So, Why do we bookmark socially?

The post my colleague Robbert published yesterday got me wandering. I totally agreed on his conclusions, but I couldn't help but ask myself the question: why do we act so socially nowadays? Twitter, Del.icio.us, et cetera.... What ever happened to the ancient paradigm Knowledge = Power? And ask the expert, he knows best?

Well, my thoughts aligned quite quickly on this one and to say it frank: this paradigm is gone. Nowadays, it's about Knowledge Sharing = Power. Probably this "new" paradigm was there "in the old days" all along. It's just that, with the entrance of the Web 2.0 platform, the threshold for it to establish itself in full force has vanished.

Robbert explained the meritocracy principle already quite excellently in his last post. I want to dive a little deeper: it's excellent to have good UFC, but, why does one want to be a good knowledge broker?

First, in my opinion, it's because the networked society, demands us to be. It just not enough to have published so many articles in (1.0) magazines. The merits you get are more and more coming from the blogosphere. If you're not there, you're lagging behind. You're still an expert, but a far higher percentage of users "read" the Internet, than they read the magazines. You have to do the math 1.0 + 2.0 to get the synergy going. Otherwise, you're just not visible.

Secondly, the expert, or "the Einstein" who sits at his desk inventing and creating innovation is being overtaken by the crowd. Not because the expert doesn't know, but because the crowd always knows. And know they can get together easily. Therefor, when you share, co-create, jump in, you, in reverse get shared with, are connected to en tied into the crowd that knows. No expert can ever "beat" that. As a matter of fact, just that last sentence is very "old paradigm"-like. It's about mass collaboration.

Does this mean the "expert" is gone? No, it doesn't. The "expert" is just tied to a strong network. The expert can become a primary knowledge broker quite naturally. Their blogs and twitters a read more frequently.

Does this mean that we should all connect to everyone and all become a heavy knowledge broker? No as well. Social Bookmarking is about being social. Just as you pick out your friends, you pick out your brokers. Your social network isn't an automatic aggregation of people. If you do that, just use an aggregator like Digg. Thus, your network will grow socially due time, naturally evolving into the blogosphere of your interest.

If you're reading this and thinking "Hmm, so what's new about this?"; then you're 2.0-certified. If you're reading this an thinking "Well that makes sense!"; then you're 2.0-certified. I just wanted to share it with you.