One of the better parts of my talk at the Bay Area Futurist Salon was finally meeting Eric Eugene Kim of BlueOxen. He posted some well grounded reflections, but raised some issues, so I'll continue the conversation here. Eric questioned my original definition of social software: Software that adapts to its environment, rather than requiring its environment to adapt to it. We actually share the same philosophy, far be it from me to disagree with Doug, so let me explain. A good tool is meaningless without social agreement on how to use it. Sometimes this agreement is gained up front. Sometimes the very nature of the tool fosters consensus. Without process and practice the value of IT is negative. Tools for Practice But there is the problem, adapting processes has even more latency than adapting tools. Gaining agreement is often done by imposing agreement, which hurts the prospect of new agreement that embraces change. Processes are designed by efficiency experts with a given set of information about the team, task, tools and environment. The problem is information in our turbulent word becomes out of date the second its created. People find themselves with a process that doesn't work because of new environmental conditions. The good news is people want to get their work done. When a process fails them, they turn to their informal network, to business practice. They IM their friend Sally who works in another department, but has the information they need. Or they consult their Workspace to find who has been blogging about the issue in the middle of project communications. When formal networks fail, informal networks support. This phase transition is at the intersection of social software and social networking, the opportunity for social software to support business process as well as practice. Tools that work the way people do -- rather than how they are supposed to -- is counter-intuitive. Lo and behold, they suprisingly work. From selling and servicing social software, I can tell you that one of the first issues raised is how giving up control and structure (as in data) could result in inefficiencies in reporting and intelligence. But software without pre-designed constraints is suprisingly adaptable for reporting. And the intelligence you gain from all those groups forming, intertwingling and linking openly is emergent. Suddenly you are making decisions based on what your organization knows and feels is important. I am absolutely convinced that achieving significantly greater levels of productivity and discovery in knowledge work will not come the cycles of process innovation. Tools must evolve to support business practice. Disruptive Technologies Emerge After the Salon, over pizza and beer, I was talking with some folks about how these tools are being adopted from the bottom-up and the Innovator's Delimma. A wicked smart guy from SAP was arguing that large companies had learned their lessons and watch for new innovations so they can embrace them. Some other wicked smart guys took issue, saying not all big company employees are as wicked smart as him and making a disruption a priority at the executive level simply happens too late. I suggested that perhaps with the right social software, enable wicked smart employees to vote their attention with links, such disruptive issues could rise to the top in a large organization. Adapting Software to Software During my talk I provided my rant about how email is dying. The above has probably exhausted you with rants, so I'll let Eric sum it up: Yes. That's why Socialtext works with email (creating blog posts and wiki pages from email; email alerts, etc.) to foster effective use, channeling activity to a shared many-to-many space so email can return to one-to-one and one-to-few. Which brings me to back to that definition from a year ago. Software is part of the environment of software. IT ecosystems must be loosely coupled to foster scope and span over scale and speed. Such is the role of discovery and emerging standards like RSS and Atom, but also adapting to the sedimentary layers and ingrained habits of systems and users/developers. Much work remains. The point of this post isn't this definition of social software, others are better and the discussion has been done. Its that there are some great little companies, that aren't competing, building things and helping people use them -- to solve big problems that underlie the competitive advantage of enterprises.