This is a presentation of the ebook - The Revolution will Be Tweeted - and was given to the Lichtenstein Royal Family, HBS, Suffolk University, Princeton University, US Army and at a number of public events.

2. THE REVOLUTION
WILL BE TWEETED
Barry Libert

3. INTRODUCTION
Chapter 1
ONE MAN + SOCIAL MEDIA = COUP
Chapter 2
TWEETS OF WRATH
Chapter 3
A WELL-FUNDED REVOLUTION
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
COPYRIGHT

4. INTRODUCTION
The rebellion that is upending the Middle East is about much
more than a few autocratic regimes. It is a social media and mobile-
technology revolution that has profound implications for governments
and businesses all over the world. Thanks to Twitter, Facebook, You-
Tube, and smartphones, all of us who are fed up with top-down control
are toppling the powers-that-be in a bid to take control ourselves - and
I predict we will accomplish our goals.
As the events in Egypt and Tunisia have shown people can orga-
nize through social networks - and even when governments shut down
the Internet, protesters can find ways to circumvent those (and other)
defenses. What we’ve seen in Libya, Yemen, Iran, Syria, and even
China is that brutal crackdowns lead to almost certain failure. But, in
the end, social movements encourage the open expression of ideas and
affirms the passions and desires of people leading to their ability to
connect, revolt, and overturn those in power.
These lessons should not be lost on corporate leaders. I advise
major global companies and government officials on how to cope with
the new world of social media and mobile technology and have built
and managed 15,000 on-line communities with 40 million users. In
this brief e-book, I will share with you what I’ve learned.

5. Chapter 1
ONE MAN + SOCIAL MEDIA = COUP
The Arab rebellion began when a single man, Mohamed Bouazizi,
a Tunisian fruit vendor, set himself afire to protest a series of injustices
and humiliations at the hands of the regime of the longtime ruler, Zine
el-Abidine Ben Ali. Bouazizi was not among the 15 percent, or 1.6
million of Tunisia’s population, who use the Internet. Nevertheless,
social media in the form of Facebook quickly spread the news and im-
ages of his desperate act, thus inciting a spontaneous, leaderless pro-
test. Activists coordinated the demonstrations on Facebook pages and
with tweets, drawing little resistance from the regime. Ironically, Ben
Ali, who feared a coup from within the ranks of his army and security
forces, had so weakened the military as to make it impotent.
Within days, the peaceful throngs demanding Ben Ali’s departure
achieved their goal - but not before mobs of demonstrators gathered in
the Arab crescent from Algeria to Iran to express sympathy for the pro-
testers in Tunisia while insisting on redress for their own grievances.
Their forthright approach reflected the power of the second main fa-
cilitator of the Arab rebellion, the satellite cable networks of the BBC,
CNN, Al Jazeera, and Al Arabiya. Without their courageous and cred-
ible reporting, the contagion of protest would have swept much less
quickly to Egypt, Yemen, Oman, Bahrain, Iraq, Iran, Libya, and Syria.
Social media showcased the people’s technological ingenuity
and adaptability in Egypt, where the continuance of Hosni Mubarak’s

6. 30-year reign hinged on his ability to persuade the army to keep him in
power. After the first days of peaceful demonstrations in Cairo’s Tahrir
Square, Mubarak cut off access to the Internet and sent in thugs armed
with whips, clubs, and sabers to beat and intimidate the protesters. But
the people fought back bravely and found ways to circumvent the In-
ternet shutdown.
In a single weekend, Google and Twitter engineers devised a
speak-to-tweet application that let the demonstrators phone in a voice-
mail, which automatically became a Twitter post. The technology en-
abled leaders of the protests to coordinate demonstrations around the
country while keeping the world informed. When the army was dis-
suaded from opening fire on the Egyptian people in the square, Muba-
rak fled.
A Media Evolution Amidst the Revolution
Social media continued to evolve over the 18-day span of the
Egyptian upheaval as people came to understand its breathtaking pow-
er to topple the status quo and the leaders controlling it. Facebook,
the most popular social destination by far at the outset of the dem-
onstrations, was dismissed by leaders as something the kids used to
communicate and interact. It was thought to have little relevance for
businesses, governments, and leaders.
But a survey taken by Media Republic in the midst of the cha-
os showed that 53 percent of respondents were now checking Twitter
ahead of Facebook, presumably using mobile devices. The market-
ing firm found that 66 percent were using Twitter to look for bulletins
posted by news Web sites instead of accessing the sites themselves.
For the first time, protesters could get real-time, on-scene reports and
video showing, for instance, where tear gas was being used, thus allow-
ing them to move to safer ground.

7. What is more, kids weren’t the only ones tweeting on mobile de-
vices. Adults who had something to say were using Twitter to get their
messages out. The social revolution that started and grew as a place
to connect with friends had taken on even greater and more profound
significance as a platform for revolt.
The next major clash came in Libya. It was more difficult to or-
ganize protests in a desert state that New York Times columnist Thomas
Friedman describes as “a tribe with flags” as opposed to a nation like
Egypt, which has an ancient civilization and strong national identity.
Perhaps more important to a social revolution, fewer than 6 percent
of the 6.5 million Libyans are Internet users, and only half visit Face-
book.
But expatriate Libyans who had migrated to other parts of the
world were galvanized by the events in Egypt. Copying the January 25
“Day of Rage” that sparked the Egyptian movement, they set February
17 as Libya’s Day of Rage and created Facebook pages and Web sites,
such as “Feb17.info” and “Libyafeb17.com,” and a Twitter feed called
“Feb 17 Voices” to publicize events and organize support.
As the protest grew, the number of Facebook and Twitter users
in Libya rose dramatically. Google set up a speak-to-tweet service for
Libya, too, and Libyans used Web-radio technology to create “Free
Benghazi Radio.” A Twitter user named Arasmus assembled a mash-
up map of Libya showing the location of anonymous tweeters. Users
could click on icons for each region and get information about police
activity and protests.
Jubilant demonstrators were joined by sympathizers around the
world, while fearful governments in Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Oman, Syria,
and Yemen nervously followed the battle.
Outside of a handful of protesters who were arrested, dissent in
Saudi Arabia has been held in check by King Abdullah’s promise of
higher wages and more jobs for the 14 million or so Saudis under the

8. age of 30. But when turmoil in neighboring Bahrain appeared to be
getting out of hand, Saudi and United Arab Emirates’ soldiers rolled in
to restore order. Nevertheless, fears that the world’s biggest crude-oil
producer might be forced to limit production sent global prices spiral-
ing upward.
Repressive Regimes Will Quake
In China, too, leaders were clearly shaken by the spectacle of
peaceful, unarmed protesters toppling autocratic regimes. By some
estimates, China has quelled hundreds of thousands of mini-riots in
recent years as the populace vents its anger over legal injustices, en-
vironmental threats, income inequality, and government repression of
civil rights.
Thus far, economic growth and rising prosperity for the lucky
ones have kept Chinese rage in check. But if protests around the vast
country could be coordinated, the regime might be in danger. Given
the cracks that have occurred in China’s electronically powered Great
Firewall during the Arab rebellion, allowing news of the protests to
reach Chinese citizens, the authorities may have reason to worry. And
recently, a call via social media for protest in China itself found an
audience.
No wonder security forces have lately been sent into cities around
the country to lock down public squares and shopping malls. Foreign
reporters have been detained, harassed, and in at least one instance, a
journalist was severely beaten. Equipment has been confiscated and
digital pictures forcibly erased.
Odds are that the state’s rigid discipline will hold, at least for
now, but in the long run, I’d bet on the power of social media - all the
more so since their use is exploding. At the end of 2010, China alone
had 384 million Internet users, and eMarketer, which provides research

9. and analysis, said 265 million of them used social networks, including
homegrown Chinese networks. By 2015, eMarketer predicts that at
least 488 million Chinese will be participating in some sort of social
media.
As the Arab rebellion has shown, the power of social media ex-
pands when people use mobile devices, particularly smartphones, to
express their feelings about business and government to the world at
large. And now that mobile computing has arrived in force, the camp-
fire that was social media is exploding into a conflagration.
Facebook, which had just 50,000 mobile users in 2009, counted
200 million one year later. Researchers at Morgan Stanley report that,
for the first time, smartphones and tablet computers outsold desktop
and laptop computers in the fourth quarter of 2010. By 2015, they pre-
dict, sales of mobile devices will nearly double PC sales.
In the Japanese market, the transition is nearly complete. Since
2006, page views on Mixi, the country’s leading social network, have
risen nearly sixfold, to 30 billion a month. And while 86 percent of the
viewers in 2006 were using PCs, fully 85 percent now use smartphones
or tablets.

10. Chapter 2
TWEETS OF WRATH
It’s easy enough to understand why people in the Middle East,
having suffered decades of repression by autocratic governments,
would be angry enough to risk imprisonment, or worse, to protest their
lot and agitate for change. And even though almost no one predicted
it, I can see how a Tunisian fruit vendor’s self-immolation could spark
the full-throated protest that then touched off a conflagration that has
spread across the entire region.
What isn’t always obvious - though it’s very real - is the bub-
bling cauldron of long-simmering rage that threatens leadership of ev-
ery kind, be it of national governments or businesses, both here in the
United States and around the globe.
The Tea Party movement, a right-wing phenomenon that vocif-
erously demands smaller government and fiscal discipline, is, to date,
the most visible sign of this rage in the United States. But the Tea
Party is just the discernible part of a looming iceberg. Still largely hid-
den is the enormous anger and sense of unfairness bred over a century
of autocratic behavior by the heads of some of our largest and most
well-known institutions, whether they be the leaders of our purportedly
democratic governments or the executives of the businesses for which
we work, from whom we buy, and in whose stocks we invest.
Broad-based anger and people’s ability to share that anger
created an embarrassing situation for Chrysler when a disgruntled

11. employee of its social media agency mistakenly posted an off-color
tweet on the car company’s Twitter account rather than on the em-
ployee’s personal account. The tweet derided Detroit’s abilities: “I
find it ironic that Detroit is called the Motor City and yet no one here
knows how to f***ing drive.”
Chrysler quickly responded on its blog, dismissing its social me-
dia firm amid speculation that it might retreat to the perceived safety
of its traditional advertising agency. Lauded for its swift and honest
response to the rogue tweet, Chrysler was nevertheless criticized for
looking backward to an old media model when what it apparently needs
is an agency well versed in managing real-time communications.
ESPN felt the sting of condemnation when its attempt to control
employees’ online connections came to light in August 2009. The crit-
ics characterized the company’s policy as “extremely strict.” ESPN,
of course, didn’t see it that way, saying that its “first and only priority”
was “to serve ESPN sanctioned efforts, including sports news, infor-
mation and content.”
One rule banned personal Web sites and blogs that include sports
content, another demanded that employees receive permission from a
supervisor before participating in social networking related to sports,
a third gave ESPN the right to review all posted content, and a fourth
cautioned against discussing internal ESPN reporting, writing, and
editing policies. ESPN also reserved the right to use its employees’
sports-related social media content. A series of seemingly common-
sense guidelines - don’t tweet something you wouldn’t say on air or
write in a column, be mindful that you represent ESPN, be respectful
of colleagues and fans - rounded out the list.
The reaction was mixed. Some people thought the rules were
draconian; others viewed them as a reasonable requirement aimed at
making its paid employees protect the brand.
Brand protection had nothing to do with the firing of an em-

12. ployee at American Medical Response of Connecticut (AMR). She
was let go for posting unflattering comments about her supervisor
and for responding to co-workers’ comments on Facebook. But the
employee didn’t go quietly, deciding to file a complaint with the Na-
tional Labor Relations Board (NLRB). In February 2011, the NLRB
determined that AMR’s blogging and Web posting policy was overly
broad. Now AMR is rewriting its policy to make sure it doesn’t il-
legally stop its people from discussing pay and working conditions
with their peers.
As these incidents suggest, revolt is not just fomenting in the
Middle East, but right where you and I live and work. In short, we are
all fed up.

13. Chapter 3
A WELL-FUNDED REVOLUTION
Past revolutions have been decidedly unequal, pitting barefoot
sans-culottes against French aristocrats and low-paid factory workers
against wealthy industrialists. But this one is different. Social media
are powerful because they have been created and funded by some of
the same people they are destined to overthrow. Facebook, Twitter, and
YouTube were developed by entrepreneurs and financed by world-class
venture capitalists to rake in profits. Most of these people operate as
capitalists always have, using traditional modes of governance.
During most of the Industrial Age, there were good reasons for
running governments and businesses the way they were run. Managers
charged with reducing the cost of goods and services to citizens, cus-
tomers, and employees consolidated power and were rewarded for it.
But today’s leaders don’t truly understand that the day of from-the-top
decision-making is finished, and a mindset that once made them great
is now killing them. Indeed, their outdated style of management is ac-
tually hastening the revolution and ultimately their own demise.
Given the cost of information, returns will be reduced along with
increased access and innovation. But as the world begins to open up
and share ideas, the old asymmetry of information and control that cre-
ated outsized returns for leaders and institutional investors will fade.
At last count, Facebook was valued at $50 billion and Twitter at
$10 billion, while startups like LivingSocial and Groupon are worth

14. billions more. These enormous valuations suggest that the power of
the crowd and open access is growing. Nevertheless, untold millions
of VC dollars will continue to be raised because investors don’t real-
ize they are funding the agent of their demise. Instead, they will con-
tinue to reduce the cost of connecting, putting more and more rebels
on the front lines of monumental change. Already, you can publish a
book on Amazon.com for $1.99, or build a Web site on GoDaddy for
$7.49 a month. The revolution has not only begun; it is capturing once
well-barricaded landmarks at a rapid pace (think the demise of Block-
buster).
The problem is that most business leaders, institutional investors,
and corporate directors still don’t understand the threat posed by social
media and mobile technologies. Nor do they grasp the significance of
the crowds that are using the new technologies to express their unhap-
piness to like-minded others - be they customers, employees, investors,
or citizens of our outmoded of governance. Like China’s leaders, man-
agers think they can ride out any storm by battening down the hatches,
enlisting loyal seamen and women, and holding to their course. Their
policy might work for a while if they hew to the following time-hon-
ored tactics:
• Enforce traditional discipline. Monitor all computers, phone
calls, and e-mail traffic. Limit technology to what you can con-
trol. Don’t hand out iPhones and forbid access to social media;
just because information has been made public, that doesn’t give
your people the right to know it. Even the supposedly modern
Obama administration tried to deny government workers access
to the WikiLeaks trove of State Department cables.
• Keep close the cards you are dealt; censor information. Tell em-
ployees and customers only what you think they need to know
about your plans, operations, and financial well-being. Make

15. sure everything posted on your Web site, including any customer
comments or product reviews, toes the company line.
• Control communication within the company. Make sure all mes-
sages flow through the main office. Never allow the branches
to speak directly to one another. Similarly, discourage fraterni-
zation between departments, and don’t promote people across
divisional lines.
• Continue to use old technologies. Make sure you invest in tradi-
tional on-premise computing and software. In essence, stay with
what you know and avoid today’s reality.
After the Short-Term Reprieve
At best, these tactics are the counsel of despair. No matter how
furiously antediluvian leaders try to hold back the tide, social media
will create transparency and conventional governance will be over-
thrown. Especially in the corporate world, events and conditions often
conspire to defeat secrecy and the leadership models and forms of gov-
ernance it engenders.
Endlessly copied and transmitted from one hard drive to the
next, digital information piles up and multiplies, making it impossible
to keep track of, let alone secure. As The Economist recently observed,
companies that were once safe boxes for information are becoming
more like sieves, spilling data through every pore. Bradley Manning,
the soldier accused of leaking State Department secrets to WikiLeaks,
allegedly downloaded and sent some 250,000 documents with a few
clicks of a mouse. A few years ago, it would have taken him months or
years to photocopy and smuggle out all those papers.
And whether organizations like it or not, we are in the early stag-
es of an explosion of information and mobile technologies that will
empower all of the people, with the cloud serving as the repository

16. from which information can be cheaply scattered everywhere to every-
one. The market research firm IDC reckons that the Digital Universe,
the amount of digital information created in a year, totaled less than
one zettabyte (1 trillion gigabytes, or 250 billion DVDs) in 2009. By
2020, IDC predicts, the year’s output will be 35 zettabytes. And by
then, smartphones and tablets will outnumber PCs, spewing out data
and sending what used to be secrets to anyone, in real time, on the go.
New firewalls and leak-detection systems come on the market
every month, but in the long run, the confluence of the cloud, user
mobility, and social media will break down the walls that business and
government have and continue to erect. We will all have to live with,
and even embrace, transparency and engagement as a way of life, and
that will be a good thing. Productivity will increase, and transparency
will defuse the pent-up anger now threatening institutions of all kinds,
including businesses.
A few corporate leaders understand the dangers they face. Writ-
ing in the March 2011 Harvard Business Review, Dominic Barton,
managing director of McKinsey & Company, warned of rising public
anger toward both business and government. Capitalism must reform
or confront rebellion, he said. Among other things, Barton’s “Capital-
ism for the Long Term” argues that companies must focus not on short-
term profits but on serving the interests of all their major stakehold-
ers, including customers, employees, suppliers, communities, and even
the environment. He presents this proposition in the familiar guise of
maximizing long-term value to shareholders, but I think that’s a fig
leaf. His true objective is sheer survival. If business doesn’t change its
basic ways, he writes, “the social contract between the capitalist system
and the citizenry may truly rupture, with unpredictable but severely
damaging results.”
A very few leaders are already operating in a style suited to
the new social-media world. Warren Buffett, famed as the “Sage of

17. Omaha” and CEO of the phenomenally successful Berkshire Hatha-
way holding company, cheerfully owns up to his mistakes and makes
no pretense of being indispensable. In one of his avidly read annual
reports, he told stockholders, with Twitter-like candor, that they would
have been better off if he hadn’t come to work all year. But no one was
put off. After all, $1,000 invested in Berkshire Hathaway in January
1990 was worth $12,000 20 years later. That’s nearly triple the rise in
Vanguard’s Standard & Poor’s 500 Index Fund.
Equally impressive is the transformation of General Electric,
once the showpiece of the autocratic Jack Welch. His successor at GE,
CEO Jeffrey Immelt, has opted for social-media style transparency,
corporate humility, and vulnerability. Speaking at the Web 2.0 Sum-
mit in San Francisco in October 2009, Immelt noted that “if you’re not
willing to be completely transparent on just about everything you do,
and if you can’t tolerate life in a world where you’re sharing informa-
tion openly, where you’re getting input from lots of different people,
where they have the ability to critique, criticize, have inputs . . . you
better find a new profession.” Today’s world is about “transparency,
openness, two-way dialogue with your constituents,” he added.
GE guides, advises, and counsels its customers, showing them
how to improve their operations even if it means less business for GE.
A GE medical service that used to be all about billable hours and ef-
ficiency now focuses on patient services and pays heed to the feelings
of its doctors and nurses.
A Handbook for the Savvy
Buffett and Immelt are the rare birds in the corporate leadership
aerie, because negotiating the transition to a new style of management
is simply too difficult for many leaders. But if you are a traditional boss
with vision for your future that includes participation, transparency, and

18. engagement, and you want to embrace today’s growing social-media
revolution, here’s what you must do:
• Admit that what you’re doing is wrong - wrong for your business,
wrong for your stakeholders, wrong for yourself in the long run.
In other words, acknowledge that what made you successful will
no longer keep you successful. It will seem like an inconceivable
betrayal of faith, but it is essential.
• Accept that your customers, your employees, and your inves-
tors are angry - at you for the way you have treated them, the
products you have sold them, and the support you have provided
them. Apologize in every way possible, including a Facebook
post and a tweet. You can explain why you thought you had to
act the way you did, but you must be genuinely contrite and ask
forgiveness. Obviously, it won’t be easy.
• Change as quickly as you can given the speed of the social revo-
lution. That will be the most difficult of all. Embark on a journey
of understanding, trying to see things from your stakeholders’
points of view. Become compassionate, embrace transparency,
and be willing to sacrifice short-term profit for sustainable opera-
tions in a new world.
• Allow people to connect, and welcome the suggestions they offer
based on what they have learned. Encourage communications
and tweets across divisional lines. Eliminate huge pay discrep-
ancies between executives and workers, and cut your own bonus
and stock options to prove your sincerity.
• Embrace social media, the cloud and mobile devices - and this is
perhaps most important in terms of your business success. These
technologies can help you run your company more productively
and efficiently by engaging all constituents in open and honest,
two-way communications. Others are already on board. IDC

19. estimates that fully 1 billion workers, or 25 percent of the global
workforce, are equipped with company-issued mobile devices,
and the numbers will only grow.
The benefits from using social and mobile technologies are
myriad. For instance, you can cut recruiting costs by using Twitter or
LinkedIn to reach potential employees, and a Facebook page can con-
nect your brand to customers and prospects who might ignore conven-
tional advertisements, broadcasts, and publications. New technologies
such as sentiment tracking and social-media analytics can help you ac-
cess and understand what people are saying about you, and how they
feel about your product, service, and organization.
Social media in conjunction with mobile and cloud technologies
will make it easier for your customers and prospects to do business with
you. For example, 1st Guard, a company that specializes in selling in-
surance policies to truckers, allows drivers to use their smartphones
to fill out and electronically sign an application. A driver on the road
can apply in the time it takes to fill the truck’s tank with diesel, while a
company operator monitors the process to make sure all the blanks are
filled correctly.
Some retailers are using GPS to send advertisements to the mo-
bile devices of potential customers in the vicinity of their stores. Such
location-based services can be fine-tuned to take into account the de-
vice owner’s age, gender, occupation, and personal preferences. The
research and analysis firm, Gartner, is advising companies to develop
specialized applications that allow mobile-phone owners to research
products, compare prices, and then, with the information in hand, buy
the product on the spot.
Social networks and mobile devices are becoming more useful.
Witness the Arab rebellion and also the devastating Japanese earthquake
and tsunami that struck on March 10, 2011. With power and landline

20. phone service dead, the owners of smartphones and tablet computers
could still get on the Internet to access e-mail, Skype, Facebook, and
Twitter. In the coming months, as Japan turns from rescue and relief
operations to the long, slow business of reconstruction, it’s safe to say
that the social networks will play more new and unforeseen roles.
Now is the time for all government and business leaders to em-
brace the open and social world. Otherwise, you will put our traditions
of free speech, democracy, and capitalism at risk. As the very prin-
ciples that inspired the social revolution in the first place, denying their
consequences would surely lead to a rage likely to spin out of control
because we, the people, now have the power. So get on board and start
tweeting your own revolution, or risk being upended by those who can
and will Tweet theirs: The rest of the world!

21. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Barry Libert is the founder of Mzinga, a leading social software
firm, and the CEO of OpenMatters, a company that helps businesses
and governments embrace social media and mobility to prosper.

22. COPYRIGHT
Published by New Word City, Inc., 2011
www.NewWordCity.com
© Barry Libert
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, in any form
or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher.
ISBN 978-1-61230-018-4
Ebook Conversion: Reality Premedia Services Pvt. Ltd., Pune, India.