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