DISQUS

Have you considered submitting it to www.changethis.com

It would fit nicely and likely open your work to a different audience.

Not sure if you’re interested in moving the discussion beyond blogging into a more general discussion of social media but if you are I’d expand the observations of the role of technology in guiding the information and voice the social media technology engenders.

We are past the time when corporations can choose to simply ignore social media – in part because for all its potential risks the upside benefits (authentic connection, information capture etc) are just too competitively compelling to ignore.

That said companies need to understand the advantages and disadvantages of each technology and choose those that best fit with their corporate objectives.

I’d also expand the list of social media tools to include not just wiki’s and blogs but communities of practice, forums, and even emerging tools like video (as in Viddlers product) and photo commenting. Also, though not strictly social media, the role of strategies like video/audio streaming and recording, particularly for public organizations (government) and public events such as product launches remove temporal and geographic barriers – allowing a much broader community to participate.

Finally how these tools interact with each other and play into changes in organizational hierarchy might be interesting to companies as they move towards implementing corporate media strategies.

All this is probably a totally new presentation though.

There was a great book written about ‘98 called Co-opetition that looked at the issue of competitors co-operating for mutual benefit. Very far sighted and useful

A lot depends on the management of companies in the field you’re interested in. If they are strategic they can be very easy to work with – but don’t get too comfortable – because they’re likely co-operating to exclude another party from the market you’re taking – possibly with the long term hope of taking it from you.

That gets to the core of business co-operation – as soon as you’ve chosen one partner you automatically exclude other partnerships, and just because you’re a partner now doesn’t mean you won’t be competitors later.

Good luck on your business.

While I think there is a lot of value in social media I wonder if in small populations those discussions will consistently equal the value of reporting to shape and influence the story.

My feeling is that social media is only part of the revitalization of traditional media - the other - and equally critical part is knowing how their core business value is enhanced by a range of tools and mediums.

As I argue in my blog without this part the benefit of social media will be fleeting.