A Book & Concepts Discussion SeriesPaul Schumann – CenTexWFSTaylor Willingham – Texas ForumsJon Lebkowsky – Extreme Democracy

Tools The book as a guide 12 online interactive discussions Extreme Democracy blog (

www.extremedemocracy.com) Networking (

www.attendr.com/extremedemocracy) Documents Texas Forums blog (

http://texasforums.wordpress.com) Survey (

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=wSd6z99tHdPwJH_2fISs9Kvg_3d_3d)

Politics & Networks It’s the Conversation Stupid: The Link

Between Social Action & Political Choice: Valdis Krebs

Social Network Dynamics and Participatory Politics: Ross Mayfield

Broadcasting and the Voters paradox: David Weinberger

Social Technology and Democracy: danah boyd

The Calculus of Political Power: Mitch Ratcliff

The Calculus of Political Power “…although people who use the Internet for political activity

tend to be more liberal, the right tends to produce more content.”

Models of Political Behavior

Atomized voter Demographic voter Social voter

“Who we know influences what we know and how we feel about it.” Valdis Krebs

Krebs “Networks are better formed when

they are not immediately necessary.” “The election is a conversation not a

data flow.” Bose-Einstein condensate as a model? Self interest or the good of others? Are all nodes in a network equal?

Ecosystem of NetworksNetwork Layer

Scale Distribution of Links

Social Capital

Weblog Modality

Political Network

1000s Power-law (Scale Free)

Sarnoff’s Law, NValue≈number of subscribers

Publishing

Social Network

150 Random (Bell Curve)

Metcalfe’s Law, N2

Value≈number of links

Communication

Creative Network

12 Event (Flat) Reed’s Law, 2N

Value≈number of groups

Collaboration

Mayfield At around 74% market share, it becomes

more expensive to gain new customers than they are worth. What’s your experience?

What’s the role of niche competitors in Power Law markets?

How do you explain this and what does it mean? Letters: 6 degrees of separation (18% success

rate) E-Mail: 4 degrees of separation (1.6% success

rate)

Online vs. Social Software Online

Communities Top-down Place-centric Moderated Topic-driven Centralized Architected

Social Software Botton-up People-centric User-controlled Context-driven Decentralized Self-organizing

Social Networking ModelsNetwork Type Connection

MethodArchetype

Explicit Declarative Friendster, Orkut, Tribe.net

Virtual Avatar EverQuest

Physical In-person Meetup

Conversational Communication Weblogs

Private Referral LinkedIn

Mayfield Institutionalized pluralism vs.

Individualized pluralism? “Participatory politics is a disruptive

movement. Leveraging social software and the role of social networking, it provides citizens a role more than every four years.”

“It's time to put the demo back into democracy.”

Broadcasting & the Voter’s Paradox “Voting is gloriously paradoxical. Each person gets one and only

one vote…When we vote, we are merely faces in the crowd…” “…broadcasting isn’t simply a technological solution to a

communication problem. It’s got economic, societal, political and governmental implications.”

“The biggest effect the Internet will have on broadcasting is on its dominance as a social metaphor.”

“Broadcasting is, in fact a poor paradigm for communication.” “Broadcasting works against the ideals of democracy.” “…it leads to a narrowing of opinion.” “A nation with only one opinion doesn’t need democracy. Yet that

is almost where we are today.” “For something to grow big fast, you have to let it loose.” “Democracy once again seemed to be something that we, the

people, do.”

Sociable Technology & Democracy Homophily “Usually the most tightly knit groups share

much in common.” “While homophily is personally valuable, its

impact on democracy can have dire consequences.” It is easy to overestimate the success of a

movement. It is hard to rally diverse groups.

“…technology tends to increase the connections of like minded individuals more than increase the breadth of diversity.”

Types of Communication

Same DifferentValues

Different

Same

Information

Homophily

Conversation

Argument

Deliberation

Uses of Technology in Democracy

“People use available technologies in a creative way to communicate within their social network.

Technology is developed to connect physical communities for broader support.

Technology is developed to help educate and empower.”

Questions “…how can disparate groups connect

along an axis of commonality to be mutually beneficial in a way that will not spiral into a flame war?”

How can individuals see their impact on the whole?

Do we have any examples of how to handle diverse values and information that foster creativity?

danah boyd “As we consider how technology can be

used to engage people in democracy, it is important to encourage diverse groups to connect and affect one another without over whelming individuals. People must be able to find personal significance in the process. To be successful, technology must support people in negotiating their identity, relationships and community as part of the political process.”

Next Week

Strategy & the Political Process Democracy for the Rest of Us: The

Minimal Compact & Open Source Government

Making Room for the Third World in the Second Superpower