Mental Orientation: Who’s Building Your Bridges?

The anticipation of the existence of another person – or becoming oriented toward an “other” – is a distinctly social act, as Max Weber explains: Social action, which includes both failure to act and passive acquiescence, may be oriented to the past, present or expected future behavior of others… The others... Read More

Symbols: The Offline Connection For Online Communities

People use symbols to help make mental connections more tangible, and the memories of them more easily accessed and brought into the conscious mind. Durkheim (1965 [1912]: 251 – 52) writes of how members of groups tend to become fixed on totems as tangible representations of groups, keeping the images... Read More

Who’s Influencing Who?

  Large mental worlds or communities of the mind can coalesce around any number of phenomena (which may or may not be a “work of art”).  A wide range of individuals can form an “entire cooperating network” that “radiates out” from the core commonality. This network, though, is invisible (no matter... Read More

Sociomental Bonds: Why We Keep Online Communities Alive

As technologically derived rituals provide order for an individual, they also provide a sense of comfort and stability. We can come to believe that such connections and communities of the mind will last for a reasonably long time. We come to depend on them to be there and, in a... Read More

Are We Connected Situationally or Sustainably?

My dad picked me up a Nook yesterday and I’m loving it, so far I’ve picked up a new book called Hot, Flat, and Crowded my Thomas L. Friedman and have been chewing through it the past day. This book isn’t completely new to me since Kyle G. Crider wrote... Read More

6 Ways To Positively Cope With Difficult Community Behavior

1. Establish House Rules Make simple rules for your community. Start with a few “things we do and don’t do.” Discuss them with the community that you’re managing. 2. Prevention Is Better Than Cure If you feel that your community’s behavior is beginning to get out of control, “nip it in... Read More

Should Social Networking Be Allowed In The Workplace?

In the mix of getting ready for this upcoming trip, doing interviews for The Ryan and Elliott Show and just plain old networking with other social strategist, I ran across a topic that varies in opinion from just about everyone; Should organizations block social networking sites from their employees during... Read More

Uncertainty Avoidance to Avoidance Accommodation

On of the first frameworks developed for understanding innovation and technology and its relation to the economy has been the linear model of innovation. The model proposes that innovation starts with basic research, then adds applied research and development, ending with production and diffusions: Basic research  Applied research  Development... Read More

MNC Typologies and Social Computing

Multi National Companies (MNC) use a vast array of typologies to distribute their products, services, and ideas throughout the world. There are seven main typologies that MNCs use to conduct business around the world which include ethnocentric, polycentric, geocentric, multidomestic, global, international and transnational. Each typology has unique characteristics that... Read More

Why Relationships?

          The business world has change substantially through the ages. The twenty-first century heralds ever-increasing chaos in world relationships, economies, and geopolitical events. “Some researchers believe the significance of this period in humankind’s history has not been seen since the Industrial Age some 500 years ago” (Daft, R.L.). Today’s modern... Read More