Social Media and the Brain: A Business Anthropologist’s View
A number of innovations have changed the face of commerce in my lifetime. Credit cards greatly enabled commercial exchanges. Email and FedEx both sped up communication and reduced cost. The internet both transformed information transfer, and introduced people around the world who would not have otherwise found each other. In each case, exchanges – the fundamental unit of commerce – became easier. Barriers were lowered and trade flourished.
Are social media another facilitator of trade?
One of the aspects of social media that I find most fascinating is the proliferation of free – non-monetized, and non-negotiated – exchanges. There’s an ethos around that practice, to which participants are finely-tuned. It’s OK to make commercial offers, and to be compensated for touting others’ products, as long as a) you’re up-front about it, b) it’s deemed appropriate to the specific site and subject , and c) that’s not the only kind of stuff you talk about. In the recent surge of activity around the Iran election on Twitter, for example, those few who sought to reach participants with anything commercial were immediately and soundly slapped.
There is plenty of commercial activity on social media. Even so, many corporate marketers are not so happy with its power – the loss of control is counter-cultural for them - while small businesses are faster to use it to advantage . The explosive growth of Twitter confounded the pundits and sparked controversy for months. Much of that chatter quieted when the State Department asked Twitter to postpone scheduled maintenance soon after the Iranian election.
I’m struck by the way social media simulate community. The earmarks of community are 1) Shared concerns and 2) Free exchanges addressing those concerns, in addition to monetized or quantified trading. In the 17 years I had my office in Napa, CA, the river flooded half a dozen times. People of all ages jumped in to assist – with whatever equipment and know-how at their command – with no thought of quantifying the exchanges. And they loved it; stories abounded for years. The mood of the entire country shifted when a now-famous commercial airline pilot landed in the Hudson in January of this year, and locals leaped into every available craft to get people out of the water. This month, untold numbers of people from all over the world changed their Twitter profiles to confuse Iranian secret police, and offered proxy sites as internet communication inside the country was disabled.
I suspect that our forebears lived by means of free exchanging – in ordinary life as well as in crises – starting with the earliest communities – perhaps as long as 350,000 generations ago. Human groups are characterized by coordination and cooperation. When did those exchanges become widely monetized? After the Industrial Revolution, perhaps 12 generations ago. So for 349,988 generations human communities thrived by virtue of exchanging [mostly] without quantification.
I’m not speaking here of Free as a ‘new radical price’, like the book of that title, though I agree that trend is important. I’m speaking of exchanging freely, with abandon, the way children learn in play. Sparking curiosity and enabling Neuroplasticity: the power of our brains to move with the new, in the moment – perhaps the most important skill of this century.
From Fast Company, “Enterprise MicroLearning”,
Twitter, a public micro-sharing network used by many early adopters, has become an integral part of my own professional practice and personal brain-building. I use it to connect, share, and discover information far beyond any other network. I’ve grown to realize the field might better be thought of as micro-learning where the conduit is tiny and the lessons spread are vast. Across an enterprise — be it around the globe or down the hall — the learning potential is endless, while the opportunities to connect to knowledge are exploding in number and variety.
I use it in a way similar to how I touch base with my friends and family, briefly and frequently, and I now extend that level of care to involve my coworkers and business partners. I can find someone to review an article as effortlessly as I can offer personal experience to a colleague on how to select a webinar platform or which organizations have successfully launched their own brand Wikipedia. This is all akin to the magic of open-source software, created through public grassroots collaboration.
– Marcia Conner, Pistachio Consulting, www.twitter.com/marciamarcia
The two comments below, in response to my blog post, “Harvard Study Confirms That Twitter is Unique”, point to that same synergistic learning:
…for me Twitter is like being in a perpetual book store…yet many have some pretty strong perceptions and opinions about Twitter despite having never even tried it.
One other practical ‘value’ I would add to your list that I honestly didn’t think about when I first started using twitter…are the new friends and people with whom I have shared interests with that I have met thru twitter, and in some cases started to get to know in a deeper way than others that I meet in my typical day to day business dealings. And over time, these new ‘friendships’ can blossom into live face to face meetings and collaborations…Pretty amazing to think about speaking or I should say tweeting to people a few times a week that you never met before, yet overtime, you become ‘friends’ and collaborators etc.
- Ellen Hoenig-Carlson, Advance MarketWoRx, www.twitter.com/ellenhoenig
I get news, commentary, inspiration, information and a view into the collective consciousness from Twitter.
The Twitter experience for me is like seeing clouds from above… Once a rare treat that has become more accessible to more people over time.
– Janet Johnson, O’Johnson Partners, www.twitter.com/janetleejohnson
Those who are bewildered by social media are often those who haven’t enjoyed a good sample. They haven’t yet noticed a simple – but powerful – factor: it feels good. Recent brain research shows that helping others – including mentoring, and donating money and energy to charities – stimulates the same part of the brain as sex and chocolate. As far as I know, as of this writing no one has tested to see if free exchanges on Twitter show up in the same place on an fMRI. But hang on, I bet it will soon be forthcoming.
In this sense, social media may be more than an innovation: they may be revolutionary in their disturbance – as corporate marketers fear. Exchanging freely feels good. It’s rich. The results may not be easy to measure, but they’re a form of wealth with a very long history.
And don’t make the mistake of trying to fool anyone. Our brains are exquisitely sensitive to community. People can tell whether a proposed contribution or a free offer is real and sincere, or not. The punishment of pretending to be part of community is likely to be harsh.
Filed under Business Anthropologist, Changing Economic patterns, Social media, neuroscience in business | Comment (1)
Neuroscience in Business: What we can't do while 'multi-tasking'
The brain does not multi-task. This simple biological fact has huge implications for business.
What if your corporate culture accepts – even demands – multi-tasking? You’re as sharp as a drunk driver. You will miss – and misinterpret – as much of what is going on around you as someone who could be arrested for DUI.
Not only will you miss important information, you certainly will not generate new questions or solutions. Responsive to market changes? Forget it. Figuring out new ways to deploy resources? Not a chance.
Imagine that you’re an auto manufacturer…Or an SEC official….Better yet, imagine that you find yourself in the midst of an economic downturn. Markets are jittery; customers and employees are fearful. Your enterprise will thrive – or not – based on your ability to:
- Notice what’s going on – Be curious about what might be valuable in this new reality
- Generate new solutions for new concerns
- Provoke Customers’ curiousity about new solutions.
Multi-tasking may be the most dangerous habit we’ve ever allowed.
Filed under Business Anthropologist, Leadership, neuroscience in business | Comments (7)Neuroscience in Business: Being Smarter in the Downturn
Last night I heard a neuroscientist make a remark that has huge implications for 21st century businesses, ”For all the ways we know to use a tool, like a needle or a hammer, for example, we use the Wernicke’s area of the brain,” pointing to the area just above and behind his left ear. “But if you want to think of new ways to use a needle, you use the other side,” pointing above and behind his right ear.
Every business is challenged to rethink the way it uses tools, processes and other assets, to be sure. That’s challenging enough, you think?
Take a look at a few of the factors required in order for your brain – for customers’ and employees’ brains – to perform this all-important task.
The right and left sides of our brain are connected by the corpus collosum – a structure that is highly affected by a number of types of stress.
If your employee or customer is worried, frightened, tired, not getting enough exercise, hyped up on caffeine, or has any concerns for his/her status [rank on the social or corporate hierarchy], s/he won’t be able to take on a new question.
Because of the way the brain works, many types of stress decrease ingenuity when we need it most.
Already at work on that? Please share…
Filed under neuroscience in business | Comments (2)Neuroscience in Business?
You may wonder, “Why now?” Is it a fad?
While some may be buzzing that way, I think not. A number of factors have converged in the last decade, which result in most workplaces actually minimizing the abilities of the human brain. A combination of technology; 24/7 information bombardment; inadequate breaks, sleep and exercise; prevalence of stimulants like caffeine, sugar, and alcohol; prevalence of multi-tasking; the pace of change; the demand to work – quickly – with people we’ve never met and whose face we may never even see on a screen; plus the increasing concern of whether we’re high-enough on the hierarchy to be respected and, indeed, to stay employed, means that our brains are constantly stressed. Not a context for good brain function. Quite the contrary.
For example,
- Some very important tasks cannot be accomplished when multi-tasking: Neuro-plasticity – the condition required for any new thinking, or for learning and innovation – will not occur. Neither can trust be built while multi-tasking.
- Working memory is smaller than most managers realizes. New information cannot be processed when working memory is full: a common occurrence in an information-bombarded world. People simply cannot absorb multiple power point presentations. “Death by data” has become commonplace.
- New thinking, learning, new responses will not take place when people are afraid of danger or concerned about their status – their place on the hierarchy. Few organizations know how to proffer status.
Neuroscience offers a number of opportunities for competitive advantage. Fear in response to downbeat economic news can be minimized by focusing on ways that employees can band together to address new client vulnerabilities and concerns. Leading with inquiry – including people in new questions – is a powerful way to neutralize status, and will greatly boost learning, innovation, and responsiveness – not to mention morale. These two alone can breed a best work environment.
Are you using Neuroscience to build a high-performing business culture? Please share…
Filed under Business Anthropologist, neuroscience in business | Comment (0)It's One of Those Moments
When we most need courage and ingenuity. Our economy begs for sparks: fresh thinking, elegant ways to re-deploy resources and help constituents thrive together. Enterprises need our minds to be at their best.
Unfortunately, the brain’s first response to downbeat financial news is the opposite. Our neurons are highly sensitive to anything that looks like ‘danger’. In its presence, as many have observed, natural responses are Fight, Flight or Freeze. The pre-frontal cortex does not fire up – it shuts down.
Fear does more than blunt ingenuity; it all-but-obliterates the kind of intelligence we most need to maneuver.
We can develop better reactions – the human brain is enormously plastic. We can build high-performing business cultures that respond to market changes with curiosity. People can learn to respond with highly effective collaborative inquiry, like the engineers in the famous Apollo 13 crisis, “Houston, we have a problem.”
Neuroscience has a lot of value for business. Integrating some of those lessons into management practices for several years now, I’ve been deeply concerned about the ways that most workplaces dull brain function, rather than putting people at their best.
The current financial crisis makes the matter urgent. There’s much we can do. Two especially juicy items for the brain are experiences of belonging and of contributing. Leaders can re-kindle the spark of enterprise by responding to financial news with focus on customers’ increased vulnerability and by providing ways for employees and suppliers to band together to address them. Brain juice will flow, and new value will be generated.
Maybe you have somne other ways you’re using to make employees, customers, and suppliers smarter when we need them most? Please share.
Filed under Business Anthropologist, Reflections, neuroscience in business | Comment (1)
