Stardust Global Ventures

Our long time friend Euan Semple (@euan) wrote a piece the other day that I asked to quote in its entirety. But after rereading his post several times, I’ve taken a different approach. I want to excerpt some portions of Euans excellent Social Business and elaborate some thoughts here. But really do go read his post. You can go read it now. It will open another window and you can come back here to catch my commentary afterward. It will be time well spent.

Pretty outstanding, isn’t it. And if you aren’t familiar with Euan, you can also listen to Sheryl’s Incidental Interview with him here. We’ve been involved in what we all refer to as social media for quite some time, and put simply, Euan is one of the sharpest knives in our arsenal of solid thinking and right-minded insight into the tools of emerging media.

I’ve read his post through several times and it’s brought many thoughts to mind. As Sheryl and I work building new ways of incorporating technology into business tools with the companies we’re working to build nww relationships and clients here in Walla Walla. We’re also working, like many, to explain the power and value of Internet communications tools like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. Finding the value and power of these tools doesn’t come through the same type of metrics analysis we used with earlier media.

Here are some of Euan’s thoughts and my reactions to them.

During a recent series of events for the Telegraph Business Club I felt mild disappointment when an economist claimed the recession was about to end. I explained this feeling to the audience in terms of regretting that too many people will assume that this means a return business as usual. Too many will simply carry on as they did before with the same attitudes that got us into a mess in the first place. Not enough people have felt uncomfortable for long enough to bring about real change.

Why do I believe this? Because I believe there is a fundamental change in how we do business heading our way. Driven by the networked communication tools flourishing on the web, tools like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, not only how we communicate with those who benefit from our services but also how we organise ourselves to produce them will be changed forever.

I can’t help but agree with Euan’s thinking here. Far too many people think we’re escaping the current economic downturn with some sort of recovery. There’s an almost palpable sigh of relief as folks wipe their brow thinking “whew, we just did escape that one.” The bitter truth is that they couldn’t be more wrong. We escaped nothing.

The networked communications tools of the web like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube have irrevocably reshaped our world. How we communicate…even how we organize our thoughts has changed forever. The genie is out of the bottle and there is no putting it back. We are in a new Interactive Age that’s a facet of the information economy.

Just as Euan described how the printing press took the power of “the truth” out of the control of the church and monarchy of that day, the power of the network, computing and communications has taken that power out of the hands of control that were old media, old PR, old marketing, and put in in the hands of us.

Social tools like YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Wikis and Blogging are placing in the hands of everyone  communication tools that give them access to global audiences within seconds with virtually no cost and no
gatekeepers. This has never been possible on this scale before and no one really knows what the impact will be.

This hearkens to a recent talk Clay Shirky gave to the State Department. I’ll share my notes that reflect Shirky’s words and my own thoughts. Forgive me if I don’t know where I’m quoting and where they’re his words. When taking notes as fast as possible, sometimes they blur, especially when they resonate so strongly with our own thinking on the subject.

This moment in time we’re living through has given mankind the greatest increase in expressive capability ever seen in history. We have more power to express our unique and individual opinions, voices than at any time in history. And that power is increasing.

Twitter’s basic question since it was released has simply been “What are you doing?” How we use Twitter has evolved into much more. One of the powers of Twitter is the power of self expression. Twitter is one of many tools, perhaps the most widely touted, that raised the bar of mankinds expressive capability to new heights.

The media landscape has changed. Older types of media – television, radio, newspapers and magazines – were good at controlling and broadcasting information. Broadcast message may indeed create small pockets of conversation among very controlled recipients, but the media has always been a filtering and control point. Conversations were very small because the media that’s good at delivering fodder for conversations is no good whatsoever at creating groups. The media that’s good at creating groups has been no good at creating conversations. The Internet is the first media to have native support for groups and conversation at the same time, but with a huge difference than we’ve ever had in the past.

Internet media today is global, social, ubiquitous and cheap. Now the audience can talk back. Yes it’s freaky, but you get used to it. The craziest change is that the audience is no longer disconnected from each other. They can talk to one  another. And they do. Constantly. On every social service imaginable, we share and talk about everything under the sun

When it comes to Internet media, there are more amatuers that professionals.

This social media network the Internet delivers is bigger than anything we’ve ever imagined. If you think about it, the size of the network is the square of number of participants. Beyond that, every new consumer is a new producer in this NOW media world. Every time we write a blog post, share a picture, or updated our status, we are adding to the media. It’s like every book turns into a printing press.

Being aware of these technologies is a very different thing from understanding them, actually using them, and knowing how to get the best out of them. This is before we even begin to touch on the subject of how to use them in a business context and how to “manage them”. The biggest change in communications, and possibly the most challenging for those called communications professionals, is a change in tone. Early bloggers talked a lot about authenticity, and about finding your voice. This was because a lot of writing until then, especially writing intended for public consumption, had a formal tone and language intended to convey authority. But in the conversational world of on-line communications authority has to be earned and is conferred by the readers.

I remember those early conversations we had in the blogosphere back eight or nine years ago. I remember talking about them with people like Euan, Doc Searls, David Weinberger, Chris Locke, Gary Turner and many others. Authentic voice was all the rage as we groped and fumbled for the integrity and honesty we all knew mattered in this online world. And yet, what lies at the root of authenticity is truly that respect and authority granted to each of us by those who read, quote and comment on our work.

As Sheryl and I speak with business leaders who are trying to understand how social marketing tools might fit into their business plans, there is a powerful message I bring them from Euan’s post:

To quote David Weinberger, one of the authors of The Cluetrain Manifesto, “conversations can only take place between equals”. This is to say that, at the point of the conversation taking place, both parties have to be willing to stand on an equal footing and be prepared to listen to each other as much as to open up and communicate.

Let’s reiterate the single most powerful truism of social media -

There is no locus of control in conversation, in messaging, in marketing, public relations or media. We all control the message because we all participate as equals. Social media has democratized messaging in a way no other technological advance could. We are all equals in the conversation. Equals and peers.

Media cannot control the news, the story, the facts or opinion. We are in control.

Marketing cannot control the conversation or reaction to their message. We are in control.

Public relations cannot spin the story outcome. We are in control.

The power of social media and social marketing is in the equality and common ground we who participate in the conversation share. If we use these tools for business, whether we are business owners, enterprise managers, marketing and PR teams or worker bees with our noise to the grindstone, we are all equal in the conversation. The power is in being real, being human, treating everyone in our sphere of conversation with respect, equal consideration and reciprocity.

Reciprocity is perhaps the subject of another post, but for me, can only take place among equals, whether in online conversation or real life. If there is a real or perceived imbalance of power, it is no longer reciprocal. It becomes something else.

There is no value in raising my message above yours in volume because I want my message to win. My message cannot beat down your message and win. It doesn’t happen because it isn’t equal. It fails the reciprocity test. My message can only win when we share, converse, engage and find common ground. When my message becomes an integral part of your message, and your message becomes part of mine, we win. I don’t win and you lose. You don’t win and I lose. We win.

We win because we’re equals in the conversation; equals in the network; equals in our world. Equals by our conduct, our conversation, our mutal respect in sharing with one another.

Winning requires authenticity and what can be more authentic than real equality in balanced conversation and engagement with one another.

Business as usual isn’t what you did yesterday, it’s what you’ll do tomorrow because business as usual is being invented every day. We invent business as usual individually by how we use the tools at our disposal. Conversely, if we continue to conduct ourselves the way we used to – the old usual business – we will quickly become anachronisms in the new media. Worse that the Luddites of the past, we actively seek out extinction by our own failure to redefine ourselves and our business as usual.

For me social media is social marketing. I’m loathe to use the word branding, but I will to make a point. I am a brand. You are a brand. We are more than one brand. We are a business, personal, family, multi-faceted brand. Social media is the NOW media we all share. And the umbrella brand of you or me is built there in the Interactive Age of the information economy.

I’ve embraced the new communications media with a vengeance. I win because my community of interest [call it my network(s) wins. We engage in reciprocal sharing of ideas, projects, support, and kinship. We’re a humanized network filled with power and we win.

How about you?