One of the highlights for me at this past weekend’s Podcamp Toronto 2010 was Robin Browne’s session on Mobile Social Media (audio available here). To me, the impetus for the session, the way it came together, and the way it was conducted were indicative of what a Podcamp session was meant to be.

Robin put together the session because he didn’t see anyone else putting one on for this topic, and he wanted to learn more. He did not have a presentation planned, and crowd-sourced some tech assistance, and then facilitated a great discussion in the room. There were great questions and answers, and the discussion did not end at the formal end of the decision, and people in the room made new connections to explore this exciting field further.

Informal. Ad Hoc. Involvement. Enthusiasm.

Everything that makes up a great Podcamp presentation, and it certainly made this “old school” attendee happy to attend and participate!

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In a recent blog post entitled Exploring Character vs. Human Face as the Digital Representative of a brand, Keith Burtis talks about how an organization can develop a social media “character” that does not rely on a single person to create consistency and distinctiveness in social media interactions.

When I was reading this post, what came to mind was singing in a choir; it seems to compliment a lot of what Keith is saying.

For a choir to perform effectively and create great music,  two things are needed:

1. A conductor who not only has a clear musical vision, but can articulate that vision to his or her singers, in terms that make sense technically and artistically.
2. Singers who are enthusiastic, love singing, and follow the conductor’s musical directions.

I’ve sung for conductors who couldn’t articulate what they wanted musically, and let me tell you, it’s not fun at all. Singers aren’t sure how to sing, and start singing defensively, and are not fully committed artistically. The result, a boring “reading” of the piece being sung, instead of a performance that unlocks the musical and artistic intent of the composer, and the conductor.

Any experienced conductor will tell you that it can be very difficult to get good choral results from a choir made of of opera singers, or other singers who are used to singing only in a solo context. There is both a definite technique and attitude required to achieve a proper blend of the voices for a smooth sound, with good “ensemble,” and singers who aren’t used to doing this, or feel they shouldn’t have to sing as part of a group, tend not to do this. You hear a group of people singing at the same time, but you don’t hear a choir.

Interestingly enough, a good conductor can take non-solo calibre voices and achieve incredible, beautiful results. The singers get to be part of an amazing creative process, and even though they are following the directions of a conductor, they are still part of the creative process, and are able to pour heart, soul, and mind into the performance. Being part of such performances is an incredibly rewarding experience, both for choir and audience.

My wife has sung for a Toronto area choir called The Exultate Chamber Singers for 25 years. The group has also recorded a number of CD’s the first in 1991. Now, since then singers have come and gone, and few remain from the 1991 recording, but when I listen to the recording, it sounds like the present incarnation of the choir, because of the gifts (and demands) of the conductor, and the dedication of the singers over the years. The sound, or character of the choir has been preserved.

This seems to me like a great model for an organization to use when multiple people are involved in social media interactions: a clear message and direction, and tapping into the talents and passions of employees to allow them to communicate effectively and genuinely, while still being true to organizational goals and values.

The conductor of The Exultate Chamber Singers has a rather self-deprecating instruction note taped to his conductor’s podium:

“Wave your arms until the singing stops, then turn around and bow.”

It’s not that simple of of course, but he empowers his singers to deliver their best, and to love doing it. This ability can’t be faked, and neither can creating a similar success in Social Media. But the same kind of magic is possible.

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Consider the surface of a sphere.  It has no border, and if it is large enough it might seem infinite to someone on the surface, but to someone who is not on the sphere, he or she can view it from a vantage point which shows that it is not infinite, even though it is not borderless.

Cosmologists have extended this idea further, in a way that will hurt your head: there is currently a theory called M-theory which posits that everything we know about is contained in a membrane of four dimensions (three spacial dimensions plus one time dimension). What is wild is that M-theory requires more dimensions, (around 10 or 11;  I’d have to look it up, and within this higher dimensional multiverse there could exist another space-time membrane. it is very close to us (within a subatomic distance from us) but we cannot perceive it; we, and our perceptional abilities are locked within the dimensions of our membrane.  When we observe our universe, which we perceive as infinite, we could in fact be taken in by an illusion.

At this point you may be saying “OK,  you Stephen Hawking wannabe, what the hell does this have to do with social media?”

My response is that as I look upon our Social Media universe, I am disturbed by some of the similarities it shares with the cosmological theory I have summarized above (poorly, no doubt) . We see the social media universe as easy to join; all you need is access to a computer and a internet connection, along with some basic computer skills. This ease creates a comforting illusion of inclusiveness. In a recent blog post, Mitch Joel stated:

“… many of the platforms we use to connect and share (online social networking) have come to the point where they are so simple to use that everyone (and anyone) is online and having conversations.” (Emphasis mine.)

A nice thought, except for the fact that it is manifestly untrue. There are many many people, typically economically or socially disadvantaged, who are not online for a variety of reasons, but we, in our online, by-and-large at least middle class if not upper middle class or higher universe, tend not to perceive this fact. These folks might as well be in the higher dimensions, as we are blinded to seeing them within our own bubble.

Further, within our own bubble, we tend to identify problems and solutions, challenges and opportunities, within our own comfortable context. For example, we see problems in the educational system as opportunities for innovative teaching models and social media technologies; the fact the many students do poorly due to empty bellies and socio-economic disadvantage doesn’t seem to factor into the discussion, as it doesn’t fit into our comfortable existence within the the Social Media Universe. We’re much happier talking about online chatrooms, classroom discussion forums and student blogs as a way to fix education, instead of choosing to challenge deeper societal assumptions.

Similarly, I’m seeing a lot of chatter about Lemonade, a story of people who were able to overcome being laid off. I watched the trailer, and while I was happy to see happy outcomes for the people who found new things to do after losing their jobs, it seemed to me the the selection of people contained only professionals, or at least middle class or better, with more options and more to fall back on (and after speaking with others I know I’m not the only one for whom this “person filter” stood out.) Again, for many people jobless, but not in our comfortable Social Media universe, recovering from being laid off is not an exercise in self-actualization, but a struggle to meet their basic needs under desperate circumstances. But then, these folks tend not to be online, and we do not perceive them, or we believe that Social Media is the one size fits all solution.

It is ironic that Social Media, which preaches inclusiveness, can without realizing it, contribute to the digital divide. If we refuse to budge outside our Social Media universe, unaware of the other dimensions, the possibilities won’t be quite as infinite as we tell each other, in-between congratulating ourselves.

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I’ve read a couple of Social Media blog posts recently that have concerned me. One post talks about Passion as the Defining Success Factor in the 21st century, and some of the implications quite frankly concern me. The point of the post seems to be that to successful, one most have “passion.” Fair enough, but the writer defines workplace passion (to my mind at least) as the willingness to completely subjugate one’s identity, and almost every waking hour, to one’s profession, and by extension, one’s employer.

The writer speaks approvingly of employees voluntarily checking email on the weekend, and at the same time, warns people of the perils of having Facebook and Twitter accounts that dare to show passion and interest in non-work-related activities. The ideal person is someone “who cannot leave their job at the office.”

Another blog entry talks about exploiting the Christmas Holiday slowdown as an opportunity to obtain a competitive advantage over competitors who unwisely decide to partake in traditional holiday activities. Imagine, reaching out to people simply for the sake of being social, instead of business advantage?

These two posts have left me feeling depressed about Social Media. It seems all that is being done is enabling employees to give more and more previously personal time to one’s employer or clients. I am starting to hear less and less talk about work/life balance and more about work/life integration, and employers will love voluntary unpaid overtime as proof of passion, as a way to avoid hiring more than the absolute bare minimum of staff. In this way, I see Social Media as being complicit in the jobless recovery.

Social Media is becoming the workaholic’s wet dream, and like the ghost of Jacob Marley we are encouraged to be willingly fettered by cyber-chains to our working life.

I enjoy my job, and pursue many of the same topics (e.g blogging and podcasting) outside of work hours, but I will never allow myself to be defined by my profession. I have many passions and interests but they are not all work-related, and I do not feel the need to hide them from my online presence.

The old saying “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” still applies, and talking shop is crushingly dull for those forced to listen, when there are so many possible topics of conversation. I’d rather talk to people with a wide range of interests, not all work related.

While I use many Social Media tools, I will not let them enslave me. Resistance is not futile, and I will not be assimilated!

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One of the more unusual Twitter accounts I follow is lowflyingrocks. This account, set up by Tom Taylor,  tweets every time when non-tiny objects pass within 0.2 astronomical units (about 18.6 million miles or 31 million kilometers) of Earth.  The twitter account gets information from a NASA database for this purpose.

Many of these objects could do some damage if they were strike Earth, so every time I see a tweet saying an object has missed us, I realize that no matter how bad the day has been, it could have been much worse

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OK, first I guess I should apologize for the title, but it’s what came to mind.

I’ll be the first to acknowledge that most social media content on the web is not created to be “great art,” meant to delight and inspire the generations to follow. Whether we are talking about tweets, Youtube videos of kids lip-syncing to popular music, etc. this content is meant to be ephemeral, and that’s OK. Most of what humanity has created over the centuries has been ephemeral.

At the same time though, in the midst of centuries full of forgotten scrawls, there was always respect for and the valuation of work that stood apart, in scope, vision, and the effort required to create them. In addition, many of these great works require an effort to truly experience and understand them. (Try reading Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce sometime).  So when I saw this as part of a comment in response to Chris Brogan’s “Content Is Not King” post, I nearly choked.

“If you can easily write 3 blog posts a day and not break a sweat then you have your voice. If it takes you a week to research and write a post then you are not writing about something that you are passionate about.”

Sorry, but if you are writing three posts a day without breaking a sweat, then you are sitting on your laurels and mailing it in. Sweat is part of the creative process, effort, indeed struggle is part of the creative process, pushing beyond your boundaries is part of the creative process, for content that matters. It’s the difference between art and craftsmanship. Offhand utterances are ephemeral by their very nature, and I am concerned when I see ephemerality (if that’s a word) implicitly praised in this fashion.

Many people don’t like PowerPoint because it tends to force the content, and even the thought process behind the content into a confined and limited space. Bullet points don’t allow a lot of space for reflection or detail, let alone subtlety. I fear that in a similar manner the quick and offhand way of creating content that is intrinsic to the Social Media space is getting trumpeted as a virtue; it’s OK for everything to be slapdash, sloppy and instant, as long as you’re plugged in now.

If as a result of embracing Social Media we get hung up on “now”, refuse to read longer blog posts  (let alone books), get addicted to speedy content creation and consumption,  then all that Social Media is doing is turning a demand for instant gratification into a virtue, and creating a cyberspace equivalent of Attention Deficit Disorder.

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So, you’ve gone into the C-Suite and wowed the assorted suits on how Social Media can transform an organization, both externally( in terms of how it communicates with its customers and stakeholders), and internally (in terms of how Social Media principles and practices will change how staff work and communicate with each other).

Feeling psyched, energized, optimistic that success is inevitable? Well don’t be too sure.

There was one project stakeholder who likely wasn’t in the boardroom for the discussion, and that stakeholder was the staff of the organization. These people, normally time-challenged and stressed in these tough times, will be skeptical and may feel threatened. Their first response may be “Where will I find the time to do all this extra work??” Inwardly, many will ask themselves, how is this different from the last management fad we were subjected to when the CEO went to a conference or seminar? In short, an organization’s employees need to be sold on social media, just like the management of the organization.

Now some may say, employees need to adapt and change to the new way of doing business, or seek employment elsewhere! While the concept of a “malcontentectomy” to get rid of resisters may seem appealing, I don’t think this is the response that will work. While the noisiest “malcontents’ may be easy to spot, there will likely be a group of quiet veterans who have been through Total Quality Management and various other management fads over the years, and have learned to pay lip service to new ideas while at the same time minimizing the impact on their day to day work life, keeping their heads down and waiting for the CEO to be distracted by the next shiny new executive toy.

Social Media in the workplace is a philosophy and culture more than than it is a technology or a set of policies, and as such cannot be parachuted into an organization from above unless you find ways to encourage it to grow organically from below. (And the “Do it or I’ll fire your ass!” approach won’t work here). You need to let your C-Suite customers know how important it will be to get staff buy-in, and to find ways that will make social media positive and meaningful for the staff. If this doesn’t happen, the gleaming new staff community site  you build today could well be a ghost town in a few months.

Someone needs to ask the C-Suite executives how they feel social media will affect their jobs. If they feel nothing much will change for them, do you think they will treat the introduction of social media in the organization any differently than the parents who take their newborn to church to get baptized, and then are never seen in church again?

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In a recent blog post, Chris Brogan takes issue with the concept of “Content is King.” He suggests we should “work hard on content, but focus on relationships“, and while the ultimate goal of enhancing connects between people is a noble one, I see this interpretation as a broad brush approach that does a lot of content a disservice.

Throughout recorded history, many creations by artists, writers, musicians and philosophers and others were definitely not seen as relationship building when first released to the world. Though now recognized as masterpieces, and works that resonate through our cultures today, when first created, these works were seen as shocking, threatening and antagonistic by many in society. Think of Martin Luther, nailing his 95 Theses to the door of a church. The first performance of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, leading to fistfights and rioting in the audience. The philosophy of Socrates, who lived what he believed, and ultimately paid with his life.

These (and many others) are examples not of creativity driving polite conversations and relationships, but of people using their creations to shout in anger, to point out, mock, and confront conventional thinking. The typical response was being ignored, marginalized or attacked, not the building of a large loyal audience at the time. By contrast, many of the contemporaries of these revolutionary thinkers made comfortable careers out playing the game, working their networks, creating safe, comfortable, non-challenging and ultimately forgettable content, or perhaps more accurately, product. As a result, they are mere historical footnotes, stub articles in Wikipedia. They made themselves irrelevant by regurgitating truisms and trite conventionalities.

I fear in many cases that much of the Social Media space is sliding into this sterile frame of mind. If content is always written from a relationship point of view, the logical consequence is to fall into the trap of creating what we think people want to hear, even unconsciously. We spend too much time congratulating each other for agreeing with each other. As much as we think we are being new and different, we risk becoming merely a cadre of conventionality.

One of the comments on Chris’ post I found especially disturbing:

“you can have great content but if people don’t connect with you and build that relationship then your content means nothing.”

If we use this simplistic metric, so much of the great creations of our civilization would need to be written off. For the truly inspired thinkers, their creations would not change regardless of whether they thought it would bring friends, fame and fortune, or would cost them every friend and possession they had. For them, the most important relationship was with truth as they saw it; the only audience that mattered was their creative conscience, not the temporal equivalent of how many retweets they got over a five minute span.

While I don’t believe in shock for shock’s sake, if one doesn’t get strong negative reactions on occasion, I’d be worried.

The price of progress, the fare of growth is struggle and argument. We grapple or we simper.

Go ahead; poke the bear.

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OK so I feel a bit hypocritical following the trend of using numerical lists, but for me this is the way this post has to go.it sums up some of the stuff I have been thinking about and dealing with recently.

1. Don’t mistake caution for stodginess

Most large organizations do move slowly, and this can often be a source of frustration. But sometimes, moving slowly is the right thing to do, especially when an organization is examining a technology or concept that is at the crest of the hype wave, and is probably being oversold.

2. Treat I.T. as a stakeholder, not a threat or competitor

I have often seen social media consultants (at least those who have not come from a technical background) characterize internal I.T. groups as obstructionist and uncooperative, for not throwing wide the gates and letting whatever Social Media tools users want into the enterprise.  Consultants would do well to remember what the accountabilities of an I.T. department are, and the resources they have (or often don’t have) to meet these requirements. They will end up supporting every tool that comes into an organization, and if one of these tools creates a security breach, or contributes to an outage, there will be hell to pay, and it will be I.T. called on the carpet.  An ERP or CRM system is mission critical;  MySpace isn’t.

I’ve blogged about this issue before, here and here.

3.  Know the difference between strategy and tactics.

Here, all I can suggest is this blog post I read yesterday; the author crystallizes the issue perfectly!

4. Remember that in most cases while you may be in the Social Media business, your customers aren’t.

Never forget that the enterprise people you deal with have quotas, targets, deadlines and various other business or organizational monkeys on their backs. If what you are pitching doesn’t address these monkeys, don’t expect a lot of interest and enthusiasm.

5.  There is no one size fits all solution; learn what the particular challenges and constraints are for your target enterprise customer.

If you are a freelance consultant, apart from the law and tax regulations, you probably are fairly free from regulatory restraints in how you do your business. Enjoy your freedom, but remember that your enterprise customers will have any number of regulatory and compliance issues that will need to be overcome in an social media activity. For some very tightly regulated industries, it may be impractical for them to do much more than listen and monitor at this point, at least until legislative and compliance frameworks catch up with the technology. Be open to the fact that the non-gated community site you did for one customer may be inconceivable for others, just on the basis of regulatory realities.

6.  Remember they’ve heard it all before.

Organizations may not have had social media pitched at them, but they’ve seen a lot of consultants over the years promising a variety of panaceas for their business, and they tend to usually have a good sense of what does and doesn’t make sense for their businesses. They’ve earned the right to be skeptical. They don’t owe you anything, and the burden of proof is squarely on your shoulders!

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I was at an industry-specific Social Media seminar this morning. As I said in a tweet when I got back to the office, there were no tattoos, no piercings, no Mac’s. Just people from the industry with a sincere desire to figure out what social media means for their industry from a regulatory, compliance and strategic point of view.

The presentations were sober and thorough, and focused just as much on the caveats of Social Media as on the opportunities, in the specific context of the industry. None of the usual buzzwords were thrown about, and there were no group hugs. This is not to say that people were negative, cynical or dismissive of social media;  rather, they were realistic, cautious and well aware of the responsibilities they had to their respective employers.

In order for social media to take hold in organizations, more meetings like this will need to occur, focusing on real world, domain-specific opportunities and pitfalls, with practical, actionable outcomes. The attendees of this meeting did not spend $300 to sing Kumbaya.

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