Faster Future: Possibilities now and beyond: 2009

Thursday, December 31, 2009

2020 vision

I know. I'm meant to review the last decade or predict what'll happen in the next year around this time.

Thing is, I'm not going to follow the rules, because for the years following 2009 it simply wouldn't be appropriate to follow rules which may have applied up to this point.

We're in for a big change: Where the noughties were a decade of discovery, the teens will be a decade of realisation. And not discovery of new tech. The future isn't digital; it is self-organised.

The noughties were when we discovered our self-organising power - little by little. And new models started to emerge.

But we are embarking on 10 years in which people all over the globe will realise the self-organising power now at their fingertips - and start turning that realisation into the world they want; niche by niche.

Which means everything you know is up for grabs. Everything.

Everything that is organised or mediated can and will be disrupted by this.

That's pretty much every aspect of society, then. (image courtesy Life Archive on google)

As the realisation dawns, you can be certain no one will be talking about 'social media' anymore. They will just get on with using the best ever set of tools and platforms to communicate: With each other, find each other, form groups, act.

They won't wait to be directed. They will simply come together and debug their world. Niche by niche. The edge in action.

Which is bad news for those who would organise and those who would mediate.

It's not just traditional media, advertising, marketing etc that's going to be replaced. Even the 'new media' stuff that relies on central organisation is threatened. Traditional search (for example) is already being replaced for many by collaborative filtering.

Ubiquitous, always-on computing will arrive as the enabler. Digital social tools which allow us to express meta data beyond silos (including language) will emerge to enable all of us to find all of us when we need each other most. Those tools and platforms which fulfil those roles most successfully will be those with the best chance of commercial success.

And by 2020 we will have the tech and the will to make communities of purpose the primary form of organisation: adhoc self-forming groups brought together to collaborate - driven by common purpose.

The self-organised future will begin taking shape, new structures for education, law, government - all the aparatus of the state - will emerge. And as they do the state itself, as a formalised centrally-controlled collective based on geography, will submerge.

This new form of organisation will over-ride more traditional methods primarily because it provides a more effective tool for the allocation of increasingly scarce resources. But also because people like doing stuff together. It's a better fit with the reality of our social selves.

Lowest common denominator models will disappear wherever communities of purpose can self-organise (which is pretty much everywhere and anytime).

One example? Mass party politics will decline. New democracy will formulate in open systems - with collaboration delivering a better fit, niche by niche,

In repeatedly failing to understand the cross-border collaboration of 'their' people, our national leaders remind us of the failure of lowest common denominator politics and broad and assumed national interests.

The issue of global warming may prove a key catalyst. We gave our leaders the chance to sort things out with their big, broad, one-size fits all policies (they found that none did).

In a decade of realisation we move beyond being passive consumers in all aspects of our lives - government policy included.

We won't sit back and wait for the centre's solution. Instead we quietly and determinedly get on with wikifixing our world - collaborating across borders, ignoring the fictional silos the nation state has imagined and attempted to impose.

The impact of the edge on the centre has the potential to be cataclysmic. If change from without happens faster than change from within, something will tear. Fundamental organisational change is hard to imagine as a gentle process.

Judging when to cede control will be a key skill for leaders of all organisations in the coming years. Protecting the vulnerable, another.

My daughter has just finished her first term of traditional schooling. I have to wonder if she will complete her education (what a curious pre-network phrase...) within a similar lowest-common-denominator structure. And if she doesn't - then how does the morph from old to new happen? With a meeting of a parents collective and nods of assent - or with teachers manning the barricades?

There is much to consider; much I (and we) could strive to predict.

Instead, in the words of BBC Childrens TV long gone (and with more than a nod to Clay Shirky's Gin-swilling tales of newly industrial London), Why Don't You Just Switch Off Your Television Set and Go and Do Something Less Boring Instead? Start inventing the self-organised future - niche by niche - with someone you care about, today.

By 2020 a person's worth will be valued by what they share, not what they keep. That may be the most significant shift of all.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Lighting fires with Santa Claus

For many years now (10 or so) I've been going out rattling tins with Santa and St Neots Roundtable for 5-7 nights each December.
This year was my last, officially, thanks to increasing commitments elsewhere.
Although a chore in terms of finding the time required, it's always fun to see the kids' reactions (and we do raise a chunk of change for good causes).

What I really liked about the run we did in the snow on Sunday (and no, that isn't me in the picture), was how in some communities, the arrival of Santa and his sleigh became the content.

He brought people out of their houses, where they came together to interact - to be together.

No Santa, no conversation. No conversation, no community.

Reminded me of a chapter Alan Moore is writing for his new book No Straight Lines (which I have had a preview of) in which Alan recalls the impact of the Queen's Silver Jubilee (in 1977) in creating a surge in community.

It was self-organised street parties that brought people together to speak. But it was the Queen's Silver Jubilee that excited people enough to self-organise.
Alan bemoans how, after a while, the sense of community the day created just faded away.

A big idea across the nation all in one go. Or a small one, travelling through communities street by street. They bring people together.

And when people come together they act.

All groups are ultimately adhoc, self-organising around what matters to its members right now. The real-time web is revealing this more clearly by the day.

Sometimes what matters to the group comes from outside. Like Santa. Like The Queen's Silver Jubilee. But the brightest, warmest glow comes not from the spark - but from the fire it ignites.

Monday, December 21, 2009

The threat of SEO to the real-time web

Image via Wikipedia

The brochure, the news report, the press release, the 'professional' communication. They all have something in common - they lack a human voice.

I have often railed against this particular form of insanity (ie when we wish to communicate with humans, so many orgs choose to do so by massaging out the humanity from their messages).

On the Internet this form of received professional speak got replaced (for a large chunk of folks, you know the ones, the 'internet marketers') by a new form of stilted inhuman syntax - writing for seo.

'Don't repeat key words more than 'x' times, do place your keywords in order 'y', don't, do, don't, do.

Don't be flawed, don't be natural. Don't write like you think, don't write like you feel. Don't be human.

And then the real-time web: Lower effort to post. Lower effort to connect. Lower barriers to revealing ourselves. Lower barriers to less guarded spontaneity. Oliver Cromwell would approve.(pictured)

As one of the founders put it: "the trouble with Twitter is that with it you run the risk of revealing the real you."

That risk is the risk you have to take if you care to connect with other humans.

It is a risk that seo drives out.

Now that google is prioritising the real time web in its returns it was inevitable that the SEO pros would wade in.

'Order your 140chars thusly', they will ordain. And I will studiously ignore them.

I am part of a real time web - a very human part. Part of the real time web (as it emerges as the eighth mass media) is its ability for us to become not only the connections, but also the way in which the connections are formed.

Focusing on seo in tweets interrupts that.

It'll fool the automota. But if you aren't worth connecting with no amount of pro-seo styled tweeting will mask this to the humans behind the accounts.

In the old world of site-as-destination there was value in 'driving traffic'. In the new world of user-as-destination the only value is in creating real, enduring human connection.

Only humans, expressing themselves through authentic human voice, can do this.

Thursday, December 17, 2009

The role of the 21st century organisation

The role of the 21st century organisation will be to become a platform:
A platform to enable people to find each other, talk together, act together and change the world together, niche by niche.

Now, you could argue that we have this in the form of the internet. It's one hugely effective collaboration engine (and a complex adaptive system too, which is all good for marrying up with the very fitness landscape that demands our niche by niche approach).

But for all the connecting, group forming brilliance of the internet, we still need firestarters. We still need people (those 'human resources' who make up orgs) to start the flames - to light the way and draw the rest of us together.

And if you aren't in the business of starting fires, then pretty soon you aren't going to be a 21st century organisation.

Repeat, niche by niche, matching products, services and behaviours to the fitness landscape - making the most efficient use of available resources, ending waste.

Nothing gets to be produced without 'the markets' (that's us folks) consent.

Changing the world niche by niche.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Who did you help get value from the web today?

I get a lot of value from the internet. And I'm on the board of trustees of a national UK charity which thinks it would be fairer if everyone could understand and share in that same bounty.

Understand, share in - and contribute to.

Here's one way that those who have learned to love the web can spread their joy - and one way I hope you'll participate with and be inspired by: The BT Internet Ranger of the Year Award.

Here's the official Citizen's Online blurb: "We are looking for young people, up to the age of 16, who have (helped) other people get online. If you know a young person who has done this, you can either nominate them or encourage them to nominate themselves. We are looking to have BT Internet Ranger award winners in each of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Each winner will receive an HP laptop plus £250 worth of IT vouchers, together with a certificate. A best of the national winners will receive an additional £250 worth of IT vouchers.

BT Internet Ranger Schools Award
This year, for the first time, a separate award will be made to a school or a group of schools who encourage young people, up to the age of 16, to use their skills to help other people learn about computers and how to surf the internet. This is a "forward looking" award scheme to promote future activity rather than the more traditional "backward looking" recognition for work which has already been carried out. The winning school or group of schools will receive £5,000.

Deadline for applications: Friday 15th January 2010
Apply online:

Citizens Online is a national charity which believes participation in the digital world is a basic human right.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Merry Christmas from Seth and the 69

Seth Godin has a new book coming out in January. In the meantime he's called in a few favours and delivered us a Christmas gift - 70 big brains contributing a page each.
Download, share, enjoy, retweet etc etc

What Matters Now

Twitter makes it easier to be human

Twitter has announced it is trialling a new business tool. It should mean an end to faceless accounts such as @brandX.

Instead the same account can share multiple users. Multiple human users.
And when a different human being 'takes the helm' you'll know so, and what they tweet will be individually ascribed against that particular human.

So where @btcare currently has to update their profile to tell you which human you are connecting with, now the metadata with each tweet reflect its use by each individual human.

Now, not every business is going to go for this. Can't imagine the multiple heavy users at Zappos or Dell turning in their IDs, for example.

But a lot will. And what I think is truly wonderful here is that with this tool Twitter says loudly and unequivically that Twitter is a human, person-to-person environment where broadcasting your brand = fail.

It's a breadcrumb trail for those orgs who would otherwise default to voice-of-the-brand blandness.

They are led by the nose toward finding out what Twitter is all about. And in doing so they just may discover the principles of this human way, this better way of being part of the lives of their communities of users.

"It's up to business to accomodate itself to (the human shape) of twitter, not for twitter to accomodate itself to business," as @stephenfry put it at #140conf

One small experimental step. A giant leap for businesskind.

Wednesday, December 09, 2009

This is not just a Christmas rant... It's an M&S Christmas rant

Image via Wikipedia

I've just sent this to Marks & Spencer on one of those dreadful 'contact us' forms. No copy for my records generated by one of those things, of course. And I always worry they disappear into the bucket of zero response.

So I've grabbed it to paste here.

This is how it reads:

Please forward this to Stuart Rose (or Marc Bolland if he's in place yet)

I would appreciate a rapid acknowledgement of receipt because I hate forms like this (see the m&s site 'contact us' section) as a way to connect with any org.

I hate drop-down menus of subjects my email is meant to correspond to and I hate not knowing who I am addressing.

No doubt your IT people thought it a wise way to reduce spam.
It also reduces interaction with your customer. It is slow and not mobile-friendly (I am writing this at the point of inspiration - on my iPhone). You have made this harder than it need be and therefore retrict the flow of hugely valuable customer insight.

Clue: your IT department don't like volume. Turn them, not your customer away.

This kind of email 'form' also fails as I don't get a copy of my initial comms AND it discourages conversational dialogue and encourages lengthy missives more broadcast in nature (cite this very email!)

But I'm not emailing about this form, I'm emailing about your lost commercial opportunity revealed by my ordering Christmas Dinner from your company today.

To order, the customer can go online. But they can only print out the order form. Which must then be filled in by hand and taken to a participating M&S store.
Where it is then painstakingly transferred by a member of staff into your own computers. Taking a good 5 mins.
Why not allow the order process, complete with the taking of your 20% deposit, online? You could also book your pickup slot online (instead of this being scrawled on paper in the store).

So that would save you and your customers time. It would therefore extend the reach of each store ( and you closed our nearest one).

While I'll acknowledge that forcing me to visit your store to make the booking in person today resulted in the sale of a sandwich, I guess you'd beat the small profit on that by increasing the number of people who would order if they didn't have to/couldn't make the additional trip to the store.

But here's the one that blows my mind. You have the opportunity here to match supply to demand more perfectly than ever. Yet you limit the number of people you are willing to gain this perfect knowledge from by limiting the amount of 'pick up slots'.

That's crazy. Not only does each order mean 20% of the transaction in the bank in advance, it also means you could staff up to meet the precise predicted demand on pick up days.

So that's my bit of customer feedback for you. My bit. Imagine if you opened up your feedback channels to learn from everyone transacting with you, in real time, on their time, through their chosen channels, at their point of inspiration.

And when the penny drops, well let's talk: ninety10group.com

Tuesday, December 08, 2009

A powerful tool for the real-time age

Remember that a-tissue Twitter-powered hayfever map that Kleenex did?

Yesterday I was kicking around an idea to track expressed activity in a mash-up of Twitter and googlemaps.
And I'm starting to wonder if there is a solution to the 'social media monitoring' problem I identified at last month's Monitoring Social Media buried somewhere in functionality like this.

My contention was that current monitoring tech gives us snap shots which we can the examine under the microscope. A boon in developing a strategy based on where people WERE talking about you, in what ways and in what parts of the social media toolset.

But what we increasingly need for the real-time web is a video version - because the peer-to-peer interaction of the Internet is more flock than rational in it's nature.

Past recorded behaviour is not necessarily a predictor of future interaction.

Put another way, we're trying to drive using the rear-view mirrors.

We need real time - to know that the flock is moving, at what speed, at what rate of change of speed and in what direction. That may equip us to join in more effectively as part of the movement -as true amplifiers - rather than trying to turn the flock in our chosen direction. (there's a chapter in my book on our inability to dictate to flocks from the centre).

Mashing up real-time expressions of particular activities and displaying this on a map of the physical world would at least show the spread of an activity through a geolocated community (through a street, a town, a county, a nation...)

Further, this could be mapped against other activity to reveal real-time correlations.
Imagine if there was a link between the spread of unhappiness and street crime and you could see, in real time, a cloud of despair headed your way. The police could staff up - heading it off by knowing the direction it was headed in and at what speed.

Perhaps a business could better predict demand and allocate resource more efficiently as a result?

Imagine a despot could use it to put down a revolution before it got off the ground?

And imagine if you mapped this not only against the physical world, but also against the digital?

A powerful tool for the real-time age.

Monday, December 07, 2009

Hamsters, information and the internet of things

I've been meaning to (find this and) post this ever since I saw JP Rangaswami speak at the London 140chars conference at the 02 on November 17.
JP was the reason I came back to the O2 for the afternoon session (I chaired a panel at Monitoring Social Media in the middle of the day).
He chose to spend 10 minutes talking about what it means that twitter is not a news service but an information service. And about traffic lights, the internet of things - and his family hamster.

Enjoy. And if you do, find JP as @jobsworth on twitter.

Thanks to Delymyth for shooting and sharing on Viddler.

Tuesday, December 01, 2009

Using + Social Media = Fail

I was at #Online09 (Online Publishing) at Olympia in London, to do a keynote in the Social Media Marketing theatre today.

I'm delighted to say (and perhaps its a sign of the times) that the room was packed - standing room only. They even stayed until the end :-)

I was kicking around what happens when you deconstruct the social media thang, into its social + media parts (I have blogged about this previously).

But I started from the perspective that the future is not digital.

When Gutenberg invented movable type (circa 1450) a new era was ushered in. Within 50 years there were 20 million books on the planet (to share among 450m people - I know there were 450m people at the time because I asked my friends on Twitter).

That's 20m in 50 years from a standing start (as described by Stephen Fry in his BBC show on Gutenberg). And that standing start included zero mass production techniques or technologies. Quite staggering.

And I wondered what the big prediction would have been in 1500 among the soothest sayers of the day. What next? More books?

Not likely is it.

Yet we keep banging on about a digital future.

1450 is also regarded as the beginning of the great age of exploration. The future was the renaissance, new forms of organisation (capitalism replacing feudalism) the destruction of the power of the old order (the Reformation across Europe). That's the effect of more books - it is what people did together with this new 'book' technology.

And right now, the future is not about new and better digital tools, or their prolifieration - it is about what we do together with them - the new self-organising future that dawns.

And that, and what businesses and organisations can do to benefit from all this, is what my keynote was about this morning.

Here's the slides - and, as always, your thoughts are welcome.

Using + Social Media = Fail

View more presentations from david cushman.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Belief, rock'n'roll and the danger of fans

I went to see New Model Army last night - the result of sitting next to lead singer Justin at a restaurant at Luton airport in the summer.

Wasn't on the guest list or anything, it was just that the chance encounter inspired my wife and I to go.
NMA have been touring in varying line ups for 25+ years. Their latest album was released this year.

And I think the reason they have been able to continue is they give their fans something to believe in. They stand for something. Something anti-establishment; for the common man - against the city. They were even once denied visas to tour the States. A feather in the cap indeed.

NMA also believe. It's what motivates them to play on a Wednesday night in Cambridge - rolling out Poison Street one more time. It's what kept them going despite the death of a prominent founding member.
It's what keeps the same fans coming back - dressing the same ways - and spreading the good word to their friends.

Belief has - I hazard a guess - made them happy, made them fulfilled, made their lives meaningful.
But it hasn't made them millionnaires.

And I wondered about that.

Not everyone wants money. But certainly NMA would like more believers (more in The Family).

So here's The Message. Don't be defined by your fans.

David Bowie was a big UK glam rock icon. Then he made a disco album. And went global.

Bowie fans are defined by Bowie.

Apple fanboys are defined by Apple.

Not vice versa.

You can be very successful by all kinds of measures by following your beliefs. But to take success beyond the silo of your current followers you must be prepared to redefine yourself on your own terms.

If NMA could have brought the Stop The City message to a wider audience by getting a haircut and playing the samba music they secretly hanker after (I'm making that up) would/could they?

True belief gives you the tools to go beyond your current hardcore, often at the risk of disappointing your current hardcore (imagine the delight of long-haired Bowie rock fans when They got Young Americans home).

Bowie's hardcore was not in his glam rock musical genre or in the style of his hair or clothes. It was in the permission to be different, to experiment and innovate that he gave fans.

And that attracted more people than sticking with what he knew was succeeding, ever could.

The DNA is in the belief - not in its latest expression

NMA's DNA is not in the music or the dress code of the fans. Nor is the DNA of any belief-based business wrapped up in its latest trappings.

Cling on to the DNA at all costs, but lose the trappings whenever you feel right - no matter how many of your current fans look at you as if you are drowning kittens.

Oh, and for the record NMA were great last night. And so were their fans.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Video and slides: A new era for specialist media

As promised, here's the video of me presenting my keynote on 'A New Era For Specialist Media' at SIPA 09 (Online Marketing and Publishing Summit) in London, last week.
It's shot on a flipcam - and mangled to add to vimeo (at sub 500mb for almost an hour of video) so don't expect a TV experience!

Topics covered:
• Why the internet-powered long tail of demand is a disaster for traditional broad mass media models but a huge opportunity for specialists
• How fragmentation means you can never hope to target all emerging niche communities - and what you can do to counter that
• Why the control of content production, distribution and user experience is now in the hands of everyone - and what that means for publishers
• Why we need to think of specialist content as 'social objects' to discover where the ROI will come from when nobody wants to pay for content and no one clicks on the ads.

You can download a WMV version here. The link is bottom, right of that page.

Below the video I've placed the slideshare slides, so you can play click-along-a-david if you choose.
Thoughts and comments all welcome.

A new era for specialist media from david cushman on Vimeo.

A new era for specialist media

View more presentations from david cushman.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Putting people first remains the winning strategy

For many a long year, sensible CEO's have recognised that their greatest asset is their people.

Certainly it was something drummed into managers back in the day when emap was growing fast (I worked in what started as a few East Midlands local papers and ended up as a North American and European empire before it hit the great structural media slow down experienced everywhere else).

"Our people are our greatest asset".

The fact that we are undergoing huge structural change does not diminish that truth. The networked world doesn't mean that suddenly our digital towers of tech are our greatest asset, or anything similar.

No. People remain top of that list. The shift is that the ones creating the bulk of the value aren't necessarily 'ours' any more.

So lose the 'our'.

"People are our greatest asset".

Because successful businesses are now far from limited to the power of the people within the silo, those that, traditionally, they pay the wages of.

Now everywhere the crowd can touch your processes and supply chains, people both external and internal are your greatest asset.

Think of any supply chain within your organisation. What could be disrupted or improved on by the crowd - by people coming together online and from both inside and outside the silo to provide a wikifix?

There are far more external assets available than internal.

Adapting to the connecting, real-time power of social technologies means better connection with those external assets; greater contribution from them.

And if they bring you greater efficiencies and greater rewards through those contributions it is wise that we consider how they can be rewarded and what they seek by way of reward.

It may not (always) be cash. It may be the value and power of becoming part of something they care about.

But they are not there to be exploited.

Just as sensible CEOs always placed value on their people, so now must sensible CEOs place value on all the people their organisation interacts with and shares in the production of value with.

Putting people first has always been a winning strategy - the better connected world of the network just writes that large.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

A new era for specialist media?

I'm doing a keynote at SIPA's (Specialist Information Publishers Association) online publishing and marketing summit this morning. As is my custom, I like to share my slides beyond the silo of the room :-)

This is my brief, on the subject 'A new era for specialist media':

Media fragmentation and social technologies are opening the door to a new era for specialist media – find out how to adapt to a world of global mass niche publishing.

• Why the internet-powered long tail of demand is a disaster for traditional broad mass media models but a huge opportunity for specialists
• How fragmentation means you can never hope to target all emerging niche communities - and what you can do to counter that
• Why the control of content production, distribution and user experience is now in the hands of everyone - and what that means for publishers
• Why we need to think of specialist content as 'social objects' to discover where the ROI will come from when nobody wants to pay for content and no one clicks on the ads.

So, here here are the slides (below); hope you'll see a few #SIPA09 tweets (my guess) as we go.

A new era for specialist media

View more presentations from david cushman.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Measuring the real time web

Luke's Monitoring Social Media 09 event in London on Tuesday was an absolute triumph.
The venue was packed (literally standing room only) the speakers excellent and the vibe businesslike rather than echo-chamberesque.

Luke (one of our collaborators at 90:10, by way of disclosure) asked me to chair a panel on the ROI of social media monitoring, on which I was ably assisted by Chris Quigley (co-founder Rubber Republic), Matt Atkinson, CEO EHS Brann, Tomi Leitonen, CEO Whitevector and Jon Moody, Market Engineer (nice title Jon) at ASOMO.

I threw in a thought, without much consideration for how it could be answered. It is this; that social media monitoring is, in its current incarnation, somewhat behind the curve of the real-time web.

I think of it like this: we are becoming increasingly good at taking photographs of the web, but can't workout how to view its streaming video.

Perhaps it is that we are only able to make sense of it as still photographs - snapshots which we can pour over with a magnifying glass and make pronouncements upon?

Most of those of us who go in for this kind of monitoring and measurement have long understood that one set of tools is far from enough. We adapt and compile, create our best set of tools to give us the deepest and broadest understanding of the landscape. But it is for the most part a landscape in which nothing is moving.

It is helpful for broad strategy, to identify where the conversations are happening and whom they involve.

But how much more valuable could the right-now monitoring of live interaction be.

For example, it is useful to know where the conversation has happened, but it is much more useful to know where the conversation is happening right now, how it is moving, at what speed and in what direction.

It's becoming increasingly important as we understand the value of the connections over the node, of interaction, of the things people do with each other together (network), compared to the things we would have them do at our bidding (broadcast).

In other words, wouldn't it be wonderful to monitor and understand the flow of the flock.

Of course wonderful is one thing, useful another.

Not only do we need a new set of tools to understand, to even see the flow, we need a new set of tactical responses and processes to give that knowledge value.

Like I say, lots of questions. Not so many answers.

The King of advice, alerts and assistance

I was fortunate enough to attend #140conf as one of the 'characters' at the O2 in London yesterday (courtesy of @jeffpulver).

I was therefore able to witness the crowning (quite literally folks) of one @stephenfry as 'King of Twitter'.

Stephen spoke brilliantly about many of the themes I hold dear and bang on about myself - though clearly not as well as the great Danceciser himself.

"It's up to business to accomodate itself to (the human shape) of twitter, not for twitter to accomodate itself to business," among the many bon mots.

Which I why I'm delighted to share this video of his talk, thanks to beegod (who shot it and posted it on his blog).

And if anyone recorded JP Rangaswami's wonderful words on twitter as a peer-to-peer information service at #140conf (for alerts, advice and assistance) please do point me - I would love to share that too.

Monday, November 16, 2009

The impact and the etiquette of social media

Here's the slides I presented to the 157Group last week.
The 157Group are the marcomms pros from the UK's leading colleges (judged by size and quality).
I'm hoping I was able to help.

The impact and etiquette of social media

View more presentations from david cushman.

By the way, I'll be at the #140Conf at the O2 in London tomorrow mostly to see Stephen Fry, Andrew Keen and JP Rangaswami speak. Wanted to say a big thank you to organiser Jeff Pulver for my ticket.

Can't be there all day, I'm chairing a panel at Monitoring Social Media in central London at 12:30pm.

See you at either - or both!

Friday, November 13, 2009

The UK's most influential comms professionals - on twitter

Edelman has used its TweetLevel tool to name yours truly among the UK's top 10 most influential comms professionals on Twitter.

You can read all about it in PR Week.
I'm a sucker for these things - which means Edelman's TweetLevel gets the requisite mention on this blog (which is kind of the purpose of these lists... PR types do a lot of this).

Can I recommend it to you?
Well, it apparently takes 30 stats that Twitter makes available to score influence, engagement, trust and popularity. And it churns out a top 10 that has me in it. So it can't be all bad then, can it (it's likely that those of you who do trust/engage with me may agree - that's the communities of purpose thing in action.)?

The power is in measuring within the niche. And at the moment creating a niche (top 10 of most influential comms pros in the UK and on twitter, for example) is a very manual process. So as a tool on its ownsome - little use. When some manual labour is applied? Potentially helpful - but don't underestimate the labour intensity.

Me? I'm still looking for someone to build Trends Among Friends. Any takers?

Thursday, November 12, 2009

How to make more pegs, more round, more often

Providing things that people need/want is at the core of any business. If there are round holes, you provide round pegs. That's the plan.

Trouble is, life is a little more complex.

The holes are rarely consistent in size or roundness. The pegs become best approximations.

So we take the hammer of advertising and marketing, mass media lowest common denominator comms of all forms, and bludgeon away. (image courtesy)

Sometimes some of the pegs even appear to fit. Hit enough, hard enough and long enough and - hey presto! Demand met.

Ahem.

Ok, more like supply supplied, then. All very wasteful. And noisy.

The fitness landscape of any complex adaptive system (from evolution to the economy) requires something, well, more adaptable.

It requires something more maleable - more open to change - to make a better fit.

If the pegs can be reshaped to fit the holes, they just drop in. No mass media hammering required. No energy wasted.

Businesses have always used the tools available to them to make the best approximation of those round pegs - market research, focus groups, the black-sweatered CEO's gut feel.
Those whose approximations are closest to round, find they need less hammering.

Now we have access to better tools - the social technologies that enable groups to form. That is, better access to people.

Now groups can form to wikifix a problem they share - such as your peg not fitting their hole.

Now you can let them, together, reshape your peg so it drops beautifully into place.

But it will only happen if you accept that the best people to shape a product or service to any fitness landscape you encounter are those who make up that landscape.

Advertising isn't (just) the tax you pay for being unremarkable (some products inspire such excited human interaction that the fitness landscape changes to accommodate them) it is also the tax you pay for trying to fit square pegs in round holes.

Hang up your hammers. Start opening your doors.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Citizen journalism - and whose facts are they anyway?

Had a lot of fun on Jon Hansen's BlogTalk Radio Show on November 10, 2009.
His subject was, How will journalism survive the internet age?

Joining me on the international panel were Cenk Uygur, the HufPo writer (who gets 13m views for his Youtube channel), Baby Boomer agitator Ellen Brandt and, author and publisher Sherrie Wilkolaski.

We covered citizen journalism, news vs relevance, friends as filters, fact checking (crowd vs pros) among much else

Listen for yourself here:

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

The future of journalism. Blogtalk Radio. Today

This evening (8pm uk, 3pm EST) I'll be joining a panel on Jon Hansen's Blogtalk Radio show to discuss what journalism becomes - if it can exist at all - in the Internet age.

Interesting question always, of course but with an added piquance in a week when News International's Rupert Murdoch talks about removing 'his' content from search engines.

Listen live here.

And if you're opn a mobile: http://m.blogtalkradio.com/Jon-Hansen

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Alan Moore on the 'the toxic tail end of the industrial age'

On November 17 I will be speaking at Monitoring Social Media in central London. Which is nice. If you're in London or anywhere close-ish, you should come.

So will the author of Communities Dominate Brands Alan Moore.

Alan, a very good friend of mine, and a collaborator over at 90:10, is also speaking at London's MIT Enterprise Forum on the same day, following in the footsteps of Guy Kawasaki, among others. There you go - two good reasons to be in London that day.

For the detail, go here.

But for a taste of the thinking... here's Alan:

We are witnesses to a structural and transformational change in society, what many describe as the toxic tail end of our industrial, mass consumer, mass media era. The tragic legacy of the last 150 years is that humanity has been thin sliced and deconstructed almost to the point of destruction. Human beings have become little more than individual units of capitalism – pawns of economists and unfettered capitalism.

But the fact is, “I needs we, to truly be I,” wrote Carl Jung, and this is why we as a species are at the barricades of a communications revolution, in which humanity is renegotiating the power relationships between; people, organisations, and even governments. As social philosopher Richard Sennett argues, we want to, “recover something of the spirit of the Enlightenment on terms appropriate to our time”.

The tools of the revolution are digital communication technologies, but the drivers are about human connection and human identity. Technology does not come out of nowhere, it is indeed a human invention in the first place, and these technologies succeed to the extent they meet fundamental human needs. The rise of the networked society is no accident, and a new philosophy is needed now to enable individuals and organisations adapt to a new way of doing, trading, educating, living.

Therefore, our imperative is to de-school ourselves in a philosophy and a way of thinking and acting that has delivered us into a cultural, ideological and economic cul-de-sac. We need to liberate ourselves from how we were once taught to think and live our lives, stemming from the ethos of industrialisation and the mass consumer society.
Don't miss him.

Monday, November 02, 2009

90:10 - Open For Business

Today I can finally announce I've embarked on a new journey - as Managing Director and co-founder of a new business: 90:10.

It's a journey that emphasises a meme close observers will have seen emerging in my work for quite some time (it's described in my Communities of Purpose paper written in March 08).

That is, that in order to truly benefit from the power of the network we must think less about media (social or otherwise) and more about how and why people organise to get things done.

90:10 takes that to its logical business-oriented change-empowering conclusion. 90:10 is aimed at enabling efficiency, innovation and transformation through social technologies.

Efficiency - the big why

Efficiency is important to us not just for the obvious reason (the payback to the benefitting business's bottom line) but for the same kind of reason that quality is important to outdoor clothing maker Howies.

Howies believes in quality (read Mark Earls' Herd for the full story) because it makes their stuff last longer. If it needs replacing less often less resources are required to keep Howies fans clothed. It's better for the environment, better for all.

Efficiency is important to 90:10 because when people connect to wikifix or co-create something new we do so because we want that thing to exist. We want the outcome.

This closes the gap between supply and demand. In its final iteration, as a planet, we will only create what we need - with zero waste and zero need to 'create' demand.

In a world of limited resource plundering the things we have in abundance, to make the most of the things we don't, has to be the right thing to do.

Our creativity, our desire and ability to connect, to be social beings, these we have in abundance. Tapping them is both exciting in its potential and wise as a strategy for success. It is what 90:10 does.

It ultimately means there will be more of what all of us need. All of us.

Efficiency that is better for all.
Efficiency for a bigger reason.
That's why we believe in efficiency. Driven by innovation - leading to transformation.

It's not about the tech, it's about the people

We understand the tech doesn't perform the magic. People do.

The tech is simply the tools through which the business of new business (and new organisation) is done. It is the tools the crowd, this we species of ours, the edglings, us, are using to build our self-organised tomorrow.

I don't want to build the next Twitter, Facebook or Google (though I'll happily consult on how they could and should monetise) - I'm interested in what emerges from them and what comes after them - what communities of purpose can and will do with these tools.

Connecting people who care about the same stuff gets that stuff done better. It innovates best-fit solutions and gets to those best-fit solutions faster and cheaper.

It's Wikifixing. It's global. And it's because people give a damn - if only you'll let them.

As I detailed in Social + Media = Change, I believe the real RoI of social media is unleashed by the way it enables adhoc communities of purpose to form; This is what the money has been waiting to follow.

These communities exist. They want to make stuff better. They want to join in creating the things that matter to them.

Recently, inspired by Clay Shirky, I wrote: Media that publishes without a comment box, publishes broken

That is, publishing without being open to contribution, is the wrong model for the networked world.

There is a version for business - in fact for all organisations:

'A business that operates without a comment box, operates broken'.

That is, a business that fails to open up to the riches it could share in through the feedback loops, real-time co-creation and wikifixing of the power of the network is a business that is in peril - at risk of being disrupted and defeated by those that are.

Next to those from the self-organised, open future, it is broken.

90:10 is all about fixing that - becoming truly and effectively Open For Business.

Thursday, December 31, 2009

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Monday, December 21, 2009

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Wednesday, December 09, 2009

Tuesday, December 08, 2009

Monday, December 07, 2009

Tuesday, December 01, 2009

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Monday, November 23, 2009

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Monday, November 16, 2009

Friday, November 13, 2009

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Monday, November 02, 2009

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