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PROCEEDINGS COINs15
COMPARING NETWORK STRUCTURES OF COMMERCIAL AND NON-COMMERCIAL
BIOHACKING ONLINE-COMMUNITIES
Sipra Bihani, Michael Hartman, Florian Sobiegalla, Amanda Rosenberg
IIT Stuart School of Business, University of Bamberg
10 West 35th Street, 18th Floor
Chicago USA, Bamberg Germany
sbihani@id.iit.edu, michael-wolfgang.hartmann@stud.uni-bamberg.de, florian.sobiegalla@me.com,
arosenberg@id.iit.edu
ABSTRACT
This paper compares two biohacking groups,
Bulletproof Executive and DIYbio, whose distinct
goals result in differences in social network structures,
activities and entry points.
INTRODUCTION
The term biohacking was first used online in
December 2008 and now encompasses a wide range
of topics and activities (Google Trends). We define
biohacking as the amateur practice of biological
experimentation for a self-defined purpose using a
variety of DIY devices and techniques in a non-
traditional setting (Bennett 2009; Delfanti 2013;
personal communication, October 29 2014).
The two groups this paper analyzes are DIYbio and
Bulletproof Executive (BE.) DIYbio was founded in
2008 by Mackenzie Cowell and Jason Bobe with the
mission of “establishing a vibrant, productive and
safe community of DIY biologists” (DIYbio). BE is
led by founder Dave Asprey, who has a personal and
financial interest in discovering methods that help
people “reach the state of high performance”
(Bulletproof). These two groups have grown their
networks online in different ways.
COMPARISON OF BIOHACKING GROUPS
Both BE and DIYbio use online social media to share
knowledge, expand their network, and meet their
respective goals. Both groups have a website, a blog,
a Facebook page, and a Twitter account; DIYbio also
has a newsletter and Google group while BE has
multiple Twitter accounts, a YouTube channel, an
Instagram account, a Google+ page, a podcast, and an
online store. The five methods used to develop the
comparison are secondary research for context on
biohacking and trends; an interview an active
biohacker who attended the 2014 Bulletproof
Conference to learn the diversity of motivations of
biohackers; a survey to DIYbio local chapters to
understand their definition of biohacking and current
activities; and social network analysis with Condor,
Gephi, and Wordle to create a network of actors; and
content analysis with TagCrowd of the two group’s
blogs to analyze activities.
Figure 1 (left) : Twitter fetch for “DIYbio” on Dec 6,
2014; Figure 2 (right): Twitter fetch for “LondonBioHack”
on Dec 6, 2014
DIYbio has the mission of democratizing biological
research, which has implications for its network
structure and entry points. As Figure 1 shows, the
network has no central node. The network is
composed of 55 regional COINs from 21 countries
that set their own protocols (DIYbio). Figure 2 shows
the tweets of “LondonBioHack”, which is a local
chapter. Actors tweeting about this group are more
connected with one another than those tweeting about
DIYbio. Since actors create new technology and
ideas, LondonBioHack and DIYbio both coolfarm
with projects such as OpenerPCR and an outline of
biohacking ethics, respectively (survey, Nov 19, 2014,
DIYbio, Gloor 2010).
In regards to entry points, DIYbio has no form of
public outreach, such as advertising, for people
outside of the network to learn about it. The local
groups get public visibility by disseminating their
findings on their chapter websites and through
members’ personal blogs. In accordance with Gloor,
DIYbio can be classified as a self-selecting
collaborative innovation network (COIN) because
members aim to contribute to current scientific
knowledge in an open source environment (2007,
2010). People who are or want to become a part of
the virtual network are intrinsically motivated to
reach a shared goal and develop their own set of rules.
Figure 3: Twitter Fetch for “Bulletproof Coffee” in blue,
“Bulletproofexec” in red, “Dave Asprey” in green on Nov.
19, 2014. The central yellow node is (@bulletproofexec.)
To examine the structure of BE, we looked at its two
Twitter accounts: @bulletproofexec and
@BPNutrition. As Figure 3 shows, Asprey, as
represented by the handle @bulletproofexec, is a
central node in the BE network; @BPNutrition is a
bridge to other accounts. There are tweets about
Bulletproof Coffee by accounts that are not directly
connected to either Asprey or @BPNutrition. The
commercial product has spurred attention to form a
Collaborative Interest Network (CIN) with members
who share a common interest and practice without
necessarily identifying as biohackers (Gloor, 2010).
Asprey continues to be a coolhunter by brokering a
network with different biohacking circles and experts
on self-improvement topics that he brings together on
his social media and at the annual Bulletproof
Conference (Gloor 2007). In an interview with a
participant at the conference, the biohacker said that
he felt like it was the first real biohacking conference
because it covered a variety of topics such as electron
flow, gut ecology, habit formation, and nutrient
injections (personal communication, October 29
2014.) This brokering enables BE to be influential in
many biohacking topic areas and provides channels
for commercialized products.
Through its different social media outlets, BE
promotes the company’s central product and entry
point, called Bulletproof Coffee, which is marketed
as more effective at improving productivity and
efficiency than the average cup of coffee. People
without a specific interest in biohacking can learn
about Bulletproof Coffee by stumbling upon it at a
local coffee shop or by reading about it in media
outlets, such as The New York Times (Bulletproof).
As Figure 4 shows, the easily identifiable Bulletproof
Coffee had growth in Google searches that have far
surpassed searches for related terms. Based on the
commercial entry point and the mix of biohackers
and non-biohackers, BE can be described as a COIN
with a CIN in which actors share a common interest
and spot new trends that will become cool (Gloor
2007).
Figure 4: Google Trend visualization of interest in search
terms from January 2008 to December 2014.
CONCLUSION
The research finds a significant interrelation among
organization goals, structure, activity, and entry
points as shown in Table 1. DIYbio is an
interconnected network of deeply engaged biohackers
that coolfarms, whereas, by coolhunting and forming
CINs, BE exposes many people to biohacking
methods and products for self-improvement.
BE
DIYbio
Network structure
a COIN with a CIN
a COIN of COINs
Network influence
leader
no leader
Activity
coolhunting
coolfarming
Entry points
commercial
open-source
Table 1: Comparison of BE and DIYbio based on influence,
structure, focus, and entry points.
Since biohacking is a young and growing practice,
some questions remain about the social network
structures of the two organizations under examination.
As the communities mature, their structure may
evolve. For instance, will the CIN members drinking
Bulletproof Coffee enter the COIN and begin
biohacking? Will the umbrella organization of
DIYbio continue to connect networks or will they
become more and more autonomous?
REFERENCES
Bennett, Gaymon & Nils Gilman, Anthony Stavrianakis & Paul
Rabinow (2009, Dec). From synthetic biology to biohacking: are
we prepared? Nature Biotechnology, 27, 12, 1109-1111.
Bulletproof (2014) Website. Retrieved from: http://bit.ly/1FMNiXp.
Visited on 2015, Feb 9.
Delfanti, Alessandro. (2013). Biohackers: The Politics of Open
Science. New York: Pluto Press.
DIYbio. (2014, Nov 10). DIYbio. Retrieved from:
http://DIYbio.org.
Gloor, P., & Cooper, S. (2007). Coolhunting: Chasing Down the
Next Big Thing. New York: AMACOM.
Gloor, P. (2010). Coolfarming: Turn Your Great Idea into the Next
Big Thing. AMACOM, NY 2010.
Google Trends. (2014, Dec 6). ‘Bulletproof Coffee’, ‘DIYbio’,
‘Biohacking’ Topics. Retrieved from: http://bit.ly/1Bnqy0y
