Recently I have begun to explore a thesis about the relationship between the perception of time (more on this follows) and social networks/social identity. Here is the rough outline of my ideas and some thoughts of how to further explore these ideas. I am seeking comment, feedback, examples, and suggestions about how to refine these ideas and how to test them.

Thesis: Our temporal framework defines not just the events we attend, watch, pay attention to and prepare for, but serve to frame and define our role within social networks

Implications: Assuming this thesis is true, it should be possible to construct and map unknown social networks through capturing how the individual actors perceive time, those individuals paying attention to the same events (perhaps in the same manner) could be mapped as being part of the same social networks. For example, within the individuals working for the same company, those individuals working towards the same client deadlines could be mapped as being part of one specific client/practice organized social network. Likewise, extending the data beyond just corporate events, those individuals who are following the same sporting events could be mapped into distinct and likely different social networks (NASCAR followers vs. Baseball Fans vs. American Football fans vs. Cricket followers vs. Soccer/Football fans etc. )

More subtly the events in the future around which we modify our actions shape our perceptions of the world, the individuals we interact with and/or the common bonds which we have with those individuals as we meet them. The religious events someone follows (and if any are followed) shape fundamentally how many people structure their lives. The social events we attend on a regular basis shape our friendships - whether a monthly book club, a playdate for children, an amateur sports league, or a business networking event.

But this effect is also seen in a multitude of other ways in which the events and perception of time shape our social networks. From the very basic structure of our employment (first shift vs. third shift, downtown office worker vs suburban commuter vs. hourly store employee etc) to how our days are shaped by when specific tv shows are broadcast, when the paper arrives in the morning, when our favorite blogger/podcaster/website updates each morning etc. All of these small and basic ways we structure our days also establish a framework for our lives, which when we share it with others helps form common social bonds and when we do not share or overlap makes creating social bonds more difficult.

Clearly a lot of technology trends and shifting work patterns are having a major impact on this underlying glue of social networks.

A few examples:

1. Nearly every industry has a time pattern to it. In some industries this is external to any specific firm (accountants organize around US tax deadlines and schedules or the fashion industry around a series of major fashion “weeks” in various cities around the globe at specific times of the year). In other industries these schedules while impacted by say the Christmas holiday seasons are more inwardly focused on the reporting deadlines within the firm, on product launch schedules etc. When a company incorporates workers from industries with very different time patterns or when a company starts to expand on a global basis and encounters new time patterns a lot of conflict can arise (while many countries have a major holiday around Dec which involves gift giving this is not universally the case).

2. Our hobbies can define our perception of time and our planning for the future. Many hobbies have one or more major events every year which serve as organizing features for those hobbyists (often whether or not they attend the event - for computer gamers they are very aware of when the major gaming shows happen as that is when new products are announced). Likewise whether you are a fan of a specific film, genre of writing or sports team you may define the year in the terms of that item – e.g. “the season and the off-season and at times the playoffs”.

3. We often assume that everyone around us shars our perspective on the world - whether we are a religious Christian assuming that everyone else knows that it is Lent or a baseball fan assuming that everyone else is following the World Series. This gap in our perception, between what we assume about everyone around us and how they actually are focused on the world is one that is increasingly growing, at least here in the US. As we have shifted from a few networks to 100’s, from just a handful of national sports to a wider range of sports; from just a few “major” hobbies to seemingly 1000’s of different hobbies each with millions of fellow hobbyists, specialized stores and websites, tv shows (even whole channels), publications, and events, we have, perhaps, made it harder for us to find common ground outside of our own social group(s).

Consider the following experiment, which I hope to implement as a website in the near future (assistance is welcome, leave a comment here or email me directly at shannon AT jigzaw.com if you are interested in working with me on this idea.

Take the full year calendar.

Start tagging it from the year to the month to the week to the day level of detail with the associations you have with time at each level.

So, starting with 2006 - what associations do you have with that year? If you were highly focused on politics you might immediately say “election year” while if you were a senior in college you might think “graduation”.

Then go to the months (or quarters if have associations with each quarter). When you think of October do you immediately think “World Series” or do you think “Start of Football season” or do you think “Back to School”.

It is perfectly okay, indeed highly useful, to list all of the associations you have. The software will turn each association into a tag (likely we’ll implement this like many modern tag based systems to allow for auto-suggestion/spellchecking of tags to help start to build up common structure to the tags).

Are there specific days you have immediate associations with? From national holidays like “Halloween” to “My birthday” to “My anniversary” to “Beginning of Fall Season” to “start of Hurricane season”.

I would postulate that as this tagging system goes to an increasing level of detail (perhaps even to the hours of the day) it will also generally go from broad and general tags to much more specific.

Besides associations tied to specific days and/or specific times I think I will also add a non-specific time association capacity.

Initially this may be Day of week and/or hour of day but if the demand is there this could be expanded to allow for even very complex associations. These could include “Tuesdays after 5pm is wing night” or “The first Tuesday of the month is for business networking” or the 1st and 15th are my paydays etc.

In a later post I will explore further how time perceptions interact with our social networks and what the implications of this association are for us as business people (and for the academics out there what implications this may have for structuring research projects and/or understanding network structures).

This entry was posted on Monday, October 17th, 2005 at 12:15 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.