Comments for Strategic Growth Blog

Comment on Re- Start Your Business! The First Thing You Should Do In 2009 by Eric

Eric — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 18:07:34 +0000

Great tips! Good advice for starting the new year.

Comment on Books Worth Re-Viewing: The Tipping Point by LMN

LMN — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 13:03:55 +0000

Yes, I would be interested in your thoughts on the subject. Certainly, if we continue down the web “n”.0 path the human brain will have to most certainly adapt. This radical change to how we interact will probably be one of the most significant adaptations since we have become “modern” humans. Exciting times ahead.

Thanks for the comment.

Comment on Books Worth Re-Viewing: The Tipping Point by E.C. Hopkins

E.C. Hopkins — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 15:43:12 +0000

Gladwell’s reference to Dunbar’s Number (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number) in Tipping Point piqued my interest about 6 years ago. Indeed, it led me to explore sociometrics and social network literature (I highly recommend Professor Nan Lin’s 2002 book Social Capital: A Theory of Social Structure, especially chapters 11 and 12). Wanting to review the idea in its original form, I also read Robin Dunbar’s essays on the links between primates’ neocortex size and the number of stable relationships they could have, as well as a few responses to it, about 6 years ago.

Dunbar’s theories were developed before our modern Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 systems, systems which have markedly changed the ways we manage our social networks. And I doubt Dunbar’s working assumptions in his papers still hold for humans using Web 3.0 systems.

Though human neocortex sizes haven’t changed since the early 1990s, our social networking tools and the environments in which we use those tools have. Now, it is much easier, as in much less laborious, for us to connect with others and manage our stable relationships.

Is Dunbar’s Number, approximately 150, still the right number in a Web 3.0, soon to be Web 4.0 era? Or have the markedly decreased costs of social network management decreased or increased the maximum average number of people we can maintain stable relationships with? I’m betting they have increased the number. And if they have increased the number, that might mean information, good and bad and neutral, not only can and does travel faster now than ever before, but also that tipping points and trends can and do come and go faster than ever before.

I have some ideas on what this phenomenon, if it exists, will likely mean for businesses in industries that are most influenced by the frequencies and durations of social network-driven tipping points and trends, but I’ve yet to write those ideas down. Maybe I’ll get to around to it after law school.

Comment on Strategic Planning: Don’t Try It Alone! by Dave

Dave — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 01:20:25 +0000

The best manual on Strategic Planning out there. We will use it for our annual planning process this year.

Dave in SF

Comment on Strategic Planning: Don’t Try It Alone! by Ron

Ron — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 17:27:19 +0000

It’s a whole MBA course on strategy in 28 pages! Thanks for making this available.

Comment on Books Worth Re-Viewing: The Tipping Point by Marilyn

Marilyn — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 22:08:17 +0000

I think this article was very informative.