In my first post on this topic, I explained my observation that I have multiple roles that I take on as I use Facebook.  I ended the post by asking the question “What is it about the social networking experience with Facebook that promotes all these roles being used?”  In this post I will explore some opinions born of our experiences with our Connected.info product as well as other research into the topic.

Let’s consider what drives us to have friends in the first place.  Anthropologists and biologists may point to the desire for relationships as a basic instinct to reproduce to continue the species.  Others will point to our evolutionary roots and claim that the pack / herd mentality of other mammals is born out of a need for security, i.e. there is security in numbers. A few generations ago, neighbors formed the basis of our “pack” and our neighborhood became a place of safety and support for those who were part of the “hood”.

As our culture has evolved and the physical threats to our existence become less, our need for “protection” may have evolved into a need for emotional protection and thus our need for friends.  However, as humans move into cities and other locales where their neighbors are less likely to be our friends, and our friends more likely to live some distance from us, our need for emotional protection is less likely to be filled.  So, as people have become more knowledgeable about the features of social networks, they turn to them for emotional “protection”.   But, how does sharing a photo on your Facebook page get you emotional protection?  At some level, what it does is nurture the connection with someone, who when you have a need for emotional protection, will be “there” for you.

From one point of view, this seems incredibly sad.  Our society has become a place where people who live close by are not known well enough to depend upon and our families live so far apart that we can’t provide support for our loved ones.  However, from another point of view, by sharing what we share on a social network, we tighten the bonds with those people that live farther away.

Students entering their teen years are psychologically proven to need friends.  For many, their friends are more important to them then their families.  When we first build Connected.info, we did not put much stock in the “friend” role, instead focusing on the role of “classmate”.  After 3 months of real use, when we did our focus group sessions again, we learned that the friend role was critical to widespread use of the service.  If we wanted more than just students signing in, checking their homework and grades, and signing off, we needed to integrate the idea of friends into the product.

How about our professional lives?  What is it about a social network that motivates us to use it in our professional lives?  Well, there is the old saying that “It’s not what you know, it is who you know”.  Or, put a different way, unless someone knows you, they can not think about you when an opportunity comes along.  Reaching out to colleagues, customers, and important people in your chosen field through a social network can be a convenient way to keep those people informed.  However, by using the same social network for both personal and professional purposes, one runs the risk of losing credibility in the professional world.  Or, worse, your personal points of view may be so divergent from someone you value as a colleague, that they may decide not to interact with you on any level.  Another saying is “Religion and politics have no place in the workplace”.

For Connected.info, we went a step further.  We made the tool an integral part of the “profession” of being a student and teacher.  We provided workflows in the application that facilitated information sharing and supported the assignment out / submission returned model in digital space.  While Facebook and MySpace do not currently incorporate tools to conduct business within the social network, it is only a matter of time before they figure out that the opportunity exists to do so.

How about being a parent?  At some level, services like Facebook and MySpace when used normally, provide a way to stay close to your children when they no longer are living in your home.  There are numerous examples of this – photo albums of grandchildren, etc.  But, by being able to “observe” your children’s interactions with their friends, you are able to learn more about them as another adult.

With Connected.info, we again went a step further.  We created features in the application to engage parents back into the learning process.  We were told by high school principals that their number one issue is being able to communicate with parents during the school year.  Take home flyers are lost or thrown away by the students.  Email gets pushed into SPAM folders.  Web sites go mostly unread.  However, when a parent is able to see on a regular basis their child’s grades, homework assignments, and attendance, the dynamic changes.  Answering the question “How is my child doing?” is a basic parental need, that we are able to fill.  “How can I help my child do better?” is a basic parental need that the ability to easily collaborate with school officials can fill.

Finally, there is the gamer role.  Well, recreation and the ability to escape from the day to day has always been a part of what the Internet is used for.  Providing games that allow a player to play against and with other people has made lots of game console developers rich.  Social networks allow you to have fun with the people you care about without them having to be in the same physical place as you are to do so.  The Facebook game Farmville went from a few hundred users to a few million users in less than 4 months of availability.  The classic definition of viral growth.  What is it about the game that make playing it on Facebook better?  Well, besides the fact that the social network facilitated the viral usage growth, the game incorporates your friend network into game play.  This combination of game play and friend connection is very powerful.  For example, the game may send a user a message that “James Brown has given you 10 apple trees to plant on your farm.”  This registers as a call to play and registers as “Oh, I better plant the trees otherwise James will think I am ignoring him”.  This is a very powerful tool to encourage game play.  However, it can go too far.  As more of your friends play the game, the number and frequency of messages increases and at some point a user will turn off the messages and eventually, lose interest in the game.  It will be interesting to see how long the franchise of Farmville lasts.

I hope this series of blog posts illustrates a main point; that social networking is not really a single thing / feature / service.  It is an element of many things and can have both a positive and negative impact on our use and satisfaction with on line products.

As always, we welcome your comments….

Roseville, CA – Connected Information Systems has been recognized as a New California 100 Innovative Business by Golden Capital Network and Hamilton Lane. New California 100 businesses are some of the most innovative companies in the state representing California’s commitment to innovation, entrepreneurship, and workforce competitiveness.

Approximately 100 companies throughout the State of California received this prestigious recognition from over 400 nominations. New California 100 Businesses will be recognized during a luncheon awards ceremony at 11:45am-1:15 pm on September 22, 2009 at the New California 100 Conference in Sacramento’s Sheraton Grand Hotel.

New California 100 Businesses are market leading, privately held companies that have been selected based on the uniqueness of their innovation, competitive advantages, and positive impact on California’s job market and overall economy now and into the future.

“These innovators are powerful job-creating machines,” said Jon Gregory, CEO/President of Golden Capital Network. “We believe innovation and entrepreneurship are the drivers of economic growth in California and these Innovation All-Stars are models for our state.”

About Connected Information Systems:

ConnectEd.info is designed to keep teachers, students, and parents in sync. Web 2.0 tools such as blogs and wikis provide an environment for safe, collaborative learning. Advanced calendar tools make it easy for parents to keep track of their children’s busy schedules. ConnectEd.info is also designed to reduce overhead for a school’s administrative and IT staff. By leveraging near-real-time access to your student information system, ConnectEd.info seamlessly integrates with and connects your school community without the need for duplicate data entry.

About Golden Capital Network:

Golden Capital Network leads by stimulating economic vitality through early stage private equity investment, connecting innovative entrepreneurs, active investors, service providers, and policymakers to share the insights, risks, and rewards of innovative collaboration. Our purpose is to facilitate entrepreneur and investor networks to provide capital, expertise, and resources for building world-class companies. Golden Capital Network provides communities with the capabilities to maximize the value of their own social capital networks for accelerating their homegrown entrepreneurs. Since 1999, Golden Capital Network’s 1,000+ alumni companies have raised more than $1.3 billion in capital. Golden Capital Network alumni companies include NovaBay Pharma (IPO); InterVideo (IPO), StubHub (acquired by Ebay), Security Focus (acquired by Symantec); PowerSchool (acquired by Apple); MaxPreps (acquired CBS), Meridian Systems (acquired by Trimble), and Hanson Information Technology (acquired by Information Global Systems).

About Hamilton Lane

Hamilton Lane is an independent financial institution that provides discretionary and non-discretionary private equity asset management services to sophisticated investors worldwide.

Founded in 1991, Hamilton Lane has grown to over 110 employees, with over $94 billion in total assets under management and supervision including over $12 billion of assets under management for managed accounts.  Hamilton Lane clients include a number of the world’s largest institutional investors, as well as many mid-sized and smaller institutions.

Schools using Connected.info are seeing a benefit to utilizing the Discussion Forum feature to extend the learning of certain lessons.  Posing topics for discussion as homework instead of assigning work to be done as individuals has the effect of engaging students in the learning process in ways that traditional homework can not.  Consider the forum topics below:

As students post their opinions on the discussion topics, they are leading other students to a better understanding of the lesson.  As those other students respond, they are collaborating in a way which studies have shown results in increased learning.  Moreover, these interactions are similar to the kinds of on-line interactions they will be having as adults.  While it is natural for norms to develop in these interactions by themselves, the process of interacting presents instructors with opportunities to teach digital citizenship.

Creating a topic is simple and adding a response is also very simple.  Students will see the following when they select a discussion topic:

By clicking Add Response, they will be able to type in their thoughts.  Once they post a response, there are two possible workflow options.  By choosing to moderate the posts by checking the box in the Info section of the group (see below), their response will show up in a list of responses for you to approve.  Otherwise it will immediately post unless there is profanity in the post.  Then, the post will be removed by the system and you will have a chance to delete it.  Our experience has been that students will also regulate other students by flagging posts as objectionable if they know the flagging will be done anonymously.  Both options provide instructors with the degree of control they need to feel comfortable.

Instructors using Connected.info report that they are seeing two measurable benefits from using Discussion Forums in this way.  First, students who do not feel comfortable sharing their opinions in class are doing so online.  Some teachers are reporting participation rates as high as 90% in the online forums.  Second, the time devoted to lessons by students when online forums are used can be as much as a week or two beyond that of the in-class session.  Increases in grades have not been measured as of yet, but early reports have also been positive.

We hope you will consider using the Discussion Forum feature of Connected.info to assist in your learning endeavors.