But I always thought of IBM as this big faceless company that made mainframe computers.

Yes I know they had been a big player in personal computing but that never stuck with me, and not them either.

Then I happened upon this whole new face of IBM, the idea of social business.

Cool.

And the 60 second videos say it all!

And what was the revelation for IBM over the last 10 years? Really the same one we are all facing and for the most part in a corporate context doing very poorly, speaking to people as people and not objects.

It’s no longer a BtoB or BtoC relationship. It’s PtoP.
People to people isn’t about file sharing. It means that every department, from HR to marketing to product development to customer service, uses social media the way it uses any other tool and channel to do its job. A company that uses social networking tools fluently to communicate with people inside and outside the company acts as a Social Business.

I love the way IBM has framed the idea of a social business because as I think about radio or education the rules also apply.

IBM has identified three distinct characteristics of a Social Business:

• A Social Business is engaged—deeply connecting people, including customers, employees, and partners, to be involved in productive, efficient ways.
• A Social Business is transparent—removing boundaries to information, experts and assets, helping people align every action to drive business results.
• A Social Business is nimble—speeding up business with information and insight to anticipate and address evolving opportunities.

This is a little piece worth reading and keeping on your desk the next time you are asked where are we going in this industry.

The problem is we are constantly being asked to negotiate different persona’s.

The parent who is a teacher.

The banker who is a parent.

The singer who is professionally public but personally private.

The youth who are public, yet private and trying to navigate the middle ground.

And then there are governments.

Governments want to engage socially BUT they also want to control the message and define it and maybe even limit the message without appearing to challenge any sense of transparency.

So what do we do in business, in education and even in politics? We create rules of engagement.

Of course when social media was just a glimmer in a persons mind the rule book was 2 words!

COMMON SENSE.

Either we have none or we don’t trust that the average bureaucrat, student, educator, manager, line worker or even policeman has the ability to exercise it.

I find our perceived need to regulate what we hope is spontaneous communication ironic.

The Canadian government has come out with a 25 page social media engagement rule book!

I love this particular quote from the Ottawa Citizen in an article that considers the implications of a government dictating social media engagement.

One blogger called the package a “guideline for digital oblivion.”

“This document is about the control of information, and not about the movement of information, and that’s in keeping with their (the government’s) communications strategy,” said David Eaves, an open government activist.

There are reasons for and against guidelines concerning web 2.0 activities but in many cases the one thing we can be certain of is that as soon as you start wondering if your message fits the guidelines there is no chance you will be able to communicate in a timely fashion.

Just a little food for thought here.

TED is all about sharing ideas and I am all for that.

But the TED experience is an odd thing because it is more than just listening to people tell a great story.

The TED experience is also about grabbing onto the subtle nuance that happens in the space between the obvious.

The problem with nuance is it is easily missed just like the chuckle let out at the people in the back of an image which is easily overlooked unless you are totally, 100% engaged in the moment.

And that is why when it comes to sharing my experience at TEDActive it is not about immediacy.

I know we are all touched by email, facebook, twitter, blogs that all leverage immediate communication and sharing.

BUT THERE IS A PRICE for immediacy.

Immediacy forces you to not engage 100% and immerse in the immediate environment.

Instead technology forces you to rest in the periphery as the tools of immediacy take over.

Sure there are those that disagree and that is why TED conferences create a blogging/tweeting/tech engagement zone in the back of the room.

Why the back? The tools of technological engagement are distracting.

What I do is take notes and at the end of the day write up my immediate reactions.

But that is not the end.

Once TED is over I then go back to my notes and add the context and texture that only comes from engaging 100% in the experience over the week.

Call it old school but there is something about taking notes that just feels good.

And then there is the fact that you can go back to those notes years later in an easy convenient manner!

For instance I dug into my TED bag and what did I come up with? My TED2009 notes, how many people do that with their electronic collections of ideas?

Yes I will use my computer at TED.

Yes I will use my iPhone for audio and video at TED.

Yes I will update my blog and podcast while I am at TED but not during the day, only at night after an initial reflection.

There is something refreshing about giving 100% of your attention to something and not letting technology pressure you into disengagement.

Yes it is work.

Yes social media requires a paradigm shift in economic thinking.

Yes social media requires a paradigm shift in customer relationships.

But there is no denying the power of social media!

Sesame Street, well the Muppet’s, are using twitter, facebook and YouTube to change the way children interact with the messages being delivered.

Interact is the operative word here.

We’ve entered an era in which Oscar the Grouch and the gang have over a quarter million followers onTwitter, with so few of us even realizing that a trash can could be Internet ready. Elmo’s doing Q&A’s onYoutube, and most of the main characters have their own Facebook page (Bert and Ernie’s latest post is a video of them singing with Will. i. am.). How any of them, particularly Mr. Snuffleupagus, uses a keyboard is another of life’s mysteries, but there’s just something so right about Cookie Monster tweeting, “Last year Telly dressed up as cookie for Halloween. Me Chased him 6 blocks till me realized it was just a costume!.”

http://www.tonic.com/article/twitter-me-elmo-sesame-street-schools-social-media/

Are there lessons to be learned from Sesame Street and its social media engagement? YES!

Take the Old Spice Guy!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owGykVbfgUE[/youtube]

And here is Grover’s take on things.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkd5dJIVjgM[/youtube]

Social media is all about engagement, storytelling and making things applicable and sticky to the idea consumer.

And wake-up call our kids are growing up in the social media cloud!

Over 22 million views of the Old Spice Ad on YouTube and over 5 million for Grover!

What industry wouldn’t want those numbers?

Of course the follow-up question is am I teaching what is useful and needed or just what I am comfortable with?

For the most part I think most professors are guilty of teaching int he comfort zone and muttering the popular refrain, “when I was in the industry or at school or…. that is how it was done.”

The reality is that while the art of telling a story has not changed much since the printed word was embodied in mass media the dissemination process has changed.

And of course the construction of the story does evolve as the process of dissemination changes.

I loved this article about social media, interns and companies!

What does a company look for in a social media intern? The 1st point is to realize that few if any academics have walked that path!

1. good communication skills

2. good writing skills

3. excellent social skills

4. enthusiasm

These are pretty basic and any student should be able to check them off.

There are jobs out there and they are ready to be had!

Here is a partial list for some cool jobs from Mashable. Are we educators preparing our students adequately?

Is it possible to be too connected?

My worry is connection without purpose.

Why are we connected and what are we doing with that connection?

I tend to use my Facebook, twitter and linkdin connections as a way to share links to interesting media I find virtually. What I am not using my social network for is to communicate with those I could call or actually interact with physically.

I am worried my own children are losing their ability to physically communicate because they are choosing to use social networking as a means to communicate with their friends.

Step one is to not be the parent/professor and simply disconnect the Internet connection, forcing my children to go cold turkey and communicate old school or by the phone or face to face.

No, step one is to reduce computer time and have them log that time so they can see how their compute time is being expended.

Step 2 is to have them call as opposed to email or message friends in the city.

Step 3 is to ensure that they communicate on a daily basis what they are doing at school, tell the story in long form!

What I am hoping, and the results so far point to success, is that my own children will realize that there is gratification in seeing and listening to people in the flesh reacting to their spoken word.

Social networking is great but it does have its limits!

www.gapingvoid.com for the image!

Social media is an important part of our education, communication, political and economic environments today.

I have seen the writing on the wall for a bit over 2 years and the writing is in neon paint!

The problem we are confronted with is academia really has not been listening, walking around without its hearing aids in if you need a picture painted.

Sure that is really a generalisation but it speaks to the fact that many education institutions have simply not been keeping up with the times.

But are we shooting ourselves in the foot if we embrace all this new tech stuff, the gen y environment?

I mean education on one hand is about pedagogy, theory, paradigms and good hard learned truths contained in textbooks.

Social media recasts not only what we learn but how we learn it and even interact with it!

But social media is new, evolving at a hyper speed, and just now making it into the textbooks, and as we read about it it is outdated!

For over 2 years I have been pushing my students to experiment, in an academic fashion, with social media.

Facebook, Vimeo, Twitter, YouTube,blogger,wordpress and the list is ever growing.

In the process I have applied social media tools from  class lessons to practical projects, some have worked and some have not.

Here are a few examples.

Global Media Ethics Roundtable

#menalab3

ZU60

And of course there are the ongoing in class projects that have fed my understanding of social media, both its creation and distribution.

But academic exercises are one thing I have also been using social media in the corporate world of UAE radio.

Nightline

Nightline podcasts

Nightline TV

And then there is this blog, my Vimeo videos of my classes and my Qik videos of events as well as attempts at Audioboo.

So what is my point?

I have not written a book on these experiences and becasue of that I have zero credibility as an expert or specialist when it comes to social media in the academic world. Maybe the corporate world for that matter!

Just today a colleague looked me in the eye and told me that what I do with social media does not count it is the IT people that have the real value!

Yesterday I met a colleague responsible for publication issues and this person talked about contracting a service to teach them about social media, a DIY service of sorts.

In both cases I thought I must be invisible, or what I have done with social media must be invisible! Nope it is a credibility issue!

Maybe the problem is we still live in the old paradigm world believing that professors are detached from the real world?

Social media changes everything are we ready for the change?

I am and have long been working at the rebranding of Me, clearly I have a way to go!

But if you have a couple of Twitter accounts, a Facebook page and maybe a Linkdin account how do you post and follow them all in an easy efficient way?

I think most people abandon social media tools or opt into just one simply because the management of multiple tools is too time consuming.

And if you are going from a desktop to a smartphone things can get worse!

If you have not been introduced to Hootesuite then you need to give it a look!

www.hootsuite.com

I mention it ONLY because it makes posting updates pretty easy and painless.

HootSuite saves me a lot of time in the office and on the phone.

So easy why did I wait so long to load the service?

To be very honest the use of new communication technology excites me!

I love the way Twitter, #jamesed_me, allows me to communicate links, materials and ideas to my students.

Facebook creates another forum for interaction, especially if the group is protected.

Livestream allows me to actually film and stream the content of my classes.

I know some students are using the tech tools I am throwing open to them and some are not.

But does the use of tech tools to open more lines of communication make the class any better?

I know I spend more time on the back channel with my students and I seem to get a sense, very fast, if they are keeping up or not, this can only be a good thing.

But if everyone in the class is not on twitter am I disadvantaging some students who fail to be part of the complete discussion?

I think we are in a transition phase.

There is still more buy in to be had with tech tools for communication and we need to figure out where the physical and cyber lines cross.

I am glad to be part of the process trying to figure that mix out.