Bringing meaning to social networks

I’m someone who works with social tools for a living. My job is defined by the level of expertise I bring to using them and the way I can use them to connect with people in communities of expertise, mostly in a business context. In a grand failure (or, is it?) of work-life balance, my social and personal life involves a good deal of social network use too.

And, as part of my participation in TEDActive next week, I’m involved in a project called TEDActiveSOC. It’s all about finding deeper meaning in the way we use and create social networks and our ever-increasing hyperconectedness. My ongoing research and thinking has me convinced that the heart of the project needs to be about enabling the production of social, or public goods.

We all know we can use our social networks for everything from the mundane and trivial to the world-changing.

I want to weight my use and actions in 2011 to real and tangible outcomes; something like a set of Umair Haque’s laws for organisations into a similar set for social innovation.

It can’t be that hard.

There’s real social capital to be derived for users at the personal level with these outcomes in mind and even greater good at the level of organisations and society as a whole.

I’m keen for a perspective on social, organisational, governmental and personal change as an outcome that use of these tools can amplify. There are no Twitter and Facebook revolutions. Rather there are revolutions of people, somewhat amplified throught social networks.

At this point, I’m actually thinking a touch wider. What I want to see is the creation of new social networks (whatever and whenever they are) with a “do no harm” perspectivebuilt in from the ground up in the DNA of the companies who make them.

So too, I want to see the users thinking the same way. Here are the sorts of questions I’m asking myself:

• How do we use our social tools to ensure that no harm comes to others now and into the future as a consequence of our actions?
• How do we create thick social value through the invention and use of social tools and networks?
• How do we ensure our social tools are always about people over things?
• How do we create and use social tools based on principle versus strategy — aiming purpose over profit?

I think we need to look to Africa and parts of Asia.

In these places, societies are becoming more connected, but in simpler ways that benefit the people directly through outcomes such as ensuring best prices for goods at market (Kenya, I think), knowing which port will buy your catch (Sri Lanka), ensuring police are paid their full wage rather than corrupt officials skimming a cut (Afghanistan), etc. All these projects are enabled by Internet-connected tools, but not accessed by anything more complex than an old-school grey screen Nokia and text messages.

This is the stuff that’s bugging me.