When it comes to healthy discourse, social media generally cc's too many people (we conflated messaging with publishing, for better and then worse).
However, I'm coming around to idea that in personal/private communications, we generally cc: too few people.
However, I'm coming around to idea that in personal/private communications, we generally cc: too few people.
It's probably the case that number of participants in a conversation that maximizes social capital exceeds that which maximizes quality of discourse,
However, the latter is higher than most people realize for personal conversations.
However, the latter is higher than most people realize for personal conversations.
Slack and groupchat services extended the reach of previously 1-to-1 discourse in the enterprise. Some may argue it's gone too far, but there were definite gains to breaking the siloed, hierarchical comm flow in companies.
One of my unpopular beliefs is that many meetings in companies should have more cc's, not fewer as is the common complaint everywhere I've been. We underestimate how much observational knowledge transfer occurs.
This doesn't have to mean inviting more people, though that is often most efficient way to do it (a few really admired companies are doing this). Some companies record meetings, others publish memos, some do a combination of the above.
In personal comms, I like that @kevinakwok cc's me into conversations he has with other people we know. I also have extended group conversation threads with family, some former coworkers, and some random folks I've met online.
Establishing shared context first really helps. It's no surprise that public discourse on Twitter is in such a bad place given how weak it is on establishing and porting context. Most its features break what little context it builds.
Optimal conversation group size depends on what you're optimizing for, of course. Trust, knowledge transfer, participation, quality of discourse, social capital growth, command and control, decision-making quality, etc. But it's worth experimenting a lot here.
I don't know if tech has changed Dunbar's number. But I'm less interested in scaling that 150 number up than I am in building up many more tightly bonded groups of 3+ (call it 3 to 7) people right now.
