Social Productivity

I sense an increasing merge between social networking and productivity.

Tools like Zoho Office and Google Docs facilitate creation as well as collaboration. Zigtag and Shyftr add a social element to our bookmarks and RSS feeds.

What was once a solitary endeavor; write a blog post, bookmark a favorite website, eventually became a shared experience (think StumbleUpon) and now has evolved into a fully interactive social activity. Even boring old Micrsoft allows me to write a document in Office Live then collaborate with others on it.

Now it appears the potential downside to social productivity is being discussed on Friendfeed and Twitter, sites that are far more social than productive. Once we share our content does it remain ours or become the property of the web? How can we know when and where comments and feedback are posted? The conversation is at risk of becoming fragmented, spread around to too many places, sites we may not frequent. Do we have any control over what we send out to others? Do the concepts of licensing and intellectual property need to be re-evaluated?

Back in the “old days”, the social web and productivity were isolated. I could type a document in Word or chat on IRC, but the two never crossed paths. These days that boundary has been breached, well before we’ve clearly thought out how we want to engage in the cross-talk.

What are your concerns? Is social productivity a big step forward or a pointless step sideways?