This blog is a record of what we are doing in the real world as we self-organise to deal with the repercussions to the credit crunch. There is no organisation to this, no group, no network. You are already part of it. Let's do the best we can.

800k+ people to be unemployed in the first two months of 2009 in the UK alone...

Tuesday 23 June 2009

twitter experiment

Got an idea today. I was using http://tweetpsych.com because the designer, @danzarrella, has included a recommendation of 5 similar thinkers to you. I suggested that he make a bigger jump than he has made so far, which is to compile some kind of algorithm that brings people together from different thinking styles... in order to suggest ideal groups.

Anyhow, I contacted the five individuals who match my profile, got one response back within the hour who said he was interested in an experiment, @robertetaylor. Which is why I am writing this blog, so I can introduce him to the bleeding edge of this experiment. (I assume he's interested in this initial state because... our profiles match:)

Originally, when looking at the various recommendations, I thought it would be a simple matter of seeing if we could do something together as a group. As an extended network of similar thinkers. I contacted robert first because he has a similar follower count to me. We may need to pull our power in order to get the attention of the fifth one who has something like 50,000 followers if I remember correctly.

Then, when I searched for robert's profile, his recommended five did not include me. And I started to think of extended networks. I am not sure what the point would be, but if we could map out our relationships, would this show something of communities? And I am talking about a straight maths analysis of a network graph. Could we use something like nodebox specifically java-network? Could we ask dan to include this as an extension, or could one of us implement it for him?

SO, with experiment#1, what can we five do that we can get to see a social result within the week? How can we empower one another, perhaps, such that we can manifest the greatest social effect. Or, has someone got an alternative idea?

AND, with experiment#2, we create an extended network, each of us mapping to only 5 others. This extended network might be willing to play the following thought experiment once we reach eg 1000 people: what can 1000 people do, the results of which we would see manifest socially within the week?

Feel free to add your own experimental idea, or to answer some of these. This is just the beginning. (It could also be the end. Depends on what we think :)

EDIT:
Shoot, almost forgot. I also did a simultaneous thread introducing my friend @olasofia to her profile recommendations, and @thinksmith with his since I am meant to be interviewed by him tomorrow on his radio show. We can call that experiment#3.

1 comment:

  1. I am behind this 100% @happyseaurchin, and I promise to contribute brainpower, I'm just a little busy at the moment, will be back later in the day to respond :)

    ReplyDelete

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