The Socializers | social networks

Conversation as a vessel to heart destinations

admin April 3, 2012 No Comments

Personality and personal identity are in some ways like co-ordinates on the street map drawn by our intersecting relationships. We know who we are and we define what we are by references to the people we love and reasons for loving them. ~Gregory David Roberts, author of Shantaram

Many human beings have worked over the last three-four years building maps of acquaintances and thoughts. Personal social networks are maps of heart sensation and the timelines we now study are chronologies of feeling. A timeline in Facebook is a history of where and when an individual has hooked his or her most sacred desires and closely held fears to specific events, memes and relationships. Every relationship is a vessel, carrying feeling, intention and action to some collectively agreed-upon destination. Social networks offer up several hundred potential journeys of this nature in any given hour.

A common form that the vessel of relationship takes in social networks is conversation. The conversations an individual chooses in comment threads, on Skype, or via texting, emails and chats, are surface signals of underlying realities. And the translation of these signals for personal gain is the number one priority of most human beings. Every one of these signals or actions via personal digital communication is like a fisherman throwing out a line for some form of happiness or connection. And these “trawlings” are indicators of the lightning-fast world of word of mouth, where human beings are connecting with one another for some form of gain – whether this is gain of the heart or the wallet. Big brands want to know the Five W’s of personal conversation (and resulting gains) in digital and mobile networks — the is THE hot content for researchers. And this is also why emails, chats, text messages and other personal threads are of great interest to research organizations like Facebook and Google.

Discovery of bliss as a means of avoiding pain is a primary motivator for many individuals. The mythologist Joseph Campbell has captured the essence of this psychological phenomenon when he writes, “Follow your bliss. If you do follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while waiting for you, and the life you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in the field of your bliss, and they open the doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be. If you follow your bliss, doors will open for you that wouldn’t have opened for anyone else.” You have a chronology of bliss-pursuit and pain-fleeing in your Inbox and Facebook timeline…right now.

When I log in to Facebook and see the options of who is available now for a chat, I associate these faces with a story and a feeling. And I make a choice to enter a story or not based upon the feeling within. In fact, Facebook technology serves up ads to me based upon my heart-choices on any given day. Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence, writes, “The emotional brain responds to an event more quickly than the thinking brain.” Gone are the days where the mysteries of fluctuating markets confounded scientists and researchers. We know for certain now that individual choices are made based upon fluctuating feelings. And the densest clouds of conversation in social networks collect around phenomena common to the heart of every individual: pain and desire.

Try searching your maps of acquaintances today as a clue to your identity and your journey. Look at your timeline closely to see how you journeyed and associate this with a history of feeling. You created a map of heart sensation and you own a chronology of your own feelings. Study where you hooked your most sacred desires and closely held fears to specific events, memes and relationships. Take note of the relationships that carried you to destinations of happiness. Now create a spreadsheet of several hundred potential journeys to happiness that currently exist…right now in front you today.

Humans are in the process of knitting the global heart together

admin April 2, 2012 No Comments

“Turn your wounds into wisdom.” via @Oprah

In the early 21st century, human beings constructed social networks that connected everyone. In the midst of this process, it became fashionable to share one’s deepest self with the network. The result of this sharing was a profound sense of global connection between all humanity. Within a few short years, a wave of emotional warmth and peace swept through the cultures of the planet. People started to really listen to one another and help each other in myriad small ways. There were a few bumps along the way, but these very same challenges became the greatest of opportunities for connection and cultural stabilization. The norm became full acceptance of the whole human with both shadow and light. The norm became an open-heartedness to others. The norm became to embrace “the Other” and welcome difference. The norm became to love one another…deeply and fully.

In the early 21st century, humanity walked across a collectively built light-fiber highway of data into an un-ending, harvestable dreamscape…each person’s inner world became visible and tactile. Such is the complexion of this spreading digital network, once unknown…now an increasing source of physical and spiritual sustenance to all. Human heart “stuff” has become the content of regular newsfeeds and the impact of this deep sharing with one another is profound. Consider the momentum towards global understanding that such intimate newsfeeds create. Consider the inescapable intimacies that result from hearing each other’s hearts. Consider how tightly bonded our human community has become and how instantly a wave of liking and care spreads now through digital networks. The inner realm is currently accessible and moldable via social networks in particular. Humanity has got what it takes to create a Golden Age of peace and prosperity…very quickly.

Listening technologies aid heart-based initiatives

admin March 25, 2012 No Comments

Love does not dominate, it cultivates. – Goethe

Creating an organization characterized by heart-orientation requires leadership to implement listening technologies and human-run analyses of conversations. These analyses can lead to extremely effective internal and external focus groups geared towards bringing employee and customer needs to the forefront. Such research also exposes potentials for excellence previously unnoticed. This “positive shadow potential” can be just what an organization needs to move forward into the next level of excellence.

Unconscious processes are a central reality of organizational life, just as in individual life. Effective market research using social data can reveal such processes. When I peer into the conversations surrounding an organization and within an organization, much is revealed about the workings and doings of that team. A primary value for large enterprises in hiring a market research team to work internally is discovery of shadow aspects within the silos. When unseen trends within staff are revealed through conversation research, leadership can take steps to elevate positive potential and heal negative propensities.

Seeing into the heart of an organization via social listening projects is a very effective measure for weaving the strengths of the silos together for total organizational success. For example, the customer-facing staff who are involved in servicing complaints and solving technical difficulties are often at odds with quantitative, sales-driven staff. The results-orientation around money in the sales department runs contrary to the nurturing orientation in the customer service department. Sales leaders need to hear the chief complaints from customers via the market research staff. This will help the sales staff to bring their pitches into closer alignment with what the customer truly wants and needs.

To cultivate a heart-based organization, leadership must itself be willing to invest in a unit focused on listening. This is the first step in nurturing deep growth and consistent attention customer need.

Growing Community: the KPI of the heart comes first

admin March 1, 2012 No Comments

Growing community in social networks begins with a passion for shared experience. If you want to be part of something exciting right now, put a few words associated with YOUR favorite activity into a search field at any social network. You are sure to find living, breathing human beings awake and actively discussing your passion RIGHT NOW.

The metrics of growing communities have to be related to heart first. We all want and love specific people and activities in life. And that passion dictates how and where we spend our hard earned dollars. Community managers who understand this very real truth about human beings do not push products, events or services. They initially engage in conversation with others about a shared passion. The offerings within a dynamic community generally emerge out of a collective wish list or a mutually desired experience. Those highly attended events are birthed from noticing where people like to congregate. Great community managers are passionate about the niche topics related to their brand and lead others into mutually gratifying experiences.

When we lay out a plan for growing a community, our initial goals ought to center around creating meaningful content and discovering individuals who feed passion. A community manager who has lived, eaten and breathed a topic finds this naturally and is excellent at listening and encouraging members of the community. Everyone in a community has their own unique way of expressing interest, insight and observation. Good community managers facilitate a collective story fed by everyone in the “circle”. This weaving of stories is how cohesive communities form and provides a context for spreading awareness of a product/service. We need those thousand true fans as our initial base to carry on the work of the Community Manager.

It is the job of a Community Manager to nurture conversation. A Twitter stream, a Facebook wall post, a comment thread on a blog, a winning presentation on Slideshare, a location on FourSquare, a widely pinned photo on Pinterest, a video on YouTube that gets passed around: these are ALL seeds to be watered and nurtured by a Community Manager. JESS3 has given community managers a very precise map of content that different consumers interact with when considering a product or service (The Content Grid). It is a community manager’s job to identify, create and spread each of these pieces of content into the social fabric of the Internet.

For more on people-centered Community Management read this interview I did with Eleftherios Hatziioannou, former social manager for Mercedes Benz.

Social networks can be "mise en abyme", a lived experience of stories within stories

admin January 14, 2012 No Comments

A story within a story, also rendered story-within-a-story, is a literary device in which one narrative is presented during the action of another narrative. Mise en abyme is the French term for a similar literary device (also referring to the practice in heraldry of placing the image of a small shield on a larger shield).

In Wikipedia, it is written that a story within a story (“mise en abyme”) can be used in novels, short stories, plays, television programs, films, poems, songs, and philosophical essays. But I argue that such artistic devices may be used in our real fleshly lives as a means of discovery, innovation and evolution. And I propose that digital social accounts like Facebook contain nested stories, all of which are doorways into alternative experiences or possible existences…a living fabric of “mise en abyme” that you have assembled for any purpose under the sun…

For more on the device “Story within a story” see the Wikipedia entry here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Story_within_a_story