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MySpace is Not Important

Posted 29-Nov-2007 by Robby Slaughter (@robbyslaughter)

The latest words from business pundit Nicholas Carr ascribe deep, transformational import to social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. He claims that every business has a formal organization drawn with boxes and arrows that determine paygrades and an informal organization consisting of water cooler conversations and a flurry of emails. Carr insists we'll soon see MySpace Corporate Edition. He's probably right, but this is not a good idea.

Backing Up

Let's clarify what the social networking phenomenon really is: an online version of decorating your junior high locker. You get to pass notes through the slots, tape up celebrity photos, or store textbooks in your own personal space. Just because the websites let this happen en masse and the companies get traded for billions of dollars is nothing to get excited about. Is sharing jokes via Facebook any better than scratching graffiti on the bathroom wall?

In the corporate world, we use software systems to store and exchange documents, to keep track of critical information like specifications, accounting, marketing material and vision plans. These tidbits are very much defined by where they fit in the corporate hierarchy, and Nicholas Carr correctly notes that the actual everyday efforts of workers aren't captured by monolithic IT systems. Not surprisingly, junior high schools as well are not run on the locker information network. Books are kept in libraries organized by the Dewey Decimal System. Students are supposed to respect their teachers, who report to department chairs, who in turn bow to administrators. Nobody pays much attention to the politics and mechanisms of social interaction, no matter what the scale. Likewise, executives only care about Facebook because it can sometimes prove you're not doing your job.

Hierarchy, Collectivism and Chaos

If there is any lesson from the rise of social networking sites it is to be reminded that almost everything in business and government comes pre-packaged with a hierarchy. This system, the chain-of-command, is older than civilization. Some people are near the top. Most of us are near the bottom. So it goes.

Of course, this is very often a terrible way to get things done. Often, highly successful operations work better with small, collective teams that don't worry about who reports to who and what it takes to get the corner office. If anything about MySpace and Facebook should scare corporate bigwigs it's that they enable small groups of like-minded people to work and interact on an egalitarian basis, which is often far more effective than the model at MegaCorp.

This is not to say anarchy will solve all the world problems. Indeed, even Linux, the poster child of decentralized engineering, has a core group that ultimately decides what enters the operating system. There are obviously systems of sufficient complexity that you may need someone above to coordinate the efforts below. The question becomes whether such layers are just abstractions or actual differences in value. Does the boss deserve to be paid more? As Nick Carr writes, "some people at the top of the org chart will be less than pleased."

What Comes Next

Probably, Facebook will release a business version of their application and corporations will spend money not knowing what else to do. This won't affect the real transition, however, which is the democratization of work. A handful of people can now build impressive systems, in their spare time, that are better than the output of rich corporations. Linux has more than 50% of the server market. The Firefox web browser has grown to nearly 15% of the market after being released in just late 2004. These cases are interesting. As Paul Graham once noted, they are the "architectural equivalent of a home-made aircraft shooting down an F-18."

Social networks organized by everyday people around who and what they like are nothing new. That these interactions are often more useful, more successful and even more profitable than byzantine hierarchies should come as no surprise. MySpace and Facebook only help remind us that these networks exist. If big corporations have something to learn, it's that they are full of structures and bureaucracies that prevent them from getting almost anything done.

Further Reading:

• Paul Graham on Open Source
• Nick Carr on MySpace/Facebook at Work

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