Social media, a deadly place for corporations

The starting point of this reflection is the fact that corporations are going full speed and head first into the new social media hype. They are using these new tools to engage the masses in the process of design, evaluation, and marketing. The goal is to understand the dangers corporations are facing in engaging the masses through social media. I am getting my "data" from different social media outlets (forums, mailing lists...) where executives exchange ideas on how to best use the new technology to gain market share and to increase profits.


The "2020 Social Workshop on Social Media for Non-Pofits" article bellow explains why the adoption of the new media will gradually kill the corporation. In this article I explore another class of adverse effects.



Two important observations

• companies don't control this new media (the social media)
• the message is spreading through multipliers or evangelists which are not part of the organization
  

The social media space can become a bloody battleground for corporations
No one controls social media. Anyone can spread his own ideas at very small costs. Anyone can pollute your message, anyone can directly attack you. Moreover, social media is not regulated like the classical media. You cannot sue Facebook because a group of people wrote negative comments about your company, and freedom of speech is applied differently on social media than on classical media. It is very possible to see social media becoming a battleground for corporations (individualistic and highly competitive entities, not very keen on sharing, openness, and collaboration), leading to a carnage. Because they can, because it is possible, and because it costs almost nothing, some corporations might choose to attack their competitors using social media. They can decide to take a hidden approach by inciting other entities to carry out the actions, for example to pollute their competitor's marketing campaign, to incite other groups to boycott their competitor's products by providing them with negative information about it, etc. Or they can take a more direct approach, putting themselves in front of their actions. Dirty fights are seen in classical media, I think social media is the perfect breeding ground for this sort of actions.

This is actually good news for those of us who don't believe in hierarchies (hierarchically structured private endeavors). Open and collaborative systems are now competing with classical hierarchies, in this new environment shaped by the new technology. The new technology rewards collaborative networks to the detriment of individualistic and overly competitive hierarchical organizations, because it naturally enhances sharing and cooperation. On top of that, it seams that this new environment might encourage hierarchies, that is corporations, to express their individualistic and overly competitive nature by killing each other on the open "piazza".

The same social media can be used by the public against a corporation
How can a corporation with a bad reputation survive against a swarm of activists behind its tail? As corporations learn how to use social media to increase their profits, activists also learn how to use the same technology to attack corporations. The question is, given the nature of this new technology, who can extract more potential from it? Who will benefit the most?

After thousands of years of social evolution good ethics still rules the world. Even though, in most cases, bad people are running our societies, good ethics is what keeps societies together, and these corrupt leaders go through a lot of trouble to convince their subjects that they stand on the right side. The Internet technology transforms the entire planet into a small village, in the sense that anyone has access to who you are and to your past. This is especially true for public entities like a corporation. It is hard to hide if you are a really bad guy. Until recently, in a large city, one could screw someone here and hide in anonymity two blocks away. That is because one could get away with it, because people didn't have easy access to who the identity of the individual. Thus, if the gains are larger than the risk involved the individual can repeat his immoral actions, and even get imitated by others. In a small village setting, everyone knows everyone else. If someone screws someone else once his ability to screw anyone else again drops dramatically. One's ability to extract advantages from his community diminishes after a bad move, because people will marginalize this individual. So everyone gets it: if you screw someone you'll be shunned, it's not worth it...

That's why crime is low in small communities, not because people are different there, but because good behavior is reinforced by the way people are constrained to interact with each other. In the small village context, reputation becomes a very important asset and it is measured against accepted ethical norms. The same regulating mechanism operates in a highly interconnected world, i.e. in a world with Internet. If a company knowingly sells an unsafe product sooner or later this will come out, and a few dedicated individuals can literally bring this company down. A few passionate individuals have the means to destroy its reputation using the same social media it is using to market its products. See the Boomerang, a new way to fight work related injustice, how one person can take on a corporation.

In my opinion, by transforming the world into a small village the Internet forces economical entities to act ethically, or at least according to what the majority perceives as good ethics.  


By AllOfUs

Towards Science 2.0

This is an initiative to harvest the new technology for scientific projects. Good start! Still a lot to be developed...

 The Research Cooperative was established in 2001 as an international, not-for-profit organisation (NPO).

Our mission is to support academic, scientific, and popular research communication in all subjects, languages, and media.

Go to their homepage.

See also the Discovery Network concept proposed by the Multitude Project.

By AllOfUs

2020 Social Workshop on Social Media for Non-Pofits

Check the SlideShare Presentation bellow by Gaurav Mishra. I find it very useful to understand the new technology and its impact on how we do business. But I also to take away another lesson: large corporations like DELL fully embraced social media and are actually benefiting from it. But here's my question: is the new social technology the Trojan horse of corporations? Is this the ultimate act of blind greed and desperation for profits that will initiate the demise of these hierarchies?

I believe that once social media penetrates into a corporation it brings with it a whole new culture, a deadly poison. This is the culture of sharing and collaboration, of freedom and autonomy, along with the realization that real value resides within the masses.

Business people are just realizing that in a context where you can gather and organize input from millions of individuals and engage them all in different types of activities it becomes more profitable to open the organization a little, to blur its boundaries. The argument is that if you have the means to engage a large number of individuals there might be a way to extract value from them, but first you need to invite them to your party, so you need to open your door.

Until recently, the prevalent model was that the corporation decides what people want, makes the product and pushes it to the market by manufacturing a desire for it. (Most products are sold based on desire, not on need.) Executives are now realizing that when the consumer is part of the design and the marketing process something magical happens and profits surge. The new technology makes this possible, offering very effective communication and collaboration tools. But to make it work, they need to create a hype around the product, which is now sold as a social cause, a story, an event, and to create a community around it. So the model is shifting, the consumer is part of the design and the marketing campaign, he's part of the process now. There is an open dialog between the corporation and the public, there is some sort of collaboration (implying reciprocity), or at list this is what the corporation wants YOU to believe. They want to make you feel as if you are contributing to something meaningful, because they need your input. They manufacture a community around a product because they want to trap your gregarious instincts with it, in order to get your cooperation to buy the product, to talk about it, and to contribute with new product-ideas. It works to a certain extent... The long-term problem is to maintain voluntary individual cooperation in a situation where the individual has other choices. At some point down the line people are going to wake up and smell the manipulation, especially if they have other points of comparison, other models bases on true reciprocity.

You cannot engage the people in your cause for a long time without making them perceive that they get something back. You cannot make a community without making a community. If you make a party but you keep all the goodies for yourself in a hidden room, sooner or later people will find that out and, because they have the choice, they will simply leave you and go to the another party. All this is based on individual choice and cooperation. People give (time, ideas, etc.) as long as they perceive that they get something back. Not necessarily material benefits, we are dealing with a multi-value system. If your community doesn't feel like one you cannot gain the fool cooperation of your crowd. But this is not the end of the story!

These executives smelled the money and, almost by reflex, they made the move, not realizing that embracing the new social technology, even to the extent they did, is incompatible with their very nature. You cannot be closed hierarchy and an open decentralized community at the same time! By adopting the social media DELL corporation makes the statement that there IS value in the multitude. People know what they need and they have good ideas in terms of design. The interconnected multitude is also good at evaluating the product according to a multi-dimensional set of criteria, taking into consideration functionality, ergonomics, ecology, safety, etc. The corporation engaging the multitude is forced to acknowledge this, it is forced to look into this matter by the success of others. This shift to the social business model is the first act of their demise, initiating a slow and precarious metamorphoses towards purely collaborative systems. Most corporations will not survive this transformation. At this moment, behind the veil of openness there is a lucid and manipulative mind, but after some time working with the social model executives will realize that there is much more value to be extracted from the multitude. They will eventually come to the conclusion that the best way to maintain a high level of individual involvement and cooperation within an open and diffuse organization is to give people a real sense of belonging to a real community. Is to invite creative and hard working individuals from everywhere to join the venture and to extract benefits from their involvement in proportion to their contributions. In other words, whose hierarchies who can survive the metamorphoses will become value networks.

But wait a second, economical entities only act in the direction of increased economical power. Who says that opening even more leads to greater economical power? (Notice that I don't use the word profit, we want to allow other types of economies to emerge.) You find the answer to this question here. See also open value networks.

We are just at the beginning of the business 2.0 phenomena. This technology that we call social is very young still. Corporations have already implemented new methods to improve their products and to boost their sales. Slowly but surely we will see emerging in parallel decentralized organizations of design and production, which will fully embrace the culture of sharing and collaboration, based on new economical principles. These new organizations will be able to enlist vast social forces because they will be able to convey the message to the participating multitude that their output belongs to them! These alternatives, although slow to emerge, will gradually take over the economy. Corporations will go through a metamorphoses to become open and decentralized, most of them will not survive this radical transformation.

Gaurav Mishra, I see you as a powerful and mystical shaman followed by a group of executives, greedy, power hungry, and selfish, all anxiously waiting for their magical potion. Instead you are giving them their poison and rejoice at their insane smile of happiness, not seeing their tragic faith soon to arrive.

2020 Social Workshop on Social Media for Non-Pofits

View more presentations from 2020 Social.

2020 Social Decoding Social Workshop

View more presentations from 2020 Social.

Internet and social revolutions

What is different about the Internet compared to other communication mediums when one considers the dynamics of social mass movements? A social movement is the alignment of peoples’ actions according to a new system of values, beliefs, or a new ideology. Before the movement becomes obvious to an observer, before one can notice a new behavioral pattern, it is necessary for the new values system to spread throughout society, and to be adopted by a critical number of individuals. Notice that there are two important components in this process: the spread of information and its acceptance by different individuals.

Concerning the first, there is no much else to say about the efficacy of the Internet technology in spreading information or about its supremacy over all the other means of communication. Not only that, but the Internet is inherently democratic, giving a voice to everyone, rich and poor.

The second component, the adoption of the new ideas, must be examined a little closer in order to reveal the impact of the Internet on social movements. Take two modes of communication: one-to-many and one-to-one. An example of one-to-many communication is a person speaking to a crowd, say Martin Luther JR. King giving his I have a dream speech. The most obvious example of one-to-one communication would be two individuals directly speaking to each other, a form of two-ways synchronous communication, or an individual reading a book, a form of one-way asynchronous communication between the writer and the reader. In both cases we have on one side the teacher, or the person spreading the new ideas, and on the other side the uninitiated crowd or the individual(s) receiving the new teachings. If we consider the receiver, we can easily accept the fact that his/her receptivity is influenced by what others have to say about the message of the teacher. In general, you have a greater chance to convince someone of anything if you are talking to this person alone. In a crowd, if the message is somewhat controversial, if it threatens only a few vocal individuals, their reactions can influence the way others interpret the message, by seeding doubts in their minds. The dynamics of the crowd can help the speaker only when a majority already accepts the message, because the general approval puts pressure on the skeptics who fill themselves rejected. But here we are interested in social revolution and the social movements that make it happen. We are talking about disruptive social changes, which almost always stems from originally controversial ideas. Well, most of the information consumed on the Internet is asynchronous one-to-one or many-to-one. On the receiver side we have one individual alone, which makes this individual much more receptive to the new ideas.

Social movements are much more dynamic today because information is usually transmitted through the Internet to a single receiver at the time, and also because the Internet is the most efficient medium of communication ever implemented. Moreover, the number of those spreading the information is also increased, as new adepts possess all the means (affordable communication tools) to become effective teachers. Furthermore, the Internet is not only a communication platform; it also acts as a coordination and collaboration platform. The growth rate and the coherence acquired by social movements today surpass the capacity of any means to suppress them in the arsenal of those in power.

by AllOfUs

Economical crisis in the US and how to fix it

You can find hundreds of forums where people discuss the actual economical situation and propose solutions. This is actually good, the population is becoming more and more interested in such general and important topics. Society is waking up, things are starting to move, people are getting interested and a little agitated, they want to get involved in something to improve things. But when you listen to their proposals it sounds like if they were waking up from a deep sleep since the 60's. The new technology and its social implications are almost totally absent from their language.

First, when it comes to the economical crisis the problem is NOT the production capacity or the human power and creativity. The problems we are facing now are SYSTEMIC. They DON'T reside in us, the people. The economical and financial systems have been in great part monopolized. A monopoly restricts free associations and hinders exchanges in society, which means that it chokes the economy. A monopoly restricts freedom for motives other than the well being of all and, in doing so, the market shots down. Read "The Revolution: A Manifesto" by Ron Paul, I don't agree with everything he is saying, but he exposes this particular reality quite well. To this add the corruption, which is another consequence of monopolies, given enough time they tend to become increasingly dissolute. No matter how much productive potential you have, if the system doesn't allow you to express it you cannot contribute to the economy, create jobs, and make a good living in doing so.

My friends, let's start thinking outside of the box... Let's abandon the capitalism/socialism dichotomy and think of new solutions for a new reality in new terms. We don't live in the 60's or 70's anymore. Even the 90's seam to belong to a different era. That's before the digital camera, the cell phone and the Internet. We are talking about a new reality, new possibilities, new and powerful tools for communication, collaboration and coordination, robotics, fast transportation, new sources of energy... new ways of doing things, new alternatives that compete with the old centralized and corrupt institutions.

The proper attitude is to follow the MULTITUDE SOCIAL MOVEMENT, which is to think of how you can use the tools you have at your disposal to escape from monopolies. Think of new ways to exchange with your peers by bypassing the system, which is there ONLY to suck from the flow that is channeled through it. Using the new tools offered by the new technology build networks and connect producers and consumers directly. Let the benefit stay with the people. This will shift the center of gravity in our society from the elite to the multitude, to us.

Restructuring tax is part of the solution BUT the proper way to do it is to be found in the proper context. To change politicians is fine, but there are other corrupt ones waiting to take their place. We must change society from the ground up. We must reconstruct it! The multitude social movement, this CONSTRUCTIVE REVOLUTION is about creating new democratic and decentralized institutions alongside the old ones, while directly profiting from it. It will not take long before the old hierarchical monopolistic institutions will be starved and the new ones will form the new fabric of our new society. Think constructively! Think to increase your freedom. Think to divorce monopolistic systems whenever you can. It is not only in our collective interest, it is primarily in YOUR best interest.

See Economical Alternatives

By AllOfUs

You need a job? Why don't you create your own?

Think MULTITUDE !

The multitude movement is a global fast-raising social movement based on the realization that the new technology offers us very powerful tools that we can use to improve our lives, to free ourselves from different forms of monopolies. This movement will rapidly shift the center of gravity in society from hierarchical institutions to decentralized networks, to the multitude, leading to a more democratic society. But how can you help yourself now?

The examples of Linux and Wikipedia demonstrate that governments and large corporations, large vertical or hierarchical organizations, have lost their monopoly on the creation of value. Decentralized organizations, ad hoc groups of passionate individuals, can get together and produce very complex and valuable products, which can compete with the most powerful corporations. Think about this... a few crazy people contributing a few minutes per day can create something equivalent to Microsoft's Windows... Have you ever paused to think about this, how significant this is? Did you ever ask yourself how this is even possible?

There is no magic here. The secret is that the new technology offers us very powerful tools for communication, collaboration, and coordination, which work at the global scale. How many crazy computer geeks do you know who instead of watching the hockey game they sit in front of their computer and write code? I personally know only one and I consider myself lucky. There are a few in every city. But their total number throughout the entire planet is something very large. What happens is that this Internet and all the wonderful communication, collaboration and coordination tools we've built on it makes it possible for them to get together and do stuff. Without the Internet they can rarely meet with one another, let alone to collaborate. The new technology makes possible systems that rely on very, very scarce human resources. This is one important lesson.

Similar structures for the production of material goods and services are just starting to emerge. Models like the Discovery Network promise great economical advantages, with the benefits getting right into the hands of the people. Communication and collaboration tools play a crucial role in the design process of new products, coordination and logistical tools as well as the modern transportation technology become important for manufacturing and distribution. You have a good product idea? Why waiting for some big corporation to buy it from you for a handful of peanuts? Get on the Internet, start making contacts with the people you need, build a network, put your efforts together and build the product! Open yourself to collaboration, don't be afraid that someone will still you idea, count on speed not on secrecy/defense. The most important thing today is to be first to the market with a good product. Read more about Discovery Network.

One good example of production-distribution networks, or flat organizations profiting directly to small producers as well as to the consumer, is the food basket idea.

Individuals can also take advantage of the possibilities offered by the new technology by creating alternatives in the financial sector, and by profiting from these alternatives. Peer-to-peer lending creates wealth for the people, and all of it stays with the people. Search for examples on the Internet.

In the transportation area, new public transportation, as well as transportation of material goods models are emerging, where individuals can benefit form an aging and clogged infrastructure maintained by vertical organizations. You badly need some money ? Why don't you do Taxi for a day, or help a local farmer to transport his vegetables to the city.

These are just a few examples to get you started. Let's start thinking outside of the box! Instead of always looking for a job ask yourself if you can create your own. Look around, try to understand what people need and try to find a different way to address that need. Think of using the tools offered by the new technology. Build symbiotic relations with others, open yourself to the world, communicate, collaborate, coordinate... you have the tools. The opportunities today are endless. People need stuff, there is a need for an economy, the economical depression problem is not in us. The system who defines our daily transactions with the world is rotten. It doesn't allow individuals to exchange freely. The finance and the economy have been centralized, monopolized. We are at the mercy of this system and of those who control it. But there is a way out! Use your creativity to build alternatives to monopolistic institutions. Increase peer-to-peer transactions. It is possible today. Why not take advantage of it?

By AllOfUs

Mr. Freeman

Russia was taken by storm by a series of anonymous and very mysterious cartoons. Their artistic merit is undeniable and their message is very controversial. See for yourself. This is a great example of how powerful the imagination can get when coupled with the new technology. Who said that a few cartoonists can't turn a political regime upside down?

See others (not so easy to find them all in English):

http://www.youtube.com/user/MrFreeMan0

From AllOfUs

Internet and militia corruption in Russia

Members of the Russian militia, the equivalent of the police forces in north America, are using the Internet to fight corruption within their own ranks. The reaction of the institution is the classical one, dismissal, and in some cases false accusations followed by imprisonment. This demonstrates that the higher ranks of the Russian militia don't know how to deal effectively with the "multitude" social phenomena, which is good news. They don't seam to understand that their actions of reprisal will inevitably turn back to bite them, now in the age of the free and democratic media. Moreover, they also need to realize that these good militia man and woman can coordinate their efforts using the same digital technology and the Internet, and rally the support of the people, who already despise militia arrogance and corruption.

See the case of officer Alexey Alexandrovich Dymovsky.

A video stating to be by police major Alexei Dymovskiy from Novorossiysk in Krasnodar region recently appeared on Youtube. Alexey Dymovskiy accused his chiefs of corruption in a public speech addressed to the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin: “our administration stimulates the corruption itself”. The reaction from Krasnodar territorial police chief Lt. Gen. Sergei Kucheruk was to dismiss Major Dymovskiy for slander, Ministry spokesman Valery Gribakin told Itar-Tass. (See source of this quote here.)

New development

http://en.dymovskiy.name/

By AllOfUs

How the new technology is used by the ruling class

A tyrannical government applies the new information technology in a way which is dictated by its own condition. Because it is bound to adopt a centralized and hierarchical organizational structure, and because the goal is to maintain control, the tyrannical government is unable to actualize the full potential of this generative technology.

Tyrannical governments are constantly trying to improve their situation, and they are exploring the potential of the new emerging technology. However, it is important to understand that the way they look at it is profoundly affected by their condition. They are materially obliged to adopt a hierarchical form of organization, and this fundamental constraint creates in turn the paradigm which governs their vision and their interpretation for the new technology. Consequently, the solutions proposed so far, in general, are not generative. They don't posses the multiplication property by which their effect grows exponentially, simply because potential must be contained within a hierarchical structure of power. Overall, governments are interested in rapid and accurate access to personal information, analysis of personal information on a large scale to extract trends and patterns, increased control over individual potential and material possibilities of success, increased communication and coordination capabilities between the instruments of power, better forecasting and planning, increased efficiency in controlling masses by force, etc. Some of these tools are becoming very effective, but more vulnerable, because most of these systems are centralized.

The future will be determined by the race between the tyrants and the multitude, by how much potential each side can actualize from the new technology. My bet is on the multitude. By sheer number and counting on the creative power of the connected multitude, we have the potential to explore all possible applications of the new technology and to extract all the benefits for ourselves. Moreover, the new technology seams to be better suited to connect individuals and to sum their collective efforts then to divide and to control.

From All Of Us

Are we loosing our chance to freedom

Where is the Internet going? It must stay open, neutral!

From AllOFUs