GroshLink

What is Clay Shirky's* formula for success?  The "fusion of a plausible promise, an effective tool, and an acceptable bargain with the users.  The promise is the basic 'why' for anyone to join or contribute to a group.  The tool helps with the 'how' -- how will the difficulties of coordination be overcome, or at least be held to manageable levels?   And the bargain sets the rules of the road:  if you are interested in the promise and adopt the tool, what can you expect, and what will be expected of you?" (p.260, bold added)  And be sure to have the components in that order!

Simple?  No.  Why?  "[B]ecause the interactions among the different components is too complex" (p.261).  I particularly appreciated Clay Shirky pointing out that social media isn't selling a product, but calling people to come together to make a product.  I have found that to be the rub, sometimes leading a blog such as this to have more of the appearance of website.  Is it a failure?  No.  I'm not only feeding Groshlink into Facebook, but also I'm using it more and more as a resource for those interested in learning more about our ministry.  With regard to Facebook's move from 'fan' pages to 'like' pages, my gut reaction is that more 'members' decreases the potential for these groups to move toward direct 'real world' action.  The proposal of local clustering makes a lot of sense to me, one which I've thinking about for Emerging Scholars Network and Faculty Ministry.  Clay Shirky's two questions regarding tools are quite good:  'Does the group need to be small or large?' and 'Does it need to be short-lived or long-lived?'" (p.266)

What do we do with all the group forming, e.g., Facebook's 'like' feature?  How long until the young are displaced and find themselves in the midst of a culture in which they did not grow up?  Hope to have another post which draws together my overall response to the book.  I don't have the time to do such at present :-(  Maybe it's good to hang open in order to let the ideas flow, as long as I get back them.

*Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organization (Clay Shirky. NY, NY: Penguin Press, 2008).

Here Comes Everybody: Chapter 1
Here Comes Everybody: Chapter 2
Here Comes Everybody: Chapter 3
Here Comes Everybody: Chapter 4
Here Comes Everybody: Chapter 5
Here Comes Everybody: Chapter 6
Here Comes Everybody: Chapter 7-8
Here Comes Everybody: Chapter 9-10