Social media platforms are currently based on mass audience models that leverage network effects – you go there because that’s where everyone else is. But I don’t think that this mass audience model is useful anymore, especially if you’re interested in working on important problems.
In this new model, users don’t want to connect with everyone they already know, but instead want to connect with small groups they find really interesting. Similarly, they don’t need access to massive libraries of low-quality content, but instead want access to curated collections covering topics they really care about.
Newport, C. (2019). Thinkspot and the Rise of Long Tail Social Media.
Earlier this year I was part of a small panel discussion at ENPHE , with Ben Ellis and Joost van Wijchen, where we talked about our ideas around open platforms and new knowledge creation. Our conversation really helped me to refine the way I think about the role of learning communities in higher and professional education, and to reflect on how we might reconfigure our networks to enhance our capacity to address big problems.
We’ve traditionally emphasised the brilliant individual who solve important problems (think, Einstein, Newton, etc.) but the kinds of problems we face today are embedded in complex systems that no single person – or even profession – can hope to address.
The emergence of learning communities isn’t only about preference (as suggested in Newport’s excerpt above) but around the idea that small, highly-focused, diverse groups of people represent the most promising approach to solving the problems that matter.
What will higher and professional education look like when we shift away from cohorts of age-based learners to diverse, interprofessional, interest-based learning communities?