Hyperlinks may seem insignificant, but they can be subversive, helpful and enlightening.

At last evening’s video conference I suggested that one way of improving our communication is to embrace this ‘link economy.’ And since social media is the connective tissue, it keeps this economy humming.

It involves some loss of control, which makes it unsettling to some, but it also opens up plenty of new opportunities. I see these as falling into four groups:

1. Collaboration  – It’s almost impossible to use social media with a control-freak, silo mentality
2. Crowd Sourcing – We soon learn that ‘they are smarter than I’
3. Content Curation – While everyone is creating, some of us better start curating
4. Community Building – Social networks are nothing but communities.

Social Media lets us:

• Conduct due diligence faster, deeper
• Look at trends, by mapping out events as they break –swine flu, forest fires, crime rates
• Bypass bottlenecks — from network outages, censorship, slow feedback
• Tap into the ‘wisdom’ of the crowds –citizen journalism

Two great Citizen Journalism sites:

• OhMyNews.com
• Spot.Us

One other interesting way to enlarge a story I omited to mention: The Lede from The New York Times. By the way, it happens to be a blog!

On the topic of Citizen Journalism and Civic Journalism:

The purpose of civic journalism is “not to inform the public, but to form the public.”

– Charlotte Grimm, Scripps Howard Foundation

Pay attention to these:

• Wolfram Alpha –a search engine that will knock your socks off!
• TwtPoll –If you use Twitter, and want to check the pulse of your followers, try this!
• TweetDeck – aA desk-top application that will help you manage multiple Twitter accounts
• iPadio – a simple way to podcast from your iPhone
• Flickr – much more than a way to share pictures with your inlaws!
• BlogTalkRadio.com – a simple way to create a podcast using a phone!

Finally:

• Forget scoops, and consider ‘swoops’
• Less Content Creation and more Content Curation