I'm just back from tonight's meeting of Social Media Club London. A good night - it was great to meet Kristine in the flesh for the first time, and to catch up with people like Ian.
I was initially a little worried about how useful it would be, as I found my eyeballs rolling up at yet more blanket statements about mainstream media's Agenda. (I've been in the mainstream media for a decade. I clearly missed the Agenda memo…) However, Lloyd Davis' skilful management of the discussion* moved it into much more fruitful territory. There were three principal streams of discussion:
And the end, Lloyd struggled to draw out what people had learned from the session. I think he was fighting a losing battle, because it was the sort of discussion that exposed the questions that need to be explored, rather than one that provided answers.
If I had to identify one thing that I really took away from it is that the most important moment in social media thinking is when the "social" element of it becomes more important than the "media"; when we stop focusing on this as a technological issue and start thinking of it as a human one.
And yes, you can be sure quite a lot of my posts in the coming days will revolve around that idea.
*Clearly the fact that he pulled me into the discussion early giving me the chance to hold forth at length to a captive audience has no bearing on my appreciation of his skills…
I was initially a little worried about how useful it would be, as I found my eyeballs rolling up at yet more blanket statements about mainstream media's Agenda. (I've been in the mainstream media for a decade. I clearly missed the Agenda memo…) However, Lloyd Davis' skilful management of the discussion* moved it into much more fruitful territory. There were three principal streams of discussion:
- the numbers of people needed for a fruitful community
- how social media will revolutionise/subvert existing media
- how you find the right quality of material for your needs in an ever more diverse media landscape.
And the end, Lloyd struggled to draw out what people had learned from the session. I think he was fighting a losing battle, because it was the sort of discussion that exposed the questions that need to be explored, rather than one that provided answers.
If I had to identify one thing that I really took away from it is that the most important moment in social media thinking is when the "social" element of it becomes more important than the "media"; when we stop focusing on this as a technological issue and start thinking of it as a human one.
And yes, you can be sure quite a lot of my posts in the coming days will revolve around that idea.
*Clearly the fact that he pulled me into the discussion early giving me the chance to hold forth at length to a captive audience has no bearing on my appreciation of his skills…
Adam,
Good to have met you last night. It was an interesting session I think (hope) - although I also found it a little frustrating that we didn't get a bit further in finding some answers which, as a "concerned optimist" I see as an important issue.
Look forward to reading your posts and continuing the discussion. This is what I have posted most recently on this subject - which also contains some links to a couple of earlier pieces
http://tinyurl.com/2yzjac
Would welcome your views.
Richard
I think we're struggling to find answers because there aren't any yet - what we really need is approaches to try, and suggestions of what's working already. We needed about an extra hour last night.
Maybe more...
another two hours at least!
We clearly should have gone for that Chinese, and could have sorted the whole thing out!