Social media - the world of undiscovered possibilities

I have a sort of vision, a belief in social media’s potential to make a change and generate benefits, not only for the individual, but make contributions to the society as a whole.
And that would be the core of my interest in, and relationship with, social media. Therefore, I am a bit confused when I intend to write some things down about my personal relationship to social media. The confusion aroused from my poor practical experience on one hand, and on the other hand my relationship to the term “social media”. I think that social media will turn to something even more spectacular than a platform for people to meet and socialise. Social media and what we know as communities can play an important role in the larger community, when penetrating business life and industry offering new applications. In order to make my self more clear, I will give a couple of examples:
-Social media can be used to discuss topics within infrastructure planning processes today controlled by authorities, for example participating in the debate whether a Swedish municipality should give permission to building new wind power plants, or discussion of the future city architecture and infrastructure.
-Social media is a practical political tool, where decision-makers can meet citizens on equal premises and listen to their opinions and life experiences.
-Social media is a powerful instrument for organising different people sharing the same view, gathering people in demonstrations where a large group can express its views.
These examples all save both time and money, it raises the efficiency and quality of governmental services, while contributing to democracy, too.
After mentioning a number of democratising effects, I would also like to add some examples illustrating the commercial potential:
-Business commercials can be inspired by social media, and used as a way to gain trust and reaching the consumers by packaging products and services in something one associates with something trustworthy – the attributes of one’s social life. Not a very long time ago I saw a commercial in the underground. Today I can still remember the picture of the cat and dog holding each other tight, a picture that was sent to me by a friend just a couple of days earlier. It is obvious that the advertising industry has found a way leading straight into our hearts by addressing the consumers’ feelings.
-Taking a less “ugly” example would be that ordinary people / users can become entrepreneurs providing services to each other, instead of buying those services from big companies – a large marketing place for small-businesses, interacting and building business networks. Maybe inspiring other people to start small scale business. It might start as a hobby and become a small profitable business.
-User generated content has immense potential to contribute to a better and safer society. For example real-time information about the traffic situation. Just imagine how nice it would be to get that information from a large community consisting of a lots of people reporting about the traffic situation.
-In my own working field – meteorology - there is a huge potential to make improvements due to better local weather information. I just started a web site www.shareweather.com, with the goal to put up a community for weather reporters. Temporarily the site is being used in a research project at department of Media Technology.

This is what makes social media exciting. Perhaps we are moving toward a society that can offer leisure and work at the same time, making dreams come true? It was so interesting to hear on Daniel’s lecture that very little has been explored when it comes to studying leisure time. What do people do? Well, obviously they are committing themselves to social media. I think there are a ways to make what one may consider “meaningless” activities into something really beneficial.

After those reflections I will finally turn to my experience of social media:

1. I joined Facebook and LinkedIn, mostly because someone in my neighbourhood encouraged me to do so. Without really practicing the social networking, I just presumed that being more active would consume much time. I always manage to postpone the grand turning point when I am supposed to get more involved. (Have received some complaints too, as some friends in contrary seem to have adopted the whole life-style of community.) However, I did put my oil and aquarelle paintings online, a hobby of mine which thereby and in double-sense was transferred to a new dimension. Surprisingly, I felt really pleased by the fact that I suddenly had an opportunity to have an “exhibition”. The thought never crossed my mind before!
2. Youtube has become a part of my life. I have noticed that my relationship with TV has changed through the years. As a young student I had a period without TV in the 90’s and it was really a sort of relief. Generally, I think that consumption of traditional media like TV is something that makes you passive and in the long run – quite miserable. People have a need to express themselves, not just listen to someone else. If that somebody happens to be one of just a few players in the market, like big TV stations, it really gets uninspiring in the long run. People need to participate. Everybody is creative. And interacting with others it can be easier to discover one’s real potential.
So, Youtube has replaced TV. Nowdays I watch the news, but even those are available on the Internet. So why not throw the TV out?
3. When it comes to music downloads I don’t practice that because I think it is wrong. That is a typical example where new business models could both give income to the artist and spread the costs over a large number of people, making it far less expensive than in the old days, but still profitable for the artist. Why do we accept to pay a monthly telephone bill, but not paying for downloading someone else’s property?
On the other hand, social media is also a large forum for everybody to develop his or her creativity. People can record their home made concerts and put them on Youtube for instance.
4. The world of blogger changed my life two years ago, when I after a long time of frustration threw myself at writing a story – based on personal experience - reflecting my view on what it is like to have a small company competing with a governmental monopoly, and what it is like working for the latter kind of company. As I started to write, I realised that I could publish the story online and so the blog www.detstatligaverket.blogspot.se was created…
Surprisingly, something that started as an expression of my opinions, ended up in such fun and entertainment difficult to imagine. I really had fun. As a side effect I improved my picture editing skills. One important dimension was the fact that I was sharing laughs with other people. Though it may sound like a dull theme: What is innovation all about? Why do authorities and governmental companies foster people within their organisations to avoid challenges and development, as getting rid of all innovative force they posses? I wanted to describe how innovation can be suppressed by bureaucracy, when individuals within he organisation driven by fear and need for security oppose the natural evolution, in exchange for a dull life with no creativity and plenty of security. Moreover, the established balance and relationships are so strong within the traditional monopoly, that the employees become an institution themselves, fighting all external development and competition on the market and – instead of setting the innovation free - doing everything to avoid competition (which potentially could “discover and expose” their inabilities being a result of inefficiency and lack of innovation…).
The second source of inspiration when writing the blog were the environmental issues. I like to draw a parallel between the importance of biological diversity in the ecosystems of nature and the same need for diversity in the economic system of the society. In order to have a successful, sustainable, innovative and environmental-friendly society, we need a large number of small companies and individuals spreading the power of innovation. Just as large number of different species and small creatures in nature transfer energy upward in the system, feeding the system that actually makes it grow, the world as we know it cannot survive without individuals and small companies feeding the system with innovation, the basis of development towards a sustainable society, in fact the basis of all development.
Think of the potential social media has here, by inspiring individuals to create and generate innovation! One could say that social media technologies gives better starting conditions for the environment of the global socioeconomic system. Social media increases idea and innovation exchange (food and energy) within the system and increases the diversity (number of species) and their resilience as building networks.
However, I must admit that the trigger, the main source of energy that fed me when writing the blog, was a simple and perhaps egoistic need to make a point and spread what my experience thought me, a desire to change things that I consider being frustrating in the (Swedish, or European) system. I certainly will continue my story-telling through blogging (need to finish the story as well…). Anyway, it certainly showed the immense potential of developing my own creativity, and turning frustration into something amusing, both for me and hopefully for others. It was such fun!
3. Now to the final point when it comes to my relationship with social media, which for me is more than just social. I am a meteorologist and therefore, of course, interested in weather. Not only computers have opened up for development of numerical weather forecast models, but development of new media has offered new ways of getting real-time information, which dramatically increases the benefits and value of weather services. So, the next question is of course: What happens when social media enters the scene, can it affect the market for weather services? I believe the answer is yes. These possibilities deserve to be studied, which is what I intend to do at department for Media Technology…

But the main issue is that I think that there are a lots of different areas where social media can make important contribution to society, not only by entertaining and spreading knowledge which itself has a societal value, but within areas to be discovered.