Robert Scoble has a bit of a rant today about the open web being dead and does a bit of trolling against Dave Winer and others who fight for open standards. He may be right. “Most people” may experience the web through closed systems like Facebook and Google+ rather than directly through blogs and RSS. Part of me feels that this is like AOL in the old days and that however attractive walled gardens may be in the short term the open web wins out in the long term. The other part of me wonders if it matters.

What is powerful about the web is our ability to find things and then indicate our feelings about them by linking to them. As David Weinberger says every link is an act of generosity. This may be a direct link from or blog or it may be a “like” in Facebook or a “plus” in Google+ – does it matter?

It matters when people start telling us what we can and can’t link to and that is the risk of proprietary systems. Much of the web is now “owned” by corporate interests and these, while they may provide most people with most of their experience of the web, will ultimately be eroded and replaced by the evolution of the web itself. I am reminded – yet again – of Bob Khan’s point that the hacker mentality will always stay ahead of those attracted to corporate or institutional thinking. Whatever the mass may do most of the time there will always be edglings and to claim that Facebook or Google have killed off the open web is naive.

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Tonight my email address was used by Tango to spam me with fluff about their product and an invitation to like their Facebook page.

What will it take to help the marketing world grasp what is going on with the web? They really don’t have a clue. All of those agencies who label themselves “social”, and who have in fact devalued the term to such an extent that it is becoming unuseable. “Doing social” “doing digital” – the language makes my flesh creep. They still use words like capturing, targeting, campaign, blitz. Militaristic words that seemed to make sense in a past world of mass, where if you shouted loudly, and expensively enough at enough people, you could claim to have had an impact on sales.

They try to apply these mass techniques on the web and the result is to make customers feel like they are part some ill conceived people farming experiment. It could be so different. I really do want to buy stuff, I need to buy stuff and am longing to have more meaningful conversations with the companies who want to provide me with stuff. However I have less and less patience with stupid people who treat me like an idiot and shout at me about crap I don’t want when I am trying to do something else!

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Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. – Howard Thurman

This line was quoted by Flemming Funch this morning in Facebook and it got me thinking about the nature of change. How much we all try to change other people – whether our family, our colleagues or our staff. But we never, ever succeed. No one has ever made anyone else change. They always have to decide to change themselves at some stage. And why do we change? Because we have seen the possibility of being better. Happier, more effective, more successful. Whatever it is we have seen something in someone else we want to emulate.

The more someone berates us, finds fault with us and attempts to bring about a change in us the more we dig our heels in. And yet seeing someone being the way we want to be can make us change in an instant.

The prevailing business culture in most organisations – mature, restrained, un-selfaware and often aloof – is the last sort of thing that is going to make any of us want to change.

We need more people alive, awake and going for it – whatever it is!

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Banning Facebook is like banning the telephone. What people in authority don’t realise is that it is just a tool. Any tool can be used or misused. What they should be focussed on is harnessing its potential not being paranoid about what people do with it.

Facebook, like so many social tools, is actually primarily about learning. Yes learning what people had for breakfast – but also learning news, learning what works, learning what books are best to read, learning where to find the right bit of information.

It is particularly ironic when schools ban Facebook as they are the very ones who should be teaching effective use of this technology – not keeping their pupils stuck in some industrial, factory model of learning.

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Someone I know just posted on Facebook that their son has been killed in a car crash. Their expression of grief in this context took me aback. I sat here stunned.

This is someone I haven’t had contact with for years and for me to respond with a Facebook comment in such circumstances seemed wrong.

But then I realised that here was a fellow human being in frankly unimaginable pain reaching out. Who was I not to reach back …..

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At risk of invoking memories of playground rejection by wading in to the sensitive topic of whose a friend of who, I thought this was an interesting story worth telling.

I saw from Facebook that two people I know, Robert Scoble and Jeff Jarvis, had friended Leo Laporte and went to try to add him as a friend as well. I got the following error message:

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Rainmaker Dialogue:
How to Get Great Performance Using
Social Media in the Corporate World.

Do you Need to do any of the following:

• Increase innovation and creativity
• Improve efficieny
• Create environments where staff can learn from each other

Business as usual?

• Do your managers know how to manage the internet generation?
• Will you attract the brightest new recruits and would you know where to find them online?
• Are your IT department enablers or gatekeepers and how much do they cost?

Driven by the networked communication, tools are flourishing on the web. Tools like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Not only is the way we communicate with those who benefit from our services are changing but also how we organise ourselves will be changed forever.

These changes mean business and they represent exciting opportunities to ensure that business is never the same again!

Forget the word “social” – what is happening now is a fundamental revolution in how we conduct business and sell products. Networks have always been around but the internet puts them on steroids.

Come and spend the day with Euan and leave with the answers on how to:

Give you competitive advantage in your industry by making you better informed about your customers and their needs
Make you better at running your own business by knowing what’s working, what isn’t and how to improve it
Give you the best chance you have ever had of being understood by your organisation and able to lead them effectively

This seminar will be held under Chatham House Rule

Thought Leader: Rainmaker -Euan Semple.
Euan Semple is a leading authority on the use of social media in organisations. He gained unparalleled experience as Director of Knowledge Management at the BBC. He was one of the first to introduce what have since become known as social media tools into a large, successful organisation. Euan hans since taken his knowledge to other large organisations, working with them and helping them learn how to make the most of this wired-up world of work.

Cost: Costs include light lunch and all refreshements. All prices are listed above and ex VAT. Discounts maybe available on multiple bookings. Please call for info.

Next step – book now: Places are limited as it is preferable to keep discussions to a small group, so please book using the above form or call 08450941044 now to speak to Chris and book your place. Secure payment can be taken over the phone, or an invoice can be raised if you prefer.

Euan Semple :

I have loads of precise contact categories in Daylite (my CRM), twelve in Google Reader, five in Facebook and will continue to have no lists in Twitter.