My good Sydneysider friend Trevor Cook feels that good things are afoot in this Australian business ‘Social Media’ space.
I share his enthusiasm, although tempered as it is by living in a somewhat business-conservative part of Australia (Adelaide).
For a while now there have been rumblings within the grapevine that Australian businesses are now at least aware of blogs and podcasts, even if they don’t partake of them themselves.
Indeed, at an IABC luncheon function in Sydney a few short weeks ago I joined in conversations about social media and in particular Second Life.
However, those conversations were surrounded and vastly outnumbered by discussions around the more traditional business communication channels – print, tv, radio and employee comms.
At a meeting of fellow Doctoral researchers this very evening we all shared what our research was going to be about. Whilst some had heard of blogs and podcasts, some had no idea what they were other than terms they had heard others use.
‘Second Life’ was a complete ‘blind spot’ for them — never heard of it, or else didn’t understand what it was about if they had heard.
Yet when I explained that virtual 3D environments (such as Second Life) will be the way of the future, that businesses will move out from behind their comfortable and safe 2D brick wall websites to actually engage with their audiences in real time — even if just avatar to avatar — small lightbulbs started to go on.
When I further explained “imagine having an Amazon or a Dymocks online where you can not only search their bookshop but actually converse with their staff and get real-time, human interaction and recommendations” more lightbulbs went on. “Liken it,” I said, “to your now bank manager-less bank suddenly giving you your own bank manager who is online and able to discuss your account with you in real time. Wouldn’t that be cool.”
Sure; those company avatars may well be Indian call-centre refugees who have migrated to Second Life, but businesses shouldn’t underestimate the power of human interaction, even if all one is doing is manipulating a 3D puppet in a blocky, slow-rendering computer environment. But eventually the bandwidth will catch up (we hope and pray) and we will be able to compete and interact at the pace Philip Rosedale originally envisaged.
And to return to Trevor’s point that good things are in the wind, methinks one can take evidence of that from both the ArkGroup Masterclass on Social Media I’m running and the national PR shindig that is asking me to be a speaker on the topic of Second Life that this Social Media thingy is starting to creep into the national business consciousness.
Journalists and other mainstream media elements have been catching on to social media for a little while now, but ‘business’ has always lagged behind (perhaps because of the deluded and antiquated view that one must and can ‘control the message’). It may finally be ‘time*’ for Trevor and Steve and I (and others like us) to bring a voice of credibility and experience to executives who can feel that the wind has changed but aren’t sure of its direction or what to do about it…
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Oh, and Trevor — I would really loved to have shared the stage with you about ‘Web2.0′ but alas it looks like it’s not to be. Perhaps in the future… But I am again exceptionally grateful for your kind referral and ‘this is the guy to get’ stuff. I too look forward to dinner again! (And I may need to scab a night on your lounge-room couch for the PR Convention).
* Is anyone else old enough to remember the 1970′s Labor campaign “It’s Time”? Well, it worked for Gough… Perhaps if we create bumper stickers with “It’s time to blog” we may achieve more than we might otherwise hope for.
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