It's uncommon to go more than a few days without seeing new statistics released detailing corporate adoption of Web 2.0 technologies. Usually the numbers demonstrate that rates of adoption are overwhelmingly underwhelming. Articles generally discuss how most executives don't even consume social media, let alone participate.
Headlines are rife with decision makers - ranging from managers to CIOs to CEOs - banning their employees from using networking sites such as Facebook and Digg, and even those executives' own LinkedIn profiles - more often than not created by tech-savvy assistants and to the ambivalence or outright duress of the executive himself - languish in an unupdated, unleveraged state of being for months at a time - assuming they're not forgotten outright. If you don't read blogs, it stands to reason that you'd probably have a harder time appreciating the value of writing a blog. If you've never been notified of an important event or met someone great through Facebook, you're unlikely to understand its value.
Most recently I read this article which offers more of the same: CIOs are afraid of social media and they shouldn't prohibit employees from utilizing Web 2.0 technologies. I absolutely agree with this. Unfortunately, the vast majority of this vein of literature - this post included - fails to pull the trigger on how that is to happen. The important thing to note from these unimpressive trends of (non)adoption of social media is not the numbers themselves, but on what causes those numbers to be so lackluster. Not the fear itself but the causes of those fears.
People are afraid of things because they don't understand them. Executives don't know what they should be doing with or about Web 2.0 technologies so they do what comes naturally; ignore them and focus on the more traditional tools that they know. While this may be a soothing short-term approach, it will scarcely suffice in today's rapidly evolving marketplace that rewards openness, collaboration and innovation - the very pillars of Web 2.0.
It is far too easy to dismiss these fears as the irrational and unwarranted paranoia of a bygone generation of fuddy-duddies. Rational or not, it is a key barrier to Web 2.0 adoption. The tools are usually simple and intuitive to use, many of them are free but for the temporal opportunity cost and they are proliferating at a more rapid rate than ever before.
That having been said, it is not a difficult barrier to overcome. As social media practitioners and even some savvy vendors have long purported, the solution is education. The more that these decision makers know about Web 2.0 technologies with regards to how they're being used, what they are being used for, who is using them and how the company can employ them to achieve real business goals, the more open to the use of these technologies within their organization they will be. True, it would be ideal for them to drink the cool-aid themselves, but until then it would be an enormous leap forward merely to quell their fear-mongered opposition to social media.
Knowledge is power.
Showing posts with label Social Media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Social Media. Show all posts
Friday, April 4, 2008
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Sin 2.0
From the Vatican.
In a yearly proclamation, the Catholic Church announced updates to its list of what constitutes sin and should thus be avoided. Failure to comply will result in damnation - or at least further punishment in purgatory.
Pollution, mind-damaging drugs and genetic experimentation were added to the list, as was social injustice such as the exacerbation of the gap between the rich and poor.
There was a particularly interesting quote from Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti - the head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, the pontifical office that deals with matters of conscience and grants absolution:
"If yesterday sin had a rather individualistic dimension, today it has a weight, a resonance, that's especially social, rather than individual.
Essentially, the Pope is embracing the underlying tenets of Web 2.0. The connections between people are gaining importance in the Church's eyes because they are beginning to catch on to what marketers and social media practitioners have espousing for years: even individuals do not exist in a vacuum.
Will we begin to see Hail Marys on Twitter? Probably not. But this is still an interesting development whose progress will be interesting to follow.
Further coverage of the story here.
In a yearly proclamation, the Catholic Church announced updates to its list of what constitutes sin and should thus be avoided. Failure to comply will result in damnation - or at least further punishment in purgatory.
Pollution, mind-damaging drugs and genetic experimentation were added to the list, as was social injustice such as the exacerbation of the gap between the rich and poor.
There was a particularly interesting quote from Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti - the head of the Apostolic Penitentiary, the pontifical office that deals with matters of conscience and grants absolution:
"If yesterday sin had a rather individualistic dimension, today it has a weight, a resonance, that's especially social, rather than individual.
Essentially, the Pope is embracing the underlying tenets of Web 2.0. The connections between people are gaining importance in the Church's eyes because they are beginning to catch on to what marketers and social media practitioners have espousing for years: even individuals do not exist in a vacuum.
Will we begin to see Hail Marys on Twitter? Probably not. But this is still an interesting development whose progress will be interesting to follow.
Further coverage of the story here.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Blogging and the Fourth Dimension
The fourth dimension being time, of course. The most important thing about comedy.
In this case, it is certainly an important element of blogging - but certainly not the most important. Far and away the most important element of blogging is the quality of published material. Whether it's a recipe, a personal experience, or commentary; engagingly and well-written content will help your blog to be successful.
Obviously timing plays a role in that.
A recipe for Christmas cookies in April, or for a Thanksgiving Turkey in February will not be viewed as particularly salient or timely and thus as unimportant.
A personal experience will probably be conveyed with more clarity and emotion if it happened this morning than if it happened 20 years ago - however much you were able to ruminate upon it in the interim.
Commentary - unless a novel take on a historic event - is also unlikely to turn heads if the event is no longer interesting.
I think that there is an important caveat to that third point. There are some blogs, by virtue of persistence, luck, or what have you, are newsbreakers. They get their hands on a story immediately and share it with the world. The other newsbreaking sites - if they haven't already received the information from the source, will quickly take your hint and repurpose it for themselves. There aren't a whole lot of sites that can do this.
For example, if five minutes from now, aliens landed in Detroit and started having conversations with people on the street (let's assume that they have vocal chords capable of producing a range of sounds audible to humans and that they have somehow learned English and that the atmospheric conditions of Earth are not fatal to their alien biologies, etc.).
People would go to CNN, MSNBC, Fox, etc. for their news. They would also go to the equivalently well-regarded online news sites. News-seekers would also likely pay attention to a blogger who credibly claims to have spoken to the aliens or was there when it happened. Perhaps he is even Twittering his encounters in real time from his cell phone.
The point is that you either have to have pre-existing credibility, the product of consistently breaking meaningful news in a timely manner, or you have to have an amazing angle.
That was an extreme example.
Let's say that there is an acquisition that has been in the works for nearly a week. It is no longer extremely new when it finally occurs, but it is still being discussed because it real. It has manifested. This is like being inundated for weeks by the scientific and trivial explanations of an upcoming lunar eclipse. It's not particularly novel but people write about it the next day anyways.
As I said before, it takes a certain degree of credibility to break these stories, both new and "old" news. Credibility that many of us - myself included - lack.
The best thing that we can do is to comment on the commentators. React to the reactors. In short: blog the bloggers.
By commenting on the blogs and articles of credible sources, you add to your own credibility - assuming, of course, that your comments are meaningful.
Doing this puts yourself and - more importantly - your ideas in front of the influencers and the people being influenced. If your ideas are valid, that audience might be convinced to go to you first. Gradually your role will change from a commentator to more of a reactionary.
In a sense, this evolution is a testament to the conversational - that is to say - reciprocal nature of new media. The readers not only determine what is written, but who writes it and from what perspective.
Power to the people.
In this case, it is certainly an important element of blogging - but certainly not the most important. Far and away the most important element of blogging is the quality of published material. Whether it's a recipe, a personal experience, or commentary; engagingly and well-written content will help your blog to be successful.
Obviously timing plays a role in that.
A recipe for Christmas cookies in April, or for a Thanksgiving Turkey in February will not be viewed as particularly salient or timely and thus as unimportant.
A personal experience will probably be conveyed with more clarity and emotion if it happened this morning than if it happened 20 years ago - however much you were able to ruminate upon it in the interim.
Commentary - unless a novel take on a historic event - is also unlikely to turn heads if the event is no longer interesting.
I think that there is an important caveat to that third point. There are some blogs, by virtue of persistence, luck, or what have you, are newsbreakers. They get their hands on a story immediately and share it with the world. The other newsbreaking sites - if they haven't already received the information from the source, will quickly take your hint and repurpose it for themselves. There aren't a whole lot of sites that can do this.
For example, if five minutes from now, aliens landed in Detroit and started having conversations with people on the street (let's assume that they have vocal chords capable of producing a range of sounds audible to humans and that they have somehow learned English and that the atmospheric conditions of Earth are not fatal to their alien biologies, etc.).
People would go to CNN, MSNBC, Fox, etc. for their news. They would also go to the equivalently well-regarded online news sites. News-seekers would also likely pay attention to a blogger who credibly claims to have spoken to the aliens or was there when it happened. Perhaps he is even Twittering his encounters in real time from his cell phone.
The point is that you either have to have pre-existing credibility, the product of consistently breaking meaningful news in a timely manner, or you have to have an amazing angle.
That was an extreme example.
Let's say that there is an acquisition that has been in the works for nearly a week. It is no longer extremely new when it finally occurs, but it is still being discussed because it real. It has manifested. This is like being inundated for weeks by the scientific and trivial explanations of an upcoming lunar eclipse. It's not particularly novel but people write about it the next day anyways.
As I said before, it takes a certain degree of credibility to break these stories, both new and "old" news. Credibility that many of us - myself included - lack.
The best thing that we can do is to comment on the commentators. React to the reactors. In short: blog the bloggers.
By commenting on the blogs and articles of credible sources, you add to your own credibility - assuming, of course, that your comments are meaningful.
Doing this puts yourself and - more importantly - your ideas in front of the influencers and the people being influenced. If your ideas are valid, that audience might be convinced to go to you first. Gradually your role will change from a commentator to more of a reactionary.
In a sense, this evolution is a testament to the conversational - that is to say - reciprocal nature of new media. The readers not only determine what is written, but who writes it and from what perspective.
Power to the people.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
The Internet is a Series of Tubes
Truly.
While most people are quick to write off Senator Ted Stevens' comment as testament to the inability of doddering old fuddy-duddies to understand the technological advances we see as commonplace, Senator Stevens' metaphor is far more apt than people give him credit.
The internet is a series of tubes. Great metaphor. Not just in an infrastructural sense but also in a deeper, metaphorical sense of which I only became aware recently while reading "Mousepads, Shoe Leather, and Hope," a wonderful book written/compiled/fostered/nurtured by Zephyr Teachout that examines the role of the internet - and effectively social media - on the Howard Dean for president campaign of 2002 and 2004.
The internet is a series of tubes for the very simple reason that it moves something from one place to another. In the case of the internet, what is being moved happens to be data and the carrier is distributing electric pulses. In this very primitive sense, the Senator was right on.
In a deeper sense, he is even more correct and his metaphor holds even more water (pun intended).
The internet is a series of tubes because it provides the infrastructure to connect two complementary but disparate things: haves and have-nots.
The example about which Teachout's revelation came was in the case of a website being used to connect people in dire need of legal counsel with lawyers who wished to help needy members of the community.
Crowdsourcing is another great example of this. Many children dream of becoming astronauts. Unfortunately, most of these children become astro-nots and grow up to have everyday jobs like you and me (unless there are astronauts that read my blog about whom I am unaware). A crowdsourcing program at the UC Berkeley Space Sciences Center provides a venue for us wannabe astronaut types to contribute to man's understanding of the cosmos.
The enthusiastic people eager to contribute their time and energy to science was there. As was the need of scientists for enthusiastic, eager, and not necessarily PhD-posessing assistance. The internet provided the tubes or pipes to transmit the resources of an enthusiastic work force to the exact place those resources would be best taken advantage of.
This is why social media is such an amazing medium. Instead of being reliant on our geographic surroundings, the mass media, and those people with whom we come into direct contact for the appropriate tubes into which to channel our passions, we can go out and find them online - or create them ourselves.
Ning is a great example of this, as are Facebook groups and I'm sure many other outlets.
Tubular.
While most people are quick to write off Senator Ted Stevens' comment as testament to the inability of doddering old fuddy-duddies to understand the technological advances we see as commonplace, Senator Stevens' metaphor is far more apt than people give him credit.
The internet is a series of tubes. Great metaphor. Not just in an infrastructural sense but also in a deeper, metaphorical sense of which I only became aware recently while reading "Mousepads, Shoe Leather, and Hope," a wonderful book written/compiled/fostered/nurtured by Zephyr Teachout that examines the role of the internet - and effectively social media - on the Howard Dean for president campaign of 2002 and 2004.
The internet is a series of tubes for the very simple reason that it moves something from one place to another. In the case of the internet, what is being moved happens to be data and the carrier is distributing electric pulses. In this very primitive sense, the Senator was right on.
In a deeper sense, he is even more correct and his metaphor holds even more water (pun intended).
The internet is a series of tubes because it provides the infrastructure to connect two complementary but disparate things: haves and have-nots.
The example about which Teachout's revelation came was in the case of a website being used to connect people in dire need of legal counsel with lawyers who wished to help needy members of the community.
Crowdsourcing is another great example of this. Many children dream of becoming astronauts. Unfortunately, most of these children become astro-nots and grow up to have everyday jobs like you and me (unless there are astronauts that read my blog about whom I am unaware). A crowdsourcing program at the UC Berkeley Space Sciences Center provides a venue for us wannabe astronaut types to contribute to man's understanding of the cosmos.
The enthusiastic people eager to contribute their time and energy to science was there. As was the need of scientists for enthusiastic, eager, and not necessarily PhD-posessing assistance. The internet provided the tubes or pipes to transmit the resources of an enthusiastic work force to the exact place those resources would be best taken advantage of.
This is why social media is such an amazing medium. Instead of being reliant on our geographic surroundings, the mass media, and those people with whom we come into direct contact for the appropriate tubes into which to channel our passions, we can go out and find them online - or create them ourselves.
Ning is a great example of this, as are Facebook groups and I'm sure many other outlets.
Tubular.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Here's a little trick I learned in the CIA...
On YouTube.
Get the full article here.
It's not surprising that the intelligence community is monitoring user-generated content for important intelligence. While some people might think that monitoring such seemingly innocuous lines of communication is a waste of intelligence dollars, I would simply point out that gambling on the average human's stupidity is usually a good bet and that there is probably some extremely sophisticated screening and searching technologies and techniques available to these analysts to separate the wheat from the chaff in regards to credible intelligence.
I wish there was more information on how exactly the CIA is leveraging social media in the intelligence war on terror.
Get the full article here.
It's not surprising that the intelligence community is monitoring user-generated content for important intelligence. While some people might think that monitoring such seemingly innocuous lines of communication is a waste of intelligence dollars, I would simply point out that gambling on the average human's stupidity is usually a good bet and that there is probably some extremely sophisticated screening and searching technologies and techniques available to these analysts to separate the wheat from the chaff in regards to credible intelligence.
I wish there was more information on how exactly the CIA is leveraging social media in the intelligence war on terror.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
God Save the Queen!
The English Monarch's annual Christmas Day message was broadcast live this year - as usual - but was also subsequently posted to YouTube by the royal administration a short time later.
At the time of this posting, the number of people who viewed the speech on YouTube (900,000) was almost thrice that of the number of people who tuned in to watch it live.
Other governments should embrace the use of YouTube for disseminating their messages in an easily accessible, reviewable medium.
For more information, click here and/or here.
At the time of this posting, the number of people who viewed the speech on YouTube (900,000) was almost thrice that of the number of people who tuned in to watch it live.
Other governments should embrace the use of YouTube for disseminating their messages in an easily accessible, reviewable medium.
For more information, click here and/or here.
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