Maandag 19 november – Jen Drouin mailt een samenvatting van het boek Organisation After Social Media by Geert Lovink en Ned Rossiter. Het is een mooie puntige opsomming…

• Social media platforms are more often the preferred choice for mass mobilisation.
• It’s time to integrate technology into the social tissue and no longer reduce computers and smart phones to broadcasting devices.
• Technologies are agents of change; to understand social transformation therefore requires an understanding of technology.
• Instead of exploiting the weak ties inside dominant social networking sites, orgnets emphasise intensive collaborations within a limited group of engaged users with the aim of getting things done.
• Instead of growing networks through weak ties users concentrate their efforts on small groups in order to get things done, a collective move from communication to social action, from weak ties to strong links.
• Intensify what’s already there and collaborate instead of merely communicate.
• What networks need to learn is how to split off once they start getting too big. Scale can become the enemy. At this point networks typically enter the danger zone of losing focus. Intelligent software can assist us to dissolve connection, close conversations, and delete groups once their task is over. We should never be afraid to end the party.
• A culture of openness, sharing and project based forms of activity are key characteristics of organised networks.
• The offline element is central to the work of organising networks.
• Networks are created to take initiative, to lead us into new situations, not merely to keep updated.
• What does it mean these days to join a group? Social affiliation, desire for relation.
• To make networks sustainable there needs to be an accumulation of experience and collective production of knowledge.
• Consider networks as connectors between pockets of initiatives.
• Sustainable networks are viable as long as you stick to the topic and build a movement together with a dedicated group.

Foto van Ngai Man Yan.