Connection Cubes: Feedback

In the Feebdback quadrant, we’re dealing with high intimacy and low dynamism. So the frequency, or expected duration of interaction, is low and limited; while the exposure of core competency/value is high. According to the Wikipedia definition — feedback is when “output from (or information about the result of) an event or phenomenon in the past will influence an occurrence or occurrences of the same (i.e. same defined) event / phenomenon (or the continuation / development of the original phenomenon) in the present or future.”

Now, most of us don’t continually evaluate our personal performance regarding a friendship or business interaction. (I shudder to think what some of my ratings may be in those cases.) We do, however, seek confirming advice just prior to or immediately following a purchase of say of a durable good (tv, washer/dryer, blu-ray player). We also seek input from friends regarding status purchases (car, cell phone, consumer electronics – things that culturally show us as belonging), and for one-time, pay-before-consumption items (wedding cakes, party DJs, child safety products – things that are difficult to return or hard to redress upon failure).

For example, my wife solicited quite a good amount of feedback prior to buying a child safety seat for our cars. While the seat looks great, fits comfortably, and more — we’ll really only know its *value* in the unfortunate event of a crash. At that point is when the seat gets a pass/fail grade, and in the event of a fail, it will be far too late to redress.

We all appreciate information from friends and associates and social networks allow us to gather it in a short, trusted manner. It exposes things that we do as a part of our lives, as part of how we fit in, and how we perceive ourselves in relation to others.

Technology companies are continually looking for inventive ways to scour social tools for sentiment analysis and mine that information for new ways to market products to us or predict market trends (what we’ll buy).

The reason I placed a site like LinkedIn here is because the nature of how people use the features. It is specifically designed to facilitate a feedback loop. Not only do people talk about career items, jobs, and findings on LinkedIn, but they are able to recommend people’s past work efforts. This feedback loop reinforces the reputation-based influence that some users have over others. Yes, you can post a comment and get feedback via Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and many others. Since those are open posts to your entire community of friends, and the interaction may take place over several days, I push that over to a form of “Sharing” (which is the next exploration in this series).

Only in LinkedIn (for this example) are we expressing specific comments about one of our most core values: our careers. You don’t have to visit LinkedIn daily, or even have an app on your smartphone that pings you every hour to stay abreast of what’s going on. It’s not that dynamic. It is very intimate. What we do, how well we do it, and the path of companies/positions that describe our career path is a key piece of our personal make-up.

What are some other sites out there that fit in this quadrant?

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