Facebook Connections

A new comment! My thoughts on utilising new brains in business... and 'that' facebook connections graphic http://bit.ly/f8ix5x (via @rbx)less than a minute ago via TweetDeckMark Mapstone
markmapstone




Wow, that's some coverage of the Map by yourself btw! I love the way you've broken down the countries and given thought to why those connections may be the way they are.

The thing that strike me for than anything about the image is not the image itself (which is amazing), that is the person that created it. The Facebook intern Paul Butler.

I love that out of all the people that work for Facebook, it took the fresh set of eyes from a new person to create one of the most shared imagery from Facebook to date. Can you even imagine how many desktops this graphic now sits on as a wallpaper? Wow!

So, what does this mean for us? We know that 'sleeping on it' is the best way to make big decisions that affect our lives and lives of others, but I think business has a lot to learn from this as well.

I recall when I used to work at a ISP, I had work experience people spend time in my department and they were always given some rubbish work and left to get on with things, maybe sit with some others and see how other people work. What a waste of a brain!

And now I'm thinking about it, why aren't new employees treated like that facebook intern? Y'know, giving those fresh eyes a good overview of something new and precious and being asked to work with it for a while to see if anything different can be created/improved?

What a way of being introduced into the company. Trusted immediately, valued and contributing to great cause, either in data visualisation or something else pertinent to the companies objectives (or not). Either way... using that brand new brain is often wasted I feel.

I have lots of thoughts about how companies do not maximise the capacity of our learning... this Facebook picture really illustrates it to me.

To anyone reading this. The next person you hire. Set aside sometime and a small project that they can own, no pressure, just lots of information, let them sift through it and see what observations they can come up with. I think just like Paul Butler, if you have hired the right person, they may just amaze you.

Great post. Mark :)

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