Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom

Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom

Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom is the first book written for a wide audience about the powerful trend that is reshaping your life: the Web 2.0 social networking revolution. Throwing Sheep in the Board is about how the Web 2.0 revolution is transforming your life, your work, and your world.

Combining a pop sociology approach with rigorous analysis rich in economic history and organizational behaviour, Matthew Fraser and Soumitra Dutta have written a lively and provocative book about the global popularity of social networking platforms - from MySpace and Facebook to YouTube, Wikipedia and Twitter. Social networking sites are a global phenomenon. Sites like MySpace and Facebook now boast hundreds of millions of members. Online social interaction has become an indispensable part of their daily lives. Fraser and Dutta examine the powerful forces driving this social e-revolution, describe the equally powerful reactions to it, and make predictions about its long-term consequences.

The book is organized around three major themes: identity, status, and power. Following the explosion of Web 2.0 social platforms, identities are becoming increasingly multi-faceted, status is becoming more democratically based on performance, and power is being diffused from centralized vertical structures to horizontal networks. These are powerful changes with profound, far-reaching implications for how we organize our lives, our institutions, and our society.

Taking its title from the whimsical "sheep throwing" application used by members of sites like Facebook, the book concludes with reflections on the Web's potential to revitalize social capital and civic participation through e-government and e-democracy. Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom will be enjoyed by educated readers with an interest in social trends, consumer behaviour, psychology, history, politics and economics.

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Dipl.-Ing. Dipak Dutta worked for many year at Mannesmannröhren-Werke AG (now: Vallourec & Mannesmann Tube GmbH) and chairman of CIDECT (Comite International pour le Developpement et l' tude de la Construction Tubulaire).

Inhaltsangabe

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgements

Introduction: social networking e-ruptions - identity, status, power

Part I IDENTITY

1 The I's have it: multiple selves in virtual worlds

2 The kindness of strangers: the ties that bind

3 It's a small world: exit, voice and loyalty

4 We Googled you: the privacy paradox

5 Virtual reality: Second Life and death

Part II STATUS

6 Social capital: monkeysphere to cyberspace

7 Me, MySpace and I: the fame game

8 Status hierarchies: loveable fools and competent jerks

9 Everyone's a critic: ratings and rankings

10 Blogs, bosses and brands: reputation management

Part III POWER

11 The anatomy of power: getting things done

12 Davids and Goliaths: the revenge of the amateur

13 Markets 2.0: why MyMusic calls the tune

14 Enterprise 2.0: wiki while you work

15 Democracy 2.0: friends in low places

Conclusion

Notes

Index