Developing Next-Gen Profiles: Collaboratory Mockup
I’ve been having a lot of fun the past few weeks fleshing out our next-gen profiles for the Collaboratory.
One of the things I think is critical for any sufficiently advanced social network is a way for us to actually express who we are as human beings – emotion, passion, intent, inherent gifts, and the like.
The problem with Facebook and LinkedIn is they predefine the scope of what it means to be human.
Either you’re this or that. This religious affiliation, this political view, this relationship status, this sex, and so forth.
And that’s all fine for those who find comfort in the rigidity of those labels.
But for those who wish to be untethered from that way of thinking, so that we can expand ourselves into expressing fuller human capacity, it’s a bit constraining.
So we’re working on allowing people to show who they are and what they’re about from a deeper, more meaningful level.
To that end, I’ve been playing with the new hive to do mockups (disclaimer – the new hive is for generally for you to “express yourself,” not do wireframes, so it’s no Illustrator – but for a dead simple tool that a child could start using within minutes, it’s perfect.). The above image is just v1 of what I’ve come up with, but I think I’m leaning towards everyone being able to make their profile however they want. We’ll provide a few fields (tribe dynamics, superpowers, strengths, projects, etc), and everyone makes it visually look however they want.
Profiles & Self-Discovery
I’ve spent a lot of time over the years experimenting with various self assessments (8 Tools for Self-Analysis), and thinking about how these assist in the process of self-discovery, clarity, and personal development. We want to provide as many options as we can to engage in this way. We’ve partnered with The Gabriel Institute to provide Role assessments (which we’re calling “tribe dynamics”). Also looking to partner with Gallup for the Strengthsfinder2.0.
Profiles & The Future of Work
And beyond the feel-good reasons of self-discovery, this is about the future of work and value creation too.
As we transition to a society and world of work where people are actually doing things that resonate with their core deeply, I think we need to go through a process of surfacing what we actually care about to help us discern what we’d like to be doing. For many people (at least that I’ve encountered), those deeper desires have been so suppressed over time that the individual isn’t even aware of the connection anymore. <desires for autonomy, mastery, and purpose, as Dan Pink would say>
Learning how to align around projects and opportunities based on our core resonance and values feels a lot more meaningful than chasing the biggest paycheck.
Profiles & Mutual Improvement
And beyond self-discovery and value creation, it comes down to the tie that binds – culture and community.
We’re fostering a community of continuous learning and mutual improvement, and revealing ourselves to each other in this way helps us know how we might assist each other to learn something new (contextual and relevant, or serendipitous) or develop in some meaningful way (help overcome cognitive biases, help heal emotional wounds).
We’re real people. We have these issues, and we’re not embarrassed to acknowledge them, address them, and grow beyond them. It’s’ a step in the direction of cultivating our latent superpowers so that our work teams operate at a level of joy and efficiency that can’t be purchased with any amount of ‘corporate training programs’ or HR ju-ju.
Profiles Part 2
The second part of the user profiles will go more deeply into specific passion projects that are being worked on, whether that’s software development to change the world, or a resilience project to support the local or regional economy.
We’re working on the database that’ll make these projects all searchable so collaborative and co-creative opportunities easily bubble to the surface.
Stay tuned, we’ll be posting updates as they develop!
Really interesting. My main concern with Facebook and Linkedin etc is that it forces all people to represent themselves on a template. Facebook decides what your presence on the web is no matter how you put your own content on it. Discussed at length in You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto by Jaron Lanier. Not sure how you avoid that.
We have been discussing something similar recently and with a focus on status as part of a network e.g. I am open to collaboration now or I am focussed on task etc. Tom Farrand from Good for Nothing has done quite a bit of thinking on this.
Has anyone read the book above? If I’m not a gadget, what am I? Otherwise http://r-u-ins.org/resource/pdfs/YouAreNotAGadget-A_Manifesto.pdf
The reason we built The New Hive is because we felt limited by the rigid designs(templates) on platforms like Facebook and we believe that people really do want to express themselves online if they have the right tools and canvas to do it. If it’s at all helpful, here are two links to profiles and resumes that people have built on The New Hive – what was interesting for us to see was what people chose to express when they’re given a blank canvas for their profiles versus a template. (http://jondudleyjourno.thenewhive.com/?tag=Featured and http://bluecrystalhand.thenewhive.com/resume?tag=Featured)
Hope the above helps! I am looking forward to seeing how you help people learn more about themselves and express that learning online!
this seems vital and ground breaking
I like a lot of this, in particular the visual elements, and the use of assessment tools, but I get a little stuck on the auto-naming of qualities, attributes, and strengths. Especially for those of us with Buddhist spiritual roots (read: humility), while it is wonderful to cultivate an appreciation of the self it feels an uncomfortably whole lot like bragging to give a list of adjectives and words to describe how amazing oneself is.
To describe the self (w)holistically in terms of passions, work, activities and involvements, as opposed to in terms of (universally positive) descriptors is a more comfortable place to live for someone like me.
I feel very comfortable with the “ask about” area, in which we can display our passions and drive, and also with assessments that derive a matrix of pre-defined descriptors, and/or also perhaps with the possibility of creating some sort of algorithmic method to enter descriptors provided by *other* people, both within this platform and beyond.
Elsewhere, I’ve seen this as “words used to describe me have been” or similar — this also can provide an opportunity to link to these descriptions if useful.
For me I prefer an “I try to be” “I admire this quality” “I aim for” “I am striving towards” etc than giving a list of qualities that I already “have” — but it’s part, in fact, of a larger interesting conversation about “selling” the self, is it not? and also about our comfort (or lack thereof) in self-praise….
just some thoughts… it’s semiotics, ultimately….
it’s semiotics, ultimately’…agree
Yes, Lynne, “selling self” is like the resume of decades past, what a famous blogger calls interruption marketing. Look at me-me-me the most important person, me!
Fine for each in their own universe. Together, how can this build trust? It doesn’t, because trust is earned by doing. Trust cannot be bought or sold.
As a naive English speaker (not native) Ihave trouble with the adjectives, too. They might have undertones that elude me. Care to check my profile mockup? http://cocreatr.thenewhive.com/about-me?user=cocreatr
Have you made your own expression? Ready to share?
Hey Venessa, your “Vision Former” here. How do we represent ourselves in this medium? That’s a question that is better answered by doing a bit of “field research” and following the groups that have acquired a very unique identity throughout specific virtual communities. I’m particularly interested in how entire pop genres or sub-cultures have established such a well delineated persona using nothing more than consistent imagery along infinite streams of information. Belonging to a sub-culture has nothing to do with sending a registration form and everything to do with the matrix-esque recognition of the “secret language” of your group. I’m not surprised that you find inspiration in Pinterest.
Not unlike artisans in the middle ages, who would form guilds around new and established crafts by simply carrying a token or object that was considered their maximum creation. It turns out that being proud of what you do is a very powerful gravitational force to attract others with similar interests.
I love what you’ve done with your super-powers. I used to think of myself as a data cowboy on the cyberspace back in the 90s but your “pattern-recognition” badge would fit me better today. Now, if we can only find THAT token that makes us proud and put it front and center in our profile I bet my consulting practice would get more business in “big data” projects.
Venessa, interesting work and like the angles around self discovery. You should add network discovery.
Please help with this project, which I call Operation:Bailout, though Bailout is just the first phase.
Here is the link. : http://www.indiegogo.com/Operation-Bailout?a=383031
I am going to break it up into stages and please listen to recording, despite some of its eccentric terms. I want to be of great help to this movement, but I am going to need help with this movement. I am also joining other related movements as well, like theTransitioner, and I will get very involved.
It’s a long story, but please donate and spread the word to as many people as you can (as it seems you all have great influence, and can contact some people I can’t like the David Rushkof and other big organizations in this movment…, and so they can do the same. Anyone and everyone who could help, would be awesome.
Please make this some kind of network effect so eventually I can get into a college incubation program, start a business related to this movement, and help to get more momentum and things in motion.
It’s the only way I am going to get into a better situation, and be able to help this cause immensely.
Please help with this project, which I call Operation:Bailout, though Bailout is just the first phase.
Here is the link. : http://www.indiegogo.com/Operation-Bailout?a=383031
I am going to break it up into stages and please listen to recording, despite some of its eccentric terms. I want to be of great help to this movement, but I am going to need help with this movement. I am also joining other related movements as well, like theTransitioner (That is where the permalink goes), and I will get very involved.
It’s a long story, but please donate and spread the word to as many people as you can (as it seems you all have great influence, and can contact some people I can’t like the David Rushkof and other big organizations in this movment…, and so they can do the same.
Anyone and everyone who could help, would be awesome.
Please make this some kind of network effect so eventually I can get into a college incubation program, start a business related to this movement, and help to get more momentum and things in motion.
It’s the only way I am going to get into a better situation, and be able to help this cause immensely.
Sidenote: I know I put this up twice but I wanted to fix one or two typos. Thanks for understanding.
Ugh. Forget it and these stupid glitches. The permalink connects to theTransitioner profile (Talks about who I am and what I am about, etc, how I could and WILL help this cause) and the other link relates to Operation: Bailout and the funding campaign (more about why I need help, but also about what I want to do.
I am really counting on people in this culture and movement to help me out, because I know no else can or will, and its about time I got my proper rite of passage.
Thanks so much ahead of time. I need all the help I can get.
kyle,
how about a google hangout or skype video and you can tell me what you want to accomplish.
email me at emergentbydesign at gmail
- venessa
I like that you’re digging into this, Venessa.
You’d think that with the ability to separate data from presentation, we would have a little more freedom in structuring our profiles the way we want on various social networks.There still has to be ways of agreeing on profile schema, but that’s solvable. One of the social networks will figure that out. Personally, I wish it were more of a personal data locker and profile and that the networks just tapped that. One day…
This is an interesting piece that looked at the tradeoffs Facebook made in developing the timeline. Pretty interesting and very relavent.
http://www.fastcodesign.com/1665414/designers-behind-facebook-timeline-5-lessons-for-creating-a-ui-with-soul
Dear Venessa,
This is a Great idea, very inspiring… Love the richness, clarity and elegance of your profile.
Looking forward to see where this develops and happy to help in any way useful…
Jarda