The Social Network Movie And Its Relation To The Project Management

So the movie is about the founder of Facebook Mark Zuckerburg who is a Harvard student. The movie includes scenes from two depositions in which the story is being told. The movie starts with Mark sitting with his girlfriend Erica Albright in a bar and chit chatting together. Mark is in conversation with Erica about computer things and from the start of the movie it is clearly evident that Mark is a tech geek or a Nerd as what they call them. During the conversation Erica tells Mark that he doesn’t care for her and all that he does is talk computer stuff which clearly Erica does not like, Erica tells Mark that she is breaking up with him because of this. Mark tries to make her feel better but it doesn’t work and they eventually break up. Mark angered and furious about this goes running towards his dorm room and blogs about the incident in an online Journal of his which is public.

In order to take revenge from his girlfriend Mark creates a new website called Facemash where it allows people to rate female students based on their looks and beauty. This is well received by all the male community at Harvard but the females views it as a violation of their privacy and their rights because Facemash, the website created by Mark stole pictures of the female students online. The website got instant hits inside Harvard and was talk of the university, it even crashed Harvard University’s computer servers. Mark is punished for his actions but he takes it lightly because he is focused on his own skills which are being good at programming.

The news quickly spreads around the campus at Harvard and that is where the Winklevoss twins (Mark Winklevoss and Cameron Winklevoss) and their partner Divya Narendra comes in. The Winklevoss twins are those you call the famous students of Harvard University, they have a wealthy background, they are good in academics, they are good in sports and are in Harvard’s rowing club and their friend Divya is also intelligent and smart. When the Winklevoss twins and Divya hear about Facemash’s success, they immediately get impressed by Mark’s work and speak of him very highly. At this moment the Winklevoss twins and Divya have also their own idea of a website where people can connect with people but they need a very skilled programmer do setup the website and they decide to contact Mark for this to which Mark agrees.

At this point Mark likes the Winklevoss twins and Divya’s idea and tries to create his own site similar to the dating site suggested by Divya and Winklevoss earlier. Mark names the site as “thefacebook” and you could put in your profile information in the site and also your personal details making you contact with your friends easier. The movie then introduces another person in the plot named as Eduardo Saverin who is a friend of Mark or rather the only friend that Mark has. Mark tells his idea about his idea of “thefacebook” to Eduardo which he likes and Mark is made the CFO of the venture. After sometime “thefacebook” goes live Eduardo suggests to Mark that they should start making profit from the venture but Mark disagrees and says that it is not the right time to make money from it because we they don’t know where they’ll end up using the site.

The Winklevoss twins and Divya learn about “thefacebook” and their worst nightmare is realized where Mark stole their idea. The Winklevoss twins and Divya files a lawsuit against Mark for Property theft.

Mark and Eduardo become popular with the ladies and they are introduced to a girl named Christy Lee who becomes Eduardo’s girlfriend. Christy also introduces both Mark and Eduardo to Sean Parker who is a talented technological guy living in California. Sean likes the idea of “thefacebook” and tells Mark to name it just “Facebook” to make it catchier. Eduardo is skeptical of Sean who disagrees with his idea of starting to make money from the venture and on the other hand Mark likes Sean because their thinking style is very similar. Mark and his team launch Facebook in other ivy-league universities in America. Sean suggests to Mark to come to California where all the tech startups set up their basecamp, Mark agrees and shifts his office to Palo Alto and also hires a few talented interns. Eduardo starts to dislike Sean even more but is invited to California where Sean and Mark outplay Eduardo when he signs a contract which limits his share in Facebook from 34% to 0.03% but Eduardo had no knowledge of this and after discovering this he tries to sue Mark. The movie ends where a member of Mark’s legal team tells him to pay the Winklevoss twins and Eduardo to reach a settlement to which Mark agrees.

Evaluation of the WorkI personally did not like the movie personally, I truly do not believe the story that the movie tells about Mark Zuckerburg and the people associated with him. Another thing which I do not like about the film is that it there were too many complex computer terminologies and sayings which made it difficult for the common man to comprehend, sure it may be very interesting to people who know Computer language but not to people who do not have a deep understanding of programming.

I for myself did not find any learning’s from the film and I think it was just a movie made to earn money and had very little to do with the actual story of Facebook and it was a marketing stunt for me. The role of the characters in the movie was also a little too extreme for me for example Mark who is the main character of the film was very unexpressive in his acting, Sean’s character was a little too extreme and by extreme I mean that he did not show any imperfections in the movie except at the end where he was caught doing drugs. I believe Sean’s character could have been made with a little bit more flaws in him.

The pace of the film was also a little too fast for me and what I believe they did was to tell a long story in a very short amount of time which made watching the film a little bit confusing. I mean when you watch 2 hour movie you expect something more out of it. Additionally the film has scenes of depositions in it where the people present at the deposition recall their stories and that is how the movie is told which I do not like and I feel that it destroys the motion of the whole experience.

In my opinion the story could have been told in a much better way than how it was told and I believe that the makers of the film haven’t done justice to the story of Facebook and in my opinion it was more of a publicity stunt.

Relating the Movie with Project Management Concepts

First of all the endeavor that Mark started with “the facebook” was a Project because it produced a unique service for the people of Harvard University initially. Mark took different projects after that which included brining the social networking site to different universities and also bringing it to people around the globe. Mark was engaged in Project Management because he applied his Knowledge about computers and programming to the project of Facebook, he also used his Skill of writing computer code to construct a very efficient social media website. Additionally Mark used Tools like different computer languages and his own laptop to construct that website and finally he used the Technique going online and publishing his website to the public.

We see that when the Winklevoss twins told Mark about their interest in building the website we see many examples related to Project Management. Like when Mark was told by the Winklevoss twins to build a website quickly, this can be related to the Schedule of the project.

Another project management concept that we can relate with the project of “Facebook” is Stakeholder Communication. There was no solid communication between Mark and Eduardo and that is the reason they both split up with both facing losses, Eduardo was fired from Facebook while in the end Mark had to restore Mark’s status as co-founder of Facebook and also had to settle with him on paying an unknown amount of money as damages.

Mark’s “Facebook” venture was basically a Program because the venture grew into a very big business and it was difficult to manage it as a single project and had to be broken down into smaller projects like building a the “Facebook Wall”, launching it in different universities, building newsfeed, launching it internationally, adding features to Facebook etc.

As with many Mark also applied the 5 process groups of Project Management which are Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring & Controlling and Closing. Mark initiated the project when he first heard the idea from the Winklevoss twins and Divya, he then started planning his idea that he will use their idea and turn it into something extraordinary. Mark executed his idea by developing a website and making it available to students across Harvard University, he also hired a team which included Eduardo, Sean, interns, full time employees etc. The project was controlled in a way that Mark carefully analyzed which acitivity would be beneficial to the project and which activity or action would harm the project like for example when Eduardo suggested that they should put advertisements to the site but Mark disagreed and said that it was not the right time to make money from the project and would damage the coolness of the project in a way. There was also the closing phase involved with the projects like for example when the project of setting up the website was done the project was closed and a new project to run the website was started.