Text2Win against the Zimbabwe government!

Communities Dominate Brand's Tomi Ahonen has asked for FasterFuture's help in spreading the word about the following. I'm delighted to be able to offer it. Their work and creativity is a great example of out-thinking a repressive central regime.

The centre can't keep control in a world of constantly connected communities. SW Radio Africa is demonstrating the shift to a world of 'we' from one of them and us.

And it will continue to do so, with your help.

Tomi: "The Association of International Broadcasters awards ceremony has rewarded a small African radio station, SW Radio Africa, for the most creative marketing concept. But while they are doing wonderful work, this is something that needs immediate and urgent support.

"Briefly, Zimbabwe is a poor African country where the economy has collapsed (latest inflation just during the month of October was 15,000 percent) and the government is very corrupt. And the government censors the media.

"SW Radio Africa is the independent Zimbabwe news source broadcasting on shortwave radio out of neighboring South Africa. Except that now Zimbabwe of course also blocks their radio broadcasts.

"SW Radio Africa decided, if you censor my broadcasts, then I go SMS... (text) Pretty clever by the small radio station where TV is not a viable option and internet/PC penetration is nearly zero. But there are plenty of cheap old second hand mobile phones...

"So SMS. Zimbabweans can't afford even to pay for the SMS. So SW Radio Africa sends the news free to anyone in Zimbabwe who signs up to the service. Over 6,000 have signed up and they are adding 100 new subscribers every day.

"So they don't do advertising (who would advertise to such a devasted economy anyway) but someone has to pay for the SMS. SW Radio Africa asks for sponsors to cover the cost of the SMS transmissions.

"So here is my request. If you think this is a worthy cause, that a free radio station broadcasting news into Zimbabwe is on a good task, and that since they are now blocked by the Zimbabwe government, SMS text messaging is a reasonable alternative to get past the censorship, then please do spread the story. Lets try to find some supporters and further sponsors for SW Radio Africa. Lets get some news and information to the poor devastated people in Zimbabwe."

Their website is

http://www.swradioafrica.com/

Cultural shift: email vs blogs and wikis

Alan Moore (Communities Dominate Brands) draws our attention to an Interesting report from Information Week

It reports from the Enterprise2.0 Conference in Boston:

"Joe Schueller, who's driving P&G's adoption of new collaboration tools asks: How about e-mail, which Schueller describes as the biggest barrier to employee use of more interactive and effective tools.
"As a sender of an e-mail, I control the agenda of everyone around me," Schueller says. E-mailers decide who has permission to read a message... Blogs, in contrast, beg for comments from those most interested."

Schueller gives us a great example of how the hierarchical and centralised power and information structures of a company have come to prevail in its dominant choice of communication tools.

Email is, essentially, a broadcast tool. It's perhaps why it is losing currency with Generation C - who now show a marked preference for text (shorter and far more immediate - replicating better the dynamics of a live conversation) over email.
Their obvious preference for social media of all kinds derives from a preference for persistent conversation over the 'post-it' note of an email.

What simple and elegant examples of empowerment and emancipation of the network derive from this: Why email when you can blog? Why email when you can join a wiki? Why email when you can text? Why email when you can twitter? Why email when you can post on a Facebook wall?

Email, of course, retains some value for direct one-to-one external broadcast transmissions (ie, I need to get a post-it note on Mr X's screen at Company Y). Its value for internal groups, or social customer interaction is clearly far less.

Perhaps it is simply because of this: Email has the advantage of privacy. The flip side is that it is not the right choice for sharing, collaboration or empowering networks.

That's a lesson for internal communication - and for all those who understand there is a network of power just waiting to upgrade their ideas.

Anyone for a ban on email?

SMS addiction at the Download Festival

SMS text messaging is so addictive that a community will use it even when it is directly face to face with the people it is sharing messages with. We see this in examples of flirting, private conversations in groups etc.
Another great example cropped up last weekend. At the Download Festival at Donington Park in the UK My Chemical Romance got bottled off the stage.
Throughout their performance in front of a very live audience, members of the crowd could send, and have displayed on a large screen, their messages to each other, to the band etc.
So even though the audience could communicate so directly and overtly with the band through voice (and even through physical acts) the urge, the compulsion to text, continued.
The best example I heard of was one text to a particular member of the band which read: "That bottle that just hit you right on the head - that was from me!"
Talk about keeping all your channels of communication open...
It's essentially a text-as-broadcast model of the kind you see on TV. The difference here is that the audience being broadcast at is also physically connected by context (ie in the same space).

Text overtakes voice - Generation C asserts itself

According to a JD Power survey people in the UK now text more than they talk on their mobiles.
Quick lesson for media companies?
Maybe your users would prefer to text their ad in than speak to a call centre?
Text takes advantage of the personal, always on, always to hand, payment-ready advantages of the mobile phone.
The Register's writing on this JD Power report reduces this to a way in which users are cutting the cost of their phone bills (text is cheaper than talk).
This misrepresents what is really going on here. The rise of text is part of the rise of always-connected-communities (Communities Dominate Brands 'Generation C) which is changing the whole media ecology.
The report continues: "The survey notes that modern handsets offer such a range of entertainment there's little time to make phone calls - users are busy playing games, watching videos, and checking on their eBay auctions."
Yes - but they are doing all that while keeping constantly in touch via IM, text, email - and if the continuing conversation requires it, they switch to voice (usually the least personal communication because it is the least private).