The Social Media Club, free beer, and a good question

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The Social Media Club: plus ça change?

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uploaded by Actual News Geezer

I'm late and somewhat clueless, but I gather the gathering I have just joined is the charter meeting of a new movement called The Social Media Club, and Chris Heuer is busy chatting people up before calling the meeting to order.

Chris has been traveling North America and helping folks dig deep into folksonomies and the like. When he's not campaigning for Web 2.0 communities, he consults on projects that deal with interactive communications, strategy, web site development, software architecture and user experience design.

In the interests of Total Journalistic Transparency, the meeting was never really officially called to order, although there was ample free beer, and Chris did in fact start things off with a riff about Social Tagging.

He is persuasive. Social tags are going to help change society by connecting like-minded people together to work on desirable projects.

And many here were ready to wax poetic about tags and things like social justice, whilst others saw entrepreneurial opportunity.

"I am delighted to hear about people connecting social media with money", said Peter Fahlman of E-Xact Transactions. (Peter was a guy I met years ago and who composed a particularly bent version of Canada's national anthem for me during one of its many constitutional crises.)

I think many in the crowd agreed, perhaps even myself, found themselves agreeing with Peter.

Chris mentions "paramedia" which he says is a parallel to "paramilitary but without the guns." The concept is that people will collaborate on the creation of tags to spread understanding, peace, light (and perhaps, he concedes) to help corporations.

Someone pipes up, "So if I am right of center am I allowed to join?" and that's where the debate began, and ended.

So is it possible to create these fields of awareness around this quanta called tags which can be a useful way to organize around specific issues, both civic and corporate?

Darren Barefoot, a Vancouver blogger and PR specialist, was the guy who piped up about the political issues surrounding this notion of "social media."

I am immediately reminded of a story in this weekend's print edition of The New York Times...an amazing list of bloggers who had been paid by a variety of political interests during the midterm elections of Nov. 7, 2006.

Over the past few years, bloggers have won millions of fans by
speaking truth to power — even the powers in their own parties — and
presenting a fresh, outsider perspective. They are the pamphleteers of
the 21st century, revolutionary “citizen journalists” motivated by
personal idealism and an unwavering confidence that they can reform
American politics.

But this year, candidates across the country
found plenty of outsiders ready and willing to move inside their
campaigns. Candidates hired some bloggers to blog and paid others
consulting fees for Internet strategy advice or more traditional
campaign tasks like opposition research.

So back to the future. Here we are, about 30 of us going around the room, telling each other who we ar, and what we believe in. Mostly, a young crowd (a couple old dinosaurs, like Ken Coach and myself, relics from the Old Anti-social Media) but all of us apparently gobsmacked by notions like social media.

Here's the other thing: Jamil Hussein. You can see a variety of versions about this morality play here and here. It's not a clear picture, is my point. And the confusion all happened within the channel of Social Media. At this point in time, no one really knows whether Jamil Hussein is a member of the Iraqi Police Force, as AP maintained, whether 4 mosques were burned and six people killed; or whether Hussein was just a media terrorist as CENTCOM maintained and promoted through its many "outreaches" to pro-war bloggers.

My point is that the fog of war has not been particularly penetrated by social media, which carried all the contentions and counter-contentions.

No media is particularly transparent, or good, or less susceptible to influence or corruption.

Besides the absence of an assumed transparency and "goodness", the other thing about "social media" is how redundant the expression is. Media by its definition is social - can one imagine media that is not about connecting one brain with another? What is different about what Chris speaks of is this almost mystical way that words online can connect people who otherwise would have never crossed paths. For my current fave example, check out this story we've started who have contributed photos of Princess Diana memorabilia and these who have cancer and were connected by this story.

But media is not inherently good or bad, social or anti-social. As always, it depends on the integrity of its creators. To invoke some universal ideal of social benefit in one media or another is a dangerous game.

So yes - by all means let us promote media that connects us together, that fights poverty and ignorance and disease, and all the other good stuff that is unquestionably good stuff for humankind (I know I am going to get some comments about this). And let us save the salmon, too.

But let's not forget about one of the best things about the old, anti-social media: it's bloody-minded insistence that all contentions are contested, all absolute statements challenged, every notion subjected to cross-examination.

And so the best question of the night came right at the beginning of the meeting, before it was ever (or not) called to order.

Roland Tanglao, who contributed this fine photo for this story, asked Chris, "Who paid for the beer?"

It was a shocking, anti-social question. Of course we're all grateful and taught never to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Chris makes a big show of reaching into his wallet and hauling out a credit card. He then allows that he has many fine clients, including Fleishman Hillard, a reputable, large, PR firm that works for clients ranging from Wal-Mart to the Bush administration, and perhaps, maybe, some of its largess went into the beer fund.

Roland's question was such a great example of citizen journalism - straight-ahead, damn the torpedos, who's-paying-for-the-beer.

And to be fair to Chris, he answered the question when he could have ducked it.

And now I'm blogging it, and using the tags in this story that Chris recommended, so perhaps everything is all for the best.

But I will be gracious in handing over the last word to another trouble-maker.

"My father wouldn't know a thing about tags" said Rick Vugteveen. "He does everything with Post-It notes and we've got to remember what the real world is like."

Amen.

O, darn. I was supposed to give the last word to Rick. In the interests of social tagging, and acknowledging I had a lot of fun at the Social Media Club - Vancouver, I apologize. SMC Vancouver rules.

Mark Schneider
Actual News Guy
NowPublic.com