Tag Archives: rants

the dead social media practitioners society

9 Mar

I’m at Ad:Tech today and I just learned a valuable lesson. Not, in fact, from any of the speakers, though a few have had interesting things to say.carpe diem adland

Last night I went to the AdTech sponsored Social Media Club, and this morning I presented at a session called “next generation social media strategy.”

Thinking about what that might really mean, I settled on what seemed to me a fairly conceptual, challenging (but ultimately rooted in common sense) combination of things I’ve learned over the past year or two. I thought about what the audience might already know, and tried to build upon that.

Admittedly in a 45 minutes session comprising six speakers, there was limited scope, but I thought I might have have shared some ideas that might spark debate and other ideas in turn. I had a solid case study with some excellent results to talk about, and I was feeling alright.

Then I wandered about the expo with the post-presentation adrenalin crash blues and realised I was utterly, utterly sick to the back teeth of the words “social media” and conversations about what might be done with it. And then I confess, dear reader, I fell into a bit of a funk.

Luckily I’m such a Zen-like hepcat these days it didn’t last too long.

I had the revelation -and this comes, Sheen-like – directly from the power of my mind, that I had committed the cardinal sin of believing things about my users (the Adtech audience) based on pure assumption, not data.

I sat in a couple of sessions and listened to the questions from the audience and came to the understanding that actually very few people here seem to have any real world professional experience of using social media. Even now, even after several years, and successive presentations and millions of blog posts, there seem to be a small cabal of practitioners, a still smaller cabal of decent practitioners,  a massive gulf and then  – everybody else*.

And I think it’s our fault. At a session this afternoon, an audience member asked what kind of agency social media belonged in. There was dissent.  We’re still talking about one platform versus another and how to measure stuff, and whether engagement is more important than the number of people on your social database (does anyone recognise this exact scenario from, say, email marketing?) and all the kinds of conversations that nobody has about other disciplines or channels…. and all this simply makes it seems like a difficult and arcane business and somehow exempt from the rules that apply to every other aspect of marketing activity.

Let’s stop fucking talking about it and just build it, from the outset, into the way we communicate. Let’s do it well, let’s do it creatively and effectively and in a way that seizes the immense opportunity the social web offers us all, but let’s, please, stop talking about it and just fucking do it.

Think of the children. If for no other reason than that they’ll be massively contemptuous of all this dithering.

*everyone who works in media, advertising, publishing etc. Not normal people. They don’t care; they’d just like you to delight or inspire them, or at least not to waste their time.

Thanks Erdogan for the photo.

ill communication

5 May

I lost my mobile phone again on Saturday.
This makes the fourth time since December. It caused me pause for thought…
The first loss was as a result of my own stupidity (post GGD); the second, marital discord; the third, an act of petty sneak-thievery, but the fourth was undoubtedly more peculiar..I had a conversation whilst on a bus, and when next I checked, the handset was nowhere to be found…
In a post-Freudian analysis, one only loses things as a deliberate act; one unconsciously decides to rid oneself of the burden of life; of living. I don’t lose things as a general rule.
Can it be a coincidence that of late I’ve received a great deal of bad news via my mobile?
Loss, according to Old Faithful Wikipedia, relates to:

the death drive (“Todestrieb”) the drive towards death, destruction and non-existence. It was first proposed by Sigmund Freud in Beyond the Pleasure Principle.

Do I unconsciously equate my mobile phone with teh badness? Or am I just a slacker?

So I’m conducting an experiment: I shall live without a mobile phone for a week.
How inconvenient will this really be?

Will it, in fact, force me to:
a) turn up to appointments on time, without rescheduling or dallying
b) actually call the people I love instead of sending placatory but ultimately meaningless text messages
c) read great novels / listen to fascinating podcasts rather than noodling around on Twitter on my commute
d) learn to value my privileged ability to speak to whomsoever I choose, whenever I choose

I’ll let you know.

what’s in a name?

12 Mar

There has been some recent contentiousness (well, ok, a minor discussion between maybe four people, but on Twitter, sometimes that can seem really loud) on the subject of authenticity and whether or not you’re obliged to use your own name /image for your social network identity to be considered truly real.

So it seemed like time to haul this post out of the recesses of my mind….

The reason for choosing a nonsensical user name and avatar for most of the social networking sites I use was clear and defined in the beginning. Now the waters have become a little murkier.

First up, while my username may not represent my full official moniker, it doesn’t signify a lack of authenticity: I’d argue the opposite. My given name might tell you about my gender, race…maybe my age and the aspirations of my parents, but it doesn’t give you any insight into who I really am (we are not all lucky enough to be christened something as beautiful and evocative as  this or this. Creating a persona /avatar/ username that represents something about you, or that you choose to be associated with  is actually more transparent still – you’re wearing your heart on your sleeve, setting an intention for your practice.

Inauthenticity occurs when you seek to obfuscate, deny or distance yourself from your username or content. I have my twitter name on my business cards; I attend tweet ups; I’m transparent about who I work for and what I do there…there is not a moment where I am inconsistent in on vs off line presence.  It’s utterly simplistic to insist on  people using photos in their profiles; as any Gaydar.com user will tell you, a hot pic guarantees nothing.

Online (or at least in text based communities) you are only as good as your word.

I consider it somewhat akin to a branding exercise.  Packaging oneself, what one stands for, one’s values etc. in a way that is attractive to the consumer is natural behaviour in an attention starved world (disclaimer – if that were literally true, you can call me a wanker and punch me in the face when next we meet – it’s really more of an analogy, ok?)

In the noisy world of online communities – or indeed the physical world, isn’t it better to use a name / slash ‘branded avatar’ that speaks of you and your values?  I’m pretty sure last time I drank a Coke, I didn’t think of the Schweppes Pty parent company…You?

I studied cyber utopianism at university and was enthralled by the notion of creating interactions that were not informed or prejudiced by gender, ethnicity, appearance and whatnot but directly through a meeting of minds. I was young, I was naïve, I was enthused by the egalitarianism of online communication…I was probably off my face.

But what freedom, what unfettered potential; to be unencumbered by our limited and immutable physical selves, to be able send one’s intellect soaring to dance among the stars.

The reality was a little different. My first experience using IRC in the late nineties (using a non gendered, non-culturally located handle) was that all conversations were either unutterably banal or sexually predatory.  Often both.

The gap between the potential and the actual was so large and so depressing that I abandoned all interest in online communities and went and lived exclusively in the real world for a while. It’s ok, I’m back now.  But that experience informed my usage of digital communities, causing me to choose a theoretically genderless avatar, avoid using my own name etc.  I simply didn’t anticipate how twitter would work – and neither did you, if you’re honest.

Have I changed my mind about this? Somewhat.  But as it stands, I’m not hearing a huge clamour of people demanding I change my username or picture (hat tip to www.twitter.com/firstdogonmoon) so I’m going with the ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ option. If you disagree, you may implore me to take action via the comments forum, if you’re not Mark Pollard.

For your edification and delight, I thought I’d get down and dirty with a little semiotic analysis of the whole cat /tree thing.  Yeah, I know, always a crowd pleaser.
My idea was that the name and image were quirky/ funny/ surreal at first glance (denotation). In the second layer of meaning, ‘a cat in a tree seems’ like a comfortable juxtaposition but in fact connotes a disconnectedness; an animal outside its usual habitat.

“A fish out of water, a cat in a tree” conveys a sense of alienation. The symbolism of the tree implies a sense of spectatorship, detachment; perhaps even judgement – the cat looks down at you, the onlooker.  The cat’s inscrutability is softened by the absurdity of the suggestion that perhaps the cat is stuck. Fire brigades will be called; an undignified rescue attempt made; fur will fly.

Are you feeling it? Yeah, you love the cat!  Who’s with me? ;)

On #followerfail (in which I get mediæval on your arse)

4 Mar

At idle moments, I wish there was the equivalent of an online leper’s bell that one could ring to notify people in advance as you wend your way through the hills and dales of the interweb.  “Unclean, unclean!”  it would announce to all the citizens of the town.

Or rather, “pure, pure” (in this instance at least) to alert the market sellers that you are not in the least interested in being pestered with offers for snake oil, cheap stuff, wealth creation seminars or other spammy click here now to WIN deals.

I mention this not only because I rather like the image, but also because I’m increasingly finding the sweaty attentions of the grubbiest gurus, mendacious mentors, one-night-only overnight successes and so on, a bit of a pain in the arse.

It’s right and correct to say that Twitter is only as good or interesting as the people you follow, and to ensure this, I personally vet every single person I do follow.  I don’t use auto-follow tools, because I have highfalutin notions of cyber-utopianism. And that means using the following process (pun unintentional but acknowledged):

I must

  • visit every single new follower’s page,
  • Read their bio
  • check their follower/follower ratio
  • read their recent tweets
  • View link vs. @ replies vs. interesting material ratio
  • Make a fairly arbitrary call…

As a result of this, I believe I now have relationships (of varying depth, naturally) with some of Twitter’s sparkiest, most inspiring and charming inhabitants.  But since I haven’t ‘capped’ my total following figure (tools like Tweetdeck and PeopleBrowsr mean I don’t have to) and because I still want to offer followers the same courtesy they have extended me, I waste time checking new followers when I’d be better off doing almost anything else…

Despite the inconvenience of telemarketers, I still have a telephone.  I’m ex-directory and I complain vociferously when I’m disturbed at home (admittedly not usually to anyone who can uphold my complaint…) But it bums me out; it brings unnecessary irritation to both ends of that interaction.   It wastes my time, it wastes the time for the telemarketer.  Even if the call / follow is automated, it leads nowhere for the seller.  Isn’t that poor ROI, or something?

So for the record, if you’re trying to flog me something I certainly don’t want, could you do us both a favour and not even start the conversation? Do me the same courtesy I offer you and check out what I’m into before you start to hit on me….

all singing, all dancing digital media showpony

20 Feb

I was recently reminded of this quote by theadrianflores, who pillaged it from Caterina.

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.” — Robert Heinlein

This idea of moribund specialisation was particularly timely given a recent conversation I had at the Geekdom; the kind that sometimes crops up when people are feeling the pressure.  Essentially it was a matter of semantics; what we label this activity or that and where the responsibilities lie.

You’ve been there too, I’m sure.  I know I’m not alone; at Tuesday’s The Digital Tipping Point a couple of speakers touched upon the issue of who is responsible for social media within an organisation.  Joel Postman talks about it in his new book SocialCorp which I’m reading at present (so far so fabulous – review coming very soon, when I have time to give it the critical appraisal it deserves).  It’s understandable; of all the disciplines of the new digital age, social media in particular is an unknown quantity for many corporates, and that means in all likelihood it will have to squeeze into an existing space, but which one?

Keep going along this path and you can find yourself embroiled in some serious squabbling:  blogging vs copywriting; where marketing begins and social media ends; whether responding to a comment on your corporate Facebook page is PR, sales or social media; what’s purely in the hands of a developer and what constitutes search engine optimisation….

But the reality is that we don’t have the luxury of isolationism; a hesitancy to engage with all facets of  new media or an attempt to silo these activities just tells me you’re not on the bus.

It’s not complicated: if you’re a web designer or developer, you need to ensure that people can easily get to your beautiful website; user experience and search engine accessibility are paramount.
If you’re writing copy for the web, why aren’t you talking to your SEO team to find out what terms to integrate into your text at the start, not the end of the process? If you’re running SEO, do you consider social media optimisation someone else’s job? 
When you post your press release online, do you consider how the back links could benefit your business? 
If you’re in advertising, are you talking to your social media specialist to get insights into your target market – a real life focus group is talking about your brand every day; how can you possibly afford not to be paying attention?

While I’m certainly not advocating a ‘jack of all trades, master of none’ approach, I do know that the people I love working with are the ones who embrace ideas from other disciplines; who make collaboration a delight and grok the big picture.  It’s always a pleasure to work with forward thinking, agile, flexible people, and I think it’s everyone’s responsibility to be part of the solution. Adapt or die…

So, since none of the skills I’m concerned with made it to Heinlein’s list, maybe we need a new set of competencies for the Web 3.0 human?  Incidentally, I can handle thirteen out of Heinlein’s twenty one.  Some of them I simply haven’t had the opportunity to try yet..and some I hope I never have occasion to.

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