Social is Subversive

For more years than I can remember, I’ve advocated the position that all things social are inherent to our understanding of the world, making them unable to be bottled or packaged in any way that doesn’t automatically feel a little disproportionate to our understanding of them.

I’ll grab one old quote to illustrate this disconnect:

The two defining characteristics, from lago’s point of view, of an actual social network are that it cannot be compressible and that it would not be user-maintained. The notion of a self-organizing software mirror of the social network is very intriguing to say the least. The notion of compression carries back to the static visualization, wax museums, and other criticisms we’ve seen about these networks. Systems are already in place that are starting to become more autonomous, providing that automatic-user requirement. The question this raises though, however, is this: If software could mimic, and potentially predict the growth and interaction, in its entirety of a real social network, why do we need the nodes at all? It seems that the snapshots provide a context for evaluation that, despite the obvious limitations, can be leveraged.

Source: SocialTwister.com, “SNS: A Xerox of a Xerox” (March 04, 2004)

The crux of the matter is that we are incapable of not seeing things from a social perspective, it underlies all assumptions we make and frameworks we build.  This has been more and more on our minds here as we we work to flesh out of Practice Areas more clearly so we can communicate it to clients and peers.

Today, Umair Haque has a wonderful distillation of the secrets to Obama’s success - a testament to the strength of network thinking and social insight.  One particular bullet struck me, which inspired this post:

4. Maximize purpose. Change the game? That's 20th century thinking at its finest - and narrowest. The 21st century is about changing the world. What does "yes we can" really mean? Obama's goal wasn't simply to win an election, garner votes, or run a great campaign. It was larger and more urgent: to change the world. Bigness of purpose is what separates 20th century and 21st century organizations: yesterday, we built huge corporations to do tiny, incremental things - tomorrow, we must build small organizations that can do tremendously massive things.

Source: HBS, Obama’s Seven Lessons for Radical Innovators

“Tomorrow, we must build small organizations that can do tremendously massive things”  It is this emergence of purpose that allows most people to “call bullshit” on the vast majority of systems and services unleashed on the unassuming yet early-adopting masses.

The greater and deeper the value we create, the stronger the purpose.  Yes, we can.