The Painful Truths of Social Media

Fortunately, most of the time we get to deliver good messages to our clients from our research. Sometimes though, we have to deliver some painful truths. In the private and public sectors. These are truths that an organization has to wrestle with, perhaps come to terms with and find a way through. Sometimes, a client simply says “thank-you” and sets the information aside to collect dust, buried deep in a digital vault. Other times they embrace the findings and look to evolve.

Where Empirical Research Fails
Traditional research methodologies are still valid, critical and a core part of marketing and citizen opinions and views. But they all fail in two significant ways; 1) these approaches do not understand, account for or measure emotion and 2) these methods do not clearly define the message being interpreted by the audience. This applies to public sector research and private sector marketing research.

An Example of a Painful Truth
Not long ago we completed a research project for a client in the public sector. They wanted to compare some survey work they had done with what citizens were saying about the delivery of their programs. The survey had indicated a fairly good approval rate, but in their view, may have missed more in-depth views that might be found online. This was a very progressive approach. Unfortunately it ended up with some painful truths. Overall the programs were good, but discussions in forums and blog posts presented some very compelling, well-iterated evidence of certain failings that had a deeper impact on the client’s overall operation. Several months later and the client is struggling to effect changes to make things better. They are progressive in their thinking and we suspect will make the changes.

But Some Prefer The Ostrich Tactic
A similar case with a company showed they had missed a market opportunity and failed rather well with customer service. It was a niche market and so not the information that a run of the mill online reputation management tool would have uncovered or been able to place context around. In this case, the company made a concsious decision to simply ignore the information and write off a market segment. Perhaps they are profitable enough to do this.

The Reality is Harsh Yet Opportunistic
The Ostrich Tactic doesn’t work very well today however. The market tends to get louder until the ostrich is ripped from the ground and carried along very unhappily until something changes. It is ideas that become actions that cause change. A good idea, well articulated and then executed empowers people and organizations. Facing the uncomfortable truths of social medias impact on business and society will not be easy at times, but is inevitable. These realities can teach us valuable lessons, which can create enormous opportunities. How will your organization deal with potentially uncomfortable truths that cannot be hidden from?

Government Engaging Ethnic Communities Through Social Media

Canada, like America and the UK are cultural melting pots. Personally I think that makes for a richer tapestry of interweaving cultures that defines a better democracy and a diverse environment which can only enrich ones life. For governments (local through federal) it represents a number of serious challenges from by-laws to legislation on everything from health care and education through to municipal planning and human resources policies. Increasingly, government departments at all levels are looking to increase their communications with various ethnic communities. Naturally, social media channels are becoming a part of the discussion on how to engage these communities.

The challenge for governments or IGO‘s looking to engage however, is where, how and to what extent. And once engaged, how does that conversation continue? Who is going to manage it and how will feedback be incorporated into policy making and insights that are helpful to senior staff and policy makers?

From our research work, we’ve seen the same behaviour patterns in Canada, America and the UK when it comes to ethnic communities active in social media channels. They may partake in Facebook, perhaps even creating a Facebook page for their cultural community group. Primary communications however, often take place in more “closed” social network services such as a Ning group or similar tool. To participate in those groups means the target community must let you in and be open to a government or IGO having some small part in the conversation in that group.

This means trust has to be developed before-hand and then subsequently once engaged. This is a challenge in and of itself; ensuring the community your engagement as an organization is sincere and meant to be a positive action. There will also be an awareness by the community that an outside organization is engaged. There are strategies and processes for handling this (part of our consulting) but research up front can be critical.

Finding where these groups are talking is key, then listening to their public commentary and layering that over empirical research and current understanding can ensure a safer path to engagement. A more popular approach we’ve seen work is for an organization to find a champion or two within the target community and have them bring members into an online environment run by the organization. This approach means the organization can focus the feedback and the community feels their privacy is respected.

Phases Of Social Media Use in Civil Change

Egypt and #Jan25 was perhaps the seminal, global wake-up call event of how social media can be used for driving civil change in a society. Some might argue that it was Iran in 2009 with the so-called “Twitter Revolution”. In fact social media did play a key role in the Arab Spring – but it did not start it. And continues to do so. The term “Arab Spring” itself has become a meme (more on that later.) Here we wanted to provide a quick overview of “how” social media tools are being used and the phases around driving civil change through these tools. We think it’s important to note that in the semi-final stage, social media can become irrelevant to the final change.

Phase One – Trigger Event
In Tunisia it was a fruit-stand operator who lit himself on fire to protest government corruption. In Egypt it was meant to be a small protest over the police beating of a so-called “drug dealer” that unintentionally became a drive for regime change. Any drive for change in society starts with a “Trigger Event”, something that gets a large enough portion of the population angry or motivated to start a movement for change. This doesn’t mean government change alone, it may be around a bill before legislation or simply getting a municipal by-law adopted.

Phase Two – Inception & Formation
This is where the “idea” that will become the meme or issue that will likely result in civil change. We call it the Inception Point. Someone starts it by venting on a blog, posting something on Facebook or a YouTube video around the evidence of the issue and may present the initial idea for a solution. It is at this point a number of tools begin to be used that will be used for later planning & organizing

Phase Three – Rallying & Packaging
The idea has gained momentum, perhaps a meme is starting to form. Enough people have come together that the Planning & Organizing element (or Rallying) starts to take on a more susbstantial form, the actors are becoming defined and some form of leadership or hierarchy is forming. Packaging is developed to pull the “idea” together and begin communicating it.

Phase Four – Media Traversal – Key Inflection Point
This is a key inflection point where the issue gains serious legs by being picked up by mainstream media. This can vary depending on the role of mainstream/industrial media in a local, regional or national context. Our research shows that mainstream media plays a vital role in growing awareness around an issue.

Phase Five – Meme Formation & Mass Audience
Depending on mainstream media’s treatment of a story and issue, once there is larger audience buy-in the social media activity takes on a greater intensity. This is a transitional phase towards where we may see it translate from a mostly Cyburbia action into real-world engagement.

Phase Six – Cyber Transference
There may have been street rallies, flash mobs or small demonstrations prior to this point, but it is an inflection point. This is where the masses take to the streets or we see other forms of protest or civil actions taking place outside of Cyburbia. This is a short period as well of perhaps hours.  A number of indicators are at play here with warning signs of impending activity.

Phase Seven – Change Effect & Technology Shift
This is where the use of social media tools takes on a significant shift from planning and organizing to monitoring, documenting and reporting. The original organizing group and the greater online community begin to use these tools (video/photo sharing, blogs, Twitter, Social Networks etc.) to keep momentum going as real-world actions are brought about. Mainstream media may also go into high-gear as a story gains legs and becomes a major issue either locally, regionally, nationally or internationally depending on the scope of the societal changes being sought by citizens. In Egypt, after the government shut down Internet access, instead of driving people home, it actually caused people to wander out into the streets to find out what was happening and they ended up joining the revolution.

Concluding
While this is isn’t how all civil changes occur through the use of social media, we’ve patterned enough uses of the tools in local, regional, national and international contexts to be able to define these phases more clearly. A number of issues can change the steps, cause a campaign to falter or alter course. In developing states much depends on the form of government and that governments approach to social media and the Internet (do they allow free access? Have they co-opted the Internet to produce their own message? etc.) Fringe groups or radicals with extreme views or those in the bane of the conspiracy theorists tend to be marginalized fairly regularly and they rarely gain momentum for change.

The key challenge in monitoring and analysis of these issues is understanding when an “idea” may grow and become a rallying cry that moves into the phases of significant civil society change; whether that’s for local by-laws or overthrowing dictatorships like Egypt and Libya.

Social Technology & The New Tension Between Citizens and Government

There’s a “connectivity gap” between governments and citizens when it comes to social media. That’s no surprise and it’s well known. But why and how did that come about? Through projects in our Public Sector Policy Research practice, we’ve come to gain some insights into the reasons. At a high-level, this is what we’re seeing for developed state governments.

Catching Up
For the last century or so, the interaction between citizens and government was rather well established. Policies were in place based on an understanding of where citizens, government and economics intersected. This was because the routes of communication were clearly defined; mail, phone, fax and personal meetings. Industrial news media had a defined role and the rules of connection were known, the players and their roles established.

Social media technologies and the Web as a whole changed the roles and rules. Governments however, are still catching up. “Well, of course” you say.

It’s The Citizens Fault
Governments are large. They know they have to, and are, trying to catch up. But the technologies move so rapidly and more to the point is that “how” the tools are used changes even faster. As citizens, we adopt tools like Facebook and Twitter and often end up using them in ways the original inventors hadn’t planned. It is unrealistic to expect government agencies and departments to adapt as quickly as citizens. When governments implement new ways of connecting with citizens and the private sector, there are implications. Without proper consideration that can mean breaches of privacy for people, companies and other organizations.

The Bigger Challenge Is
Governments understand a need to adapt and adopt a lot of these new technologies. But beyond the issues of privacy or management of information is an even bigger challenge – the changing expectations of citizens regarding their input to the process of governance and the expectations of governments transparency and performance.

These new social technologies and more critically, the digitization of vast amounts of data with  subsequently powerful new ways of visualizing and interpreting such data creates a new set of tensions. Governments are increasingly releasing data to the public allowing them ways to manipulate and interpret that data (the Sunlight Foundation is a great example.) And so citizens are. As they interpret this data or add other data sets into the mix and then use social technologies to communicate and drive change, it creates a challenge for government. How to then respond and make use of that data.

This is the underlying set of tensions, we believe, that governments in developed (and some developing) nations, face. Private sector businesses and organizations are also finding themselves in a similar space. This also translates into the political sphere; thus the relationship between the citizenry, economy and polity are undergoing immense levels of tension where they connect. And as usual, the economy and the citizenry are the moving faster and adapting. This set of tensions will create enormous pressures on governments at the political and operational level in the coming years. The US federal government recognizes this and has formed the CIO Council and has a chief information officer; certainly a vital and positive move to adapt. Similar measures are underway in the UK, but few other countries have taken such a significant step.

What do you think?

Is Social Currency Really Relevant?

Not yet. But it may be in time. The initial inkling that “social currency” does have some value is in the domain of human resources. For example recruiters like to use LinkedIn to source candidates for job openings. In a less quantifiable way, as people we often check the profiles of people on Twitter, Facebook etc., to see how many “followers” or “friends” they may have. These are habits driven by our naturally competitive nature. This competitive nature has been a core driver in the development of a number of social media services like FourSquare (become Mayor of a place), Empire Avenue with your personal stock trading, earning “eaves” and as the first example of social currency having some form of value – there’s a great blog post here by Caleb Storkey talking with Jeremiah Owyang and Robert Scoble on the potential values of Empire Avenue for business.

But Who Really Cares?
It doesn’t really matter. Unless you’re on LinkedIn or Plaxo, have little or no engagement, no recommendations from former employers or employees and no references from clients; that may cost you a job interview. Beyond that, “social currency” is interesting to sociologists, anthropologists and perhaps marketing researchers and intelligence agencies or police.

Will Social Currency Become Relevant?
A lot of things need to happen first. A lot. Aside from the stars and moon aligning, for any form of “social currency” to have a real economic impact outside Cyburbia, it needs to become like money is – with some form of regulation that defines its value that is accepted by the international community. Which creates the issue of how to value social currency amongst nations and impacts of “trading” actual peoples values. As new social technologies developed, they would have to find some way of being accepted with a process of approval to be added to a “social currency system”. To have real-world impact it means acceptance by society as a whole, between citizens and governments and with anything that scales, will need regulation to some degree.

Is The Internet or “Cyburbia” Relevant Then?
Discussing “social currency” over the weekend lead to the broader, deeper question of the relevance of the Internet/Web as a whole in our lives. The pundits like Scoble, Shirky and  would resoundingly scream yes, while a more sober tone would come from Evgeny Morazov and that sublime mind of Malcolm Gladwell. The Web is completely relevant, it has helped organize democratic protests, birthday parties, weddings and created a new consumer avenue for shopping that is continuing to increase. It is becoming more pervasive and no longer is location or device dependent. Anyway, it is relevant, social currency however, not so much. Yet.

What do you think? Will social currency have an inherent value over time? perhaps it will play out in a different way than traditional currencies or stocks?