Social Hallucinations

Are People Turning into Distrusted Media?

Definition of media got extended significantly over many years, starting from newspapers to social media that are media disseminated through social interaction or even people. Are people media? Are we the mere instruments conveying information that are currently losing trust of other people. Can our communicative abilities be reduced to objects that transmits information?

I don't agree with Armano's theory of decreasing trust in people as the result of overall decrease of trust in media, the correlation doesn't imply the causation. Following Armano's deduction, we could easily come to the conclusion that we are on the way to slow social disaster of mistrust and alienation along the growth of social media. This is oversimplifying of human relations built on trust. Trust is essential to human relations and is fundamental for social interaction and their development. The question lies in how far circles of trust stretch. 

"Trust surveys"  suffer from the lack of understanding of what people define as friends/peers. Those surveys deliver mere numbers without any understandings. Facts.

As I wrote two days ago, the main culprit here are "friends" and our language. We should maybe look at the decreasing trust in friends / peers as the result of the devaluation of friendship caused by media as Facebook. We have experienced rapid growth of our circle of friends with people who were in fact strangers to us. 

I say it once more: we still trust "people like us" but we are simply not sure whether Johns we follow on Twitter are really like us...

Homo Skepticus?

The couple of last years we've been sticking to mantra "people trust people like themselves" (Edelman Trust Barometer) to convince business establishment to jump into social media wagon, to understand better how people act and activate the power of WoM.

We've always trusted the circle of friends, so called significant others and their recommendatiosn mattered a lot us as the key influential factors. We've done this and will keep on doing this as anything else would break the social ties and lead us to alienation.

Edelman comes with the new 2010 results of the Trust barometer and something interesting happens - friends/peers as those whom we trust drop from 45% in 2008 to 25% in 2010.

 
It is quite natural the question about our skepticism and our ability to trust arise.

I don't think we trust less our friends and peers. I don't think we've become more skeptical. I just think we are in the phase where we rethink the word friend / peer. The word friend got stretched widely due to social networks. We call friends people we've never met in our lives and people we have no common history with. We do have hundreds of friends on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Bebo...whatever you call it. The social networks devalued word friend. Anyone can be my friend today. It just costs one click and you have a new friend. But it ain't so easy and we are aware of that. We are aware that social networks bring also "virtual friends" we can't really trust because we simply don't know them, don't know their agenda and there is no really point of reference between our and their lives. Who are really those hundreds of people we follow on Twitter, we connect with on Facebook? We know the faces, we know the key facts we can find out from info tab and status updates. What really connects you with other people are common experiences...

Web revolutionized our lives for sure but there are still some barriers we need to overcome, like integrating online lives with offline lives. Meeting people we know online, exchanging offline experiences will be the way to create trust. Online relationships won't replace face to face time and sharing of real time experiences.

We still trust "people like us" but we are simply not sure whether Johns we follow on Twitter are really like us...

Photo by mek22

via AdAge

Unhappy Hipsters

"He had a hard time distinguishing the relationship between needs, wants, and technology."

 

The latest blog found - sharp and witty - Unhappy hipsters - musings on sad and deprived of joy life of urbanites. Really good and worth to follow for good pictures and commentary on the modern life. 

HT: Angus Whines
 

How Web Has Reshaped Our Lives

The global brain, the endless flow of information, communication, work...Internet of the most revolutionary tools of these times. 

I have been with Web with over 10 years now and it has major influence on the way I work, learn about things, get in touch with people and meet people. Making business, sharing knowledge is easy and wide accessible to those who are connected. Internet created the intellectual wealth.

The impact of Web on our lives and its importance for the world has made BBC to create TV program dedicated to this subject: How 20 years of Web reshaped our lives - The Virtual Revolution.

There is no doubt Web influences our lives. The biggest question is now how we are going to use it to improve and fix the world and enrich lives of those who are living on the suburbs of World Wide Web, beyond the reach.

via Influx

The Good Stuff

When conversations matter

 via MisEntropy

Social connection

Social experts are keep on multiplying. Clients asking more for social media in briefs. Agencies race for making frameworks, models, products to sell to the clients...but everyone seems to forget one essential thing:

"You need a social profile to engage with other people and the world - but you need to be doing other stuff, constantly, to feed it. To be successful in social spaces, you need to be active in the world." (Faris)

 Neither people nor brands exist in social vaccum. What makes us social is our stories we tell, our experiences we share. Social doesn't fit frameworks and models cause it is unpredictable, cause it is people and interactions among them. Ideas, interesting stories, shared experiences are what connects people....not Facebook fan pages.

Give People Something to Copy

...and you will be able to trigger the change of behavior. Old and funny video demonstrating the power of group influence on individuals. In fact, there is nothing to laugh at but adopt this elevator psychology into communication efforts.

 

 Hat tip to  Simon

Visualize People's Thoughts

It is such a great tool to play around with - Web Seer - and visualize what's going on in people's minds when they google and explore differences and similitude, stereotypes, ideas by comparing 'Google Suggest' results. Plenty of interesting insights to dig for. I love how info-graphics democratizes data and make them more understanding-friendly. 

 

 

We shall not flag or fail. We shall slow down in the office, and on the roads.

In times where politicians and different arts of gurus tell us we need to work harder, run faster and just give everything out of ourselves, The International Institute of Not Doing Much seems like an uplifting and fresh initiative. Running fast all the time will not bring the fruits we expect as we simply get tired and our performance will be weaken. Like every machine, humans need to take a break for servicing and refueling. On the website of The International Institute of Not Doing Much you can learn a lot about slowing down and not doing too much. What I liked the most is the advice to cultivate dreams not aspirations. 

 

Here is 10 tips on how to slow down:

1. Drink a cup of tea, put your feet up and stare idly out of the window. Warning: Do not attempt this while driving.

2. Do one thing at a time. Remember multitasking is a moral weakness (except for women who have superior brain function.)

3. Do not be pushed into answering questions. A response is not the same as an answer. Ponder, take your time.

4. Learn our Slow Manifesto.

5. Yawn often. Medical studies have shown lots of things, and possibly that yawning may be good for you.

6. Spend more time in bed. You have a better chance of cultivating your dreams (not your aspirations.)

7. Read the slow stories.

8. Spend more time in the bathtub. (See letter from Major Smythe-Blunder.)

9. Practice doing nothing. (Yes this is the difficult one.)

10. Avoid too much seriousness. Laugh, because you're live on earth for a limited time only.

via Crackunit

How Does Advertising Work?

Which advertiser wouldn't know how to influence people and change their behavior or preferences. There are no clear simple rules. Advertising is the people business and people factor is what makes it unpredictable. However the years of experimentation, testing and measuring allow us to draw out a few clear conclusions, which I stumbled upon on Faris blog.

The Journal of Advertising research run a special issue that concerned the advertising and the ways it works. Here is the one of papers by Les Binet and Peter Fields Empirical Generalizations about Advertising Campaign Success (thanks to Faris)

Download Empirical Generalizations about Advertising Campaign Success

One of the most interesting statements is about the vague role of rational arguments in advertising: 

 "The most effective advertisements of all are those with little or no rational content." 

(Les Binet/Peter Field)

Emotions, needs, urges working on subconscious level is what drives human behavior and we need to tap into it, but the problem is that often we rely on consumers opinions (focus groups and other types of research) that are mainly driven by post-rationalization. 

Lot of great material, theories and things to take into consideration when planning the next campaigns. You can learn a lot but it is important to keep in mind that:

"No single theory or group of theories can explain it all, because advertisements work in such different ways. There is no point in looking for an overall theory."

(Nevill Darby, quoted in Advertising Frameworks, Giep Franzen, Brand New Brand Thinking) 

Did we become 21st century slaves?

"A society that becomes expert in tools and ignorant of reasons is taking the decision of self-enslavement. Curiosity by itself is harmless. It should be curiosity that generates action, that moves us, what finally makes us creative, which humanizes us." (cristian saracco)

Provoking thought. 

21st century slaves, slaves of bit of information that will never be turn into worthy ideas and actions cause no one ever took time to explore it. Scan, check, move on. Exposed to many impulses, endless stream of information and meaningless life-casting, we have no time to explore if we want to keep updated and follow. I actually believe that it's curiosity that stops us on the surface, cause we are curious what will be posted next. We know so many things but nothing really in particular and often one can doubt whether what we have just read was worthy or just bullshit. It resonates actually with H. Rheingold's thoughts on the importance of digital literacy. Giving the deeper thought, giving yourself time to comprehend and evolve, not just re-tweet. We have so much choice that disarms us and we have difficulties handling opt-out and we are continuously give partial attention to everything and in fact learning nothing except facts...

Internet is good because Internet is people and their incredible minds but you have to hit the right stream and have a courage to dive in. Some are exploring the deep blue, others float on the surface.I can't stop asking myself whether is it any different from times before 21st century? or are we really living in the intellectual wasteland turning us into slactivists?

What do you think?

The importance of digital literacy

Howard Rheingold on the importance the literacy in participation and sharing is what will decide whether Internet will be useful tool or garbage. 

The Internet as Playground and Factory - Howard Rheingold from Voices from The Internet as Play on Vimeo.

Virality is not a strategy

"Virality is something that has to be engineered from the beginning…and it’s harder to create virality than it is to create a good product.  That's why we often see good products with poor virality, and poor products with good virality.  The reason that over $150 Billion is spent on US advertising each year is because virality is so hard.  If virality was easy, there would be no advertising industry."

(Josh Kopelman)

Image by aussiegall via Flickr

You can't build your product, communication strategy around viral cause viral isn't something you can plan and decide how it should act. Virality is something that is the result of human interactions which you can't only predict but you can't control either. In stead of focusing on virality, shifting efforts into creating the good products and spreading them / news of them is what matters.

As Noah Brier says "if a tree falls in the forest and there's nobody there to hear ..." . Stuff doesn't become viral per se. It becomes viral cause some people heard about it, tried it, liked it and shared it with others who tried it, liked it and shared it, and so on.

via Noah Brier

Popularity isn't easy - this is also very relevant

Technology and Us

Image via Wikipedia

Douglas Adams’ “rules that describe our reactions to technologies”:

Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.

Anything that’s invented between when you’re 15 and 35 is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.

Anything invented after you’re 35 is against the natural order of things.

Online takes your gifts offline

Fantastic postal service: SendSocial. I love the idea. It makes sending gifts so easy and hassle free. The only disadvantage of the service is that it is only available in the UK At the moment, but they are working on expanding into other territories.