GI Generation - The Silent Generation - Baby Boomers - Generation X….
to my peers:
I say we just keep killin’ it, & let them define our generation by our results, not by our ‘childhood’ & default uncontrollable environment.
-Nick
Thought it was interesting to take a look at the 4 browser windows and multiple tabs that I have open right now and see what I’ve accumulated but have yet to read in the last day or so. Here’s a sampling:
facebook in wsj: facebook generation
@getshust AdAge article on SXSW
google rolls out semantic search capabilities
brick and mortar meets social media
Today a good friend, Chris (@canderson) who is a Startup Specialists at TechColumbus, tweeted something interesting. Funny thing - I saw it come through on Fwitter (Facebook :-P) - and responded.
Here’s what he tweeted:
“wondering does the world really need another social network platform?”
Now Chris is a startup specialist - that means that his job is literally to read business plans and work with entrepreneurs to develop them into something that can be a sustainable business and most often attract a funding round. Considering the popularity of (we’ve all seen the #s lately - FB=220mn users with 3+bn minutes/day spent on. Digg is 34+mn actives. Twitter grew 1,382% yoy in feb… cough-monetize, all of you-cough!) social networking and the noisy coverage major media outlets have given them of late, it’s not surprising that Chris is seeing the next Facebook, Twitter, Delicious and so on every single day.
That said, here’s what I responded:
“maybe. depends if its just an augmentation or if it’s actually building on a communication pattern we havent considered digitally yet. e.g. twitter was transformational and not a replication.”
Another of Chris’ friends responded to me:
“How is Twitter transformational? It is clearly unique in the style and model of communication. From a usage perspective, it has been incredibly successful. Not that I disagree, I just don’t see how it is transformational.”
And I again responded:
“access, at least in current (read early) users. user-base is incredibly flat. from what ive seen, the brevity-ubiquity combo has allowed thought leaders to interact without breaking stride.
mass real-time. very very transformational. completely different than google/facebook (thus recent FB activity)
additionally, the idea that the technology at its core (not the implementation and scaling which is indeed complex) is simple and the real value comes from what can be imagined and built off of a wide open API.”
I think Twitter is transformational for these 3 reasons (I’d postulate more but with a deadline looming, I’m just going to get these out so I can get work done) and here’s a bit more rationale:
Access - the nature of twitter - brevity and ubiquity - truly allows access while maintaining the context of a conversation. I’ve had the pleasure of actually accessing thought-leaders in the fields I’m interested in. In fact, it’s what my following (who I follow) is composed of - thought leaders in economics, strategy, web, angel and vc. Because keen users employ non-invasive tools to consume and produce, busy people making important decisions can quickly and easily reply, even converse, without breaking workflow.
Mass real-time - were I Google, I’d be scared! (side note - beyond their own hardware coupled with android, here’s where I think G will REALLY impact our lives sometime soon <- old story but still real implications) Ok, I wouldn’t be scared if I were Google, but seriously - cached/indexed results are the way of yesterday…today annnd maybe tomorrow (for a while). Think about this - I search Twitter and I find out what’s trending NOW. Who’s mentioning my search term now…. and now… and now… (you get the picture). This is INVALUABLE and Facebook is beginning to understand that. It’s transformational in that it’s real-time data, it’s accessible to anyone anytime, and the data is FREE to be used as you please (which leads me to my next point…)
Simple and open - The input-output for of twitter is simple. It’s short, the interface isn’t complex. Data is relatively flat. Things get interesting with a usable API. I look at it like I look at the Google Generation - the data/answers are out there. You can find them in .027 second. You can probably find 10,000 answers. It’s not about finding it or rote memorization anymore. It’s about application of the data/answer and the context. It’s what you DO with it. (note to teachers - application not memorization). The interface and technology are simple. I’d say they are so simple they are enabling. The real power is being able to step into this room, get your bearings in the midst of this huge conversation, extract VALUE from it and then do something with it. The ability is there (access to said data = great revenue point, dontcha think?), the key is thinking critically about what should be gathered, why, and how/to what it’s applied.
An augmentation of Facebook, Delicious, Digg, even Twitter, isn’t interesting to me. Fundamentally I consider these to be tools facilitating a more ambiently aware population. It boils down to communication and each major player has understood (and perhaps shaped a bit from there) a key characteristic of how we communicate on which it has built. Twitter, most recently, has succeeded in facilitating time and space shift, forcing a distilling of communication, connected, and given us the opportunity to turn our signal which, blended can be noise, back into signal right NOW.
What do you think? Am I wrong? What makes an app transformational versus ‘just another’? Does Twitter qualify? What’s next?
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*Notes
Chris will be facilitating Startup Weekend Columbus 2 April 3-5 @ TechColumbus. We have over 100 people signed up already. Startup Weekend Columbus 1, held last summer, boasted 130+ with 2 companies being formed that are still in operation today.
That same weekend I’ll be facilitating Startup Weekend Chicago (April 3-5). It’s the first time the event is being held in the Windy City. The event is at TechNexus and I invite anyone in the area to attend. We’ve got plenty of space. I know the city has many other tech-related events including TechCocktail and ITA cityLights, but this is a unique event focused on building community and promoting innovation, creativity and critical thinking. Eric Olson is the local organizer and DePaul’s Coleman Center is sponsoring.
I was thinking the other day - what’s going to happen to my social media personas/profiles/accounts when I die? I’m hoping that this doesn’t become a real issue for quite some time, but just the idea of it caused me to question - I wonder how long it will be until people begin to make specifc (and legal) stipulations about their social media presences in their last wills.
Seriously though, when are we going to read a news story that says: Mr. So-and-So has indicated that he would like his Facebook status to read: blah blah blah, that he’d like his grandson to update this status every month with the following list of quotes. Additionally, he would like his Twitter Account to respond with the following DM: blah blah blah to any new followers.
Or how about this - when is there going to be an app written that you can pre-populate/stipulate/dictate your SM behavior once you’ve left us and have gone on to that better place? [interested? ive already got user-cases and wireframes]
I’m pretty sure Facebook might have a policy on this, but I didn’t care enough to look it up.
I’m interested - what do you want your social media presences to do once you die songs of love hate download mp3 ? How will you take care of it? What is your list of requests? Let me know.
So today President Obama is visiting Columbus to recognize 25 new officers graduating from the police academy. It’s great news for the city…the 25 jobs that is. The jobs were made possible through federal stimulus money and in a state with 8+ % unemployment and rising, people with income are a good thing. (from what I’ve heard, by the way, unfortunately this job growth is not sustainable as the academy won’t have a class next year due to budget constraints)
What’s not good news for the city is the fact that we (Columbus - a city operating at a deficit and making cuts) have to foot the bill for logistics and security for this visit. And Oh, by the way, the president of the United States has one of the biggest carbon footprints on the planet. Any time he moves, he’s got an entourage to move. Any time he flies, he flies an Airliner. Any time he rides in a car, add 10+ because it’s a motorcade.
This president is championing change. He’s also got one helluva situation relating to the economy and a society/culture with a spending/lack-of-saving problem and entitlement complex.
He’s missing a HUGE opportunity today. You want to champion change? Lead by example. Take advantage of technology and visit Columbus via teleconference! Hell, visit 4 cities today. Interact with the reporters, answer questions, give your speech uniquely to the audience, but do it remotely. Make a point of the fact that you are paying specific attention to the city and it’s residents, but that you are doing so through innovative technology and you’re saving money in the process. You’re not incurring security costs. You’re not fueling AF1 and the accompanying fighter escorts.
Create efficiencies, Mr. President. Show the American public that you’re not just leaning on businesses to rethink the way they do things, but that you are really changing the way DC does things. Take a half day to do this a couple of times with the cities who are being positively impacted by stimulus money, and then get some work done on Penn Ave. Then, do it again next week.
I understand politics are politics, but if we really REALLY want to change things, we can’t keep telling people that everything will be OK and continue to do things the way we’ve done them.
