More on Social Capital

It seems like all my classes are intertwining lately. While researching for my Senior Thesis, I came across this great article on the Government Technology magazine website, entitled "Social Capital: Technology's Impact on Society" by Robert Bell that referenced a lot of the studies we discussed in class such as Nie's work and Netville. I liked it a lot because it combined their conclusions with more updated information, which I know was a criticism we all made of the original pieces. I really enjoyed a quote Bell made about the new generations growing up with the Internet. He references another study writing, "The Net generation is in many ways the antithesis of the TV generation... Rather than leaning back on the couch as passive consumers of media, they lean forward to interact, choose and challenge." I am curious how such generational differences will play out on our network map, will our map help this Net generation more, or can it span different age groups? Anyways, the Bell article is pretty short and definitely worth a look. Check it out at: http://www.govtech.com/gt/734063?id=734063&topic=117673&full=1&story_pg=1

Clay Shirky video

Below is an awesome video discussing the effects web 2.0 has on coordination of institutions: http://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_on_institutions_versus_collaboration.html

The description of the video reads as follows:
In this prescient 2005 talk, Clay Shirky shows how closed groups and companies will give way to looser networks where small contributors have big roles and fluid cooperation replaces rigid planning.

It is a great summary of a lot of issues we have talked about class, such as how institution costs are shed with these new online networks. Shirky also focuses on the power law distribution, and the value of the smaller end of the spectrum, something we have not discussed much in class. He explains that in normal corporations, employees who only contribute one idea are a waste of resources but on networks online, a user who only contributes one idea does not cost anything extra, and in fact, a bunch of users who do that is actually a very valuable asset. Similarly, while creating our map, although it is easy to focus on big nodes, all those smaller nodes are valuable too, even if each organization contributes minimally. Check out the video if you want to hear more!

Six Degrees

In my Social Theory class, we recently read a book called Six Degrees: The Science of A Connected Age by Duncan J. Watts, which was all about networks, and I kept seeing connections to our class. In fact, I actually wrote a blog post for Social Theory about what we were doing on Project PERIS. The post was prompted by the following quote: “Like ambiguity, an organizational failure can come in many shapes and sizes—people get sick, factories burn down, computer systems crash, and large numbers of employees may have to be laid off. Sometimes disaster comes from the outside and sometimes it is generated internally…Regardless of their origins, however, what all disasters have in common is that they disable a part of what was previously a whole, functioning system….And when critical resources have been lost, the most important asset an organization can possess is easy access to the resources it has left.” Watts wrote this in reference to a potential product disaster that occurred in Toyota plants and how the company minimized the consequences. By using a less centralized more connected network for all their manufacturing, when one plant burned down, multiple plants were quickly able to pick up the slack because they shared so much information. In contrast, no one expected the disaster in New Orleans and no organizations were prepared for the ambiguity of the situation. Furthermore, with a delayed government response, hierarchical organization was not just overburdened but impossible because the government who should be at the highest position was unable to coordinate other specialized response teams. Because responses to disasters are normally so centralized, in the face of a crisis without that leadership, the organization of other services broke down. If New Orleans disaster response was organized like Toyota with a more robustly connected system through all levels of leadership as opposed to a hierarchical system, the consequences could have been much more minor. I think the same lessons can be applied to Somerville. We are creating a more connected system.

This Week's Reading

This week's reading is from a workbook that's whole focus is to help organizations connect with their surrounding community and learn to utilize whatever assets the community has to offer in order to form strong community-based projects. It lists three main goals, all of which essentially boil down to strengthening both communities and organizations through interaction with one another. After reading this, what I found to be extremely encouraging was how relevant our project is to the goals this workbook pushes organizations to achieve. BLink's whole purpose is to build connections. With BLink, communities, organizations, people, businesses, etc. can all communicate with each other and hopefully combine resources to make everyone more successful in achieving their goals. BLink will foster strong community-based projects. The reading talks about the importance of relationships with local residents, marginalized residents, associations, local economy - the list goes on. And BLink, I would say, provides organizations with the opportunity to strengthen their relationships in every one of those areas. It's cool to see just how important our project is to community organizing. One of the pages in the workbook actually encourages organizations to draw out their own map of connections, complete with existing and potential lines!

Social Isolation and New Technology

Last month, the Pew Research Center released their findings on a study they had done to gauge whether or not internet and mobile phone use led to social isolation. This is particularly relevant to our discussion about Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone book. Putnam upholds the thesis that social ties are weaker now than they were 50 years ago (using the demise of bowling leagues as his star example.)

The argument now against Putnam's premise is that it is outdated; Bowling Alone was written prior to the explosion of the Internet, before Facebook or MySpace or Twitter. Putnam is crippled in his discussion now because of the ubiquitous use of social networking sites and the impact they have on our daily communications.

The Pew study updates Putnam's research, yet also negates it. The basis of the study was to explore issues that have not been probed directly in that study and other related research on social isolation: the role of the internet and mobile phone in people's core social networks.

Ultimately the results find that Americans are not as isolated as had been reported earlier, and I found a few points especially interesting and convincing:

• Whereas only 45% of Americans discuss important matters with someone who is not a family member, internet users are 55% more likely to have a nonkin discussion partners.
• In-person contact remains the dominant means of communication with core-network members. On average, there is face-to-face contact with each tie on 210 out of 365 days per year.
• Email, social networking services and instant messaging promote "glocalization" -- that is, they are used as frequently to maintain nearby core social ties as they are used to maintain ties at a distance.
• The use of social networking services to maintain core networks is highest among 18-22-year-olds. Thirty percent of 18-22-year-olds use a social networking service to maintain contact with 90% or more of their core influentials.
• Users of social networking services are 26% less likely to use their neighbors as a source of companionship, but they remain as likely as other people to provide companionship to their neighbors.
• Owners of a mobile phone, frequent internet users at work and bloggers are more likely to belong to a local voluntary group, such as a neighborhood association, sports league, youth group, church or social club.
• Compared to those who do not use the internet, most people who use the internet and use a social networking service, such as Facebook, MySpace, or LinkedIn, have social networks that are about 20% more diverse.

As someone who falls within the 18-22 year old demographic, I must agree with Pew's findings on our high rates of social networking use. In the future, I'd like to see them extrapolate this data across age demographics as well as comment on the quality of these interactions.

Social Networking in Advertising

I saw this billboard advertisement in the O'Hare airport when I was flying back to school after Thanksgiving vacation. I took a picture of it because I think it is a great representation of social networking online interacting with social networking offline.

There has been such a huge push to get companies in on the social media bandwagon. From Twitter to Facebook pages to mobile applications like foursquare, companies and people are interacting on the Internet. While these interactions are important and provide a new and dynamic way to engage the consumer (or the business), it is important to remember that we do still exist in a real, non-virtual world where we interact with people face to face every day.

I think Marriott does a great job of bringing it full circle by associating their hotel lobbies with social networking, because it is. It was the original. The black-and-white movie era hotel lobby was a place of intrigue and romance, and it has been replaced by our virtual existences. By combining the two images into one advertisement, Marriott captures the attention of the consumer with a successful advertisement.

Meeting with Tufts and UMass Boston

Just before Thanksgiving Break, I had the opportunity to meet with a few UMass Boston students about their uses of the software. Since the class associated with BLink is completely different than our class, it was really valuable to have insight into their uses and perspective on the software.

There were a few major differences between the two schools. First of all, UMass Boston has a strong reputation for remaining very engaged with the organizations in their communities on a consistent basis. Therefore they were very invested in the organizations they added to the map. They also added fewer organizations, but there is more information available about the organization, including names of administrators and phone numbers and best ways to contact them, etc.

Secondly, they deal with a diverse population of community members, and many of them don't speak English. There is a desire to have the BLink website available in Vietnamese as well as other languages so that the entire community can access and benefit from the site.

Thirdly, they see a huge opportunity for this site to be a collection of resources that community members need, such as where to vote, how to get a state ID card, who to contact in different situations, etc. There is a lack of centralization with all of this information and if you don't know what you're looking for or how to find it, it can be very difficult information to access.

Other topics discussed included privacy setting issues, as well as different Facebook applications (such as games).