journey

Monday, April 04, 2005

Everyone sees the same thing != No Customization??

I enjoyed the class activities on Wed, especially the IBM social computing study. The six claims give me a chance to reflect what I have learned in the social computing class. However, it seemed everyone (including me) had a little doubt about the first claim: No Customization. Therefore, I took a little time thinking about this claim after the class, and I finally got it.

I believe the reason that the IBM holds this claim in the social computing research group is that you don’t have the control power on most things, other people, and the context in our real social world. Clearly in a personal or privacy setting, you can customize almost everything to the way you like it to be, such as your office, your room, your appearance, etc.

However, in a social setting which involves other people, you can only control your own behaviors and potentially use that to influence others. For example, if you are in the classroom, you cannot arrange the room the way you want it to be without considering others.

But I think this is a little extreme to put “no customization” in their claim. It seems the most important component in this claim is “everybody sees the same thing” even though each one of the members may interpret it differently. Indeed, if everyone sees different things, there is increasing danger of mis-communication.

But to make sure everyone sees the same thing doesn’t necessarily needs to forbid customization. When considering different levels of social worlds, the group should have the power to create the world/settings for more effective work. For example, in the real world, I can move the chair around the way I like it. What if someone in my team doesn’t like it, he can move somewhere else too. Eventually there will be a balanced setting that everyone accepts, but everyone still gets to see exact the same thing.

In conclusion, in social settings, to make sure everyone sees the same thing is very important, but to some degree, no customization is not a necessary principle to achieve it. Therefore, I would only keep “everyone sees the same thing” in the first claim.

2 Comments:

  • I think you have perfectly captured what is behind the first claim. Thank you for that clarification. I hope that everyone in the class comes to read your post.

    By Blogger Unknown, at April 1, 2005 at 12:31 PM  

  • I would say, not only the class, but the wider world as well.
    Not being there, I have no idea what the claim was based on but perhaps it was, from the IBM perspective, 'no customisation by IBM or the implementor'. This then leaves a 'soft' front end which can be tweaked or interpreted to suit.
    I am a print journalist and online blogger with a special interest in social computing and information/knowledge management.

    By Blogger David Tebbutt, at April 1, 2005 at 10:46 PM  

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