Stop Making Sense

I spend a lot of time within the social media bubble, where no one (any more) questions the value of Twitter. But I also spend time outside of the bubble, which is not always easy (but very important if you ask me). And outside the bubble, you hear what  we’ve been hearing for years: “I just don’t get Twitter. Why would I care what you had for lunch?”

I have lots of answers for that question. I talk about how I’ve always known what my co-workers have for lunch when they walk by with their McDonald’s bag or heat up their curry in the microwave. It’s as equally unimpressive as reading it on Twitter,  but it means something in both cases because it’s a part of my deeper connection to them as human beings. I don’t love them any more or less, but I do know them better, and that level of familiarity ends up enhancing our working relationship. Twitter, through it’s relatively inane exchanges, often opens up new relationships that bring the potential for more learning, growing, collaborating, etc.

Some people outside the bubble resonate with what I am saying, and others don’t. But I’m beginning to wonder: does it matter if Twitter makes sense? Do I really need to convince those outside the bubble that this Twitter thing is for real? Part of me says yes–I don’t want to be one of those blind bubble inhabitants that curses the nonbelievers (if they don’t get Twitter, then forget’em!).

But part of me says no. Working hard to have social media “make sense” to our old way of seeing the world is not necessarily the right thing to do. It’s not wrong, per se, but it may not be helpful. It’s like the early quantum physicists trying to force the laws of Newtonian physics to work at the subatomic level as they were striving for their grand theory of everything. It just doesn’t translate. What allowed the theory of quantum mechanics to be articulated was the scientists actively giving up on trying to have it make sense in the Newtonian world view. When they let go of that requirement, they discovered the calculations that worked.

Okay, I admit I might be pushing the boundaries of esoteric here, but I think it’s worth thinking about, particularly in the context of the social organization. We have very definite views of what makes sense in organizations, from our hierarchies, to our strategic planning, to our human resource management best practices. Social media frequently doesn’t fit with these views, and I’m suggesting that maybe we shouldn’t try to make it fit. Maybe we should suspend disbelief and start from a place that discards our old rules and limitations. Let’s try things based on new rules that don’t make sense and see where it takes us. That’s what social media did, and it has been very successful. I think we’re at a similar point with our organizations–partially due to social media. Just like quantum physicists needed the tools to give them access to the subatomic world, social media is giving us the tools to re-consider our understanding of the way organizations can work. Maybe if we stop making sense, we’ll discover a path out of this mess.