personal conversation | Social Signal

Alex's Harvard post about metrics and the obsessive condition she calls analytophilia has triggered a lot of conversation this morning about the role analytics ought to play in organizational communications.

Which has me thinking about the role tools like analytics play in our personal communications online, too - for better and for worse.

The past few years have seen some fascinating changes as organizations - some tentative, some confident, a few very bold - adopt the tools of the social web. We've seen windows and occasionally great big doors opening in the walls that separate businesses, non-profits and governments from the public.

But something else is happening too. Just as the tools of social media are turning marketing into personal conversation, they're also turning personal conversation into marketing.