The first, the difference between brand and branding. He eloquently alludes to a brand as emergent from conversation, as organic through interactions over time, an image, and it is over time that these interactions shape our image of something – in this case a brand. That brand management is the process by which an emergent brand image is influenced – not controlled, and the role of public, private enterprises in this.

The second, the emergence of brand image. Brands have always been emergent, emergent over time in our minds in how we think, interact with and talk with others about them. However now with growing user-generated social technologies from Facebook to YouTube, Twitter and blogging platforms, a brand is not just emergent in our minds/perceptions or between other of our immediate social circles, but increasingly emergent from a partnership between public-private enterprises and the wider community on a mass scale. A brand is emergent from community conversations, community interactions, a social web of people bought together by their interest and/or action about a brand.

The third, the importance of brand community. This view of a brand emergent from community lends itself much to the the thinking of Albert Muniz and Thomas O’Guinn in their (2001) paper on Brand Community. Wherein a community sharing similar rituals and traditions, history and moral responsibility form a community around a brand, what they term a brand community. A community that regulates and inspires the brands meaning and in this can also harm the brand image.

And lastly, how everything communicates. Everything we do, say, share and cocreate communicates – be it the image of a person, place, organisation, movement, idea or product. These interactions cocreate meaning over time, something not new to social anthropologists interested in media and social research. However, today social and search technologies play an increasing role in their aggregation for search, retrieval and mass sharing.

As everything communicates, and social/search technologies give greater emphasis to the communities of conversations, with this comes new mindsets and digital social literacies. Literacies not just for professionals in organisational communication who attempt to ‘manage’ brand image (and more often than not think they own the brand and thus try to control it), but also the digital social literacies of personal-professional communication across most industries and professions – teachers, artists, politicians, nurses, doctors to name but a few.

In summary, this an interesting example and philosophy of emergent branding through/from community, using the example of Rebranding Greece. Here is the video. Please share.

Smiles

Kelly

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My coauthor, Professor Mark Uncles (UNSW), and I have for a long time been interested in how we consider and regard usage of digital media, wherein penetration, access, usage and engagement strongly differ and also have parallels. We have also been interested in how those with and without website design experience differ in their perceptions of what is and isn’t digital media participation and what is of value in its consideration. We developed a paper exploring these issues. In this we consider how the professional context within which we work, shapes and guides our understanding of digital media participation and our own participation. This lends insight to the importance of decision making teams drawing from differing backgrounds in digital decision making – that is, creatives, digital designers, marketers/communications personnel, community members/audiences and other stakeholders. We have written a paper on the subject, that is currently in-review. The abstract is provided below.

The Complexities of Digital Participation: Abstract

Digital media participation is central to the process of marketing communications planning and digital media management. In this paper we discuss the characteristics and dimensions of digital media participation, differentiate it from digital media penetration and as an example, specifically examine the influence of two user characteristics on digital web participation. In this example, we examine the effect that user web site design experience and perceptions of web usability has on digital web participation. Hypotheses are tested on two web user segments: web users with (n=1177) and without (n=900) web site design experience. Findings show that perceptions of web usability has a significant impact on digital web participation, but these effects vary depending on: 1) how digital web participation is defined and measured; and 2) if a user has or has not got past web site design experience. The findings help in our understanding of the complexity of digital media participation and the usage-context within which it is socially constructed. The characteristics and dimensions discussed in this paper are important bases for understanding users across differing categories of digital media participation and differing digital media contexts.

Source: Page, K. L. and Uncles, M. D. (Under Review). The Complexities of Digital Media Participation.

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I however was more drawn to another topic, Digital Identity Management. A topic I am consistently observing that is a consequence of our growing use of digital and social technologies, technologies that not only function because of our use of them but because of the sophisticated functions they have that aid the vendors who own them in the collection, storage and analysis of our usage data. The topic I decided to cover was about Digital Identity Management, especially as it pertained to digital social technologies. For me it is not the illegal black market identity thief that worries me, but the legal businesses to whom we give all our data – freely, easily and increasingly.

Data is the Currency of Now!

“There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch!” (TANSTAAFL) is something we should always keep in mind as we sign up to the next new FREE social networking site or share our family or friend photos on the latest and coolest visual platform for photo blogging. Don’t get me wrong, I love what social technologies are doing for business, education, arts, politics and the very essence of the values that the advocate users of them find dear – like community, sharing, engagement. Being part of something that is bigger than ourselves, and in this we can have a voice. no matter how young, old, small, big, talented, poor, rich or controlled.

However in all this ‘opportunity’ let’s us not forget, that many of these social technologies are a business. A business built on large data sets or user data and expert analysts who provide the insight for business decision making in their use. Yes, they offer free access to users share information with friends, colleagues and the wider market. But somewhere we do pay. We pay by giving away gigabyes and terabytes of data, about ourselves, our family, our friends, our organizations and our communities. All for FREE!

A smart company is a data driven company. From this data, Google, Facebook, YouTube, WordPress, Blogger, MySpace, Ning … the list goes on … collate, analyse, segment, and share the data. Often it is shared with shareholders or internal stakeholders for corporate decision making – to improve the services you are using. But it is also shared with external stakeholders (like advertisers, market researchers) to improve the supply and demand for other fee-paying services and/or information that actually finance these social technologies. However it is also shared with other parties, paying clients or businesses interested not in you, or your values or the service you are using to improve the service, but the money they can make from your data. Our social behaviour is just as much a part of our identity as our name, address and post code is. When you add differing types of data together, you get a much richer and commercially attractive product – a data asset. This is very much reminisce of the Tesco Clubcard business model in the UK. However what is different is a) we don’t get a coupon for it; and b) the data is richer because of the addition of digital social network data. A type of data much richer than any grocery shopping panel data Tesco has ever collected. 

[ Profile + Demographic + Behavioural + Transactional + Network Data ] / Over time = a very rich (££) data set

Take Facebook as an example. Facebook search is Bing indexed, so our data and information is shared with Microsoft. Every Application (App) we’ve given permission to interact with our Facebook profile has also been given access to our data. We rarely get the choice on ‘what’ data we authorise to share, more often it is just a yes/no decision. If we use an App on our mobile phone to sync with our Facebook profile, it is not just the data we enter that is shared between our phone and our profile on the Facebook servers, it is also our location information through GPS and the telephone numbers of our friends that suddenly appear on the Friends list of our profile. This information (and much more) Facebook and advertisers use to cleverly target users with contextualised advertising matched to the keywords in the status update you just posted and to sell in various formats to finance the very service we have applauded for being FREE!

Awareness : Education : Responsibility

So what did I recommend in my talk? I didn’t recommend not using these services. Quite the contrary I love the use of them, but advocate an informed use, especially in organizations where use of them is increasingly being mandated. I recommended three key things critical for effective and responsible use of digital social technologies in both our personal and professional lives. Three things we should take account of during our use of them and are ongoing. As the technologies develops so too should our:

1. Awareness. As users be aware of our own activities with/through social technologies, and the data we are potentially freely sharing with anyone and everyone. Googling yourself is an example of how you can remain aware of what information is publicly available about you, your family or your organization.
2. Education. As users, be active in our education (and that of our staff/employees) in how social technologies function so we can use them both effectively and responsibly, especially in the privacy settings each may have; and our rights as users.
3. Responsibility. As users take full responsibility for the data and information we share through/with social technologies. In this I mean not just the data/information we are sharing about ourselves, but increasingly the data and information we are sharing about our friends, family, colleagues, workplace and wider social network. Policies and guidelines are well and good, but it is a feeling of personal/professional responsibility that truly regulates behaviour.

Continuing the Conversation

For the many years now I have observed and interacted with people in both professional and personal contexts as they have used and learnt about digital and social technologies. And like many people, I too am still learning the implications of this era of social technologies on both our personal and professional selves. But one thing we should not stop doing is talking about it. No one is an expert in this space, and the only way to share learnings about the management of a our digital identities (and especially that of our children) is to talk about it more and in more detail.

At the end of the evening we were asked a number of questions. Below I have provided my responses.

1. What can an individual do if someone is being slanderous about them in a digital social space?

Peter Gwyn Williams from e-Crime Wales gave a really good response to this question. “Take a screen capture of it, contact them to inform them you have evidence of their behaviour and then report them to the authorities”. Obviously this has a lot to do with jurisdiction and given the geographic fluidity of activity in digital channels, it is often difficult to bring to account people who are not contactable, unknown or reside in a different jurisdiction to your own. However  libel, a false, malicious statement published in mainstream media (i.e. on the internet, in a magazine, etc.) is a very serious offence, and should be brought to the attention of the host/service providers of any social community or network for breach of the networks terms and conditions.

2. What is going on in the education/sector and schools to help educate children?

A lot is and isn’t going on. In my opinion it is not so much the children we need to focus in terms of digital literacy and awareness, but the teachers and the educational system so that it is more open to learning about, with and through social technologies. Banning Facebook, Myspace and mobiles is not the answer. Have a dialogue about it with children, in front of children and between members of the educational community (be that parents, teachers, regulators) is. Here is a link to a World Summit on Media for Children and Youth that was held in Sweden this year or the annual Digital Media Learning conference in the US. Having more ‘educators and teachers’ attend forums like these is critical to educating the educators about social technologies and their role on the world of youth.

3. What would I advise as an example of corporate policy for the use of social technologies?

I prefer the word guidelines to policies. Policies are very static, where as guidelines are fluid and can adapt as the technological context changes. I always advocate an organic approach, where guidelines for social technology use come from within the company, informed by the staff and personnel who are contracted to adhere to them. So they come out of discussion and debate as to what is and isn’t responsible behaviour. But often this is difficult in very large corporate multinationals. In this I’d turn to example of practice in other organizations for learning and a point of debate for their suitability or adaptation within your own organization. One large complex organization whom I think many organizations can learn from in terms of stakeholder guidance over the use of social technologies is the US Army. In early 2011 they released their Social Media Handbook on Slideshare for all to read. With over 90,000 views it is probably one of the most read social media guides available and is very detailed. MediaSnackers have also conducted a podcast interview with SSG Dale Sweetnam, the non-comissioned officer in charge of the US Army’s online and social media division.

Digital and social technologies are affording us and our organizations many new freedoms in communications and information sharing. But with freedom also comes responsibility, not just for the service providers or owners of the social technologies. But our own responsibility in our own behaviour in what we share, to whom, about whom, how and and where.

Smiles

Kelly

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In June this year I was asked to write a commentary about the use of Twitter in organizational communications for

@drkellypage the power of #personality on #twitter

With the growth of the digital technologies such as Twitter, organizations are increasingly adopting corporate and employee Twitter accounts. Seen as an alternative channel to the corporate website or customer call line Twitter is often mistakenly used to only push press releases, company news and customer service information into the ether in a wild attempt to build a twitter network. However, the social web is not about a traditional one-way mode corporate communications, it is about conversation, participation and social brand equity. It is about engaging with the communities within which your organization coexists.

Twitter accounts are managed and used by people (or persons) and it is these individuals that give a Twitter handle (e.g., @drkellypage) their personal conversational tone and personality. People follow, friend and connect to people, not press releases or automated twitter services. It is this personality and digital social skill that make for the best twitter accounts to follow. It is how an individual uses tone and their own voice to converse, that is to Tweet, Reply, Retweet (RT) and direct message (DM) that grows followers and friends and gets your Twitter handle listed. Importantly, it is also the mindset an individual managing a Twitter account and their organization have in how they approach the notion of conversation and sharing with and about others not just themselves, that helps build sustainable and sticky social networks.

Individual personality is important, so to in corporate contexts is the need to be professional and responsible with regard to what, whom and in what way we Tweet. Twitter is a public space indexed by Google, searchable and retrievable by Twitter. In this anything you Tweet can be RT by others and cited in other channel contexts. For those considering or currently managing either their own individual or a corporate Twitter account, I’ve listed a number of elements important to consider for the development of healthy, social and sustainable Twitter networks

Communication style

Twitter is about listening, sharing and conversing with others, not shouting or promoting. Think – listen & share with others don’t think talk & tell to others. Listening is important. You don’t have to tweet all the time, a RT is a good way to ease yourself into the conversation and slowly build your Twitter network.

Approach

You can either adopt a mind cast, life cast or combination approach to Twitter (and the social web). Life casting is more personal about what ‘you’ are doing (e.g., getting the train, having a coffee). Mind casting is a more professional tone associated with what you are doing, thinking and believing associated with your professional activities (e.g., Launching our new brand design today). As people follow people often a combination is more often better to develop social bonds within a social network (e.g., had a great meeting with Simon about the new branding design today).

Communication Tone

Develop your own tone and voice in synergy with the organizations values. But be your professional self. Be approachable and friendly. Consider ‘would I say or share this to one or a room full of people’ on behalf or in association with the organization.

Private Twitter

Use direct messages (DM) for private, sensitive information such as phone numbers, email address and time/location for meet ups. Remember Twitter is Google indexed.

Twitter Reach

Remember not everyone is on Twitter or even knows what it is, let alone how to use it. So although corporate partners might use it, individuals in the wider community might not. So don’t default to Twitter as your main point of contact. Twitter, email and office number are the best contact options to be accessible to all.

Internal Communications

Twitter is not just about external communications, it is also a useful channel to find out what else is going on in other parts of your organization. Follow other employees and departments in your organization.

Followers

Think about whom you would like to follow in terms of what conversations you want to be part of, learn about or think you should be involved with. Start by looking at your email address book and the professional association or organization partners in your industry.

Creating Lists

Lists a useful ways to organize who you are following into meaningful categories. It makes sifting through the large volume of tweets you receive. Developing lists of key people, organizations or association in your industry of interest to you, your organization and to share with your followers.

#hashtags

#hashtags are a useful way to categorise a stream of tweets about a specific topic. The more often a specific #hashtag is used the more popular or ‘trendy’ the topic. #hastags are also used around events to organize tweets from the event into one search stream.

Sustainability

Twitter is a not about short-term gain through campaign-led communications approach. It is about ongoing development and growth through dialogue. Take your time to developing a few Twitter habits, these are important for sustained activity. For example, when, where and for how long you use it a day? Which platform you most like to use to manage your account (e.g., Tweetdeck)?

Most importantly, be real and use your best judgment in what, how and to whom you converse.

Smiles
Kelly

* Cardiff News is the newsletter for staff and friends of Cardiff University. It features news and events, latest research, staff and student achievements. You can download

Source: Page, K. L. (2011) The power of #personality on #twitter, Cardiff News, Vol. 17 (7), p. 6.

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Collaborative learning has a diverse meaning, from group or team-based working, to peer-to-peer interaction on shared tasks. With the rise in dynamic ubiquitous digital technologies has provided another rich layer to collaborative learning as the need to learn how to collaborate now coexists with the need to learn how to use digital technologies.

Digital Mediated Collaborative Learning

Given the growth in digital media and its functionality to support and mediate team-based activities, we are seeing a rise in the interest in the use of digital tools to support and mediate collaborative learning, called digital mediated collaborative learning (hereafter DMCL). This study explores the use of Wiki technology for DMCL.

Commonly termed a Wiki, like Blogs and RSS, Wiki’s have been dubbed ‘social software’ because they facilitate social connections allowing users to develop digital content, collaboratively and open to a public. The term became synonymous with collaborative website design after programmer Ward Cunningham pioneered it in 1995 to discuss software design that enabled community content co-creation. However, wiki use for/in collaborative learning is no easy task. It requires the unlearning of old models socialized in a mindset of ‘I learn’ to the learning of new norms, processes and mindsets of ‘we learn’. Couple this with complex digital tools and the landscape for learning becomes quite complicated for the even the most digitally literate.

Limited past research exists on the use of Wiki’s in the contexts of management higher education or management learning and professional development. In this study we therefore reviewed the literature of two relevant situated contexts for the use of Wiki’s to our research study, the use of Wiki’s in management practice and the use of Wiki’s education.

The dominant discourse in management practice is the use of Wiki technology for productivity gains in the achievement of organizational goals (e.g., reduce cost, time, increase security, access) in project management and information sharing. In contrast in education, the focus is on the people and group learning. In this, the evolving paradigm around Wiki’s in education is focused on ‘learning to write and/or collaborate’, on text and interaction and the promotion of deep learning experiences, both in and outside the classroom, not just on technology and/or productivity’.

Drawing from these studies, we devised A Wiki Way of Learning to curricular design and trialed it’s use in two cohorts of postgraduate management education students.

A Wiki Way of Learning Trial

In the academic year 2008/2009 I introduced Wiki’s into my 8-week MBA Marketing Research class of 52 students to trial their use as the students worked on research projects in groups of 8-10. I designed the entire learning experience to work with the Wiki’s, from the class room activities, the group project, my involvement as module coordinator and the Wiki’s functional design in coexistence. I didn’t just tack on Wiki’s to a group project and tell the students to go off and use it, I designed the learning objectives and the project around weekly Wiki tasks, monitored student progress each week, provided weekly feedback and offered incentives. The Wiki was not just part of the group project, it was part of every class lecture and discussion.

The feedback from the students was very positive receiving the highest student ratings across all modules on the MBA (i.e., 4.7/5), and qualitative student insights into how it contributed to their learning experience. However, what I couldn’t report was insight to two very important questions:

1. Did the use of Wiki’s have a positive or negative impact on their learning of the module content?
2. What role did student levels of digital literacy play in their learning and Wiki experience?

With this first years learning of how to design and integrate Wiki’s into a management class environment, in the 2nd year I empirically explored these questions.

A Wiki Way of Learning Study

In the academic year 2009/2010 I continued the use of Wiki’s in my 8-week MBA Marketing Research class of 62 students, but this year I explored the interplay of student digital literacy, knowledge and Wiki use on domain learning and the quality of the student learning experience.

Findings from this study indicate a significant positive relationship between Wiki use and student domain learning as evidence by student performance in a multiple choice revision quiz (in class) and essay examination. The more pages and lines students edited, the higher their overall performance during revision and examination.

Consistent with the literature on digital literacy and knowledge, the study also revealled significant differences in student digital literacy, knowledge and Wiki use between male and female students. Female MBA students self-reported lower levels of digital literacy and knowledge than their male peers, however from log-file data female report significantly higher levels of Wiki use during the project. So even though the female students might under report or have less confidence in their perception of their skills and knowledge with digital technology, doesn’t necessarily mean they will use them any less than their male peers. This poses an interesting question for how we measure and evaluate digital literacy.

My Final Thoughts …

This was a great study to conduct with my students, one of great learning for them about using Wiki’s to collaborate to cocreate a project, and for me on how we integrate technology into learning contexts. I think this is important to inspire not just the learning of a domain or module content, but the learning of and about digital technology through the situated practice of ‘doing’, as opposed to telling.

Digital literacy, knowledge and learning is increasingly critical for management students and professionals of today and tomorrow. As management educators in higher education, it is imperative that we explore, study and adopt new and differing methods for digital mediated learning in our curricular, designing the learning experience with digital media as part of it, not separate to it or an add on, to ensure our students have the neccessary knowledge and skills to participate effectively in a world of dynamic ubiquitous digital mediation.

Thanks

Many thanks to Shashank Garg and Jennifer Smith, postgraduate students at Cardiff University for their research assistance in data collection; and the MBA Marketing Research Classes of 2008/2009 and 2009/2010 at Cardiff Business School for their participation. We’d also like to thank Professor Emmanuel Ogbonna, Lisa L’Homme and Neil Wellard who direct and manage the Cardiff MBA for their ongoing support and assistance during these studies.

Smiles

Kelly

p.s. for a copy of the draft manuscript currently under review, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

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The special issue is entitled: “Consumer-generated, Co-created & Shared Content Through Social Media: Challenges for Consumer Researchers.”

This issue will explore a wide range of topics related to consumer behaviour through a social media enabled environment. Papers examining consumer participation and engagement in social media, consumer action and interaction through social media, and consumer creation and co-creation of content will be particularly appropriate.

Submission Deadline: 31st January 2011

For more information:

• Visit JCB Website
• Download the CFP (Pdf)

Smiles,

Kelly

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In this post, we reflect on something that perhaps we should all reflect on: What do the terms ‘friends’, ‘friendship’ and the action ‘being friendly’ means to us, others and in our social worlds! An important reflection, especially before we add people to our FB profile; share or tag photos with/of them; email, text, call or hang out with them or better yet … invite them to be part of our world! It’s funny, because these terms are not new, they are not words we are unfamiliar with. However their meaning is so ever fluid today, more than ever before … as our digital space evolves, as it merges more with our non-digital world as we transverse spaces, so does the language and narrative we use to think and discuss ‘friends’!

If someone ‘adds’ you on Facebook, are they really your friend? What are the elements that we association with being a friend and why add someone, especially someone we might not really know? Is this changing what we mean by the term ‘friend’ or just changing how we interact with people who ‘could’ be our friends! So let’s espouse …

Having Friends – Being Friendly – Developing Friendships!

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the term ‘friend’ as:

1. A person whom one knows, likes, and trusts.
2. A person whom one knows; an acquaintance.
3. A person with whom one is allied in a struggle or cause; a comrade.
4. One who supports, sympathizes with, or patronizes a group, cause, or movement

In history … A friend is a lover, literally. The relationship between Latin amcus “friend” and am “I love” is clear, as is the relationship between Greek philos “friend” and phile “I love.” In English, though, we have to go back a millennium before we see the verb related to friend. At that time, frond, the Old English word for “friend,” was simply the present participle of the verb fron, “to love.” The Germanic root behind this verb is *fr-, which meant “to like, love, be friendly to.” Closely linked to these concepts is that of “peace,” and in fact Germanic made a noun from this root, *frithu-, meaning exactly that. Ultimately descended from this noun are the personal names Frederick, “peaceful ruler,” and Siegfried, “victory peace.” The root also shows up in the name of the Germanic deity Frigg, the goddess of love, who lives on today in the word Friday, “day of Frigg,” from an ancient translation of Latin Veneris dis, “day of Venus.”

So, from the above we can see characteristics and terms such as: “to know, knowledge of, to like, trust, love, is allied to, supportive of, sympathize with, peaceful, friendly to, lover of, someone I love” … a number for wonderful, deep and emotive words that create a psychological boundary around what is a ‘friend’ is, ‘how friends behave’ and ‘our relationship with them’…

But what about in digital social networks, such as on Facebook, where the term ‘friend’ is used alot? Blurring the lines between connectivity and deep emotive social bonds. Are we connecting to ‘have friends’; ‘develop friendships‘ or are we just ‘being friendly‘ by adding people we have just met, chatted to, shared an experience and thought/hope they might become part of intimate circle of people who are our currently our friends. People who we might work with, grew up with or have known forever – such as family … in this the term ‘friends‘ and the activity of ‘being friendly‘ is about developing social bonds. In this we evolve from weak ties to deeper stronger ties with people … developed based on our level and type of emotive connectedness with them – similar values, loves, hates, opinions … but at it’s core development of mutual trust, respect and … love!

Connectivity – Connections – Connectedness

So from this it is important to distinguish between a number of other terms cognisiant with and used to describe the digital media space … ‘having connectivity’, ‘adding connections’ and ‘developing connectedness’. The differential between these terms is about the extent or evolution from the technical bonds to the emotive social bonds between users of a system (i.e., nodes in a network) and the technical infrastructure that can and does connect them. In this sense,

• ‘having connectivity’ = is the ability and functionality of a digital system to ‘connect’ nodes in a networks – be it people, computers or data points … i.e., being connected to the Internet gives you connectivity!
• ‘add connections’ = is the number and quality of nodes that exist in a complex system – be it people, computers or data points’… i.e., being on Facebook and adding friends gives you connections!
• ‘developing connectedness’ = is the emotive social bonds between nodes in a network – and in this essence is more about human social bonds and social capital that you develop… i.e., engaging in dialogue and conversation with friends through Facebook gives you connectedness!

So in essence, ‘adding a friend’, ‘having friends‘, and ‘developing friendships’ are not one in the same – be it in an offline space such as at work or university or an online digital space such as Facebook. Connectivity through social networks most certainly might provide the digital opportunity for the latter to occur, however it is the deep rich social bonds and thus ‘connectedness’ between ‘friends’ in a network, that makes true, deep and lasting ‘friendships’ develop, grow and sustain … no matter if you are in an online or offline space …

So next time someone asks you to ‘Add’ them as a Facebook Friend, and thus you are giving them permission to see into the privacy of your world … ask yourself three questions:

1. ‘Are they really a friend?” [See the definition above!]
2. “Do you want to potentially build a friendship with them?”
3. OR “Are you just being friendly?”

Smiles

Kelly

P.s. “Family are the friends you grow up with; Friends the family your choose; and Strangers the friends you haven’t met yet” (Dr. Kelly Page, 2010).

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Following the chair’s introduction by Dr. Henry Jenkins, the opening keynote talk was delivered by S. Craig Watkins. Highly regarded for his research about race, youth and digital media usage and his books, The Young and the Digital and Hip Hop Matters. He was invited to join the MacArthur Foundation Series on Youth, Digital Media and Learning.

With this in mind and with no experience in this area I was looking forward to hearing the perspective from which he considers this space. Below is provided a few key insights I took out of his keynote talk:

• SCW Insight: The conversation around youth use of digital media and the digital divide as a racial ravine has changed. Black and latino youth are using technology and the degree of engagement has evolved considerably since 1998?

Here he poses the audience to reflect on what this conference might have looked like in 1998, over ten years ago in terms of race and usage?

• SCW Insight: If we ask them [youth] if they use and access – it assumes they are not connected for a certain period of the day? They are in fact using social media ‘more’ than heir white counterparts.

He presents to the audience a number of emergent patterns about black and latino youth usage, which challenged historical views about black and latino participation in the digital media space:

1. Usage is mobile: Mobile phones are merging as the preferred platform. 92% own a mobile phone …
2. Usage is peer and Interest driven: They are ‘Living and learning’ with new media …  engaging their peers … peer interaction … peer informed spaces that drive their usage and interest driven genres (e.g., hip hop)…
3. Use digital media is the new town square: ‘Back in the day’ .. hip hop … youth always writing stories, carrying pens and papers, documenting  their stories about their life in poems and hip hop … today, the digital landscape is the new town square about hip hop … they go online to engage with their community, and engage in a ‘stunning’ critique about the world around them ….
4. Use digital media as a space of opportunity: Messaging & hanging around in digital media is NOT just wasting time, but they are creating gateways for them to create opportunities and engage with what they are love and passionate about … e.g., a young girl who used hip hop to connect with hip hop artists, but also to connect with her friends and record/tweet about her own hip hop …

He goes on to discuss the affinity between social media and hip hop (e.g., mobility, DIY, peer-based learning, participatory, view of them in their world) and summarises some key tenants of what they have learnt so far about black and latino youth in the digital media space:

1. Black youth capital is about – ‘keepin it real in the digital age’
2. Black cultural capital wherein “soft skills” and code switching in/between digital and real world is important. Soft skills he defines as the ways people interact with others, esp. how they talk … black and latino youth profiles in digital space, how they present themselves, their linguistic practices, these styles of behaviour suit their peers, but not perhaps the wider/formal view of the world (e.g., getting a job).
3. Creating and critiquing expression and peer-group connection: Digital media is the space where they grapple with their own fears and their own concerns and peer-group connection. He gives an example of New Orleans and Katrina and how a young boys digital media practices changed before (i.e., didn’t use/value Myspace) and after Katrina (e.g., place to express and reconnect with his peers, post evacuation.
4. Creating and critiquing the politics of race and place … public memorials, grieving and engagement with social issues… are engaging with differing skills and life experiences and these life experiences are shaping their interaction and participation in the digital world.
5. Creating and critiquing in any place through digital space … Black/Latino … more likely than white via handheld … more reliable than home access and in these places they feel ‘policed’, not so with mobile technologies … mobile becomes an empowered space in any place …

In summary, S. Craig Watkins poses some interesting insights into not just the usage of black and latino youth with digital  media, disposing the historical view of the 1990’s of the synergy between race and digital divide .. but also sharing his learning on black and latino youth in the digital space … their experiences, values and in his words ‘how they are in this world’ (S. Craig Watkins, DML-2010).

From this delivery I felt an additional area worth exploring:

1. In addition to how black and latino youth use, are, see, interact and participate in the digital media space, how does digital media make black and latino youth feel as part of this experience? This question comes from an exploratory study with MedisSnackers in the UK that I was fortunate to be part of entitled: The Web Makes Me Feel!

Smiles
Kelly

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How important REALLY is online word of mouth? How could an online community of music consumers use social networks to oppose an international music franchise and make British music history?

‘Rage against the X-Factor’: it was real; it happened in real time, and it had a real impact!

CASE Insights reviews the music campaign launched by Jon and Tracey Morter from Essex who showed Simon Cowell that they, their friends and their friends-friends certainly have much more than the X-Factor.

The X-Factor is a franchise originating in the UK in 2004, devised as a replacement of Pop Idol. Produced by executive producer Simon Cowell and his company Syco TV, X-Factor is franchise spanning 24 European countries.

The format sees aspiring pop artists and performers drawn from public auditions compete, with finalists being voted for by the viewing public for a recording contract and publicity. Despite, being highly criticised as exploiting aspiring music artists and for it’s lack of artistic integrity, it has been a hugely popular reality TV show watched by millions.

The UK Christmas Number 1 selling single is Britain’s most hotly-contested music chart of the year. Compiled by the Official UK Charts Company, for the past 4 years Simon Cowell‘s X-Factor winners, from Shayne Warne, Leonia Lewis, Alexandra Burke and JLS, have dominated the Christmas charts. However, this came to an end in 2009 with one of the most exciting and anticipated music chart battles ever in the UK. The British public sick of the manufactured artists widely supported and promoted a social web campaign to ‘Rage against the X-Factor’.

Fed up with the possibility of yet another X-Factor Christmas No. 1., Jon and Tracey Morter from Essex, started a protest campaign through a Facebook Group. They promoted the sale of their favourite single ‘Killing in the Name’ by artists Rage Against the Machine (RATM) as a possible contender for the 2009 No. 1 Christmas chart position.

‘Rage against the X-Factor’: Through over 1 million Facebook fans, over 50,000 YouTube search results and endless Twitter chatter, individuals encouraged their friends, followers and fans to buy a download of the single by rock band, RATM by the end of Saturday 19^th December (23:59pm).

The aim: to firmly contest conventional marketing techniques by publicly bringing down a major players mass media campaign through online social networks and word of mouth (WOM). Jon and Tracey felt passionately and wanted to stop the domination of the Christmas music charts by X-Factor manufactured artists and in that make a statement about the power of online WOM and marketing ethics.

The results: ‘Killing in the Name’, the single by RATM, officially released over 15 years ago, spent very little on it’s marketing activities, yet in December 2009, in one week, they sold over 502,672 copies of it’s single, beating X-Factor winner Joe McElderry by approximately 50,000, making it the 2009 Christmas No.1 in the UK.

In taking the title for 2009, ‘Killing in the Name’ also set two new landmarks for the music industry. It became the UK’s first download-only Christmas number one and notching up the biggest one-week download sales total in British chart history.

This has been matched with numerous fake websites, dozen of mock twitter accounts, hundreds of new blog posts, and thousands of YouTube entries for the single – Killing in the Name. The No. 1 search result on YouTube has received over 12 million views and been rated by 40,000 visitors. HMV’s Gennaro Castaldo said “This is a truly remarkable outcome and possibly the greatest chart upset ever”.

The campaign also raised through Just Giving over £93, 000 for the charity, Shelter.

In response: RATM announced on 19th December 2009, that they will be holding a FREE concert, a massive ‘Thank You Gig’ in the UK in Spring 2010 to celebrate the victory of the people’s campaign.

Marketers (and Simon Cowell) can learn a great deal from this social web campaign and how reality TV shows, audience voting systems and mass media ratings are not necessarily reflective of wider societal opinion and consumer choice.

WOM has always been a very important channel in marketing, but now coupled with increased reach and awareness because of digital social channels, it is by far the most powerful channel in marketing today.

For the digital immigrant or newcomer and the marketing traditionalist, take note: “The RATM campaign shows that marketing through the social web is about being real, in real time and having a real impact!”

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As the avid researcher I am, I did a little research to see what others had to say on the topic of social web expertise. By searching the phrase ‘social media expert’ on Google it returned  around 306,000 search results (I read the first two pages), on delicious 1027 bookmarks (of which I read 10) and I sat and painfully watched 6 of the 164 videos about it on YouTube.

What about Twitter? Well a Twitter Search showed we are certainly tweeting about it. Twist shows a direct correlation between use of the terms social media and expert.

I also came across a number of really interesting blog posts discussing social media expertise. These are well worth a read.

• Joel Mackey in his post ‘You are not a social media expert, you idiot!’, categorises five types of social media experts using criteria such as knowledge and usage of social web technologies, and the breadth and depth of social network reach
• Jay Fowler talks about ‘What makes you the expert?’ using criteria of how well and how frequently an individual uses social web technologies as key criteria in categorisation.
• Chris Brogen, a once self-confessed social media expert, now espouses ‘What I want a social media expert to know!’, from the strategic to the tactical.
• Dave Fleet offers a number of posts about ‘When can we start to say Expert?‘ given the early days of social web technologies, and in his post ‘Where are the experts?‘, provides a list of people he regards as social media experts given when they write – he reads!
  
• Dan Schawbel provides a list of reasons from inability to command a premium salary, too little bases for differentiation and confusion as to what a social media expert is as to why ‘You shouldn’t brand yourself as a social media expert!
• In response to Dan’s post and annoyed by the growing anti-expert meme, Suw Charman-Anderson in her post ‘Hi, my name is Suw and I’m a social media expert!’, provides a thought provoking read about why we should be calling ourselves social media experts.
  

But these posts still left me feeling that perhaps the simple line of what really is an expert in the digital economy is getting lost in the deluge of social web examples, content, technology and a need to self-promote.

So this post is not so much about social web expertise, as it is about knowledge of technology.

Knowledge of Technology

In the early days of my research career looking at questions of usability I started researching knowledge of technology. More specifically comparing novice and experienced web users in how they differed in Web Knowledge. This later formed the basis for my PhD on Web Knowledge and Web Usability. Warning: It is 350 pages long!

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A detailed review of the insights from this 350 page research thesis is best left for another blog post. However, from this research a number of core questions came up that provide some interesting food for thought as to how we think about ‘expertise’ in the digital economy – what ever the trend, platform, tool or technology.

So What Really is an Expert in the Digital Economy?

Before we really can use a term, be it to label ourselves or someone else, we need to know what it is and the appropriate context for it’s usage. Increasingly in digital or technological arena’s we use the terms expert, novice and experienced users alot, but often inconsistently.

The preliminary secondary research of academic studies and industry reports we did about knowledge, expertise, and usage (be it of technology or other complex products) revealed that very few could agree on what knowledge is and how it differed from experience, expertise or the process of learning. There was also limited agreement on the differing types, scope, levels of knowledge and how it could be measured.

So we did some primary research of users with differing experiences with technology (be it designers, users or project managers) and spoke to industry recognised leaders to help develop some standard considerations around the notion of expertise, especially as it relates to technology.

The research identified that an expert in digital technology actually denotes someone as:

1. having differing types of knowledge about technology stored in their memory,
2. differing breadth and depth of knowledge (scope) about the technology, and
3. having acquired this knowledge by differing means than an average consumer, user or member of the general population.

To be more specific:

• The main types of knowledge we store in our memory are declarative (e.g., definitive knowledge about what Twitter is and why use it) and procedural (e.g., process knowledge about how Twitter works or could be used for marketing).
• These types of knowledge can differ on a continuum in scope from being more specialised and technical knowledge (e.g., design, development and socio-cultural impact of Twitter) to more common, generally known principles (e.g., it’s domain twitter.com and tools such as Tweetdeck to manage it’s usage)
• We acquire knowledge through different experiences or episodes (also called episodic knowledge). These can include formal education (e.g., masterclass about Twitter), informal learning (e.g., reading a blog post or report about Twitter), direct usage (e.g., Frequency and length of use, Tweeting for oneself or designing/implementing strategy for client) or vicariously through our social networks (e.g., friends, colleagues) and media networks (e.g., BBC, CNN). These episodes provide a contextual reference for the learning, usage and application of the knowledge acquired.

Note: The example given would relate to the scope of expertise about Twitter, not the wider social web.

As you can see, the extent of expertise someone poses is about the knowledge stored in their memory: its type, it’s scope and it’s acquisition and the use of this knowledge, it’s application. It is not just that they think they are an expert.

Recognising a Social Media Expert

So how do you recognise someone or a team as possessing social web expertise? When faced with the opportunity for partnering on a CASE Insights project I consider the following questions?

• What is their past experience with technology, not just the social web?
• What is their current usage experience with the social web, and not just Facebook and Twitter – think bigger picture?
• How long have they been consulting or advising? To whom? About What?
• What is the contextual application of their experience – which clients, which industries – I look for case studies?
• Do they talk beyond the technological implications of the social web to the social-cultural implications?
• What is their strategic springboard – marketing, PR, communications, sales? Do they have one?
• What is their tactical focus – design, management, measurement, monetisation?
• What is their tone of relationship? Do they sound like they want to sell me something, advise on something, share or create something?
• Are they industry or community regarded – be it from past clients, colleagues, followers and case examples – as possessing specialised knowledge.

In summary, subject to what some might think I believe given I don’t like using the term expertise to promote my own work or self, it’s not that I think the term expert shouldn’t be used. I just think we should be judicious about who uses it, how and when we use it (context) and conscious of what it is we are indicating someone has with this label.

Expertise is about possessing differing types and scope of knowledge and how we use this knowledge, not just the usage of digital technologies.

In essence, I wouldn’t call myself a mechanic if I just changed a tyre or a chef if I made a bowl of pasta. Just like the culinary expertise of Executive Chef Mark Eskew at the Gordon Ramsay Three-Michelin Star restaurant in London would greatly differ to that of a service-cook at the Moto road-side cafe at Reading on the M4.

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