08.19.07
As with life, things end as they begin.
This post will mark my final post for the Public Relations in the Age of Digital Influence course. It’s been an interesting and enlightening semester. Our class began with discussion on the role of everyday citizens who act as marketers and influencers in the age of Web 2.0. We’re ending with lessons about mass collaboration and crowdsourcing and the impact these practices have on media, communication, and business. As we moved through concepts, this course never deviated from the reality that, now more than ever, people hold great power in communicating and disseminating mass messages.
In my first blog post, I shared my skepticism about the intent of citizen marketers, arguing against the notion that bloggers are completely altruistic when promoting a product or business. I later blogged about my discomfort with writing in a conversational style to humanize my blog and refuted the “seamless shift” from consumer to contributor. In looking back, I must admit that my consistent skepticism against modern technology is a bit surprising. I consider myself as person who embraces technology, new communication gadgets, and killer applications. Moreover, I’ve always called for the type of society where peers worked together and shared information. We seem to be moving in that direction with citizen marketers and crowdsourcing, but for some reason, I’m having a hard time accepting the change – or maybe the means through which we are making the change.
I can’t really put my finger on the exact root of my skepticism, but I think one of the major factors is the grave impact that all this sharing and selfless promotion could have on careers and ultimately the economy. In Stock Waves: Citizen Photo Journalists Are Changing the Rules, a photographer discussing the new wave of consumer-generated stock photography, is quoted as saying, “Microstock has destroyed the careers of hundreds, if not thousands, of photographers.” This statement shows that not everyone is prepared for or adept at embracing the forever changing technological advances. With different levels of learning, knowledge, finances, and interests, the ‘old guard’ or veterans within a profession could be left without a career.
Now, the thought ‘change or die’ is probably fresh on your mind. The article Creative Crowdwriting: The Open Book pulled a great quote from Tapscott and Williams that explained this thought much better: “…this new participation is both a blessing and curse…it will also cause great upheaval, dislocation, and danger for societies, corporations and individuals that fail to keep up with relentless change.” I agree with this statement, but would add that this “new participation” will also cause danger for people and societies who accept change. File sharing illustrates this, as consumers face the possibility of being sued for downloading copywritten material or getting computer viruses from downloading bad files.
So, I end this course blog the way I began: with a healthy dose of skepticism about the glory and selflessness of Web 2.0 and its offerings. I in no way meant to be the cold bucket of water in this course, but I think all sides of this topic need to be explored a bit further in the literature, and in a manner that doesn’t gloss over the drawbacks.
08.11.07
Mass Collaboration: Even Wayne Brady Gets It
Ask Wayne Brady what makes good improv and he’ll probably tell you his audience. I’m in Las Vegas this week with my husband who is attending the National Association of Black Journalists Conference. Last night we went to see Wayne Brady’s live improvisational performance “Making %#it Up!” at the Venetian. In a rather quaint auditorium, Brady and his assistants removed the invisible barrier between artist and audience and encouraged full participation by audience members. To create laugh out loud comedy, audience members were asked to come on stage to role-play, suggest scenes for Brady to reenact, and provide the punch line for the joke. The end result: a damn funny show.
According to Wikinomics authors Tapscott and Williams, everyday people are the new media. Because of advances in consumer technology, we are controlling the Internet, television, news, and even movies. We now have the opportunity to dictate what information gets placed on the agenda for traditional media and consumers’ discussion.
Two things came to mind as I watched Brady’s performance. First, the leader (or in this case the star) does not hold all the power. Oftentimes, leaders simply have the most credibility and best means for spreading an innovation to the masses. The best solution may come from an audience member who is not bogged down with the pressures of thinking up the most novel idea. Secondly, people love being a part of the action and are eager to contribute if they know their idea will go towards creating something significant.
But last night’s performance also brought another thought to mind: I paid for Wayne Brady and not the comedic talents of Joe Schmoe. While mass collaboration is beneficial, we have to place limits on how much control consumers have in developing products and services. Why? Because too much collaboration may blur the line between professional and amateur. Tapscott and Williams write,
“In a world where all one needs is a camera phone to report on one’s surroundings, it is no longer as straightforward to pigeonhole a person’s role. In the emerging prosumption paradigm, a person can seamlessly shift from consumer to contributor and creator” (p. 143).
I disagree with this statement. The shift from consumer to contributor is not always seamless, particularly when the consumer has little or no professional training in what he is contributing to. It’s wrong to create the notion that any person with a blog or Podcast is a journalist. We need to continue showing the distinction between consumer-generated and professional content to uphold professional standards and limit career “remixing.”
It seems that Wayne Brady (the genius he is) recognizes this point too. He never gave his audience total control over dictating his moves. He shot down suggestions he didn’t like and admitted when concepts were too racy. Audience participation only made up the first half of his performance. During the second half of the show, Brady built the invisible barrier between artist and audience and performed self selected songs and dances, sending the message that ‘not everyone can do what I do.’
08.04.07
Preparing Public Health for Mass Collaboration
As technology improves, more people move away from human-to-human interaction to embrace computer-based communication. I’m very interested in the role technology, particularly the Internet, plays in healthcare and concerned about the effect this medium has on health promotion. Consumers are increasingly being led to the Internet to improve health behaviors. This way of life is producing both positive and negative effects, with the two most apparent outcomes being increased awareness about healthy living (positive) and decreased professional advice about healthy living and behavior change (negative).
According to Wikinomics authors Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, newer Internet technology is facilitating collectivism among consumers, creating users who are active participants in, developing, editing and regulating content for the web as well as print and broadcast channels. In the opening chapter of Wikinomics, the authors explain that in the age of collaborative technology, the connected will survive and disconnected will fail. The authors write:
“A power shift is underway, and a tough new business rule is emerging: Harness the new collaboration or perish. Those who fail to grasp this will find themselves ever more isolated – cut off from the networks that are sharing, adapting, and updating knowledge to create value.”
This “power shift” is present in public health. I look at Tapscott and Williams’s collectivism theory from two health promotion perspectives. First, consumers who don’t understand how to use the Internet to obtain health information will be placed at a disadvantage in learning about personal and community health. Many of these individuals may possess the greatest healthcare needs, but their unfamiliarity with retrieving and contributing information will prevent communication with peers and health professionals who are using technology to communicate health. Secondly, healthcare professionals who don’t use mass collaboration don’t receive professional and audience input with solving serious health issues.
I was taught to look at public health from a business standpoint, with profits being increased awareness and changed behaviors. Public health educators wanting to help improve negative health behaviors often stick to tried and true theoretical approaches and tactics. As mentioned in the book, our collaboration happens most often during committee and coalition meetings. Because we’re taught to not reinvent the wheel (and often have little money to do so), many professionals in the field are unable to harness the power of the Internet to enable mass collaboration from colleagues and audience members. Furthermore, many of our theories are outmoded and fail to address the role technological advances like the Internet have in engaging consumers.
Tapscott and Williams warn readers that newer demands will force development of new processes and models. The authors advise professionals to “reconfigure” existing methods to meet needs. I plan to write my thesis on whether computer-mediated communication lessens relevance of traditional communication theories for behavior change. In light of Web 2.0 and other interactive technologies, I’m particularly interested in determining whether the diffusion of innovations theory should be enhanced to address message transmission through newer, more faster modes of communication that don’t rely on face-to-face interaction. The principles and use of Wikinomics provide more justification for reexamining relevance of traditional communication theories.
