I will examine the architecture and features of some websites and social network tools that promote a sense of self, a sense of place, and a sense of accomplishment. These features, I argue, are essential components of online architectures that foster trust and promote collaboration between producers and consumers around the globe.

[ 3] Boden, Margaret A. The Creative Mind: Myths and Mechanisms. 2d ed. New York: Routledge, 2004.

rethinking the Office Building

There are three approaches to creativity [ 3] that can be used to identify architectures that improve producer/consumer relationships:

1. Making unfamiliar combinations

2. Exploring conceptual spaces

3. Transforming the space

to achieve those goals?” With every passing day the answer looks more and more like “no.” We don’t need a physical space to collaborate. But do we already have the architecture we need to foster trust and collaboration online? Though some are able to do it, I don’t think we’re all there yet. What we have on the Web now are a bunch of sketches and experiments on how to collaborate. And even though millions of us have nearly free access to global communication technologies, this technology leaves out a key ingredient workers have when they are meeting in person: architecture for sharing tacit knowledge.

In taking the first approach— making unfamiliar combinations—and applying it to the traditional architecture in which producers reside, a natural starting point is the standard office building. In that architectural setting, we may encounter problems like poor air quality, artificial light, and isolating cubicles. In making an unfamiliar combination for solving these problems, we might end up with a question like that proposed by green architect Bill McDonnough: “How do we make an office building that is like a tree?” As a “tree,” an office building would generate no waste, would run on solar power, and would clean the air; there would be many windows to let natural light and air in to common spaces where workers (producers) could gather. However, does this new architecture do anything to improve

producer/consumer relationships? Just like the cathedrals that Hugo criticized, this architecture creates a physical barrier between those who produce knowledge and those who consume it. Green as McDonnough’s buildings may be, the consumers are still locked out of the building.

If we take the second approach, exploring conceptual spaces, we begin to look at other spaces in which people gather. Maybe an office building should be more like a museum, a theater, a park, or a cafe. We generate this list of spaces where people gather to find architectural features in other spatial arrangements for building trust and collaboration; a cafe, with free Wi-Fi, can provide this space.

According to scholars who study how the mass distribution of the Internet affects global markets [ 4, 5], producers and consumers with access to the Internet in Wi-Fi cafes and other places have all of the architecture they need to collaborate with one another. While some were sitting in cubicles, millions of others around the globe gained access to the Internet and achieved an unprecedented level of collaboration. New markets have come into being with as little hardware as a mobile phone. In the next 10 years, hundreds of millions more will gain access to the Web, and it is very likely they will collaborate as well.

The massive impact of a virtual community of that size brings us to the third approach to creativity—transforming the space—and questions such as the following: “What is it that people do in office buildings; do we even need a physical space

Tacit Knowledge and the Web Tacit knowledge is the knowledge communicated independently of words; it is the information we disseminate and gain by way of body language, facial expressions, subtle joking, and any other form of nonverbal gesturing. This form of communication is essential to gaining trust within a group, and trust is necessary for successful collaboration. But sharing tacit knowledge in an office building, as stated earlier, is costly. We need to recreate or reinvent an architecture that facilitates trust and collaboration in the virtual realm.

Any new communication architecture that is designed to build trust and collaboration among online groups must consider three aspects of our lives:

1. A sense of self

2. A sense of place

3. A sense of accomplishment

[ 4] Friedman, Thomas L. The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century. 3d ed. New York: Picador, 2007.

[ 5] Benkler, Yochai. The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

July + August 2008

Sense of Self In order to commit to a project, each individual needs to estab-