Valuing Social Networks Through Creative Potential

Valuing Social Networks Through Creative Potential • Fiscar 2010 • Sunday 23rd May 2010

Richard Wood


HighWire Doctoral Training CentreLancaster Universityt. @rt_woode. [email protected]. richard-wood.co.ukb. highwired.co.uk/rich

mailto:[email protected]






Valuing Social Networks Through Creative Potential


• Michael Arrington’s Model

• Divides Social Network user base geographically

• Compares divided user base to marketing money spent in that region

• Applies a weighted average to Social Network dependent on user location and their “market place”

Valuing Social Networks Through Creative Potential • Fiscar 2010 • Sunday 23rd May 2010Valuing Social Networks Through Creative Potential • Fiscar 2010 • Sunday 23rd May 2010


People online (U.S.) in 2008 (Comscore)191 million

63%


$132p/aAverage per person in U.S. (2008)

Advertsing spend online($25.2 billion)

Users

People online (U.S.) in 2008 (Comscore)191 million

Advertsing spend onlineX

Users in market place( )

Arringtons Model


• Each Social Network is assessed by “weighted averages”

• Facebook with a core user base in U.S., U.K. etc is worth more than Orkut (predominantly Brazilian)

• Model scales accurately when compared to sales of LinkedIn, Bebo and Facebook



Bebo Facebook

PointsFBValue

Bebo Value

3,530,156$5.1 Billion$850 Million

10,223,824$15 Billion$13.5 Billion


• Arrington’s model makes no account of:

• Social Interaction

• Communication

• Education and Learning

• Consumer Psychology

• or Creative Potential


5 min

CreativePotential

• What is creative potential?

• Varying capacity of the ability or power to create

• The ability or prowess of individuals and/or groups to discover and develop new, uncommon or unique ideas or concepts or new associations between existing ideas or concepts

• Fluctuating variable affected by surroundings, interaction, communication and collaboration


• Why is creative potential important?

• “Creativity is considered one of the core resources of the 20th Century” (Hornak 2009)

• Increasing acknowledgement that creativity is more important than intellect and credentials in problem solving

• Creative Students make better students



"Imagination is more important than knowledge."

- Albert Einstein


5 min

• Participation leads to collaboration

• In networks where collaboration is promoted, interaction will often lead to collaboration

• Von Hippel’s Kite Surfers


5 min


“In the long history of human kind (and animal kind, too) those who have learned to collaborate and improvise

most effectively have prevailed”

- Charles Darwin


5 min

• Collaboration leads to creativity

• Converges diverse ideas and/or beliefs

• Increased engagement results in increased creativity (Kao et al. 2008)

• Creativity is a cyclical process

• Designers have to get passed the “Gatekeepers” of society (Csikszentmihalyi)


5 min


“Creativity has always been a highly collaborative, cumulative and social activity in which people with different skills, points of view and insight share and

develop ideas together”

- Charles Leadbeater


5 min

• Creativity leads to innovation

• “Creativity... is the engine that drives the new way of doing things” (Marques 2010)

• “Innovation is the successful implementation of creative ideas...” (Amabile 200)

• Creativity - generation

• Innovation - implementation


5 min

Participation

Collaboration

Creativity

Innovation


It’s a cyclical process

5 min


• Power of Social Network when used creatively

• Increased speed of social communication/collaboration

• Maya Facebook project

• Innocentive

• Mechanical Turk

• Lost Camera

• Open Street Map


Ratio of good ideas to

total ideas

Understanding

Cognitive Inertia

Exhaustion

+

-

-

Bounded Ideation Theory


• Divided message

• Similar but differentiated ideas may detract from each other by splitting followers

• Many voices with similar messages are weaker than many voices with the same message

• Echo Chamber



• “Group think” mentality

• Language

• Must be a frame work of communication

• Must be a common understanding


• Wider access to creative means, networks and support

• Expectations on designers likely to rise

• Increased access to contextual awareness

• Increasingly context aware users

• Designers will be able to accurately identify which networks suit their needs


• Less able to “hide behind technique”

• No longer a job for life

• Access to “Gate keepers”

• Potential resource



• Diversity of communication channels

• Diversity of user base

• Ethnicity

• Geographically

• Educationally

• How are relationships formed

• Serendipitous or not

• Cross linking

• Recommendations


• Frequency of contact

• Duration of contact

• Physical vs. Virtual interaction

• Ability of the network to harbor an echo chamber

• Group think mentality

• Granularity of the system

• Language

• Customisation


Conclusion



• Current models don’t adequately value the creative aspects of Social Networks

• Creative Potential is “rife” and important on Social Networks

• There is a cyclical process of Participation, Collaboration, Creativity and Innovation

• Designers are faced with both an added creative resource but also added creative expectations

• There is a need to formulate a new valuation model



Richard Wood | @rt_wood | [email protected] | highwired.co.uk/rich



http://highwired.co.uk/rich


Richard Wood | @rt_wood | [email protected] | highwired.co.uk/rich



