What is hyper-connectivity?

While the Economist picked up the theme of technology's impact on jobs at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, the BBC focused on another major concept that seems to both unite and challenge all developed and developing nations.  That concept is 'hyper-connectivity.'

But, what is 'hyper-connectivity'?

In his article, 'When machines take over: Our hyperconnected world,' Tom Brewster of the BBC writes, 'What is hyperconnectivity? A term coined by scientists studying person-to-person and person-to-machine communication in networked organisations, referring to use of multiple means of communication, such as email, instant messaging, phone.'

The stats are impressive, as is the graphic of the 'Hyperconnectivity Range,' which I have posted outside my office door.

- By 2020, the number of smartphones, tablets and PCs in use will reach about 7.3 billion.
- 2 billion 'things' were connected to the Internet in the year 2000.  Today there are 10 billion. By 2020, there are expected to be 30 billion.
- 81% of companies have or are planning to have a machine-to-machine (M2M) initiative; 45% of those are motivated by cost savings.
- 40% of companies have a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policy, but 79% of those have not trained employees about the risks of BYOD.
- 52% of consumers have heard of wearable technology; one in three are likely to buy wearable tech, like Google Glass.

Brewster goes on to suggest that, 'We are entering the age of hyperconnectivity, an era where billions of workers worldwide will have multiple devices plugging them into the internet 24:7. Many of the tech gurus attending the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, including Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer and Cisco boss John Chambers, are raving about the opportunities this ‘Internet of Things’ will deliver for businesses, with machines talking to each other, controlling environments and delivering automated instructions. There are significant possibilities but also risks.'

There are indeed risks associated with hyper-connectivity, which is one reason why defining our era or world as 'hyper-connected' is problematic; 'hyper' means 'too much' and should therefore be associated with the risks of too much connectivity.  The other reason is that, notwithstanding the trends and the hype, not every part of the world is 'hyper' connected.  We still spend a fair amount of time over-coming 'hypo' connectivity (blank spots in mobile coverage, poor Internet speeds, low battery life, fragmented communications infrastructure).

Being one of the social scientists Brewster refers to, my colleagues and I have defined 'hyper-connectivity' as follows:

'Hyper-connectivity means too much connectivity, such as information overload, attention-taxing workflow and interruptions in collocated spaces. … Hyper-connectivity does not necessarily undermine performance, as individuals and teams often cope and some even thrive on constant contact. There does come a point, however, where individuals and/or groups can no longer successfully complete tasks or maintain processes effectively due to the inefficiency associated with information overload, invasive connective media and/or social contact.  We suggest that teams (this article was based on our research on distributed teams) must work to achieve a threshold of requisite connectivity in order to be productive, but simultaneously avoid hyper-connectivity, which can have a negative impact on performance and productivity.' (Kolb, Collins and Lind, 2008, 'Requisite connectivity: Finding flow in a not-so-flat world.' Organizational Dynamics, 37(2), pp. 182-183).

We define requisite connectivity as, 'the state of having robust and reliable communication and/or transportation media/modes, with operable alternative work-around options, so that contact may be initiated or maintained at the rate, richness and intensity that we desire for a given task or social outcome.' (Kolb, Collins and Lind, 2008, pp. 182).

The point here is that, in an era of dramatically increasing connectivity, understanding states of connectivity matters more than ever.  As we have also noted, 'States of connectivity reflect 'how much' connectivity exists in a setting.  As with other resources--say, for example, money--simply noting that one has connectivity or not is generally less informative than determining how much of the resource (i.e., how much money or connectivity) one has at a given point in time.' (Kolb, Caza and Collins, 2012, 'States of connectivity: New questions and new directions.' Organization Studies, 33(2), p. 268).

Given the stats listed above, there is little doubt that connectivity will remain on the agenda of thought leaders as well as the practical folks trying to make sense of a world where sometimes it does feel like 'machines are taking over.'

Hyper-connected? Don't blame your cell phone.

Feeling overwhelmed by hyper-connectivity?  
Here is some good news: technology can help keep you sane.

In the first study of its kind, Paul Collins of the University of Washington and I undertook a large-scale survey of more than 400 individuals in distributed work settings in 29 countries to explore how "requisite connectivity" contributes to performance and wellbeing, as well as the relationship between communication choice (agency) and hyper-connectivity. Hyper-connectivity, defined as "too much connectivity for the intended purpose or context of the user," is considered detrimental to work performance.

We expected to find that technology compromised individual choice about when and how to connect in the face of social pressure to be constantly available. 

Instead, we discovered the opposite: reliable, high quality tools help workers manage interactions and avoid the pitfalls of hyper-connectivity.

Participants were asked about the degree to which such things as email, video conferences and impromptu meetings affected productivity, how much control individuals felt they had over contact, team expectations about availability, and technological efficacy.

In our paper, we suggest that, "While we cannot resolve the 'free will' debate in the social sciences, we offer support for the notion that better technology supports connective choice, which in turn strongly offsets hyper-connectivity. In short, good tools are part of the solution, not part of the problem of hyper-connectivity." 

Paul D. Collins is giving this paper next week at the 2013 Academy of Management meeting in Orlando, Florida.  Title: 'Hyper-connectivity: How agency, response norms and technology do (and don't) make a difference'

For more on this study see:

http://www.business.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/home/about/news-and-media/news/news/template/news_item.jsp?cid=570104

Blogging into the Darkness

Blogging into the Darkness

There is a New Yorker cartoon that shows a dog sitting at the family dinner table and the dog says, ‘I used to have a blog, but I think I’ll go back to barking randomly into the darkness.’

After a lot of consideration and the odd encouraging remark from my students and friends in the social media industry, I have decided to resume this blog. So here we go.

To avoid sounding like random barking into the darkness (if I wanted to do that, I would use Twitter), I have an idea of what I want to do here, which I will share with you, just so you know...

You see, the emerging field of connectivity studies in organizations only has a hand full of researchers and a few graduate students at the moment. It’s a pretty small field (or sub-field). And, this blog is aimed at those folks—most of whom I know, but others whom I look forward to meeting on-line or otherwise—who share an interest in the social and technical aspects of ‘connectivity.’

Definition:  I define ‘connectivity’ as ‘the mechanisms, processes, systems and relationships that link individuals and collectives (e.g. groups, organizations, cultures, societies) by facilitating material, informational and/or social exchange. It includes geo-physical (e.g. space, time and location), technological (e.g. information technologies and their applications) as well as social interactions and artefacts.’ (Kolb, 2008, p. 128)

The other user group for this blog is the growing number of MBA, graduate research and undergraduate students who have somewhat wisely and somewhat foolishly decided to write an essay on a topic like ‘contemporary media and its impact on work-life balance,’ or ‘smartphones as work-extending technologies’ or ‘productivity increases related to ubiquitous networks’ or ‘continuous computing: costs and benefits.’ And, now that you’ve chosen those inspiring, ambitious topics, you’ve realized that once you get past the popular media (which I am not knocking, it’s just that your fussy professors still insist on ‘academic sources’), there is virtually no general theory on the hyper-mediated world we live in.

A cup of theory

So, this is a place you can stop by for ‘a cup of theory’* when you need it. A few definitions and scholarly references will bolster your paper and hopefully give you a few new insights on such a cool and compelling topic. (By the way: Good choice!)

Posts will not normally be this long, I promise, but after 5+ years, a bit of catch-up is in order. First, it is fitting that I am re-launching this blog in Lyon, France. In 2001, fresh from my first sabbatical in Europe, I presented ‘A Research Agenda for Connectivity and Distance’ at the European Group for Organization Studies (EGOS) here in Lyon. I told my peers at the time that I would give this work 10 years and see how it goes. Well, 10 years on, I am still as psyched about the topic as ever, as connectivity is becoming increasingly critical to our day-to-day life. I am back in Lyon, on sabbatical again and looking out from our apartment looking across the Saone River toward the old town, on a beautiful spring day. It is a good place to re-start blogging, or to bark into the darkness.

Here is what I have done since the 2006 posting:

My colleagues and I have published 3 theory papers and a few empirical papers, with more under way. I will describe the theoretical papers briefly, with references and links to the full papers. You will note that the ideas contained in the papers were on-line in this blog before they were published, which is another good reason (besides desperation) to check this blog out from time to time.

The Metaphor of Connectivity

Kolb, D. G. (2008). ‘Exploring the metaphor of connectivity: Attributes, dimensions and duality.’ Organization Studies, 29, 1, 127-144.

This article articulates four (4) original reasons why the ‘metaphor’ of connectivity (defined by Agwin and Vaara and others in a previous Special Edition of the same journal) has relevance for organizations. Specifically, those attributes are:

‘Latent potentiality,’ meaning we use connections when we need them, but not all the time. We can draw upon networks, for example, when we want to have lunch or need a job. Networks may remain dormant for years, but are nonetheless potent when we need them.

‘Temporal intermittency’ means that connections come and go. Despite our sense of being ‘constantly connected,’ we are not. If nothing else, we humans and/or our friends and colleagues around the world have to sleep sometime. And, connections often fail. Cell coverage breaks up. Technology simply does not always work. In sum, there are inherent social and technical ‘gaps’ over time.

‘Actor agency’ means that when it comes to connectivity, we have choices. The debate around human ‘free will,’ which is called ‘agency’ in sociological terms, has gone on forever, and centers around the question of how much ‘structure’ (systems, norms, etc.) determines our behavior and how much we act on our own free will. If your cell phone rings, whether you feel social pressure to answer it (it could be your mother) or not answer it (you could be sitting in class) is a moment of connective choice.

‘Unknowable pervasiveness’ highlights the (sometimes scary) reality that we cannot know all the connections we have at any given point in time. In fact, the more connected we are, the more we are at risk. That is why cyber security and risk are becoming serious issues for individuals, organizations and nations. This is not to say ‘be afraid,’ but rather to remind us that increasing connectivity will lead to what Perrow calls ‘normal accidents.’

More importantly, theory-wise, this article borrows the notion of ‘duality’ from sociology and applies it to connectivity, wherein ‘connects’ and ‘disconnects’ are identified on multiple dimensions (technical, geo-spatial, interpersonal, group, organizational, networks, economic, cultural, political and philosophical). The duality concept is important because it says that, despite growing connectivity on all of these dimensions, there are enduring disconnects, which means connectivity is constantly in flux, i.e., in this ‘duality’ of connects and disconnects.

Requisite Connectivity

This is the concept I was writing about in my blog in 2006. I won’t say more about it now, but here is the published definition, with the full citation for the published paper below.

Definition:

‘Requisite connectivity is the state of having robust and reliable communication and/or transportation media/modes, with operable alternative work-around options, so that contact may be initiated or maintained at the rate, richness and intensity that we desire for a given task or social outcome.’ (Kolb, Collins and Lind, 2008, p.182).

Requisite connectivity underpins our empirical research, which I will describe later. I don't have to tell you that the concepts of ‘hypo-connectivity’ and ‘hyper-connectivity’ are showing up more and more in the media and I will certainly be discussing those issues more in the future.

Kolb, D. G., Collins, P. D. and Lind, E. A. (2008). ‘Requisite connectivity: Finding flow in a not-so-flat world.’ Organizational Dynamics, 37, 2, April-June, 181-189.

A very short, reasonably complete, and relatively recent summary of the state-of-the-art

If you want the most recent state-of-play of the connectivity field, see our recent Research Note in Organization Studies. It rectifies some confusion in the literature about ‘constant connectivity,’ but more importantly this article suggests that while asking questions about media choice--which is, of course, still relevant--the more important questions to ask are not ‘which’ media to use, but ‘how much’ connectivity do we need for a given purpose or task. If you are a research student, this is where to begin your quest.

Kolb, D. G., Caza, A. and Collins, P.D. (2012). ‘States of connectivity: New questions and new directions.’ Organization Studies, 33, 2, 267-273.

Have fun!

Darl Kolb

24 March 2012

Lyon, France

*My dear departed PhD supervisor at the ILR School at Cornell, Larry Williams, used to tell Craig Lundberg from the Hotel School to ‘stop by anytime for a cup of theory.’