Clay has written a great new book "Here Comes Every Body" as a summary of the journey so far in social media and social networks.
Here are some of my observations listed against quotes from the book.
Now that it is possible to achieve large-scale coordination at low cost a [new] category has emerged: serious, complex work, taken on without institutional direction.
This impacts corporate strategy, overhead costs and threatens the managerial structure and the 'organogram' of corporate organisation.
Social tools provide an alternative: action by loosely structured groups operating without managerial direction and outside the profit motive.
The challenge for business here is whether an organisation can direct activity and how to limit employees activities without compromising the opportunity social media offers.
Ease of assembly causes activities to lower in difficulty enabling sharing, cooperation and collective action.
And the US Presidential election is one example, writ large, of how it can be done. Not many businesses see themselves as 'campaigning organisations' but many have a firm point of view on their area of expertise. Developing a common language among multi-site business offices; across countries will be a challenge and a fabulous achievement for global businesses.
Collaborative production means no one person takes the credit.
Is this a challenge to business organisation? Certainly in academic circles the Professor's name appears first when the paper gets published. Do we care about getting credit if the job gets done, is that reward enough? Egos will out – even on the internet. But an ego in a group collaboration can get very bad press from the other group members if they don't play by the group rules.
Cory Doctorow wrote "Conversation is king. Content is just something to talk about". Conversation forms around the social objects found in photos, videos and weblog posts.
I have posted on Social Objects for Business Development before and this summarises the situation well. This blog provides something to talk about business development.
It's when technology becomes normal, then ubiquitous, and finally so pervasive as to be invisible, that the really profound changes happen.
My acid test is when I see my Mother using these tools with ease – I know mass adopion is happening.
"Meetup, by solving the finding problem, created an outle for many new groups." It's easier to like people who are odd in theame ways you are odd bu tit's harder to find them (until now).
The case study on Meetup is straightforward. A technology that enables you to find people like you. But don't try and predict or manipulate the outcomes – let the crowd use it for the purposes they see fit. What purpose do readers here put the content to?
Structured aggregation of individual interests and talents can create a kind of value that is hard to replicate with ordinary insititutional forms, and impossible to replicate at such low cost. Again, don't try and predict what it'll be used for.
Chapter 11 is "Promise, Tool, Bargain" there is no recipe for the successful use of social tools. Instead, every working system is a mix of social and technological factors.
The Promise = why join the group? The Tool = how do I join? The Bargain = the rules i.e. what to expect. This is a really neat summary and works for all forms of engagement. Applications range from your group of friends, the sports club, pub mates, the workplace.
The future belongs to those who take the present for ganted. Young people are taking better advantage of social tools, extending their capabilities in ways to violate old models not because they know more useful things than we do but because they know fewer usless things than we do.
See my post earlier.
I know that if you want to have a conversation with someone, you call them on the phone. I know that newspapers are where you get your political news and how you look for a job. I know that music comes from stores….in the last 15 years I've had to unlearn every one of those things and a milion others, because they have stopped being true.
I love this summary – Clay's honesty in realising that the skills and tools he's used for most of his life are needing to be re-learned – and yet his enthusiasm for the new is engaging and challenges me to mimic his lead.
Take a look at David Cushman's recent interview with Clay. The whole interview is on video here. I held back linking to it until I'd had a chance to read the book myself!
I replied to a Tweet from David asking what questions he should be asking Clay. I was delighted he picked one of mine to ask. "How do educational establishments examine and test collaboration between students". And here is the part of the interview where Clay answers my question . He says "That is THE hardest question. And no I don't have the prescription."
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Tags: clay shirky, Collective action, Cory Doctorow, david cushman, Social network, social objects
