Beautiful Security

Social Networking: When People Start Communicating, Big Things Change

Human beings who are almost unique (among animals) in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, yet are also remarkable in their apparent disinclination to do so.

—Douglas Adams

One night at sea, Horatio Hornblower, the fictional character from C. S. Forester’s series of novels, is woken up by his first officer, who is alarmed to see a ship’s light in his sea lane about 20 miles away, refusing to move. Horatio quickly joins the deck and commands the ship via radio communications to move starboard 20 degrees at once. The operator refuses and indignantly tells 1st Baron Horatio that it is he who should be moving his ship starboard 20 degrees at once. Incensed and enraged, Horatio Hornblower pulls rank and size on the other ship, stating that he’s a captain and that he’s on a large battleship. Quietly and calmly, the operator replies, informing Captain Hornblower that his is in fact the biggest vessel, being a lighthouse on a cliff above treacherous rocks.

Each time I tell this story, it reminds me just how badly humans communicate. We are all guilty, yet communication is crucial to everything we do. When people communicate, they find common interests and form relationships.

Social networking is considered to be at the heart of Web 2.0 (a nebulous term that describes the next generation of Internet applications), yet it is really nothing new. Throughout history people have lived in tribes, clans, and ...