In 2011 we need Revolution not Evolution
As we move into 2011, the Internet is awash with articles from people looking back on 2010 forward to 2011. There are some great summaries of what happened last year and hundreds of predictions for the coming year.
I just had a look at one of them: 30 Social Media Predictions From 30 Social Media Pros.
Here are the first 5 predictions
#1: Marketers will have more tools to stimulate conversation.
#2: More companies will invest in social media.
#3: Social media will become mainstream.
#4: Quora will leave beta and become a serious player in social networking
#5: People will demand more from social media
Kind of interesting I suppose? But phrases like ‘more tools’, ‘more companies will’ and ‘will become’ are hardly revelations. (The remaining 25 predictions follow a similar vein).
Maybe it’s unreasonable to expect anything more concrete when it comes to predictions and, if pushed for a prediction myself, I might struggle to come up with anything more revolutionary.
Indeed, the predictions are, by definition, almost all exclusively evolutionary rather than revolutionary.
And, whilst it’s not necessarily the responsibility of the Social Media Pros to be revolutionary, it’s the organizations and the people who dare to do more than evolve who will further define and change the space. In a year’s time the articles that look back at 2011 will not dwell on the fact that ‘yes, more companies did indeed invest in social media’.
Those who make the headlines in the reviews of 2011 will be those who revolutionize the space rather than those content to evolve with those around them and do a bit more of this and a bit more of that.
I read this article the other day on one of my new favorite websites. Briefly, it describes how, despite the massive advances in social media and enabling technologies, the baby is still very much in its infancy and the way we ‘do’ social media is still very crude.
There’s a tendency to marvel at where we’ve got to over the last few years. And rightly so and I’m guilty of it myself. Almost every week I’m excited and stimulated by a new service or new product.
But David Gillis in his article gently brings us back to some level of reality. We’ve come a long way but we need game changing revolutionaries who are prepared to push aside those who are simply prepared to evolve and do more of the same.
