note** This is a long Post. I make it a practice of leaving everything up after posting it since this blog is published in the spirit of an ongoing journal. This post reflects on big picture (long term) trending processes as they relate to freedom of expression and privacy issues here in the US. These issues are important to me because I have tried to see how their very probable development will impact other practical matters in areas related to business. The post title reflects on how, sometimes, extremes in the polarity of social trends creates the belief that previous kinds of events, already experienced, will never happen again like that here. Socionomics and social mood is your window into liklihood when you can find and use the correct historical context for specific trending issues.
This post subject turned into chapter length just by getting through the macro issues to where businesses are being affected day to day. So, I chopped it up into pieces and I will return here later. There will be many incremental observations to make on both of these issues in the next two or three years. One key point here is why and how seeing trending issues from the macro matters and how subtle changes in the macro will manifest large differences in the everyday matters. I think these are two excellent examples to use because of how important they are (already) in the US and also in how they are related.
As always, these posts are written from the perspective of people in the US and how we seem to be responding to the trending related events going on around the world. Social mood is specific to each society even if correlation is obvious right now.
If after seeing the famous image of the Tienanmen square student protest (1989) and add that to a general conversation about freedom of expression, then somewhere in the discussion the comparison and thought, "That will never happen here (in the US)",would probably surface. Right?
What if then I put the famous pic from Kent State University (Ohio) from May 1970 when 67 shots were fired by National guard soldiers over 13 seconds killing four and wounding nine others during protests over the invasion of Cambodia. Chances are, (if you are old enough) you have both of those famous images mixing with memories. 'Yea but, that was different then, and now is definitely not then!'
Eras come and go. They are influenced by changing social mood. Mood is not governed by events; it works in the other direction. Most important is how mood changes at variable rates and sometimes, changes happen very quickly. Comparing China to the US is not right but we do it everyday in very subtle ways.
Last year I wrote here about The Approaching Public Discussions re: Free Speech & Privacy Issues .
In a world where digital communications has been adopted by the masses worldwide, these two macro trends should not be discussed separately, at first. In the past week Russian security forces discussed publicly how banning some social tools (like email software they do not control and Twitter) would help prevent security problems for the country. A blogger in Egypt this week was sentenced to three years in prison for criticizing the military. China and Facebook? I am sure you can imagine that puppet show before the talks begin earnestly. Do these foreign developments have anything to do with what's happening here in the US?
Yes. Electronic media has become the common watering hole for members of all the various herds and we get and exchange outlooks and ideas even if we think we are just checking headlines and sharing good links.
Freedom of expression, given to the masses, threatens even the most influential centers of power in free nations. Julian Assange and his Wikileaks portal is destined to be highly controversial, and not because people see him as an accused rapist. (The charge certainly could be cooked up to combat someone working in the void of international laws about information disclosure.) What do powerful people and institutions do when threatened by exposure using technology they cannot control? These questions are not asked lightly. Assange thinks he is right. He is opposed by many very powerful and respected people. Did he endanger our soldiers or just egos not used to having diplomatic truths lies laid out bare? I am not intentionally stirring the pot. I dislike both sides of this conflict. If our Govt's misdeeds are so easily conveyed by second tier people then there is a much bigger issue looming in the future. Are we evolving to be a nation of freedom loving poker faces? Is that really our highest ideal for America's relations with foreign countries? (It is if the stack of chips in front of you is all that matters.) Exactly how long after we began making excuses for our divergent actions and principles did we all begin lying and feeling it is perfectly justified? And if I am so naive then why does this reality read back so poorly? Wasn't that the role of the evil Red Coats in the Revolutionary War portrayed in so many movies? Have we become the heartless soldiers that would do almost anything to win control of the uncivilized colonists? Is Wikileaks truth, treason, or espionage? No matter how we characterize it, can we justify violating people's basic rights in order to protect our's? (These kinds of big and deep questions are exactly what big social corrections work out. Expect more like it to come.)
The very idea that a social corrections are patterned in structure and form is because after long periods of social expansion, accepted priorities and best practices intended to support people and the society become misaligned with what is really best for the whole. Yes, these are very big picture ideas but they can be seen to relate all the way down to how businesses conduct themselves and invest in the future of day to day operations.
As we saw last fall, people (in the US) will line up when necessary to be felt up to get on an airliner. Some will whine very loudly but most will just do it because really, it hurts no one and it potentially stops something catastrophic. On the other hand, overzealous digital marketers who program code and disguise opt-ins to easily take our personal information will be highlighted increasingly for their questionable practices and punished. Caveat emptor is no longer an acceptable answer. Yes, this is the 'small change' associated with these macro trends in free expression and privacy but it is the kind of thing we increasingly feel we can control now. (As I edit I see that the Kerry McCain bill will be introduced to the Senate tomorrow 4 13 11 regarding data privacy.)
Social corrections highlight & emphasize negative uncertainty and that means much greater attention will be paid to core values that matter most nationally. Larger social corrections focus on ever more fundamental social issues. (How large of a social correction is it?...is another topic altogether.) Issues do not get solved all at once but the process gets us there over time as we move from one polar extreme in behavior to another. The bigger picture always somehow shapes the seemingly less critical issues. Alarms never go off when core issues reach critical turning points and that is exactly why seeing trends through social mood can be so valuable in helping to see just how far they might go.
Professionals are expected to be able to recognize critical trends that affect their area of expertise as a matter of good practice. As it develops this series of posts will offers a look through the lens of socionomics at Free Speech and Privacy trending lately and looking forward from today, and why this perspective can offer a clear view on both broad and narrow kinds of issues.
I suspect that privacy (on several fronts) will suffer in order to preserve freedom of expression in the macro.Think, Patriot Act III. I also suspect that as that happens, privacy will be a buzzword in everyday transactional business situations and that will be effectively directed by growing demand for solutions. Can you see the dual social result I am suggesting? Further, I expect the government's unchecked privileges associated with electronic spying will be questioned by a growing libertarian movement that will not take "no comment" as an answer. Critical, questioning voices will emerge to demand answers. I expect entirely new businesses will be built to accommodate the perceived needs associated with digital privacy. Developments here in the US will not parallel those in less free countries but the circumstances will be compared and used in all places and then applied to each place. The need for control will be projected as what is needed, and in that process, rights will either be reinforced or curtailed. And since the digital environment has always expressed a great shift of control to favor of the individual, this dynamic will continue to play out on the world's various stages, and the bulk of the adjusting will be left to businesses (and governments), and specific business models used (in free nations). These broad changes will present great opportunity for flexible enterprises.
I expect a lot of surprise in the US in coming years at events that once would have been thought impossible. Social mood and generational turnover with both contribute to a need for newness. Many new borders will be (re)defined and increasingly protected. This will happen as we collectively adjust ourselves to deal with many great perceived social imbalances as part of this social correction. That must happen before we are prepared for a period of prolonged social expansion. It's not about doom and gloom, nor will it be about 'get rich quick'. It's about what really matters to prudent Americans(?).
This post effectively ends here for now but the War & Peace version (I left up) follows: I will take from these areas to develop future parts of this discussion. If you want to see how this will affect a business, then check back because I believe these combined issues will reach from the macro and directly into the wheelhouse of many different types of businesses in the years straight ahead. ROC or 'velocity made good'. No matter how you visualize change, the macro inputs are changing the mix right now. Pay attention.
In this month's Socionomist a segment by Michael Flag that looks at the basic idea of polarity seen in certain social trending behavior and are observations made by Robert Prechter when he proposed socionomics in his original text eight years ago. I often post links for that original text on how social mood expands into an entire discussion of basic social trending dynamics. I encourage the book because it is valuable background that will contribute to seeing these critical ideas by showing how social mood spreads through a society and that affects how and what groups of people create (and this is an important part of what shapes demand in some markets). It takes reading that book to appreciate why some trends will be shaped by the much larger macro social scene and why others will evolve on their own in limited places and scopes of interest. When you get that piece of the larger puzzle, then you'll be ready for more valuable applications that look at your industry of expertise.
One broad example of that kind of observation here was when last year I wrote about The Approaching Public Discussions re: Free Speech & Privacy Issues . It is not my intention to be cynical but strengths and weaknesses always cut both ways and both these trends are linked in this way. Both can be made to seem like two separate issues when broken down but their development will coincide neatly and overlap as shared values evolve in the US. These trends are already affecting American businesses in various industries and on several different levels that matter everyday. The change we're seeing so far is nothing compared to where these national discussions are headed. But if you choose to extrapolate trends in your industry from the present moment based on the immediate past it may not work out well. Social trending right now is mixed with wild cross currents of behavior and outlook. Some people have characterized the revolutions in the middle east as "springtime". That seems apt right now but interestingly, where is all the substantive change so far? Noisy headlines do not guarantee change. By writing our core freedoms into our societal charter agreement, we have a rock solid foundation to lean back against in the tough days ahead. Egypt has been under emergency rule for how many years?
Freedom of expression is by far the most demanding right and even here in the US, it will be tested again and again by fire while the pretenders project an era of excuses.
The digital universe offers us all a public marketplace of ideas where we all cross borders into a "neutral zone" to shop and compare ideas regardless of what it is like back home. We share, compare, and maybe go home with new opinions and ideas. Over time the results of this sharing affects change in our outlooks. Public markets for ideas produce social change that approximates social mood. And if we can see ourselves struggling sometimes with the pace of change in the US, then imagine just how unsettling this push for change is in centrally planned societies. Social mood and autocratic societies with social media are an intersection with the light out. That has been obvious lately but the point made is how the people changed first, now these newer tools has sped the process up.
This image is clear enough by watching news and headlines lately but this is exactly where and why it pays to look out at the trending landscape with regard to these two trends (in the US).
- more than 51% of America has been on Facebook. I do not know if they are still on Facebook, but they have been on Facebook.
- Twitter has taught us to share ideas in 140 characters or less and while humor may be hard to convey in that space, emotion related to specific ideas is easily transmitted
- US youths began to use tex ting and social media for mass impromptu meets and shows of force given to ideas (peacefully).
- abroad, we've seen these tools used to organize peaceful revolution, other perceived needed social change, and even calls to arms recently
- in times of great distress we've seen these new social tools weaken but never lose their new found power to help unite the displaced.
- in times of grave concern we've seen instantaneous injections of expertise that questions and clarifies issues left cloudy by official authority, thereby pressuring leaders to act more efficiently or clamp down harder in order to stall for time
- we know the societal capacity for fear and hysteria will be used as a reason to slow down transmission of ideas and sharing and that will slow down change but it will also have equal and opposite negative reactions. How would our perception of 9-11-01 have changed if there had been a Facebook then?
The general conclusions about freedom of expression and privacy are inescapable. The word prudence will be brought to the foreground in our free society. What prudence demands of each person, socially, will change. Why? Because how we values things changes as social mood changes.
We live in a world with both societies of free people and societies that are centrally planed and where fluid communication is often an enemy to authority. These two realities exist side by side in the digital marketplace for ideas and that causes a natural creative tension.
Free societies that experience a social correction following long periods of social expansion will settle on the issues that really matter most, and then change them if needed. The path to this end is neither straight or narrow or fast. In a world with a digital marketplace for ideas, free societies stand a better chance to get there sooner.
However...
Along the way we will see many attempts to pollute the marketplace for ideas with propaganda from competing voices. (Think:"astroturfing") Eventually, this corrupting noise is why we will insert gates into social communities. The cost of inclusion is going up. Opinions will eventually be catalogued and sourced. We will eventually convene in smaller groups on line. Being social during a large social correction means we will all operate based on the changing values of our individual society and the point of a social correction is narrowly focused upon the societal infrastructure. There may well be some super social structural issues playing out (between societies) but the point here, in this post, is to show how these basic issues of expression and privacy are related to the agreements we (the US) made between 1776 and 1791. We were very specific about some and less so about the other. If these need changing, we will get to that point but, in the meantime we should each appreciate that within the realm of having freedom of expression there is a very wide range of socially acceptable outcomes and norms that can develop.
Social media, many years from now will be seen as having been introduced during a great peak in social expansion and survived a social correction (in a free society) by allowing itself to change with the new shared values. These shared values, the ones that matter most to social media, will center around issues related to freedom of expression balanced with a new found sense of prudence. Likewise, the ideas of privacy and "it's good to share" will be balanced with social necessity and prudence in this regard too. Social corrections emphasize conformity of movements of all kinds and this is not a separate issue. If it really matters to us all we will relent. If it is a matter of self interest then it will be punished.
Where does your business sit related to these ideas and changing norms? Sure, it's early but, there are surely ways in which many companies communicate now that will change a lot in the years directly ahead. Are you still investing now in forms of communication that will not exist two or three years from now in lieu of other options that skip these intense fads of form?
Social trends are emotional waves that demand participation and shun outsiders. Participants in these emotional trends are also commonly blind to sharp turns in social mood that might reverse a seemingly pervasive fad in business.
The most important theme in this set of ideas is how freedom of expression is not a single point in social discourse and that accepted norms fluctuate greatly over time and changing mood. That does not seem to be hard to accept but then if it is true why are so many companies investing so much in forms of communication that may well change so rapidly so soon? I think it is a great and timely question. I have been asking it for more than year now and dismissed, very often, immediately. In another year, or two, it will be accepted as common knowledge and the losses will be booked. So, what really matters?
Stop and ask yourself. How many other ways can changes in expectations in both of these trending areas change how you do business? The polarity of both these trending processes will be dramatic and pervasive in so far as how investments made today might be reversed soon enough with a seemingly innocuous question like, "why are we investing in the white noise of social chatter and not building better one on ones with out most important customers where ROI can be reliably measured?" Behavior associated with social expansions lasts long after the expansion ends. Behavior associated with social corrections begins slowly as the new shared values become obvious.
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