This document discusses how to create smart mobs, which are self-organizing social networks that form for a specific purpose. It identifies five key ingredients for creating a smart mob: 1) a desire for communication, 2) affordable communication devices, 3) opportunities for instant communication, 4) a shared goal, and 5) a short time frame. It provides examples of successful smart mobs that mobilized around political events, disaster relief efforts, and games/challenges. The document also notes how disrupting any of the five ingredients, such as blocking communication opportunities, can destroy a smart mob.

1. How to Create a Smart Mob:
Understanding a Social Network Capital
P. Takis Metaxas, Ashley Hubbard Harmon
Wellesley College, USA
Web: cs.wellesley.edu/~pmetaxas
E-mail: pmetaxas@wellesley.edu
Twitter: takis_metaxas
E-Democracy, July 2010

2. Smart Mobs of the 21st Century
technologically-mediated self-structuring social organizations

3. Manilla e-Revolution
Go 2EDSA. Wear blck

4. Lost
Sidekick

5. Balloon Spotting

6. Many more examples…
(partial) List of better-known Smart Mobs
 2007 Kenyan post-election violence
 2007 Burma riots
 2009 Iranian elections
 Kiva’s micro-financing model
 Haiti earthquake relief initiative
 “Snowmageddon”
 Groupon network
 4chan trolling
What do they have in common?
Can you create them on-demand?
 Rheingold’s blog: Characteristics of the leader (?)

7. Challenges in creating Smart Mobs
Not just a social network An agreement
 facebook, twitter: are not between N participants
Smart Mob on demand? seems to need a large
 Could I start a revolution? number of handshakes
 Could I find my stolen
laptop?
What does it take to create
a Smart Mob?

8. Sufficient (& necessary) ingredients
Desire for Communication
 Innate desire of humans to communicate
 “Man is by nature a social animal.” – John Locke
Affordable Communicating Devices
 Smart Mobs need to include a large group of people
 Possible, thanks to “Moore’s Law”
Opportunities for instantaneous communication
 A network, a forum to enable the formation
 “When the network enables transactions between the individual nodes, the value is
squared. When the same network includes ways for the individual to form groups, the
value is exponential” – “Reed’s Law”
Shared Goal
 Without it, we simply have a social network.
 Traditionally successful actions towards a cause have often been limited to well-funded,
organized groups. Not anymore
Small time-frame
Need for urgency in its formation
Long periods of time will not provide the focus or urgency necessary.

9. Ingredients to create a Smart Mob
Manila e- Lost Sidekick Balloon
Revolution spotting
Desire for Seeking political Sense of justice Seeking success
Communication justness in research goal
Affordable Comm. Cellphones Computers GPS-enabled
Devices cellphones
Opportunities for Texting network Web blogs, DARPA’s
instantaneous Web pages challenge
Comm.
Shared Goal Ending Pres. Returning a cell- Financial gain;
Estrada’s regime phone to owner bragging rights
Small time-frame Jan. 17-20, 2001 Jun 6-15, 2006 Dec. 5, 2009
It is neither a particular technology, nor the skill of a leader:
it is a confluence of 5 factors.

10. Kenya post-elections
violence
Dec. 27, 2007 election results
are disputed by opposition.
Violence erupts between
ethnic/political supporters of
Kibaki and Odinga.
At least 1,000 people killed,
200,000 displaced.
Difficult to find out where help
was needed.
Proposition from Ory Okolloh
attract attention of a few
programmers who create
Ushahidi in a few days.

11. Ushahidi: Smart Mobs on demand…

12. Smart (and nasty) Mobs: 4chan.org
Ongoing smart mob of unsocial types
Responsible for a variety of attacks for (their) fun
 Introducing new memes
 Threats against Church of Scientology
 Revenge YouTube by posting porn
 “Show off” by adding strobe-lights on Epilepsy page
 Voting “moot” as the 2009 Time 100, …
Persistent over time

13. Destroying a Smart Mob
Break any of its five criteria
 Desire for communication is innate, can only be broken from within
 Affordable communication devices: If available to few, SM ineffective
Opportunities for Communication
 Burma regime’s 2007 taking down the internet “for maintenance”
Shared Goal
 Iran regime’s insertion of rogue elements inciting violence
Small time-frame
 Declared effort to “defeat Creationism in schools” had no time urgency
So, all 5 sufficient criteria are also necessary