Timi will share… | Social Business Strategy

…analysis on social business, interactive media, games, e-democracy, poetry, food, passions

February 17, 2012 • 5:01 pm 0

Weekend reads: On social business maturity, content marketing, blogging and revolutions

I must admit that my heart skips a beat whenever interesting articles find their way to me. The end of the work week has brought some good catch on social business maturity, the crucial role of content marketing and engagement, and the ultimate ROI of social media, in particular, blogging — changing behaviours — , which in this case, contributed to a revolution.

The posts on engagement and content marketing describe exactly my recommendations to two clients of mine this week. Once you go social (and it’s no longer a question of if, but how), it’s a continuous effort. It’s not like advertising with a start and end date. It’s about feeding your network and engaging with them, which means, you must think in terms of increments, of addressing recognised needs or opportunities, but always, with the end goal of mind.

Anyhow, looking forward to reading these posts this weekend.  Hopefully I’ll be able to do that in between trying to teach my just-turned toddler to drink from a cup (even just drinking more would be a good acceptance criteria already), doing my taxes, and playing Skyrim (fingers crossed). Enjoy!

  • Content: The New Marketing Equation by Altimeter Group Network on SlideShare – This is a presentation of their latest report. I like this as it once again underscores how content marketing within the social business framework is NOT advertising. It’s not about one-off campaigns.  Real engagement needs continuous investment.  On their slideshare description: “Content marketing requires a shift in company culture, resources, budgets, partners and strategy. Rebalancing is critical to achieve these goals. The choice is whether to rebalance now, or later when the battle for attention may become even more difficult than it currently is.”
  • Jeremiah Owyang weighs in on the above report on his blog: Beyond Tools, Marketers Must Focus on Content
  • So does Brian Solis in a more elaborate post: Report: Content and the New Marketing Equation

Filed under: Digital worlds, e-democracy, Politics, Social / online media analysis, social business, Strategy, , , , , ,

February 18, 2011 • 11:37 am 2

Digital and social activism: no small change

The social upheaval that exploded in Tunisia and Egypt is spreading across the Arab World. At the time of this writing, dissent is snowballing in Libya, Bahrain and Iran.

In the wake of these extraordinary events, a myriad of discussions on the role the Internet and the social web has emerged. Cyber-utopians are praising Twitter and Facebook to the heavens; cyber-sceptics are pooh-poohing the contribution of social networks in spawning social change.

While I would never use ‘Twitter revolution’ or ‘Facebook revolution’ to describe these social uprisings, I would also neither dismiss nor trivialise the role of social media in social transformation. Social media is not the alpha and omega of causes and revolutions, but it is an inherent part of this generation’s politicisation and experience of social change. Instead of simply shrugging it off, real critics (and not cynics) should call for a more thorough review of how exactly the social web was used by the groups and organisations behind these movements just like what the Meta-Activism Project is doing.

Social media allergy
I’m struck, though, by the growing allergy to the idea that social platforms can help carry out democratic change. It’s one thing to cast a critical eye and not romanticise this notion, but it’s a totally different story to be cynical and outright dismissive. Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Digital worlds, e-democracy, Ideas, Politics, Social / online media analysis, , , , , , , , ,

November 7, 2010 • 9:21 pm 2

‘Digital forgiveness’ in a world that does not forget

“The Web Means the End of Forgetting” by Jeffrey Rosen (published July 19, 2010 on the New York Times) is easily one of the most absorbing article on the Web that I’ve read in a long time!

In a nutshell: Rosen brings together two phenomena that have emerged from the development of the Web and the rise of social technologies. On one hand, we are trying to maintain segmented identities online to control our online reputations — but it’s not working; on the other hand, the permanent memory bank of the Web and cloud technologies are shackling our digital past so “…that we are unable to evolve and learn from our mistakes’. He poses the need to reinvent forgetting: how do we cultivate ‘digital forgiveness’ — giving and getting second chances in a ‘world without forgetting’ — and develop new forms of empathy while reconciling our different but merged identities?

In plain speak: online reputation has increased in importance on both a personal and professional level, but the ability of the Web to store everything we publish online has led to a world that does not forget mistakes. This, in turn, can have drastic effects on our online reputation, eventually spilling over to our offline lives. Once a mistake or failure has made its way to the digital world, it stays there and is distributed in a wink of an eye. Sometimes it’s for the common good, such as in exposing corrupt politicians or unjust situations. But sometimes, it can also just get out of hand, reducing the Web to a personal name-and-shame arena.  For those who have made mistakes and sincerely want to make up for it, or for those whose reputations were wrongly tarnished, it can become a frustrating task to move on because their mistakes have been cached, downloaded, shared an continuously scrutinised. How can we forgive, digitally and otherwise, if “…the Internet records everything and forgets nothing”? How do we forgive in a world that has forgotten how to forget mistakes?

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Culture, Digital worlds, Ideas, Politics, Social / online media analysis, , , , , ,

November 7, 2010 • 8:37 pm 1

Practicing the social in social media

[Note: This article was originally published in Munting Nayon Magazine and was meant as an introductory piece on the importance of properly drawing up social media strategy and policies.]

Social technologies are revolutionising society.

You’ve probably heard this before and shook your head in dismissal of the idea. Surely, the word ‘revolutionary’ doesn’t apply to posting so-called ‘status updates’, sharing content and ‘liking’ what your friends have to say. But before you condemn the social web to the list of yet another run-of-the-mill and overrated next big thing, think again.

Today’s social web is revolutionary not because it’s new, but rather because of the new and unexpected ways people are using it. It’s groundbreaking not because of its innate technological prowess, but because it’s capable of helping releasing the radical potential of users and events.  Social media is changing, right before our very eyes, the way we organise and interact with each other. It’s changing in profound ways we think and behave, even leaving its footprints on politics and economics. I’ve written about this in the past, citing the role of social media in business (how it helps build brands and conversations) and in political-socio affairs such as the elections in Iraq and the US, the promotion of citizen journalism, and supporting causes among others.

Social means conversations not monologues
The recent Manila hostage crisis that gripped the country last August 23, 2010 once again showed just how tightly the social web is intertwined with our personal and national life. It played a big part in spreading information, fuelling feedback (ranging from genuine sympathy to acerbic criticism and downright shock and anger) and moulding the way the story unfolded even after the event has passed.

You might have already heard about how some students and police officers posed to have their picture taken in front of the wrecked tourist bus. This sparked shocked reactions from both Pinoys and Chinese alike to the insensitivity of Filipinos to the hostage crisis turned tragedy. Comments flooded Twitter and Facebook, and there were even some anti-Filipino Facebook pages that were set up in response to this incident. However, what I deem more interesting is the way the administration handled online criticism hurled at Noynoy’s Facebook page.

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: e-democracy, Philippines, Politics, Social / online media analysis, social business, , , ,

July 10, 2009 • 8:52 am 0

Greenpeace protest as social media campaign

Greenpeace issued a challenge to President Obama to show real leadership on global warming by hanging a sixty-five feet high by thirty-five feet wide banner on Mount Rushmore, which features an unfinished portrait of Obama with the message, “America honors leaders not politicians: Stop Global Warming.”

Media consultants are reported to be impressed with Greenpeace’s use of social media during and after the stunt. It’s a multi-layered campaign utilising the most viral forms of social media throughout and after the whole event: Twitter and Facebook complemenetd by videos on YouTube and images on Flickr.

Takeaway: Big but short-lived actions should announce itself with a big bang. Develop it on multiple platforms to increase awareness and let it spread like wildfire. It may be over in a very short time, so it’s crucial to get the word out to your network as fast as you could. Provide a steady barrage of updates during the event, and make sure it’s remembered and can be shared afterwards.

Filed under: Ideas, Politics, Social / online media analysis, ,

July 9, 2009 • 2:02 pm 2

Democratising and socialising data to empower the public domain – other examples

This serves more as an appendix to the main articles I’ve written on the subject. I plan to update this list of best practices in e-democacy / e-governance / open civic governance / gov 2.0.  I’ve already listed some inspiring initiatives in part 3 of the main article, but I know there are a lot more out there. I’ve come across several, but need to look them up more closely. Please leave in the comments area other examples you’d like to have added in the list.

==================

The Federal IT Dashboard

Radical transparency — Obama’ administration is walking the walk. Vivek Kundra, US National Chief Information Officer, unveiled the Federal IT Dashboard. Gov 2.0 at work! Data democratized ;-) First heard of this via Radar O’Reilly, which is a very good source for all things e-democracy.

The dashboards enable ...”federal agencies and the general public to view details of federal information technology investments.”

“…The dashboards provide a view of spending by major government department, with graphs showing performance against schedule, costs, and the CIO’s assessment of how well they are meeting their objectives.
In making this data publicly available, we are providing unfettered access to investment performance to its true owners – the American people.”

Federal IT Dashboard

Read again:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Filed under: Digital worlds, e-democracy, Politics, , ,

July 8, 2009 • 12:07 pm 0

Chris Anderson’s new book, “Free: The Future of a Radical Price”

Chris Anderson’s new book is causing a storm and firing up conversations amongst the internet gurus. You can read it here — for free — and decide for yourself. This version should include notes / references that were missing from the printend copy and prompted some critques on plagiarism. I intend to check it out myself, then buy it if I like it. It’s awesome to be able to access it freely (in its entirety), but I already find it hard to read long documents on my laptop, much less a 288 pages. I wouldn’t mind paying for it in exchange of preventing me from experiencing more RSI symptoms. However, I might have to wait a bit longer as supposedly, the first print doesn’t contain all the notes and references.

What I’m hoping to uncover in all these conversations is the fact that this whole debate is not entirely about economics but an ecosystem in need of rethinking – where content, resources, value and soical benefits co-exist and collide.

Here are some of the discussions and reviews on the book and the questions of whether free is indeed the future. I got the longer list from  squidoo where you can the RSS feed to keep yourself in the loop. The other sources (1st part) are from ReadWriteWeb.

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Digital worlds, Ideas, Politics, ,

June 22, 2009 • 2:25 am 0

The politicisation of social media

“Conflicts are inherent in social relationships.
Where social relationships thrive, so will dissent. Where dissent is present, a cause will rise — either to strengthen dissent or attempt to crush it.”

Social media has already been one of last year’s major buzz, with companies eager to make their presence felt in a network thriving robustly in their absence. But last week saw social media catapulted to the global scene, hugging the headlines not because of the corporate, but the political. What was once a vague concept for many, now started to assume a more concrete form. And what was once thought of only as a cool way of broadcasting ones breakfast platter, now unravelled its radical potential to the public.

Twitter made the primetime news in many countries, including the Netherlands when the electoral turmoil in Iran broke out. Major TV networks were already covering the Iranian elections, but the cries of discontent were heard first and more loudly on social networks such as Twitter, Facebook and blogs. Social media was first to deliver stories of dissent that was snowballing into a movement.

Traditional media was criticised for not giving enough coverage to the protests not until it exploded in social media spaces, with #iranelection shooting up as the #1 trending topic on Twitter. “While word of riots in the streets of Tehran spread like wildfire on Twitter, CNN stayed largely silent on the story, surprising and dismaying many.” Users expressed their consternation by posting on Twitter’s #cnnfail. Even CNN saw the need to explain its actions — or inaction — in the eyes of many digizens. Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Digital worlds, Politics, Social / online media analysis, , , , ,

May 24, 2009 • 10:36 pm 3

My activist roots (a tribute to Dad on his 87th bday)

For someone who writes about a lot of things, I’ve never really written anything about my father. When he died in 2004, I wrote an entry in my journal but nothing more even though so many things remained to be expressed in words and shared to those who care. Perhaps it’s the fierce love shared between us, the intimacy and intricacy of our bond as father and daughter that prevents me from articulating in words that which dwells silently in the bosom of my dreams, rage, pain and hope. This piece is but an overview of what I want to write about him as there are so many details and insights I want to share when it comes to our bond with each other. This is a first attempt; a tribute to my Daddy on what would’ve been his 87th bday last May 16.

===========
Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Lagalag (Wanderer), Politics, QBs & Sangga, , , , ,

March 29, 2009 • 1:57 pm 0

Epic fail (When ‘satires’ DON’T hit their mark)

[Note: This is a comment I tried to post on HK Magazine in reply to Chip Tsao's article on the Spratly Islands issue where the Philippine government has also laid its claim. My post was not published, and later my IP address was blocked. Supposedly, my post was suspected of being spam. How could it be when you have to be a registered user to post a comment? Maybe because I'm makulet hehe. http://hk-magazine.com/feature/war-home]

When does satire cross the line to racial insult? When the irony’s missing, which is the case in this sentence: “As a nation of servants, you don’t flex your muscles at your master, from whom you earn most of your bread and butter.”

Instead of becoming a genuine criticism and commentary on a political issue, the other finer points of this article have been lost and its entirety degenerated into a racial insult from someone who now comes across as a racial asshole pretending to be a journalist. With that single sentence, he seemed to have conveniently forgotten his own people’s history and struggle with servitude.

I appreciate satire like any genuine writer should. I believe nothing is sacred enough to be spared from criticism and humour.

But true irreverence is an art (and not an easy one) that casts light on conclusions based on an in-depth study of society. In this art form, irony is militant, wit a deadly weapon.

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Politics, , ,

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analyst, poet, dream-dweller. a.k.a. 'delunna'

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