For six years I’ve been telling the story of the Invisible Children in nearly all of the social media training I’ve delivered and some consulting sessions as well.
I do this for three reasons:
1. it’s a story which needs to be told
2. it highlights the idea of collective positive action to change the world
3. it illustrates the power new media and social technologies can aid distribution of the story and idea.
Even after all this time it still makes me cry!
Watch the film.
Support the cause.
Marvel at the boldness.
Note the new visual political discourse.
Celebrate the audacity and more important than that… share it wider!
It’s easy not to “be evil” when you’re ahead. But when you’re backed into a corner and your usual strategies aren’t working, it’s easy to get frustrated, scared, and angry, and throw previously held morals and standards out the window.
Google’s foray into social networking was late.
They knew this. The reversal of some of their key policies, touted as differentiators (such as now welcomes young people, when it said it wouldn’t and now it allows pseudonyms, sort of, when it said it wouldn’t), smacks as a little desperate along with the ‘Google+-button-creep’ into all of their other product lines.
So why are they going all in?
Maybe, it’s not to create hoards of long term users (especially when you take into consideration how users only spend 3 minutes on the site last January, compared to half of the same time for Pinterest users or 7.5 hours for Facebook maniacs) but more the fact that it simply increases their ability to productise your ongoing use of their other platforms:
Google scrambled to build Google+ because it watched Facebook and saw users were willing to volunteer biographical data to their social network, and that data is crucial to serving accurate ads users want to click.
The fact is we’ve all been scrapbooking for years.
Now we just aggregate digitally.
Faster.
Tidier.
With more people.
Over wider topics.
New is rarely something monumental but rather a quiet shift and addition. A gentle increase to the discourse. And by adding in multiples of time and people, it appears more than it is.
This is replicated in the (misplaced) discussion about social media and how it’s constantly changing and morphing, when it should be about the fundamental skills not the platforms themselves. Seeing it as not a mountain to climb but a wave to catch totally shifts the thinking and approach.
Steens Manuka Honey is the best tasting honey on the planet. Not only is it rich in medicinal properties (you can put this stuff on your wounds and it will aid recovery) but as a brand they also understand how to entice a customer.
Above is a little strip of card with a sealed packet of the delicious nectar on the reverse. Snap the strip in half and enjoy a sweet sample.
This for me is the correct definition and real-life use of the freemium model—leveraging the quality of the product through a sharable short-form handout.
This has parallels with social media, as every tweet, blog post, video vignette etc is a taster to the larger brand offer. A cheeky flavour to excite those to want more.
Done well, with grace and quality, it’s a simple and sure-fire way to build up a customer / consumer base who advocate you further by distributing your free little contributions.
Develop and dispense tasters.
Simple.
Big thanks to Dom who first gave me the honey strips and a jar to get my hooked. Further thanks to Sheryl for being a wonderful soul through our contact on Steens Facebook Page and for sending me more tasters—my colleagues are going to enjoy these and I’m sure will be converted into customers as well.
My current focus (apart from pooling together some fab speakers to share their knowledge) is on the experience and value the customer / member receives plus the why and what truth this project essentially serves.
This is what I’ve come up with:
This is for the project manager who needs to delight and astonish their bosses / colleagues in that important meeting.
This is for the conference organiser who has realised that titles and positions of authority does not equate to being a good public speaker.
This is for lecturers who want to engage the whole room, from the front-seat-swots to the back-of-the-room-hall-dwellers.
This is for the sales rep who is hungry to explore the power of telling stories and is craves some inspiration.
This is for the tired executive whose career needs new energy and vitality to project them forward in the looming performance review.
This is for those who can’t ever imagine speaking to a room of people (no matter how big or small) and have a positive impact.
This is for you.
It will exist to aid, challenge, enable, add, energise, delight, empower, sharpen, equip all newbies and old hands to be able to speak better.
If you’re in management, in an old industry / sector or new to the emerging digital culture and online economies, then this will scare the beejeebas out of you.
The digital revolution of the last decade has unleashed creativity and talent in an unprecedented way, with unlimited opportunities.
But does democratized culture mean better art or is true talent instead drowned out? This is the question addressed by PressPausePlay, a documentary film containing interviews with some of the world’s most influential creators of the digital era.
Back in the 1950’s Winky Dink And You (see above video) was at the forefront of interactive media. Kids were invited to participate in concluding every episode by literally connecting the dots using a transparent sheet placed on the television screen and drawing on it with special pens (they were just crayons).
Over half a century later the box in the corner avails a gargantuan amount of viewing options. Our interaction is mainly with the remote, which is used as a tool to carve through the immensity offered. Texting to vote on some karaoke-style show or choosing between which sport commentary is the depth of our interaction—most content is still a passive consumption one-way serving.
Just like the acetate used by the kids, we are simply completing the narrative proposed rather than defining a wholly original one for ourselves or even shaping its future.
There is another way…
Embrace the opportunity to find our own voice.
Rage and publish.
Aggregate and share.
Understand the power of creating your own media menu.
The world is not what the news tells you it is.
It is far sadder.
Madder.
Awesome.
Inspiring.
Lovely.
Creative.
Get out.
Develop your own media.
Your own message.
Take photos (nearly everyone reading this have a device which does this).
Share.
Capture audio.
Share.
Shoot video.
Share.
Comment like a fool (don’t just nod your head and move on).
Click all the buttons.
Try breaking the web (you can’t—I tried).
Talk to people.
Connect with people.
Ask them questions.
Set up an RSS aggregator.
Subscribe to a vast array of varying blogs and online spaces.
Blog yourself.
Understand the difference between curation and creation.
Craft a more balanced media diet.
Don’t accept the world as it is offered to you.
Get rid of your television and live longer, have more / better sex, look taller / slimmer / younger, earn more money, etc
