Times are changing
Recent communications shift. In the USA:
• 42% communicate mostly via instant messaging
• 11 text messages sent daily on average (from mobiles alone)
• 90+ minutes spent on social networks on average daily
In the UK:
• Leading Europe in adoption of online social networking
• London has the largest most active Facebook group of all
world cities with over 1 million members
• Coupled with this, 70% of UK now accesses the web on a daily
basis (~50% through a broadband connection in their home)
Social web word association
transparency
collaboration
sharing
freeware/
risk taking free content openness
conversation thinking
global
peering
open
user generated
innovation
The age of conversation
“The characteristics of conversations map to the
conditions for genuine knowledge generation
and sharing: they're unpredictable interactions
among people speaking in their own voice about
something they're interested in. The conversants
implicitly acknowledge that they don't have all
the answers (or else the conversation is really a
lecture) and risk being wrong in front of
someone else.”
David Weinberger
(via http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/0/85DA640F3DB8CBC480256ADC0036A1E8/)
Implications
1. Increased openness and transparency inevitable
2. Trend away from top down control and
broadcast to empowered individuals
3. Enabler of change – choice, personalisation,
empowerment, user focus, democratic
engagement
4. Start the conversation, get tooled up and
participate now!
5. Accept and work with complexity, don’t pretend
simple systems and processes alone can fix it