Socialtext Customer Exchange : Intimacy gradient

Socialtext is based on wiki which, which uses a model of collaboration coming from the world of agile software development.

Within a team, there is a level of trust. People want to be able to work together quickly, with few barriers. If someone makes a mistake, others will rally and correct it. The capabilities of the team as a whole is greater than the sum of the parts, so it's great to be able to get contribution from everyone. People are working quickly, in short iterations. It's important to be able to contribute quickly, with as few steps and interruptions as possible.

The original wiki model was fully open to the public. Socialtext supports public wikis, which are fully open, and private wikis, which are open to members of the team.

Larger organizations require a more sophisticated model than "public" or "private." There are models to draw on from Christopher Alexander, an architect whose work on "pattern languages" describes the design patterns in the physical built environment, ranging in scale from rooms, to houses, to streets, to neighborhoods and cities.

Alexander writes about an "intimacy gradient". There are some areas in a house that are public -- the front porch; areas that are indoors and public -- the living room; and areas that are indoors and more private -- bedrooms and bathrooms.

The design opportunity is to create livable, workable, more-public and more-private spaces, using a "social software method" that focuses on helping people connect and collaborate with people in the least restrictive, most appropriately trusting way.

This is a different design philosophy than the traditional methods for setting levels of privacy. The underlying traditional assumption is that information should be available, and users should have privileges, on a "need to know basis." Individuals should have as little information and as few privileges as they need to do their jobs.

The goal of a tool for group work is to be able to restrict access with as much control as possible. Content and privileges should be controllable at a highly granular level. A work process should be clearly defined, to determine what users should have access to what information, and a given stage of a process.

This method depends on a highly-structured, formal process. Analysts and administrators need to carefully define the types of information, to parcel out privileges, and to be able to monitor information access.

These processes and assumptions are right for some environments, and wrong for many others. If an organization needs a highly structured, controlled, restricted process, then Socialtext is probably not right for that need.

Many knowledge workers overuse email, because that's the only way they can get the kind of rapid, flexible communication that's appropriate for the collaborative work they're doing.

Socialtext is looking to add more layers to the "intimacy gradient", without recreating the highly structured collaboration tools that exist today.

Quote from Christopher Alexander's A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction, (Oxford University Press, 1977):

Pattern #127 - Intimacy Gradient

Conflict: Unless the spaces in a building are arranged in a sequence which corresponds to their degrees of privateness, the visits made by strangers, friends, guests, clients, family, will always be a little awkward.

Resolution: Lay out the spaces of a building so that they create a sequence which begins with the entrance and the most public parts of the building, then leads into the slightly more private areas, and finally to the most private domains.

Other patterns that may be applicable for brainstorming about online collaboration (see the link for Alexander's resolution):

Pattern #31 - Promenade: Each subculture needs a center for its public life: a place where you can go to see people, and to be seen.
Pattern #61 - Small Public Squares: A town needs public squares; they are the largest, most public rooms, that a town has. but when they are too large, they look and feel deserted.
Pattern #69 - Public Outdoor Room: There are very few spots along the streets of modern towns and neighbourhoods where people can hang out, comfortably, for hours at a time.
Pattern #42 - Sequence of Sitting Spaces: Every corner of a building is a potential sitting space. But each sitting space has different needs for comfort and enclosure according to its position in the intimacy gradient.
Pattern #147 - Communal Eating: Without communal eating, no human group can hold together.