IADIS International Conference on Web Based Communities 2005

HOW SOCIAL SOFTWARE AND RICH COMPUTER

MEDIATED COMMUNICATION MAY INFLUENCE
CREATIVITY

Tanguy Coenen
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Department of Mathematics, Operations research, Statistics and information technology applied to the human sciences
(MOSI)
Pleinlaan 2, 1050 Brussels, Belgium

ABSTRACT
The arrival of software allowing the expansion of the personal social network in combination with cheap and rich modes of
computer mediated communication changes our capacity to access information. How does this change the way we share
knowledge and how can this influence our creativity ? This paper presents some insights related to these questions.

KEYWORDS
social software, knowledge sharing, creativity, computer mediated communication

1. INTRODUCTION
Wellman et al (2002) observe that since the 1970’s, the proliferation of cheap and effective transport and
communication networks has brought about a change in the nature of community life. Today, community life
transcends spatial boundaries, changing its nature “from the local and densely knit to the far flung and the
sparsely knit” (Wellman et at 2002: 153).
The recent advent of social software systems can be seen as the next step in this evolution to a networked nature
of community characterized by networked individualism. Dozens of systems like Orkut, LinkedIn, Ecademy,
Humnity or Multiply allow the creation and maintaining of social ties over the internet. Coinciding with this
evolution, new communication channels like voice-over-IP (e.g. Skype), instant messaging (e.g. MSN messenger,
AOL instant messenger, Jabber) and video communication (e.g. MSN messenger) have become available to the
public at almost zero cost. The combined use of these computer mediated communication (cmc) technologies can
bring about rich and cheap long distance communication sessions.
Knowledge sharing is a communication process involving an exchange of information between people. In this
context, information is produced by a cognitive system containing knowledge. At the receiving end, information
is transformed back to knowledge when the receiver embeds the information in his own cognitive system. As
one’s capacity for creativity is influenced by the amount of knowledge and the variety of this knowledge,
technologies which allow people to communicate with more people from various backgrounds may impact our
ability to be creative. Drawing on literature from cognitive psychology, knowledge management and sociology,
this paper presents a conceptual model of how this impact may occur.

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2. KNOWLEDGE AND CREATIVITY IN A COGNITIVE NETWORK

MODEL PERSPECTIVE

2.1 Knowledge as a cognitive network

The concept of knowledge can be interpreted in a great number of different ways. The attributes of knowledge
relevant to this text are :
• Knowledge exists only in the heads of people.
• Knowledge exists as concepts, organized in networks (Collins and Loftus 1975, Anderson 1976,
McClelland et al. 1986)
• The content of these networks is characterized by “justified true belief” (Rich 1981)
As the focus of this paper is on communication, a discussion of the nature of information can be limited to the
nature of information in the communication process. Shannon and Weaver’s (1949) model of communication,
can provides the necessary vocabulary. Communication is seen as occurring between a sender or source and a
receiver. A sender encodes a message in a signal, which is received and decoded by a receiver. The information
being communicated, the message, is the result of encoding or externalization by the sender. Subsequently, the
information is decoded or internalized by the receiver. Daft and Lengel’s (1986) definition of information as a
signal reducing uncertainty and ambiguity fits well in this approach to information and knowledge. Indeed, a
reduction of uncertainty and ambiguity leads to an increase in “justified true belief”, which is why information
transfer through communication can lead to a change in the receiver’s knowledge.
In sum, information only exists outside of the human mind and can be embedded in each attribute, like - text,
speech and images - involved in communication between people. Sending information between source and
receiver leads to knowledge transfer. Finally, knowledge transfer never leads to an exact replication of the
source’s knowledge in the receiver’s mind, as the state of the receiver’s memory is different when the
information reaches it and knowledge is created by assimilating information in this system.

2.2 Creativity as a function of knowledge sharing

Amabile (1996) defines creativity as :
“A product or response will be judged as creative to the extent that a) it is both a novel and appropriate,
useful, correct or valuable response to the task at hand, and b) the task is heuristic rather than algorithmic.”
(Amabile 1996:35)
According to this definition, the product must also be novel when compared to other similar products and
must be suitable to solve the problem to which it is a response. Furthermore, creativity is related to the
accomplishment of a task.
The second part of the definition refers to the way the task can be completed. If there is a clear, well known
way of accomplishing it, the task is algorithmic. If this is not the case, the task is heuristic. Creativity is more
salient in solving heuristic tasks than in finding new ways of performing algorithmic tasks. However, this task
characteristic is dependant on the amount of knowledge held by the performer. To someone who performs a task
for the first time, it may seem heuristic, whereas to an experienced performer, it may be completely algorithmic.
In heuristic tasks, problems can be ill-defined, often making problem discovery an important part of creativity
(Campbell 1960).
The relevance of this paper is therefore restricted to environments in which processes exist which to some
extent conform to the presented definition of creativity. Such processes involve a non-linear evolution from A to
B, more like a wandering along different lines of thought than a straight path from problem to solution. Listed
among such environments are R&D units, artistic environments, some government agencies, law firms and
consulting firms.
Creativity is influenced by domain relevant skills, creativity relevant skills and motivation (Amabile 1996).
The central point in this paper is that social software combined with computer mediated communication (cmc)

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can influence Amabile’s first category, housing domain relevant knowledge. To understand this, it seems
appropriate to briefly point out how creativity can take place.
This following quote of the mathematician Pointcarré illustrates the creative mechanism which can be
influenced by knowledge sharing :
"To create consists of making new combinations of associative elements which are useful. The mathematical
facts worthy of being studied... are those which reveal to us unsuspected kinship between other facts well known
but wrongly believed to be strangers to one another. Among these combinations the most fertile will often be
those formed by elements drawn from domains which are far apart."(Mednick 1962: 220-221)
Creativity can occur by associating previously unconnected concepts in a cognitive system (Mednick 1962,
Simon 1985, Cronin 2004). This is conform to some ideas described in organizational literature like
Boland&Tenkasi (1995) and Cohen&Levinthal (1990), who see innovation as depending on the integration of
knowledge from various fields. Further evidence in support of this associative cause of creativity is found in
Kasperson (1978), who reported that creative scientists in the fields of physics and engineering are more likely to
be exposed to information from different scientific disciplines than their non-creative colleagues. As information
from various disciplines can be gathered over social contacts in different domains, it can be concluded that
creativity is related to social network structure. This was recently illustrated by Perry-Smith and Shalley (2003).
Such information access occurring over social ties occurs through knowledge sharing, which is a
communication process between people. The next chapter compares face-to-face communication with computer
mediate communication in the context of knowledge sharing.

3. KNOWLEDGE SHARING
As will be explained throughout this paper, social software and cmc may be able to influence creativity through
their support of knowledge sharing between people. This can happen in either a pull or push mode. Information
push occurs when someone takes the initiative to provide a receiver with relevant information. Information pull
takes place when a receiver takes the initiative and asks another person for information.
The richness of a communication mode refers to the ability of the communication to change one’s
understanding within a time interval (Daft & Lengel 1986). Its range of possible communication cues and
possibility for synchronous feedback make face-to-face communication the richest communication mode and
therefore the most efficient way of sharing knowledge between two people (Daft & Lengel 1986).
Face-to-face communication is, however, heavily limited by spatial constraints. Alternatively, cmc channels
are less sensitive to spatial limitations, but suffer from a lack of richness. Until cmc has developed to a stage
where it allows the same information transfer rate and feedback as face-to-face communication, a trade-off
between spatial independence and media richness will persist.
But what are the consequences of being able to project our social ties, which are important sources of
information, across the globe ? The causal model presented in the next chapter proposes a number of ways in
which this may influence knowledge sharing and creativity.

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4. CAUSAL MODEL

4.1
Personal 4.2 Information
network Creativity
width
closure Information
volume

Node degree
Information
pull Information
Tie creation push

4.7
4.3
4.4
Transactive
Personal memory directory
visibility development

4.6.2 Assimilation
4.6.1 efficiency
Capacity for
Absorptive feedback Channel
capacity synchronicity
explicitness

4.5 Information
Communication transfer rate
Targeted richness
explicitation

Figure 1. causal model of the influence of social software and cmc on creativity. Numbers indicate paragraphs in which
elements are discussed.

4.1 The influence of information volume and width on creativity

According to Mednick (1962), it is impossible to achieve the creative execution of a task if the requisite elements
are not present in memory. As the amount of knowledge in memory increases, the chances of a creative execution
also increase.
Information width and information volume are the concepts which are believed to mediate the influence of
social software and cmc on creativity. High information width leads to cognitive systems containing entries from
a large variety of domains, while information volume entails a high number of entries in the cognitive network.
How socials software and cmc influence these concepts is the subject of the following paragraphs.

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4.2 Information width and personal network closure

Social networks, around which our lives take place, are characterized by cliques in which many nodes are highly
interconnected.
Individuals in the same clique are more likely to hold redundant knowledge than people from different cliques
as people who know each other are likely to know similar things (Burt 2000). If a person only knows people who
know each other, chances are higher that the knowledge to which he has access through his social network will be
redundant.
Modern society is characterized by a change in the structure of social interactions. According to Wellman et
al (2002), rather than relating to one group, people cycle between multiple cliques of which the boundaries are
vague and the network structure diffuse and sparsely knit.
This increasing transcendence of network cliques indicates a diminishing personal network closure brought
about by modern transportation and communication technologies. Personal network closure, the degree to which
the contacts of a person also know each other, can be measured by calculating the total number of actual ties
between a person’s direct contacts divided by the total number of possible ties between these contacts.
One of the main added values of social software is its capacity to create new ties. It is possible to initiate a
contact with a person who is totally unknown to the initiator and his existing contacts. This new tie will diminish
the closure of the initiator’s personal network. As this allows access to other cliques characterized by different
knowledge than circulating in the cliques of which the initiator is already a member, the information transferred
between people tied by a relation created over a social software system is more likely to be new to the receiver.
This can benefit creativity, as was explained in paragraph 2.2.
In sum, social software’s ability of reducing network closure is expected to increase information width,
benefiting creativity.

4.3 Assimilation efficiency and information volume

A second set of elements influencing creativity through information volume is related to the efficiency of
information assimilation. Efficiency is used here as meaning “skillfulness in avoiding wasted time and effort”
(www.wordweb.info). As the amount of time at our disposal is limited, more time spent assimilating a certain bit
of information means less time available for assimilating other information. This may not be apparent in every act
of information assimilation, but when summed over a long time, the efficiency of information assimilation will
influence the number of entries in a cognitive system.

4.4 Personal visibility, transactive memory directories, information push and pull
New ties created though the intermediary of a social software system may link two people who are very different.
For example, a Western European working in IT may link to a Brazilian architect. It can be hard to know what
information is relevant to the person at the other side of the tie and what potentially useful information this
person has in store.
Transactive memory system theory (Wegner 1987) studies how people create and use cognitive network
entries of other people’s knowledge. These entries, called transactive memory directories, allow us to assess what
information others find useful and forward it to them, for example through speech or writing.
The construction of such directories can occur through frequent face-to-face communication, but can also take
place through cmc, in spite of cmc’s lower richness. Evidence of this can be found in the information pushing
behavior occurring over the WWW between people who have never met face-to-face. This kind of behavior is
information push. It occurs when a source encounters information of which he believes it could be beneficial to a
receiver, based on the transactive memory entries the source has of the receiver.

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Transactive memory directories can also guide one’s search for a source to pull information from. When
looking for specific knowledge, the receiver can query his transactive memory directories in search of a person
who holds the knowledge he needs.
Social software systems allow a person to add personal profile information, enabling the creation of
transactive memory entries on this person by other people. Currently, many social software systems allow the
adding of profile information as pre-defined fields in a database, limiting the form and content of the profile.
Only a minority of systems supports the adding of custom information in various media types which is necessary
for people to present themselves in a rich way.
This concludes the discussion of how the increased visibility brought about by the profiles of social software
systems can support the creation of more accurate transactive memory directories and therefore benefit
information push and pull. The next paragraph will discuss the capacity of sources to externalize their knowledge
in a way which is targeted to the receiver’s understanding.

4.5 Personal visibility & absorptive capacity

The concept of absorptive capacity (Cohen & Levinthal 1990) refers to a person’s ability to integrate new
information in his cognitive system. Absorptive capacity is limited by information complexity, or the amount of
concepts the information is associated with and which must be present in the receiver’s cognitive network in
order to understand the incoming information in a meaningful way. Every bit of information holds a certain
degree of complexity (Hansen 1999) and will be more or less easy to assimilate by the receiver.
Knowledge of a receiver’s absorptive capacity allows a source to explicitate his knowledge in a targeted way.
Targeted explicitation therefore concerns the transformation process during which the source’s knowledge is
transformed in information which is tuned to the cognitive needs of the receiver. The clearer the source’s view of
the receiver’s absorptive capacity, the better he will be able to accommodate the receiver’s needs. Such clarity
can be achieved if the receiver supplies profile information through the profiling function discussed in the
previous section. Using this information to create transactive memory entries, the source can explicitate his
knowledge using mechanisms like analogical reasoning, where ideas from one domain are expressed in terms of
the vocabulary of another domain (Gertner 1983).
The increase in the receiver’s assimilation efficiency brought about by targeted explicitation may influence
creativity though an increase in information volume.

4.6 Communication channel richness

4.6.1 Feedback synchronicity
One of the elements which qualify a communication channel as rich is the availability of synchronous feedback.
Feedback is an essential part of communication, allowing the receiver to send information back to the source.
This information can lead the source to externalize information in another way or to provide answers to questions
resulting from the receiver’s assimilation of the incoming information. A capacity for synchronous feedback thus
allows the source’s to carry out more targeted externalization.
4.6.2 Information transfer rate
The rate at which information is transferred between a source and a receiver is dependant on the means of
communication they use. Face-to-face communication is the richest channel, as it permits transfer of information
using the full variety of human senses. Combining these senses allows the highest transfer rate.

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4.7 Node degree

The number of ties connected to a node is the “node degree”. As increasing node degree is the essential purpose
of social software, it is not unreasonable to assume that this is indeed what software systems do. Similarly,
Wellman et al. (2002) believe it is probable that people have more relationships than in pre-internet times,
because of the ease with which people can stay in touch.
A higher node degree means a higher number of people who can push information and from whom
information can be pulled, resulting in a higher information volume in people’s cognitive networks.

5. CONCLUSION
Some insights have been presented of how social software and cmc may influence knowledge sharing and
creativity by influencing network closure, node degree, personal visibility and communication richness.
Empirical validation is required and will be undertaken in future research.

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