Friday 11 November 2011

Who is in your camp?


Last week I gave a TEDx talk to 450 teenagers, on the science of social networks. In my talk, I proposed that we should think about our social networks in terms of a core, clique, camp and crowd. The camp, in my view, is critical for creativity, for reasons I will explain here.

The key point of departure for the talk was Robin Dunbar's number: 150. Dunbar argues that our brains have evolved to deal with a maximum of 150 individuals that we can really know as people. Increase your social circle beyond 150, and people start to become semi-strangers. For one thing you can't spend enough time know about them and what makes them tick. Also, each time a new person joins our group, we are programmed - Dunbar says - to monitor the relationship that person has with others in our group. As our social groups become bigger the number of potential relationships in the network increases exponentially. There is an impressive breadth of research evidence showing that 150 is natural organising unit for human groups.




Even within a group of 150, of course, we don't lavish the same amount of emotional investment on everyone. Dunbar suggests that our social groups of 150 - or what I call a crowd - is organised into layers or circles, which each layer being approximately three times larger than the previous one. We typically have 3-5 people closest to us with whom we invest a great deal of emotional energy. I call this group the 'core'. Add another 10 or so to the core and you have a 'clique' or posse - likely to include the people you are known to hang around with and those whose loss or death would be truly devastating for you. 


The next group, around 50, I refer to as a camp. I suggest this is the most important group for creative thinking, because it is the maximum number of people whose conversations, activities, online content, and offline goings-on we can pay attention to. By the same token, unless we are rich, famous or influential in the digital world, there are probably only about 50 people in our worlds who we spend enough time with that they keep abreast of what we are up to. 

Your camp is the people who will listen to what your have to say, talk to your about your ideas and challenge your thinking. Your camp may be much smaller than 50. If so, and especially if it is barely larger than your clique, you may not have much influence outside that close-knit group of friends and family, and your thinking may converge. Structure matters too. You need some members of your camp to act as weak ties to other groups if you are to be able to spread ideas and to put them into action. 

Think about the people you've been in contact with in the last month. Are they all in your neighbourhood (local to your home, all working in the same office)? Are they all part of the same personal community?  Be willing to seek new members for your camp from time to time, paying more attention to people you have not listened to for a while, and engaging them in conversation. It takes effort, but it may bring new creative insights.