Man Runs But Can't Hide from Social Networks

You know I really wanted to write about memes. I've been talking about memes to all my friends and I figured I could find a way to tie the memes in culture to the internet memes and then to the memes in business and show how concepts (memes) propagate through social networks in the business world...Maybe even make my own LOLcat photo to drive the point home...

Then I got sidetracked by this story:

http://www.wired.com/vanish/2009/11/ff_vanish2/

That I found on this website:

http://gizmodo.com/5409785/how-do-you-hide-from-the-internet

What interested me was the result (perhaps unintended) of how well networking and utilizing the social networking sites on the internet worked to achieve a common goal with people who had no previous social connection and have never, and probably will never meet each other in person.

The story in a nutshell is that someone attempted to "disappear" in today's highly networked society. Wired Magazine offered a reward if someone, anyone could track down Evan Ratliff in less than 30 days while he hid in plain sight with a new fake identity. While extremely engaging and entertaining as a story what drew my attention in the article was how quickly, in just a matter of weeks, several huge integrated and fairly organized networks arose to track and hunt down Mr. Ratliff.

People all over the U.S. who had no ties to one another worked together, shared information and speculated on where Ratliff was, how he was hiding, and how to "capture" him.

Although personally I'm fighting the pressure to join the Twitter-azzi I could see in the article the immediate benefit of utilizing twitter to inform co-workers (co-conspirators?) of progress made during the day.

Facebook groups were made and joined, a wiki grew and blogs and websites sprang up to disseminate and coordinate information about Even Ratliff.

http://www.wired.com/vanish/2009/11/vanish-the-hunters

How well would this system work in actually finding people who are missing or running from the law?

A quick google shows that Australian police are broadcasting wanted photos and videos through Twitter and YouTube in order to help capture fugitives and we know from experience that photos of missing people and fugitives are routinely shown on local news channels to help locate them.

But if Wired hadn't offered a reward would people have spent so much of their free time tracking Evan Ratliff down? Several people involved in the "hunt" mentioned that they started getting interested more for the challenge than for the reward and we learned that the reward money ultimately was donated so perhaps the monetary incentive was not the overriding one in this case.

But would people be willing to devote the same time and energy to more serious endeavors like finding some of the children who go missing every year?

There are websites online devoted to recovering missing children and they have modest success rates yet the coordination between people on a national scale as seen in the Wired challenge has not occurred. Is it possible? Are people willing? I'm not sure on either point.

In summery the power and ability of people to use networking to accomplish goals is not in doubt and stories like the Ratliff hunt only seem to highlight the perception that these sites online might offer a tremendous tool. The question is then how can someone tap into these networks in a sustainable way to use this amazing system?

-Jared Cardon