When Blogging Isn't Enough
This past week offered me an opportunity to test out the high tech/high touch theory that John Naisbitt formulated more than twenty years ago.
In his book Megatrends, Naisbitt wrote, “Whenever a new technology is introduced into society, there must be a counterbalancing human response – that is, high touch – or the technology is rejected. The more high tech, the more high touch.”
The more I blog, the more I start connecting with bloggers in the real world. This past Wednesday, I stopped by a local pizza joint to discuss a variety of social media issues with several members of the Atlanta Media Bloggers. Blogger Josh Hallett, visiting from Orlando, was also on hand.
My non-virtual connections add credence to the efforts of Chris Heuer and a non-profit group called the Social Media Club that he helped co-found.
The goal of the Social Media Club is to “bring together journalists, publishers, communications professionals, artists, amateur media creators, citizen journalists, teachers, students, tool makers, and other interested collaborators. Essentially the people who create and consume media who have an interest in seeing the ‘media industry’ evolve for everyone’s benefit. We are more than just USERS, we are the reason the tools exist - we are the people who communicate our thoughts and ideas near and far.”
I was curious about his efforts to bring people together and why he felt the need to form a “club.” I connected with him via phone on the suggestion of Bob Winslow at Fleishman-Hillard and fellow EarthLink blogger Dave Coustan.
All these connections and recommendations suggest that Chris is onto something. According to Heuer, there is a real need for people to come together in person in the real world and share ideas and best practices. While blogging has a global reach, he is hoping that blogging will foster relationships at the community level as well. Virtual connections can start dialogues, but in-person connections are much deeper and more lasting.
Despite the highly personalized nature of blogs and their focus on individualized self-expression, Heuer also hopes to encourage media literacy –“ the 4Rs – reading, 'riting, 'rithmetic and RSS” to make sure everyone has the necessary tools of engagement.
Chris has some experience with all this. He helped to create the non-profit BrainJams organization to “promote the idea of unconferences and ad-hoc collaboration to a broader audience of non-geeks.”
From a corporate perspective, it is easy to get cynical about non-hierarchical grassroots efforts like these. I can just see management saying – “Show me the money" -- wondering about the advantages of sharing information.
Clearly, there is a social good to all this, but there are also huge market opportunities to those entrepreneurial enough to harness and adapt in creative new ways the blogosphere's vast storehouse of knowledge. In a decentralized, cluetrain manifesto kind of world, the power is in sharing information, enabling others to participate and building connections in the virtual and physical world. Done in a spirit of openness and cooperation, the resulting benefits will hit the bottom line and serve the public interest.
Let me get back to you.
In his book Megatrends, Naisbitt wrote, “Whenever a new technology is introduced into society, there must be a counterbalancing human response – that is, high touch – or the technology is rejected. The more high tech, the more high touch.”
The more I blog, the more I start connecting with bloggers in the real world. This past Wednesday, I stopped by a local pizza joint to discuss a variety of social media issues with several members of the Atlanta Media Bloggers. Blogger Josh Hallett, visiting from Orlando, was also on hand.
My non-virtual connections add credence to the efforts of Chris Heuer and a non-profit group called the Social Media Club that he helped co-found.
The goal of the Social Media Club is to “bring together journalists, publishers, communications professionals, artists, amateur media creators, citizen journalists, teachers, students, tool makers, and other interested collaborators. Essentially the people who create and consume media who have an interest in seeing the ‘media industry’ evolve for everyone’s benefit. We are more than just USERS, we are the reason the tools exist - we are the people who communicate our thoughts and ideas near and far.”
I was curious about his efforts to bring people together and why he felt the need to form a “club.” I connected with him via phone on the suggestion of Bob Winslow at Fleishman-Hillard and fellow EarthLink blogger Dave Coustan.
All these connections and recommendations suggest that Chris is onto something. According to Heuer, there is a real need for people to come together in person in the real world and share ideas and best practices. While blogging has a global reach, he is hoping that blogging will foster relationships at the community level as well. Virtual connections can start dialogues, but in-person connections are much deeper and more lasting.
Despite the highly personalized nature of blogs and their focus on individualized self-expression, Heuer also hopes to encourage media literacy –“ the 4Rs – reading, 'riting, 'rithmetic and RSS” to make sure everyone has the necessary tools of engagement.
Chris has some experience with all this. He helped to create the non-profit BrainJams organization to “promote the idea of unconferences and ad-hoc collaboration to a broader audience of non-geeks.”
From a corporate perspective, it is easy to get cynical about non-hierarchical grassroots efforts like these. I can just see management saying – “Show me the money" -- wondering about the advantages of sharing information.
Clearly, there is a social good to all this, but there are also huge market opportunities to those entrepreneurial enough to harness and adapt in creative new ways the blogosphere's vast storehouse of knowledge. In a decentralized, cluetrain manifesto kind of world, the power is in sharing information, enabling others to participate and building connections in the virtual and physical world. Done in a spirit of openness and cooperation, the resulting benefits will hit the bottom line and serve the public interest.
Let me get back to you.
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Benito Castro, Sevilla, Spain, Europe. (Comment this)
Thank you for your perspective on this. It was a real pleasure talking with you about the ins and outs, and the why's and whatfor's of social media and what we are striving to do with Social Media Club. I appreciate your perspective on this, as well as the kind words about our work. While there is a lot more I could add to this, there are 2 things in particular that come to mind as important additions to this conversation.
1. BrainJams was founded out of an event we did called Web2point 1 (http://www.web2point1.org/) which was held as a counter balance, grassroots effort opposite the big Web 2.0 Conference, which at $2800usd, many of us struggling in the trenches could not afford to attend. Those of us passionate about the potential impact the latest technology could have on society (which includes for-profits and non-profits btw) were becoming concerned with the heavy focus on technology and the potential dollar signs ringing up in people's eyes. Now I am a tech enthusiast, and a card carrying capitalist, but it seemed to me that the real point of it all was getting lost once again - the point is people - so that is where we start.
We forget that the pencil and the phone are also technologies - at one point in time they were exciting and new. They were perhaps simpler to learn than most computer technologies, but the great thing that is happening today is that the tools are getting easier and more intuitive - which from my perspective means that more people will be able to benefit from them. This perspective is at the heart of what we are working towards with Social Media Club. To help more people understand these new 'technologies' and make the most from them in their lives - whatever that work may be.
But it is not the technology or the money that matters most, it is the people.
2. I agree about the concerns some management may have with "show me the money" when it comes to sharing information, but the reality is that it happens everyday. Corporations send out their best and brightest to conferences to give keynotes and participate on panels and do interviews with press. More often than not they are just giving away their information in the hopes of increasing awareness of their corporation. The way we look at sharing best practices using the unconference model and social media is much more beneficial in terms of ROI - by sharing in conversation with other participants, we are able to get much more than we give in return - improving the quality of our understanding through direct interpersonal contact while still increasing awareness and building very real, human relationships in the process. Each employee is a brand ambassador, which is why organization's with lots of employees blogging are going to be some of the strongest of the modern era.
Not only are the corporate bloggers promoting their company as de facto brand ambassadors, they are also gaining invaluable insights from the market of conversations in which they participate.
Further, management need only look at the concerns expressed over the past several years of thinking that "the most valuable corporate assets walk out the door each night" to understand it is more cost effective for teams to collaborate and share their knowledge with one another than to horde their knowledge in silos for personal power games.
In that I believe we are in the knowledge economy, I have also come to believe that the number one determiner of value in a knowledge economy is the ability of smart people to collaborate with one another. This insight came from reading and listening to economist Paul Zane Pilzer (http://www.paulzanepilzer.com/) Applying this to cross-boundary collaboration is exactly what Jack Welch talks about as the key to his success at GE which I wrote about last year. (http://www.chrisheuer.com/2005/11/16/crossing-boundaries-breaking-down-silos/)
Well, now that I have added a blog post as a comment, I need to get back to work. Dan, I am looking forward to many more conversations about this and other related topics over the months and years ahead. It is a very exciting time to be alive and to be involved with the convergence of personal passions, communications and technology that is social media.
All my best,
Chris Heuer
http://www.socialmediaclub.org/ (Comment this)
Benito Castro, Seville, Spain, Europe. (Comment this)