Social Media Camp: 7 City Summer Tour
June 30, 2008
Our friends over at Yoono have announced Social Media Camp, a one day unconference held in seven (7) cities across the U.S. focused on bringing some of the brightest minds in Social Media together with people interested in learning more about the power of Community Based Marketing. Top local names in Blogging, Podcasting, Live Streaming, and New Media will be on hand to lead sessions – a la BarCamp Style – to share what they know with the world.
There will be at least 2 tracks at each event – a beginner track (think Blogging 101), and an advanced track (think What is Social Capital – and Why Should I Care?).
They are brainstorming topics for the event now – so if you have something you’d like to talk about (beginner or advanced) – or if there is something you’d like someone to cover – add it to the Wiki in the city/cities of your choice.
Who’s Invited: Everyone interested in Social Media. If you’re a Blogger, Podcaster,
Community Manager, Online Marketer, Web Designer, Technologist, Facebooker, or Social Media Junkie then this event is for you. If you’re in Marketing, PR, Advertising, Communications, or Education – or if you work with a Non-Profit – then this event is for you too!
Cost: FREE
Social Media Camp is coming to the following cities:
- Seattle, WA – July 12th
- San Francisco, CA – July 15th
- Los Angeles, CA – July 18th (working on venue)
- Austin, TX – July 30th (working on venue)
- Miami, FL – August 2nd (working on venue)
- Boston, MA – August 5th (working on venue)
- New York, NY – August 7th (working on venue)
The Social Media Camp dates and cities were picked to coincide with Mashable’s Summer Tour, so make plans to join your peers in the day for some good Social Media loving, then carry on into the night at the Mashable party. Both events require registration, and information can be found on the respective websites/wikis.
Social Media Club is proud to be a Media Sponsor of this event, and we hope to see you at one (or more) of the gatherings.
“I am not a Web Guy”
June 26, 2007
Patrick Ruffini at TechPresident.com riffs on what Zack Exley wrote on his blog. When do we stop making the distinction between being an “Internet Strategist” and a “Strategist” or an “Internet Communications Director” or a “Communications Director”?
I’m guilty of this as well. Looking at my business card, it says “Social Media Strategist.” But what I do is end up helping people understand the new strategies, and how they can be applied in conjunction with more traditional media and communications techniques.
Zack says:
Let’s remove “Internet” from our titles and resumes. The longer we
leave “Internet” on our name tags, the longer we’re enabling all this
bad behavior—and devaluing our own contribution to the movement at the
same time.
I’m not sure I’m ready to jump off this bridge, but, it is worth discussing in the context of Social Media. What do you think? Comment below, please!
Powered by ScribeFire.
Courage, Conflict and Compromise
March 13, 2007
Another set of 3 C’s – I am beginning to think that C is the most powerful letter in the alphabet… This should be a long post, but there is not enough time to do so, and I promised Nate Ritter from Eventful that I would try to be short with my posts (also means that they are a bit messier, so please forgive me).
Courage
I think this is the most important element that Champions need to make a difference. The courage to face the potential risks for doing the right thing is an incredibly important ingredient towards success. The ‘ask forgiveness instead of permission’ model has been cited more than once privately by a few very senior executives when talking about why what they did worked. Even this morning, during the breakfast I blogged about on Future of Communities, it was the courage to support the lone person who was willing to speak his displeasure that helped to turn the tide of the conversation. Many people felt the same way, but only one person was willing to support the person who risked himself to stand up for what he felt was right.
Conflict
We are really not ever taught how to fight/debate well. I know of some organizations who have specific training in ‘having difficult conversations’, but even they don’t do a good job of addressing the tension that arises from different opinions during a discussion or meeting. We must get better at managing conflict in a respectful way. This starts with the formation of the team and continuously improves through ongoing interactions between the people involved. The more trust that is built amongst the people involved, the better chance the organization has of using conflict as an opportunity to succeed rather than getting derailed.
Compromise
This occurred to me yesterday, and was validated in conversations I had this morning. Why aren’t potentially great products better? The ability of champions to courageously stand up for what they think is right, to navigate through the conflict, to collaborate well with the other stakeholders and ultimately to NOT make bad compromises. The political systems of organizations which employees need to navigate often force them to make compromises in the short term in the hope that it will get corrected in the long term. These are often bad compromises which will neglect the real needs of the consumers for want of not dealing with a very serious challenge or obstacle that can not be overcome easily. Don’t make bad compromises!
What do you think about these three issues? How are you dealing with it in your day to day work? Am I on to something here or just overly obsessive with the letter C lately?
Social Media Now: MySpace to Offer Social News
March 9, 2007
The idea of MySpace launching a news aggregator is hardly surprising. After all MySpace parent Newscorp is not only one of the world’s largest newspaper and TV news companies but also one of the most creative. (FoxNews changed the tone of TV news forever. I’m certain Newscorp is more comfortable than most with blog-style news that mixes information, opinion and personality.)
Terry Heaton, who had the first post on MySpace News, says the service will gather stuff from websites, blogs, and members, combining Google News-style and Digg-style functionality. Om Malik offers the phrase social news.
The story comes a day after an enormous thread centering around a Doc Searls’ post recirculated all the old saws about traditional vs. citizen journalism–everyone’s a reporter, its the relationship that matters, etc.
Most of the conversation around the impact of Web 2.0 on news focuses on the newspaper’s role as producer of information and the impact of citizen journalism on professional journalism.
That impact is real and enormous and barely hinted at by the creeping blogification of newspapers (Chris Heuer wrote about USAToday’s makeover this week). Socially-enabling national newspapers has had an impact on the way newspaper people work. A friend at The Times said that there is competition in the newsroom to be at the top of the daily “most e-mailed” list. That competition is a kind of social feedback. So to are comments (but only when editors and reporters are involved in the conversation).
But social news does more than just undermine the news gathering primacy of traditional journalism. It also unwinds the aggregator function of newspapers.
Ten years ago technology gave people the power to be reporters of their own lives. Today technology enables community aggregation. That’s what Digg and Technorati and del.icio.us allow–something beyond the self-selected aggregation of RSS feeds. Tagging, ranking and sharing create public hierarchical lists of information. That’s what newspaper editors used to do. The Internet is an enormous, on-going Page One meeting.
Can any one aggregation service capture all that? We’ll find out. So far efforts to pull together that kind of grand unified shared aggregation haven’t lived up to the promise. Maybe MySpace News, which will have both the problems and benefits of serving a closed group of members, will show us how it can be done. Will it be to all sources of information or just those with which it cuts deals? How will it exploit it’s members input? And most of all will newspapers feel the influence?
What is Social Media? No, really, WTF?
February 28, 2007
I have been thinking about this question for a couple of years and have a few thoughts around a coherent answer which I have talked about through this blog and through comments on other people’s blogs. I have talked about it in a beercast with Mike Hudack and I have talked the ears off of people like you who are passionate in your like and dislike of this language to describe what is happening. Of course, the whole thing has blown up a couple of times lately inside the mediasphere, with these posts from Jeremiah Owyang, Robert Scoble, Brian Solis, Doc Searls and many, many others. Today, I am beginning a new journey, to co-create with you, a very clear answer to this question, from which we may all benefit.
Rather than diving into the 3-4,000 word post I was trying to get posted today, let me get to the point and propose my initial draft of an answer to the question:
Social Media is redefining how we relate to each other as humans and how we as humans relate to the organizations that serve us. While it is commonly represented by blogs, podcasts, vlogs, wikis, user generated content and social networks, it is not about those specific things as much as it is about what happens around and because of those things. This includes most notably the ability and desire to easily share with each other, to build upon that which is shared and to discover people, places and things that are of interest to you, because the sharing of these things with these new tools, is making visible that which was previously unknown.
While the early days of the Internet talked about the Three C’s of Content, Commerce and Community, we have come to realize that this era of our evolutionary growth has it’s own Three C’s, which speaks more closely to the fundamental needs of society beyond the interest in the technology for its own sake. The “Greater Significance” of Social Media is a newfound understanding of the importance of Context, Communications and Collaboration. The context of what we are trying to accomplish and why we are passionate about it is the starting point for our conversations and the basis of everything else. Communications in its traditional and emerging forms, references how we come to understand and connect with each other. Collaboration is about how we work together for our common and individual interests within the various contexts in which we invest our attention.
While this definition is still a bit long and not fully refined, I think it does move us forward in the right direction. Ian Kennedy’s insight from the Stirr mixer last week was crucial in bringing me back to these important points, which I first made at a Net Tuesday event with Mena Trott what seems like a very long time ago. Also deserving a mention here is Giovanni Rodriguez who told me during our Social Media to Corporate Media workshop in October 2006 that he felt we should be talking about “socializing media” instead of Social Media. While our choice of language here is seemingly one of convenience for many, I feel it is indeed the most fitting and appropriate in light of the greater importance. As I have said elsewhere, in a few years, it will just be referenced as media and people will talk about the “early days of the Social Media era.”
The backbone of the New Media era (aka Web 1.0), while constrained by limited connectivity to the network, complicated software for tinkerers, expensive tools and simple Web pages, was conceptually centered around edge activities. Today, in the era of Social Media, the limitations on participation defined by those prior constraints are largely, but not completely, lifted, moving a greater number of those activities to the core of society. Because participation is more broadly available across society, it is the contexts in which we interact with others that is most crucial – within those contexts we communicate with each other and if through those communications, we reach agreement to trust one another, we can collaborate towards common goals. As I have stated many times, in the knowledge economy, the greatest barrier to value creation in the enterprise and between them, is the inability of smart people to get along with one another.
In September of 2006, I sought to answer the question “Why is Social Media important?” – it was a powerful question which is informative here in trying to answer the current question. In trying to define anything by what it is very specifically as some have tried to do, we restrict the possibilities for what else may be considered in that same light – in trying to define Social Media by what it is not as Robert Scoble did in comparing what is different today, we are being more expansive in allowing for new possibilities to emerge. In that this is an emergent term, I think it appropriate to more broadly define the term rather than trying to be restrictive, though many will disagree. In defining Social Media by what it is not, we make it easier for people to understand the concept by the comparison to other known things, but we also do not fully impress upon people the “greater significance” of why this is important. This is ok – really it is – for the 90% of society that may never fully participate in online communities or contribute to our greater social wisdom, they need not think of what they are doing in the same way we, the early adopters are – they only need gain the benefit and enjoyment from within their specific contextual frame of reference. Does grandma need to understand the broader impact of social media, or does she merely care about the fact that she can read about what is going on in your life and stay connected to her grandchildren?
As the Cluetrain Manifesto rightly pointed out, “Markets are Conversations”. Social Media and the tools we use to create, consume and connect with each other are making those markets, and those conversations, more visible, and as a result, laying bare in plain sight those people and organizations we can trust, and those we can not. It is why I still think David Brin’s Transparent Society is such an important read. It is why many of the ‘folks like me’ are so optimistic about the potential for Social Media to empower ideas like The Noble Pursuit and more broadly create economic opportunities while delivering on the original promise of information technology to provide true market efficiencies.
So let’s see how well we can communicate and collaborate here within this context – the definition above has been posted to the Social Media Club Wiki for you to edit and refine. Love it or hate it, I want to see how you can make it better. If we do well with it, I suggest we ask our friend Jimmy Wales to consider the resulting definition to replace the current entry in Wikipedia. If you want to propose your own separate definition, or write more about this separately of the wiki page, please use the tag whatissocialmedia so we can all follow along. Either way, as the very wise Howard Rheingold says, “What it is –> is up to you.”
What is Web 2.0 (in 5 minutes)
February 3, 2007
This YouTube video from Assistant Professor Michael Wesch of Kansas State University is an excellent 5 minute exploration. I don’t think it explains “Web 2.0,” but I think does a good job at describing the way the web is changing.
To me, Web 2.0 technologies enable Social Media applications. That is, the ability to separate data from its markup container (thus allowing RSS feeds of the text of a site without having to drag the layout around with it) allows many of the things we take for granted – news feeds, podcasts, rss readers, mashups, and more.
That said, the video is worth watching for its intelligent use of web pages, code and the reoccuring theme of typing and retyping that makes the viewer stop and think.
My mom and step-dad keep asking what we’re doing here at Social Media Club. Well guys, watch the video. We want to help people do that, easier, faster, with standards, in an ethical and community-caring fashion.
powered by performancing firefox
SMC’s Most Excellent Ping Server List
January 6, 2007
Once again, I was in need of the latest Ping Server List for a client’s Blog, but I could not find a decent one anywhere that was up to date (if you don’t know – a ping server is a computer that gets notified when a new Blog post is published). Chris Abraham wrote the most popular one a while back which I have previously used blindly as is, only to now find it is woefully out of date. WordPress has a pretty decent list as well, just as out of date. Since it is something I think we all need, I went ahead and collected all the ping server URL’s I found from the first 2 pages of Google results and started testing them. [Read more]
Social Media Workshop Almost Sold Out…
October 18, 2006
At about this time last week, I was honestly worried we were in trouble with the workshop we are hosting next Monday From Social Media to Corporate Media – I did not really hear any buzz, registrations were modest at best and I briefly considered what we might need to do if we were forced to cancel the event. After speaking with my fiancee Kristie Wells though, she lifted up my spirits and reminded me of what was really important. We did a quick gut check and realized that we could pull off a great workshop, even if it was only for 20 people instead of 40, so we fully committed ourselves to making it work and once again, things have really turned around remarkably.
As of this minute we only have 5 spots left!
Better still, the caliber of people who will be there is top notch. As is often the case with these sorts of participatory events, I think the collective wisdom of the room will probably teach us a thing or two about what’s going on with Social Media inside the corporation. I have so many people to thank for this workshop (and everything else that is happening), I don’t think I can give everyone the thanks and credit they deserve at the moment, so will need to write up something in the coming days.
I do however really need to thank our sponsors, without whom we would not be able to invest all the time we do in helping bring together this community of practice. SAP (thanks Mona!), Fleishman Hillard and PR Newswire are more than sponsors of this event – their support, financial and otherwise, has been invaluable in allowing us to continue to push forward with building the organization. I am very lucky to have them as our first corporate members of Social Media Club and very proud to know some great people from those companies I am able to call my friend.
While I am in the thankful mood, I simply must recognize the stellar contributions of Brian Sollis of Future Works PR. When we first met, I gave him shit for calling his Blog PR 2.0 – but
he took it in stride and apparently forgave me, because he puts forth a huge amount of effort towards helping us be successful. He truly has earned the title of co-founder of Social Media Club and more importantly, friend.
The other Web 2.0 gathering (for $3,000 less)
October 17, 2006
I was speaking with Ben Wan last week at the Stirr mixer briefly when he asked if I was going to the Web Guild’s 2006 Conference, focused on the ‘New Web’ aka Web 2.0. Given that we have eight events in the next couple of weeks, I really did not think I could get away for another conference despite the fact that I watched the Web Guild grow with much interest from Miami back in the early days. That was before I read the bio of Ram Shriram and realized that Marissa Mayer of Google was the other keynote. And that is just the morning lineup. After that Om Malik, Jared Spool, Kelly Goto and a few of the smartest folks in the business were also speaking. So despite my dislike of panels (or pain’ls as I occasionally reference them), I am heading down the Peninsula to get my fill of some gooey-good Web 2.0 Insights.
Brian Sollis sent me info on a discount code (every bit helps) that will give you admittance for the member price of $198 instead of $239 – use the code WGDY6. According to the organizers, “The conference is identical to O’Reilly Web 2.0 with most of the same speakers except the price is $239 instead of $3200.”
Its not as inexpensive as Web 2point2 at $32.95, but pretty darn good considering the prices some conferences are demanding these days. Maybe we can coax a few of the traditional conference goers to come along and experience an unconference for themselves…
Building Social Media Club with a Healthy Dose of Adhocnium
October 16, 2006
Things are busier than ever – just since September 2006 my real email volume has more than doubled and my work load has almost trippled. I just saw my first ball drop in trying to help out a worthy organization called Well Good with an introduction to my friends at Joyent. I would like to think it is the first and the last ball to drop, but experience shows me that there will be a few more – at least until we get to the point that the BrainJams and Social Media Club organizations have a full time team keeping the balls in the air instead of myself and Kristie with the support and love of several great people.
So part of the problem is that we are in the midst of building a community without the financial resources to really support it and without the pure grass roots DNA (aka Adhocnium) that would push it forward to get all the work done. Ultimately, I know we will figure out the right balance between the light structure/minimum order required for ensuring quality and the ad-hoc DIY energy that lifts up the most powerful communities. I may be completely wrong on this point, but time will tell for sure as this model train has left the station – we can only hope there is enough track out there for us to reach our destination. We will of course adjust (indeed we already have done so) but from where I am sitting now, it is just all very overwhelming. My worry gland has been kicking into over drive this past week, but I have faith and know that everything will work out the way it should – it always has in my life and I am truly thankful for having others around me, and around the world who really believe in this vision too.
I think one of the biggest issues we face with our ‘hybrid’ model is that the people who are used to structure and order (and to a lesser degree control) look for more leadership from the top (ie, they expect us to do it all) and the people who are in the trenches with Adhocnium in their veins simply abhor any centralized leadership. I think this is because they have been soloists for so long and/or had bad experience working in big corporate structures. Well, I have been a soloist for about 10 years now (excluding the brief stint with the Treasury Department), so I understand that perspective, but see a brighter future that can come by embracing a chaordic model instead of a completely chaotic one. You must remember, it is referenced as “small pieces loosely JOINED“, not “small pieces floating in the cosmic soup”.
The real key is finding the sweet spot where chaos and order (not control) overlap – that intersection is what I have been seeking, but it does not seem that I have done that great of a job in explaining it yet. In looking at the current Web site/Blog, it is readily apparent that the “cobblers son needs a new pair of shoes” – we need to tell our story better and I will be working on that with a Blog redesign. Still, I am hoping that people like you can help to tell our story, and indeed contribute to writing it in the process. The vision of Social Media Club is not yet fully defined – it is merely a framework with a lot of ideas and the passion of a few key individuals supporting it. Ultimately, as Howard Rheingold says and I often quote, “What it is –> is up to you”. You are reading this and at this very moment you are one of the co-creators of Social Media Club – just by reading this post. Hopefully you will find a way to step up and take some actions that will move you from being a co-creator to being a co-founder. We need your help to make it real – so “help me, help you”.
Social Media Club is not supposed to be about me or any of the other people driving it forward, though we will of course leave our imprint on it – I truly want it to be about US, about those of us who really ‘get it’ – about a shared vision for making a better tomorrow through conversations and social media. Whether you are a technologist, an artist, a professional, a non profit or an employee of the largest of corporations, this is our chance to make it right.
As I have said since the beginning, Social Media Club will be the antithesis of most clubs, it will be inclusive instead of exclusive, ultimately deriving revenue from memberships, partner programs, events like our Social Media Workshop and other services still to be imagined. All the while giving back to the community by being a voice for reason, by hosting non-partisan discussions and by organizing community programs that benefit everyone – like the Web 2point2 Unconference.
Over the next month we have around 8 events we are hosting (including one I will announce tonight here in San Francisco for next Wednesday October 25 from 6-8pm) and I am speaking at 2 others. We sure could use some help picking up the slack – particularly with Web 2point2 which is what is worrying me most at the moment. It looks like a lot of people will be there and the buzz is picking up (over 80 people via Upcoming and about 20 paid registrations), but we really need more sponsors to cover the costs and really need Blog post submissions for main talk topics (tag it web22talk) and of course many volunteers to help coordinate before, during and after the event. If you have any time you might be able to contribute, please let myself or Kristie Wells know by commenting below or filling out the contact form.
So this was a little personal rant, with some insights and a request for help. What do you think? Are you ready to be a co-founder of Social Media Club?
The Importance of Social Media
September 19, 2006
Our friend Josh Hallet (Hyku) has given me an “interesting” task in helping him lead the last discussion of the day at BlogOrlando. I say “interesting” as it tough to take on the last spot when everyone is thinking about happy hour and experiencing the “magic of the kingdom”, but the focus for this discussion is something I hold near and dear to my heart so despite the challenge, it is the perfect opportunity for me to share my thoughts around this.
According to Josh’s email:
“our session is going to be dealing with the future of social media, what are the next steps and how can we change the world type stuff…”
Hmmm…the future of Social Media, next steps [for getting there] and changing the world. Sure enough, let me just get out the crystal ball and Merlin’s favorite dish rag to polish it so I can answer that question right away. While I am at it, I will predict the next big stock market winner and President (hint, it won’t be Bush who is in New York today clogging up traffic for the UN’s general session). In all honesty, one of the great things about Social Media is that no one really knows what the next big thing is. It truly is like trying to capture lightning in a bottle. Still, since this is the sort of thing some folks pay me to do, I will let you in on a few of the trends that are worthy of the question.
There are four major trends I see from where I sit today:
- Social Media will become more of a business, but will retain the power from its personal passion, unlike new media in the big dotcom boom
- More individuals will band together in networks small and large, changing the very notion of freelancing and employment
- The corporation will be forever changed, traditional media will adapt before dying completely and all companies will become media companies thereby shrinking the advertising pie
- Ultimately, Social Media will be a primary catalyst in saving the world…or bringing about our demise
1 – The Business of Social Media
If you think that Social Media, as represented by blogging, podcasting and vlogging, is only a personal or social pursuit with no room for making money or corporate involvement, you are clearly still living in 2002.
I was talking with Jason Hoffman of Joyent over a few pints in London about the early days of Text Pattern and how Dean Allen originally turned his personal passion into a real business. It is a perfect example of why things are different today than before, but it is also clearly about business in the age of personal power and open, participatory networks. Dean could not have found a better partner than Jason. He is clearly one of the smartest people I have ever met in the Valley, and I have met quite a few people in my 5 years living there. I can’t do the entire story justice here (Chris Lott did), but the interesting part I want to share is the story of the VC200 – which was the 200 people who answered Dean’s call for pre-paying for a year’s worth of hosting at $199 each, giving the company enough money to get up and running without having to sell their soul to the venture capitalists.
Of course, Dean did what any smart, value minded business person would do – he took care of his customer/investors and promised them all free hosting for life if the business was successful (and a free t-shirt). That $40,000 was the beginning of a company that I personally think will be worth hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars. This is a story about the power of an individual who gets it, and the power of many individual’s who join together in trusted networks for their collective benefit. This is the power of Social Media, and it is the power of business done right.
The problem generally is that business is often thought of as a four-letter word for many people, because so many assholes have done it wrong, for their own personal, selfish, greedy, and power hungry reasons that are not in harmony with the world around us. When the people who run a business are able to act like human beings, using the good values they hold in their hearts and minds rather than the socialization of greed we have inherited from prior generations, great things can be accomplished and everyone can be the better for it.
Even if you don’t agree with my perspective on the business of Social Media, I am sure you will agree that it puts the power of the press/satellite/antenna in the hands of everyone with access to the Internet. The democratization of media and the means of production (represented by increasing access and decreasing costs) also removes the barriers to entry into the media business. In 1999 I invested all of my life savings, and some of my grandfather’s to launch InfoApps.com, which was primarily an Internet media property akin to Engadget or Gizmodo. It was just a bit before its time and cost tens of thousands of dollars in development expenses. Today I could launch that same site on WordPress for $20 per month with half the effort and 1/100th of the initial setup time.
Today anyone with talent and creativity can build a media property out of sheer personal interest or for personal profit. Per Joe Krause’s statement in Business 2.0 last November, it is surely easier in many regards to launch, but no easier to develop it into a business. For every Chris Pirillo, Jake Luddington, Dooce, or Daily Koz, there are tens of thousands of others who toil away in relative obscurity away from the glaring spotlight of cultural popularity. If they are doing it only for the limelight, then surely these ”unpopular failures” would quit – but they aren’t doing it for that reason alone, they are doing it because they enjoy it, because it builds their reputation, because they have an opinion, an idea or a cause that is worth doing for their own personal satisfaction or for any one of another personal million or more reasons.
Over the last year, I made about $11.46 on AdSense via my blog, but some of the folks I know make in excess of $250,000 per year working less than 30 hours per week. This is not some get rich scheme, it is the power of networked media when combined with free thinking, some business sense, a great work ethic and a passion for something that is shared by others. Sure I would like to make more money doing what I love, but I am doing what I love and doing what I need to do in order to spend more time working on my passions. I am also studying, gaining insights and seeking collaborators. As you might tell from the length of this article/post, I am also seeking an editor…
Further to my point, Social Media is a playground for emerging talent and we will certainly see more and more ”stars” coming from amongst our Social Media peers in the years to come. AdSense and text ads are not enough to make most people wealthy, though some are making a living from it while others are creating mini-media-empires. As with professional sports though, there will only be so many ”one-percenters” at the top of their game. Many excel at creatively but lack the business sense required to build an audience. Those who are smart enough to realize this will either join networks like Federated Media, find the right business partners like Chris/Ponzi/Jake, join a company like Robert Scoble did with Podtech or sell their content in Social Media marketplaces such as Social Roots. [disclosure: I am an advisor to Social Roots]
If nothing else I say is true Social Media represents a training and experimentation opportunity from which amateurs, hobbyists, creative doodlers and diary keepers will emerge as professional producers of professional media. Or they will simply tuck that skill set in their virtual hats and use it within their selected careers as needed from time to time. Predicting what actually happens is impossible. As Neo says in the Matrix, “the problem is choice.” Or more accurately, the brilliant part is free will, and that is what makes it so exciting and impossible to control.
I do fervently believe that this is the era of the producer. Talent that joins together with the right producers will excel, while those who stubbornly think that they can be the proverbial ”one man band” and do it all may have some short term success but will not reach the heights of those who collaborate effectively with the right partners. This is why I propose to you that…
Freelancers Will Form Networks and Build “Fast” Companies
This is somewhat obvious with things like the original thought behind Citizen Agency (before it became the Chris and Tara consulting shop), Co-Working and the renewed enthusiasm for small startup teams, but there is something more subtle and deeper at the heart of this. Simply put, teams of people can do more together, better, than any individual can do alone. As I have banged on my drum for the last two years – in a knowledge economy, the number one driver of value is the ability of smart people from diverse backgrounds to work together.
Some of the lessons of old media will hold true for Social Media. This is most notably the content networks (ala PodShow, Gawker, Weblogsinc), the power of talent (ala Amanda Congdon and RocketBoom), the need to build an audience and the ability to produce in a really slick way. As we have seen with reality television, the hybrid of overly produced “barely based on reality” does not hold sway with people for long. The deep human desire for genuine connections with the heroes journey via Joseph Campbell will not tolerate gimmicks or fools for long. Genuine human drama, ’How To’ content, insightful commentary, truly funny comedy, emotionally charged entertainment, engaging conversations, factual news of the world and stories well told will rule the day.
While an individual alone may be able to make a few extra bucks via advertising and affiliate product sales, or by syndicating their content – they will get the most impact in terms of influence and dollars by joining networks. These can be small networks of a few friends working together, or can be the basis for new startups. Some may have the right formula and grow big organically, but most will not truly obtain their full value unless they are able to benefit from the scale of an even larger network.
This is similar to the difference between living in a rural countryside versus living in the city. Neither is necessarily good or bad on its own merits and- you can choose whichever one you like, but both are generally better if you belong to a network for support. Working freelance is somewhat like tilling the land on your own farm. You can make a living if you put your shoulder into it and can find a market for what you have to offer, but there are a lot more things required of you to be successful. In this analogy, working on a team is like living in a city where you have more of the basic resources required for success provided for you. This is one of the reasons I have come to believe that co-working is quite possibly a transition for many people back into companies.
The key difference being that the companies created out of it will not be companies based on command and control hierarchies, but instead will be chaordic in nature. The purpose of the organization will be clear to those within it and everyone will be a leader from time to time. However, it will still require a visionary thinker, a finance wiz and an operational expert at the helm for maximum success as Tom Peters proposes in his concept of the “Golden Leadership Triangle”. It will also be a values driven organization that may make a reasonable profit or a huge one (in line with the value created) but will most assuredly be socially responsible and focused on people.
This is exactly the sort of world envisioned by Alan Webber and Bill Taylor when they formed Fast Company. Only now, we have all the lessons of irrational exuberance, the further democratization of the means of production, the knowledge economy rather than the information economy and a more wide spread desire for change in the face of looming world wide conflict.
An Interlude – a Point Skipped (for now)
At this point in the story, I should be talking about point three, how the corporation will be forever changed by Social Media, but at word 2004 of this post, let’s leave that for another post and talk about the important societal concern we are facing. You should know I am generally not an alarmist by nature. In fact, I generally forgo confrontation in favor of conversation, but if I don’t stand for this, I stand for nothing.
For the last year I have been pursuing BrainJams, Social Media Club and supporting other similarly inspired ideas from others (like NetSquared and BarCamp) because I am an optimist who believes we can change. That was the reason I wrote The Noble Pursuit. That is the reason I was trying to get funding for Insytes. Yes, I hope to achieve a certain bit of fame and fortune too, but this is all really about me finding my purpose for living and it has little to do with either, though it may be a byproduct of the activities. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your view, none of it was completely clear to me until this past weekend in London. I suppose it only makes sense since this is where the original idea for Insytes and the situational knowledgebase from The Noble Pursuit became clear in 2002.
On Saturday I was leaving the British Museum with Jason Hoffman and I happened to mention that both my mother and father had Cerebral Palsy and I felt like kind of a blessed miracle child. To this, he replied something along the lines of ”well you better do something big with your life then”. Of course, I have always felt this since I was small, but I have not been connected with that reality fully, particularly in the way I have chosen to live my life on occasion by avoiding certain confrontations. Then on Sunday, when I was visiting Mark Adams at his country home, he asked me ”Why are you really doing this? What do you hope to see happen as a result of your work today?”
Wow. A powerful question right up there with a Tim Taylor sort of reflection, which is not surprising given how sharp Mark is. What was surprising was how clear the answer was. After pausing for a few seconds, I said ”well, the world is kind of at a point in time where we get to choose whether we are all in this together or we are in it alone. I hope to be a catalyst to ensure we survive as a human race instead of destroying ourselves through intolerance, greed and closed mindedness.”
Social Media Can Save the World
Social Media is the way forward and if it is spread around the world imbued with the right values, it can be the means for fixing what’s broken in the world and bringing us together instead of continuing to keeping us apart. Tom Munnecke promotes this concept through the Uplift Academy, it is a way to identify what is working in the world and ensure we do more of it by amplifying that understanding across our social networks around the world.
Unfortunately, as we know all too well, the same tools we choose to use for bringing us together as the human race are also used to keep us apart. Al Qaeda not only uses the Internet to secretly coordinate their activities using encryption technology, but also to spread their message of hate. As we use the tools to spread the message of hope, they use it to spread fear and hate of everyone who is not like them – the supposed non-believers. Of course, the conservatives in the United States are also using these and other media tools to win the battle for the hearts and minds of Americans in the ideological war.
Unfortunately, for most of society fear is still a bigger motivation than pleasure and there are many who are more easily swayed by the politics of fear. This is not to say that there is not a real threat and something to be afraid of, as there clearly is something to be aware of, and the enemies to our way of life are many which may indeed require us to take up arms in order to make the world a better place. It is simply my hope that we can all get smarter about using Social Media and work hard at organizing ourselves as Paramedia rather than paramilitaries.
Of course the most important thing to remember is that we must start with small actions and small victories. We need not inspire 100,000 people to see things this way with one blog post, we just need to reach one person to begin to make the world a better place. We need to realize that we will not affect any change unless we release our fears of failure and our dreams of grandeur and seize upon the present moment with its unique opportunity to perhaps reach just one other person with our words, our voice, our song, our art or our story.
To quote an old saying, ”If not me, then who? If not now, then when?”
Clearly the time is now, we need not rely on our current systems to show us how, we need only to look within ourselves and find our personal power and apply it to our personal passions, to stand up for what we believe is right, to say it out loud through our blogs, our podcasts, our vlogs or our conversations with others. But like the powerful force of the river, we must be yielding when we see that it will not move and go around it, wearing it down with persistence over time.
The future of Social Media is the future of the world . The final chapter is not yet written, but this chapter in our history is nearing its end. Thankfully, it is more like a Wiki document than a dictated memo.
So what is your contribution?
