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Are you 'network literate'?
Commentator Ben Casnocha says our ever-expanding social networks require a whole new skill.
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Bill Gates once wrote that "The most meaningful way to... put distance between you and the crowd is to do an outstanding job with information. How you gather, manage, and use information," Gates wrote, "will determine whether you win or lose."
What's hard is that the information modern professionals need is always changing. Simply stockpiling facts and knowledge won't get you anywhere. Rather, you need to know how to access the information you need, when you need it.
This requires a skill so fundamental that we need a new definition of the word "literate."
For centuries, literacy was just the ability to read and write. Those who could read books -- and write them -- held the power in society.
Then the Internet came along and vastly multiplied the amount of information available on a daily basis. Power shifted to those who could enter the right terms into a search engine and wade through the results to the best links. Tech visionary John Battelle called this search literacy.
But today, not even that is enough. You need network literacy: knowing how to access the information and perspective flowing through your social network. You make better decisions when you can tap the unique, real-time intelligence of the people you know.
First, you need to map your social network. Ask yourself, "Of the people I know, who knows what?" You probably have acquaintances who are experts in different topics, as well as close friends who are experts in you and your personal preferences.
Next, you need to know how to ask questions that elicit helpful information. When talking to people in your network, consider: Should your questions be open-ended or narrow? Should you ping someone online or ask in person?
Finally, you need to synthesize the different perspectives you receive. People have biases; smart people may tell you different things. It's up to you to evaluate multiple points of view and come to a judgment.
If you do these things, you'll be on the path to becoming network literate. And as Gates predicted, you'll be putting distance between yourself and the competition.
From your comments Ben:
But I'd say the following:
1. With technology we are able to maintain much larger social networks (of weak ties, especially), so there are new opportunities to pull intelligence from a broader set of folks than ever before.
"intelligence"?
2. The "stream" of information in our networks is more intense than ever before in an online context -- the average LinkedIn and Facebook newsfeed has hundreds if not thousands of links flowing through it each day. How to make sense of it all? How do we "occasion serendipity" in a helpful way?
Why?
3. The online component offers the opportunity to quickly poll a broad number of people in your network immediately -- assuming you can phrase the question and target it correctly. This wasn't possible in an earlier age.
So what?
There are other new skills that one needs that are unique to the online social networking era, but these are a few that come to mind. Thanks!
My opinion: What we used to call "communications" appears to have been replaced by "babble" and quantity has replaced quality. What most people refer to as a source of knowledge, Wikipedia, is full of opinion and misinformation, but because it's on the web and "everybody uses it" it becomes the "truth." I've recently seen a number of LinkedIn discussions started by obscure characters who never answer questions or respond to comments, indicating someone is gaming LinkedIn too.
And you think this is better than a conversation with a trusted source?
Thanks, Ben
I enjoyed your commentary and agree that technology is dramatically changing the way we can gather information. I'm particularly interested in the ways it lets us pull together information from related persons via social networks.
Do you have observations about how current technologies fall short of what you envision in enhanced social literacy?
We're trying to address such challenges at Reachable, and would welcome thoughts on the matter.
Preston
I tend to agree with Jean. What you call network literacy sounds rather like the skills that someone trained in one of the social sciences would have gained. For example, a historian would be quite familiar with having to decide which source is most appropriate for answering a particular question, what analytic techniques to apply, looking for biases, and synthesizing an interpretation.
Until you get to areas like "big data," I don't know that all that much has changed. I'll grant that the ability to quickly poll a broad group of people is new, but are the necessary skills so different from those of traditional scholarship? But pulling data from a broad set of sources or having to filter through a large volume of primary-source material? I don't see much that is new there.
Keep in mind that this is about SOCIAL information / data -- i.e., the knowledge that sits in the brains of people you know now. It's about an interpersonal process. A historian's sources tend to be books and articles, not very many living people.
Re: polling a broad group of people, at a very tactical level, there is indeed real skill in effectively deploying technology to do this in a targeted and useful way. LinkedIn Answers vs. LinkedIn Polls? Facebook status updates versus a Facebook Question? Edge Rank in Facebook newsfeed that affects how prominently a status update is displayed. Etc. And again the pulling of data that occurs in "traditional scholarship" doesn't tend to be as social, and almost certainly doesn't involve these new social technologies.
Ben,
I'd like to commend you for remaining engaged in the comment thread. This reminds me that there is something distinctive about what you call social literacy, even if I'm not fully convinced by your argument.
What I'm reminded of is how important comment threads are to the best bloggers. There is certainly skill involved in writing a blog post that will solicit informed commentary, and not every blogger is capable of wading through the trolls, flamers, kooks, and shills to find the valuable responses. I'm tempted to argue that this is the the type of conversation that academics have had with their peers at conferences, in faculty lounges, and in journals, but I do see some differences. One is, of course, the volume and immediacy that you have already remarked on. The other is that is has brought voices into the conversation that would not necessary have been heard in the past. Econoblogging, for example, is notable for the way in which intelligent amateurs have at times outshone the credentialed professionals.
Nonetheless, I would still contend that the skills of a trained social scientist are much like the skills that you describe. There is a reason why the word "social" is part of the English-language term used to describe these disciplines: they are ultimately about people. Even historians who follow one of the interpretive schools that stress the importance of big, impersonal forces in shaping events study this through sources produced by people.
I would further argue that a trained social scientist might have certain advantages over the socially literate who lack this training. For one, they would be more aware of the ways in which responses are mediated. Sources are affected by the technology of transmission, rhetorical forms, etc. You get at this a bit in your mention of things like Facebook Edge Rank, but there is much more involved than keeping up with tweaks to algorithms (important though that might be). Second they would tend to be more aware of the process of gathering evidence to form an interpretation, and would be less inclined toward hermeneutic naivete.
An interesting story, though there is already a term for the literacy you are describing. For many years now librarians and other educators, have called this information literacy, which usually means the ability to identify find, retrieve, analyze, and use information. This includes selecting appropriate sources, both traditional written sources and audio, visual, and people!
I don't think you have quite made your point. The skills of winnowing information from the general stream, of knowing the best way to approach people for information (in person, ping, etc) have been around for a very long time, in scholarship at least. Even the overlap of personal and professional networks is not new. These are real skills that you describe, but you have not convinced me that the new platform requires something different because it is a new platform.
Jean,
Thanks for the comment. You're right that to some extent these skills have been needed for awhile. But I'd say the following:
1. With technology we are able to maintain much larger social networks (of weak ties, especially), so there are new opportunities to pull intelligence from a broader set of folks than ever before.
2. The "stream" of information in our networks is more intense than ever before in an online context -- the average LinkedIn and Facebook newsfeed has hundreds if not thousands of links flowing through it each day. How to make sense of it all? How do we "occasion serendipity" in a helpful way?
3. The online component offers the opportunity to quickly poll a broad number of people in your network immediately -- assuming you can phrase the question and target it correctly. This wasn't possible in an earlier age.
There are other new skills that one needs that are unique to the online social networking era, but these are a few that come to mind. Thanks!
