Node Glue

I met Nancy White briefly at Seattle Mind Camp last weekend. I had noticed her interactions and contributions in various group discussions and thought, “now this is an interesting person.” Demographically, she was not the norm that weekend, being both female, and by her own admission, a bit older than most of us Despite those differences, though, she definitely belonged in this crowd. She is sharp, thoughtful, curious, creative. So she had my attention. Now, after reading her blog, I see that she happens to be interested in some of the same things I’m interested in, like community online and offline, people interactions.

So I just want to make the observation that, yes, I might have stumbled onto her blog eventually anyway; my technorati searching would have turned up one of her posts on community or something. Nancy and I didn’t have any significant in person dialogue any more than “hello, nice to meet you.” But there’s something about having been in a shared physical context, a small discussion group at Mind Camp, that changes the way I now interact with her blog. It’s more personal to me.

So that in-person interaction, even the non-verbals, even seeing what she was interested in, like the visual displays she decorated our walls with, make a difference in my impression of her.

Her blog posts also make an impression. But probably a different impression than if I only knew her by her posts. I can almost hear her voice and see her mannerisms and gestures when I read her posts. She’s human. It’s as if the digital impressions of the blog posts evoke the memory of the in-person impressions. So the digital touch of the blog post is more than just a digital touch. In a sense, it invokes the memory of the in-person experience and makes the blog all the more personal.

This might be similar to the feeling you might get if you go to an author’s book reading and buy a signed copy of the book. After being that close an in-person with the author, your reading of the book is different. You hear the authors voice in your head. You see his face. When he makes a sarcastic remark in the text, you can visualize his face looking sarcastic. So reading the book is now more like having a conversation with him, not just a conversation with his idea, the topic of the book, but a conversation with him, personally.

So maybe this is a no-brainer to you, but it’s noteworthy to me. But I’m convinced that the online presence matters, a lot. It provides the opportunity for many more touchpoints with a person. But the offline presence also matters. From a “sticky network” perspective, Nancy is a lot more “sticky” for me having met her in person than if I hadn’t. And yet, if I didn’t have a stream of blog posts to read after having met her, the memory of those in-person impressions of her at Mind Camp would fade, and the sense of connection would undoubtedly fade with it.

My conclusion is that blogging is a powerful way to interact online in a personal, human way in it’s own right. But blogging combined with in-person interactions is much more powerful for retaining a sense of connectedness.

…for example, Scoble has been called the attention bunny. People pay attention to what Scoble pays attention to. He is an Attention Hub. Our Collective Attention, linking to where he links, looking where he looks, reminds me of the Eye of Sauron. A blazing and powerful force that sees through Middle Earth in search of something of great interest and import, the Ring. What Ring are we looking for? What Ring is Scoble looking for? What motivates him and catches his attention–and ours?

By all accounts, Scoble is a great guy (I wish I’d had an excuse to meet him while we were both at Seattle Mind Camp), so this isn’t really about him, per se, but more about the idea. But consider the power he wields in directing attention.

“But”, you may say, “I have a choice whether or not to pay attention to what Scoble pays attention to.” Yes, of course, you do. But given the choice between drowning in the depths of more irrelevant information than you could ever absorb, it’s tempting not to choose a reliable filter.

The idea of such a controlling filter was a bit of a scandalous topic in Chris Pirillo’s talk on gada.be, RSS, and OPML. Gada.be is one way to circumvent a filter. But I think I’d rather drink from a faucet than a firehose.

Still, when I choose a filter, I submit myself to a powerful force, a force that influences where I invest my attention.

I have a confession to make. I’ve been ignoring the Web for the past 2 years or so. But recently, the idea of Attention has caught my attention. I’m captivated. Trisha and I spent the morning talking about attention.

Somewhere around the time I went to Microsoft in 2003, I left “the loop.” I was no longer in the know. That’s not a Microsoft issue. That’s more of a me issue. Of course I use the web every day, for just about everything. But paying attention to it is different. Now I’m paying attention. So much so that I have collected about 42 blogs worth of thought on the subject, but no time to blog them So I plan to write about attention for a while. A little at a time.

In the meantime, I’m tracking my attention with Root.net, and contemplating AttentionTrust.

This is funny to me. Let’s call it intentional procrastination. This plea has been in the back of my mind for a while. But wasn’t until just now that I realized how long it’s been there. A year and a half

So, here you go, Travis. I’m blogging!

As I sit here sipping on some very nice Earl Grey tea and reading over some of the blogs I enjoy, It hit me. Why had I not thought of it sooner? It seems with all of the people I know there is a notable person missing from the blog space. So I am calling you out, Mike Wilkerson!

So here’s the second of the obligatory, “hello, world. here’s what I’m up to” startup blog posts.

Nodes

A node is a vertex in a graph. Or you can think of a node as one of the computers on a computer network. Or, if you’re familiar with the Oracle of Bacon, a node there is an actor.

Let’s go with the Oracle of Bacon metaphor.

The idea is that we look at Hollywood as a giant web, or network, of actors. Each actor is a “node” on this network. One actor is “linked” to another by appearing in the same film together. So you have nodes, the actors, and you have links, representing co-appearance in a film.

Networks of Nodes

For example, Leonard Nimoy has a Bacon Number of 2 because he appeared in Star Trek VI with Christian Slater, and Christian Slater appeared in Murder in the First with Kevin Bacon.

This little network represents a tiny little subsection of the much larger network of Hollywood. In the example, Leonard Nimoy, Christian Slater, and Kevin Bacon are nodes. Star Trek VI and Murder in the First are the links. The former links Nimoy and Slater directly to one another. The latter links Slater directly to Bacon.

It’s starts to get really interesting when you realize that Leonard Nimoy is linked to Kevin Bacon through Christian Slater. Now maybe that doesn’t make such a big difference in Hollywood to be linked indirectly to someone, but it certainly does when you’re looking for a job. Who are your best allies when looking for a new job? Your direct connections, closest friends? Nope. It’s their friends, or friends of their friends. The ones you met once at a party and had a decent chat, but rarely see, except when you’re with that friend. But you’re close enough to that person that it’s not rude to say, “hey I’m looking for a job. If you know of any, let me know.” Sociologist Mark Granovetter calls these weak ties, and he argues that, for some purposes, like getting a job, your weak ties are a more valuable asset to you than your strong ties, like your close friends and family.

Epidemiology is another place where network effects are powerful. I don’t know if you went to the same Junior High health class that I went to, but in mine, the refrain was, “if you have sex with one other person, you’re not just having sex with him/her, but with everyone else he/she has ever had sex with, and every one that all of those people have had sex with.” In other words, you can’t answer the question of “what are my chances of contracting AIDS by having sex with this person?” by focusing on that person alone. You have to consider the odds that AIDS might be present anywhere in the entire web of all the people (nodes) that are “linked” to one another through sexual intercourse.

So networks are important. Networks have nodes and links.

Glue, Not Links

But I’m going with glue instead of links. Why?

Because glue is sticky, messy, has no borders, no boundaries. It oozes. But it also creates structure. It brings things together and makes new things, aggregate things, stuck together things. Things that are greater than the sum of their parts.

We live in a cyborg world. A world that is part human and part internet. But the connections are elusive and fuzzy. Stick and messy. Like glue. The connections between the nodes in this cyborg world are not the crisp lines of your typical graph. They’re all over the place.

Let me give you an example.

I had the privilege of being at Seattle Mind Camp this past weekend. Here’s a gathering of uber geeks. No group of people in the world knows and uses technology with more devotion than these people. These are the culture makers and shapers of the internet, and of the technologies that build the internet. And what do they want from Mind Camp? Human contact! Networking.

Every single one of them has a blog. Google them. You’ll find them leaving their droppings all over the net. So it’s not like we couldn’t find out about these important people, even interact with them directly online. They’re always plugged in. Like Neo in the Matrix. But something happens when you get all of these cyborgs together in a room. It’s a human thing. It’s a technology thing. A veritable mashup of people and technology.

Glue is more organic and fluid than the stick-links of your typical graph.

So, Node Glue. There you have it.

“Hello, World.”

That’s the first thing a programmer is supposed to say when he starts writing in a new language. After over two years of standing back and looking at this whole blogging movement with some bewilderment, I’ve finally decided to learn and speak the language.

Why? (you might ask)

Because it’s a new day on the internet. Today, the internet is about people, not computers. We’ve had bulletin boards for a long, long time. And listservs and chat forums. But I’ve finally realized that blog’s are distinctly human–it’s personal.

The first class citizen of a discussion forum is a discussion, or perhaps a topic.

The first class citizen of a blog is a person. The entries tend to be informal, human, earthy. It’s the daily grind. One day on, another day off. Some days inspired. Some days sick and tired. And that’s what humans are like. The readers of a blog can see the fingerprint of a personality emerge from post to post. Due to the spontaneity, informality, and dated entry, personality is communicated more clearly than formal newletter email lists or random topic oriented discussion forums.

Page Rank is another indicator that it’s about people. One blogger linking to another blogging is reaching out to shake his hand. He does so this in public, like when a movie star receives an oscar: “I’d like to thank Joe, without whom this would not have been possible.” All of a sudden Joe, whom no one had ever heard of before, is now heard of.

Or in any other case where one person gains fame because by association with someone more famous. My most recent favorite example of this is Larry David. I had no idea how funny this guy was. Why do I care about him at all? Because of Seinfeld. Seinfeld is a big deal. And when Seinfeld says something good about Larry David, then on Seinfeld’s credentials, I know that Larry must truly be good. And you know what, he is. Trisha (my wife) and I just finished Neflixing the last of the back seasons of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Funniest stuff I’ve seen in a long time. So I have Seinfeld to thank for “linking” me to Larry David.

Why are blogs rising in popularity so quickly? It’s because at the end of the day, people are still trying to network to other people. What’s really interesting about the internet is the people. Humans have a design that commands our interest and curiosity long after our fascination with technology cools to boredom.

So this concludes my Hello, World post. In the near future, I’ll explain what in the world “node glue” means.