Had some interesting stress-headache-induced thoughts last night about community and social networking which I’ve filed, mentally, under the title of the classic koan; “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” They’re not groundbreaking by any means, but it gives me satisfaction to put them on paper. Anyway, the “one hand” image came to me in the night on the heals of the idea that, while social media is really, really good at encouraging people to broadcast their one hand, it fails miserably at actually matching that hand up with another hand, so to speak. And no, Match.com and OKCupid don’t count. Meetup.com does, but other than that the only good example I know of is the Ticketmaster conglomerate as, regardless of its many evils, it does facilitate the interaction of thousands in the same place at the same time. I know the one-hand image is quite deviant from the usual Zen interpretation, but I think it’s a great visual analogy for what I percieve to be the overabundance of mental connection - and simultaneous disappearance of physical connection - taking place in westernised cultures today. In my mind the relative parity of websites that encourage realization of physical community moves social media from widely accepted category of “woldchanging tool” to less-benevolent “magnifier of increasing desperation”. Regardless of how many ways we can connect with each other in the ether, we’re still going to be high-fiving the air, and I think this failure to connect physically is one of the most frustrating experiences a human can have. Upon being moved by a sound, an image, a smell or a thought, we sometimes want to hoard the resulting emotion, but most often people need to validate their reaction by sharing it - in person - with at least one other lucid individual! Why in person? Because sharing with your online community doesn’t gurantee an immediate response equal in quality/richness/depth to that elicited by traditional face-to-face interaction, and I’ve realized this is because an email/sms/facebook update/twit doesn’t command the same alacrity of response as does someone asking a question to your face. Frankly, it’s just not societally acceptable to turn on your heel and walk away from a person while deciding when and how to answer their question. In this send, face-to-face interaction forces truth. I think a growing awareness of our need to share QT is, thank goodness, driving a recognition of the isolationism that has resulted from westernised cultures’ near-complete dependence on / addiction to the internet, but try and try as we might, I’m not sure we’re making any steps toward preserving our social codes of face-to-face interaction. Since money makes the world go ‘round, I’m trying to figure out how to translate the basic human need for physical community into a business plan. What do you say, want to make a living encouraging quality interactions? Craigslist did… let’s make CL for impending Web 3.0. Another thought - so much of the past 10 years has been about holistic health, health of the body, beauty, etc… what if the next step were holistic interactions, health of the community, etc? Instead of marketing perfection of the self, let’s market sustainability of the community. Here’s an interesting post on marketing: http://www.fastcompany.com/1687863/marketing-to-the-bottom-of-the-pyramid - I like most the part where he says “The imperative is simple: find the early adopters, embrace them, adore them, support them, don’t go away, don’t let them down. And then be patient yet persistent. Then there’s this guy: http://communityirl.com/ Want to contribute? We can even use the existing social media infrastucture to propogate my subversive plan, mwah hah hah hah. Here are some basic entrepreneurial rules I’ve come to realize:
- Data is always valuable
- People, as a rule, don’t want [to be marketed] something totally finished. They want to be involved, share and be part of it.
- Knowlege wants to be free
