As I inferred in my first post I continue to try and select in my own mind my preffered way for a society of two or more to self organize. I would like to believe that I prioritize practical solutions in this area and so part of my search includes engaging with society in established ways that seem to hold promise in areas that I am investigating. Specifically I participate in the open source programming community and I volunteer with the local organization FreeGeek++. As I have done these things I find myself fascinated by the ways that people collectively support some projects and not others. Additionally, I watch the typical boom and bust cycles of these projects trying to understand why some people choose to engage and why most don't stick with it. Yes, money is the great facilitator but it often forces a relationship on us that is sub-optimal. Even the presence of money is not a guarantee of success as businesses in America have shown . Non-compensated endeavors therefore have the double burden of competing with compensated activities and must be compelling in both the end goal and specific opportunities to cooperate. By participating in this environment I hope to find the most interesting and successful patterns.
The primary place to observe a cooperative project is through the various avenues of social media. Often cooperative projects will even have more than one social media outlet. As I peruse social media I would say that I am generally turned off by the vast majority of behaviors I find. Even people that I admire sometimes fall under the spell of general snarkiness and derision found in most social media forums. I suppose that removing a significant portion of our interactive communication, vision and sound, may make some people feel insulated from the consequences of their hatred when spewed in chat rooms and comments for news stories. Vitriol like that is often perceived to be directed externally and therefore only damaging to the receiver. While it does create a toxic environment for other members of the community I believe that it harms the sender most. Respecting and valuing other people is hard in the context of our human imperfections and any time that we spend not working on improving our skills of respect we move farther away from the goal. You might say, "my words are meant in the spirit of constructive criticism" and therefore even in the tone was harsh the intent was positive. Therein lies the rub!
I have been intrigued by a couple of recent articles on radical candor and how it fits into the workplace but I have noticed that these principles are being used in the context of an employee / employer relationship. Is there a way in social media to also be constructively critical? I have come to the conclusion that the answer is no. I based my conclusion on reviewing why decisions are made or actions are taken. At the core, we are all individuals with very unique history, goals, and aspirations. Even when we are participating wholeheartedly in a joint endeavor we generally all have a unique role to play with our own specific areas of responsibility. These differences cannot be ignored for they form the basis for all of our decision making. We often call this experience wisdom and value it greatly. We must be very careful then when we observe actions and decisions especially in an unpaid relationship. Constructive criticism isn't just received as a simple question of the narrow area of discussion but it carries an implied assessment of motivation as well as the whole background used in selection of a conclusion or action. We may not even entirely realize the root of the emotions in our reaction to criticism. It is not obvious even to ourselves that our subconscious is connecting all the dots in the decision to all of our history and knowledge. It is patently ridiculous to believe that anyone truly knows what someone is thinking or feeling when they choose unless they have years of time. (and even then we often get it wrong)
So if social media should not be used for constructive criticism should I then just emoji-hug everyone and depart? I propose that social media can play a different role altogether. To my mind what social media does best is to aggregate diverse ideas, values, and results for each of us to have easy access. In truth all of this discussion of the best way to apply social media could be done in the context of common agreement on the optimal way we should cooperate. If we aggregated the diversity of thought and then used a common framework to asses this range of ideas then we might supercharge our society. In the absence of that common framework maybe we can work the problem in reverse. I would like to take three common frameworks cooperation today and apply them to social media as it exists to find where it might be possible to leverage value. To this point I would add that the optimal process for cooperation might be unknowable and that our very interesting future of cooperation is a journey of continuous improvement for which there is no end.
The first organizational model for inspection is the process based model of rigorously uniform societies. In manufacturing they call this lean and the Toyota motor company has often been seen as the champion of this style. This model should not be confused with 6-sigma process management no matter how much high paid pitch-men tell you otherwise. The two are not completely mutually exclusive but they are very different areas of process focus. All actions are managed from a central committee and while individual input is used it is only used when it can be vetted through a rigorous testing process. In practice each element is in direct and continuous communication with all the elements around them and this does appear to match the social media model. However, all communication in this model are defined and controlled to appropriate times and channels in service of a defined process. This model can turn good processes into great processes and leverage the maximum return for the invested resource. On the other hand actual innovation in this model is carefully planned and often produces fairly boring results. I generally admire this style of management in large groups. The issue is there is no place in this organization model for the diversity inherent in the social media today. In fact communication in this model is a controlled process with rigorous rules.
The second organizational model is the command and control model. When it is effectively implemented it often represents some blend of the process based model with some or a lot of flexibility placed in a few individual leaders. Think of a quarterback on a championship football team. As long as the 'flexible' leadership works within the capabilities of the organization and only calls for changes where the organization is capable and or works with the organization to build that capability during a period of respite where the organization can divert resources from output to change then this can be both a winning and efficient model. The real time injection of flexibility also has a significant impact on the groups ability to innovate and adjust to changing circumstances. This is the American business school model. The Achilles heel of this method are found when the concepts outlined in a pre-depression era pamphlet are incorporated. The failure occurs when leaders divorce themselves from the outcome and the process to achieve the outcome. The message of the pamphlet being that if the action was not successful then it was the individual carrying out the action who did not invest sufficient effort not the mandate of the leader. This assumption is fundamentally flawed. When managers commit to the outcome but not the process it often produces different (potentially good?) results than the manager expects. In this situation the manager is left to either fire the worker or work very hard to explain that this was really the intended result all along. Who is in charge then? Relating this back to social media you might propose that there is enough variety of opinion in this model to represent a social media environment. I would point out that all of the versions of this are one way conversations and therefore more applicable to printed media than a global internet conversation. (I am not unaware that unless people comment on this blog this is one way as well)
The final organizational model for review is nature. This model is nearly pure base chaos with a heavy dose of natural selection returning the best. Yes, this is a brutal reality at its base and of the three models it is the most resource intensive (read wasteful). However, nature has given us some very beautiful things and in general humans have found a way to work within the system to be successful. I would even argue that the core of our individualism is a biological drive to produce more options for natural processes to self select. Not to be better than others as some would suggest. While we may personally have our own best interests at heart the true value of diversity is not in the relative merit of each person but rather in the vast variety provided by all of society. In the normal course of natural selection very narrowly focused mono-cultures will have die-off events when faced with cataclysm. A diverse culture can often survive very large catastrophes. As you can tell I believe this is the place where social media can shine. The diversity of opinion is rich for innovation and unless all variations are investigated some potential will always be left on the table. The genius of humankind (If we could be said to have one) is that we have learned to adjust our behaviors prior to die off events. This ability to apply ongoing critical thinking and recognized personal value as we are exposed to new options is a form of natural selection that preempts necessity of nature to step in. This model is the best fit for social media with it's diversity of opinions and it ability to respond to circumstances.
So if we are to leverage social media to it's fullest then what should be done? If we follow natures model with social media then our interaction in general social media should be restricted to three types of postings. One, post our own ideas and perspectives where we represent ourselves not our reaction to others. The intent is to increase the diversity of the social media sphere. Two, when responding to other postings we should limit ourselves to clarification questions or positive reinforcement of the perspective where that feeling is authentic. The intent of this focus is to increase the content or reinforce diversity in the social media sphere not limit it. Third, If we cull or block social media it should only be in the service of halting others who would artificially take on the role of natural selection. I don't think this is done by spewing anger at them but where there is a mechanism have the posts removed or remove yourself from that forum with a gentle (general) explanation of why you find the forum inappropriate. I still remember the old 70's commercial "don't mess with mother nature". While the metaphor quickly breaks down, I still think if we attempt to artificially play the part of natural selection with criticism, and are successful, then we will create a mono culture. If we fail to cull ideas while using criticism then we will be rejected and no longer allowed to participate. This is largely a loose / loose strategy. Is natural selection the likely front runner for my preferred organizational model? No, but I think allowing ideas to proliferate and live or die unimpeded by artificial selection is the best hope for arriving at good ideas.
postscript: I know that there are many animal kingdom examples of violence and attack. You might say where is that expressed in your model of social media? I would propose that in almost all of those cases from nature the violence comes from a place of exerting the animals natural self (eating for instance) and it does not come in the context of domination or forcing other animals to be like the attacker. I would like to think that the capitalist marketplace is the human version of this violence and that a wolf would no more attempt to force a bunny to be a wolf than companies that buy each other are all that successful at the same task.
postcript (2016-4-13): I couldn't help adding this link since it embodies many of the ideas that have been thinking about. It most especially embodies these ideas in the face of an alternate approach.
