The Future of The Groundswell
Social technologies are exploding.They are embedded within every activity, not just on computers, but also mobile devices and in the real world. This is the ubiquitous groundswell.
Take Weibo as an example. I need to explain a little here. Weibo is known as microblog. People usually take it as Chinese "Twitter". Not necessarily. However, if it is easy to understand what Weibo is and how Weibo works, it is fine.
I have people following me who are nothing more than an online presence, and I follow people who I do not personally know as well. Yet it connects us in our daily lives. We are all connected somehow; internet, social media sites, jobs, friends, the possibilities are truly ‘ubiquitous’.
As ubiquitous as the groundswell is, what comes next will be interesting. Think how our lives were a decade ago. Facebook wasn’t invented yet. Nor was Twitter. The revolution of the internet truly expanding across the globe and the cost of electronics to access the internet advanced. This in turn set the stage for social media applications like Facebook and Twitter.
This reminded me of a video I watch in the first class. Although the video was made in 2011 and the statistics were probably not correct up-to-date, I see it still a good one to know how the internet or social media change our life.
Plus, the "ubiquitous" rendered me think of another show named The Virtual Revolution, which is BBC documentaries. It talks about, twenty years on from the invention of the World Wide Web, how it is reshaping almost every aspect of our lives.
Social Media has its critics. Take Central Social Hall’s approach to social media and the art of public conversation: ‘Talk, Don’t Text‘ video that exemplifies texting, or being too involved in social media takes away from the person to person aspect of conversation and communication.
As the chapter outlines (pg 280) “First, never forget that the groundswell is about person to person activity. This means you as a person must be ready to connect to people you haven’t met”. The groundswell is about person to person contact .
“Second, be a good listener. Marketers sometimes have trouble with this, they think their job is about talking to customers” Listen closely. The best listeners will end up on top. If you care about your followers/ customers they will hopefully care about you.
“Third, be patient. The technology moves so fast it’s easy to think you’re about to fall behind”
Practice Patience.Take your time. Not everyone within your organization is going to buy in right away. You need to be patient with them and allow them to buy in slowly. The more people who you have on your team, the better. That being said, don’t be afraid to be the leader of this slow-developing team. Take charge and help them along. Encouragement is key.
One site; “Inkling Media” speculates and talks about what will be ‘the next big thing‘. And really, nobody will know until it happens and becomes viral, much like the Youtube videos we all enjoy so much. It’s power in the numbers behind anything, especially for Social Media.
Be opportunistic. Start small but plan to grow. This will keep costs down and leave room for growth. The key here is growth, make sure you bite at every opportunity you get.
Be flexible. If you’re not changing your falling behind. This is a quote every organization should live by. Adjust and learn from the positive and negative events that you face.
Collaborate. Once you start, don’t ever stop. This includes collaborating with people within your organization and outside. Pretty much anyone who can contribute some sort of benefit. There are powers in numbers and there are good ideas everywhere. Embrace good and bad ideas. This will only encourage your employees to dream big.
Be humble. Don’t get ahead of yourself. You can never control it, your only along for the ride. This Groundswell belongs to everyone and it has a mind of its own. If you can keep this in mind, you will be fine.
Charlene Li is one of the co-authors of the very popular Social Media and Web 2.0 book, Groundswell - Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, that came out earlier this year. She co-wrote Groundswell with Josh Bernoff while they were both at Forrester Research. Li has since moved on to create her own company,Altimeter Group.
Li was asked to speak at Google. Following is her very interesting presentation where she spends some time looking at what potential future groundswells will arise: Authors@Google - Charlene Li
Reference:
Charlene Li, Josh Bernoff, Groundswell: Wining in a world transformed by social technologies
Social media is compelling and can be a challenge to turn off. I often see people absorbed with their phones and not interacting with the people around them -- this is the downside of social media.
ReplyDeleteI like your two-sides vie of evaluating social media. It does bring us a lot of fun and convenience, in the meanwhile, it has created distance between people. Thanks for sharing the presentation, which is interesting and useful.
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