What Is Social? Well…

Posted on August 27, 2010 by Scott Gould

What with starting work this week on a manuscript for a book – “Social” being the working title – I want to share some of the content that I will make up the backbone of the book that I haven’t made public until now, as it’s been reserved for paying clients only.

[slideshare id=5063806&doc=whatissocial-100826163537-phpapp02]

If you can’t see the above slideshow, click here, or see it directly on Slideshare.

This is a short 12 slide presentation that explains succinctly what the difference between social and broadcast as – as mindsets before they are media – and then three lessons that we draw that help us understand social.

Social is a big topic for me. Everything I do keeps coming back to it – whether it’s learning, event design, social media, marketing, church, relationships – social is right in there. And it’s not that social is a new thing. Far from it. Social is our original and default method of communication. As our default method, it also is ruled by our default physical limitations (how loud we can speak, etc), and it is from these limitations that we create broadcast, which is a one way extension of what is socially created, for wider reach.

My basic premise is that we have social innovation and broadcast duplication. Social is the fluid conversation that is a real-time co-crated product. Broadcast is the recording of that conversation and duplicating it so more people can hear it. In social, the conversation can change. In broadcast, it does not.

What the book will then lead into is a discussion of the Social / Broadcast Matrix, and the three social strategies. And true to these three strategies, the book will function on one: socialised channels, socialised content and socialised culture. In other words, it’ll be available everywhere you’ll want to consume it, it’ll be full of UGC (i.e. YOU), and it’ll be open for you to use and build upon.

(You can watch a video of me discussing Social on a larger scale here)

Your Leading Thoughts

Do you see holes in my premise? Given I’m basing a book on this, I need you input!
How would you like to contribute to the creation of ‘Social’?

Let Attendees Be Participants

Posted on May 11, 2010 by Scott Gould

I wrote a while ago about the issue with Social Media events being that they aren’t Social. I suggested a few reasons why this is – but they really boiled down to two core problems:

Ego in the first instance is like speakers like to hear themselves talk, and Ego in the second instance is that we love to say we heard ‘so and so’ speak. (Thank you, Jeff Jarvis, for inspring me to tell the truth, and use the word Ego here.) Unfortunately, these aren’t conducive to effective learning. Continue reading →

What ‘Social’ Means For ‘Broadcast’ Businesses

Posted on May 1, 2010 by Scott Gould

On Friday 4th June, I’m speaking at Creative Brkfst in Plymouth about what ‘Social’ as a media and a mindset means for what are traditionally ‘Broadcast’ businesses.

There are a lot of fears for SMEs regarding Social Media – mainly that it is a fad, that they will fail at it, and that they will waste finance in doing so – but as with most fears, these really stem from a lack of understanding. We fear what we don’t know. What doesn’t help is the incredible amount of talk and buzz word heavy jargon, the supposed heavy reliance of technology to achieve success (thereby creating gatekeepers), the shoddy way in which most agencies provide Social Media services, and the tragic tales of brands who screwed up with Facebook like Nestlé.

What I’ll be doing is going through the Social / Broadcast Matrix and presenting a clear, framed explanation of what broadcast is, how social is an opposite of that, and how the two work together, rather than cancelling each other out. If people can understand what the mindset is, I’m confident they’ll quickly understand the media.

We’ll then look at the three ways in which Broadcast Businesses can move into Social Business.

Creative Brkfst is all about about Good Ideas (love the slogan), and as a primarily creative meetup, what I’m going to be doing with the 40 minutes I have is actually demonstrate all four modes of the Social / Broadcast Matrix by having discussion, keynoting, feedback, etc – so get yourself ready for a really engaging morning.

Best of all, it’s free. Meaning you get a morning of my time for free, as well as coffee and breakfast.

If you want to come, then you can get details here: http://creativebrkfst.eventbrite.com/