Guys, I get very excited when I read recently published surveys. It’s just thrilling. You never know what the “greatest minds of our time” have came up with this time.

There are two major problems: 1) How a research has been conducted; and 2) How it is going to be presented by the media. We’ve even seen it before.

This time we read:

The majority of people feel upset and lonely when they are deprived of access to the internet, according to consumer research.

A new study has revealed that 53 per cent feel upset when denied access and 40 per cent feel lonely if they are unable to go online.

The research found that people experience these feelings even if denied online access for a short time.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2017543/Britons-deprived-internet-feel-upset-lonely.html

It sounds like someone is trying to prove that the Internet addiction is a great deal. And it is… but this is the least that this particular survey could show us.

Interviewing college students around the world is not the perfect target group. And even if you aim at that target, you can try to be relevant about it but 1000 students around the globe are far from being representative for their group.

Besides… Students are the group of people who rely a lot on new technologies and Internet for their work, study and contact with friends and family. Do you think it would be the same with the 40-50 year olds? I doubt it.

Unrepresentative surveys claiming whatever they want are not helping anyone. They are OK for studying purposes but that’s all.

Remember: be critical about the surveys and researches you read. Find out what are the basics of the survey, see the data, see the methodology and the final output.

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Sir Ken Robinson is right. Our “modern” education is from the Industrial age. And what happens when we have nowadays society/economy and industrial education? Sir Robinson’s answer: chaos.

Changing the education paradigm is not easy. Definitely not easy! But it is our obligation to do it.

Until we change our idea for education, we are going to see more and more defects of the modern age. And every next time it is going to be worse.

It’s up to us.

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Logically, every one of us is a person with his/her own identity. Thus we need a web profile that represents our own identity and nothing more. It is insane to have profiles in all the web 2.0 services from this point of view.

Unfortunately, it is not that simple.

It is true – we all have our own identity/personality but are we always the same? Do we always act the same way, have constant behavior, etc. Of course not!

When interacting with others, we use different social roles. We communicate in a certain way with our family, in a different way with our friends, in another way with our colleagues, with strangers and so on. We act and we are supposed/expected to act in a certain way. (Read more about role theory here)

It is just the same in the web.

When you sign up for a service in the net, you sign up for a particular role. And you know it. You expect to meet a certain type of people who behave in a certain way and you are expected to be a certain man/woman and behave in a certain way. You don’t want to share party pictures in your LinkedIn profile, right?

So, having different profiles in the different services in the web is the “natural” way of expressing your personality. This is true, of course, only in the common case (we except commercial purposes, anonymous profiles, etc.).

The bottom line: make profiles and have fun, guys!

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I call it “brand eye” (you can call it as you like). Here is what I’ve done:

1. Register a Yahoo account (if you already haven’t one) and visit pipes.yahoo.com
2. Start creating a pipe and add a “Fetch Feed”.
3. In the “Fetch Feed” add the urls:
   • the feed from a search result from search.twitter.com (as many as you want);
   • the feed from a search result from blogsearch.google.com (as many as you want);
   • a feed from a Google search (you can create one through open.dapper.net) (as many as you want).
4. Under the “Fetch Feed” add the operator “Sort” from the left menu in Yahoo Pipes.
5. Sort the feeds by date.
6. Link the “Fetch Feed” to the “Sort” and the “Sort” to the “Pipe Output”.
7. Create the pipe and get its RSS.

This is a very simple way to track what your customers say about your brand.

I could not find a way to integrate a facebook search, so I’ll be glad if someone tells me how to create a RSS from a facebook search. It is just a matter of time.

Anyway, this is a very simple (yet not perfect) way for technically not savvy guys to track brands in the net.

You can try it.

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The problem is that there isn’t a “one way” or something like the “ultimate social media guide”. There can’t be…

Remember, guys, the key to social media is communication.

Now, here is the “non strategy” strategy you should use if you want to be successful with social media.

1. Read all you can find about the topic you are interested in.
2. Write down or just remember the “advices” which commonly repeat in the articles.
3. Study the good practices and examples. What/Why/How they did it and what was the effect.
4. Write down your goals and see if they can fit in any of the cases you have learned.
5. Make a strategy based on what you have learned, but this strategy should be only for a start.
6. Start executing your strategy and wait for the first feedbacks.
7. Analyze the first feedbacks and if necessary make changes to the strategy.
8. Continue executing your strategy and always ask for/look for feedback.
9. Analyze the feedback and make corrections.
10. Repeat step 9

Social media is all about being communicative and creative. There cannot be “hard” rules you have to follow. I am just giving you example of that.

Do not worry to experiment. Do not worry to make mistakes. Just find your own convenient way to create something that matters to people, be open to the feedback and respond to it.

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I understand Seth. It is annoying when someone who have not done anything that matters all his/hers life tells you: “Ok, you suck. You are wrong. What the hell are you talking about? Etc.” But that’s not the point. The point is:

But what have you shipped?

And then more:

What have you done with your connection skills that has been worthy of criticism, that moved the dial and that changed the world?

This, guys, is the wrong assumption. Having this assumption undermines the hard work of many people who “have not changed the world”, but without whom those who have changed it would not be able to do it.

Think of all the scientists, analysts, journalists, bloggers, consumers and so on. Most of them have not shipped anything. Most of them have not changed the world (oh, just imagine how every person on Earth is changing the world every day – priceless). Believe me – they should not. But it is all these people who actually help “the others” to do it.

Having the majority of people criticizing, questioning and doubting what we make or think is one of the best gifts to humanity. We cannot be all “producers”. Someone must “consume” and give feedback.

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Let me quote the most intriguing parts:

The poll, commissioned by National Family Week, reveals the influence of technology on youngsters – and the extent to which parents underestimate it.

Some 28% of the eight to 15-year-olds questioned cited websites such as Facebook, Twitter and MSN as the most important thing to them.

Come on, guys. The “influence of technology”?! It is the least thing that this survey can show us.

First of all, we are talking about 8 to 15 year olds. It’s going to take them at least 3 to 10 years so they can form a personality. They are still kids or teenagers. What do you expect them to say?

Second, do not forget what are Facebook and Twitter about. They are mostly about friends and connections – some of the few important things at that age. The new/modern forms of friends/connections.

So, when saying “Facebook is the most important“, for example, the 8 to 15 year olds mean “my friends are the most important“.

Keep it in mind when reading the next “technology-impact” survey.

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See the infographic full size.

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You have not? Watch the “refreshed” version:

Great job! I congratulate Erik Qualman. The statistics and the way they are presented make you think, don’t they? Let’s take a close look to some of them:

• Social Media has overtaken pornography as the #1 activity on the Web

• Years to reach 50 million users: radio – 38 years; TV – 13 years; Internet – 4 years; iPod – 3 years

• If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 3^rd largest

• 80% of companies use social media for recruitment

• YouTube is the 2^nd largest search engine in the world

• Wikipedia has over 15 million articles, 78% of which are non-English

• There are over 200,000,000 Blogs

• 24 of 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation

• 60 million status updates happen on Facebook daily

It looks really amazing… at first glance. Then you think. Is all this information that “special”?

Social media is definitely not a fad, but calling it “the biggest shift since the industrial revolution” is going too far in my eyes. Why? The statistics, guys. The statistics. They are the biggest problem in this video.

You see, statistics can adjust, or more precisely, can be adjusted.

Let’s take “years to reach 50 million users”, for example. Could you compare the TV and radio to Internet and iPod?! They are incomparable. First of all, TV and radio are structurally different from Internet. I am sure we are not arguing about this one. Second, where the heck is the social and history context? It will be the same if you compare yourselves, your parents and your grandparents in using twitter, for instance. You cannot take TV and radio out of the time, circumstances and time-technology-limitations they appear.

Another example. “60 million status updates happen on Facebook daily” – so what? 6 billion (or even more) people talk every day. Oh, wait. They are not connected. Right. Then why the most effective marketing of all time is “word of mouth marketing”?

I think you got it. Every number that is taken out of its context means nothing. It can be used in any manner.

So, the video is great, but the message is wrong. You can see it for yourselves.

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The term “information overload” was popularized by writer and futurist Alvin Toffler as:

The difficulty a person can have understanding an issue and making decisions that can be caused by the presence of too much information.

Toffler, of course, couldn’t even imagine how his term is used in the so called Internet age. If you are unfamiliar with this, please check:

• Understanding Information Overload

• Fighting data asphyxiation is difficult but possible

• How can we cope with information overload?

Pretty scary, huh? But that’s not all. Watch:

Ok, seriously, let’s get real. Who says what is “too much information”, “too little information”, “enough information”, etc. Yes, that’s right. We are. Every one of us!

Have you heard of “sensory overload”? Probably not. You know why? Because the scientists today know very well that a condition where one or more of the senses are strained and it becomes difficult to focus on the task at hand does not exist except for in the cases of certain disorders. The scientists today know that our brain can cope with millions of processes every single second and we are not even aware that this is happening. Imagine they didn’t know it.

Now back to the overload. The most common problems pointed out as characteristics of information overload are:

• Huge amount of content

• Too many streams to follow

• Missing valuable content

It is funny, actually. Ask yourself the question: Who needs to follow most of, or all of the available streams of information of any kind? The answer, dear friends, is few. Only people on certain positions (with particular jobs) need to/are made to do it. Journalists, PR professionals, marketing managers, brand managers, active users, you name it. Those are the “overloaded” people. Now, what is the percent of those people compared to the rest of humanity? You don’t need the answer to this question. You already know it. And you know more than this…

Talking about services like facebook or twitter, for example, – what valuable content could you miss? How and when John went to the bathroom this morning? Or what is the color of my favorite baby toy?! You see, the nature of social media (in general) is backwards. You don’t chase the information. The information follows you. You can’t miss videos like this if you think it’s funny.

Did you know that depending on the country, the average Internet user visits 1 to 10 sites per day? Do you read or just scan most of your mails, news articles, images, etc.? Do you actually know how much information can your consciousness process?

Think again.

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