I talked about Government 2.0 Camp on Federal News Radio today

I was honored to be interviewed by Chris Dorobek on Federal News Radio this afternoon. Here’s the clip:

Social Media 101 Presentation

Here is the Social Media 101 presentation that I gave this morning as part of the the Advanced Learning Institute’s Social Media for Government Social Media 101 Pre-Conference Workshop.

Ken Fischer and I then co-led the workshop and he did a great presentation on Information for the Greatest Good. 

I am looking forward to seeing presentations from some of my colleagues and friends over the next two days.  For more conference information, check out the conference site.

A Few Valuable Social Media & Government 2.0 Resources

I just finished up at SXSX in Austin, TX. There was so much amazing content and conversation that it was truly overwhelming. A few sessions that I found particularly noteworthy were: Charlene Li’s talk about The Future of Social Media Networks (Twitter #sxswfsn) and her assertion that social networks will be like air — everywhere and all around us; the Shift Happens: Moving from Words to Pictures panel about the increasing importance data visualization (Twitter #shift); and Guy Kawasaki’s interview of Chris Anderson about Anderson’s new book Free! (Twitter #free).

Last night, in the middle of a SXSW party, I stepped into a quiet backroom at Six Lounge to participate in Adriel Hampton’s first Government 2.0 BlogTalkRadio show.  Despite having to pull myself away from the partying rooftop, it was a great deal of fun to banter with Ari Herzog, Andrea Baker, Jeffrey Levy, Steve Ressler and many others. I think that this show is going to be a great addition to the Government 2.0 discourse.  I encourage you to tune in to the Gov 2.0 show on Sundays at 2 p.m. PST/5 p.m. EST.

Finally, I was so excited to see the launch of the Government Web Content Managers’ Social Media Subcouncil’s social media presence yesterday. Follow them on Twitter at @GovSocMed, check out their wiki and find them on GovLoop.  I remember participating in the Web Content Managers’ quarterly conference call back in October (following a GovDelivery panel) when the Social Media subcouncil was first formed and announced.  I was tweeting to Jeffrey Levy, one of the Subcouncil’s co-chairs, how I was so disappointed that I could not participate on the subcouncil, as I am not a government employee.  He vowed to find ways to get members of the broader Government 2.0 community involved, and it’s wonderful to see that coming to fruition.

The Catch-22 of Collaboration & Social Media

I Need Social Media!
Clients regularly approach MiXT Media Strategies requesting social media help:

• Can you help me set up a Facebook page?   
• How do I “do” Twitter? 
• I want to “use” bloggers to broaden the reach of my marketing campaign—where do I find them?  

These are the wrong questions for two reasons. First, these are the wrong questions because social media is not about the tools and technologies.

“Huh?  What about all of the blogs, social networks, RSS feeds, video-sharing sites, etc.?”

Nope.  Those are tools.  Social media is about the capabilities that these tools enable.  Successful social media starts not with the tools and technologies, but with good, old-fashioned business planning: mission, vision, goals, objectives, strategies. 

Second, these are the wrong questions because they are selfish.  The behaviors and capabilities that social media tools enable are engaging, participatory, relational—social.  They are not something that you “do” to your customers to elicit click-throughs, response rates or sales.

To create a successful social media strategy for your organization, you must first understand social media in context.

What’s Going on Out There
There are two world-changing dynamics in action right now.  First, the proliferation of social media tools and Web 2.0 technologies is fragmenting the communications landscape.  Not only are there now simply more communication choices, but these new tools and technologies enable us to further fine-tune our communications by speed, formality, time and place.  We have myriad choices never before possible.  How we communicate is now as complex as what we communicate. 

Second, we as a culture are emerging from the Broadcast Era and entering the Collaboration Era.  This means a marked change in the way we communicate.  In the Broadcast Era, we pushed information AT our audiences through traditional, one-way media vehicles.  The Collaboration Era brings about a whole new set of capabilities that change our communication expectations.  No longer are people satisfied receiving information, they expect to be able to jump in, engage and be a part of the two-way conversation.  The opportunity to participate in new and meaningful ways is changing us from content consumers to creators, participants, collaborators…communities.

The Opportunity: a Case for Collaboration
Collaboration makes organizations more efficient and more effective.  Organizations that embrace collaborative practices—supported by innovative social media tools and technologies—will decrease costs and increase sales by increasing satisfaction and retention of employees, customers, vendors and partners.

The Challenge: a Catch-22 of Catch-22s
What complicates things is that each of these dynamics, in and of itself, is a Catch-22.

• We can’t understand the benefits of collaboration until we collaborate; and yet we can’t truly collaborate until we understand the benefits of doing so.
• We want to understand the value of social media tools before we invest our time and energy in using them; and yet, we can’t truly understand the value of social media tools until we use them.

What further complicates things is that collaboration and social media tools together create a Catch-22.

• We can’t truly understand the benefits and possibilities of social media tools until we use them to collaborate; and yet we can’t truly understand the benefits of and possibilities for collaboration until we utilize social media tools collaboratively.

collaboration                   social media

The confluence of these two separate but connected Catch-22s presents a solution: the Confluence Process.  Teaching organizations to use social media tools and catalyzing a cultural shift towards collaboration requires a process that manages the interplay between these two dynamics.

The Confluence Process that MiXT Media Strategies has developed enables organizations to use social media tools to learn the value of collaboration while simultaneously engaging in collaboration to understand the full extent of social media tools’ value.

ATK: real-world AFK (away from keyboard)

AFK (away from keyboard) is “in-world” speak for the state of your SecondLife avatar when you’re not operating him/her.  I’ve also heard this state referred to as “asleep” or ”latent.” 

I sought out this terminology a week or so ago when I noticed the opposite phenomenon.  I was with a group of social media cronies  at a conference or happy hour or breakfast and realized that we were the opposite of AFK–ATK: attached to keyboard. 

There was a lull in conversation while we all hung our heads–like sleeping avatars–to tweet, text or type.  We had checked out of the real world and were only existing in the virtual/online world.  In this group, this ATK behavior was completely socially acceptable.  In the technology, social media and web communities, there is an unspoken understanding when you step out of the in-person conversation and go ATK.  It’s almost like we live in a hybrid online-offline world.

However, in the non-tech, regular offline world, going ATK is NOT acceptable.  To your family, colleagues and friends, you may appear as exciting and conversation an avatar that’s AFK.

One point for the newspapers…maybe

I just saw a TV commercial for The New York Times “Weekender” package: Friday, Saturday & Sunday delivery of the newspaper.  The commercial is full of young, hip, professional Gen Xers talking about The New York Times as “the best in journalism” and how excited they were to receive it in the morning.

What I found interesting was the theme and copy of the commercial: “join the conversation.” I found this almost ironic: newspapers are the opidome of the Broadcast Era and about as far from collaborative as I can imagine.  And yet, it made me stop and think. 

In the 20th century, newspapers started conversations: articles you read in the morning were what you talked about at the cocktail party that evening.  Newspapers, indeed, were the conversation catalysts and the organizers of what was “important.”

In the information overload world in which we currently exist, we’re all seeking tools that will help us sift through all of the information.  Many people have told me that they wish there was a service that would just sort through the mess and tell them what they need to know.  

On a side note, my friend Jeremy Brosowsky founded a subscription service called Brijit that did just this: humans read top publications (think The Economist) and created short summaries that subscribers could skim and get the important nuggets. 

Another irony: we want the freedom to identify that which WE deem important, not that which The Media deems important, and yet, we crave authoritative help in sorting through information. We read the articles recommended by those whom we follow on Twitter or that which is blogged about by our colleagues. We are organically identifying our own, personal “editors” of information.  Perhaps this is the difference: we want editorial authority over our list of editors.

So, are Digital Natives craving editors or is this just a vestige for those of us–Digital Immigrants–raised in the Broadcast era?  The answer to this is really the answer to the future of the newspaper industry.  Will the next generation seek information editors or will their user habits throw The New York Times into the recycling bin?