Monday, May 28, 2012

Item #66: Life After Social Media


I had the pleasure of spending four eye-opening days in Los Angeles last weekend.  It wasn’t the city that opened my eyes, though; it was the company.  I spent four days with seven other ladies, the least I’ve known for 15 years, and the most I’ve known for 35 years.  But that’s another, separate, and glorious, story.

These women rigidly extracted me from my days of face-in-a-computer, achieve-achieve-achieve planning, anxiety inducing presentations, and interpersonal collaboration challenges to remind me of the things that actually matter to the majority of the world.  I might have lost sight of that a little in the myopia of my day-to-day. 

But this is a post about Social Media, so what’s the relationship?

Social Media has dominated conversation, particularly amongst marketing, advertising and communications types for at least the last five years.  Zuckerberg paved the path with his arrival on the scene via Facebook, believe it or not less than ten years ago.  Since then, there’s been an animated fixation on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, Path, Rdio, Spotify, and the lengthy list goes on.

Without question, there have been the monarchic players in the kingdom of social media, namely King Facebook, Queen Twitter, Prince LinkedIn, Lord Instagram and Duchess Pinterest, which arrived like Princess Diana with a flourish only recently.

But let’s pause and take the airplane perspective here for just a moment: who drives use, growth and success of these social media platforms?

Many social media platforms have thrived off the buzz created by media and niche users in the marketing, advertising and communications fields, but I contend that the future belongs to those platforms who can deliver impenetrable value to the mass of users – people like those seven women I mentioned earlier.

I have noticed a ghost-town-ization (Robert Scoble, 2012) of some social media of late. Twitter is much quieter.  In contrast, it seems Facebook is a little bit more active.  Pinterest took off like a lightening bolt, compeling the Martha Stewart inside millions of citizens to share loveliness.  LinkedIn retains a steady level of importance in its singularity as a valuable professional networking tool.  And Instagram, well, we can only pontificate, but without the acquisition by Facebook, Instagram probably would’ve run through the consumer adoption cycle in record time and landed in the history books along with MySpace. Can we call Path a success? Soundcloud? Google+? Foursquare? Debatable on all counts, I think.

So what’s with the ghost-town-ization of some social media; is it real? I think so, and I think it plays right back to the eye-opening four days I recently spent in Los Angeles.  What matters to the masses of people that social media needs to work for is their lives. The health and happiness of self and other loved ones, and the other essential part of the masses lives, their work. 

It seems to me that the ghost-town-ization of some social media is because people really just want to get back to life, life as characterized by Love and Work (Freud was right).

And so, as people tire from too many options and too little time, and just want to get back to life, only the social media platforms that recognize this and create a sustainable, distinct and useful place in these people’s lives will prevail.

The ONLY social media platform the seven women I was with peeked in on was Facebook, because it is there that they can check in on their ‘life’ with their loved ones.

LinkedIn has its place in the future as the most useful professional networking service, to help people be successful in that as-yet-irreplaceable part of life called Work.

Instagram has wisely been acquired and will now become a natural part of the already entrenched Facebook, to bring a new level of texture to getting back to life.

I fear Twitter is hitting a rough patch…that it needs to uncover its value in this reality of settling priorities.  It has never been the go-to-platform to connect with those you care about; again, that’s Facebook. It is at current quite simply trying to play too many diverse roles as: a) a location and means for information-sharing, largely professionally related, b) a channel for self-promotion, c) a weak social community, d) an entertainment channel, and e) a photo posting tool.  Some of those services have the opportunity for a distinct place in the part of life called Work; some are simply second-rate to Facebook.  So what can Twitter be in this world where people just want to get back to their lives of love and work?

I believe the ghost-town-ization is real, that people are exiting social media in time spent, and in investment level.  They are getting back to life, to love and to work.  Its role is moving from faddish growth to converged value.  The social media platforms that survive will need to define and deliver meaningful value in people’s lives, by either supporting that which they love or their work. And only a few will win.

Hopefully the title of this post wasn’t misunderstood. There is life after social media; it looks a whole lot like the life we’ve always known.


Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Item #65: The Big D's


Today is dedicated to the letter D: a critical component of the words "Dynamic" and "Discuss".

These aren’t just D words, these are Big D words.  Here’s why.

There are many ‘Big D’s’ being actively discussed and debated in media, boardrooms, and classrooms these days.  These Big D’s are Big Dynamics.

I won’t spend a ton of time on each of the Big D’s; that’s not the purpose of the post.  But here’s some of what’s floating about in the physical and digital conversation spaces these days.

The European Union Political and Economic Instability. European countries and their fiscal austerity policies, are enraging their citizenship, particularly their grossly underemployed youth citizenship, and leading to political mayhem.  Said political overhaul is illuminating the old-as-the-hills left vs. right political divide and igniting global debate.

Employment as well as the organizations that employ is upside down.  Youth the world over are suffering from gross underemployment in many parts of the world, including right here in Canada. Many wonder if entrepreneurialism will rise to unprecedented levels, if start-ups are the key to a new economy.  In the meantime, big organizations struggle to determine how to organize, or should I say re-organize.  What should leadership look like in a collaborative economy? Is ‘strategy’ the new bad word, replaced by ‘do and iterate’? How to set vision? Build culture? Does it even matter?

Education as the possible panacea to all ills.  Stanford, Harvard and MIT now offer free courses over the Internet, and hundreds of thousands sign up.  Code Academy wages a mainly-social-media-based campaign whereby thousands sign up to learn to code.  ‘New Education’ is all the talk: Design Schools, with their emphasis on Design Thinking, Business Schools now graduating policy-makers, Schools of Life, Bold Academies, The New School, even schools that don’t grade.  Education is all the rage these days.

On the topic of social-media-based campaigns, another Big D regards whether social media is making us lonely.  This is really a subset of a deeper discussion about the impacts of technology on our humanity.  As we bury our heads in screens for the vast majority of our days, are we losing the art of face-to-face communication? Are we so amazed and impressed by the ‘story told’ social media lives we bear witness to that we suffer personal insignificance? As machines come to permeate our lives, do our human experiences of love, tears and laughter weaken in consequence?

And entirely related, we could very likely have a growing Technology Divide. There are those who can multi-task with multiple media devices like they are switching between a fork and a spoon and there are others who simply don’t have the luxury of 6 costly Apple devices in their hands and their homes.  If access to information as critical as your health record, or your wallet continues to evolve without choice towards technological provision, many may be lost, and consequently end up the new disadvantaged.

Finally, and certainly not least importantly, we have women’s rights on the public agenda again like I haven’t seen since the early 90’s.  International development discourse places focus on the women and the girls of communities.  Access to reproductive control, always an issue in developing countries, is back on the table right here in North America.  And women are coming out from behind their desks, or their stoves, to take stands, led and inspired perhaps by Melinda Gates, Oprah Winfrey or even Angie Jolie.  We may see another feminist revolution yet.

There’s lots going on; there are lots of Big D Dynamics today.  Lots to talk about, think about, and debate. 

And here’s where the second Big D comes in: Big D Discuss.

With so much to talk about, are we really talking enough?  Have we gotten out from behind The Voice, Game of Thrones, or the new comic adventure flick to talk about these things? As we sit down with a friend and a coffee, do we get past the new Stella line at the Gap?  In the commercial break of the big game, do we move past the disappointment of the team’s unending losing streak?

Are we Big D Discussing?

I toyed with writing a post that begged for more ‘Doing of Something’ (another important D by the way), but I decided Discussing is actually what we need.  That with the discussing might come the meaningful Doing of Something. But that the Doing of Something in absence of the Discussing might be a recipe for disaster. 

I realized that while the Doing of Something is a noble pursuit, what’s actually most important is that we NOT continue on with the Doing of Nothing.  This Doing of Nothing is in fact the greatest travesty.  While many countries of the world suffer times of strife, as youth sit under-used and unhappy, as women and girls the world over just want the opportunity to be able to contribute to change, and as people, communities, organizations and countries look desperately for paths through difficulty, there is no room to put one’s head in the sand and Do Nothing.  There are lots of Big D Dynamics active in the world today, and they involve every one of us humans, lucky enough to inhabit this planet.

My hope is to see the conversations that are being had in the media, in the boardrooms and in the classrooms of the world take root in the coffee shops, the kitchens and the street corners of the world. 

My hope is to see everyone start Big D Discussing, discussing the big D Dynamics, over coffee and a bagel, while the kids play on the monkey bars at the park, during the commercial breaks of the big game. 

My hope is that we not Do Nothing, that we acknowledge the Big D Dynamics and pursue the Big D of Discuss, and let that be the Doing of Something.

That’s what I’d love to see, brought to you by the letter D.