Dueling social networks: Google+ and Facebook

Posted on July 22, 2011 by Bill Wren

Although I’m using Google+ I know absolutely nothing about it. And I’ve yet to find the time to really explore it. The comforting thing is knowing that no one else knows anything about it.

Everything is speculation. People using it now are early adopters — and that is worrisome.

Early adopters tend to be more tech oriented than the general population. When you combine that with Google, which has never been the most “general audience” friendly company (read that as rather tech oriented), it risks evolving into something that is difficult for many average users to understand, at least without some learning curve. Of course, Facebook is like that too. I’ve lost track of the number of people who have asked me, regarding Facebook, “How does this work? What am I supposed to do?”

Google compounds the “What does this mean?” issue in the same way they obfuscated Google Docs when they decided to refer to collections rather than folders. “Collections” does make a logical sense but when dealing with people that isn’t always the best route to take.

In a world where a general population is use to Microsoft (folders) and Facebook (friends and groups), changing terminology is risky because it is confusing. In other words, when you bring something new into the world you can do any kind of naming you want because nothing is established. When you bring in something new and there is something else already established, you have to change the way people think. That’s not the easiest thing to do especially when you are dealing with fierce competition that doesn’t want that to happen.

So Google+ has some problems with their “circles” (I’m still not sure what they mean by that). Friends and acquaintances I like – that is simple and understandable because it’s based on how people actually think. It also adds something necessary to what Facebook has established, something that was missing. Of course all those hundreds we have aren’t friends; most are acquaintances — some aren’t even that.

That is a plus on the Google+ side of things. There are many other pluses but at this stage they are all potential. Everything people are currently writing about it boils down to speculation, some far better informed than others.

One of the Google+ pluses is that so many people want it to succeed. This has less to do with a love for Google than an annoyance with, and distrust of, Facebook. Still, it’s a plus. The caveat is that wanting something to succeed is not the same as success, so we need to be careful to separate what we wish for from reality.

Part of that reality has to do with numbers. I’ve seen a lot of people writing along the lines of, “Will Google dethrone Facebook?” as if it matters. Actually, I don’t think it does. Realistically, size only matters so far, at least in business terms. What really matters are demographics.

You can have 100 users but if they can only spend $1 each, you can only make a potential $100. With 10 users that can spend $100 each you can potentially make $1000. I’ll take the ten users.

The problem with having everybody (read Facebook) is that you have everybody. Your numbers may be large but how many of them actually represent real revenue potential? I know many people that are on Facebook “just because.” They represent zero dollars, however. They are so seldom on and are so disinclined to do anything Internet related (as far as spending money goes), they are irrelevant. They are still geared to print and traditional media.

My sense of Google, however, is that beyond their search product (which is like Facebook, reaching everybody), they reach a higher end audience with all their other products, as in one much more geared toward things Internet. I suspect on average there is a greater disposal income available there — but that is speculation, of course.

I think Facebook may be great for selling potato chips but when it comes to selling homes, technology, cars and other upper end products and services, those representing much more money, a smaller Google audience is worth a great deal more.

That too, however, is guesswork. But everything related to Google+ at this early stage is guesswork.

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Get to the point

Posted on July 13, 2011 by Bill Wren

Get to your point immediately or readers will abandon you. This is especially so online. No one is willing to plow through that first little bit you write to guide a reader into your subject. It is “now or never” online.

I saw a rather stark example of what I consider this online no-no today. And it was on a very respectable site, one I enjoy a lot. They preceded their point with words, words, words. I almost stopped reading because it seemed to be writing for the sake of writing.

I think I only continued because I have a high opinion of the site and the blogger.

I’m guilty of the same thing so I’m not going to name names — it serves no purpose. But what they did was to begin with a 275 word block of text, no breaks, before getting to what the post was about. This is a surefire way of ensuring no one reads your post.

It’s a bad practice in any writing but especially so online when people grant you the merest of glances to engage their interest. Get to your point immediately. Stop the business of setting it up with mellifluous language, creating a tone and easing a reader into the subject.

Deliver the goods, now.

By the way, it appears I harp on this every two years:

 

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Canada, singular and plural

Posted on July 1, 2011 by Bill Wren

(Originally published July 1, 2010 on Thoughtwrestling as “The Canadas.”)

Provincial flags, National Arts Centre, Ottawa, Ontario. (Photo - Bill Wren)

Canada is both problem and solution. It’s an ongoing exercise in creativity and problem solving. Sometimes it works out well; sometimes not.

And it’s really, really big!

Its lessons are big too. When it comes to solving problems and being creative, it provides the biggest lesson of all: just when you think you know something, you don’t.

You have to think differently. You have to learn more. You have to toss your way of seeing aside and see in new ways – often, the ways of others.

We are tourists

In any country but our own we are tourists. This has nothing to do with citizenship papers or other formal aspects of citizenry. It is simply that the only country we know with any depth or intimacy is our own. To know a place, you have to live in the place. This means things like buying groceries, paying rent, getting a loan and so on. You have to spend time doing the banal everyday things that keep a life moving along.

Unknown couple, Killarney Lake, New Brunswick. (Photo - Bill Wren)

The thing is, in our own country we think we know it with depth. We think we have an intimate knowledge of it. But we don’t. We can only know parts of it and even then we fall far short of complete knowledge. This is because our countries are so many countries.

And that’s why I refer to my country as “the Canadas.” It’s plural. There are as many Canadas as there are people.

In a sense, we are tourists even in our own countries.

The way a programmer in Nova Scotia experiences Canada is not the same as a nurse in Edmonton. A realtor in Fort St. John in north eastern British Columbia does not have the same Canada as the store owner in Montreal, Quebec.

A Muslim entrepreneur in Vancouver has one Canada; an Inuit politician in Nunavut has another.

And they are not the same from day to day.

Sometimes I see a Canadian’s online profile with a map showing all the places they’ve been to in the world. There might be three, maybe four balloons in Canada, and oodles in Europe, South America, southeast Asia and so on. We catalogue where we have been elsewhere.

Maybe Canadians don’t travel as much in Canada because we know we can never see everything: it’s too damn big!

If Canada was a shirt, it would be extra extra extra large.

I think we feel that living where we do, wherever that is in Canada, we know Canada. It’s just not so.

Problem and solution

Summer skating, West Edmonton Mall, Edmonton, Alberta. (Photo - Bill Wren)

Canada is an ongoing project in creativity because it involves so many contradictions and opposites from landscape to weather to people. Southern Alberta, down in the area of Fort MacLeod, is the opposite of southern New Brunswick. It is almost the difference between a desert and a rain forest.

That’s just landscape. People? Oh my!

This is really where the ongoing problem solving exercise happens. We want the collective unity of “Canadians” while at the same time wanting everyone to retain their differences. Sometimes we refer to it as a “cultural mosaic.”

But of course, that means accommodation and that begins with an understanding of how plural we are.

Solutions

I know many people don’t care about hockey, but stay with me a moment. It’s a good example of Canadians and problem solving and finding solutions – as well as what those solutions mean.

Since time began, the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation ) has been broadcasting hockey games in Canada. The CBC is a publicly owned company supported by Canadian tax dollars. It has a very specific mandate which, put simply, is this: your content will be Canada.

Unknown girl, City Hall, Edmonton, Alberta. (Photo - Bill Wren)

This means hockey games with Canadian teams, currently Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver. (Update: Now we can include Winnipeg again!) The thing is, since teams often play on the same night, which game do you show? How do you keep everyone happy?

Well, you don’t. But you try.

Canadians regularly complain about it. But the CBC does the best it can by putting one game on the national network, the one they hope the most people will want to see, and in specific regions, like Montreal, broadcasting the game of that area’s team.

Since Canada is so big, with six time zones, they can break it up between eastern and western games, the west getting underway usually several hours after those of the east.

The end result is games get shown. Someone is always unhappy. But overall and over time, it works. Not perfectly; but it works. Of course, much of the solution is the result of technology. It has allowed for better and more creative solutions.

Hockey and TV are pretty unimportant compared to larger social issues but to a large extent Canada’s creative problem solving mirrors the CBC’s solution for hockey. Some solutions work better than others, but that’s how it goes. We accommodate as best we can and manage to be one country, singular and plural all at once.

Delight, not pride

Parliament Hill, Ottawa, Ontario. (Photo - Bill Wren)

I don’t recall ever having a feeling of pride about Canada. What I feel most is delight. And I feel comfortable. Canada feels so much a part of me, so much an aspect of who and what I am, feeling pride in it would be like feeling pride in my arm or my leg. I just don’t think or feel that way.

It’s probably true of every country but in the end I see Canada as a work in progress. It’s a place so large, from every perspective, and so perpetually evolving, it can never be fully known. I’m pretty sure about one thing though.

Canada is not a place to be; it is a place to be together.

That, of course, is where the business of creative solutions comes in. And that, in turn, means realizing that what we know is only ever a small part of a larger picture. There is always more to learn, more to see, more people to meet, more to marvel at.

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Hazards of the mom and pop operation

Posted on June 22, 2011 by Bill Wren

A lot of small businesses fall into the category of “mom and pop” operation and we know what the phrase refers to: many constraints. The biggest is financial.

A mom and pop operation struggles with just getting the product or service out there so it can be sold. They have limited reach, limited budget, limited staff, limited everything.

Within those limitations however — and despite them — they can flourish. Not all, but many do and historically most businesses begin very, very small and are very, very stressed as they walk a fine tightrope between success and failure.

But there is a trap in seeing your business as a mom and pop operation. Too many small businesses use it as an excuse to avoid doing many things they should be doing to succeed. “That’s fine if you’re Apple but we’re a mom and pop operation.”

Of course you can’t do things like Apple but there are things that you can do but not if you see yourself as too small.

I’ve often found people using the mom and pop excuse as a way to avoid a lot of web and social media tools they should be using but are afraid to try. The fear has nothing to do with being large or small. It’s simply a feeling of being overwhelmed by something they don’t use themselves or understand.

Remember: you don’t need to use everything available, and often you shouldn’t be using what is available. But not because you’re a “mom and pop operation.” It’s because you’ve thought it through and seen that it isn’t applicable to your business and your customer base.

At the same time, you have to review that decision frequently because the landscape is constantly changing and what may not have been warranted yesterday may be warranted tomorrow.

Don’t get caught in the “mom and pop” trap. Small is often a strength. The Internet can be a great tool but it isn’t everything. You have to think it through and you can’t let your decisions be guided by the idea that, “We’re too small.”

If you think of your business as a mom and pop operation you think of it as small and that is where it will remain. Don’t let small be an excuse for avoiding the powerful tools available to you.

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Nothing is secure; no one is anonymous

Posted on June 18, 2011 by Bill Wren

No matter how sophisticated technology is, it always has one big hurtle it can’t overcome: us. How we use something — how we behave — will always condition technology, either by how it is designed or how it is used.

Not five minutes after talking with some friends about security on the Internet, a number of them pointing out their Facebook pages aren’t public, “just friends see them”, I go online and see this story: Facebook, Paypal accounts released by hackers.

In that story, and many other hacker stories, when I look at the comments I see they are peppered with variations of, “We should thank the hackers for revealing the security holes in these companies’ security measures.” I seldom see mention of details like, “the most common password is 123456″. (That is like putting a “Do not enter” sign on an open door and believing it is enough to prevent someone from breaking in.)

Vancouver skyline as rioting takes place.

In the aftermath of Vancouver’s rioting following the Stanley Cup Final, I’ve seen loads of video on TV of rioters, including a woman proudly displaying the purse she stole in the looting. I’ve seen video online and seen Facebook and Twitter updates with people preening about their role in the rioting. The pictures, and often the names of the people in them, are all over the Internet.

Yet the technological world that gives them a sense of anonymity is also the world that will get them caught.

In both cases, security and anonymity, there is a wildly wrong faith in technology. Nothing is private online. Some thing’s are more difficult to access than others, but everything is out there for someone with the patience and knowledge to eventually get into, if so inclined.

No one is anonymous. With cameras, smartphones, shared posts and links everywhere, the only thing between being unknown and known is time. If anything, we are more public than ever. If don’t draw a great deal of attention it is only because we are not interesting enough.

Where does this blind faith come from?

"All my friends will now see where I was on the night of the riot and no one else in the world will ever know."

I think it’s a variation of Mooer’s law, which roughly says, “Ease trumps authority every time.” The law concerns information systems and tells us that a source’s authority is less important than how easy it is to access. A hard cover book at the library may be the authority, but it is a lot easier to just Google it and go with whatever source comes up.

How does that relate to our blind faith in technology? It is simply this: it is too easy and, frankly, fun to believe we are secure and anonymous than to admit otherwise.

If we didn’t believe we’re secure and can remain unknown, we might have to be more thoughtful in what we do and post; we might have less fun; in some cases, we may even have to refrain from using technology for some things.

"This is just like that time in Rome you got a shot of me sitting on those steps outside the Vatican."

The worst of it is, we might have to sacrifice our popularity. (Note the contradiction: faith in anonymity as we do our best to be popular.)

As the critical comments about some companies and their security suggest (and often the criticisms are warranted), we’ll continue to desperately focus on more technology to solve a problem that isn’t, at its core, a technical problem. It is a human behaviour problem.

I don’t think technology can change that one. Or maybe it can? Our “fight or flight” response appears to have been amended to, “Fight or flight or take a photo?”

 

 

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