Creative Commons By License from Dion Hinchcliffe
Dion Hinchcliffe presents a great visual illustrating the difference between traditional/mainstream and social media. It made me think of how many times have I heard crusty old nonprofit technology consultants, "Social media, no body knows what that is?"
Hinchcliffe goes on to give us a clear definition for social media with pointer to wikipedia's definition and emphasizes "The key here is that people are the ones that use and control these tools and platforms instead of organizations and large institutions."
Of course, any effective technique or phenomenon has those who attempt to co-opt it or copy it, the latter which is the most sincerest form of flattery. The recent Public Relations 2.0 flap, which ostensibly boiled down to whether or not traditional organizations can even conceive of how these new freeform platforms work, was a good example of how institutions firmly grounded in the 20th century struggle to understand the power shift under way. Because these platforms are no longer under anyone's control for the very reason that the Web is a system without an owner, except all of us together.
He goes on to ask: "But how significant is this really? What are the compelling datapoints that tell use that social media is changing the landscape of communication, collaboration, and personal interaction?" In the next few paragraphs, presents statistics that illustrate the "mainstreaming" of social media - like this google trends for podcasting.
He lays out the ground rules for Social Media.
1. Communication in the form of conversation, not monologue.
2. Participants in social media are people, not organizations.
3. Honesty and transparency are core values.
4. It's all about pull, not push.
5. Distribution instead of centralization.
When users are in control via the highly democratizing tools of the Web, the fundamental ground rules change. Understand them, follow them, and embrace them, this is the pre-eminent media model for the 21st century.
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