Article in The Economic Times, Oct 23, 07
Facebook and the informal-isation of corporate networking
A few days ago I put in a very urgent request to a small group of “Facebook Friends” – fellow JWT Planners from across the world - people who I have never met and indeed may never meet. It was a loud cry for help, for an overnight paper on a knotty problem. Responses poured in within hours from Japan, Bangkok, London, Brazil, with further forwards to others in some other countries. More than the material we actually exchanged, the war cry of delight that went around the group was to celebrate that NETWORKING WORKS! And more: SOCIAL networking works – OFFICIALLY!
Would it have been the same on an intranet? Would N have responded quite this way if we hadn’t exchanged flowers and bunny rabbits for our Gardens? Would C have responded quite this way if we had not compared Pet Peeves? Would it have been the same, if we didn’t know what we looked like, what we’d done the last weekend, what our Mood Histories were? If we hadn’t Spanked, Poked and Super Poked each other?
As I started googling to understand the Facebook phenomenon, I found an interesting statistic that explained my success the other day: a 2006 Pew Internet survey reports that internet users are more likely than non-users to receive help from core network members!
So what really are the factors at work here?
The first is about increasing the size of your groups: as the Titan Fastrack ad asks, “How many you have?” Columnist Michael Rogers, talking of what evolutionary psychology says about social networking, quotes from Robin Dunbar’s Gossip, Grooming and the Evolution of Language. Apparently, “mutual grooming behaviour of primates was the first social networking application because it was a way to establish and maintain friendships, determine the hierarchy within the tribe and signal one’s social connections to other tribe members”. The tribe got too big and language emerged to replace grooming. With language, humans managed to increase their group size significantly. But even that hit a ceiling. So the obvious question about Internet-based social networking, he says, is “whether we humans are once again increasing the size of our effective groups”. By the time we are all done with these phenomena we will know how many “friends” we are each capable of “collecting” – rather like stamps, Pokemon cards or Ganeshas.
The second is to do with “Social Capital”. After economic capital, human capital, knowledge capital and whatever else, there is now “social capital”. Social capital suggests that ties between friends and neighbours and the capacity to organize and belong to groups increases psychological well being. It is about the ability of groups to get together to improve their collective lives by sharing useful information and personal relationships.
The sub-text here, (Ellison/Steinfield/Lampe, Michigan State University) is the concept of “bridging social capital” and "weak ties", which are loose connections between individuals who may provide useful information or new perspectives for one another but typically not emotional support. (As against “bonding social capital” which means emotional support, through face-to-face friendships). “ Weak ties” explains the number of friends who are not really friends but who are there on your page because you want to reach out, develop, rekindle or just stay in touch. You may not nominate them for a Superlative or send them a flippant Sticker, but they remain in your friends list.
The third relates to how these friendships are kept alive – the amazing news-worthiness of the trivia in peoples lives! Your Status, your Mood, which application you added, who you became friends with… Somebody joined a group called “Whoever takes bath with OK soap blooms like a lotus” and someone recruited someone else to Party Animals Inc. The News Feed application may have drawn protests about privacy, but this appearance of your friends names every time you log on makes you feel you are in touch on a daily basis. (Not very different from primates gossiping huh?). If you think about it, this is the kind of everyday stuff that neighbours, colleagues and friends talk about in the real world – the driver, the cook, the fever, the hair cut, the house guests.
Lastly what makes all this possible is the “Persuasive Technology”. To make it all seem truly friend-driven, the applications are cleverly designed and worded to force you to invite more friends to use them. “R would like to play Blackjack with you. If you join, R will receive 500 chips. Help out a friend and install Blackjack’. (Like your friend really needed the 500 chips for her next meal). When you are told “Seven of your friends have added the Shakespearean Insult Generator” you can’t help but click on it–and Persuasive Technology will ensure that you have to insult someone to successfully add the application! The Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab now has a course on Facebook that focuses on metrics and user feedback to help creators gather and respond to user data, thereby generating improved applications.
But before all that happens, before Facebook sells out, before brands get in and advertisers take over, before privacy, stalking and identity theft take over, before everyone migrates to the next big thing… let us just enjoy Facebook for what it allows you to do: Throw a Sheep, get Poked, send Booze Mail and find out who’s more Likely to be a Multimillionaire – you or your boss. (As if you didn’t know. But now you can Karate Chop him if you are not happy with the bonus). The most eloquent comment came from a colleague of ten years who, on his last day in my organisation, added me as a “Friend” on Facebook. Now I see his Status says he “is loving it”. He is obviously settling down in his new job, and I am happy for him. Should I send him a drink? “Sex on the beach”, “Bottled Water” or a “Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster”?
Read the article as it originally appeared http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/Internet_/Facebook_and_the_informal-isation_of_corporate_networking/articleshow/msid-2481831,curpg-1.cms
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