some of us may want to pay careful attention to this:<br><br>(it's a difficult but rewarding article refuting the 1000 fans strategy, instead arguing that groups of 12 with 150 larger supporters is key for achieving success<br>
<br><a href="http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/07/21/the-crucible-effect-and-the-scarcity-of-collective-attention/">http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/07/21/the-crucible-effect-and-the-scarcity-of-collective-attention/</a><br><br>
sam, if you ever have the time, it would be great to introduce this to our blog,<br><br>dear Sepp, you may also want to have a look at this funding mechanism, which led to the venkat article above,<br><br>see <a href="http://onthespiral.com/alternative-currency-ycombinator-creative-knowledge-worker">http://onthespiral.com/alternative-currency-ycombinator-creative-knowledge-worker</a><br>
<br>Michel<br><br><br><p>By carefully curating your Dunbar neighborhood of at most 150 (in
practice, likely much less), in collaboration with your crucible of 12
(each curating their own 150-neighborhoods, with a good deal of
overlap), through <em>actual</em> personal attention, you create the
foundation for your life as a cultural creative and information worker.
Free agency is an important piece of this, but don�t dismiss traditional
economics: a good part of your 150 is likely to remain inside the
formal organizations you are part of.</p>
<p>The Kelly number, 1000, is important, but not in his sense. If you
and your crucible of 12 are creating value in a loose coalition, and
each have a 150 circle with some high-value overlap, the total is
probably near 1000. So that�s 12 people sharing a community of 1000,
each of whom gets personal attention from at least 1 of the 12. The
members of the 1000 get the overhead savings of finding more than 1
useful, personally-attentive creator in one place.</p>
<p>Count the 12 most valuable co-creators you work with. Now consider
the overlap in your Dunbar neighborhoods. If the average level of
overlap isn�t in the double digits (the actual set-theoretic math is
tricky), you probably haven�t reached critical mass yet. Guess where you
can still find such critical mass today? Inside large corporations. Any
pair of people in my immediate workgroup of around 12 can probably find
20-30 common acquaintances. Our collective personalized-attention
audience at is probably around 1000. Large corporations still allocate
collective attention pretty badly (they hit the numbers, but get the
composition wrong), but still do a better job than say, the blogsphere.
But the free-agent nation is catching up rapidly. The wilderness is
becoming more capable of sustaining economics-without-borders-or-walls
every day.</p>
<p>So how will you create and monetize your Dunbar neighborhood? By
definition, there are no one-size-fits-all answers, because the <em>point</em>
of working this way is that you�ll find opportunities through
personalized attention. Not a great answer, I know, but still easier for
most of us than dreaming up ideas that can net 100,000 regulars of whom
1000 turn into raving fans.</p><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>P2P Foundation: <a href="http://p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">http://p2pfoundation.net</a>� - <a href="http://blog.p2pfoundation.net" target="_blank">http://blog.p2pfoundation.net</a> <br>
<br>Connect: <a href="http://p2pfoundation.ning.com" target="_blank">http://p2pfoundation.ning.com</a>; Discuss: <a href="http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation" target="_blank">http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation</a><br>
<br>Updates: <a href="http://del.icio.us/mbauwens" target="_blank">http://del.icio.us/mbauwens</a>; <a href="http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens" target="_blank">http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens</a>; <a href="http://twitter.com/mbauwens" target="_blank">http://twitter.com/mbauwens</a>; <a href="http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens" target="_blank">http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens</a><br>
<br><br><br><br><br>