One of the best things about working in social media is memes – the tracking and analysis of the periodic hilarious stories that spread virally throughout the internet. The story of Stephen Slater was one such meme; the riotous “Double Rainbow” video from earlier this summer was another. These memes, for a fleeting moment, sew the far-flung reaches of the web into a single fabric of mutual laughter and/or mockery; in a time of sharp public and political divisions, they’re a welcome respite from the norm.
As anyone who keeps track of these things knows, a strongly disproportionate number of these memes emanate from the bowels of an online community called 4chan (NSFW). 4chan distinguishes itself from other web forums and social platforms by allowing its users total anonymity – no real names, screen names, or other identifying details necessary. The result is about what you’d expect – a whole lot of nonsense, offensiveness, and even illegality; but sometimes, the chaos of 4chan results in cultural phenomena like rickrolling or lolcats.
After years of anonymity, 4chan’s founder and administrator Christopher Poole has emerged to give his take on why his community has been as dynamic and innovative as it has. He credits the site’s insistence on an option for total anonymity in giving space for his users to make mistakes. In this case, “making mistakes” usually means “failing to be funny” – but the point stands. From the Technology Review piece:
Consider, Poole explains, how the fixed identities in other online communities can stifle creativity: where usernames are required (whether real or pseudonymous), a new user who posts a few failed attempts at humor will soon find other users associating that name with failure. “Even if you’re posting gold by day eight,” says Poole, “they’ll be like, ‘Oh, this guy sucks.’ ” Names, in other words, make failure costly, thus discouraging even the attempt to succeed.
It’s a key insight: freedom to fail is an essential element of innovation. The best way to bring new value to your customers is experimentation and acceptance of failure.
4chan’s innovation model – to the extent they can be said to have one – is simple. Allow open – fully open, not corporate “open” – dialogue, remove or mitigate the fear of failure, and add in enough critical mass to keep the ideas flowing.
This is one half of a big dilemma for marketers. To promote innovation, do you embrace an open, sometimes chaotic process? Or do you pick a great team, focus it on narrow goals, and guide the process step-by-step until you have an innovative output?
For a lot of reasons, most importantly because online communication has allowed chaotic discussions to scale to the point where they can produce concrete results, I tend to side with the open model. But opinions – and experiences – abound. For those that have led innovation efforts within your organization – what approach worked best for you?
MLC members, for more on how to keep the fresh ideas flowing at your organization, please consider attending one of our upcoming innovation breakfasts. On September 22, we’ll be in St. Paul, MN, touring 3M’s innovation center; on December 2, we’ll be visiting Microsoft’s innovation center in Seattle, WA.
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