Internet

Trouble Harnessing Social Media? Relationships Can’t Be Automated

~ K. Quesenberry ~ 2 Comments

Today I can’t imagine recommending a brand not be on Facebook. It’s hard to ignore reaching one billion people. A recent survey of CMOs indicate they know this. In fact 82% said they plan to increase their use of social media over the next 3-5 years. But that same IBM study indicates marketers are struggling to harness their social media investment. They feel overwhelmed by the volume of customer data on websites like Facebook and consider themselves ill-equipped to leverage it.

IBM’s solution is more robust software. Marketing executive Marcel Holsheimer says, “Marketing is going to become much more an automated software play than it was in the past. This is why IBM is now making the investment in this space.” I agree that automation is key to collect and analyze social media information, and we need more robust software to manage big data. But we shouldn’t pretend that is the only part of the solution. In all the hype over big data let’s not forget the human at the end of the technology.

Social media has exploded because it connects real people. Humans by nature are social creatures. Relationships give meaning and purpose to our lives like no other activity or endeavor. Despite the attempts of HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey you can’t have a relationship with automated software. Use all the social media dashboards you want, but there still has to be a human with that update, post and tweet investing time into the customer relationship.

How do you develop strong social relationships? Student health services at University of Indiana suggests the following as essential relationship skills:

  1. Listen to what the other person is saying.
  2. Develop solutions that suit both of your needs.
  3. Express your appreciation.
  4. Show empathy and genuine concern.

A similar list emphasizes these key interpersonal skills:

  1. Look
  2. Listen
  3. Ask
  4. Learn
  5. Understand
  6. Acknowledge
  7. Provide
  8. Commit
  9. Contribute
  10. Follow up

If your brand is on Facebook, good, you probably need to be there. But are you acting the right way? Go to your page, look at the activity and compare it to the two lists above. Then estimate your brand’s social skills score. How are you doing?

For those who have seen 2001: A Space Odyssey you know how HAL 9000’s personal interactions turn out for the Discovery spacecraft and crew. If you haven’t seen the movie, take a break from big data software automation to interact with an epic film filled with real human drama.

Are Intellectual Property Rights Wrong?

~ K. Quesenberry ~ Leave a comment

What if intellectual property rights did not apply to cyberspace? At first this seems like a ridiculous idea. But you must consider that intellectual property is a relatively new notion. As philosopher Sam Vaknin points out  – in the near past, no one considered knowledge or the fruits of creativity as someone’s property. Texts, discoveries, inventions, works of art and music, all belonged to the community and could be copied freely.

Intellectual property is not scarce like physical property such as a car or house or land. Thomas Jefferson wrote, “He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.” If someone copies a book you have written, you still have the original book. If you take a car, the owner no longer has it. Even Ayn Rand said, “intellectual property cannot be consumed.” Should we be protecting all this on the Internet or allow people to use it freely as long as they give credit to the original source?

What’s wrong with intellectual property rights? Corporations use intellectual property rights to secure a monopoly on a specific work. That’s why Microsoft fights copyright piracy all over the world. The problem is the poor cannot afford Microsoft products, but Microsoft is the standard and the poor get pushed out creating a gap between the poor and the rich. This IP monopoly pits the interests of companies and their rich investors in direct conflict with the poor and marginalized.

But it doesn’t have to be an all or nothing prospect. Creative Commons is a nonprofit Internet organization created to increase the amount of creativity (cultural, educational, and scientific content) in “the commons” — the body of work that is available to the public for free and legal sharing, use, repurposing, and remixing. Creative Commons was developed to work with existing copywrite law and provide possibilities between full copyright and public domain. “Some rights reserved” copyright allows a free exchange of ideas for the betterment of society while still acknowledging the creator of the works.

With production cost near zero on the Internet, should intellectual property be given up for the good of society? Think about cloud computing such as Google Docs. Google is challenging the old Microsoft way of thinking. Google allows free use of its word processing program in trade for generating traffic and advertising income.

Do intellectual property rights have to be all or nothing?