Beyond our family, what shared values affect our decisions regarding the groups we join, or belong to already? How might understanding the directionality of this trending dynamic change how you see your business?
This post is a somewhat raw example of my perspective on social mood and how to build sets of social trending expectations that can be applied to different markets of people engaged in all manner of commerce. My driving point always is how this perspective is critical for strategic positioning relative to the market(s) being served by business.
I use this basic list of the trend dynamics associated with social corrections previously posted for your consideration. One of the most basic elements on that list is what Robert Prechter calls "units of social association" in his books. It is intuitive once you grasp the larger idea of social mood.
During positive social mood people tend to expand their associations more broadly and diversity is embraced as optimism takes over our collective emotional sense of the always uncertain future.
During negative social mood, and longer periods (I think of the longer episodes as social corrections), people tend to have fewer units of social association, build barriers, exemplify differences, and this dynamic somehow serves the overall purpose of a social correction (which is to generally ready a society for another period of social expansion).
Like all discussion here, this is not about individuals. These ideas are about crowd behavior and the moving averages that are observable in markets of people because of our social nature.
As basic as Prechter's observation seems about "units of association", it occurred to me that this idea may break down into three dynamics. (see footnote below) So for a while I have been considering the following in the spirit of a bigger picture discussion about social trend dynamics, owing to the polarized nature of all social trending (when viewed from the standpoint of the social impulses driving the trending process). Even if I am wrong and "units of social association" is a base impulse and does not break down as I suggest next, each of these three underlying (social) trending dynamics are important secondary considerations and can be observed (especially at key inflection points in social mood, like now).
Based on the headlines of the last week leading up to today (re 9-11 and American's sentiment toward Islam), this discussion certainly feels appropriate. And if these examples seem to have little bearing on for-profit enterprise positioning decisions, the key is to remember how social trends in shared values lead, and businesses chase, all these changes big and small. Changes in outright trend direction may seem like the holy grail of social trend following but, anticipating longer extensions matters just as much.
One last thought to add to this perspective: Participation in trending processes matters from the perspective of the individual society being observed. The digital universe may often feel like its own separate country but the dividing lines between societies still exist. More and more people are connected 24/7 to the world wide web but our individual national unit of association will always exert a profound influence upon our shared values. So for instance: social media tools will continue their worldwide growth trend at impressive adoption rates but here in the US, specific aspects of participation may change (or be changing) quietly and be opposing the larger trend in some ways. This is exactly why a more nuanced view of this topic can be helpful in seeing what really matters.
As always, I am interested in your feedback. Dave
Pioneering Studies in Socionomics, R. Prechter (pgs 232-233)
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