Review: “Chat Republic: A welcome change from the American-centric view of social media”

September 24, 2013September 24, 2013 / Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Review by Linda VandeVrede

Now that Twitter and Facebook have been around for several years, the ability to communicate with strangers and mobilize crowds seems an accepted form of crowd communication. Younger generations who are extremely good at texting have emerged as so-called “thumb tribes.” Yet as these voices continue to emerge, some corporations are still fearful of these public conversations and their implications.

Angelo Fernando’s new book, “Chat Republic,” provides an overview of social media, including how it has evolved and continues to be a work in progress. It acknowledges that social media poses a threat to those who once controlled the conversations that took place within and without an organization. It acknowledges that social media has challenged traditional ingrained ideas about marketing and management, with some taking to it with abandon, some approaching it with a measurement of decorum, and some sniping from the sidelines without partaking. Angelo reminds us to consider communities in terms of what gets shared, not how. He points out that conversations between humans are inherent in our society; even FDR had “fireside chats” that made listeners feel as if they were participating, even through a one-way radio medium.

This citizen journalism scenario is messy but informed. This is not a bad payoff, Angelo observes. The hoi polloi, rather than a filter, decides on which media they will believe. Citizen journalism isn’t merely reactive now. It is becoming more proactive, where people proactively seek stories that interest them and share them with others.

Chat Republic is full of examples of times through world history when people have networked around monolithic authorities in small clusters, from homeless groups decades ago to the Middle East most recently. Still, there is a discrepancy in how people view social media. “There are those who see social media…as a transparency filter to let the sunlight in. There are also those who decry it as a lever that unlocks the floodgates to an unwanted stream of information and/or trouble.” The positives are that it improves trust and reputation. This is the new face of PR, crisis management and advocacy.

One of Angelo’s interviewees observes that people’s habit for deep reading has eroded: “Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a jet ski.”

If you ever wanted a view of how social media has changed us for good, this is the book. Best of all, the data presented is multi-cultural, a welcome change from the American-centric view of social media that dominates most books. Angelo’s book is full of tips and case studies about how these concepts have been implemented effectively. I’ve always been impressed with his ability to pull in examples from all walks of life, and analyze the hoi polloi response to social media.

(Disclosure – Angelo was part of the group blog Valley PR Blog, with whom I blogged from 2007-2010, and I am one of the many people interviewed for and quoted in the book).

Picture Copyright: Adam Nollmeyer

Curation of Mixed Media memorializes painful past in Sri Lanka

August 21, 2013 / Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

I never discuss openly the events we went through in July 1983, when an ethnic violence broke out across the country, part-sponsored by sections of the government at that time.

I’ve shared some details with my children, but have tended to focus on the positive — the people who spoke out against the madness, the safe houses I stayed in etc. Perhaps it is one’s way of compartmentalizing the horror; of forgetting…

This week, in Colombo is a series of events around the theme “Thirty Years Ago.” Two days of dialogue, art and memories.

Sanjana Hattotuwa, TED Fellow and new media entrepreneur who has made this happen, puts it this way:

The project is an attempt to remember and probe Sri Lanka’s epochal anti-Tamil pogrom of ’83 through perspectives rarely, if ever, featured before. The producers have used a wide range of media and methods – from a mixed media triptych to info-graphics, from audio podcasts to video, from photography to compelling write-ups.

That’s right, a way of putting this ‘pogrom’ in context, by capturing the “anxiety, fear, violence, courage, love, sacrifice, of opportunities lost as well as well-springs of hope.”

The Web now provides us with new ways of dealing with history, and not just in real-time. We have become accustomed to seeing how shiny new tools and apps can help raise money, provide relief, or report on events. Dealing with the past takes more thoughtfulness. This is a mixed media project that not only informs us of where we have been, but where we might go.

Do visit the site at ThirtyYearsAgo.Asia

In Sri Lanka, these are the upcoming events

Sat 24 August

10am – 11am: Reflections of ’83: Plus change?

4:00 – 5:00 pm Art and Memorialising
Looking at how art plays a role in memorialising violent events

Sun 25 August

10 am – 11 am Frames
How do we see our past, and thereby choose to learn from or repeat that which gave rise to violence? In framing histories, what are the politics of selection and exclusion?

4 pm – 5 pm Media Matters
How did the media cover 1983, and why is it so difficult to find archival material on Black July?

Will there be a backlash against the Cloud?

August 19, 2013August 19, 2013 / Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

There’s this amazing device sold on Amazon: a two-pack outdoor waterproof surveillance camera, for just $19.50 (with free shipping is you use Prime). Menacing looking. But it has one problem.

It’s fake.

Its a deliberate fake –supposedly for people who want to pretend their property is under surveillance.

Don’t you love it? We love to be watched so much we will pay money to pretend we are doing it ourselves. Couple that with the NSA-Snowden scandal, and this story about a Houston, Texas family’s baby monitor being hacked, and it’s enough to make some people long for the pre-digital age.

The Snowden scandal has new embarrassing ramifications, in the UK. The Guardian reporter’s partner was detained in Heathrow, and had his digital devices confiscated. But it got worse. The British government demanded the newspaper smash its hard drives in the basement, under supervision. The Guardian called it “a pointless piece of symbolism.”

Which makes you wonder if people’s social media habits are going to nose-dive when they realize that we do pay a price for a surveillant society. Do we really need this darn euphemism called the Cloud? For every good story we get about being able to track down the bad guys (the Boston bombers were, after all, tracked down within a few hours because of …cameras) you get a surveillance-off-the-wall story. Incredibly worse than the baby monitor hack.

Presence Orb, is a British company that conducts what it calls “presence analytics” happily reported that hundreds of thousands of pedestrians who walked past recycling bins in London had been ‘stalked’ by the bins, which recorded the unique ‘MAC address’ of their smartphones. A bit of a hue and cry, and the government demanded it stop doing this. It did. Surveillance of people bad, bad, bad.

Smashing hard drives, very, very, good.

There’s a good reason (I now discover) I carry a small, scruffy notebook. My useful stuff is in the Cloud. My important stuff is in my pocket.

Google Street View in Sri Lanka, timely -as the ‘walls’ come down

July 10, 2013July 10, 2013 / Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

I just wrote a bit of a cynical piece about Google Glass, but, as you may know, there is no shortage of parodies about this new, much-talked about product that will help people ‘augment’ the real world.

But my beef is not with Google, per se. It’s those whom I like to call ‘Shiny New OBject Syndrome’ types. You know, S-N-O-B-S 🙂

The point being, I question if we really need everything reduced to data, or meta data –basically data about data. Do we need an appendage that turns our analog lives that are inherently data-rich in human connections, just to bathe in digital?

In one of my presentations (when asked about Big Data in a Web 2.0 era) I referred to a person who told me how he was befriended on LinkedIn by an old school buddy. Great, he thought, and clicked the button! Then he bumped into the chap a day later, and the ‘friend’ ignored him. In other words, flesh-and-blood alums are so boring, huh? The data-based connection was what the person was after.

If you like to download a PDF of article, it’s here, free

Or here’s a link to the article online

Oddly enough, I am planning an upcoming trip, and enjoying the data Google delivers – via Street View. It’s truly amazing how one company can basically index the world as we pass through it. One country at a time. So far Google, which began capturing Street Views in 2007, has 50 countries and counting. Included are Hong Kong, Thailand, Romania, Poland…

Sri Lanka will be soon in this group – reliable sources tell me. I could see why the tourism and leisure industry would want this. For businesses too. Imagine being able to drive through a bridge, walk up the steps of a temple, check out the neighborhood in an area you plan to set up a company etc..

Inviting this kind of visibility, also trains citizens to expect greater transparency in surrounding areas. The new data we will have access to would (and should) inform a nation’s business leaders and public officials to plan for providing data beyond the ‘Street’ level. We should be able to drive by, virtually, and pick up data, and meta-data: forms, policy papers, constitutional amendments, meeting notes, speeches, parliament bills and voting patterns etc. Will these come? Well, look at it this way. In Colombo, the government has been strident in tearing down the physical walls around public places. Cynics see this is as part of the post-war beautification strategy. But even as we will be able to peer into the windows of an un-walled town hall or government institution, (while Google,simultaneously, begins to provide virtual views) the expectation will be for greater access.

It’s an experiment that many will be watching. (No expensive Glasses required)