Clay Shirky’s book Here Comes Everybody is making the rounds, and is must reading for those interested in how the internet is transforming our society. It’s the latest in a great series of books on the impact of the internet, starting with David Weinberger’s Cluetrain Manifesto.
I had the chance lately to study this material and work with it in a client workshop — great stuff.
One thing that stood out for me was Clay’s articulate discussion about how humans are intuitive processors of group dynamics; and that the social web allows us to extend our senses. For example, by clicking through facebook I can tell if John is mad at Mary, if Sheila and Julie are friendly — by looking at public wall comments, etc. I could see who’s in the same clique by the groups they join, by the apps the install at the same time — the same way I could identify cliques at the workplace or school.
Clay gave a nice talk at the Berkman Center in February, and there’s a video on the Berkman site and up at youtube. I especially love Clay’s comment that with the internet “Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly are all the same thing.†Note to self: must get to more Berkman events, it’s just down the road …
David took some live notes (it was nice to stop by Joho again, it’s been awhile but fun to drop in on old friends). Kellan plugged it here. And you can probably google a million other blogs; now a million and one 
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