many of the devices must match the degree to which the
number of visitors and participants changes and hopefully grows. The effects
dominant in a large group are different from those that dominate a relatively
small group. The production and implementation of a social platform is therefore
“only” the beginning. Do not be too eager about immediately aiming for quality;
it is important that there is first sufficient quantity. A good inflow of content,
sufficient activity and a large community is essential. But do not let things get
too far out of hand. It is necessary to stay on top of events and to be a judicious
moderator who can inform designers about the adjustments that need to be made.
Such upgrading should furthermore be done in open dialogue with users. Clear
reports should be provided in forums or weblogs about the types of changes that
will be implemented and the reasons for them, without revealing too many tech-
nical details (any such revelation may later work to your disadvantage, as it may
enable people to cheat, or “play the system”). Undoubtedly, people will complain,
but do not be overly concerned about these complaints. Do not make it a democ-
racy; you are providing information and not making queries.

In Web 2.0, it is normal that websites remain in a state of “perpetual beta.” There
are no longer any great breakthroughs but continuous small developments.

The 1% rule
Most members of an open, public community are more or less akin to parasites.
They lurk in the background and consume what others produce. For every
100 million downloads from YouTube, there are roughly 65,000 uploads; a ratio
of 1500:1. More than half of all Wikipedia articles are made by much less than

26 TeamPark

one percent of users, and more than 70% of the articles by less than 2% of users.
GeenStijl.nl once indicated that less than 2% of readers actually made comments.
For larger communities, the rule of thumb is the 1% rule2: 1% of the users will
actually contribute content to a social website, 10% will interact to contributions
by, for example, making a comment and the remaining 89% will only consume
what is offered in silence.

This is not bad or good; it is a statistic that must be taken into account when
constructing the community and designing the website. In social news sites,
articles can be voted on and the most popular ones placed on the first page.
Consideration is given to the group that you are going to allow the greatest influ-
ence, a decision that can be crucial for the content on the front page and therefore
also for the culture of the community. A company that has 5000 employees may
be happy if there are an initial 50 that will regularly produce their own content.
This figure will only rise if the community becomes part of the business culture.
It can also be counted on that 1% will find a business environment more to their
liking than a “free” internet environment, although a figure in the range of 5-10%
may be achievable in this respect.

More participation can be expected on platforms that facilitate previously bureau-
cratic processes that were redesigned into stigmergic (social) equivalents, for
which employees received training and new procedures. Later more on this.

The ideal crowd
According to the book The Wisdom of Crowds,3 the best results can be obtained
from a crowd (community) when:

• There are sufficiently varied opinions (and personalities)
• There is sufficient independence when making choices (consider the Matthew
effect, as discussed in one of the following chapters)
• There is enough decentralization so that people can be specialized and can be
prevailed upon by like-minded people to collaborate on their designs (recalling
notions of organic group formation and the Dunbar number4,5)

2 http://www.useit.com/alertbox/participation_inequality.html
3 http://books.google.nl/books?id=bA0c4aytd6gC
4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number
5 http://www.lifewithalacrity.com/2004/03/the_dunbar_numb.html

Social platform 27

• It is technically possible to arrive at collective decisions or to survey collective
views (consider democratic ratings, reputation systems6 and a weighted first
page7).

These are the features of social design that must be targeted using the right tech-
nology and organization of facilities, as they provide support for all the other
results expected of the community.

The first feature can be realized by gathering the various departments in a com-
pany into a single social environment. This mass assembly will create the great-
est possible variety of peoples with the widest possible divergence in educational
levels, job levels, etc.

The second feature is largely a condition that must be fully guaranteed by the
technology. The process of guaranteeing independence boils down to reducing,
as much as possible, non-essential influence that impacts on decision-making,
such as previously issued evaluations. For social designers it can be useful to look
into “conformity research” such as that of Solomon Asch8 and Zimbardo.9

To a large extent, the third feature is also a condition to be fully guaranteed
technically. It must be possible for the community to form its own sub-commu-
nities, and this is a question of having the appropriate software.

The final feature is especially important: this book is, for that matter, concerned
with the special talents of the crowd. Talent is meaningless if there is no mechanism
to display or report group choices and decisions. Aggregation pages and the
appropriate weighting algorithms are two of the most important mechanisms.

The not so ideal crowd
Conversely, there are also discernible problems that may arise when assembling
the community. The Wisdom of Crowds includes the following in a list of pos-
sible problems10:

6 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reputation_system
7 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborative_filtering
8 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments
9 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Zimbardo#The_prison_study
10 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wisdom_of_Crowds

28 TeamPark

• Too homogeneous (inbreeding)
• Too centralized
• Too much herd behavior

These are also factors that can be manipulated by implementing the correct social
design.

An excessively homogeneous group could be a difficult problem. One of the most
obvious measures is to prevent the community from replicating the company’s
organizational structure. By definition, departments have a certain amount of
inbreeding. Allow production employees to collaborate with the innovation
department. Differences in approach are advantageous.

“Centralized” means that knowledge is not easily accessible and groups remain
too strongly self-contained in their own environment. This is also an easy prob-
lem to solve. The “weighted” general aggregation page that shows selected, mixed
content from multiple or all groups provides an adequate solution.

A social platform is like an ecosystem. Not all communities are equally stable
and optimal. Just as in all ecosystems, the risk of oscillations, plagues, bugs and
disequilibrium is greatest when diversity and spread is small. The most stable
communities are likely the largest and most diverse ones.The chance of a plague
of locusts is greater in a desert than in a jungle. In unstable communities, small
incidents can quickly get out of hand. Communities lacking diversity are also
characterized by too little creativity and too much consensus.

Size and diversity are two factors that are never present right at the beginning
of community formation, and must be continuously targeted. By ensuring diver-
sity right at the start, the community can be given an advantageous launch. A
much used trick for initiating discussion platforms is to allow a dissonant to
clandestinely infiltrate the community and to express excessive dissent by being
contrary to everything. This will work just fine until employees begin to see
through it.

Social platform 29

3
Stimulus rich
Social software emits signals and supports such interaction as conver-
sations, collaboration and knowledge-sharing. All possible signals and stimuli for
interaction can be grouped into a handful of social factors, which then can be used
to build and analyze the software. To begin with, these will be the factors that
transform a website into a social website. Or they will convert a general environ-
ment into a social environment. In 2003, Matt Webb11,12 came out with a list of
features that have served as a basis for our method. According to Matt, social soft-
ware is characterized by the following factors: identity, presence, social relations,
conversations, groups, reputation and sharing. Matt Webb was in turn inspired by
Flickr-founder Stewart Butterfield.13 Flickr is one of the largest social websites in
the world, and its founder’s opinions and ideas therefore carry some weight.

In social software, we distinguish the following nine social factors as interaction
stimuli conveyed to the user through the concept, style and interaction design:

• Activity – What is happening now?
• Presence – Who is currently available?
• Identity – Who is it and to whom does it belong?

11 http://interconnected.org/home/2004/04/28/on_social_software
12 http://nform.ca/publications/social-software-building-block
13 http://www.sylloge.com/personal/2003_03_01_s.html#91273866

Stimulus rich 31

• Relations – With whom am I connected?
• Groups – Can groups be formed?
• Reputation or Karma – How is your contribution and therefore your member-
ship appreciated?
• Sharing – Is content or “something else” being shared?
• Conversation – Do participants communicate with each other?
• Challenges – Are there challenges or non-content related activities?

Not every factor will be constantly present on a social site to an equally percep-
tible degree. One site may be more content-driven, while another places greater
emphasis on relationships. We can use a radar diagram to visualize the various
profiles, and make the social character of the software more evident.

The radar chart of a platform’s degree of stimulation

This diagram awards each element with a visibility level of 0 to 3. The levels of
these elements indicate the subjective presence of the element by means of a score
ranging from unnoticeable (0) through noticeable (1) and very noticeable (2) to
dominant (3).

Activity
Activity provides visitors with information about what is currently
happening on the website or what has been updated. An example is the box on
YouTube indicating “Video’s being watched right now.” But there are other activity

32 TeamPark

streams that may be monitored. Clearly visible activities are important elements in
creating “Life” (displaying that there is something going on). This is sometimes
referred to as showing “signs of life.” Activity is generally seen as one of the most
important factors for creating a successful and growing community.

Presence
Presence is the possibility of visitors viewing who is available and
online, as well as the manner in which they can be contacted. It creates the sense
of togetherness, but it is also important for the successful conduct of certain types
of conversations. One example of discernible presence is the contact person list in
msn. Another example is the availability of a “Chat now” function on a dating site,
complete with profiles of other love seekers.

Identity
Identity makes it possible for people to distinguish their contributions
from those of others and to sufficiently personalize their own little corners of the
community. A login name, an avatar, a personal channel on which to assemble all
your contributions and, for example, a personalized “skin” for that channel. If peo-
ple can build up their identities and reputations in a clear manner, they will view
their contributions to the website as an investment and will look after both the
website and this investment, while refusing to abandon either of them very quickly.
Identity ensures power of discernment.

Relations
Relations indicate how people or groups are related to each other in
the system. Clear examples of this type of bonding are the friendships or business
contacts indicated on LinkedIn or Facebook for example. There are also forms of
relationship management that can be put to good use in monitoring the activities
of friends. A clear difference can be made between explicit and implicit relation-
ships. Explicit relationships are initiated by users themselves, such as in the case of
the msn buddy list. Implicit relationships are detected by Social Network Analysis
on the basis of characteristics, interests, and other properties that one user shares
with others in the system. Examples of these types of relationships are the matches
that a dating site finds based on a client’s preferences and personal data.

Stimulus rich 33

Groups
Groups indicate the possibility of forming sub-communities. Groups
and group formation offer users the chance to form groups on their own based on
such things as shared interest. Social news sites also use this feature to enable mul-
tiple users to form a collective news channel. Group formation is clearly not to be
understood as unilateral classification of individuals such as many people do on
msn when they distinguish a private from a business contact (these are “relations”).
Depending on the type of software and community, it is often necessary to subdi-
vide a larger community into smaller ones. It is not possible or desirable to be friends
with everyone or collaborate on a project with the entire world. The type of exclu-
siveness criteria used to whittle the numbers down must be something that can be
set by users themselves, both individually and as a group.

Reputation
Reputation stands for the capacity of indicating the status, reliability,
productivity or any other quality of a certain identity. Everyone can see who the
top users of social news sites are, and top users often have greater influence during
the procedure of voting on articles. Pure democracy is often a bad idea on the
internet because it then becomes a dictatorship of the majority (“three wolves and
a sheep vote on what will be on the menu that evening”). The majority is never the
most creative or intelligent part of a community, mostly only the most docile and
least exacting. Reputation is a way of not allotting everyone the same rights or
influence, and of protecting quality and authenticity.14 Reputation often emerges
on its own because users comment on and vote for the contributions from a certain
member. It is important to establish reputation on the basis of desired contributions.
On a commercial site financed by advertising, it is clearly just the ratings that count.
On a news sites, the number of comments or the evaluation are perhaps more
important. There are various types of reputation systems, depending on the chosen
quality criteria and desired output.

Various types of reputation systems

14 http://bokardo.com/archives/5-ways-to-improve-reputation-systems

34 TeamPark

Internet giant Yahoo has undertaken a great deal of work on the conception and
design of reputation systems. For social software developers, it is interesting to
take a look at this work.15,16 The following illustration shows the various ways
in which reputation can be determined and the challenges associated with each
of them.

Various templates for constructing reputation systems, from Yahoo

Reputation, often also called “karma” following the example in particular of
“first person shooter games”17 can be used and determined in various ways but,
in nearly every case, it is intended to improve the quality of the community and
its “wisdom.”

15 http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/parent.php?pattern=reputation
16 http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/pattern.php?pattern=competitive
17 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-person_shooter

Stimulus rich 35

Sharing / content
Sharing is the practice of making content available to the rest of the
group or community. Such content may comprise personal experiences, stories,
advice, opinions of knowledge and many take the form of texts, photos or videos.
For example, video clips are shared on YouTube, photos on Flickr, knowledge on a
wiki and contacts on LinkedIn. The mutual sharing of information, knowledge or
content is essential for social software. Web 2.0 now has many means of commu-
nication that are outstandingly well suited to facilitate this interactivity. A number
of the above discussed components suitable for sharing are weblogs, wikis, auctions,
media libraries, news aggregators and news dumps.

Conversation
Conversation refers to the opportunity of exchanging information
(communication) by means of discussions, chat and reactions. These conversations
occur in very many different shapes and sizes. Conversations on msn are mostly
one-to-one and, normally speaking, synchronous (wait for the answer). Conversa-
tions by email are often one-to-many and nearly always asynchronous (the sender
does not wait for the answer). Social software can facilitate conversations among
the members of a community in various manners. The reaction mechanism on
weblogs is also a means of conversation. The same holds true for a thread on a forum
instant messaging (chat) and for instance a shout box.

Challenges
Challenges refer to tests of skill. There are, in fact, always activities that
do not directly service a “functional” purpose, especially on gaming platforms. They
nevertheless contribute in many ways. by adding a fun-factor, for example. They are
user “inducements,” such as the games found on msn that users can play with each
other. All these non-content-related and non-relationship-related activities are
encompassed by the category Challenges, and consist of activities that you can take
on yourself as well as those that you pose to each other.

Social character
A fitting social character is one of the most important conditions at
the start of a social platform. This social character will have to be constantly adjusted;

36 TeamPark

in other words, changes of direction, tone and composition of the community will
mean that the platform will have to emit other stimuli. It has to grow along with
the development of the communities themselves. The homepage of YouTube is, to
some extent, regularly rearranged. YouTube is clearly searching for the best possible
layout, as is Facebook. The administrators of these sties do not even precisely know
what the sites should become, and they monitor the behavior of the community in
order to gradually evolve toward the best possible layout and interaction. They are
repeatedly carefully modifying the social design and accordingly keep a close eye
on the effects that the changes have.

As described above in the discussion of the nine factors, each factor has its own
possibilities for technical realization, which vary according the type of social
environment. The more or less dominant presence of social factors determine the
character of a social website. These factors can, in fact, be used to analyze a site,
creating a type of personality sketch: a characterization of the website. The dia-
gram below displays such analyses for some well-known social websites.

The social character of various websites: degrees of stimulation

Most good social websites are continuously in development (such as in the case
of the above-mentioned YouTube), so that the indicated characteristics might
already be different. Nevertheless, the diagram typifies the character of each
website. There are three main dominances that can be distinguished:

Stimulus rich 37

• Content dominant (YouTube)
• Relation dominant (LinkedIn)
• Activity dominant (Twitter)

Weighting based on visibility
The visibility and conspicuousness of web components used to build a
social platform determine the weighting and influence of these components within
the total character. It is possible to distinguish the following levels of visibility:

• Brief / unnoticeable
• Moderate / noticeable
• Clear / very noticeable
• Unmissable / dominant

Visibility results from a combination of various (subjective) factors. A web com-
ponent flashing in bright red on the hot spot of the opening page clearly contrib-
utes more to the character of the platform that a web component in small print
and modest layout placed in the bottom-right corner.

The best location on screen is the top left. This is the location on which users
first focus and is, consequently, the most eye-catching.18 If a component is located
in the bottom left, it will have greater presence than an element in the bottom
right (possibly only visible after scrolling). The component can also be absent
from the website but still have a place in the platform. The location of the com-
ponent in the portal is therefore important to indicate presence. The effect is used
as a weighting factor concerning the social characteristics of the social compo-
nent.

The figure on the next page presents an analysis of visitor viewing behavior. The
redder the color of the location, the more frequently and longer visitors tend to
gaze there. For advertisers, red areas are the locations most in demand.

18 http://www.marketingfacts.nl/berichten/20080609_eyetracking_het_verschil_in_kijkgedrag_
tussen_een_of_twee_kolommen/

38 TeamPark

Eye-tracking maps that indicate where users look the most.

Analysis: the existing situation
Many organizations already have their own intranet or extranet. These
networks already often contain a nook set up for knowledge sharing or even main-
tain somewhat more informal items such as an auction site or cookbook. Often,
these items were not designed for the purposes for which they are being used, or
else they have been reconfigured by a group of enthusiasts. The environments can
be seen as the first cautious steps towards a full-fledged social platform, and the
users of these functionalities are the initial enthusiasts of the new environment. We
would therefore like to know what attracts them to the activity, captivates them and
binds them there.

The degree to which the social stimuli such as activity, presence, conversation,
etc. are present in these existing environments can be quantified in terms of feel.
After all, users experience things by feeling them! For every factor, an evaluation
can be made concerning the degree of its presence. This character sketch of the
current solution can be regarded as an analysis of the actual situation, providing

Stimulus rich 39

us with a foundation for a construction phase through which we then reach a
detailed target situation.

Besides this relatively simple quantification of the technical design, we especially
want to learn what the users feel about the existing situation and what part of
the current solution they find lacking.

Synthesis: the target situation
The desired character of a social platform can be discovered by inter-
viewing a future group of users. To prevent users from feeling like children in a
candy store and wanting the platform with everything that appears cool, they must
be interviewed in a more subtle and indirect manner in order to disclose their real
needs and preferences. Instead of asking users questions to which we very likely
will receive answers in the affirmative (e.g. “Do you want your own blog?” “Do you
want to be able to upload videos and images?” “Would you like to have the latest
news every day?”), questions might better be formulated in the form of alternatives
(e.g. “Blogs or sharing photos?” “Wikipedia or eBay?” “Reading or writing?” “Dis-
cussion or blogging?”). In this way, the potential user is forced to consider the
functionalities and to make choices. This indirectly probes the desired features and
enables the expected composition of the platform to be itemized. Because not all
wishes come to the surface in such a set-up, it is prudent also to conduct a number
of in-depth interviews with users. They are then able to relate, in their own words,
what they currently find lacking and what they would like to see in the platform.

Besides the inventory of user wishes, the expectations of the employer can be
enumerated in this phase. This occurs by entering into an open discussion in
which the results of the analysis and the inventory taking are subject to review.
After all, the platform begins to take shape by using an initial sketch of possibly
appropriate components in order to give it a face. This rough sketch provides
proper insight into the possibilities, ensures a solid commitment and creates a
nice moment for probing expectations.

40 TeamPark

Notes

Stimulus rich 41

4
Organic
There are so many communities, so many wishes, interests and talents,
it quickly becomes impossible to make a prior assessment of the structures into
which the community or platform should be organized. Such an endeavor should
therefore not be attempted. The key terms involved here are “organic” and “self-
organizing.” The environment must have the possibility to allow the community to
determine its own direction and structures. Only a minimum of structure is prede-
fined and pre-established.

The composition of groups, layout, compartmentalization and especially structure
of the content must be able to be determined by the members themselves.

Group formation
A good platform permits people to start their own groups and com-
munities, which others may join or leave at their own discretion. Collaboration must
be self-organizing and self-scaling. This serves various purposes. Instead of people
being rigidly allocated to a team or task, people can find the tasks or communities
to which they may make meaningful contributions on the platform for themselves.
This is organization that occurs bottom-up instead of top-down, by allowing wishes
and talents to match needs.

Organic 43

It also turns out that there is something in communities akin to an ideal group
size.19 Intuitively, many people know that if a group is too large, it explodes and
disintegrates into smaller ones. Anthropology demonstrates that the maximum
size for more “intimate” social groups is about 150, which has been identified
as Dunbar’s number. People appear only to be able to maintain social relation-
ships with 150 friends. The social gaming world reveals that a maximum of
60 participants exists for intensive collaboration in collectives known as “guilds.”
For each type of community, task and environment, there is probably a certain
ideal group size. The sense of belonging in the following anecdotal example only
begins to exist when a size of 5–8 individuals is reached, after which this feeling,
in a sense, sags before recovering its optimum level at around 50 members. To
ensure that each group can find its own balance and ideal size, the platform must
be organic. People must be able to find groups for themselves and join in with
them. Or to remove themselves from them again.

Groups find, in fact, an ideal size depending on task or type

Besides the groups formed by participants themselves, it is also very conceivable
that the system automatically recognizes and facilitates groups based on an anal-
ysis of the relationships among participants. Such matchmaking techniques
involve the identification of various points in common. If participants are able
to establish explicit relationships with others, there are often clusters of social
connections to be recognized. If use is made of social tagging, which we will

19 http://www.lifewithalacrity.com/2004/03/the_dunbar_numb.html

44 TeamPark

discuss below, participants can for example be groups based on matching inter-
ests. Social network analysis is a tool for use in this respect.20,21 Implicit group-
ing can bring people together who would otherwise never have found each other.
There are many metrics available for this purpose, such as “betweenness,” “close-
ness,” “centrality,” “cohesion,” etc. The most evident application is the identifica-
tion of Networks of Practice,22,23 the organic “teams” of a community.

Social tagging and folksonomy
There is a big difference between a centrally managed and top-down
enforced labeling of content and a self-ordering classification system administered
bottom up. Fixed top-down structures mostly consist of sets of categories arranged
in so-called taxonomies (an example is the animal kingdom). Fixed structures are
never optimal, nor are they appropriate for all data. They must therefore be avoided
as the most dominant structure on a social platform. The tendency to reiterate the
organizational vertical structure on the platform must certainly be suppressed.

On a social weblog or a social news site, visitors can add their own articles (or
content in general). A categorical structure is one of the greatest impediments to
such activity, posing an enormous obstacle on almost every site. Evidently, some-
one had the absurd idea that a classification can be devised ahead of time, one
in which everything can always be slotted. This is certainly ambitious but usually
not very smart. Classification in general is a problem for which a good, unam-
biguous solution can never be found. Biologists, mathematicians and philosophers
have known this for centuries. The article that the user wishes to post will almost
never fit into only one of the categories, and almost never precisely in categories
that are preconceived. The fixed structure obstructs evolution of the crowd. In
most cases, it is better to choose a system known as “social tagging,” which results
in what may be identified as a folksonomy,24 in contrast to a taxonomy.25 A good
synonym for tag is “keyword.” Every user can attach keywords to every article,

20 http://www.orgnet.com/sna.html
21 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network
22 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_of_practice
23 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_of_practice
24 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folksonomy
25 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomy

Organic 45

and the system allows various possibilities of performing keyword searches of
articles or to link them by means of recommendations, for example.

Sites that support this self-organizing system of classification are frequently rec-
ognizable by the somewhat untidy but very informative “tag clouds.”26 A tag
cloud is a visual representation of the popularity of the tags or keywords, as
frequently occurring keywords are given greater representation. The tag cloud
reveals a great deal of information at a glance.

Advantages of the use of tags as an ordering mechanism are:

• Tags represent the wisdom of the crowd.
• Tags need not be added by a special editorial staff.
• Tags form an organic structure that directly reflects the actual semantic struc-
ture of the data.

Tags automatically create an order and, as is proper to complex self-organizing
systems, the distribution of tags follows the Power Law, as opposed to randomly
formed data-sets which follow the “Gaussian” distribution (see first part of the
book). The order is self-generated due to the fact that a user has linked certain
tags to the same “thing,” which implies a certain semantic connection between
the tags.

A few tags occur very frequently, but most of them very seldom

26 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_cloud

46 TeamPark

Tags can be analyzed and visualized in various manners. Analysis can take place
by means of mathematical graph theory and/or statistics. The environment, the
platform, must give rise to the one that is the most usable for the purpose at
hand. Two frequently used visualizations are the tag cloud and the tag graph.

The following tag cloud shows countries in relation to their number of inhabit-
ants.

A tag could of countries weight by number of inhabitants

A comparable tag cloud can be constructed on the basis of gross national product,
land area or any other statistic.

Organic 47

Below is a more mathematical representation of a folksonomy:

The visualization of tags in a graph (figure from: http://www.metablake.com/2006/01/
visualizing-folksonomies-using-machine.html)

Absence of synchronous communications
Perhaps the most important factor involved in an organic structure is
the dominance of indirect broadcast communications. The reasoning is of an inverted
nature; the machine model is based on direct synchronous communications. In this
format, the sender explicitly waits for an answer from a designated recipient. This

48 TeamPark

sort of communications is, in principle, unwanted on a social platform because it
enforces fixed structures and dependencies. The collaboration on a social platform
must be based on the assumption that the initiator of an action does not know by
whom, when or from where the initiated action will receive follow-up. This is the
basis for free mass collaboration. It is an opportunistic way of working.

Examples of synchronous communications and means of communications are:

• A telephone conversation
• A direct dialogue
• Collaboration within a fixed workflow

Sometimes, certain means of communication are still usable on social platforms
for various types of communications, but it should be noted that the following
communication media are, in principle, synchronous:

• sms
• msn / im
• Email

Admittedly, these three media can also be used in an asynchronous manner, which
is to say that the sender can organize his or her work so that it can continue
without awaiting an answer from recipients.

Typical asynchronous communications and means of communications are:

• The blog
• The Wiki
• The forum
• The bulletin board
• The revision control system

In principle, the lack of specifically addressed recipients is the most important
indicator of “social communications.”

Organic 49

5
Collaborative
A social platform must be equipped with the proper stigmergic col-
laboration tools, and these must not just be given lip service. For years, it has been
said that “Enterprise 2.0” was an organization that worked with blogs, forums and
wikis, while practice was demonstrating that work was never actually performed
using these tools. Every organization has other processes, which posed their own
specific requirements on the type of collaboration tools that had to be employed.
The aim of the platform and that of the social side is not to introduce new tasks
but to constantly improve them by linking them to smarter processes, such as stig-
mergic (social) processes instead of bureaucratic (functional).

The current organization has certain processes that cannot be performed effi-
ciently using functional forms of collaboration, regardless whether or not they
are currently organized like this or not. They can be identified as the first proc-
esses that must be socialized (actually the correct term is “stigmertized”) in order
to obtain optimum performance. The tools with which this must be done must
match the nature of the processes. A wiki will not help to find people and exper-
tise faster, just as a forum will not contribute much to the safeguarding and
disclosure of knowledge. The entire array of “2.0” or stigmergic collaboration
and communication tools comprises several shades and hues, and the correct
combination of them is necessary for the success of the platform in terms of the
task for which they are employed.

Collaborative 51

The collaborative capacity of a platform reflects the degree to which the choice
of tools matches the specific tasks and collaboration requirements of an organi-
zation.

General tools
The collaboration tools for the more general social platforms have
already been discussed in “From Crowd to Community”. In most cases, a standard
social platform consists of a social weblog, a forum, wikis and, if applicable, some
items related to an activity stream.

Each one of these tools serves another communication/collaboration purpose.
The tools are universal enough to be used for several tasks, but they can be
roughly summarized as follows, and this is not rocket science:

• Weblog
A weblog can be used to inform and express opinions. It is a “broadcast.” In
general, it provides support for more goal-oriented tools. In effect, there is no
collaboration on a weblog other than the commenting on opinions and news.
No products result.
• Forum
A forum is a vehicle for conducting discussions, sounding out and shaping
general opinion, answering questions, providing advice, etc. It is a public means
of debate. In general, it provides support for more goal-oriented tools. There
are also no products that result in this case.
• Wiki
A wiki is entirely well suited to the storage of collective knowledge. A wiki
can be used by a large group of people to collectively update and maintain a
large quantity of documents.
More recent wikis are also suitable for use as collaborative documents and
could, on their own, form the basis for the Intelligent Organization. At every
location where people work together on a document, a wiki can be employed
in order to save people from having to send each other the latest version. Not
all brands of wikis are technically appropriate for this use.
In contrast to the weblog and the forum, the wiki is “product-driven.” In this
case, the product is the “living” document that may be collectively delivered.

52 TeamPark

In most companies involved in knowledge work, documents constitute the
greatest part of their production.
• Social bookmarking
Social bookmarking can be used to filter news and other messages on the
internet. The mechanism of the wisdom of the crowd can ensure that the result
is a continuously up-to-date overview of relevant news. This type of informa-
tion can be used for many various purposes. The marketing department may
find it interesting as a means of keeping in touch with the “consumer.” The
sales department can similarly stay on top of trends among customers and
create opportunities as a result. Technicians can keep up-to-date with the lat-
est developments, etc. It is a pure means of sharing knowledge.
• Activity stream
An activity stream is entirely well-suited for initiating contact between small
islands in companies and facilitating cross-fertilization. Because people are
constantly up to date with each other’s activities, new collaborations arise on
their own.

Most platforms will offer these tools as the basic elements of a “general tool
kit.”

Special tools
Besides the above-indicated general tools, there have also been tools
invented for the specific tasks and processes that are necessary for any given organ-
ization. Many general processes can be designed around existing general tools, such
as the wiki. The wiki is a document in which several can collaborate at the same
time. Other processes require a specific tool with the appropriate built-in stigmer-
gic characteristics. The manner in which such tools are required to work, the types
of signals and content that users therefore deposit in the environment and the ways
in which the accumulation of these signals leads to a fulfilled task are all subject to
the redesign process that will be described later on.

For an example of a more specific tool, an examination can be made of an envi-
ronment in which open-source software is being developed, such as the sublime
Sourceforge platform. The basis of the platform is formed by a few standard
components, such as a forum, a wiki, a blog, rating mechanism, comments, activ-
ity stream; the “whole works” constituting a completely social set-up. It is one

Collaborative 53

of the finest social platforms in existence. Entirely specific, customized facilities27
for the collective development of software have been incorporated. The platform
has tools for version control, bug tracking, release management, download man-
agement, etc. It is a fully-equipped software workshop in which developers from
around the world can produce software together.

It is entirely conceivable that a stigmergic collaboration platform may be built
to fit every type and class of production in an organization: a tool for requesting,
processing and delivery of local government “products,” such as fishing licenses,
building permits and complaint handling; a platform for open-source research;
a platform for innovation. Anything seems and is possible. In addition to the
basic set of tools, each of these platforms will have other tools for specific proc-
esses involved in the purpose at hand. Stigmergic collaboration tools customized
for the organization.

27 http://sourceforge.net/register-project/features.php

54 TeamPark

Notes

Collaborative 55

6
Intelligent
A community potentially contains a great deal of talent that can be
used to improve operational management, for example. Although never intended
for commercial use or for unlocking collective intelligence, a well-known platform
that clearly possesses all these qualities is MySpace. The community of MySpace
is enormous, as is its vitality. But something essential is lacking: nothing important
“results.” There is no purposeful goal. No meaningful result. The platform is conse-
quently diffuse and clearly demonstrates that just having fertile ground is not
enough.

Perhaps the most important ingredient of a “commercial” social platform is the
aggregation mechanism. There must be a way to “tap” into the wisdom of the
crowd. The community must have the ability to converge on a result, and this
may be accomplished by implementing the appropriate aggregation mechanism.
No such mechanism is available on MySpace, and it is perhaps for this reason
that it is not much more than a place to hang out.

The fact that a great deal of ugc (user-generated content) is generated, for exam-
ple, in the form of high-grade wikis, displays in itself the presence of talent.
However, this talent has no immediate purpose. Generating knowledge does not
necessarily result in a solution, improvement or innovation. Knowledge in itself
will not improve operational management,; such improvement requires another
mechanism.

Intelligent 57

On a social news site where users work together to collect news and vote on the
best news items, this mechanism is the front page of the website, where only the
best articles are displayed. The same holds true for a website such as Dell’s Idea-
storm. Users can make suggestions for improvement on which other users can
vote. The best proposals then appear on the front page and are given serious
consideration by Dell. There are innumerable ways to evaluate the quality of
content, but they are also all dependent on the definition of “quality” being
applied. These examples simply involve a democratic vote. Such simple determi-
nations of an average rating may be easily enhanced by, for example, not weight-
ing every vote the same. The weight of a vote may be made dependent on the
“karma” of the voter. Valued users then have more influence on the vote than
others do. Furthermore, quality may be assessed in different ways and based on
several factors. In any case, these types of calculations must be guided by the
desired quality of the community and the outcomes that are to be stimulated.
Such “quality calculations,” which may occur at several locations in a large sys-
tem, come under the heading of “collaborative filtering.”28 The aim of such filter-
ing on a Web 2.0 platform is, in most cases, to assemble the most valuable/useful
contributions from the mass of a community’s input.

Be aware of the Matthew effect
Crowds and communities have a strange effect on their members. Not
only is a crowd “more” than the sum of its individuals, the crowd, as a whole, also
has a feedback loop to its parts. Sociology has noted the existence of something
called “cumulative advantage.” This is commonly known as “the rich getting richer
and the poor getting poorer” and more officially as the Matthew effect29: “For to all
those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from
those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.” People always
have the tendency to attach themselves to the largest, best or most well-known
group, person or opinion: in this way, it resembles the bandwagon effect.30

On such social news sites as digg, this potential has a great influence on the
voting behavior of visitors. People tend to vote on articles that already have the
most votes. digg is a social news site where the crowd can vote on the news

29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_effect
30 http://blog.futurelab.net/2007/04/cumulative_advantage_versus_th.html

58 TeamPark

items that appear on the front page. The quality of the news leaves something to
be desired and the monotony of the topics is sometimes intolerable. It is never
too long before the umpteenth iPhone or iPad news report is once again at the
top of the list. In part, this is the result of irrational factors (the power of stupid
people in large groups), but a significant element is perhaps related to the design
of the website.31

Since the popularity of articles is visible before voting, there is a strong tendency
in the crowd as a whole to make already popular articles even more popular with
likely negative consequences for the general quality and diversity of the content
on the website. A similar effect is discernible on any site where “top rated” or
“most popular” lists are displayed; the items mentioned on these lists are looked
at or watched with disproportionately greater frequency. People undoubtedly
feel more secure in the knowledge of belonging to the largest group. Weblogs
such as the Dutch Geenstijl make grateful use of this behavior; they bind together
an extremely large group by dissing collectively smaller and less able groups.
Easy, effective but not resulting in anything of quality.

Actually, the “cumulative advantage” involves nothing more than putting Boids
rules into effect. We already discussed this point in “From Crowd to Community”.
Boids is a simulation of the flocking behavior of birds, insect en fish. A Boid is
programmed to always follow the direction of its nearest neighbors and to always
shift to the position of these neighbors. Or at least remain close by, not too far
off. If we come to know that the members of a group always want to move in
the same direction as other members, we can then take it into account by, for
example, disguising the direction of movement. In the case of a social news site
such as digg, you could redesign the mechanism so that you will be able to
analyze the popularity of an article only after your vote has been cast. Such a
measure will make the vote much more independent, and will improve quality
(but likely also reduce quantity). It is probably no coincidence that del.icio.us,
another great social bookmark site, has a much higher diversity of content and
an independent voting mechanism as well. The site has, at the same time, fewer
visitors. Unfortunately quality and quantity are often mutually exclusive.

31 http://mashable.com/2007/04/15/is-digg-the-result-of-cumulative-advantage/

Intelligent 59

Collaborative filtering
If a social platform has to create a feeling of togetherness, it is then
desirable to have a front page made by the group itself: a page through which all
content and all activity passes irrespective of the manner in which it is made or the
part of the community to which it is relevant.

When a great deal of content is produced (forum posts, videos, photos, slide shows,
wiki entries, auction advertisements), it however provides an undesired torrent of
information on the front page. New content then flashes by so quickly that no-one
gets anything out of it. Furthermore, not everything is suitable for the front page.
This page is particularly well-suited to be a continuous display for only the best,
most attractive, most inspirational items posted at any given moment. The appear-
ance of an article on the front page is then its own reward. However, editing on
a social website is blasphemous. Therefore what should we do?

The solution is to allow the community itself to determine what is good and what
is not. This can occur in various ways. Nearly, every social site makes it possible
to rate articles, YouTube being a good example. This rating can be used to select
the currently top rated articles for inclusion on the front page. If the rating
involves the time frame of the article’s front-paging, the article will naturally lose
its popularity and disappear from the front page at some point. This mechanism,
known as collaborative filtering32 is exceptionally well-suited for selecting the
best content without explicit editing. The mechanism is even extremely demo-
cratic.

Besides explicit or active rating, there are also implicit or passive factors that
might assist in the selection. In fact, all the factors that might make content desir-
able must be given consideration. Collaborative filtering generally exists in two
versions: active and passive. Allowing users to vote can be classified as an active
variant, in which case a great deal of usable information is overlooked. To prevent
such neglect, consideration can also be given to viewer ratings, the number of
reviews, perhaps even a type of automatically measurable quality of the content.
This is called passive filtering. Regardless of the variant, the algorithm used has
a large influence on the evolution of the community and the quality of its out-
put.


60 TeamPark

nujij.nl, the social news site of the Dutch nu/ Ilse media organization, determines
the popularity of articles based on votes alone and gives each vote equal weight-
ing. Viewer ratings for an article and the number of reviews that it receives are
not included in the calculation. This means that a large part of the community
does not have any influence on the content of the community. If nujij.nl were to
include such factors, the chance is great that a cultural transformation would be
discernible. By culture, we are here referring to such factors as the tone in which
the average discussion is conducted, the type of news that is posted, as well as
the degree of involvement and interaction.

A potentially large problem in so-called democratic (or actively filtered) systems
is misuse. Social news site digg is so large that front-page posting is financially
attractive for the referred site (advertising income). At a certain moment, word
began to go around that top posters had organized themselves and were being
paid for voting articles to the front page. The transparency and predictability of
the algorithm being used, a superficial understanding of basic social mechanisms
and some assistance from other top posters, makes it possible to systematically
“game”33 the system (also known as “pay for play”). digg took action but appar-
ently without much success. It is also very easy to have news items appear on the
front page through the mere collaboration of a small group of members early in
the lifecycle of an article. Members of Dutch Zapruder Inc. website were able to
take nujij site hostage for weeks until the authors of the “truth” site told their
fans to settle down. The solution that nujij programmed into their system after-
wards, was entirely asocial; it became possible to register secret dissenting votes
and, since then, strange things have been occurring in the system. Likely, an edito-
rial board is pressing the buttons to suit themselves. A good reputation system
and a clever algorithm can provide an effective solution for this problem.

At Zaplog.nl, our own “social experiment” that grew out to be one of the larger
social news sites in the Dutch language and even won “The Dutch Bloggie,”
popularity is therefore partly calculated by the system. The underlying basis for
this is the so-called 1% rule for social media. The system uses different statistics
such as number of votes, number or different people making comments, number
of comments, number of inbound referrers, number of views to calculate popu-
larity. The algorithm that calculates popularity gives these properties different

33 http://bokardo.com/archives/diggs-design-dilemma-redux/

Intelligent 61

weightings, the 1% properties receiving much greater weight. The weighting is
continuously updated and standardized for the last 1000 articles. ZapLog.nl uses
“the reciprocal of the ratios of factors” as weighting for the popularity of an
article so that each type of user gets a fair shake. In this way, a page view has
much less weight in the algorithm than a vote but the anonymous lurker still has
some influence on the system The number of votes on the popularity of articles
is not noticeably visible, in order to avoid the Matthew effect. Because Zaplog.
nl wishes to post articles written by the contributors themselves, articles under
copyright (an indication of original content) are given preference, as are articles
with an image and a certain minimum length. All attributes regarded as desirable
are encouraged. Originally, experiments were conducted on the quality of an
article’s content. Several algorithms exist that, based on statistics involving word
lengths and diversity, can say something about the quality of an article, translated,
for example, into a number such as “year of education.” However, such calcula-
tions have proven undesirable because their algorithms understand nothing of
poetic or creative use of language.

The most important consideration in conceptualizing weighting algorithms is
the desired quality. What articles, what content, what output is desired? The most
desirable output should, of course, have the greatest chance of a front page posi-
tion, assuming that such positioning is a good stimulus for authors. At Zaplog.
nl, it is possible to post both original articles and many simpler link dumps. Since
an effort is made to display as much original content as possible, articles written
by contributors are given preferential treatment in several ways. In posting, an
author must indicate the copyright that the article has: none (for quotations and
link dumps), creative commons34 shared) or all-rights reserved. Exclusive content
has an easier and faster route to the front page and may remain there longer. To
provide extra stimulation, original articles are posted with a short introduction,
while link dumps appear only as a title. Users have a greater tendency to click
on intros than to click on “naked” links. Articles accompanied by pictures also
receive somewhat greater preference, as do articles of substantial length. The
entire layout design, social design and interaction design are intended to stimu-
late the posting of original news and opinion articles, and the proof that this
policy works was confirmed by the award of a Dutch Bloggie for best Dutch
weblog in the news and politics category.35 The largest portion of the content

34 http://creativecommons.org/
35 http://zaplog.nl/zaplog/article/winnaars_dutch_bloggies

62 TeamPark

now consists of original work, and the site has grown into the second largest
social news site in the Netherlands. The algorithm and the social design of the
website are constantly being revised. It has adopted a social design that serves
as a sort of public demonstration, in part because ZalpLog.nl is used to testing
and developing many of our theories.

Reputation or karma
The importance of the right aggregation mechanism for a social web-
site has already been mentioned above. Just causing large quantities of ugc (user-
generated content) to be created is not enough; neither is just initiating a great deal
of activity. Making many friends, watching a lot of videos, do not lead to any results,
except in the case of websites that must have page views and user numbers to gen-
erate advertising revenue. A social platform that actually wants to use talent to
devise better business operations has to involve more. There must consequently be
a means to calculate/generate/demonstrate results. The above-described front page
is one such technique. As a consequence, “results” not only appear, but the practice
also ensures that everyone remains in touch with the entire community.

Another mechanism, often used in combination with others, is “reputation.”
Every identity (in most cases, of course, just a normal user) can be associated
with a number indicating the identity’s weight in the community. This number
can be used to stimulate quality in many ways.36 The most simple such mechanism
is a ranking, which may then produce a “User of the Week.”

Reputation systems must be used with restraint, however. Each user is, in prin-
ciple, equally valuable to the community because he or she may also, at some
time, throw his or her unique talent into the battle. Even troublemakers and trolls
have their function.37 An unruly person always is very successful in stifling discus-
sion and, in many start-up websites, editors often take this role on themselves.
At the same time, some users are just more active and more successful than oth-
ers, and a signal provides the appropriate reward. It constitutes an incentive. The
reputation system must, however, never represent a barrier to new, beginning or,
up to then, less valuable users.

36 http://www.moneysmith.com/2008/07/28/why-does-social-media-need-karma-ratings/
37 http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(internet)

Intelligent 63

A reputation system can also be usable to the community in combating misuse.
Especially in systems in which content and activities can be voted on, or in which
ratings can be issued, it is undesirable that everyone who has just become a
member should be able to immediately strongly make a strong impression on
the site. In this case, this type of right must first be earned.

At the Dutch ZapLog, karma is calculated on the basis of an evaluation that the
system makes of a user’s contributions, which is furthermore determined on the
basis of such weighted factors as the number of interactions (views, comments,
links and ratings), the number of different users who have interacted, and the
average rating. A user is therefore more valuable if the community evaluates his
or her contributions as valuable. As a result, both quality and quantity become
important.

On your social platform, an examination must be made to determine the quali-
ties of each group that should be stimulated and to discover if a different karma
system must be established for each group. Do not be afraid to regularly change
these calculations as the community grows, however. In a small community, an
effort must first be made to obtain quantity; in somewhat larger groups, greater
emphasis can be placed on quality. Certainly communicate the changes and do
not make any exceptions for certain users. At the same time, such transparency
must occur without revealing the specific details of the calculation in order to
prevent cheating.

Reputation can also be helpful in establishing the specific expertise available in
the different groups or in finding expertise regarding a particular matter. Used
in combination with social tagging and social network analysis, it becomes easy
to undertake a few keyword searches to establish the source of the most valuable
content associated with these words, as well as the groups and individuals behind
it. The form of analysis by means of which this occurs is called social network
analysis and typically results in the previously mentioned “communities of prac-
tice” (groups of people who have implicit relations with each other on the basis
of earned reputation and demonstrated interests).

64 TeamPark

Notes

Intelligent 65

7
Adaptive
Where to begin? A complete organization provided with a living social
side must go through an entire sequence of steps in order to emerge. With Team-
Park, we envision a development in four phases: awareness, strategy, implementation
and vitalization. An important ingredient in the strategy phase concerns the deter-
mination of the scale and degree in which the organization has to establish processes
to “socialize” itself (equivalent to the term “democratize” used in literature). It goes
without saying that every type of organization requires a different platform, depend-
ing primarily on the processes that must be facilitated. But how do we determine
the types of communications and the manners of collaboration that may be suc-
cessful, and the department that first must test the new way of working together?

There are various theories, but we are ultimately interested in a process that
provides the best possible results at the lowest possible cost and within the least
amount of lead time. In our view, there are two possibilities for doing this, and
all other variants are derived from these two.

Evolution vs. Intelligent Design
In general, there are two strategies for achieving an “adapted social
platform”: evolution and intelligent design. Both strategies have advantages and
disadvantages. The choice between them depends on the specific situation and, in
particular, the size of the company. In very large companies, evolution is advanta-
geous at many points. Ultimately, the chance is then the greatest in such large

Adaptive 67

organizations that the most extensively adapted platform can be created without
running through an enormously expensive procedure.

Given that practice can best determine the processes requiring an improved social
and given that training and intensively counseling employees are not only very
expensive but always occur under the risky assumption that we know in advance
what the final result has to be, it may prove much wiser to adopt the “social
evolution theory.” In our view, this runs as follows: a big bang makes a very rich
and “over-functional” social platform available organization-wide, and the ele-
ments of this platform are monitored to determine which ones are successful.
The successful initiatives are nourished and expanded, while unused functional-
ity is allowed to die out, or at least reduced to a less prominent stature. In this
manner, relatively little guidance is required to create a successful platform that
is, by definition, adapted to the organization.

The other strategy is social intelligent design. This process is very precisely geared
to finding the most fertile ground in the organization and to sowing seeds there.
Three factors play key roles in this respect:

• Processes
• People (your employees)
• Technology

Of course, not all processes are well-suited or function better as a result of
socialization. By analyzing the organization to find the processes that might be
given attention, the initial range of solutions can be significantly diminished.
Strictly speaking, we are actually putting this wrong. It is, in fact, not the proc-
esses that are important but the results: the successful performance of tasks. Some
tasks can better be performed by means of social collaboration (organic), others
are better undertaken through functional collaboration (mechanical). We need
to find the processes that currently rely on functional collaboration but don’t
perform well. They are probable candidates for social redesign.

Not all your employees are suitable, have the intention or have the power to
undertake all the new forms of collaboration and communication on their own.
Examining the forms and tools of collaboration that are appropriate for your
people substantially reduces the range of solutions.

68 TeamPark

Finally, there are the ordinary technological requirements or limitations of your
facilities. Consideration of these issues also creates an organizational map with
which to identify the best possible breeding ground for social initiatives.

Which processes?
Large bureaucratic companies do not have an explicitly organic quality,
but they do have a great number of processes that, in fact, do have this dimension.
Such misplaced processes can be identified and constitute the most obvious can-
didates to convert from bureaucracy to holocracy. Misplaced processes are recogniz-
able in various manners. They have the characteristics of social stigmergic collabo-
ration. For example, many involve broadcast communications or inherent asynchrony.
They have an ad-hoc or incidental nature, as well as characteristics that are difficult
to encode in procedures. Consider, in this regard, the difference between mechanism
and organism.

Many processes are of a hybrid nature. In these cases, they have functional as
well as social features. Take, for example, the bidding process in a commercial
knowledge company. This is a centrally coordinated process in which much of
the information must be obtained from employees working in another part of
the organization. For them, it is organic work. They cannot be expected to par-
ticipate in synchronous reciprocal collaboration within the bid team. They can-
not always drop everything to respond to an email. This conflict can result in
large degrees of inefficiency. The way of working and communicating used by
the bid team until that time (documenting, circulating emails, teleconferencing
and making agreements) almost entirely bogs down, and the project is exposed
to enormous stress as well as inevitable aggravation. These types of processes
can make enormous gains in efficiency by providing them with the proper stig-
mergic facilities.

Unpredictable processes are also often suitable candidates for socialization or
maybe something like crowdsourcing. Innovation is such a process. Good ideas
do not appear on command, and the generation of them is difficult to systematize.
Crowds very often have extremely good ideas, frequently coming in a more reli-
able stream, than that produced by a few, even incredibly inspired, individuals.
The same applies to resolving problems or finding information.

Adaptive 69

TeamPark book (english) part 2, platform and method

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