The congregation is more powerful than its platform

Facebook is a golden goose, but many still worry about managing it

Mark Zuckerberg, age 23 and inventor of Facebook, was voted Silicon.com’s Number One Agenda Setter on 17 October. By coincidence, this was the same day as BIMA’s Great Facebook Debate. The debate itself wasn’t up to much, but the panel session that preceded it ­ the audience participation and the inevitable networking ­ made it worthwhile.

Many of the audience members were there to figure out how to make money out of Facebook, and I suspect they went away disappointed because most of the conversation focused on the issues and practicalities of Facebook life.
One of the motions debated was “friend requests from your boss are best ignored”. This provided an opportunity for all manner of people to discuss Facebook in a corporate context.

By far the most erudite participant was JP Rangaswami, previously CIO of Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein and now managing director of BT Design. He has thought deeply about the issues on behalf of major organisations.

Another speaker worth mentioning is Hugh MacLeod, a chap who has made a name for himself as a cartoonist and new-media marketing whizz. Again, he’s a man who has made social networking work for him and his clients.

When these guys talk, you know that it comes from the heart, from conviction and from experience.

So, with apologies to the other excellent presenters and debaters, I’m going to share a few of their more insightful nuggets with you.

MacLeod points out that social networks form around objects, not the other way round. Take a church out of the community and how would a congregation find each other? He also quotes Doc Searls, who says “hyperlinks subvert hierarchies”.
Rangaswami believes that enterprise software comprises search, subscribe, fulfilment and conversation. He says that Facebook offers all this plus “an incredible community”.

BT has nearly 6,000 Facebook users, by the way, and Rangaswami is exploring its potential for knowledge management and internal communication within the company.

When people protest that Facebook has no place at work, Rangaswami points out that he drinks coffee and goes to the toilet for work reasons. He also makes the point that BT is an outcomes-based organisation. As long as people achieve their results then it’s up to them whether they use Facebook as part of their work life. You can see why the command and control wallahs are uneasy. This is serious culture shock.

How to win friends...

Some audience members were uneasy about letting all and sundry see their details or be their friends ­ bosses, in particular. But perhaps it’s a sign of the times that hierarchy seems less important these days. And, as MacLeod mentioned earlier, the hyperlinks subvert the hierarchies anyway.

Rangaswami lets anyone be his friend and he is open about all aspects of his life. He said: “I had to stop being this schizophrenic nutter.” MacLeod added: “People with seamless lives are more content.”

You could see the sharks circling the event. People asking about monetisation, about how they could get at participants to flog them stuff. One of the nice things about Facebook is that if you really don’t like what someone’s doing to you, then you can “defriend” them (MacLeod’s phrase).

Whether opening up the development platform to all-comers will result in an influx of unwelcome advertising messages, I don’t know. But this must be a concern and something that Facebook needs to manage carefully. Right now, people are happy hanging out in Facebook. Start doing the equivalent of nailing a Coca-Cola sign to a church crucifix and the community will find somewhere else to congregate.