AUTHOR:

Clay Shirky (Penguin Press, 2008)

REVIEWER:

Jason Soloway

BOOK LINK: https://goo.gl/sbCNY5

REVIEW:

Clay Shirky’s book Here Comes Everybody is a thoughtful study of social media and its impact on how we live. Shirky begins with a story about a girl, Ivanna, who loses her cell phone in a New York City taxi. Her friend Evan agrees to help her recover it. Evan tracks down and contacts Sasha, who found and has been using the phone and refuses to return it. In response, Evan builds a website describing these events, sends the link to friends, updates it continuously, and adds a message board. A few days later, the story is picked up by media outlets including the New York Times, CNN, and dozens of newspapers, television stations, and websites. Within a couple of weeks, Ivanna’s phone is recovered and Sasha is arrested.

Ivanna’s tale is hardly newsworthy. Losing a cell phone is a regular occurrence in NYC taxis. According to Shirky, the story is less about the mechanics of the recovery—Evan’s website and the message board—and more about the how the story tapped into humanity’s visceral sense of injustice. The website and media serve merely as tools to amplify a powerful message that resonates on a deep level and stimulates individual and collective action. Without the message, the tools are irrelevant.

Shirky is a good story teller and uses this ability to build his case. He captures what is possible by illustrating how the power of technology, driven by individuals and groups, can facilitate, amplify, expedite and transform society. Shirky also understands that social media as a whole is a nascent technology and as it evolves, so will our relationship to it and the world. In other words, it’s a fluid, not a fixed relationship.

From a not-for-profit perspective, the question is, how does Shirky’s book apply? You could also ask the opposite, how doesn’t it apply? His book is about how we communicate and interact with each other, society and the world. Most non-for-profits spend a considerable amount of time communicating to its staff, board, donors and those who benefit from its services. The challenge is doing it well.

From this perspective, Here Comes Everybody serves both as a guide to the power of emerging technologies and a cautionary tale. For Shirky, it’s about how we use these tools. Organizations with a clear, compelling, and well-articulated mission with a discrete set of action steps will amplify the message, engage a broad audience, and harness collective energy.

The opposite is also true. For organizations that don’t know who they are and what they’re trying to do, social media will function as a megaphone and let the whole world know it. While social media can highlight your strengths, it can also expose your weaknesses. It’s not about just having a Facebook page and a Twitter account. It’s who you are and what you believe in.

Shirky’s book is optimistic. It’s about the power and potential of technology driven by humanity.

Reviewed by Jason Soloway, Vice President, The Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies