Over at Confused of Calcutta there was a piece that neatly articulates the power of networked communications. Networked communications associate generate an ongoing profile of usage about an individual which established immediate CONTEXT to any piece of information published.
JP expands beyond just the user association in his description of context benefiting IM conversations:

…one of the subjects we touched on for a while was the power of context. Conversations using social software tend to be wrapped in context, a context that is portable across time and space, with a significant reduction in switching costs as a result…You only have to use a decent “true” group IM application once to know what I mean…Who spoke. Who spoke before. What was said before. In what sequence. On what subject. For how long. Who interrupted. Who was there. Where was all this. When. Why. Everything. Those are some of the things I mean by conversation wrapped in context…

Context is what allows information to find its way to its most beneficial usage. Listservs are great at distributing information, however that information must be culled by every individual to determine its relevance for their particular context. Consider the difference in action steps when the context is wrapped around information. Now a user is either automatically directed to a piece of information that matches their proper context or a user does a quick scan to determine its relevance to their situation.

PlansForUs sits on top of a network of teachers that share information about themselves both explicitly and by their use of PlansForUs. By building and constantly adding information to a users profile we create the mechanism for efficiently delivering the information that matters most to our teachers. While exploration is a fun way to find new ideas when you are trying to write a new plan and you have already worked a 10 hour day, the last thing you really want to do is explore. Wrapping ideas and plans in context is the key to improving the lesson plan creation process for our users.

Thanks to JP for his consistently lucid breakdown of the powers of social software.

by Tyler, CEO