Collaboration changes Everything!!

Photo Credit: http://www.allfacebook.com

You might have seen many of these (CAPTCHA), and found them extremely annoying and a complete waste of time, well they are not.

Luis von Ahn has found an intelligent way to digitize 2.5 million books a year using “CAPTCHA,” a program that can generate and grade tests that humans can pass but current computer programs cannot. He proves that social media is not only about conversations, it’s about collaboration, it’s about the community at work, and it's about how mass collaboration can change everything.

The video effectively narrates the power of human collaboration using the internet, in an interesting and humorous manner. Ahn is using the precious human time - while registering, downloading a software or making a payment on a website (using CAPTCHA) - to digitize books. His new project, DuoLingo, is even more fascinating. He is using avid foreign language learners to translate webpages while learning the new language for free; using the “learning by doing” method. A beginner gets very simple sentences along with what each word means. As learners translate them they get to see how other people translate it, so they start learning the language, and as they get more and more advanced they get more complex sentences. Using this method, people do learn a language, as they are learning with real content. With DuoLingo, Ahn and his team propose a “Fair Business Model for Language Education” that doesn’t discriminate with the poor. Ahn’s examples of digitizing books and translating web content links to what Li & Bernoff may have called “Groundswell at work.”

That’s not all, people are energizing and helping the groundswell by using and entering these CAPTCHAs, and they’re taking it a step further, they’re embracing the power of  CAPTCHA by creating powerful and creative CAPTCHArt (Internet memes). 

Photo Credit: www.tumblr.com

Photo Credit: www.img.memecenter.com

Photo Credit: www.captchart.com

Li & Bernoff in their book, "Groundswell" say that, “Embracing the groundswell is making customers an integral part of the way you innovate with both products and process improvements.” They narrate the example of how Rob, U.S. Marketing Director for the brand Colossus Unilever and and his partner Babs, Unilever's U.S. Media Director, "helped Unilever not only accept the internet as a marketing vehicle but to gradually give up some control of the brand, embracing the power of groundswell and energizing customers to make their contributions;" by welcoming a cultural change within the organization and providing the Dove's Evolution campaign the right platform. This is exactly what Ahn and his team puts into practice but with masses (not specifically a brand/company); by tapping a fraction of unproductive human time of masses on the web and using it for the benefit of the community at large. 

According to marketing expert Edward Boches, "No social project will be really successful over the long term unless there's some sort of social improvement motive built in, because of the intrinsic nature of social media."

Well, I didn’t know that an annoying activity like CAPTCHA can be so valuable. Please share examples of innovation, creativity and collaboration that you may have seen with the rise of social media.  

The Creative Café

Creativity is the ability to make people think and feel new things. That's what great art, movies and literature do! The embedded video shows a man using internet memes to propose his girlfriend. This is the kind of creativity I am talking about. (You can read the entire story in a post by mashable.com)

I know the phrase “art is everywhere” can be cliché, but it can hold true if you let it. Social Media or as Li & Bernoff call it “Groundswell,” gets the creative juices of many flowing.  According to a recent study conducted by Chicago University’s Booth School of Business, “Social Media more addictive than cigarettes and alcohol,” but it’s hard to deny that it breeds creativity as well. 

                                                                                  

 What's another word for Doomed??

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Social networking sites like Facebook give users the power to showcase their creative expression. Creativity has always been about making conversations and making those conversations go viral, but it’s no longer guarded by an elite group. With social media, creativity can be developed, nurtured, mashed up or remixed; the process is ever-evolving and eternal.

Although there aren’t as many creators as spectators, collectors and critics (Groundswell, pp. 44) but  social media presents a host of tools with which we can get creative, be it, status updates, blogs, images, or videos.

                           We are on FB!!

Photo Credit: http://imgur.com/

ProCon.org cites the cornerstone of creativity on social media, “Social networking sites bring people with common interests together, offer exposure to new ideas from around the world, and lower inhibitions to overcome social anxiety. People who have a difficulty communicating in person are more comfortable interacting via the Internet.”

The idea to cover the creativity aspect of social media came out of a team meeting this week, when someone asked, what really is an Internet Meme? “Internet Memes,” pronounced as “meem” just like “seem” or “dream,” and “Trolls” are the applications of creativity with the emergence of social media. They have been there for a while now, but have become extremely popular since 2008.

What they did with my bicycle?

Photo Credit: http://imgur.com/

An internet meme is a phrase, image, video or just an idea that goes viral on the internet (spreads easily from one person to another) for no logical reason. These memes are usually silly but amusing. Hence, many share it on their walls or timelines or streams or tweets.  

Photo Credit: www.poofytoo.tumblr.com

Chuck Norris jokes or lolcats are the most popular ones. Some of these might seem like nonsense or created by people who have nothing else to do, however that isn’t true. Lolcats today is worth USD 2 million. The 1stwebdesigner covers the power of internet meme in an extremely informative post! According to Racheal from 1stwebdesigner , “Internet Memes shape popular culture, change the way we live our lives, and continually evolve with modern society today.”

In a post describing the rise and growth of the new social networking site “Pinterest” blogger Jason Falls said, “One thing is clear whether you're on Pinterest for personal or business reasons: the best images -- be they funny, beautiful or thought provoking -- attract the most attention and followers.”

Watch 50 Internet Memes in under 100 seconds!!

So what’s your take?  Do share your definition of creativity in an age of collaborative thinking, participation, crowdsourcing, and social media. Please leave a comment!

It's simply all about people!

With fancy new apps & technologies and newer social networking sites being released almost every other week; social media seems to do be driven by technologies. But it isn’t, it’s all about people! When I think about social media, the most famous words “Of the people, for the people and by the people” by President Abraham Lincoln in his Gettysburg address come to my mind. That’s precisely the essence of my blog “E= MC² (basics) of Social Media” and specifically this post!

Photo Credit: http://www.marketing4newmedia.com/

Social media provides the opportunity for people to participate and contribute their ideas, experience and knowledge nearly real-time. In their book, Groundswell, authors’ Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff explain the collective power of social media, “People connect with other people and draw power from other people especially the crowds. Internet allows people to draw strength from each other.”

Blogger Susan Gunelius lists “Crowdsourcing, using other people to create your content” as the top Social Media Marketing Trend for 2012. Coca-Cola is one company that has managed to do this particularly well. If you visit their Facebook fan page, they’ve narrated the feel-good story of all time. The story of a fan, Dusty, who couldn’t find a facebook page for Coca-Cola and ended up creating one. It’s interesting because they are placing fans/customers’ first, they’re “listening” and allowing fan’s to do all the “talking” thereby building trust. 

“Dusty loved Coca-Cola and was in search for The Coca-Cola Fan Page on Facebook. He couldn't find one that felt official enough, so he set out to create his own. With the help of his friend Michael J, they created this Page.”

In this virtual (social media) world, most participants in the group/conversation do not even know each other personally. However, they do have a common purpose in mind, they come together for a cause, and the technology just facilitates the connection. And as authors’ Li and Bernoff say, “The collective strength is what makes them really powerful and leaves the feeling of being “unafraid.”

Across industries, a wide range of social media tools and technologies are used for news gathering and distribution. Google Plus and LinkedIn can be used to build his professional brand reach and authority, and Facebook to engage prospects and customers.  Marketers can gather great info from Facebook. The likes can help them rank up on the search engines. So many new social channels emerge that give marketers tremendous insights to their customers. Consumer-centric sites like Pinterest lets you see what people are interested in for home, fashion, cooking, automotive, sports and more. Trending topics on Twitter can help you determine spin for posts to help bubble content to the surface.

Photo Credit: http://www.breakingcopy.com/social-media-flowchart-status

It might not make sense to dedicate specialized experts to each platform to keep up with the technology and the culture, but using a personal approach to turn user into a customer with a dash of social will do the trick. “Because a strategy that treats everyone alike will spell failure – people aren’t alike and won’t respond in the same way,” explain authors’ Li and Bernoff in their book Groundswell. 

It is important to always adapt and be ready for change especially when it comes to social media marketing; and according to Brian Whalley, search marketer at Hubspot, “marketing actually speaks to their audience and doesn't hinge on a specific feature or method of outreach.” Social Media is inherently conversational and transparent; examples of brands that have been successful in building trust with their customers are listed on PR Daily.

Companies can take advantage of the collective power of employees active on social media as well. Citibank launched the “Building a new Citi” campaign as a part of their 200 years celebration. They first introduced the concept internally gathered ideas/stories/blogs from employees and then rolled it to the external world. In her talk at Stanford University, Deborah Hopkins, from the Chief Innovation Office at Citi, explains how they unleashed the true power social technologies to gather ideas, build marketing campaigns/products from employees to build partnerships and gain trust of customers. 

According to Fast Company expert blogger Julie Moreland, “As a business owner, if you can tap in to the passion of your workforce, you can accomplish things that no amount of money can buy.”

A humorous video showing how integrated these new technologies are in our lives today is attached below. Given the discussion, what according to you dives people to publicly connect with brands/services/employers? 

 

Sneak peek into the future - Social Media Trends for 2012

Not all of us can own a DeLorean (time machine) and take a sneak peek into the future. Thanks to the new medium, and of course the works of “experts” who articulate key words, statistics, trends and phrases about the hottest growth area for the online community “Social Media.”

It’s one month past the New Year, however, zooming into the “Social Media Trends for 2012” is worthwhile. The list shown below is by no means complete, however, I attempt to list what experts have to say about top social marketing developments, new technologies, resources, etc. 

Consolidation, integration, convergence 

2012 is listed as the year for consolidation, integration, convergence and the likes by most authors, experts and bloggers. For years’ management lessons have preached organizations the benefits of integrating the different business functions and not work in silos. Experts say, social media will witness a similar trend.

David Armano explains convergence with the example of Domino’s Pizza, posting unfiltered feedback on a large billboard at Times Square. Advertising agency McCann define integration in the form of usage of social media across devices.

John Serpa calls it “Transmedia,” newer ways to narrate real-life experiences in the virtual world. Leo Widrich says, “We will see a lot more apps and companies come to help us free from content overload." 

Social + Sharing 

According to social media expert, Jay Baer, “2012 will be the year of multimedia social network. Photo and video-based social interaction will grow.” On the same note, new multimedia platforms like Pinterest will grow.

David Armano elaborates and uses the term “Social Sharing”, “Sharing that vacation you just booked, or recommending a product, or service from any site to a social network is where sharing goes next.” 

Social + eCommerce
  
Gartner predicts that by 2013, the number - one way that consumers will be interacting with the Internet is via their smartphones and tablets.  Given this, social commerce can definitely be categorized as an upcoming trend for the coming year.

In his explanation, Priit Kallas says, “We will lead into a new era in eCommerce where you can directly purchase from your Facebook account.” Everyone will witness more integration of social media and e-commerce, more than ever.” 

“M-Commerce/mobile tactics will be substantial sources of lead generation including the QR codes, near-field and Bluetooth communications, social check-in promotions, mobile search, mobile Web, text/SMS/MMS, email and mobile advertising,” added bloggers’  Jeanne Hopkins and Jamie Turner. 

Social + Television 

Social Television also climbs up the charts in the social media landscape. Several experts and bloggers like David Armano , Gini Dietrich, Priit Kallas, Elise Moreau say that watching television will get more social and sharable with the introduction of voting on social media  for reality shows  and apps like Get Glue.They also mention that location and mobile based platforms or applications will be big this year. 

“Another way media consumption is becoming social comes from a network called Get Glue which acts as something of a Foursquare for media. Participants can "check-in" to their favorite shows (or other forms of media) and collect stickers to tell the world what programs they love. Watch for more of this this year as ratings rise for socially integrated shows,” David explains. 

Results 

Businesses will increasingly focus on ROI. We experienced this trend in 2011 and will continue to do so this year as well. I second Susan Gunelius's prediction, “Businesses will make more significant investments in social media marketing in 2012, but they’ll also be focusing on the return on investment (ROI).” 

Email + Social Media 

Email celebrates its 40^th birthday this year. Contrary to popular belief, according to Gini Dietrich it’s still effective and is here to stay. “The platforms (email and social media) will complement one another for smarter, more targeted messaging and list-building efforts,” says Jason Miller. 

Here’s a clip recently aired by CBS 5 News that quickly encapsulates the key “Social Media Trends for 2012!”

What according to you will change in 2012? I will be glad if you could help me compile the list!