{"id":676,"date":"2010-09-19T12:31:02","date_gmt":"2010-09-19T19:31:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.spreadingscience.com\/2010\/09\/19\/the-right-mix-in-a-social-network-is-more-important-than-anything-else-for-driving-innovation\/"},"modified":"2010-09-19T12:31:02","modified_gmt":"2010-09-19T19:31:02","slug":"the-right-mix-in-a-social-network-is-more-important-than-anything-else-for-driving-innovation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spreadingscience.com\/2010\/09\/19\/the-right-mix-in-a-social-network-is-more-important-than-anything-else-for-driving-innovation\/","title":{"rendered":"The right mix in a social network is more important than anything else for driving innovation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"innovative\" by Stig Nygaard<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Is Narcissism Good for Business?<\/a>
\n[Via ScienceNOW<\/a>]<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n Narcissists, new experiments show, are great at convincing others that their ideas are creative even though they’re just average. Still, groups with a handful of narcissists come up with better ideas than those with none, suggesting that self-love contributes to real-world success.<\/p>\n

[More<\/a>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The narcissists – a term I think may be misused here – are more likely to draw from the disrupter or mediator side<\/a> of a network. They deviate from the normal flow of things<\/a> in a network.<\/i><\/p>\n

I hate the term ‘innovators’ applied to the earliest adopters in a network. Anyone can be innovative. WHat we are looking for here are those that most rapidly adopt changes and then are the most able to convince the community to adopt them<\/i><\/p>\n

These experiments showed that a passionate pitcher could get people to adopt their idea, even when the idea was rated average by reading about it. The personal interactions were needed to pitch even an average idea.<\/i><\/p>\n

But what was really interesting in the work was that teams of only disruptors (called narcissists) or only doers (no narcissists) were very poor at coming up with great ideas and innovations.<\/i><\/p>\n

There are 5 steps everyone goes through when presented with a new idea and when deciding whether<\/a> to adopt it. A key one is evaluation. I would suspect that teams with only disruptors race through this step so fast – that is why they are the earliest to change – that they really do not arrive at much that is worthwhile. Every idea seems as good as any other.<\/i><\/p>\n

On the other hand, doers usually get stuck at the evaluation stage, only slowly taking the leap to adoption.the slowness to adopt change. So a team of doers would not get much done because they could never decide, getting stuck at evaluation.<\/i><\/p>\n

But a well mixed team, one with both disruptors and doers, was the best one. This makes absolute sense. Because the doers slowed down the disruptors, forcing them to explain and rationalize all those novel ideas. The doers are also forced to make a decision because of the pressure from the disruptors.<\/i><\/p>\n

By mixing both types, the ideas get much better evaluation, making it more likely that the best ideas will be adopted by the group. Each type overcomes the blind spots of the other – preventing the disruptors from moving too many ideas too rapidly through evaluation, while forcing the doers to pick the best ideas to adopt.<\/i><\/p>\n

I can hardly wait for this paper to come out. It demonstrates that the best communities has the right mix of traits and that a community that is overbalanced in any one sector will be very slow to create and adopt innovative ideas.<\/i><\/p>\n


<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Stig Nygaard Is Narcissism Good for Business? [Via ScienceNOW] Narcissists, new experiments show, are great at convincing others that their ideas are creative even though they’re just average. Still, groups with a handful of narcissists come up with better ideas than those with none, suggesting that self-love contributes to real-world success. [More] The narcissists … Continue reading The right mix in a social network is more important than anything else for driving innovation<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[10,4],"tags":[34,33],"class_list":["post-676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-knowledge-creation","category-web-20","tag-knowledge-creation","tag-web-20"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pe2yp-aU","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":653,"url":"https:\/\/www.spreadingscience.com\/2010\/06\/02\/new-seminar-your-not-crazy-you-are-innovative\/","url_meta":{"origin":676,"position":0},"title":"New Seminar - You're not crazy. You are innovative.","date":"June 2, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0\u00a0 I've been working on a series of seminars. I hope to announce more of them soon but I have the first one ready. You're not crazy. You are innovative. will examine the disruptive innovators in a community. These people are absolutely critical for the introduction of new ideas into\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Knowledge Creation"","img":{"alt_text":"201006021448.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.spreadingscience.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/201006021448.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":580,"url":"https:\/\/www.spreadingscience.com\/2009\/08\/26\/ive-been-thinking\/","url_meta":{"origin":676,"position":1},"title":"I've been thinking","date":"August 26, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I've taken a little break reading and thinking. I've spent the last few days working on some ideas regarding the traversal of innovations across a community and then working on the data to support these ideas. I'm really excited by some of the information my model fits now. I'm developing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Knowledge Creation"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":686,"url":"https:\/\/www.spreadingscience.com\/2011\/01\/01\/there-is-a-way-to-create-a-market-of-early-adopters\/","url_meta":{"origin":676,"position":2},"title":"There is a way to create a market of early adopters","date":"January 1, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by kevindooley Oregon must create a market of early adopters [Via Climate Solutions] One reason we created the New Energy Cities program at Climate Solutions was to elevate the conversation and focus on a small number of city and utility partnerships that are serious about the degree of innovation needed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Knowledge Creation"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/amanwithaphd.files.wordpress.com\/2011\/01\/201101011659.jpg?w=350&h=200&crop=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":119,"url":"https:\/\/www.spreadingscience.com\/2008\/04\/16\/pauls-principles-of-web-20\/","url_meta":{"origin":676,"position":3},"title":"Paul's Principles of Web 2.0","date":"April 16, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"by aussiegall Web 2.0: Building the New Library [Via Ariadne] Paul Miller wrote this over 2 years ago but it amply describes the effects of new approaches will have on an area that lives by dispersing information. It is not the technology that will make a difference. It is an\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":69,"url":"https:\/\/www.spreadingscience.com\/2008\/03\/21\/working-transparently\/","url_meta":{"origin":676,"position":4},"title":"Working Transparently","date":"March 21, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"by jurvetson Working Transparently: [Via Gurteen Knowledge-Log] By David Gurteen I am including almost all of the post bt David Gurteen for a reason. It brings together in one post the ideas espoused by several other people. So, I quote David, who quotes John who quotes Michael. Every step in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Knowledge Creation"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":207,"url":"https:\/\/www.spreadingscience.com\/2008\/05\/29\/more-on-twiiter\/","url_meta":{"origin":676,"position":5},"title":"More on Twitter","date":"May 29, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"by Felix Francis Twitter's growing pains: [Via Buzzworthy] It's hardly news that Twitter is experiencing growing pains, but a couple of items have appeared in recent days that shed some new light on just how bad they're getting. [More]As mentioned below, some of the problems Twitter is having while trying\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Knowledge Creation"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/www.spreadingscience.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/05\/butterflies.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadingscience.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadingscience.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadingscience.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadingscience.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadingscience.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadingscience.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadingscience.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadingscience.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.spreadingscience.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}