The New Battle: Sociology vs Technology

Brian Solis has been preaching “it’s not technology it’s sociology” for awhile now and I am finally following my gut and joining the fold. Working for a corporation making strides to fully implement a social media strategy I finally had the slap in the face moment that the battle has changed from a battle with the company to a battle with participating individuals social habits.

After putting the final touches on our Facebook and Twitter profiles, all on top of currently running blog program, a little resistance began to surface. The participation requirements came into question along with how we are reporting and tracking tasks. And everything has come back to social behavior and sense of social responsibilities.

Some love blogging, others hate it and the rest see the value in doing it so they do it, but lack caring. So, how do you get everyone to buy into the same plan? Well, you don’t. You have to cater to individual talents and perspective on careers for a successful blog. There becomes a point of too much behavioral change for some to accept this shift. And this is also a starting point for where to start your measurements.

Are you goingto measure results or are you going to measure behavior? To add to that are you willing to trade results for training behavior? There you have it, once you start measuring behavior and taking in account behavioral change you have left technology and entered sociology.

Election and Social Media

It’s amazing to see that the reach of social media is affecting the presidential race. In just a quick search you can find the Obama campaign can be found on Twitter, FaceBook, MySpace, Wiki, blogging, YouTube and a socially driven campaign site. On the other side of the ticket you can find McCain in all the same places with similar followings and participation. I think this is great that politics are finally making an effort to incorporate the people and actually talk to them rather then at them.

However, there is a downside to this, I would like to know the actual knowledge of the candidates and the social realm. And even further than that I would like to know congresses grasp of what is happening in the “tubes.” I would venture a guess that they know very little, but have hired a lot of smart people that know a lot. This shouldn’t be a passing fad when the elections are finished because the government should understand the inner works here as well as involve the public they are representing.

This also sparked a memory of a conversation I had with a friend when the primaries were kicking off and Obama announced his presence on Facebook. He promptly told me the president or a soon to be president had no business participating on the applications and should focus on running the country. However, I interjected this is how the country is running (the masses online and the President off). I realize the government shouldn’t be wrapped up with the Internet and social activities, but they should have a fine understanding of what it is and what people are doing on it and how they are interacting. The demographic of the various systems would lead us to believe they don’t know what they even are. Remember the Senator Ted Stevens “tubes” speech?

Teach Me

I was talking with a past journalism/PR professor of mine and I was amazed to hear that social media is not being taught at most Universities. This lack of understanding and teaching I believe is where a lot of the PR vs. Blogger problems start. These eager PR/marketing newly grads are finding positions and employers saying, “we hear all about this social media, and we want it,” or vice verse and the recent grad telling the employer, “I have this cool networking (insert popular network name here) and think we should be participating.” Both of these situations is great in that both parties are willing to participate and are understanding the changing environment we are working in, but there is one small problem. The lack of knowledge.

This is were a little guidance early in the education process could be beneficial. Most have learned this information on the fly, but the up and comers don’t have too. We can impart the knowledge gathered in the race to find out what exactly can be done with social environments and their power. This knowledge could help repair the bond between bloggers and PR professionals and instead of making the same mistakes over and over again and not breaking down this barrier the battle will only continue.

For all the Univeristies out there not adding social media to the journalism or communication programs out there you need to change. Teaching students the basic skills involved with these mediums is essential for building these relationships. 

I am sure this is common concern, but I wanted to add my two cents because obviously there has continued to be a lack of adoption.