Here Comes a Review: Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody Gets the Net

As the title’s visions of chaotic magnitude may indicate, Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody details the large-scale shift of group organization to the internet over the past 10 years and what this movement means for the future structure of organizational society. Part how-has-this-happened and part what-does-it-mean the book is notable for it’s use of economic and social theory to define the role of social tools on this movement, without falling prey to standard techno-worshipping cliché.

At it’s most simple (and it is rarely simple) Here Comes Everybody argues that social tools (mostly on the internet) lower the barrier to entry for humans to pursue a particular activity that previously could only be pursued by a larger organization. Except that said organization could not reasonably pursue the activity, as it was so specialized so as to have no profit motive. These social tools allowed groups of interested participants to band together to pursue the specialized activity in “loosely structured groups, operating without managerial direction and outside the profit motive.”

Essentially, the internet lets almost anyone do almost anything … together. And this movement is made possible through “a successful fusion of a plausible promise, an effective tool, and an acceptable bargain with the users.”

The promise is the motivation. Passengers stuck on a tarmac for 7 hours, a man trying to find his lost friend’s cell phone and a stay at home mother looking for others in her situation all have a motivation to join a social group; anger, redemption and companionship, respectively.

The tools are the social networks. Commenting on a newspapers website provided an outlet for Kate Hanni to fight against Northwest Airlines. Evan Guttman’s blog gave him an outlet to rally support and pressure the police to file charges against the young girl with his friends cell phone. Meetup.com allows stay at home moms to find and set up local meetings with other stay at home moms in their area.

The bargain, perhaps most importantly, is what you give back to your community. Supporters of the Flyer’s Rights signed petitions and contacted Congressman. Evan’s visitors provided advice, comfort, leads and influence. The moms provide the same companionship to others they were seeking themselves.

This movement constitutes a new, revolutionary era to Shirky.  Very real and very significant changes have uprooted standard definitions of how organizations operate and how people cooperate. And this is where the book is most useful.

Shirky Emphasises How to Utilize Relationship Structures

Much like Groundswell (which I discussed here) Here Comes Everyone can provide a usable road map for an organization to deal with both its internal structure and how it cultivates, utilizes and manages its external (or customer) relationships. Shirky espouses the virtues of social capital to both strengthen internal structure and external relationships.

The importance of this capital lies in both “bonding” and “bridging.” Bonding capital is a way of strengthening the social capital you have within your core audience. But to truly make an impact, you need to bridge that capital, have your network reach out to its own networks to strengthen your goals. An excellent example of external use of capital is Howard Dean’s losing 2004 Democratic primary campaign:

The Dean campaign was great at doing everything a campaign can do with bonding capital—gathering ardent supporters and raising millions in funds—but getting people to vote for the candidate required bridging capital, reaching out to people outside the charmed inner circle.

Dean’s example, and many others in the book, provides a useful indication of how organizations can utilize the lessons from Shirky’s book. Again, like Groundswell, it is necessary to concede that the revolution is here. While Shirky’s three main components of action – promises, tools and bargains – have always existed, the shear ubiquity and ease-of-use of the tools have impacted both the promises and the bargains, causing users to become even more motivated to take action (the promise) and even more willing to cooperate with their community (bargain). Once an organization recognizes these factors only then can it truly utilize the self-sustaining structures that have formed or than can form around its brand. By understanding its audience, knowing what promises motivate the users, what tools they use or would use, and what bargains they are willing to make to pursue their ends, an organization can harness these new group structure in an effort to strengthen its brand.