Data Portability & The Limits to Geo-Shrinkage

People talk about how small the world is.  And, as communication & information technologies have evolved, there is no question that if considered against the backdrop of the declining costs of interacting with those physically located at great distances, things certainly feel that way.  With the reigns of broadcast media now in the hands of individuals (Twitter, Youtube, Quora...) and the formalization of social networks online (Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare), establishing and maintaining a ubiquitous digital presence has never been more scalable.  But in the physical world, how 'small' things can get?

Small is the experience of ownership and command of relationships in a given geography. Without living and breathing the same air as someone, how proximate can we be?  Over the course of the past year, I moved from New York City to London (my 4th city in the past 7 years) - knowing hardly a soul on the other side of The Pond. In getting myself settled, I have come across a few structural constraints that in my mind limit this geo-shrinkage.

The first is physics.  Our bodies can still only be a one geographic place at one time.  By being in London, I am necessarily not in New York.  While it is possible for me to pick up anecdotes from friends on the ground and in the media, there is a rumble to the sidewalk, a warmth to a hug, and scent of urban jungle that I miss while here.  Although the most recent Apple ads attempt to prove otherwise, moments of technology-enabled sympathy are not a substitute for the empathy made possible by geo-presence.  

The second is the force of community.  No matter who you are, at some point you are likely to want to build or belong to one.  Whether in the digital or physical realm, building takes work and belonging takes acceptance.  Work requires time and energy, both of which are finite.  

Although some aspects of community can be established online (this blog is case in point), still most of what we build has a manifestation in person.  We build to see results.  Because we cannot be in multiple places at once (back to physics), most of us choose to build in a single place, such that the fruits of our labor can be enjoyed.  The consequence is that we are more provincial, and the shrinking of the world hits a limit.  

To belong, a community needs to cement trust among its constituents - which is not doled out easily. Perhaps the most important ingredient to trust is commitment.  If people think that you are a tourist (as recently referenced by Mike Moritz & Paul Kedrosky in reference to transient members of the venture capital community), they will rarely take you as seriously as a prospective member as someone who has long-term historical or prospective roots.   Trust is won through the perception of permanence.  By spreading ourselves geographically thin, we challenge our credibility and belonging becomes unlikely.  If you have built nothing and do not belong to anything, the experience of local ownership is unattainable and we are forced back to living provincial lives.

The physics problem is not one that we are likely to overcome, but technology can do more to facilitate geo-shrinkage.  The key is data portability.  There are a number of reasons for me to have a single local doctor, accountant, dentist, and send my kids to the same school - some personal, some social, and some practical.  But the most important reason is that when my 8 year-old needs his tonsils examined or my teenager requires remediation in pre-calculus, their respective doctors & teachers have their entire respective medical & pedagogical histories.   This anecdote extends to nearly all pockets of life.  We have traditionally been local beings living in provincial worlds because that is where we are known.  But as technology companies (e.g. Knewton in education, Facebook in social, and LinkedIn in professional) develop standards for allowing us to carry our lifetime of data with us, we become more feasibly mobile .  Each of us then requires less of an introduction.  Trust is easier to establish. Communities open up.  And, without permanently physically committing to a geography, we can shrink the world just a little bit further.