We have met the enemy...

I wanted to take a step away from the "how to do this" posts I've recently made and talk a little about the "why". More importantly, I want to talk about the "why not".

I have a lot of motivations for doing so. One is this post, where the author talks about how he was pretty viciously harassed by an anonymous stalker. First online... and then through physical mail. He talks about what happened when he encountered the troll - in person. But he didn't get much of an explanation out of the perpetrator. Other motivations are posts from a few friends of mine, talking about how they shouldn't need to use the safety tools (ignore and block) that Google+ offers - that people should be courteous enough to behave. And finally, I've been pondering my own behavior - wondering how people see me and my actions.

The biggest problem with online communications are that the secondary cues that we're so used to in conversation (tone of voice, body language, facial expressions, etc) are totally missing. Posts are largely reduced to facts or, when they degenerate, to shouting matches with each side trying to be heard. We seem unable to have civil conversation because we are unable to "look the other person in the eye". At the same time, we tend to feel safe(er) hiding on our side of the monitor, free from possible repercussions about what might happen if we said the same sorts of things in person.

We try to compensate. Sometimes our avatars do give the impression that we're a real person. We share personal details of our online personas, which can help to bind us to others. All of these are some level of risk, of course...  but they are similar levels of risk that we take in person.

Perhaps that is what we most need to remember when we talk to others online. We are talking to real people. So why shouldn't you make crude or threatening comments to someone else? Because you wouldn't in real life - and you know you shouldn't. (And if you don't know you shouldn't - then that is why you'd be ignored or blocked.) Why, in a discussion, do you sit and listen to someone else and then try to discuss their points? Because in person you can see this is a person who deeply cares, and you want to understand, and they want to understand you. Because you're a real person, and you deserve to be treated as a real person.

And, as the author found out, the troll is a real person too.

Circles of Life

We have talked a lot about circles in the past - no surprise, since Google+ has circles as a core feature. Today we're going to discuss two approaches to circle management - how you create circles, who you put in them, and how you use them. Remember that nobody will ever know what circle they're in unless you tell them.

Theme Circles

The method that Google seems to suggest is that you break up your circles by theme. These themes are somewhat broad - friends, family, and a generic "following" circle. This makes senese when you want to use circles as a way to share private things to different groups - so you can share photos of your party with your friends, but your family and coworkers don't need to know. You can invite your coworkers to a meeting, which doesn't make any sense for your friends. If you have particular themes that you talk about that others may not be interested in (for example, if you're a big Twilight fan), theme circles are also a good way to just keep your chatter to yourself. Most of these circles will have the same "volume" - the default setting will make sure you get the messages you want, but you may wish to adjust the volume of some of them. We've discussed volumes in an earlier post.

There are downsides to this, of course. The biggest is that just because someone is in your "knitting" circle doesn't mean that all they do is knit - they may talk endlessly about a movie that you're not interested in. But thats how friends can be sometimes, isn't it?

Watch Circles

Another popular strategy is to setup circles based on how much you want to hear from different people. So you might setup a circle called "volume low", set its volume to a very low level, and put people into it who occasionally have interesting things to say, but are generally too chatty. Other people say things that you never want to miss, so you may have a "volume high" circle for them. And there are a few people who, if they ever post, you want to make sure you know immediately - and you can put them in a "notify" circle, and set the volume accordingly.

This also has some downsides, although it works fairly well for people who post publicly, it doesn't always work well for private messaging.

What is the Best Method?

Both of course! You may need to find a mix and some circles and volume settings that work best for you, but here is a strategy that combines the best of both worlds:

Create theme circles that you primarily will use to *send* messages. So you know that when you need to send a message to your college buddies, you can send it to the "College" circle and be reasonably assured that they'll see it if they're interested.  These circles will likely have the volume set to "off", although for some circles you may want to set the volume higher.

Then create a watch circle, and add everyone to one of these circles if you want to hear from them. This way you can determine what level of interest you have in each one. If you find someone is getting more spammy, you can put them in a lower volume circle. If someone is particularly interesting - move them up! You can move them right from their hovercard, so you don't have to break your stride when reading messages.

People can be in more than one circle, and Google will pick an individual volume based on the highest volume circle they're in. So it is safe to put a person in a circle whose volume is off to categorize them, and then also put them in a volume circle to adjust how much you want to hear from them. This is a good balance of both tools.

There are other strategies, and you may want to adjust the specific way you balance these, but give this a try and see if it helps you find and interact with the people and messages you most want to.

Notifications on Google+ - Some Thoughts

Do you like getting notifications in Google Plus? Does your heart race every time you see that red box scroll into view? Have you used the new notification tools to make sure you get lots and lots of notifications?

Perhaps you should pause and think about the best way you can use notifications. Here are some of my thoughts.

I think this feature isn't really about making sure I see every message I want to see - I think of it as making sure I see every message I don't want to miss. Lots of things in my stream are great - and I read my stream often to make sure I see them all. But sometimes I get busy. Or sometimes I have a lot of stuff in my stream and I''ll miss some things. 

If I turned all of these into notifications - that red number would never stop spinning!

Instead, I think of all of these as messages that I'll probably read anyway - so I don't need the reminder to go look at them. But a few things are important to me. These are messages that I want to make sure I don't miss - no matter what else I might be doing. The people who send me these messages are in my "Alert" circle, and I have that circle set to send a notification (and an email) when a message comes in.

But I don't always use the red box to read them. Sometimes I'm busy, so to make sure I see these messages, I'll use Gmail to read the notifications. This is also a good place to mark them in case I need to followup in more detail later, or file them away. When I do reply, I can reply right from Gmail.

There are lots of strategies to help you manage these notifications in Gmail, and we'll be covering some of them in the future. In the meantime, why don't you share with us some of your tips for managing your notifications?

I'm Allen Firstenberg for Oasis in the Stream

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HELP! I need somebody.

You say that something about Google+ isn't working or is confusing you, and you need some help or guidance? Don't know where to turn to find out more? There are lots of resources about Google+, but sometimes you just don't know where to look.

A good first step to helping yourself is to check out the Google+ Help pages. You can access them by going to the gear towards the top right of most Google+ pages and selecting the Help item.  Seems easy, huh?

But sometimes you just can't figure out the answer there. Or even find it. Another good approach is to check out the Google+ Discussion Forum. This is one of Google's official product forums, and both community managers and "Top Contributors" from outside Google read the forum and try to help out as best they can. A good first start might be to search the forum (hey, this is Google, after all), and if that doesn't work, find a good category to post your question. Make sure you give it a clear subject and you explain all the problems you're having with as much detail as you can.

Finally, don't forget that this is a social network. Ask your friends! Some of them might know the answer, or know somebody who can help out. And if you're asking, don't forget to include +Oasis in the Stream and we'll see if we can find an answer for you. We're also willing to start a hangout to discuss problems if you prefer to troubleshoot that way.

So if you need some help, don't feel lost... there are plenty of tools that can provide guidance.