Posts Tagged ‘innovation’

The Post Social Media Revolution Era Begins?

Posted on: September 1st, 2011 by Geoff Livingston 16 Comments

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Image by Vagawi

It’s 2011, social media is not new, and for all intents and purposes, there are no new form factors, just better versions. Innovation in the space revolves around better form factors and features. This can be likened to innovation in established sectors, like better DSLR cameras for consumers. Point being, we’ve entered the post social media revolution era.

This is the era when the dust settles. It’s the time when consolidation occurs, and best practices are refined.

Traditional media companies and new competitors are entering through acquisition or innovation upon the old forms of social media. Social media experts seem a little tired, rehashing the same lessons within the “new” innovations.

Consider that the greatest innovations and progress this year in U.S. social media have come from Google+, Spotify and Instagram (hat tip: Allyson Kapin). None of these are truly new form factors. They play off of and better predecessors like Facebook, Napster and Camera+. That’s not to belittle the innovation that these tools have brought to the market.

But there are no new form factors, and no major revelations about the conversation anymore. People are still people. And many of them young and old have experimented with social media. Your grandma uses Facebook now (1/3 of 50-64 year olds now use social networks).

Social media has grown up. It may not grow much bigger. Growth rates are now in the single digits year over year within the U.S. adult population. Conversational media is now finding itself in a bit of a routine.

And the revolution? Well, let’s pull-up an arm chair instead. That MacBook can get a little heavy after a while.

What do you think about the state of social media innovation?

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What People Care About (Not Social Media)

Posted on: October 10th, 2010 by Geoff Livingston 11 Comments

The Lights of Ignite DC

One of the more interesting threads from my “End of the Social Media Adoption Road” post was an opinion that adoption was not over. Two bloggers (and several Twitter friends) felt that the general public needs to better understand social media, that because of networked effects social media supersedes traditional media, and that the relationship within social media makes it a dynamic party that people are not participating in enough. Until those things happen, the voices of dissent feel that social media has not been adopted.

As a professional I want these things, too; however, I respectfully disagree on two fundamental levels, but mostly because I feel like the general public doesn’t care about social media. They care about their lives, and information gathering and participation simply serves that, regardless of the differences between media, or the full two-way conversational potential of social.

Firstly, professional interest in how social media is used or the adoption of communications technology is just that. The average consumer need not care about social media best practices, they just use it when it suits them. Just like they would a newspaper or TV programming. That’s not traditional media thinking, that’s reality.

People don’t care about communicators, tools, comment boxes, GPS check-ins or any of that junk. They don’t. They care about their dinner, their children, their job security, whether or not their team won, how they can help their community, etc. etc. To demand more than a pedestrian interest from laypeople is simply unreasonable.

The industries that have a vested interest — technology and communications — in social media’s adoption do care. While one can try to differentiate new media and traditional media attitudes, we’re still talking like technology and media professionals.

It’s incumbent on the professional to understand that the average consumer just doesn’t care about how relationships are being built or not being built, how revolutions are being formed or how earthquake relief is being gathered. They just do or don’t participate in these things. They consciously or subconsciosuly vote with their feet, err, fingertips. Our jobs as professionals is to become interesting and valuable to them. We’re lucky that we have social media now, because if we’re successful in at least a minimal level of engagement, we’re getting feedback and can better ourselves. That’s the point. End of story on that for me.

Technology Is Not People

Technology is not people. Technology is technology. Technology adoption is determined by percentages of use. Analyzing people’s usage patterns or purpose, the “proper” use of these tools, or conscious knowledge of their use of social media technology does not affect that percentage. Diffusion of innovation theory remains the same, as do the numbers. The numbers don’t lie.

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Ironically, my analysis was based on the more conservative of two reports on demographics as determined by age. If you see the above eMarketer study, you will see that the social media technology adoption is even further along.

Conclusion

I have a great professional passion for social media, and am thrilled to see other industry experts do, too. My sense of a lot of the debates about social media has been an overemphasis on tools, as well as a very strong conversation about the sea change these tools have brought to professional approaches of communications.

There’s so much more that professionals can accomplish with social to better our societies, especially now that most people in America are using these tools. I don’t think social media technology adoption is the end of the road for communications, just as I know for a fact that the widespread use of libraries in society did not end learning. On the contrary, the availability of more conversations is really just the beginning.

It’s now our challenge to make a compelling conversation for our stakeholders so that we are relevant to their lives. We are fortunate to live in a time when we can do so.

The above is draft material for my next book, Welcome to the Fifth Estate (the follow up to Now Is Gone, which is almost out of print). Comments may be used in the final edition. You can download the first drafted chapter of the new edition — Welcome to the Fifth Estate — for free.

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Social Cause Innovation Needed… And Inevitable

Posted on: October 11th, 2009 by Geoff Livingston 4 Comments
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Since when did Americans discourage starting new enterprises (image by hoyasmeg)? But sure enough, I found myself reading a great conversation sparked by Kristin Ivie’s Social Citizens post encouraging nonprofit entrepreneurs to pursue different paths and work — even merge — with existing charities. At the heart of the issue is an overcrowded cause marketplace with many already existing charities PLUS the fact that many entrepreneurs don’t effectively administer Change programs.

Yet, if we shut down entrepreneurial approaches we would be denied Steve Case’s American Giving Challenge, Lance Armstrong’s Foundation, and Scott Harrison’s Charity Water. Who wants to deny the effectiveness of these efforts?

An Overcrowded Marketplace

Let’s parse the issue into two parts. First the overcrowded marketplace needs to be addressed. Overcrowded markets are always ripe for fresh approaches, for or non profit. Bigger organizations lose the fresh innovative approaches to their mission that made them exciting and new. As they become staid in their ways, bureaucracy takes hold. In actuality, small organizations drive innovation.

I have many friends in large nonprofits who complain about processes and the inability to actually do effective work. While big nonprofits can achieve things smaller ones cannot, they often fail to move quickly enough and meet major market shifts.. like social media. That’s why the suggestion to channel and consolidate charitable efforts into larger nonprofits struck me as a disaster in waiting.

If we become placated with the status quo, innovation becomes stymied. In the cancer market, we would only have the American Cancer Society’s point of view. Instead we have an exciting LiveStrong and Alex’s Lemonade Stand fighting children’s cancer in new innovative ways.

In the for profit market, we saw the same thing with telecom. The government had to break up AT&T’s monopoly in the 80s to foster innovation. That occurred with the rise of MCI and Sprint, and then wireless networks. Now wireless is surpassing landline telecom as the primary method of access.

Innovative approaches force all markets to change and adapt, becoming stronger and more effective. Just because we are talking about causes does not mean we should abandon innovative new organizations! On the contrary, we should encourage them. They make for better results, and forces larger charities to stay nimble. Consider what 350 is doing right now for climate change!

Still, Kristen’s point that a lot of entrepreneurs start nonprofits that fail or are inept is accurate. And that means dollars are going to waste. How do we prevent the crazy entrepreneur from going off the rails with an ineffective effort?

Encouraging Smart Innovation

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As an entrepreneur, I can tell you one thing (image: The Green+WIRED smart home is built on innovative new approaches to energy conservation). You can’t stop us from starting. It’s an inevitable part of our chemistry; it’s in the blood. I just wrapped up my first start-up as an owner, but keep in mind it was my fifth start-up experience!

Entrepreneurs look at things, see how they can be improved, tear down models, and rebuild them. So when we’ve experienced enormous successes in the for-profit world and then turn our eyes to higher causes, it’s only natural to think the same approach will work.

Granted there is ego at play, but are you going to tell someone who successfully sold a business or took a company public, that they can’t win again in a different sector? Good luck with that one!

The failure for entrepreneurs is in mission. For profit enterprises are not social causes. Changing society is different than selling product!

Discouraging new approaches and organizations is not the right way to handle this. Because in reality telling the entrepreneur not to start will only goad us into doing it even faster. Sorry, folks, it’s the nature of the beast. Further, the innovation, the new approaches that entrepreneurs can bring to bear in the industry should be harnessed!

Instead, embrace innovation, but know the problem. The problem lies in education, and as an industry we need to focus on educating new entrants on how to successful administer social change. In that sense, Kristin’s colleague Eric Johnson had it right. Let’s coach the new cause entrant and make for an even stronger industry. Organizations like Ashoka are already starting this process of social entrepreneurship.

Smart innovation through education means a much more robust cause market. We all want a better world. Whether we choose to align ourselves with a larger enterprise or start anew, let’s keep the end goal in mind and give everyone the latitude and encouragement they need to succeed.

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