(2008-06-16) Boyd Social Networking Productivity

Stowe Boyd justifies Enterprise use of Social Networking. As we have moved from hierarchical, top-down, centralized work - think Henry Ford's assembly lines (Old Economy) or the pre-Internet global corporation - to networked, bottom-up, edgewise work (Network Economy) personal productivity has been trumped by network productivity. Network productivity is the effectiveness of a person's entire network: contacts, contacts of contacts, and so on. Connected people will naturally gravitate toward an ethic where they will trade personal productivity for connectedness: they will interrupt their own work to help a contact make progress. Ultimately, in a Bottom-Up fashion, this leads to the network as a whole making more progress than if each individual tries to optimize personal productivity.

Note this means that a Social Networking tool that only includes people inside the Enterprise is broken.

• Jun18 update: great related post quoting Abbie Lundberg saying Digital Native-s view as "co-workers" anyone within their network who can help them solve a problem.

I am remain convinced that the bias should be toward remaining connected to the greatest degree that allows individuals the time apart and disconnected that they need to make sense (Making Sense) of the world through creative and contemplative pursuits, and no more. So if your people have no need to think, learn, solve problems, or create opportunities, then maybe you don't need to allow Social Networking.

Phil Jones has some discussion.