Palm Trees. Piranhas. And Other Social Objects For Your Tribe.

 

On your first day in the new building of the unknown organization amongst your unfamiliar tribe members, you are decorating your desk.

Sure enough, the Cubicle Farm Police has policies against that. Every wall should remain anonymous gray. And dark. Oh, the horror when daylight would hit your desk.

But you find a loop hole in the 50 page workplace policy document. No mentions of palm trees!

So you bring a huge palm tree to put on your desk. Nothing brightens up a place like a little bit of tropical green.

Watch what happens.

You are new. You mix with the natives. You blend in. Well. Almost.

People will gather under the palm tree. Give you compliments. Provide you with tips on how the harvest those coconuts. Someone will bring a hammock. It will become a hangout and topic of conversation.

Yes, this would be a flag.  A flag for me represents a visible element of a culture that identifies that culture and the people part of the culture.

But it's more than that.

It is a topic of conversation. People socialize around and about the palm tree.

Hugh MacLeod coined the term "Social Object" for this phenomenon:


"The Social Object, in a nutshell, is the reason two people are talking to each other, as opposed to talking to somebody else. Human beings are social animals. We like to socialize. But if think about it, there needs to be a reason for it to happen in the first place. That reason, that “node” in the social network, is what we call the Social Object."

The power of a Kanban board is not only the visible representation of the work to do, but also the board itself. It becomes a hangout, a place where you talk about how to schedule and divide the work. It's a Social Object.

If you keep a document on the hard drive and only refer to it when people ask: "yeah, you can find it somewhere on the drive" it's a grey anonymous cubicle: nobody wants to go there and talk about it. Instead print it in color, one limited copy, on a chain to the desk so nobody can steal it. And see what happens.

People gather around the document. Flip through it. And engage in a conversation about it.

Put up a big screen in the hallway displaying your issue log. People will gather. People will talk.

Social Objects? Wow!

The palm tree is a perfect illustration of how you can bootstrap your temporary tribe without screaming your own tune from the top of your longs. Just a subtle flag, in this case an enormous tropical tree, can do the trick. You don't force people to come by. They choose to. If they think it's cool, they hang out. If they don't, well, they don't.

If you think a palm tree is too much, why not use a fish tank. With piranhas.

Or your teapot collection.

Or a picture of dogs playing poker.

Or a plastic parrot on your shoulder.

Or.

Ah well.

You know.

A miniature version of your freak flag.

 

Bas de Baar is a writer who draws about people in transition. He loves to make visual maps and travel guides for the collaborators of our brave new world.