Amara’s Law (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Amara">backstory</a>) states that “<em>we tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.</em>”

<h2>11. Metcalfe’s Law</h2> <p>This was the original conception of network effects, whereby the potential value of a network grows exponentially according to its size.</p>

The fundamental definition of a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect">network effect</a> is “<em>when a product or service has more value the more that other people have it too.</em>”

In fact, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_effort">Principle of Least Effort</a> notes that they will tend to use the most convenient method, in the least exacting way available, with interaction stopping as soon as minimally acceptable results are achieved. As a result, well-known social scientist <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/buzzwatch/2008/05/05/wisdom-on-crowds-what-ceos-need-to-know-about-the-social-web/">Clay Shirky notes</a> that the most “brutally simple” social model often is the most successful one (using Twitter as an example.)

<h2>Reed’s Law</h2> <p>Researcher David Reed <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reed%27s_law">discovered that</a> the network effect of social systems is much higher than would otherwise be expected, helping to explain the sudden rise of social systems in the latter half of this decade. While adding a social architecture to a piece of software for no specific reason isn’t helpful either, it turns out that in general, software (and indeed, any networked system) is better the more social it is.</p>

Reflexivity asserts that social actions can and do in fact influence the fundamental behavior of a social system and that these newly-influenced set of fundamentals can then proceed to change expectations, thus influencing new behavior. The process continues in a self-reinforcing pattern.

McClaren, who looks back on what happened from his new post several states away, says he made "two fatal assumptions" when he started: "I thought if it was good for kids, everyone would embrace it, and I thought all adults wanted all kids to be successful. That's not true. The people who receive status from their kids' performing well in school didn't like that other kids' performance might be raised to the level of their own kids'."