groupDNA

Management is a human invention

2011-04-10T18:29:00.000+02:00

and often bad for creative stuff...

Why this talk? Because as Daniel Pink points out: extrinsic motivation like carrots and sticks is best for mechanical tasks as research has shown over and over again. Are managers and bankers really mainly doing repetitive tasks? If that's true, why are the rewards so high?

What we need for creative work is intrinsic motivation, autonomy, mastering and purpose. And that motivation is true for groups as it is for individuals. in fact social recognition is of course another driver.

At groupDNA we assume that in groups we behave similar to organisms. therefore intrinsic and extrinsic motivation apply in the same way. When working in a group conciously, we better make our mind up before we start organising ourselves. because once extrinsic rewards have been established, they may have irreversibly poisoned the group. And that is bad for economics as well.

tickerTXT is about market communities made of traders, producers farmers and transport people. Every market community will also have people taking on social roles within the group, moderating and acting as proxies. Some may dedicate a good deal of their time to work for the better of the group itself.

An autonomous market community needs to change and adapt. People will come and go. In order to work for all members, each participant needs to have the same vote. As members earn their income with deals and not as a salary from the community, the best form of such a market is based on cooperative principles.

150 - the right size for larger groups?

2011-03-30T03:43:00.002+02:00

Watch "TEDxSanDiego - James Fowler - Back to the Village" on YouTube

At tickerTXT we were have been discussing since the beginning how many members a market in rural areas need and what the maximum number is. We don't have an answer and there probably won't be definitive numbers.

A market needs a critical mass to really be attractive to participants. That attraction is through network effects. The number of participants is relative to the "tangible" activity on a regular basis. People want to see things happening and expect deals to be closed regularly, that someone is potentially there to conclude a good deal. You want to see many deals per day, but not too many, then sometime participants will quickly feel overwhelmed.

The other factor for a thriving market is security / safety and trust. Using the mobile phone SMS to engage in market conversations and to conclude deals I need to trust my counterpart. Trust does not mean I have to like the other person. It also doesn't necessarily imply that the other person doesn't cheat. But if I know that my deal partner is likely to cheat, I can hedge and protect myself. Trust works to the 2nd degree connection. You may trust someone you don't know through a person close to you.

Therefore we estimated that the largest working market communities would likely count 500 to 1500 members. Any bigger and there would be too much trade activity and too little trust because of the 2ng degree of trust limit.

Maybe a market is comparable to a village community. Then a market would count around 150 people. In order to thrive, they would need to be more active than a larger community with less individual trade activity.

Or a tickerTXT market could include several village-like communities within a market? Maybe not, because that would look to economists like cartels. Cartels are just like larger organised groups within a community and will likely fight for power. Markets work best if participants can do their business without political restrictions, when rules are fair and the deals transparent.

Friendship Paradox - Friends Are More Central To Social Networks Than You Are

2011-01-03T16:15:00.002+01:00

Nicholas Christakis: How social networks predict epidemics

The friendship paradox says that most likely your friends have more friends than you have. And we can use that phenomenon to quickly discover the central nodes of social networks to identify the "connectors" - the people at the core of social webs. By looking at those "superspreaders" we can learn changes in social behavior far sooner than ever before, sometimes 2 or 4 weeks ealier than trqadiional methods allow in case of flu epidemics for example. We can also use those techniques by targeting these hyper-connected people to immunise populations more quickly and effectively in case of viral epidemics.

Of course these methods can be used for all kinds of behavior targeted actions, from spreading ideas to changing unhealthy behavior...

And when you look at those network charts Christopher Christakis is using, you can't help observing simularities to representations of organisms - so we can assume that social graphs represent our groupDNA.

Principles for Group Dedicated Technologies and Services - the groupDNA Brief

2010-12-22T00:32:00.004+01:00

I thought about publishing some ideas and concepts about "technologies, applications and services dedicated to groups and organisations" one by one. But it takes time to write and edit these things :-) Before this day ended, I wanted to publish something for groupDNA and I re-read the paper I wrote with the help of Andy back in spring 2008. We have come a long way, but the principles are just fine. I would and probably will re-phrase much of this paper and publish these thoughts on groupdna.org. Anyway that's my plan for 2011, meanwhile enjoy this only slightly edited paper. Happy holidays :-)

here is the link to the Google Doc http://shortlinks.tickertxt.org/groupdna2008

groupDNA

we are sequencing the DNA of groups

to develop better tools

the reference for group activities

anchoring group actions

Problem

Solution

Business Model

Where are we now [Spring 2008]

Next steps

groupDNA soundbites...

A humerous and pretentious perspective

We are a project with an agenda, creating services and tools aimed at informal, unstructured groups. Treating "groups" as entities and customers analogous to organisations (B2C) opens untapped markets with very interesting business opportunities, which we call B2G. Informal groups are everywhere, in our family life, sports and hobbies, friends, assocations and our professional life.
groupDNA projects include tickerTXT, groupmark / groupmarker, twitter groups, twittAIR, twittUP, twitter reference sharing, grouplets and groupDNA Open Twitter Authentication (OTAM) Method (for third party twitter developers)[this paragraph has been slightly edited Dec 2010, see footnote] ^[1]

Problem

Most group activities are badly supported in our normal technology supported environments. The focus of IT-based solutions and services is on either the corporation or on the individual. Enterprise systems are designed top-down and are complex. Systems and applications for smaller companies tend to follow the structural approach and thereby inherent the same architectural deficiencies. These systems are inward-looking, functionally driven and by design formal and inflexible. These patterns can be rediscovered with social network services, which are similar data silos, albeit sexier and friendlier and more open.

The other extreme focus is on the user, the hardware design and the user-interface. The goal is to make the user interaction with the technology efficient, very little effort is spent on thinking what happens once the data is sent off to somewhere else. Many web-based widgets are aggregators designed to deliver to the user individually useful information services, such as location services, mapping etc.

This leaves an opportunity for services targeting groups. Most groups are informal, unstructured, though they might have different degrees of delegation. Members of groups have something in common, an interest, an event, an experience... the identity of the group, the reference. A design and process which supports the group as a whole is potentially enormous productivity gain for the individual.

Currently solutions are either "local" and technical/functional (forums, mailing lists, wikis...) or simply using standard communication technologies, such as voice, email, IM, SMS...

Solution

Developing frameworks, services and tools specifically designed with group in mind. The solutions should enable any group to create specific activities, which inherently include:

a group reference - which allows to identify groups across services, sites, platforms and systems
the ability to fine tune the group principles - Basic tools for self-organising / management of the group (open, public, only members, only invitation, only specific sites, delegation)
A group action reference: allows to match the group and the activity action
The group footprint for the next action: Technical framework (Frame, widget window) - includes group reference, action reference and self-management tools, export / import, formats
Update or status notifications: of the initiator and the members - on status change via RSS, push communication and twitter
Prepackaged action samples: based on patterns of group activities- content/procedure samples or examples designed for frequently occurring group actions, such as coordinating / polling / data collection / resource management, transparency processes such as payment tracking. Can be customised, named and designed for every usage
Combination of function and data: use for one particular activity once, delete or archive it after finishing (Preparing the 2008 annual summer meeting, organising the common purchase of the rare vintage air-filter, listing the wish-list for the AppleFriends "my next Mac", coordinating the common action for the flower friends, sharing the cars for the ski trip)
Chameleon like infiltration: Variations of technology appearances (from rich AJAX/Flash to text based or image based app) - very low technology barrier

Business Model

B2G, business to groups is a new perspective to prospective services. Groups do not have a legal form, cannot act as legal body. Group investments are either distributed to it's members, delegated to a person or hidden, subsumed in other project costs, especially when those groups act in a professional environment. Sponsoring and gifts and non-deductible small donations are another source supporting group activities. Other costs occur as part of transaction and are considered normal or natural. B2G is pretty obvious, once the particularities are respected.
B2G works with branded, customised grouplets [group widgets], transaction based revenues (from the individual members), corporate market (integrating/linking informal group activities into corporations, synchronizing to directory, backups), marketing co operations, specific group services for companies who want to engage in conversations with groups of customers (consulting, project deals, campaigns...). There are numerous parties associated with informal groups which have substantial commercial interests to use the power of informal groups.

Where are we now [Spring 2008]

Proof of concept showcase
To-do simplifying core system, specification of the core grouplet functionalities
Research, technical papers and business plans
Small dedicated team with startup experience and technical background.

Next steps [2008 see footnote]

^{Raise project funding for initial development alternatively raise seed capital planned to last 6 to 8 months.
Goals[2] :}

Raise interest in groupDNA.

Targeting: selected Twitterati with a lot of influence, key players (startup / innovation bloggers, influential technical "gurus"), awareness of key early stage investors in Europe with good transatlantic connections. Targeting real twitter users and engaging them in conversation.
Winning partners for tickerTXT, people familiar/expert with economic issues and business challenges, people with tech or entrepreneurial background and close family ties to those regions, organisations supporting development of rural economies, local and regional organisations (cooperatives, market associations, professional associations, services such as telecoms, micro-finance, publishers...)

Getting team together: mostly Berlin as the base, partly Oxford, 3 to max 5 developers, 1 or 2 business development / entrepreneurial specialists, deal makers, networkers, international background
Launching apps fast and improving them incrementally.

The twitter cases should be first, attractive and viral twitter services for groups. Twitter is on the way to mainstream attracting lots of attention, interested people willing to try services. Financially interesting because Twitter or a twitter-like communication service will have huge impact on company and customer relations, resulting in new services and reaching new audiences.

GroupDNA is a startup with an agenda. The group reference will be our trademark feature, all developments should be in context of group services. (or be run as spin-off)

Continuously discussing and improving the core assumptions and derived structural, functional and service applications for the groups.

groupDNA soundbites...

Wherever groups exist, interactions and dynamics occur, wherever those are poorly supported and serviced in an economic environment.

Groups, Communities and organisations could quickly benefit from the combination of group dedicated services, technologies and techniques and [create] interesting commercial opportunities.

We look at informal and unstructured groups as our customer.

Today's ICT design is focusing on organisations (functional perpective such as company directories, ERP, CRM, Production, CAD / CAM, project management, ...) or on the individual user (interface, devices, ...) or on communication infrastructure (website, email, IM, SMS, voice). Web service solutions mostly replicate that approach as they are either function driven tools (forums, mailing lists, project support, widgets) or recreating a corporate environment by offering social networks, which are basically directories with an emphasis on communication. A groupDNA approach creates opportunities because it it less “functional” and more organical.

Serving groups is currently accidental and partial, an afterthought, a quick fix. Group tools within social networks, "virtual" groups who's reference is the web, such as themed forums, Wikipedia.

Because group have not been properly served, most business models are equally inadequate for group inept.

A humerous and pretentious perspective

Taking a line from the Wikipedia entry on the Human Genome Project allows to steal the famous project for our purpose. We don't want to trivialize the acclaimed project, but want to use the well known effort and the implications to explain what groupDNA may do. We took some humorous liberties with the wikipedia text thus being able to avoid repetitive use of adjectives like efficient, effective, viral and phrases like leverage, productivity gains, win-win...
Compare the our version below with the original article of the Human Genom Project:

groupDNA ;-) the goal of the Group Genie Project is to determine the sequence of productive chemistry, to identify the genius of group dynamics from both behavioural and functional standpoint and to unleash the creative energy to open up an infinite variety of systemic bottlenecks.

The objective of the Group Genie Project is to understand the makeup of virtual groups considering them as quasi-living organisms, discover and test potential applications and exploit the most promising findings commercially.
Our principle is that detailed knowledge of the power of the group genius will provide new avenues for advances in business and technology. Clear practical results of the project have emerged even before this work has properly started. For example, a number of projects, such as TickerTXT started working on easy ways to administer groupDNA applications that show a potential as treatment to a variety of challenges, including grassroot commodity markets, knowledge infection and ad-hoc proliferation in crisis situations, qualifying as potentially viral with possibly epidemic proportions.

©2008 groupDNA Moritz Schroeder, Andy Swarbrick

[1]Initially groupDNA was thought to be a startup. Now we see it like an open concept about how to create applications and services for groups and organisations.

tickerTXT has won awards, checkout http://www.tickertxt.org for more. Groupmark is still a concept, groupDNA twitter groups had been in the making, but was put on a shelf due to lack of time and money. Now Twitter Lists are offering part of the functionality we envisioned for our twitter groups service. Same fate for twittair and twittup. Twittup had been similar to meeting and location services which are now widely supported by 3rd party services for Twitter. OAuth hadn't been offered by Twitter then, though OTAM is still quite a simple and interesting idea for authentication purposes, not only for Twitter. It has been used even before we came up of the idea, but there still aren’t any standards. Since 2008, various other concepts have been born out of groupDNA principles.

[2]tickerTXT took over as the main project rather than as a part of groupDNA. tickerTXT won subsequently two awards in 2008, including Seedcamp Berlin.

Derek Sivers: How to start a movement

2010-11-01T07:16:00.000+01:00

"The first follower is what turns a lone nut into a leader.

New followers emulate the followers, not the leader.

3 more people, this is the tipping point, this is a movement.

Now, hurry to be part of the IN crowd.

Then you will be ridiculed not to be part of the movement...

Lesson: nurture your followers as equals! Leadership is over-glorified, it is about the first followers..."

First you are alone, 2 people form a pair, 3 start a crowd :-)

Unser Verhalten im Gedränge

2010-06-08T11:29:00.001+02:00

Interessanter Artikel im Spiegel-Online über ein Experiment an der TU Berlin im Rahmen eines Forschungsprojekts vom Institut für Mathematik. Ziel soll sein verwertbare Erkenntnisse über unser Verhalten zu gewinnen, wie Menschenmengen sicherer werden können.

What about B2G as in business-to-groups?

2010-05-20T18:50:00.000+02:00

You probably know the terms B2C and B2B. Both are mainly used in the context of marketing, focussing either on consumers or business customers and markets.

B2G, business-to-government, is less well-known and I would propose to use b2ps (business-to-public-sector) instead from now on. Because we need the G for informal and unstructured groups :-)

B2G should stand for business-to-groups. Treating 'groups' as entities and customers analogous to organisations (B2C) opens untapped markets with very interesting business opportunities. Informal or 'unstructured' groups are everywhere, in our family life, sports and hobbies, friends, assocations and our professional life.

And 'groups' are special, they are a different type of customer: an informal group is not an individual, nor is it a formal organisation or legal entity. Groups don't have money or budgets. A group can't buy, only each individual member can. Groups usually lack official roles and hierarchies, delegations and leaders. Informal groups don't have designated decision making processes.

And groups are everywhere around us. We are part of hundreds of groups and even in formal organisations, it's the informal groups which matter. So it's actually quite bizarre, that groups are economically and socially important, that they are the fabric of human societies, but that there are very few tools and services designated to informal groups and designed to meet our group needs, isn't it?

Why email, voice, SMS, forums, blogs, IM, wikis and social networks are not enough to support us in the way we behave and act in groups, is subject of a few follow-up posts.

And if we find and promote solutions and principles for needs and requirements of informal groups, they will have a positive effect on societies and our economies. They will make our lifes so much easier, they will help us to communicate, interact and collaborate. We will wonder, why we left those tools and that knowledge untabbed for so long and which in hindsight then will seem obvious and natural. Why have we left it to chance and coincidence to use technology and services for us as group animals?

A quote from a 2008 paper I wrote about groupDNA:

'we are sequencing the DNA of groups to develop better tools. [The groupDNA includes] the reference for group activities [which supports]anchoring group actions'

groupDNA history

2008-10-22T00:45:00.000+02:00

update: this is an old post just after what we then called groupDNA became tickerTXT. Therefore groupDNA is free to become a public project, a non-proprietary open concept focussing on technology and business models for group applications and services.

groupDNA.org - exploit business opportunities by taking a fresh perspective

With groupDNA we aim to commercialise opportunities for "simple" applications and services to provide technologies and services with group leverage. Basically we offer ways of how to improve cost risks or revenue opoortunities for customers who have increasingly small returns on ever bigger projects and investments.

We deliver that last mile, the 30 or 20% gains which are not achievable through classic methods and models.

We give a a human touch, a fresh perspective to use the power of groups...

We have an old blog on wordpress.com which we'll leave untouched. That blog is an archive which had a few posts regarding the Berlin Seedcamp in June 2008. The project morphed into tickerTXT shortly before the event.

This new location will be home to the revived groupDNA and actively support tickerTXT and other related open projects such as the "group DNA project"