Human Information Nodes and Routing
Proposed: though social networks and social media are excellent for capturing unstructured, organic information and conversation, I believe that we could do some really cool things using these tools with only a little bit of effort. It all comes down to choosing (even occasionally) to use similar tools and methods to move information along. Here’s what I’m getting at, and bear with me, because it’s not exactly what we NORMALLY talk about here.
Human Information Nodes
First, just think about this for a moment: we tend to ask certain people for certain information, certain groups for other information, and general audiences for more general information. Agreed? For example, if I have a question about ADHD or OCD or the like, I ask Whitney Hoffman. If I want some ideas on presentations, I ask Pistachio/Laura. If I want to know about money (or about 3,491,980 other things), I ask Christopher S. Penn.
Think about this concept as “human information nodes.” Think for a moment what a “network” of these nodes would look like. And by network, think of these folks as connected and reachable. (In this case, those folks are all on Twitter/Facebook/Blogs and tons more).
Nodes in General
So then we have groups of people. For instance, I could whip up a Twitter collection of folks who love virtual worlds and have lots to say about them. I’d add Eric Rice, Mal Burns, The Diva and dozens more folks, like Merlene and Christina Greene, etc, etc. Think of these GROUPS of people as informational nodes.
What’s Missing are “Rules”
Now, what if we had ways to tap this information still loosely, but with perhaps better protocol, and by better, maybe I just mean more efficient. (And you could argue that this isn’t necessary, so please do!) What if I wanted to tap this in some way that made it REALLY useful? What if the gestalt of these nodes of people and groups could communicate in some way that I could then collect/collate/republish/point and do so in a somewhat automatic fashion?
Probably the parts are all there. I mean, we have RSS, we have twitter/blogs/sms/pownce/podcasts, etc. We have feed readers and status messages and things like that.
But what if we had ways to “query” and “post” such that folks used the information in a format that suited their needs? Hmmm, am I making any sense? (This is quickly going down as a “rambly post.”)
What if you’re Kim Haynes who’s interested in HR concepts, in social media, in lead generation, and you want to reach out and ask a question about social media “listening” tools like Radian6? What if you’re asking which other tools would go nicely with that tool to build an advanced social media toolkit?
How would you ask that question? How would you get the information back? How would you process it? And how would you make that resource available for others to see?
Seems like the workflow could be stupid simple, right?
Ask question in Twitter.
Scrape answer using twittersearch.com and the @replies function.
Dump the results into a blog post.
Tag the hell out of it.
Right? Is that all I’m pointing out here?
And then, if it is, how could we “pre-build” packs of effective nodes, or addresses to effective resources to whom we can ask these questions? Is this nothing more than a blogroll?
Tapping the Matrix
The first Matrix movie had scenes where someone inside the Matrix would ask someone with a higher-level view for information, quite often in the form of a map. I’ve been obsessed with that concept forever, and I’ve used Twitter to gain access to information very much in the same fashion that characters in that movie sought their information.
What my point might be is that we’re out there creating all kinds of information all the time, and we’re all stumbling around reading each other’s output (or listening or watching). What are the tools we might use to start collecting this in useful ways? What would be the things we need to make the information live? What is the shelf life of the things we know? How do we know which things NEED a shelf-life?
Your Thoughts
If anything resonated in this post, I’d love your thoughts in the comments, so that we can have a further discussion. If this one just doesn’t make sense, that’s okay. Consider it a thought in progress. Because I’m out there, still thinking this one through. I’m wondering about tools and then the humans that feed the tools. And I’m wondering about what you think.
What do YOU do to cultivate such networks, to feed them information, and how do you apply this to the “things that matter” category in your life?
Photo credit, by jared In fact, there are tons of good snaps by Jared.
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Comments
Wasn’t that the 1981 movie, Looker, in premise?
And is it the OS or the UI? Meaning, if we’re stealing something, aren’t we stealing Aero or the shiny edges? Hmmm. Well, maybe the logic, too.
You’re right though. Human OS.
[…] Nile Virus Human Information Nodes and Routing » This Summary is from an article posted at [chrisbrogan.com] on Sunday, December 02, 2007 [ […]
it’s not fiction eric it’s mr brogan’s observation of history. we’ve always been better than machines at organizing and acting on what’s really relevant to us.
software is getting way better at mimicking the superficial characteristics and we humans are getting better at sensing the relevant while being exposed to a larger and larger group of humanity.
no two individuals really use the tools identically, but when they do approximate it, they get distinctly different results - based purely on context, which IMO is part the present moment and part the legacy energy matrix between/among us.
Chris,
I’ve been thinking about this while doing other things tonight. I think that we do create these networks intuitively (and join them). Aren’t they our social networks? I belong to 3 niches & I know where to go when I need assistance depending on if I have a question related to my work, my networking or my hobby. Or do you see this as something more specific?
Rox, to clarify, fiction is the thing I’m doing, Chris is doing the observation, I agree.
Typing while jetlagged = bad :)
Eric, thanks! I was picking up on (or projecting my own) paranoia in your closing comment. People who think out on the edge often can “get away” with more outrageous-ness when filed under fiction.
Meanwhile, sleep is good. That is what Mr Brogan is doing while we yak up his blog!
[…] Check This Out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today. Here’s a quick excerpt: Proposed: though social networks and social media are excellent for capturing unstructured, organic information and conversation, I believe that we could do some really cool things using these tools with only a little bit of effort. … […]
[…] on Twitter and when you ask a question you get answers from some or all of them. Chris Brogan has a thought provoking post on the future of routing information in this […]
Somewhere I switched off. Not for me. Now left anxious that Chris Brogan will take the fun out of Twitter.
Chris,
Great topic. Innovation networks are something I have been thinking on for quite sometime, and the biggest barrier is finding the right people to ask questions too:
My solution is something along the lines of: GoogleApps + Spock + Facebook/Orkut
Essentially: Collaboration Tools + People Search + Social Network.
More fleshed out thoughts here:
http://senithomas.wordpress.com/2007/10/25/the-holy-grail-of-social-media-google-incubator/
Cheers,
Seni
I really love how you refer to clusters of people as “nodes”! For some reason, it reminds me of dendrites and synapses, and how our brains make and bolster connections 24/7. In that way, it just seems to make sense to communicate purposefully via information clusters. I’m not sure what that would look like on a large scale, but it is something to keep in mind when trying to glean or supply information. Thanks for the insight!
with this post you have absolutely got my attention. Ihave been wrestling with this problem - using grazr and a visual map of the socialnet as my beginning tools - I think there are so many different nodal connections that one needs a Powers of Ten approach to panning and zooming them. You just wrote the spec for the tools set I need to achieve what Vannevar Bush was talking about in 1945 with his Memex, and what Doug Engelbart has been preaching for 40 years with his concepts for a dynamic knowledge repository for collective intelligence. I know we have connected before, but with this post( which incidentally was through a link from Beth Kantor’s Blog) I feel it’s time to reconnect with you and do some serious work together. Can we talk?
Hi folks, first time posting here.
I can’t speak much to technology or methods here, but I like this idea because it might help deal with a different problem that I recently pondered: getting access to trustworthy information in an age where spin, exaggeration, and downright lies seem all too prevalent.
Over time we all build up our networks of trusted information sources. When the media (any media) starts broadcasting a story of some kind, you can tap into your network of contacts to determine whether the information is true, false, or flawed. But what if you are new to the game and don’t have a network or don’t know who is really knowledgeable? A network of trustworthy information nodes would be a wonderful thing to be able to tap into.
Could a wiki be a part of the ultimate solution, or something like it that allows continuous editing, review, approval, and is built to link things together? Just a thought…
Great post!
diva’s…
I Googled for something completely different, but found your page…and have to say thanks. nice read….
Man, so short on time here, but I’ve been working on a fictitious operating system that’s based on a similar thing… a person’s grid is the OS, and everyone has their own OS. Since we could scrape knowledge data from social networks (and I’ll raise the stakes by saying, scrape personality and soul), you might be able to run an OS, with knowledge, and empathy, based on a careful reconstruction of a person, their wisdom, and their vibe.
They’d lock me up if I didn’t qualify statements with ‘I’m writing fiction’.