Michael McDerment on Software Should Be Social Because No One Works Alone

I have been working with the folks at FreshBooks, and social architecture principles are a major aspect of that company’s future design plans, as this post by Michael McDerment indicates:

[from Software Should Be Social Because No One Works Alone by Michael McDerment]

FreshBooks is about to introduce a new era for freelance and contract workers. In this new era each independent practitioner will have their own FreshBooks account and they will be able to SHARE timesheets with other FreshBooks account holders IF they choose to. What is the significance? Now each of these independents can stay within their own FreshBooks account and share a timesheet for the same project. Simple. Tidy. Afterall, they each have their own office from which they share the work load…it’s the same principle.

When you can collaborate on your relationships from within your own account, it really helps. Think about Project B - the one no one expected to come out of Project A. It’s a second project that involves only the copywriter and the developer (and not the web designer). Within the new FreshBooks paradigm, the copywriter and the developer can stay inside their own FreshBooks account and simply share a timesheet with one another, while seamlessly working on BOTH projects. Sounds about right, doesn’t it?

We at FreshBooks are going to help you run your business in a very natural, social way. That’s one of the reasons we design software. We believe it should help you work naturally. We believe that software should help you DEEPEN your relationships. You don’t need to log into 3 different accounts to work on 3 different projects so you shouldn’t have to.

You stay in your account. Simple. Hallelujah.

Although Michael doesn’t explicitly mention it, the model that he lays out for FreshBooks is a federated one. Each user will only need a single login, no matter how many other accounts are connected. This is the right way to build social software, unlike the mistake made by 37signals in Basecamp (see Basecamp and the Federation of Work), where a highly connected person like me can have a dozen or more Basecamp logins, and no consolidated view across those siloed work environments.

More importantly, getting this middle tier of the social architecture right (individual::social networks::markets) means that you enable a market to work, if there is one to be made. Think about the future market when FreshBooks can help bring together free agent consultants and the companies that employ them. More to follow on that front.