Jeremiah Owyang has a\u00a0recent post\u00a0where he makes the point that social business is like the internet in 1997. For the most part he\u2019s right, but the post highlights something larger he didn\u2019t say.<\/p>\n
Basically, that to companies where this is the case \u2013 they never actually adopted the internet even in 1997 and continued to operate as if it didn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n
Because if they did adopt it, they would actively pursue opportunities that came along and not run away scared or bury their head in the sand \u201cjust because something is new.\u201d Not that any\u00a0of this\u00a0is\u00a0really new\u00a0anyway. A constant of the internet is change, so to start using it and not follow the currents of change means you never really adopted it. You checked a box and decided that was enough. If you did adopt it you\u2019d have developed a mechanism to\u00a0build a community.<\/p>\n
Indeed for those with digital literacy, the web has been social since day one. To quote\u00a0Tim Berners-Lee, MIT Professor\u00a0credited with inventing the web:<\/p>\n
The Web is more a social creation than a technical one. I designed it for a social effect \u2013 to help people work together \u2013 and not as a technical toy. The ultimate goal of the Web is to support and improve our weblike existence in the world. We clump into families, associations, and companies. We develop trust across the miles and distrust around the corner. What we believe, endorse, agree with, and depend on is representable and, increasingly represented on the Web. We all have to ensure that the society we build with the Web is of the sort we intend.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Participation inequality\u00a0was the previous norm with online communities and while new tools may have nudged the numbers, at least some forward-thinking influentials in every industry have been participating for a long time. Long before businesses were doing so in structured ways.<\/p>\n
If your business isn\u2019t using the web to form connections and ultimately build a community you are not just late, you\u2019re\u00a0falling further behind daily.<\/p>\n
Some quotes from Jeremiah\u2019s article:<\/p>\n
It\u2019s really early friends, in fact if your company has deployed social business in a formalized way today, you are early pioneers. In fact, I like to use the metaphor it\u2019s like the Internet in 1997, companies are just starting to deploy their corporate websites in a formalized way<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Yeah, you might be early compared to some of your peers. But you\u2019re already getting lapped by\u00a0media,\u00a0individuals\u00a0and savvy\u00a0competitors. As a convergence medium everyone is in competition for audiences together: attention is finite and scarce compared to the tail of content and communities.<\/p>\n
Yet fast forward to 2011, it\u2019s still amazing to realize that social business (formerly called social media marketing, formerly called social media, formerly called citizen media, formerly called business blogging) is still\u00a0very<\/em>\u00a0young.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I usually dig Jeremiah\u2019s thoughts, but I really think he\u2019s talking semantics here. If I were you I wouldn\u2019t worry so much about the specific labels on the items within your\u00a0digital strategy.\u00a0I\u2019d just get it sorted out, take a\u00a0holistic view\u00a0and start executing,\u00a0measuring\u00a0and\u00a0iterating.<\/p>\n
The point I want to make today is basically the title of the post: you never\u00a0really<\/em>\u00a0adopted the web if you aren\u2019t\u00a0nurturing\u00a0a community and\u00a0embraced being a media company.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jeremiah Owyang has a\u00a0recent post\u00a0where he makes the point that social business is like the internet in 1997. For the … <\/p>\n