I sometimes wonder what people did before the web, before easy access to information, before the dream/ nightmare of 24/7 engagement and content. (I’m not that young. I remember the yellow-y library index cards)

I have heard that this constant ‘on’ mode is distracting and I concur. . . . → Read the rest of this entry...]]>

I sometimes wonder what people did before the web, before easy access to information, before the dream/ nightmare of 24/7 engagement and content. (I’m not that young. I remember the yellow-y library index cards)

I have heard that this constant ‘on’ mode is distracting and I concur. I takes a lot of discipline to keep on doing your job and retain high levels of concentration.

At the same time there is method in the madness.

Anybody who works in policy (like yours truly), public affairs, parliamentary communications and the like, knows that without a great big influx of information, extended engagement with stakeholders and serious analysis their job can become a true nightmare and the value people see in it dwindles. Only to be expected.

Whenever I finish a project now, whenever a new idea dawns, whenever I create something, I know that a lot of the good work done has been done by other people.

Inspiring journal articles published for the world to see and not sold for astronomical prices behind some academic journal’s pay-wall.

Blog posts from passionate and wonderful people who watch, learn and share.

Art projects from collectives of people who believe in participation and sharing.

and above all

finding all of those things through the community!

Without the people who search and share, without the wisdom of the crowds I wouldn’t even get wind of half of what I currently do. Alas, the crowds are not always very wise – my recent question of who is Justin Bieber on twitter was spurred by too much discussion about said person on said service. (The crowd decreed that I live in a well)

I know it takes time but there are two tricks that I use.

1) Trust the network

2) Do the analysis

Just getting the information is silly without doing the analysis, it’s like looking at a data chart without having the little signs telling you what each colour represents.

It’s constant, it’s mad, it’s informative, it’s exciting and perhaps a bit frightening when you realise that you are the sum of all the people. It’s not just about your university connections anymore, not just about how good your library was, not just about where you lived, how you lived, who you know. There are people out there – you’ve never met them, you never will, who can teach you something every single day.

And if that doesn’t create a rich environment for more creation and good work I don’t know what does.

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Highly recommended – viewing. If nothing else he talks about social networks off line which we tend to forget with all the on-line activity nowadays that are still extremely . . . → Read the rest of this entry...]]> Nicholas Christakis talks about social networks (in the good old traditional sense) and how in his medical research he found that these influcence people.

Highly recommended – viewing. If nothing else he talks about social networks off line which we tend to forget with all the on-line activity nowadays that are still extremely important.

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This is the first lesson I remember from my experiences with policy development that really made a lasting impact.

When you sit down to develop policy on an issue, good policy . . . → Read the rest of this entry...]]>
Odd One Out
Uploaded by momoryuji on 18 Jan 09, 8.06AM GMT.

This is the first lesson I remember from my experiences with policy development that really made a lasting impact.

When you sit down to develop policy on an issue, good policy makers start a process of engagement with stakeholders. Thankfully this is not something that only government departments do nowadays but it’s good practice within industries as well even if the process might not always include a formal consultation – which, let’s face it, it doesn’t always need to.

The first step when it comes to engagement is a sort of mapping of your stakeholders so that you can identify industries, organisations and groups that your policy will have an impact on – either positive or negative, depending on their positioning.

I was quite surprised when I started working in policy and external relations to learn that the number one group that gets forgotten are the people that the policy is actually made for.

Best example? It’s this word of mouth story (even though I don’t know how true it is) of a government department that mapped out all of their stakeholders for a new policy initiative aimed at improving circumstances for children. Stakeholders not appearing anywhere? The children.

This might seem like a no-brainer but I do get how something like this can happen by being exposed constantly to your own industry and established stakeholders (like trade associations and third sector organisations) which might take your mind off the alternative people that you really need to have in the room.

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Here is a good example of why it’s a good idea to refer clients to people who can help them when you can’t do it.

Went to a corner shop today and I . . . → Read the rest of this entry...]]>
Handshake
Uploaded by Sergio Prado on 30 Sep 09, 3.06PM GMT.

Here is a good example of why it’s a good idea to refer clients to people who can help them when you can’t do it.

Went to a corner shop today and I asked for something. The guy behind the counter looked at me, slowly turned around, checked if the product was there, looked back at me and with the bored look of the early morning said “I don’t have any”. Mind you, this guy owns the place. I’m not planning on going back. There is another corner shop just two doors now and I plan on starting to use that one. I would be prepared to stick to the first guy if he had said the most simple thing in the world. “I’m sorry I don’t have any right now, I will be getting a delivery tomorrow but in the meantime there is another shop two doors down where you might find what you are looking for”. There, how hard would that be.

Admitting the limits of what we can do and what we want to do is a SoMaFusion fundamental principle. If there is something that cannot be done or that we are not interested in we will always strive to recommend other people and/ or companies to the client. We do this for a number of reasons.

Read more on SoMaFusion’s travelogue

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Disclaimer: I work (and blog) for SoMaFusion. Sometimes (but not always) I write posts which I think also work well in this blog.

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Anything new crops up and we think that we are inventing the world all over again. In my experience we don’t. We are just re-discovering things that others have said a lot better (and researched a lot more diligently) than us. . . . → Read the rest of this entry...]]>
Multiple Personalities
Originally uploaded by moostang78

Anything new crops up and we think that we are inventing the world all over again. In my experience we don’t. We are just re-discovering things that others have said a lot better (and researched a lot more diligently) than us. I have a number of theories in mind but the recent acquisition of friendfeed by facebook reminded me of the dramaturgical perspective.

I use the various tools on the web differently. Facebook for me is a closed network, used for friends and family (I certainly don’t want my boss to know what I did over the weekend). Friendfeed is a public lifestream, sure I meet people, we jest, we chat, we share likes and interests. I don’t need to know them. Here is a fundamental difference. I will publish a picture of me and my sweetheart in a tender hug on Facebook – people who know me will see it. I will NOT publish a picture like that on Friendfeed. People who don’t know me will make assumptions. I don’t like it.

Why do I do that? Because I act. I create characters every day. Sofia as a member of staff, Sofia as a student, Sofia as a daughter, Sofia as a lover. They are different facets of the same woman but people don’t see the whole. They see 1) what I want to show and 2) what is relevant to the relationship and the situation. This might sound a bit weird but we all do it – as Erving Goffman has so eloquently discussed in his lovely book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.

Goffman’s greatest contribution to social theory is his formulation of symbolic interaction as dramaturgical perspective in his 1956 book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, which begins with an epigraph by George Santayana about masks. Largely working within the tradition of symbolic interactionist, he greatly elaborated on its central concepts and application. For Goffman, society is not homogeneous. We must act differently in different settings. The context we have to judge is not society at large, but the specific context. Goffman suggests that life is a sort of theater, but we also need a parking lot and a cloak room: there is a wider context lying beyond the face-to-face symbolic interaction.
(via Wikipedia)

According to Goffman, the social actor has the ability to choose his stage and props, as well as the costume he would put on in front of a specific audience. The actor’s main goal is to keep his coherence, and adjust to the different settings offered him.
(via Wikipedia)

Allow me to (clumsily) transpose the theory onto the web. Sofia Gkiousou on Facebook is different than Sofia Gkiousou on LinkedIn and once again different sofiagk on friendfeed. In the same way that this blog is more about work and my academic blog is more about university. Why do we do this?

People don’t know us
Why would the whole world be interested in every single thing I do? If you are into academia you’ll go to the other blog. If you are into comms you’ll stay here (well, hopefully). If you are my mother you want to see the picture from my birthday party on Facebook. If you are an acquaintance you want to see my bookmarks on Friendfeed. Sure perhaps I’ll also publish a pic of the cake but not the one with all of my friends.

People don’t need to know us
You don’t need to know me as a person. You only need to get the information you require. In the same way that my colleague doesn’t need to see a funny picture on Facebook but they might be interested in an interesting bookmark on friendfeed. If we get friendly in the process even better. But that can’t happen with everyone.

Our identity determines the use of the tool
By having clear barriers in mind it becomes easier to use each tool according to your needs. If you want to keep some things personal Facebook is ideal (apart from, well, some glitches here and there). If you want to share some things with the world you go onto other platforms. Sure, you may want to use complicated lists, permissions and grouping on Facebook. I find that tiring (which again, is part of my identity)

The tool guides our identity
Take my picture for example. It’s that same across all platforms except on LinkedIn. I wear a suit in that one. I look straight on. It’s my office pic. It says different things about me and so it should.

Other actors know the rules too!
As Goffman puts it we socially have a definition in any given interaction (this offers coherency). Hence most actors understand how I use Facebook and how I use LinkedIn. Granted, some times I need to explain but that’s because the platforms are not as old as other ‘places’ like for example how one behaves at a family function.

Misunderstanding this fundamental function and operation of social action/ representation may lead onto designing tools and platforms that bring all of our identities under one umbrella. I suspect that people will be reluctant to flatten out all of their interactions.

What do you think?

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Hat Tip
Hugh Isaacs II for the chat on a Robert Scoble friendfeed update

Read On:
FriendFeed accepts Facebook friend request by Bret Taylor on friendblog
Facebook Acquires FriendFeed (Updated) by Jason Kinkaid on TechCrunch
Facebook Acquires FriendFeed by Adam Ostrow on Mashable
Facebook Users: Here’s What FriendFeed Brings to the Family by Marshall Kirkpatrick on Read Write Web
Oh, FriendFeed is now Facebook’s “official” R&D department! by Robert Scoble on Scobleizer

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Following a database meltdown (long live the server move processes) this post and any comments were uploaded again manually.

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How can I put this so that I am absolutely clear? Sometimes, it’s not about popularity, it’s about credibility. And having thousands of people follow your twitter updates does not . . . → Read the rest of this entry...]]> I am so tired of listening and reading about the number of Twitter followers that Ashton Kutcher has.

How can I put this so that I am absolutely clear? Sometimes, it’s not about popularity, it’s about credibility. And having thousands of people follow your twitter updates does not actually mean that they believe everything you say or that none of your opinions will be challenged.

Here is a short story for you (which is true). I once got a gig with a start-up. They were following my blog (the Greek one) for quite some time, we had exchanged some pleasantries. Now, my Greek blog is popular but not one of the most popular. These people told me that they contacted me because they thought that I was more credible in the blogging community than some of the more popular bloggers. In other words – when I wrote, people listened, asked, spread the word. (This might sound pretentious but hey, what the hell, it’s what actually happened).

Think about it. People don’t ask the most popular person in the room. Even if the most popular person is credible and trusted they are probably too busy and inundated to answer to every single request.

Don’t be popular. Be approachable.
You will build more meaningful relationships by being willing to help and by engaging in actual discussions. People remember when you have helped and they will help you in future. What goes around comes around.

Don’t be popular. Be valuable.
When you speak up make sure that what you say adds value to the discussions going on around you. Add something meaningful to the barrage of social media information.

Don’t be popular. Be credible.
Check your facts again and again. If you are wrong apologise. If people have a different opinion engage in the discussion. If you are writing about something make sure you stay up to date with developments. You don’t have to be the first to break the news. You just need to add value to the discussion when you speak up (in other words: press releases are fine but where is your analysis?)

Don’t be popular. Be trusted.
Be the person that people actually believe. Be responsible, visible and actually engage with people. If they don’t trust you they won’t come back. Why do you think Amazon allows users to vote and actually rank reviews? Think about it.

So. Will you be asking Ashton Kutcher anything any time soon?

Read On:
It’s Not Who You Know, It’s Who Knows You by Pat Kitano on Media Transparent
HOW TO: Build Your Thought Capital on Twitter by Josh Sternberg on Mashable
Do You Trust Your Twitter News Sources? By Mona Nomura of Pixel Bits on louisgray

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