Blah, social media’s over rated

“Personalizemedia shows us how active & dynamic the Social Web is.”

Wait… what?  There’s people out there actually doing stuff?  And this is different from how the world used to work… how?

Sorry Personalizemedia, this is not an attack on you.  I like that you can provide us with information on human behaviour online.  This is a post, though, in response to all of the information out there that keeps talking about how great the social web is (which I’m pretty sure I’m guilty of doing a lot of to date).  FYI – the “social web” isn’t that great.  It’s just a bunch of  computers and wires and servers and websites and photos and data and other things all mashed together.  Ie… it’s still the web.  The same web we knew.  And it’s still just a way to transmit information.

Social networks like Twitter and Facebook really aren’t all that spectacular once you’ve been on them for awhile.  They’re handy.  They’re useful.  But they’re nothing more than websites.  Websites with information on them that I connect to the same way I used to connect to websites.  Through the internet.

No.  Social media isn’t all that phenomenal.  At least not in the way most people think of social media.  They think of it in terms of the tools.  Of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Myspace… Again…  They’re all just websites.  They’re websites that would have no value at all if people didn’t post information to them.  But do you know what IS pretty phenomenal?  The way the world is changing AS A RESULT of what people are doing with online social networks.  The different, innovative, creative ways people are coming up with to raise money for a local charity, the causes and initiatives people are passionate about creating change around, finding new opportunities and new business ideas… from internet security to design to local community gardens to products.  The social web is becoming more active and more interesting because more people are doing more cool things.

I must admit, this post is driven by a comment on my FB wall that may or may not actually have been intended as a shot to social media as a profession.  But it’s stirred something inside of me.  At first my back raised at the undertone of distaste for social media that I read in the comment…. the same way it does whenever I hear somebody groan about social media.  But after a bit of thought, you know what?  I’m tired of hearing about the same things too.  I don’t need to hear about how great Twitter is.  Because it isn’t actually all that great.  And I already know that it can create opportunity and value.  And I’m guessing the early groaners already know this too.

That’s where it’s nice to have events coming through town like the Social Media Innovation Summit.  I’m tired of social media cheerleaders and I actually want to know how others think of it in terms of their business strategies.  There is only so much watching and listening and reading a person can do before they need an injection of innovation and strategy to further push their ideas forward.  So, I hope that this is the first of a new wave of information sharing.  The next level to social media is no longer about the hype.  It’s about how it can actually be effective.  Let’s get over our excitement and our fear of having people know what’s going on so quickly, get our hands dirty and actually do something.  Less talk.  More action.  Time to see if this stuff can really do what everyone keeps saying it can do… actually… I’m calling myself out here too.  I’m making it about the tools again.  Let’s see if I/we can do what we say we can do.

You know what else is dying?

My toothbrush. Seriously, the batteries have just about run out of juice. I was thinking about asking for a rechargeable electric toothbrush for Christmas. Then I thought about how common electric toothbrushes are becoming. And I thought ‘wow… Manual toothbrushes (teethbrush?) are dying… Someday they’ll cease to exist.’

Such an important item in our lives is starting to disappear… Something no household is without… And yet nobody is in an uproar about it. Nobody is sad that the toothbrush is dying. Why? Could it be because the toothbrush itself isn’t actually disappearing? Noo… It can’t be.

The electric toothbrush cleans my teeth better. Leaves my breath fresher. And frankly, that’s just a bonus for everyone. The need for the toothbrush hasn’t disappeared. It’s just taking on a new, more modern form.

Switch gears. Media. Newspapers. Television. The need to communicate important issues. FYI… It’s a manual toothbrush. And we are all starting to see how much cleaner our teeth can be with the electric. Give it some time. Let us innovate to fail faster and grow stronger… Our electric toothbrushes will leave our teeth and gums clean and strong and disease free. The Internet will get there too. Don’t worry. You’ll see.

Stepping it up a notch for #beatcancer

This is just a quick note. An idea that’s forming out of all this #beatcancer stuff that’s coming up on Twitter. It’s a great idea. And I applaud #beatcancer for coming up with it, and Ebay/Paypal and Miller Lite for supporting it.

The website’s got a counter up to show funds raised so far.  It’s become a trending topic on Twitter.  It’s an incredibly easy way for people to participate and raise some money.

What I’m not enjoying is tweets filled with #beatcancer.  You can fit 12 of those hashtags into one tweet by the way… I know you want to be supportive and help fight such a crappy disease.  But unless their counting hashtag references and not tweets, that’s of no use.  You’re better off doing twelve different tweets in a row to raise twelve cents.  And even then, that’s kind of spammy.

Why not rise above the spammers a little bit and share something useful…?  I’ve got two cousins that are cancer survivors, and an aunt that isn’t.  I know far too many friends and family who’s lives have also been touched by cancer in some way.  For them I’m rising above spammy.  So yes, tweet away and #beatcancer, but why not share something useful while you’re doing it?  Maybe share who you’re helping to #beatcancer for?

Only 1 in 33 employees access Facebook at work

“Last July, Nucleus Research reported that productivity dropped 1.5% at companies that allow full access to social media. This is probably because they also found that 87% of use was not work-related.  The headlines are a little alarmist, however, because they also note that only one in 33 employees accessed Facebook at work.”

From Positively Media

Who wants to report that last fact?  It doesn’t give us any reason to block social networks while at work.   1 in 33 people accessed Facebook at work for companies surveyed that gave employees full access to social networks.  That’s barely over 3%.  It’s like 3.0303030303%.  If a company is blocking access to social networks, it’s because they don’t trust 3% of employees.  3 %.  97% of employees could take on the 3% who abuse the system, couldn’t they?

Think about it.  Social networks work because, generally, they are user regulated.  People in workplaces discover what is accepted amongst their peers and what is not.  Especially with all of the cubicle farms that seems to be the trends for the ‘open and transparent’ office (I wonder how many of these offices have blocked access to social networks and aren’t using social tools online… a bit ironic I think).

Take a quick survey over the next couple of days.  How many of your coworkers spend part of their day in the coffee room chatting about their weekend, or last night’s episode of Survivor?  How many times in a day does somebody stop by your desk to see how your day is going?  How would you feel if nobody stopped to say hello?

if employees have appropriately challenging and defined goals and targets to meet at work, then they will either self-regulate or self-terminate.  The ability to text message or post a Tweet should not be viewed as an indication of deviant behavior.  There are, after all, lots of ways to waste time.

Great at work time wasters: Make coffee a habit, there’s always someone at the coffee pot waiting to chat.  Make water a habit, you’ll get to head to the bathroom every 5 minutes.  Who goes to the candy dish the most? (That’s me).  They waste a lot of time.  How about the people who are always wandering down the hall to chat?  Or have to go to the bathroom more than a couple of times a day?  They’re probably the same ones who drink a lot of water or coffee (that’s me).

Do we all work the same way?  Sitting at our desks like lemmings, tap tap tapping away at our keyboards… If we look productive then we must be productive, right?  Wrong.  I can’t speak for the majority of workers out there.  But I can speak for myself.  My job is to know social media, so my participation in social networks throughout the day is accepted.  But if my job wasn’t to be in social media, I’d have the same behaviours.  I’d visit the candy dish every couple of hours.  I’d head to the coffee pot, the water cooler, the bathroom, a co-worker’s office, etc. to chat several times a day.  Am I wasting time?  Has the internet given me ADD?

When I was a kid, I hovered.  I hovered a lot.  It drove my mom mad.  When I was in a hovering mood, nothing could distract me from hovering.  I followed her around the house, watched her dust, perched on the nearest chair.  I didn’t have anything to say.  I had plenty of other things to do.  But I hovered anyway.  Over time, I’ve learnt to make my hovering more productive… and to annoy people less.  Hovering (apparently), annoys people when there’s no point to it.  But when it’s hovering with the intent to chat, and doesn’t actually appear as hovering, it’s more accepted.  I also hover on Facebook… and Twitter… and YouTube… but it’s more fragmented.  I’ll spend 30 seconds flipping into Facebook, and 30 minutes working, another 30 seconds on Twitter, another 20 minutes working.  And so goes my day.  And my work gets done.  I’ve found ways to manage my hovering.  If I didn’t hover online, I’d be hovering around the offices of my coworkers.  I know I would.  But because I know that, and because I value what I can bring to the table in a company, I mitigate my hovering.  If I didn’t care, you’d know.  But if you told me I couldn’t hover anymore… well… I’d probably leave and go find a place that allowed me the flexibility to work how I work.

The debate for me isn’t whether human beings are “rational decision makers” (as the ‘other blog post‘ to this topic might suggest) or whether they will ultimately self regulate.  There are a kazillion (alright, not QUITE that many yet) of us on earth.  Like a quarter of a kazillion of us in North America.  Please, show me one theory that fits ALL human behaviour.  Show me something that merits the debates on behaviours of people in the work place.  But also, show me a workplace that is flexible enough to accommodate different behaviours and belief systems.  By some magic, I’ve found mine.  I don’t know what lucky star I wished upon when I was a child, but I’ve found a place where my behaviours and my beliefs, along with the needs of the company seem to coincide.

The question is not whether to block social networks or not… (why do we even block them at all when we can see who’s on what site and for how long? )… But what value can our employees gain from their networks?  So many people are hired for the people they are connected to… what if those connections are online?  And what if you are denying them access during work hours to people who can ultimately enhance your situation?  Online social networks are the same as offline social networks.  And really, by denying your employees access to their social networks, are you denying your company access to valuable resources? (It’s not what you know… it’s who you know). How many people take their work home with them? (that’s me).  My gut feel is that most won’t.  So do you want the intelligence their acquaintances have to offer?  Or do you want them to live in a bubble?

Dear anyone who invents things

Warning – extreme geek moment alert

Dear somebody on the internet who can code sharing things into websites:

Please invent a way for me to send website links via SMS.  Currently we can email and share on social networks, but I have not yet found any service that let’s me send a referral to a website I’m on from my computer to your cell phone.  With iPhones becoming available on Telus and Bell networks in November, and smart phones in general just taking over the world, I think that this would be another fantastic way to share a link with someone.  Especially since the link in smart phones is then clickable and takes you to the website anyway.

I think that would be an uber awesome mixture of two technologies that don’t quite talk to one another yet beyond Twitter interactions.

I appreciate your time, energy and aid in this matter.

Sincerest Regards,

Wendy the Uber Geek