On Thursday, January 31st, at Intellect, the first edition of Convergence Conversations for 2008 was a real eye opener for me, and a wonderful reminder of all the reasons why we started this event. Way back in 06, when Amy, Laurence and I first discussed this event, in my head it was like an "art movement" - a forum where people would come to present and discover the future and argue about tomorrow. The january conversation, themed around social networking, was a real example of this. I left the event with my head buzzing with dozens of ideas which had all been planted over the past two hours.
Probably the most interesting idea for me, was the distinction between public social networking websites, and the use of social networking software within closed groups - especially within large organizations. The example of IBM's use of social networking tools to get thousands of people across the world to focus on specific problem domains (such as solving Rio De Janeiro's traffic situation) came up.
On the other hand the most far reaching was the suggestion that social networks represent the beginning of the end of command and control - both as a societal tool and for organizations.
Closer to the present, a few clear polarities emerged. On the one hand, more and more institutions - educational and professionals are resorting to research on prospective candidates (students & employees) - and a growing number of people are uncomfortable about the privacy issues and are lobbying for change or prevention of such scanning. On the other hand most people including younger professionals seem to be off the opinion that when you put something on a public social network, you need to be aware of your liability and only you are to blame.
Of course when it comes to children - an entirely new set of issues emerge, and the bottom line here was the need for education - first for teachers and through them for the early schoolers, on dos and don'ts of social networking. The reality is that's its as much a part of our lives as crossing the road and rather than avoid the subject, kids need to be taught how to embrace it safely.
Social networking is, then, the new TV. It's where the eyeballs aggregate, its forms the social currency and its the means through which communities are increasingly built. Of course, a critical difference is that television broadcasting is almost always demarcated by political boundaries, so it enhances national identity. On the other hand, social networks go across borders so it pushes us to a post national world - a more borderless one.
At a more commercial level, social networks bring us to the nirvana state of continuous engagement with our customers and consumers, although we need to recognize that the group is essentially self selecting.
And it allows us to spot the weak signals before they become the strong signals which are apparent to everybody.
From the perspective of an individual - you have a situation where you have multiple, distinct networks - which allow you to federate your identity across these networks - and potentially allow you to express yourself freely within each network. My preference is always to have have social contacts in facebook and professional ones in Linked in for example. Of course there are limits on how many networks you can be a part of - and we know there are thousands of social networks out there with more being launched every day. I've stopped accepting invitations to more networks like WAYN and Hi5 and Yaari etc. But as somebody said, there's still room for more networks - be they for love or money, and it seems the ones launched out of love, or concern, will outlive those launched to make money.
(more soon on social networking...)
