Facing the Book

I'll admit it, Facebook isn't going anywhere soon. After resisting the social network for as long as I could I finally joined up. I totally succumbed to peer-pressure. Now the real challenge begins. How do you define friendship? Do you accept everyone you know or just the people you talk to on a regular basis? I’ve seen hundreds of familiar names and faces and the Facebook application is more than helpful in pointing out people I might know. I’ll surely have more observations about the social medium as I get to know it better - and as my 'friends' get to know me better.

Responding to the Groundswell

A good friend recommended that I pick up the book Groundswell (Li & Bernoff, 2008). Our institution has been struggling with getting a viral marketing campaign up and running. We continue to create a buzz in the traditional sense through events and promotions. But the social networking hasn't taken off as we had hoped. As I began reading through the book I realised that we need to get our staff posting more news, comments and updates on their blogs. What the book points out is that trying to contain a viral outbreak is all but impossible. Trying to stop something from happening only makes the think happen more widely.

Li and Bernoff site three elements at the root of the current social media groundswell – people, technology and economics. Of people they say, "people have always rebel against institutional power" (p.10). This got me to thinking – do people rebel against institutional power or institutional authority? And, is there a difference?

The idea of power has popped up a few times in the last 24 hours. Last night my wife and I watched Baz Luhrmann's Australia (2008). The villain in the film says at least twice, "pride isn't power." I think I'm beginning to understand what that means. Institutions that have built and invested heavily in brands take pride in what they do. We all search for purpose in life and organisations are no different – they need a purpose to exist. The arrival of social technologies has shifted the organisational message to the hands of the consumer. This obviously presents a challenge to traditional business, and thus, is the purpose for Li and Bernoff's book.

America as a society is facing such a groundswell. The election of President Barak Obama brought great hope to millions of Americans. This hope was rooted in returning America to her former glory and greatness. There has begun a groundswell, however, and the rest of the world is questioning the 'institutional power' that has been vested in America for the last few generations. Social technologies have the capacity to not only undermine businesses, but also nations and governments. CNN carried a story this week about Iran banning Facebook – something that Iranian officials were quick to dismiss. They later reconnected the site. So we can see that the social technologies offer us some great advantages. But, should we not also be cautious about the disadvantages as well. Rebelling against power is one thing. But what if we begin rebelling against our authorities? If every human becomes the source of their own authority, who arbitrates between competing ideologies and thought? Where will the forum be for considered thinking in the future? Will we even have time to process and think things through – or will be just do things instantaneously and deal with the consequences later?

There are more questions than answers and I think there always will be. But as a living, breathing, thinking human being, I have to hold on to the hope that although life is happening as the speed of my broadband connection, I still need to consider where I fit into the world in relation to my fellow human beings and the social structures (families, organisations, etc) that have existed for centuries.

Li, C., & Bernoff, J. (2008). Groundswell: winning in a world transformed by social technologies. Boston: Harvard Business Press.

Luhrmann, B. (Writer) (2008). Australia. In G. M. Brown, C. Knapman, B. Luhrmann, C. Martin & P. d. Watters (Producer). Australia, USA: 20th Century Fox.

A new frontier

I could say we are standing on the precipice of change. But I think that would be too cliché. Change happens so quickly in our time that we are never really able to stand on the precipice of anything. Dr. John DeGioia, of Georgetown University, in a lecture given at Yale University spoke about the de-secularisation of the world. The notion that we have an opportunity to do things differently is inspiring.

All aspects of life seem to be crumbling around us. Our financial and economic structures have been battered. Our governments seem to be in disarray - do they really know how to handle the current situation? Will we be required to act and behave differently than we have in the past? Just this week, MPs in the UK Parliament have been called out for abusing their expense accounts. It seems that dozens of MPs have been caught claiming for things like home entertainment systems and mortgage payments on their homes. There is now an outcry with regards to this behaviour. This is how we used to operate. Will we still have people willing to put themselves forward for public service if all the perks were removed? Can we question the motive of our public servants - are they really servings the people who elected them? So what are we going to do about the opportunity that is in front of us? Will we embrace the change and learn to live more fully as human-beings? People created for the relationship and community; outward facing and willing to put others before ourselves. Will we learn to embrace the spiritual that has been within us all along?

N.T. Wright presents a brilliant illustration that ties in with what DeGioia says in his lecture. Wright presents a parable of a government that paves over a water supply because it is causing floods in the local community. The government leaders tell the people that they will take care of them. Their water will be pumped in from elsewhere. But over time, the water that was held back by the concrete eventually pours out. DeGioia suggest that the academy and Western Governments have been trying to compartmentalise the sacred and the secular. Both Wright and DeGioia both suggest that in order to confront the complex changes we are currently facing we will need to embrace the complexity of our humanity. We cannot fully enjoy our human rights if we are not allowed to embrace and recognize the spiritual aspects of our lives. We cannot always separate the rationale from the spiritual. It often makes more sense if we allow these two things are to co-exist. Not everything needs to be explained away. If we find that we have a place in the world, and that that place is in relationship with everyone else, we might find that we begin to treat our fellow travellers on the journey of life just a little bit differently.

We are standing on the precipice of a new frontier. There seems to be a sense that we are finally coming to the end of the recent economic crisis. I'm not so sure. We may just be entering the eye of the storm. There is still a need for us to commit our energies and efforts to sorting out how we can better live together. We need to exercise a little bit of caution here. As we “Moving Beyond Dialogue to Action” (the title of DeGioia's talk) we need to pay attention to Wright’s caution:

"Part of the Christian story (and for that matter, the Jewish and Muslim stories) is that human beings have been so seriously damaged by evil that what they need isn't simply better self-knowledge, or better social conditions, but help, and indeed rescue, from outside themselves. We should expect that in the quest for spiritual life many people will embrace options that are, to put it more strongly for the moment, less than what would actually be best for them. People who have been starved of water for a long time will drink anything, even if it is polluted. People keep without food for long periods will eat anything they can find, from grass to uncooked meat. Thus by itself "spirituality" may appear to be part of the problem as well as part of the solution."(Wright, 2006, p. 25)

Wright, N. T. (2006). Simply Christian. Why Christianity Makes Sense. New York: HarperOne.