JonMountjoy.com

Over on the Radar, Dale writes about Desperately Seeking Status. Dale’s a bit perturbed by the rather cold statement: “It never hurts to remind yourself of the business you’re really in: providing your customers and clients with status.” Though I agree, I also think that we don’t see enough conversation around this important topic.

As we enter the Web 2.0 era, where the social aspect of computing plays an increasingly important role, we need to see more social psychology and research being applied too.Much of harnessing collective intelligence is really also about groups and group behaviour. While Dale doesn’t think in terms of status, the majority of people do-perhaps unconsciously. We live in groups, and status within these groups and the hierarchies that we build are innately human things.

I’ve just started reading a fascinating book the subject: Michael Marmot’s Status Syndrome. Primarily a thesis about health inequalities, he provides some interesting research showing how our position with a hierarchy is reflected in our longevity. The social gradient in health seems to be based in our work and life circumstances-our social arrangements, status and position within the hierarchy.An example: Academy Award-winning actors and actresses live four years longer than their co-stars and the actors nominated who did not win. That’s a long time, and he argues that this is primarily due to their elevated status.

This health gradient is reflected in many different hierarchies (some overlapping): for example, income, amount of schooling, parent’s social classs. But, he argues, it’s not about how much money people have, but about two features of societies: hierarchies and cooperation, which he translates as how much control individuals have over their lives and how widely spread are the opportunities for social participation.

The knowledge economy has its own hierarchy:perhaps Tim’s alpha-geeks are nearer the top. If I learn more Ruby and Web 2.0 and mashups I will undoubtedly be improving my status within my group of peers. I am acquiring status skills, whether I like it or not. And if there’s any truth in Marmot’s research, I’m also going to live longer because of it. That’s a good enough reason for me.

I’ve long been a fan of Project Gutenberg, and read many books that they’ve made available. With the advent of podcasting, it makes sense then to “acoustically liberate” these books. LibriVox is such an attempt. I think they need to automate the process a little more and let anyone contribute any chapter of any book (appealing to people’s personal tastes instead of waiting to find someone interested in the book du jour - reach the long tail). Next step: an addition to the iTunes directory?