• Real People + Real Communities = Commonality

    Posted on April 2nd, 2009 by and currently 5 commenting.

    If you haven’t picked up the latest issue of Fast Company and read Ellen McGirt’s cover story, then you’re missing out. It’s a piece on Chris Hughes – who is not only one of the founders of Facebook, but is also the whiz behind Obama’s digital dominance which ultimately put him in office.

    My favorite part is the third paragraph from the end:

    He can’t help but obsess about making technology less obsessive and simpler for everyone to use. He has started to Twitter, albeit reluctantly. He worries about how overconnected people are, even himself: “I keep an eye on it.” He thinks that Web 2.0 underemphasizes the real world and that businesses trying to tap the technology often miss the main point. His philosophy, he says, is unchanged from his first involvement with Facebook: “It doesn’t matter if it’s a company or a campaign; you build around commonality. If it’s real people and real communities, then it’s valuable. Otherwise it’s just playing around online.”

    Chris is my new best friend. The beauty of what he did is that he created something that allowed people to meet online, but then make the REAL connections offline – all around a specific common CAUSE. And I can’t emphasize enough that the real meat of any relationship is technology-free. You don’t need it when you’re sitting across the table from someone or hosting a dinner party at your house.

    We live in a time where everyone is trying to figure out what to do next and some individuals out there are pushing technology so hard that companies are jumping in without a plan just to have a presence online and “be connected.” But connected to what, exactly? Most of the time that definition of connection is very superficial and just another way to try to get people to talk about that brand, all the while pushing out messages that are laced with “me, me, me.”

    There’s a lot of “playing around online” these days. And a lot of connecting (albeit in a shallow way) with people who you have no commonality with. It’s overconnection for the sake of numbers. Remember that old figure that we’re hit with over 3K ad message per day? I wonder what that number is at now, taking into the consideration that so many brands are in our social networks now. And while some of them are doing it the right way, that percentage is still very small.

    Remember the common bond is the common bond. And if you can find it, and enter into those conversations is an unassuming, transparent way, your fans will organize and put you into the proverbial White House. Just don’t forget who put you there in the first place.

  • http://www.asourceofinspiration.com Armando Alves

    From Granevetter to Duncan Watts, commonality, group affiliation or strong ties are the building blocks of social networks. I’ve been around the same line of thoughts lately, on how important is to recognize common traits and how people use these technologies to bring closer the social holes that separate them.

    And to complement your selected quote, here’s another from Obama´s campaign manager, heard on Digital Marketing Spring conference, that i just posted on Twitter:

    “You have to be embracing of new technology, but you can’t let the new technology take you away from your core task” – David Plouffe

  • http://www.renegade.com trip hunter

    Yesterday I went to the PSFK Trends Conference in NYC to listen, learn and engage with thought leaders in our industry. One of the discussions was led by two doctors who are using technology to build a more efficient and supportive doctor/patient relationship. The network they are building is called Hello Health, and it allows patients to eliminate the insurance agency and engage online with their doctor directly for small medical issues, and use insurance strictly for large, catastrophic events. The money a patient would save on the reduced cost of medical insurance would then be used to pay for the out-of-pocket costs of going direct-to-doctor. Using car maintenance as an analogy, you would never go through your insurance company to change your oil, but only for larger mechanical issues. Same should go for medical insurance, the doctors argued. This is a great example of Chris Hughes’ obsession to make technology simple. If Hello Health is done right, if, in the Doctor’s words the technology is ‘beautifully and well designed”, it should simply disappear, with the end result being the reduction of the time, effort and cost of meaningless offline doctor/patient appointments. Hello Health is not about technology, but about what technology can do to facilitate meaningful relationships.

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  • http://www.livingface.com bardazima

    The challenge in the coming years is for us to enjoy and benefit from technology without it further eroding human connection. The ‘social retardation’ of our society has reached epidemic proportions. Yes, many of us are connected on-line, but, especially for the new generation who have grown up with these technologies, there is a real danger that these on-line relationships are the same, or can replace, actual touch and contact. I’m 39. Remember when breaking up via telephone was seen as cowardly. Now it’s being done via email. When it comes to human relationships, intimate or professional, no technology will ever trump real, personal human interaction. The decrease in this contact is a recipe for societal alienation which makes us all vulnerable to government and corporate manipulation.

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