Facebook’s social context ads collect data on our likes and scans our content for  keywords.  This information is used to generate the ads on the right hand side of  the facebook page.   Google has been showing us context sensitive ads for many years now.

The difference in Facebook  is, that your context sensitive ads are being shown to  your network  with the intention of generating activity within your social group.  Along with the ad,  are the names of  your friends who have clicked the like button or generated some sort of social action, demonstrating an engagement with the item being promoted.  The Facebook equivalent of word of mouth advertising.

Social Networks are more valuable when there is activity along the nodes. Activity indicates emotional resonance, you have been moved  to take some action.  It is like participating in a conversation.  If you are not activley engaged you will listen quietly,  when something resonates with you, you will interject with a comment or ask a question.

Knowing what is able to trigger activity  in a social network is valuable.

A friend connection indicates you have a relationship.  The nature of that relationship can be determined by the information you have provided.   The  people in your network may be colleages, school chums or family. The aggregate of  what you and your friends value along with all the other information you have shared paints a picture of your shared culture.

What facebook is collecting is our values.   What do we value enough to like, follow a link, post on a wall or mention in our status messages.   The information can be used to track the changes in our cultural value systems.  As our culture changes so does our behavior.  According to  Peter Kruse, a German professor and psychologist.   There is a time  lag  between  our culture as expressed by our values and our behavior.  So if my friends and I impulsively agree that an iced mocha looks yummy.  We are likely to follow up with a purchase someday.

We know that social networks can have powerful effect.   Valdis Krebs’ case studies explore the role of our social networks in influencing  smoking cessation, obesity and divorce.    He has shown that Social Network Analysis  can  uncloak  the connections in the 911 terrorist plot and analyze the relationship dynamics of large companies.

We create culture.    Facebook collects it.

Imagine what we could do with it.

Partial notes from the video:

The most interesting part of reducing complexity is culture.  It is not the individual brain but it is already the sum of the individual brains.   When I`m looking at the individual brain.  I`m talking more or less abot the limbic system…

All these values … are in the value system of the limbic system.  This is absolutely  unconscious more or less and gives me the ability to decide without rational analysis.  I am in a very complex situation,  I am doing something and I`m doing this on the basis of all the intuitive knowledge of my own life…

The cultural value system is stabilizing the decision making process, not of one person but of groups of persons.  This is what the culture is all about.  Culture has the task to stabilizing people enough to  be able to interact, to be able to cooperate…

There are these underlying streams of value systems that are fare more stable.  So when I’m ready to measure the changing value system in the culture.  I’m two or three years ahead of behavior.  If you can get access to this data you can reduce complexity in the sense of anticipation not just the moment you are looking at…

Measuring the dynamics of the value system of groups.  Culture is nothing more than a word for this.  So when we are sharing value systems – we are sharing the culture.

We are able to understand each other.

How to navigate the social collective.

Our  inner dialogue has an outer impact.  By taking it in hand, and developing an inner locus,  we can chart our relationship landscape with confidence.   By directing our own  mindset and championing our competencies, we  grow in confidence.  We can  be authentic, acknowledging  our strengths and flaws.   Diamonds have brilliant facets and  unique flaws.  By recognizing  our diamond nature we  grow in clarity.

The intrapersonal and interpersonal are unequivocally linked.   If we  are critical or upbeat about ourselves, we are  more likely to be critical or upbeat with others.   It’s either a poison that taints everything or  a ripple effect for constant improvement. Orienteering  from the internal to the external and understanding that everything is related, is how we navigate our relationship map.

In a group,  there is a dynamic, created by the existing culture and the influential players .  Every person  who joins or leaves  the group changes the dynamic.    How you show up  is important.   Clear communication is key to setting the ground rules for how people engage with you.   Defining who you are within the group context  is how you contribute to the creation of the culture.

In a world mediated by social technology, we know lots of people, but what kind of relationship do we have with them.   How do we qualify the value of the those relationships.   Collective intelligence has a social foundation, the healthier your relationships the stronger your group will be collectively

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Achieving our aspirations involves ongoing personal reflection,

continuous learning and  nurturing our relationships.

With 2011 around the corner many are looking reflectively at the past year and considering ways to improve  our efforts for the new year.

Most of us already have several systems to organize our lives, project plans at work, a family calendar in the kitchen, perhaps a journal for personal reflections. The tools we employ can range from the software provided on  latest mobile gadget to a hasty shopping list scrawled on a piece of paper.

The beginning of a new year is a good time to refine our processes. Life is a work in progress,  review your plans more often, on a monthly or even a weekly basis.  What do you want to do?  Where do you want to go?  How will you get there?

Cultivate Quality Relationships in 2011

The first relationship to consider is your  relationship with your self.   Decide upon the skills,  people,  projects and activities you wish to pursue in the coming year.

If you aspire to enlarge your social circle this year,  join a group,  it  is a good way to meet new  people.

If you are feeling overwhelmed by your involvements, choose how you will spend your time and efforts.

Develop an awareness of your existing network.   Who is in your network?  How well do you know them?

Of the people you know, with whom  would you like to strengthen a relationship with?   Make it a priority, schedule time with that person.

Developing interpersonal relationships by engaging with others  on a regular basis and getting involved in groups adds value to life and enriches the quality of our experience.

Consider the roles you play in your existing relationships.  Think of the ways in which you interact with these people.   What are your responsibilities?  What are your expectations of them?  Are these roles understood clearly or is there a need to communicate them?

Get to know  people who have expertise.   Their viewpoint, and interpretations may help us to see what we cannot.

One reason we develop relationships is so that we may engage collaboratively with them to achieve a common goal. By working together the group can often  achieve more than individuals could do on our own.

Approach your relationship management tasks in an organized and thoughtful manner.  Determine what priority they play in your life and how  you will put your efforts into improving them

Make it Happen

So how do we find the time to do all these things?   Time management is  the range  of  skills,  tools and techniques for managing the time required to achieve our goals.

Essentially there are two approaches to time management.

Task Orientated – Bottom up

Bottom up methods  are typically used for project management.  Large projects are broken into into smaller tasks, which are associated with a time estimate and the  resources required for completion.  The tasks are prioritized, scheduled and  assigned  to accomplish the larger objective.   Recipes , project plans and todo lists are examples of task orientated, time management systems.   David Allen has popularized a personal task orientated system with his book Getting things done (GTD)

Result Orientated – Top Down

Top down methods such as  Stephen Covey’s system places goals and roles as the controlling element of the system and favors importance over urgency.  Using a results orientated system, we focus on the results, and look for opportunities to achieve those results moving forward.   A result orientated strategy is helpful for achieving business or personal  goals that are less tangible such as improving a relationship with someone in your life.

A  personal  infusion of  Time Management Methods.

Jordan McGilvary of DIYplanner.com has shared his time management templates and an application for printing your own calendars and agenda pages.   Jordan has also  shared his  insights into  The Middle Way Method, a time management system that works for him.

The Middle Way Method encourages me to uncover who I am, who I want to be, and how to become who I want to be, while being able to handle everything that is thrown my way. … I feel that this approach gives a balance between the important things of life and the daily grind.

Intrapersonal activity, aka reflective review, leads to improved interpersonal exchange.  Taking accountability for understanding your motivations, interpretations and personal biases lends insight to how our perspectives and perceptions colour our interactions.

Emotional intelligence equates with our capacity for a greater spectrum of response to both internal and external prompts, derived from feelings of which we need to make sense. Responsiveness replaces reactiveness as a preferable communication style when the process of review is integrated.

Personal accountability is an outcome of having taken both the time and the effort to evolve a competency for internal dialogue and external expression. When contexted by understanding both the impact and influence of choices and communication, our responses are more appropriate. Learning a lexicon of appraisal, derived from Appreciative Inquiry, forms a new potential that motivates, not excoriates, self assessment.

Intrapersonal dialogue, the internal expression that runs constantly, reveals and defines the relationship you have with self.   It requires attention to the language you choose to make sense of and interpret self  in the world at large. Defining yourself in terms that accommodate your humanness is both healthy and a process of maturation

Building a strong relationship with the self benefits interpersonal engagement as an immediate effect.  Acknowledging of our foibles, idiosyncracies and unique pecadillos affords us a mutual capacity for accepting similar traits in others and allows for the acceptance that we are enough just as we are. This recognition improves our self worth amd leads to a self knowledge that establishes our inner locus.

Intrapersonal communication occurs within our intimate world. We need to take of charge that world and construct in a manner congruent with our needs, a reality that supports nourishing and nurturing our emotional wellbeing. That, in turn,  is reflected in our interpersonal relationships and serves as the key and foundation for healthy dynamics.

Physicist, David Bohm once said that society is based on shared meaning, which constitutes the culture. This shared meaning is the “glue” or the “cement” that holds society together. Shared meaning is necessary for society to function properly and for it to survive.

In his essay Dialogue and Coherence, William van den Heuvel describes Bohm’s ideas of the binding effect of sharing  common meanings and the challenge of achieving  shared menaing.

Through the media  we all get the same incomplete information and, therefore, we all come to the same distorted conclusions.  When communicating from person to person; is not only about what has happened but also why it happened. What are our beliefs, our opinions and  assumptions? What is important to you and what is important to me?

Understanding ourselves is the first step to better self expression.

Self-concept is the basis for intrapersonal communication, because it determines how a person sees themself and is oriented toward others. Self-concept (also called self-awareness) involves three factors: beliefs, values and attitudes. How they express that state is fundamental to building qualitative relationships.

When we know each other we are better able to understand each other.

Communication can be carried out by auditory means, such as speaking, singing, and sometimes tone of voice, and nonverbal, physical means, such as body language, sign language, paralanguage, touch, eye contact, or the use of writing. Whatever the medium, though, communication still means that one or more individuals are transferring information. The question becomes whether the information transmitted can be received and correctly interpreted.

• How you speak to people shapes how they view you and relate to you.
• The language you choose, the tone in which you express and the behaviour you adopt, all play a significant role in peoples perception of you.
• Your words, voice tone and inflection can elicit powerful emotions from others, without you realizing it.

We build relationships through our interactions.   How we choose to engage  in each and every interaction determines the quality of the relationship.   Be mindful of what you are saying, why you are saying it and how you are saying it.    Express yourself appropriately, constructively and concisely.

It matters.

” I’ve learned that people will forget what you said,
people will forget what you did,
but people will never forget how you made them feel”

Maya Angelou