Posted on

Collective Creativity

Technology changes the way we do things. The fact that it does is not an astounding revelation. However, it is always fascinating to see how it does.

When we think about “creativity” from a classical perspective, we might picture a person creating a piece of artwork, whether it is a painting, a piece of music, a novel, etc. In the past, creative collaboration occurred on a very small scale, if at all. Today, the creativity landscape is shifting, thanks to the tools we have at our disposal with modern technology. One of the key ways technology has changed the world is communication. This opens the door for a type of collaboration that was not possible before.

How does this impact our view of “creativity”?

Unlike the past, where a creative, highly-skilled individual — or a small group of highly-skilled individuals — would develop a work of art, we can now develop tools that allow millions of people to contribute to a single project.

One example of this is Drawball.com. Drawball, which launched in late 2005, allows anyone to pick up a virtual airbrush and paint graffiti on one giant digital wall. While the majority of users contribute little more than a mess of scribbles, there is a “hall of fame” area that showcases some of the best drawings spotted on the wall.

Another example, though on a much smaller scale, is BrainFuel.tv‘s Caption Contest Fridays (with spin-off site Caption Fridays). Every week, there is a new photo that begs the question “What’s going on here?” and visitors are encouraged to make up a caption to explain what is going on in the photo. It is great to go through the comments at the end of the day to see what the blog’s readers had written.

This concept is fascinating and motivated me to start small, for-fun projects like Crappy Graphs (where visitors can draw their own ‘crappy graphs’) and TwitLibs (where visitors choose words or phrases to fill in the blanks in my sentences). I am constantly surprised by how great (or how terrible) the visitor submissions are.

Crappy Graphs started out as a blog where I drew and posted my own graphs. After releasing the user submission tool that allows users to draw graphs in my design/template, the best visitor-submitted graphs found their own way out onto the internet and now draw in more traffic than the main blog itself. That means collectively, Crappy Graphs’ visitors are funny than the original Crappy Grapher, me.

It is clear to me that none of us are as creative as all of us.

Posted on

Twitter, Let’s Play a Game

Recently, I have been brainstorming ways to spur more interaction from my friends on Twitter.com. I have always tried to post questions, conversation-starting statements, and interesting links, all in hopes of getting more and more people to respond.

Problem

The problem I am facing is that a very, very low percentage of my “followers” (the term for users who receive your updates) on Twitter actually know who I am. An even smaller percentage interact with me in any way. This is a problem because if my friends on Twitter don’t know who I am, then the following I have built up there is pretty pointless.

As of this writing, I have over 7,400 users receiving my messages. When I pose a question, I can get anywhere from zero to forty replies. With a maximum of about forty people responding, my participation percentage (on a good day) is 0.54%.

That’s not good.

Inspiration

One of my favorite blogs, BrainFuel.tv, holds weekly “Caption Contests” on Fridays. They post an image and users are encouraged to comment with a caption for it, the funnier the better. It is great to see the level of interaction the blog gets because of those contests.

That is something I wanted to replicate in some way on Twitter. It would be great to play some sort of recurring game where I would post a Twitter message up to 140 characters and people could participate by replying with a creative answer.

TwitLibs

I have decided to try out a simple weekly game that could be fun and amusing. It’s like Mad Libs, but instead of asking for words then filling in the blanks, I will just provide a sentence with blanks for people to fill in. While the game itself is played entirely on Twitter, TwitLibs.com will be the main resource for archives, suggestions, and discussion. I will post the TwitLibs starting statement as well as any Twitter replies I receive.

Only time will tell if people will enjoy the game and interact with me more because of it.

Posted on

Networking: To Add Or Not To Add

While at a party last night in Manhattan, I was involved in an interesting group conversation about social networking. I was thinking on my own thoughts on the subject. We were discussing where to draw the line for adding new “friends” on social networks.

Like most people who actively participate in social networking, I have come across quite a few different philosophies on friend-adding.

“This Network Is Too Small.”
Starting on one end, there is the type that only adds close friends to their networks. They have a valid point about the definition of the word “friend” and keeping that definition consistent both online and off. However, the main problem I have with this is that it prevents many benefits of social networking. One of the most important aspects of social networking is creating potential business connections with people you otherwise would not have met.

“This Network Is Too Big.”
On the other end of the spectrum, there is the type of networker who seems to be out for nothing more than being popular. This means adding anyone and everyone, with no intention of ever communicating with them. With this perspective, social contacts are treated much like a currency that cannot be spent. They fight to get to the top for no other reason than to be so wealthy with this currency that they can swim in it. This strategy, much like the previous one, renders social networking nearly useless.

It is important for one to find a sweet spot in the middle, to harness the power of social networks. Within the last year, I have made very visible changes to my social networking strategy. A lot of people will disagree and have disagreed with my approach as of late, but I think my current position is well-justified.

I have found that two key principles of social networking can open the door for a lot of (mutually) beneficial business relationships. As you should notice, these are derived from the two extremes above, and must be implemented together.

Principle 1: Think Outside The Circle
You must reach out beyond your circle of friends when using social networking tools. If you constraint yourself to only connecting with people you know well, you will not be able to use this platform for meeting new people. If you are not meeting new people, you might as well stay off social network sites. Email, instant message, and the phone are much more efficient tools for communicating with your circle of trusted friends.

Principle 2: The Law Of Probability
If you connect with more people on social networks, you improve your chances of making very valuable contacts. This could come in the form of a skilled professional that you can work with, the CEO of a large company in your industry, or a Connector that knows those types of people and can match you up. If you do not put yourself out there, you are stifling the chances of meeting these people.

Based on these principles, I have taken a fairly unmoderated approach of connecting with people on social networks. At least 95% of my Twitter network consists of people I have never met or directly communicated with. Thanks to that large pool of individuals, I have been able to connect with quite a few relevant people in my industry, both online and in person.

“This Network Is Just Right.”
The vast majority of my social network contacts will never benefit me in any way. But for the few, highly beneficial connections I have gained because of the large, open-invitation network, it is well worth it. What makes my approach different from the popularity-seeking networker described earlier? I am not building a network to be popular. I am trying to start conversations, connect with new people, and build relationships — albeit with a shotgun approach.

My strategy might not work for everyone, but for me, it has been more successful than I expected.

Posted on

How Do You Find Out Which Of Your Friends Are Already On A Social Network?

I asked the following question to my friends on Twitter.com:

When you join a social network (eg Twitter) how do you find out which of your ‘real life’ friends are already on it? Email / Ask them all?

I got quite a few responses (see below). It seems like most people, as I expected, go out of their way to contact (via email, instant messenger, etc.) each of their friends to see if they are on the service. Alternatively, some services include functionality to scrape your address book for contacts that are on the service. Right now, the latter is the best solution. Unfortunately, this requires the web service to re-invent the wheel to incorporate this feature, which is why many do not have it. When it is supported, it still requires that you give the service your email account information (including your password). Last, but tied with the rest for least, is searching for each of your friends individually, IF the service even provides search functionality (Twitter, I’m looking at YOU!).

So what can be done? What would be the ideal solution?

As much as I would like to lay out my plan, I should keep it under wraps until I develop a proof-of-concept. I do not want anyone to take the concept and create commercial competition. My goal would be to make a platform that is free and decentralized. Some might say that OpenID and ClaimID are barking up the same tree, but I think there is a much better way for the idea to be executed for it to be truly useful and widely accepted.

Meanwhile, if you have any thoughts on how you think this problem should be solved, you can feel free to let me know! On Twitter, just start your message with “@brianshaler ” (no quotes). Or you can email me at brian@shaler.name

Responses (via Twitter):

@brianshaler: most sites have a book that searches your gmail hotmail etc address books to add them to your list automatically. not twitter :(
– ChrissMari
Very true. However, I don’t think we can or should depend on every web service to build out this kind of functionality

@brianshaler social networking aggregators are the next big thing. they will help with that issue
– PeterGulka
Possibly, but I think there should be one open standard and it would have to be very well-developed.

@brianshaler: that’s a start. You could also try to invite them. If they’re already on, u’ll just get connected and if not, they may join
– luminus

@brianshaler what are “real life” friends? :)
– maceo87

@brianshaler ask one by one, and maybe invite them
– kmilo
That’s the way it seems to be now on most social networks. Wish it wasn’t so.

@brianshaler well. I don’t even ask anymore. The answer is always no :p
– sunraven01

@brianshaler: when you find out, let me know!
– ByJane

Will do. ;-)

@brianshaler – type there AIM/GoogleTalk handles in. Nothing beats BFI.
– voodootikigod

@Brain Shaler – under help the 4th ? its like where is search? click that and then there should be a blue word saying twittersearch
– ikatierose
You would need to know their screen names, and TwitterSearch only keeps updates for a day or two.

@brianshaler I constantly stalk all of my real life friends online so I already know! Umm, where did all my real life friends go?

– mathie

@brianshaler None of my “real life” friends are on any of this rubbish. Except possibly Facebook. Which I am not on.
– ordinal

@brianshaler: I invite them or email them to ask them and then invite them… :)
– jcesarmo
Wish there was an easier way, don’t you? I always have trouble thinking of who to ask/invite.

@brain Shaler – click twitter search and then there should be a box like where you can type in a name to find someone
– ikatierose
It’s “Brian” by the way, but thanks for the compliment! ;-)

@brianshaler hardly any of my real life friends have ever heard of a social network other than Facebook. :(
– sevenupcan

@brianshaler, I ask them usually, but I think you can search with Twitter, not sure though
– jdcoffman

Nope, Twitter does not have built in search. But this idea applies to ALL social networks. Twitter is just an example of one where a solution is needed

@brianshaler: put that on my Twitter wish list!
– TiborP

@brianshaler: I have the problem that none of my “real life” friends are interested in joining. :P So all the people on my friends lists are those I only know online.
– jezlyn

@brianshaler I say you email them but use web 2.0 buzz words

– pj33322

@brianshaler: e-mail.
– banyuken
Time-consuming.

@brianshaler you search ;-)
– jeffsand

@brianshaler: Yeah, and sometimes they have an email address book checker, but who’s going to enter their email password to see which friends are on there?
– DJSolitaire
Great point. There has to be a better way.

@BrianShaler Good question. I’ve got an idea for a site to help with that problem, but just getting started. “MySocNets”, maybe?
– joec0914
Here’s someone that knew where I was going with this question!

@brianshaler that’s one of the things I like about twitter, actually. Your network evolves naturally as u see who’s talkin to who.

– itgirl
That’s how I got some of my first contacts on Twitter, but that doesn’t help us very much in finding which of our real-life friends are already on.

@brianshaler that’s a good question! I only have one “real life friend” on twit…all the other ones have no idea what it is…
– LFlo
Are you sure you have asked every single one of them? What if you missed someone and he/she has an account?

@brianshaler: with the exception of Facebook the answer is always “non of them
– closetgeekshow

@brainshaler I asked them and emailed-they just laughed guess my friends have lives-lol
– sooziebeaker
Misspelling my first name decreases the chances of me spotting your reply by about 50%. Misspelling my last name decreases the chances of me spotting your reply by about 98%. FYI ;-)

brianshaler: i search by name or email
– lanakai

@brianshaler start typing names and see who comes up.
– pswansen

Not very efficient, but I’ve had to do that, too.

@brainshaler well if they are your real friends, you should already know the answer to that question :)
– GusF

@brianshaler for me is easy cause no one uses social networks :-P
– Netwalker

@brianshaler What is this “real life” of which you speak?
– MightySquid

Urban legend.

@brianshaler what if you joined because your friends aren’t on and you don’t want them to find you
– ninjatree

@brianshaler: ask them.. Twitter needs a contact upload application like the other networks.
– jvettorino

@brianshaler “do you find out which of your ‘real life’ friends are already on it?” Quite good question! I asked myself too…
– perapalas

A “good question” is generally a bad thing. That means there probably is not a “good answer”.

@brianshaler – http://twitter.com/invitations/invite invite your friends and if they already have it, they’ll sign in and see your page. :)
– charlotteEG
Not bad, but what if you don’t want to bother the people who aren’t on it, and only want to add the people who already are?

@brianshaler i pretty much im my online friends w/ the link
– nulliar

@brianshaler I have asked and sent invitations but I guess my real life friends are not that keen joining any social network.

– Sanna

@brianshaler how do you put skin on twitter? I never notify friends except those I already know use a given site… no junk mail!
– linka

@brianshaler Interesting question.Been debating it with a couple of friends for an hour now. Shows how bored I am.
– Killeroid

@brianshaler – Most of my RL friends don’t spend much time on-line. I’m glad they don’t ;)

– ThinkerBelle

@brianshaler Still wondering how to connect my real world and my social network. There is surprisingly little overlap.
– HowlerGeek