collaboration

Can you ever have too many friends? According to Jimmy Kimmel, the host of ABC’s late night comedy show—yes. The primary vehicle and enabler for this over-friending phenomenon according to Kimmel is Facebook, where an individual’s social network is based on their circle of friends. In an unprecedented effort to restore the “sacred nature of friendship,” Kimmel has declared November 17, 2010, “National UnFriend Day” (NUD). The day is described as an, “international day when all Facebook users… [cut] out any ‘friend fat’ on their pages occupied by people who are not truly their friends.”

“Friend fat?” Really Jimmy? Is there any merit to what Kimmel is trying to do, even if it is delivered through a dose of comedy and satire? Have we gone overboard when it comes to the number of friends we keep on Facebook? Kimmel implores viewers, “Remember five years ago when no one had Facebook and you didn’t know what the guy you took high school biology with was having for lunch? Remember how that was fine? Let’s go back.”

Social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, TenCent and MySpace have indeed forever changed the way we look at, create and maintain relationships. The reality is that these social networks have become an integral part of our culture, so much so that on November 17^th I don’t think people will “go back” the way Kimmel hopes, but it is certainly a subject worth of discussion (remember the Burger King defriend promotion).

With Facebook logging more than 500 million active users worldwide, there is reason to believe that people want to continue growing large social networks with hundreds of “friends.” After all, it is human nature to seek interactions with others and to form bonds that define us as a community. It is this community—that lives online—that helps us create our own identity and identify others.

Quality vs. Quantity

Kimmel challenges, "I see people with thousands of what they call [Facebook] 'friends' - which is impossible. You can't have 1,000 friends.” Well actually—yes you can, and it may be easier than you think. Facebook users have on average somewhere around 130 friends, but it’s not too far a leap of the imagination for someone to have many more "friends." 

The disconnect I see here is in how we define the word “friend.” Are acquaintances friends? What about colleagues from work who you do not socialize with except for in the office? Are you only friends on Facebook? Where do you draw the line? With the growing popularity of Facebook we’ve seen the word “friend” become a well known verb in popular culture (e.g., friend me when you get home)—a new meaning that only exists today because of Facebook.

Sorry #151, You’re Out of Luck

Despite the immediate laugh-factor in Kimmel’s NUD, perhaps it is worth a closer look. There is a theory commonly referred to as “Dunbar’s Number” that states people can only maintain a certain number of meaningful or “stable” social relationships with others. We've covered this before on Social Citizens and according to Wikipedia, “These are relationships in which an individual knows who each person is, and how each person relates to every other person. Proponents assert that numbers larger than this generally require more restricted rules, laws, and enforced norms to maintain a stable, cohesive group. No precise value has been proposed for Dunbar's number, but a commonly cited approximation is 150.”

Professor Robin Dunbar who developed this theory in the 1990’s—well before social networks took hold—explains that “the part of our brain that copes with language, thought and personal interaction will max out when our social circles stretch beyond 150.” The 150 figure has remained the same, regardless of whether the relationships we speak of are in-person, online, in the office or long-distance.

Are Some Relationships “Stronger” than Others?

The debate about strong versus weak online ties is a hot one right now.

Recently, Malcolm Gladwell published a thought-piece in the New York Times about social media’s impact on modern day activism. He expressed that,“The platforms of social media are built around weak ties. Twitter is a way of following (or being followed by) people you may never have met. Facebook is a tool for efficiently managing your acquaintances, for keeping up with the people you would not otherwise be able to stay in touch with. That’s why you can have a thousand ‘friends’ on Facebook, as you never could in real life.”  

When it comes to activism according to Gladwell, social media is reinventing social activism, and diluting its impact. "Facebook activism succeeds not by motivating people to make a real sacrifice, but by motivating them to do the things that people do when they are not motivated enough to make a real sacrifice.”

Taking an alternative view, Jacob Morgan of Social Media Today expressed how in today’s society, “weak” ties are actually beneficial. He references Morgan Hansen's book, Collaboration, which suggests that we“build weak ties, not strong ones.” 

Hansen argues that, “… weak ties can prove much more helpful in networking, because they form bridges to worlds we do not walk within. Strong ties, on the other hand, tend to be worlds we already know; a good friend often knows many of the same people and things we know. They are not the best when it comes to searching for new jobs, ideas, experts, and knowledge. Weak ties are also good because they take less time. It's less time consuming to talk to someone once a month (weak tie) than twice a week (a strong tie). People can keep up quite a few weak ties without them being a burden.”

Friend or Foe?

What will you do on the 17^th? Do you think we should heed Kimmel’s advice and cut out the friend fat? Are you planning to weed out the people who you don’t regularly speak with or embrace weak ties and continue to build a larger network? 

I’m of the mindset that you can do both, which is what most of us do anyway—we naturally tend to interact with those people closest to us on a more regular and frequent basis. The way I see it, there’s no harm done in having more friends than not in a platform like Facebook, but I draw the line at friending people who I do not know. 

What’s your policy?

Before you go on a friending/unfriending spree, let me leave you with this statement from Facebook representatives that was sent to CBSNews.com in response to NUD, "Jimmy Kimmel's Facebook campaign is clever so we're keeping him on our friend list for now. Come Nov. 17, just remember Jimmy, it's one thing to be the "unfriender," but it's a whole different story if you're the "unfriended." Words to live by in today's online world to be sure. I for one will be checking my Facebook friend list on November 18th!  

Even at the risk of making some broad generational generalizations, there’s little question that Millennials across all sectors share something in common -- a burning desire to make a positive impact in the world. It’s built into our DNA and it’s something that is becoming more and more apparent as the blurring of lines among sectors creates enormous opportunities to collectively solve some of our most pressing social problems.  But who are these leaders driving change in our communities -- and is cross-sector collaboration really something that's all talk and no action?

That’s part of what the American Express NGen Fellows, a group of nonprofit leaders under the age of 40, chose to tackle in a recent report released earlier this week. Their final report is based on a survey distributed to more than 2,000 NGeners in the nonprofit, government, and private sectors. It asked about perspectives on leadership development, cross-sector collaboration, and how to respond to major challenges facing our communities. 

So what did they find? Here are the major takeaways – and some of them may surprise you.

• NGeners mostly agree on the top issues facing communities, the nation and the world – with education, poverty, health and the environment topping out the lists

• NGeners feel collaboration across sectors is very important but don’t know the people, leaders or the methods to facilitate collaboration

• The majority of NGeners could not identify a single leader under the age of 40 who is effectively solving a societal problem

• NGeners believe the nonprofit sector is best positioned to take the lead in engaging other sectors to solve problems

• NGeners believe they need more organized leadership development opportunities

There are several things that truly stand out about these findings, and you can download the full report here. Perhaps what surprises me the most is the inability of my peers to identify other leaders under the age of 40 who are effectively solving social problems. Back in February we explored in a post on Social Citizens, "The Lost Generation of Social Entrepreneurs"  and came up with a diverse list of under 35 year olds who will have no problem serving as role models for their peers and who have chosen to focus a little less on profits and a little more on changing the world. That list continued to grow with the help of our readers.

In addition to not being able to identify these so-called generational leaders, I also found it interesting that "next gen" leaders don't have a good understanding of how to facilitate cross-sector collaborations. After all, we talk a lot about how Millennials thrive far better in collaborative environments as opposed to hierarchecal structures. I wonder however if Millennials thrive in groups of similar minded people, making it more difficult to reach across to others who may have different skills and backgrounds.  This is something we'll explore in more detail in a subsequent post.

In the meantime, it’s clear that the fellows' analysis and recommendations are not final conclusions, but instead provide an important starting point for further discussions about what leadership and collaboration really mean for rising leaders and our communities. I’d add that these conversations should be happening across all generations so that we can ensure more two-way sharing of innovative ideas.

Independent Sector will be hosting a call on August 19, to explore these ideas in greater depth - I hope participants in the call will represent diverse backgrounds, age cohorts and sectors in order to truly make it a meaningful discussion.

What are your take aways from this report? Are you surprised by any of their conclusions?