Hugh MacLeod, over at gapingvoid gives some great insight into “Social Objects”:

“The Social Object, in a nutshell, is the reason two people are talking to each other, as opposed to talking to somebody else”

I really like the term. Social Objects are everywhere in modern web applications – Check out the discussion pages at wikipedia, or flickr. Every one of those crummy facebook applications that you accidentally join has, at it’s core, a social object.

As for the Enterprise, the social objects that are present in the workplace may not be as interesting as say, Vampires, but they are nonetheless important artifacts that people interact daily with. The latest copy of the employee manual is a social object. A previous forgotten version may also be a social object. The new team put together for the latest PR campaign is a social object. Other people who contribute decisions on that campaign are social objects. (isn’t inter-office gossip fun?) And all of these social objects co-exist in the workplace with a stream of social objects that people bring along with them.

Now, these social objects are a nice abstraction, but they don’t really offer us much utility – the real opportunity to improve the function of the enterprise lies in the conversations about these objects, and the actions taken as a result of those conversations. As Dean said in a previous post, Computers aren’t very good at conversations. But they are very good at remembering and tracking things.

Since we started infovark, social objects and people have been at the forefront of our thinking. (We’re working on the best way to manage these enterprise social objects for the people who work with them.)

Every time I see a post like Hugh’s that explains what we’re working on, it makes me feel a little less nervous about the whole startup thing…

Rock on, Hugh

Related posts

1. Open the doors and see all the people
2. What is Social Software?
3. Social Networking Belongs in Business
4. Twitter as Social Computer
5. Social Media for the Shy