Comments on: Everything and nothing

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 07:36:46 +0000

Intriguing observation…I think “we” have been able to fool ourselves in assuming that efficiencies (or better, effectiveness) can be achieved by expecting “call and response” behaviors in digital communications, i.e. I send you a message and am owed or entitled to a reply. As a result, we see such contrivances as protocols for who may contact whom via email, or front offices that are wholly responsible for executive communications, despite the fact that anyone can get into any other inbox at the push of a button. This kind of social filtering arises because the medium itself does not lend itself to the contextual faceting that digital enables. So, I doubt we will…and I hope we won’t…expect the same symmetric standards for fundamentally asymmetric interactions.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 03:57:49 +0000

I see your point.

Seeing the the water start to move and enable open interaction between greater masses of actors is particularly exciting. As is the notion that the greater number of participants is producing meaningful output, drawing us into a new facet of the user-tool cyborg relationship that has defined our species.

I am interested how mediums like SMS and the micro-blog post, which are particularly shallow compared to the information density potential of traditional media, will be assimilated into the corporate consciousness. In casual conversations, missing or ignoring an @comment or direct message is (in general) socially admissible. Will the same leniency be offered to companies that bring their HR and PR into the real-time Web?

Best Buy has started advertising a program of employees waiting to answer Twitter questions. What happens, however, if Best Buy’s application servers go down and queries are lost or unanswered for a few hours? Or if a minor margin of questions go unanswered entirely? Companies have been slammed for failed Web participation in the past (Tylenol’s viral Mom advert. comes to mind). Do you think these emerging channels will create the same twin standard?

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:04:37 +0000

Matt,

Right on. If the capacity of the many is to be harnessed in unforeseeable ways, whether within enterprises or – as in this case – across borders and oceans, then assigning credit to one niche or another really does miss the point. When allowed to move towards its potential, social organization should be naturally averse to such assertions of superior vision. My point in highlighting that angle here was to note a tide of shifting attitudes towards these organic flows of “real” information that the Web will continue to enable.

By: Matt

Matt — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 14:08:19 +0000

I would like to think that this event is a success of the social media, of the medium through which we’re helping facilitate communication and information.

So it’s disappointing that, even in this great success, we have to shadow it with someone’s desire to buffer their political resume; “I stopped Twitter from cutting off comms!” The success of this is now because of the State Dept., because they decided they deserved to take the credit for it.

A rather famous humanitarian suggested we cannot do great things, but can do small things with great love. This last week is about millions doing small things with a great love. One man, or a small dissociated chain of command, should not get to take that away from this generation.