David Wilcox

The prospect of doing some interviews at the seminar on Jemima Gibbons book, Monkeys With Typewriters, later today set me thinking on some gentle provocations to get things going … particularly ones that are a bit metaphorical.
Recent conversations and exchanges dispel any remaining simplistic enthusiasm for the possible benefits of social media. It isn’t a magic potion. We should pay far more attention to the context in which social media is used, for what purpose, by whom and so on.
Somewhere on the shelves I have  a copy of Silicon Snake Oil written by Clifford Stoll in 1996, and probably the first book to question the benefits of what was then called the Information Superhighway.

Stoll asked: when do the networks really educate, and when are they simply diversions from learning? Is electronic mail useful, or might it be so much electronic noise? Why do online services promise so much, yet deliver so little? What makes computers so universally frustrating?

We are still a bit frustrated … or at least more knowledgable about the barriers. A post on the tech blog Mashable says Why Social Media Isn’t for Everyone. Paul Clarke shows how Show Us A Better Way ideas crowdsourced by government are difficult to make work in practice. Dave Briggs and Roland Harwood agree that Innovation and engagement depend on conversations inside, first. Noel Hatch has a great description in The Revolutions Won’t be Televised of how social technologies can be used by local government to do things better and cheaper … but it depends on human processes first:

If we look at where the web is most successful at driving social change, it’s where it mobilises untapped resources – people’s energy and innovation – for mutual benefit. It’s what we could call the gift economy.
So what’s this all about? When you receive gifts for Christmas this year, you don’t pay them the amount it was worth. At the same time, if you stop giving gifts to friends, you may find there’ll be less inclined to give you a present.
Our relationship with our citizens is different – it would be like offering a gift to a random person in the street, they wouldn’t necessarily return the favour.
So we need to find how to create relationships with people to mobilise their intrinsic motivation. Relationships affect how people behave and how they’re motivated. Transformation in society doesn’t happen when it adopts new tools, it happens when it adopts new behaviours.

A few years back it all seemed a lot simpler. Or maybe we were more optimistic. I fondly remember social reporting at the great 2gether08 Digital Festival curated by Steve Moore … which promoted thoughts about whether That Was THE Summer.
So I Googled and found, yes indeed, The Summer of Social Media Love

Enter the social media mainstream. Yes, social media — where people participate actively, publicly, and directly with online content and content providers — are mainstream.
When huge corporations start blogging, friending, following, fanning, tweeting, and digging — you know that “the man” is infiltrating the social media scene.
It’s not a bad thing. But it’s smart to get hip to new ways of communicating and connecting. With social media, you can participate at your level of comfort.
Your summer of social media love. June, July, August — if you haven’t done so already, give social media three solid months. Watch your brain start to make connections in new and exciting ways.

As I wrote earlier, Jemima’s book is excellent precisely because it is not about the tools, but about Co-Creation, Passion, Learning, Openness, Listening, and Generosity. That’s what we need to be in love with.

Update: just to dispel any remaining hippy-ish thoughts, Alan Patrick explains how The next generation of social media systems will go for the cash.