6 degrees of separation theory

If you ever read this blog you know that I am a bit fascinated with a phenomenon known as Dunbar’s number, developed by Robin Dunbar. Again, for about the 20^th time here, Dunbar’s number represents the maximum number of personal connections that one single person can hold at any given time, which is 150. That number has been tested over and over again since the 1990s and seems to hold true.

I am in the middle of finishing a graduate degree in communication as you may know. Initially I took on a project studying the use of social media in delivering health messages to Hispanic populations. This project has been continuously delayed and it opened up an opportunity to study other things while waiting on this project. I decided to return my fascination to Dunbar’s number.

My basic hypothesis is that either Dunbar’s number actually increases when all social communication is used together, or more people reach this number easier and have a wider spread that previously.

It should be important to note that Robin Dunbar himself did a studying on the same idea last year. He focused solely on facebook and finds that the 150 number still holds true. Dunbar theorizes that it has more to do with the size of our neocortex (part of your brain that manages thought) than the ability to connect with that many people.

Why does it matter how many connections we can hold? The rate at which a product or idea is adopted by a critical percentage of a population (diffusion) has been increasing steadily alongside technology and mobility. Innovations such as the telephone, radio, television and the computer/internet have caused bumps in the rate of diffusion. However products and ideas have begun diffusing almost instantly over the past couple of years while physical technology has held basically constant. I believe this is a result of increased connection among people through social networking.

As a marketer and communicator this impacts everything. I think this has huge implications on understanding the overall value of social media. I believe it leads to products and ideas diffusing (or failing) more quickly. It causes more rapid response time, revolutionary changes to marketing strategies and an increased demand for exceptional customer service as part of a marketing technique.

Dunbar’s follow up study focused just on Facebook, which is much more of a passive networking tool due to the way timelines are managed. This I believe is the reason Dunbar was not able to see any changes. If however there truly are no changes I believe people reach the 150 number more easily. This is important because it expands the overall total reach of a community or population group. This allows ideas to spread more rapidly because more people are highly connected.

I will continue to share my research as it progresses on this topic. I plan on reaching out to Dr. Dunbar at some point along the way to try for some collaborative research. Please let me know if you have any specifics or ideas that you would like to see incorporated.

Gladwell was wrong, even though he was right

In October of last year, Malcolm Gladwell wrote a column in the New Yorker magazine stating that social media does not have the power to create social change. Gladwell was immediately criticized by the social media community about his statements. After the Egyptian revolution he has received another round of criticism, and rightfully so. I for one think Gladwell had it right, but not in his social media post, in his book The Tipping Point.

In the Tipping Point Gladwell discusses the American Revolution. Specifically he talks about Paul Revere and how his ride, unlike a similar ride by William Dawes, ignited the fire in the colonies to have them rise up against the British. It was Revere’s ability as a connector and an influencer that allowed the message to spread and motivate people for change. Tuck that little gem away for a few minutes.

The American Revolution, like every revolution pre-2011 was a revolution of vocal minority. Simply put a small group of unhappy people quickly and unexpected by the controlling power rose up to overthrow those in power. Almost 100% of the time these revolutions were militia based, there were very few ways to drive out a ruling power without force. These militias were usually under-manned, under-equipped, but very energetic. The element of surprise was always critical to their success.

Because of this revolutions had to stay small. Ruling authorities start to notice when 100,000 people start stock piling guns. When potential revolutions are noticed early they are quickly diffused. Messages took a while to travel through the masses and were bound to be intercepted before full diffusion. Keeping things small and secret is the only way to go. Historically anyway.

Karl Marx in one of his many social political theories discussed this very issue. He talked about how revolutions were never for the benefit of the masses, simply for the benefit of the minority that is able to pull it off without getting killed in the process. Marx theorized that we will reach a point where the masses will organize revolutions, and when that happens we will see a time period of rapid social change. Of course he later went on to wrap this into his Communist theory and say that this was one of the steps to a communistic society. I am certainly not a Marxist or Communist (I think the idea of a Utopian world is very skewed), but I think he was onto something with the original theory on the revolution of the masses.

So where does social media play into all of this? There is a theory known as Dunbar’s number which states that the maximum number of personal connections that any one person can hold at any given time is 150, for non-personal connections it stretches to about 300. Gladwell even loves this number and discusses it in the Tipping Point at great length. This number limits the size and pace that an idea can spread through a community. You quickly get into overlapping connections within a social group.

I have theorized, along with many others, that through social media we can hold many more connections and begin to exceed the Dunbar number. I believe we can push to 400-500 personal connections and exponentially more non-personal connections. After grad school this is first on my list of major research projects actually. The other major thing is that social groups through social media overlap slightly less than before. Are personal connections are no longer bound by geography, or even calling people one at a time on the phone. They form better and are easier to maintain than previous electronic communication.

It doesn't have to be crazy

I think this is key in the modern revolution. I think because of social media revolutions, which still by the way require rapid formation, can become much larger. It can potentially even create a revolution of the masses. Influencers spread their message to a wider audience more rapidly. Additionally because of the mass nature of the revolution, it does not have to be in secret. The diffusion of the messages happen quick and the revolutions are considerably shorter from start to change.

Another fascinating development is when revolutions happen by the masses, militias are no longer required. This creates peaceful revolutions where the overwhelming demand of the people forces rulers to step aside. These revolutions have the ability to shut down all production and work in a country, control the media, and demand a greater level of change.

Because of the (potentially) more peaceful and mass nature of these revolutions I fully expect to see them increase. Egypt provides an example for how oppressed countries can demand and accomplish change. Just this week we are seeing similar revolutions in Bahrain and Yemen. I predict Uganda and Libya to quickly follow. By summer we will see at least 5 additional countries in the region have some form of revolution.

More importantly I think by the end of 2012 we will see a major revolution in China. Oppressed young workers have shown signs of uprising. These are exactly the type of individuals who can form a mass revolution. They are continuing to find ways around the state censored internet. Once this tips I believe we will see a rapid revolution spread throughout the country.

Why should I care?

Here is the reality. If you are a traditional marketer you shouldn’t care. Social media hates you. You push out messages and want no response other than a sale. You think of your customers in terms of sales numbers. You want to be able to tie a marketing event with a consumer action. You want customer service to handle product complaints. You want to disguise the reality of your product in lingo and lies. You should honestly stay as far away from social media as possible because you can’t handle what it means.

I’ve been careful in my consulting to avoid these types of companies. I’ve turned down a number who want to use social media to push a product. To be successful a company practice love, not sales.

Love, in social media, happens when a company who cares more about customers than products. That is a company that cares more about building positive relationships than selling you what is hot today.  The funny thing is that building this positive relationship creates far more product sales than simply selling a product ever could. You should care about social media only because you care for your customers and desire a positive relationship with them. Customers want to be loved, not sold.

Blowing up the bubble

The reality is that social media has become inflated beyond reality. Everywhere you look you see a social media startup, social media experts and social media links and references everywhere. I used the bathroom at a local bar recently and written on the wall was “For a good time follow @KerriJack” – ok so I might have made that last line up, but it wouldn’t surprise me to see it reach that level of hysteria.

In the 90’s we had the dot com bubble. Web was new; people were artificially inflating what the reality of the web was at that point in time. The web was awesome and all, as much as animated gifs can be, but the industry had not matured as fast as the hype. The bubble was inflated and it burst. The bubble of the ‘00s was subprime mortgages. On the surface it looks great, people went crazy over them. But the concept lacked maturity and caused it to fall apart and bring down the economy with it.

Inside a bubble

So why has social media grown so rapidly? At the heart of the matter really is humanity. As we transitioned into a digital age we suddenly became inside a bubble ourselves, separated from the world outside. We sit in offices and send impersonal emails, only speaking to people in meetings, and in this we have slowly lost personal relationships.

Along comes social media and it pops that bubble. Suddenly we find people again. We have conversations, share ideas and become a little more personal. We found out that we really like being around humans again. A lot. So we go crazy over social media. Suddenly someone says “hey, if I can connect with people, what if I can actually give my business humanity?” Great, human businesses are fantastic. There is of course the shady side of marketing which has begun to creep into the picture, but somehow we maintained our humanity and love it.

The bubble pops

Like all bubbles though this one is bound to pop. I think the big bubble of the early ‘10s to pop will be the social bubble. Believe me, I’ve made decent money off of social media consulting and have a hard time facing this reality just as much as you. If we are lucky it happens sooner rather than later. I believe like the dot com bubble we must come down to a realistic level of what social media is and grow maturely from there.

Like dot com, social media is not going away. I think in the future we will consider it a part of our digital lives much like a website, email address, cell phone number. We will share through it. However now that we have had a taste of humanity I think the digital bubble as a whole will deflate just a bit. We want to get out and be with people. @LRtweetup has shown us all that.

See, in medicine the world is constantly changing. Every week a new study or drug comes out that has the potential to shape the way a doctor treats her patients. Spend some time in any hospital and you will see a huge emphasis on continuing education at all levels of medical service. True, some people get to the point where they can become experts in a particular field, thanks to mind numbing research and dedication they because leaders in an area and define how others practice medicine. But even with them, the day they stop trying to push the edge is the day they suddenly fall behind.

I have a habit of calling people out about saying they are a social media expert. See I view social media much the way that I view medicine; in fact it is the story with any form of human interaction. You never learn all there is to know; the field is changing too rapidly for that to ever happen. The best chance you ever have to be effective at social media is to practice the art by constantly trying new platforms, reading new studies, and most importantly interacting with other people who are doing the same in order reassure yourself that you never have it all figured out. Secondly, and was the real story behind my mini-twitter rant, you have to actually use the damn thing constantly in order to understand it.

In med school your real hospital experience comes by working 12-24-48 hour shifts (even longer in some instances). Why? Because you have to be saturated in it to fully understand it. Social media is the same way. If you go weeks without sending an original (ie: not retweet) post, you are not saturated. If you are hearing about new services a year after they have been launched, you are not saturated. It is a lifestyle, not a conference that you are paid to attend.

Here is the general problem with people who think they are experts, once they believe they are an expert they stop practicing. I’ve been quoted a thousand times by now for my SoSocial intervention where I said “If you are an expert today, you are a dumbass tomorrow”. The reason is because you stop pushing the envelope, you stop trying to learn.

Yes you can carve out a niche, say Twitter or Gowalla, and learn absolutely everything there is to know about that one specific area. You are then a Twitter expert or a Gowalla expert. That is obtainable. But just like being a flu expert or an AIDS expert does not make you an expert in medicine, being an expert in a niche area or platform of social media does not make you an expert in social media.