Our Connecting Spaces Online part one

Our individual voices are creating networks of meaning. Through our passions and our participation in conversations online, we are creating value for ourselves and others.

Interesting that it is human interactions and the visibility of these that create value for communities. And even more interesting, that it is these visible conversations that have that critical “pull” factor that pulls audiences, authenticates opinions and builds or destroys reputations for companies or individuals.

It seems to be that the people who are passionate, really passionate about certain areas of interest, and who are pointing these areas out to others in the visible spaces that connect, are the ones who are determining where opinions flow. Or at least creating catalysts for certain discussions to happen. These people are also the ones to become the most likely well connected and influential. An interesting dynamic!

And the spaces where these conversations are happening - these connecting spaces, the interstices between us, are not only collecting our opinions, saving them and displaying them online for the whole world to view, they are also enabling, empowering and strengthening our ties to each other. We are, in aggregate, creating meaning.

It is these connecting spaces that are giving our collective perceptions voice.
I wanted to ask Ross Dawson, futurist, author, keynote speaker, and Chairman of international consulting firm Future Exploration Network about these connecting spaces and about how our voices are playing out online. Ross kindly agreed to be interviewed and gave me some very insightful perspectives into our collective behaviours, our connections, the long tail etc, which I think you will also find interesting.

Here is the interview:

MO: First I’d like to say thank you very much.

My particular interest for interviewing you today is to write up on something which I will entitle “connecting spaces”- something that you know much more about than I do myself and I am therefore very interested in hearing your thoughts on how people are connecting online and especially hearing your thoughts on future trends which pertain to the network that is growing, and how it might play out.
And so, if I can ask you to please, first of all tell me about yourself, and also your particular interest in the internet and its trends.

RD: Well, as I’ve just mentioned, I’ve had a very diverse background, have lived in many countries, learnt a number of languages along the way and worked in many industries. It’s interesting - when I trace back, I’ve always had a very “network” perspective on the world. I can remember when I was a child, I was given a little microscope kit with a worm in the kit, and I wanted to dissect its brain to see how its neurons were connected. And back in the days before the internet, I envisaged the telephone connections around the planet as this extraordinary network which connected us and which did and does, though at the time the cost of connection was so high.
We humans are social animals; as such the internet is an extraordinary enabler of communication and is enabling many aspects to humanity which we haven’t yet explored.

MO: Indeed, which we haven’t yet explored. And so connections and people and how they can connect, is something that has very much been part of your whole interest along the way. It’s been a theme, I can hear.

RD: Yes, absolutely.

MO: Your present interests, where do they reside?

RD: Very diverse. I’m interested in networks, which are a very critical perspective for me. There are a number of different perspectives to the networks. One is the technological networks which underpin connectivity. Another is the social networks between people. Another is the networks between organisations: economic networks. Yet another is the whole network of ideas which we are seeing flow, now are enabled by the Web 2.0 technologies. Tthere is also a very strong parallel between all of these and the networks of our brains.

I am deeply interested in social networks. Social network analysis is something I spend a lot of time on. Web 2.0 is a phrase that some people like and some people don’t like, but what I find extraordinary about the current phase of the internet is that it is an enabler of connectivity and participation that is truly transformative. That’s what I am looking at and spending time on. How the relationships enabled by the new internet technologies are giving value to all of us......

Author's note: This article is the first part of an interview I did last year with futurist and internet trend expert Ross Dawson. You can find the full artice here: http://www.connect10.com/web2/
And Ross Dawson's massively informative blog here:
http://www.rossdawsonblog.com/