Social media journey
I went to a workshop on web 2.0 the other day, at my local library. I thought it might help me manage my blog. And I may have picked up a few useful tips (possibly). Time will tell.
In some ways it was a belittling experience. Of course it was run by geeks – self-proclaimed geeks who were incredibly proud of how geeky they were. They talked about web 2.0 as if they had invented all of what they insisted on calling ‘tools’. They spoke through self-satisfied grins and talked about going on a “social media journey”.
(What is it with these people and their need to travel?) But worst of all, they kept saying:
“The beauty of all this stuff is that it’s so easy to use.”
Which it probably is, if you’re the sort of person who has a good relationship with your blackberry and you’re practically in love with your laptop.
Not that I’m bitter about my experience of blogging or anything like that. No. But I am beginning to wonder whether this is all part of the same plot. Could it be that those who say things like:
“We’re all journalists / publishers now”
are the very same people who are laughing at editorial staff? It’s not enough to laugh anymore is it? Now they want to fill cyberspace with their own shoddy inaccurate journalism and publish endless thrown-together webpages that aren’t accessible, or even vaguely usable.
How come none of them ever say:
“Oh yes! We’re all subeditors now”?
Isn’t subediting glamorous enough for them?
Today, the British economy officially arrived in recession. I expect the corporate world will decide to skimp on subediting and concentrate its efforts on cheap, online marketing. We all know what that means don’t we? It means more spam and “demand generation applications and expertise”.
And if you don’t know what that means, then perhaps you should visit the website of Eloqua.
“Eloqua gives you the power to create, execute and monitor powerful multi-channel, multi-touch demand generation campaigns.”
I warn you though this website is full of photographs of suited people grinning because they’re so incredibly happy to be working in marketing.
(Could the marketing industry be a cult? May be that’s why they’re all smiling? They’re at one with their “thought leaders”, looking forward to joining “thousands of other B2B marketers” for the next in the series of “hard-hitting webinars”.)
And of course their website claims that web 2.0 is easy, chortling:
“But Don’t Believe Us…” (sic)
Okay. I won’t then.
January 23rd, 2009 at 8:55 pm
Webinar is just not a word.
January 25th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
There was a fascinating article on the Beeb recently about how French multi-nationals are increasingly using English to do business.
“It is of course a kind of bastardised, runty form of business-speak full of words like ‘drivers’ and ‘deliverables’ and ‘outcomes’ to be ‘valorised’, but is nonetheless quite definitely not French.”
The article goes on to talk about Jean-Paul Nerriere, a retired businessman and commentator on liguistic trends.
“In a meeting with colleagues from around the world, including an Englishman, a Korean and a Brazilian, he noticed that he and the other non-native English speakers were communicating in a form of English that was completely comprehensible to them, but which left the Englishman nonplussed.
“He, Jean-Paul Nerriere, could talk to the Korean and the Brazilian in this neo-language, and they could understand each other perfectly.
“But the Englishman was left out because his language was too subtle, too full of meaning that could not be grasped by the others.”
Nerriere calls this new language “Globish”. It has only 1,500 words and users “must avoid humour, metaphor, abbreviation and anything else that can cause cross-cultural confusion”.
Sounds like your theory of a global conspiracy is on the money, to use an unacceptable business metaphor. But could it be that one person’s plain English is another person’s sub-optimal communication style?
New lingua franca upsets French – on the BBC website:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7844192.stm
January 26th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Rachel beat me to it. ‘Webinar’ has to be the worst attempt at creating a new word ever. It sounds like a three-year-old mispronouncing something.
Anyway, nice one! I am reading
January 30th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
Your first mistake was going to a web 2.0 seminar. Kudos to you for mitigating your risk however. Being in a library meant you could have escaped after the first 5 minutes and sought sanctuary in a good book or enjoyed a fiddle with the microfilm – or is it fiche? Kinky, eh? Nostalgia as pornography anyone…
Your second mistake is thinking of these web 2.0 guys as geeks. They’re not. A geek (at least to my mind) is someone with real expertise, anal attention to detail and often doesn’t get that we don’t all have the same level of expertise or anality. (Did I just give birth to a new word? Cigars are on me folks…)
Most web 2.0 folks don’t have any expertise in the complex nature of social interaction and often don’t pay any attention to the detail. They’re more like evangelists. And I do mean the bad kind… the bible belt, fund raising types who make a fortune praying on people’s desperation and weaknesses – funding lavish lifestyles and general all-round depravity. But not the good, rock and roll, heroic dose kind of depravity.
Where was I? Oh yes… web 2.0 folk as evangelist. These self-styled gurus sell the idea that you can change the world by being web 2.0 – by being like them. Worse still, they scare you into believing the only way for the world to survive is by being all 2.0 about everything. To them, the evolution of humanity has been nothing but luck – generation after generation going all in with 2 3 (unsuited) and flopping a set! They sell this vision that everyone must interact and share and blog and etc, etc. And you’re perverted, old fashioned and doomed to extinction if you’re not web 2.0ing.
Humans aren’t like that. This is where the geek comes into their own. They understand where and when to 2.0 and where and when to 1.0 or even 0.5… sometimes 0.0 is necessary!
For example, I am forced to 2.0 every day during my commute. I’m forced into mindless interaction with people yapping on their phones or to each other or the tssst tssst tssst of naff music limply spilling out between ear and earphone. (I’m trying to paint a picture without saying “premature ejaculation” – I should send this to a sub editor…) I don’t want to interact. I’d rather be alone with my books, my music and my thoughts but I don’t have a choice – but I’ve had to give up my helicopter because its environmentally unsustainable. Apparently. So I tune out and go 1.0 with loud music and good headphones.
This metaphor applies to the internet – we don’t all want to be social on the web. And we definitely don’t want to be forced into it. The evangelist doesn’t get this. Or probably doesn’t want to get it because his (or her) paycheck and reputation take a hit when we don’t interact. The geeks gets where web 2.0 adds value. The evangelist likes the sound of their own typing.
And this brings me back to the point I wanted to make all those minutes ago. The proclamation that web 2.0 (and all the associated tools) is easy to use is made by people who don’t understand what “easy to use” really means. Does that make sense? I dunno – this web 2.0 is complicated stuff… Thankfully we’ll soon be on web 3.0 where everything will be made much clearer…
Enough of this – time to disengage. Quick spin through Facebook first though..!
Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental(ly deliberate).