Category Archives: Social Media

Diversity in Networks

February 9, 2015 Peter Plastrik

Networks are a natural way of bringing together like-minded people and excluding others. People tend to connect with each other because of their similarities, not their differences. And as their bonds strengthen, they construct a shared identity based on their similarities. This “social capital” can become a screen/barrier for membership in the network. When people outside of the network are told they can’t participate, they may feel the network is more like a “good old boys” club, elitist, lacking in diversity, even discriminatory.

Bonding without diversity is a larger social phenomenon, whether the shared identity is race- or ethnicity-based, economic, occupational, geographical. Thomas Edsall, in a recent column in The New York Times , noted that as the political has become more personal in the U.S., partisan political identification has intensified as a source of bonding between and separation of people.

In 2010, 49 percent of Republicans said they would be “somewhat or very unhappy” if their children married someone of the opposing party, while 33 percent of Democrats said the same. These percentages were nearly 10 times greater than 50 years earlier.
From 1960 to 2010, the percentage of Democrats and Republicans who said that members of their own party were more intelligent than those in the opposition party grew from 6 percent to 48 percent; the percentage describing members of the opposition party as “selfish” rose from 21 percent to 47 percent.

Edsall quoted political scientist Shanto Iyengar’s on the causes of this increased polarization: “ Residential neighborhoods are politically homogeneous as are social media networks. I suspect this is one of the principal reasons for the significantly increased rate of same-party marriages. In 1965, a national survey of married couples showed around sixty-five percent agreement among couples. By 2010, the agreement rate was near 90 percent.”

Note the “social media networks.” Even in wide open Internet-based systems–anyone can come in–the Similars Dynamic is at work.

All of this tells us that diversity is not necessarily a natural characteristic of networks. If you want your network’s membership to be diverse, you have to be quite intentional about it. You can want diversity because it’s a basic value that you hold. And/or you can want it because it’s helpful to the network’s functionality. It’s often noted, for instance, that a diversity of points of view and ideas is good for efforts to innovate. And when a network’s diversity reflects the diversity in the broader world in which the network acts, that can ensure the network is not missing important perspectives.

But working in a very diverse network usually requires more effort at connecting and aligning members than working in a network of similars. I talked recently with a network builder who recently shifted from working in a network of similar professionals in land management to building a network of groups of different people in 18 different communities across the U.S. “There are 12-15 individuals in each place, so you have to understand each of them. And you have to understand the different local contexts of the communities.”

With this much diversity in the network, helping the members understand and value each other’s perspectives, connect deeply with each other, align around shared ideas, values, goals, and approaches–all of this fundamental work will take time, effort, and patience on everyone’s part.

You could say the same about the broader society and its growing lack of partisan diversity. Except, as most political commentators note, politicians tend to exploit the tendency to like-minded separation, rather than weaving across differences.

Social Media , The Essence of Networks

Is it a Network?

January 20, 2015 John Cleveland

There are many structures for organizing collaboration among individuals and/or organization. But they are not all the same–and we’re often asked if a particular structure is or isn’t a network. So we’ve taken the time here (and in more detail in chapter 1 of Connecting to Change the World ) to identify and differentiate some of the main structures that social activists and philanthropic funders use and support.

In general, the differences fall across a spectrum related to how structured/organized the form is. Some (like professional associations) are too organized; others are not organized enough. As we’ve said in other contexts (and explain more of in chapter 5): networks are on the “edge of chaos,” with enough organization to stay together, but enough freedom to creatively evolve; they contain autonomous agents who share common rules. In some of the collective forms we look at, the agents aren’t autonomous (too much structure); in others, there aren’t really common rules that bind them (not enough structure).

Type of Collective Organizing	Typical Distinguishing Features	Difference from a Generative Network
Coalition/Alliance of Organizations	A temporary alignment of organizations to achieve a specific objective such as electing a candidate or securing adoption of a new public policy. Usually disbands when the effort has been completed.	Narrower in purpose/scope than a network. (Some alliances reorganize as a generative network once their campaign is over.)
Membership-Based Association or Organization	Organized mainly to pool resources and provide dues-paying members with services, often for professional development or representation within public-policy arenas. Association/organization staff does most of the work.	More staff-driven, less member-to-member relationship driven, than a network. Focus is on serving members rather than members collaborating with each other.
Community of Practice	Organizations and individuals loosely align and coordinate around development, adoption, and spread of innovative practices and/or policies to address a particular set of problems or opportunities.	Participants typically lack a firm sense of “membership identity” and do not make explicit reciprocal commitments. Communities of practice often have many sub-networks.
Movement	Large numbers of people loosely aligned around a large cause (e.g., civil rights, environmental protection), their passion ignited by a personal desire to right a wrong.	Less coherent, focused, and coordinated—and much larger, sprawling—than a generative network. A movement may contain networks; networks may spawn a movement.
Social-Media Web	Alignment is around a passing cause. Online; open membership; enables many “weak ties” among participants.	Less coherent, focused and coordinated, with no clear membership expectations.

Social Media

Social Media vs. Social-Impact Networks

October 13, 2014 Peter Plastrik

When we first discussed with our publisher, David Miller, our interest in writing a book about network building, he wanted to make sure we would be clear about how the networks we wrote about were different from online social media networks. This was an important concern because so much public imagination has been captured by social-media websites and apps and the way millions of people use them to connect each other. The movie Social Network had cemented that image in place.

Most of the social-impact networks we have worked with use social media, but none is just a social-media network. They use websites, listservs, e-mail, intranets, Twitter, and other apps so that network members can communicate with each other easily, inexpensively, and in ways that promote responsiveness and some collaboration. As the networks get bigger and take on more complex functions, such as aligning around an advocacy agenda or collaborating on innovative projects, their need to communicate effectively increases, so the availability of these types of tools becomes a critical factor in the network’s success. Some networks that start by using “off-the-shelf” IT solutions decide eventually to design something that is customized to what their members need and how they communicate with each other. This increases the cost of the network’s communications system, but it can also increase its effectiveness. Still—as we explain in chapter 1 of Connecting to Change the World —social media information technologies are just tools for the network and not the only way that network members engage with each other.

Unlike the members of a social-impact network, who typically number in the hundreds, the millions of users of online services don’t share a desire for specific social impact. They enter and exit the online services willy-nilly. They connect with some, but not nearly all, of the other members in the service. And it’s the service providers, not the members, who make the rules that regulate activities. This doesn’t look anything like the social-impact networks we write about in Connecting to Change the World , whose members embrace and enact a collective purpose, set the mission and goals, and make the rules for participation and decision-making.

Social media are remarkably powerful. We tell the story of how comedian Steven Colbert asked his Internet and TV audiences to out-donate the nation of China, which had pledged only $100,000 in disaster relief for a typhoon in the Philippines. And “Colbert Nation” did it—donating more than $250,000. This was a great example of crowdfunding using social-media tools. But it’s not a social-impact network.

At the heart of a social-impact network is a deep, lasting trust between members, and this is usually built through in-person time together (supplemented by communication online) that allows people to “size each other up,” test each other, feel (or not feel) some chemistry with each other. Trust building allows members to share efficiently and effectively with each other—sharing not just information or aspirations, but the deep, “insider” information of practitioners: their questions, failures, frustrations, and successes. And trust allows members to treat each other with generosity. They give their attention, knowledge, skills, connections, and resources to each other, in the expectation that giving will be rewarded by getting from others. As we explain in chapter 1, “The Generative Network Difference,” trust is the basis for the mutual exchange—reciprocity among members—that drives a network’s success. Social media can facilitate and enhance trust building, but it doesn’t replace the necessity of connecting in the flesh, eyeball-to-eyeball.