Wikileaks: a sign of the mess to come

The recent Wikileaks / US cables saga, and the previous Iraq leaks saga, illustrate very neatly the problems ahead as we struggle to come to terms with the social media revolution.  We are in a place where the world is changing, but we have yet to develop the rules and processes we need to adapt to this new world.

This new world is the world of greater transparency, where almost everything must be considered to exist in the public domain. Like it or not, this world is not going to go away; it follows inevitably from the fact that information cannot now be locked up and contained within institutionalised channels.  The ability to publish information is now, as Clay Shirky says, “global, social, ubiquitous and cheap”. Continue reading →

Stories and storytelling – its the future of marketing

Here is a good post from Antony Mayfield with some examples of the use of new technologies to tell stories.  As I have written about (at some length) before, storytelling and what I call narrative marketing is becoming incredibly important because social media is conversational and stories drive conversations, whereas propositions drive ads (or other forms of restrictive one-to-many mass messages).

The quick story on stories is this.  Continue reading →

links for 2010-11-08

First example of Foursquare spam

Just been subject the first example I have seen of Foursquare spam.  A movie has created a fake identity (Subterrestrial Research Association) which it is using to solicit friends on Foursquare.  It is then adding the cinema venues where the film will run as Things Done.  Its latest venue added is a cinema in Ipswich, which I guess is why it has found me (my location being Suffolk).  It also has a Twitter identity and more conventional Facebook page (under the identity of the actual movie).

Is it spam, or is it digital marketing, is there a difference, does it work?  Well, I looked at the Foursquare profile, if only to find out what a Subterrestrial might be the mayor of.

links for 2010-10-27

Paper.li – content as raw material

Here is an interesting thingy brought to my attention courtesy of Neville Hobson.  Not sure whether it will take off, but I will give  go just to try it out.  Essentially it creates a piece of content (that it will call, in perhaps an unconciously retro way, my Daily Newspaper) out of my Twitter connections.

This is one more example of the fact that content can no longer be considered a finished product, only ever a raw material.  It only becomes a finished product in the hands of its’  consumer, and even then that content can be spun back out into the social maelstrom.   In effect, content is created via acts of interogation or connection rather than publication.   This is the Big Thing that newspapers (and other traditional content publishers) can’t get their heads around, as I have logged previously.

It also is another example (along with a Twitter tag) of McLuhan’s lightbulb – a medium that has no content of its own, but creates a social effect through the space it brings into being.

It’s nice to be appreciated

A couple of weeks ago I did a workshop for my fellow members of the EACA School faculty, since blogged about by the much esteemed Steve Henry (the 2nd H in HHCL – which will mean something for anyone who knows anything about the UK advertising industry) in Brand Republic. Steve gives a very succinct (and flattering) summary but what is also interesting are the comments.

The workshop was great fun – especially the opportunity to be present at the moment when a group of people who have a huge amount of experience invested in what I call Gutenberg media suddenly ‘get it’ in terms of understanding that social media is not about Facebook, blogs and Twitter.  And also when they start to realise how their expertise can be re-purposed to work in the new space.

There are a lot of Cs in social media

What is it with social media and Cs.  Conversation, Collaboration, Community, Content, Context, Collective, Connection, Cooperation, Crowd-sourced.   Also Consultant – lots of them.  The prevailing climate (Climate) of opinion however seems to suggest that there should only ever be four Cs in social media (see this article by Michael Brenner and the links within it).

I, however, always prefer the number three.  Two is never enough and four is always too much.  So I say there are three Cs in social media and this is how I arrive at this conclusion.

There are actually four spaces in social media (broken the rule already):

  1. the space where people are agreeing with you
  2. the space where people are disagreeing with you
  3. the space where people are asking the question to which you are the answer
  4. the space where people are prepared to help you do it (better)

The way you Do social media is to first of all identify these four spaces.  You then have to address them.

Spaces 1 and 2 you address through participation in Conversation.

Space 3 you address by producing Content (the role of content in social media being almost exclusively about answering specific questions, remembering, as I am always fond of saying, that an ad is an answer to a question that no-one ever asked)

Space 4 you address through the creation of a Community where you can get these people together.

That’s it.  There is no-more to social media than these four spaces and these three Cs.

Actually, that is not quite true.  You need a Story.  A story allows you work out what you need to say, in your conversations, in your content and in your community.  Four spaces, three Cs and a story.  I can almost feel a movie coming on.

I earn therefore I am

Upon what tablet of stone is it written that the only way to legitimise human creative expression is through commercialisation and professionalization?

Last week I was half listening to a BBC Radio 4 programme debating the issue of copyright in the digital age.  Present were the usual subjects: a legal type, a creative industry representative masquerading as a defender of the rights of artists (musicians in this instance), an actual practising artist (a poet in this instance – always a commercially marginal business) and a token naughty boy (someone who had been involved in bit torrent and movie sharing in this instance).  All chaired-over by some very emolient BBC presenter type.  However, at no point in this very civilised debate did anyone ask the fundamental question I have just posed.

We know the answer of course.  It is written upon no such stone.  If poetry dies because poets can’t make a buck – then what does this tell you about the value of poetry in the first place?   OK, so the likelihood is that some poets and musicians are going to find it harder to make a living.  The big question is “So What?”.  Who has the right to declare themselves a poet in any case?  Currently this right is conferred through the receipt of money.  I earn therefore I am.

We stand poised upon what could be the greatest explosion in human creative expression ever witnessed: the great unleashing of the cognitive surplus as identified by Clay Shirky in his most recent tome and here we are getting all upset because some already impoverished self-declared poet is finally going to have to get a day job.

We all know that Van Gough didn’t sell a single picture in his lifetime.  This may have been a bit tough on poor old Vincent, but it did nothing to dent the creative legacy he bequeathed to humanity.  One also suspects that money would not necessarily have made him either happier or more creative.  For sure, there have been many wealthy artists throughout history – but this wealth stemmed from patronage and thus their work was essentially PR and its current value stems as much from it being social commentary and a lens on society as from any independent creative value.  In the absence of many other well preserved historical lenses this was clearly an important role.  However, in today’s day and age we don’t lack for ways to record our history.

Imagine a world in which creative expression was driven by love, not money.  Would that really be such a terrible place?