How Do You Create a Movement?

Assuming your idea has the potential that is.

The science behind social networks is not only intriguing from how we look at relationships but also how we consider the way ideas are spread...and conceivably how a "movement" that has its basis in an idea would be created.

Consider this simple social network you have and that you have an idea that you want to see turn into a dynamic movement that perpetuates itself across multiple social groups.

*Click image to open up interactive network

Simple enough to where YOU can relate to having this many friendships and that maybe some of your friends know each other.

If your friends are like mine then they have friends, some of them you don't know and although there's a greater chance you will meet them since you are friends with their friend, you don't know them now.  This dynamic of having a common relationship of some kind in common with someone else is known as a "degree of separation" between you and that person.  So in the network above we would say that Mike (because he is friends with you) has one degree of separation between John and Jane.

There is a theory in Social Network Science called "Small-World Theory".  The theory suggests that human society can be characterized by a network of people.  This may be more familiar to some with the theory of "Six degrees of separation", which basically says that human society can be six or few degrees of separation away by way of introduction.  Let's look at another graph and eventually show how this would play out in an idea being communicated to people we would have no way of knowing except by the randomness of relationship of someone we know who knows someone, who knows someone....

Let's consider the kind of idea that would create a movement spreading through relationships.  With the internet today I think many would argue that ideas with the potential of creating a movement could be spread electronically via social media, email, etc.  Let's just assume it takes personal interaction to spread an idea that's going to be cogent enough to create a movement (which could be argued just not here, not now).  Suppose I share this idea with Jane and John and they don't really care.  But I share it with Mike and he tells three of his friends.  Mary (one of Mike's friends) shares this idea with  many of her friends.  

*Click image to open up interactive network

So the idea that you were wanting to share has now been heard by a totally different group, all of whom you do not know.  Now consider Mary's friends.  This opens up an even larger network for this idea to communicated with their friends.  However, one of Mary's friend who is only an acquaintance to her has access to even more people than Mary.  Another question arises which is the strength of these connections.  Does the movement of an idea rely on the perceived strength of connections that Mary has to all her network or can the "weak" connections (those maybe that she doesn't value or people she doesn't think are going to give momentum to this idea) be beneficial to the spread of this idea?  Not all relationships are equal, but the communication of an idea is.  Consequently, Mary may open up more people who could take hold of this idea and create a movement from a weak connection...say Roselia.

*Click image to open up interactive network

Now Roselia also had a weak connection that she shared this idea with who happened to have just as many connections that he shared this idea.  You can see how a movement (at least what we will call one) can begin from YOU only having a few people who share your idea.  The spread of an idea into a movement however unlikely it is perceived, is countered by the potential relationships of those with whom it is shared.  So starting a movement starts with sharing ideas with a few people who are willing to share, who are willing to share, who are willing to share...

Interactive Simple Networks

This post isn't anything new in terms of analysis, but just a cooler look at a previous post.  I looked at board members of large companies in a previous blog post and showed via a simple network how they share board members and provided some commentary about that in terms of how board membership represents desired influence in markets.

Below is an image of those boards and companies that is linked to an interactive network (really just moves around using the very cool networkD3 package in R) that is bit more fun that static network images.

You can click the nodes to highlight what they are and you can move them around.  For analysis purposes, not necessarily breakthrough, but the visualization is very cool.

  

Networks and Boardmembers

To start, this is a short basic exercise in social networks.

I’m not sure what being on a board of a large company entails.  In general I get the sense that you have some responsibility in how the company runs and maybe where it’s going.  I’m sure each board is different and the members have varying degrees of responsibility.  I recently saw an image of a network showing the involvement of board members in different companies.  Not sure if companies have rules on being on multiple boards but it seems that at least some don’t.  This image shows different companies and their common board members ~mid 2009.

Image from the book "Networks, Crowds, and Markets:  Reasoning About a Highly Connected World"

As you can see many companies utilize and probably think it advantageous to have a member from another company who may or may not have a common product.  Really with all these companies we’re not necessarily talking about specific products anymore.  When you become as large as these companies are, you probably think in terms of influence .  Which is why the associations of board members becomes more interesting, because the scale these people have to think on.  My thought is that perhaps the direction of influence is perhaps guided by board members in the same way product offerings would be guided by certain talent acquisition.  Here is a network of 8 companies and their board members that at least in the US (and really worldwide) are top level “influencers” (and happen to be some of the largest companies from a revenue perspective as well).  Companies as yellow vertices and board members as white vertices, with arrows indicating board affiliation of the person(s).

You’ll notice that less so than with the 2009 network, there are board members that sit on the boards of other companies in the network.  Does this say anything about those companies' strategy of influence or communicate maybe a change with their strategy when compared with 2009?  We can color the different companies based on their board members and perhaps infer on the strategic influence these companies want at least from their board members*.

Disney shares members with social media giants and Apple.  Exxon with Walmart, while Amazon and Google share with none of these (a shift from 2009).  In some ways we could view some of these companies as competitors not because of their product offering but because of the influence they want.  Which begs the question, does Amazon or Google want strategic influence/input from these other companies or do they see affiliations which were once (in 2009) helpful as now unhelpful associations?  Maybe we’re inferring too much.  Even still, the expansion of Disney recently (and previously) into multiple acquisitions does indicate that the desire to influence across multiple markets is definitely a goal.  Alternatively Apple, Facebook, and Twitter see individuals on Disney’s board as helpful for their own goals (maybe).  Either way, the board member sharing between these 4 companies is interesting not because of the fact they share board members but more so because they all have SO much influence over our social media, entertainment, and technology.  Wal-Mart and Exxon having a common member (largest company, largest energy company) may have more to do with what Mr. Reinemund brings to the table than with strategic expansion...I infer too much perhaps.

In general realizing the sharing of influential people was for me kind of sobering and remarkable in that few people can probably take on roles like these and yet these roles have so much power:  shaping the social, entertainment, and technological world.


*As a side note there are few people who can make decisions on the level of these companies so finding board members who can think like this in and of itself is probably just difficult.  So the fact that these companies share board members could be more of a function of the “pool” of individuals they have to choose from rather than directions or influence they want.  Also, board members may not really be considered agents of the companies on whose boards they sit, but just smart people that are desirable to have influence in a particular company.  The former is just an idea that makes this whole exercise more interesting.

Networks and Their Importance

This is the first of hopefully more posts on social networks and how important they can be potentially to retrieve information about people.  The post that got me interested in networks themselves was a fictitious story of the government using social network analysis (SNA) to find Paul Revere.  It essentially shows how by knowing the memberships people have in certain groups we can infer as to peoples' relational connections (with each other) and amid these connections who would be a person that would be either influential in certain groups or across groups (hopefully that made sense).

Below is an excerpt from the blog post (link below):

"The analysis in this report is based on information gathered by our field agent Mr David Hackett Fischer and published in an Appendix to his lengthy report to the government. As you may be aware, Mr Fischer is an expert and respected field Agent with a broad and deep knowledge of the colonies. I, on the other hand, have made my way from Ireland with just a little quantitative training—I placed several hundred rungs below the Senior Wrangler during my time at Cambridge—and I am presently employed as a junior analytical scribe at ye olde National Security Administration. Sorry, I mean the Royal Security Administration. And I should emphasize again that I know nothing of current affairs in the colonies. However, our current Eighteenth Century beta of PRISM has been used to collect and analyze information on more than two hundred and sixty persons (of varying degrees of suspicion) belonging variously to seven different organizations in the Boston area."

Full Post on Using SNA to find Paul Revere

For those not interested in the numbers particularly but just in a humorous yet realistic use of SNA this blog post is worth a read.  It also provide a sobering/realistic perspective on how our digital trails could be used to find our associations (hopefully you read that without suspecting me to be too paranoid).  Understanding networks can be a powerful tool in somewhat understanding people without actually knowing them.  This may have been what Donald Rumsfeld was talking about when he mentioned "known unknowns".