Glenn, what a great analogy! I lived abroad for several years as well and I can recall that frequent frustration of wondering "Why don't they do things our way?" It's such an arrogant question, of course, but hard to resist when you're wondering why a bus is often three hours late, or a clerk is being rude to you, or needed products never seem to be in stock.

A key difference though is that you and I were LIVING in these other countries - we had committed to jobs, arranged for housing, and had nascent friendships that made our adjustments just a little bit easier. But until Landing users are committed users, they are just vacationers. They can log off quickly and choose never to return. They haven't invested anything in the system yet.

So how do you get them to return and invest themselves and receive true value from Landing? That's where good design practices come in - for me anyways. Once the system is designed in such a way that it draws users in and provides both immediate and ongoing value, then users will invest themselves easily and quickly.

Thanks for both the post and the trackback! I wish I'd been notified of it - lucky I found it.

Hello Gillian,

I agree that the both the effective design is crucial to facilitate commitment of users, and I also think that users adopt a number of path-making activities that suit their unique requirements often not specifically anticipated by the designers.

In this case, I use the Wire to monitor updates of general activities on the Landing. (newcomers seldom post their new content on the wire initially).

I want to track new users' contributions, but instead of waiting for the design feature to catch up with my requirement, I find a work-around. I realize that going into the activity tab and tracing back all the activities over the past 72 hours is sometimes tedious, but quick scans of both the wire and the activity tabs usually serves its purpose of "jigging".

I use the metaphor of jigging to identify what I do to collect useful information sources within AU Landing. I use the activity tab, unlike the Wire, to jig (search for and collect) new peers to follow. I then add these individuals to my following list, place them in specific following collections, and then the updates flow in.