A (some might contend THE) business periodical in Columbus, Ohio put together a “Social Media Bootcamp” this summer aimed at small-medium businesses. The goals (quickly paraphrasing here) are to introduce social media and a number of tools for use.

I’ve got some good friends who are presenting as part of the summer-long series. These friends, unlike many, are legitimate digitals - concerned with strategic deployment, measurement and bigger picture.

However, their presentations are focused on specific tools and networks (because this is what the camp is aimed at).

I’m not opposed to the introduction of and education on tools. It’s important.

However, I think that this camp, and SMB in general, with regard to the approach to ’social media’ is off-target, or at least putting the cart before the horse.

1) Stop calling it social media. Start calling it social web. Web is the platform,  and tools, behaviors, expectations and technology are socializing it.

2) Before you pick up your hammer and swing, let’s talk about why you’re doing it. Will the picture you’re hanging balance the room? Will you be moving it later in the month when you remodel? Are others hanging pictures? Do people even want to see this picture? Is it the right one? or does it completely throw off the theme you’re going for?

-Straight up - small and medium (even large) businesses are hip to the hype - they hear “twitter” “social media” “linkedIn” “money money money” and think “my god I’ve got to get into this!”.

Ok - maybe.

I’d like people to take a step back and understand their environments in more detail before running to learn about tools.

1) Understand your business/industry environment. Who are you serving? Who should you be serving? What is your brand? What is the industry doing? etc etc. Often, when we engage clients and work through our process, we find the standard discovery is eye-opening in that the questions we are asking have never been asked (or at least haven’t been asked in a very long time). Before you run to broadcast to the world, to engage clients and activate advocates, don’t you think you should be pretty solid on who you are, what you stand for and what you want to achieve? Else, you’re creating a spike - something that’s not sustainable and won’t have lasting impact.

2) Understand the web environment. Being able to Google something and having a Hotmail account does not mean understanding the web environment (no offense to anyone there - it helps us stay in business). The web environment is not LinkedIn & Twitter. It’s not generating leads and broadcasting (read: shouting). The web environment is a combination of light, flexible, adaptable technologies, psychological and sociological factors, time and space shift, combination and recombination, human and NOW. Business-speak: the web environment is consumer empowerment and pull-model. It’s customization, comparison, 24-7, conversation and individual. The web environment is access, value-add and trust.

If you can’t understand the web enviornment, the paradigm shift from pages to streams , then tools which exist there are useless. Time put into them is useless. Lasting value can’t be generated.

Small business or large, regardless of end-goals for implementing social web in a business environment, a failure or inability to understand the landscape and fundamental parameters often means an attempt at a quick fix and an outstretched hand at dollars instead of value.

What do you think?

I, like many others, get sick of hearing the (at this point) age-old quip “but I don’t care what you had for breakfast” specifically in reference to Twitter, but also to the use of social tools and social web behaviors in general.

So, for all of you naysayers, let me paint a picture for you…

Tehran, Iran - circa June 2009

Let me explain.

There are many questions to be asked regarding the “election”, not the least of which may be whether or not it matters who is president in a supreme-power theocracy. However, it is the events surrounding the recent happenings which are intriguing - a convergence of global social behaviors, technology, now-web and modern web application development practices and theory. In short, the techy geeky “stuff” which you presume to be a fad, isn’t. It is communication now; it is communication of the future. The results are profound.

Ingredients:

Global Social Behaviors - We live in a global economy and society. If you don’t believe that, please crawl back under your rock. It’s not just about multi-hemisphere conglomerates and international relations anymore, though. As is the common theme these days, it’s about the individual. Social technologies have connected the Common Joes of the world and they are genuinely interested in listening, talking, sharing, teaching, helping and learning from each other. From Bengal to New Hampshire they are participating in each others’ daily lives and having trivial(?) conversations.

Technology - It’s cheaper, more powerful, more accessible and better mastered than ever in history. We all know a computer as powerful as my iPhone used to be the size of an entire room… blah…blah…blah. The amazing capabilities of technology today, IMHO, are not so much computational, but connective combined with the ease by which they can be applied. You can connect almost anywhere. You can connect with almost anything… and that’s the point… YOU can do it.

The mobility of technology is also a key component. Mobile phones and smart-phones are of the utmost importance.

Modern Web Application Development Practices and Theory - Non-technicals stick with me here… there are a few crucial aspects of how people and companies develop web applications these days. Namely, the primary focus is on the engine - the core functionality. Many developers build and release Software Development Kits (SDKs), most commonly Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), for their applications. These tools, libraries, protocols and services allow other developers to leverage the engine in unique ways - pulling, pushing and mashing up data and interfaces. If you’ve ever seen a Google Map with unique data or elements in it, you’re seeing the result of an API. Users and developers find new uses for applications and engines all the time. Google is releasing it’s APIs for it’s new project - WAVE - to developers around the world long before the application will be accessible to the public. The idea is that thousands of progressive and diverse minds will help to finish the product, find new uses and  make it better. So, applications are being released “unfinished” and “wide open”. *Note -Ownership and monetization are another story!

Still shrugging and saying ’so what?’, huh? -

Tehran - People are trying to mobilize, trying to tell the world what is happening, but communications are being shut down. Traditional media are being banned. Sites are being blocked. But remember - people around the world are watching, people around the world want to help, people around the world care. Technology is accessible, connective and collaborative and our good friends at Twitter are aligned with the API-empowered web community.

What does this mean?

This means that because Twitter has an API, Twitter.com is not the only access point to the engine. It means that there exist 1000s of 3rd party applications through which people can read and publish tweets. Tehran can’t block them all, they don’t even know about them all. Fantastic! The masses with their mobile phones can be anywhere, communicate with each other, organize, assemble, and keep the rest of the world up-to-date while foreign journalists are being “controlled” and mass media is dropping the ball (have a look here too).

Well, what about connectivity? Internet access? If you can’t connect, you can’t tweet. Tehran certainly has control over access, right? Yes and no. Enter software engineer in Oklahoma who is interested in the situation and wants to contribute. He configures his laptop as a proxy and whala - people in Tehran can connect to TwitterFall through his computer and communications resume. That is, until Tehran finds him, and blocks his proxy. But then, another pops up in the UK, in Florida, in Singapore… you get the picture.

So let’s summarize that. People in Iran can communicate with each other and with the rest of the world while their government is scrambling to block things as quickly as they can because they have mobile technology, the global community cares, is interested, can facilitate connectivity, and because modern web applications focus on the what, not the how/when/where.

Does it matter? I sure think so. A major geopolitical occurence was consumable in real-time and not only that… but it was MADE POSSIBLE in real time because of this convergence. Still not convinced it matters? Well, the State Department decided it did too… they contacted the crew over at Twitter - a small group in a loft in SOMA - and asked them not to go offline for scheduled maintenance because… well… Twitter was contributing to democracy.

How da ya like DEM apples?