Thanks, Wendy.

- Mary

Thanks, Wendy.

- Mary

- Mary

“Nice piece, Mary! I agree that we need to make better use of our networks and 'employ' them as human filters. There are some good examples of crowdsourcing and letting interesting content bubble up by passive intervention of people.

At the same time people need to learn the way social tools work and what effect they have. I actually thought I followed a very smart crowd of people until some of them started playing #spymaster on Twitter. And I certainly can't cope with all the FB application nonsense that I receive in my stream. We need to have better (technology) filters but also 'smarter' people

Also, I absolutely agree with Doug. People overwhelmed by the flow of information think that it works like email – that they need to read everything. In fact, the 'flow' is similar to the daily newspaper. You never know what to read tomorrow and it's hardly ever the case that you need the information you read right away. However, it distributes information widely (within an org) and helps you keeping up to date with developments. That's very different to an encyclopedia where you want to have an answer to your question right away.”

This notion of neutral filters will require more thought and work, at least on my part. In the meantime, I’d offer the following suggestion regarding your valid concern about groupthink: perhaps the key to avoiding groupthink is to make deliberate efforts to remain open to serendipity. Perhaps that means checking regularly to see what topics are trending in various social networks. Perhaps it means occasionally taking a meandering path as you follow one interesting link to another. And, it undoubtedly means staying connected with at least a few people who have demonstrated that they have curious minds and catholic tastes.

- Mary

You are right to emphasise neutrality. One of the important risks in asessing socially-driven signals is that groupthink develops extremely quickly, and powerfully. I see this sometimes in our own groups. We tend to follow the same people on Twitter, read similar blogs, and so on. (The 'we' here is universal, not just personal.) As a result, we often need someone to come from outside the circle to challenge the group view. “Tastes and circumstances” change, and people may not realise that they have changed (even their own) until they are shown a different view that is equally, or more, acceptable.

It appears that we have consensus (at least among the three of us, Clay Shirky and Dave Weinberger) on the proposition that the solution to the Tower of Babel problem is not to restrict the flow of information, but rather to improve our filters. The point I tried to make in my post was that it may well take a community effort to help each other find effective ways of filtering this endless torrent of information.

I agree with Mark that one person's noise may be another person's signal. Nonetheless, I wonder if there aren't some neutral filtering techniques that allow each person to find what suits their tastes and circumstances in an efficient and effective manner? Perhaps this is another area in which the collective wisdom of the social commuting community can help identify and teach those techniques. And perhaps, as Nick notes, this identifying and teaching role is tailor-made for KM.

- Mary