A tribe's optimum size is related to its purpose. Comfort depends on purpose, passion and each member's engagement.
To get a feeling for how quickly connections grow, let's throw a string of virtual parties, each one bigger than the last. If everyone clinks glasses once with everyone else, how many clinks do we hear?
3 -> 3 (AB, AC, BC)
5 -> 10 (AB, AC, AD, AE, BC, BD, BE, CD, CE, DE)
15 -> 105 (draw 15 dots in a circle, connect 'em all, count lines)
50 -> 1,225
150 -> 11,175 (see Dunbar's number)
450 -> 101,025
1500 -> 1,124,250
The larger the tribe, the more relationships to nurture. Without real relationships, there go trust, collaboration, and the group's agility. Arbitrary limits on size and information flow appear to be an economic necessity in an industrious organization
Modern high-bandwidth low-cost connections flatten the tribe and improve the economics. If we personally can handle ten times the interactions, we can be supporting three times the group size.
Just clinking quickly at parties drives up the connectedness counter, but what is that worth? Mingle muchly with your closer friends and enjoy loose connections to a long tail of relative foreigners.
Bernd Nurnberger (CoCreatr) CoCreatr's blog
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