Some years ago my friend Jon put me onto a classic project management text called The Mythical Man-Month. Although its focus is on software engineering, the central argument applies to any project. Traditionally, the effort involved is measured in man-months, so a job that would take someone twelve months to do alone could equally take two people six months, four people three months or twelve people one month. That is, that the job at hand is like a birthday cake, which can be divided up according to how many friends you have. More people = smaller chunks of work.
What this approach doesn't allow for is the much greater overhead in communication within the team, so (putting aside any overall project manager), one person doing a job can focus on doing the job and nothing else, two people have one line of communication, four people have six, six people have 15 and twelve people have 66. For the mathematically-inclined that's n(n-1)/2 where n is the number of people involved. That is, the communication overhead grows exponentially with the number of people involved. It's basically a 'too many cooks' argument.
I was interested to read Paul Mason's widely-cited BBC blog piece on the sudden increase in popular protest: 'Twenty reasons why it's kicking off everywhere' . One of his suggested causes is the rise in 'memes', or little idea-lets, which can either spread rapidly or fall by the wayside, according to how popular they are. The widespread reference to Mason's blog piece exemplifies this: he has hit on something that resonates with a lot of people, so it gets widely shared. John Lanchester in his London Review of Books blog is one example of this reiteration, yet at the same time seems to contribute little to the discussion, save for repeating the link to Mason's piece.
This got me thinking about whether there is any useful synthesis of these two positions. On the one hand, I find myself slightly put out by spending a little of my time reading a piece that simply recycles something I've already read. If there were a grand communication project, this would not be the best way of carrying it out, and it could be better served by having fewer, authoritative channels of communication. That, effectively, is old-school journalism, or the Reithian BBC of serious, austere intelligence that both carries huge power to communicate and (ideally) acknowledges the associated responsibility. It's a very efficient way of communicating, but it's not accessible to a wide range of voices. On the other hand, as Mason suggests, the internet has created an intellectual free-market, which is accessible to anyone (ok, anyone with computer, internet and the skills to use them). Free-market philosophy means that, not only will the market test the popularity of the ideas, but over time the originator will gain dominance and a stronger position in the market.
Like the economic free market, however, this approach has its flaws. Private businesses have not only to create their product, but also to exercise substantial time and cost in promoting and selling it. At the same time, consumers faced with competing offerings must spend time (whether monetised or not) exercising choice between these. The bigger the market, the bigger the overhead in both promotion and choice. Also, like many economic markets, it's rarely totally free. Just as sheer size and profile can help a large company dominate their market, so this can skew the extent to which memes are spread. Those who already have a loyal fan-base will have a head start in spreading their ideas, Like those who inherit political or economic power, we have to trust that those who have inherited (from, say, off-line reputations) a position of intellectual power will handle it with care, or be prepared to shout loudly together when they don't, such as Liz Jones' re-telling of Jo Yeates' murder as a lifestyle piece in the Daily Mail.
Like it or not, all the time spent by people digesting and regurgitating ideas is central to their testing. Living under a dictatorship demands very little effort, and the cost of a democracy is the time and effort we put into it, not only in voting, but also in promoting and advocating our beliefs to others. And, like democracy, the internet doesn't come with fairness handed to us on a plate: it's only realised by participating in the process. As views we dislike gain ground, we carry even greater responsibility to originate, read and repeat what we believe in. That's likely to take much more than just a moment of our time, but that's the cost of choice.
What this approach doesn't allow for is the much greater overhead in communication within the team, so (putting aside any overall project manager), one person doing a job can focus on doing the job and nothing else, two people have one line of communication, four people have six, six people have 15 and twelve people have 66. For the mathematically-inclined that's n(n-1)/2 where n is the number of people involved. That is, the communication overhead grows exponentially with the number of people involved. It's basically a 'too many cooks' argument.
I was interested to read Paul Mason's widely-cited BBC blog piece on the sudden increase in popular protest: 'Twenty reasons why it's kicking off everywhere' . One of his suggested causes is the rise in 'memes', or little idea-lets, which can either spread rapidly or fall by the wayside, according to how popular they are. The widespread reference to Mason's blog piece exemplifies this: he has hit on something that resonates with a lot of people, so it gets widely shared. John Lanchester in his London Review of Books blog is one example of this reiteration, yet at the same time seems to contribute little to the discussion, save for repeating the link to Mason's piece.
This got me thinking about whether there is any useful synthesis of these two positions. On the one hand, I find myself slightly put out by spending a little of my time reading a piece that simply recycles something I've already read. If there were a grand communication project, this would not be the best way of carrying it out, and it could be better served by having fewer, authoritative channels of communication. That, effectively, is old-school journalism, or the Reithian BBC of serious, austere intelligence that both carries huge power to communicate and (ideally) acknowledges the associated responsibility. It's a very efficient way of communicating, but it's not accessible to a wide range of voices. On the other hand, as Mason suggests, the internet has created an intellectual free-market, which is accessible to anyone (ok, anyone with computer, internet and the skills to use them). Free-market philosophy means that, not only will the market test the popularity of the ideas, but over time the originator will gain dominance and a stronger position in the market.
Like the economic free market, however, this approach has its flaws. Private businesses have not only to create their product, but also to exercise substantial time and cost in promoting and selling it. At the same time, consumers faced with competing offerings must spend time (whether monetised or not) exercising choice between these. The bigger the market, the bigger the overhead in both promotion and choice. Also, like many economic markets, it's rarely totally free. Just as sheer size and profile can help a large company dominate their market, so this can skew the extent to which memes are spread. Those who already have a loyal fan-base will have a head start in spreading their ideas, Like those who inherit political or economic power, we have to trust that those who have inherited (from, say, off-line reputations) a position of intellectual power will handle it with care, or be prepared to shout loudly together when they don't, such as Liz Jones' re-telling of Jo Yeates' murder as a lifestyle piece in the Daily Mail.
Like it or not, all the time spent by people digesting and regurgitating ideas is central to their testing. Living under a dictatorship demands very little effort, and the cost of a democracy is the time and effort we put into it, not only in voting, but also in promoting and advocating our beliefs to others. And, like democracy, the internet doesn't come with fairness handed to us on a plate: it's only realised by participating in the process. As views we dislike gain ground, we carry even greater responsibility to originate, read and repeat what we believe in. That's likely to take much more than just a moment of our time, but that's the cost of choice.
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