Social Networking is a Cultural Revolution

We’ve always networked socially. It is an inherent characteristic of being human. It’s in our genes. We are communication animals…from around the campfire to Twitter. Connecting is the foundation of human culture. Different generations simply do it differently.

Joshua Michele Ross, a social networking luminary, stated it this way in Forbes Magazine: “Human beings are innately social. We are designed to share and connect with others. Period. What's more, we are born into cultures that provide a blueprint for how to communicate and organize.”

Josh believes we are seeing a democratization and acceleration of communications. Everyone has a broadcast tower that is real-time across the planet. Since communication is the foundation of government, business, and culture, when you scale up communications, you change the world.

If you want a new, creative idea every nanosecond about social and generational impacts on modern day culture—meet Lance Dublin (www.dublinconsulting.net). Lance is one of the few over 50-somethings who understands generational differences in terms of how people communicate.

Boomers are One-to-One Communicators. Telephones, network TV, CNN pushing the news 24/7, are examples of how Boomers are comfortable getting information from reliable sources. The communication (cultural) revolution that changed their world was CNN getting and reporting the news during the first Gulf War.

Gen Xers are One-to-Many Communicators. Blast emails, webinars, webcasts, You Tube, and other web-based outlets are preferred modes for getting and using information for this group. Google and Wikipedia are children of the Gen X Web-based revolution.

Millenniums are One-to-Many-to-Many Communicators. When Capt. Sullenberger crashed US Airways 1549 safely into the Hudson River, the news spread through social networks like wildfire. People learned what happened long before Charlie Gibson summarized the day.

The trick is to understand your target user's medium of choice—and to try and tailor your communications and communications style with that medium.

Social networking is a cultural and generational revolution. People are choosing to get and share information not just from an expert source nor only from the people they know and trust. They are getting it from social networks of thousands of people they may not even know.

It’s not about the technology. It’s about the commonality among these generational differences and the need for human connection. There will always be a new technology—that’s inevitable. Therefore, the technology itself is not what this revolution is all about. How we use new technologies to communicate, to keep in touch, and to stay connected is what it’s all about. New ways we think and communicate with each other is the essence of how cultures transform.

The Future of the Internet and When to Use Technology

Jonathan Rosenberg, SVP, Product Management, at Google, extended his thoughts about the future in a Google Blog recently (see Rosenberg Blog). He predicted four trends that will undoubtedly have tremendous impact on the way we think and communicate with one another:

(1) All the world's information will be accessible from the palm of every person
(2) Everyone can publish, and everyone will
(3) When data is (sic) abundant, intelligence will win
(4) The vast majority of computing will occur in the cloud

My colleague, Jim Kennedy (Partner, TechSpeak, San Francisco), and I were discussing the impact of these trends, and I was once again struck by the increasing importance of person-to-person interaction to deliver and receive information accurately as intended.

In today's world, for example, "email wars" can start at the drop of a keystroke when people hide behind the veil of technology. It's very easy to criticize, complain, or even insult someone with whom you may disagree via email. Making a hostile, destructive, crude, or hurtful comment via cyberspace is a lot easier if you don't have to deal with the consequences of the immediate feedback of a pained expression, reciprocal hostility, challenge to your argument, or a punch in the nose.

In today's corporate world, inappropriate use of technology can further a sense of isolation, create psychological distance, reduce team effectiveness and ultimately lower productivity and profitability. We've all witnessed companies where people are working in cubicles right next to each other, and yet they engage in email wars instead of simply standing up and talking to each other.

Corporate culture, "the way people do things around here," can grow like fungus in the dark if it is not created thoughtfully...and you may not like the behaviors that become part of the norm. Simple guidelines for communicating within a company, however, can establish productive and efficient habits. If communicating clearly, civility, productivity, and profitability are values you want to drive your corporate culture, here are a few guidelines for communicating effectively. These are based on this premise: the more intimate or complicated the message, the less you should use technology to deliver it.

(1) Use email (or other technologies) for communicating objective, unbiased information.
(2) Use the telephone when dialogue is required and when voice inflection and responsiveness can help to clarify the intent of the message.
(3) Get face-to -face if the communication has nuance or is important enough that serious negative consequences could result from misinterpretation.

As the Internet becomes even more ubiquitous, as Rosenberg suggests, and, as we are already witnessing with web-based social communities (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and many others), the guidelines may need to be changed or adapted. But for now, the values of civility, efficiency, and clear communication, suggest that these simple guidelines can help to support an effective and positive corporate culture.

I welcome your thoughts.