With Facebook making further objectionable changes to its functionality and privacy mode, and revealing their latest plans l it reminds us of the importance of robust platform and technology evaluation and selection processes.
I’m sure we’re all familiar with the boiling frog anecdote where a frog that wouldn’t be ok with being plopped into a pot of hot water won’t mind so much if first placed in cold water that is then heated.
Technology continually evolves – sometimes for the benefit of users and sometimes following a more devious development path. A platform such as Facebook that was suitable for a business’ social media campaign several years ago might not be so suitable a few years on after having morphed and shifted.
Just like the frog, if we don’t have firm criteria for assessing and selecting technology and platforms then we have nothing to check each incremental change in that technology against. If Facebook turned into MySpace overnight it would be obvious that it was no longer suitable, but if at each minor change we say “Oh that’s not too bad, we can live with that” then you risk falling into the trap of ending up using a technology or platform that would never have passed your initial evaluation criteria.
Even once we realise a technology has strayed too far off course it can be hard to tear ourselves away from our investment of time, money, people and in the case of online communities it can be hard to shift an entire community to a new home so we compromise.
Government technology suppliers have to undergo a rigorous financial viability and risk assessment process to determine if they’ll stick around long enough to finish the job and uphold the warranty. Do we do the same with online hosted platforms and social networks? It would be a grave mistake to treat our online social media initiatives as a disposable experiment that we don’t mind losing if, say, Twitter closed up shop next week. Such irresponsibility affects our brand.
Have a firm idea of your business requirements, of the intellectual property and licensing model you want, of how much time and money you can invest, staff training and resourcing, desired user and social experience, consider the privacy of your users including compliance with the National Privacy Principles and of course other legislation. Understanding your criteria means knowing your triggers where you draw a line and say “No, this technology is no longer suitable. We need to move”.
Hopefully that doesn’t happen too often, but if a social network or some other platform or technology creeps outside that box then don’t risk continuing with it. Know your limits, know when to bail.
// purecaffeine.com: user experience design, social experience design, social media, Gov 2.0, design thinking and service design blog by designer Nathanael Boehm, Canberra, Australia. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License.
{ 2 trackbacks }
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Bookmarking this, and Gary’s subsequent post, to forward to people when they ask me why I don’t use Facebook for photos, business etc. I’d completely delete my account if I knew I’d still be able to keep up to date with the email addresses and adventures of my less technically confident friends.