2 responses to “Influence: It’s complicated”
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Thanks, Antony. In a cheeseball way, i am thinking Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, when Spock passed away. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one. Good post, thoughtful analysis. Thank you for reading!
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Antony,
Spot on. Iinfluence without influencers – to which one could add journalism without journalists, expertise without experts, or any form of process without its associated institution. Social media is about the shift in influence and trust from institutions to processes.
Duncan Watts is right – influence is determined not by who you are (which is fixed), but what you are doing, or what you have to say (which changes). This has implications for business in terms of how you define sources of influence (http://richardstacy.com/2010/12/07/there-are-only-10-people-critical-to-your-business-and-social-media-can-help-you-find-them).
Also really like your idea about networks choosing their own influencers – the idea shaping the network, rather than the network shaping the idea. A network is a form of distribution and an idea is a form of content. In the past distribution shaped the content, but as I am always fond of saying “social media is about the separation of information from a means of distribution” – content is now the dominant partner. Some pre-formed ideas on this here http://richardstacy.com/2009/09/21/are-social-networks-just-pretty-snowflakes/
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