The past two years have seen an explosion of web culture with the rise in popularity of social media sites - Web 2.0 (more interactive than Web 1.0 - the document-based Internet) and the resultant paradigm shift in the media world as to how users online consume information.
South Africa is lagging behind somewhat in the adoption of all that is wonderful online because we do not have real broadband high-speed Internet access, no matter what the cellphone companies try sell you, so we have had time to play catch-up. But we are being promised, by those in the know, that we will have Internet access as fast as that of the rest of the developed world by 2010. And that will change how we do business. Seriously.
So where does this leave the ‘ordinary person' and this industry? In the main, high and dry and lacking in essential skills to ensure that their brands and services are able to play competitively in the global marketplace.
Because the point about this new culture online is that you have to experience it to know it. This is not something that can be learnt at a conference or from a book. And it's not a skill that can be left up to the ‘IT guy'. Social media, user-generated content and viral marketing campaigns are not the preserve of traditional IT as we know it. This is something completely new - and it is something that has to be embraced by us all, no matter what our job title is, if you want to evolve with business in the future and be workplace-relevant.
Especially if you are in this industry: media, marketing and advertising. You will be redundant within five years if you don't start acquiring these skills, in my informed opinion. At the recent gathering of the American Society of Business Publications Editors (ASBPE) that I attended in Kansas City, we heard that journalism professors pick students these days for their programmes based on whether they have a personal URL these days (www.yourname.co.za/.com}}.
To be quite frank, any client would be crazy to pick a PR firm these days that does not have a digital brand management strategy included in its PR plan. Ditto any marketer briefing an ad agency and media planner. Even if your brand does not require an online campaign at this moment - it could still pop up online in various ways or be attacked online and you need to have the right people in place to know how to defend it, how to orchestrate online campaigns - and you need to know how to brief them and monitor them accordingly.
The other argument I hear often, is: "Oh, but we only have five million online users in South Africa, compared to the total population of 48 million..." That's true - but we also have 40 million plus cellphones in circulation and Africa is expected to follow the example of India in leapfrogging the PC-to-Internet revolution, to use mobile extensively to connect online. There are over 400 million cellphone subscribers in Africa... And we just have to look at innovative applications such as our own banking system, which leads the world in some areas of electronic application, and the way the youth uses mobile applications like MXit to chat and get music downloads and information, to know that we are a nation of savvy consumers who are not hesitant to embrace new technologies.
So, my point is - you need to have some of the knowledge yourself; you cannot just hope that others have the knowhow and that you will learn ‘sometime'. The online space moves incredibly fast and you need to be online to have a hope of understanding how communication has changed.
However, the social media strategists and online gurus do admit that the technocratic culture that exists within the blogging, open source environment online does exclude that ‘ordinary person' somewhat. “And this causes a sense of fear,” admitted Vincent Maher, new media evangelist and current social media head at Vodacom.
Maher told delegates at Tony Koenderman's recent Cracking the Digital Code workshop, sponsored by Longtail, that there has been a fundamental shift in the way people are producing and consuming content, with all the power resting in the hands of these new ‘prosumers'. The integration of mobile and digital content has created a whole new opportunity for people and companies to build profile.
And, according to Maher, and Ingrid Rubin from longtail, who also spoke at the conference a week ago, this is how you, ‘the ordinary person', can start getting the basics in place - with my 2 cents thrown in for good measure, as this is a journey I've been on as well for the past two years in upskilling myself in this domain, even after a 20-year career in media:
So, to recap, this is your toolbox, as highlighted in part by Maher and Rubin, to start becoming ‘web aware'. Get on them and try sign up for at least three to start with!
Maher advises ‘total immersion' to learn: “Just get out there and do it.”
