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.

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Focus Groups vs Communities of Purpose

The focus group is a much relied on tool in marketing, PR, politics - behaviour changing activity of all kinds.

But its role is disrupted and a layer of professionalism disintermediated by Communities of Purpose.

This morning I found (via twitter) Robert Scoble bigging up the response he got to a tweet on Twitter asking for advice on great accessories for his flip cam.

Robert said: "By the way, in just a few hours I got about 30 suggestions for the Flip accessory on Twitter. Is this the world's largest focus group? Yes!”.

But it's way better than that. What Robert was taking part in was an adhoc, self-forming community of purpose.

And there were two key elements which gave it an outcome with real value attached.

1. The community self organized around something they care about.

In this case its purpose was sharing best advice about the flip cam. Only a subset of Robert's followers cared enough to join in. This was likely driven by their desire to connect with other flipcam users (shared content about the flipcam and their desire to flag up ownership of it providing the glue) and to gain trust and authority within the larger community of purpose which has organized around Robert Scoble.

Odd to think of Scoble as a social object perhaps. But not wrong?

The second key element:

2. The real community of purpose here, the real creators of value, were the ones who cared enough about the purpose to drop everything in real time, right now.

In other words, a subset of a subset in any community is where it's ability to create value lies.

But this does not mean Reed's Law is wrong. No, because any additional node added to this network can still double its value. Why? The two sub groups are self-forming and self-organising.

So just because the purpose of one community subset does not tempt you to drop everything to join in, the next one may.

And unless you are connected you cannot contribute. Therefore just by being connected you add value to a network.

And the fact that you are connected may mean you are drawn in as the conversation grows and sustains.

As you see other people talking about it within your community you may follow the lead, lean forward and discover that if they are interested, you should be too.

And so, the difference between focus groups and communities of purpose?

1. Focus groups are centrally organized
Communities of purpose organize themselves around things they care about.

2. Focus group membership is centrally selected
Members of communities of purpose select themselves

3. In focus groups the centre makes the introduction and extracts the value
In communities of purpose members introduce eachother and share the value created

4. The composition of focus groups reflect the preconceptions of the central organizers
Communities of purpose are only limited in scope by the silo in which they form (btw, language counts as a silo).

5. Focus groups can't influence anyone outside the room in realtime.
Communities of purpose do.

Actually and quite simply, in all senses, communities of purpose do.

And that opens the doors to co-creation. Exactly what Robert was getting at in his subsequent tweets and response to my own.

“There's a reason behind the Flip question. I'm working with a supply-chain manager and he's showing me how we can disrupt the market about 1 hour ago from web.

“Imagine building a product, getting funding, getting feedback via Twitter, building it, marketing it, shipping it all within days. Wow.

“@davidcushman “I am shocked more companies don't design products on Twitter. After seeing the video we're filming now there will be more.”

Now. How will you go about organising your next focus group?

Social networks and the broadcast conversation starter

I spoke at EPublishing Innovation Forum in London today and it was fun. The brilliant Vin Crosbie was doing the keynote and I'm delighted to say he came by to say hi after my presentation because I'd reminded him of some important stuff that he usually forgets to say - the why of the internet is people reaching out to find other people. And we had a great conversation.

That highlighted something for me: presenting makes you the deliverer of content - this waves a flag for the start of conversation. As a presenter the audience has acquired some very useful metadata about me and my purpose and that triggers conversation galore once the broadcast (me speaking from the stage) is over. There's a lesson in here about the value of content in a broadcast mode which media could get something from. I'm going to think about this some more.

The other thing is that Vin's keynote covers much of the theoretical framework I'm interested in so I kind of adapted my presentation on the hoof.

I floated an idea I've been toying with in recent days - that perhaps we were guilty of over estimating the impact of the internet before the arrival of ubiquitous social networking.

Social networks have only gained currency in the last five years or so. Is it a coincidence that this has been the same period in which broadcast media has seen its revenues dwindle and its audiences shrink?

The real ease with which groups of purpose can organise in social networks is something that wasn't so easily enabled on forums and in newsgroups of emails.

When new tools become truly ubiquitous change happens. In this case I'm suggesting the new tools isn't simply the internet, it's the refinement of social networks (networking for the masses?)

The process of using social networks has educated a new and huge generation in the value of real-time synchronous communication which is the guts of the formation of communities of purpose.

Just a thought at this stage, and one lashed down at speed driven by battery run-down fear! Your input welcome.

I'm on my way to Cannes now, for MeM and the Meffys. More from there as live as I can make it!

SceneCaster.com: The moment virtual world's go mainstream?

The virtual world is coming to a facebook page or a blog near you (and as soon as they find a place for me on the beta public test I'll demo it!).

There's a real buzz growing up around SceneCaster.com. I'll resist the urge to add it to my 'one's to watch' until I've actually had a play.

But non-stop-digital-news blogger Robert Scoble is raving - and it does seem to open up some interesting new possibilities.

I have to say I do like the disaggregated, user-distribution model they're using (like youtube's widgets). So SceneCaster should 'play' on this or any other webpage, provided you can paste in a code snippet.

This alone may prove to be the virtual world's mass-market trigger point - in the same way as the I-Phone presses the go button on mobile internet. Virtual worlds go viral.

Imagine a real-time auction for the item you are selling. This may have powerful, and rapidly enabling consequences for the new forms of classified advertising I've been imagining (ie virtual showrooms - now everyone could show off their vehicle for sale and pitch buyers head to head: eBay meets SecondLife...)

It has implications for global niche communities, too. In SecondLife there are limits to the numbers of people (80) who can meet in one place. So replicating a full crowd experience is tough. Now we can have a proper virtual conference.

And I love the possibilities of that when it comes to getting a niche community of shared interest together - 'physically' on a global scale. It really writes large that synchronous communication element that's so important in the most powerful communities of shared purpose.

It should be easier to give directions in Scenecaster because you can link to a location as a separate url. That's been a problem for SecondLife. It's a bonus for those who will use it to promote anything. There's a big marketing play here.

It may not have the complete immersion of SecondLife, but it looks like the advantages (and Robert lists more on his blog) could trump this - particularly for those who prefer to 'live' in the real and virtual space.

UPDATE: Sep 27, 1.30pm:
Having had a play I've found there were more limitations than I initially believed. I can access, update and share my scenes but only (currently) within SceneCaster or Facebook. Not on my blog etc. All I can share on my blog is an image of it. Now that may not be all bad. Combined with the url for the room, it should suffice as an invite to people to come on it... I think.
Come and check out the FasterFuture lounge here.

News = real time personalised information part II

This recent post 'How to please all the people all of the time' might sound a little far fetched to those who don't write or read blogs.
As I drove home last night an example came to me which illustrates the notion that news has no future as a mass, BROADcast model.
I was listening to the BBC's Radio Five Live. It's a news and sport channel. And I found myself wishing I could reach for a fast-forward button so I could zip past this particular piece of broadcast news to get on to the next item, in the hope I might find the next one more personally interesting.
Apply the lastfm model to news, for example. Then I'd start to get the disaggregated pieces of 'news' (read information) I actually wanted - at the time I wanted them.
And if I can activate community recommendation/introduction/reputation systems within that, all the better.
If I, a digital immigrant, am thinking this, what must a digital native be doing? I suspect they've pretty much already given up on broadcast news - and are googling for news, selecting rss feeds, specialised podcasts etc as the closest approximation of what they really want.
Seems to me there is a news-as-real-time-personalised-community-created-and-distributed model just waiting to be deployed. If it can deliver across channels (audio - for drivers, video or text via mobile phones to commuters etc, IPTV for the home consumer) then I would no longer have to sit through dull news that said nothing to me.
This requires more pervasive computing (ie mobile hooked up to my In Car Entertainment) for the audio model - but the mobile phone is busily leading us here anyway.
News would instantly be more engaging.
The consequences of this are important. If issues that matter to you can be more readily accessible it's but a small step to a more activated community ready to participate in the politics of their world.
Give people the tools to engage with information they care about and you are giving them the 'news' they need to participate in their world.