What motivates participation in Social Networks or Online Communities?

The core answer to this question depends on motivation. Motivation comes in the form of intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation comes from outside forces, like a financial incentive. Intrinsic motivation is about internal motivation, such as a sense of satisfaction that comes from doing something, such as sharing information.

Although motivation is at the core of participation in online communities, there are numerous other dimensions to consider that affect what works in one community versus what works in another. For instance, a community devoted to interests (such as hobbies), is different from a community of practice (people who work in the same field such as an acting club or legal or accounting association), which is also different from a community which is mandatory, such as participating in an work-sponsored intranet/social networking platform. Not only are the motivations different in each of these cases, but there are numerous structural differences in the communities. They differ based on the strength of their social ties, size of their groups, group norms. They may differ in the degree of participation, type of participation, technology features, culture of individuals, etc.

Among the many structural elements that are observed in relationship to participation is social embededdness. A 2001 survey [1] found that being connected to a group through recruitment is an important factor in participation. Also, the degree of cultural affinity towards a particular group is important. Considered on a practical level for business, these findings would imply that recruiting individuals to be part of your community and actively engaging them may be critical to its success, and that applies to offline communities as well. Another thing to consider is that growing an online community is likely to be related to how well you can tap into and draw participants from a related community. For instance, an online community about technology standards is more likely to get interest from people who create technology products than from people who sell real estate. Common ideas (know your market) but from a slightly uncommon perspective.

1. Passy and Giugni 2001, Social Networks and Individuals Perceptions: Explaining Differential Participation in Social Movements.

Identity in Online Communities and Social Media

Today I read through a relatively old article on the use of Usenet and found it remarkably applicable to what we see today in Social Media. Usenet can be thought of as a combination of email and forums/billboards and had a heavy influence on many of the acronyms and culture of today’s technology-mediated culture. Judith Donath examined this community in terms of how (over 13 years ago) it was used to establish personal identity both in honest and deceptive ways. If you consider the offline world, there are many cues that let you know about someone, but that is not the case with online interactions. Online identity presentation is partially limited by the features of the technology design. But what you do learn from those features has probably become subconscious to us now, such as looking at the writer’s source (an edu address vs. a 1234132@hotmail account), signatures, writing content (do they know their stuff), and writing style. Other issues such as inflammatory comments, spam, and deceptive users are as much of a concern in current media as they were then.

One thing that has changed, perhaps, is that social media generally gives a much greater weight to identity presentation than previous technologies types did. The articulation of social networks and detailed profiles serve to increase the veracity and trustworthiness of the online personas that are presented. And because trust is recognized in economics as the grease that makes communication/trade possible, the addition of greater self presentation in modern technology has had a dramatic affect on our world.

One thing that has remained the same is the diversity of user groups. I have seldom considered that groups are often very distinct in culture. Hackers, motorcycle enthusiasts, and expectant mothers all differ in how they interact. Generally speaking, groups can be intentionally built to be aggressive and argumentative, or respectful and diplomatic. They may require formality, or communicating with acronyms. Like a system, they must also protect themselves from outside influences, such as when a trouble maker seeks to interject themselves into every single conversation (think of religious forums, sports, ethnicity, etc.).

Ending an email with your signature

One thing that frequently makes me uncomfortable is how to handle signing my name at the end of an email.

First off, it indicates who the email was from. Umm, isn't that already pretty clear from the "From" column in your email client. Also, if you are using a signature, you have now stated twice who you are. So it seems kind of like kicking a dead horse to sign your name at the end of the email.

At the same time, however, not signing your name (be it "Dave" or "Al" or "-Jared" or "Yours Truly, Alice") seems rude.

At any rate, until society dictates a formal rule for this, I'll always feel a little socially disoriented when sending emails to anyone other than my family, who I can drop the signature for--after all, they know who I am.

Dumb messages in Outlook

The exchange service I am on for my university email is capped so I regularly run out of space when someone sends me, say, a 5 meg file or something. As such, I constantly try to keep on top of it. One thing that kind of drives me nuts is the triple delete feature in Outlook. It goes like this: I see a message I don't want, I delete it. It goes to the deleted items folder. I right click on the folder and choose to empty the folder. It pops up with a window asking if I want to delete those items, and I need to confirm my choice. Now granted, there is probably a setting to change that, but nevertheless why do I need to go through three steps to delete spam or other unwanted email. Once to delete and once to permanently delete is probably more than enough. I like the way gmail does things wherein you can simply let it clean out your older spam and deleted messages automatically--by default.

Things that make you ask why

I've thought of re-orienting my blog today. The thing that makes me unique is partially my ability to watch the world around me from a sometimes juvenile and hopefully humorous perspective. When I speak to people, I hope to make them laugh a little and that their day is a little better from the encounter. With that in mind, I ask some questions today about "why" things are the way they are.

1. Why is it disconcerting (even at an advanced age) to be drinking out of a drinking fountain and have someone flush the toilet on the other side of the wall and have the water pressure change dramatically. I don't really believe what I told my little sister as a kid about the bad stuff coming through the drinking fountain, do I?



2. Why does it take so long to get a banking account? I signed up for new business account a few weeks ago at Washington Mutual. It took at least an hour. Granted, they might have some issues merging with the Chase systems, but what is up with taking over an hour? As I watched the bank employee click on her computer for over an hour, I couldn't help but think that some decent technology people could turn this from a one hour problem to a 5 minute problem. It could be simple: go stand at that kiosk, enter in your address and other info, and when you are done click submit and I'll click one or two buttons on my side and we'll be done. As it was, my kids trashed bank. 2-year olds flipping over water cups, spinning office chairs, climbing on book shelves....

3. I just walked over to the kitchen where I saw an Indian dude microwaving hot chocolate in a styrofoam cup. Well, at least he wasn't smoking a cigarette.









4. ASU is nearly six months behind on most of my payroll. They partially blame this on their computer systems. Dude, someone, somewhere needs to have their head roll over this one. I have at least 5 emails exchanged each week about this. It's always "the check's in the mail." Right.

5. My computer just crashed spontaneously. When I restarted, a new version of Firefox and Java were installed/about to be installed. Co-incidence? Not. I actually love both of those technologies, but they shouldn't go messing with my work-er-I mean blogging.

Critique of new cloud storage

I saw this article today and found it interesting. This author didn't seem to be too fond of the the new, inexpensive ways of storing data. Despite that, I have found that some of the largest organizations based out of Phoenix have found it tremendously useful to start putting major amounts of their information into the cloud. It comes down to economies of scale, if someone can do something cheaper and better than you, then let them. Let them have their core competency and you keep focusing on yours.

Computer Mice

Today I looked at my computer mouse and wondered why they call it a mouse. I guess the tail is probably where the name came from. That being said, if mice or cordless now, does that mean they aren't mice anymore?

All things business

I probably shouldn't be blogging right now. Sometimes you just can't help it. Business often seems so easy but people mess it up so badly. Today GM says they are delaying construction on their Chevy Volt plant. I understand that they are running out of money, but it is hard to understand why it has taken them so long to focus on a product that the public actually cares about. And now they have to delay production on it. I don't think that bunkering down to sell more of the cars people don't want is going to help their situation.

Other things are driving me crazy too. I'm on a college campus half of my week and downtown Phoenix the other half of the week. I regularly witness places that sell overprice food going out of business. At the same time, American families are struggling. Why is it that you can't buy a sandwich at most places for less than 6 dollars, and 8-10 is all too common. Granted, I understand that If I were a business owner I'd need to charge that kind of money to stay afloat, but that isn't what the public needs right now. With so many people out of work, and so many on the edge, you should be able to buy a cheap sandwich for 99 cents, or maybe 1.50. You know, a tuna fish sandwich on wheat bread or maybe a peanut butter and jelly. Maybe a piece of Naan bread with a swipe of Hummus on it. There should be little lunch carts on every corner of America right now selling affordable food that is healthy too. As it is, you have to pay 6-8 dollars for a little bowl of rice with some sugar sauce on it. Man, that is ridiculous. Neither sugar nor rice costs much. I don't care about eating in a place with a 10 foot tall horse in front. Hold the decor and heavy on the low price for me!

How about housing? Why do we all live so far from work? What's up with the 100 year old perspective on zoning? Wouldn't it be nicer if we didn't have to own expensive vehicles in order to get to work and buy food? We should have housing mixed with business disctricts in ways that are beautiful and functional. We could have better quality of life by not polluting so much, and having more time with our families. We'd also make better use of public transportation.

How about health insurance? This is a really divisive issue. Despite spending far more than any other country in the world on health services in general, statistics show that we don't live any longer. Meanwhile, each new drug that comes out is perceived to be the right of every American to have, subsidized by all the other Americans of course. I can appreciate the sentiment of those who say they would work every last day of their life without retirement so that their child can have good health care. But what happens when there is a tremendous social cost to everyone participating in such a system? How can we afford to have our businesses spend at least $10,000 a year on employees for health insurance? How can we afford to pay our own portion of health insurance on top of that? How can you ever truly live a free life when you feel that you can't live without the assurances that $10,000+ a year in health insurance brings? How can we compete with other countries for manufacturing jobs when we demand that our companies spend so much on our people? A win by a union to get such benefits for its employees is a nail in the coffin of that business in the long term. It seems reasonable that each working person should put a couple thousand a year into a health system, but that anything beyond basic care should be something you have to pay for out of your own pocket. If you want the $5,000 a month acne cream, you should buy it yourself. If you want the $150,000 a month cancer treatment, you should pay for it yourself or be entered into some type of lottery for treatment or get your neighborhood/church to pay for it. Sure, it sounds mean, but if health services aren't provided in a competitive way according to people's budgets, then the whole innovation of services/increase in health insurance premiums cycle never ends, and we all lose. I like doctors, but if the only way for them to make a dollar is to lower what they get paid, they would. I like pharmaceutical companies, but if the only way they could get paid was by competing to deliver low cost goods that people could afford without health insurance, you can bet that they would find a way.

And in brief, how about another topic of conversation: power consumption. Who wants to have all their energy payments (oil) being funneled overseas to people who want to kill you? Hopefully nobody. We really should be looking for ways to be energy independent. The only realistic way to do that is through nuclear power. Nevertheless, if we try to rely on the meager contributions of wind and solar, we need to find ways to make our devices more efficient. If solar power and such provides very little power, then we should make houses and businesses that use very little power. This requires new science to create better devices, as well as a change in behaviors. Maybe we need smaller televisions, for example.