Marc or Stowe, who's right about Flow?

I thought Stowe Boyd's talk at Reboot - Flow: A New Conscious For A Web Of Traffic - was one of the more interesting presentations. It's certainly given new life to the debate with Linda 'Continuous Partial Attention' Stone. One thing I wish Stowe would have done though is come up with a new term for the meme because the two definitions of 'flow' one comes across in relation to attention seem directly at odds with each other.

For example Marc Andreessen's recent post on personal productivity makes two references to Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi's book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Andressen writes -

"So you sit and work with your mail client open and you interrupt your work every time an email comes in and you answer it and you send another email and you feel great in the moment. But what you're really doing is fracturing your time, interrupting your flow, and killing your ability to focus on anything long enough to get real high-quality work done."

Contrast that with Boyd's definition of flow, as interpreted by Stephanie Booth -

"Stowe doesn’t believe flow is bad, it’s just a different model. It’s not about speed, it’s about remaining connected. We can’t stay head down for hours or days at a stretch when important events might be occurring that require immediate response."

Like Stephanie though, while I agree with many of the concepts exposed by Stowe I'm not too fond of the label 'flow'. Not that I can think of an alternative right now.

On a related note Bernie Goldbach's notes from the same Reboot quoted Dunbar's number "You cannot have effective relationships with more than 150 people." I found it interesting that Stowe Boyd, at the same conference, suggested Dunbar's number may not hold up in a new internet where "flow is a new consciousness for a web of traffic" and the group's productivity is more important than the individual's. It seem slike Mr. Boyd is just rearing for a fight ;-)

Comments

[Ton Zijlstra]

Hi,
As to Dunbar's number of 150. I never understood Dunbar stating this is a limit. It is the extrapolation of group size in other primates, based on our relative brain size, that can be supported by grooming. Language is offered as a 'solution' to surpass that grooming limit. So even though we may feel comfortable in contexts of 150 ppl at a given time, I don't take this to mean it is an actual threshold.

So, it might very well be that Stowe is picking a fight, but I don't think the issue is whether or not we can go passed Dunbar's number. We already do, and have been doing that for longer than we can remember as a species.

[James Corbett]

I think you're right Ton. I'm pretty sure I keep in semi-regular contact with more than 150 people too via blogs, IM and so on. And I think it can scale further with ease.

[Niall Larkin]

Maybe these guys are getting into a tangle 'cos they are just mixing up their ideas and flow streams. Off the top of my head, Stowe Boyd was talking about social flow or the flow of information through ambient channels in social groups. While Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi was talking about the sensation of flow that we experience internally when focused and tuned into and deeply engaged in a specific task that challenges us. And Marc Andreesen is talking about the other side of Linda's 'continuous partial attention' coin by describing 'continuous partial interruption'.

It all reminds me of the parable of "The blind men and Elephant".

What has been missing (from the surface of the discussion at least) is that there is a continuum between these types of flow. That these states of flow are connected because flow itself can be infectious. An internal feeling of flow as described by Mihaly can prompt reactions from those around the person experiencing flow in a way that Stowe Boyd is talking about. Its continuous partial attention that explains the appeal of coworking. It easier to get unstuck when you have other people get around. You never know what you'll learn and stumble upon spontaneously throught the low of conversation etc. Other times, the vibes coming off others are unwelcome and distracting and represent 'continuous partial distraction'. This is one reason why many offices have doors.

In my view, its not that the idea of flow in any of its forms is good or bad. It just is. Its a powerful force and resource. Its how we choose to use the ever present availability and possibilty of flow that marks us out as effective or ineffective. Get into the flow of things and you can achieve great things and experience great adventure. You are also at risk of drowning by trying to take on more than you can handle. You might also get addicted to the feeling of flow in its many forms and feel like you are achieving something by constantly checking your email to the cost of the other key tasks.

One of the problems with the flow metaphor as it is being touted today is that its promoters present all the powerful possibities of engaging in, culitvating and unleashing informational and social flow. Its kinda blue-sky optimism. Which is good. In its way. And of its time. Twitter and Jaiku have reduced the friction and transaction costs of engagement and exchange and their users are currently learning to engage in this kind of flow as mediated by technology. Its a paddling pool of sorts. There's bound to be stumbles and falls and people lurking around the edges of this strange new pursuit saying 'i don't see the point'. However, it inevitable that a new generation of users will show us how flow-supporting applications simply allow them to engage in and beneift from lots of light and flowing social interactions that helps them achieve their social and informational aims. To date most of these social applications remain quite clunky but they are definitley evolving in the right direction.

Just looked back over the lenght of my 'comment'. I didn't mean to write so much. I got lost in the process. I was enjoying it so much. But now I gotta get back to work.

Just one more thing before I go. Its commonly overlooked that Dunbar's number of 150 is the absolute upper limit of people we can keep track of AND exert peer pressure over in order to keep the members together in a tightly knit group. (Malcollm Gladwell misrepresented Dunbar's original research in 'The Tipping Point') The upper limit is only reached when the group is facing near-certain extermination from forces outside the group. Without this pressure you won't get a group of this size able to withstand the internal pressures needed to hold it together. Under less pressing circumstances it is a very exceptional group that can tightly bind together numbers above 75. In fact is an exceptional achievement to hold together groups in the range of 30-50. In fact, the normal size of a group that can normally be held tightly together in this tight fashion in hte modern world would be between 10-20. And that is a substantial achievement in itself. (Remember the test is for a tightly bound group not a loosely affiliated group.)

So the numbers with whom we can sustain semi-regular contact through blogs and IM etc is a whole different kettle of fish ie the Dunbar number does not really apply.