PR FROM THE BEACH

Not if, but when: the radical reflection and PR rethink waiting around the corner

Imagine it is this time next year. Or even the year after when all the bugs are ironed out of the new web-enabled devices that will pop into Christmas stockings this December. Your organisation has some visitors arrive. They are all wearing Google Glass. What do you do? Ask them to remove their eyewear or accept that your interactions are likely to be live-streamed or captured on video to be shared with their stakeholders? 

Or you're serving in a restaurant. The customers come in, again, with wearable transmitting devices. Do you quietly present them with their meal or, as was the case last year, create a scene that ends in physical assault because the augmented-reality digital eye-wear cannot be removed?

In the same way that ten years ago the developments on the web disrupted the way we communicate and interact with others, bringing us to today's point of ubiquitous mobile engagement, the next wave of wearable (or implanted) devices  will change forever not just the way we communicate, but the way we live. I wonder how many people, organisations, businesses and governments are ready for this shift?

 

There are countless scenarios that can be conjured when you think about the effect the next wave technologies will have on our lives and, from a professional standpoint, they are scenarios that all public relations and communication practitioners should be rehearsing before they find themselves, and their organisations, 'always on'.  It is a big leap for most - a leap highlighted by the recent instruction to journalists not to tweet from a press conference. Even today this is a redundant instruction, but how would the organisation concerned react to the press conference being live streamed through a device such as Glass? The journalist attends a press conference as the representative of others. The expected delay between briefing and publication is the assumption of the host, based on older communication speeds and use of technology.  As a journalist, my expectation would be to get the information back as soon as possible, and, if that means as it happens, then all the better.

The reality is not what shall we do if this happens, it is actually what are we going to do when this happens - and that 'when' is just around the corner. It's not just Google Glass either. Many companies are working on wearable devices and the next 'next wave' is likely to include invisi-wear, such as contact lenses, implants and the like. Unlike today when people at least have to speak to their phone, pretty soon you simply won't know who is communicating 'elsewhere' when you meet as the process will be seamless and simultaneous.

I meet with a lot of people who debate and discuss their 'social media strategy'. Frequently it revolves around tactics on the big networks - Facebook, Twitter and the like rather than creating a digital strategy that underpins their organisational and communcation goals. Rarely does it include Google+ or Hangouts and it inevitably involves a discussion around how to convince the organisation involved that today's communication channels are chaotic, concurrent, confused and cannot be controlled. 

Over the last ten to twelve years I've said many times that the available technologies we have at our disposal don't simply transform the way we communicate - they transform the organisations themselves. That's where the biggest changes occur. Individuals and organisations that meet with success in social communication have inevitably undergone this transformative process from the inside out.  They have a clear understanding of their role, provision or service, they have identified the communities that are critical to their licence to operate then set about forming networks of engagement mutually beneficial for all those involved. Yet even those organisations will find themselves disturbed once again by the device-shifts ahead as the reality of what we do rather than what we say becomes the primary organisational asset it should have always been.

As a matter of urgency, I would hope that practitioners convince their organisations to focus on their inner workings and deliverables. To focus on their employees and how to equip them to be 'always on'. On their suppliers and customers and agreed levels of acceptable shareability. 

As the mobile phone is replaced in its ubiquity by the wearable or implanted device the question every public relations professional should be asking is this: how ready are you for the technology waiting around the corner and the change it will bring to your organisation?

Knowledge Engines inch us closer to Wikipedia immersion

Google's announcements today of its latest projects - the Knowledge Graph - sounds fascinating but takes us closer to a world history written according to Wikipedia. Google admits that much of the 'knowledge' powering their new search results - see their video below - is sourced from Freebase, bought by them in 2010, who in turn got heaps of data from Wikipedia and other data bases around the web.

My question is, if the source information is pulled out of areas such as Wikipedia - which is, despite their best efforts - still prone to inaccuracy, 'editing-out' and edit wars - how long before our history and the things we are 'allowed' to find are either rewritten, rubbed out or removed from actual experience or alternatively distorted by indiviual perspectives that can manipulate the systems?

It all sounds very useful and I am sure it will be. But - and it is a big but - the Knowledge Graph is filled with bear-traps and Orwellian group-think. It might seem that our knowledge is 'extended' by this -  I fear wisdom is being left behind.

 

A F-Fone from Facebook? Thumbs down from me

A recent rumour in Techcrunch has led to all sorts of speculation as to whether or not Facebook will  launch its own mobile phone operating system. Given the standard of spelling and invective on Facebook, I think we could usefully call this potential development the 'F-Fone'. 

Because of the privacy issues spawned by Facebook every day, I wouldn't trust such an operating system one jot, nor would I be inclined to call someone who was running it on the basis that my number would probably be harvested without consent and end up shared somewhere in Farmville. In fact, other mobile developers might do well to build in an 'F-Fone' detector application so that we could be alerted and hang up.

Facebook launched Places in the US in August and in the UK over the last few days, rivalling mobile apps like Foursquare and Gowalla. With mobility on the rise, a phone operating system is not beyond the bounds of possibility and no doubt makes commercial sense.  I just hope for all our sakes that people are not gullible enough to use it due to the amount of data likely to be harvested in the process. If you have any doubts about their ability to harvest information from people who do not want to use the Facebook platform, check out their community page fiasco, which I blogged about here.  My vote for an F-Fone? Thumbs Down. F-fingers crossed it stays a rumour.

 

Scattering the Seed - Will Diaspora exile Facebook? There's a sea change ahead

The new kids on the block are all set to make their first sprint into a new type of web. I know - we've heard that before, but I wonder if the boys from Diaspora will be one of the few to make it. A dozen ago, the lads from Google had not yet grown into the mighty men they have become in today's world and, although I'm not sure if they can take on the web giants, I wouldn't be surprised if a decade down the line, Diaspora has scattered at least a sizeable proportion of the 500 million Facebook users into another type of web engagement where we manage our own social graph.

Next month sees the release of their 'first sprint' and post-September 15 (a date often cited as Google's birthday by the way) I suspect we will see some interesting conversations.  October will see the rest of us able to have a play with the ideas they have come up with during their 'northern hemisphere' summer.

Last week I blogged here about the community pages auto-generated by Facebook and the headaches that will cause not just for organisations but for the individuals whose status updates are being scooped up and used to auto-populate the auto-pages that nobody really wants.

If Diaspora helps people to 'break free' from the Facebook mindset then good on them. I wish them luck - but I am still a little cautious.  I appreciate that their idea is to decentralise personal and social information and have that information scattered on a 'need to know and consent to share' basis, but I still see problems ahead if they do reach the size of Google.  Google's information reach is phenomenal and I've long questioned such access being in the hands of one party. So imagine a network where the information reach is as big -  but it's not train timetables, company details and maps. Instead, it's all personal. It is all about You.  I understand that security will be tight, built in, bolted on, capable of dancing a jig and making the tea, but ultimately, anything is hackable.

So, watch the space carefully in the weeks and months ahead. It may spark and fizzle into nothing, but sometimes sparks take a long time to ignite. One thing is for sure, there's a sea change ahead. It will be interesting to see who battens down their information hatches and who decides to sit astride the bow and welcome the waves.

A gossipy PS concerning Google's birthday: Often cited as September 15, yet Google has doodled its birthday graphic variably on September 7, September 27 and on Google's Tenth birthday timeline, the company is said to have been registered on September 15. So an interesting choice of date for Diaspora's launch don't you think?

Google Wave Wipes Out

The news from Google this week that the Wave has crashed and burned was a bit of a shame.  I had high hopes for this development, but sadly, the platform was just too hard for people to get the hang of.

One of the reasons that the social web - particularly social networking and blogging - has done so well and grown so dramatically in the last five years is because it is easy to do. You don't require a high degree of technical skill, you can point and press and it takes moments to share stuff with others.

Despite the anticipation, the huge build up, the long wait for a Wave invite, once faced with their Waves, most people tended to look at it blankly, realise they had no idea where to start and quietly put it back in the box - a bit like an IKEA cabinet where you can see the screws are there but they are taped so tightly to the packaging you never get round to putting it together.

There were some excellent bits to Wave and I suspect that they will be used elsewhere - the rumoured 'Google Me' might pick up a few or perhaps they will build in some additions to the rather lame Buzz.

I am a big fan of Google's development processes and think they are to be applauded for continually exploring what else we can do (even though I have serious and long-term misgivings about the potential for misuse of power and information that exists around an organisation so large having so much information in its control).  What these clever folk need to always keep in mind is that for the web to work it has to be easy. Geek it up for mass use and you are on a hiding to nothing.

Given we are talking Waves here, Google - and others - need to remember that many on the web are paddlepusses, delighted to play in the shallows but not yet ready, willing or able to take on the big surf.

So perhaps the big lesson for Wave is make sure the box contains clear and simple instructions next time around. The failure was perhaps not so much the product itself, but the communication that surrounded it. Building the anticipation is fine to a degree, but if the why, how and what for is not clearly communicated then expectations are dashed and reputation suffers. Which, if I recall correctly, sits somewhere in Lesson 101 Communications Management...