Disqus - Latest Comments for duncanwork

Re: Micropsychographics: Twitter Types And Retweeting

duncanwork — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 14:51:07 -0000

Hi Stowe, Tres interesting. Great that you got 300 hits in the first 15 minutes. But how will you be able to tell which hit came from which of your four styles of Tweets? Sending Direct messages to find out feels a bit like spamming. Is there another way?

Re: Dimensions of trust in connections.

duncanwork — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 13:42:07 -0000

Thanks. That's helpful. "Good fit" includes multiple factors, including: a) personal fit (including values/style/chemistry), b) viability of the recommended person's idea or venture (related to your "subject"?), c) good fit (relevance) with the target person's interests. However, for usability, I wouldn't try to parse those out as different parameters to rate -- or would do so as an option only and not as the default. Or - I would ideally test them with a large group of users.

Re: Dimensions of trust in connections.

duncanwork — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 12:09:03 -0000

Marc, thanks for the tip about trustmojo which I’ll take a look at. I just recently looked at venyo and it’s interesting.

Not taking a deep look yet, I have questions about how Venyo will make the reputation ratings meaningful and protect them from gaming, or “trust farming” – e.g., getting lots of high ratings from my friends, and rating my friends highly in return. They must be thinking about that and I see that they have a senior research and algorithm guy. Do you know anything about how the algorithms work?

Re: Dimensions of trust in connections.

duncanwork — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 12:07:47 -0000

Michael I agree with Marc that taken together your 3 dimensions are related to attention rather than trust. “The fit” is especially about attention. There are lots of people I trust whose interests may not be a perfect fit.

Personal trust (related most to your first dimension) is one of several important factors of attention. And the case of accepting a request is mostly about a decision to give someone and their ideas my attention. E.g., in Duncan Holmes’ case, even if he trusted the requester (for any number of reasons) the request still didn’t seem important enough, primarily because the relationship wasn’t strong enough yet.

But then the semantics can get messier, because you can also “trust” that something or someone will be worth your time to investigate. But in that case, the “trust” is not personal, i.e., about trusting a person; it’s a more logical or intuitive trust that X is a good course to take.

But you can also “trust” a friend or colleague’s judgment about other people and about how well they really understand your interests. So I may trust Bob’s competence and integrity, but still feel that Bob doesn’t understand what I’m doing well enough to recommend that I talk to Harry, whom I’ve never met.

So now, I’m saying a lot of obvious things. It’s complex.

Trusted referral tools like LinkedIn can benefit from some extra meta data to reduce the work involved. But if you try to get it too complex, too few will use it, and those who do use it will use it in potentially confusingly different ways. The secret is to simplify the meta data and the system for using it just enough. I am certain that it can be done and heaven and my friends know I want to try.

In general, I like Michael’s first and third sliders best for helping me decide to accept a referral. The first is about personal trust (or reputation) and the third is about fit. I didn’t completely understand the 2nd dimension, but it seems to also be about fit.

I would want to know those two things from someone forwarding a request: How well do you *know and trust* the requester, and how good a *fit* do you think this is for me. Of those two, the most important for me would be the “know and trust” part, and I would then use my own quick judgment about the fit. I would also assume that my friend wouldn’t have referred something that he thought wasn’t a good fit. And if my friend forwarded something that *wasn’t* a good fit, I would want to let him know more what I’m interested in. (I might also temporarily downgrade the attention I give to his referrals.)

Re: The organizational role of meta-networks in the great remix

duncanwork — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 12:51:04 -0000

Here are Eckhart Tolle’s quotes from A New Earth:

“One of the ways in which the ego attempts to escape the unsatisfactoriness of personal selfhood is to enlarge and strengthen its sense of self by identifying with a group – a nation, political party, corporation, institution, sect, club, gang, football team.”

“A collective ego manifests the same characteristics as the personal ego, such as the need for conflict and enemies, the need for more, the need to be right against others who are wrong, and so on.”

“A collective ego is usually more unconscious than the individuals that make up that ego. For example, … Nations not infrequently engage in behavior that would be immediately recognizable as psychopathic in an individual.”

“As the new consciousness emerges, some people will feel called upon to form groups that reflect the enlightened consciousness. These groups will not be collective egos. The individuals who make up these groups will have no need to define their identity through them. They no longer look to any form to define who they are. …there will be enough awareness in them to recognize the ego in themselves or in others as soon as it appears.”

“Enlightened collectives will fulfill an important function in the arising of the new consciousness. Just as egoic collectives pull you into unconsciousness and suffering, the enlightened collective can be a vortex for consciousness that will accelerate the planetary shift.”

Re: The organizational role of meta-networks in the great remix

duncanwork — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 12:50:06 -0000

Michael,

I think I see what you’re getting at, and so did Duncan H. It is the artificiality and hidden agendas that *some* groups and especially their leaders can have. They want to get big in order get more people agreeing with them. They want more power, prestige, and of course revenue. All of these factors can be important for getting things done; but often they become an end unto themselves, and that seems to be what you’re objecting to.

I was just reading Tolle’s “A New Earth” last night and came across his description of “collective ego” which also seems to be what your point is about. In Tolle’s vocabulary, the ego is by nature mostly unaware of itself and its main purpose is to prop itself up, or at least to survive.

I will put some of his quotes about collective egos in a separate comment. But in general, he and you are both talking about ways to tell healthy collectives apart from unhealthy collectives. An important criteria for telling if its not so healthy seems to be – is a major reason for recruitment into the group to prop up and aggrandize either personal or collective egos? Does the group have a central theme of “us vs. them”? “We are right and they are wrong.” (Or we deserve to go to heaven and they don’t.)

People naturally forms groups, and that’s great. Recruitment is important in order to get things done. We just have to be honest about why we recruit, and careful about what groups we join, and why.

Re: The organizational role of meta-networks in the great remix

duncanwork — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 12:47:26 -0000

I'm moving 2 comments over here that were mistakenly added to the previous blog. (You can maybe avoid that mistake by adding some white space at the top of your posts.)

--------------------------------------
Duncan Holmes: 10/30/08
---------------------------------------

Michael:
There is nothing wrong with recruitment - if one is being open and honest about what one is being recruited to. Often it is the hidden values and intent that holds people off from clearly explaining their purpose. For evangelical Christians it may be the intent is to get people thinking the way they do in subtle ways so they are more open to the real message later. The catholic church has done this for years. In one sense it is what society does in any schooling system although not as deliberately. Is the real question, what matrix do you want to be part of and do you get to make a self-conscious choice about being part of that matrix.

-----------------------------------------
Michael Lewkowitz 10/30/08
-----------------------------------------

Yes, and what I'm wondering is why do we need recruitment? Why do we
need to bring someone into something to achieve the goals we want. I
think this is changing in our time. Tribes will always be a part of
how we organize ourselves and there will always be the urge to pull
people in. I think though that as institutions become less dominant a
form of organization there will be less need and emphasis on active
recruitment because there will be less need to amass massive tribes.
There will be loose linkages of many tribes that will ebb and flow
with the interest of individuals. This linkages may appear as massive
tribes but there formation won't come from recruitment and their
boundaries won't be as easy to define.

So - I'm not saying 'recruitment' is bad - but rather that i think the
inclination to recruit people into something points to an
institutional mindset that is going to have decreasing effectiveness
as we move forward. To me it begs the question of what really is the
point of the institution and how can that emerge most effectively in
this rapidly evolving context.

Thanks for the dialogue... i'm find this all very helpful and am
interested in looking back at it all in a few years. :-).

Re: Exploring 'trust'

duncanwork — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:05:49 -0000

By "sales role" I think you mainly mean "persuasion". "Sales" is a term that is mostly tied to persuasion for the purpose of receiving money. Really good sales people understand that trust is essential for both current and future sales (in non-fly-by-night operations). But still, when dealing with social capital, the word "sales" doesn't ring true.

It's important for you to make a good case for an introduction that you think will be mutually valuable because many people are busy enough to not follow-up on an introduction if they don't see the purpose -- no matter how much they trust the introducer. In addition to a mutually trusted connection (and sometimes instead of that), people need logical justifications and context in order to prioritize their time. This is why, for example, LinkedIn works best when people who use it have well-completed profiles (providing context: roles, expertise, affiliations, etc.) and when they take the time to explain the purpose and mutual value of making a connection (or forwarding one).

So, yes, the person who is deciding to take an introduction is considering both of these things: How much do I trust the introducer? And how much do I trust his/her judgment about others, and about my interests?

Trust is generally the same as having confidence. You can have confidence in (trust) logic, past experiences, particular authorities, etc. Personal trust (most related to social capital and reciprocity) is about having confidence in people and their competence, integrity, and willingness to help you.

Re: Exploring 'trust'

duncanwork — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 10:39:49 -0000

Does love only arise from hate?

You could say that trust is natural, mistrust is not natural. You get born. Your parents love you. You trust them. You don't think about it; you just trust them. You learn to distrust when things go wrong. But to distrust doesn't have to mean to close off or repudiate. It can simply mean, "I need to verify."

Wise people don't 'hoard' trust, or social capital. But they aren't profligate with them either. Successful people are, of course, very careful both with how they use their time and with how they use their social capital. To use social capital wisely is to make sure that when you ask for something, the benefit will be mutual, or else you are giving back in some other way or some other times.

You could say that privacy is the flip side of trust. If I trust someone, I'm open to their messages, ideas, and requests. If I don't yet have trust in someone, I'm not that open, or not at all. So, yes, filtering is an important part of trust. That's why any good system for facilitating the exchange of trust has to include a natural way to indicate trust that is also tied into a system for controlling access to time and attention.

Re: People, this is the front desk – It’s time to WAKE UP!

duncanwork — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 12:41:53 -0000

Thanks for the wake up. Finally, the front desk is itself waking up!

What should we wake up to? Each other, which we desperately need, to get out of our messes. And our own egos, which separately have caused the messes in the first place.