Sharing Awe

Courtesy SXC

There is nothing more interesting than human relationships and responses, even in the virtual world, and humans use relationships to spread happiness. The British Medical Journal said that social networks may spread happiness from person to person after studying almost 5000 individuals for 20 years in the Framingham Heart Study. Happiness in this study was shared through close relationships (spouses, family, neighbors, group members),and seemed to spread more readily than unhappiness through the network. Generally, happiness spreads to those nearer the center of a network better than to those on the edges –  like a virus. So first, dear posters and sharers, spread happiness where you can. Positivity is a pre-requisite to experiencing awe.

In some interesting recent research, University of Pennsylvania researchers studied The New York Times list of most-e-mailed articles, according to science reporter John Tierney, and over six months, analyzed thousands of articles. Jonah Berger and Katherine A. Milkman found that people like e-mailing articles that struck positive themes, and also noted that intellectually interesting subjects stimulate sharing.

People, it turns out want to share articles that inspire “awe.” If your product or service or point of view contributes to or creates overwhelming feelings of wonder or admiration, you are well on your way to gaining traction in your social network. It’s a tall order, for sure, but just think if we started our conversations about our latest and greatest thoughts, services or products with the question: “Will this inspire awe?“  For my own protection, let me admit that this post will be at least one step removed from awe, but it does point out just how high the bar is raised for the truly viral event in the social networking world.

Virality is a challenge, of course, in that many expect “new” or “improved” or “different” or even “surprising” to drive the conversation. Seems they don’t. “More emotional stories were more likely to be e-mailed, the researchers found, and positive articles were shared more than negative ones,” Tierney writes. Longer also bested shorter, it appeared. (”Surprising,” by the way, did help, but there were factors in the most shared that exceeded mere surprise.)

I like the idea that we ought to hold up “awe” as the hallmark of something worthy of sharing. As authors Berger and Milkman suggested, an awe-inspiring subject prompts us to view the world in a different way. It opens up our minds. The “Awe Rule” could put me out of business, too, on some fronts, but at least I minght not have to read as many posts about the sleeping habits of Facebook friends.

Take a look at this research, and ask yourself how you can contribute to awe today. I’m damned if I can think of another post for next week that fills the bill, but I’ll be working on it.