Social Cache.
A Nemo blog. Dealing with uncommon cents.

I have a friend who is studying journalism at a decent university. Before she started the course and took on the financial burden it would entail she had asked me for my opinion about the value of having a journalism degree versus just diving in and finding a job as a writer. Tricky question.

Here we are in 2008 where ‘citizen journalists‘ abound and they are here to stay as Wikipedia shows. Although getting a good degree is a worthwhile endeavor my gut tells me that my friend should be writing; every day, everywhere. A degree in journalism may no longer be the prerequisite to being gainfully employed.

As more businesses begin to embrace radical transparency (as they should) then new job positions are opening up that do not follow the old tried [tired?] and tested methods of ‘corporate communications.’ In the new world of PR/Communications I suggest that the following list of abilities/talents would be a very large part of the job description. See how you score:

01. Do you have a personal blog or website? [ Yes? - good. 10 points. No? - start one.]
02. Are you an influencer? [Do your peers look to you for advice and insight into how people are snapping up the latest gadgets and are immersing themselves in music, fashion and technology? Do they ask you what your opinion is before they make a decision themselves?] 10 points.
03. Are you a trusted source? [Do people trust your opinions on subjects in your area of expertize? For instance, if you are a devout environmentalist do you think the Toyota Prius is a boon or a bust? Explain.] 10 points.
04. Are you a thought leader? [Do you contribute articles and essays that outline your thinking on subjects that you are well versed in? Do people care?] 10 points.
05. Are you a filter? [Do you carefully distill content, media and messages into relevant posts for your readers?] 10 points.
06. You are, of course, well versed in the art of Google Alerts, right?
[No? deduct 10 points.]
07. You use Twitter, FaceBook, Tumblr, FriendFeed, Flickr, MyVidoop, LinkedIn, Twellow, Ma.gnolia and faithfully follow Daily Candy, BuzzNet, Idolater and Perez Hilton. [Good. Award yourself any number of points.]
08. You understand that a Combine Harvester is not a competitor to Yahoo! Pipes?
09. You understand the function of memes in the cultural sociosphere? [If you can understand the relationship between Richard Dawkins, his writings on natural selection, Darwin and John Gray's thoughts on The Human Animal, award yourself untold amounts of points.]
10. Finally. You understand that there is no reason whatsoever for a company to have a FaceBook Page, yes? [Good.]

Ok, so my points system is lame but hey, if you scored more than 50 points you can now apply for any position that includes the following in the job description – Social Media, PR 2.0, Web Content Editor, Blogger, Web 2.0 Communications Director, Online Evangelist, New Media Communications Director, Online Guru…etc, etc, etc…Or you could follow your heart and get that journalism degree.

Nemo’s Creative Director Mark Lewman and me were riffing on his idea of how a company’s work and overall business can be validated in an era of Google, YouTube, Wikipedia and radical transparency et al. The bottom line that we seemed to arrive at is that it is not good enough to deliver good work these days – anyone can do good work. The task at hand is to be trusted to create amazing work and then, when your amazing work is discovered, fame will surely follow.

Here’s Mark’s distilled thoughts so far:
Success in the 21st century means finding balance between two timeless elements Trust and Fame. Your work is who you are. This is the part of the equation you control. To stand out today, everything you do must be awesome. When people encounter what you produce they must find substance and excellence. Just because an idea can be relied upon as great doesn’t mean it automatically wins. It isn’t complete until it has believers; distribution and exposure make an idea stronger and add value through cultural validation. As trust and reliability grows so should the fame.

Jeff Jarvis provides an extension of these thoughts when he writes on Buzzmachine – “All content must be transparent: open on the web with permanent links so it can receive links. It’s not content until it’s linked.”

And then, looking beyond transparency at the barriers to creative expression and its dissemination, it is worth remembering this point that Jarvis recounts elsewhere in ‘The Myth of the Creative Class‘ after he has reconsidered his views on copyright law and realizes that a too stringent application of copyright infringement can stifle the spread of what has been created – “when creations are restricted it is the creator who suffers more because his creation won’t find its full and true public, its spark finds no kindling, and the fire dies. The creative class, copyright, mass media, and curmudgeonly critics stop what should be a continuing process of creation; like reverse alchemists, they turn abundance into scarcity, gold into lead.”

Obama’s viral timepiece.

These days the advertising and marketing world is all abuzz with phrases such as – Social Media, Social Advertising, Facebook Ads, Mass Media Networking Advertising…..etc, etc.. In the last two weeks I have been a panelist at the L I S A seminar in Portland and the Hawaii MusicTech Conference in Honolulu. L.I.S.A., which is an acronym for Lessons In Social Advertising, was aimed at marketers and advertisers who [for some reason] don’t understand social networks or haven’t yet worked out how to advertise effectively to them. It focused on topics such as ‘What is social advertising?’ and ‘How do you get young people to recommend your brand?’ The Hawaii MusicTech panel discussed how musicians could effectively use social networks such as Facebook and MySpace to reach an audience and communicate with them.

Two sides of the table as it were. One group wants to advertise, or push, their messages to a mass audience, while the other wants to create a network of like-minded people who hopefully will pull content such as free MP3s and then “evangelize” on behalf of the musicians by spreading messages by electronic word of mouth. With no hint of schizophrenia I happily migrate between both camps.

To understand and embrace social networking is to place the idea that says “technology makes this possible” to one side and embrace the idea of the basic human need to stay in touch with other like-minded people at all times. As Clay Shirky says “The desire to be part of a group that shares, cooperates, or acts in concert is a basic human instinct.” Think about rock concerts for a minute…..

Most people that take a position on social networking and advertising come at it from a technological point of view, as in “technology has created the means for everyone to be connected and to stay in touch.” I disagree with that statement because it removes nature from the game. It is entirely natural for humans to want to interact as often as possible as we are all social animals. Cities are no more artificial (technological) than the hives of bees. Therefore the Internet is as natural as a spider’s web. People who believe that technology is driving our interactions are missing the point – we ourselves are technological devices, invented by ancient bacterial communities as a means of genetic survival. Bottom line – social media is as natural as apple pie as we all want to be as connected as possible – we can’t help it. [A really good book from which I have borrowed some thoughts is 'Straw Dogs' by John Gray, professor of European thought at LSE, published in the UK by Granta.]

Online networks might be seen as antidotes to boredom at work, school or college. These new social networks do more than transmit information about their members, they change behaviour by propagating moods. These days we can all share “news” really fast, even about ourselves – for example, my Facebook or Twitter status might say “I’m heading to the beach in Waikiki…” and the mood that simple statement makes might become very contagious.

The Internet confirms what we have all known for a long time – the world is ruled by the power of suggestion but in the case of social networking it is “influencers” that lead the suggesting. Then suggestions might become “group think.” John Gray writes – “in evolutionary prehistory, consciousness emerged as a side effect of language. Today it is a by product of media.”

So, the question currently being asked by companies and advertisers is “how do we market and advertise to social networks?” Having to ask that question suggests the rocky ground that online advertisers are standing on. For instance, Jack Myers sees nothing but doom and gloom in online marketing: He says “Advertising is simply not a sufficient revenue model to sustain content companies into the long-term future.” And goes on -

“I have preached evangelically for nearly three decades about the bifurcation of the media and advertising marketplace into 1) a transactional commodity business model and 2) a relationship-based brand-focused premium marketplace. Most media companies and agencies are investing appropriately in the technology resources required for their transactional businesses. [But] Brand building, relationship-based business models and premium-priced enterprises require completely new and innovative models, and can take years before they generate returns that justify the investments. Industry realities place enormous pressure on executives to adhere to traditional business models, and companies that foster and advance innovation are often drained of resources before they can deliver the return-on-investment demanded by the stock market, equity rights holders and VC investors. Typically, implementation of new business models must be forcefully imposed by the CEO, need the blessing of investors, and they cannot be managed by executives trained exclusively in the ways of traditional media and advertising.”

Neil Perkin in a slideshow entitled ‘What’s Next in Media’ that can be found here says that today – Social Media is counter-intuitive to communications media. Here’s one of his slides that shows just how counter-intuitive things have become for marketing online:

Meanwhile, the old way of marketing is through push messaging and therein lies the mistake of many of today’s marketing managers. Take a look at this slide to see how things don’t stack up nicely into a marketing message or ‘drop’ that has been long planned waiting its turn on the calendar.

The Linear model above reminds me of traditional TV and Print advertising. Some people in advertising and marketing today still view the Internet as a “channel” rather like TV.

Let’s consider another buzz phrase – viral marketing online. The success of YouTube in extending an advertising campaigns length and reach is now common currency. We’ve all seen the videos, perhaps even this one – My girlfriend and the Wii Fit. 2.2 million views and going strong.
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