Fractal social organization as a foundation to pervasive social computing services

TL;DR

This paper proposes that fractal social organization, combined with service-oriented communities, can effectively underpin pervasive social computing infrastructures to create smarter, resource-aware social systems.

Contribution

It introduces fractal social organization as a novel framework to fulfill key requirements for pervasive social computing infrastructure.

Findings

Fractal social organization can serve as an effective referral service.

The proposed model supports social translucence and empowerment.

It provides a strategic foundation for resource-scarce, turbulent environments.

Abstract

Pervasive social computing is a promising approach that promises to empower both the individual and the whole and thus candidates itself as a foundation to the "smarter" social organizations that our new turbulent and resource-scarce worlds so urgently requires. In this contribution we first identify those that we consider as the major requirements to be fulfilled in order to realize an effective pervasive social computing infrastructure. We then conjecture that our service-oriented community and fractal social organization fulfill those requirements and therefore constitute an effective strategy to design pervasive social computing infrastructures. In order to motivate our conjecture, in this paper we discuss a model of social translucence and discuss fractal social organization as a referral service empowering a social system's parts and whole.