Philosophy and Social Media 6: Value Networks and Collaborative Capitalism

PHILOSOPHY AND SOCIAL MEDIA

Privacy and state surveillance

Social media revolution?

The notion of ‘revolution’ is inappropriate

• Revolutions directly challenge institutions

1. Either revolutionaries take over the

institutions (and become the new overlords)

2. Or revolutionaries destroy the institutions (and

risk social disintegration)

Social media revolution?

Social media is disruptive not because it leads

people to challenge institutions but because it

enables people to organize independently of them

• We have inherited the nomadic instincts of the

60s counterculture: we are escaping the old

world to create new worlds together

Hegel and Marx on the end of history

G.W.F Hegel (1770-1831)

Karl Marx (1818-1883)

Deconstruct binary thinking

Jacques Derrida (1930-2004)

• History does not develop through

struggles between opposites. It

subverts binaries and proceeds from

deconstruction to deconstruction

• Deconstruction happens when we

see beyond the binaries that govern

our thinking. Expectations unravel

and ‘impossibility’ becomes possible

Deconstruct binary thinking

Prosumers: a cultural deconstruction


1. Bottom up perspective: ‘we are collectively

producing what we consume, transforming value

systems, institutions and industries in the process’

2. Top down perspective: ‘we are being exploited for

profit by social media companies. Our passion and

generosity is harnessed to produce data for the

purpose of creating targeted advertising’

Deconstruction happens when we see beyond the

binaries that govern our thinking. Expectations unravel

and ‘the impossible’ becomes possible





The enabled economy

Traditional industries paid us to produce goods and services. They sold the goods and

services to us as consumables and made a profit in the process.

• Net generation businesses do not exploit producers – they enable them to produce

the goods and services they consume

• Innovation comes from a partnership between platform providers and prosumers

• Corporations seek to grow ecosystems of collaborative businesses

This is a socio-economic deconstruction. We are disintegrating the distinction between ‘top down’ and ‘bottom up’. Expectations unravel

and impossibility becomes a possibility

Facebook: the social data platform

• ‘We believe one of the biggest opportunities

we have is to create the identity and social

layer that all new apps and websites can be

built on top of’. Mark Zuckerberg,

‘Zuckerberg's goal: Facebook as the Developer's Platform’

http://www.businesscloud9.com

http://www.businesscloud9.com/

Facebook: the social data platform

Vendor relationship management

Vendor relationship management

"ProjectVRM [is] open source … There are now dozens of development efforts and

hundreds of individuals seeking to provide customers with the tools necessary to

make VRM a reality”

John Hagel

The rise of social value networks

Social value network:

1. Consumer posts an intention to buy on social web portal

2. Vendors approach consumer with offers of sale

3. Consumers and vendors form a social value network around the intention to buy

4. Consumers and vendors become prosumers, co-creating value in a network




Rise of the prosumers!

Prosumer culture: born in 60s communes, continued in hacker communities, driven

through Silicon Valley by the success of Google and Facebook

• Now deconstructing the distinction between businesses and consumers


Education

Philosophy and Social Media 6: Value Networks and Collaborative Capitalism