Over the just-completed three-day weekend celebrating Labor Day here in the United States I started reading Social Physics: How Social Networks Can Make Us Smarter, by Alex Pentland, Toshiba professor at MIT and a co-creator of the MIT Media Lab.
Dr. Pentland also directs MIT’s Human Dynamics Lab and co-leads the World Economic Forum Big Data and Personal Data initiatives. In 2012, Forbes Magazine named Pentland one of the seven most powerful data scientists in the world. In short, he’s a very smart guy.
I’ve only read the first two chapters so far, but I can tell already that this is an important book filled with valuable insights (I’ve been aware of it for over a year; shame on me for waiting so long to finally pick it up).
Social physics is “a quantitative social science that describes reliable, mathematical connections between information and idea flow on the one hand and people’s behavior on the other.” In my words, it is the study of networks and relationships – of all the interactions, information, ideas, and emotions that flow between and among people. It utilizes “Big Data” to develop new insights into how ideas form and spread, how and when people communicate with each other, and even what they pay attention to.
For me, the first “Big Idea” to jump out from the pages of Social Physics is this:
Our current conception of society was born in the late 1700s during the Enlightenment and crystallized into its current form during the first half of the twentieth century. Things moved more slowly back then, and usually was nly a small group of rtraders, politicians, or wehtlthy familties who really moved things along. Therefore, when we think about how to manage our society, we speak of “markets” and “political classes,” abstractions that assume that events move slowly, so everybody has pretty much the same information and so people have time to act rationally. (Chapter 1, page 2)
That’s clearly no longer the case; with social media, the Internet, and global communications, ideas move quickly. In Pentland’s words, “Today virtual crowds can form in minutes and often consist of millions of people from all over the world…”
But those changes in our social world are only context for this critical insight:
Adam Smith himself understood that it is our social fabric that guides the “invisible hand” of the market and not just competition alone. In his book Theory of Moral Sentiments he argued that it was human nature to exchange not only goods but also ideas, assistance, and favors out of sympathy.
Again in my words, economic value is not an abstract absolute, but depends very much on the social norms, the culture, and the values that are shared within a community or even just a small group of people. What we believe, what we care about, what we pay attention to – those are the backdrops that determine how (and why) we react to ideas, what goods and services we value and are willing to pay for, and what activities we choose to engage in.
Pentland and his colleagues are using massive datasets like cell phone conversational records) to understand how ideas form and flow – how rumors begin, how some ideas “go viral” globally in a just a few hours, and why other ideas die so quickly. Similar analysis helps explain the rapid rise (and subsequent fall) of celebrities, clothing fashions, political figures, and even certain stocks and other investment funds.
[Note: Pentland is extremely aware of, and highly sensitive to, the ethics of collecting and analyzing this kind of data. All the data he draws on has been collected with the permission of the human subjects, and none of the analysis focuses on individuals.]
Sunday afternoon I was explaining my fascination with Pentland’s ideas to Cathie and Jim Wills, good friends who stayed with us for several days last week during a vacation trip to the west coast. Cathy had just finished reading the Sunday funnies, and she immediately saw a connection between Pentland’s insights about the social value of economic transactions and the September 4 edition of the Blondie comic strip.
Blondie, September 4, 2016
You can read the strip online at this link (copyright laws prevent me from reproducing the whole strip here). In short, the strip begins with Dagwood Bumstead raving to his neighbor about his new super-size outdoor barbecue grill, only to discover that his neighbor has an even bigger, more powerful grill. The two of them then look over the backyard fence to see a third neighbor who’s just bought a (totally ridiculous) combination riding lawn mower and barbecue grill. In a few short moment Dagwood has descended from ecstasy to despondency as his brand new grill suddenly feels old and obsolete.
In other words, value is relative; we compare ourselves and our possessions to our friends and neighbors and their success all the time.
Okay, that doesn’t sound revolutionary. It’s something sociologists have been studying for years. But Pentland has brought a new level of analysis and insight to the conversation. In the future we can expect to see much more powerful – and real-time – research into how ideas form and flow through society. Social physics is here to stay, and it’s going to enrich and deepen our understanding of groups, organizations, relationships, and organizational effectiveness well beyond what we think we know today.
For a longer journey into social relationships and how they affect your day-to-day work as a team and organizational leader, order a copy today of my most recent book, Making Meetings Matter: How Smart Leaders Orchestrate Powerful Conversations in the Digital Age (link is to the book’s page on Amazon.com. However, you should contact me directly for volume discounts).
And call me today (+1 510.558.1434) for a free exploratory conversation about how you can become a hero by applying my P4+ model to your own meetings. Make every meeting matter!
