June 1, 2009
By Marshall Lager, founder and managing principal, Third Idea Consulting; contributor, CRM magazine

The New Connections of Social Media

For the rest of the June 2009 issue of CRM magazine — The Social Media Issue — please click here.

Memo from the desk of Marshall Lager, June’s Chief Antisocial Officer:

Social computing is moving forward every day, with new applications (or new ways to use old ones) appearing at a dizzying pace. Homo sapiens sapiens has been called “the social animal,” but it’s starting to look like being social isn’t optional anymore. If you don’t have your own blog, Flickr stream, YouTube channel, Facebook page, and Twitter account, you don’t really exist.

The thing is, your social network extends much further than you think it does. (I will pay real money, by the way, for Mandy Patinkin to read that last sentence in his Inigo Montoya voice from The Princess Bride.)

As Brent Leary’s Connect column in our March issue proved, you never know who else is out there, lurking in the shadows to tempt us with chicken and biscuits. We’re publishing so much information about ourselves the voyeurs and private investigators are getting bored. We’re doing their work for them, and we’re showing no signs of slowing. We’re practically begging for intrusions, spitting our drama into the wind not knowing when it will blow back in our faces. [Eww. –Ed.]

Hackers have known for a long time that we all have information out there that we’d rather wasn’t. Add to that the idea of artificial intelligence, CRM’s seemingly innocuous desire for a 360-degree view of the customer, and now the Semantic Web and the Deep Web—emerging layers of soon-to-be-searchable information companies can use to predict and provide everything you want from a Web search—and we’re well on our way to a terrifyingly comic future merging Orwell’s 1984 with Woody Allen’s Sleeper by way of The Terminator.

Corporate brands with their own social awareness and the ability to comment: Think about it if you dare.

Marshall is chillin’ out, just ordered a pizza.
Mon 7:33pm • Comment • Like

Men’s Health at 7:34pm: Dude, you really don’t need all those carbs and fat. Eat a protein bar and go to the gym!

Marshall at 7:35pm: What? Who the hell are you?

The Noid at 7:35pm: Yeah, leave him alone, pizza’s great.

Marshall at 7:36pm: Both of you leave me alone—I wouldn’t order from Domino’s anyway.

The Noid at 7:38pm: Jerk.

The Noid has unfriended you. • Comment • Like

Men’s Health at 7:40pm: What a wuss. But seriously dude, chicks dig a guy with 6pack abs.

RogueBrewery at 7:41pm: Did somebody say sixpack?

Marshall at 7:42pm: Hey Rogue. How’s it going? Got some Wailing Wench in the fridge right now.

RogueBrewery at 7:42pm: Yeah, we go great with pizza. :-)

You have a friend request from Bud Clydesdale at 7:42pm

You have a friend request from Coors at 7:42pm

You have a friend request from MillerBrewCo at 7:42pm

You have ignored requests from Bud Clydesdale, Coors, and MillerBrewCo at 7:43pm

You have a friend request from Bud Clydesdale at 7:44pm

You have a friend request from Coors at 7:44pm

You have a friend request from MillerBrewCo at 7:44pm

You have blocked Bud Clydesdale, Coors, and MillerBrewCo at 7:44pm

Marshall at 7:45pm: Great. See what you guys started?

You can follow Marshall Lager's Twitterfeed at www.twitter.com/Lager if you like, but expect to be very bored.

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