There is however one aspect missing that I think will turn out to be crucial to it’s succes: uncertainty.

Friendship is by definition two sided. It does not have to be symmetrical (meaning you both feel the same towards eachother) but at least there is to be some level of reciprocity. Most group of friends consist of a small group of people that have a high level of reciprocity and close bonds in their relations to each other. Around that group there is a larger community where the level of reciprocity is not consistent for the whole core group. They are sort of in the group and out of the group at the same time, depending on who you ask.

This foggy definition of a circle of friends is something we as humans need since we deal badly with rejection. This lack of Transparancy makes it possible to create blurry edges for people to feel in while in fact they are only partly accepted. This blurry edge however does create a gradual path for people to move into the circle step by step. This is something we probably all recognise from our own experience, especially during school.

Because of this transparancy in Circles what you end up with is the relationships type in LinkedIn where everyone is a friend since it is too confronting to reject someone as a friend. And when everyone is you friend than no one is.

So unless Google is able to build in a combination of reciprocity and bit of vagueness in circles my prediction is that it will not succeed. If they (or Facebook) does succeed in modelling how friendships works in real life than that social network will win the battle. Because, aren’t we all looking for friends?

You can calculate that in 2025 the workload per employee that takes care for elderly people will be twice as high. I think that is one of the challenges we have for the next decades.

ICT will be one of the means to deliver an answer to this challange. ICT to increase productivity (like care from a distance) but also ICT that gives more control to people so they can take care of themselves (e.g. with social media).

Last week we started a program focused around these two types of potential for ICT in the elderly care. In this program we bring together people from healthcare organizations, universities and companies (www.health-lab.nl). During this kickoff we had around 50 people of management level together.

One of the interesting discussions we had was about the role of commercial companies. My statement is that we need commercial companies to grow from all kinds of well meant pilots to mature markets. Only in a mature market there will be technology available for everyone and not just in a subsidized pilot. In this discussion it was clear that in the world of care there is some tension between commerce and care. I hope with the Health-lab program we can lower the barriers between these worlds.

This morning I wrote about social networking and all the good things it may bring us. Stay in contact, meet old friends and things like that. After that I received this email from plaxo. One of my freinds, John will have his birthday on December 14th. Nice to get a reminder (I am terrible at reminding things like that) but where will this bring us? My first idea was: hey we could automate this and send the card by itsel so you will never forget another birthday. I can imagine being called by a friend: He Martijn, thanks for your card. Me: What card, what for?

I wonder where this will lead us …

And John, in case I forget: happy birthday ….

Social networking is I think an area where the idea of “the rich get richer” is especially true. After all, once you have many customers you tend to have more people sending invitation and there is more chance that people send invitations to you. One would expect that only some big sites remain and that newcomers have a hard time growing.

Therefore it is surprising that a new one, Plaxo, is really flooding my e-mail box. Many contacts have send me an invitation. After 10 invitations I decided to take a look, make an account and start using it too. I was a bit weary for this since using lot’s of sites is awkward, I thought.

But I must say this is a sticky one. Firstly they are very easy to link to your existing social networking site like LinkedIn. Secondly they use something they call “pulse”. On plaxo you can fill in the blogs you write, the photo sites you use and all other exhibitionist’s methods and they are shown in a log to all your contacts. This resulted in several comments on the photo you see above, I did not realize that it would be shown to all (welcome to the world of total transparency). Before I wrote about small world networks. One of the effects I see by using Plaxo is that you can see that lots or your contacts make contact with people you also know (and since you see this in the “pulse” you immediately connect to them too …).

One of the interesting developments in social networking is OpenSocial from Google, used by Plaxo too. Google failed miserable with Orkut and other social tools they developed. So they decided to create an API that makes it possible to integrate all social sites in an easy way. And thereby minimizing the advantage you have by having lots of members since everything integrates easily. And thereby minimizing your disadvantage when you have failed miserably in creatign you own social site. You have to admire them…

Sometimes you do things that energize you. Sometimes you meet people that, through their drive and energy, lift you up and give you energy. Even wish you could do more.

As Telematica Instituut we are working together with the people from Alp D’huZes to improve the life of people with cancer. About two years ago some people, among them Coen van Veenendaal en Peter Kapitein, started to think about ways to improve the life of people with cancer. Peter has been diagnosed with cancer in 2005. Their goal is to become the largest sponsor of the KWF, the Dutch cancer fund. Their means: by cycling up and down the Alp D’huez paid for by sponsors. Not once but six times in a row. The first year they gathered € 350.000. The second year, 2007, they cycled up and down the Alp D’huez again with 140 people, 7 times in a row. I think something you can only do when you are really motivated through and through. This year they gathered more than one million euros for the KWF. The project we are setting up with them is to monitor and support people with cancer after treatment. Since cancer more and more becomes a chronic disease it is becoming important to support the people that live with cancer. Sport is a good way to feel better and stay active. Goal is to activate people by improving the communication between the patients and people treating them through, amongst others, virtual communities.

It is not just the fact that they are crazy enough to go up and down a considerable mountain but it is the drive and energy they have to accomplish their goal. On the mountain and towards the companies that sponsor them. Listening to their stories I think everybody feels compelled to contribute. The motto is “giving up is not an option”. Heroes…

All people are created equal, but some make a difference.

By using it I already found some old friends from the places I worked, colleagues, customers and partners. It even integrates into outlook and recognizes people you may know from all the old e-mails you have sent (I have an archive of all my mails from 1997 and on)

This linking to each other creates an interesting web. You can normally see the acquaintances of other people and and have a look at their network. Potentially you can get an introduction for people you wish to contact. One of the other interesting features is that you can pose a question that others can try to answer.

It seems to be growing explosively, especially in the Netherlands…

I think one of the reasons it works is that the identity of the people involved is (on average) accurate. People are who they say they are. After all, the network is also meant for finding real people and real jobs. So there is no use in providing false identities. I am really curious in how this network is evolving. Another interesting aspect is that the network that people build based on their role is becoming more their own instead of their employers. This may create a feeling of independence (which is a good thing in my book). Potentially the added value for the users is much bigger than it is in networks like facebook since it keeps track of how your career evolves after graduation.

I sent them an e-mail to find out if it is possible to get (anonymously) their data on the linkages between people. This of course is a small world network but it is interesting to find out what kind of people are the connectors, what is the average separation, and so on. I have not yet received an answer…

You can find me on linkedIn .

So ask yourself this. If you had the entire world’s attention for just a few minutes, what story would you tell? Perhaps you think the world looks at you, your country and your culture… and just doesn’t understand. Then do something about it. Make a film and upload it here http://www.youtube.com/group/pangeaday. You never know. It could end up bringing millions of people that bit closer together.

The least you can say is that they are used to influence a lot of people at the same time. As they say: “images of the many have been in the hands of the few”. How extraordinary it would be to look through the eyes of other people around the world. Not the people in control of the big cameras but ordinary people like you in me. And in a way we can if you look at the video somebody makes when he wants to make a statement. Not through his eyes but through his lens.Have a look at their website. Somehow I like the idea a lot. One last quote which struck a chord with me:

Movies can’t change the world. But the people who watch them can.

It makes you think. When I go to the market each Saturday to get the ingredients for a nice dinner I am in constant conversation. I tell the girl that always helps me with the vegetables how they were last week and she tells me what kind of specials she has this week. Sometimes we discuss how the ingredients are best used for the recipe I will be making. I learn from her and sometimes I can tell her new things. Same with the small butcher that I go to. In essence this is a weekly conversation that accompanies the business we do together. The one greatly enhances the other.

In a way this is the natural way people started doing business. Democracy and debate became of age in the Agora of Athens that was established as a marketplace. It is only with the establishment of big companies that we lost the conversational way of doing business. And because of this greater distance we created corporate communication to tell people what we think they should think of our company. But we stopped listening and forgot about two way conversation.

Internet and especially the social networks it supports again creates the opportunity to be in conversation with the market. Not to tell people why your product is so great but to be in conversation about the features people want. People love to help companies to improve the products they like, all they ask is that they listen and take them seriously.

I think here is a message for a lot of companies. More and more it will be needed to open up the company and invite people from the outside to help. With the development of new products, with how the product can be implemented.

The market is a conversation and conversations go in two directions (at least the nice ones, don’t you think?).

One of the other great books I have read this summer is linked, a book about the theory of small world networks. Many know about the famous Milgram experiment where he showed that most people in the world are connected by not more than six handshakes. Linked shows that this is because society has a “small world” topology, meaning that we have many closely related groups that are coupled by “connectors”, people that have many long range connections. The funny thing is that this type of network is also fairly common in nature, e.g. the way neurons are connected in the brain and the way fireflies synchronizes their lights. He describes many forms of these networks and simulations he did with this topology. I think this work has a lot of design rules in it how to create successful social networks. Somehow I think for example that the dunbar number (which relates to groups size and dynamics) is related to this. I will get back to that some other time.

In interesting development in this area is TomTom Map Share. Here it is possible to add changes to the card and share these improvements with others (and TomTom). It is a logical division of labor: I can change the map when something is wrong and it bothers me and TomTom can use it to improve the map. There are of course some dangers like somebody who changes the map because they do not like the traffic through their street. But if enough people use this service it will be possible to use the wisdom of crowds.

In the past I used an application called Wayfinder which used real time map data on the mobile phone over a GPRS link. Here I could suggest changes and some days later my phone used the improved map data. In a world where “content is king” these methods to improve the data by using the large groups of user is promising. 

Another example is “skeeler 2.0” at Telematica Insituut. In this research project we focus on Skeelers. For Skeelers it is important to have a general idea on the quality of the road, the amount of traffic, the view on the scenery and others. And who is better equipped to collect and tag the data needed to improve the normal maps for Skeeler use than the Skeelers themselves. One of the focal points in this project is how best to collect the data: is it possible to ask questions afterwards, is it possible to measure the quality of the road by using a sensor? Maybe it is even important to take the profile of users in consideration. A route that A likes very much may be boring or not challenging enough for another.

Finding ways to incorporate implicit and explicit reactions from users will be an important factor in improving quality. We have the means to collect. Now we must learn how to make good use of all that data.