Beyond Bowling Together SocioTechnical Capital.docVIP

Beyond Bowling Together: SocioTechnical Capital Paul Resnick Abstract Social resources like trust and shared identity make it easier for people to work and play together. Such social resources are sometimes referred to as social capital. Thirty years ago, Americans built social capital as a side effect of participation in civic organizations and social activities, including bowling leagues. Today, they do so far less frequently (Putnam 2000). HCI researchers and practitioners need to find new ways for people to interact that will generate even more social capital than bowling together does. A new theoretical construct, SocioTechnical Capital, provides a framework for generating and evaluating technology-mediated social relations. Introduction The notion of capital suggests a resource that can be accumulated and whose availability allows people to create value for themselves or others. People can do more when they have access to physical resources like buildings and tools, which are usually referred to as physical capital. Money, or financial capital, allows people to acquire many other kinds of resources. In the latter half of the 20th century, economists began to think about education as human capital. People who have more knowledge and skills can do produce more, so it makes sense to think about spending on education as a form of investment rather than consumption (Schultz 1961). Productive resources can reside not just in things and in people, but also in social relations among people (Coleman 1988; Putnam 1993). A network of people who have developed communication patterns and trust can accomplish much more than a bunch of strangers, even if the two sets of people have similar human, physical, and financial capital available. The productive capacity can be used to benefit individuals, the network as a whole, or society at large. Typically, productive social structures and dynamics emerge as a by-product of interactions that occur naturally in the course of wor