Craig Callé

COMMON.net

Biography
Craig founded the Company in August 2003 and is its CEO. He is a charter member of the Institute of Social Network Analysis and a member of the International Association of Privacy Professionals. Prior to forming COMMON.net, he was the EVP and CFO of San Bruno, CA-based IPWireless, Inc., a leading broadband wireless technology company backed by a group of prominent venture capital firms. Prior to joining IPWireless in 2000, he was SVP-Finance and Treasurer of Philadelphia-based Crown Cork & Seal Company, Inc., where, since 1991, he played a key role in transforming the Company into the global consumer packaging industry leader. From 1985-91 and 1981-83, he was an investment banker at Salomon Brothers in New York. He holds BA and BS Econ. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania (1981) and an MBA from Harvard University (1985).

Position Paper
As a practitioner in the social software industry, I want to promote academic research that tests the hypotheses used in the creation of COMMON.net, a new approach to online business networking. By analyzing the key variables influencing “signal and noise” in the ubiquitous social networking sites with which we compete, I hope to confirm an operating model that will transform the practice of online networking into a business that becomes universally adopted. The Symposium is a useful setting in which to take stock of the existing research on the relevant issues and place focus on the areas in need of further study.

I will focus on business networking, and contrast the tactics of social networking sites like LinkedIn and ZeroDegrees with the model we have created at COMMON.net. Social networking sites have been instrumental in transforming the online dating industry. However, the industry requires more innovation than to simply use the same model and assert it as a business application.

Chain length and vitality. How does the message degrade as it passes from one node to the next in a chain of relationships? How does the final node perceive the reputation of the initiating party through association with successive nodes? How can unanticipated foes or indifferent nodes in a chain affect the probability of a successful networking experience?

Trust mechanism. How is trust established between participants? How much emphasis is placed on an evaluation of the contents of Profiles, guest books and other displays of persona? How accurate a depiction of one’s persona is captured in a Profile? Is there a cure for “multiple persona disorder?” Contrast the reliance on a chain of relationships to infer trust between initiating and final nodes versus our process of matching shared affiliations between Seeker and Advocate.

Method of inclusion. When do permission-based invitation processes become spam vehicles? Is the pursuit of viral growth making the industry sick? At what point does the definition of “friend” break down? What is the nature of the relationship between invitor and invitee that characterizes an unwelcome solicitation? How many first link friends can one reasonably expect to maintain? How can one appropriately decline an invitation to join another’s network?

Site Behavior. How is behavior influenced by rules and design elements within the site? To what extent do the sites police themselves? How do the presence of selected performance metrics influence behavior? How do filters (barriers to access) affect people’s willingness to participate?

COMMON.net has taken a clean-sheet approach to online business networking in order to elevate the practice well beyond “Friendster without the pictures.” The application advocates one-to-one networking with a discrete and comprehensive trust mechanism and other features designed to produce a consistently actionable networking environment. Social networking sites for business generate spam in the form of unwelcome solicitations, have inadequate trust mechanisms, reveal excessive personal information about the participants, and create awkward social situations that can impede relationships in the offline world, among other drawbacks. The industry has too quickly embraced the social networking site model for a variety of applications, causing mixed results in practice.

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