The Growing Influence of Social Networks

The World Economic Forum will explore the growing influence of social networks in a workshop at the start of the Annual Meeting 2010 in Davos. The discussion is moderated by Loïc Le Meur, Founder of Seesmic and will include, among others Gina Bianchini, CEO, Ning, George Colony, CEO, Forrester Research, Don Tapscott, NGenera, Reid Hoffman, Founder, LinkedIn, Owen Van Natta CEO, MySpace.com and Evan Williams, CEO, Twitter.

Given the topic of the workshop it was natural to open it to input from the different social networks. We want to hear from you:

 

1.   “How are social networks changing society?”

2.   “What are the most important implications and risks for society?”

3.   “What should individuals and institutions do to leverage the power of social networks and improve society?”

 

You can reply on a umber of social networks and platforms.

1)       Leave a comment here on the Forum blog

2)       Become a Fan of the Forum on Facebook

3)       Join the Forum group on LinkedIn

4)       Befriend the Forum on MySpace

5)       Join the Forum network on Ning

6)       Reply to @Davos on Twitter

7)       Record and upload a video on YouTube (See Loic's appeal below)

For all posts and questions please use the special hashtag #DavosSocial.

 

We are looking forward to hearing from you. A selection of the best comments and video contributions will be incorporated in the discussion at the workshop. You can follow the session live on Wednesday 27 January from 09.00 - 11.00 CET on Livestream. Sorry no livestream in that room but it will be available on YouTube afterwards 

Comments

[Dror Orbach]

1. “How are social networks changing society?”

Without belaboring previous points, I think the key change lies in highly increased accessibility people, information and views - both in real-time and in a non real-time but fairly up-to-date fashion. Social Networking gives people the opportunity to locate others with shared interest and connect with them, find new sources of information, publish their work and opinions, help others, reconnect with family and old friends, sell their wares, etc. etc. I've found the ability to discover what's going on amazing, and I've found some real-time discussions about ideas, products and other topics quite amazing.

2. “What are the most important implications and risks for society?”
I think there are both great opportunities and huge risks in social networking, similarly to what has occurred with other extremely useful capabilities and technologies that have emerged and gained popularity in society. I am particularly interested in the issues of openness / transparency, privacy and trust. While those using social networks have gained the opportunity and ability to influence many more people than before - the values they live by and their behavior patterns are just the same. In my opinion this implies that those who seek to abuse others and take advantage of them (or those with other negative motivations) have an easier time now that they can use social networks to their advantage. Society will have to find better ways to mitigate these risks. I believe - in spite of my bias against the idea of a "big brother" - that we will be forced to have much better global personal identification capabilities to enable people to present a credible identity. This will enable society to force people to bear the consequences of misuse of their own or others' identities online. It will enable the users of social networks to be more comfortable in the knowledge that a reputable entity has verified the identity of whoever they're talking to online. Personally, I think there's no way to avoid this, and I'm willing to pay the price for this extra security.

3. “What should individuals and institutions do to leverage the power of social networks and improve society?”

I think this starts with listening and responding. From a technical / operational perspective, it requires us to find a way to fit these new capabilities into our regular routine. As individuals - not to let it dominate our lives at the expense of all else. As organizations - to integrate social networking into our regular work processes and tools.

[anonymous]

Why should we care about what you have to say? What makes you any more expert than the average internet user?

[Antoine Verdon]

It would be great to focus not just on social networks, but also on the greater implication that these networks have on society and our behavior at large.

At Sandbox (a global community of hand-selected young leaders under 30) we have made two observations which we believe could be valuable for the participants in Davos and beyond:

1) In the few years since starting to use the internet and even fewer years since using social networks we have not only started to use new tools, but have actually changed our behavior for good: we work, live, think more connectedly. This change in attitude has been reflected in new websites (social networks for example), but very often not in organizational structures. How do we build companies that reflect the values of social networks, like transparency, trust, collaboration, etc?

We have just published a short input on what we call "Social Business Design" which can be found on our site www.sandbox-network.com

2) In our opinion human beings just start now to really leverage the networks that have been built in the last few years. While most of the Social Networks were focused on entertainment and/or career reasons, now people find more and more use cases that have positive social impact (example: breast cancer campaign) or that really pay off in their normal lives (examples might include crowd-funder www.kickstarter.com or group discount buyer www.groupon.com). Where is this going to lead?

[Bruno Aziza]

My question is:

"Do you think that social media helps people and companies become more honest?"

More on why I think the answer is "yes" in this short video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdSYe7DsCs4

Best,
Bruno Aziza
Co-author, Drive Business Performance
Twitter @ brunoaziza
Facebook @ http://tinyurl.com/ykcwkap

[M. Thorner]

Social Media is a trend.

Consumers, customers, users, endusers and their money are hunted by marketing 1.0

Women, men, kids, friends, groups, teams have ideas, wishes, problems which are in the center of marketing 2.0

Please tell Davos that money is not our god. Tell them that the voices of individuals are starting to link their ideas and feelings which social media. Leave us talking in freedom and stop thinking on how to profit from our communication.

[AnnOtooleInSL]

Nobody elected any of you. The final outcome will not be pretty.

[social network design]

In the present time the social networking site has greater influence in our life.

[Adrian Grabicki]

To hear more about the growing influence of social networks, check out the coverage of the "Communication: Changing the Rules of the Game" panel and the Global Competitiveness Forum. Updates will be on the blog at http://www.gcftalk.com/ Join the debate!

[Denise Silber]

Davos is the meeting of the world's economic leaders and decisionmakers. But the poles of power are shifting from traditional to untraditional. In keeping with this, social media are dominating the internet and it is no longer sufficient for political and business leaders to talk with one another in a vacuum. So, from one first panel at this meeting, social media must quickly become a major force at Davos.

My area of involvement is the application of Web 2.0 techniques to Health Care: online communities of patients, professionals and both together; tools including vertical search in healthcare, personal health records, online medical consultation and others.

Co-organizer of the first Health 2.0 Europe event coming up on April 6-7 in Paris, we are getting tremendous reception in Europe about the conference which will feature demonstrations from 10 European countries + the US and commentary from patients, professionals, government, hospitals, payers, industry.

We hope you will attend.

Please see http://www.health2con.com/paris2010 re the conference and a brief video called "communicate" (health and the internet) http://en.basilstrategies.com/videos/videos.php

[Sajid Sufeen]

In the ever evolving digital world socail networks have already begun to shape the society. Malayalam Friend and Family Join This site.

[Artie O'Connor]

This strikes a familiar chord for me.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/education/20wired.html?em

[Artie O'Connor]

“How are social networks changing society?”
“What are the most important implications and risks for society?”

People are social animals, and well the fact is that teenagers are people. As a teacher and principal for several years in a middle school I observed and had to deal with a significant level of cyber-bullying. Most often MySpace related. Social networking, while I actively engage in it, and supervise a Ning for my current students, has a dark side and therefore a teachable side.

I fully believe in utilizing web 2.0 and have spent time incorporating it into the classroom instruction. We have a laptop cart and routinely use the computers. I spend a fair amount of time in “Big Brother” mode remotely observing what they are doing during there “assigned work” online. Nearly one third of my students in every class will attempt to use a proxy server to access their MySpace and/or Facebook account at some point during the first two weeks of the term. Teens and adolescents being who they are, I understand there intense desire to be in the know.

My daughter is in currently college and she uses at least two social networks that I am aware of, for communicating plans with friends, and after class for opening or continuing discussions. She grew up on the front side of social networking. It is a normal and routine part of her life. She uses her smartphone like I use my left hand. It’s convenient in that I can access when I need it, I never leave it at home and I can’t imagine life without it.

As adults most of us understand etiquette and how to appropriately respond to posts made by others. We have the internal mechanisms to control our impulses, and have learned how to ask questions for clarification, rather than cut some off at the knees when they post information we disagree with and to resist the urge just want to make someone look foolish. My concern is more in reaching out to the “tweeners,” those young adolescents that are socially aware, but view the social networking as just that, a social thing.

I just recently re-connected with a friend form high school, I am fifty-one years old, as a gentleman I cannot divulge her age. We sat in a booth at a local pub with a mutual friend. After an hour or so of catching up, I noticed that she would check her phone, for what appeared every five minutes or so. It was amazing, sort Pavlovian in response. At one point I sensed she was seemingly unaware of her actions. That evening at home I logged onto my Facebook account and noticed that she had posted a couple of comments while sitting there in the company of two real life, air breathing people; friends, and she was posting to social network, engaged in an alternate discussion.
My concern is where it, the social part of networking, impinges upon the social face to face, real time interactions part of our lives? It was once considered rude and disrespectful if you turned you eyes away from a person you were conversing with, now it appear that that social network interaction is taking precedence over human contact. That some are more concerned with what is occurring at a distance or cyberly, than being able to interact face to face and maintain contact with a living, breathing human.

[Cheryl Cooper]

Social Networks enable direct partnerships between individuals around the world that were never possible before... and then miracles start to happen.
Last year I met a number of Africans, Americans and Nepalese who are using social networks and social media to connect with each other and support life-changing projects in Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Nepal e.g. EpicChange.org It's hard to imagine this happening without social networks or by only relying on large NGOs....

[Lee Wilde]

1. “How are social networks changing society?”

Social networks are giving everyone a voice.

2. “What are the most important implications and risks for society?”

The risk is that important messages will be lost amongst the cacophony of everyone talking at once.

3. “What should individuals and institutions do to leverage the power of social networks and improve society?”

Individuals ought to be more mindful of how they use their time online. Unfortunately it seems social networks provide license to indulge in a second childhood. People are drowning under the weight of too much information and many are "turning off" and escaping into online games and virtual worlds.

Institutions could make better use of social networks by organising more real-world events, encouraging online followers to show up and participate in change physically.

Social networks need to be put back in their place, as an aid to life and not an alternative to having a real life.

[Deborah Jackson]

You need other human beings for your survival and for your growth. And we all need one another to recognize, value and act authentically on this powerful fact. It can be said that we are one another’s salvation.

I challenge myself to help create the conditions that allow anyone who is wanting to come together with others to be able to do so in unprecedented numbers and purposefulness.
Let the lonely feel part of the “we” and the let the busy feel the peace in the “we” and let the critically intelligent feel valued for their heart and let the unwise know the unconditionality of their peers, let the powerful know humility, let the illiterate know safety, let the privileged lost find a calling, let us all find the common threads of our humanity and stir the glowing embers of our uniqueness. This we can do when we come together. This is something I know for sure. This is something that can bring us the end of war. This is something that can educate us all. This is something that can help us better understand life and all that we yet do not collectively know about life before conception, during gestation, during the drama of our lifetime and then what happens after. Yes! I believe that our coming together will bring about the understanding of the answers to our greatest questions. This is something that can bring us greater happiness, and allow us all to survive and thrive. The “we” is an unimaginably powerful thing not just in how the power of many can make changes to society but in how the power of interpersonal coming together intentionally, openly, honestly, creatively, lovingly, arguably, with interest, inquisitiveness, and gusto can change an individual in ways that virtually nothing else can. To change a law, to change a mindset, a habit, or a complex system is very difficult, but to change a person from the inside out utterly impossible, without others. This type of change and growth is not only exciting, awe inspiring and addicting for the individual, it makes the hard task of changing social systems less difficult and I posit that it is exactly what we need, want, crave, deserve, and are very ready for.
The tools need to amplify what we already know about leadership and groups not throw out the old (proven facts of human interaction). Social networking tools can make more efficient all the proven successes of interpersonal and group interaction…I have my ideas and I’m just beginning to generate momentum around them. I’ll talk w/anyone who wants to work beyond ego to build next generation technology and systems.

[Cameron Sinclair]

Last year, on the social media panel, I told a story of how we used Twitter and SMS to manage and run the reconstruction effort in Burma after Cyclone Nargis.

When NGO's and aid agencies use networks properly and not just 'raise awareness of a cause' then impact happens.

I'll see y'all in Davos.

[fossildotty]

Some social networking sides are more effective than others and of course the interactivity between individuals is more or less limited. It depends very much on what the definiton of social networking is? Whilst there are endless possibilities to how they may be used there are also endless possibilities how they may be abused by minority influences and indoctrination. Safeguards whilst in place artificially will not wholly undermine subversive or indecent acitivities by individuals. Gross censorship on the other hand will be perceived as an intrusion into civil liberties.
On the plus side if chosen carefully and used with some common sense there is a lot be gained from linking up with like minds or finding out the latest news before it hits the morning paper. I think the greatest gain is that it allows people to express their opinions more openly and participate in worldwide forums.

Of course the biggest gain is to the business world, who now have the means of targeting specific market segments more accurately and directly as is the case with facebook.

[John Earnhardt]

Matthias, we're excited that Flip videos will be used to help capture some of the thoughts of this prestigious panel. We are biased, of course, but we think that the Flip video camera is a great tool for communicating socially because of its high-quality video and extreme ease of use. Many people take video, but it took the Flip to make it simple to upload and share. More info on the Flip at http://www.theflip.com

[Landie Chappell]

The internet alone has brought people of the world together - now the social networks bring us even closer. These social networks are tools to be used to share ideas, motivate one another, and to stay informed on global events.

[Brian Reich]

I am excited to hear that the Forum will take up the =power of social networks in our society. The potential is great, but I believe most conversations about this topics are not properly focused. For the conversation to be truly valuable, I suggest two things:

1) You have assembled an incredible group for the discussion, but none of them reflect the audience of people around the globe that is using social networks most widely - particularly in the context of social action and serious issues. Research about and experiences from serving in leadership positions at companies that have successfully built online communities is not the same thing as getting first-hand knowledge and experience from the people who have made social networks a part of their lives. Where is the audience in this discussion? Who is asking the teenagers that are online all the time what they are doing, and more importantly why? Who is looking at the person who organized a relief effort in response to the earthquake in Haiti - the first time they have taken any kind of action - and asking them what they want to see addressed in the world (and how they will use their social networks, online and offline, to help achieve that). Its easy to find the people who have had massive success. I would argue its equally, if not more, important to consider what the smaller, individual actors are doing and finding a way to listen to what they have to say.

2) I believe we have barely scratched the surface of what is possible in terms of using technology and the internet, and social networks broadly, to address critical issues facing our society. Too much of the discussion is focused on the social networks themselves, and not what they might be used for. Too often we focus on the size or level of activity that a social network produces without consideration for whether those efforts were focused, or had an impact. Because we can use the tools that are now widely available online to conduct campaigns, send notices, and raise awareness of issues — more efficiently and cost effectively than ever before — I think we have lost sight of what motivates people to act, and how success should be measured in the context or organizing people to act in response to causes. We’ve settled for low open rates and dollars raised (and names on an email list, or friends, wall posts, and followers) as metrics of true progrress instead of demanding more from our leaders and ourselves and working harder to make things happen.

We are having some of this discussion now at www.CauseShift.com and you will see much more in the coming weeks and months as people start to analyze what happened in response to Haiti and how we could have improved every aspect of the response if we had been thinking about it differently than in the past.

This can be a great discussion, and the Forum's focus is much needed and appreciated. Still, I hope you will consider how you focus the conversation and include the appropriate voices to achieve the desired understandin and outcomes.