Clay Shirky, "Here comes everybody"

I am in the process of copying and pasting old blog posts from a Ning class blog. I don't want to lose these observations so here they are.

Clay Shirky does an excellent job of describing the dynamics of collaboration and group interaction in light of recent mass appropriation of online social technologies and tools. I found that his explanation of the "Birthday Paradox", as well as his categorization of "group undertaking as a ladder of activities..in order of difficulty...sharing, cooperation, and collective action" (49) helped me to better understand the incredibly complexity of large networks. There are practically infinite linkages and activities that can take place between members of groups and persons participating on massive sharing platforms or microblogging sites like twitter, yet somehow people manage to find a place or a group to fit into if they search deeply enough or if they know the right people (who know the right people.) These platforms, the relative openness of these networks and the kinds of communicative activities taking place on them allow for real time response to political crises and social events; they also unite people from all over the world and foster work on all kinds of projects at a pace and in a risk-free environment that many businesses and institutions cannot afford to do.

I also couldn't believe it when Shirky cited Wikipedia as a creation dating to 2001- which seems rather recent- and wrote about how it only took on its ".org" form a year or so later, responding to users protesting against its possible commercialization- that fact speaks to how much we make these tools a part of our lives and normalize our use of them in so many ways, including how we interpret the world (as continuously editable!) and how we work with one another.

Personally, I think it is great that CCTE classes and faculty/students here use so many of these online social tools to connect with one another; at the same time, it is rather stressful trying to manage all of these tools (including the ones I have to deal with at work and in life- basecamp, anyone? a CMS for life please?), remembering how we present ourselves on them and finding the appropriate context and tools for the task we wish to accomplish. On the other hand, we are given so many options of (re)presenting ourselves and sharing information to others and this can certainly be a positive thing: we have facebook for our friends, colleagues and family and connections between those people, linkedin for professional networking, online places where we can be an expert or newbie, and so many other resources that we may choose to partake in anonymously, yet still remain part of a "group". In some ways thinking about the Shirky book dispels some of the issues of "community" and "group" that we were having in class discussion last week. Shirky doesn't really mention community that much in his book; he is more interested in the flexibility and spontaneity of group formation. What is the difference between community and group? Is it really that important and is the difference merely semantic?

Which brings me to confess how I love the fact that I can tap into so many groups whenever I want, with as much or as little commitment as I can give (depending on the "promise" and "bargain" offered by the group.) Lastly, I am intrigued by Shirky's comment, "more is different." More may be different on the bigger scale; however, if we were to analyze users and participants on an individual scale, wouldn't we discover that individual Web use, sharing and networking are scaled rather humanly and predictably, and that individuals are still looking towards those with similar interests? I find it so amazing how Web sociality and these communications technologies play with our sense of scale- we are simultaneously part of the large and small, the massive network and the chatroom of twenty devoted members. It is the fact that so many people are contributing to the same places, sharing amongst each other and leveraging their networks around events or certain causes that things are changing.