INTUITION - THE NEW SCIENCE OF SOCIAL NETWORKS

As you may be aware, I conceptualized and created a South African WAP-based mobile social network, which showed significant success in its first 6 months of existence. Needless to say there were many cries for formalized metrics and analysis to show how the network was building and what the ‘profile’ of the collective was? Although reporting was easy enough, analysing how or why or what can be ‘proved’ mathematically was very challenging, in fact to me I honestly believe that results of trying to ‘prove’ any single theory of why and how this collective was operating is could only be erroneous at best.
Just recently I have been studying the science of networks, epidemics and predictive behaviour of collective groups (mob theory), I found support for my conviction that intuitive predictions as opposed to scientific ones are in fact more realistic. It might explain how all the successful social networks e.g. facebook and MXIT are often surprised to see the level of success that they do!
“While knowing the rules that govern the behaviour of individuals do not necessarily help us to predict the behaviour of the mob, we may be able to predict the very same mob behaviour without knowing very much at all about the unique personalities and characteristics of the individuals that make it up.” Duncan J Watts (Six Degrees: the Science of a connected Age)
I could be quite detailed about how I went about implementing and deciding which marketing/features/direction to take with my project, but the bottom line was that no matter what other stakeholders believed (all of which were never hands on in the project), I responded directly to what users were expressing and used what I ‘felt’ about this collective group to lend creativity and intuition to my decisions. Happily I can claim to have had great success although sometimes to my own expense: my boss’s lack of approval of my somewhat unconstructed approach to the metrics.

Investigation into the topic shows that whatever we can come to know about the network structure or social structure both of which tells us about individuals and their connectivity or membership to groups of common interests, it is in fact the dynamics between these individuals and the resulting interaction which can give us insight or some understanding to successful networks. How does one measure this?! Not with graphs or empirical information but rather with a more ethereal ‘science’ like emotional intelligence or intuition. We are required to apply the gut feel rather than some measured science that in any case is a representation of a time and space long passed (at least in digital time).
The moving target that is a network supported by technologies accelerating the efforts of communication and sharing are without a doubt the most formidable we’ve ever seen. Technologically based networks, like epidemics and fads, can evolve from little interaction and seemingly stagnant spaces into monsters in a short space of time. They can of course reverse that trend just as quickly and this is the challenge for social networks trying to link business success to them.
The complexity and varying dynamics of the individual member’s interrelationships is the chasm of knowledge and science where answers to managing networks might lie. One such sociologist, Mark Granovetter introduced a concept called ‘weak tie’, which showed how some of the most significant interactions in a network did not come from dense groups of strong ties, but rather from individuals who did not know each other, but had much in common. “He called this effect ‘the strength of weak ties’ a beautiful and elegant phrase that has since entered the lexicon of sociology” Duncan J Watts.
Our innate ‘knowledge’ of things sociologically and psychologically related are what I believe give any shareholder of a social network the edge on developing a good social network, if we believe that such a management element exists.
Reading Duncan J Watts’ book “Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age has added to my understanding of the challenges that face stakeholders of networks. The sheer scale of variables and unpredictability of kinds of interaction between individuals in the collective is mind-blowing. The true possibility lies in being able to move, evolve with your social network, living as a member of the collective. To direct this phenomenon centrally and from above is seen in social networks originating in large corporate as opposed to start-up network. Marketers and development teams should be able to fluidly progress through the mire of options and apply what they ‘feel’ will add value, rather than what they think they ‘know for sure’.