If the theme behind last week’s reading could be described as a focus on implementing narrative within business/industry situations, this week’s focuses on the importance of organization within those same situations, whether organizing in a real-world corporate hierarchical sense or organizing a social network or online community. Here Comes Everybody addresses the former, explaining the importance of management positions to streamline a group working toward a common goal. Shirky uses several internet-based examples as well to demonstrate the power a group of individuals can have if properly motivated and directed—although the first example with the phone required limited guidance on Evan’s part, large groups of people working toward a common goal usually require additional structure and guidance to stay on-task (also evidenced in that example by all the off-topic conversation within the site he set up). Online, content is frequently self-generated and shared; this requires a different concept of rules and direction but can lead to vast and accurate amounts of information, sometimes superior to what professionals (especially in cases of citizen journalism) can turn out.

Our reading from Design to Thrive focuses on online communities and social networks, clearly defining the differences between the two. Social networks are more individual-based: on sites like Facebook and Twitter, you create your own profile and generate your own content. Your friends all have their own individual pages, as do their friends; however, just because you and someone else share a friend on a social network, this does not imply that the two of you truly have much of anything in common. Online communities foster relationships as well, but that is secondary to some cause or idea which brings the community together in the first place. The community exists primarily to discuss x and issues relating to x, and a sense of camaraderie exists among its members due to their shared interest in x. To have a successful and long-lasting online community, the connecting idea must be something limited; the example Dr. Howard gives regarding the Impeach Mark Sanford group would not be a community but an adhocracy, a group pulled together toward some common goal which disbands after the goal is accomplished or the point is no longer relevant.

As a college student, I stereotypically have pretty extensive personal experience with social networking. I stay active on LiveJournal, Facebook, Twitter (the clearest experience of citizen journalism I've ever seen was the #iranelection hashtag two summers ago), and Reddit; I keep close watch on my last.fm profile (I love the amount of analysis I can do to my own listening habits); and I frequently consider making a LinkedIn profile but lament having so little work experience to populate it with. I also, however, have a lot of experience with online community. I got into internet fandom (and all that entails) back in middle school and have since strayed in and out of fan communities, mostly on LiveJournal. I’ve made some close friends through some pretty silly shared interests (my favorite community and the one where I’ve made the most friends is dedicated to mocking Twilight; we’ve also had the weird experience of being analyzed as a community, as an MIT Comparative Media Studies grad student wrote her thesis on us), and although the community itself is fading, we keep in touch using other social networks. I keep up with many of them via Twitter and Facebook, and I’ve met two of them in real life. I’ve also tried my hand at community moderation; we had a shared sense of a common enemy/common frustration at the time (internet-based drama, the silliest kind there is), and our community thrived for six months or so. We developed our own memes and still maintain a sense of camaraderie as a core group, but the space is mostly used now for occasional catching up or reminiscing. Through these communities, we’ve certainly accomplished some things we wouldn’t have been able to as individuals.