Stringing together a couple notes about communities of purpose, flash mobs, the context of time and pull-based institutions.

Kicking it off,

• David Cushman, Communities of purpose are the business units of the 21st Century:

  Self-forming non-directed groups coming together with a common purpose are able to achieve great things.

• Jan Chipchase, Flashier Mobs:
  

  Fast forward to a world of rich profiles and location awareness. At what point does the cost of identifying and bringing together like-minds in a crowd become so low as to be deemed trivial? In what contexts will the process be sufficiently automated/rapid that a significant % of ‘mobsters will be unsure what they’re mobbing about? The equivalent of joining a Soviet era queue without knowing what’s at the end of the queue. Yup – with a bit of time-warp magic there’d be an app for that. And in a world of limited attention spans and a long list of causes – what are the tools that will allow Mob C to lo-jack Mob B to lo-jack Mob A?

  Where is the app for that? Where is the white-label Ning and Facebook Connect for action groups? Where is the Foursquare for rallies, events, demonstrations? Where is the Kickstarter for causes?

• Reminding me of an old thought, Is the context of time the untapped issue in social media development?
  

  … Can we create “temporary networks” that allow us to create temporary strong ties with people? Can we layer temporary networks [into] our stronger, more important “permanent” networks?

  How could this be valuable? Think of social environments where ties tend to be strong but short-lived: conferences, parties, events, reunions, trips; environments where we connect closely with people but may or may not want to continue the connection after the event is over.

  … Can I find a way to find people to connect to temporarily? How does a social web service help me find like-minded people that I want to interact with right here, right now?

  … How can thinking about the context of time improve the value of our online social networks?

• Leading me to think about how it applies to companies, and to John Hagel, John Seely Brown and Lang Davison, The Case for Institutional Innovation:
  

  Pull-based institutions are those that bring the force of attraction to bear on tens or even hundreds of thousands of participants around a common platform.

  … Pull institutions unleash the forces of attraction through:

  A galvanizing view of the opportunity unfolding as technology and policy changes disrupt a market or industry for a wide range of players. This helps clarify and make sense of an uncertain world, drawing participation and creating buy-in or influence.

  A set of positive incentives that share the value among all who helped create it. Incentives can help catalyze collaborative action.

  A platform that supports and organizes the activities and interactions of participants.

  … Pull institutions … tend toward the decentralized, the modular and loosely coupled, and the emergent. Their prevailing dispositions are far more collaborative than controlling. Pull-oriented executives recognize that the most powerful forms of collaboration are highly scalable, mobilizing large numbers of participants with diverse and deep specializations.

  If you’re interested in more about pull platforms and institutions, read their follow-up Four Ways to Use “Pull” to Increase Your Success. Seriously worth a deep read and thought.

See the link? What else fits in this thread?