This is the fifth post from the SNCR meeting today. These are notes for a session by SNCR Senior Fellow Shel Israel & SNCR Corporate Member Mike Prosceno on Social Media Global Trend. Mike is the VP of Social Media for SAP. He leads their blogger relations and other social media activities. The session is based on the SAP Global Survey conducted over the last half of 2007. The program provided this summary, “When SNCR Senior Fellow and Advisor Shel Israel was approached by SAP to research similar and disparate trends in social media by world region, he suggested that SAP allow him to conduct it transparently, so that the world’s third largest software company would share data and insights with anyone who wished to see it. Israel conducted more than 50 interviews with people in 20+ countries on five continents. Some were well-known, prominent and influential thought leaders on social media, while others included a high school student, an NGO worker in Cambodia and a Bulgarian, a passionate Scottish educator and others who painted a picture of how social media is not just transforming business but global culture.”

Shel said he is a storyteller more than a researcher. So he said why not just interview people around the world and post the stories on a blog. SAP agreed to his surprise. He wanted to have conversations on the intersection of social media, culture, and business. The first three people posted the answers on their blogs so Shel would have to link to them. The third person changes some questions. The fourth put a video on Facebook under the question applications and got over hundred sets of answers. This lack of control turned out to be a good thing. Point here is that control is passing to the people and this can be a good thing if you play it right.

In a few weeks he posted over 50,000 words and sent SAP an 8400 word summary report. SAP got back and they agreed that Shel will start again after this conference. Here are a few highlights. One the interviewees was a 17 year old who blogs. The young man said he would never work for a firm that did not allow him to blog about his job. One interviewee was a Scot where they are doing a lot with Second Life. The Scots see this a good education tool. Interviewees introduced him to others to talk with. One new interviewee was a 16 year old girl who did a school project on the dating game in Japanese. It was posted on YouTube and got a lot of press in Japan where she was invited to speak to 15,000 educators. Citizen journalism has taken off in Eastern Europe and it has started to out draw traditional journalism because they more credible and have better coverage. Now 20 million Chinese are blogging, a twenty fold increase in a few years. They try to stay one step ahead of government surveillance.

They found that social media is tool of the young generations. As the old folks age, they are being replaced by social media aware young people. In 25 countries the kids are driving the social media and they are driving it in new ways. It is central to their lives. In 25 countries social networks is the killer app. These networks model how we behave in real life but allow it on a virtual, global basis. One issue is to whether use English or your countries own language. Instant translations are getting better. In Estonia 10% of votes in the last election were cast on-line, 90% of those people were under 25.

Other findings: Culture matters, language matters. Open cultures adopt social media better which seems common sense but they have data to support it.

Measurement is improving but it is unclear what to measure.

Geek to suit ratio is shortening. New tech is getting adopted quickly. One reason is that the kids are overtaking the geeks so business is demanding social media. Also, consumer awareness is making the business people more tech awareness.

Lose control to gain influence. The path of his report is an example of this.

The world is not yet flat but it is getting hillier (less mountainous).

Mike said they engaged him was that Shel was a start-up guy and opposite of SAP. They wanted a fresh approach and one that happen quickly. Mike said that the main findings are not surprising but the interest is in the details and examples such as the ones that Shel provided. They start conversations, especially with people who are skeptical of social media. SAP wants to be an employer of choice and sees the need to use social media to attract the next generation of workers. Even in Germany they have a relatively low number of bloggers, over 45% of online people engage in social networks.