Visualising and Understanding Crowd Dynamics

If you haven't noticed that we're into crowds by now you just haven't been paying attention. We're so into crowds round these here parts, in fact, that this discussion by a shiny man named Tim Richards got my little heart all a flutter.

Why? Well, as you'll see in his post, Tim (yes I'm taking liberties because I feel so close to him right now) discusses and visualises crowds in terms of how they organically organise themselves. He's attempting to understand crowd dynamics - not user profiles or "target markets" - but rather the codes of the crowd. What are the subtleties of engagement that determine whether you or your message gets accepted into or is relevant to a crowd?

He defines crowds in a really interesting way - as a group of people actively taking interest in a specific topic. Actively being the key phrase here - who are the experts and content creators? The people at the centre of the crowd around which other people arrange themselves (in previous incarnations of this kind of discussion perhaps called the influencers) who perhaps adjust and filter the message.

His closing thought is the one that is perhaps most relevant to you. Any kind of message wanting an audience must be attached to a crowd - related to a set of interests that mean something to people.

If it isn't relevant or falling somewhere close to the crowd it just falls lost between the net of crowds.

"It’s just out there…in the noise of the market – left to fend for itself, along with the other corporate messages of the world. It’s cold out there, in the vast expanse of communication topics, without the warm, insulation of loyal activists, enthusiasts or built-in interested parties."

What a dude.

So when you approach a message, or an idea, or a design, how do you check that it's attached to a sphere of interest? Are you sure there are people who are going to care? And if there are are you speaking to them in the language of that sphere of interest - in a way that respects the crowd dynamics - or are you showing up at your grandmother's house in Borat's swimming costume?

Go read the man's post.