Robert Paterson's Weblog

Are there social limits in space? What is your office/school like? Designed to work or fail?

Many of us are starting to see that there is math that underpins human community (Magic Numbers)

I think that they should be: for surely all else in Nature that is about relationships has math? Light, Gravity, Water and Heat etc. So why would there not be Math that supports how Human Relationships work?

I was re-reading my favourite text the other day – Christopher Alexander’s Pattern Language – and I was stunned, but not surprised, to learn that not only do we humans have a gradient of Trust governed by math but that there are limits in the physical space as well beyond which, we fall out of community.

Naturally these limits are hardly known, least of all by architects and maybe hardly at all by any of us who wish to design a physical space that promotes a healthy human community.

Alexander brings up this topic in the section on Small Public Squares (Pattern 61). He asks why so many public squares are dead space?

Here is the Space Magic Number #1 – 70.

• We cannot make out another face much over 70 feet away
• We cannot hear another person properly over 70 feet away

Any space that exceeds this – Piazza San Marco and Trafalgar are exceptions because they are a nexus in a large city and get filled to the right density – feels un social.

So here is Space Magic Number #2 – 300

• Any space with more than 300 square feet per person will feel “deserted”
• So a space with a diameter of 100 feet needs 33 people in it to feel ok
• So a space with a diameter of 35 feet needs only 4
• A space with 60 feet needs only 12
• It’s hard to get 33 or more people into a public space at any one time – it is much easier to get 4

I wonder – do these numbers then tie into what we know about group satisfaction – (Chris Allen)?

Then I wonder, what is the "social design" of the space that we work in? 

My Network Revealed - Now what can you learn about yours?

Here is my social network as created by the Mapping tool on Linkedin. It's not the 100% true picture but it looks like 90% to me. You can use their mapping tool by going here.

If I am right and we are moving to an economy that depends on our networks, then it is essential that we learn what each of our networks means and what we can do to make them healthier. So, with that in mind, let's look at mine and I will share some lessons with you.

Next week, I will post a podcast that I recorded yesterday with the Master of Networks, Valdis Krebs. Anything I know is because of him. He will go much deeper than I - so this is an introduction.

Diversity - In nature diversity is a good thing - so it is with our social networks. You can see that I am connected to a series of worlds. PEI , Public Media, Network Thinkers, Family and I have 2 outside nets of New Military Thinkers and my legacy Corporate connections.

I think that this does not look too bad - I have good links into many fields. How does your world look? 

Our networks are like gardens, we can always make them better. We can always add and remove. We can always pay attention. 

We can always strengthen these links. This does not mean that you randomly try and make friends. This mapping tool shows you where to be most effective. For you don't not have to work everywhere - only where it adds the most value.

Key Connectors

Lets look at inside PEI. Karen Murchison, John Morris and Cynthia King - all members of the Queen Street Commons have massive connections on PEI to artisans and freelancers. They are themselves clustered in the centre like a sun in a planetary system. The QSC is in reality a hub of the freelance and artisanal life on PEI. If you want to be a successful freelancer on PEI, the QSC is a good place to start. 

There is a hierarchy in networks. The ones who are most connected and the ones who connect across networks are the most important. Where do you fit with these key people? Maybe you are one of them. Look at Will Pate in the Green on the top right. Will is an Islander who lives away and is a connector between PEI and the Network Thinkers. Will is important for PEI.

The people who connect one system to another are VERY important people.

Your key networks will share this kind of hierarchy. Important to know how it works and where you stand.

Tim Eby is such a system connector. He is not only well connected inside pub media - he was the Chair of NPR - but is well connected people who can help such as Doc Searls - who is in turn the connector into Network Thinkers. Having the Trust of people like Tim and Doc is therefore important. It is not easily gained either.

This is not a cocktail party - but your life. How you behave is key.

There are ultra close connectors - as in my case Jevon MacDonald who is like a twin to me. I don't want to piss Jevon off as he can influence most of my network. You too will have your Jevons. Pay attention to them. They are better than family.

I said that this was just an introduction, so we will stop here. Much more to come with Valdis and later with others. 

So when you map your world, check these issues:

• Are you happy with how diverse it is? If it is not diverse you will find it hard to use crowd sourcing etc and you will be too deep in your own echo chamber
• Do you know who your key connectors are and do you care enough about them? For they give you the best access to the sub networks? 
• Do you know who counts the most in each network? Again this is all about leverage.

For in the real network world it is not the number of "Friends" you have but the quality of your inner circle.

Is there a better way to see your network? I think that there is. My advice, and Valdis's advice is to map out your best connections and then see how this works. Here is how you can do this using the Permaflower and Magic Numbers (Dunbar's Social Gradients). Using your Linkedin map then fill out this more personal map.

 

Put your 3 most important people in the centre. Then the 8. Then the 80. See how they overlap or don't. Then you can start to see where you need to pay attention.

You can then use this map to see what you need to do to fit what you need your network to be about. don't worry the work is not about sucking up.

In the podcast with Valdis we will talk a lot about "Weak Ties" and explode the myth that these are merely casual aquaintances. We will see that trust is the key. Old but good friends are very valuable to us. You don't need to talk or see them a lot but you have to maintain the trust. 

Later we will explore what you have to BE rather than what you have to DO.

More on all of this in my book - You Don't Need a Job and even more in the book to come in November - You Don't Need a Banker. For when it comes to the new credit system - which is of course the OLD credit system - your reputation and your network are everything.

It's all about the kind of person you are.

The LinkedIn Tool is very easy to use and allows you to do all sorts of tests and analysis - I cannot recomend it enough. Happy exploring.  You future depends on knowing more about your network.

Irene - Fibonacci - The Geometry Of Nature

Source - Many people are now thankfully talking about "Self Organization" as our future. But underneath much of the clamour is a bias to an image of self organization that has not structure other than somehow we are all connected.

But Nature keeps reminding us that what appears the most chaotic on the surface ALWAYS has deep structure. Here we see this again withy Irene. On the ground, chaos. But see it from another perspective and we see the key math behind Natural Systems - the Fibonacci Sequence.

True Health - Part 3 - The Rules of the New World#2 - The revolution of our time

This post is written in July of 2011 - The Murdoch New Empire, the Police in the UK and the Tories in the UK are being rocked.

I think that we are living through a period where the Network is destroying the Hierarchical power of the establishment.

We can see now that this revolution began in the Arab world but now, this July, we are seeing that the Network is a real threat to the most powerful in the west as well.

I think that history will show that power is shifting from the Machine Institution to the Network.

This will be a real revolution unlike 1917 that merely replaced one top down regime for another. 

This is more like 10,000 years ago when a new food system changed everything about how humans lived and their place in the world. 

I think that the forces that will take us there are now in motion. Not the least that millions of people have been cast out by the old system. That many of these millions are well educated and have the personal power to act. These are the kind of people that drove the French and the American Revolutions that in their own day also cast down the old power system.

They are likely people just like you my dear readers. We are the immigrants in the brand new world that we will make for ourselves  - not in a new place but in a new "Space" that we create ourselves.

Without knowing it, you have just left Ellis Island and you are in this strange New World.

How strange this all is. 

Fortunately the pioneers have been here for some time and this post will show you what the new rules are and how best to get around in this new place and to realize its potential. 

In essence - people here in the New New World - or New World#2 - live the lives of the Hunter Gatherers - they live lives much like all hominids and Humans have lived for millions of years. But with a difference, now we know how all of this works. We know the science and we have tools that empower us to be this old way anew.

So let's wander around NW#2 and see how they live and work. Let's see the models they use. 

And by the way - all of this exists for real today - just in a very small and scattered form. It just needs organization to come to life.

Home and Work - Home is that old fashioned Home where we all live and work.

For in NW#2 we mainly work from home for ourselves or in tribal groups - some partners are next door but some are the other side of the world. 

We don't just do one thing either - the bigger cash generating deals are like a hunter bringing home an elk and get paid in cash by the larger system. But we do a lot of gathering for no money. We trade services with each other - I do some work on your site, you give me veggies. We offer up our place for rent and move in with our sister who lives down the road and we split the money.  

We don't just sell services either. With our network of 3D printers and jigs we can make almost anything locally. Hey we even make cars using the Wiki Car Company - an open source design for cars that uses a series of chassis's that we then adapt to create unique one off cars. For less cost than a mega car plant - we don't have their fixed costs.

More than 50% of the things we need - we make locally. All are built using Open Source designs.

The result is that there is work here for all. 

What were hobbies become "Livings". Your weaving, your knitting, your soap making, your talent for music or knowledge of astronomy, your mechanical genius, your coding, your cooking, your green thumb, your strong back, your relationship with children - your real skills - the real you.

No one gets super rich but all can be very comfortable and secure. Secure because no outsider can take away your living. For we are so interconnected. The gap between producer and consumer has been closed. We are always both.

Our children grow up in the middle of all of this. They see what their parents do to make a Living. They participate early too - either to help the family or to play their own role. Many children have their own Living. The gap between helpless child hood and being a participant is tiny. 

For the kids too are not shunted off into a world separate from life called school or youth.

Nor are our babies and infants given away to strangers. In our physical community we help each other a lot with the little kids. We spend very little money on daycare or nannies. We have family close, we have other families in the same boat - we have a good system. The kids also have access to tremendous resources from all over the world. They have lots of mums and dads - as kids always used to have. There are lots of Eyes on the Street in our place.

Our teachers are very different too. They are not "professionals". They are largely us.

Our older kids meet in study groups and use materials from the web. If they have a question that they cannot solve themselves - they can access the local learning network for advice. This local Network extends all over the world. Our kids can talk to the best teachers in the world and they do. 

We used to pay a lot of money to educate our kids for not very good results. We now pay a fraction of this and our kids have learned to learn and they mix with really talented people. They don't need a piece of paper to show what they have learned. They have a reputation that has been earned.

Food

So where did all the teachers go? Where did all the people with non jobs go?

In the old country almost no one did any work to get or prepare food. In the NW#2 food and energy is where most of the work is done. Everybody contributes here. In 2000, less than 5% of people worked to produce food and most of them were no more than slaves.

Now 85% of us participate in one way or another in food and energy.

About 30% of the food we eat is grown locally - and we are in Montreal. There are gardens on roofs - front yards - back yards in public spaces. Small animals too - chickens are everywhere and there are goats and sheep in town.

Nearly everyone spends time on growing and preparing food - we grow a lot on our own or in local groups in the community and we also help out in the country.

The rail service to the surrounding farm land is working well again and 50% of our food comes in from the direct hinterland. Many also go out there and help work for food. We help with the cultivating and harvest - for the Community Ag Model that we use, integrates the customer into the producer. That way we we keep the costs down for all. No immigrant slaves here - we belong to farm groups as helper/consumers. CSA on steroids.

Consequently, we pay very little money for food. But food growers do well. We all benefit from the Network Effect.

Farming itself is very different too. We also work WITH nature and not against her. She does more and more of the work as a result.

Farms tend to be small - about 100 acres and worked by a family and by the neigbours.

Those growing veggies mainly use Permaculture that needs no external inputs and that has yields that rise every year and where the work also falls. In many of these mini farms, the main work of the year is harvest.

Almost no machines are required. Almost no external inputs and certainly no agri chemicals.

Those with animals use a pasture system made famous by Polyface farms where grass and woodland provide the base and we rotate animals on the grass thus building up the base year by year.

In our food system, vitality grows every year. The natural capital increases and our need for external energy reduces.

We used to have no time and so had to pay cash for everything - now we have time we don't need as much cash. THIS is the central big idea in New World#2.

Like Open Source Software we trade goods and services a lot for no money - we do have an exchange now - so the Ledger can be converted into currency of needed. This was how the old country store used to operate. 

Energy/Travel - You cannot replace oil as a convenient source of energy - but oil is very expensive in the New World#2. So how do we still have a great life? We have redesigned how we live to reduce the need for oil.

This is why the home and the local community has become the centre. We had to go far away every day to work and school and to get anything. Now most of those routine trips in the car are not essential any more. The need to drive everywhere has been designed out of the system.

Some of us do go to face to face distant meetings now and then - it is always vital to meet face to face. But these occasions tend to be rare and are often largely social - the point is to bond again.

When we travel we mainly take some time and we tend to stay with each other or rent a place from a person. Co Working places are ubiquitous. Few have offices that are exclusively theirs except at home. Why would you pay to have an office all for yourself?

The Global Co Working Network also allows you to have an office in any town, city our country. 

Energy/Climate

Heat in the winter up north and cooling in the summer in the south demand significant energy. Here design has helped too.

Much of the sunbelt, short of water and boiling hot has lost much of its population. Those that remain have gone back to building design that fits this climate. Adobe is common again. Even here permaculture works and, as was tested in the desert in Israel, is able to produce food and this practice is gaining ground on the desert itself.

Here up north in Montreal, the typical co-housing of Montreal East was designed with winter in mind. With neighbours alongside and above and below, heating demand has been reduced further by insulation.

Community heat and stoves using waste fibre are common.

Large scale and long Distance Energy

The truck is no longer the centre of the system. Most things are made locally - much is recycled locally - even steel. We trade things we can't grow or make.

As back in time - water is the way that really heavy goods are carried. The seaboards and river and canal systems are the new/old highways for heavy goods. 

We have time now so we too use the trains and ships. 

Health

Big Industrial food no longer makes sense with very expensive oil. In the old country we used to spend a fortune on health. But now we eat so much better, we are so much more active, so much less stressed, we are naturally mainly very healthy and fit.

Grains depend on factory farms, serfs or slaves. Oil is too expensive and no one wants to be a slave anymore. So very little grain is grown anymore. We eat meat, that is grass fed, veggies fruit and nuts. This was and is our ideal diet.

So Big Pharma has little place here either. We are all working hard at breeding better animals and seeds that fit our local enviroment.  We share this knowledge around the world. Big Ag has no place in this vast cooperative effort - for if we fail here, we starve. The IP issue has gone away for the system that could enforce it has collapsed.

Most research now uses an Open Source Model - for we all benefit.

So what about the  Medical professionals?

Of course, if you have an accident, we use the Dr's. Specialists operate all over the world too. Even a small community hospital can have a world class surgeon operate - for she is in her community and telemedicine is the norm now.

But there are not that many doctors - and the ones we have are oustanding. But we don't need a lot of them, because so few of us are ill. 

The frontline healthcare system is now run by Health Facilitors who help us in groups work out how to get control of our health back. We pay them to keep us healthy. Health is all about matching our lives to our design.

Media

We get our news and information from each other. The old highly centralized media system was show to be what is was a shill for ther old system. They were largely made irrelevant as their role was exposed. And then their costs brought them down.

Most people have a voice now. A profound shift in human consciousness.

There is still an entertainment business but it is more of an aggregator. We don't need as much distraction as we used to. With a more full real life, we need to depend less on a fantasy life.

So how did we get here?

No social engineering brought this about. Much of the pioneer work was done in the 1990's. But it will be desparation that takes us here. Cities that can go no lower such as Detroit are along the path now. 

We will get here because the people who were cleared by the landlords will have no choice. We have to eat. We have to have work. We have to raise our kids. We have to have our health. In the old world all of these things are provided by the institutions. They are shutting us out. We either cannot afford them - such as healthcare or what they offer - such as public school - is rotten.

So we will do what we have to and create an alternative world alongside the old world.

In this new world, by using the network effect and open systems we will dramatically undercut the sunk costs and rigidities of the old world. We will drive them out of existence.

This weekend as I write this - we can see this process in action. The Bastille has been stormed. It's early days but we can feel our power and sense the weakness of the regime.

BUT they will not go quietly and the attacks we see on local food systems and the massive effort to protect IP in things such as seeds is a sign of their fear.

In my next post - The Inquisition and how to defeat it.

New York Times - Measuring the impact of Social Media on their content

via niemanlab.org

Better measurement is coming - I really liked this video that shows how the NYT is looking at how their content is shared.

It offers of course an "organic" perspective - reinforcing for me that new reality that is based on the model of nature rather than on the mechanics of a machine.

Already it is showing the importance of influence nodes - we see this is the spread of disease as well - the Typhoid Mary issue. Understanding this then enables us to understand where the systemic leverage comes from.

This I think takes us back to the math of Magic Numbers - a very few people count a lot. Their influence and how they get this is then central - that brings us back to the work of Klout.

We are getting there.

Attention - the new wealth - what it is & how to measure it

In the old economy that still lingers you could buy “Attention”. A large advertising budget could force you into the minds of others. But we are becoming numb to this assault. Increasingly we only trust people that we know. “Attention” is shifting from the Institution with the budget to the “Person” with personal reputation or “Clout”.

This transition from the Institution to the Personal is surely one of the most paradigm shifting aspects of the time we live in?

Here is the “Godfather” of the idea of the Attention Economy – Michael Goldhaber back in 1997 explaining this shift from Attention that you could buy to Attention that you could only Earn!

“.. money now flows along with attention, or, to put this in more general terms, when there is a transition between economies, the old kind of wealth easily flows to the holders of the new. Thus, when the market-based, proto-industrial economy first began to replace the feudal system of Western Europe, in which the prime form of wealth was aristocratic lineage and inheritance of land, both the noble titles and the lands that went with them soon ended up disproportionately in the hands of those who were good at obtaining what was then the new kind of wealth, namely money.

With considerable ease, the rising merchant and industrialist class could buy old titles, induce governments to grant them brand new ones, or marry into the old impoverished gentry. The parallel today, again, is that possessors of today’s rising kind of wealth, which is attention, and whom we label stars of every sort, have an easy time getting money.

But now let me point out that the other way round doesn’t work nearly as easily. Contrary to what you are sometimes urged to believe, money cannot reliably buy attention. Suppose it did work that way. Then you could have been paid to sit here and listen closely even if I were to read you something as boring as the phone book or an unabridged dictionary. Presumably it wouldn’t even matter if I kept repeating the same few syllables over and over. If money could reliably buy attention, all I would have to do is pay you the required amount and you would keep listening carefully through all that, not falling asleep en masse, nor allowing your minds to wander. In truth, even if you had been paid a huge sum, this would be most difficult, and if you did it, it would be a testament more to your own deep sense of principle than to a general condition in which another roomful of similar people could be expected to do equally well.

Someone who wants your attention just can’t rely on paying you money to get it, but has to do more, has to be interesting, that is must offer you illusory attention, in just about the same amounts as they would if you had instead been paying money to listen to them — which by the way is closer to the case here. Money flows to attention, and much less well does attention flow to money.”

Attention that people will trust – about an idea, a product, a service, a politician, will come from “Trusted” people in your life and in your network.

Defining and measuring Personal Clout will therefore be very important in the future.

That is why I wanted to speak to the CEO of Klout, Joe Fernandez who very kindly spent time with me on the phone yesterday talking about “Attention” what it is now – how it builds from Robin Dunbar’s research. We also touched on how today’s kids may be having their brains rewired to be able to use a much larger network than was possible face to face.

Here are some of the ideas that we batted around:

• It’s all about how you are as a person - Many newbies still think of Social Media as a big megaphone – they still shout out to the crowd – “look at me” aren’t I great!!!!” – But they most important aspect of the new world is what “Others say about you” and who those others are and how large your and their network is. To get their attention demands that you have something good to say and that you have also won their trust. This then is not easy environment. There can be no instant success.
• It’s all about how you are related in network terms – This is why Klout have set up their algorithms to measure True Reach or the value of your content -  Amplification Probability or how we you are related to the people in your network – how large and diverse is your network – do they find you interesting, safe, or a bore  - and Network Influence or do you influence people with influence. This makes a lot of sense to me. I think that Klout is trying to get a handle on the playing field. I also liked it that Joe kept reminding me that they are at the start of a voyage of discovery. That they may be ahead of others but know that there is so much to discover.
• The online world is likely larger than the personal world - Klout will fond out how much larger. The Dunbar numbers still operate in the personal world and for adults my age I think. But Joe made a case based on observation that he is seeing online Trusted Networks maxing out at about 500 (144 is the max Dunbar number) His own floats between 150 – 350 but he still relies on about 150. The really interesting point he made is that he is seeing a new world emerge with kids.
• Kids have a new social reality – they never lose a friend! – When I was a boy, we moved a lot. So at every move to a new place, a new school etc, I lost touch with 98% of the then friends. Over time they faded from memory. But now, a kid moves or changes school and stays in touch with most of  her friends. Even now as an adult, I am regaining touch with old friends long lost. Joe and I thought that decades of staying connected must have an effect on the wiring of the brain. After all print had that effect by making the left hand side more powerful. The brain is very plastic and can change very quickly as we see with say stroke victims. It is very likely that a child of 5 today who is a keen user of social media, will have a very different brain than I do when they are 25.

This new world is literally unfolding before us. Joe thinks that Klout now is about where Google was in 1997 – the key algorithms are in their infancy but are already able to tell us interesting things. Much more will be possible over time – especially when there is more data to observe.

But 2 things are clear to me – understanding how Clout works is core to the new economy. And that measuring Clout as Klout is doing is going to be very important.

Your reputation is your capital. You and not the institution will have the power.

via fastforwardblog.com

You’ve Got to Have (150) Friends - Robin Dunbar

The critical component in social networking is the removal of time as a constraint. In the real world, according to research by myself and others, we devote 40 percent of our limited social time each week to the five most important people we know, who represent just 3 percent of our social world and a trivially small proportion of all the people alive today. Since the time invested in a relationship determines its quality, having more than five best friends is impossible when we interact face to face, one person at a time.

Instant messaging and social networking claim to solve that problem by allowing us to talk to as many people as we like, all at the same time. Like the proverbial lighthouse blinking on the horizon, our messages fan out into the dark night to every passing ship within reach of an Internet connection. We can broadcast, literally, to the world.

I use the word “broadcast” because, despite Facebook’s promise, that is the fundamental flaw in the logic of the social-networking revolution. The developers at Facebook overlooked one of the crucial components in the complicated business of how we create relationships: our minds.

Put simply, our minds are not designed to allow us to have more than a very limited number of people in our social world. The emotional and psychological investments that a close relationship requires are considerable, and the emotional capital we have available is limited.

Indeed, no matter what Facebook allows us to do, I have found that most of us can maintain only around 150 meaningful relationships, online and off — what has become known as Dunbar’s number. Yes, you can “friend” 500, 1,000, even 5,000 people with your Facebook page, but all save the core 150 are mere voyeurs looking into your daily life — a fact incorporated into the new social networking site Path, which limits the number of friends you can have to 50.

What’s more, contrary to all the hype and hope, the people in our electronic social worlds are, for most of us, the same people in our offline social worlds. In fact, the average number of friends on Facebook is 120 to 130, just short enough of Dunbar’s number to allow room for grandparents and babies, people too old or too young to have acquired the digital habit.

This isn’t to say that Facebook and its imitators aren’t performing an important, even revolutionary, task — namely, to keep us in touch with our existing friends.

Until relatively recently, almost everyone on earth lived in small, rural, densely interconnected communities, where our 150 friends all knew one another, and everyone’s 150 friends list was everyone else’s.

But the social and economic mobility of the past century has worn away at that interconnectedness. As we move around the country and across continents, we collect disparate pockets of friends, so that our list of 150 consists of a half-dozen subsets of people who barely know of one another’s existence, let alone interact.

Our ancestors knew the same people their entire lives; as we move around, though, we can lose touch with even our closest friends. Emotional closeness declines by around 15 percent a year in the absence of face-to-face contact, so that in five years someone can go from being an intimate acquaintance to the most distant outer layer of your 150 friends.

Facebook and other social networking sites allow us to keep up with friendships that would otherwise rapidly wither away. And they do something else that’s probably more important, if much less obvious: they allow us to reintegrate our networks so that, rather than having several disconnected subsets of friends, we can rebuild, albeit virtually, the kind of old rural communities where everyone knew everyone else. Welcome to the electronic village.

Robin Dunbar is a professor of evolutionary anthropology at Oxford and the author of “How Many Friends Does One Person Need? Dunbar’s Number and Other Evolutionary Quirks.”

via nytimes.com

I keep banging this drum - I do this because the "big idea" that most support is the "More Friends the better" - whereas in reality the issue is the quality of your relationship with a few and theirs with a few.

You can still reach a lot of people - if this is your goal - but via a network of real friends and real trust. Here is how a circle of 4 real friends will work:

With 8 friends who have just 4 friends - 8 is the core of intimacy - I can reach 4,000 people via a trusted route. With 34 I can reach over a million. At the extreme Limit of 144 - as described by Robin Dunbar - I can reach over 400 million!

The implications of this are significant. It means that the task of having influence is not one that is reliant on a big financial budget but on Trust.

2 – 16

3 – 82

5 – 625

8 – 4,096

13 – 28,561

34 – 1,336,336

55 – 9,150, 625

89 – 62, 742,241

144 – 429, 981, 696

Small groups of people that have legitimately earned the trust of others will have the most social power. Those who simply blast out in the old way will not.

A good example of this revolution is Boingo. Here is a link to a piece I write about who Boing uses ONE person at HQ that has developed a group of "Super Fans" as a Trusted Tribe. http://www.fastforwardblog.com/2010/09/27/boingo-part-2-using-the-power-of-th...

If you are interested in how this works - think of what you are doing - look at what Boingo is doing and at the social reality of Trust being the medium.

PS I do not work for Boingo in any way but I am a "super fan" myself

Sap or Sapiens - Taking charge of my health #paleo Part 1 - Context

This is me - a year ago. A "normal" overweight 59 year old male. 205 lbs and 5.11" My BMI is 28.6 or just under Obese at 30.

I am 60 years old. Life expectancy for a man of my time and age on PEI is 75. On Average by 65 the average of men like me will be helpless.

My own father died at 55. My mum has been an invalid since she has been 45. So the big question that I am confronting is not when I should die but will I too become a helpless invalid soon and burden my family and the state with looking after me.

The issue for me is not about death but about my life! My question is - How will I live out my last decades? Will I be getting progressively more frail or will I be healthy, active and a contributor until my end?

This question is about my health and also about my finances. 

Cancer, heart disease, diabetes, dementia are all how most of us end up. Even in Canada with the state paying - this can be crippling financially. If my mother did not have a pension from my dad I don't know how we would have coped.  In the US the costs are immediate and can ruin a family. If you are an American and you get any of these, you will end up bankrupt. 

In Canada and in the UK, when most of us are over 65, the costs of the new normal way of aging will ruin the state as well. On PEI the costs of healthcare will double in 2015 and double again to 2.4 billion in 2018. The total tax revenue from PEI's own resources is currently $600!

Now that most of us will be old, the stakes are huge - for me and for you as individuals and also for the societies that we live in.

So what to do? I and you are surrounded by fad diets and by people making their living by giving us "answers"

I have the motivation but I did not have a context for action so that I could choose a path that I could sustain. For I, like you, am a creature of habits that will be hard to break. I had to find not simply a diet but a way of life that would suit me and one that was not impossibly hard for me. I had to find a way that I could adhere too.

I had to find a context for action.

My regular readers will know that I have long espoused a return to a more Human way of life that is more akin to our Tribal Norms. I have written for a time and extensively about what this may be like. I have written also about how to grow food in a new/old way.

So one day abut 3 months ago, I got a call from a friend who wanted to introduce me to a colleague of his - Dr Michael Rose. Michael is one of the leading Evolutionary Biologists of our time and is one of the leaders in the world on the process of aging. Thus has begun one of the most formative relationships of my life.

For my bias has always been science. As many bang on about this and that in areas that I care about sich as how the Social in Social media work - I look to the science. Hence my interest in Robin Dunbar whom I have been following for many years. So my interest in parenting is not about this fad or that but in the science of how family culture affects children's development. Hence my interest in Doug Willms. So my interest in how our institutions affect the health and spirit of employees is not just a rant but based on the research of Dr Sir Michael Marmot.

What Michael Rose has opened my eyes to are these vital contextual points that are rooted in not a "How To Book" but in a lifetime of research and from a mind that is laser like. 

• Aging is not downhill all the way from our peak to the grave - that trajectory is a product of how we have bolted our modern culture onto our Paleo biology. We can halt aging. It does halt normally if we reach about 80 - but we can halt it earlier. I want to halt mine NOW!
• The diseases of modern times that cause us to age in this way and that make us so ill are a result of how our culture - Post industrial living and eating of 50 years - Farming and Settled of  7,000 years for North Europeans and much less for all else and 100 years for Natives - has violated our biology of more than 2,000,000 years. We have got too far away from whom we are!
• Diet is a very important first step in regaining our health and with a more "Human" diet, we can undo a lot of damage - modern diseases are unknown in the few remaining Hunter Gatherer societies.
• But so are other areas of how we live - How we are employed - how large the population of the place is where we live - how much sunlight, sleep we get - the strength of our tribe connections - the kind of activity we get.

In short, Michael is recommending that I and you do our best to live a Paleo or more Human life - to live again as a Sapiens and not as a Sap!

By this he does not mean return to skins and a cave. Remember at the time of the Renaissance, people also re-discovered the wisdom of the Classic Age and using this Wisdom overthrew the Dogma of the Medieval time that was based on the self interest of the governing institutions of the time - the church and the hereditary monarchies. 

This lead to a cultural change.

We too today live in a Matrix. We think that it is "Normal" that we get ill the way we do. We think it "Normal" that we look the way we do. We hope that the institutions will "Cure" us when we get these Normal Illnesses. There are powerful forces out there that do very well out of this and we think their role in our life is "Normal" too.

But then in 1500 the Universal Church, the Inquisition and Monarchies were normal too.

This new series will be my kind of 95 Theses. I am going to show you the "Observed Truth" not the fad. I will confine myself to science. Not just Michael's work but a host of other scientists, who each have a piece of the puzzle well worked out now. In my next post I will outlines the areas that I will be working in.

The greatest challenge we will have - you and I are our own beliefs and habits and the vested interests of the powerful who wish us to stay as we are. Later I will explore this too. I will explore Resistance and the Coming Inquisition. 

But for now - for you to chew on - what am I doing that is helping me fit my life closer to my paleo biology and how is this working.

Here I am aged 18 - at the peak of my life in terms of health and vitality. I weighed 140 lbs then. Check out what I looked like last year.

My plan is to get back to about 165 lbs. Most important to lose my tummy fat. I am now at 185 lbs so I have lost 20 lbs already. Imagine carrying a back pack with 20 lbs of books around all day. At 165 lbs I will have lost 40 lbs. You try  carrying 40 lbs around all the time - you probably do!

So that is my goal - what am I doing? I am trying to be Human again. Trying to match the life that I am designed to live by my evolution. I am doing my best to mirror the following:

Food and Diet - In our Paleo past - all 2 million years of it - we ate mainly meat, insects, nuts, fish and leaf and root veggies. We have been cooking for at least 2 million years. We did not mainly eat Raw food. Nor did we only eat veggies and plants. Our brain development was powered by meat. (I know that many will be upset to hear this and in later posts I will make the link to the science)

Der Spiegel

I come from Northern European stock. My genes are the most adapted to dairy and grain. But we lose this adaptation by our middle years. If you are of African descent, you have no adaptation to this. Most of you are lactose intolerant. If you are Asian - dairy is out! If you are a Native American or Canadian - you were eating a traditional diet only 100 years ago and you have no tolerance for any modern food - least of all for the very worst modern foods - sugar and high fructose corn syrup.

No one!!!! Is adapted to the Agribusiness Diet. Look at the global obesity and diabetes epidemic that has taken off since the 1980's.

If you are a Native - the answers are in your traditional culture - what an opportunity to go home for you.

Lot's more to say here later - for of course the Food Pyramid is wrong. Wonder why? Also need to help you with "a calorie is not a calorie issue" - we are not a simple machine and different foods get dealt with in different ways. Controlling calories and attempting to burn them off is too simplistic an idea.

Nor is this about sacrifice - if it was no one could do it. 

Am I hungry? Not at all. One of the interesting things about giving up grains is that mow my Leptin works - this is what tells me and you when you are full. Sugar kills this off. As soon as I have had enough, I get told. I am never hungry.

Sleep - Hunter Gatherers lived by the Sun. They sat around the fire at night but got up with the Sun. Dreams are a key part of how they process issues. How much sleep do you get? Most of us are deprived and sleep has all sorts of healing properties - it also enables you to process complex problems. I get at least 8 hours a night and I wake to the sun. My window faces East. 

Work - Of course when you get up in the morning is connected to how you work. If you have a "job" you usually use clock time. If you commute - it is even worse. If you have kids - it's even worse! But our real normal is to work in a tribal setting not in the setting of the "Man". So work is task based and the work part of the day is punctuated with long periods of social or rest time. Daycare is your eldest daughter or sister. Work made up about 25% of the day. It probably does for you too - the rest is in meetings or commuting. Can you do any work at work anyway?

I have been self employed for 15 years and I get up when I want to. My commute is 8 steps. I go to bed when I am tired and get up with the light. In summer that is very early. In winter it is late.

Exercise and Daylight - When have you seen a ripped Hunter Gatherer? When have you seen them exert themselves except for a reason? This is the bit I like! We are designed by our biology to be active. That is to be moving around a lot and to carry loads. The word here is ACTIVE not exercise. Walk - carry wood - carry babies - carry food. Have stairs and use them. Stand a lot.

Be outside a lot. Most of us who live in the North are very deficient in Vitamin D - the best place to get it is outside in the sun. 

Have a Tribe - Then worst thing that could happen to a Paleo person was to be shunned, expelled or to be without her tribe. We are designed  to be part of a small group of people that we would die for. Many today have barely a parent. I have my web tribe that is very small but where the feelings of trust and love are high and I have an active extended family that increasingly looks after each other in very tangible ways. 

The worst thing that can happen to your health is to lose a loved spouse or to have a major  break with a sibling. These kind of social events can kill you.

Live in Small Groups - Most of the infectious diseases of our time come from concentrations of people and animals. We are designed to live in small communities where we "Know" most people. We are intensely social with all sorts of social tools that keep us informed as to what is really going on. When we live in big places we shut all of this down to protect ourselves from the noise. We switch off most of our feedback mechanism and so get "lost' - we tend to disappear into ourselves. This is the root of so much dysfunction and depression.

I live on PEI - total pop 140,000. We all know everyone! The big city is 35,000 this size of Athens of Socrates and London of Elizabeth 1st. 

Mission - A Tribe has a compelling mission that all adults are prepared to die for. The kids must survive and have their time as the leaders of the Tribe. This is no faux corporate mission - this is the reality of all existence and we have largely forgotten it. It can be a larger mission that includes all the kids in your city or state or province. 

At 60 my own kids are important but now so are all kids. I am devoted to doing my best to give them a better chance - for it is me and our generation that has used up so much of the planet just for us and that has given them shit for a future.

Having a mission gives the later years of my life a purpose and with a purpose a reason to stay vital and active.

So my dear readers - this is the thesis.

Over the next few weeks I will delve into every part of this and introduce you to the Scientists and to their work - Any of the points that I have made now that are odd - seem wrong etc I will expand on. 

I am not saying that you have to do anything. I will talk about what I have done and will do. My point is to show you that what I am doing is possible - I have done it or I am doing it.

All I am doing is also rooted in science. I am not trying to sell anything. But if you want to take charge of your health - please pile in.

Oh and PS - Alcohol - Very early in our history - Thank God!

Robin Dunbar Ends the Stupidity of Endless “Friends”:

I saw another piece of stupidity the other day when a “Social Media Expert” claimed that his thousands of friends on Facebook and Twitter made him such an expert and that he could teach you how to have that many friends as well. In other words that having lots of Friends was the goal!

Of course people like him make these claims based on nothing.

A few of us do read and those of us who do have long known of the work of Robin Dunbar. Those who care to do some work, know that there is a lot of science that underpins how humans live in social groups and that there is an underlying math that is well known.

So for those that don’t have time to read here he is in 16 minutes on Youtube offering you the science that shows why:

• Our social personal limit is about 150 people
• How this came about
• That we have layers of intimacy inside this limit
• That there are layers beyond it but that are not intimate
• That meeting face to face – is crucial to maintaining these relationships and that they degrade if not enhanced with face to face
• That men and women use two very different types of social grooming to maintain their networks – women need to talk and men need to do
• That the folks who claim to have thousands of friends are nearly all men with poor social skills in the real world

So for all you Social Media Experts and HR professionals and Organization Design Folks here is Dunbar:

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Boingo - The Power of Strong Ties

What would it be like if your business had a sales, marketing and support force that was 1.3 million strong that you did not have to pay for? What if you could source this leverage with a tiny central force? Sounds impossible? Do you have any idea of how this could work?

Now that everyone is using Social Media – what I am seeing mainly are people who using the new tool in the old way – trying to shout above the noise – “Look at ME!” “Aren’t I cool!” “Aren’t we good!”. I am seeing a Dilbert approach – “Let’s have a Facebook site” “Let’s get on Twitter”.

Most do what most do when a new technology arrives – they apply it in the old way and so get nothing in response.

So what then is the power and leverage that you can harness by using social media well?

Boingo are on their way to finding out how to do this. Oh yes and I am one of the people that are part of this and oh yes I am not being paid and nor do I in any way work for them. I am living the theory.

So how might this work and so how might you do this too?

Boingo have a class of people that are deeply committed to the enterprise that Baochi calls her “Super fans”. They and why they are connected to Boingo and each other is the core of the leverage potential. We will meet 4 of them in this post who agreed enthusiastically to be interviewed by me. As you will see, these Super Fans are attracted first of all to Boingo by the obvious:

• The service – easy one stop access to Wifi in Airports and Hotels – is now no longer a nice to have for travellers but an essential
• The support for the service is outstanding – got a problem – you get instant personal help

But a great product is not enough. Nor is good service. What is the differentiator for Boingo is the human nature of the relationship that Boingo has with its customers. Most organizations do not allow their people to be human. Service people are often ciphers working from a script. Boingo have set up an environment where their key point of contact is a real person who is allowed to be herself.

She has a name and a face and we are all in awe and a bit in love with her. We all feel her presence watching over us. It is way more than getting her help when we can’t sign on. She watches out for us. Have a problem – A quick tweet. In minutes she is there. She is like the guy who runs the old corner store who holds your keys when you go away, keeps an eye on your kids in the street, helps you find a new roommate.

As Nuno Montegro, a customer in Portugal says – It is not what she says but how she says things that is the difference.

Nuno is like me, a customer who actively refers others to the service.

Most of Social media is all about Weak Ties – They are very useful but Weak Ties don’t get people to do much – or risk much – or commit much – that is why they are Weak – they are easy.

If you want to do something – Civil Rights in the US – you need Strong Ties. (Nice new piece by Malcolm Gladwell that explores Weak and Strong Ties in depth)

The key to attracting Strong Ties is being human. It is NOT PIMPING your product. It is instead to show that you really do care about ME. It is instead to show that you can indeed be trusted.

How do you show this? Nuno makes the point that every service and product fails at times. The key is to offer the best possible response to the inevitability of a problem. The best possible response is to know from experience that if there is a problem, you can reach a real person quickly and that they will go the distance to help you get it fixed. “I felt as if I was the only customer in the entire world when she was helping me” Bruno told me. I had the same experience.

Attracting Strong Ties is all about “Giving”.

Aaron Strout is the CMO at social media agency, Powered Inc. and is also Super Fan. “Boingo is proactive and they don’t expect a direct return – they are not selling all day – so if they want an inch, I go the mile back. It’s Karmic! I know if I have a problem that they will look after me. If people are good and do good, then good comes back. Not necessarily directly but good gets attracted back. We talk about a wide range of things that affect me not just the product – which is great too – have to have that – they listen.”

What Aaron is talking about here is a very old model for an economy that was the centre of all tribal economies – the Gift Economy. In the Gift Economy, the Big Guy is not the man who has the most stuff but the person who gives the most.

This is the power in networks – this is how Open Source Works too.

Cliff Bremmer is a programmer who works for a company called Carley Corporation that bids on government contracts to develop instructional CD base/computer based training for the US military.  ”In my spare time I help companies understand and navigate the social media spectrum in a professional yet interactive way.  The company I’m currently helping is the one my father works for called the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel“.

The Gift?

Not only is he a fan but in interacting with Boingo he has learned a lot about how to use SM media well. “If there is anything I’m proud of lately it’s that I helped the Pegasus Hotel promote their brand with the help and support of @Boingo and other companies to become one of the most popular brands in Jamaica.” Boingo is  not only helping him with his travel and Wifi but is talking with him and helping him help his dad in his business with advice and Tweet Up prizes such as free access and bag tags. The Gift in action!

He can see the flaws of how most use SM – “They are stuck in self promotion versus communication. I can see through it all – it’s all about them.”

In the Gift Economy that drives Trust and so Strong Ties, the starting point is YOU. In the non network economy the starting point is ME. No small difference!

Shelby Rogers is a flight attendant, a serving soldier (in the active reserve) and the wife of a serving soldier. Travel is her life. When she is not working, she travels. Access to Wifi has made her travel better – “I now know more than the Gate Agent does about my flights!” and it has taken away much of the loneliness that travel brings with it. Who has not been alone eating room service and watching TV in our room? “I can stay in touch with my husband on Skype and every city seems to have a friend in it.”

For Shelby, Boingo is a service that truly meets her needs. But it is how Boingo is connected to her that has transformed a pleased customer into a Super fan.

How often has your service provider taken you out to dinner? “We have even had dinner recently. I am now a walking billboard for Boingo with winking bag tags!”

So what does this mean? What are the lesson for both Boingo and for you?

• Baochi is no accident – the Boingo senior leadership have created the role and given it the space to enable someone who is naturally humane to be herself inside it. This new way of using Strong Ties to be the centre of a network is all about culture. In most cases senior leadership is too scared to let go. But if you do let go and create this safe place then the power of the network effect can be yours
• A really powerful network has to have an inner core bound by Strong Ties. This is where the leverage is. One staff person like Baochi can without too much trouble have close ties with 34 people. That gives her an outer network of 1.3 million. If she can handle the Dunbar limit of 144 that creates an opportunity of 400 million! You can see that with the right person, you can have a vast reach – provided you realize that your goal is not to have thousands of relationships but a few Strong Ones
• The secret is the math of social leverage. Many of you know about the “Dunbar Number”. Some of you know about “Magic numbers – the hierarchy of trust in human groups. If you don’t here is a quick primer.

So what now?

I think that the next stage would be this:

• At the moment all the Super Fans have a strong relationship with Baochi – I think that the best next step might be to find a way to connect them to each other
• At the  moment most of the dialogue is still about the obvious and excellent service that Boingo provides – I think that some of the work that the Super Fans could do might be to deepen the conversation – Shelby touched on this in her interview with me – What is it that being easily connected while travelling does? In her case it helped her deal with isolation and loneliness – it helped her do her job better – it kept her in touch with her husband – these are deep issues that I think connect all of us who travel a lot

As I think about networks, I think about the laws of physics. All systems have order and attractors. Some force is needed to keep systems coherent.

Think of the Sun in our own local system. It has mass that provides a gravity that holds all the planets and asteroids and stuff in a pattern. It has energy that creates life in the system. I think that any healthy human social system has to have gravity and light.

At the very centre is the “Right Space” a Trusted Space created by the leadership. In this Space, the Right Person – Right being a person who as part of her natural persona truly cares about others. Connected to her is the fuel and the mass that makes up the Sun – the Super Fans. The closer they are to the centre and the closer they are to each other – the more mass and the more energy. The more mass and energy, the larger and more healthy the network of Weak Ties that form up around the Sun.

What gets in the way is our fear about losing control.

At Disney the surface of the Brand Icon never changes but inside the mask is a person who changes all the time and so is never allowed to speak.

But in the new world we have to take off the costume and let the person inside have conversations with the public – HARD to do.

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