Keynote: ‘Making Connections – an outsiders view of Social Media’

Speaker: Jonathan Akwue

Digital Thinker Director, Digital Public

Twitter: @JonAkwue

@growwithorganic on ‘Making Connections – an outsiders view of Social Media’

I read the summary of Jonathan’s keynote and was intrigued. If he hasn’t already, he should look at a career in movie trailers because it has everything it needs to grab your interest. What a teaser!

His talk sounds fascinating but I still don’t know exactly what he is going to say, so I am going to give my own opinions on what outsiders think of social media and why that is important.

I often wonder what people who aren’t engaged in social media really think of it. More accurately, I often think what people who aren’t engaged in social media or IT think of me rather than anything more enlightening than that!

The kind of questions I ask myself are:

• Do people think I am a geek because I tweet?
• Do people think because I work with computers and the internet that I am a socially inept dufus?
• Does spending too long on a computer limit or damage my social vocabulary?
• Do people in the real work think social media is all a bit of a joke?
• If I evangelise about social media to my clients are they going to laugh at me?

All of this is nothing more than self-centered nonsense because, Jack – I am alright. However, it does address an important point on a superficial level.

An outsider’s view of social media is often derogatory. This is expected. People are scared of new or different, particularly when that new thing is perceived as elitist or exclusive. Two of the widely held negative views of social media that I have heard are:

• That Social Media is a toy, a fad, something geeks and kids play with like toy trains.
• That Social Media is anti-social and threatening, leading some outsiders to feel it is a dangerous social weapon rather than a social tool or another form of media.

These are not, of course, the only opinions held, but they are views that I think are very dangerous. Let me try to explain why.

I have heard Trey Pennington tell the story of how he first became engaged in social media. After a walk in the country, he found his children quietly huddled around a computer on the internet.

I have been told by friends who are parents that if a group of children are quiet then it would normally mean they are up to no good – and if they are quiet and on the internet it means they are definitely up to no good!

Anyway, this was what Trey thought – so he went to investigate. What he found was a group of children uploading photos of their experiences and walk to Facebook.

Now, given some of the things I see on Facebook, I could have understood if Trey had sent the children packing and shut off the computer. Sometimes the content or people you come across online are not appropriate for children.

However, being the astute individual that he is, Trey didn’t immediately assume that this empowering tool was all bad and should therefore be removed from his children’s lives altogether.

What Trey saw was that social media wasn’t just a toy. He saw a group of children creating a permanent, shared record of an experience that would be there for the rest of their lives – one that was interactive and that they could come back to and comment on again and again throughout their lives.

In my experience, this is something that you just couldn’t do ten years ago. Once people moved away, or you moved on, you lost touch, they went out of your lives. For most people over the age of 25, the people you went to school with or university are gone from their lives, their shared experiences hidden at the back of their mind unable to be shared with anyone else who would remember it.

So in my opinion, social media activity isn’t just a toy – it allows people to have a richer experience of life than was available before.

The other point raised is that some people think social media is bad. On the contrary, social media is not good or bad, it cannot hurt or harm, instead it is the users of social media who are good or bad, and cause benefit or harm. It can therefore be described as amoral. Social media is just is a collection of tools for communication between people.

I think social media has potential to change lives. Not just the way we live, but also the quality of our lives.

By allowing people who are not engaged in social media to form opinions of social media as a toy, or something dangerous, we will allow them to put it in a box, and close it off from society – at a time when social media has the power and potential to have a positive effect on every aspect of our lives – because it allows wider, free, easy to access, democratised, borderless communication.

So what does this mean for social media insiders?

Well, I think that it is a call to action. It is a call to stand up and educate people about social media and its potential to enhance, improve and even save lives. I did an article about breast cancer awareness and social media that demonstrates exactly this point. You can find it here.

An important part of what social media evangelists need to do is to educate people who are not engaged in social media – parents, carers, communities, governments, companies, the state - and tell them that they can engage in the conversation, and why they must.

For those who feel lonely, hurt or struggle with society, social media may be the only place they can make their voice heard. If people outside of social media think social media is a joke or don’t take it seriously it has the potential to end in disaster and possibly a preventable death. I have had first hand experience of this so I am not being sensationalist.

On the other hand, if people learn what social media is, how to use it effectively and responsibly, and we can encourage those that deliver services offline to deliver them online, you can not only do business better, but you could help vulnerable people and oil the wheels of society and democracy.

Challenging organisations to deliver services via social media.

I have presented to board meetings about social media. The first instinct of powerful, successful individuals in these rooms is usually the same – bemused cynicism at the appearance of a talk about Facebook and Twitter in the midst of their busy schedules. And why shouldn’t it be? They have achieved and been successful without it. Of what use is this children’s toy?

I love watching people engage and change their opinions in the space of half an hour. Once you take the time to explain it, its obvious.

Social media isn’t a toy. It’s a very, very powerful set of media and tools for communicating and listening. It is powerful because unlike other modern forms of mass communication, it is truly democratic and empowering. It is a bottom up, individualistic form of communication where every individual can have a say. It is also more natural and familiar to us. It is a form of communication that we are already doing offline, every day in our traditional person to person relationships. Now we all have the potential to be a little Rupert Murdoch!

And what about government, charities and other welfare organisations? Can they deliver services that improve or save peoples lives via social media. Moreover, What will these organisations look like? Will it be the state or social enterprise that takes the lead?

In reality, such services are already being delivered through social media on a small scale.
One example I like is Qwitter. A Twitter based social media tool to help you give up smoking. A social, health and personal life changing benefit delivered by social media.

There are however many other areas where modern communications can help delivery of services. Democracy, accountability, welfare and education spring to mind. But it is important to remember that these communication channels are still elitist. Many do not have access to social media, or even the internet, let alone have the education to be able to use it in a positive manner. Moreover many have been hurt or had their lives damaged by social media. I have seen that too.

So I am looking forward to this Keynote, and the panel afterwards. I am interested to hear how Jonathan believes social media can transform lives and deliver services online. I am interested in hearing about the darker side he alludes to.

In the mean time what do you think? Why not let us know what ideas you have? Post your comments with the Likeminds hashtag and we will tweet them for you.