A Bigger Voice

Instantaneous Movements, Mobile Rising, and Data Streams

In the 90's, I read a change management book called Managing At the Speed of Change, which later became a classic in the field.

In this new decade, someone needs to write a book called "Living at the Speed of Digital Change."  Photo by jpctalbot

It was just a little over two years ago that I started this blog, with one of the main themes being how technology is an enabler for turning an idea into a movement. I've been noticing how the standards are changing as technology advances. Here are a few examples:

• Instantaneous movements. Simon Young first introduced me to "flash mobs," where a group of strangers coordinated, through technology, an in-person gathering to make a point, promote a cause, or stand behind a common purpose (if nothing else, to give bystanders something to talk about for the rest of the day.) While quick to coalesce, these mini-movements were small and temporal. Now, with the power of social media and a compelling enough cause, national or even global movements can happen overnight. A few weeks ago, on National Public Radio's All Things Considered, they discussed how a movement to help Haiti sprung up quickly, with the help of social media. Using the text message, 90999, to donate $10 at a time, tens of millions of dollars were collected from cell phone users in a matter of a few days. Photo by The U.S. Army

NPR contrasts that to the tsunami relief efforts in 2004, when social media  platforms like Twitter and Facebook didn't exist. It took a lot longer to mobilize the hearts and minds (and wallets) around a cause.

Wisdom entrepreneurs: Is your story and cause compelling enough for others to pass on through social media, and create a movement?

• Social media is getting more use than email. A quote from the Economist magazine, citing Nielsen, a market research firm: "...since February 2009, [people] have been spending more time on social-networking sites than on email, and the lead is getting bigger."  To reinforce this idea even further, I recently re-read a NYT article titled, "Brave New World of Digital Intimacy" published in September 2008. The article explores the challenge of being on Twitter and following several hundred people. Now, less than two years later, this challenge seems rather quaint. The number of users on Twitter has exploded, as well as the many ways to use Twitter. Following thousands isn't uncommon for an average "twit" and avid users can follow tens of thousands.Social media has become part of the mainstream, rather than a new fad associated with the digerati. Photo by 7son75

Wisdom entrepreneurs: Meet your kindred spirits where they are. Don't rely on them to come to your site or to read your emails.

• The next frontier is mobile. I don't text. I don't have a smart phone. I'm an immigrant when it comes to mobile. And yet it makes sense that it would become one of the most powerful tools to emerge, as everything that we expect on a desktop moves to wherever we happen to be. I don't have to be at my desk to participate. I can be anywhere, doing anything. Photo by Michael(mx5tx)

Wisdom entrepreneurs:  Kindred spirits are even more accessible than you thought, if you factor in mobile.

• Think interactive, streaming data, not one-dimensional static pages. Michael Zeisser, Senior VP of Liberty Media, in a two-part interview for w3w3 Talk Radio, discusses how the Internet has evolved, from static pages to streaming data. The bar has been raised. Our expectation now is that something new is continually being presented, the new version of the ticker tape. Think Twitter or Facebook News Feeds.  In addition, I'm noticing how the best sites are using video to give that high touch, interactive feel. (Yes, it's a nod for me to do more of that as well. So far, I've dabbled in online video but have yet to make it a habit....)

Wisdom entrepreneurs: Start using online video as part of your communications toolkit. Get used to short bursts of communications (140 characters will do just fine...) to supplement a monthly newsletter or a weekly blog post.

This list makes me think I need to get crackin'. It also makes me wonder what tools we'll have two years down the road that we can't even imagine today.

What trends are you seeing in the changing landscape and how do you take advantage of them to turn your idea into a movement?

Jeremiah Owyang, Part 3: Starting and Growing a Community

"People would rather have [a] knowing they are accepted and appreciated. That's far more important than lining one's wallet...This is about the core essence of humans connecting with other humans." --Jeremiah Owyang

In this last installment of my interview with Jeremiah Owyang, we talk about the increasing influence of communities, ways to kickstart a community, and best practices on growing a community. Be sure to listen towards the end of the interview for a discussion about social capital. Jeremiah talks about a revealing experiment conducted by a major high tech company on community-building.

This last segment is under 9 minutes in duration.

My thanks again to Jeremiah for his generous spirit in sharing what he knows with the ABV community.  He took his own personal time (on a weekend!) to do this interview, which says a lot about his commitment and passion for this topic.

Places to connect with Jeremiah:

Blog: www.web-strategist [dot] com

Twitter: @jowyang

friendfeed

LinkedIn

Flickr

Where the Future Lies: Snapping Up Michelle Obama's Dress

I recently attended a presentation, via videoconference, by Christine Heckart, General Manager at Microsoft for their television division and most recently, their music division. She's a seasoned technologist with a big picture marketing bent and humility that is refreshing for someone in her position. (Slight tangent: Afterwards, I wondered if a man would ever display such humility, even an enlightened one. Would a man ever say he was new to a field, after studying and working in it for four years?)

The title of the talk was "The Future of Television and a Market Filled With Business Opportunities."

Key points from the talk:

• We spend an awful lot of time consuming entertainment (9 hrs/day vs. 7 hrs spent on sleeping.) Heckart didn't say this explicitly but it was implied that this will increase over time.
• The world is increasingly becoming digitized. Today, there are 300 million people watching online video. In 2012, it's predicted that 1 billion people will be watching online video. Television is the last electronic island in the home. I could relate to Heckart's story that she takes away screen time from her kids as punishment instead of television time. My kids think something is wrong with my husband and I when we limit screen time to under 20 hours per week. Photo by striatic.
• Media is increasingly being fragmented to more channels and choices. Even more intriguing is fragmentation of attention. Kids today multi-task with an iPod, video games, and chat all going on at the same time.
• Advertising has not caught up. The dollars going to advertising on television vs. online are disproportionate to the consumption. 7% of the ad spend is online, while 20% of the consumption is online. Fewer television viewers, yet advertising is still putting their money there.
• The ME-WE phenomena, fueled by social networking, adds personalization into the landscape. I'm going to tell you all about me so we can connect. 
• Convergence used to mean voice and data together. Now it means everything I need for communications and entertainment, seemlessly delivered. Television plus Internet, enriching each other, is part of the future. Heckart warns that our infrastructure isn't ready for that and thus, there's a business opportunity. Consumer video is the driver for a new eco-system. 
• Be prepared for a re-distribution of dollars. (Sound vaguely familiar?) Current players in the television market (e.g. cable and satellite) have both the worst and the best of starting points. They have a captive audience and everything to lose as the old pie shrinks and a new pie emerges.

Quotable quotes:

• "When the Internet "rolls" over your industry, it fundamentally changes it."
• "If you can make things simple, you can make a lot of money. If you can't make the complex simple, it's a niche market. Dumbing down is the whole point."

How this relates to the path of a wisdom entrepreneur:

• In a fragmented world, crystallizing your ideas becomes even more important.
• The interactive nature of today's younger generation will be pervasive in no time at all. The last bastion, television, is coming to grips with this.  Digital immigrants need to be prepared to incorporate that into their strategy of turning an idea into a movement.
• Technology and culture are reinforcing the idea of attracting your tribe, by promoting personalization and connection to those who resonate with you. Interestingly enough, Heckart was asked in the Q+A for one piece of career advice. She first said, "Have great mentors." And then she hit upon these words: "Pure raw leadership. Identify opportunities and do something about it, exciting people enough to follow you."  While she was referring to a business setting, I think it applies in a large sense. I immediately thought of Seth Godin's book, Tribes, and how the essence of leadership is creating a community of kindred spirits, a movement, that changes the world in some way.

Heckart ended her talk with a marketer and technologist's vision of the future that elicited a knowing smile from the audience.  Michelle Obama was on The View last year, a women's talk show on television, and wore a dress that captivated the viewers. Reportedly, within hours, the off-the -rack dress was sold out across the country.

Imagine if that same event took place and all that was needed was a click of the button to purchase and start delivery.  Now that's making the complex simple. 

Photo by AlexJohnson

Virtual vs. Real world - what's the real difference?

There's a myth around that the "virtual world" is somehow a different place from the real world we all live in.

Interestingly, it's a myth found only among those who haven't tried out social media and social networks. Once you dip your toe in the online conversation, you find that blogs, Facebook, Twitter - and on and on - are all elaborations on (not replacements of) the art of one human relating to another.

And often, you'll find that there's a strong desire to cross borders. Take the phenomenon of Tweetups for example. People in a local area, united only by their use of the social networking platform Twitter. It's a tenuous link, but one that causes people to search for other things in common.

We had one in Auckland, New Zealand, the other day. "Organizing" it was just a matter of me saying "Do we have time for one last Twitter meetup for 2008? Or is that just crazy talk?"

Over the next few hours people came back, enthusiastic to squeeze in a meeting, even with the silly season in full swing. Someone nominated a venue, which everyone else voted on, and then I promoted the tweetup through a blog post and through our Facebook group.

Photo of me with a Twitter friend
at the Auckland Tweetup

We had 13 people come along - not a huge amount of people, but not a small group either, especially not in a crowded pub!

What is it that motivates people to share a few hours with almost total strangers? The technology's only a small part of the equation. A bigger factor is the "almost" total stranger part - some level of trust and relationship has built up, and, being human, most people want to explore further, to put faces to the names, thoughts and avatars they see on screen.

It used to be that you could say where a community started and ended. But online social networking is blurring those lines. Is our Auckland Twitter meetup a genuine community? Hard to say. We know each other on a fairly intimate level, since we relay some of our innermost thoughts in those 140 characters. Would we stick up for each other when the chips are down? I hope we don't have to find out, but I get the feeling there's great potential within groups like this.

Humans at Work

The last year I worked for Ben & Jerry's Homemade, I was supervised by a woman who destroyed my faith in my skill, intelligence, and competence. She raged at fellow employees in front of me. She called me in to meetings and tore me apart, with the curtains open wide on the conference room so everyone who passed by could see her pacing and gesticulating, and see me white-faced and terrified. She left me without direction, and then reviled (and sometimes reversed) my decisions. Fortunately, I was already planning to leave the company, but she made my last six months a living hell. It took me several years to recover my confidence.

(This was not typical at Ben & Jerry's, by the way. For the first five years of my tenure, I had a manager who gave me enormous levels of support and helped me learn to be a good leader. Overall, I experienced Ben & Jerry's as taking care of the people who worked there in myriad ways. Rather than saying anything terrible about Ben & Jerry's, this story illustrates that even in the best companies, where people really are valued, bad leadership can destroy productivity and damage people.)

Through her new organization, Humans at Work, Kelley Eskridge wants to make this kind of behavior (and a whole host of less egregious but equally destructive ones) obsolete in business. For this, as well as for her remarkable fiction, she is one of my heroes.

I speak not only as a former employee struggling to maintain my sense of myself and do work I could be proud of in the face of bad management. As a young manager, I would have given anything for the training Eskridge is offering. With Eskridge, I believed that:

Work is a human thing, the product of human brains, human muscles, human spirits, human hearts. And so work, like the humans who do it, can be awkward and exciting and scary and sometimes messy. And it has the human potential for joy, if business would only make room for it.
(from A Leader's Manifesto)

In my twenties, I just didn't have the skills I needed to make it work that way. I was inconsistent. I sent mixed messages. I made arbitrary decisions. I got in the way of the work. Not on purpose, of course—I was always reaching toward a different way of managing. I always wanted to do a good job by the folks I worked with and by the work itself. In most cases, that vision saved me from being a terrible manager, but I could have done much better—and that knowledge weighed me down and made me less effective. I came by my skills the hard way, over years. Eskridge's expertise could have made the learning so much easier, and made me effective so much earlier.

Kelley Eskridge is a wisdom entrepreneur. She wants to make a big change in the world, a change that will outlast her. She has the wisdom and the capacity to make it happen. She has created a remarkable business model that makes her expertise available to businesses (in the form of a turnkey program that they can use as is or adapt) for free, as well as offering consulting for a price. From reading her fiction and her blog over years, I know that she is a community-builder at heart. I can't wait to see where Humans at Work goes.

You go, Kelley. We'll be watching, and cheering you on.

Jeremiah Owyang's Keynote at Thin Air Summit

It's one thing to read someone's blog over time. It's another thing to see them speak in person.

Jeremiah Owyang gave the keynote yesterday on the second (and last) day of the Thin Air Summit,
with a talk titled, "The Future of Media....in the Social Era."

When I heard about the conference last month, it was the fact that Jeremiah was speaking that caught my attention. I've been reading his blog since January and it's become one of my top resources for understanding social media, where it's headed, and the role it can play in building a community. Key points from his talk:

• Allow content to take many forms. It's no longer enough to post something on a website. You've got to provide other distribution channels for your stuff to be found, where your audience is, instead of expecting them to come to you. Example: A blog posting is automatically fed to my Facebook account and then becomes a tweet (a posting of 140 characters or less, using the Twitter micro-blogging service). With each successive form, users can add their own commentary, thereby modifying your original intent. I may have posted about my vacation to Maui and someone links to it to talk about how the middle class has become more affluent. 
• Provide content in bite-sized chunks. Jeremiah talked about long-form and short-form and media snacking. Digital immigrants are used to reading newspapers and research reports. Digital natives are used to texting and scanning RSS feeds. Attention span, even for the over 30 crowd, has gone way down while information overload is a permanent condition. When I asked about the dangers of too much media snacking, Jeremiah replied that we might miss what's really important. In-depth analysis goes by the wayside. Speed and volume can't make up for good thinking.
• If information is power, media is currency. The world used to be about broadcast--television, radio--where one centralized body decided what the masses would hear. Think of the the top down, command and control hierarchy of our major corporations up until the last 10 years. Now think about the world today, where anybody can create an online video, upload it to a free site like YouTube, link to it, and modify it by adding in their own content. And then have it go viral.  This is the bottom-up change scenario that is becoming more possible and more probable. There is a shift in power from the top of the heap to the bottom of the food chain.

For people who love to see data to understand broad conclusions (like me), check out slides 47 and 49 of Jeremiah's presentation. Fascinating stuff with lots of implications.

What this means for creating a bigger voice:

• With short attention spans, you don't just need bite-sized chunks in the Crystallize phase. You need a clear message--what your wisdom is, what's the stunning result you want to create, how your life story connects with your passion.
• If you are attracting kindred spirits who are digital natives, you'll need to show up in a variety of places online. As time goes on, more of anyone's audience will be digital natives.
• Dream big, because bottom-up change is becoming more and more possible. One individual can have more impact than a thousand could a hundred years ago.

Besides Jeremiah's depth of expertise and ability to synthesize large amounts of input on the spot (he's an analyst for Forrester on social computing, after all), I was struck by two things during his presentation:

• He uses both sides of the brain, the creative right brain and the analytical left brain, in presenting ideas. A whole-brain thinker after my own heart. (I later found out by re-reading his bio that he was a jazz performance major in college--a boundary crosser in addition to being a whole brain thinker.) Throughout the presentation, Jeremiah used metaphors (jello, shish ka bob, and currency) and stories to drive home his points and then backed it up with data. A quick scan of his slides will give you an idea of what I'm talking about.

• He leads by example in building a community. Communities have power and wisdom. Two examples:
  • Jeremiah opened the talk by holding a controller to advance his slide presentation in one hand and a cell phone receiving Twitter messages in the other hand.  He acknowledged that the real power is not in the slide controller, but in the cell phone. Why? Through Twitter, audience members can now give real-time feedback on what they are hearing in a presentation and have a parallel, digital conversation, delivered in a web browser or via a mobile device. In a tech-savvy crowd, conference speakers can get the thumbs down very quickly and see their audience literally disappear. 
  • Jeremiah made a point of asking for the audience's experiences, in response to the main messages of his presentation (see slides titled "Community Examples.") With a crowd of social media early adopters, he knew this community had much to offer up with their own anecdotes. Community-builders know that they are the catalyst for conversation, but they are not the conversation itself. The more of an expert you are, the harder it is to open the space for others to join in, which makes Jeremiah's invitation for input all the more remarkable. (In a similar, but slightly different vein, Dave Taylor gave an example in his keynote, showing a photo of a sign with the words, "Don't think" painted on it. Underneath, someone else had written, "about her." A nice riff off of a serious message.)

How does this relate to having a bigger voice? If you are serious about communicating your wisdom, your cause, your passion, don't relegate it to one side of your brain. Crystallize using both sides. It's a whole lot more effective. And when you are ready to build community, you've got to walk your talk. Your attitude about what the crowd knows and your respect for the power at the bottom will make all the difference in how quickly a community will coalesce around your ideas.

My thanks to the co-organizers of Thin Air Summit, Goldie Katsu and Kit Seeborg for putting on a terrific conference. I'll be back next year.

Who's Reading Blogs? Maybe Your Grandmother...

Josh Bernoff, co-author of the book, Groundswell, and an analyst at Forrester, provides some fascinating data about the adoption of social media, hot off the Wordpress (or whatever his blog is built on.)

What makes the data so valuable is not only that it's current and compares the same data to last year, but also that it divides up social media users based on distinct categories:

• Creators--e.g., blogger, uploader of YouTube video
• Critics--e.g., reviewer of books on Amazon, commenter on a blog
• Collectors--e.g., user of RSS feed
• Joiners--e.g., user with profile on LinkedIn
• Spectators--e.g., listener of a podcast, reader of a blog
• Inactives--none of the above

Bottom line: The number of online US users in the first five categories is increasing at a good pace.

Even more fascinating is that Bernoff points to the growth in social media adoption by digital immigrants:

"Where is the growth in consumption of online content coming from? From older people – the group my young colleagues who manage all this data call “middle-aged.” (Ouch!) Social activity is way up among 35-to-44 year-olds, especially when it comes to joining social networks and reading and reacting to content. Even among 45-to-54 year-olds, 68% are now Spectators, 24% are Joiners, and only 28% are Inactives."

Bernoff's interpretation of what this all means:

"It will soon be no more remarkable that your grandmother reads a blog than that she reads email. Social content is going mainstream. Social content ranks high on search engines because it changes so frequently and gets linked to more often, so more and more online adults are becoming exposed to it, accepting it, and embracing it. If you’re a marketer, no matter what group of consumers you’re targeting, this means you must pay attention to the social world online."

Not only should marketers take note.  Anyone on the path to a bigger voice, intent on attracting a community of like-minded individuals, should see this as good news. More participants of social media means that you'll have a better chance of connecting with those individuals who resonate with your unique voice and the change you want to create in the world.

And with any tool, the context in which you are using it is important. (Please don't use that hammer for everything that remotely resembles a nail.) Bernoff provides a word of warning on what not to expect:

 

"[T]he future of social applications online will not include contributions from everyone, because not everyone has the temperament to create content. Don’t count on all your customers to contribute, and don’t believe that what you see online is representative of your whole audience. The shy among your customers are reading this stuff, but most of them aren’t ready to contribute, and won’t be for a while."

This is really good food for thought. I forget that not everyone wants to be a blogger. Not everyone is inclined to comment on a blog. (I think I read someplace that only 1% of blog readers actually leave a comment.) And that's okay. Communities, whether online or offline, need to allow for all levels of participation, from the lurker/first-time attendee in the back of the room to the frequent commenter to the occasional participant who weighs in on a provocative topic.

Social Entrepreneurship

In doing some research for an event I'm facilitating in Traverse City this week on social entrepreneurship, I came across two articles on the topic:

• The Meaning of Social Entrepreneurship by J. Gregory Dees, a faculty member of the Center for Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship at Duke's Fuqua School of Business.  Dees makes the connection between the roots of the meaning of entrepreneurship and the social part of social entrepreneurship. Written in 1998 and revised in 2001, it gives a starting point for defining social entrepreneurship.
• Social Entrepreneurship: The Case for Definition by Roger L. Martin and Sally Osberg. Written in 2007 for the Stanford Social Innovation Review, this paper gives numerous examples of well-known social enterpreneurs. More importantly, it makes the distinction between social entrepreneurship, social activism, and social service provision. The paper covers a lot of ground and I've only scanned it. One area that I take a different view of is the three components of social entrepreneurship provided in the paper. The authors talk about social enterpreneurship as creating a new equilibrium that improves a human condition, thus leading to transformative and lasting change. What I take exception to is the idea that the old equilibrium is "inherently unjust." Can't we improve a human condition without creating an "us" vs."them" attitude? What does the victim packaging really do for the cause? Well, those are my first thoughts. The paper deserves a closer look, maybe on the plane....

As with most topics these days, there's more information on the Internet than can be digested . One more source of ideas on the topic is on a blog sponsored by the Skoll Foundation, where there's a lively conversation on a posting, Defining Social Entrepreneurship.

Enjoy!

Encore Study

I recently posted on my other blog about the book, Encore, by Marc Freedman. The subtitle is "Finding Work That Matters in the Second Half of Life." A wonderful community around the ideas in the book is forming at Encore.org.

Now, Encore.org has released a study, co-sponsored by the MetLife Foundation, that provides statistics with implications for A Bigger Voice.

First, a bit of background. When I initially developed the concept of a A Bigger Voice as a roadmap for innovators with remarkable wisdom, I didn't have a clear idea of what these innovators looked like or who they were. I only knew that their wisdom came from life experience, and it offered something new to the world.

Since starting the pilot, I've come to realize that A Bigger Voice best serves "digital immigrants" yearning for more meaning and impact and ready to take action.  These are some of the same people who are attracted to Encore.org, people who ask the following questions:

• How do I spread my ideas?
• How do I help individuals with my ideas?
• How do I influence decision makers?
• How do I engage a socially conscious audience?

In Encore's terms, these are Career Makers, individuals who take a lifelong interest and parlay it into a job that helps others. Think social entrepreneurs.

Back to the Encore study, which is based on input from over 3,000 people, ages 44 to 70. Based on this sampling, the Encore findings speak to how many baby boomers want meaning and impact or are already pursuing it:

• 5.3 million to 8.4 million boomers are already in "encore careers," doing work that combines income and personal meaning with social impact. This is 9.5% of the entire 44-70 population.
• Another 44.7% of those 44-70 years old are interested in encore careers. Breaking down the numbers even further, 50% of those 44-50 years old are interested in encore careers. This works out to tens of millions of people.
• More than one third of those interested in encore careers would like to work as an advocate for a group of people or an issue they care about. That comes to over 13 million people.
• Forty percent of those interested in encore careers want to improve the quality of life in their community or in society.

How many of these people have remarkable wisdom that they want to use to create social change? Even if a small percentage of those interested in encore careers become social entrepreneurs, we're still talking about LOTS of people.

ABV is one way to help this population fulfill their desire to have meaning and impact, while making use of their wisdom. I get excited when I think about the magnitude of numbers that this study points to, people ready to give more to the world. My thanks to Encore.org for making this data available.

More Signs of the Changing Landscape

The world as the digital immigrant knew it growing up is changing. Rapidly. Recent news items that illustrate continuing trends:

Waning Power of Traditional Media

• Starting next year, U. S. News will cut back its publishing schedule, from once a week to once every two weeks. According to U. S. News Editor, Brian Kelly: "The advertising climate for weekly magazines is bleak. This is part of our growth strategy that involves a significant expansion online and narrowing our focus in print."
• Print-ad spending in the newspaper industry fell 9.4% last year, the worst drop since the Newspaper Association of America began collecting advertising data in 1950.
• This week, newspaper publisher, McClatchy Co, which owns the Miami Herald and 29 other dailies in the US, announced a 10% reduction of its workforce. McClatchy's cost cutting follows other announcements to reduce staff at the Washington Post and New York Times. 

Increasing Use of Hybrid Approach

• Book authors are increasingly using online videos to promote their books. Recent examples are Scott Heim's YouTube clip for  his novel, "We Disappear," and a Wall Street Journal online interview with David Benioff about his book, "City of Thieves." 
• Borders is now providing its own online store and in the process is appealing to the self-publishing crowd as another distribution channel. They will also allow for self-published books to be ordered from any of their retail stores.
• The  Wall Street Journal interviewed Daniel Anstandig, President of McVay New Media. Anstandig reports that radio stations are providing social networking sites and online chat rooms in an effort to build online communities. Pioneers include X96 in Salt Lake City where DJs are also blogging.

Giving Away More to Get More

• As a way to promote her new album, "Hard Candy," Madonna provided a free live streaming video of a concert given last April at the Roseland Ballroom, a New York club with capacity for 3,000 people.
• And finally, check out this gem, Baen Free Library, which was pointed out to me by one of the ABV consultants. It's the part of a publisher's site that provides free downloads of books. Eric Flint, "First Librarian," provides a folksy explanation of why they are providing free downloads and how it's good for business.

As another of the ABV consultants likes to say, this is the way the world is going. What was true is no longer true. What seemed ludicrous then makes sense now.

The question for individuals: How do I take advantage of these trends to create A Bigger Voice?