The Value of Shared Information
A few weeks ago I pointed out a study that explained, “groups tend to spend most of their time discussing the information shared by members, which is therefore redundant, rather than discussing information known only to one or a minority of members.”
Today I ran across some research on how celebrities stay popular for so long that sheds further light on the subject. Essentially people talk about more famous people more because it’s a social lubricant to have a shared topic, therefore making the famous more famous.
I’ve been spending some time thinking about how you break this cycle. Especially at work, it’s important to share ideas that everyone doesn’t know about yet as they may hold information that could push things forward in new ways. No answers yet, but it’s interesting to think about.
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A technique I’ve found to work borrows heavily from this year’s big C, community organization. A bit of legwork ahead of time spent introducing novelty one-on-one to individual members or small subgroups means that when the group eventually gets together, you’re dealing with ideas that are already shared and familiar. No ones likes to be the deer in the headlights faced with a new and potentially challenging idea in the heat of the moment, but they do like to have been consulted and familiarized ahead of time. Groups change from avenues of information transmission to post-transmission consensus establishment.
It’s not about breaking the cycle. The cycle is at least as old as human society. It’s about tacking information you want distributed as free riders on to the redundant popular topics. It’s why celebrity endorsements work.
Get TheRealShaq to tweet about your stuff. Or put someone your staff reveres in front of them asking them to open their minds.
Two things occur to me reading reading this. One is the conditions under which conversations become generative. The second is the intent/purpose of the conversation itself.
Purpose is important, or rather alignment on it is. It’s no good you trying to push the conversation into new territory if I think we are rapport building. If we aren’t on the same page or the conversation feels like it is being manipulated then game over.
Finding common ground is a way of building rapport and establishing trust. And a certain amount of trust and safety if groups are going to discuss topics which are not shared. There is a natural rythym of convergence and divergence. Diverge too quickly and conversations shut down. Raising something in a group which may be outside conversational norms or that brings more focus on an idividual carries a degree of risk (in my experience the underlying fear is being ostricised). If divergence doesn’t happen then the conversations are pretty boring!
I think the key think is having group members slow down and *really* listen. This automatically draws people in.
Once it does occur, which generally involves someone taking a risk… then the key principle to having it be generative is something like the old improv standard “everything is an offer”.
At our company we go back to the tried and tested “show and tell”. We organise monthly meetings and everyone shares something they’ve found or know. It’s really successful for a smaller company.
@Scott: Fair enough, but what happens in lieu of that? How do you get people to open their minds without Shaq?
@Michael: Good point, I could see how that could work.
Also, I think a bit of uncomfortable reminding can help. Breaking up a conversation/meeting with something that sets people a bit on edge can reframe the conversation in just the right way.
@Andy: Really good point and I love the improv thing. Hadn’t connected this to some of my thoughts on brainstorming, but it has a lot of parallels.
I couldn’t agree more with Andy’s thoughts. In schools, where all too often, administrators make decisions that teachers have to implement, trust — in both directions — is the only viable route to improvement. As Andy says, that can take time — which sometimes feels like time wasted, but it’s not. It can be difficult to remember that most people have been carefully trained (at home and in school) to avoid failure at all costs. For them, there’s ‘safety’ in the tried and true. A good facilitator can help a lot. Modeling *real* listening, providing thoughtful feedback and asking non-threatening questions help develop *real* safety — with room for generative vs. just adaptive change.
@Noah The comments have illuminated that you mixed two problems. I was referring solely to large groups. In that case, piggybacking an accepted meme (celebrity or otherwise) is the way it works. nothing happens in lieu of that. it’s not a technology issue which you could, and i’d encourage you to, undermine. it’s a brain wiring issue, and you aren’t Dr. Frankenstein.
For smaller groups, Natasha, Michal, and Barbara’s paths are all valid as are a few more depending on the very specific goals.
You invited both questions.
How about breaking this cycle by empowering people so they talk about themselves using shared interests – empowering the social networks. The more I know about my social circle due to tools that enables this the more we share and can talk about our common interests and “identity signals”. What is the trend amongst teens around the world at the moment? They know our generation are fed up with belonging to a world of disconnectedness and have chosen a digital world where the most important thing is not to be right but to just be there. Maybe the new generation is bringing the connectedness back again in the physical space; http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/28/style/28hugs.html
This is probably a generation that does not recognize any difference between “real life” and “digital life” and use the tools available at the moment that enrichen and empowers their social identity, giving them social grooming content – thus placing themselves and their friends as the centerpiece of conversations.
Kind of what we are doing know, due to me finding this artcle trhough twitter / RSS reader – and you using a blog. Feels a whole lot better than commenting on Paris Hilton…
The first part of this made me smile. I remember in school saying “who saw that thing on TV last night?? – It was amazing!” But rather then tell the amazing details to someone eager to hear it, I would simply re-share the moment with someone that had seen it.
It was just an excuse to be social.
Also — this topic sprung to mind a while ago when I went to a conference. Everything that was spoken about was incredibly familiar to me and everyone else, because between conferences, ideas are shared iteratively and regularly online.
It made me think what it must have been like a hundred years ago when thinkers would get together (after having little or no contact for months) and share completely new ideas. I think it’s a shame that we rarely get to appreciate leaps of progress in the same way.
(sorry if I went a bit off topic then)