by Rob Paterson
December 31, 2008 at 8:15 am · Filed under
Twitter, User Revolution, Video, Videos, War, YouTube
Increasingly war today is a matter of winning the “people’s war” Organizations such as Al Qaeda have become masters at using social media to both train people and also to tell their story. Often actions are in effect stage managed such as the Fallujah killing of Blackwater men that was filmed throughout and broadcast immediately.
Until now conventional forces have kept away from learning how to tell their side of the story. Maybe – as with business – their essential bureaucratic nature and need for control – inhibited the use of social media.
But the IDF have decided that they have to get their story out there and are agressively using YouTube and now Twitter. Here is a neat summary with links from Global Dashboard.
Two of my favourite blogs, MountainRunner and Danger Room highlight the IDF’s attempt to win over the blogosphere using Twitter and You Tube. Why? Because according to the head of the IDF’s press team: “The blogosphere and new media are another war zone, we have to be relevant there.”
The YouTube channel was created with the aim of distributing footage of precision airstrikes. Interestingly YouTube took down some of the ‘exclusive footage’ showing the IDF’s operational success in operation Cast Lead against Hamas extremists in the Gaza Strip, but appears to have returned some of the footage due to popular demand.
Elsewhere the Israeli consulate in New York hosted a press conference on Twitter in order to answer the public’s questions regarding the situation in Gaza. How one measures the success of the twitterference is difficult but, as both Matt and Nathan point out, reducing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to tweets of 140 characters or less makes for interesting reading:
‘We hav 2 prtct R ctzens 2, only way fwd through neogtiations, & left Gaza in 05. y Hamas launch missiles not peace?’,
‘we’re not at war with the PAL people. we’re at war with a group declared by the EU& US a terrorist org’.
I think that this is just the beginning
by Rob Paterson
August 31, 2008 at 9:02 am · Filed under
Andy Carvin, Emergency, Gustav, Mashups, Network Effect, News, Ning, Public Media, Social Computing, Social Media, Social Networking, Twitter, User Revolution, Video, Videos, Web 2.0, Wikis
Social Media came of age after the Tsunami. It showed its power to provide vital information very quickly when the official channels could not.
With Gustav a day away from landfall many of the most experienced people in the field are coalescing on a Ning site that will aggregate as much information as possible in one place. Wiki, Twets, RSS feeds from Blogs, Video – everything.
Here is the address of the site
by Joe McKendrick
December 7, 2007 at 6:48 pm · Filed under
Artisanal Economy, Economics, Enterprise 2.0, User Revolution, Videos
A song I heard frequently on the radio over the years — but was clueless about the artists — is “Reflections of My Life,” by a group called The Marmalade.
It turns out the song was big in 1970, after which the group — originally from Scotland — faded from the limelight. (A reconstituted band with one of the original members still tours.)
On YouTube, an incredible live 1970 performance of “Reflections” by the band is available, and at the time of this post, was viewed about 157,000 times. Accounting for multiple viewings, it’s likely that at least 100,000 people across the globe now have seen the performance, which up until a year ago was lost to the ages.
It’s now well established that Web 2.0 technologies now provide long tail of opportunity that can stretch into months and even years past the point a product or service was launched.
But are we seeing the long tail extending across multiple decades as well? It’s entirely possible that YouTube videos, for example, are ginning up new interest in long-lost bands and performances (as well as well-known ones, such as the Rolling Stones, U2, and Led Zeppelin), and perhaps increasing current airplay, CD sales/downloads, and thus, re-energizing revenue streams (and royalties) that went dry 30-plus years ago.
They say that the Internet has sped things up, to the point where opportunities and income can be gained or lost in a matter of seconds. But perhaps the extreme opposite is true as well.
What would you call a long tail that thins out into a long, long, tiny thread, then suddenly expands again? Is Web 2.0 delivering the ultimate time-shifted economy?
by Rob Paterson
November 29, 2007 at 7:44 am · Filed under
2.0 Design Thinking, Business Model, Culture, Economics, Enterprise 2.0, Facebook, Messy World, Nato, Public Media, Secretary Gates, Social Computing, Social Media, Taliban, Terror, User Revolution, Videos, War, Web 2.0, Wisdom of Crowds
Secretary Gates made this statement in a recent speech:
It is just plain embarrassing that al-Qaeda is better at communicating its message on the internet than America. As one foreign diplomat asked a couple of years ago, “How has one man in a cave managed to out-communicate the world’s greatest communication society?” Speed, agility, and cultural relevance are not terms that come readily to mind when discussing U.S. strategic communications (My post at Fast Forward yesterday)
I am starting to see something here. War has been the agency that accelerates the development of key new technology.
In the 1860’s the civil war put the train on the map. Post the war, an enormous track laying boom exploded around the world. The military made the train the backbone of the industrial approach to war.The same with flight. In Europe, the military saw the potential of flight immediately. But the US did not – that is why Rickenbaker flew a Spad.
The Wright Company in particular and American airplane companies in general continue to lose their technological edge to the Europeans. This is due in part to the U.S. Government’s failure to support the fledgling airplane industry. While the governments of England, France, and Germany are buying hundreds of airplanes for their armed forces and supporting aviation research, the United States is spending roughly the same amount of money as Bulgaria. (First to Fly)
By 1918, the future of flight was assured. There were no doubters – and like the adoption of the train, this new way of connecting people has transformed our world.
So back to social software. As impressive as Facebook is, as impressive the growth of blogging – this is all personal. Organizational life and how we all live has not been changed yet. There is immense resistance in the key institutions of our time to its introduction. Leaders in business, education, healthcare etc all fear the outcome of adoption.
The big money is all based in an advertising model. If you can form a large group, you get rewarded. But the true potential of the tool set is not being invested in.
The true potential of social software is that it allows many to many to meet in real time at low to no cost. This means that you can see what is really going on – the business intelligence aspects are immense and transform research as it is conducted today. It enables you to get your message out in a real time and precise way – will transform marketing. Most of all it enables people to have very different relationships. Large, central capital based organizations are no longer needed. So everything that we do now such as how we educate, provide healthcare, provide services will be radically transformed.
Our large institutions can no longer do anything properly. The military is no exception. It is too big, too slow, too ponderous, too expensive. It cannot deal with war as it is waged today. The military are themselves full of resistance to the kind of change that social software implies.
BUT, people in the military who are losing the war of public opinion – who know now that Human Terrain is the new battlefield – are weighing the idea of loss of control with losing the war. My bet is that they will seek to win the war. This is what Gates is starting to say.
The greatest irony is that their enemy is showing them how to do this. Here is a CNN report on why NATO is now getting behind a Social Software approach to war. (Posted yesterday- sorry about the repeat but this makes sense)
CNN interviews a NATO Official in Afghanistan who echoes the Secretary and insists that we better get good at this or risk losing the real war – which is all political.
The strategy aims to counter years of propaganda video posted on the Internet showing Taliban attacks on NATO forces which fighters use to claim that NATO’s position in the Afghan war is deteriorating.
“The Taliban, who are literally cave-dwellers, are doing better than we are on a key battleground — and that’s video,” said NATO spokesman James Appathurai. “They deploy with videographers. We don’t. They have DVDs out in an hour, we don’t.”
Wielding video cameras like weapons, fighters quickly upload images of their attacks and create a valuable morale booster for their supporters.
Now, after much internal debate, NATO has begun declassifying and posting top secret combat video on YouTube and other Web platforms to try and beat the Taliban at its own game.
“We’re, in a sense, winning the tactical battles, but we’re not focusing enough on the strategic battle, which is public opinion,” said Appathurai.
The link to the excellent report and video is here.
In 1918, America could see for itself the power of flight. The nation adopted it like no other.
So here is my prediction. The first institution that will really invest in developing Social Software to radically improve how it delivers will be parts of the military. As with the train in the civil war and WWI, as with flight in WWI and WWII, how we deploy, how we fight and what victory is will be redefined.
The greatest irony will be is that the lesson for this change will have been taught by Al Qaeda.
This will not be an all or nothing adoption. Even in the 1920. and 1930’s Billy Mitchell fought an uphill battle with his superiors about the value of aviation. But the wedge was in.
The first flight was in 1903. By 1945, aviation was the new dominant military power. By 1975 aviation had captured the civilian world.
I think that history will look back at Facebook and smile.
Well done Mark – but look at what this technology really did!
by Rob Paterson
September 12, 2007 at 6:32 am · Filed under
2.0 Design Thinking, Enterprise 2.0, Social Media, Story, Videos, Web 2.0
In my work in Public TV and Radio, when I hear the word “Quality” I usually know that I have met a person who is having trouble with the idea that a person who is not a communications expert is on the air. “Quality” represents often an idea about form – lighting, sound, image etc.
Intuitively we know that while these are important, that there can be a “Quality” of story and of emotional truth that transcends all of these conventions .
I would like to offer up to you an example of what I mean. This 2 minute clip is taken from Ohio Stories – a joint effort by the Ohio Public TV stations to offer their members the opportunity to tell their war stories prior to the opening of Ken Burns epic new documentary on The War that begins on September 23rd.
To this end, WOSU, Columbus, had a kind of Antiques Roadshow, where people could come in and show and tell about themselves or about family members and their experience in the war.
In this clip, we see a woman of about my age, who is a pastor talking about a chalice made from the scrap metal from both a German and an American plane that was used to
celebrate communion. In itself a neat story.
But is it in the last few seconds of the short clip that we go to her heart and to the heart of all of us and what could have been sentiment becomes truly profound. Behind the words we hear her own pain and her own confession – this is not a pastor preaching but a woman opening her heart to all who wish to hear.
But the clip has none of the “Qualities” of a conventional clip. The sound is terrible, the lighting poor and the frame awkward. None of this matters – the “Quality” is in her truth and in her daring to be human.
This is the power of story when story is elevated beyond “performance” and becomes universal.
