Social Multitaskers and Social Value

Forester just released a report linking social value to social multitasking. The report poses an interesting idea and I am going to take a stab at concocting my own argument to support it, and then propose why it is all rubbish.

Social multitaskers I would define as people involved in a number of social spaces, either in real life or on virtual and electronic communities. I'll even add in that the social spaces need not be mutually exclusive.The fact that they are involved in unique named and purposed groups is good enough for me.

So the argument that Social Multitaskers have higher social value is true in a broad sense. Involved in numerous circles they have the a potentially greater reach than the average person. They touch entirely separate groups giving them a high potential to motive and mobilize a greater volume of people for a cause or action. In terms of resources they also hold an advantage in that they posses a larger pool to poll when seeking assistance.

But reach in of its self is simply a lousy metric. I think reach tells nothing about impact. Regardless of the number of folks you can reach if you have no relationships to leverage individuals to action. This is where I have a hard time with this theory. There are a number of people who are dedicated to a single community. They are involved and have strong ties to leverage people into action. I would be curious which set up has the most actual power, not potential power.