collaboration | Social Signal

Our friends at ReframeIt are enjoying a couple of weeks' worth of well-deserved glowing coverage, most recently in the form of a great review on ZDnet. I met ReframeIt CEO Bobby Fishkin at this year's NetSquared, where we had an awesome conversation about how well-designed social web tools can support meaningful conversation, knowledge building and social trust, as opposed to the usual yak yak yak.

Most online collaboration tools engage your left brain: that part of you that likes structure and organization, and supports linear, sequential thinking. Think of Basecamp, with its careful system of tasks and milestones. Or Google spreadsheets (I have dozens of them!) organizing everything from budgets to menus in neat, orderly rows and columns. Even wikis seem to work most effectively when they are gardened into a coherent structure, with some kind of intentional hierarchy of information.

Tonight's symposium featured Michael Alexin, Oberlin College class of '79, V.P. of Softlines Design and Product Development at Target. Yes, this is the man responsible for keeping me clothed during my last pregnancy, and even tougher, the post-pregnancy pre-weight loss months.

Organizations have discovered that community-driven web sites can engage supporters, stakeholders and members of the public. The most effective community sites build critical mass quickly -- and compelling content remains the easiest way to attract users. The good news is that a community-based approach gives you a wealth of options for effectively creating, shaping and organizing content.