Faster Future: Possibilities now and beyond

The monkey in the machine

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 10:46:00 +0000

Here's another chance to see the marvellous Mark Earls (@herdmeister) present at the RSA on how things spread - how that social sharing thing happens (much less rational than we like to believe of ourselves).
I'm a big fan of Mark's book Herd. And no doubt I will be of the signed copy of his new book I'll Have What She's Having - when it arrives... (hint).

There is no insight button

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 18:39:00 +0000

I really worry about the turn-key, one-size-fits-all tech and tool solutions for social media being churned out by software and SAAS vendors for baffled brands and companies right now.

For example, this from a press release I saw on Thursday January 19:

“[Brand X’s] enterprise marketing technology allows global brands and agencies to easily activate social audiences and impact consumer actions on all major social media ecosystems simultaneously.”

My translation: With one button you can broadcast at anyone fool enough to have followed you so far. If they happen to have stayed around since you bought them, that is.

Job done then?

What worries me is that hassled execs will take the magic bullet being offered – we all like to make ‘life simplifying’ decisions. It’s very seductive to sign up for a one-stop solution because it’s easier than understanding what they really need to. It’s unlikely to be more cost-effective though.

As I wrote previously for a piece with Ninety10 Group CEOJamie Burke (note and disclosure, we co-founded that international business consultancy together.)

Business as usual wants a set of turn-key tools to make everything all right. But the future isn't about tools. It is about behaviours - understanding changes, learning from them and responding to meet those changed needs.

Business as usual wants ever-more efficient ways to exploit customers. But the most efficient way of meeting need is delivered by a shift in mind-set not in technologies; a shift that thinks of customers as your partner in producing what matters to both of you.

Business as usual wants to exploit channels to deliver messages. Click to deploy. But the future resides in better understanding why people would want to share 'your message' - getting to grips with the idea that marketing isn't done to people, it is done with people.

A tool or set of tools won't - of themselves - deliver the change you need to shift out of business as usual. And unless you take the holistic view, unless you go through the culture shift, the organisational change that is required, the tools will lead you back to square one.

As Ninety10group Head of Innovation Steffen Huck points out “There is no ‘insight’ button on any dashboard.

There is no ‘Cultural Change’ button, either.

Your freedom to share needs you!

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 08:37:00 +0000

Watch this. 13 or so minutes which will explain all this SOPA stuff and why it really DOES MATTER TO YOU.
Get ready for more of this. As the speaker Clay Shirky (Here Comes Everybody, Cognitive Surplus) says, this is just the latest battle in a war WE have to win.
Good luck everybody.

Google's skyscraper?

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 09:01:00 +0000

There is a fascinating theory (from Barclays Capital) that where-ever there is a boom in skyscraper building you can be sure rapid economic collapse will follow.
This measurable proposition echoes one of Parkinson's Laws (for which I am indebted to @jobucks on Twitter.) which states that when companies start building monuments to themselves, their precipitous decline is just around the corner.

How is the new Apple HQ coming along, I wonder?
Perhaps this trend has been repeated through history. Perhaps that's why the phrase 'pride comes before a fall' is so well used - and often so accurate.

And then I think about Google Plus. Is it an essential reconfiguration of google's business model? Or one helluva showboat?
Time will tell.
In any event I'm going to be watching what Google, Apple, Amazon and Facebook build for themselves with renewed interest.

Why no one wants to be in your club

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 14:44:00 +0000

I used to belong to a fund-raising organisation which always seemed to struggle for members.
Every now and again there would be much gnashing of teeth as members wailed and failed to comprehend why so few others would join us.

We'd always end up blaming society ("no one wants to join organisations these days", "people are more selfish than they used to be", "there's no sense of community" etc etc.)

No. Sorry. These are excuses.

There's nothing broken about our desire to join with one another. The web shows given the right conditions groups will form. And scale. Even today.

Those conditions:
1. Give people something interesting to do together.
That's straight out of the Herdmeister playbook. If your group isn't gathering numbers it's either not offering interesting enough stuff, or good enough ways for those who would wish to, to join in.
2. Discover and invite people to whom the group will matter.
If you aren't doing this - if you've just built it and expect them to come - you're going to end up disappointed.

Of course when one of the right folk finds your group, they will invite others of like mind. But you must also think about ways in which newbies can arrive together. Walking into a pub with a group of mates is a much nicer experience than walking in alone.

The web: More than an enabler of rights

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 15:27:00 +0000

Vint Cerf’s assertion that the internet should not be considered a human right troubles me.

It troubles me because it seems to be on the wrong side of fiddling with semantics – I don’t really care if the web is only an enabler (Vint’s point) – it’s such an effective, inclusive, far-reaching, all-engaging enabler that those excluded from it are as cut off from what matters to them as those cut off from air or water.

Access to clean air, clean water – these are human rights. And always have been.

But if the authorities only make that available to you in oxygen tanks in central London and bottled water at your local depot (and both at a price) you’d be right to assert that the weakness of the enabling of these rights so limits them as to make them invalid.

To argue that one can distinguish the enabling of a right from the right itself offers too many get-out clauses to those who would control from the centre.

"You're perfectly free to protest. Just not in public."

Our social connection to others – freedom of expression and assembly, are just as fundamental to our well-being as humans as other rights; to our ability to be human. The internet enables this on a species-wide scale. No other form of tech has enabled this. This is different.

To be cut off from this is different. It is to be cut off from a species-wide reassembling of the way we live that billions of others are taking advantage of. You have a right to be part of this.

And while the technology used to enable this should not matter, the reality is that it does. Indeed in the case of the Arab Spring it could be argued that the use of the ‘enabler’ (the social tools and tech of mobile phones and social networks supported by the internet) led to the assertion of new human rights where previously they had not be allowed any form of expression. The Arab Spring is not where this ends. It is merely showing which way the wind is blowing - to a self-organised future in which participation is everything.

There is little point in saying we all have the right to participate and then expecting some to do this by sending a letter in the post.

When authorities attempt to control the enabler that the web is, they are actually restricting the right. They know this. It is why they do it.

Let’s not give them any wriggle room.

IBM's evolution of business - expert views

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 09:18:00 +0000

Here's the fifth in the series of videos provided by IBM on the future of 'Social Business'. I'm delighted that this time around they've included at least some reference to OPEN business and to my role not only as a 'thought leader' (ie blogger) but also as a practitioner (Co-Founder of the Ninety10 Group)

You can see the previously released versions here, at least those featuring my contributions.

Just to reiterate - I'm very keen on making the distinction betweeen 'Social' Business and 'Open' Business for positive reasons. This from a previous post on the subject:

"There's little wrong with social business and much that is good. But it rarely inspires business leaders. In fact I know a very senior business journalist who has never even heard the term.
And when I was invited in to IBM to talk about Social Business in London... I made the point that few CEOs will feel comfortable with turning their business into a social one. The term creates unhelpful mental blocks. IBM folk reported similar concerns.
Why make life more difficult when what we all want is change for the better?

"So what's the difference between Social and Open Business?
Here's three distinctions I see:

1. It's not about the tools - it is about Behaviours:
Often social business conversations focus on implementing software. Open Business urges you to think Behaviours first. What are people doing, what can and will they do? If you are starting with tools you'll likely starting in the wrong place.

2. Think less about messages and more about products. Open Business urges you to consider ways of making things with the people for whom they are intended; for the best possible fit with real need; for efficiency; for results people care about. Messages are an outcome of this process - not its purpose. Talk 'social' and all roads will lead you back to messages.

3. Ditch the customer.
No, really. Stop thinking about customers. Customers are people you intend to do things to. Open Business urges you to think about the long-suffering customer as partners to work with instead. It pushes those people deep into the production process - right to the start, to join with and be supported by the org in delivering the things all parties want - all partners want.

"Tools/Behaviours
Messages/Products
Customers/Partners

"There are differences: Critical ones in transforming how business is done. "

It's time for a de-brand

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 08:18:00 +0000

Why rebrand when you can debrand?

Debrand? To remove/strip away/unlearn the accumulated clutter that has gathered around the purpose and meaning of an organisation. All the additions and paraphernalia of previous rounds of tinkering and 'rebranding'.

To unearth or reclaim its fundamental truths - the reasons it exists, the purpose, the why.

To see the wood for the trees.

And in this to rediscover what wrong it was trying to put right, what belief it holds that staff and customers could too.

And then to act in accordance.

If you think the bottom line is your bottom line... It's time for a debrand.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

10 ‘trend type things’ you really won’t care about by the end of 2012

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 17:03:00 +0000

Image courtesy: powerisastateofmind.blogspot.com

I've learned over the (many) years not to take predictions too seriously. Or lists. So here's mine for Christmas 2011. I offer them if only to help you learn not to take predictions, or lists, too seriously.

10 ‘trend type things’ you really won’t care about by the end of 2012

1. FourSquare
Seriously. I’ve just spent a week using it in a half-hearted manner and find myself close to the top of ‘my friends’ leader board. Checked in at London’s Kings Cross station the other night. Just me! Not saying location based won’t matter. Am saying FourSquare won’t.
2. News breaking first on Twitter.
Come on – it’s commonplace now, the battle is over. Which gives traditional media a clue about what it should do next. (Hint, relevance = news)
3. The number of voice minutes in your mobile phone package.
Bet you already have loads more than you actually use.
4. Google+:
There, I said it. I know lots have people have ‘joined it’ by how often do you actually go there? Add a year and think how it’ll look from there. (Buzz, Wave...Plus)
5. Big Data:
Because we’ll have started to figure out the important bit – getting the insight out.
6. Influence:
At least as a static 'you’re influential for one, you’re influential for all,' thing. Folk might finally work out that what they actually mean by that is: ‘famous’. Peer to peer distribution of trust on a moment-by-moment, context-by-context basis will become more valuable – and finally seen as such. The flock rocks. So...
7. Klout.
I’ve stopped caring already. So have you. Haven’t you?
8. Text to vote.
Who needs it? I Always said the X-Factor should be decided by who gets the most down-loads anyway.
9. Using digital as a channel to manage costs
(we’ll be participating in social to create value instead).
10. Social Business (I hope).
I hope we can talk more about Open Business instead. And if you want to know why – click here.

Maintaining a sense of wonder

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 15:01:00 +0000

I tweeted that at bedtime on Friday my just-7 daughter had asked 'How do I know this world isn't fake?'

It struck a chord with many of you. In fact I'd hazard a guess to say that it was the single most retweeted thing I've ever published (not said, mind, she said it).

And it's not the first time she has launched into the existential. A couple of years back she hit me with both: 'if God made everything, who made God'? And on getting into numbers: 'I want to know what is the last number on the number line '

Out of the mouths of babes...

I'd like to think my daughter is spectacularly clever or oh so unique. But the fact is most of our kids ask questions like this. A lot.

The tragedy is that as we grow up we stop.

A former philosophy professor of mine once described philosophy as 'maintaining the sense of wonder'. It's a sense of wonder about the world we are all born with. A sense of wonder we would all do well to try to rekindle.

Happy thinking.

Customers as partners investing in production

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 08:32:00 +0000

Image via Flickr, Garageband logo, by beoes

Here's a really simple way of thinking about the value of involving your 'customers' as partners right from the off - in an Open Business relationship: The music you buy.

The music you choose indicates the music you would have created yourself if you had the skill/time/access.

It isn't the music you would have created for yourself. It is an approximation. Just as the products and services you buy aren't those you would have created for yourself. They are an approximation.

As a 'customer' to get closer to the product you would have created yourself requires you to invest some of your skill/time/input into the the process.

As an organisation your role is to create the platform to enable your customers to invest.

Perspectives on Social Business... can we be open?

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 20:52:00 +0000

A few weeks back I got asked in to IBM to share my thinking on 'social business'. Of course I made it very clear that I thought the term somewhat unhelpful - and that I would prefer we talk about Open Business.

I also attended in not only my capacity as a thought leader (blogger) but also as a practitioner (MD Ninety10 Ltd UK and Co-Founder Ninety10 Group.com).

I'm hoping we'll get a bit more of both those things in the final edit we're still due to get from the day - on the Future of Social Business.

In the meantime, take a look at the videos below. Contributions from me on both.

Collaboration vs Competition

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 22:42:00 +0000

Competition is often touted as the powerhouse of successful growth. Beat the market or sink.
The battleground/adversarial approach has even worked successfully within companies. Successive Governments have tried unleashing it on the NHS.
There was little collaborative about the way emap operated in its fastest growing years for example. That publishing company (where I spent 20 years of my career) housed several motorcycle magazines within one building. All they shared (apart from healthy contempt for each other) was a desire to beat each other. Journalists on the same titles would fight against each other to claim the glory of the best stories.
If they had to share anything it was more likely to be with a foreign title from another company altogether.
Despite what the collaboration canon tells us, from Harvard Business Review to Wikinomics, it worked. Spectacularly. For many years emap's growth made it among the most admired companies on The FTSE.
And others have either adopted the model or arrived at it independently - promoting the cut-throat over the collaborator, the I over the team, keeping over sharing.
And they think it works.
But I wonder if they kid themselves?
Success is relative. They may be doing all right but could they do so much better by adopting a more collaborative approach - aggregating and distributing best practice rather than hoarding the tricks that allow some to win as others lose.
Could collaboration allow more to shine instead of the competitive approach which results in someone in the shade for every shining light?
I do think the no-share model has a place: where it is vital that the various parts of your company have distinct cultures and generate distinct outputs then there is potentially risk in sharing.
In our emap example, if the bike mags shared their exclusives, their contacts, their leads, their way of writing, their picture choices - well they'd have all shared the same character. And it was the differences which attracted readers, allowing them to label themselves through the choices they made.
So perhaps let that be your guide? Where you want to deliver a consistent outcome (if you are all part of one brand for example) collaborate internally. if you need to be different, compete internally.
But even then collaboration can help. It can help you shape the processes you can apply to reach very different and relevant outcomes. One best-practice process can result in very different outputs providing the inputs are different
And of course you can collaborate externally too.
Just make sure you don't end up collaborating with the same folk your competitors are...

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Ditch the customer if you want to transform business

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 23:57:00 +0000

At FT Innovate in Londom this week much of the conversation was about the role of social media in innovation.
Martha Lane Fox advocated business leaders get themselves involved in social media in her keynote.
But it was clear that for most the best this means is the opportunity to get an ever-better understanding of the customer.
Which sounds on the face of it a very excellent thing - a step up from social as 'earned media' or attempting to use people as your choice of broadcast channel.
But there's something missing. And the missing bit is one of the three quick indicators of the difference between what gets referred to as 'social business' and what I urge you to consider instead, Open Business.
Open Businesses are purpose-led platform-thinking organisations. They use their available resources to discover people who care about the same things the org does, bringing them together to surface their concerns and working with them to support them in resolving those concerns. It means outcomes which are a better fit with the real needs of those for whom they are intended.
There's little wrong with social business and much that is good. But it rarely inspires business leaders. In fact I know a very senior business journalist who has never even heard the term.
And when I was invited in to IBM to talk about Social Business in London last week I made the point that few CEOs will feel comfortable with turning their business into a social one. The term creates unhelpful mental blocks. IBM folk reported similar concerns.
Why make life more difficult when what we all want is change for the better?
So what's the difference between Social and Open Business?
Here's three distinctions I see:

1. It's not about the tools - it is about Behaviours:
Often social business conversations focus on implementing software. Open Business urges you to think Behaviours first. What are people doing, what can and will they do? If you are starting with tools you'll likely starting in the wrong place.

2. Think less about messages and more about products. Open Business urges you to consider ways of making things with the people for whom they are intended; for the best possible fit with real need; for efficiency; for results people care about. Messages are an outcome of this process - not its purpose. Talk 'social' and all roads will lead you back to messages.

3. Ditch the customer.
No, really. Stop thinking about customers. Customers are people you intend to do things to. Open Business urges you to think about the long-suffering customer as partners to work with instead. It pushes those people deep into the production process - right to the start, to join with and be supported by the org in delivering the things all parties want - all partners want.

Tools/Behaviours
Messages/Products
Customers/Partners

There are differences: Critical ones in transforming how business is done.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

The cost of sharing and the risk of the wrong rewards

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 17:14:00 +0000


Some rewards really aren't good for you

While at iStrategy in Amsterdam last week I saw a ‘top tweet’ that suggested that those fixated on the viral campaign (that stuff we were writing about in 2007) should expect to spend 20% on making the viral and 80% on promoting it.

And I thought... what business do these folk think they are in? When you’re stuck spending more on promoting the thing than you did on making it there’s a problem.

It means you haven’t made it with the people for whom it was intended in the first place.

The answer of course is to push the ‘customer’ deeper and deeper into the process until they are alongside you as a partner from the word go – a partner in making the better thing, the better outcome, that you all want. Then they’ll share it. With people who want it. Because they want to. Because it matters to them. The guts of Open Business is right there – people want to make your stuff better because it matters to them.

Your job is to have something that matters.

Reminds me of some thoughts I had about the ‘social media awards’ which break out like Swine Flu at this time of year.

They have a horrible tendency to reinforce the ‘spend 80% on promoting it’ status quo. (Image courtesy (Glen McBethlaw via Flickr)

Perhaps instead of asking how well targeted (laser, usually) the ‘campaign’ was or how great its ‘reach’ (and mine will always extend your grasp, thank you), judges could consider criteria such as: How has this project improved the lives of those involved?

Rocket science it is not, 2012 it nearly is... no, really, it is.

I will be sharing video from the Open Business Workshop Ninety10Group presented at iStrategy as soon as an edit is available, of course.

5 ways to make better marketing, better companies

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 11:34:00 +0000

Five quick tips with which to assess your strategies in the light of the connected world: Tick the boxes and you won't go far wrong in making your marketing, innovation, engagement, and ulitmately your organisation, a better fit with the 21st Century.

1.    Have something to believe in. What else have you got?
2.    Don’t do stuff to people. Make stuff with people. That way it’ll be a better fit and matter more.
3.    We don’t connect to be marketed to. No one forms groups or resides in communities to be marketed to. Ask yourself why groups DO form.
4.    We do what the other monkeys around us do. Then post rationalise. This matters.
5.    There are powerful connections between circumstances and behaviour. Do not ignore them.

Strategies of the positive

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 09:12:00 +0000

Picture from (and linked to) motorcyclenews.com

When I learned to ride motorcycles I was taught that you go where you look.
This is both a good thing and a bad thing.
It’s a good thing when where you are looking is a happy place.
It is a bad thing when what you are fixated on is a disaster waiting to happen.

Gather information, note the problem but then look elsewhere, around it, beyond it – if you want to steer around it. Keep staring at it and you’ll hit it and end up on your butt. They call it target fixation.

Keep your eyes on the positive. Focus on the beyond – that’s how individuals and organisations get to where they want to be - rather than in A&E.

We all know companies that got that wrong. Perhaps we are at risk of entire economies going the same way?

We don't connect to be marketed to

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 05:30:00 +0000

Facebook's announcement that it is to enable a 'subscribe' button so you can follow interesting things and people (provided they are sharing publicly) is the latest shot in the battle for hearts and minds among the big players. 'Subscribe' is essentially Twitter's follow (or Google +'s for that matter).

So it's yet another case of Facebook being late to the party. The extra it adds is enabling you to select how much of someone's stream you want to subscribe to - giving a little control to the follower (though frankly this has varying value depending on your personal experience of the volume of content - which has always been controlled by who and what you friend or follow in any event).

But it got me thinking: Subscribe takes us back to our online social roots: You just have to love blogs and blogrolls, RSS and hypertext linking. A glorious place of freely forming communities of purpose.

All the rest; Facebook, Twitter, Google +, etc etc, all the rest are at best filters of simplicity or, at their worst, silos of data. Some sit further along to the left of that scale, some to the right. But sit on it they do, in a way that blogs and rss well, don't.

The social platforms have taken down some serious technical barriers to entry - itself a silo of some significance. My wife would never have written a blog. But she's at home and connected with facebook. This is a good thing.

But ultimately we will call time on the nannying. The tech difficulties the platforms solve for us will become problems no longer. A level of what we now call technical know-how will simply become common sense. Like being able to cross a road, most folk will grow up knowing how. They'll call it common sense rather than know-how because it will, of course, be common.

At that point we no longer need the platforms. We'll need and will have the common sense to publish, to discover those who share our needs, problems or desires. And the ability to connect in self-forming groups.

And guess what Facebook et al? We won't be doing this to be marketed to.

Open Business: Open Desk

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 16:07:00 +0000

It's not often you get something for free - but here's one bona fide occasion. As part of 90:10 Group's commitment to inspiring Open Business (I'm Co-Founder of the group and MD of the UK business) we've made a desk available at our office in Clerkenwell. It's yours complete with wifi and power when you need it. Our #OpenDesk is a small example of the open door we advocate. So come in and say hello. The few T&Cs and online booking is available below:

Learning to love the truth (even if you don't 'like' it)

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 13:42:00 +0000

Nice deck here from my colleague Ninety10 Group CEO Jamie Burke, issued as a wake-up call to those who set out to harvest 'likes' - detailing the risk to reality that delivers.

Stop worrying about likes and learn to love the truth

View more presentations from 90:10 Group Ltd.

The tyranny of the authority of signs vs the mimicry of monkeys

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 15:00:00 +0000

When on holiday in Barcelona recently I watched an amusing example of human behaviour which illustrates our irrational reliance on authority – following its dictacts even when the evidence of our own eyes compels us to do otherwise.

In this case travellers at Barcelona Sants station were confronted with both an up and a down escalator to choose from to go down to the platform.

An easy choice you’d think. An easy rational choice, yes.

But introduce a confusingly placed sign and it seems we will often switch off our rational thought, ignore the evidence of our own eyes, and follow the authority of the sign.

In some cases this was true even when people were coming up the ‘up’ escalator right in front of the person planning to use the same escalator to go down – leading to results that kept me amused for many moments.

I was lucky enough to have a flipcam in my pocket so recorded what unfolded.

Perhaps what follows below also illustrates that we are more likely to be convinced by authority (represented by the sign) when we are in an agitated state (ie the folk in a hurry seem most likely to follow the orders of the signs over and above the herd instinct of following those folk who are going the right way.

This perhaps has implications for channelling behaviour in riot situations of the kind discussed on this blog in recent weeks.

I was particularly amused by the behaviour emerging towards the end of this 3min video in which it appears our herd instinct has us copying some very irrational behaviour – ie you have to try to go down the wrong escalator first before returning to try the right one. It’s what all the rest of us monkeys are doing...

Cameron, circumstances and priests

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 20:43:00 +0000

Image via WikipediaOne of the points of my previous post on how riots spread is Monkey See, Monkey Do.

Or to put it less simply, we are less rational than we would like to think - we act like those around us and as allowed, persuaded, nudged or otherwise cajoled to do by the circumstances in which we find ourselves (the behaviour of other folk being a very key part of those circumstances).

Now, even our nice Mr Cameron (remember the one, when he first became Tory leader, when he seemed more interested in what is right rather than what is Right), knew that.

As HM Opposition are all of a dither to point out, Cameron himself proclaimed "there are connections between circumstances and behaviour" five years ago...

Damn right. Primed with the right conditions, given the right circumstances - you too are at great risk of behaving in a very irrational way. Once again, I point you at Mark Earl's excellent Herd for more on this.

This is really important because once we understand this is what drives behaviour, then we can start on the business of ascribing blame for that behaviour and (rather more importantly) doing something about it.

It's why I am getting increasingly annoyed at the misdirection the Government PR machine is employed in. First every talking head spouted 'criminality' to focus our attention on the outcome. Now that is being replaced by 'moral collapse'. Both make us focus on the outcome. Which is convenient because it's hard to pin the blame on the Government for outcomes. Circumstances and conditions? Now there some Governmental blame can be laid.

So, I had best demonstrate what can turn even good people bad - to act irrationally - if the conditions are set for them. I best show how it's more the context and circumstances to blame and less the moral fibre of the people concerned...

Take for example the study at Princeton Theological Seminary quoted in Malcolm Gladwell's often-bought-but-rarely-looted Tipping Point.

In the story he tells, each student priest is asked "to prepare a short talk on a given Biblical theme, then walk over to a nearby building to present it."
Along the way to the presentation each student comes across a man slumped head down, eyes closed, and clearly in some distress.
Obviously being good God-fearing folk (with no doubt all the parental support our dear leader would desire) they stop and help, don't they?

Wouldn't you?

Well. The researchers included three variables: background of the subject - whether they had entered seminary as a way of helping people or not, (2) which parable they were to prepare - several were given the Good Samaritan... and (3) a time context, saying either that they were running several minutes late and should hurry up, or that they were early and had some time to spare.

Guess what?

The only thing that impacted how likely our trainee priests were to stop and help our hapless fallen guy was how late they thought they were running.

In other words whether you were planning to help folk as a vocation, and whether or not you had just been hard at it thinking about the Good Samaritan, mattered little. Their attitudes and feelings were instantly over-ridden by subtle clues in the environment - in this case being told whether they were running late or not.

I can't claim to be any better than any of those flawed priests-to-be. I can't claim to be able to resist temptation to act irrationally if the conditions are right - if the circumstances so nudged me. You see, I'm human too. So is David Cameron if the stories of the Bullingdon Club are to be believed.

The good news is I do think there is something your rational selves can do to avoid those contexts.

My guess is many of us would loot in the right (wrong) circumstances. But I'm also pretty sure most of us would employ our rational moments to guide us away from those circumstances.

And that's where the Government - and others bent on behaviour modifying must focus, too.
We can rationally decide to join together with good things in mind - and we can support each other - be good monkeys to be seen and copied, too.

That's how the brooms came out - en masse - for the twitter clean up. We can use social media to find folk thinking positively, too and coordinate and cooperate with them.

Call it rational if you like...

How riots spread - expressed through the medium of dance

noreply@blogger.com (David Cushman) — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 20:08:00 +0000

Brixton Footlocker - the morning after (via linniekin, Flickr)

There are two things of significance for me about the London Riots of the last couple of nights (and as I write I hear they have extended to a third night).

The first is how they have been reported; by citizen witnesses; by journalist witnesses and finally as edited by news orgs.

Citizens have delivered a tapestry of fear, anger, concern... reality; Journalists a cooller detachment which lacks the white heat emotion of engagement; News orgs a filtered, cooled, emaciated version of 'the validated truth'.

Always ask whose truth you gaze upon. I may not be able to check or validate every citizen expression of the reality as they see it - but there must be at least as much truth in what they are sharing as in the cold, dispassionate glance of the edited news org version.

Heady, fast moving times. They require of us that we take responsibility - with crap filters on - for what we choose to pass on.

But enough of the messages, what of the behaviour?

Why have these riots happened now? How could the new tools of coordination and cooperation lead to a truly landscape-shifting revelation for those taking part?

I should say right off I'm not a fan of theft, violence, arson or even of keeping folk from a good night's sleep.

However, the group dynamics and peer-to-peer permissions and mimicry that the human behaviour of rioting demonstrate, do hold a grim fascination for me.

So, why now? Those dismissing the London Riots as one long acquisition spree by thieves fail to answer that simple question.

If greed were the key, why this summer, not last? The answer may lay in a longer term period of joblessness and hopelessness - yes the result of policy decisions.

But it also took:

A crowd
A state of agitated excitement,
The ability to organise.
Permission to act out of line (in a co-ordinated way)

These factors came together on Saturday night in Tottenham.

But they could have come together in another crowd with another cause to be excited.

What of our flock turner? Someone has to start a riot. Someone has to grant the permission to act out of line. And in so doing they grant permission to those around them to act, entirely irrationally, in a way they wouldn't ordinarily behave. It may be one person at first - and then another - then a clump join - and then the crowd joins...

This video goes some way to illustrating that - through the medium of dance...

Once permission to behave differently (and badly) was granted (we're back to the riots now) off it spread.
We do what the monkey next to us does - we are Homo Mimicus rather than Homo Sapien as Mark Earls (@herdmeister on twitter) author of Herd, puts it.

We copy - Oh so readily. Particularly if someone has prepared the ground as effectively as the economy and The Government have contrived to do. The conditions are right.

If a Government unit on behavioural economics had planned this nudge themselves, they couldn't have hoped for greater success:

Agitate folk through economic and policy means - give agitated folk a reason to gather - and then all you need is the 'dancing man' to give them a nudge.

Monkey business spread rapidly across London.
Tonight? More parts of London? More Uk cities? (Unfortunately while drafting this post I heard of outbreaks of violence in Leeds and Birmingham to add to London's third night of troubles.

Next: More European cities? MoreUS Cities?

Riotous behaviour is Herd behaviour like any other human behaviour: As hard to identify how to stop as it is to start.

Mark's book has a chapter on riots - and some tips for cops. They focus on breaking the channels of communication (in this case blackberry messenger and twitter), moving swiftly to break up crowds the moment they asssemble, and arresting anyone for even the slightest infringements (removing any hint of permission to act out of line).

And when equilibrium is restored - of course - go looking for the root causes and act on them.

In short, take away the ability to organise, the gathering of agitated folk, the permission to act out of line and once all those are dealt with, the reasons for the agitation.

In 1981 when conditions were similar it took broadcast media to spread the news.And there was no tool of on-the-go coordination - not even mobile phones.

Now everyone taking part carries with them a way of coordinating on the fly. No wonder the authorities are concerned. Trouble can now be organised, directed and refocused in a decentralised way making it exceptionally hard to deploy against for the police.

They've learned from the Arab Spring. Monkey see, monkey do. That's as much of an answer to 'why now' as anything I've seen.

The decentralised 'bad guys' are able to dissipate and reassemble too fast and in too great numbers for the police to act. There are tales this evening of shop keepers boarding themselves inside their shops, having reported mobs outside to the police, only to be told the police don't have the bodies to act.

My guess is that if we don't get a night or two of heavy rain to break the cycle the army will be on the streets by the end of week. And at that point we in the UK may feel a bit glib pointing at 'heavy-handed' responses in Arab lands.

Those at the helm in this and other countries should be less concerned about acts of theft and vandalism and rather more about what the participants are learning.

IF those intent on riotous assembly are indeed coordinating through the social tools now at our disposal, what happens after they are done with expressing anger and frustration through fire and theft?

What if they realise the true power they wield?

What if they do to The Government what they did to The News of The World?

I'd stick a cork in the chianti and get the next flight home if I were on Her Majesty's front bench.

Faster Future: Possibilities now and beyond

The monkey in the machine

There is no insight button

Your freedom to share needs you!

Google's skyscraper?

Why no one wants to be in your club

The web: More than an enabler of rights

IBM's evolution of business - expert views

Top 5 Posts of 2011

It's time for a de-brand

10 ‘trend type things’ you really won’t care about by the end of 2012

Maintaining a sense of wonder

Customers as partners investing in production

Perspectives on Social Business... can we be open?

Collaboration vs Competition

Ditch the customer if you want to transform business

The cost of sharing and the risk of the wrong rewards

5 ways to make better marketing, better companies

Strategies of the positive

Top Stories reveal Facebook’s broken strategy

We don't connect to be marketed to

Open Business: Open Desk

Learning to love the truth (even if you don't 'like' it)

The tyranny of the authority of signs vs the mimicry of monkeys

Cameron, circumstances and priests

How riots spread - expressed through the medium of dance

Faster Future: Possibilities now and beyond

The monkey in the machine

Related articles

There is no insight button

Your freedom to share needs you!

Related articles

Google's skyscraper?

Related articles

Why no one wants to be in your club

The web: More than an enabler of rights

Related articles

IBM's evolution of business - expert views

Related articles

Top 5 Posts of 2011

It's time for a de-brand

10 ‘trend type things’ you really won’t care about by the end of 2012

Related articles

Maintaining a sense of wonder

Customers as partners investing in production

Related articles

Perspectives on Social Business... can we be open?

Related articles

Collaboration vs Competition

Ditch the customer if you want to transform business

Related articles

The cost of sharing and the risk of the wrong rewards

Related articles

5 ways to make better marketing, better companies

Strategies of the positive

Related articles

Top Stories reveal Facebook’s broken strategy

Related articles

We don't connect to be marketed to

Related articles

Open Business: Open Desk

Learning to love the truth (even if you don't 'like' it)

The tyranny of the authority of signs vs the mimicry of monkeys

Related articles

Cameron, circumstances and priests

Related articles

How riots spread - expressed through the medium of dance

Related articles