Group Forming Networks Stop the Great HSBC Graduate Rip-off!!!
August 31st, 2007We talk about Reeds Law, and Group Forming Network Theory, which outperfoms Sarkovs Law (the Law of the Mass Media) and Metcalfes Law (the Law of the network).
Essentially, when a group of people form around a topic, issue or goal their effect can be exponential.
So the student protest which was directed at HSBC via Facebook is a small example of that theory in practice
HSBC, the fourth biggest bank in the world, has made a dramatic u-turn in policy changes to its graduate overdrafts it announced last month, following a well-publicised student backlash on Facebook.
More than 5,000 students used the social networking site to rally against the bank’s decision to charge graduates interest on overdrafts up to ?1,500 which had previously been offered free for the first two years after university-life.
Led by Cambridge’s NUS vice-president (Welfare) Ama Uzowuru and Wes Streeting, NUS vice president (Education), 5,090 students and graduates joined the group “Stop the Great HSBC Graduate Rip-off!!!” to discuss action against HSBC
The bank said
Like any service-oriented business we are not too big to listen to the needs of our customers.
Which in English means, we were hoping to get away with this one, but after the all the hulabaloo we were caught with our hand in the till so we had to back off. That damned Reeds Law is a real pisser.
There are 65,900 entries for Facebook takes on HSBC on google
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4 Responses to “Group Forming Networks Stop the Great HSBC Graduate Rip-off!!!”
By Mark Beveridge on Aug 31, 2007
I always thought Reed’s Law meant that the ability to form groups added value to a network, because of the additional connections (power law). I didn’t think it said anything about an individual group. Isn’t that something separate?
By Alan moore on Aug 31, 2007
Of course it says something about the individual group, because they have to form around a topic, issue or goal.
Otherwise its just a lot of networked porridge.
By Mark Beveridge on Aug 31, 2007
Heh. Well, yes, but I’m not saying the porridge is homogenous.
Isn’t Reeds Law about (the network’s value from) the potential to form these groups? If the potential is there, some will be started and some may grow hugely (and some won’t) according to various factors, but a group’s actual growth isn’t described by Reed’s Law.
Maybe I’m just wrong
By Alan moore on Aug 31, 2007
My interest is that the outputs are significant, which outperfom the other laws mentioned. Of course it add value to the network.
This is what Reed says
“A GFN has functionality that directly enables and supports affiliations (such as interest groups, clubs, meetings, communities) among subsets of its customers. Group tools and technologies (also called community tools) such as user-defined mailing lists, chat rooms, discussion groups, buddy lists, team rooms, trading rooms, user groups, market makers, and auction hosts, all have a common theme?they allow small or large groups of network users to coalesce and to organize their communications around a common interest, issue, or goal. Sadly, the traditional telephone and broadcast/cable network frameworks provide no support for groups.”
Thanks for posting.
Alan