Isabel Walcott Draves

Isabel's Theory for Social Network Value

A long time ago (sometime in 2006 to be exact), I got frustrated that investors and bigco's were applying Metcalfe's Law to social networks (value increases exponentially with addition of nodes).  Exclusivity is important to relationships and social networks are made of people.  So I wrote a brief paper arguing why valuing social networks more highly the bigger they are is incorrect.

I never bothered to speak to anyone to try to publish it or to even take it beyond a first draft.  Because I couldn't figure out a way to create an algorithm or a law, just show a bell curve-like picture indicating that when stuff gets too popular it starts to lose cache, I worried that it wasn't "scientific" enough (I'm no scientist).

But I was reminded of my work on this idea the other night at an Eyebeam benefit when talking with Clay Shirky, a great mind and presenter about Internet trends and author of Here Comes Everybody, about his next topic for study.  I wanted it to be this exclusivity idea.  Because, let's face it, that hip downtown club that the models and rock stars used to go to?  Here Comes Everybody, and those hipsters are GONE faster than you can sneeze at the dust they leave behind.

Let's take a quick example.  Facebook has been getting dumped on by the Internet's coolest hipsters for awhile now.  A quick Google search for "why facebook sucks" brings up over 24 million results.  As one of the top ones from MidwestSportsFans.com (chosen at random) says:

"At one time it was a nice, organized, relatively private and controlled way to keep in touch with friends and family, share photos and events, and – in a much less garish way than MySpace – create your own little personal shrine to yourself on the web. (Narcissism rules!)  It is not that anymore."

In fact, this concept is such a truism that I think the only people who don't see that social networks top out at a certain point when the crowd becomes too huge, are the people who are trying to make money off those networks.  They are always the last to "get it".  I'm not saying they don't make money.  But is MySpace worth what it was a few years ago?  Uh-uh.  Tools like Twitter are good - Clay pointed this out in our conversation - because they don't let people spam or pester you asking to be friends.

My paper (warning - Unedited since 1996 and just my first draft!) is here: Isabel's Theory for Social Network Value.  Please contact me if you'd like me to keynote your next event.

Walt Mossberg and Richard Saul Wurman Chat

Walt: He invented the TED conferences, the best conferences I'd ever seen.  And he sold it, but it's not the same conference as it was when he ran it.  Sort of like going to college for 3 days.  Only got the best professors, and each only allowed to talk for 15 minutes.  Nobody ever left the room while people were speaking.  Saul said his conference was the dinner party he always wanted to have.  Larry Ellison followed by Billy Graham followed by jugglers who explained the mathematical principals behind juggling, then Yo You Ma, then Normal Lear, then Jeffrey Katzenberg.  On and on and on.  Storytellers, singers, three nobel prizewinners.

Saul: 18 years. It was geeks and geezers - everyone was over 70 or under 30.

Walt: He looks younger than he is.  There's a tremendous opportunity online.  I've been online every day since 1983.  There was a community, you made friends with people you never met in real life.  What is it about conferences, why do we do this?

- there's a sidtrack about how Wurman can only type in caps and doesn't like to push shift.

Saul: Marriage is about a conversation.  It's not about sex, it's about having dinner with somebody.  You're never taught how to have a good conversation, the things that allow you to communicate with another human being.  Underneath it all, you're making a connection.  I support Witness, the Peter Gabriel charity that distributes video cameras.

I never have the head of a company speak, or a politician.  Legally, they can't tell the truth publicly about their company.  And I want people to tell the truth.  I'm not joking.  A politician of course, forget about it.  We applaud candor because we don't expect a public official to have candor and actually tell the truth.  Steve Jobs isn't a truthful person in public, he can't be.  I'm out here telling my truth.  It might not be factual, but it's my truth.  (audience laughs).  You want at least that.  Them thinking it's their truth.

Walt: Let's talk about your new deal.

Saul: The problem about atlases is you don't drive across the USA alphabetically.  Every state is a different size, so every map is a different scale since they only have one page each.  What used to be 10 minutes is now an hour.  There's no comparative information on the cities of the world.  So I thought I'll do that project.  19 cities that have 20 million people each, a clever title "19,20, 21".  A way of selling, a clever title.  We'll make transparent how we put it down.  So I'm starting to do it, I have 3 partners: chairman and president of Radical Media; others.

Have a conference coming up: http://the-eg.com/ . An exhibit that will be live.

A few additional nuggets

More nuggets from the BIF-3 conference.  After the three speakers spoke individually, they got on a little panel and shared a few insights.

Dave Balter: We found that it was not the extra stuff that really drove the bzzagents, but personal contact and getting recognized by the corporation.

Dan Heath: My brother looked into what kind of story made it into Chicken Soup for the Soul or People Magazine. There are three basically:
Connection Plot - people meeting with others
Challenge Plot - people overcoming a challenge
MacGuyver Plot - innovation coming from somewhere
There are lots of other kinds of stories, but these three stories have the power to inspire.

Paul English: To raise money you must really believe 100% in your business.  I like the co-founders model, where each party talks about an aspect that really works for them.  If you don't think the joke is funny, you can't tell it well.  So don't try to do the other person's schtick.

Bill: How do you walk the walk, and not just talk the talk? 

Dave: Our advisory board was no longer really working, so we disbanded it.

Dan Heath: Tells a funny story about a FedEx worker whose truck broke down and convinced the Airborne Express person to drive her around to finish up her last few deliveries.  On the flip side the "We'll leave the light on for you" hotel isn't that friendly in real life, they're just cheap.

Paul English: When people see you are really passionate about an idea, it's easier to galvanize them around it.

Bill: Two minute start-up advice?

Dan: ideas aren't enough, you'll need to get everyone on board.

Paul: have fun

Dave: it's a wild goose chase to find the top or elite person for staffing - just find anyone willing to be passionate.

Notes from BIF-3

I'm here at the Business Innovation Factory BIF-3 conference, just for the afternoon session.  Bill Taylor (author of Mavericks at Work) is hosting the "Mavericks" session, introducing 3 "storytellers".  First up is Dan Heath author of Made to Stick - why certain ideas stick and others don't.  Then Dave Balter from BzzAgent, then Paul English of Kayak and participant in lots of other enterprises, such as Partners in Health.

Dean Heath suggests that limiting the field of scope of something can help you think of new things.  He ad everyone write down everything they could think of that was white - and then everything they could think of that was white in their fridge.  He says most people have an easier time with the second task.  (I, however, did not get this result).

My first list: Snow, paper, shoes, pants, clouds, eyeballs, paint.  OK - eyeballs?

My second list: Milk, cottage cheese, ice cream, rolls, bread.  (I was just about to write "mayo" when he said time's up).

Heath suggests that limiting the perceived universe helps people understand, define and make decisions.  Alien is "Jaws on a Plane".  Therefore the spaceship is rickety, claustrophobic and chaotic as opposed to shiny, spotless and lycra-clad.

He talked recently with a friend who started a boutique hotel described as "Real Simple" meets "Dwell".  The look is modern, spare, elegant. The penthouse is a Yoga studio.  They've waged a war on clutter and there's nothing on the front desk.  The housekeepers tidy and organize your stuff in your room (IWH: what a nightmare!).

His point is that "staying in the box", as opposed to "thinking outside of the box", can help decisionmaking and design.  It's constraints that liberate.  He urges us all to help someone "find the right box" today.

Dave Balter: marketers used to tell us what to think, what to buy, and what to try.  We wanted to change that and make it so that people told us what they thought.  We got pretty businessey, and wanted to stay creative, so we started blogging.  Other entrepreneurs said "as soon as profits enter the equation, creativity goes out the window."  (I wonder if he was talking to Dave Sifry?)

So they hired an artist-in-residence (Seth Minkin) and integrated him into the business.  It's ended up building word of mouth for BzzAgent.  Storytelling.  At first it was a failure, as a way to make the company more creative.  But it has worked as a way to integrate employees and as a conversation piece.

While Dave was talking, Seth was painting in the background, and then explained his "totem pole" picture, with each section of the totem pole representing different aspects of the company.

Paul English - his mom passed away, and he had to take care of his father who had Alzheimer's.  Dad was frustrated that the IVR (Interactive Voice Response) phone systems couldn't understand his slurred speech.  This was depressing for Paul so he started trying to figure out how to talk to a real person when you call a company and created GetHuman.  At Kayak he insists that everyone who calls be able to talk with a person.  And this sometimes means the programmers  spend so much time fixing bugs that they can't do new development work.  But they have the accountability of talking directly to the customer and seeing what problems they have caused with their bugs.  They're not layers and layers away from their customers.

Now, maybe I am just feeling grumpy today.  To be frank, I thought Dan Heath's idea was a little frightening. I can see it being effective for limiting the scope of brainstorming sessions -- but doesn't it also limit the breadth of human expression and ultimately curb innovation?  Isn't it only a good solution for people who aren't very creative?  I would hate to think that every new movie, instead of really being new, was only "the girl version of SpiderMan", "Snow White for African Americans", or "Die Hard on a Bus".  Maybe I should just accept that many people are unable to think outside the box and we should think of a way for them to "innovate" too, so we can get everybody doing it.  But I hate the idea of reducing innovation to that state.  I'd rather bring the people up to the gold standard,than lower it to meet them.

I thought Dave Balter's talk was a little gimmicky - if you have a really interesting story to tell, you don't need to manufacture a conversation piece.  Maybe this is just what he does.  If he can create a similar gimmick for a client that doesn't have a story to tell, and it gets their story told, well, he is doing his clients a service and that's a legitimate business.

I liked Paul English's talk, he seemed pretty down to earth.  Pretty soon it will be as hard for corporations to reach us by phone as it currently is for us to reach them.  I like to plug the national Do Not Call registry.

 

A Bank in Your Pocket

Just read this cool post about using phone minutes as currency in Kenya (thanks to Kevin Jones for the lead).  Looks like people probably buy minutes in chunks and sell them little by little when they need cash to those who need to use a phone but don't have one.  Kenya's largest mobile phone company, Safaricom, has just come up with an application that allows you to trade minutes peer-to-peer via text message! 

So there you have it, an easy mobile banking application that doesn't (far as you know) charge you to keep or take out your money.  Now if only Citibank would follow suit...

Afraid of Change

I heard on NPR the other day that although several states that are known as "blue" states offered housing to the displaced citizens of New Orleans, they were roundly rejected (this may explain why we don't have our lodger yet after posting on MoveOn's database).

For many of us, especially during times of trauma, the unfamiliar is terrifying.  But perhaps more so for the very poor, who often have never had the luxury of seeing anything beyond the place where they were born.  I read a quote in the NYTimes from a woman displaced into a military camp near the woods -- she was profoundly scared by all the trees nearby (assisted in her terror by strict camp-wide warnings not to enter the woods).

In the first few days of the disaster, there were multiple accounts of people who said they would rather die than leave their house, even as the water crept up around them.

Who among us takes this fearful attitude toward our career, or a business or divisional strategy?  Or political strategy?  Executives need an "exchange program" that takes them into new territory, to get their synapses firing.