My response was 'best practice being human'.
I've been thinking about the skill sets required to 'do' social media. Many (though not all, as a quick quiz on Twitter revealed this morning, see image, right) of the people I know who have landed up in social media come from a media background one way or another - pr, advertising and journalism.
But of course the key skills required are not the abilty to craft a good piece of content.
We're trying to change the world here, not report on it.
Look at what's going in in Iran. All the fabulous social media activity Is NOT for our passive consumption, our entertainment. It is individuals using the tools to express what matters to them - and through this to organise without and around those who would control from the centre.
A BBC correspondent prophesised, as the post-election fury uncovered in Iran, that there would be no coup.
"You can't have a revolution without proper organisation", he opined.
If he meant without 'from the top' organisation he was and is, wrong.
Humans organise to do things. Things they share a belief in achieving. Always have. Now they have tools to do this more rapidly and effectively. And they don't wait for permission from the boss.
The ability to use these tools is an important tactical skill for anyone right now. Understanding the value of real-time self-forming communities of purpose is the more strategic requirement.
Because bringing people together to build stuff they care about is the most important part of this thing we call social media (and it ain't social media if it don't change your organisation!)
How much has that got to do with creating content?
How much has it got to do with media at all?
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Good points. I think social media bridges the gap between observation and engagement - you can use it to report, and you can use it to take part in actions, or both.
ReplyDeleteAs a form of reporting it falls short because the information is largely unverified, but people are increasingly using tools like Twitter and Facebook to link to (and comment on) mainstream information sources from media, government and so on. So social media creates an audience for and engagement with mainstream media - but it does that most effectively when there's a stimulus to action, like supporting the protests in Iran or responding to the rise of the BNP in the UK.
good post David.
ReplyDeleteIt's about 'human revolution'. ie; as self and the 'environment' are interdependent and
interconnected, by changing one's 'self' it effects 'social' change by default.
and if enough of us do it...
Nice post, but perhaps blurring two related concepts a little too much.
ReplyDeletePeople self-organise in communities of purpose without 'top down' organisation - although often 'leaders'emerge in order to have a productive outcome.
In terms of content, people are self-publishing in a huge number of ways and formats. Some of this is filtered by the networks an individual forms - so they see what their friends are doing, effectively.
But there is also a need for context which can often be missing from unfiltered streams (for example, how many trusted friends does the average network contain who were giving honest accounts of #Mumbai, and how many people were repeating and retweeting without considering the content, or spamming the hashtag on Twitter etc).
There's also the debate around how much insight eyewitness reports can give - how do you take 200 tweets about a plane crash, and then bring in industry figures, implications for business, etc, without some form of organisation or journalistic contacts and skills?
It's the difference between action e.g the community that is involved in investing via something like Kiva, and the content role of something like Twitter during an event.
Both are social, but they have different requirements and skills.
It is interesting that, in contrast to what you have said, much of the post-Iran infowar analysis of the situation has suggested that twitters main achievement in the Iran uprisings was publicizing and reporting to the world what was happening. As an organizing tool it has been suggested that most of the IN Iran organizing was done through rather old fashioned methods. Internet social networks have had a huge influence, and the influence will continue and only grow, but it does seem that it is far more influential when it comes to things like grass roots citizen journalism than when it comes to organizing. There are some great interviews with top journalists about the future of journalism and the influence of technology at http://www.ourblook.com/component/option,com_sectionex/Itemid,200076/id,8/view,category/#catid69 which I have found useful on these subjects.
ReplyDeleteJorem I'm not sure there is a contrast. People spreading the word via Twitter, other social networks, email, text or word of mouth are doing so not for passive consumption. They do so with the hope that those receiving such meta data have a shared interest (lets say in a fair election and against brutalism) and will join with them in some way to act to the benefit of that interest.
ReplyDeleteIf the receipients only action is to retweet, that is still action toward the shared goal. The tools (Twitter among them) make it easier to organise faster.