Leading Australian thinker on social media in business and government, Stephen Collins on Des Walsh & Friends

I’m sure consistency is valuable for building an audience for a podcast program, such as my Des Walsh & Friends program, but last week it was rather pleasant not to have to rise at 5 am as I usually do for my 6 am (Australian eastern time) show. The bit of indulgence was because my guest was fellow Australian, Canberra-based Stephen Collins, one of the most prolific thinkers and doers I know in the social media space.

It made sense, as well as being mutually convenient, to run the show in the early afternoon of our time zone.

To listen, click on the player below or download the episode from the link at the end of this post.

Living and working as he does in the Australian National Capital, Stephen has a special insight into and practical experience of how social media works in government, as well as in business.

Some comments:

There are a lot of government agencies, federal, state and local, together with Australian businesses, now using social tools to be able to communicate more efficiently with their customers, constituents and other stakeholders.
There is a recognition it’s about much more than marketing, or simply a better way of selling stuff.
Marketing should be the least interesting thing you can do, in government or business

Among his many activities, Stephen is the founder of Social Media Club Canberra. SMC Canberra operates as a breakfast, or coffee or lunch event, usually on a fortnightly basis. The style is casual.

He is also the licensed organiser of TEDx Canberra. We talked about TED, self-described on its website as “the nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading” and famous for its four day, now five day annual events held simultaneously in Long Beach and Palm Springs (TEDActive) California, and the local TEDx versions, one of which Stephen with a group of fellow volunteers, is organising for Canberra, October 23, 2010 – TEDx Canberra.

Stephen on TED:

It’s like spending a week in a classroom with the 500 smartest people you’ve ever met
You bury yourself in big thinkers for a week and it’s crazy and it’s inspiring
People for whom “No” or “not possible” isn’t an answer
An amazing mix of people

On TEDx Canberra:

TEDx Canberra will feature a selection of Australia’s leading speakers, innovators and storytellers showcasing their Ideas Worth Spreading.

The organisers are still open for speaker suggestions and for sponsorships to defray costs – sponsorship in-kind preferred, including sponsorship of specific elements of the program (AV costs, refreshments etc).The expectation is for an attendance number around 300 and the aim is to make admission free.

We also spoke briefly about Barcamp, the unconference. Stephen and colleagues have now run three barcamps in Canberra.

Stephen explains what he does at his company acidlabs as: “I make websites not confusing to use”. We could all use more of that!

To find out more about this social media dynamo, including how he and his company acidlabs, could help your business or organization, check out his website, acidlabs and find him on Twitter at @trib.

[If the player above does not appear, use this link to hear the recording].

Image credit: Stephen Collins, from trib via Flickr, Creative Commons

Having been in a former life trained as an historian, I get a special enjoyment out of hearing very tech-savvy people explain technologies within an historical context. And preferably a context which recognizes that there were events of importance happening before the Internet arrived!

One such explanation, which starts not from sixty years ago but from five hundred, is Clay Shirky’s TED talk: How cellphones, Twitter and Facebook can make history.

It is a wonderfully cohesive, lucid story.

Some high points I noted follow. They do not do the presentation justice: it takes just under 16 minutes to watch the whole presentation and for anyone even remotely interested in understanding the big picture of what is happening with social media that is time very well spent. I’m on my third or fourth run through and I keep picking up new insights and nuances I had missed on previous runs.

Some key points

In terms of media there have been four periods of change in the past 500 years that have been big enough to qualify for the label “revolution”:

the printing press
two-way communications, especially the telegraph and telephone
recorded media other than print – photos, recorded sound, movies
harnessing the electro-magnetic spectrum – radio and television

In the media landscape those of us “of a certain age” grew up with we had an interesting asymmetry:

media that is good at creating conversation but not good at creating groups – one to one conversation
media that is good at creating groups but not good at creating conversation – one to many, same message to all

Three new big changes 1. The Internet – first medium in history to provide native support for groups and conversation at the same time – many to many 2. Digitization – as all media gets digitized, the Internet becomes the mode of carriage for all other media – phone, magazines, movies – every medium is right next door to every other 3. Consumers become producers – members of the “former audience” (Dan Gillmor) can also be producers, not just consumers.

A transformation of the (social) ecosystem.

“How you reach people” has changed completely. The “audience” can now not only talk back but members can talk directly with one another – no longer disconnected from one another.

Characteristics of media now

global
social
ubiquitous
cheap

Fascinating observations on aftermath of Sichuan, China earthquakes and on use of social media in Obama campaign.

Some of my favorite quotes from this presentation

“What matters here isn’t technical capital, it’s social capital.”

“These tools don’t get sociologically interesting until they get technologically boring.”

“It isn’t when these shiny new tools show up that their uses start permeating society: it’s when everybody is able to take them for granted.”

Thanks to Warren Whitlock for his tweet today which reminded me to watch the video again.