The Social Media Initiative Bandwagon: How Enthralling, or New Digital Snake Oil?

These days, it seems that the new bandwagon to drive through the digital dust is the one about creating a buzz and attractive public relations glitter with a Social Media Initiative of whatever sort, the more social the better. There is one going on, just as an example, about visiting various countries as ambassadors of happiness and good will (never mind that developing countries need real nutrition, not just a soft sugary drink in their diets).

But my main concern is that just jumping into a trend and calling yourself or your company social media initiative does not make it so. Social media and social marketing are there, new powerful marketing and communication tools for the user. But just adopting that label and terminology does not change or make anything. What is the difference between social media and the interactive Internet web pages of Web 2.0?

So, in the various initiatives being created as social media, one has to question the specific and particular use of these social media tools. What is actually being proposed and what will the initiative accomplish. Will it accomplish something useful to facilitate, usability, findability, interactivity, communication to the customers? Or is the approach a marketing ploy to create PR by association and make the public think that something definitely is going on but instead it turns out to be just activity that promotes the company's products/services. Eventually, the customer will figure it out and then there is desillusionment, to say the least, consequently.

I would suggest, that before these Social Media Initiatives are deployed/launched, that there is a need to examine the whole thing/plan as to how it fits in the overall scheme of things, and what it is designed to do (not just to incite and psychologically promote products/services--find the real social in it) and do the soul searching for the realistic and genuine value being presented and communicated and find the real social that it is attempting to mediate. Specifically, there must be a to management level examination and its program, and a genuine reviewing of strategies, policies, procedures, budget levels/resources, and qualifications of human resources being used to produce the social media initiative.

Posted via web from norwind's (beyond) posterous

How I learned to stop depending on the traditional media and loved Twitter instead

Recently, the owner of the traditional media (Rupert Murdoch, the media tycoon--lord and master of all the media that we can think of--newspapers, radio, TV) has threatened Google (and by default, the users of Google, people like myself) with the disappearance of his owned news information from the search engine's results. The media mogul demands payment for his media "service."

No small threat indeed, the Internet users of Google would not find news information as readily as it can be searched and found today. However, I don't think that it will be such a devastating event if it were to really happen. If news media information, as it is known today, were to disappear we would have to turn to the web and to Twitter to find out about the news and events of the day. We would have to ask each other on Twitter to figure out what's going on in the world and locally. It would take a few minutes to figure out and find out about any significant event in the world or nearby. So, I do not think the non-availability of the traditional news media wil produce an significant impact for the average user of the web. It would represent and inconvenient truth, but the inhabitants of Twitterland would creatively and definitively find the solution.

The traditional news media is not required for events and activities to happen, and it is not indispensable for the Internet/web user to keep informed, mainly because:

- In the past, the news media machinery has in most part reflected the views and information that broadcasts the views of the status quo

- In the past, also, the media has reflected the point of view and the perspective of the people in power

- Nor has the media excercised independent thinking and critical questioning of events, or people

- If there is anything of significance that will help the average web user, it is not usually reported by the traditional media

- The information that people (the middle and lower class) need to know is hidden and needs translation: the stock market, medicine/health/pharmaceutical, legal, political, and even when reported by the traditional media, it remains an enigma and meaninless

The main difference is that now, if we were to be left without the traditional media, Twitter is available and it can (on its own power--it will save us because it has its foundation rooted in the power of the user) match any media tycoon word for dollar.

 

Posted via web from norwind's (beyond) posterous

The Unemployement problem, 10.2, October 2009: how high is enough ?

The Unemployment rate (October 2009) is 10.2%. This number does not include the people not in the labor market and does not represent what is going on in some segments of the unemployed for example, among teens, or when broken down by ethnicity or sex of the populations. How high is bad enough? How high will it be before a critical and irreversible point is reached? The term "recession" does not mean that the problem is not bad enough as in depression, the term was used because it was felt that the term depression would be too harsh and negative and that a softer adjective should be used.

Why is this problem inserted and being treated here in this blogsphere point? Mainly because it is a social problem, and in this era of the social web it cannot be ingnored. The relation is that people have to have to income, revenue derived maily from employment in order to be able to have discretionary income to be able to purchase goods and services beyond their basic needs and in their pursuit of better happiness.

So, a real aggresive and earnestly determined effort, must be put in operation, the sooner the better, to deal with this particular problem. Today, there was a report of an employement program designed to assist the Veterans. A similar or comparable programs must be put in practice to assist all Americans who have been laid off due to the economic crisis.

Who is the person or people that must deliver the solution? Basically, the people/individuals/organizations that have the power to produce the required effect. The companies and employers with the most money must provide leadership in this. There are several companies/industries that are thriving despite the so called "recession." In addition, the government can/must form specific and special partnerships with private enterprise, just as it does to provide for other government services and programs (and the world, since this is a globally interconnected situation/crisis) to combat this problem. These are unprecedented and unusually irregular circumstances that may require extraordinary provision/programs. Banks, specially, must do their jobs and provide the loans and financial incentives/programs/conditions/infrastructures necessary for small businesses to develop and expand.

One last observation: on the Web and the blogsphere, on Twitter, this is barely touched upon. It makes it appear that it is business as usual, and that all what people have to do is to join one of the MLM/Marketing and AdSense or similar programs and everything will be fine. Well, it sound very easy, but who is going to have purchasing power without a job? The social web is about the technical process and procedures put in place to operate online and with the networked market place, but it hardly reaches into the social problems as experienced by the unemployed in the real-time brick and mortar communities. [Perhaps, there may be a need to get into something that I will call the socioemotional-web (for lack of a better term, at this point, to include its intricate and unique human/sociological connection--this will be treated on a separate post)].

Posted via web from norwind's (beyond) posterous

Historic bill passes in the House: what have we learned about information?

Tonight, a history milestone in the continued politics of divisiveness has passed. In the House of Representatives, the Health Care Reform bill has passed. Next comes the Senate version.

The oponent sector wanted to preserve the status quo. We saw the various ploys used to discredit the proponents of change and reform. Misinformation and disinformation strategies were put in action. One of these ploys was the invocation (as in macabre--false rummor) of "death panels" that, according to the fiction of its proponents, would make decisions as to who would live or die as a result of the realocation of health care resources resulting from the passage of the bill. Another tactic used to discredit reform was the dissemination of propaganda that indicated that the passage of the reform bill would increase taxes and that its cost would be prohibitive as it would increase the national deficit astronomically and beyond recovery and belief.

The oponents of reform worked intensely and invested tons of money to defeat this bill. So, what can we learn from these various months of bitter debate and divisiveness?

I believe that we have learned that the forces with interest in maintaining the status quo are well funded and active, and will fight any attempt by anyone/anywhere to change it and make reforms.These forces will use marketing and propaganda, utilizing media to:

- disinform and misrepresent

- revise histoy

- discredit authority

- fabricate negative scenarios

In view of these circumstances, the public must remain well informed about the facts/issues. What are the facts? First, as part of the civic responsibility of a Democratic society, citizens and communities must remain well informed, or at least, maintain a basic interest and concern about the basic issues. We (in America) still have free access to public libraries where research can be conducted and where information professionals can be approached with questions whenever necessary. If the books or periodical/material is not immediately available there is interlibrary loan service to request these materials. We also have access (most libraries provide computer use free of charge, an free wireless access) to the Internet where we can conduct research and get properly informed about the facts. Information and analysis is our duty.

Posted via web from norwind's (beyond) posterous

A Government Twitter?: Perhaps there may be a need for an official one

The tragedy at Fort Hood has shown once again, clearly, that there is a need for Tweeter in real-time, mainly the availability of its instant and continuous communications channel where people from anywhere (in the world) can log in and connect with the latest event as it evolves and becomes history. Twitter not only provides news and information, but it becomes (online, electronically) a virtual community where various views, and ranges of opinion are given expression--in this tragic case expressing, in a very large scale (and among many sentiments/views expressed), much commiseration and condolence to those affected.

As Twitter grows up and becomes a marketing and communications platform, I believe, there is going to be a need for the public to communicate with its Government in a similar fashion, to connect to the official source of news and information about (for example in this case) a location and a situation where the news has to be provided from a valid source, and where the public may be able to communicate instantly with elected officials (or perhaps their designated spokespersons/PR officers) with the idea of engaging in a meaningful dialog/conversation and a customized/personalized conversation about the situation.

Perhaps this official government twitter can be loged in by the user with his/her existing twitter name to facilitate access, or it may need a new log in and password. These details may have to be defined and worked out, but I think that the Twitter micro-posting system is an example that may need to be replicated, or a similar secure version, as part of personalized access to govenment information, as Twitter grows into a full-fledged and robust marketing enterprise, where public service announcements/communications will require an officially and instantly (perhaps not so instant, but of fast deployment as it may be possible) dedicated and accessible channel free of commercial traffic.

Posted via web from norwind's (beyond) posterous

On the Social web and the brick and mortar "anti-social:" connecting the two

On what is so Social about the Social Web 2.0 and how it relates to the brick and mortar life

There is a new buzz (don't know the exact word/label to call it) craze: the Social Web, Social apps, social networking, social marketing, social marketing, social linking, and so on, seem like tons of social web tools, and strategies, at this point, mainly to capture the captive audience and sell them anything that can be sold to them. No problem with that.

However, it seems, to me at least, that the real life social is the social life that is derived and created as a result of a community that lives organically in unity and harmony, producing and creating in an ecosystem that is sustainable and socioeconomically interdependent and rewarding to all (win-win style).

We can see that the net/web will allow us to create communities, virtual and otherwise. Also, we can create social (in name and theory) websites where there is plenty of messages, communication, and networking. But the result is still a disfunctional society where (in the brick and mortar world) the social is only as social as it's going to get. All the established relations are still in place and nothing changes in real time.

The same people get elected to perpetuate themselves. The same school systems where our children do not learn (and tons of them end up in juvenile hall, and eventually in the incarceration system--one has to review the stats on this one demographic) and where one half (approximately) of the population advocates conservatism and believes in one thing, and the other half (approximately) believes in the liberal persuation and never the twine shall meet. This has been experienced lately in the stimulus package, and the Health Care Reform debates. So, the fact that we can produce social in virtual reality on the web and we can get social to the virtual-max still does not count in re brick and mortar world.

Some companies want to set up shop on Twitter, or Facebook, MySpace, etc... but just setting shop and camping on these social web locations is not social. At the end of last year (2008) there were massive people sent home with their pink slips (called unemployment) and there were reported about 500,000 people unemployed, every month, due to the various corporations (with their socioeconomic/financial experts and CEO's that could but would not produce a better program) conducting their lay off procedures due to the bad economy. This, in my book, is not and was not social -- in fact I would like to label it "anti-social".

So, how can the corporate world join the social web? Well, I believe that they will have to demonstrate in real time (and in the brick and mortar fashion) that they are going to fix the economy (with their billions of dollars stashed in the banks) with real jobs and make this life a better (sustainable) world for all its inhabitants.

Posted via web from norwind's (beyond) posterous

Steve Jobs' Presentation Secrets

In his new book, The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience, communications coach/BusinessWeek columnist Carmine Gallo reveals the techniques that have turned the Apple CEO into, perhaps, the world’s most extraordinary communicator.
For more than three decades, Jobs has reinvented the presentation for new product launches into an art form.

22 top iPhone tips--Better browsing, more efficient e-mail, and other tricks

The iPhone is not only a personal electronic communications tool. It also provides several other productivity and entertainment applications such as: calendar, email, camera, video, maps, iTunes, internet browser, games, and much more.

Google's 20 Hottest Tools

Researchers report prototype wireless neural interfaces

The Brain-Machine Interface, Unplugged

Researchers report prototype wireless neural interfaces

The advantages: no wires, increasing mobility, and less electrical power to operate. May facilitate remote operation and movement of physical objects by thought process.

Augmented Reality in a Contact Lens

A new generation of contact lenses built with very small circuits and LEDs promises bionic eyesight. Using custom-built optoelectronic components--integrated control circuits, communication circuits, and miniature wireless antennas into the lens. Those components will eventually include hundreds of LEDs, which will form images in front of the eye, such as words, charts, and photographs. Much of the hardware is semitransparent so that wearers can navigate their surroundings without crashing into them.

As We May Think

Article in The Atlantic, July 1945
by Vannevar Bush

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/194507/bush
Many consider Bush to be the Godfather of our wired age, often making reference to a theoretical machine he called a "memex," which was to enhance human memory by allowing the user to store and retrieve documents linked by associations. This associative linking was very similar to what is known today as hypertext.

Books online

Site of Books online by Google
Digital Literature

http://books.google.com/

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