Blogging and Social Interactions

A great catch by Phil Wolff about the social characteristics of web logs:

Blogging Alone.

Stephen Dulaney applies Indicators of Social Capital to Web Logs.

1. Levels of giving (blog ecossystem) reflects people’s propensity to give to others when they themselves may not directly benefit. The economy of giving links.
   
2. Participation and engagement (What we do when we blog Meg Hourihan) gauge of people’s involvement in a range of groups and associations, both formal and informal. Ray Ozzie adds a nice contribution to “Why we Blog“
   
3. Reciprocity within the community (everybodyblogit) is the measure to which people can rely on their community to help in times of need. How to Start a Weblog ( For Professinal Journalists)
   
4. Generalized trust that people have in other individuals and groups, and how safe they feel in their daily interactions with others.
   
5. Trust towards public officials and institutions or the measure of people’s confidence in the institutions of society.
   
6. Social Norms (Lessig) the rules, belief, morals and habits that regulate behaviour.
   
7. Attitudinal variables (blogtree) important to social capital or individuals’ belief about themselves, their place, and their tolerance of others, levels of acceptance, motivations and sense of connectedness.
   
8. Confidence in the continuation of social and political relationships for the future.

This list is from the work titled Framework for the measurment of Social Capital in New Zealand which was prepared by Anne Spellerberg and assisted by the social capital programme team. page 16 of the (link to pdf found here)

Do these apply to an Intranet klogging cluster?

I’m sure they do, with a few differences.

1. More klogger than blogger. Kloggers are also members of the large, amorphous population of blogspace. As people are socialized first into a local klogspace, this outside affiliation may be lessened.
   
   
2. Colleagues first.Second, you define your focus of attention by your work more than your passions and curiousity. Your formal affilliations (your chain of command, your team, your stakeholders) and informal ones (your office network, ad hoc teams) fill your days, and your klogs.
   
   
3. Work cultures. Social capital within an enterprise is strongly flavored by personality, policy, institutional memory (institutional rumor?), regional culture, and occupational culture.
   
   
4. Personal fences. Do you keep your social circles apart? Many people take care about mixing work, family, friends, politics, and faith. Do you want your bondage master, your bowling team, and your quality circle to know about each other through you? when people at work see your personal blogs, how does that affect your working relationships? This visibility biases what people write.
   
   
5. Intellectual property. Work is more a Free Agent Nation than ever. Portability of knowledge and experience is a career asset. Most employers claim that everything employees write using company IT gear is the employer’s property. This creates a conflict of interest.

[aka community] [a klog apart]