I was reminded of this just yesterday on Facebook in a very personal way. Facebook has over the years received a variety of praise and criticism. Some people argue that it’s gotten too big for its britches. While I would argue the opposite. That just as this world needs a single site to collect and host the sum knowledge of humanity, here I refer to Wikipedia, the world also needs a single site where everybody can find and connect to the people they want to. That’s the true singular reason behind the rapid growth of Facebook -people searching to make and maintain connections with friends and family.

The story that hit this home so clearly and emotionally to me was the incredible discovery of a message on my Facebook account from somebody who I thought was lost to me forever. The is the story of my niece, who vanished 21 years ago somewhere in Southern California as the result of some incredible ill-conceived legal ruling by an incredibly moronic Californian custody judge. As the years went by, our side of the family moved and went international, making us hard to find. And for years it seems my niece has been searching for us. But now, because Facebook has become the single point of contact for everybody in our family, no matter where they live, she was finally able to discover her long lost father and family.

There are some miracles in life we can’t explain. The cancer patient who suddenly is cured. Or the cripple who can walk. Here we have a miracle enabled by technology. Where a person, who has felt disconnected, lost and lonely for a lifetime, can suddenly discover an entire family that they previously only dreamed of.

As we continue to look for ways to leverage social media for business, let us remember that in the end we are connecting humans to humans. Whether they are customers to suppliers, marketers to consumers, friends to friends or family to family. And it is in this vastly increasing web of very human connections that we will see global social change happen leading to the blossoming of a new moral and ethical center of businesses and of intercultural social tolerance.

He makes some very interesting points about building connections between people within the product itself. As a conversational marketing strategist, I naturally find this very relevant because, the majority of time, both products and retail experiences constantly fail to create opportunities to connect customers to customers; almost as if their marketing directors are afraid of having customers talk to each other.

But this thinking is akin to sticking one’s head in the sand, because customers ARE having these conversations everyday in forums, blogs and twitter streams, mostly without the brand’s participation. So here’s the rub, marketing directors either need to accept this fact and adjust their product, approach and ideally their entire business structure, or continue to struggle in a world that will become increasingly hostile.

Doesn’t seem much like a choice to me, but it still amazes me how many consultants and marketers alike think that old ways of doing business – make a website, buy a print, radio or TV ad – will draw people in to buy and do business. What they don’t see is that the main reason people are probably still doing business with their brands is because of:

a) previously good personal experiences,

b) lack of choice

c) Word of Mouth from other customers

and NOT from overpriced ads.

There are far more cost-efficient ways of doing business today. But it does mean accepting that change has happened and that it’s time to embrace new options. And Seth gives plenty of cases in point.

Some will remember the past decade as the decade the people started to claw back power from business and government. What with the rapid growth of online consumer activism, whistleblower sites and consumer driven watchdog organisations that has proliferated on the Internet, I have started to wonder if we aren’t nearing a future in which the current shape of government itself is outdated.

This year will undoubtedly be remembered as the year that MPs in Britain were exposed as people who see working in government as the proverbial gravy train. Second homes paid for, when most people in Britain don’t even have a first home. Three months summer holidays, when most people in Britain are lucky to get three weeks. Short working hours, when most people in Britain are working the equivalent of 1.5 full-time jobs. And golden pensions worth millions, when most people retiring in Britain will be retiring in poverty.

Times have changed. We no longer live in the agrarian world that defined the early days of “government by representation”. People no longer have to travel to London from the countryside on horse and buggy in order to have their voice heard in government. We no longer need to rely on “people who know better” about  problems inflicting our society, nor should we. For time has proved over and over again, they simply don’t know any better than we do. We no longer need problems “managed” by people who in truth, only know how to pass laws to “manage” problems under the carpet rather than actually solve them.

This is the 21st century. It is not only the Information Age, but also the Age of Empowerment. It is the time when we the people, should have the direct power to influence change in our world. In which we the people, should be able to find solutions to problems rather than new and clever ways to sweep them under the carpet.

If we are to even think about replacing the current system, we need another model to consider. One model presented itself in Charles Leadbeater’s book, “We-Think.” Now, the last time I talked about “We-Think,” I was kind of doing it a bit of disservice by not talking about the fundamental societal change the author refers to.  The step-change behind the notion of We-Think, is that collective humanity is better placed to actually solve problems than individuals. The core idea works like this.

You take a problem, break it down into its constituent components, and disseminate each part to different groups of people. Each group is composed of a mix of skill and knowledge sets. So you might have one group let’s say, composed of sociologist, scientists, artists, planners, researchers, writers, or even construction workers. According to Charles Leadbeater,  these mixed groups are actually better at solving problems than for instance, a group of specialists who all study in the same or closely related fields. Because we disseminated the problem into smaller chunks to different groups, each problem doesn’t seem all that overwhelming. So when you bring all the different groups together, you can actually solve some very complex problems. This is one reason, for instance, why Nasa has opened up their research problems to the people. And why even die-hard organisations like Proctor and Gamble now allow anybody to invent new products, and earn royalties from their inventions.

We-Think in essence, allows companies to cast a much wider net for its innovations, for far less money than it would cost for them to do it all inhouse using a team of dedicated researchers. Plus you are far more likely to get some truly surprising ideas, which could really never come out of your own organisation. Politicians on the other hand, like to debate problems amongst themselves. Because the majority of them are either lawyers or ex-businessmen, their debates often are very repetitive, typically resulting in a small handful of available solutions: to either pass a new law or privatise, nationalise or re-privatise something.

Nobody stops to think whether these essentially limited basic solution sets are in fact, going to solve the real problem. At best, they are akin to bandaids. They mask the real problems with a skin-colored covering, so you don’t notice the gaping wound that lies underneath, At worst, they make the problem worse, which is what essentially happened with the majority of the PPI (Public Private Initiatives) that the government offered up to outsource the problems to somebody else. The only problem with approach is of course, most of these companies simply Inflated the real problem in order to inflate their profits to solve the artificially inflated problem they were contracted to fix, but which of course, they never did, simply because if they fixed the problem, they wouldn’t be able to milk it for more profit.

At no time, will any of the solutions debated in Parlaiment every involve getting rid of the MPs altogether and letter the people join together online to find the real solution to the problem, We-Think style. More importantly, as citizens would create the laws in this We-Think run society, we would likely have a corporate world that actually works for the people rather than for themselves. After all, when you’re own consumers can pass laws that control how much profit you can make for instance, or even which makes your business illegal altogether, you are likely to make sure they accept what you do and how you go about it. Without the protection of government flunkies, it’s hard to imagine guns and other weapon’s manufacturers existing at all. Likewise, it’s equally hard to imagine any heavy polluting industry lasting long in a We-Think world. It’s easy to corrupt a handful of people to do your bidding or to turn a blind eye, but try corrupting an entire nation of people. May not be impossible, after all, Ceasar was fairly effective at keeping the masses distracted, but in the long run. But in an internet powered We-Think run society where whistleblower sites are common, it’s easy to create a groundswell moment around an eye-opening truth.

Naturally, a We-Think run nation would mean the end of the professional politician. But so what? Reading the headlines nowadays, does anybody really want them? Most consumer research shows that what people really want is to be able to have a say in how things are run, or even to be able to make direct impacts to solve problems. A Vox Pox I did for a Levi’s campaign of young Londoners actually revealed that at the young actually want to solve problems in their local communities, some even in the wider world. But most felt unempowered to do so.

By switching to a model of “direct participatory democracy”, ever citizen could be empowered to make a difference and be part of a collective hunt for solutons to society’s problems. Each problem could be debated online, researched by different groups of mixed specialists and compared and studied with input from other teams. The various solutions could all be analysed by indiviuals actually living those problems and voted on by the public at large. In a true democracy, the people’s vote is supposed to be what decides the direction of government. In  a We-Think government, this literally is what happens, every day. People decide thier own futures, together, collectively. If something doesn’t work out. if a solution is proved to be the wrong one, the people can instantly gather, re-analyse and change it to a new solution, creating what is essence, a truly dynamic, flexible way of government that is fully capable of dealing with our quickly changing world.

% of UK households with Internet Access

All of the underlying technologies now exists for this new, fairer and more open type of democracy exists already today. Broadband penetration in the UK is now at 52%, while basic internet penetration is at 68%, and it’s increasing by about 1 million people a year. Mobile penetration is at 78% of the population.

Population by age, UK

Given that 20% of the UK population is under 16 years, this means that pretty much everybody who could own a mobile phone, does. We all have the tools in our hands and at our fingertips every day to participate in a We-Think government. So the burning question is simply, why don’t we?

Statistics: http://www.statistics.gov.uk

A famous example of this community policing was seen back in 2005 in what is now known as “the Dog Poop Girl case.” In South Korea, where everybody and their toddler have a mobile phone, a girl and her dog boarded a local subway train.

Naturally, the dog must have mistook the bland floor for dirt – or then he was just making a statement against bad design – and decided to defecate on the floor of the train car, apparently by accident. Nearby passengers were naturally appalled and asked her to clean it up. Surprisingly, she replied something akin to “mind your own business.” 

As all phones today are also spy cameras, a fellow passenger fotographed the girl and posted it on a Korean Website. The  photograph was picked up by the hyper-active asian social networks, retouched, mashed up, commented upon and generally spread around like the pandemic flu. It was in effect, a national user generated “name and shaming” policing exercise.

Naturally, the girl in question became famous for all of the wrong reasons, and probably a social pariah among her friends as well, causing her to drop out of university. Most likely today she is dog-less (and forever so), living in a new city with a new haircut and maybe even a new name. 

Now let’s apply this social policing strategy to our local British burglar. Let’s say a burglar (who we all call Yobs over here) breaks into a property. The house however, is wired to the local community owned and monitored CCTV network (no government or police oversight here) so our Yob is caught in the act by a nearby neighbour, an old lady living on her own and battling an ongoing insomnia problem. Either that or she’s catching up on back episodes of “Eastenders” on the Beeb’s iPlayer. She hurriedly sends text alerts to all the residents in the area. They rush around to the house just as the robber/yob exits. He turns (it is always a he isn’t it) only to face a horde of angry residents, all armed with mobile phone cameras and busily filming the unfolding drama.

Now, assuming our angry horde doesn’t turn into a vigilante mob, they instead run a mobile Internet search on Google’s new Face recognition service, which matches images to those on the social networks to quickly get the yob’s personal details and those of all of his friends and family. His surprised and angry mother is contacted, as is his grandmother, his father, brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles, etc, who all are suddenly calling the Yob’s mobile phone to berate him in what J. K. Rowling would describe as a “Howler Mail”.

To make matters worse, the entire drama, complete with the yob’s very public shame, is posted on the Internet site, www.Gotcha.com, a newfound wikipedia-style public database of social shame and now his very public police record. If he was a repeat offender, then he might even be placed in a prison. But not the usual countryside retreat with drugs, Sky Movies and a free gym membership, but rather a very public room in the town square with glass walls so that everybody can watch him. No curtains. No privacy.

Naturally, the gaping whole in this approach is that we currently live in a fame-obsessed society where criminal activity is glorified as being a “cool profession” with few real downsides, well, except for that potential death thing of course. But as fame has become more important than achievement, we are seeing gangs of youth challenging each other to commit crimes. So when our group of concerned and involved residents show up with their mobile phone cameras buzzing away, a burglar is now more likely to mistake them for paparazzi, break out into a big smile, and perform a little jig for the cameras.

Once on Internet, he would become famous on both sides of the Atlantic. Hollywood or Fox TV would then offer him a lucrative Film/TV deal, only to find themselves outbid by the BBC, using millions from the public purse of course. Books titled, “Why I Burgle” would become runaway best-sellers, making it to the top of the RIchard and Judy list, who would praise it “for its moving hardcore realism” and “as a telling indictment of modern society”.  Even our PM, fading in popularity as he ever is, would invite the famous crook over to No. 10, whereupon our now famous Yob would nick the silverware, which everybody would find hilarious.

Sources: 
On Internet Vigilantism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_vigilantism

On the Dog Poop Girl case

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2005/07/06/AR2005070601953.html

http://blog.japundit.com/archives/2005/06/30/808/

On Google and Facial Recognition

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13580_3-10026577-39.html

Imagine if you will, having the power to see what is happening anywhere in the world, and at any past or present time. And that power was shared eventually, to everyone in the world. This was the premise of the book, “The Light of Other Days” by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter, which discusses the problems which arise when a wormhole is used for faster-than-light communication. In the novel the authors suggest that wormholes can join points distant either in time or in space and postulate a world completely devoid of privacy as wormholes are increasingly used to spy on anyone at any time in the world’s history.

What’s interesting about the story is it’s parallel to what is happening today in the world around us. Before we get to that however, here’s a short summary of the story.

Hiram Patterson is the founder and CEO of the fictional company OurWorld, who the author styled after a cross between Richard Branson and the controversial media tycoon Rupert Murdoch. His company happens upon the most revolutionary technological breakthrough of the century; the creation of a stable wormhole. Not the promethean-sized wormhole that you could fly spaceships through to get to the other side of the universe. Nor the kind that transports you naked back in time. Or even the kind that opens doors into parallel universes. No, Hiram’s scientists created a minute wormhole, so small it could only be detected through specialized equipment.

At first, they didn’t know what to do with this breakthrough, as it didn’t seem to have any discernable usage other than expanding the niche knowledge of a handful of relativistic physicists. More frustratingly, they discovered that without access to near limitless energy sources, they would never be able to expand the size of the wormhole beyond its minute proportions.

However, OurWorld is a business, hence it’s out to make a buck. So driven by the forceful personality of Hiram Patterson, the scientists eventually found out that although microscopic wormholes were too small to transport anything useful, like a person, they could however transmit data. So they set out to create the WormCam, the world’s ultimate fly-on-the-wall camera. One that sees not only what is happening at the present, but also at anytime in the past.

At this point, Hiram completes his transformation from Richard Branson to Rupert Murdoch and applies the new technology to his own higher purpose: to get exclusives for his media empire. He quickly dial’s back the WormCam’s time viewer to expose the truth of political conspiracies and scandals dating back to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln to present. Naturally, the guy makes a mint on his exposés. All the while, politicians struggle to figure out he’s doing it. Although he also reveals fantastic historical nature documentaries, he can’t resist the ultimate reality porn of exposing celebrities and famous personalities sunbathing naked.

The resulting societal changes are dramatic. Politics undergo what can only be described as a complete top to bottom cleansing, with anybody having committed even the smallest indiscretion quitting public office before they become public fodder.

Over time, the scientists miniaturise the technology to produce a portable, mass-marker version of the WormCam. With everybody having access to these devices, even the smallest notion of privacy evaporates for all. Spouses use it to expose affairs. Teachers to expose students cheating. Men to view naked women, women to view naked men. Imagine, what happens with everybody can know everything that another person does, now and throughout their entire past lives. Entire generations of youth even have wormholes embedded into their brains to enable collective minds; the ultimate form of social networking where one is never alone.

By now, you can see where I am headed with this. The story of this all-transforming technology is a mirror of what we see happening with the Internet.

Consumer movements endless exposing every corporate misdeed and government lie.

Every minute of a person’s life and death – Jade Goody style – recorded and exposed in gory, pornographic detail for people to dive into, comment on, praise, rip apart, criticise and fantasize over in orgiastic delight.

The complete exposure of private and public lives, thoughts, friendships and personal and professional networks exposed on an up-to-the minute basis on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

The ordinary, the extraordinary, the unbelievable, the absurd, the bizarre, the inspiring and the provocative behaviour of millions of people, fictional and real, captured and viewed by millions every second over YouTube, Google Video, Tudou and other social video sites. We even see the collective mind in action thanks to Wikipedia.

The Internet is our very own personal wormhole to every aspect of the world. Thanks to Google Earth, we use it to see remote far-away places, or even far away stars. Thanks to Google Maps and Street View, we use to find out where we are, and view everything from our own neighbourhood, to those of neighbours we will never know nor see. We use it to discover truth and fiction in equal measure. Employers use it to check up on their competition and their own employees, while employees use it to check up on their colleagues and employers alike, both as individuals and as corporations. And naturally, marketers use it to continuously try to understand what it is that we all want, and how to exploit that knowledge to either the consumer’s and the corporation’s mutual gain, though more typically to the corporation’s gain at the expense of the consumer, the environment and the rest of the world.

The now continuous debate over privacy already seems somehow pointless. Because thanks to the Internet, we have willingly surrendered privacy in favour of collective knowledge and truth in the hope and desire that by participating in the bold experiment called the Internet, we will carve a brave new world out of the carcass of the dinosaur we have to grown up with. One which is somehow kinder, more honest, less greedy, and more equitable than the world it replaces.

In the last decade, the world as we know it underwent a fundamental change. A change so profound that it represented an extinction-level event for businesses of all types. Science defines an extinction-level event (or ELE to film buffs) as a period in time when a large number of species die out. The most famous ELE event, the extinction of the dinosaurs, is contributed to an asteroid impact.

The asteroid that collided with the business world on August 6, 1991 was the Internet, or more precisely, the World Wide Web. And its impact is still being felt globally. The resulting impact of the Internet is suffocating any businesses incapable of making evolutionary changes, while literally wiping out some businesses altogether. Any business that hasn’t already adapted to the new way the world works is already under threat. This includes those working in the middle, those who’s business models rely on corporate secrecy and those who still cling to the notion of branded air.

If you work in the middle, the air probably is already starting to feel a bit thin. This is especially true in the entertainment industry. As the Internet enables content producers and creators, to publish, market and distribute their products directly to consumers, then what role is there for distributors, marketers and packagers? In fact, do we really need any middlemen in the entertainment business? Consumers are quite happy with the notion of “free.” And if pressed, would much rather pay the artists directly.  

Business who rely on corporate secrecy to maintain their existence are finding that secrets have a way of being exposed. With the likes of sites such as Wikileaks.org, Corporate Watch (corpwatch.org) , Source Watch (sourcewatch.org) and Whatdotheyknow.com, corporate secrecy is approaching its own end of days. Whistleblowers are being praised as the our new heroes and leaking sensitive documents is quickly becoming a fad in its own right. For after decades of being fired, laid-off, made redundant and generally used as disposable assets, consumers are today loyal unto themselves, not to corporations and are quite happy to expose the corporate dirty laundry.

Even the seemingly harmless brands are becoming increasingly under the microscope of global consumer eye. Fast moving consumer goods, fashion brands, banks and service brands of all kinds are seeing the flip-side of globalization, global awareness and knowledge. Shady business practices in far-flung corners of the planet are being dished up in the headlines of Western papers and books for all to see as remote bloggers track the daily lives of near-slave labourers in Southeast Asian countries. In the light of global awareness, creating brand meanings out of thin air is seen for what it really is, air. 

So unless you have been living on another planet while the ELE happened, then you probably already know all of this. You probably have read the recommended books that tell you how exactly your business must change. Or listened to a dozen overpriced consultants telling you what you already felt in your gut. The air is not getting thin. It is thin! The oxygen is nearly gone. Your consumers are fleeing in droves or fighting back. 

There is no real secret here. Consumers do what consumers have always done. They try to get what they want. It’s up to marketers to respond to the consumer, not vice versa. It’s time to add value to the equation to the extent that consumers not only want to engage with you, but want to help you as well.

This blog will show you practical strategies to make your business relevant again to a growing consumer base that, at present, couldn’t really be bothered with you. A word of caution however. It doesn’t mean that you can keep doing business as usual. You will need to redefine your role in the entertainment equation. You will need to find a way to become relevant and useful to an audience that is godlike in their dissemination of media and entertainment.