The Acorn and the Challenges of the Social Technology Industry

“The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you’ve followed the ever-evolving rapidly disrupting social media technologies in marketing and PR, you know who Jeremiah Owyang is. If not, you need to check him out. He’s the best social media, web communication strategist analyst out there. Jeremiah provides in-depth thinking and advice. He delivers it in a helpful, courteous way and has made tremendous contributions to the social media technology sector.

Jeremiah’s “Matrix: Challenges of the Social Technology Industry,“ July 2010 edition, lays out the challenges of the social technology industry. But it also lays out some of the communication hurdles to overcome when representing your business. Whether it be PR, Marketing, Sales, Pre-Sales,  or customer service,  you will have to deal with these social technology issues because they directly relate to business communication challenges.

Jeremiah breaks down his matrix with four simple headings.

• Challenge
• Description
• Why it’s painful and
• How it might be resolved.

His matrix is easy-to-read and understand.  Of particular relevance to business communicators in the Matrix are:

Noise overwhelms signal: So much noise out there – how do you connect through the chaos? We covered that in “The Explosive New Reality Show  … Content.”

Amateurism threatens expertise: This one I have a slightly different take on then Jeremiah. Mine is driven by an autodidact personality. What’s that mean? I love to see amateurs with the guts, gumption and persistence teach themselves to be better than the experts and pro’s. It’s a pure joy to see. Better to experience. But check out his description of the issue. Jeremiah’s experience is probably the same as yours and 99% of everyone else. It is a difficult issue because it erodes credibility and trust in the potential of these technologies to effect serious change.

Fast-moving  moving industry creates confusion: A bit understated. How can you keep up with the speed – especially if you’re in business communications? For example, there are about 1,000,000 blog posts per day now.  How do you monitor, absorb relevant information and keep an attitude of constant learning? Hard work. But hard work isn’t enough anymore -  filtering is paramount.

Culture shift creates an internal rift inside institutions: Change. Change and power shifts are always difficult. But with the current economic environment and stress of delivering measurable results, it’s even more difficult today.  Change is needed, demanded, imperative – but social media change is looked at with a big ole stink-eye unless it delivers immediate measurable results. Some ideas, like seeds need incubating to grow … no?

“The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Read Jeremiah Owyang’s “Matrix: Challenges of the Social Technology Industry,

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