Finding controversy in social media is like shooting fish in a barrel. This month’s firestorm concerns Malcolm Gladwell’s article on using social media for activism. The renowned pop science author argued in the New Yorker that social media was an inappropriate tool for activism and that ‘the revolution will not be tweeted’.
This provoked heated responses from social media luminaries, including Twitter co-founder Ev Williams, who argued that “Anyone who’s claiming that sending a tweet by itself is activism, that’s ludicrous — but no one’s claiming that, at least no one that’s credible. If you can’t organise you can’t activate.”
Perhaps. But that doesn’t undermine Gladwell’s core argument – that the messy, loosely-coupled nature of social networks makes it difficult to drive through change. The problem, he said, was that painful social changes such as the racial civil rights movement in the US need top-down hierarchies to be effective. Conversely, social media networks are flat matrices of chatterers that say lots, and do little that could be considered cohesive. No one changed the world by typing ‘nom nom nom’ into a status bar.
Making use of an organised mess
Nevertheless, in certain situations, such as inside the enterprise, the messy, disorganised nature of social networks could be advantageous. A CEO may not want to use a social network to organise the workforce towards a common goal (such as increasing top line revenues by 2%). But they may want to leverage such networks to encourage bottom-up thinking.
Top-down hierarchies are good for organising people around a central idea (such as civil rights reform, for example). They de-emphasise the idea of thinking for yourself beyond preset parameters. This is how many things work, from seminal protest movements through to the military film sets and commercial kitchens are organised this way. A central taskmaster delegates to others, who may delegate further, creating a tightly-organised chain of command.
Conversely, social networks are particularly good at two things: social capital, and emergent behaviour. They give people the chance to promote themselves and their ideas. Thinking outside the box is encouraged.
In an enterprise setting, hierarchical structures work when disseminating a leader’s vision and getting employees on board, but it is difficult to use them for two-way communication. For an organisation wanting to squeeze tacit knowledge out of its employee base, or to give people the opportunity to put innovative ideas in play, social networks may be more appropriate.
An employee with a passion for, say, a new product line or a way to remove half the steps from a convoluted corporate process that they know intimately may find it difficult to make themselves heard in a hierarchical structure. But given the chance to develop and run with the idea in an online corporate social network, that employee may gather supporters who discuss and evolve the concept to the point where they represent a significant movement in the company.
This is how loosely coupled groups known as ‘communities of practice’ are developed. Think of them as groups gathering around a digital water cooler, discussing possibilities for aspects of their company that they are close to, and passionate about. Groups such as these can sow the seeds for new lines of revenue, and groundbreaking efficiency measures.
Perhaps social networks are not the ideal tool for top-down activism, but they can still be used to effect radical change. Such developments could be highly valuable for a management courageous enough to give employees this sort of voice – and the technology to make themselves heard. Let’s hope, then, that management is willing to listen.
