Archive for Socialprise
by Rob Paterson
November 23, 2010 at 10:34 am · Filed under
Chaord, Network Effect, Organizational Design, Robin Dunbar, Social Networking, Socialprise, Trust, Trusted Space, Work 2.0, Workplace
I saw another piece of stupidity the other day when a “Social Media Expert” claimed that his thousands of friends on Facebook and Twitter made him such an expert and that he could teach you how to have that many friends as well. In other words that having lots of Friends was the goal!
Of course people like him make these claims based on nothing.
A few of us do read and those of us who do have long known of the work of Robin Dunbar. Those who care to do some work, know that there is a lot of science that underpins how humans live in social groups and that there is an underlying math that is well known.
So for those that don’t have time to read here he is in 16 minutes on Youtube offering you the science that shows why:
- Our social personal limit is about 150 people
- How this came about
- That we have layers of intimacy inside this limit
- That there are layers beyond it but that are not intimate
- That meeting face to face – is crucial to maintaining these relationships and that they degrade if not enhanced with face to face
- That men and women use two very different types of social grooming to maintain their networks – women need to talk and men need to do
- That the folks who claim to have thousands of friends are nearly all men with poor social skills in the real world
So for all you Social Media Experts and HR professionals and Organization Design Folks here is Dunbar:
by Rob Paterson
September 27, 2010 at 10:34 am · Filed under
2.0 Business Model, 2.0 Design Thinking, Adoption, Barriers, Community, Connected Enterprise, Customer Service, Disney, Energy, Interaction, Interviews, Management Theory, Marketing, Network Effect, Organizational Design, Platforms, Relationships, Robin Dunbar, Social Contact, Social Media, Social Networking, Social Objects, Socialprise, Trust, Trusted Space, Twitter, User Revolution, Web 2.0, Wisdom of Crowds, Work 2.0, Workplace
What would it be like if your business had a sales, marketing and support force that was 1.3 million strong that you did not have to pay for? What if you could source this leverage with a tiny central force? Sounds impossible? Do you have any idea of how this could work?
Now that everyone is using Social Media – what I am seeing mainly are people who using the new tool in the old way – trying to shout above the noise – “Look at ME!” “Aren’t I cool!” “Aren’t we good!”. I am seeing a Dilbert approach – “Let’s have a Facebook site” “Let’s get on Twitter”.
Most do what most do when a new technology arrives – they apply it in the old way and so get nothing in response.
So what then is the power and leverage that you can harness by using social media well?
Boingo are on their way to finding out how to do this. Oh yes and I am one of the people that are part of this and oh yes I am not being paid and nor do I in any way work for them. I am living the theory.
So how might this work and so how might you do this too?
Boingo have a class of people that are deeply committed to the enterprise that Baochi calls her “Super fans”. They and why they are connected to Boingo and each other is the core of the leverage potential. We will meet 4 of them in this post who agreed enthusiastically to be interviewed by me. As you will see, these Super Fans are attracted first of all to Boingo by the obvious:
- The service – easy one stop access to Wifi in Airports and Hotels – is now no longer a nice to have for travellers but an essential
- The support for the service is outstanding – got a problem – you get instant personal help
But a great product is not enough. Nor is good service. What is the differentiator for Boingo is the human nature of the relationship that Boingo has with its customers. Most organizations do not allow their people to be human. Service people are often ciphers working from a script. Boingo have set up an environment where their key point of contact is a real person who is allowed to be herself.
She has a name and a face and we are all in awe and a bit in love with her. We all feel her presence watching over us. It is way more than getting her help when we can’t sign on. She watches out for us. Have a problem – A quick tweet. In minutes she is there. She is like the guy who runs the old corner store who holds your keys when you go away, keeps an eye on your kids in the street, helps you find a new roommate.
As Nuno Montegro, a customer in Portugal says – It is not what she says but how she says things that is the difference.
Nuno is like me, a customer who actively refers others to the service.
Most of Social media is all about Weak Ties – They are very useful but Weak Ties don’t get people to do much – or risk much – or commit much – that is why they are Weak – they are easy.
If you want to do something – Civil Rights in the US – you need Strong Ties. (Nice new piece by Malcolm Gladwell that explores Weak and Strong Ties in depth)
The key to attracting Strong Ties is being human. It is NOT PIMPING your product. It is instead to show that you really do care about ME. It is instead to show that you can indeed be trusted.
How do you show this? Nuno makes the point that every service and product fails at times. The key is to offer the best possible response to the inevitability of a problem. The best possible response is to know from experience that if there is a problem, you can reach a real person quickly and that they will go the distance to help you get it fixed. “I felt as if I was the only customer in the entire world when she was helping me” Nuno told me. I had the same experience.
Attracting Strong Ties is all about “Giving”.
Aaron Strout is the CMO at social media agency, Powered Inc. and is also Super Fan. “Boingo is proactive and they don’t expect a direct return – they are not selling all day – so if they want an inch, I go the mile back. It’s Karmic! I know if I have a problem that they will look after me. If people are good and do good, then good comes back. Not necessarily directly but good gets attracted back. We talk about a wide range of things that affect me not just the product – which is great too – have to have that – they listen.”
What Aaron is talking about here is a very old model for an economy that was the centre of all tribal economies – the Gift Economy. In the Gift Economy, the Big Guy is not the man who has the most stuff but the person who gives the most.
This is the power in networks – this is how Open Source Works too.
Cliff Bremmer is a programmer who works for a company called Carley Corporation that bids on government contracts to develop instructional CD base/computer based training for the US military. ”In my spare time I help companies understand and navigate the social media spectrum in a professional yet interactive way. The company I’m currently helping is the one my father works for called the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel“.
The Gift?
Not only is he a fan but in interacting with Boingo he has learned a lot about how to use SM media well. “If there is anything I’m proud of lately it’s that I helped the Pegasus Hotel promote their brand with the help and support of @Boingo and other companies to become one of the most popular brands in Jamaica.” Boingo is not only helping him with his travel and Wifi but is talking with him and helping him help his dad in his business with advice and Tweet Up prizes such as free access and bag tags. The Gift in action!
He can see the flaws of how most use SM – “They are stuck in self promotion versus communication. I can see through it all – it’s all about them.”
In the Gift Economy that drives Trust and so Strong Ties, the starting point is YOU. In the non network economy the starting point is ME. No small difference!
Shelby Rogers is a flight attendant, a serving soldier (in the active reserve) and the wife of a serving soldier. Travel is her life. When she is not working, she travels. Access to Wifi has made her travel better – “I now know more than the Gate Agent does about my flights!” and it has taken away much of the loneliness that travel brings with it. Who has not been alone eating room service and watching TV in our room? “I can stay in touch with my husband on Skype and every city seems to have a friend in it.”
For Shelby, Boingo is a service that truly meets her needs. But it is how Boingo is connected to her that has transformed a pleased customer into a Super fan.
How often has your service provider taken you out to dinner? “We have even had dinner recently. I am now a walking billboard for Boingo with winking bag tags!”
So what does this mean? What are the lesson for both Boingo and for you?
- Baochi is no accident – the Boingo senior leadership have created the role and given it the space to enable someone who is naturally humane to be herself inside it. This new way of using Strong Ties to be the centre of a network is all about culture. In most cases senior leadership is too scared to let go. But if you do let go and create this safe place then the power of the network effect can be yours
- A really powerful network has to have an inner core bound by Strong Ties. This is where the leverage is. One staff person like Baochi can without too much trouble have close ties with 34 people. That gives her an outer network of 1.3 million. If she can handle the Dunbar limit of 144 that creates an opportunity of 400 million! You can see that with the right person, you can have a vast reach – provided you realize that your goal is not to have thousands of relationships but a few Strong Ones
- The secret is the math of social leverage. Many of you know about the “Dunbar Number”. Some of you know about “Magic numbers – the hierarchy of trust in human groups. If you don’t here is a quick primer.
So what now?
I think that the next stage would be this:
- At the moment all the Super Fans have a strong relationship with Baochi – I think that the best next step might be to find a way to connect them to each other
- At the moment most of the dialogue is still about the obvious and excellent service that Boingo provides – I think that some of the work that the Super Fans could do might be to deepen the conversation – Shelby touched on this in her interview with me – What is it that being easily connected while travelling does? In her case it helped her deal with isolation and loneliness – it helped her do her job better – it kept her in touch with her husband – these are deep issues that I think connect all of us who travel a lot
As I think about networks, I think about the laws of physics. All systems have order and attractors. Some force is needed to keep systems coherent.
Think of the Sun in our own local system. It has mass that provides a gravity that holds all the planets and asteroids and stuff in a pattern. It has energy that creates life in the system. I think that any healthy human social system has to have gravity and light.
At the very centre is the “Right Space” a Trusted Space created by the leadership. In this Space, the Right Person – Right being a person who as part of her natural persona truly cares about others. Connected to her is the fuel and the mass that makes up the Sun – the Super Fans. The closer they are to the centre and the closer they are to each other – the more mass and the more energy. The more mass and energy, the larger and more healthy the network of Weak Ties that form up around the Sun.
What gets in the way is our fear about losing control.
At Disney the surface of the Brand Icon never changes but inside the mask is a person who changes all the time and so is never allowed to speak.
But in the new world we have to take off the costume and let the person inside have conversations with the public – HARD to do.
by Rob Paterson
August 25, 2010 at 12:22 pm · Filed under
2.0 Business Model, Adoption, Barriers, Business Model, Collaboration, Community, Connected Enterprise, Control, Culture, Enterprise 2.0, Enterprise Social Computing, Enterprise Software, Freedom, Information Management, Interviews, Media, Organizational Design, Relationships, Social Computing, Social Media, Social Networking, Socialprise, User Revolution, Workplace
Email usage has dropped 28% in the last 12 months! (Matt Forcey)
A recent study by Nielsen that focused on how Americans spend their time online, unexpectedly found that email usage has dropped by 28% over the last year. Since we’re certainly not communicating any less, what are people doing as an alternative? Not surprisingly, the data show that social networking use increased by 43% over the same time period. A separate analysis determined that Mobile Internet use has also increased dramatically.
When I used to have a real job, one of the things I hated about being on vacation was the dread of what woud face me in my email inbox. As it became easier to access email remotely, I began to check in every day just to keep the load and the surprises down. Today when accessing email remotely is commonplace nearly all my pals in the conventional workplace tell me that they do the same. (The full report is here)
The young, under 30, hardly use it at all – they don’t even use the phone.
But what about the rest of us who still work for and with organizations that make email the centre of the communications system? Can you push back and get more productive? Here are two well known people who have confronted this question and have won the battle.
My old pal Luis Suarez at IBM is best known for his war against email and the misuse of it that crushes productivity.
I have been consistently getting less and less email by the week, and, even more exciting, way below the 20 emails per week mark!, which surely is making a good progress from when I started 2.5 years ago. Remember, at the beginning, before starting this experiment, I used to receive 30 to 40 emails per day! And now, 2.5 years later, it’s just 17 emails per week! Yes, indeed, you are reading it right! I’m now averaging 17 emails received per week, while the majority of my online interactions are now happening through social software tools.
So, to me, it is not just a drop of 28% in the past 12 months, but way over 90% of the email I used to get! And, not sure what you would think, but that’s *huge!* Yes! Being able to state how email is no longer the only game in town for me, quite the opposite!, actually, is a good thing. It proves it can be done! It proves I am not the only one who can make it happen. And this is when it gets really exciting! When you see other folks increasingly paying more and more attention as to how they interact with their email Inboxes and how they effectively start looking for ways of reducing such email clutter.
Very exciting, indeed! Even more when you notice it’s folks around you who are starting to ask you how you can help them eliminate most of their incoming emails and instead progress towards a much more receptive adoption of social software tools for business. That’s why I’m pretty jazzed up about seeing a whole bunch of fellow co-workers who are continuing to make efforts to reduce their email workload. To the point where entire teams are figuring out strategies to make it work for them and over the last couple of weeks I have been working with a couple of them where there is plenty of promise ahead! Yay!
But it gets better! Because over the last few weeks as well I’m starting to notice how even customers want to figure out ways on how they themselves can get rid of, or reduce substantially, their incoming email. And they seem to keep finding me out there as they search how it can be done (Double yay for #lawwe), which is really good news, because I have been invited a couple of times already to go and present to them how they themselves could live “A World Without Email“.
Why and how did Luis do this? Here is a link to an excellent interview with Luis conducted by the Doyenne of the Social Media world in Canada, Nora Young at Spark (CBC Radio). The interview was almost exactly a year ago and as with this post was timed to appear as we all struggled back to work and a full email inbox.
Luis’ main issue with email is that it makes it too easy for someone else not to care or know if you are busy and to impose work upon you or to engage you in their politics at no real cost to themselves. For instance – if I was to send you a large document as an attachment – there are many steps that you must take to read it – and then it all gets even worse if you wish my comments etc. Far easier to share a document. For instance, how many times have you got a “Cover my ass” CC or BCC? When what was really needed was a real debate? How many tomes have you been really busy and have a colleague impose a deadline on their stuff on you? This is the kind of behavior that Luis objects to.
Or what about all those newsletters that you don’t have time to read? Or those missives from on high from senior management that tell you how great they are or how we all have to ull up our socks?
Luis is not the only person pushing back. Jason Fried CEO of 37 Signals has an impassioned plea about how the workplace itself crushes productivity.
Yeah, my feeling is that the modern workplace is structured completely wrong. It’s really optimized for interruptions. And interruptions are the enemy of work. They are the enemy of productivity, they are the enemy of creativity, they are the enemy of everything. But that’s what the modern workplace is all about, it’s interruptions. Everyone’s calling meetings all the time, everyone’s screaming people’s names across the thing, there’s phones ringing all the time. People are walking around. It’s all about interruptions. And people go to work today, and then they end up doing most of their real work after work, or on the weekends. So, people are working longer hours, people are tired – I’m working 50-60 hours this week. It’s not that there’s 50 or 60 hours worth of work to do, it’s because you don’t work at work anymore. You go to work to get interrupted.
What happens is, is that you show up at work and you sit down and you don’t just immediately begin working, like you have to roll into work. You have to sort of get into a zone, just like you don’t just go to sleep, like you lay down and you go to sleep. You go to work too. But then you know, 45 minutes in, there’s a meeting. And so, now you don’t have a work day anymore, you have like this work moment that was only 45 minutes. And it’s not really 45 minutes, it’s more like 20 minutes, because it takes some time to get into it and then you’ve got to get out of it and you’ve got to go to a meeting.
Then when the meeting’s over, you’re probably pissed off anyway because it was a waste of time and then the meeting’s over and you don’t just go right back to work again, you got to kind of slowly get back into work. And then there’s a conference call, and then someone calls your name, “Hey, come a check this out. Come over here.” And like before you know it, it’s 4:00 and you’ve got nothing done today. And this is what’s happening all over corporate America right now. Everybody I know, I don’t care what business they’re in. Like when I talk to them about this, it’s like “Yeah, that’s my life.” Like, that is my life, and it’s wrong.
And so I think that has to change. If people want to get things done, they’ve got to get rid of interruptions.
Email is just part of this uncritical work culture that forces many to do their work after hours at home!
So what do Luis and Jason offer up as an alternative?
Luis still thinks that email has a place – in calendar management and in private one on one matters such as salary etc. But he has found that he can push back and negotiate a better way for nearly every category of work. Want me to work on your document – then share it with me! Have an issue to solve – open a conversation in public! Want to avoid being put upon by others – work in public so that people can see when you are busy – so if you use shared documents – people can see you are editing or drafting.
The whole point is to learn how to protect your time.
Jason has the same advice.
So, this isn’t really a plug, but we use our product called Campfire, which is a real time chat tool. That is our office. Campfire is our office, and that’s a web based chat tool where there’s a persistent chat room open all the time. Anyone who has a question for anyone else in the company posts it there and in real time, everyone else can see it if they’re looking at it. But if they’re busy, they just don’t pay attention. And then if non one responds, then that means someone is busy. Not like, I’m going to keep calling their name until they turn around. That’s what it’s like in most offices. Or you ring someone and they’re not there and so you call their name, and they’re not there, so you go to their office and you bang on their door. If someone doesn’t respond in Campfire, it means they’re busy. And unless it’s a true emergency, where you really need an answer right now, then you just let them be and they’ll get back to you in three hours. And the truth of the matter is, there are almost no true emergencies in business. Everything can wait a few hours. Everything can wait a day. It’s not a big deal if you get back to me later in the day for me to know right now.
And the other thing about interruptions and calling people’s names, and ringing them on the phone and stuff, it’s actually really an arrogant sort of move because you’re saying that whatever I have to ask you is more important than what you’re doing. Because I’m going to stop you from doing what you are doing for me to ask you this questions that probably doesn’t matter anyway. So, we’re very cognizant of this, and we make sure that we only ping people, that’s what we call it, digitally and in ways that will not really get in their way if they’re really busy.
He uses his own tool but of course there are many tools that we can use – the tool is not the key it is the idea of working in public that is.
How do you get others to play? Well if you are Jason – it’s easy you are the CEO! But Luis is not the CEO. He publicly told the world that this was his intent. He pushes back and negotiated with his own team and colleagues – and the value of this spread out.
Here is a mind map from Luis that shows you his process and his results
by Paula Thornton
June 12, 2009 at 8:44 am · Filed under
2.0 Business Model, Business Model, Enterprise 2.0, FASTforward'09, Innovation, Organizational Design, Social Work-net-ing, Socialprise
Just before flying home from FASTforward ‘09, in February, I took advantage of being in Las Vegas to visit Zappos, an online retailer that has been repeatedly recognized for its unique culture (not to mention their own book on the subject) and embracing social media. CEO, Tony Hsieh, was even on Oprah last October. So what more could I possibly add here?
I focused ‘between the lines’ and ‘outside the box’ — the larger experience of what makes Zappos, well, Zappos. I’ve watched a lot of videos about the place, follow Tony on Twitter, and even did a brief piece on them before, but as with other 2.0 experiences, immersion makes all the difference.
The ‘get to the chase’ version:
- The Zappos environment is a full-blown corporate anomaly: full of things that most corporations would dismiss as being “unproductive”, “chaotic”, “unmanageable” and “unprofitable”.
Between the Lines: Note on video…the flags on poles…critical artifacts of the culture.
- People LOVE to work here (earning a spot on Fortune’s coveted”100 Best Companies to Work For” 2008 list). Why not? They get to follow their passions (even if they want to invite Ellen to come to Zappos) and evolve their own path of doing ‘work’, all while having LOTS of fun.
- The results: 2008 sales = over $1BIL
- Bottom Line: This crazy stuff works and they’ll even tell you how to do the same.
The ‘insights’ version:
- The Zappos experience begins way before the on-site tour. Even vendors coming on sales calls are picked up in Zappos-branded vehicles (3 SUVs and a bus in the fleet) at the airport or their hotel.
- My driver, Zack, was the Shuttle Manager. He was eager to talk about just how much he loves the company and its culture (even as a New York transplant). He worked his way into his job because he just likes to drive, which he sees a lot of: 4-5 drivers make 150-200 runs a week!
- During major conventions shuttle runs get a bit hectic, but Zack was proud that they were able to ramp up and cover 300 runs during the February 2009 CES convention (having a work culture that allows them to tap into volunteers throughout the company, makes a huge difference).
- Walking through the doors is not like entering any other company: people in motion and endless visual stimulus. Everything has been thought of, including checking in your luggage, complete with a ticket, and getting you a drink.
- Tours at Zappos are like a parade — tour guides carry a flag/banner, which alerts employees to greet guests. My guide, Jerry, while retired from Nordstrom (a company also founded on great shoe sales and service) had infectous energy that belies his ’silver’ exterior. The tour itself cannot adequately be described in words — the videos are a must watch.
Between the Lines: Our tour was cut short as CEO Tony Hsieh was available, so we headed straight for the ‘jungle’ (the location of his office) to catch Tony for his interview where he reminded me again of their ‘other’ brand 6PM.com.
- Not to downplay my chat with Tony (he gets so much press already), I was anxious to talk briefly with Alfred Lin (@Zappos_Alfred) because he holds both the COO and CFO roles, which I asked him about. His answers were insightful and his presence clearly belies his kid-like avatar on Twitter.
- I was a bit surprised to find out just how far they take their Core Value “Do More With Less”. Clearly operating as a 2.0 company, internally they leverage only very basic technology (email, wiki, blog, newsletter, word-of-mouth), in very simplistic ways — allowing for natural collaboration and connections of a tight culture to carry the rest.
- To dip yourself into the Zappos culture on an ongoing basis, be sure to check out employee voices via their many blogs.
- Oh, and did I mention, they sell shoes, accessories and clothing?
The last half of the Tour is shared in two parts.
- On average, 4-8 tours come through every day — more during the annual shoe conventions. While Jerry and Donavon are the primary tour guides, any employee can take the tour guide course and serve as a fill-in. This wasn’t staged — this is the ‘norm’ in their culture.
- The entire environment is a testament to their culture, of constant motion, immersion and learning. There are 4 bookcases at the entrance with multiple copies of ‘current reads’ for employees to grab and enlighten themselves — including Tribal Leadership (Zappos sponsors a downloadable audiobook version).
- Learning is for EVERYONE, on both sides of the coin — giving and receiving. Classes are ‘live’ and taught by employees. If you’re moving ‘up’ to a role, you’ll be taught by people currently ‘in’ the role. Likewise, you’ll teach those coming in behind you.
- Inspired by some of the things gleaned from Tribal Leadership, a more structured “Pipeline” path was created for classes. Training Supervisor, Loren Becker, readily shared the outline of the Pipeline program (which she merely had to print from the Zappos Wiki and had in my hands within minutes). Simplistic, there are:
- Core-Level Classes (in 6-month segments)
For the first 18 months of employment, a total of 213 required hours — the majority of which is “Customer Loyalty Training”, plus books to be read.
- Management-Level Classes
Includes 37 required hours (with department-specific specialization added in) and 6 recommended books
- Leadership-Level Classes
Includes 32 required hours (including hours to ‘teach’ classes, as noted previously).
- “Introduction to Coaching” is taught by their own full-time coach for employees, Dr. Vik — who sold his Northern California Chiropractic practice to join the team (in the Part 2 video, just before we arrive at Dr. Vik’s office, someone asks Jerry to have Dr. Vik ‘come down’ when he has a moment — there are a lot of word-of-mouth activities going on all the time). Not only did I get my own Zappos Vision planner, I also got a copy of Dr. Vik’s DVD “Taking It to the Next Level” (explained briefly here).
Special thanks to Elizabeth Gregersen who handled all of my arrangements and who was patient with my questions after the fact (here’s Liz and Jerry just having fun — its encouraged to do so). My apologies that it took so long to get this posted (it’s been a steep learning curve to edit/load the videos). If there is any information in the videos that is out of date, please let me know.
For a ‘more professional’ version, check out the ABC Nightline segment.
by Rob Paterson
January 3, 2009 at 2:48 pm · Filed under
Social Computing, Social Media, Social Networking, Social Objects, Socialprise, Web 2.0, Wikinomics
If we are to use the power of the network effect to gain more leverage – I think it will be essential to understand the underlying math. For like all things in the natural world – such as say Gravity – there is a mathematical framework that underlies their operations. When Newton could describe how Gravity worked, the modern world took off. When we can do the same for social networks, we will be on our way to solving the great dystopia of our time – that we have succumbed to a machine model.
The power of the social world is like gravity or light. It seems mysterious. It is easy to wax mystical about it. But I think that what is emerging via observation – just like all good science – is the math. What is ironic is that this math is well known and has been part of human knowledge for millenia. It just has never been applied to the social world before.
It is of course the Fibonacci sequence – the sequence that nature uses to order all relationships if they are to reach their full potential. You may know of the key number that seems to be the limit of Trust for humans of about 150 – called the Dunbar Number after Robin Dunbar.
Many in the Blogosphere have been working on this. Many have seen the sequence emerge naturally in say Guilds in Gaming. Some like Stowe and Valdis are seeing this in the power use of Twitter.
Here is a summary post I made on my own blog 2 years ago that pulled together the field of knowledge that existed then. It is my hope, I am a Historian, that people with a sharper brain than I can add much more to this in the future. I am more convinced than ever that the true potential of the power of social media to get important things done will be revealed once our understanding of how all of this works improves.
Not just marketing and media – but the ideal groupings for work, for learning for health, for credit, for families and for all of our lives. A world reset to our natural design versus a machine world.
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Dave Snowden posted this recently – I could not get Cognitive Edge to accept my comment so I post them here after his post and then add some comments and list of useful links that add to the topic.
Recognise it? Well of course, it’s the best-fit reduced major axis regression equation between neocortex ratio and mean group size for the sample of 36 primate genera taken from
Dunbar’s 1992 paper which was
popularised, and not unduly trivialised by
Malcolm Gladwell into a natural limit on human group size of 150 (or 147.8 to be exact). The idea is a simple one. The human brain has co-evolved with social conditions and as a result there is a natural limit on the number of social relationships we can maintain. Dunbar linked the number to village, nomadic and military size over time. The number is exercising several people on the ever idea-stimulating value networks list serve. The argument there relates to if this is or is not a natural limit on a network or a virtual community.150 is not the only natural number. There are two others, so I could have titled this post
The rule of 5,15 & 150. All of those numbers, plus a need to think more about identity than about individuals, should influence either evolutionary or engineering approaches to community/network design.
What I plan to do is elaborate the numbers and their origins. I then want to look at the way in which the debate around Dunbar’s law is limited by atomistic ontology. This all too common assumption, found in the anglo-saxon world assumes self sufficiency and moral autonomy of the person, and sees communities as assemblies, voluntary or otherwise of individuals. Moving away from social atomism allows to take a different view on communities, their limitations and possibilities, but that will be tomorrow’s blog.
- Five is linked to the natural limits on the short term memory. This was first put forward by Miller’s 1956 paper and relates to time more than items (it is a common urban myth to see it as items). This means that it will vary a bit by language, different languages can compress more or less data into a defined time limit. If you have ever spoken through simultaneous translation then you will know that it takes 30% longer to say something in Spanish that it does in English. Given that the Welsh generally speak english 30% faster than the norm, this can present problems! Translation aside, the number is useful and it relates to common sense experience (always helpful). Think about how many directions you can remember, or how we organise telephone numbers. Another way to validate this is to think about models, or lists and see how many elements they have. More than five and you need a crib sheet. One of the reasons I restrict models in my own work to five elements is because of this. Less then five and they pass the paper napkin test which means they are sense making models as they can be drawn from memory, which means they can be used operationally without reference back to authority.
- Fifteen comes from anthropology and relates to natural levels of deep trust. I define deep trust here as the ability to tolerate a degree of betrayal. The number varies a bit based on the average size of the extended family in a society and is probably an habituated pattern of behaviour learnt during key periods of plasticity for the human brain. Now readers might be able to help be here. I got this number from two sources several years ago. The number was actually an upper limit of thirty but I reduced it to fifteen for alliterative purposes as well as accepting the realities of modern civilisation compared with the tribal systems from which the number originated. Unfortunately I have lost the reference and I am trying to re-discover it to reference in the book. All help appreciated! Again this manages a common sense test. Think about the social groups to which you belong and which pass the relaxation test. This test is a simple one, its who do you feel able to relax with, without worrying too much how your are seen. I realise that this does not always apply to families! However other than in pre or post divorce situations the ideas is that it should. The size there is definitely under fifteen, and more typically is a small number of groups of around eight or nine on average.
- One hundred and fifty is Dunbar’s law and in effect is the number if identities that you can maintain in your head with some degree of acquaints that an individual can maintain. It does not necessarily imply that you trust them, but it does mean that you can know something about them and their basic capabilities. In other words you can manage your expectations of their performance and abilities in different contexts and environments. For the moment lets consider this in terms of individuals (the switch to identity is for tomorrow’s blog). Consider your work groups and the size of your organisation. How many people do you know by name? How many people would you invite to a party? Again you can see the common sense experience coming though in the number. Now the assumption in Dunbar’s working and subsequent writing is that this level of knowledge requires physical proximity. However we now live in virtual as well as physical worlds so the nature of interactions change. The natural limit is probably in place, but its form, and the nature of its creation will have new variants for a new environment
Now these three numbers, 5, 15 & 150 have an alliterative quality which helps us remember and use them. They also have some fairly immediate and practical implications for communities and networks. That is what I want to look at in tomorrow’s blog which will come from Hong Kong. I am shortly leaving for the KMAP2006 conference at which I am keynoting for the second year, and I will also run workshop on uses of narrative in knowledge management. Hopefully I will meet up with some old friends and make some new ones, the conference has an interesting mix and looks less academic that last year when it was held in Wellington, New Zealand.
Great to find more discussion about these numbers. My bet is that by thinking only mechanistically we have “forgotten” their power and organize without any socially valid reason. This may surely be why so many organizations are so dysfunctional such as schools with say 1500 kids and no sub units. Why hospitals that merely have shifts of individuals are so unhappy. Why there is so much “stress” in most workplaces when the work itself is mundane.
The military however still keeps to these numbers. They have to – the task before them demands the full expression of what an organized group of people can do – they tend to use 8 as the base (8 men in a tent in the Roman army = a section) Sections “shrink” to 5 very quickly in action. Below 4, they are not very capable.
My bet is that 5-8 seems to work as the core unit of intimacy. Most sports teams fit this range. It enables you to pass the ball to a space knowing that the person will be there. It enables uspoken flow. It must have been the ideal hunting size.
Dave talks also about the limits to memory. You can remember a 7 number phone number but longer numbers, unless broken into sections of 3 and 4, are very hard to recall.
I recall other material suggesting that most “Tribes” in the hunter gatherer world (our cultural base) were about 35. 8 men and 8 women plus 16 youths and younger children. 35 is the platoon in the military which is the core organizing unit to get any serious work done. The Company would be about 200 as an paper ideal but would shrink in action to the 150 number which is the operational ideal.
VC friends of mine tell me that they get very concerned when they see new companies reach these staffing milestones of 8 -15 – 35 – 150. The hardest one being 15 -35 when you have to introduce some formal communication mechanisms. Complexity obviously does grow exponentially along a log scale.
Other work on gene pools suggests that 500 is the optimal number to keep enough variety. Hence tribal meetings for festivals etc that acted as genetic mixers as well.
What if these hard social numbers were brought back into formal prominence? What would happen to organizations? We see this with blogging now. My blogging social world has settled out along this gradient of 8 close intimates – about 16 close – about 35 reasonably close and a maximum world of 150. My test is my bloglines aggregator. I pay attention along the gradient.
I have also found that I can be assured that those that fit inside the 8 really do fit. I have worked with 2 of them before we ever met face to face.
So is this just an interesting topic or might it lead to an OD revolution? I add some good supporting links in the follow on:-
Chris makes the point that while guilds have these total group numbers, it is rare to have more than 40 online at any one time. More on guilds by Chris here
He goes deeper and deeper into the friction that we feel inside organizations today because we do not consider the fall out from not understanding how these numbers work. I find this diagram very helpful -
This confirm my VC friends observation that going from a group of 7-8 to 50 plus is exceptionally difficult. Moving beyond 150 is also a chasm -
I’ve already noted the next chasm when you go beyond 80 people, which I think is the point that Dunbar’s Number actually marks for a non-survival oriented group. Even at this lower point, the noise level created by required socialization becomes an issue, and filtering becomes essential. As you approach 150 this begins to be unmanageable. Once a company grows past 200 you are really starting to need middle-management, but often you can’t afford it yet. Only when you get up past that, maybe at 350-500 people, does middle-management start really working, primarily because you’ve once again segmented your original departments, possibly again reducing them to Dunbar-sized groups.
- Chris also asks in this age of social networking software “Is there an effective limit to the size of your personal network. He adds a comment by a VC friend of his -
Venture Capitalist Jeff Nolan relates similar concerns:
“It strikes me that the social networking theory holds that the more volume you have, the bigger your network will become by introducing degrees of separation roughly along the lines of Metcalfe’s Law. I disagree, human networks do not grow in value by multiplying, but rather by reduction. For me, it’s the quality of relationships that enhances my professional and personal life, not the sheer numbers.”
If you know of other good links please let me know.
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