Full Circle Associates

Lee, in between jetting around the country working his fingernails to the bone, had time to come up with another of his wonderful compare/contrast pieces, this time looking at the issues of how identity are manifest in online communities as compared to social networking sites.

Comparing Social Networking to Online Communities:

"Perhaps the most compelling difference in my mind is the use of the member profile to represent member identity. What enables many of the differences I outline below is the way in which social networking communities use the member profiles or member homepages to build identity."

(snip)

owever, I do see opportunity for traditional online communities to take a new look at member profiles and how they can be used build identity. Participation in discussions should not be the only way to have an identity in an online community.

There are some great points to dig into, but I have to be brief. Meeting starts downstairs at the kitchen table 2 minutes ago. That said, I agree with Lee's premise about the importance of looking at identity as a key to understanding and maximizing social and business interaction in distributed, web based settings. I think the line between online communities and social networking will totally blur as we explore those affordances that bridge, or create a connecting "cloud" between technical interaction applications.

I've been "heads down" this week at a F2F with Etienne Wenger, John Smith and Kim Rowe where we have been analyzing technologies for distributed communities of practice and this very same idea of identity and how we manage it both as an individual and as a member of communities -- often many (Etienne talks about this as multimembership) -- has been front and center.

I'll have more on this soon! And READ LEE'S ARTICLE!