The anti-social social media in a Digital World

She was a teenaged student enamored by social media, trusting quickly, befriended what appeared to be similar minded youth. The emotional play slowly convinced her to take steps that would have been forbidden by her parents resulting in indescribable gory incident that left her wounded for life. Similar fate has courted many young lives globally; awareness and education being a partial cure, cutting off the connecting threads being a drastic step rarely enforceable. Peer pressure coupled with rebellious nature has not alleviated the situation significantly.

Sharing and social platforms have now been around for almost a decade, first among them took off in 2002, others followed; some are raising their heads even now. In the not too distant past everyone was going gaga over social media and its relevance to the enterprise and why it mattered to be on various social media platforms; quickly the problem morphed into an analytical one with social listening and unstructured data giving rise to a new paradigm – Big Data – that promised to provide insights hereto unknown and unthinkable.

The market segmented itself into personal social, professional networking, image sharing, chatting, and short messages with 140 characters to broadcast or send to individual subscribers (the origin being that the messaging service was built on top of the Short Message Service or popularly known SMS on mobile phones which had a limit of 160 characters). Then came convergence with each of them wanting to take mindshare from the other. Blurring lines and interconnect reduced the distinction to almost nothing for consumers and corporates.

Popularity was determined by the number of followers, connections, and shares by others of what a person or corporate account posted; which obviously gave rise to false accounts and commercial models to buy followers showing inflated numbers against a profile which was the measure of success. Slowly as the hype died down, investments were questioned and everyone scampered around to find financial models to justify their budgets. Stretch of imagination and leap of faith set aside, fear of not doing it kept depleting the coffers.

Unable to hold ground with ROI models, marketing justified brand building, customer engagement, pulse of the market, and put effort in managing negative vibes spread by dissatisfied customers. Smattering of success selectively by a few campaigns ensured that everyone kept trying as the dynamics continued to change. Individual customers made the most of the paranoia of corporates to decimate all evidence of their shortcomings until it reached a point where many just gave up or ignored the listening justifying their steps using statistics.

Success of the medium attracted unwanted elements who used social engineering methods to target the gullible; emboldened by their success, they gradually increased threat levels and expanded scope to target the young and innocent or holding naïve and unprepared corporates to ransom. Changing terms of engagement on the platforms kept everyone guessing on what next and how to keep themselves sane. In the melee emerged experts with a proficient air of confidence to part the fool from his money promising salvation.

Overloaded and fatigued by Digital flood, people sought vacations with no connectivity or rationing time to get some real work done while hundreds of messages filled with good intentions, emotional stories, knowledge snippets, motivational videos, tips and tricks, humorous anecdotes and more, all of them converging to occupy free and busy time until personally and professionally the impact begins to hurt. It also ends up overshadowing meaningful communication from those who matter while everyone runs faster to stay in touch.

How to unshackle and detox from this whirlpool of quicksand ? How to protect corporate reputation and assets ? How to keep the innocent youth shielded from nefarious elements ? How to keep customers happy and reduce negative mentions ? What can individuals and enterprises do with everyone pushing the Digital agenda as if survival depended on it ! Maybe for some it does but it is not the universal truth; Technology does not have all the answers, some of them require a different level of thinking discarding current beliefs.

I believe that we need to go back to basics and start challenging every demand on our sensibility and stop reacting to external stimulus that forces us to mimic others. Create a decision matrix that aligns to your company, industry, geography, and customer demographics. Keep a vigilant watch for the next hype with a responsive strategy; do not fear for survival, adapt to the situation. IT will play a significant role in your ability to execute, give some latitude to your CIO and IT teams, they hold some of the keys to the future.

I need a Digital Vacation

A popular B2C eCommerce marketplace announced that it will shut down the website and engage customers only on the mobile phone; the news had everyone wondering about the wisdom behind such a move. Various views prevailed on the trigger towards this unusual step; speculations did not stop despite press releases that outlined the rationale behind the move. Everyone watched with abated breath when D-day arrived; a few days later a small dip in traffic and revenue was reported with an optimistic view that they will bounce back.

It is published statistics that number of smartphones is increasing globally; the personal device is also becoming the primary means to access Internet, browse, check email, communicate, socialize, and do some personal and official work. Phones are also getting smarter, larger, with higher compute capacity now beginning to rival computers of a not too distant past, offer reasonable mobile storage and increasingly better cameras. Conventional wisdom says that mobile is and will remain the primary device of choice.

Then the latest hype and hoopla is around wearable technology; it all started with glasses (the kind you wear on the eyes) mimicking some of the futuristic movies of the 90s depicting humanoids with special powers. Next came fitness bands which offered alternative ways to view limited information while they monitored body vital functions; these were followed by smart watches wanting to change the way you consume information. Seesawing between screen sizes, each device competed for attention by offering notifications of all types (see Divergence is …).

Did I forget tablets which now masquerade as mini-laptops or phablets that disguise themselves as big sized phones or handy sized tablets ? Crossovers of all types have attempted to bridge a perceived gap until they either became the standard or irrelevant. Case in point as an example, laptops with touchscreens or tablets with keyboards competing for bag space. Depending on need and at times driven by corporate policy, there are cases where both have won and coexist as personal and work device.

Are we obsessed about staying connected or is technology pressurizing us into compulsive behaviour for the next notification or alert. Who benefits from connected devices and alarms that keep us on our toes ? Is our life changing for the better or worse with guiding forces that we no longer control ? From a closed society that valued privacy we have moved to an open world where almost everyone has access to life events that we decided to share and then exercise control on who can see them forgetting that it has been cataloged for data mining !

Coming back to the Thing that could/will be the primary information creation and consumption device(s), it is quite likely and highly probable that contextually there will be separation. We will have the choice on how we would like consume; willingly or inadvertently we will be broadcasting data into the servers of service providers, marketers, and feed analytical engines through the various Things that on or off us will monitor what we are up to in our lives and the feedback mechanism will to nudge our choices subconsciously.

Information consumption shall extend beyond visual interactions to encompass auditory as well as kinaesthetic experience. I think the phone as we know it today will probably retain a large share while other form factors (may be integrated into the phone or discrete) will complete the experience. Change contextually will be driven by where we are, what we are doing, who are we with, time of the day, at work or home or leisure, traveling or stationary, and finally personal choice based on peer influence and personal comfort.

There will also be forced or chosen moments of disconnected bliss (let’s call it Digital Vacation) until withdrawal symptoms give way to the craving or we time out the detached life. Extreme cases would undergo Digital detoxification camps and participate in support groups (not digitally but in person) and be monitored actively ironically by digital devices. Does this situation sound too dramatic, hypothetical or out of science fiction ? Well I believe that the future is already here for some while others will catch up sooner than later.

Blessed would be a few who can at will detach themselves and have no impact on professional or personal life. 

The Digirati are coming

With the advent of the Internet two decades back euphoria around internet based business models exploded upon all of us. Predictions like “if you are not on the web, you will be dead or if you don’t have an internet strategy, you don’t have a business strategy” shook up everyone and pushed them towards limits of paranoia. Untenable valuations on shaky business models led to the dot bust that wiped out millions from budgets and zillions in market capitalization. Now digital is rivaling the din of the past and it has everyone scrambling again.

Some CIOs saw it coming earlier than others; creating awareness within their enterprises, they attempted to raise the bar. Initial reactions of cynicism and indifference led many CIOs to return to their comfort zones while the world around them flirted with the digital wave. As success stories started trickling in, it gave jitters to the disbelievers and created a flurry of disconnected activity. Every CXO wanted a digital project; everyone added the word “digital” in the headline; many ignored the CIO to avoid embarrassing discussions.

SMAC came the response from consultants, vendors and the IT folks alike; to get started on your digital journey, you need the skills, talent and a link back to the physical world that IT provides. Many CIOs reveled in the limelight of having been ahead of the game while the rest joined the confused ranks adding to the chaos with technology play. As individual pieces of Social, Mobility, Analytics and Cloud made way into various initiatives, the picture started to become clear that digital is not an option anymore; it is going to be a way of life.

Board room and management discussions on digital attempted to create correlations with revenue growth, customer service, enablement of suppliers and business partners, automation for improved process efficiency. Now the connections to enterprise goals are shifting the discussion from the likes of Big Data Analytics or Mobility to creating new business models or tapping new profit pools and outpacing competition. Everyone wants to be anointed with title of the CDO to be hailed as the hero when success arrives.

Competition from new age companies in some sectors like hospitality, retail, virtual collaboration, and travel and entertainment has disrupted conventional age old business models leading to a scramble to catch up. Industrial giants slowed by corporate inertia are waking up to new threat and opportunities. Willing to use their scale, muscle power and enormous resources, they potentially have the ability to devour the small fish while they establish new business models and reinvent their business, systems and leverage the digital wave.

Silos of digital initiatives will at best test a hypothesis, for enterprise wide impact, cohesive and integrated approach with CEO alignment is essential. Reality is, IT and business strategies are no longer separate, and they have become inseparable. With everything going online and “Internet of Things” creating an avalanche of hitherto unexplored data, enterprises are pushing the boundaries of analytical possibilities. Corporate and information boundaries are disappearing demanding democratization of analytics and decision making.

The oft repeated question to CIOs raises its head again on their position in this evolutionary revolution ? IT teams need to focus on not just scale but also the new application ecosystem that requires IT teams to discard legacy and pursuit of monolithic systems and shift focus on agile built for purpose apps. This paradigm shift requires preparation for non-stop business in the interconnected world. Customers are challenging the business of incremental innovation and forcing companies to listen and co-create new products and services.

Digital is here and how ! For most CIOs BYOD/T was a beginning, BYOW (Wearable) will stretch the already delicate ecosystem. Finicky customers expecting instant gratification threaten fragile brand reputations with 140 characters and less. Consumption patterns are shifting thereby forcing CIOs to rework corporate peer relationships. I believe that CIOs can reclaim lost ground by challenging existing digital alignments and build the foundation that will help the enterprise win in raging battle for revenue, profitability and the customer.

Your enterprise digital stance may be a challenge at the moment; culturally maybe the company does not enable open ideas or visible risk; it is up to you to decide whether you want to be a bystander while the world moves ahead or you want your destiny to be linked to the new world of digital enablement ? Are you ready ?

The Digital Moron

Not too long ago one of the consulting companies’ classified people by their digital proficiency and created three groups; digital dinosaurs, digital migrants, and digital natives. This was picked up by many people who used this classification to target their solutions or services to their respective benefit. The resultant divide did not matter to the bourgeois or the elite, they anyway continued to demonstrate behaviors that they did; the world continued to evolve, and gave way to a new species, which is gaining ground.

Characteristics of the first three categories were quite easy to comprehend and evident with their names. The Dinosaurs are the people born before the advent of technology (today’s 60+ generation) who use basic technology to stay connected. Migrants (born before 1990 or thereabouts) embraced the new technology wave sometimes a bit uncomfortable, but more or less adept. The Natives are born into the new world and do not know of a life without social media, mobility, ubiquitous connectivity and instant gratification.

As is with all kinds of evolution, there are genetic mutations, exceptions and the differently abled who do not partake in the normal. They have all the means, the environment, the facilities, the stimulus, the desire; they show a lot of promise and demonstrate a stray spark of brilliance. These individuals are mostly found in the cusp of the natives or wannabe migrants (migrants who believe they are better natives than the natives themselves). It does not take too much of an effort to spot them, they are visibly obvious.

In a digital conference with average participant age less than 24, we tried spotting the pseudo natives; one of the sparsely haired speakers in mid-40s was desperately trying to impress the audience with his knowledge and investments into digital startups. A mobile cloud, take it anywhere you go; make 2G work at 3G speeds; family only social media, were some of the references to his invested concepts which he believed were ahead of the evolution curve. No one had heard of his ventures but the crowd humored him to get his wallet share.

A corporate 20-something CDO (Chief Digital Officer) reveled in the fact that he was ahead of his peers having already achieved the pinnacle position in an industry which was always in the forefront of digital technology. With an MBA from a prestigious institute, he strutted around to the envy of others who wanted to get there. He was on stage being interviewed on his vision and predictions of where the digital world was headed. Not that he wanted to entertain the audience; his responses had most people snickering.

His stated digital strategy for the company revolved around leveraging an existing portal which had lost traction with customers. Is mobility part of your strategy ? Off course, we are deploying apps ! How do you plan to differentiate ? We are looking at global trends ! Do more of the same, do it a little differently; will it change the world or bring around a revolution ? As the Q&A progressed, the audience became restless wanting to be rid of the listless conversation. One anonymous listener shouted across the room, “Get off the stage, you …” !

Titles aside the general enthusiasm around digital everything ranged from wearable technology to esoteric business cases; the general feeling was that if you are a migrant, there’s a generation gap, if you are older, why are you here ? You don’t understand our language; you don’t belong to this new wave. Don’t slow us down; we know where we are going. While some oldies tried to moderate the irrational exuberance reminiscent of the dotcom era, the young believers retaliated with cries of frustration with the dinosaurs.

I think that giving some latitude to sprouting innovation connect to real life use cases is the need of the hour. It would serve the well-wishers to espouse the cause while staying out of the way of the emerging digital tsunami. The velocity and variety of change challenges legacy thinking; to understand and appreciate the thinking process of the new generation entrepreneurs requires unlearning and new mindset failing which the older generation and some from the current too run the risk of being alienated or being labeled Digital Morons. 

Technology shaping human behavior

As a kid I used to watch Star Trek and marvel about Mr. Spock and the technology some of which is reality now. I also devoured (Isaac) Asimov, Arthur C Clarke and other science fiction fantasizing about the future possibilities that will change the way we live. When the internet made its presence felt and mobile technology started gaining traction, the realms of reality stretched imagination. Moving from the humble personal computer to the smartphone, the new world is impacting us in many ways directly and indirectly.

The last few years have seen a lot of technology wanting to attach to human body; fortunately it is still outside the body and not getting inside as yet. Fitness bands gave way to smart watches which doubled up to also show you the time while telling you about who is calling or the latest trends on social media of choice. Glasses anyone ? And there was a queue of people wanting to cover their eyes ! Directions from your favorite map service on your windscreen ? Why not also notify you about what your “friends” are excited about or what is trending ?

Is that a distraction to driving ? Let’s make cars that can drive themselves while you immerse yourself in the pervasive world of noise from all over. Traveling somewhere ? Write reviews and tell your friends, too bad some burglars also took notice that you are away from home. Stay connected wherever you are on WIFI, 3G, 4G, LTE, on your tablet, phablet, phone or at least the watch ? Your health parameters are being monitored and stored by some app. You can use it later to determine your health; so can someone else who you don’t know !

Will you scan before you eat ? Supermarkets would like to help you create your personalized basket of products which they can remind you to buy. All the packaged food companies would also like to know the products you consume so they know more about your eating habits. Next time you renew your health insurance, don’t be surprised by a markup or discount; the health insurance company also has vested interest in this data ! The situation is becoming Orwellian with Big Brother watching every move you make using Big Data.

The question that bothers me is why are we willingly obliging everyone ? What makes us want to obsessively stay connected and share the important to obscure to inane details of our lives ? Why are we allowing personal data to be used in a way that influences our actions and our behaviors ? This was not anyone’s favorite part in any futuristic idea or science fiction ? Digital addiction especially for the new Digital Native generation is rewiring responses; the thinking process is changing, our dependence on technology complete.

People have reported withdrawal symptoms when they are unconnected; the thumb is getting used beyond its evolved state leading to new diseases. Accidents are increasing with distracted mind unable to focus on walking or driving. Eyesight is adversely impacted while our hearing ability is impaired due to constant high volume sound from earphones. Over and above all of this, the expectation to respond to any stimulus (email, message, alert) instantly is putting psychological pressure on the connected generation.

Enterprises want productivity with the connectivity; corporate apps hijacking the personal phone, information driven process velocity is the new normal stretching the already challenged balance between work and life. The lines are blurring and both have intertwined into our awake hours in a way that does not leave any personal space or time. The resultant pressure and stress is increasing rate of heart ailments and lifestyle diseases in 20 something youth that were associated with 60+ in the past.

Some companies and governments have begun to take cognizance of this and are enforcing work hours in an attempt to wean off the addiction. How can parents do the same with the upcoming generation which is born to technology ? I believe that they will have to lead by example for the young ones and also at work for their teams. Wearable technology is here and urging you to participate; I know what you did last summer is now more like I know what you just did and what you are likely to do !

Digital free day anyone ?