GenXmanager: Leadership for the Generation X Manager

A Facebook friend suggested I read Umair Haque’s article on the Harvard Business Review blog titled, “The Social Media Bubble”. The title sounded interesting so I gave it a read. In general, I don’t agree with Haque’s thoughts and conclusions on social media. Let’s take this one by one.

First he states that there is relationship inflation in which our “friends” are an illusion of a real relationship. I won’t argue with that point at all. I have friends on Facebook who I barely interact with in the “real world”. What I don’t agree is the hypotheses he induces from relationship inflation.

Trust
Haque states that there is no increase in trust given the number of friends we have on social networks. While it’s true I wouldn’t trust many of my friends on Facebook or followers on Twitter to watch my 5 year-old daughter, I do trust them for specific information in a variety of content areas. So, I’d argue that a person’s access to trusted resources has grown using social networks, not diminished.

Disempowerment
Haque states, “The internet itself isn’t disempowering government by giving voices to the traditionally voiceless; it’s empowering authoritarian states to limit and circumscribe freedom by radically lowering the costs of surveillance and enforcement.” Try telling that to the students in Iran after the elections in 2009. The world was getting on the ground reports from real citizens in the streets of Iran. It wasn’t the media feeding us what they wanted us to see. I saw the tweets. I saw the photos. I’d argue that social media could be the most democratizing technology we’ve experience in society thus far. It gives a supercharged megaphone to the once voiceless.

Hate
Haque says, “today’s ‘social’ web is a world full of the linguistic equivalent of drive-by shootings.” Okay, I’ll admit that I’ve seen pretty heinous comments on YouTube videos and news stories that allow comments. Some are what I’d classify as hate-speech and some are simply childish un-intellectual rants. However, social media allows all individuals the ability to make their voices heard. I am responding to Haque’s blog with my own blog post. If he reads this post (and I hope he does), I hope he sees this as a dissenting opinion and not hateful rhetoric. I’d rather social media allow for both childish rants and intellectual discourse then bar the conversation entirely.

Exclusion
Haque states that having 1000 friends together who are passionate about a single topic isn’t friendship, but simply a solitary shared interest. I assume he is suggesting that instead of creating inclusive, diverse groups, we are self-selecting into a group of like-minded individuals. Social identity theory (SIT) states that we, as humans, have a tendency to stick together (as Haque says, “birds of a feather”). Is this any different than the real world? I agree that SIT is a challenge to diversity and I’ve blogged and produced a video about how to overcome it. I think that what needs to be considered is the social process. I might belong to a social network that discusses “vintage 1960s glasses” but within that group is a diverse set of individuals. As I become closer to these individuals I learn about these differences and am better for it.

Value
If I understand Haque correctly, he believes that because social friendships are not real relationships, they lack value. I disagree entirely. In his book, Enterprise 2.0, Professor Andrew McAfee goes into great detail demonstrating the value of social networks. He presents a convincing argument that there is value in strong-ties (close friends), weak-ties (acquaintances), potential ties and no ties at all.

Haque also discusses three cancers eating away at today’s internet.

First cancer: He posits that attention is not allocated efficiently. I really won’t elaborate on this but on the social web you can determine for yourself how attention should be allocated. The individual is free to decide.

Second cancer: He states that people invest in low quality content and points to Farmville as the example. I don’t know about you, but I, as well as many of my friends on various social networks, use these networks to become more knowledgeable about a variety of topics. In fact, I believe organizations can use social media become more effective. Also, what’s wrong with having a little fun? If users of social media want to spend 15-20 minutes (or more) playing Farmville to de-stress or simply because they enjoy it, is society going to fall apart because they are not spending their time doing something more intellectual?

Third (most damaging) cancer: Finally, Haque says that the internet is not being used as a force for good. I believe in freedom of speech and expression so the internet and social media will become whatever we make of it. There’s a lot of junk out there, for sure, but there are a lot of social enterprises and charitable organizations expanding in ways they never could have if it weren’t for social media or the Internet. Is the internet to be used for social good or social evil? Neither and both. We have the wonderful freedom to make it whatever we want.

Overall, I disagree with Haque’s article on almost every count. However, as I re-read his blog article, I almost get the impression Haque purposefully wrote the piece to stir-up some controversy and encourage us all to think. If that was his goal, then he succeeded. So in that respect, nice work Mr. Haque.