Here Comes Everybody! – Review

Clay Shirky, adjunct professor at NYU’s graduate Interactive Telecommunications Program, has written extensively about the social and economic effects of Internet technologies.  His writings have appeared in Business 2.0, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Harvard Business Review, and Wired.  In his book, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, Shirky argues that the ubiquity of communication tools – phones, computers, e-mail, instant messages, webpages – and their integration into society has changed how we come together, how we get things done, and who we are. Through his introduction of social and economic concepts, his ample use of examples, and his ability to look both at the positive and negative ramifications of social tools, Shirky successfully explores the symbiotic relationship between the Internet and society.  He highlights how we shape social technologies, how they in turn transform the way we communicate, and how that interaction redefines the very fabric of society.

Shirky first analyses the complexities of group interaction.  He introduces the Birthday Paradox to explain how the complexity of maintaining communication within a group of people rises faster than the number of people in the group.  Because of this, interaction becomes unsustainable due to high transaction costs, requiring the establishment of hierarchical managerial structures (Coase Theorem). Shirky maintains that new social tools decrease those limitations and in turn allow for “action by loosely structured groups, operating without managerial direction and outside the profit motive”(Pg. 47). He then goes on to explore the effects of the essential advantage created by new social tools: “ridiculously easy group-forming.”  Shirky structures his supporting evidence around the idea that there are varying degrees of complexity and difficulty in group undertakings, mainly sharing, cooperation, and collective action.  Shirky first looks at ease of sharing and how it has resulted in the mass amateurization of efforts previously reserved for media professionals.  Here he also explores the merging of personal communication and publishing, which has resulted in a shift from pre-publishing professional filtering to post-publishing social filtering.  He then takes a look at collaborative production as facilitated by flexible social tools that allow for wildly differing levels of contribution.  Finally, Shirky considers collective action facilitated by social tools, its successes, its failures, and most importantly, its challenge to existing institutions and ultimately modern society.

One of the strengths of this book lies in Shirky’s decision to focus on present events.  Doing so has allowed him to scrutinize the social and economic implications of ubiquitous connectivity.  He speaks about changes that are taking place in our time and are relevant to society.  For example, he addresses mass amateurization and how it affects journalism, media, and publishing.  His exploration of this phenomenon is pertinent, helpful, and insightful in that it gets to the core of a change that will radically transform society.  The world was never the same after the printing press was introduced.  My children might never see a newspaper as anything other than a historical artifact at a museum.  Nevertheless, I would argue – and I believe Shirky does as well – that this shift is natural and ultimately positive.  Journalism and publishing became professions due to an accidental scarcity created by the costs involved in publishing.  However, now that previous inefficiencies have been replaced by ubiquitous connectivity, anyone with an Internet connection can be a publisher.  Shirky eloquently describes the pain and the gain resulting from this shift when he writes, “just as movable type raise the value of being able to read and write even as it destroyed the scribal tradition, globally free publishing is making public speech and action more valuable, even as it absolute abundance diminishes the specialness of professional publishing.” (pg. 79)  It is unfortunate that journalists and publishers are being affected negatively by social technologies, nevertheless, would we rather artificially maintain their profit margins high, while depriving others of the opportunity to engage in public speech and action?

I was particularly drawn to this book because it explores who we are.  Shirky examines our basic human instinct to come together and connects it to social technologies. In one of my favorite quotes from the book he introduces love as a factor in online collaborative efforts when he states, “we are used to a world where little things happened for love and big things happen for money… now, though, we can do big things for love.”(Pg. 104) Now that’s a statement I can get behind, not just because I want it to be true, but because I came to regard it as possible while reading this book.

Here Comes Everybody is packed full with diverse examples that strengthen Shirky’s arguments.  His point is that social tools allow for not only more, but also new forms of interaction.  For example, while in the past mass action might only have taken place in response to gross political injustice, now massive group collaboration can take place for simple things, such as getting someone’s phone back.  Furthermore, Shirky also recognizes that not all groups and initiatives are positive or even successful. He does not attempt to portray a communications utopia.  Shirky recognizes that, when it comes to collective action, most efforts ultimately fail and some lead to negative results.

While Shirky studies the effects of ubiquitous connectivity, again and again he looks both at the successes and the failures.  He does not shy away from any sticky argument; he acknowledges both sides and puts them to the test.  Shirky successfully explores the symbiotic relationship between the Internet and society.  He highlights how we shape social technologies, how they in turn transform the way we communicate, and how that interaction redefines the very fabric of society.  While I would recommend this book to anyone interested in Internet technologies, economics, and sociology, I believe this book would be particularly edifying for young people.  In his epilogue Shirky argues that “the future belongs to those who take the present for granted.”  Throughout school kids and teenagers are told they are the future of the world; I believe it might help them to see it from Shirky’s perspective. 

Shirky, C. (2008). Here’s Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. New York: Penguin Group.

Consulting & Abundant, Consumable, Intangibles

I have to say the guest speakers have been one of my favorite parts of my Economics of Digital Communication class.  Getting to hear from professionals who are currently at the forefront of digital media gets me more excited about the MCDM, about this class, and ultimately about my future as a professional in this field.

This last class we got to hear from Dave Hanley, Principle at Banyan Branch, a new-media marketing consulting group.  Dave talked to us about the different services they offer their clients, and in the process, painted an exciting picture of what typical day at Banyan Branch might look like.  A company may be looking for a better way to manage their digital media marketing campaigns or for support with the latest product release, ultimately, however, I believe they are looking for a way to better hear their customers, or at least they should be.  Like many other media companies, Banyan Branch monitors the conversations that are taking place about a particular client, this of course through the use of an algorithm that crawls the Internet.  The noise that is collected is then ranked into a series of categories, positive vs. negative mention, notoriety, is it a first mention or a second mention, and so on. At this point things begin to make sense, and it is time to respond.  Banyan Branch provides guidance for its clients as to how they should respond to the conversations that are taking place online regarding the company or product.  They also work with the blogger community and “champions” or supporters, in order to drive and guide conversations in a direction that will benefit the customer.  Banyan Branch also works in crisis management, because let’s face it, the speed with which bad press escalates in the Internet, it is necessary to have a game plan.

Dave also spoke about the nature of social media.  Social media moves at a rapid pace, it is labor intensive, it is expensive and abundant, but none of it deals with assets (unless we are talking about brand equity, which only comes into play when under very specific circumstances).  Those of us who chose to work in the digital media industry deal with a giant intangible that is consumable, but not personally capitalized.  And while this may seem like a bad business to choose, due to its rare characteristics, the truth is that digital media isn’t just a mere consumable, digital media is consumed at a very high and rapid pace, and while it may not directly deal with assets, it has real costs.

A Review: The Wealth of Networks

Getting through the Wealth of Networks, by Yochai Benkler, felt like attempting to go on a long run, when I’m not so keen on the idea.  Let me explain.  The first couple of attempts at actually going running fail, even if I’ve previously planned to do so.  Then, when I actually get to the running, there’s the first of couple of minutes when I’m feeling pretty sluggish, because, let’s face it, it’s been a while since my last run.  When I get into a rhythm, I’m feeling pretty good and I’m actually enjoying the experience.  That’s is, until at some point my body starts to ache, my breathing gets all off beat and all I can think about is that particular blister, and that my ears may fall off due to the cold.  Finally, by the end, although exhausted,  I’m actually glad that I went on a run.

My first couple of attempts at getting into the book failed miserably.  Yochai Benkler, Professor for Entrepreneurial Legal studies at Harvard Law School and co-director of Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, utilizes a complex writing style that can be pretty hard to crack.  Nevertheless, once the reader accepts the fact that Benkler is a law professor, and law professors tend to write in complicated prose, it is possible to embark on what I consider an important learning experience for anyone who’s remotely interested in Digital Communication, its development, and the ramifications emerging from said development.  In fact, Benkler’s thesis, the idea that “the presence of a substantial non-market, commons-based sector in the information production system is desirable from the perspective of various aspects of freedom and justice”(Pg.106) should ignite enough curiosity in those involved in the future of society to get them to read this book.

The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production transforms Markets and Freedom is divided into three sections.  In part one, The Network of Information Economy, a foundation is poured, complete with examples, that will support the rest of his thesis.  This foundation is built mainly on three characteristics evident in the digital world today.  Mainly that, the physical machinery necessary to participate in information and cultural production is universally distributed, the primary raw materials in the information economy are public goods, and the technical architectures, organizational models, and social dynamics of information and exchange in the Internet allow for many diversely motivated people to produce information, knowledge, and cultural goods.  Part two, The Political Economy of Property and Commons, provides analysis to demonstrate that the shift from solely market-based production to non-market based production offers improvements in autonomy, democratic discourse, cultural creation, and justice.  Finally, the third section serves as a warning, outlining the “discrete policy areas” that are shaping the ecology of digital networks, and could potential limit the improvements outlined in section two.

I admire Benkler in that he recognizes there are limitations to his arguments.  For example, when speaking about the improvements in autonomy, democratic discourse, cultural creation, and justice that can potentially result from the present shift from an industrial information economy to a social information economy, Benkler openly admits: “the descriptions of emerging social practices and the analysis of their potential by no means imply that these changes will necessarily become stable or provide the benefits I ascribe them.”(Pg. 379)  Furthermore, he also points out the prevalence of misperceptions that individual contributors have about their own ability to produce information, and how these misconceptions will incur transaction costs.

I felt as thought every doubt, question, or concern that I had while reading the text was addressed, either in the next paragraph or section.  I felt none of his arguments were left hanging in mid air requiring the reader’s suspension of disbelief.  I was especially grateful for Benkler’s mention of the potential criticism to the idea that the Internet has democratizing effects, because I shared those concerns and wanted to see them addressed.  Benkler speaks to those claims that may weaken his argument, mainly concerns over digital overload, the disruption of the media’s role as watchdog, the centralization of the Internet, and others, and in doing so he strengths his the book as whole.

Finally, Benkler’s introduction of idea that social production is reshaping the conditions under which businesses operate, transforming individuals from mere consumers to user was my favorite concept introduced in the book.  The idea that we are becoming users, individuals who are more productive and active, excites me.  The implication that we are more productive and active simply means that more individuals are involved in the creative process, either through the creation of independent films or videos, blog entries, commentaries on current issues, or simply through photography or digital graphics.

My only critique of the book is that I would have liked to see more examples, but, considering the length of the book, that may not be a great idea.  Overall, getting through The Wealth of Networks, although arduous, was a rewarding experience.  The perspective, arguments, and background it provides are crucial for professionals of all fields.  I can see educators, sociologist, lawmakers, “information tillers,” and students benefiting from reading this text, as it will afford them a greater understanding of our culture and our society, and it will provide them a lens to look into the future.  Like I said, reading this book was like getting through a long run, I’m pretty exhausted, I had some issues along the way, but in the end, I’m glad I went for it.

Ceteris Paribus

I often wonder whether I’m the only one who’s a bit overwhelmed by all the information that’s been generated online in the last couple of years.  I mean, I might be the only one, but sometimes I get next to nothing done when I get online.  I start reading an article, then I come across an interesting link, I click on it, and before I know it, I’ve spent the last two hours navigating the web.  Granted, I’ve probably learned something, gotten some ideas, and entertained myself.  But sometimes it gets to be a bit too much.  For example, when I’m trying to actually get something done, and I never quite get to it, then it gets a bit annoying.  I refuse to believe I’m the only one who deals with this issue.  In fact, I believe one of the reasons the Bing commercials are successful is because they resonate with people.  They resonate with individuals’ head scratching, irritated eyes, over caffeinated research sessions in an ocean of bits.  They resonate with those who could have sworn they had that email, from that person, for that appointment, that is now lost somewhere in the 6,603 emails in their inbox.

The issue isn’t so much whether the information is there, or whether the data will be created.  The issue has become, how do we manage all this? How will organizations manage it? How will individuals manage it? That’s where the Gists, the truPULSEs, the Squidoos, tweetDecks come in, they manage information where our brains’ capacity stops.  Now, all these tools do a similar job, but they all go about it in a different way. Some facilitate pertinent data collection that is specific to people, others focus on information about companies, or maybe just topics.  They all attempt to make sense of the googols of information out there. Google was the first to do this, their search engine made the Internet accessible.  But as the vast sea of information continues to grow, and more services emerge, Google becomes insufficient.  People need their information managed, the plethora of passwords, the various networking sites, the multiple bank accounts, and more, more and more. Lately I’ve been noticing more of these data management services popping up, and I can’t help but wonder which of them will come out victorious.  We’ve learned from experience, the first to come out aren’t always the ones to succeed (MySpace vs. Facebook).   So, which one will get their audience right? Which one will solve the frustrations that people are likely to face in the near future, when the production of information exceeds even our most generous calculations? Personally, I believe this time around the first ones may not be the ones to tackle the issue.  The late runners, the ones who’ve had time to learn from others’ mistakes will get ahead, this of course under the ceteris paribus assumption, “other things being equal.”

Please, let it be the end

I have fallen prey to a solicitor – something I thought would never happen to me.  Up until last week I thought I had the art of saying ‘”no, thank you” mastered, it seems however, I was not ready for what took place Thursday night.  As I prepared to relax after a long day at work, I had the great privilege to open the door as a man from the Seattle Times stood prepared to ring the bell a second time.  He was a nice guy, talked very fast, and repeated multiple times,

I’m not sure if you’ve heard but The Seattle Times is going out of business! (He took a couple of breaths, not sure if he had been running, and proceeded), if we can get xx number of people to get xx number of newspapers, we’ll make it to the end of the year! We really need your help, you don’t even have to read the newspaper, you can through it away, or I can even leave it at some public school, we really need your help… ”

Now, he’s saying all this pretty fast and, every couple of sentences, when he stops to take a breath, I’m able to state I’m not really interested, I don’t read the news paper (digital native, come on!), I wouldn’t really get anything out any sort of promotion, and so on.  But he insisted, pretty much begged, and finally I gave in.

A couple of days later, while reading through some of my classmates blogs, I came across Sean’s post, “Institutions – Save it or Leave it.”  His post echoed how I felt after having agreed to purchase a product that, according to the man I spoke with, could just be thrown away.  Sean stated, “failure of old institutions is almost always accompanied by the birth of new institutions, thus starting a new lifecycle.”  Evidently, the new cycle is already here, even if only in infant form.  There’s really no sense in attempting to save a dying industry, one that saw it’s final verdict coming from afar and did nothing to adjust to the changing market.  I agree with Sean, what matters most isn’t so much if old institutions will survive, what matters most is whether new institutions are replacing the old, to fill the gap socially and economically.  When it comes to the newspaper industry, I believe new and improved institutions will take their place soon enough.  Consumers are looking for unique information that will reach them as fast as the Internet will allow it.

As an answer to Sean’s question, yes, we would be better served by embracing the new, than by trying to save the old.  What would we be trying to save? What I received this past Sunday?  The bare bones of what used to be a newspaper, stuffed with coupons and advertisement.  The newspaper industry’s time is over; we are witnessing their last cry for relief, a feeble attempt to last “until the end of the year.”  If only they had been willing to embrace the new, they could have been at the forefront of what is taking place in the digital world, but instead they chose to stick with what they knew.  Seth Godin says it better in his post, “Malcolm is Wrong,” where he states, “People will not pay for by-the-book rewrites of news that belongs to all of us. People will not pay for yesterday’s news, driven to our house, delivered a day late, static, without connection or comments or relevance. Why should we?”  Unfortunately, for the next couple of weeks I am, in fact, paying for this service, coupons and advertisement included.  But before you know it, my subscription will end and with it probably their industry as well.

Fear of Free – A Review

I consider myself to be somewhat of a digital native. I say somewhat, because before my teens I lived in a developing country and my interaction with the digital world was limited both by choice and by scarcity. However, just to give you an idea of how things changed once I moved to the United States, the number of computers in my house went from one-not-so-great-one, to five – one more than the number of people in my direct family. Why do I say all this? Because, while reading Chris Anderson’s book, Free: The Future of Radical Price, I find I identify both with the digital natives who respond to Anderson’s argument with an emphatic “Duh!” as well as with those who may not be so keen on the idea.

Now, I have to ask, do you question or fear the power of Free? I would argue many of us do, and it is because of this fear that Free, may be a hard pill to swallow for many readers at first. Anderson, author of the international bestseller The Long Tail and editor in chief of Wired magazine, understands people’s ambivalence to his argument that, “making money around Free will be the future of business,”(pg. 230) and moves quickly and swiftly to address some concerns that might prevent a reader from continuing on beyond the prologue. The author does a good job of establishing a foundation upon which readers can begin to feel more comfortable with the idea of Free as a business model. He looks at the role Free has played throughout history and ties it to the present, by looking at Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Craigslist, and other companies that have used Free as part of their business model. However, while this book is about the past and the present of Free, I wouldn’t go as far as to say that it is about the future of such a “radical price.”

Anderson begins by outlining four business models that work with, or are structured around Free. The first model, Direct Cross-Subsidies, consists of a free product that entices you to pay for something else. The Three-Party Market, the most common of the four, is where “a third party pays to participate in a market created by a free exchange between the first two parties.”(pg. 24) Freemium, the prevalent Web business model, is where only those users who choose a premium version of the service pay a fee, while all other users get to ride for free. Finally, Anderson outlines Nonmonetary Markets, where the exchange of goods does not involve any payment. Within this final model he includes the Gift Economy, Labor Exchange, and Piracy. The introduction of these business models, as well as his subsequent introduction of Moore’s Law, Mead’s Law, decreasing marginal costs and so on, was necessary for the structure and thesis of the book. Nevertheless, there were far too many “Duh!” moments throughout these sections of the book.

While Anderson does a great job of putting facts together, and eloquently uses economic tools and applied examples to illustrate the present state of Free, he leaves his readers hanging when it comes to introducing a forecast for the future. I was particularly bothered by this fact in that, after having read more than half of the book, I found myself reading a section on the triumph of the media model. The ad-driven model is not new and what Anderson tells about it is already vastly understood. While yes, this model is where most of the monetization of Free takes place, it isn’t so much a question of whether there’s money in it, as much as it is a question of where the model is taking us and where the model itself is going.

Free has been successful in part because it makes most people uncomfortable, and it becomes profitable only for the early few who are brave enough to embrace it and utilize it. Also, I would like to point out that Anderson’s argument is that the future of business will consist in making money around Free, not through Free or with Free. The word around calls to mind an idea of an ecosystem. Free cannot stand on its own, it must come within a package. This is not so much for the sake of those who consume what’s free, as much as it is for those who produce what’s free, and bear the costs of that production, small as those costs may or may not be. I appreciated Anderson’s mention of “max strategies” here in that it is through the implementation of a max strategy that I can actually see a business around Free. Nevertheless, the concern for me is that, the creation and maintenance of such ecosystems can, for the most part, only be undertaken by mammoth companies such as Google – think acquisitions.

Free is a must-read, not because it will reveal a secret and new business model to further monetize Free, but because “those who understand the new Free will command tomorrow’s markets and disrupt today’s.”(pg. 5) Free does a great job at introducing the background necessary to grasp such a counterintuitive concept. Nevertheless, it comes short of really delving into the future of Free. Personally, I don’t believe this takes away from the value of the book. Aside from the fact that it doesn’t really come through with what’s promised on the cover, this book addresses a more immediate need, because, as Anderson states, “Free is not new to economics. It is, however, often misunderstood.”(pg. 178). In time we will figure out how to work the latest permutation of free, and it might be the case that, those who arrive at the answer, will not need to read this book to understand Free, they will posses a visceral understanding of it.

Sources:

Anderson, Chris (2009). Free: the Future of a Radical Price. Hyperion Books, New York.

ATTENTION! Ladies and Gentleman

Talk about having a thought provoking conversation.  Last night, during Ayush Agarwal’s talk and class discussion, I found myself writing down more notes and ideas than I had expected.  I wrote five pages worth of them to be exact.  Now, while going back through my notes, I can’t help but get more excited about embarking on these studies at the MCDM.  I’ve highlighted numerous comments, thoughts, and ideas that came from our discussion; these are some of them:

First of all, I’ve seen the supply and demand graph many times, and I’ve seen all sorts of labels on its axis.  But somehow I never came across a graph for the supply and demand of attention.  Ayush’s introduction of this concept provides a platform to analyze digital media.  The supply and demand of attention schedule provides a structure for a market that at times can seem a bit chaotic and overwhelming. Many businesses lose focus, they implement social media tools as part of their marketing strategy, but what is the goal of utilizing these tools? Attention! Furthermore, looking at the supply and demand of attention it is possible to reverse the roles of the consumer and the company.  When it comes to attention, the consumers supply it, while the companies demand it.  In the area of social media the power structure has shifted, it no longer lies solely with the firm.  Furthermore, while before individuals might have only been consumers, now they are content creators as well! Again, the ground has been leveled.  For example, the recent deals between Twitter, Microsoft Bing, and Google Search in which Twitter offers access to their real time data streams, point to the growing democratization of the social media ecosystem.  Why?  Because what you and I say is what’s beginning to matter.  In his blog, Web Strategy, Jeremiah Owyang outlines some of the effects these deals will have on search results:

Social Search to Serve Results Based On Time, Authority: Expect real time data to merge with existing search engines, as a result we should see Google Search and Bing to serve up search results based on: 1) Real time information based on what Twitter users are saying, including memes from trending topics, 2) Preference given to links and URLs that are tweeted by users with more followers or authority, 3) Geo location of tweets to influence search results.  As users seek “Thai Restaurants in San Mateo” location based tweets could provide additional context.  4) Eventually results will be served up by your friends.  Google has given a nod to serve up information based on your social graph (your friends) using Google Profile.

Now, as Google Search and Bing serve up search results based on the mentioned criteria, a very important point Ayush made is reinforced.  We are information workers, and as such, it is our responsibility to produce and consume information.  The more we produce and consume, the more influence our content gains, and the better we get at it.

Social Search: Customers Influence Search Results Over Brands

Reflection: Goals for the Course!

While thinking about my learning goals, I decided to read through all the information I had about the course. I read my way through the syllabus, and finally came across the list of required and optional books. It was at this point I began to notice an underlying theme I want to explore, and further use as a platform to begin to understand the Information Economy we are living in today. Most, if not all of the books for this course use certain key words: transformation, change, and future. I am very excited to dive into this “transformation phenomenon” to study, how and why these changes took place. More importantly, I would like to gain some insight into the future and how to stay at the forefront of this relatively new Information Economy. In looking at the transformation that has taken place, I would like to learn about current practices in the digital marketplace and how businesses have succeeded or failed by adopting them.

By looking at the past and the present, I would like to get a glimpse of the future. How will emerging technologies continue to drive change? Will this “transformation phenomenon” continue to speed up or will it eventually plateau? Finally, if my learning goals change, develop, and transform through the quarter I believe I will have succeeded!

Also, a particular interest I have, and one I think I’ll be able to explore through the optional book, is that of the cultural clash between “atom” and “bit” economies.