Social Networking

A Stanford discussion on the Social Innovation Conversations Network

The Dragonfly Effect and Social Enterprise

Named for the only insect that is able to move in any direction when its four wings are working in concert, the “dragonfly effect” has to do with how everyday people achieve unprecedented results in social enterprise through harnessing the incredible power of social media. In this university podcast, Stanford Graduate School of Business Professor Jennifer Aaker introduces the dragonfly effect model to business school students at Stanford who want to learn how to use technology to advance business and social missions. Her lecture was part of her new experiential class at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, “The Power of Social Technology” (PoST).

Listen or download the MP3 to the 17 minute piece here.

The speaker, Jennifer Aaker, also has a book coming out on this topic: The Dragonfly Effect: Quick, Effective, and Powerful Ways To Use Social Media to Drive Social Change

Don't believe what you read, says author and editor Jeff Howe in the Christian Science Monitor. "The Internet is not destroying literature." If anything, he argues, "the new medium could breathe new life into a few old ones."

To prove his point, earlier this month Howe kicked off "One Book, One Twitter," which Howe hopes will become "the largest collective reading exercise in history." As Howe explains in book industry trade magazine Publishers Weekly, "This summer, thousands of people from all over the world are reading Neil Gaiman's 'American Gods.' They will then discuss the book using Twitter, a new-fangled technology that's doing for the epigram what Anne Frank did for diaries."

Howe says he got his idea from Seattle's celebrity librarian Nancy Pearl who, in 1998, launched the "One City, One Book" group read concept, now adopted by many other municipalities as well.

Discussions in 140 characters or less...what are your thoughts?