Social Objects

I ran across a website that I thought was just going to fun and fluffy, but it turns out Hugh MacLeod has a lot more going on at GapingVoid than just cartoons drawn on the back of business cards.

Showing that he was way, way ahead of us here at WieseLaw on the Social Media curve, he has a post about Social Objects and how social networks grow up around Social Objects. I don't know why, but that really opened my eyes. If I didn't have pictures, ideas, links, thoughts, etc., that I wanted to share with other people, I wouldn't have a need for a social network in the first place.

But it goes even further, as Hugh says "The interesting thing about the Social Object is the not the object itself, but the conversations that happen around them." I think a lot of people misapprehend the point of sharing things. What you have to offer others has to go beyond mere information - it has to spark a conversation, ideas and innovation.