14. The long tail… and it’s getting longer Nov 16, 2009 The idea that the majority is made up of people who don’t want the thing that the largest single group do. Twitter Trends, the charts and often elections – surface the largest single group – not, by a long way, the majority
15. Frightening Fragmentation Nov 16, 2009 Q: How can we reach deep into and along the ever-elongating long tail? A: Understand how messages/ideas and conversations evolve in the networked world
18. The internet is for people . For people to form groups Groups with shared purposes
19. The internet is for people . For people to form groups Groups with shared purposes Groups of people that can form at little or no cost
20. That changes everything Nov 16, 2009 http://flickr.com/photos/ stuckincustoms/
21. Three key disruptions Who gets to create content? Who gets to distribute content? Who controls the user experience?
22. Three key disruptions Who gets to create content? Any and everyone Who gets to distribute content? Any and everyone Who controls the user experience? The user is the destination now, they control their own A-to-anywhere journey
23. You can’t target every community of purpose They can Here’s how http://flickr.com/photos/caribb/
25. Nov 16, 2009 THE STAGE Scale = audience = where the eyeballs have gone Message broadcast at audience
26. Nov 16, 2009 THE STAGE But in (social) networks the broadcast message doesn’t arrive
27. Nov 16, 2009 They aren’t looking at The Stage. They are looking at each other Scale = lots of communities of purpose = where the eyeballs are focused
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30. Nov 16, 2009 Participants adapt the message to suit the group they wish to share it with The people best-placed to adapt the message are in the group, not on the stage
31. Nov 16, 2009 And so it continues; the message evolving to survive. Or it dies out We share what we think is cool. That which we co-create, we embrace
32. Nov 16, 2009 They aren’t your groups they are theirs They aren’t your messages they are theirs Communication is not done to them, it is done by them
One of the few images we have of William Shakespeare comes to us not because the artist charged with making the image was selected as the finest of his day, nor because this was the image chosen by Will’s adoring audience as the most accurate or representative (SMS voting of the X-Factor variety hadn’t quite hit London in the early 1600s). William Shakespeare was the most important playwrite of his day – and this was a day when the play was THE primary form of entertainment. He was a big deal. And yet the picture we have of him is… well it’s a bit rubbish really. The creator was a young man named Martin Droeshout. And while he may not have been possessed of a huge artistic talent, he did possess something more fundamental to his ability to form the rare and enduring image we have of Shakespeare. He owned the brass-plate printing gear required to print Will’s mugshot on the famous first folio. He who had control of the means of production got to control the information – even if that information wasn’t particularly great. The information, in this particular case was packaged up in books by the media business and distributed by the media business.
Examples: person threatening to blog about the Huntingdon marriot When I was buying this laptop I was tweeting with my community to find out if the salesman was spinning me a yarn or doing me a good deal. Power. And that genie is out of the bottle. It ain’t going back.
Eg: A government organisation asked us to ‘use’ social media to broadcast a message to parents about rules they wanted to spread about the selection of nurseries Laudible: we spend more time choosing our next CAR than we do our kids nursery. But more impact from getting parents to join in the creation of the rule set. Discover a community of people who care enough about nursery education that they want to help change it for the better.
There are conversations going on – just as they always have offline. Now you can see them – so can everyone else. In social media everyone can hear you scream – eg BTCares – Jamie247.
The first thing you need to know about adapting to survive is that in order to survive in a landscape you have to live in it: So take the plunge, emerge with rudimentary legs and weak lungs and try to explore this new landscape. Take part, comment, blog, upload pictures on flickr, post on twitter. Participate. Eg not what the government’s director of digital engagement does.
How do we adapt how we deliver messaging? Start by understanding that it’s not the website, but the user, who is the destination now.
One thing is certain – you have neither the time nor the money to tailor your messages or products for each ever increasing number of niches
If I can form a group of my own, unmediated by any central authority, why do I need (here’s a biggy) political parties for example– they served the lowest common denominator world of mass – The fact that groups can form at low cost around things they choose to act on means where-ever there is mediation there is a threat of disruption. Media, music distribution has already seen it. Advertising and marketing are experiencing it. Apple outsources customer service way beyond a call centre in another country – it outsources it to its customers.
For the way in which information is distributed
No, because in a digital world we can all sit down next to each other – we’re all sharing the global hotdesk – at a distance and velocity which was never possible offline. Think of stamp collecting. Huntingdon could have had one stamp collecting club. But most people weren’t interested in stamps in general – they had specific interests – Antiguan bird stamps, for example. The digital world enables that community of purpose to form and get value from that formation.
Clay Shirky – and how to encourage interaction: Most brands comms are too shiney and perfect for people to want to join in – they exclude you.