Is thinking differently the new “wrong”?

Yes I have my Google+ account and I’ve been slowly easing into it. I still have my Facebook account going strong. And Posterous and Plurk and Twitter and LinkedIn….each has their role based on design. LinkedIn is streamlined for career development. Twitter disperses significant information in bite-sized chunks. Plurk threads discussion visually and chronologically on a timeline. Posterous lets me microblog via email. Facebook is a waterfall of friends, families and colleagues washing down one of several very public walls. And Google+ offers more granularity and exclusivity in managing public and private connections.

This idea of funneling exclusive content from the free-flowing social media spigot is the latest trend touted in Web 2.0. Having the ability to siphon off specific streams is rather appealing. It should be more efficient, right? A time-saver…less effort and energy finding the flow of friends and ideas you value on the fly…an antidote for the inundation of information with which we have all been plagued.

So along comes Google+ with a new way of organizing your online life. The look and feel is actually very Facebook-like and familiar: the wall, the threads, the ability to indicate favorite posts and pics. But there’s more:

• inviting and organizing friends into multiple exclusive circles

• viewing and sharing content based on circles and interests

• creating a hangout for private get-togethers that can utilize webcams for multi-user video chat

• sharing YouTube videos with friends in real time

• uploading photos and videos to a private cloud with the option to post publicly

In short, in an age of what’s-new-this-week gadgetry, Google+ is the latest entry in the ongoing quest to out-best the competition.

OK. Good. Now what? What is the point?

If the point is to become more managed and exclusive, I have concerns.

First off, it’s not about the tool; it’s about how we use it. Just since January of this year, we have witnessed the senseless shooting of a congresswoman, the slashing of state and federal budgets, and the beginning of the end of public unions. All significant, highly polarizing events. And on open channel social media, tolerance for differing points of view was hard to find. We live in an age where every situation is hyped and sensationalized, and everyone reacts by choosing an extreme response. There isn’t a lot of gray area; this holds true for the dialogue on public education, too. So why do we want to be more exclusive in our professional learning communities? Sure it’s easier to surround ourselves with people who agree with us. But is that the definition of a dynamic, thriving, generative PLN?

Wasn’t the whole point of social media to open things up, make connections and build a global community on common ground where we all can work together? I get the whole infoglut-getting-old-really-fast thing…there are days I certainly have to walk away and regroup. But I have made so many reconnections and new connections through the wide-open design of existing social media channels…it’s a net win. I need and value all points of view and ways of thinking. In adding Google+ to my repertoire, I plan to continue feeding this need. I am not leaving Facebook or Twitter or any of my other learning communities.

If the point is to finely tune our PLNs, we owe it to ourselves not to undermine our ability to openly vet our thinking with that of other’s…especially dissenting points of view. In an age where diversity of background and experience and ideas is highly valued, educator PLNs should not become safe harbor for safe thinking. Social media is so quick, so easy, so disposable, it’s easy to become intellectually lazy and not think about what we are thinking. I see this already happening to the point where people resist having their thinking pushed. So I have to ask: are we kidding ourselves that being surrounded with like-minded thinkers makes us “right”? Is thinking differently the new “wrong”?

Ask yourself this: what is a good working definition of what is “right”? While there’s comfort in consensus, isn’t the determinant in what is right and true found in outcomes? We may embrace a certain philosophy or pedagogy, but does it really matter if it doesn’t translate into real world results that are valued by the community at large? The false certainty that comes from talking only to people who agree with us can fall apart when our ideas are tested in the real world. Want your ideas to withstand rigorous reality checks? Factor in the entire range of thinking on the subject and find the reasonable center...somewhere therein lies the most possible, most effective solution. This requires a tolerance for differing voices in your PLN.

Right now early adopters are piling into Google+ to test it out and compare it with other platforms. I am friending a lot of familiar faces from existing virtual communities and meeting new faces through extended connections. What I am not doing is making use of more than three circles to organize my connections: family, friends and colleagues. As of this morning after a week on Google+, I have a small number of family members in one circle, a small number of friends in another, and an all-inclusive category of colleagues. Does this defeat the purpose of Google+? Should I be more selective and granular in how I connect with and organize fellow educators? Maybe. Maybe not. I’m open to figuring that out. There’s certainly enough built-in flexibility in Google+ to make changes if I decide to do so.

What I am sure of is this: the power of social media is its diversity of people and ideas unencumbered by traditional boundaries of time and space. Much like the natural world from which it springs, the virtual world thrives in the cross-pollination of experiences, ideas and opportunities. Interrupting this dynamic in the name of granularity and exclusivity has the potential to reduce communities to feel-good members-only clubs. There’s a lot of back-patting and self-congratulating happening on Google+ and it’s not because people have arrived at some ultimate destination. It’s because, at least for now, it’s become a lot easier to flock as birds of a feather without getting one’s plumage ruffled.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.