I’m not a big fan of meme tagging. It’s like the social media version of the email chain letter. But what the hell, if it gets a few people to pay attention to my blog (“HELLO, people, I’m over here!”), then I’m all for it.
So, Doug Haslam tagged me on the what change will Obama bring blog-meme. Rather than answer his question here, I’m going to encourage folks in the Boston area to share their answers at January’s Social Media Club Boston event, where we’ll talk about social media’s implications on local, state and federal government.
HOLD THE DATE Change Dot Gov: The Social Media Republic January 15, 2009, 6:30pm Location TBD
We already have three excellent guest speakers lined up:
Brian Reich is the co-author of Media Rules! and a regular speaker and writer on the issues involving the impact of the internet and technology on politics, society, and the media. He is the editor of the blog Thinking about Media.
Matt Viser is a reporter in the City Hall Bureau for the Boston Globe’s City & Region section. He covers local and state politics and has written on such issues as Boston city politics, military base closures, and suburban growth.
Brad Blake is the Director of New Media and Online Strategy for the Commonwealth of Massachussetts, where he guide’s the governor’s social media efforts.
Greg PC, who helped create the great SoMeElection08 site where folks can share their insights into the election process (have you signed up and added content?)
“In the debate, a spokesman accused the government of being silly and doing not at all good things. The member accepted this in the spirit of healthy criticism, but denied that he had ever been naughty with a choir boy. Angry shouts of ‘What about the watermelon then’ were ordered then by the speaker to be stricken from the record and put into a brown paper bag in the lavvy. Any further interruptions would be cut up and distributed amongst the poor. For the Government, a front-bench spokesman said the agricultural tariff WOULD have to be raised. And he fancied a bit. Whats more he argued, this would give a large boost to farmers, him, his friends, and Miss Moist of Knightsbridge. From the back benches there were opposition shouts of ‘Postcards for sale’ and a healthy cry of ‘Who likes a sailor then’ from the minister without portfolio. Replying, the Shadow Minister said he could no longer deny the rumors, but he and the dachshund were very happy. And in any case he argued rhubarb was cheap, and what was the harm in a sauna bath?”
Does anybody else (particularly amongst us Americans) enjoy watching Prime Minister’s Questions on C-SPAN? It reminds me of a particularly good blog post comment thread. It also reminds me of the kind of in-your-face transparency that you simply don’t see in American politics. The kind of transparency that fesses up and says, just like John Cleese and the rest of the Monty Python troupe did yesterday, “Look, you know and I know that no matter how hard we try, people are bloody well going to nick our stuff no matter how hard we try, so why don’t we try to beat them at their own game?”
Well, actually, what they said was:
For 3 years you YouTubers have been ripping us off, taking tens of thousands of our videos and putting them on YouTube. Now the tables are turned. It’s time for us to take matters into our own hands.
We know who you are, we know where you live and we could come after you in ways too horrible to tell. But being the extraordinarily nice chaps we are, we’ve figured a better way to get our own back: We’ve launched our own Monty Python channel on YouTube.
No more of those crap quality videos you’ve been posting. We’re giving you the real thing – HQ videos delivered straight from our vault.
Instead of copy protecting their content and closing it off to the world (a la the music industry), they’ve given up and are using the content (which, mind you, being sketchy, er, sorry, sketches, is especially suited for YouTube).
Now, you might be wondering at this point, if you haven’t already been distracted by the video or the squirrel outside your window THERE HE IS!, whether I’m going to get to the point and cleverly tie this back to the theme of my blog. Never fear, persistent reader. There is a point to the ramblings.
This is yet another reminder that the command-and-control model of communications is dead. It’s as impossible to try and control your brand as it is to control the redistribution of music and videos in today’s world. All you’ll end up doing is failing miserably, and ultimately losing touch with the people that matter the most–your customers.
The idea of the corporate institution as the infallible, papal-like entity that can do no wrong is slowly fading, not just in light of today’s economic woes, but also in light of the incredible successes companies have had when they admit that they’re wrong and try to do something different–something McNeil Consumer Products did well during both the Tylenol and the Motrin incidents (not to say I’m letting them off scot-free).
But how do you do this, and still survive as an entity? Rethink your business model, just like Monty Python did:
But we want something in return. None of your driveling, mindless comments. [Comments are enabled, mind you, and already up to typical YouTube standards if you know what I mean. - Todd] Instead, we want you to click on the links, buy our movies & TV shows and soften our pain and disgust at being ripped off all these years.
Will this strategy work? It has certainly gotten them back in the online dialog. I’d love to see whether it’s netting sales. The jury came back with an ultimately positive verdict when Radiohead released their “In Rainbows” album online in a “name your price” model:
New numbers revealed by the band’s publisher … show that even after giving away In Rainbows as a pricing-optional download starting on October 10, 2007, the band still sold more CDs of the album than it did of either of its previous two albums.
Don’t worry, faithful subscriber (all 22 of you so far, but I hope that grows–it’s only been a bit more than a month), this blog is not going dark. I am heads down working on fulfilling some promises that I made to you and to my boss. These include:
Setting up a research calendar for 2009 reports, which will focus on particular segments of social web technologies
Launching our weekly Social Media Business Tool review, which will focus on how to get started with individual services, sites and tools
Kickstarting one podcast series–in which SocialSpherites will interview book authors–and adding a few more interviews to the B-2-B social media successes series I started for Tech PR Gems and PRobecast
Reviewing existing, and ultimately proposing SocialSphere’s own, frameworks for evaluating social media tools and services for businesses
I heard recently that viruses have officially been classified as “living” (apparently the official “alive” classification for viruses has been a hotly contested one), because they themselves can come down with viruses. Well guess what, folks, your viral messages–your memes–can also get infected. They can get hijacked by negativity if you’re not careful. Remember Quetchup anyone? The developers of the (now defunct) service made a huge mistake by accessing and then spamming their members’ email contacts.
Even the best and the brightest–and the most well intentioned–have fallen victim to concerns about email abuse. It’s a touchy subject. So when the makers of SocialMinder decided to include emailing 15 contacts as the requirement for upgrading to their full alpha service, they made what could very quickly end up becoming a fatal mistake.
Nathan Burke’s post on Blogstring explains how the upgrade email requirement works, and why people have been giving SocialMinder a hard time about it. What’s most important here is what SocialMinder does now. The only acknowledgement I’ve seen so far is on their uservoice pages:
They have a very limited amount of time to come out, engage their audience on our terms and turf, and regain some credibility. Until then, they will get more and more angry posts like this, and their likelihood of success is zero.
If you’re as old as I am, you’ll probably instantly remember this Faberge commercial (and I’ve been waiting for YEARS for the right moment to bring it up in a blog). This marketing model works: get the people you’re marketing to to market for you. But if the message changes from “hey this is a cool shampoo you should be using” to “hey, Faberge can’t really be trusted,” you’re in trouble!
I resisted the incredible urge to add my voice to the post-election noise for most of yesterday and today, but my perusal of InformationWeek has forced my hand. Mitch Wagner wrote a very good analysis of the president-elect’s pioneering use of Web 2.0 and social-networking technologies. Mitch hailed the election as “the end of the era of television presidency that started with JFK, and the beginning of the Internet presidency.”
Obama used a combination of television, the Internet, and social media to recruit volunteers and supporters, and cement relationships with them. He asked supporters to supply their cell phone numbers, and sent out regular text-message blasts, even announcing his selection for vice president over text message. Using a custom social-networking site, created with the help of a Facebook co-founder, Obama supporters were able to log in and find lists of people they could call, or whose doors they could knock on, to try to persuade others to vote for their candidate.
And it’s only the beginning, said Trippi. That kind of networking will likely transform the White House. Trippi anticipates Obama will create a similar social networking for his legislative initiatives, and recruit supporters to lobby Congress to get his policies enacted into law.
The result will be further increase of presidential power, and erosion of Congressional authority. “Congress will be put between a rock and a hard place, if millions of citizens sign up to help the President pass his agenda,” Trippi said. “If the President says, ‘Here are the members of Congress who stand in the way of us passing healthcare reform,’ I would not want to be one of those people. You’ll have 10 or 15 million networked Americans barging in on the members of Congress telling them to get in line with the program and pass the healthcare reform bill. That will be a power that no American president has had before. Congress’s power will be taken over by the American people.”
Mitch and Joe paint a picture that is at once scary and inspiring. Setting the political implications of a weaker congress aside (this isn’t a political blog, after all), this will—we hope—be a new kind of presidency. But don’t get fooled—BusinessWeek reminds us that Barack wasn’t the first presidential candidate to be good at tech.
The real test will be in how well Barack is able to transform his social media marketing machine into a true engine for change. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve taken the first step toward change by electing him, but his mastery of social media will not be solidified until his social media adoption becomes more than marketing. As Mashable’s Adam Ostrow writes, “How Will President Obama Use His Massive Social Media Influence?” Or as FreshNetworks asks,
How would [the Obama/Biden administration] use social media and online communities to continue to engage with people when they are in power[?] Social media can really help engage people when it provides away for them to have a real exchange about things that matter to them, where they can find out information on things they are interested in, share ideas and thoughts with peers and with politicians, report things to them and feel that they continue to be part of a campaign.
Newsweek cautions us that his road will not be an easy one, and the American public may have to be patient. Keeping us feeling connected is one way to do that, and social media is the way to do it. I hope I’m still getting emails from him two years from now (and maybe tweets too!).
When you vote on Tuesday, tweet in your vote report! If you’re not on twitter, Text in your vote report. Here’s how it works (from http://twittervotereport.com/how-to-help/):
It’s simple. We voters are using Twitter and other texting tools to report on how the vote is really going during this election, and we’re urging everyone to use the common word (or “hashtag” in Twitter lingo) of #votereport as they do so. If that happens, we’ll all be able watch on maps and graphs how the election is going across the country.
Including “#votereport” in your tweet is enough to get your report tracked by Twitter Vote Report. But the more details you can stuff in, the better. So, for example, include in your Twitter post:
#[zip code] to indicate the zip code where you’re voting; ex., “#12345?
L:[address or city] to drill down to your exact location; ex. “L:1600 Pennsylvania Avenue DC”
#machine for machine problems; ex., “#machine broken, using prov. ballot”
#reg for registration troubles; ex., “#reg I wasn’t on the rolls”
#wait:[minutes] for long lines; ex., “#wait:120 and I’m coming back later”
#early if you’re voting before November 4th
#good or #bad to give a quick sense of your overall experience
#EP[your state] if you have a serious problem and need help from the Election Protection coalition; ex., #EPOH
I Don’t Twitter, But I’m Willing to Try
Don’t worry, Twitter is really easy to use. That’s one reason so many people love it. Just jump over to Twitter.com to sign up for a free account. You might want to watch “Twitter in Plain English”, the short video to the right, to learn how it works. Then follow the steps above for sending in a report.
I Don’t Twitter and I Don’t Want To. Can I Still Participate?
Sure thing. Our team of crack developers have come up with all sorts of ways for you to make your vote report known:
Send a text message to 66937 and start your message with “#votereport”
Download and use the iPhone app
Find the “votereport” app in the Google Android marketplace
Key in a report by calling 567-258-8683 (VOTE), 208-272-9024, or 617-960-8900
Okay, I Sent in Reports. Now What?
#votereport reports will, in real-time, be made available to anyone who wants them. Visit TwitterVoteReport.com to see the reports flow in. Voters can read these messages and help one another solve problems, liking letting someone know when a polling place has been moved. Advocacy groups can use them to spot problems. Citizens can figure out how to lend fellow voters a hand. And the press can zero in on local voting stories worth telling. Just sending in short reports can help your fellow citizens to vote.
I’m not a big fan of meme tagging. It’s like the social media version of the email chain letter. But what the hell, if it gets a few people to pay attention to my blog (“HELLO, people, I’m over here!”), then I’m all for it. 
