The Wisdom of Crowds?

Although not a Broadway fan, (I think the last Broadway show I actually saw was 'Showboat', you know the 'Ol Man River one), I am a big comics fan, and such have been casually following the saga of the 'Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark' show, a Broadway musical adaptation of Marvel Comics most famous hero.

You may have heard something about this show, even if you are not a Broadway fan - the backstory is quite interesting. It's filled with mega-stars from U2 (Bono and The Edge), writing the music, a series of mishaps and injuries to several actors during preview performances, middling to scathing reviews from audiences and critics, and finally a major re-architecting of the show and the replacement of the show's original director Julie Taymor.

Ms. Taymor's ouster as the director and leader of the production not only says as much about her creative vision, (or lack thereof I suppose), as it does about the role and influence that audiences have over the creative process and results of that process, and how these audience voices are amplified in the social media age.

Last week Ms. Taymor offered a couple of very interesting observations about the show and her dismissal, and I think these insights might also have more broad implications for leaders and creatives of all stripes. 

First - on the immediate feedback loop of social media:

"It's a new time," she said. "Twitter and Facebook and blogging just trump you. It's incredibly difficult to be under a shot-glass and a microscope like that. When you’re trying to break new ground, the immediate answers that audiences give are never going to be good.”

Second - on succumbing to the pressure of social feedback:

"There's always something people don't like. It’s very scary if people are going more towards that, to have audiences tell you how to make a show. Shakespeare would have been appalled."

Getting past the notion that Ms. Taymor sort of compared a musical about a comic book hero to Shakespeare, I think she does make some important points, or at least raises some good questions. It has never been easier for fans, customers, citizens, employees, candidates - any engaged group of people to gather and wield significant influence over organizations, institutions, and leaders. We have seen this play out time and time again in the corporate world, particularly in the areas of branding and logo re-design.

But, as Ms. Taymor suggests, is that always a good thing? As a leader, or anyone that is involved in creation of products, services, processes, art, literature, whatever - when is staying true to your vision and version of the truth and what you believe in more important than bending to the will of the crowd? Sure, Taymor's 'Spider-Man' may have been a bad show, but is it at all possible that the more accessible, simpler version that now exists is artistically at least, inferior to her creation and vision?

Shakespeare probably did not run 'Romeo and Juliet' by a focus group and he certainly did not monitor the buzz on Twitter.

The question today is do we always have to listen to all the shouting online?

Or can we believe in our creativity, decision making, and direction despite some heat on the backchannel?

In the Jungle or on Twitter - Dunbar Still Has You Beat

You might be familiar with Dunbar's number - the theoretical limit on the number of meaningful and stable social relationships that one can successfully maintain. First proposed by the British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, it asserts that the actual number of social relationships one can maintain ranges from 100 to about 230, with 150 as the commonly accepted value.Should I 'unfriend' Steve?

Dunbar's original studies that led to the development of the concept of the 'number', were conducted on studies of the social activity of non-human primates, that as far as we can tell, did not have many Facebook friends or Twitter followers. Why do I toss in the social networking bit? Well, in this modern age of social networking, hyper-connectivity, and the ability to make some kind of connection, (meaningful or otherwise), with thousands upon thousands of people is now quite possible and fairly simple.

Naturally the technological and social revolutions have led many to question or even claim that modern social networking technology can indeed finally enable individuals to effectively expand the actual number of social relationships they can successfully maintain, that in the age of Facebook and Twitter and the ease with which these tools allow essentially limitless connections to be made, that Dunbar's number might no longer apply.

Recently Bruno Goncalves and a team of researchers from Indiana University set out to determine if indeed this was the case. They studies the actions and interactions and the networks of connections of over 3 million Twitter users over a period of 4 years, examining a grand total of over 380 million tweets. The researchers wanted to see if indeed among these 3 million users, they could discern patterns and evidence, (replies, conversations, sustained connections, etc.), that could prove that the long-accepted Dunbar limitation of 150 would indeed be more easily overcame, aided by the ease and speed and facilitated connection engine that is Twitter.

Their findings? (below quote lifted directly from their paper's conclusion)

Social networks have changed they way we use to communicate. It is now easy to be connected with a huge number of other individuals. In this paper we show that social networks did not change human social capabilities. We analyze a large dataset of Twitter conversations collected across six months involving millions of individuals to test the theoretical cognitive limit on the number of stable social relationships known as Dunbar's number. We found that even in the online world cognitive and biological constraints holds as predicted by Dunbar's theory limiting users social activities.

I follow about 6,000 people on Twitter. I probably interact regularly with maybe 100 or 150 of them. Which is altogether normal and expected and not at all unexpected according to our friend Dunbar, the primates he studied, and the results seen from the recent research from Indiana University.

The larger point in all this?

I suppose keeping in mind that no matter how large and diverse and important seeming these giant networks of contacts, connections, followers, and friends we build online are to us, to our businesses and our personal lives, the technology itself has yet to do much to overcome some of the apparent laws of nature and biology.

What do you think? Can you really have more than 150 'friends'?

Have a Great Weekend!

'Like' this job on Facebook

At the recent ERE Expo in San Diego, I had a chance to interview Stephane Le Viet, CEO and Founder; and Matt Brown, Director of Business Development of Work4Labs, the company responsible for the popular Facebook recruiting application known as 'Work 4 Us'.

Work 4 Us is a Facebook application that allows organizations to quickly and easily add job listings to their company Facebook page, whether by automated import from the company ATS or career site, or via manual entry. Once imported or entered, the company can then leverage the social sharing capabilities inherent inside Facebook (individual jobs can be shared and 'liked'); and the supported integration with the Facebook advertising platform allows the creation of more precise ad campaigns designed to get the company job listings noticed by the target candidate audience on Facebook. Tracking and analytical tools allow the organization to assess and evaluate the reach and success of their job posting campaigns.

That's assuming the desired candidate pool is on Facebook. And considering that pretty much everyone these days from your 12-year old nephew to your 83-year old Grandma seems to be on Facebook it is a pretty good bet that at least some of your desired candidates are out there.

Work4Labs claims over 6,000 organizations have installed the Work For Us application to date, with large, multi-nationals like L'Oreal and Citi among the applications' most notable adopters.

Yesterday the team at Work4Labs announced a new enhancement to the Work For Us application, namely the ability to present the Facebook user that views a job description in the application with a suggested list of Facebook friends, and optionally LinkedIn contacts that might be a suitable match for the job, and perhaps would be interested in the job details. Once authorized, the app processes Facebook and LinkedIn profile data – education, work history, interests, location, and so on – to suggest the most relevant friends for the job.

Sample job listing posted using Work For Us with suggested friends:

This is the kind of functionality, a matching algorithm based suggestion engine, that social recruiting technology solutions are increasingly adopting in recognition that simply broadcasting links of available jobs to all of one's social connections is not only inefficient but can also be seen as highly annoying. By making the social sharing and referral process simple, easy to use, and more relevant by narrowing and suggesting social contacts to share the job information with, the hope is that the organization will not only just see it's job posting shared widely, but that the likelihood of social discovery of candidates that are good fits for the positions will increase.

More and more organizations are actively pursuing so-called 'social recruiting' strategies, whether it is using blogs, LinkedIn groups, Twitter accounts, and even Facebook to advertise positions, communicate and articulate the company employer brand, and more effectively engage with candidates and prospects. If your organization is starting down this path, or is considering adding a more active Facebook component to the mix, then you should give Work4Labs a look.

The Work For Us application installs to a Facebook page in literally minutes and has a number of pricing plans, ranging from Free (allows posting of one open position at a time), to $799/month that offers unlimited job postings, automatic import from an ATS, and other customization capabilities. All paid plans offer a 30-day free trial period.

So are you actively recruiting on Facebook? Thinking about starting?  Would the Work For Us application work for you?

Ambition and Curiosity

There is (yet another) interesting discussion happening on Bill Kutik's HR Technology Conference LinkedIn group about the social media and social networking in the workplace, and the relative pros and cons of the opposite sides of the argument.  As is the case in Bill's group, the discussion is intelligent, balanced, and reasonable - unlike what you might find in other forums attempting to discuss these issues.

I haven't weighed in on the discussion on LinkedIn, (sorry, Bill), because I am a selfish blogger and needed some content, and I had a kind of different take on the topic, one that veers slightly away from the practicalities of the debate, and drifts more into the philosophical. I think while the debate about blocking these sites tends to center around data security, productivity, message control, etc.; the real issues (even if companies don't want to admit them), are much more about the ideas or concepts of ambition and curiosity. 

Ambition in the sense of aspiration, of becoming something bigger, greater, and more meaningful in whatever measures that are relevant to the organization.  Curious in the framework of inspiring interest, discovery, or of seeking and (hopefully) finding new meanings, connections, and ideas.  

It seems, at least on the surface, that organizations that have moved to actively block or restrict access to social networks and internet based productivity services using the practical and typical concerns about security and the like are quite possibly betraying a lack of ambition and curiosity. Sure, no organization or leader would admit to this, no one would flat-out state, 'Our firm has limited goals for future growth and innovation, and we are not terribly interested about what is happening with out competitors, customers, partners, and community.'

Of course no leader would admit that, since even if it were true, the admission would send share prices plummeting, drive smart and talented employees for the exits (or at least to LinkedIn to update their profiles), and drive a stake in employee enthusiasm and morale.  Sure, the connection between open, unrestricted, and organizationally supported access and engagement on social networks to improved business outcomes is, for now, still spotty, sporadic and tangential. It is still difficult for social media proponents and aficionados to clearly articulate their arguments when faced with the security and 'not important to the tasks at hand' talking points.

But what the reluctant or skeptical are more easily convinced of, is that the threats to their empires and their livelihoods are likely to come from new competitors. Ones that are smaller, more nimble, more adaptable; and by necessity are forces to avail themselves of all possible resources, full access and exploitation of social network connections certainly chief among them.

Small, aggressive, and dangerous start-ups don't worry about 'time-wasting', and they are willing to accept whatever security risks may arise from the social web - happy to trade off some level of risk for the vast benefit they see and can derive from these networks.

Now that we are into 'beating a dead horse' territory, I will close with this - the organizations that are taking over today, and will dominate tomorrow, have a wide, broad, and expansive view of the world. And they realize the world does not solely consist of their own employees, and the relationships they share with each other.

Great ideas are everywhere, if your eyes and ears are open to find them.

Trust, but Verify

Recently an organization called Klout, the creator of the well-known measure of online influence, the eponymous 'Klout Score', released an extension for Google’s Chrome browser that lets you see the Klout score of all the people you follow on Twitter when you go to the Twitter.com website, (example of the Klout score, the number that follows the small orange 'K' icon, on a Twitter timeline below)

Now it certainly can and should be argued that the Klout Score may not truly be an accurate measure of online 'influence', and in fact it could also be argued the attempting to measure online influence is not even practical or even possible. How the Klout Score is calculated is not really well-understood by most, and in the grand tradition of other newer or arcane statistical measurements like football quarterback rating and barometric pressure it helps to attach well known performers to the scale in order to help contextualize the numbers.

Last year Tom Brady had the highest NFL quarterback ranking at 111, and Justin Bieber (among others) has a perfect Klout Score of 100. While we may not understand the raw scores of Brady's 111 and Bieber's 100, most football fans noted and can appreciate the great season Brady just completed, and in the online and offline world's, Bieber's ubiquity needs little explanation. The numbers themselves don't really matter, only how they allow us to slot and evaluate others in comparison.  If you are interested in this sort of thing, the full NFL QB ratings for the 2010 season can be found here.

Once I installed the Klout Score extension for Chrome, and went over to Twitter.com, it almost immediately changed the experience and also the perceptions I have of Twitter users I am following.  As the Tweets flew by I found myself constantly thinking, 'He is only a 50?' and 'Wow, how did she get to be a 72?'. I know Bieber is an 100, but I confess I really don't grasp the Klout Score all that well, but I can (for the most part), compare a pair of two-digit numbers and tell which one is higher, and therefore theoretically more 'influential'.

But 'influence', or lack thereof, is a highly personal thing.  A relatively higher Klout Score for one person I am following compared to another might say something about statistical measurements like replies and retweets, but it says nothing about a person's importance, value, and influence to me. As I looked at more of the Klout scores of the people I follow, I actually started to get a little ticked off when I saw a relatively lower score against someone I follow closely and whose updates I find highly valuable, and higher scores attributed to some users that quite honestly aren't all that interesting or influential to me.

These kinds of online influence scores while potentially an important initial step for people and organizations to better understand reach, connections, and possible value are still marred by the inability to apply the kinds of personizable filters and tags that could make them even more powerful. 

And sometime in the near future, as more organizations adopt internal social networking tools, be they microblogs or fully deployed social platforms, the ability to measure, assess, and compare influence and reputation of employees will likely become more and more important.  But before that can happen, at least in a fair and equitable manner, the methods to calculate these influence scores will have to evolve beyond the current mathematical and universal, and move more towards the situational and personal.

I think I am going to de-install the Klout extension for Chrome, I am pretty confident in my own ability to assess the influence of the people I follow. It's not that I don't trust the Klout score, but since I need to evaluate and verify them anyway, why have them (at least at this point), cloud up my judgement. 

And no, it is not (completely) because Bieber has almost double my Klout Score.