Is there no substitute for face-to-face?

I’ve been having numerous conversations about how there is no substitute for face-to-face communication. And I understand this – we’ve been using the medium of the face-to-face for a lot longer than we’ve been using any other form of communication. We can see and sense each other in physical real-time 3D, and have all those rich qualities engaged. Yet face-to-face is not always possible, practicable or affordable – for business and personal – in our globalised world. So what to do?

I’ve been musing on the multi-layered approaches that communications mediums now offer us. The different types of relationships this means and enables, particularly in what is now called the ‘social’ environment. So we have social media, social networking, social business, social CRM, social marketing, the list goes on. They all mean different things to different people. What does this really mean as a movement?

To me it speaks of the changing nature of relationships and their potential beyond the borders and reach of the face-to-face. There is only so much time and ability to always connect in the face-to-face. Yet individuals and organisations collectively can do so much more in the virtual realm. It’s not a substitute for face-to-face – it’s a value-add or it's a new dimension, and can keep relationships going on many different levels. Levels that we have not seen before. Some might think these are not ‘real’ relationships in the way we have traditionally thought of them. Many of us are not comfortable with this.

Face-to-face communication has been around as long as humans have been on the planet. It’s ancient. The newer forms enabled by the web have been around for what, just over 10 years? And only in the last few years has this last round of ‘social’ communication become mainstream – it’s no longer a case of ‘if’, it’s now ‘when’ will you dip your toe in the waters of these mediums – both the shallows and the depths.

It's opened up the potential to go beyond the physical. Some people I connect with online, e.g. via Twitter, I may rarely or never meet in person. Yet this does not dis-count the value of the connection. I now have the opportunity to share knowledge, find out what they are working on and how this relates to my interests. And I can be selective about who I do and don’t follow, just as I am in face-to-face life.

I believe people and organisations will become better at using and managing these, and bring their human face-to-face behaviours into the virtual. It’s already happening, it’s all part of how we keep our relationships connected – and that can be business-to-consumer as well as consumer-to-consumer, manager-to-team, colleague-to-colleague and friend-to-friend. They happen on many different levels, when face-to-face is not a viable option. Or to introduce a new dimension that can be useful and meaningful to whatever it is. The guiding principle is to participate as if we were face-to-face – and keep it real.

So as a ‘consumer’, I can feel connected to a brand that makes the products I need and like, and can even participate in co-creation. Much has been said of Lego in this regard, where you can design your own Lego kit, and have it made up for you and share with other enthusiasts; or even the well-known Old Spice example
where the Old Spice guy (and of course his team) made real-time customised video messages upon request via Twitter and YouTube. The success of these kinds of approaches is that on some level, a real connection is made. Even if it is kind of transient and for fun (or to build an authentic brand connection).

We are social creatures and how we relate to each other is what drives us (and the organisation) forwards (or backwards, depending on the constructiveness of the relationship). Best that we all understand how to use it ‘for good’ in our multi-dimensional world. That goes for face-to-face as well as virtual. And that we keep our web of relationships connected using whatever medium makes sense for us and ‘fit for purpose’.

Is the virtual really real?

Once upon a time, I studied virtual communication. Whenever I mentioned this, a common response was ironic laughter. ‘You mustn’t have much to talk about,’ the thinking went, ‘because it’s not really communicating, is it?’ In their eyes the irony was that the virtual couldn’t possibly be ‘real’ communication by ‘real’ people.

Yet the knowledge that we’re in a ‘virtual revolution’ is so common now, there’s even a TV series about it.  Its tagline is “how 20 years of the web has reshaped our lives”. Forever. And the curious thing to me is that in our human history, each time there is a huge shift (and new tools) in the way we connect and share what we know or think, it takes some time for our social customs to catch up.

In using these new tools, some people get very concerned that our brains are being changed for the worse, that it signals the downfall of civilization as we know it and it regresses human behaviour. For these ‘disruptive innovations’  introduce a new way of being together, fundamentally changing the status quo, power balance, business models and our jobs too. But do they actually make us less human? Isn’t it up to each of us to ‘be real’ and choose our behaviours? With people as well as how we work in organisations?

I recently discussed this at the Melbourne Knowledge Management Leadership Forum (in the ‘Ignite’ format – a fast-paced 5 minute presentation). My slides are below.

Our reality is also our virtual experience

View more presentations from Helen Mitchell.

A curious thing – the word ‘virtual’ has its roots in something very human and real indeed: it means “having the essence or effect”  and it comes from the Medieval Latin for ‘virtue’: “moral excellence and righteousness; goodness”.

So my thinking here is that the underlying behaviours and emotions that make us human remain the same – as do our motivations to behave or feel a certain way. Only the technology changes. And unless we really connect, it is not real. Not the fact that we might be physically co-located.

We’re all now familiar with the telephone. Yet the social customs of the telephone took a long time to become clear. Arranging social gatherings by telephone used to be considered vulgar, the proper etiquette was by a mailed letter. Bad behaviour was rife – we’d now call it ‘flaming’. In America in around 1910, some cities passed laws allowing authorities to fine or even jail those who behaved badly on the telephone.  To encourage civil behaviour AT&T created the “telephone pledge” which said “I believe in the Golden Rule and will try to be as Courteous and Considerate over the Telephone as if Face to Face”.

A wonderful early example of this is in the 1910 advertisement below. It starts off by saying "Courteous and considerate co-operation is as essential at the telephone as in the office or home"…

The social history of the telephone makes fascinating reading – there's some great passages here in this book by Claude S Fischer.

So the more things change, the more they stay the same. So too it is with using new communication mediums it seems! Social media is the one we’re grappling with now. It amplifies human behaviour – the good and the bad. It’s up to us to use it constructively and find the right balance.

So perhaps it’s about putting the ‘virtue’ back into ‘virtual’. And to not worry about the medium so much. Jump in, find where the people are, participate and create the meaning and connections for ourselves.

Delicious, yet it’s leaving an odd taste

If I have a major reflection on the past week’s revelations around the “sunsetting” of the Delicious social bookmarking service, it’s that while some things may not generate cash, they do generate highly valuable goodwill. While a service may not be a “strategic fit” for the organization, somewhere and somehow it is a strategic fit for the people who use and love it.

This seems to have happened with Delicious. Much has been said about the value and loss of Delicious, and what might be going on inside Yahoo:

• Read Write Web: R.I.P. Delicious you were so beautiful to me
• Mashable: Former Yahoo Exec: “Delicious Is in Peril,” Sale Unlikely
• Techcrunch: Why Sunsetting Delicious Matters
• And from Yahoo itself on the Delicious blog: What’s next for Delicious

For me, one of the biggest observations is how Yahoo’s trust and reputation have been compromised, and it didn’t take very long from when the story broke on Twitter.

I’ve used Delicious since around 2004, firstly for my Masters research, where I compiled all my references for writing my papers, and have used it since as a safekeeping place for articles and tags I want to remember. I loved it, it was easy, it met a need. For me, it’s been integrated into all my online reading – through the various browser toolbars that made it so easy to save and tag at a click. I’d tried other things, but nothing seemed to have the stickiness of Delicious for me. It had become a habit.

Fast forward through to the breaking story of last Friday, Melbourne time, which I discovered first thing in the morning via the flurry of tweets around rumors that Yahoo were closing down Delicious. Firstly to find out if it really was true, then the “oh no” moment through to finding out what were the alternatives. To me this says that many people valued and used, relied on and even loved the service.

Such is the nature of the current web, and having valuable memories in ‘the cloud’, where things can change and disappear – inconvenient, yet a reality. The interesting thing to me is the immediate impact on trust in Yahoo, and the multiple services it offers. Through association, the thinking seemed to be “if Yahoo can do that to Delicious, what could they do to all the other services?” Data, lists and tags are being hastily extracted, exported, backed-up offline and looking for new homes.

Definitions were loose as the story emerged. When it first came out, sunsetting meant “closing down”. Then after a little while, it meant “find a buyer”. Of course I don’t have all the information; yet something doesn’t add up here for me. Maybe it’s all down to interpretation, but the messages from Yahoo have not been clear enough to its (more than 5 million) Delicious users, and I am one of them.

On the web (and in life), some things need to be ‘for free’, to be a hook, to complement paid services or just because it makes sense to give something to the community of users. I believe these models can work together in business. The challenge is in deciding what, where and how ‘free services’ strategically fit in, and how the value of goodwill is handled. In my view, this challenge is here to stay, and each organization will need to sort this out along with how it communicates in the environment of social media, where small leaks can have big consequences.

Are there aliens on social media?

Watching the 7.30 Report segment The global water cooler about the popularity of social media and social networks, I was prepared for the worst.

You know, that social media and social networks are causing the downfall of civilisation, that our brains are all going to slowly (or quickly) deteriorate as we keep using them to connect, that we will steadily un-evolve and lose all our social and communication skills with humankind. We will stop working and being productive, and contributing to society in ways that we deem as human and constructive. The normal kind of report you see in the mainstream media about this newfangled virtual communication thing.

Thankfully, it was not that, it had some interesting things to say and presented two sides to the story. Which I thought ended on the note that most sensible people were in favour of the whole thing.

At one point Kerry O’Brien mentions that “critics also wonder whether time spent in the virtual world is coming at the expense of real human contact” (my emphasis). Understanding that the meaning might be in the semantics:  if I didn’t have a real human being on the other end of my virtual social network, I wonder what it might be (apart from a bot or alien). And I would hope I’d pick that up pretty quickly and not friend or follow them/it. Because authentic people speak in human voices, and it is really necessary to ‘be human’ online to develop trust and connection.

Social media is not likely to be your sole source of relationship. It’s how it all ties together. Look for example, at the success of #coffeemornings and #socialmelb (among others). Connections and friendships might start online or offline, but they transcend the medium, and we have such a choice of communication mediums these days. The tools that make up social media are among these, of course. For myself, sometimes I forget where I had the conversation, was it F2F or online? And it doesn’t matter - for when I do see that person F2F again, we have kept the relationship going in-between the times we meet in a ‘media-rich’ environment, aka face-to-face.

The points that the neuroscientist made on the 7.30 Report like…“It's (an) ‘all about me’ culture where you just have to publicise you're cleaning your teeth or you're putting your socks on or whatever”…is from a narrow viewpoint. This kind of thing can happen face-to-face too. Social media can be used for both good and evil, and the banal. Just like pretty much anything can.

And what of those people for whom face-to-face is not an option? If it’s a choice between ‘nothing’ and ‘online’ to keep a friendship going, virtual communication is better than none. Tools like Facebook in particular are a testament to that. I’m thinking travellers, expats, families/friends separated by geography, etc.

And there is evidence to support that rather than decreasing our social ties and connections, use of virtual communication actually increases it, and our social and literacy skills along with it. Research organisation Pew Internet has some interesting reports here and here.

There seems to be a pattern that when new communication technologies such as the printing press, television, web and now Web 2.0 come around, we think it will set us backwards. Then we find the balance.

We’re human. We can be really really very good at wasting time, whether it watching television, reading romantic novels, ‘surfing the web’, gossiping on the phone or even shopping. I’m pretty sure we’d be able to find time to waste time no matter what the medium.

It’s up to us to know when to switch on, and when to switch off. And when it’s useful and when it’s not. These things are not technology issues, they’re people issues. We’ll invent some other marvellous communication medium sometime soon.

Now, where are those aliens again? ;-)

Keep tweeting it up

I’ve been musing lately about Twitter. Particularly going home on the train. Twittering or reading tweets is a good diversion on public transport, way better than the MX (free afternoon newspaper). I also wrote a blog post in my head going home on the train, but didn’t actually write it down, so I’m trying to reconstruct it here.

I was talking to some of my work colleagues recently and showing them Twitter. I showed them some tweets and described how I use it to stay in touch with people, information and up-to-the-minute thinking. While showing them the Twitter screen on my mobile phone, I used the now-familiar (to me) terms like '@ handles', ‘followers’, ‘following', ‘retweeting’; or ‘RT’, and didn’t think much about it. Then one person turned to the other bemused, saying "it’s a whole other language, isn’t it".

I have friends who aren’t yet on Facebook, so when I talk about Twitter, I can get eyes going momentarily blank – as I see them trying to comprehend what I’ve said…I’ve gone too far into the language of the tool (think about the meaning of ‘I wrote on their wall’, ‘poked him’ or ‘status update’ if you’ve never seen Facebook).

At work with my team, we’ve noted that in a time period of 10 minutes we could communicate any number of ways: face-to-face, Yammer, email and Twitter. This may seem absurd to the uninitiated, but it happens so frequently that often I don’t even think about it. For us, these things have become regular work tools.

So it’s interesting to me that when I discuss these new communication/collaboration/learning tools, some people express in wonder where do I find the time, or have an immediate negative reaction to the concept, or are even offended. Yet I’ve also seen this change when they try it out and see what works for them, i.e. they find their own meaning and context (and their network of people online).

I’m not a particularly early adopter; it’s just that I find it fascinating how people communicate and collaborate – what they say and do, what works, what doesn’t. And how we work it out together. And how often these networks, in particular Twitter, operate on ‘the kindness of strangers’.

In my case, I’ve grown to know people through Twitter. There are some I’ve met briefly face-to-face and then follow. When I do see them in person again, conversation is easy, there is more personal context because we’ve been seeing our conversations online. I’ve met people through Twitter and then later on face-to-face, and with some I don’t remember how I met them first. There’s a blurring between the virtual and the F2F. I’ve had Twitter exchanges with people on the other side of the world, who I probably never will meet.

And since I’ve had web access on my mobile I’ve understood more and more the power of these social networking tools and their potential to connect people – anytime, anywhere – you don’t need to go to a desktop and take the time to log in.

Several recent examples show the real and practical use of Twitter on web-enabled mobile devices. I’m thinking about the bushfire crisis in Victoria, where both ABC Radio 774 and cfa_updates posted (and continue to post) alerts and information via Twitter that can help people keep informed.

Twitter seems fast approaching mainstream. In my local newspaper The Age, there have been many recent articles about it (including a good one explaining the ‘how to’ and why to’).

This article also talks about celebrity twitterers, and quotes Stephen Fry’s thoughts on Twitter in his blog, which I like so much I’m going to RT it here: “I love how Twitter confirms my all too often assaulted belief that most humans are kind, curious, knowledgeable, tolerant and funny. The absurd constraints of the 140 character tweet seem oddly to bring out the best in wit, insight and observation.”

Thanks Stephen, I agree. :-)

(and BTW, I'm @helmitch on Twitter)

Onward into 2009

Back to work tomorrow after three weeks’ glorious break and recharge. I needed it after a very big year of projects, discoveries and learnings in Web 2.0 and social media.

During my downtime I consciously decided to also take a break from participation online, including mobile, as much as possible. It was a test to find out what draws me in most. So what happened?

Well I did stay pretty much away from things, but after a while, I was drawn back to the web, because…I like it and use it to stay connected to what people are thinking and doing – both for work and personal.

I lurked quite a bit, and could stave off those feelings to participate…until today.

So on reflecting about my experiment, here’s what I found over the past few weeks. It’s not exhaustive or scientific, of course:

• I really like Facebook to find out what people have been up to, particularly personal friends and their updates – and I did respond occasionally. For me it’s a virtual access point with people I already know face-to-face.
• I like Twitter so I can stay across what people are thinking and doing in my areas of professional interest. Often there are great tip-offs about blog posts, links to information, etc. Twitter’s great for providing an access point to people who do what you do, as well as leading thinkers, authors and practitioners who tweet. I may not have met these people F2F and they may not know me.
• I played around on Linkedin a bit updating my profile, etc. I did this too with Facebook re my profile.
• I took the time to read blog posts more fully than I normally do, including watching videos. Great way to immerse myself in a topic area when I had few time constraints.
• I did look at my work email now and then on my mobile, although I resisted doing anything with what I saw (apart from one urgent thing). The magnetic draw of having the BlackBerry email there is just too tempting to resist looking at it from time to time!
• I thought about other things I’m connected to (e.g. Second Life, Flickr), but didn't really do anything.

I noted in my lurking that quite a few people were cleaning up their RSS readers and so forth.

That is something I will need to do – I have way too many RSS subscriptions to meaningfully get across them all. Realistically I read about a third of my 51 feeds. Will I have the courage to edit??

So tomorrow it will be full on into things again, with 2009 bound to bring lots of change, challenges and connections along the way. Happy new year!

Looking back, and looking forward to participation

I recently had one of those experiences of looking back with fresh eyes on some work that I did more than two years ago...and thinking it was OK! ;-)

In this case, I re-read parts of a mini-thesis I wrote for my masters study in virtual communication at RMIT University in 2006. Back then, I found the emerging landscape of Web 2.0 and user generated content fascinating (and I still do).

During my research scoping, I found that ‘participatory media’ was becoming increasingly influential on the web. As I needed to make the paper have a business focus, I chose to research the impact of participatory media on brands. What’s happened now is that this term has been overshadowed by its alternative ‘social media’. (I think because it’s easier to spell and say!)

Apart from a few people at work and some friends, I’ve never really shared my research paper, so I thought I’d do so now. Feel free to take a look, tell me what you think.

It's called 'Brand engagement through participatory media'. Some of the examples might be old, however I think they're still useful and relevant. Here’s a few bits from the abstract:

• "This research paper examines the influence that participatory media such as blogs, online social networks and virtual worlds can have on the effectiveness of an organisation’s branding strategies. It considers the history and suitability of the web for participation and the relevance of participatory media for branding, particularly in a highly competitive and media-fragmented environment. It explores the shifts in consumer behaviour, technology and the growth of online communities that are driving the changes to a ‘participatory culture’. "

• "The research shows that through using participatory media, opportunities can be created to engage and build relationships and a deeper connection with an organisation’s brand. The analysis culminates in a set of starting points to guide an organisation in formulating participatory media strategies to develop positive relationships with consumers, therefore contributing to engagement with the brand."

Research paper - Brand engagement through participatory media

NB: One of the examples I used in my paper was Weird Al Yankovic’s video clip White and Nerdy, which landed on YouTube in August 06.

Apart from being completely hilarious (especially for Gen X I think), at the time of research the video was tracking at around 10 million views - a lot by any measure. Looking at it today, White and Nerdy has well over 41 million views – that has to be a record somewhere!

More angles on learning and collaboration

This week I presented at Comview, the annual conference of the VCTA, (business and commerce education). They wanted to hear about real life examples about what we (i.e. CPA Australia) were doing with blogs, wikis, online learning, etc with our members.

Each time I present I learn something about my audience. Interesting, yet unsurprising stats with this one. In a room of about 65 accounting teachers, I had a handful who’d blogged, a few who had used social media / web 2.0 tools in their classrooms, one who’d gone to Second Life and about a third of the room on Facebook.

Nearly all hands went up when I asked if their students or children were on Facebook.

I learned too that there is a growing movement among teachers (including accounting teachers) to use social media / Web 2.0 in the classroom. Comview had a number of sessions dedicated to engaging students using Web 2.0 tools. Questions and conversations during my session also showed this growing interest.

Those 'early adopters' recognise that their students live on this type of communication, and there are teachers who are 'evangelists' about using it to engage their students in the learning. To me, this shows a great opportunity for teachers and their students to engage and create an immersive and 2-way learning situation…and make it really fun.

Not necessarily age-related, there seems to be a 'technology adoption generation gap' where some teachers feel too time-poor to use these type of tools with their students - even though the benefit leads to students' greater attention. (this issue of course is not isolated to teachers only)

The whole online collaboration movement using social media, networks and Web 2.0 is fast evolving in the workplace, and more and more I see clear patterns in how it’s being used (or not used, or trying to be used), over and above pure social interaction.

I hear this a lot when discussing using social media in the enterprise for ‘real work’…. “But when will I find the time”, and “Where do you find the time for all of this”. We're in the midst of how to 'prove' the business value.

I think the key that we will find soon enough is – “What does this replace – where is it better, how does it help me to do my job more effectively?” and by doing this – save time, more engagement, better results.

After all, what did we do before the web? Before email? Before mobile phones? Before personal computers? Before answering machines? Before the telephone?

Things do find a balance, and I think we’re in the real midst of change with all of these virtual communication, connection and collaboration tools.

Reflections on rearranging my social media

I've had an RSS reader for years. I originally used it when doing research for my Masters. It was a highly useful tool as I was researching things that were 'of the moment'. Now I use it for keeping up to date with things 'of the moment'.

The trouble is, I now have more than 50 feeds....and do I keep up with all of them? No. But do I want to trash some of them? ...ummm...that would be No. Because I might find them useful sometime! :-)

Forrester's ladder of participation classifies 6 categories - creators, critics, collectors, joiners, spectators, inactives. I fit into 5 of these categories. I started out as a collector...now I'm all of the active categories.

What this means for me is that I now have lots of things to maintain...and I find that it's the housekeeping and interior design that's always on my 'to-do' list.

For example - make my blog look nice and express who I am, add some fun gadgets; for delicious - tidy up my tags (I think I have too many); for Flickr, upload, tag and sort my images, remember to Twitter, check my Facebook, Linkedin, etc.

I'm wondering what I did with my time before social media...

Finding moments to add to my blog

One of the challenges I face in my work is keeping up to date, and writing my blog.

I view blogging and engaging in social media as an integral part of what I do as a virtual communications professional. If I don't understand it and know what it means, how will I be able to initiate strategies and lead a team in making projects happen?

I like to have something well-thought-out to say. I'm going to change this slightly, as it's inhibiting me writing posts. Sometimes it's about just starting something and seeing what happens next. Even it it's shorter.

So - I just found a great little badge on Lee Hopkin's SL blog - it's a badge that integrates with Flickr. I use my Flickr account to store all the images I take in my travels around Second Life (this too, is missing some updating!). So I've added it to my blog gadgets.

Here's to my continued blogging!