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Posts Tagged ‘ the socializers ’

Follow your bliss: The future of human interaction with the invisible

August 26, 2010 | No Comments | social media observations

Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls. ~Joseph Campbell

The future of human interaction with the invisible has fully arrived. We are now firmly in an era where Predictive and Temporal Analytics (THINK: Analytics-Driven Policy) MATCHED WITH abundant Storytelling/Transmedia genius HAS yielded full-blown portals into the realm of RELATIONSHIP TO THE MYTHIC. One need only look at the largest portals to VIRTUAL, PHYSICAL and ROMANTIC relationship creation for evidence of these doorways.

WHAT IS “RELATIONSHIP TO THE MYTHIC”? (And why is this important?)

Joseph Campbell, the mythologist, writes, “The role of the artist I now understood as that of revealing through the world-surfaces the implicit forms of the soul, and the great agent to assist the artist was the myth.” Wolfgang Pauli writes of “an invisible, potential form of reality that is only indirectly inferable through its effects.”

I submit to the reader that through a combination of Listening to Oneself AND Investigation using Social Monitoring Tools, humans can now discover “worm-holes” that lead directly to their most cherished and inner-desired locations. I would also suggest that these most cherished INNER LOCATIONS are spiritual destinations characterized by terms like nostalgia and “the best times of my life”. Such INNER and REMEMBERED locations MAY be the most desirable locations known to mankind AND MAY also be THE wellspring of creativity for the individual, a society and the whole of humanity. We all seek the bright field, which IS the MYTHIC REALM.

The process for accessing these locations COULD trace the following path:

1. LISTEN TO YOUR OWN HEART by taking one single day out of your life and spending that 24 hour period alone. Simply listening. Karl Menninger writes, ”Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. The friends who listen to us are the ones we move toward. When we are listened to, it creates us , makes us unfold and expand.” Places like Spirit Rock, Esalen, Omega Institute, forests, deserts, islands and parks within cities can facilitate a window TO THE dreamed-of location.

2. WRITE! During your time of listening to yourself, write. And underline the words that mean the most to you. Those are your search terms, the keywords that you will use in the social fabric of the internet to find others like you, destinations of your tribe and eco-systems sympathetic to YOUR nature. Joseph Campbell writes, “One way or another, we all have to find what best fosters the flowering of our humanity in this contemporary life, and dedicate ourselves to that.” What a fabulous reality we have in that the social fabric of the internet offers abundant paths to the flowering of our humanity!

3. IDENTIFY YOUR KEYS. Take your keywords, your KEYS, to the social monitoring tools, visual maps, AND keyword tools and follow your findings to the location of your tribe in the social networks!

4. BOARD YOUR PLANE, TRAIN OR AUTOMOBILE, whether this be a metaphor for mental passage, spiritual exploration, relationship deepening/adjustment/discovery AND/OR actual physical movement.

5. WRITE YOUR LOVE LETTERS TO THE WORLD as you travel to the land of your tribe (Hint: That’s what blogging, tweeting, FBing, Flickr-ing, YouTubing, SlideShare-ing, etc. really are…these are your forums to express your GIFT to the world). The joy and beauty of your journey will infiltrate and instruct the fabric of the communities around you and inspire others to do their own exploration and SHIFT!

What each must seek in his life never was on land or sea. It is something out of his own unique potentiality for experience, something that never has been and never could have been experienced by anyone else. ~Joseph Campbell

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The Psyche and Social Networks

August 20, 2010 | 1 Comments | brands and social media, social media observations

Social networks and media are templates for humanity to develop multi-dimensional/spiritual abilities. Greek myth is just one “instruction manual” for application of this metaphor. One could identify the JOURNEY of BOTH the individual AND the community in social networks WITH Psyche’s journey toward Eros in the Greek myth of Psyche and Eros. For the Greeks, the essence of Eros is the unfoldment of human thought, and in Greek philosophy, he is described as a liberating agent who releases and activates the creative process of the mind. Eros inspires and opens the channel of intuition to the higher and abstract understanding and communion with beauty and truth. The myth of Eros and Psyche describes in detail the inner process of transformation.

One could identify the JOURNEY of BOTH the individual AND the community in social networks WITH Psyche’s journey toward Eros in the Greek myth of Psyche and Eros. For the Greeks, the essence of Eros is the unfoldment of human thought, and in Greek philosophy, he is described as a liberating agent who releases and activates the creative process of the mind. Eros inspires and opens the channel of intuition to the higher and abstract understanding and communion with beauty and truth. The myth of Eros and Psyche describes in detail the inner process of transformation.

To begin, here is a shortened version of the tale:

ONCE UPON A TIME there was a king with three daughters. They were all beautiful, but by far the most beautiful was the youngest, Psyche. She was so beautiful that people began to neglect the worship of Venus, the goddess of love and beauty. Venus was very jealous, and asked her son Cupid (the boy with the arrows) to make Psyche fall in love with a horrible monster. When he saw how beautiful she was, Cupid dropped the arrow meant for her and pricked himself, and fell in love with her.

Despite her great beauty no-one wanted to marry Psyche. Her parents consulted an oracle, and were told that she was destined to marry a monster, and they were to take her to the top of a mountain and leave her there. The west wind took her and wafted her away to a palace, where she was waited on by invisible servants. When night came her new husband visited her, and told her that he would always visit her by night and she must never try to see him.

Although her invisible husband was kind and gentle with her, and the invisible servants attended to her every desire, Psyche grew homesick. She persuaded her husband to allow her sisters to visit her. When they saw how she lived they became very jealous and talked Psyche into peeking at her husband, saying that he was a monster who was fattening her up to be eaten and that her only chance of safety was to kill him. Psyche took a lamp and a knife, but when she saw her beautiful husband, Cupid, she was so surprised she dripped some hot wax onto his shoulder, waking him. He took in the situation at a glance and immediately left Psyche and the magnificent palace she had been living in disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Psyche roamed about looking for her husband, and eventually in desperation approached his mother, Venus. Still angry, the goddess set various tasks for Psyche, all of which she passed, with a bit of help from ants and river gods. At last Cupid found out what was going on, and he persuaded Jupiter to order Venus to stop her persecution of Psyche. Then they were married and lived happily ever after – and it really was ever after since Psyche was made a goddess.

According to JEAN SHINODA-BOLEN, “In the Greek myth of Eros and Psyche, Psyche’s story is about the growth of the soul that began with her decision to face the truth, and led her to being on her own, challenged to complete tasks that were initially beyond her ability to perform. In the myth, her unseen bridegroom would come to her in the dark of the night and be gone by morning. Metaphorically, she was in an unconscious relationship. Fearing that he could be a monster, Psyche followed her sister’s advice, hid a lamp and a knife, and waited until he had fallen asleep. She needed the lamp to see him, and the knife to cut off his head if indeed her were a monster.”

“These two symbols, the lamp and the knife, are both necessary for a psyche–for a soul–to act decisively when we know the truth. The ‘lamp’ is a symbol of illumination, of consciousness, the means of seeing a situation clearly. The knife, like the sword, is a symbol of decisive action, of the capacity to cut through confusion. The lamp without the knife is not adequate; it is insight into the situation with the capacity to act upon this perception.”

“Myths and symbols are in the language of the soul. A myth helps us to take a situation to heart and know what we must do: if it is to see the truth and act upon it, then the image of Psyche with her sword provides a magic perspective. A symbolic object can then be a talisman that helps us to do what we need to do. Like passing a literal torch, these are rituals that empower us by infusing an act with a deeper meaning. To think and act this way is magical, metaphoric thinking that can call forth the qualities we need from within ourselves and may also tap into sources of help that lie beyond us.”

I submit that the social fabric of the internet IS the fabric of humanity’s collective soul. I also suggest that the tale of Psyche and Eros is a template for one’s journey into the complex eco-systems of social networks. In keeping with this metaphor, one has a real working metaphor that may act as a template, NOT ONLY for the INDIVIDUAL but also for the BRAND andCORPORATION. Brian Solis’ Behaviorgraphics images the action of one who gets how to access the heart of this collective digital environment. Pair Behaviorgraphics WITH his Conversation Prism and you have a philosophy of engaging not only a customer, a competitor and a market BUT also one’s own unique gift and contribution to the world at large.

I submit that Psyche’s journey and the tasks she undertook to reach Eros IS a model for successful engagement by a BRAND of its target audience.

What were her tasks and HOW does this look from a marketing standpoint?

a)  SORTING OF THE SEEDS: Intelligence gathering and listening. Psyche’s first task is to sort all the seeds that are heaped up in a room. This is a wonderful metaphor for all of the possibilities before a brand. Sorting the seed is really taking stock. What are all of the seeds of possibility in the psyche of your brand? What belongs where? WhichFacebook Groups, Key Influencers in blogs, Twitter, YouTube channels and in forums are worth engaging with? (read more on the importance of listening to the social fabric of the internet)

b)  THE GOLDEN FLEECE: Timing and correct audience for an offering. The second task of Psyche is to get some golden fleece from the violent rams of the sun, gather a small amount of it, and bring it to Aphrodite. This takes strategy. Some of the best examples of effective strategists come from the extremely competitive environments of sports and warfare. Military strategy in particular provides a template for marketers as they move out into the social fabric of the internet and command a particular market space. Here is a simple outline of HOW to move into the social space of the internet for enterprise-level businesses. And here is THE template for SCENARIO PLANNING straight from center of military strategy 101.

c)  CRYSTAL GOBLET OF WATER: Developing content that has depth and purchase with an audience. In the myth, Psyche has to deliver something of great value that is actually from the shadow realm – water from the River Styx: an image of being quenched by “hidden” wisdom and all the value such a quenching entails. This is the basis effective and engaging content theory: original, living/breathing messaging that comes from a place of depth.

Great content contains effective memes, or word-creatures, the weavers of this living tissue that we call the social fabric of the internet. Quotes, one-liners and personal news in the form of tweets and status updates are examples of word-creatures that move through individual and communal minds/hearts to what end none of us may ever know. These thought-animals consume the attention of a community, grow larger, and move deeper into the texture of the community.

Eros IS a powerful archetypal force in the action of these thought-animals. Civilization is a process in the service of Eros, whose purpose is to combine single human individuals, and after that families, then races, peoples and nations, into one great unity, the unity of mankind. Why this has to happen, we do not know; the work of Eros is precisely this. Great content is informed by the greek god Eros. It is lyrical and attracts.

d)  PERSEPHONE’S BEAUTY: In her fourth task, Psyche descends into Hades to retrieve some of Persephone’s beauty for Aphrodite. Psyche is given a box to carry the beauty in. To do this task requires incredible focus and compliance with a list of complicated instructions – things to do and NOT to do.

Again, with this task, we return to the psyche’s connection with what is real for an audience: image vs. reality, the cover of a book vs. the full text, and an engagement + lifetime relationship with the customer developed. In the fourth task, it could be said that Psyche undergoes a kind of ego-death in order to serve love. This love of the demographic we are marketing to really captures the identity of today’s most effective marketers. Immersion in the “underworld”, in the shadows AND beauty of the target customer within that demographic gives a marketer insight and a kind of hypnotic power over the audience. To know a demographics shadow, both in negative and positive potential, yields a FULL knowing of the OTHER. The value of understanding what is “hidden” within a demographic’s collective psyche is priceless. A fabulous example of such an exploration may found in books like Karma Queens, Geek Gods and Innerpreneurs: Meet the 9 Consumer Types Shaping Today’s Marketplace. In this book, the author has delved deeply into the internal complexity of his market’s psychic complexion and the result is a fantastic study of that demographic. Read it!

To continue, Psyche goes all the way with this fourth task and is brought back to life through Eros’ kiss in the end. The image here is of giving oneself IN SERVICE and doing EVERY single action required to reach the center of the customer’s heart.

A fabulous condensation of HOW social business pros REACH THE CENTER OF THE CUSTOMER’S HEART, with REAL case studies, has been assembled by ANN MACK (Director of Trendspotting at JWT Intelligence) in her June 2010 Social Media Checklist. Ann has identified 18 global experts in social business integration and outlined the  powerful process of ENGAGEMENT, the heart of social business practice! Another recommended read!

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Passage to the heart of vitality: Why brands must humanize in the context of social networks

August 18, 2010 | No Comments | brands and social media, social media observations

Last night I sat with a client in LA discussing the growth of social networks, social monitoring/intelligence projects AND transparent social eco-systems. We agreed with one another that no matter how transparent the eco-system of social networks becomes, there really are countless skins of the onion left to peel off. And that applies from the individual to the corporate level.

Could it be that complaining about transparency in social networks IS REALLY FEAR OF IDENTITY TRANSFORMATION? I submit to participants within social networks that your very participation in the social fabric of the internet IS a transformative act.

“Social-networking sites, blogs, online discussion forums and online journals represent modern arenas for individuals to write themselves into being,” writes Theresa Sauter. “A lot of people see social networking as a new way for people to interact but I’m interested in examining it as a way to form an identity and understand ourselves,” she added.

The potential of an increasingly transparent eco-system in social networks is an OPENING OF THE HEART. This opening is a kind of humanizing of all that was once mechanical and commercial. And, as a result, phenomena like brands, corporations and products take on a living nature as brand ambassadors, community managers and Chief Customer Officers interact with customers in a dialogue format. Communication between the “storied heights” of corporations and the humans that buy from these corporations has NEVER had such an opportunity for intimacy.

How does this work? We now have numerous examples of major international brands who have realized the necessity of humanization. Pepsi’s Refresh Everything project, Nokia’s Shot By Fans project AND Zappos, Best Buy and Jet Blue Twitter-customer-service portals are ALL great examples of brands relating on a one-to-one basis with their customers in helpful and generous ways. DTC’s “Drop Everything For Love” campaign is one of my favorites, where people logged in with stories about how they had “dropped everything for love”. The best stories were awarded with the opportunity to do just that.

So here’s a direct challenge and invitation to the CEO’s, GM’s and MM’s of the world: Would you drop everything for love? Consider the benefit of falling in love with your customer and steering your brand(s) in a direction that ATTRACT and enroll him/her/them in the process of brand vitality through intuitively designed reward-driven campaigns. We must hunt for dollars as the leaders of corporations with a responsibility to our shareholders AND we must also create a brand culture that fosters generosity, reward and a community/environment of friendliness. In a world where “friending” and “following” have catapulted customer equity beyond brand equity AND elevated customer lifetime value over current sales, IT BECOMES THE RESPONSIBILITY OF BUSINESS LEADERS TO CREATE HOSPITABLE BRANDS. The identity of corporate culture AND brand presence has never had a more favorable environment for transforming identity and re-making the world.

Virginia Satir, the fabulous author of The New Peoplemaking, writes, “I believe the greatest gift I can conceive of having from anyone is to be seen by them, heard by them, to be understood and touched by them.” Brands that design/implement product, communication and sales strategy BASED upon listening to their customer WILL win. Listening IS the action that opens every petal of the human community and gives individuals and brands passage to the heart of vitality and re-productivity.

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Transmedia, OnDemand and the power of listening to audiences

August 15, 2010 | 2 Comments | Ad Agencies and Social Media Marketing, brands and social media, social media observations

By Nathaniel Hansen, CEO, The Socializers

If more Marketing Managers at Fortune 500 companies/major media companies truly understood the potential of future media delivery channels like GoogleTV PAIRED WITH “content-informing-intelligence”, there would be a mass re-organization of dinosaur-age ad/marketing agencies whose teams have yet to even train in social monitoring/intelligence tools AND have none of the talent-identification capabilities that a CAA or William Morris has. Those same Marketing Managers would then turn to social business agencies for the following process:

(a) pre-product dev intelligence gathering/listening,
(b) demographic-savvy content/product design RELATED TO what is discovered/analyzed from conversations in the social fabric of the internet,
(c) Relationship Architecting with related Social Strategy to identify ideal Key Influencers (and their content), thus paving the way for seamless and swift introduction of said content into the fabric of communities hungry for it,
(d) on-going listening that creates a virtuous cycle of this process.

The future leaders of transmedia will use the process above as just one of their approaches in expanding possibility for those who interact with media, advertisers, media/content producers AND communications entities. Transmedia and the associated processes that will bring this fabulous new way of interactive relationship to programming IS the future of CONTENT IDENTIFICATION AND PRODUCTION.

Colin Donald of FUTURESCAPE.TV says it best in the following comment on an article entitled Struggling for control: The humble channel-zapper is evolving in ways that will shape television’s futurein a recent edition of The Economist magazine:

“Internet-connected TVs lead to massively increased choice and require next-generation EPGs to help viewers navigate the wealth of content.

One solution backed by many in the industry, like Rovi, is to develop social EPGs that let friends recommend TV shows and videos to each other, via social networks or via systems which use data from social networks.
However, the implications are even more radical than your article suggests.

When Futurescape.TV recently researched this nascent social TV sector, we concluded that Facebook and Twitter are already battling for key roles in the TV industry as Internet-connected televisions transform TV into a social medium.

The two social networks have an actual or potential commercial role across the entire TV value chain.

For instance:
Global pay-TV, estimated at $250bn in 2014, needs social recommendation and discovery services because these encourage viewers to subscribe to more expensive packages and buy more video-on-demand – Facebook and Twitter are both major providers of social data.

Facebook in particular has a highly developed social graph of people’s relationship with entertainment content, from the ubiquitous Like button, integrated into many broadcasters’ Web sites. Both it and Twitter own considerable, detailed data about people’s behaviour, such as discussing TV shows and sharing links to videos.

As your article described, set-top box middleware and EPG providers similarly need social network data for recommendation and discovery – the European EPG market alone will be worth $555m by 2014.

TV manufacturers’ strategy to provide video-on-demand direct to viewers also requires social recommendation, while their connected TV apps enable viewers to interact with Facebook and Twitter on home TV sets. Facebook aims to tap the $180bn worldwide TV ad market, competing with broadcasters for brand advertising – Google TV and similar Web-on-TV systems will put Facebook and Twitter targeted ads on TV screens.

Facebook and Twitter buzz affects TV ratings, while broadcasters that use the social networks for viewer engagement are effectively sharing their audiences with them.

The social networks know in real time how people react to TV programming – this is an essential supplement to Nielsen-type viewing data.

Integrating social networks with EPGs is only one manifestation of a profound and permanent change in the television industry, a change through which Facebook and Twitter are positioning themselves as major industry players.”

The teams working on Oprah’s new cable channel and on eBook sales strategy at Bertelsmann’s Random House are contending with issues related to the new possibilities in transmedia and how to make content delivery platforms lucrative for their shareholders WHILE giving users the most flexibility in interacting with their portfolios of content. Those media publishers who acknowledge the value in being customer-centric vs. product-centric in their offering AND develop platforms that allow maximum interactivity WILL win!

To quote Ali Valdez, a senior Microsoft sales leader, “Their customers will be their marketers. Their customers’ social network friends will be their new customers. Full transparency, good and bad, will drive innovation and competitive pricing. The consumer will win. Those brands that enable consumer victory will share in the bounty.”

TO SUM UP: Combining research from tools like Recorded Future, the world’s first temporal analytics engine (a video intro to Recorded Future here), and Radian6, a leading social media/network monitoring solution, media companies now have the opportunity to LISTEN to audiences that have OPTED OUT of traditional marketing channels and are OPTING INTO new, socially chosen/recommended channels. They then are able to match valuable information from conversations within the social fabric of the internet WITH market trends and probable future events to create product/service/content offerings with previously un-paralleled precision. Existing portfolios of content may be re-purposed into countless monetizable and USER-GENERATED interactive communities.

Understanding the future requires observation and listening and it is a Chief Customer Officer who will teach this to marketing staff, brand managers and community managers.

Popularity: 55% [?]

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Robert Boyle’s prophetic ‘wish list’ made in the 17th Century

August 4, 2010 | No Comments | General, social media news

Robert Boyle’s prophetic ‘wish list’ made in the 17th Century. Boyle was founder of the ”Invisible College” at Oxford University.

(Thanks to George Ure in the Predictors Group, the LinkedIn Group for RecordedFuture, a new temporal search tool that “searches the future”).

”The Prolongation of Life” – health improvements mean we are now living longer.

”The Recovery of Youth, or at least some of the Marks of it, as new Teeth, new Hair colour’d as in youth” – Botox, plastic surgery, teeth-capping, hair dye, transplants.

”The Art of Flying” – planes.

”The Art of Continuing long under water, and exercising functions freely” – submarines and scuba gear.

”The Cure of Diseases at a distance or at least by Transplantation” – transplants and keyhole surgery.

”The Emulating of Fish without Engines by Custome and Education” - free diving.

”Strength and Agility … exemplify’d by that of Frantick Epileptick and Hysterical persons” – steroids.

”The Acceleration of the Production of things out of Seed” – GM crops.

”The making of Parabolicall and Hyperbolicall Glasses” – spectacles and telescopes.

”Making Armor light and extremely hard” – Kevlar.

”The practicable and certain way of finding Longitudes” – satellite navigation.

”A ship to saile with All Winds” – boats with engines.

”Perpetuall Light” – bulbs.

”Varnishes perfumable by Rubbing” - scratch-and-sniff.

”Transmutation of Species in Mineralls, Animals, and Vegetables” – synthetic biology, genetic engineering.

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Firmly within a renaissance of expression

August 1, 2010 | No Comments | social media observations

The logos of the soul, psychology, implies the act of traveling the soul’s labyrinth in which we can never go deep enough. ~ James Hillman

Social networks are images of this labyrinth and virtual activities are just a fraction of the myriad activities occuring within the intangible fabric of the collective human psyche. Humanity has increasing evidence through the sheer volume of content pumping through social networks of the vastness of the imagination and the soul. The physical size of our Earth is minute compared to the endless worlds contained within the human psyche. Even spending one day searching various videos, photos, songs and events, one may find incredible variety. We ARE firmly within a renaissance of expression.

THE ADVENT OF GOOGLE TV, as one example, opens a fantastic new territory for ANYONE to make money from advertising RELATED to their video content. The major studios ought to run contests in which the world votes who gets to use their equipment to make movies, based upon viewership on Google TV and YouTube. The same goes for music. Humanity IS running itself, thanks to the fantastic inventions now in place for content distribution and collaboration.

It remains to be seen what humanity will orient around. Now that we have Google TV, LinkedIn, GIVEO and Facebook, a catastrophe like the BP Oil spill could be cleared up very quickly simply by harnessing the precision of these tools to (a) spread awareness, (b) identify the experts best suited to solve the issue, (c) garner support for getting the clean-up paid for and (d) following up with prizes and celebration!

THE TABLET REVOLUTION: In the coming 12 months, consumers will see a rapid acceleration in content for both Kindle-type and iPad-type tablets BUT iPad-type platforms will see the fastest climb due to multi-valent, holographic experience possibilities.

What is a holographic experience in the context of tablets and the social fabric of the internet? An example of such an experience in the social fabric of the internet could be as follows: Every tweet and Facebook status update is a blog post title (WordPress, Blogger, Posterous, Tumblr), every blog post a chapter in a digital book (eBook) populated by media, including (but not limited to), photos (Flickr), video (YouTube), music (Last.fm), and footnotes (Slideshare), every digital book a community (Ning), every community contains the full range of archetypal characters (The Conversation Prism), and each of those characters introduces your material to their tribes through tweets, blog posts, etc.

Simply put: BOOKS, AUTHORS, FILMS AND SONGS ARE COMMUNITIES.

The FUTURE OF BOOKS involves dynamic, interactive communities oriented around text as a jumping-off point into worlds upon worlds, all searchable, all monitorable, all monetizable. For examples of how this is true spend an hour reading about the fabulous successes (and failures, which often are the best pre-cursors to success).

So, what does it take to develop such a community? Content, an audience, and the appropriate networks within the social fabric of the internet. Engage in the following important steps for proper social business integration. At each stage, employ appropriate Researchers (Analysts), Producers (Graphic Artists + Writers), Conversationalists/Community Managers (Brand Ambassadors) and Problem-Solvers (Strategists/Techies/Programmers).

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The best strategic alliances

July 26, 2010 | No Comments | General, social media observations

“What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly.”- Lao Tzu

Some of the best strategic alliances are between a Critic and a Creative. The Critic drives the Creative to higher heights, the Creative gives the Critic his content for analysis and, really, the healing of a personal, and often collective, wound. In business, a culture’s wounds offer the largest sources for financial reward AND a positive giving-back: the essence of cause-related marketing.

It is said that the Creative invented the airplane, while the Critic invented the parachute. There are seasons for transcendence and seasons for grounding. In both actions, one needs the Critic and the Creative. Both are relentless beings made of the same stuff in important slices of their personalities. There is an old proverb about men sharpening one another like iron on iron.

Humanity has NO time left for people to figure out how profitable HUMANITY-SAVING VENTURES will be for their own Parea (Tribe) AND then shop those around. That is WHY we are seeing so much giving happening. Time is perceived by many as being short BUT for those who have found their tribe and their gift, these are the BEST DAYS to be alive. Everything is becoming visible before our eyes, everything is opening in the transparent eco-system of social networks.

And yet, as all of this revealing is going on, there seems to be a realization by many of what Carl Jung meant by the unconscious taking up far more of human experience than consciousness. Humanity is currently mapping its consciousness through the building of countless social networks and circles. This consciousness is a jumping off point for diving into the depths of the psyche…into the unconscious itself. And it is the complexes, archetypes and currents within an individual, communal and the collective unconscious that animate human thought, speech and action.

Identifying one’s archetypes and listening to the needs of those archetypes is just a first step in facilitating the design and assembly of useful social communities and tools. The next step involves a kind of deep sea exploration of what has not been spoken of and NEEDS speaking of in times such as these: the unconscious motivators/animators that, once brought into the light, no longer rule us and can be used by humans for solving the problems these self-same animators caused.

Look within to find the reason for what is without.

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FACEBOOK CELEBRATES 500MM USERS + FACEBOOK STATS

July 22, 2010 | No Comments | social media news

Wednesday, 21 July 2010
Facebook statistics – By the numbers
by Tom Mason

Facebook celebrated 500 million users yesterday. Here’s some more stats to satisfy your desire for information about the big blue social network…

The average Facebook user:

Has 130 friends

Spends around 1250 minutes on Facebook per month.

Creates around 70 pieces of content (updates, links, comments) per month

Uploads five photographs per month

Watches 5.6 Facebook videos per month

In the United Kingdom:

There are 27,020,020 Facebook users (43.7 per cent of the total population)

The United Kingdom has the second highest number of Facebook users (5.54% of global audience)

51.8% are female (13,576 100) while 48.2% are male (12,626,280)

Most users in the UK are between 25 and 34 years old. (26.5% of UK national audience)

62.5% of the UK online population have a Facebook account

31 per cent of users state they’re single

43 percent state they’re engaged, married or in a relationship

Global users

70% of the Facebook audience come from outside the United States

The top ten audiences are from (in millions):

1. United States 128,936,800
2. United Kingdom 27,020,020
3. Indonesia 26,277,000
4. Turkey 22,924,780
5. France 19,351,420
6. Italy 16,858,340
7. Canada 15,756,400
8. Philippines 15,284,460
9. Mexico 13,788,560
10. India 11,534,480

Between 2009 and 2010, Taiwan was the fastest adopted of Facebook, registering a 884% growth of users over the period

If Facebook would be a country it would be the 3rd largest in the world

There are 65 million mobile users of Facebook worldwide

User behaviour per month

20 million videos are uploaded globally

More than 2 billion videos are viewed through Facebook’s video format

Woman post 55% more content than men

The average user writes 25 comments and likes nine things

14 billion pieces of content are shared across the entire site

3.5 million events are created

1.6 billion status updates are made

PAGES

20 million users like new pages every day

There are around 5.3 billion likes for pages across the site

There are 1.6 million active pages

There are 700,000 pages for local businesses

The average user likes 2 pages per month

The most popular pages relate to movies, television shows, books and bands

The most popular brand pages on Facebook (globally) are:

Starbucks
Coca Cola
Skittles
Orea
Red Bull

The most popular pages on Facebook (globally) are:

Texas Hold’em Poker
Michael Jackson
Facebook
Mafia Wars
Lady Gaga

GAMES AND APPS

There are over 550,000 active applications

55% of Facebook gamers are female

28% of all Facebook gamers have purchased in-game currency

The average gamer plays six social games

Of the 200 million users who log into Facebook every day, 15% play FarmVille

80 million users regularly play FarmVille each month

Zynga, FarmVille’s creators, are responsible for five of the ten most popular Facebook games including Mafia Wars and Texas Hold’Em Poker

In 2009, Zynga’s revenue was estimated at $270 million

SOURCES:

http://www.facebakers.com/facebook-pages/
http://www.facebakers.com/facebook-pages/brands/
http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics
http://mashable.com/2010/07/07/oxygen-facebook-study/
http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/6128/The-Ultimate-List-100-Facebook-Statistics-Infographics.aspx
http://www.ekaterinawalter.com/2010/06/key-facebook-statistics-every-marketer-should-know/
http://www.insidefacebook.com/2010/06/10/facebook%E2%80%99s-video-stats-show-growth-in-uploads-and-views/
http://mashable.com/2010/02/17/social-gaming-survey/
http://www.nickburcher.com/2010/07/facebook-usage-statistics-by-country.html
http://www.checkfacebook.com/
http://gigaom.com/2010/07/21/facebook-officially-passes-the-half-a-billion-user-mark/

*Disclaimer – The author takes responsibility for incorrect stats or information.
Source of this article: http://bit.ly/source_facebook_stats_article

Popularity: 31% [?]

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Everyone can create communities from their content…Everyone!

July 21, 2010 | No Comments | social media observations

Stephanie Kaplan, Windsor Hanger, and Annie Wang, Founders of Her Campus

A trio of Harvard students take a campus publication online and discover a promising business opportunity

http://bit.ly/harvard_women_social

Popularity: 7% [?]

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Work Can Be Done Anytime, Anywhere!

July 19, 2010 | No Comments | General

Work Can Be Done Anytime, Anywhere!

Many web startups are composed of distributed teams. Many more have very loose definitions of “office hours.” Employees might roll in at one in the afternoon; they might stay and work the night away until the wee hours of the morning, too. And a lot of the time, they get to work from home.

Many Gen X and Millennial employees see the ability to work from home as a huge benefit — for some folks we’ve talked to, it counts as much as a pay raise. If you trust that your employees can handle themselves and get their work done on time, consider letting them work from home or adopt more flexible work hours. Your night owls will appreciate the opportunity to work with all pistons firing, and your early birds will love getting home to their loved ones before rush hour traffic starts. And everyone, from CEOs to secretaries, appreciates getting to work in their PJs every now and then.

Read more here on 5 Lessons to Learn from Web Startups (http://bit.ly/steps_for_web_startups).

Popularity: 4% [?]

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Iridescence

July 18, 2010 | No Comments | General

There are times in life when you find something so iridescent that nothing else can compare. In such moments head directly into the experience of beauty, for these are rare times that heal the soul, renew the mind and bring levity to one’s life journey! ~ Nathaniel Hansen

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THE CYCLE OF AWARENESS IN THE SOCIAL FABRIC OF THE INTERNET (REDUCED)

July 10, 2010 | No Comments | social media observations

THE CYCLE OF AWARENESS IN THE SOCIAL FABRIC OF THE INTERNET (REDUCED):

Every tweet (Twitter) and Facebook (Facebook) status update is a blog post title (WordPress, Blogger, Posterous, Tumblr), every blog post a chapter in a digital book (iBook) populated by media, including (but not limited to), photos (Flickr), video (YouTube), music (Last.fm), and footnotes (Slideshare), every digital book a community (Ning), every community contains the full range of archetypal characters (The Conversation Prism), and each of those characters introduces your material to their tribes through tweets, blog posts, etc.

And ALL of this is trackable, monitor-able and monetize-able!

Popularity: 4% [?]

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On AR Commerce

July 5, 2010 | No Comments | brands and social media

Years ago I walked into a large ballroom at the Biltmore Hotel in Montecito with a rep from CISCO. He handed me a little blue booklet. It was CISCO’s plan for commerce in the year we now inhabit – 2010!

Fast forward to this month and we have a fabulous rendition by Gary Hayes of what this book held + a summary by Barry O’Sullivan, SVP at CISCO, of predictions for this year. Mr. O’Sullivan’s 10th point on his list states:

“Customer Collaboration – organizations will continue to evolve the way they interact with their customers, responding to the ground swell of demand for consumer / vendor engagement in public arenas such as social networking sites and specialized forums. We expect to see early majority adoption of social customer care (what we call customer collaboration) solutions among larger organizations.” (Barry O’Sullivan’s full article here).

Mr. Hayes’ excellent video vision reflects Mr. O’Sullivan’s prediction and takes it several steps further, giving us an exciting preview of what is possible now! (Mr. Hayes’ video preview of Augmented Reality commerce here).

Popularity: 4% [?]

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Strategy for small businesses in crisis times

July 4, 2010 | No Comments | brands and social media

Strategy for small businesses in crisis times:

1. Take one day to listen to yourself:
– http://amzn.to/Proprioceptive
– http://amzn.to/walking_meditation
– “Silence is a source of great strength.” – Lao Tzu.

2. Take the next day to listen to your customer.

3. Take the 3rd day to map the intersection points of your dreams and your customer’s needs.
– http://bit.ly/Behance_Action
– http://bit.ly/37_signals
– http://bit.ly/Timeboxing

4.Create 20 strategies for you business based on these intersection points. Prioritize these strategies. Remember, strategic thought is the art of shaping realities.
– http://bit.ly/scenario_planning_method
– http://bit.ly/social_footprint_map

5. Identify and clear blockages to effectively actuating these strategies.
– Go for a stroll (this is very powerful and simple. Be sure to breathe while walking).
– Give attention to the thoughts (focus on the blockage itself and go into it.
            ”If you can’t get out of it, Get into it!” ~ from Outward Bound)
– Let go of thinking (vigorous physical exercise helps with this one, including dancing all night!)
– Be in the present moment (What is happening right now? And now? And now?)
– Practice conscious breathing
– Shift to a new scene
– Shift to doing something different
– Free association
– Reverse the thoughts
– Practice mindful non-judgment

6. Execute the strategies 1 by 1, using increased income to facilitate all the extras that come along and to give you white space for zen and more strategizing.

Popularity: unranked [?]

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The Social Media Checklist by JWT Intelligence

June 29, 2010 | No Comments | Ad Agencies and Social Media Marketing, brands and social media, social media news

Excited to be included in JWT’s Social Media Checklist 2010 at JWT Intelligence.

Popularity: 4% [?]

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How to make the transition from outer to inner reality, from Earth to Cyberspace

June 26, 2010 | No Comments | brands and social media, social media observations

It is in the space between inner and outer world, which is also the space between people–the transitional space–that intimate relationships and creativity occur. ~ Winnicott

I suggest that social networks ARE this transitional space for humanity. During this time of paradox and liminality, individuals get to explore the connections between themselves and others, between worlds hitherto seen as separate, between one’s deepest beliefs and trending topics. Liminal space has been defined as “…a space in which alternate realities meet, in which the past and future are open to us” by Starhawk, a leading teacher of human circle-gathering. Liminal space implies permeability and a kind of communication/discovery which has, up until now, been known by the very few.

Social networks have changed all of this. In fact, the very fact that boundaries are seemingly more permeable due to swift accessibility in social networks makes discovery of truth both more practical AND more questionable. The kinds of questions emerging out of our burgeoning social networks contain a specificity not seen 20 years ago. An example of this is the explosion of infographics available now to bring previously unseen phenomenon into view (http://bit.ly/infographic_blog_resource).

What is one TO DO amidst this increasing complexity AND swift migration of the human spirit/mind/heart from earth to virtual worlds, virtual economies and, quite honestly, whole new planets (formed and lived within the collective human psyche)?

Brian Solis has produced a fabulous graphic along with JESS3 (http://bit.ly/heart_based_marketing) that suggests the most effective roles humans can play in the social fabric of the internet. He invites us to be Problem Solvers, Producers, Curators and Conversationalists vs. being Marketeers, offering Too Much Information (TMI), being Complainers or Self-Promoters.

In keeping with this are Paulo Freire’s fabulous steps for solving problems and making progress. Find below the steps, along with social tools for aiding you in resolving just about any problem currently facing you in your life. By the way, prior to getting into this, I must add that having courage and belief in yourself is a BIG piece of the puzzle!

STEP 1: IDENTIFY THE PROBLEMS through getting acquainted with the participants in the issue/eco-system/sub-culture/conflict. – Do this using social listening and scanning tools (http://bit.ly/audience_counts) AND flesh-matching tools like http://www.meetup.com. Study focus group agencies and their methodologies: http://bit.ly/egg_strategy_blog

STEP 2: PRODUCE THE CODES – (a) Employ a graphic artist who is intuitive to help you create an infographic + a single symbol to hold the essence of that information OR (b) upload CSV files full of data to a tool like Many Eyes or another data visualization tool: http://bit.ly/many_eyes_tool. The infographic functions as a kind of map of a vicinity within a niche sub-culture or slice of the greater social eco-system AND the single symbol is a kind of talisman or avatar that holds the power of that niche and quickly communicates this in the greater social fabric of the internet.

STEP 3: SEE THE SITUATION AS THE PARTICIPANTS EXPERIENCE IT – More on this here: http://bit.ly/listening_tips.

STEP 4: JUDGE THE SITUATION – Read Chinese military classics like these: http://bit.ly/chinese_military_classics. Military leaders are some of the best diviners of truth, out of necessity. It has been un-fashionable and politically incorrect for too long in therapeutic settings to make outright judgements but we live in times when good judgement is more important than ever.

STEP 5: TAKE ACTION TO CHANGE THE SITUATION – Pro-active beings are the ones who make the world go round AND have the most fun in life. Here are some fabulous tools from Behance to aid you in getting IT done, whatever IT is: http://www.behance.com/Products.

Popularity: 4% [?]

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Recent video from presentation to Conservation group in California on social media

June 15, 2010 | 3 Comments | brands and social media

The Importance of a Customer-Centric Business Approach

Video Link: CCO vs. CMO – The value of the Chief Customer Officer

“The Realist Optimist is the most 
powerful and effective of the open 
leader archetypes, somebody who 
can see the benefits of being open 
but also understands the barriers.” 

~ Charlene Li, Open Leadership, 
published May 2010.

Focusing on the customer, listening to what he/she wants remains the number one most important first action for any organization desiring a satisfactory engagement. Social networks have initiated the world to completely personalized channels of content production, distribution and consumption. The engaged user can now create his/her own TV channel on YouTube, Google TV and numerous other video channels. The Conversation Prism is an excellent image of the variety of social networking sites available to an individual in his or her establishment of an online tribe.

When we listen to our customer, then we can select brands, products and services geared toward his/her needs. The customer-centric approach in social media specifically requires listening via social network monitoring tools like Radian6, Trackur, Compete, Webtrends and Cymphony.

A Chief Customer Officer will instruct brand manager, product managers and interactive/asset managers on the best use of energy within a given demographic/vertical after having participated in a listening project. Now more than ever, customers are becoming wiser in their choices about products and services sold online, primarily due to the vast amounts of time users spend online AND due to the phenomenon of user-selected/created channels. The mechanics of this has to do with personal choice and responsibility, along with the blossoming of sub-sub-cultures/niches beyond anything seen in previous societal configurations. Social networks allow us to know ourselves better, which in turn gives us more exact and precise opinions on what we want.

Popularity: 13% [?]

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The most basic and powerful way to connect to your audience is to listen

May 23, 2010 | No Comments | brands and social media, social media observations

The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention…. A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well-intentioned words. ~ RACHEL NAOMI REMEN

Listening is one of the most attractive traits in a fellow human being. Interest is sexy, and shows that you want to see into the other person. Learning another’s likes, favorites and passions transforms the relationship into one of transparency and intimacy. A classic rephrasing of intimacy is In-To-Me-See.

In the world of social media marketing, listening is a critical element to the humanization of a brand, the discovery of key influencers, communities and conversations where your product or service has an audience. There are loads of tools for listening, all with different slants on the art and science of gathering intelligence. But a critical aspect of this equation is the EQ (emotional intelligence) of the analyst looking at the data (even if the tool has already performed some intuitive filtering).

To use a dating metaphor: when your date really listens to you, he/she will be tying his/her chosen topics into what you are saying, weaving the two hearts at the table, on the blanket, or on the beach together. This weaving of hearts is just as important in social media marketing, where community managers and small business owners have the mandate to engage in one-one dialogues with customers or segmented niches. Such dialogues are not simply about opening up and letting things go on a natural course. As Charlene Li says in her latest book, Open Leadership, “Being open requires more —not less—rigor and effort than being in control.” The best relationships are ACTIVE!

Listening IS Invitation

Active listening has long been a practice amongst psychologists and psychotherapists, and is no less important in the realm of social networking. To actively listen one might consider the following important actions (adapted from the Council Circle tradition of co-listening):

1) Maintain eye contact with the person speaking (In cyber-space, this means using the filters in the listening tools in an intuitive manner so as to properly segment your audience based on keywords, keyphrases AND other verticals that are attractive to that niche. sCRM is all about this CONNECTION of information from databases to extract precise lists of keywords relevant AND resonant to your audience).

2) Be relaxed but present. (Check out Jet Blue’s twitter account. Their staff are interacting with customers in an uplifting, humorous manner).

3) Be still.

4) Listen from the heart. (The heart is THE most important muscle in social media marketing!)

5) Allow the story to unfold. (The Nestle Facebook fiasco is a classic example of a Community Manager rushing in prior to thinking the consequences through).

6) Listen carefully and the person speaking will always tell you what they need.

7) It’s not your job to “fix” the person who’s working.

8) Common mistakes to avoid:

DON’T give advice (unless asked for). (In social networking, Community Managers/Business owners have the mandate to be problem solvers. To truly solve a problem one must listen first. The key distinction between an Advice-Giver and a Problem-Solver is ACTION!)
DON’T “swap stories” to reassure the person who is speaking
DON’T interpret the meaning of his feelings
DON’T interrupt discharge of emotion (laughter, tears, etc.)
DON’T talk very much
DON’T ask questions for your own information
ONLY ask questions to lead the person deeper into feelings & his own re/solutions.

The most common mistake: Trying to show the person speaking what a good, understanding, perceptive, kind, helpful … person, counselor, leader … you are.

Listen, listen, listen! (That’s really what we all need!)

To return to the weaving metaphor, when one weaves strands of past subjects into the current conversation, a common point of reference is established. The social fabric of the internet is one of the most dynamic environments humanity has EVER engaged in…having the tools to listen is critical (science), knowing how to listen is an art that takes practice or comes naturally. Good community managers are EXCELLENT listeners who hear the heart of their audience and give the customer what he/she wants. And that is what makes GREAT customer-centric business, the current HOT method of marketing.

David Deida, the relationship author, writes, “Who we trust in a business situation is based on how open we are. Openness is bodily openness, muscular relaxation, heart openness as opposed to hiding behind some emotional wall, and spiritual openness, which is actually feeling so fully into the moment that there’s no separation between you and the entire moment.” Openess, feeling and intuition are INHERENT traits of the successful social media marketer/networker.

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The Heart is a Critically Important Muscle in Social Marketing

May 19, 2010 | No Comments | social media observations

The Heart is a Critically Important Muscle in Social Marketing
by Nathaniel Hansen

The socializing of media and tech is a bid by the human heart to transform the cold, hard, and un-feeling processes of “bottom-line, quantitative” thought INTO a tool for saving all that is beautiful about this planet, the human spirit and our beautiful flora/fauna. The season of the heart has arrived AND, because our tech was born from the imagination, it MUST serve that same SOURCE. Here are some steps you can take to HUMANIZE your entrance into the social fabric of the internet:

1. Discover communities closest to your heart through the use of free monitoring tools. To do this make a list of 40 keywords/keyphrases that match your heart/passion/goals. Then go to this page and find the FASTEST climbing Facebook pages associated with those keyphrases: http://bit.ly/facebook_leaderboard. “Like” these.

2. Observe the choices, challenges, impressions, and wants of the people within these Facebook pages AND other networks Most of the monitoring tools available to do this observing are listed at this wiki: http://bit.ly/social_monitoring_master_list.

3. The monitoring tools in the wiki above will acquaint you with where THE conversation about your passion is taking place in forums, blogs, amongst key influencers (tweeters and bloggers), major communities (blogs, forums, web properties) and discussion eco-systems (comments at blogs, news sites, forums). Prioritize your participation based not only on volume of those in the conversation BUT also the quality of those discussing. You may participate in a conversation with 10 world leaders in a vertical/niche and go further than you would have in the mosh-pit of a forum. Then again, that same mosh-pit may be just the place for vitalizing your type of content. This takes wisdom, 24 hours of reflection and then ACTION.

4. Closely tied to this, determine which communities and influencers most closely mirror your passion. Locate your initial foray THERE.

5. Raise up brand ambassadors, community managers and, if you are an enterprise-level business, study the exploding phenomenon of Chief Customer Officers: http://bit.ly/CCO_Harvard_report

6. Your Community Manager, Brand Ambassadors and Chief Customer Officer ought to be a blended individual, having social savvy AND passion/real experience within your vertical/niche/brand.

7. Create a BRAND BOOKLET and BEST PRACTICE MANUAL with and for your social brand leader. They ought to be the kind of person who is excited about creating this with you and have leadership traits related to the creation of this booklet.

8. Perform an analysis of the sub-culture(s) surrounding your brand and be sure to not only speak the language of these cultures but also be an innovator of that language. Your brand is more than an avatar. It is a living, breathing personality and your ambassador(s) should give his/her all for the tribe that feeds the brand.

9. Lex Sisney, the co-founder of Commission Junction, the world’s foundational affiliate software, once said to me, “Find the pain and you’ll find the money!” Knowing where lack exists IS VERY IMPORTANT in defining your offering. And knowing what makes the delivery and receiving of this offering fun is the other piece in this puzzle.

10. The humanization of brands is a massive revolution currently taking place. The CEO OF THE FUTURE is at the forefront with the customer, tweeting, blogging and on the front lines vs. the old model of being invisible and un-touchable. The CEO of the future may be reached by anyone and is listening to his/her customer. Anyone can reach the CEO of the future. The hidden CEO is a relic of the past.

11. Conversations with your audience and customer are just that. A dialogue implies that you’ve listened to what the customer is saying. And they will find that cool.

12. Your ambassadors ought to be given rewards that make sense to the niche and the need of your community and your customer. Sometimes a year’s worth of groceries is more important than a new 120″ HDTV.

13. Be a problem solver vs. just a listener. That’s the essence and one of the good things about America: we are known the world over for doing something about it once we are enrolled.

Love what you do, love your tribe, and orient around heart-centered communication.

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Social business reflections

May 19, 2010 | No Comments | brands and social media, social media observations

Your imagination is your preview of life’s coming attractions. ~ Albert Einstenin

The socializing of media and tech is a bid by the human heart to transform the cold, hard, and un-feeling processes of “bottom-line, quantitative” thought INTO a tool for saving all that is beautiful about this planet, the human spirit and our beautiful flora/fauna. The season of the heart has arrived AND, because our tech was born from the imagination, it MUST serve that same SOURCE.

Understanding the mythic fabric of your business, the etymology of your brand name and the spiritual sub-culture of your company offers vision, perspective and a different kind of locomotion than just dollars and cents. BOTH are important, both are vital. Begin by asking yourself about the stories that birthed your enterprise. There are metaphors within these tales, and these metaphors offer instruction.

Conscious Residents of Planet Earth are turning off Top-down News channels and opting for personally chosen channels. The entire population is trending toward a spiritual/interior exodus for personally-crafted planets. The social fabric of the internet is a template for a spiritual, interior phenomenon.

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