Making Friends, Keeping Promises (2.1.11)

                The final chapter of Here Comes Everybody, much like the rest of the book, goes about laying out the practical problems and solutions of organizing people in a digital, technology driven age. He argues that, for a group to operate effectively (or simply to survive), it must have “a plausible promise, an effective tool, and an acceptable bargain with the users” (Shirky 260). This is not so hard to believe, and I agree with the logic Shirky is offering here. However, I did realize whilst reading that something about his system of success was troubling. I discovered it was a matter not so much of Shirky’s reasoning but of his chosen labels. In my opinion, “promise” is a somewhat misleading (or perhaps more accurately, a confusing) term for what is essentially the group’s reason for existing. On another, less essential note, I also felt that “promise” seemed much too similar to “bargain,” a completely distinctive concept concerning the terms to which users of a group are willing to agree for the sake of the group’s practical, operational success. The similarity of terms only seemed to add to the confusion. [For the sake of comprehensiveness, it’s worth noting that I had no issues with “tools,” which made sense the first time around.]

The difference, as Shirky describes it, is that the promise precedes the bargain because it is essentially the logical framework behind the group’s operations; it is why people join and why people stick around. Flickr’s inherent promise to its users, for example, is that users can share photography and, if that photography is worthy, gain praise from an impressed audience of other photography enthusiasts. Ultimately, this is why the group exists, and to call that reason a “promise” somehow seems to detach it from the group’s logical being. In other words, a promise is something that I would think would be established after a group’s existence, but the promise as it is described in Here Comes Everybody is inextricably linked to and necessary for such existence. Take another example. Our own class blog is, to some extent, representative of a small community. Through the blog we are promised a forum for parsing out difficult topics and the response and collaboration of our peers. All of this is to foster learning, comprehension, discussion, and to ultimately enrich our English 496 course experience. But this promise is also inherent to the blog’s existence. Without this promise – or as I would prefer to call it, logic – the blog would not exist or it would simply be a different blog.

However, despite my own reservations about the word’s ability to accurately express what Shirky is describing, his use of “promise” does prove strategic and does speak to the wider issues and/or phenomenon that this book is intended to address. A promise is suggestive of a relationship, which is ultimately what group dynamics are all about. People need to be fostered into a relationship with the social network and/or community to become a true member, all of which requires a conscious effort on the group’s part and a conscious decision on the individual user’s part. Shirky time and again emphasized in this chapter that a group’s value is born out of its participating members, not out of its potential action (i.e. it’s “promise”) or its devices (i.e. it’s “tools”). Ultimately, this final chapter sends the reader to the book’s front cover which states that “Revolution doesn’t happen when society adopts new technology, it happens when society adopts new behaviors.” Shirky offers the keys to group success but cannot do so without highlighting the individual, personal, and very human factors associated with group development. Online networks and web-based communities are fantastic resources, but they are useless without real, viable users. Here Comes Everybody is about “the power of organizing without organizations” but proves that just because a group is not defined by geography or physical space does not mean that it somehow lacks connection to the real world. Technology does not drive such groups; people do.

While I still take issue with some of Shirky’s word choice, I do have an appreciation of the bigger picture he’s painting, which is why the final chapter sets up the epilogue so nicely. In effect, the epilogue once again illustrates that people are at the center of any kind of technological advancement. I find his discussion of new technologies particularly poignant. Why was birth control a more drastic and arguably impressive advancement than space travel? Birth control affects real people in a real way. It offered personal freedom and forced people to think about their behavior in light of increased options and outcomes. This is not to say that space travel is unimportant. However, it did not change people’s (or most people’s) thinking or behavior in a major way. All of which is to say that Shirky’s most central point is worth our attention (because it’s about us). Social tools have and continue to foster enormous change but have and can do so because they represent what makes change possible in the first place – human organization. As our ability to organize and act together develops, ever-aided by new technologies, we cannot, it seems, underestimate the potential that we (not technology) have to change the world.

A Murder of Crows (1.25.11)

This week's reading is all about how people organize themselves and of what the organizations people form are capable. While I am disappointed we lack a more inventive collective noun than "community" or "network," the apparent distinction between online communities and social networks proves very telling of not only how we use technology, but also how and to what effect we interact with one another.

The selections from Design to Thrive did a nice job laying out basic information concerning first why businesses are interested and how they can benefit from use of online groups. Reasons range from inter-office or inter-department information sharing to customer service and retention, to institutional knowledge preservation and are discussed in detail in Chapter 3. Regardless of the reason for investing in this type of online technology, however, Dr. Tharon makes clear from the outset of his book that such technology is only as useful as its implementation. He provides what he calls a heuristic for approaching online grouping resources and for developing designs which make the very most out of this increasingly important and prevalent technology:  remuneration, influence, belonging, and significance (RIBS).

The first few chapters of Here Comes Everybody focus on much the same material as Design to Thrive and, like Design to Thrive, suggests that the real difference between online communities and social networks lies in the difference in the strengths of the relationships they promote. Social networks put the individual at the center of the relationships being formed, all (or perhaps most) of which are unique and handpicked by the individual user. As a result, according to Clay Shirky, the secondary relationships within a network – those relationships that exist beyond and as a result of the primary relationships chosen in the network (i.e. mutual friends on Facebook) – are not very strong. I tend to think of dating/matchmaking websites such as Match.com or eHarmony.com as revealing social networks in that they their supposed innovation is the ability to put people in relationship with one another. However, these websites are simply doing what any social network is engineered to do. Granted, there is specificity and intentionality involved in a dating site that is (or is often) lacking in other social networks, but I believe that the deliberate search for a significant other via such websites has as much to do with advertising as it has to do with the basic engineering of the network. In fact, I would be surprised if many of us do not know or do not know of at least one or two people who have entered into romantic relationships as a result of connections made on Facebook or Myspace. These are not dating websites, but they are social networks and, as such, are intended to connect people together and foster the development of individual relationships.

In communities, however, things operate much differently. The individual chooses or is offered membership based on the larger group’s set of shared values. The individual defines his or her participation in a community by the larger group rather than by individual relationships and enters into a collection of individuals in which no one is as the center. As such, a member of a community shares secondary relationships with the other community members (relationships by virtue of membership in the same community) and thus also shares similar values, goals, and beliefs. I’ve become familiar over the past few years with an ever growing and diversifying online community of coupon clippers and smart shoppers. While there are multiple sites to what one might argue are multiple communities, all of these websites, such as www.afullcup.com or dealcatcher.com, are devoted to the sharing of new deals, coupons, strategies for saving money. The relationships formed in this community serve the community’s greater purpose and are anchored by a strong set of shared circumstances, perspectives, and/or goals.

What any of these organizations is capable of doing is ultimately determined by these very relationships (or put another way, how people understand their relationships). These activities include sharing, cooperation, and collective action. Because cooperation and collective action are both more complicated than sharing, these activities are accomplished much more easily by a community in which people have already established relationships that promote cooperation complex organization. This is essentially what Shirky devotes the weight of his introductory chapters to exploring. He suggests that “the desire to be part of a group that shares, cooperates, or acts in concert is a basic human instinct” and that this instinct has “always been constrained by transaction costs” (54). Indeed, organization seems to be a part of humanity’s natural order and proves absolutely essential to business development, to productivity, to innovation, etc. Nonetheless, there is a limit to any organization’s usefulness simply because the larger the organization, the more difficult it is to manage and to fund.

What is so fascinating and proves so crucial to the fundamental (and potentially unsurprising) information revealed in the openings of Design to Thrive and Here Comes Everybody, is that all of the organizational and connective capacity of the internet is being harnessed to quite simply bring people together and to fulfill a basic need to collect and share and be in relationship with one another. What both of these books shrewdly acknowledge is that behind the computer screen lies a vast collection of individual people – people who operate under the same desire to connect. What is truly exciting about increasing number of networks and communities online today is that they reflect a massive potential – potential to share, to cooperate, and collectively act. This potential, as Shirky notes, has perhaps been stymied by practical constraints in the past but is entering uncharted territory now that “group-forming has gone from hard to ridiculously easy” (54). In other words, given our clear tendency and inclination to form relationships and to organize, what is it we as a race are going to discover or accomplish now that we have the opportunity to establish relationships virtually everywhere?

Narrative (1.18.11)

                Narrative is something everyone should think about. I believe this is true for two reasons. First, I study literature and thus think about, write about, and complain about narrative all the time. As such, clearly, everyone else should be thinking about it too. Second, and perhaps more importantly, stories are quite literally how we engage with the world. If literature has taught me anything, it is that stories are an important method of self-identification. Novels are powerful things because they show us that we affirm our own significance within narratives; a story provides a framework wherein we can establish an identity, pinpoint a role, and identify our relationships to others.

                So in terms of the week’s readings, I’m on board. Stories = important. Agreed.

                However…

                I have to admit that I was not gripped by the selections from Squirrel Inc. or Neuro Web Design. Granted, these books are not about ontology or literature, so my expectations when it comes to the importance of story-telling are admittedly skewed. And the information presented is certainly valid. I believe that the connection drawn between storytelling online and creating a social environment in Neuro Web Design is an astute one. The inherent implication here is that the web is a place that web designers want people to actively inhabit. Images, unsurprisingly, play an important role because they register with a person’s experienced reality. Stories naturally encourage this kind of behavior. [Side note:  I noticed that on Clemson’s student page, www.clemson.edu/students, stories about students and life at Clemson University, along with corresponding photographs, are constantly run across the top banner. It’s a little eerie to think too long or hard about this, but it seems to reason that even when we are online we are being reminded that we are a part of the Clemson family and should be in touch with that element of our lives constantly. It seems to be a lesson in interaction and integration. A link, by the way, appears to the bottom left of the photo which reads, ‘Tell us your story!’] I can say the same about Diana’s story in Squirrel Inc. Making an idea useful and effective requires, to some extent, the ability to make individuals take personal ownership of that idea – to relate to it in a significant, visceral, natural way.

                On the whole, however, I found these readings rather obvious. This is perhaps naïve of me. I will allow that it is possible that the writers and editors of these books have presented these concepts so simply and effectively that I have been tricked into adopting the ideas as my own (weaving them into my own narrative, if you will). Nonetheless, I found that Made to Stick was a much more engaging, surprising, and, as a result, convincing read.

[CAVEAT:  Again, nothing seemed particularly erroneous about the other texts; I agree in general. I simply didn’t find myself viscously nodding my head in agreement as I read or shouting, “Yeah! Wow! That makes sense!” Of course, Neuro is more of an instructional book which answers specific questions which address specific web design issues – it’s just not designed to be particularly entertaining. As for Squirrel Inc., I’m perhaps just not a fan of the writing style. Or, for that matter, the idea that squirrels are super intelligent creatures with the ability to organize and effect major change unbeknownst to humans. Which leads to a second CAVEAT:  I am a huge snob and have possibly been seduced by the well-advertised fact that the authors of Made to Stick are directly associated with Harvard and Stanford University. This doesn’t necessarily diminish any of the points that follow (though maybe it should), but it does give you a sense of my perspective.]

I wonder, now retrospectively writing about these excerpts, if Made to Stick proved meaningful to me because, in its own way, it practiced what all of the books are getting at:  people relate to stories. I appreciated that this particular book told me the story of two brothers investigating the “stickiness” concept and invited me into the story by incorporating other narratives and characters and ideas with which I am familiar and interested. I, for instance, am along with the rest of America well acquainted with Jared and his successful Subway diet. Combine this with ample research, and I find myself more willing to accept their SUCCESs model and to forgive their self-proclaimed corny-ness. Of course, Squirrel Inc. tells a (mostly) relatable story as well. What I think Heath and Heath do that Denning does not is tell me a story about me. Made to Stick explores the human brain, visualization, and simulation, offering a brief narrative about why the stories work – essentially about why I am the way I am.

Another lesson learned from literature (one I believe is vital for exercising narrative as a learning, leading, advertising, or publishing tool):  we ultimately need and rely on stories to understand us.