Digital Friction

I recently read a great post by Seth Godin about what he called "friction."

Friction, as you might already know, is the force that opposes the movement of a body against another, or as Merriam Webster puts it, the "the force that resists relative motion between two bodies in contact."

Godin's friction is the force opposing the flow of ideas; it keeps ideas and movements from spreading to people and through populations. He gives the example of the friction associated with mailing something by snail mail: the cost of stamp and shipping. He then discusses how there is friction in e-mail also (no matter how free it seems to be). That friction, Godin maintains, is not the physical cost of sending the e-mail, but rather "the cost of all the people you'll lose."

His idea is that if you're reckless with your emailing, people will either be trained to ignore your emails and/or block your address. Worse yet, they might get annoyed enough to badmouth you to others (this would be added friction). He concludes with an operative example of how this kind of friction ruined the movement of Drugstore.com's ideas/products for him:

Drugstore.com made two mistakes with their relationship with me. First, they bought the lie that opt out is a productive strategy. They unilaterally decided that I'd be delighted to get regular emails from them, merely because I bought some shaving cream.

The second mistake? They didn't bother to be selective about what they sent.

I've never purchased diapers online, since my diaper purchases predate online diaper shopping. And my hope is that I won't be buying Depends for another fifty years or so. Drugstore.com should know this. And yet, because it's apparently free to email me, some lame brand manager says, "sure, do it!" Except then I unsubscribe and an asset that is worth ten or a hundred or a thousand dollars disappears, probably forever.

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I think this kind of friction pertains to most group work also. I'll use ministry as my example, although this could apply to student organizations, non-profit work, etc.

If you've ever led a small group or hc you know what I'm talking about. You know the feeling of emailing your group only to get little/no response, to your frustration. You might even re-email with reminders, in the hopes of getting a response. Then you might get one. Or you might not.

While I'm not saying that everyone fails to e-mail back because of this kind of idea friction, I am saying that it has a large part to do with many of these outcomes. Think about it - do you read every event, prayer meeting, donation, update, and church forward sitting in your mailbox, waiting to be opened?

If we're honest, we'd realize that at some point, we condition ourselves not to read the emails from high-volume e-mailers, from people who we know are going to bury us under paragraphs of dreary agenda and/or complicated prose. We could also become so annoyed that we start complaining to our friends about it, leaving the bad taste in their mouths also.

If we struggle with this as a reader, how can we expect anything different from our followers? I know from personal experience the disappointment that can arise when I send out encouragement, reminders, and meeting recap/agendas, and I can tell no one reads them. No one replies, and you wonder if your effort meant much at all.

So as a leader - and as a person who wants to spread ideas and encourage spiritual growth, interest in service work or passion for social justice - remember friction as you email. Choose wisely. Don't email everyone with everything, although in theory it should work. Not everyone is interested in everything, and in reality, most people are interested in less than you'd think. There are other ways - blogging, voluntary subscription to newsletters, in-person meetings - to update those who are interested in what's going on without being burned by the friction of people who really aren't.

I've learned to send directed emails, and to send short emails. I only send them to people who I really think would benefit from them. Yes, it's meant more thought on my part, more editing of the content, and a tough divorce from the idea of sending stuff out on huge email lists. The (wrong) instinct goes something like this: "Why not CC the whole group on this new update or idea? It's free, easy, I can just type their name in, and it's better that they have it than if they didn't."

The truth is that many times it's not better that they just have it, it's actually worse. So my best advice is to be thoughtful and as Godin suggests, recognize and "embrace the friction." The cost of not doing so is too far too high.

A link to Seth's "friction" post: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/09/friction.html