Tailorable blog

What could a Social Virtual Workspace look like?

One of the developments I strongly believe in, is making our personal work environments more social. Knowing that my social network is not just a source of passion, but also a source of inspiration, expertise, and keeping track of current trends & developments, it seems to make sense to have this network on my radar, and integrated in my work environment.

At the moment, I use a mixture of Outlook, iGoogle, SharePoint, Skype, Facebook, Microsoft Office and a dozen other tools to get my work done. I would like to have a more integrated work environment, where I am in charge of what functionality is included and how it is presented to me. SharePoint2007 and iGoogle already show possible models of allowing users to select and combine the functionality they need, when they need it (which is what I call tailorability). The image I attached to this post goes one step further: it sketches an online service that focusses on your social networks (family, friends, colleagues, customers), keeps you aware of their status and activities, and integrates this with personal information management and collaboration functionality. The open interface for Facebook developers and OpenSocial are examples of inititiatives that could be the basis for such a service. It is essential to actually utilize the corporate firewall in the scenario: making sure that confidential information stays within the organization, while giving employees a low-threshold means to keep in touch with their network in the outside world.

What is your opinion on such a social virtual workspace and what do you think it will look like?