What is the missing ingredient in most strategies I’ve seen? Actual strategy.

However, before I can really show you what a strategy is, it helps to understand what a strategy isn’t.

What a Strategy Is NOT

• Strategy is not a plan
• Strategy is not a timeline
• Strategy is not a goal
• Strategy is not what tactics you will use to achieve your goal

Perhaps the confusion is a result of the fact that many of the above elements are included in the overall strategy document or presentation. However, skipping or skimping on the actual strategy piece is never a good idea.

What Others Say

Rather than simply assert my own opinion on the matter, I asked a couple other experienced people in the industry what they thought about this phenomenon.

David Binkowski

“Most people don’t even know what strategy means, let alone how to create one,” said David Binkowski, senior vice president of Word-of-Mouth Marketing at MS&L. “Strategy isn’t “Let’s create a Facebook page” unless your  goal is “How can we copy cat every other company out there?”"

“Usually when people talk about their social media strategy they are usually talking about their Goals (their desired outcome), or the specific tactics used to achieve their goals; a strategy is neither of these things,” said Tac Anderson, social media director at Waggener Edstrom.  “Strategy may be one of the most misunderstood and misused terms in business, probably because every business expert has their own definition.”

What I Say

When I think of strategy, I like to keep this quote handy:

“All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.”  – Sun Tzu in The Art of War.

Strategy is not focused on ROI, but on winning. If your strategy is built to win, trust me, you will generate positive ROI and have clear means of proving it along the way. The reason I am reticent to ever judge the merits on someone else’s social media efforts are that I do not know what their strategy is…. all I see are their tactics. Perhaps the particular effort was a calculated loss in a long-term strategy. How am I to know without more information?

Let me be clear, I am all about good measurement and tying business value to social media activity, but many seem to be putting the cart before the horse. I think the knee-jerk reaction to make social media engagement conform to some type of business equation has misplaced the emphasis in many peoples’ minds on what it actually takes to create, sell and implement a social media strategy.

How to Bring Strategy to Your Strategy

Tac Anderson

Tac has plenty of smart things to say on this matter. To him, social media strategy (like any other business strategy) is all about organizational alignment:

How strategy was explained to me in my MBA program was that a business strategy is creating operational alignment between all functions and activities of a business.

A communication strategy is a subset of the business strategy. If you buy my professor’s definition then a communications strategy is the alignment between all the comms groups and their activities in support of the business strategy. The communications strategy supports the business strategy by communicating the various messages to the various stakeholders of a company. Stakeholders being customers, shareholders (if applicable), employees, partners and anyone else who is impacted by a company.

Therefore a social media strategy would be a subset of the communications strategy. It should support the communications strategy in supporting the business strategy.

So to answer your question: “What are most social media strategies missing?” They are missing organizational alignment with the overall communications strategy, which is often not in full alignment with the business strategy to begin with. Because they are not aligned they are not achieving efficiency. This is why we mostly see one-off social media campaigns that don’t accrue to anything.

Strategy is not an easy concept to define or explain, but it is much more a creative process than charting out numbers and listing tactics.

Steps to Defining the Strategy in Your Social Media Strategy

1. Push for clarity around the overall business strategy
2. Push for clarity around the strategies you feel social media should be in direct alignment with; i.e. marketing, communications, customer service, human resources, etc.
3. Ask yourself, how will you extend this strategic alignment to the social web? *hint, do not list tactics to answer this question, but rather focus on guiding principles or rules of engagement.
4. Ask what experience/reaction do you want people to come away with when they interact with your brand/company online.
5. Is your strategy proactive or reactive? Will you actively seek people out, wait for them to find you/mention you?

I’m sure there are many other points to consider. Focusing on the strategy piece really requires mental discipline since you must keep your focus on what is truly essential without getting caught up in the tactics.

My point here is to help others get clearer on what strategy really is — if your “strategy” document is a goal with a list of tactics, know that what you have is not a strategy but a goal with a list of tactics.

So much of the discussion around proving the ROI of social media seems to be about proving the business value of the tools. This entire argument is displaced.

Using the tools to accomplish real business goals is what we should be trying to do. To do this, businesses need to understand how social media strategy aligns with their overall business strategy. A list of tactics simply won’t cut it no matter how cutting-edge or innovative they may seem at the time.

What are your thoughts on strategy? Can you add some points to the list I started here? Beyond that, I’ve been noodling with this idea for awhile because there seems to be a lack of direction around the actual strategy piece. Does this help? If you have questions, please let me know in the comments — let’s see if we can work on this together.

Follow David Binkowski and Tac Anderson on Twitter.

Photo Credit: exfordy

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

• Is Social Media a Strategy or a Tactic?

Fifty-some years ago, students were taught that the private sector had no tendency to gravitate to full employment, that it was prone to undesirable fluctuations amplified by multiplier and accelerator effects, and that it was riddled with market failures of various sorts. But it was also believed that a benevolent, competent, democratic government could stabilise the macroeconomy and reduce the welfare consequences of most market failures to relative insignificance.

Fifty years later, around the beginning years of this century, students were taught that representative governments produce pointless fluctuations in prices and output but, if they can be constrained from doing so – by an independent central bank, for example – free markets are sure to produce full employment and, of course, many other blessings besides. Macroeconomic policy doctrine had shifted from stabilising the private to constraining the public sector.

This long swing in our understanding of the economy spans a half-century of prolific technical accomplishments in economics (Blanchard 2008). But what the story shows is that, ontologically, economics has been completely at sea, drifting on the surface in currents of our own making. We lack an anchored understanding of the nature of the reality that economics is supposed to illuminate.

Neoclassical syntheses

Around the turn of the century the pendulum began to swing back – although not very far. “Freshwater” and “saltwater” macroeconomists came to a “brackish” compromise known as the New Neoclassical Synthesis. The New Keynesians adopted the dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) framework pioneered by the New Classicals while the latter accepted the market “frictions” and capital market “imperfections” long insisted upon by the former.

This New Synthesis, like the Old Synthesis of fifty years ago, postulates that the economy behaves like a stable general equilibrium system whose equilibrating properties are somewhat hampered by frictions. Economists of this persuasion are now struggling to explain that what has just happened is actually logically possible. But the recent crisis will not fit.

The syntheses, Old and New, I believe, are wrong. They stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of a market economy. Further technical innovations in economic modelling will not bring real progress as long as “stability-with-frictions” remains the ruling paradigm. The genuine instabilities of the modern economy have to be faced.

A complex adaptive system

The economy is an adaptive dynamical system. It possesses the self-regulating, “equilibrating” properties that we usually refer to as “market mechanisms”. But these mechanisms do not always suffice to ensure the coordination of activities in the complex system. Almost forty years ago, I proposed the “corridor hypothesis”. The hypothesis suggested that the economy might show the desirable “classical” adjustment properties within some “corridor” around a hypothetical equilibrium path but that its self-regulating capabilities would be impaired in the “Keynesian” regions outside the corridor. For large displacements from equilibrium, therefore, the market system might not be able recover unless aided by stabilisation policy.

The original argument for the corridor concerned the conditions under which to expect significant deviation-amplifying multiplier effects and might not be all that persuasive by itself. It is the case, however, that all other known complex dynamical systems, whether human-made or occurring in nature, are known to have the property that their homeostatic capabilities are bounded. It is extremely unlikely that the economy would be different in this regard.

It is reasonable to believe, therefore, that the state-space of the system – in addition to regions with good equilibrating properties – has regions where deviation-amplifying processes have impaired these properties. But the story does not end there. The present crisis has shown us a whole array of destabilising, positive feedback processes that are not as tightly bounded as the multiplier. Deleveraging by banks, for example, cuts off credit to businesses, which leads to a recession, which in turn impairs bank assets and adds to the incentive to shorten bank balance sheets. The most dangerous of these destabilising feedback loops, which we have so far managed to avoid, is Fisherian debt-deflation. There are regions of the state-space that should be avoided at all cost.

This kind of impulse-propagation reasoning asks what the system's behaviour will be if it is displaced far from equilibrium. It treats the impulse as exogenous and misses, therefore, the possibility of endogenously generated instability.

We have known about the endogenous instability of fractional reserve banking for some 200 years. It is Hyman Minsky's contribution to have explained that this financial instability extends beyond just the commercial banking system. Minsky argued that a long period without crises – such as the late “Great Moderation” – would lead to an increased willingness to assume risk and thus cause the system to become financially fragile. And the fragile system will sooner or later crash.

Systemic problems

The currently pressing problems all concern instabilities that have been neglected in stable-with-frictions macro theory. They constitute three themes I discussed in more detail in previous Vox columns (Leijonhufvud, June 2007, January 2009, and July 2009).

• Instability of leverage. Competing to achieve rates of return several times higher than returns in industry, financial institutions were at historically high levels of leverage towards the end of the boom, earning historically minimal risk spreads – and carrying large volumes of assets soon to be revealed as “toxic.”
• Connectivity. In the US, under the Glass-Steagall regulations, the financial system had been segmented into distinct industries each characterised by the type of assets they could invest in and liabilities they could issue. Firms in different industry segments were not in direct competition with each other. Deregulation has dramatically increased connectivity in the global network of financial institutions. The crisis of the American savings and loan industry in the 1980s, although costly enough, was confined to that market segment. The present crisis also started in American home finance but has spread and amplified across the world.
• Potential instability of the price level. Over the current decade, the American consumer goods price level has been stabilised largely through the exchange rate policies and competitive exports of China and several other export-oriented emerging countries. The Great Moderation has left a legacy of low volatility of inflation expectations. If these conditions were to change, inflation targeting with endogenous base money and the federal funds rate as the only instrument is bound to prove inadequate for monetary control.

Current issues

There are four issues to watch for:

• Twin dangers looming ahead are Japanese-style stagnation on the one hand and Latin-American-style high inflation on the other. In more normal times, we would regard these prospects as both unlikely and very far apart on a spectrum of eventualities. High levels of public debt, large unfunded liabilities, and large current deficits mean that they are not at all far apart in the current situation. The apparent political difficulties in decisively remedying the public finances are likely to mean that this is not just a temporary predicament. The navigable channel between Scylla and Charybdis has become quite narrow.
• One overwhelmingly important fact should guide policy over the near-term future – since current bailouts and stimulus policies have stretched public finances to the utmost, governments do not have the fiscal resources to handle another bubble bursting. Policy, therefore, should be conducted in a fail-safe mode. The current policies of extremely low interest rates are not fail-safe. They are aimed at reflating asset prices just enough to stave off a deeper recession. This is a delicate operation, not a robust, fail-safe move. It is creating strong incentives for the banks to return to the tables and resume the game of maturity transformation at high leverage that got us into our current troubles in the first place. It is evident that the banks are responding promptly to those incentives
• High leverage has been the big culprit in the current disaster. To reduce the risk of another crash, we must curb leverage. But governments do not want the financial sector to deleverage now because the requisite falling asset prices and curtailed credit would deepen the recession. The question, of course, is: If not now, when?
• The central banks are planning “exit strategies” by which they mean returning their balance sheets, which are presently bloated beyond recognition with a mix of strange assets, to a condition more resembling that normal to central banks. This will not be easy. If they succeed, however, they will still face the prospect of having to engage in many of the same desperate, unconventional policies in a future crisis. Under present arrangements, the responsibilities of central banks have no well-defined limits. This problem can only be solved by regulation of the financial sector. At present, it does not seem that we know how to do it.

References

Blanchard, Olivier (2008), “The state of macro,” NBER Working Paper 14259.

Leijonhufvud, Axel (2007), “The perils of inflation targeting”, VoxEU.org, 25 June 2007

Leijonhufvud, Axel (2009), “Fixing the crisis: Two systemic problems”, VoxEU.org, 12 January.

Leijonhufvud, Axel (2009), “Curbing instability: policy and regulation”, VoxEU.org, 11 July.

Leijonhufvud, Axel (2009), “Macroeconomics and the Crisis: A Personal Appraisal”, CEPR Policy Insight 41, November.

This article may be reproduced with appropriate attribution. See Copyright (below).

 

The major theme of everything I've been reading in 2009 is that the future is about resilience not stability. This is a genius look at moving past the competing economic theories of the past 100 years into concepts that engage the genuine instabilities of modern economics.

After watching longtime colleagues get laid off during a painful downsizing, a friend of mine is putting together her résumé. She realized she could be next, and she wanted to be ready.

"It's scary," she confided in me. "It's been a long time since I've been on the hunt, interviewing, marketing my skills. Even though I'm still employed, I've got to stop being a company woman and think more like a freelancer."

Layoffs or not, any career-minded employee can benefit from having a freelancer's mind-set. I'm biased, of course: I've been a self-employed freelancer for almost seven years now. The idea of looking for work isn't scary to me, even during a recession, because that's what a freelancer does all the time. Even during the fat times of a long-term, well-paying contract, as a freelancer, you're still always on the lookout for what might be next.

Here are a few more ways a freelancer thinks and works that can benefit traditional employees.

Freelancers know how to hustle. As a freelancer, you can't afford to become irrelevant, because that could mean that the next gig will never come. Freelancers are constantly networking, marketing, and staying on top of the latest and greatest tools and news in their field to make themselves the go-to person for a certain kind of service or expertise. Good freelancers live on their toes. They're adaptable to changing opportunities, and can quickly shift gears, evaluate different jobs, refer potential clients to their freelancer friends, and chat at the virtual watercooler about who needs what. Freelancers know when it's time to pull an all-nighter and when they can take an afternoon off to catch a matinee. Freelancers don't put their careers on cruise control for long periods of time because they're setting the course — not their boss or company.

Freelancers are acutely aware of costs in time and money. The phrase "time is money" doesn't hit home until you're sitting at your desk, goofing off, and realize that you're wasting your own money by doing so. A freelancer has his or her hourly rate top-of-mind at all times. Any project a freelancer works on has a price and a number of hours attached to it, and that awareness makes for a more efficient and productive workday. A freelancer is less likely to waste time on things that don't matter because they can't afford to. As an employee, do you know what your hourly rate of pay is? Have you thought about how much of that time and money you spend putting cover sheets on your TPS reports or letting that meeting drone on 30 minutes longer than it should?

Freelancers do work for reasons other than money. Freelancers don't just get paid in money, they also look for gigs and affiliations that will create connections, get them experience, and open doors to more work, expertise, or contacts. A freelancer might turn down an okay-paying job that's just not that interesting, but opt to speak at a local event and write a daily blog for free to get their name out there. A freelancer is always looking for the "good" work, the interesting contracts that will pack her CV with marketable experience, which in turn differentiates her from other contractors. In my experience, there are two common kinds of freelance work: the well-paying tedium, and the underpaying interesting jobs. The first funds the second. (The third kind, the well-paying interesting contract, also comes along once in awhile, and getting one is like hitting the lottery.) Freelancers choose what contracts to work on based on several factors, not just monetary compensation. So, the next time the boss is looking for someone to join a committee, head up a task force, or lead a new initiative? Even if it's more work that won't get you a salary boost, think like a freelancer and choose based on what other benefits might be in store.

Freelancers build (and risk) their reputation with every job. When you're an independent freelancer whose name is attached to everything you produce, there's a higher level of accountability than when you work under the umbrella of a larger team or company. Freelancers — especially the perfectionist types — strive for a higher level of excellence because they own every single thing they do, and every job is a stepping stone toward the next. If your name appeared on every single thing you produced every day at your company, would you feel differently than you do now?

A big part of being an independent contractor is the need to constantly market oneself, and that requires a level of ego-centricity that won't work in a team situation. When you work in a group, it can't be all about you — but in the larger spectrum of your career, thinking like a freelancer can make you more efficient, marketable, and able to weather a storm.

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This is why I'm interested in a more post-employement model when i think of hiring for my company. Well, this and tons of other reasons (more on those later). The next part will be about what economic and lifestyle structures need to shift to really engage a post-employement world.

By Sean Fallon, 3:20 PM on Tue Oct 6 2009, 13,754 views (Edit, to draft, Slurp)

I only watch a handful of the 200+ DirecTV channels I pay for. To see whether I could survive without the pricey service, I simply went without it. I soon wondered why we all don't just turn off traditional TV.

As illustrated in a few of our surveys, many of you have already made the jump, catching fresh TV via broadband instead of actual channels or even DVR. But the vast majority of us are still watching TV the old fashioned way—paying for packages from cable or satellite providers. But from what I've seen in my own house lately, I suspect that it won't be long before this practice is as archaic as owning a landline. Many of you refuse to pay for a phone twice, so why are you paying for two or three different ways to see your favorite TV shows?

There are, of course, drawbacks to a life without a broadcaster-friendly set-top box, so I spent a month trying to find out whether or not these drawbacks were significant enough to justify the huge additional cost.

The Experiment

Since this is Prof. Dealzmodo, you already know the impetus for this experiment was money. In particular my 12-month introductory package runs out soon, and the same channels will soon cost me nearly $80 per month. But why? The channel lineups are bloated and padded with filler—a veritable hot dog of entertainment where the real meat is mixed in with a lot of hooves and snouts. I mean, 70 music channels? Really? Isn't that what services like Pandora—and about 100 others—are for? Speaking of services, I decided to play it straight. I didn't get shows via BitTorrent. For a month, I simply used easily accessible, generally legal alternatives like Netflix, Hulu Desktop and network websites, plus Windows Media Center, which comes "free" with most PCs these days. The idea here is to prove that you don't need to spend tons of money, use complicated software or go to extreme measures to watch what you want.

Hardware

First let's talk about hardware. I don't see the point in spending money on niche players like Apple TV , Vudu, and Roku to get internet content onto your television. These players only handle a fraction of what any home theater PC can deliver. Also, sticking with a computer makes it easier to roll with new services and software platforms as they're released. (Hulu isn't on any set-top box yet, but it's available to every Mac and PC, in several ways.)

You don't need something elaborate here—an HTPC's main purpose is to browse the web and stream video. Just about any computer will do—including the old laptop you're thinking about replacing anyway. Back in the day, I used to attach my laptop to the TV with a simple S-video connection, but a lot of today's laptops and home-theater PCs make things extremely easy with an HDMI port.

If you don't have an HDMI port, there are simple workarounds. For older computers in general, there are DVI-to-HDMI (video only) and VGA-to-component cables are also doable for older PCs, and if you already have some video cables, there are adapters out there that might do the trick for less money. Owners of new Macs have to fudge a bit with Mini DisplayPort-to-HDMI converters, but even those, from Monoprice and others, are getting better.

There are plenty of products out there designed for the home-theater market that cost less than $500—including the Asus' EEEBox line and the Lenovo IdeaCenter Q700. Plus, there is always the option of buying refurbished or upgrading a cheap PC yourself to control costs.

If you want to cheat and record broadcast shows, you still don't have to pay for cable—you can get an over-the-air HD TV tuner. Generally, a USB dongle TV tuner or PCI card like those from Hauppage will cost $100 or so, and they work reasonably well, though you may need an external antenna for best results. You don't have to pay for service, and you can be assured of local news and other local programming, if that's important to you. Just don't come crying to us if you can't get your rabbit ears into just the right position.

No matter what computer and accessories you use, the added cost will probably pay for itself pretty quickly when you start canceling all those expensive subscriptions. As I mentioned earlier, going broadband-only will save me about $80 a month in satellite fees—in 8 months, I will have recouped my $600 home-theater PC investment.

In the end, my entire monthly TV entertainment budget runs about $60—that's $50 for basic broadband plus $10 for Netflix. Compare that to the $140 I would have paid starting in February for the combination of all that plus DirecTV. (As a sports fan, there are online programs that I do pay extra for, but you get what you pay for—as you'll see below.)

How To Manage and Control Your TV Content

You will have to sacrifice the basic (if not exactly pretty) UI you are used to. Fortunately, things are getting better. Hulu Desktop looks more like what you would find with a broadcast set-top box, and with Windows Media Center, having Netflix and other plug-ins makes finding and watching on-demand shows a whole lot easier. And there's at least one new website, Clicker that is taking a crack at organizing internet content into an easy-to-use programming guide.

Fortunately, I managed to keep the number of remotes on my coffee table to a minimum. I have a Windows Media Center remote to handle Netflix, DVDs, Hulu Desktop and downloads. Mac users have their own little white remote which handles much of this functionality, too. (A wireless keyboard and mouse are essential for more intricate navigation and many PC functions, but those can stay out of sight for the most part.)

iPhone/iPod Touch apps like Air Mouse and iTunes Remote have made my iPhone an all-in-one solution for controlling my computer and its software.

Watching Your Favorite Shows

I'm not a TV addict by a long shot, but there are shows that I watch religiously. These shows include 30 Rock, Lost, Family Guy, Californication and Dexter. The following graph illustrates the pluses and minuses of viewing a handful of different shows—not just my favorites—from popular networks.

The newest episodes of many of these shows are on Hulu, which mostly hosts fresh content—there isn't a huge back catalog of shows. The catch with new shows, on Hulu or on network websites, is that you usually have to wait a day to see them. (For many DVR devotees, that's not a big deal anyway.)

It's also important to point out that certain networks tease their new seasons in many locations online—NBC has been offering free HD downloads of many new shows on iTunes, in hopes you'll buy the season pass for $40 or more.

Netflix is another place where networks promote new shows: I was able to see the first episode of Californication and Dexter on Netflix during their limited time Watch Instantly preview. Speaking of that, Showtime shows, if available at all, do tend to appear on Netflix, but mostly only in re-runs.

As you can see, not everything streams in HD quality, although this appears to be changing. ABC is already streaming in HD, and others like Hulu and Netflix are dabbling, so it's only a matter of time before HD content is widely available for streaming online.

What's Not Online

CBS, HBO and Discovery: I'm talkin' to you. I couldn't care less about CBS programming—though it's the #1 rated network, so clearly somebody does. CBS.com (and TV.com) offers a handful of full episodes (CSI and NCIS), and some of those show up in Netflix too, but until CBS decides their agenda, you may have to wait for new seasons of Big Bang Theory to show up on DVD, or try to record over-the-air broadcasts (see above).

I love History Channel and Discovery Channel, and these guys are also reluctant to accept reality, move away from old revenue models and look towards the future. Nonetheless, I still get my fix though Netflix. Early seasons of some of my favorite shows (Deadlest Catch, Man vs Wild) are available for streaming via Watch Instantly, and more recent seasons are available for rental. I have the patience to wait for some of my favorite shows to arrive on DVD or Blu-ray—it's a virtue that could save you lots of money.

Let's Talk Live Sports

Traditionally, one of the major drawbacks of internet TV is a lack of live sports. Again, I don't know what sports and teams you are interested in, but for me it is all about football. For example, a few weeks ago I checked out the Steelers/Chargers game on NBC Sunday Night Football online. The streaming content is "HD" quality (at least it's in the realm of HD) and the service offers a viewing experience that is actually deeper than a standard broadcast. Users have access to DVR style controls, four separate camera angles, highlights and live analysis.

I also have the privilege of access to my beloved out-of-market NY Giants games each week with DirecTV's online Supercast service. It broadcasts all of the Sunday Ticket NFL games over the internet, but access to the online content requires a SuperFan subscription that runs a ridiculous $400 per year. It isn't for every budget, but you don't need a DirecTV subscription to take part—so the option is there. And hey, if you know someone with a Supercast account, you can piggyback.

If baseball is your thing, MLB.com offers a service similar to Supercast for only $10 or $20 yearly depending on the package—although it only includes out-of-market games. Live golf can be viewed for free on PGATour.com; college sports, baseball, tennis, soccer and more is free on ESPN360 (if you are affiliated with an ESPN-approved broadband provider) and streaming sites like Justin.tv offer plenty of free sports viewing options, including live ESPN. Windows Media Center owners can also get SportsLounge, with Fox Sports.

The Future?

This is still the wild west, and things are apt to keep changing. I already mentioned services like DirecTV's Supercast and streaming games from MLB.com. Little by little, you will start to see primetime shows or packages offered a la carte online too. I hope we don't get to a point where we are paying more for access to online content than we now pay for cable content, but there has been serious talk by executives from Time Warner (HBO), CBS and Hulu (Fox, NBC, Disney) about that very thing: Either charge subscribers for premium content on demand, or simply verify that they are already paying customers of cable and satellite, and grant them access to stuff others can't see.

If the broadcasters have their way, you'll pay for it one way, or you'll pay for it another. Still, technology has a way of keeping pace with the dreams of media execs, and the experiments conducted by YouTube and Hulu and others with advertising may lead to some kind of compromise, too. It is really all up in the air, but for now...

What You Should Think About

When all was said and done, I found my experience without standard cable television to be more liberating than anything else. Sure, streaming video isn't always HD quality, not all of my favorite shows are readily available, and I have to search around a bit more for the things I want to watch—but I didn't suffer and I didn't feel like I was missing out. The added expense was not justifiable—especially when I was paying for a bunch of things I never watched. The best part is that I was able to get pretty much everything I needed with a basic set of tools that anyone with a computer can take advantage of right away.

Not everyone shares my taste in television but, at the very least, you should take a good look at your cable or satellite bill and ask yourself if it's really worth all that money.

I've been living post television for 6 or 7 years now. I don't do it to be progressive or see what it's like. I literally find it easier. Five years from now, cable networks will either drastically evolve or die. Good luck!

Manifesto For The Content Curator: The Next Big Social Media Job Of The Future ?

Every hour thousands of new videos are uploaded online. Blog posts are written and published. Millions of tweets and other short messages are shared. To say there is a flood of content being created online now seems like a serious understatement. Until now, the interesting thing is that there are relatively few technologies or tools that have been adopted in a widespread way to manage this deluge. We pretty much just have algorithmic search, with Google (and other search engines) as the most obvious example. Social bookmarking and social news have been around for some time (ie - sites like Digg or delicious), and new models of aggregation like Alltop are springing up to help us navigate all this content as well.

The real question is whether solutions like these will be enough. By some estimates in just a few years we will reach a point where all the information on the Internet will double every 72 hours. Double. I'm running out of metaphors to describe the magnitude of this content creation. The predictable result of this is that brands are beginning to focus on content creation when they start to look at social media. What are we going to create, or what are we going to get our customers/patients/fans/audience/victims to create? Is that really the best question we could be asking?

What if you were to ask about the person that makes sense of it all? The one who sifts through all the content and picks out the best and most worthy. This person is missing from most corporate communications teams. It's not a commonly defined role on any ebusiness teams. In fact, there are few jobs like this at all. The closest comparative role may be contained within the rising Library 2.0 movement (one I wrote about some time ago), but this is not frequently linked to business communication or marketing. If this role did exist, what would it be called?

The name I would give it is Content Curator. A Content Curator is someone who continually finds, groups, organizes and shares the best and most relevant content on a specific issue online. The most important component of this job is the word "continually." In the real time world of the Internet, this is critical. If you look at how many individuals are currently using their Twitter account to highlight interesting bits of content they locate or how del.icio.us users have tagged and shared content on that site for years, you'll understand that this idea has been steadily growing organically.

In an attempt to offer more of a vision for someone who might fill this role, here is my crack at a short manifesto for someone who might take on this job:

MANIFESTO/JOB DESCRIPTION: CONTENT CURATOR

In the near future, experts predict that content on the web will double every 72 hours. The detached analysis of an algorithm will no longer be enough to find what we are looking for. To satisfy the people's hunger for great content on any topic imaginable, there will need to be a new category of individual working online. Someone whose job it is not to create more content, but to make sense of all the content that others are creating. To find the best and most relevant content and bring it forward. The people who choose to take on this role will be known as Content Curators. The future of the social web will be driven by these Content Curators, who take it upon themselves to collect and share the best content online for others to consume and take on the role of citizen editors, publishing highly valuable compilations of content created by others. In time, these curators will bring more utility and order to the social web. In doing so, they will help to add a voice and point of view to organizations and companies that can connect them with customers - creating an entirely new dialogue based on valued content rather than just brand created marketing messages.

After writing this, I can't help but wonder if there might already be people out there with this title. Let's find out: the first person to send me a scan or photo of a business card with this title on it will get a free signed copy of Personality Not Included ...

Tim is pointing to an interesting article by Barbara Scala, founder of Bloom:

“It’s not about getting people to come to my web site anymore. It’s about getting my content; my videos,my articles, my event promotion announcements, on YOUR web site. That’s what I’m paying attention to now.” – Barbara Scala, Founder of Bloom

It’s Not About Web Traffic Anymore, by Barbara Scala