The Root Trend

The Business of Monetizing Content To Change A Lot During This Social Correction (part 3)

* see post note added at end

Successful enterprises tell us where perceived value was yesterday and today. Consumers point to where it will be tomorrow. How we value things and ideas of all kinds changes as social mood changes...and what we pay attention to changes with social mood. Lately, there has been enormous attention focused upon how companies make money (create value) in the area of content. I point at these endeavors and markets in the broadest possible manner and not towards any one kind of business. 

For five or six years we have seen an extreme experiments in social sharing as social networking moved into the digital ecosystem for the masses. There's no doubt, people want to share aspects of their life. There is also no doubt how this behavior will be subject to shifts in social mood over time. I prefer to point toward the larger shifts able to be seen using social mood because they point to basic structural change in how people want to be served by enterprises. 

The Chief Executive of Forrester, George Colony gave a talk you can go watch here. In 20 minutes he talked about where he sees the internet headed and he does in a way readers here can appreciate. In a nutshell, an excuse me if I abbreviate a great talk entirely too much, the world wide web is likely to be replaced by a wave of app-like ecosystems across the internet. Technology certainly seems to bear that conclusion out but most ordinary people are left wondering what that that really means for everyday folk. Is tech really in charge of where we take the internet or is it something else? In periods of positive or expanding social mood, we might just wait and see. That is much less likely now.

In my very humble opinion, his vision can be guided towards content markets offering a little more meat on the bone by seeing through social mood and how consumers define value (create value) through their changing perceptions and through their behavior.

Apps certainly seem to be the short-hand tech development paradigm that has become mainstream practice today. Apps by their nature, create closed-like systems. I think the idea of Choice matters more. I have defined Choice in many posts over years over at the media blog that was spawned in posts here years ago. You may use the blog search to see just how often and in many ways I have approached it. Choice, in the way I use it as a social trend, is about getting content in the digital environment and how centuries of practice and behavior have been altered in just two decades. Demand has changed and will see enormous new shifts and this will change existing industries even more than we have witnessed so far.

In my thinking, the creation of value is what really matters...and to consumers that means getting Choice, for starters. It really is that simple. As social mood changes Choice will see subtle shifts that could rock many businesses off their business model because the early digital enterprises are simple copies of analog era business practices and do not reflect the massive changes in how transactions for digital content occur. They all ignore Choice in ways that serve their business needs.  This reality has been covered up by large new successful digital companies that appear to have beaten old media companies to the digital frontier. The fight has been portrayed as if it is about old media versus new media. That way of seeing things is all wrong. In fact, it could not be more wrong.

Value to consumers in the digital ecosystem is about Choice and the old way of transacting is increasingly at odds with the perceived expansive freedom associated with the digital frontier. Picture a town with crowded streets, billboards everywhere, salesmen pushing offerings in our face as we stroll along for a view of our new surroundings. Increasingly, the anything is possible perception has been replaced by captive viewing that is increasingly limited because endless space wars are limiting creative potential. You could embrace these new managed and gated communities but they will soon be seen as left wanting of Choice. In short; good intentions driven by greed and chaos*** have taken over the scene for now. Mobile internet has been given to us by forward looking companies but what they really gave us was closed systems, not the open web experience. Users are captive and watched and served what they appear to be needed. Boy, that sounds bad when put that way, right?, but it does not have to be. App ecosystmes can be part of a chapperone style enterprise.  The open web began falling away with mobile development and now the chief of Forrester says it will be a pervasive change. Essentially, in exchange for a little creative code writing we are incrementally handing over our freedom to wander and see whatever we Choose to see and do and instead agree to be served what someone else thinks is best for us. Trust has been extended up till now.

If you are a regular reader that last sentence says it all because trust and social mood are highly correlated during big swings. This issue will be a pivot point in developing digital markets for content.

At the risk of repeating myself, As social mood changes what we pay attention to changes and how we value things of all kinds changes. I am going to cut this post short and offer a single powerful slide I created maybe five years ago when Viacom sued Google for a billion dollars(it seemed like a lot back then).  I saw this change and now I see it even more. It could go right along with what the Forrester Chief suggests is coming. It could completely agree with his vision if only one small change in approach is made. If some app enterprises shift their focus and fully face the consumers they serve....100% and nothing otherwise, then this is exactly what is going to result in an explosion of newly created value. Consumer facing enterprises could reset the web and all high quality content enterprises. 100% consumer facing enterprises could produce a new currency to redefine value in a way long overdue.  In order for that to happen some gargantuan shifts will have to happen. There will be winners, losers, and those willing to recognize social change as it is happening. If you ever got caught in a rip tide or found a useful thermal of air, then you know they are invisible without some good idea of how to identify them at the right time and place. Social mood makes these events appear differently.  To me, this is the future of content of all kinds as we work through this giant social correction of previous periods of expansion. Trust the customer consuming content first and only and they will trust you. That is the singular basis of this idea working. The rest is just tech details (and a lot of social change):

 

* I will be updating this post over holiays and consolidating it with the two previous posts on the same topic and shrinking it all down to a smaller profile. About Face Part 1 (a simple explanation), About Face Part 2 (A Basic Structural Change)  The point of sharing these ideas is less about making a prediction and more about suggetsing where the big influences will shape ongoing events so that we can use existing momentum to fully exercise the freedom to be informed and to inform. I do not take this for granted especially in light of the trends I propose will drive these changes.

*** to be clear: greed and market chaos are both absolutely necessary and good. Any seeming opinion about the atmosphere (in that paragraph) was my own sense of consumerism and should be considered separately. Social mood suggests how we should see all market particpants as part of the trends being expressed and the main thing I am trying to highlight in this paragraph is how diverging shared values create images like those I attempted to capture. Our shared history offers many episodes of social expression extremes that are later sharpy diverted. Many.  Seeing through social mood may allow us to consider trend directionality from the standpoint of specific changing behaviors. Sharing will not stop but some expressions will change a lot as mood corrects.  This is where and how the larger forecast matters most.  Once you know how to match up these forecasts (large chunks) with your market(s) you can use deep market knowledge to see both confirming and divergent issues. I submit that this kind of "seeing" is a zone of competitive advantage and why this is valuable.    

 

 

Socionomics is the best way I have found to frame the past and provide helpful insight to look forward in different sized chunks of time. This post from 15 months ago is as timely as ever given recent headlines. Data security and privacy is an obvious trending shared value in the US and elsewhere. Free Speech issues in the US and abroad will/are diverging now. The Arab Spring suddenly seems as if it could be an indian summer. As Americans have learned over time, a sound social charter agreement is only one of several parts needed to guard freedoms. These safeguards only frame the conversation and the ongoing discussion continues to be affected by the developing social mood. As always: broad social impulses lead diverse needed changes, and businesses eventually follow us dutifully. Sometimes it really pays off to back up as far as the social charter to see events more clearly. 

The Approaching Public Discussions re: Free Speech & (digital data)Privacy Issues (llink thread at end for these broad issues)

Who is Able or Allowed To See Into The Cloud?

9 27 11 The challenges of cloud security below 10,000 feet

8 10 11 a more sophisticated set of thoughts on business in the cloud. The real guts of this discussion is in the comments. This is an unuaually good blog for tech issues and you can see social mood dynamics expressed readily.   

7 29 11this great read was forwarded more than a week ago and about half way through addresses cloud issues in a larger context. You can easily see how social mood will impact the challenges discussed in this New Scientist article.

 

Are you living, working, or spending any time in the cloud these days?  Not many months ago most people would have been confused by that question but new technology is quickly accepted these days. 

Let's consider social mood relative to this emergent trend for a few thoughts.

The cloud is a potential means for everyone to use inexpensive processor chips in their gadgets and not be weighed down by bulky and expensive memory needs. This, in theory should free us all up to be more connected for more tasks in more ways to improve life. And if this cloud trend holds social traction, then the possibilities in developing economies is beyond beyond because many do not have a choice now (like Americans) between local storage devices, large screens, lap tops etc. or, the cloud.  All this requires is connectivity and a low priced gadget for great results. I see this trend and I see two critical aspects. First there's productivity expanding for almost everyone using this new universal storage. I also see, as time passes, more uncertainty and changing attitudes toward the keepers of our data and the overall utility of using the cloud.

Here's the social mood component:

What happens with our data?  Our pics, our notes to people in all of our circles?...Our ideas, our actions, and our plans?  The first thing we've seen cloud businesses address was security and, the first news stories about cloud services we're seeing are data security related. As an observer I try not to stir the pot of negative opinion on such matters ...especially since the utility of cloud services is understated when called incredible.

however...

In an always uncertain world the certainty of a professional cloud server farm being there for me is a great thought.  But what about big brother and all the data starved web businesses out there without a clear sense of right and wrong until they are slapped? (aka: "ask for forgiveness not...") Ok, that sounds paranoid just reading it back but the headlines this week alone justifies some of the concern. The question worth considering: Is your disposition biased toward comfort using the cloud for all manner of data? (business or personal)? or is it somewhat contained by 'let's wait and see'? Is it more negative than that? What are your various social groups feeding back to you on issues like this? It is very early yet but many people in business have already experienced the utility.

Social mood is a giant moving average of attitudes that are directionally predictive and it is like a dip stick of broad social action at any one moment. That's how I visualize it in order not to get stuck in the concerns of individuals and think in the realm of larger groups (and markets).

The uncertainty associated with a social shift to the cloud is a perfect opportunity to assess mood in one specific social dynamic right now and in the months ahead too.

As discussed here many times; there are (right now) conflicting examples of mood out in all societies that represent some degree of the emergent pattern in aggregate (societal) mood. My guess is that adoption and use of the cloud will reflect shorter cycles in mood as opposed to the cycles represented by longer social trends talked about here. The very appearance of the cloud is a result of a longer term social trend.  My guess is that cloud services will be impacted by changing social mood and manifest shorter swings (even reverses) in participation and momentum as a concurrent indication of mood. Why do I think this?  Because in the social correction of late 2008 & early 2009 the types of everyday concerns and complaints that manifested were rooted in seemingly practical matters affected by a rapidly changing social environment.  I am not suggesting the demise of the cloud but momentum could be reversed so much that it seems inevitable. The cloud is just getting started but it seems to have begun with very little clear market dictated definitions. Social affirmation of expectations using the cloud is the next step and that will be more complicated as it will most likely happen in the context of a deepening social correction. For now, the benefit to to industry of mass adoption of the cloud is incremental purchases of many more small processors and services. To anyone who appreciates technology the cloud is not a surprise but to most consumers, it was a fresh use of digital ecosystems to make many tasks easier. In a nutshell, the cloud trend is reflective of a larger positive social trend. It is building something new and expanding digital markets.

My main point now is how I will be watching and (somewhat) expecting to see multiple examples of how negative social mood is expressed toward cloud services in a concurrent expression of mood as it corrects in the years directly ahead. Like all great new ideas and tools,(think: search engines)  this will serve to define what and how the cloud should be used & managed. Obvious and almost expected stories will emerge that instruct us about considered use of cloud services and related responsibility of cloud enterprises.  Some uses are a natural and some uses will be sharply questioned. The first link below should begin to shape thinking on what kind of data should not be stored in the cloud. The second highlights ambiguous societal borders in the digital ecosystem and get us to think about how mood has the potential to crash through those gateways.

Let's watch together. Based on headlines this week, we ought to consider how data security is bumping into information needs of competitive interests and how social boundaries are not fully established even if we think they should be.  So, how can any one cloud customer be sure that they are not being bumped down some priority list of our cloud operator?  If phones can be hacked so too can cloud accounts.  Are cloud companies going to be as responsible as credit card companies to their customers?  The ongoing digital aggregation of our various data has produced an alternate potential that can be accessed by many technologically savvy outside interests. The cloud is a fantastic idea and a great example of a lagging expression of a long term peak in mood at the largest degree of trend.  It is, however, a sharp tool that can and will cut both ways.  In the meantime we will see rules and norms be developed by noisy users, especially if overall mood expressions turn negative in the months ahead.  The social development of the cloud will be governed by short term mood. I expect the cloud to survive but if the definition of utility includes security, does that suggest positive potential or negative longer term potential?  Social mood will play a role in how we see, use, and value the cloud in both the short term and the medium term.  (These links are both quick and worthy reads)

Security Issues Cast Cloud over Online Backup Services

Microsoft Admits Patriot Act Can Access EU Cloud Data

Monitoring social tools for specific kinds of change

Brands and social media tools are being impacted by changing social mood. If the pace of social change is to pick up considerably then these two are worth considering together for a few minutes.

An old thread not addressed here lately revolves around brands...specifically, brands in crisis during a social correction. The subject has been sitting out this cycle of expanding (positive) mood. Moreover, I have backed off the Toyota brand issue for what are dual reasons of both timing and respect. I did see this week that a key trial (related to the unintended acceleration issue) has been scheduled for 2013. That timing is more than a little suggestive though not surprising as armies of lawyers prepare for war.

What is not lost on me is how this general idea about brands might seem specific to a few. Yes, a few brands are likely to be eviscerated by a prolonged social correction. Likewise, this view is a heads up from a broader place to suggest how the social utility of brand images may shift again in a deep social correction.

In a world increasingly influenced by highly efficient text messaging and tweets of 140 characters, the value of branding references is being extended as a social tool.  And like all behaviors of increasing frequency and overall participation, the benefits may cut sharper as well as the drawbacks.  Moreover, the resumption of a corrective mood trend will magnify the need for caution if you care for a brand because of changing perceptions. When you skip beyond present speculation regarding recovery and double dips, bear market or bull market, you can look around and see evidence of many corrective social trends that are expressed in polarities over very long periods of time...much longer than this current 28 month social rally.  The implication is that even though many social trending dynamics we see are lagging indications of present mood, the positive swing we are (collectively) creating now is not likely to completely reverse these individual (longer) trending expressions of corrective mood. Of course, observations about smaller social expressions (trends) do not guarantee a larger period of social correction. The point here is not to use circular reasoning. The goal we should aim for is to organize a hierarchy of social expressions and compare them and note critical contrasts.

During a prolonged social correction where smaller units of association are increasingly expressed in diverse ways, many brands will undergo a transformation reflective of our larger social correction. Like the twists and turns in business, most of these will not be about endings or beginnings. It is about adaptation to changing social circumstances that provide for both opportunity and setbacks because how we value things changes as social mood changes.  Language and money both offer excellent tools for various estimations of changing social value but can these newer media (listening) tools be used to distinguish important structural shifts in shared values? What might help us see specific geographic challenges approaching? How can these new social listening tools be adapted to distinguish signal and noise in a time of rapid social change?

"That will never happen here!"

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.

Social Media tools will Continue Evolving With Our Shared Outlooks

This was posted at my media blog. Social mood, as a topic, comes up less often over there but is always in the background of the seemingly chaotic change. At the root of all the certainty in all things social media these days is something very malleable.

WRM Large behavioral threads to watch for yourself

This post is a list of Root Trend links I consider What Really Matters from the past year.  Each represents an area of group behavior change that will impact specific markets businesses serve. Each is an important trending set of behaviors.  I watch them for directional changes and incremental markers of distance traveled toward new expressive extremes: Also, At the end of the link list I have made a specific request for ideas regarding web site platforms. I'd really appreciate some feedback if you have experience in this area. Thank you. Dave

American Needs for Transparency & Privacy During this Social Correction

During 2010 I had conversations that suggested others did not see my point why broad social trending patterns would increasingly emphasize privacy needs as the US navigates deeper through the unfolding social correction. I'll admit I have been thinking about this trending dynamic with regard to one specific business challenge so I have ignored the other polarity.  Now, let's address it more broadly: The migration towards greater privacy needs will not be absolute, nor will it be one sided. It will, however, be increasingly expressed as a growing concern in specific cases and it will be openly discussed as we (collectively) decide where changes are needed.

In the past I have posted about the polarity of shared values.

The socially valued idea of transparency versus privacy needs are a good example of a kind of polarity...each being a generalized expression at one end of a spectrum. At any one point in time in the US both of these valued concepts have appropriate expressions in the social conventions and structures we build when gathered into various sized groups.

It is not hard to imagine many examples as you adjust your perspective to see how both are needed and valued in different endeavors that impact people and groups of all kinds in our country. For instance:

During the 1990's and the last decade we sanctioned many laws as a country that effectively allowed business enterprises to conceal their practices in order to compete more effectively in their markets. During the financial crisis that began quietly in August of 2007 (lack of) transparency immediately became a negative factor that hurt institutions and individual investors alike and by the end of 2009 our Congress was hard at work to repeal rules that allowed financial cloaking and were perceived anew to be bad for us (collectively).

Also during the late 1990's American individuals began migrating chunks of their lives on line. This was years before social media arrived and exploded this tendency exponentially.  We see benefits in sharing and this dynamic continues to spread today around the world.

In this broad dual example I have offered, I see a reversal (of sorts) coming. If you are a reader who appreciates wave principle then you probably understand why the business sectors previously excused from disclosure will be yanked back into the public light over coming years. You may or may not intuit how this social dynamic on an individual level may also be corrected, only not back to where it began.  

As social mood swings from positive to negative (at various degrees of trend) we see social trends of all different shapes and sizes accelerate and sometimes reverse to correct the previous growth.

Various industry watchers can already see how the pressure to disclose hidden business practices perceived as potentially harmful to the economy has grown and will grow more as (and if) negative surprises continue to arrive. Likewise, the 'sharing is good' mantra given to us by social media platforms will not disappear; instead, corrective values that go beyond today's commonsense will develop and incremental rules will be adopted along with formalities that did not figure in the early rush to build expansive networks.

The dynamic I think most worth considering is how these opposing expressions of different levels of socially shared values are opposites that will essentially develop at the same time. To me, this is the value of seeing a social correction as a distinct group process on the level of a society.  The larger group (our nation as a whole) will be deciding important questions along the lines of critical shared values and this process will also happen in different sized chunks as you observe different parts of the our whole navigate the social correction. 

So what I see happening based on shifting polarities in our shared values is how we will move the public sector to be more open and transparent about their activities (businesses in order to protect the public from negative uncertainty); and I also see the public, (on the level of the individual) operating with much more discretion and formality as they correct the growth in digital sharing (also based on negative uncertainty). The perceived need for these will develop over the next decade in parallel fashion but the point is how negative social mood will drive opposite changes in perception.

These opposing flip flops in shared values (both public and private) will serve important roles as we collectively organize for future social expansion. That all of these expressions are somehow governed by wave principle is fascinating but so is how this general observation of directional change will affect how some important businesses serve their markets. 

This kind of base level change in shared perception can change key behaviors and have profound influences on large markets of consumers. It can and may shift giant waves of profit in other directions and be seen to shift business models away from tried and true practices.

"What really matters?" changes as social mood changes.

Back near Thanksgiving I wrote here about the public griping about the TSA's new screening methods and how this issue really mattered so, people were likely to put up and shut up. I also noted how the reactions to these kinds of trade offs would produce equal and opposite reactions in places where consumers can take control back.  Persistent negative biased uncertainty is capable of changing a lot and producing conformity where it is needed. It can also divert an entire market of consumers from established routines. It's worth adding this set of ideas to your planning.

 What do you have to lose ? 

Consider this NYT Editorial Personal Privacy and the Right to Know 2 07 11

An often and easily overlooked feature of this blog is how I update many posts by populating link threads on the trending idea as it is currently being expressed, (at the top and bottom of posts) especially if I am forecasting a specific set of behaviors. The August 1st post (2010) was titled The Approaching Public Discussions re Free Speech and Privacy. (use that link or the blog archives)  Wow, a lot has transpired in this social realm of shared values since that posting. The entire WikiLeaks controversy and the derivative questions around it are begging to be included: Is aggregation of diplomatic or corporate secrets by itself really journalism? What is Journalism? Are there reasonable expectations of privacy, and to whom?  What is the difference between spying and journalism? Freedom of Speech yes but, what happens if it puts our people around the world in harms way? These are tough questions and the answers are increasingly polarized with intense shouting from both sides. 

I suggest you read or re-read the August 1st post from last year and consider this too:  How we generally see these questions right now will change in the next year. As social mood changes, how we value things changes, sometimes a lot in a short period of time. Socionomics gives us characterization of events, directionality, and sometimes it will tell us when to expect significant rates of change to collective perceptions. Most of all, remember, social mood is a moving average of collective behavior and perceptions. It is not about one outcome (or one point in time) but the path we collectively take as we create our social experience as a free people. The trending point at the end of that post makes the longer read worth it. Dave

note: after posting this early Saturday, the events of this weekend in the west are disheartening but point right to this thread.  One link in particular, less than 24 hours later, questions the price of Free Speech in political discourse.  My only observation for now is that in the same way shared values tend to be polarized in their expressions over time, the costs & benefits associated with various freedoms tend to cut in two directions as well. The stories that continue to emerge tonight (Sunday eve.) are troubling. May civility prevail.

 

The Noisy & Demanding Layers of a Social Correction

I watched Martin Scorsese's film about Bob Dylan last night on Thirteen as well as Charlie Rose's interview with the director right afterward. Watching his film with a socionomic perspective, the following point was (indirectly) driven home many times: Unlike periods of social expansion, times of social upheaval (change) demand most people stake out positions on the issues of the day. If you are looked up to by any group as a leader (of any sort), this seems to be doubly important. Joan Baez commented emphatically about the turbulent times and how they 'demanded you take a position'. She noted, 'you were either for the war or against it. You either supported Martin Luther King or (expressed hate)'...etc.  Scorsese made this point and then went on beautifully to demonstrate how Dylan unintentionally staked out a noted position as The emerging artist of the times and then seemed to turn 90 degrees from the pressing social concerns of his fans; and how his music inspired both loyal followers and later, supreme outrage from many of the same fans as he appeared to disregard many shared values (issues) in his manner of expression and performances. Reporters often quizzed him incredulously as if they were owed a Beatles-like response to their wide ranging inquiries.  Dylan is a classic "bear market" star and this film portrays this dynamic without acknowledging social mood.

The Socially Felt Need for Control Versus Free Speech and Privacy Issues: Updated threads

This is not really a new post so much as a reiteration of a recent post.  It is a recommendation to read the post here from August and a few of the links I have been collecting that follow the related trending threads. I've only included a sampling of links at the end of that post below for now. The varied trending subjects are most interesting to me because of how they will affect our day to day lives and even our businesses over the next several years. This is big picture social trending reaching directly into our daily lives. If it only seems like sensationalized headlines right now to you, take another closer look. These issues will continue to grow in our everyday lives.

This phase of social correction from the beginning has been about transparency in many different aspects of our shared social lives. Why is that?  Because at the peak of great periods of social expansion we take many liberties with how we create, and as fundamental issues are tweaked and twisted to the needs of the things we collectively build during the expansion, we come to see later how these often concealed changes negatively affect many people in society and not only the few and narrow reasons why they were changed previously. (ie. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles & subtly encouraging illegal immigration, everyone agreeing to take on a lot of debt to buy things...these things that were previously changed with little discussion tend to be scattered throughout a society)

The root of the privacy trending we see today as well as the current Free Speech issues related to WikiLeaks and those in the digital community who support total transparency, is really about the idea of control.....social control. "The desire for and to control issues" (from a group perspective and not as individuals) related to man-made constructs seems like it is peaking right now. I doubt we are anywhere near a peak in these discussions. I doubt either of the issues related to freedom of speech or privacy will calm down one bit in the many months ahead. This social correction is moving into the middle phase where the perceived need for change comes fast and is substantial, so during the next few years we (Americans) will collectively decide (maybe seemingly over and over) what really matters about how we ought conduct ourselves as individuals and as a society...in the context of free speech and privacy related issues.

As I posted recently, I suspect that the deciding factor in short term decisions on the divide between "the greater good" and individual wants is whether there is a perceived threat. Business take note: Consumers who've lost control over certain freedoms will be keeping mental ledgers and will be less agreeable about ceding control to opaque business practices, especially in the digital environment.

Freedom has to be about transparency at some level but these days we hear a lot about the need for secrets to protect the national interests. Eventually, this discussion will have to evolve towards what rights take precedence: Are individual rights more or less important than those of the larger group? That will be a divided day for sure. Is it fair to entrap people who display interest in hurting other people because of their ideas? Does it matter if they are Americans or not? These are very big and very difficult questions we are only beginning to discuss on a national level.  Personally, I expect the answers to these questions will be seen differently by generations of Americans.  The ultimate answers will help to define America for the next period of social expansion, down the road, and will also define the ultimate price of our freedom. I do not expect big decisions like this to be worked out the way the health care legislation was.....fought about then put to a final vote. No, I expect this will be decided by multiple cases that provoke outrage by many different layers of society. It will take time, toil, and tears.

Freedom of Speech and Privacy may well feel like core concerns of all Americans but, in the light of such a large social correction, how we see these issues is certain to change over the next few years as our perceived needs (and threats) change. What is really changing is our shared outlook to the future. That is what social mood is about:  And while I enjoy blogging about these ideas here I do not teach them thoroughly, so I encourage you to read about the socionomic model of human behavior. It explains a lot about these days.

It's also a good time to read the August post if you have not....and begin to follow this thread of trending that develop from this point forward. The links are at the end of the linked post. Many more will be needed soon I suspect.  Dave

 The Approaching Public Discussions re: Free Speech & Privacy Issues  8 10 

another timely Post: To Join or not to Join? To Include or Deny Inclusion? 9 10

Where you live (which state) will matter more than ever

see bottom of post for more updated links on this thread (latest of 17 links at end is 11 06 11)

 

A friend who lives in Arkansas informs me how that state has a law requiring all new state expenditures be attached to a specific revenue source. This kind of responsible thinking is a remnant of the great depression when Arkansas could not meet its obligations and defaulted, causing very difficult years for the state. Presently, Arkansas does have debt but it is the among the smallest of the 50 states. This practical thinking by the people there survived the multiple decades of boom and because of that Arkansas is not staring at a mountain of debt ready to crush citizens like is now possible in places like California, Illinois, Florida, and others. (a graphic here)

As social mood moves to and from extremes, it produces remarkable periods of social trending that have very similar themes.  In a larger period of social correction, (negative social mood) we see these themes repeatedly develop in the trends all around. Social mood is a societal measure of aggregate outlooks to the uncertain future. It affects how and what we build together...and also what we tear down. In the US, where we have 50 distinct sovereign states, we can also see reflections of this social mood develop as part of the US moving average of social mood.

We have just come through a remarkable few years of seemingly unprecedented financial swings reflecting changes in social mood. Some states have survived this messy time much better than others. Some are barely hanging on to a sense of normalcy.  Some are clearly depressed and needing to correct more of the imbalances that have built up over decades to get back to financial sustainability. Each state is a sum of their people and their attitudes towards commonly shared values.  This is reflected in their finances.  As social mood corrects (goes negative) so does money-ness (it shrinks) and that means state tax revenues suffer. 

If you look at the current status of all 50 states and their financial overhang, and couple that with a forecast further correction of social mood, you can see challenges that will arise in each of the individual states that many of us have never seen before now.  Most will read this as ominous but it really only represents choices that will need to be made based on our changing shared values that fluctuate according to the developing social mood.

The function of a social correction (IMO) is to identify what values really matters most to the groups that matter most in our society. During times of correction we (groups of people) pare down units of association to those that matter more/most. We pare down finances to that which matters more as money-ness shrinks and we make due. We collectively consolidate the aggregate social gains made over longer periods of time (many decades+ in this case) and we must also confront imbalances and practical matters that have been ignored for some while up till now through the previous period(s) of social expansion.  The state we choose to live in (in the US) is one of our core groups of association and since each of us must choose to live in one of the 50 states, we must also consciously choose what really matters most in the context of the challenges each individual state faces. The challenges in Arkansas are very different from the challenges in California though the trade-offs are not as straight forward as it may first seem.

In a world of national headlines and international (instant) news, we will be increasingly called closer to home with unique concerns that we must each confront as this social correction in the US proceeds. The specific challenges we face will be defined by the unique circumstances of each state we choose to live in now more than ever before in our lifetimes. This trending dynamic will also extend into our local neighborhoods too.

The recent midterm elections generated thick files full of noisy trend material (for me) and weeks later I am left wondering if much of anything truly important was accomplished or decided as it relates to these tough challenges that lay directly ahead of each state. "What Really Matters?" will hopefully be more than blame and bickering as was so common in the noise created during the election. As money-ness shrinks through this period of social correction we will each make choices that affect our local & national lifestyles.  In many cases these immediate and local choices will steal our attention away from the national headlines where we (collectively) seem to spend so much energy. 

In the years ahead, what really matters will be closer to home. Simple as it may be, you can extrapolate this thought considerably as it relates to so many of our big picture concerns. The smaller world made possible by all things digital will be both sharply contrasted and complemented by the challenges posed locally by a period of social correction.

 This is a link to the various taxes imposed state by state

The key to the above link is services offered and those require more digging and time to pass as circumstances change in each region of the country. Taxes may make the headlines all too often but it is employment opportunities and available services that ultimately set the standard of living in any specific area. All these critical components of lifestyle are lagging developments of social mood. Again, as money-ness shrinks along with social mood, what is it that really matters in any state? Choose your neighbors carefully and expect a new thought process to enter your daily thinking: 'All matters local'

And remember, the re-balancing done during a social correction is so we can emerge ready to expand again as a society...and our stock of cities full of people make up that potential.  This balance must begin right where we live, week in and week out. Embrace the new values.

As always I encourage readers to subscribe to the Soconomist.  The link for this publication is in the right column of the blog. I do. We all need to embrace and understand coming changes.

 Camden City Council Approves Massive Police and Fire Layoffs CBS local 12 02 10

NYT 12 05 10  Mounting State Debt Stoks Fears of a Looming Crisis

 The ten worst states for retirees  Marketwatch  12 10

12 15 10 note: in an effort to be very brief I often skip making many of the points I see attached to trending issues. This post in particular could go on to many issues not readily apparent to readers. The distinction between state gov. and the federal government has often been blurred in many people's minds. I suspect, at the core of this group trending process, most people will begin to see clear distinctions in the way their state of residence sees the world compared to Washington DC. I am sure this will cut both ways over the breadth of time. This AM a favorite read comments on how state AG's step in where the federal government fails to provide oversight against aggressive banking practices. Of course there is two sides to every story and this one has two sides (of that I am sure) but in the meantime, standing up to a bank with power over your good standing (financially) can be daunting. This is one of those less obvious examples I expect to see a lot more of soon. Businesses are tools of the people with powerful self interest. How the balance of power is maintained will increasingly be worked from the state aparatus.   

 Alabama Town's Failed Pension is a Warning  NYT 12 23 10

Gov. Brown says CA budget he'll propose next week will be painful  BB 1 11

A Path is Sought For States to Escape Their Debts (including Pensions) NYT 1 11

Forget Pep Talks, Governors Warn of Tough Times at Inaugurations  WSJ Jan 2011

12 23 10 NYT ....here is the link to the 6o MInutes segment last week on state & municiple debt about to unravel badly.  If you missed it last night, watch it now. Today's NYT article on a failed Alabama town's pension is emblematic of things to come.

1 27 11 NYT Moody's To Factor Pension Gaps in States Ratings

2 14 11 Bloomberg State Bankruptcy Proposal Criticized by Both Parties at Hearing

3 18 11 Calculated Risk Blog  Florida: 18% of Homes Are Vacant

3 20 11 NC Legislator Says State Needs Own Currency  (a little nutty admittedly)

6 02 11 NYT Improved Tax Collections Can't Keep Pace with States Fiscal Needs

NYT article index for Michael Cooper who writes about current State's budgeting issues

7 10 11 NYT  Cautionary Lessons from State's Shutdown (Minnesota)

This is a huge thread to search for and many very worthy articles not listed here. The majors papers are doing a great job on this thread.

7 12 11 Central Falls RI struggles to avoid Bankruptcy    Boston.com

7 13 11 California Counties Talk of Cutting Ties To State (South Calif.?) NYT

10 01 11 California and Bust  Vanity Fair  (looks objectively at Meredith Whitney's much criticized perspective)

11 06 11  Report published on Freedom in the 50 States

What really matters to flyers today? And what parts will matter next year?

a new link added at end of post 2 22 11.

 

The editorial in the WP today called Don't Touch My Junk is emblematic of these recent months. But what does it really say about social mood? Better yet; what does social mood suggest to us about the awkward balance between social discord and felt safety needs right now...and where will this drive our shared values to change?

Keeping in mind the federal government's actions are a lagging indication of mood, and that x-ray body scanners at airports took years to be implemented after the social impulse happened, I have a slightly different take on events in this arena. This isn't a forecast.  It is a subtle adjustment in my own thinking lately and am waiting to see if, as I suspect, coming events will shed more insight soon.

I worked several subway stops south of 14th St in Manhattan in 2001. That fall offered my first real example of socially shared fear. I remember well how I had never seen sensed it before and it was recognizable even if it was suppressed by way of the typical NY culture. It eventually faded.

The latest shouting in the media about groping and snickering scanner techs in airports is, in my mind, a result of overall conflicting pressure on mood trends. The longer trend for mood is down and that trend is reflected by the implementation of scanners in airports (and pat downs for those who want to be even angrier). The shorter trend that reflects growing(?) social insistence to be free from close scrutiny and monitoring....or waxing social mood (from already depressed levels) effects that seem to discount the existence of the very real safety fears that put all this into motion. Put it to a national vote and I am sure you would see discord in the results with safety winning. (how big are the groups complaining, really? I do have no idea) I am open to changing this view. Maybe discord is just discord while the long term concerns remain currently muted. The point, to me, is that fighting about pat downs (and the news of it becoming mainstream) would seem to indicate, in some part, a waxing social mood but in the overall context of a social correction. (and is this just self fullfilling thinking based on the longer outlook?, time may tell)

What does this suggest?  The best I can articulate right now: Some trends reflect longer cycles of social mood and some trending expressions reflect social mood in the shorter term cycles; think of the way that scanners took a few years to have been made and then implemented at airports nationwide once perceived to be needed.

Despite the few nut job extremists lighting shoes and or their underwear with a chemical called PETN, people do not all feel incredibly threatened right now. Why not? That stuff is apparently worthy of doing the job with an airliner if there is enough of it. So then, why are we not lining up and shutting up at airports?  We did, in fact, demand the feds do something to protect us 9 years ago, and so far two Presidents have responded with lots of our money thrown at the big challenges. As far as my reading tells me, we've also stopped quite a few attempts as well. The real complaint by people now is how airport screening is ineffective but if it were, would we really be writing about how and why it was?

Privacy, especially as it is complained about here, is a complicated mix of felt needs...with safety concerns over at one end of the spectrum that we are not expressing right now, whereas airliner safety fear is very easy to understand. What did happen to that flight over the Atlantic from Brazil to France? Was it really lightning? (why does it not matter more?) What if that shoe bomb had worked in blowing out the window? Would "keeping your seat belt fastened while seated" be enough in that instance like in some movies? Are these questions really so ridiculous? I understand the burqa feud in France and expect it to eventually spread universally when/if social mood deepens as much as expected in a cycle degree social correction. It is easy to see what I am speculating and, my question is why did we stop collectively speculating that way? We did not forget the past. Why is the Washington Post editorial relevant to a broad audience today where it would have been quickly dismissed as inappropriate only a year or two ago?

It is this last thought that brings me to a temporary conclusion as we all look on these layers of social trending as they happen. Despite sharp (upward) retracements (in some sociometers) that might indicate improving social mood, we are (most likely) in the middle of a large social correction that will dominate socially shared values for years. Safety needs related to fear of physical danger are right there at the base of Maslow's hierarchy of needs along with food, and basic sanitation.  My point is that these current social expressions using words and outrage is temporary, even if pervasive this month, and that scanners and pat downs will be very welcome elements in our future, and probably for a long time to come if this is such a large social correction. This will not happen because we suddenly look back and remember 2001. It will happen because our outlook toward future uncertainty will align one way or the other as it trends directionally with social mood. Again, the longer cycles (patterns) of social mood strongly suggest which way this will happen.

Periods of deep social correction are historically shown to produce the "the greater good" mantra. You can see this at several points in US (& world) history.  When this phrase is used by leaders, it is often a time that leads to demands for social sacrifice. In a very small way, this is really where we are at right now in the airport screening issue...only we are here today because of what happened during the past nine+ years. We are being asked (we are asking ourselves) to line up and put up with the inconvenience of the screening process because of collective decisions we made a long time ago.  This fight we see emerging into the headlines this month (coming from both leaders and everyday travelers) is clearly a form of social outrage but, it is focused in a manner that completely discounts how and why we collectively arrived here. How is it that the impulse to spend billions for safety at airports nationwide was so great and yet, somehow, today the slights of snickering screeners, aggressive pat downs, and the exclusion of shower kits feels like one too many sacrifices for so many people?

Bottom line: Social mood is changing a lot in short periods of time lately whereas many other times the changes have felt more gradual.  This reality is often part of social corrections. Our (the US') collective perception of uncertainty is in transition. Reality is what we (collectively) say it is any week or month and, "Don't Touch My Junk" feels perfectly justified right now to a growing group in the mainstream. I got on a big commercial plane in mid September 2001 that was empty but for fifteen paying fliers. I did not know anything about social mood back then but it felt understandable to me and others (back then) that no one was flying out of fear. Those weeks were certainly ones when this subject could have helped many people understand & cope with the change better. Right now, the upswing in mood is encouraging many to forget threats that are still present, not in theory but in current factual existence.

In the meantime, this view suggests that if/when social mood turns down again, that social feelings toward these superficial privacy issues (over airport screenings) will disappear quickly for the same reasons editors stopped this subject from surfacing only a year ago as frustrations for fliers began to build.  I've written often in the past year about privacy trends here. It is a complicated topic because it really depends on where and how collective perceptions are applied. During a longer and sharper correction in social mood we will see compromises in the shared values that comprise privacy concerns and each concern will be affected differently.  Some shared concerns will advance and some will lose ground depending upon where the individual is empowered versus where sacrifice for the greater good is required. There is no doubt in my mind that everyone will line up and shut up as soon as any threat is perceived.

Likewise, commercial enterprises had better be set to face consumers tired of making these sacrifices in their privacy where their information is concerned. Social backlash is not only possible, it is a good bet that it will be the equal and opposite reaction balancing these shared feelings (to some extent). US consumers will cede control where it is needed and will take control where it is possible. This is fair warning to many businesses that what is ok today may not be next year in this realm of all-things-privacy related. As social mood changes, how we value things changes (and sometimes, a lot in a short time).

Personally, I find the headlines this month relating to screening outrage to be strange but then I have not been traveling regularly lately.  Taken in the aggregate, it does seem to fit a rising mood trend is cutting into the longer term trend right now. It may seem like a frivolous issue (to some people) but I think it is a good indication of social mood and the cross currents at this moment.

Let's watch it over the coming months.

 Ron Paul says "something must be done!" about the airport screening process

 The TSA sticks to it plans and says "oh yes you will"  Sun Sentinal  11 20 10

Protesters' body scanner opt-out day could bring nationwide delays WP 11 24 10

11 22 10  :  A marketing industry email article this AM suggests Europe has considered the banning of using cookies for marketers, or at least some version of this kind of rules. The point of this post seems like it is about the airport situation but it is really about our reaction to uncertainty in different situations is changing. The airport safety issue is one where we must eventually be a good citizen and participate even if we do not like it. However, in matters on line where consumers do not just have to take invasions of privacy, expect a much different reaction. The marketing industry urges education to the benefits of behavioral targeting (tracking all your on line behavior and how good that is for you). It does not matter how eloquently you write out the benefits, this argument will be a loser in the years ahead and marketers might as well get out in front of it than stand and be shot down. 

If you use the Firefox browser try this: download the Ghostery Add-On and it will show you how many tracking services are used by every web site you visit. Some sites employ 13 tracking services. This means your IP address and the browser behavior attached to it is distributed to 13 far reaching companies who can sell that information.  In the years directly ahead, this will be seen to stretch the "free content for advertising" social contract too far from its original shape. Social mood is a driving force in this process.   link for (biased) marketing support of behavioral targteing

2 22 11 TSA agents at DFW get past security with gun in bra

 

 

 

Is A Correction Coming to an Altered Social Contract?

A longer post under development by me right now is about when two very large social trends meet in an intersection of influence: In this case I am considering how the changing attitudes toward all things related to privacy (in the US) are intensifying lately and will do so even more in the next few years. The second trend is really about our societal adoption of all things digital and specifically, how-we-measure-our-behavior-using-content needs updating.

Privacy is a complicated trending dynamic that touches several core (felt) needs. It may seem like the rawness of the digital frontier is compelling these concerns but, if you follow along closely, privacy concerns are again beginning to reach all corners of society. Indeed, the President as of Friday announced his soon to be appointment of a privacy post for all things digital. 

The second gigantic social trend (we all tend to discount) is the growing use of all things digital in our society. Over many decades our advertising industry developed ways to measure consumer interaction with programming/content of all kinds and used these methods to establish a currency for valuing reaching potential customers using advertising. This trade off, content for advertising placement was acknowledged and accepted by consumers over many decades. It became a social contract.  Because of the myriad changes in content, channels, delivery modalities, and sheer numbers of opportunities to get all kinds of content, these old use measures need updating very much.

But, this isn't that post...not yet anyway. Here's a bigger picture trending dynamic from the same trend lines to think about:

Socionomic thinking about trends allows you to appreciate how larger trends relate to many smaller and shorter cycle trending processes. Socionomics and wave principle also helps you consider how certain influences (broad social attitudes) can manifest at specific times. (Think: Prechter & Frost, the individual character of waves - EWP)

For instance: The social contract for the content-for-advertising deal that was developed over many decades is increasingly set aside. Many content producers say it is not enough, we need more.   A few examples: Paying for cable tv and also watching just as many commercials as ever.  Buying a smart phone, signing a contract for monthly calls and a separate access plan too, then getting advertising in text messages, advertising through apps you use, and on most web sites you visit.

These days advertising is everywhere content is (regardless of content quality) and the law of supply and demand shows us it is worth less incrementally than before there was so much of it everywhere.  Interesting thought: all these cool digital communications tools are making us more efficient getting information so we can use the time to absorb more advertising.(?!)  

The trend that is really worth pointing out socionomically, is how this represents an imbalance in fundamental circumstances in consumer/business dynamics for advertising. Before we began paying any significant amounts for content, we got it for very nominal sums and being willing to see commercial messages. Over time, the magazine industry developed higher price points but it was decimated quickly when exposed to digital competition dynamics in the first decade of internet.  Now we pay to get digital access everywhere and see more commercial messages than ever.  How did they (we) get so greedy over time? How long will consumers accept a double dose of access fees & advertising, and quality content providers demanding the same while pointing their fingers at everyone around them when it comes to the blame for advertising inflation? Should we depressingly extrapolate advertising inflation to infinity and beyond?

From the perspective of wave principle, this is the kind of fundamental circumstance that might be expected at an exhaustion of a long term trend (in media) as well as a peak in social mood. This social trend dynamic (the advertising-for-content social contract) is being - has been- stretched far out of proportion.  

My goal with this post is to point to the digital frontier and remind everyone that the changes in social mood over the next few years will have a tremendous impact upon everything we build, tear down, gate, and isolate in that digital space. The trend <national group process> of our seeing convergence develop is going to be greatly affected by social mood. That means the how & what & why of that which we build in the digital environment will be different in this coming period of social correction versus the previous periods of social expansion as all-things-digital were being introduced. It is this thought that is driving my effort to detail speculation on how digital use metrics will be greatly impacted by privacy concerns in the decade ahead. There is nothing wrong with the advertising-for-content business model. Some businesses will be exposed to new competition and may find that quality and price have a very different proportional relationship as we move through consumer attitudes ahead, and this is also when the social contract may be revisited (even if not immediately inserted into the headlines). The challenge for content producers & distributors is in the execution and, during a big social correction, those who deliver true value will survive (but keep in mind that it will often be seen comparatively).  Those that do not deliver value, will be corrected by competition and incremental rules changes on a community by community basis. This is exactly why I am skeptical on pay for viewing platforms that assume these discretionary expenditures will win over time. Pay for view will always be part of the future Choice-trend in media but in the shorter time frames, well targeted advertising that captures value for both customer and advertiser will drive this important industry function. How do you do that without being perceived as intrusive or sneaky? Increasingly, this will be an important question. I believe the generalized answer to this important challenge will be found in the context of "smaller units of association". ..and "permission".

Dave

a few of my previous posts around these ideas:

The social trends re-shaping the media business

The Future of the Advertising Business Model is Very Bright

During Social Corrections We Change Why & How We Create

Is the social Empathy pendulum about to change directions or does it have further to stretch?

Boston.com (The Boston Globe) posted a discussion last week by Keith O'Brien titled The Empathy Deficit  (note: article may load slowly at Globe's site)

The article is a four page overview of a study that looks into the decline of empathy in America over the past 20 years. It specifically looks into the penetrating idea that college students are losing their sense of empathy at a dramatic rate:

But new research suggests that behind all this communication and connectedness, something is missing. The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, found that college students today are 40 percent less empathetic than they were in 1979, with the steepest decline coming in the last 10 years.

If the idea of sociometers and shared values used as pivot points of social action interests you, then this article is a must read. It reads quickly as the author attempts to dissect the wonderful behavioral dichotomy of connectedness versus felt connections in this current era. From a socionomic perspective, you cannot help thinking about the timing of this (observed and measured) social trending dynamic. Is it representing the broad behavioral dynamics of social correction or, is it reflecting social trending at a very large degree of trend that is still echoing the massive social mood peak of this era? 

Will the digital age bring us many new sociometers?

 

I've been thinking about different sociometers lately and getting there (for me) usually means getting way out there first, only to come back. (intentionally shifting time horizons and perspectives) If you are reading John Casti's recent book, (or any of Prechter's multiple books that discuss socionomics) then the process I describe is not necessary (depending upon how you focus) but it is what works for me oftentimes when working with qualitative ideas in multiple time frames as opposed to already existing data sets.

Then today, an article pops up in the MIT Technology Review about an Indiana university researcher and his colleagues who've been using a specific method to analyze the data of the Twitterverse for predictive cues.  The short article is here.

The summary of their research project is here.

Using a Google algorithm called GPOM (profile of mood states) they looked to see if one of the six measured states correlated to stock market prices. What moods were measured?: happiness, kindness, alertness, sureness, vitality, and calmness. 

They say that after tracking almost 10 million Tweets by 2.7 million people (of multiple nationalities) over a few months, they found calmness could indicate an up or down close in the DJIA 2-6 days later. The article was vague and my initial reaction was how it seemed more like a market oscillator in development, of some kind. 

This article got me thinking on two divergent points:

First, the stock market is a wonderfully, if not coincidentally designed sociometer. Similar high quality data sets that might effectively track social mood in other markets are hard to find already existing, especially if you have a specific market in mind which is why I have attached considerable thinking to different shared social values and how trending in these (attitudes) areas might be purposefully used because of their more basic nature.

Second, (and I am sure this is covered in one of the socionomic books) the Twitter sample used in this research engages people of multiple nationalities in one group. As I think about this, it occurs to me how the stock market is populated by traders from all over the world using the digital systems developed in recent years. Has this development made the stock market sociometer more noisy over time (is it now more or less leading at some times?) or has it been somehow sharpened, especially since we seem to be at an inflection point for many societies at the same time?   

What does the digital age hold for us in terms of new sociometers? Time may well reveal a wealth of new insights if the dynamics of social correction (negative social mood) do not substantially change what we now see developing in the realm of all things social on the web.   

 

Different ways to visualize trending in markets of people

post script added 10 11 10...

To Join or Not to Join, To Include or Deny Inclusion?

Beyond our family, what shared values affect our decisions regarding the groups we join, or belong to already? How might understanding the directionality of this trending dynamic change how you see your business?

This post is a somewhat raw example of my perspective on social mood and how to build sets of social trending expectations that can be applied to different markets of people engaged in all manner of commerce. My driving point always is how this perspective is critical for strategic positioning relative to the market(s) being served by business.

I use this basic list of the trend dynamics associated with social corrections previously posted for your consideration.  One of the most basic elements on that list is what Robert Prechter calls "units of social association" in his books. It is intuitive once you grasp the larger idea of social mood.

During positive social mood people tend to expand their associations more broadly and diversity is embraced as optimism takes over our collective emotional sense of the always uncertain future.

During negative social mood, and longer periods (I think of the longer episodes as social corrections), people tend to have fewer units of social association, build barriers, exemplify differences, and this dynamic somehow serves the overall purpose of a social correction (which is to generally ready a society for another period of social expansion).

Like all discussion here, this is not about individuals. These ideas are about crowd behavior and the moving averages that are observable in markets of people because of our social nature. 

As basic as Prechter's observation seems about "units of association", it occurred to me that this idea may break down into three dynamics. (see footnote below) So for a while I have been considering the following in the spirit of a bigger picture discussion about social trend dynamics, owing to the polarized nature of all social trending (when viewed from the standpoint of the social impulses driving the trending process). Even if I am wrong and "units of social association" is a base impulse and does not break down as I suggest next, each of these three underlying (social) trending dynamics are important secondary considerations and can be observed (especially at key inflection points in social mood, like now).

 

Based on the headlines of the last week leading up to today (re 9-11 and American's sentiment toward Islam), this discussion certainly feels appropriate. And if these examples seem to have little bearing on for-profit enterprise positioning decisions, the key is to remember how social trends in shared values lead, and businesses chase, all these changes big and small. Changes in outright trend direction may seem like the holy grail of social trend following but, anticipating longer extensions matters just as much. 

 

One last thought to add to this perspective: Participation in trending processes matters from the perspective of the individual society being observed. The digital universe may often feel like its own separate country but the dividing lines between societies still exist. More and more people are connected 24/7 to the world wide web but our individual national unit of association will always exert a profound influence upon our shared values. So for instance: social media tools will continue their worldwide growth trend at impressive adoption rates but here in the US, specific aspects of participation may change (or be changing) quietly and be opposing the larger trend in some ways.  This is exactly why a more nuanced view of this topic can be helpful in seeing what really matters. 
 

As always, I am interested in your feedback. Dave 

Pioneering Studies in Socionomics, R. Prechter (pgs 232-233)

two very powerful ideas

The ideas in the last post are powerful, even if they are abbreviated.  Social corrections change how we build on ideas in very specific ways.  Add to that an understanding of the impact of degree of trend upon specific trending issues and you can potentially see your business much more clearly in times of change.

As with all posts here, when I use "we", I am referring to the collective "we", the social crowd of "we", and not individuals. That distinction is very important. Crowd behavior can appear to parallel the choices individuals make but more often it reflects social mood owing to the powerful pull of our social, emotional nature.

In four years of writing posts one thing is clear. Post titles matter. Instead of creating a new title for the last post, allow me to share a few folder titles from the trend library I have kept for five or six years so that I could watch specific trend threads develop and decide for myself the potential value of this insight. My hope with this post is to offer just how broadly these ideas apply and maybe encourage a few more people to reach for an understanding of what it is that "degree of trend" implies in the context of specific social trends.  If you have no idea what degree of trend refers to; it is a reflection of the fact that human social behavior (reflected by crowds) is often being expressed in a manner or some form that is repetitive and has some generalized pattern that is repetitive.  Understanding how some trends are reflections of different degrees of trend of the aggregate social mood could change the way you see your business in relation to your industry, your market, or the competitive advantage you now enjoy. It may seem complicated but really is no more so than the Wed. or Thurs. crossword puzzle in the NYT.

Here are a few very broad threads of social trending I have watched for a while now:  

scandals and controversy   (this folder is intended specifically as a social correction trending collection by this title though we know how that depending upon the degree of trend (of social mood) you consider, we can always be considered to be in an impulse wave (social expansion) at some degree of trend. If you conquer understanding that one piece of the puzzle, half the larger challenge will be won.  Do you recognize examples of scandal and controversy in your competitive industry? How about in Congress? Your state government? Your local government?  Where did all the varied business and social heroes go from a few years ago?  Was retirement a generational fad?  More far sighted insight to that question may be in here; Are pensions in serious trouble as suggested recently?  Will retirement still be a valued social goal for the generation beyond Boomers? Will shrinking money-ness change family structures and influence individual values in the US as well as affect structural change in the government of The People? There were many articles about potential pension trouble in 2002 and 2003. Were they completely different then? Is it right to re-neg on promised benefits? Should public benefits be paid to people in their 40's? In many cases it was a promised perk and a major recruitment incentive.  This is a wildly broad thread of issues. It is easy to focus on the obvious wrong doers or the blame behind specific problems but if you focus on the changing shared values, you can see how those will affect your business in some way.  Some concerns will develop more slowly and last much longer than others. How can you tell? (begin by understanding degree of trend)

heroes to crooks This folder is reserved for the people who end up being publicly transformed in the same way as the fictional character, Gordon Gecko was in the old movie Wall Street. In the movie Gecko was an obvious crook but in this social trending process, the group's changing shared values take us from a general mindset that supported chasing success "any way you can" and is transforming the shared values toward "responsible people follow the rules and those who do not pay the price".  These unfolding revised interpretations were often not overtly defined previously and therefore subject to varied interpretations tomorrow. During social expansion we spread out as we chase ideals and in periods of correction we come back together focused on what matters most. Was anything criminal about behavior at AIG or Countrywide Mortgage? The answer up till now is "no" but this trending dynamic suggests we stayed tuned for revisions to how the public sees the general price of membership changing. Rules are established during social corrections and enforced.  There are so many great examples of heroes being transformed to bastards from the last few decades and they were often convicted in a court of wrong doing. Have we skipped over wrong doers from the last decade up till now, and will we circle back to line em' up soon? Time will tell.  The trending suggests, "yes" because shared values are changing a lot right now.

smaller units of association....maybe the most basic of Prechter's observations as it relates to changing crowd behavior during social corrections and it is most easily perceived using different time horizons (or degrees of trend). Examples can begin as small as failed trade negotiations between states and industries and expand outward to...other very broad areas of social trending.

The body of the issues looked at in this folder include how nations (large groups & societies) get along in periods of correction and also how individual parts of a (free) society are more visible during corrections.   

One sub folder I keep titled "fight the war" began as a pro-war / anti war trend folder that a couple years later expanded very broadly into a thread capturing the general expressions of social anger and how these expressions have generally become war-like, even at home in the US.  ie. shouting down a President in the State of the Union on a matter over state medicaid expenditures. Hey, some House members carried sidearms in Congress in the mid 1800's.(that period was another cycle degree social correction but I doubt that will come back)

   "the value of a human life" ...a pretty dark extreme of this trend dynamic.  This is a big picture trend folder that borrows international ideals on this subject over years. The dynamic can be seen to have improved in many smaller countries up till recent years.  Since this is currently a cycle degree decline at one degree of trend in the US (that is a long term trending time frame) the idea of "the greater good" is bound to be trotted out and proclaimed with authority as the President did in late 2001 & 2002 as some American freedoms were traded for safety measures. Trends like these are more difficult to follow because they go dormant and when activated they become labeled by the events that precipitate them. Overall the value of a single human life, and the rights attached to lives decline during deep social corrections, even in a free society.  Many trends overlap in how they might be considered. One critical value in seeing a large, long trend like this is to appreciate the extent of the perceptual change (in terms of polarity) from the peak in social expansion...and how these shared values change our communication on so many levels as the social correction moves toward a nadir.

iroM  the (industrial) (r)Evolution of Media  is made of of several individual trend folders: Manifesting Choice, Privacy related threads, Specialization developments, and Generational dynamics. Each will play a pivotal role in the redesign of content companies that use advertising based business models to provide for hungry content consumers in the US.  Each reflects varied degrees of trend of the social mood.

All of these folders just mentioned but the last are tenets of Robert Prechter's socionomic theory as put forth in his books and publications. I may not have sampled them squarely but instead offered those aspects that stand out to me somehow. It took me following them for a while to make them real and usable as opposed to reciting them. There is a lot of value in seeing this broad set of ideas right now.  The iroM folder of threads was built using what I already knew about the industry and what I was learning. All but iroM clearly suggests "social correction" dynamics. iroM involves numerous trending processes that need to be sorted and considered from varied degrees of trend. In the end iroM is about building new ideas and tools and that involves expansion on some level. Business trends bring to mind the broad ideas of creative construction and creative destruction as they relate to highest and best use of ideas and resources. By understanding how different social impulses (trending forces)are both impacted by and reflect different degrees of trend (of the aggregate social mood-expressed by us all) can offer a lot of extra insight to trending hierarchy in periods of great social change.

First, this thinking offers us how social trends shape business trends in a lagging manner. Next it shows us how the ideas supporting some social trends will be around a lot longer than others. All of these ideas are supported by changing shared values(amongst crowds of people), because as social mood changes how we values things changes and that changes how we see both the present and the uncertain future. A lot can be derived from a simple proposition. Seeing how we collaborate and build differently during social corrections and how the degree of trend of social mood reflected by some shared values influences how pervasive some trending will be are both very powerful ideas.

During Social Corrections We Change Why and How We Create

An idea I use here often is the "social correction". It's an obvious takeaway from how financial markets are seen to have periods of correction that follow advances. More important was how visualizing the basic concept helped me to really begin incorporating social mood into my own forward thinking.

We are taught about all kinds of causal relationships regarding events in the world around us, often in a very indirect manner, and these ideas we see and hear about everyday resonate everywhere in our thoughts. Over time we use them to create our own assumptions and when the model fails we tend to go back and forth over the thinking in order to gain a better perspective. "That wasn't supposed to happen!?" "Who expected that!?"

For instance, years ago, sub prime lending was seen as a way to get more people into the American dream and I remember reading articles celebrating this market innovation in 2004. If you did not own a house then you certainly considered the proposition because you were reminded in endless social situations. Our financial greatness (as a nation) seemed to shine even brighter in 2004.  Much later those memories are ancient history and are recalled in the context of a conspiracy. Social mood shows us how to see that earlier trend as us (collectively) applying optimism to uncertainty and much later, we feel the pessimism is perfectly justified.  It is very difficult not to be opinionated about details of that recent period of growth but the point is to have a framework of ideas for understanding the "why" that surrounds the aftermath.

Social mood shapes trending patterns and to see them we must simply step outside of many accepted ways of seeing events. Understanding how social mood leads, not follows, all kinds of social changes is in conflict with many accepted models of thinking...and those other models are the ones that get the ink in our lives everyday. If you really want to know the underlying dynamics of social trending you will learn about social mood and its impact upon crowd psychology because that is what drives social trending.

If you ever took a basic geology class one of the first big ideas you learned about is how the crust floats around the surface of the earth. The moving pieces of earth's crust bump into others, run over each other, and even break apart and that ultimately helps us understand why maps of earth look like they do today. For instance, the geological idea of a subduction zone (two pieces, one running over the other) is how most mountain ranges are created. So when you look broadly at the American west coast you can immediately appreciate why so many mountain ranges exist in those states. It is not complicated but it takes this very broad view to really appreciate the engine behind local variation.

The very same is true as you appreciate social mood and the macro impact it has upon societies and all the smaller populations that make up a society. 'The true productive capital of a nation is its stock of cities'. Social mood is a natural expression, the product of groups of people, and it guides behavioral patterns that affect how we create, the things we decide to build, and later take down or leave behind. This especially includes ideas.  After some practice using the model many events become clearly correlated with changes in social mood. Further, if you have an appreciation for how social mood is likely to change in the months and years directly ahead you can use that as a template to overlay onto the issues that matter most to you in your life and this perspective can allow for directed action. The difference between change that feels terribly unsettling and change that can be accepted is a sense of directionality. Over time, this very basic tool allows you to see around broad corners of social change. Very few ideas can promise that but the key is that you have to learn it to earn it. It's not a simple -ism to be plucked from a short book. You should not expect 1:1 correlations everywhere.  Social expansion and correction produce complicated processes but the socionomic model offers insight and opportunity to see farther.  These two basic states of social condition say so much about what happens around us everyday and lends more insight into individual trending issues all around. (see the link for my old post at the end here or better yet, read Prechter's book)

Money is a main creation of societies of people and it is subject to social mood. When societies expand, money-ness expands, and so do the things we do with money to invest in our collective (always uncertain) future. When societies eventually correct previous periods of expansion, the point is to ultimately return to, or reflect on the values that matter most to the larger group at that time.  Our focus and our shared values can be seen to change in specific ways.  The United States has expanded as a society for many generational cycles now. Depending upon the number of years you chunk into that map, you can begin to see these periods much like our view of Google Earth changes as you zoom in and out of neighborhoods to see entire states and soon, the national borders. Years, decades, and entire national histories are the scale of social mood.  Some of the things we buy with money demonstrate patterns of social expansion and correction if you look at them as they are meant to be seen...percentage-wise and in the macro. The largest periods of expansion in mood suggest the largest periods of social change will follow. 

These days people seem to be very stuck on money issues precisely because we saw a dramatic correction in money issues in late 2008. It's not over and I will leave that part to EWI and Prechter's team if you are interested in specific forecasts. The point of this post is to draw the lines between social trending and social mood in periods of social correction. This simple, polarized perspective (positiver social mood and negative social mood) helps us appreciate how there are seasons of growth  in all things money-like and seasons when we invest more social energy in other kinds of social matters. Social growth does not (all) stop in periods of correction and this is my most important point for this post. Many important social institutions were born in periods of social correction.  In fact, during periods of social correction we experience dramatic growth in new ideas that take us in different directions as a society. The best part yet is how some groups of people will renew their bonds and others are seen to form newly in these times of correction to gather around the ideas that become newly important to the moving average of people in general. My favorite example of these times is how our nation was born in the aftermath of a very large period of social correction because the fresh ideas collectively embraced then were powerful in moving people to act and to take different kinds of chances knowing that their core groups supported their shared values. 

When you look at the diagram (link at end of post) of typical trending dynamics in periods of social correction (ideas offered by Robert Prechter in his many books) you might just think to yourself, "that's not great."

I have to admit, it took me several years to come around to how I see these kind of trending dynamics now. You can choose where to place your focus. The point in knowing these ideas is in knowing where to build using the new ideas that are beginning to be collectively valued. The model offers which way the tide is going and an idea for what may constitute an extreme by looking backwards to see forward. The "how" in public creation during a large social correction becomes more tested and scrutinized compared to periods of expansion when new ideas are encouraged and 'thrown against the wall'. Socially we tend to spread out during expansions and consolidate notably during corrections(not just in a spacial sense).  Uncertainty is met with less acceptance during social corrections so we can expect more exchange will be needed to move new ideas forward but new ideas always move forward.  

One last for instance: The internet is one of the most dramatic developments in human history and is causing revolution in so many parts of our collective societies that it is hard to sum up.  New tools are being built everyday that use the internet and many old ideas and institutions are being dismantled or slowly left behind.  Social change through more efficient communication is what the internet is about right now. Social change is always a constant factor and this new tool will probably help speed the kind of change being discussed here. Periods of social expansion tend to last longer than periods of social correction so again, that means change happens more quickly during corrections. Periods of social correction are also proportional to the overall growth that they are correcting and this is why knowledge of fractals helps us appreciate why some expansions and corrections are larger than others. (Sound bites just don't cut it when talking about fractals.) If you focus on how social change has a purpose and, consider the changing cross currents you now must deal with in any endeavor, then the ideas surrounding social mood become a lot less ponderous and a lot more practical whether you are guiding a forward looking conversation about an industry or building a company meant to surf a big wave of human endeavor. And no matter how much money-ness may shrink during a big social correction, where collective effort goes, so does the money. Go ask anyone in the mobile computing business today.

Social corrections produce fundamental changes in how people collaborate by highlighting changing shared values. This happens because our collective outlook to the future changes. It is not overt but knowing this helps you develop usable ideas while looking back to look forward. Follow the changing shared values, consider the potential extremes, the quicker speed of change and, they will lead you where everyone else is headed.  If you see a crowd following an old trend, no matter how widely established, give the values supporting it a good second look and you may be able to see a big change coming. It is all around us right now. Leadership without this perspective is more likely to end up reacting to new events that really represents changing values in groups of people. Good leaders always take chances and understanding social corrections shows us more about what kind of chances are worth taking. 

Social Correction Trend Dynamics  (the list mentioned above)

Previous post that takes trending a level deeper

The Socionomics book everyone interested should read

The Approaching Public Discussions re: Free Speech & Privacy Issues

 (updated link thread begun at bottom of this post. Last link & quote added 12 21 11)

Periods of social correction are a naturally occurring social group process through which a society collectively decides "what really matters?" They are a result of periods of social expansion and are a means to restore a kind of equilibrium to the group based on core values that bind the group (society) together. Does this occur in smaller groups than societies? Yes but, it helps to see the bigger picture to appreciate the importance of the processes. 

Social corrections come in all different proportions meant to correct specific episodes of social expansion that vary in length (in accordance with wave principle).  Maybe you have a older book on your shelf called the Fourth Turning. It was written in 1996 and is an interesting analysis of an apparent pattern in how successive generational outlooks are seen to cycle over large chunks of human history. The suggestions in that book point toward a larger social force at work but the authors stick with anecdotal patterning and come to some interesting conclusions. Wave Principle is a very specific tool developed decades ago to see patterning in financial markets and after considerable refinement this tool allows us to consider further how this larger unseen force, social mood, is governed by natural expressions emanating from crowds of people gathered under a general creative purpose: to prosper and grow. 

The United States is a 234 year old social group that relies every hour of every day on a well crafted founding agreement that was designed to accommodate a free society. Our founding citizens saw the wisdom in a group of independent states governed by a federal framework designed to allow people to create with a minimum of governmental intrusion (compared to those existing it that time). Many millions of pages of federal regulation, and 234 years later, our nation still relies on the charter pages that ordain and codify specific freedoms afforded all citizens.  The Bill of Rights was adopted in 1791. Most Americans could tell you about what freedom the first Amendment to the US Constitution gives each American but, for the record, here it is in detail:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

This large period of social correction will increasingly impact the social institution of media (the press) and specifically, the business of media, as the social revolution in the digital realm continues to impact every part of our societal framework. Clearly, you cannot get to those freedoms if you bypass the dominant freedom of speech (expression) afforded every American. 

Freedom of speech is an absolutely essential element of the American experience and it is often shown to cut both ways in terms of its benefits, and the challenges it poses.

Last week I saw a CNN writer insist that bloggers be held accountable for what they write (say). This friction is one small part of the ongoing revolution in media. There are too many individual skirmishes to count. In the past months we have all seen examples of how digital communication is causing social repercussions for individuals and groups. The effects of an increasingly negative social mood are manifesting on our new digital social frontier and the incremental challenge is how we will balance our changing perceptions with the need to respect the rights of everyone for the greater good, in accordance with our founding agreement.

My point in this post is to ask the reader to consider the larger social priorities as we collectively settle the digital frontier, and what they may mean. The challenges associated with this new frontier are unlike any from our history. Instead of getting farther from our cities, the digital frontier has increasingly moved closer into our lives and businesses everyday. Everything "social" now permanently exists a click or two adjacent to everything we might consider private.  The distinction sounds easy enough to make but we all know many examples where any black or white is incredibly gray upon consideration.  These dilemmas come to us during the social context of social correction trending dynamics. The variety and extent of these issues are increasingly being argued as if "something must be done!".  Evidence of social correction trending is all around us but until very recently this rapidly growing aspect of the digital frontier (everything social) was oblivious to these changing social dynamics.

Americans have the benefit of a strong foundation in our uniquely robust social charter (the US Constitution) but even that will be perceived differently in the changing light of social mood. The point, increasingly, is how "freedom of speech" is likely to be interpreted in light of the prevailing social mood at any one moment and it is for that reason exactly that the simplicity of our Bill of Rights will be both helpful and subject to incremental interpretation as we navigate this macro group process.

What is freedom of speech exactly? How far does it extend into the digital realm and specifically with regard to anonymity?  What exactly is Journalism? For the average person with a computer even anonymity is elusive in the age of broadcast IP addresses with the standard internet connection. Furthermore, privacy issues are increasingly headline material right now. As the NYT reminded us this week, everything digital is remembered. The WSJ also reminded us how businesses are targeting our digital behavior and harvesting this data with or without our permission as part of a new growing business model seemingly enabled by the ignorance of the markets they intend to serve. Facebook told us 'Sharing is Good' and started a social revolution but the social momentum is now moving against that proposition (in the US) in some ways at least, and this is clearly foreshadowed by social mood and the trending to be expected during a deep social correction.   

A few things seem clear (to me) about any discussion of the changing attitudes toward freedom of speech: As we collectively evolve our behaviors with each step of the digital revolution, the expectations of both privacy and freedom of speech will clash in the months and years ahead. The social neighborhood is here and right now, it is potentially every bit as unruly as the rest of the digital frontier. Sheriffs and Deputies will be hired and order will be won. I suspect gated communities of many kinds will increasingly provide some answers. Privacy, however, is not written into our founding agreement (unless you consider the law enforcement provisions re searches) and that is beginning to seem obvious as to why. Rather than this being a license to steal and spy for companies and people alike in the digital realm, this is more likely to channel creative social momentum to fine tune the socially accepted practices surrounding 'freedom of expression' as well as ways to shelter ourselves and our businesses from negative uncertainty in the digital realm. Businesses would be smart to respect how quickly technology is capable of uncovering their data collection methods and that these revelations will happen in the context of an unprecedented social correction. As mobile everything grows at exponential rates, the rate and methods of data harvesting is growing likewise. What may seem like an endless fountain of social insight today may well be regarded tomorrow as a deeply offensive invasion of privacy.  Just ask Google's complaint department regarding the data mapping of wi-fi networks.  Whether intentional or not initially, any benefit was long ago surpassed by the costs associated with defending their reputation around the world.  The answer does not dictate being defensive as individuals or enterprises. The answer is to appreciate how some issues are granted a higher status in the groups we belong to and some are secondary by nature. Just because privacy issues are secondary in our founding social structure does not mean they will receive less social energy in this era of negative uncertainty. In fact, it may well turn out that more ideas and creations appear in order to compensate for these perceived needs.    Dave

ps.

In order to fully appreciate the importance of the larger forecast prompting this discussion, you may want to read deeper into the idea that this social correction will require a re-balancing of social priorities made necessary after many generations of social expansion and not just the past few decades.  This forecast conclusion is discussed in a different context this month in the Socionomist as part of a larger discussion of what can be expected when large periods of social expansion peak and end. It is a fascinating perspective on the origins of manias and bubbles and their aftermath. The issue also discusses other types of corrective social trending realities. It is worth a subscription to see the breadth of circumstances impacted by social mood.    

8 03 10 Governments around the world feel the security threat posed by electronic communications and increasingly are acting to pry into these private channels of communication. The NYT reported how the UAE is demanding access and potential control of communications networks when threatened. Free Speech issues and Privacy issues will have many dimensions when presented and argued in the public forum in the years ahead. Using social mood to see these issues more clearly instructs us how to see the moving averages in the trends and how to better position an enterprise or product with respect to these important issues. Some will read this article and think encryption services are a potential new trend. It already is only it is not yet sold at Amazon or Walmart.

ee also the RT post here dated 11 19 10 What Really Matters to Fliers?

Insurers Test Digital Profiles to Identify Risky Clients WSJ 11 19 10

10 17 10 The Free Speech issue made it to the Supreme Court last week with the plaintifs arguing that a funeral for a fallen soldier is no place for religous protestors to invade a family's private moment. In addition, the privacy trend is clearly manifesting in the digital frontier as advertisers take first and ask permission later. See the June 22, 2010 post about social media and social mood for a link thread on this issue. 

10 04 10 Ad Group Unveils Plan to Improve Web Privacy NYT  

10 03 10  article mentioning Free Speech Cases to lead high court's schedule in new term

12 09 10 Hackers Give Web Companies a Test of Free Speech  NYT (Wikileaks issue)

12 21 10 Senator says Net Neutrality the most important Free Speech issue of our day

1 08 11 Lawmaker: US suppoened Twitter Info Leaked to WikiLeaks (Iceland outlaws anonymous free speech

CNN notes in this article link above how Iceland has made a law against anonymous free speech as highlighted in WikiLeaks controversy. That is where their servers are located.

1 09 11 Pima County Sherrif Sets Off Debate About Price of Free Speech  Fox News

2 10 11 Charges Against Muslim Students Prompt Debate About Free Speech  NYT

2 16 11 WikiLeaks, Free Speech, and Twitter Come Together in Virginia Court Case  WP

2 16 11 Free Speech and Privacy Matters in One Issue?: Internet Kill Switch Legislation USA Today

4 08 11 US Warns of Govts Trying To Control Internet ABC News 4 11

a bit of a large gap here on Free Speech updates, I will fix eventually....

4 21 11 Hidden Tracking files found in iPad and iPhone   CNBC

07 11 Little Known (unregulated) Firms Tracking Data Used in Credit Ratings WP

7 21 11 Social Media History Becomes New Job Hurdle  NYT

9  11  Patient Data Posted Online in Major Breech of Privacy NYT

10 26 11  US requests for Google User Data spikes 29% in six months  Wired

11 02 11 Forbes piles in FB with their own concerning view

11 09 11 (first saw it then) Facebook Retreats on Privacy as it nears settlement WSJ

11 09 11 Facebook to make all retroactive privacy changes opt-in going forward

11 12 11  The Social Graph is Neither  (interesting blog post )

This is a tech developer's blog post. The total post is long and techy but makes some good points offering perspective that is likely to be shared in time:

11 16 11 Firewall Law Could Infringe on Free Speech?  NYT Op-Ed a must-read Free Speech thread

12 21 11  SOPA (legislation pending in Congress)  The End Of The Internet As We Know It (A Harvard Law professor weighs in on how this is a speech issue) What is clear about this issue is how our free society is testing the bounds on different aspects of freedom at the same time. That is what happens during a social correction, and many more examples can be expected in coming years.  

 

Social mood is influencing the transformation of social media tools

12 06 10 This post is evolving beyond itself by now. Changes are taking place across the spectrum of social technology.  Choice is influencing these changes and social mood is motinvating them for sure. Look for a newer post soon that creates a timeline I have been keeping. Many posts here that seem disconnected are all working to influence this group process of true Choice in social media tools...and that means gates and controls chosen by the user, not the platform. 

10 25 10 German Firms Blocking Facebook over Security Concerns

10 24 10 update  Facebook's new groups dymystified  ... under pressure from user to allow segmentation, Facebook adds tools that do just that...the ability to control for small units of association within your larger social universe

Page down to end of post for 8 or 9 other links previously added to this thread

 

The world wide web has transformed our lives since its quiet debut 21 years ago in 1989. It's about being able to share data with any connected point, and sharing is a social behavior and subject to social mood.

Witness Facebook and the revolution surrounding social media tools: The dramatic period of mass adoption in the past five years can be reasonably compared to the social adoption of the dot com era stocks in the late 1990's. Kids playfully embraced social platforms and sparked a mega trend that has resulted in the majority of Americans using some form of social media. Hours spent using social media have increased often at the expense of other forms of content. The mass adopters built what they perceived to be purposeful networks consolidating and increasing connections to the various parts of their lives. The notion of "the larger the network, the better" has been a driving shared value socially and the trend spread (without regard for geography of course).

Anyone using the socionomic model to broadly observe events and the causality supporting mass social trends had to notice that the Facebook phenomenon has been a consistent example of a behavior running counter to the expectations of social mood these past two years.  Up until now the premise used by various social software platforms has been based on inclusiveness. This idea has been socially supported despite declining social mood since late 2007.

During periods of social correction (negative social mood at larger degrees of trend), the opposite inclination will be seen to manifest: "Smaller units of association"**. Why hasn't that behavior taken hold yet?  Here are a few thoughts:

First, it is beginning to in small ways, initially. Social trending categories that include tools like like social media considerably lag the short & medium term trend of social mood. Second, I believe that various degrees of trend may be assigned to how specific social trend dynamics are commonly triggered. And while this is bound to to be imperfect as a broad rule, there is still value in the idea for specific case studies. (This is the value of using wave principle to see socionomics better.)

This particular trending issue is especially worthy of a group discussion focusing on how the social media trend has developed up until now and how social demand for these tools is just beginning to change in important ways.

I suspect that core shared values attached to (broad) social media behavior is connected to the longer cycle degree of trend (and parts, even super-cycle degree) and that this trend could manifest in a remarkable reversal in the next few years. This does not mean social media is going to become bad or is going away. No. It means our collective perception of the value of the various tools will be reassessed and that the moving average of mass perception (and behavior) will shift considerably. For instance: right now there is a team of NYU programmers using considerable & quickly donated money to build an open source version of Facebook putting the user squarely in control of their own personal brand in the digital environment. Take three minutes to watch them talk about it. Then extrapolate in the direction of a new behavioral vector (based on changing shared values). It would be easy to dismiss this as a side event of lesser importance. I think it is a trend change.  Whether I am more right or more wrong about the degree of trend issue, the behavior (with attached polarized shared values) can be seen shifting right now on multiple fronts (as seen in behavior and headlines) in the digital environment.

There are times when the socionomic model may seem less able of seeing into certain kinds of qualitative circumstances especially if the kind of data needed to identify impulse waves is immediately hard to find. There is no replacement for time spent observing the interplay of business trends and  surrounding social trending in order to gauge (changing) core shared values at work. At times there is much chaotic change that is impossible to predict but this particular period of time is bound to see some decisive directional social change and there is a lot of value in seeing this right now.  By identifying the core shared values at work in markets of people it becomes easier to consider how durable a trend may be at any particular time.  

Smaller, managed, units of (digital) association will manifest as features in the launch of many new social media platforms that allow for total user control. Open-source platforms may see explosive growth in the process but the larger social dynamic will clearly support the 'smaller & tested' is better dynamic in many social circumstances.  In the end, <I believe> that social tools are about being better and more efficient and that this will come to be seen as easier to control in smaller groups. 

In the big picture: Socionomics suggests that the cost of inclusion is going up <not money related>. In time, smaller, well defined groups will be prized, gated, and likely have more specific protocol. We are likely to see many tools developed to support these changing shared values.

** Socionomics, R. Prechter Jr.

 

LINK THREAD  ( I will consolidate this neatly after a few different behavioral vectors manifest)

The example in the article discussed below may not seem related at first but this is one direction I expect these issues to splinter towards as social momentum develops. This is part of a topic I discussed recently at the (industrial) (r)Evolution of Media blog. A more formal examination is warranted.

Apple Tests User Location Data, Consumers' Patience Media Post 6 22 10

The FT this AM has a discussion that covers why the smaller company is better than the big company. The discussion frames a large trend that has polar ends to it. This particular trend is very important to the big picture media trends I write about on the other blog. Start-ups Focus on the True Prize FT 6 24 09

Microsoft adds encryption features to allow cell phone users to share privately together and not share information through the network Technology Review MIT 6 22 10

Farmville-Maker Zynga Losses Gamers  SF Gate  6 01 10

Behavioral Targeting in Mobile era questioned re privacy in 6 27 10 Wash Post

Why Do We Trust Google?  InfoWorld 6 28 10 

(is this article above related? think: uncertainty & changing trust dynamics)

Open Source alternative to Facebook coming mid October

10 17 10 update  WSJ report: Facebook in Privacy Breech  discussed how app users on the site are exposed to prying eyes as well as friend lists too. Also, be sure to see the graphic inside the article that is a glossary of tracking terminology.

9 05 10update: Link Thread still being added to end of this post to chart incremental activity over time: 8 links as of today

 

 

 

The Root Trend is almost four years old. So what?

I originally began organizing thoughts on this blog from different journals I had been keeping for two years up to that point. One is a written journal and the other two are collections of different social trend threads observed in real time through reputable media sources and based upon expected patterns of behavior based on the developing social mood and the behavioral lens socionomics offers.  And while most of these specific trends are rarely subjects of posts, this daily effort is what drives the intermittent posting here at The Root Trend and my discovery of socionomics everyday. How many different social trends can one person follow on their own? I found my own personal limit to be variable but in the process I have been able to see the bigger issues related to social trending dynamics.  So, The Root Trend has been my ongoing experiment.  I placed a lot of faith in it to produce a specific result over time.  It produced more than I expected.

If you've ever been passionate about a sport, a business endeavor, or a specific idea you may have experienced this more than once: You cannot be introduced to any endeavor (fun or serious) that attracts full timers & professionals and expect to immediately appreciate the nuances needed for performance in that area. It always takes repeated exposure to real-time events. It takes a willing mental engagement that only you can decide to give. It takes experience and that takes time.  This is what Malcolm Gladwell discusses in his latest book but it is more than just 10,000 hours especially when the endeavor you are chasing is not populated by crowds of professionals. I think Tony Robbins said it best: 'Success is the product of good judgment. Good judgment is the result of experience. Experience is often the result of bad judgment.'

In the end there is no substitute for experience and no better time to expand insight and skills than when sitting atop specific, recent experience. In various endeavors it's called "being current".  This leads directly to my most basic conclusion:

• Forecasting social trends is possible provided the questions are posed carefully  
  

Prior to my adopting the socionomic model for seeing social trending, the forecasting of trends (by others) seemed to be the product of immersion in specific markets. It is often presented as a kind of personal magic some people perform. Clearly, there is no replacement for deep subject knowledge, ever. The main lesson offered to me through this effort is that understanding how social mood acts as a primary ingredient to all social interaction when operating in our many different social groupings can be used to see more nuanced probabilities for outcomes that can be tracked incrementally. It's about the study of groups as evolving units, not individuals. It's about looking at markets holistically. Ultimately trends can be forecast using events (and not calendars) as a guideline by understanding how shared values are changing.  It's about going deeper into the social dynamic but from a macro perspective.

If I had accomplished nothing else this much would have been more than enough. There was more.

Let's look at a few of the incremental flexible observations I've walked away with from these first four years and why they encourage more of me (and why this work encourages your participation using your enterprise/industry's challenges as a backdrop).

• (industrial) (r)Evolution of media (specific insight into where we are taking the business model)
  

• brands in crisis during a social correction (why brands are a potential liability now)
  
• witnessing the polarity of socially shared values shift (how to see the end and beginning of large trends)
  

• recognizing different sized cycles related to specific cases (outside of time) <yet to be posted)
  

The first bullet point above began as an observation based on my own deep market experience and 18 months later became a dedicated blog of its own so that is the best one, right? No, but it may be the best example why this perspective is a skill set worth cultivating. I am very passionate about the topic of media and the evolution of its business model and this endeavor will consume time in the years ahead. The socionomic model helps us break down trends into impulses and from there we can see why certain paths are more likely than others and how specifically businesses can adjust proactively to changing shared values.

The second bullet point above is a worthy business principle right now. It is spawning several excellent real time examples (BP, Toyota, UBS, the financial brand universe, and more) and now seems to be beyond denial in just two+ years of watching. So this is the best one? No, but the full implications to this observation is not appreciated yet. The sound bites I see and hear sterilize the value of the observation back toward traditional crisis marketing. Brands are more vulnerable during large periods of social correction and can easily become gargantuan liabilities to the enterprise but their use is too ingrained to eliminate so adaptation in specific market circumstances is the only path forward. This topic now makes for great real-time trend watching (see link above for real-time trend thread).

The third bullet point above is discussed in a post last fall and is where much of my RT thought goes these days. I believe the polarity of specific shared values parallels specific "degrees of trend" of social mood and as such the field of social trending has a huge open opportunity in this area.  This angle may require an appreciation for an analytical skill called wave principle but absent that, this points to the anchor of any successful social science......sound bites.  

The last bullet point refers to something seemingly vague...different sized cycles outside of time. This is the meat of the social trending discipline for me right now. It is where incremental observations over time will produce a picture of trending dynamics that will eventually enable a detailed how-to text for practitioners. This is where industry specific observation will pay off in handsome dividends over time and why established professionals in various industries are the key to advancing this work. The value in doing the work is needed insight to markets in times of change. The prerequisite industry knowledge slims down the potential market of participants considerably so this work, in my own view, should be discussed as both very worthwhile and accessible. 

In an age of interactive marketing, having a tool that allows us to see changing markets from new perspectives could not be a better investment of effort and time.  All of the above is my own interpretation of the work of Robert R Prechter Jr. and his books which are based on the observations of Ralph Elliott. Robert Prechter took those early observations and expanded them to suggest socionomics...and when you read his book(s) you will see I lean liberally on his ideas.  The work of Neil Howe and William Strauss on generational dynamics was very important too in getting me to find Prechter's work. These two bodies of work are not similar at all but they look at a similar human social dynamic from very different perspectives. Prechter's work is that of a practitioner and an analyst. There is depth there yet to be discovered. 

The statement, How We Collectively Value Things Changes as Social Mood Changes might seem overly simplistic but given this perspective and the time to see farther into the nuances of various markets, there is a world of actionable trending insight waiting to be found and shared. Eventually, this subject will be a best practice included in a professional arsenal of tools calibrated towards seeing better the changing markets that enterprises serve.

The Root Trend has been and will continue to be a generator of insight (for me) into social trending that matters to all businesses. It is a public notepad where many ideas I've been thinking about are considered, observed, and confirmed or discarded and it has worked well for me in this narrow respect. I realize that no one ever sees the many dozens of posts that never get published. I am also aware how my approach to the subject of socionomics is different...or not orthodox by other standards.  By sticking to the issues that are more generalized and macro in nature as they relate to social trend dynamics, I believe it is possible to expand the scope of trending studies on a path that is more inclusive of established professionals in various markets.

I don't use live bait when I fish because it makes catching big fish too easy. This isn't fishing.

I encourage any interested readers to subscribe the the Socionomicst if the the subject of social trending is interesting to you. If you are like me, the fact that this period of history will be filled with substantial change makes this subject that much more interesting. If that describes you too then it's worth it, especially right now.  I hope you will check back here during the next four years. Dave

The new trend emphasizing privacy concerns isn't about or because of Facebook

...but it sure seems that way. The trend is about our shared perceptions of each other (on a group level-societal level) and how that changes during periods of social correction:

In the past three weeks a surge in media stories about the perceived violations by social networking companies of their users personal information is not a new or surprising set of events. What is new is our shared perceptions toward all issues related to privacy matters.(recent post on this trend)

This trend is not about one company or even social networking sites in general, though the trend will affect all companies in that business (and many others) as it continues to develop directionally over the next several years. Moreover, since the trend is really just beginning to emerge right now, the surprise will be just how far we (collectively) move from yesterday's accepted norms to the other end of privacy's social polarity as a trend.

The FT and the Washington Post both ran stories this weekend how Facebook was launching an overhaul of their privacy controls for all users after a growing chorus of complaints.   

Facebook acknowledged that it was rethinking its approach to privacy but had not reached any final decisions.  ...

“There are those who think this is all just a storm in a tea cup, and there are those who think that these are very serious issues that need to be addressed at a fundamental level of the company.”

When new social trends emerge they appear initially as a surprise development. The questions asked are always the same: Is this passing or here to stay? (see reading link below)

For the moment Facebook is the top social networking site. The social trending impulses that built the idea from dorm room networking to social tool for the global masses was the shared perception of how more contacts are better, how bigger is better when knowing numbers of people, and how reaching out farther to new (the unknown)is a good thing. This impulse was a loud echo of a period of social expansion in the US (and other parts of the world too) that is now over.  During periods of social correction generally opposite kinds of trends are produced by groups of people. The key to this new trend:

The cost of inclusion to various social groupings is going up. That view will become common sense to more and more people over time. To see this, look beyond any one business and instead see the big picture of our social values. Simply raising your hand or opting-in will not longer be enough.  As shared values change toward this social dynamic in the years ahead social networking will always be important new tools in our lives. How we use them, however, will change a lot. These tools are great new innovations but to see ahead we cannot ignore how much social change will happen in the years ahead and how these tools will reflect those changes.

It is also possible that open source coding will eventually remove the for-profit company from social networking and put the individual fully in charge of their digital identity. I am not predicting that as much as I am making room for very substantial changes in social networking tools in the next few years. Malcolm Gladwell calls it a "tipping point" and Robert Prechter calls it a "point of recognition". This moment in our social history is when we collectively examine our shared values very broadly. As a result of this a lot will begin to change beyond what is being discussed here. In fact, this may seem like a small consideration over time but it certainly matters right now to more than a few companies. It's a worthy subject for businesses to consider when seeing change in the markets they serve. Especially right now. 

additional reading:

read the author of these ideas: The Wave Principle of Human Social Behavior  Robert Prechter Jr.

PS  just after posting this I noticed an Op-Ed in the Wash Post by Facebook's CEO. The first paragraph explains their motivations as a company and that is why they are now beginning to have problems. As society changes around us we all change with the changing shared values. An "open world" is a typical shared value glorified during periods of social expansion. And while there is no -on-off switch to social trending the point is how this will seem more and more out of step as time passes...especially right now. I admire this company and fully expect them to try to make needed changes. The key will be to anticipate the ongoing changes and not just to keep up. This is not just a change in social momentum. This is a brand new trend being expressed. The value in recognizing that now is how the incrementalism of the changes up till now will be different than what is directly ahead of us (collectively).

One more link to check out: Think Facebook has problems? Wait till the public discovers what spokeo.com does with already available information from those willing to sell our profiles. Go ahead; search yourself. This site proves it is not a Facebook problem, it will be framed as a larger social issue: profit versus personal privacy...and along the way every imaginable side discussion will enter...politics, state rules versus federal rules, FCC legitimacy in the digital environment, FTC rules, etc. This is going to be a multi-year societal trending process.

Business Strategy, Time Horizons and lessons learned again

In the world of financial products and securities, the concept of time horizons is very familiar. Seeing and using differing time horizons is often a useful tool for managers on the outside of that realm too. When shifting time horizons in our thinking, the natural inclination is to shift our perspective as to what really matters in two or more different sized chunks of time. Themes. A central theme in one period is often a related but highly specific focus in another that can often be better understood from even farther back (in time) where the thread of connection becomes all too obvious.  From this broad perspective we see the trip to the narrow and immediate as one that can take us from apparent natural laws to waxing and waning shared social values that can feel otherwise permanent (in the present moment). Few people today emphasize the benefit from the dual appreciation of "now" from more than one time horizon because the white noise in doing business today is a siren's song, especially in the digital world. Too often it does not fit into a sound bite.

Most business is transacted on the cusp of "today" and "right now". From this perspective, even three months from now may feel like a long time away.

There are many larger chunks of time we all naturally think in that have different significance. Think about them and how, strangely, they often do not feel relevant in the world of business. 

For instance; Why is it that we've seen such incredible changes (back and forth) in shared social values in the last 20 years in the US?  We mostly do not train ourselves to purposefully think in multiple time horizons yet we do it naturally at other times.  Let me be very specific in one narrow case:

What do dot coms and the phrase "burn rate" have to do with today? Anything? If you think back carefully, that was a phrase you could find in the business section of the NYT or the WSJ just about  everyday in the mid and late 1990's.  Is there any behavioral thread between then and right now? More specific: Are any shared social values now approximating those back then? Is that good or bad? What exactly has changed and how variable might it be? 

Why did it come to be prudent by the masses to try to be a investor in new technology companies in the late 1990's and utterly foolish a few years later?  How about real estate's extremes from the early 1980's to 2005, and now just a few years later? (extremes, yes but, different kinds of extremes) And do the current investments being made in social media platforms (this time by pros) underline the efficacy of the root trend more than ever when looking backwards? Most of the people in this world would respond how what happens "out there" is what determines the shared values that have changed us and our thinking.

The point of this blog, and this post especially, is to offer the idea that there is a larger pattern that naturally unfolds in large markets of people around us and how this can be mined in such a way as to help us emphasize that which matters more, especially in times when even more change can be expected.The tool, social mood and the patterns it creates, is flexible in that time horizons can be differentiated when using it to see behavior in markets of people we serve.

For instance: If a market for a product or service can be effectively broken up into a dozen pieces that are defined in some distinguishing manner, then is there anything about seeing multiple time horizons that can benefit us in deciding where to put our energy at a time when we feel compelled to be everywhere and appropriately engaged with all constituencies? What really matters?  Who really matters most?

From the longer time horizons the practice of business offers us a great number of what feel like  natural laws. Still, from farther back some of these can be fleeting with yet another message trumping those seemingly large lessons. In the realm of generating content, as a business: we have seen the business redefined in a decade as software increasingly replaces scores of storied institutions in our culture in a manner that might suggest permanence. Is it possible some parts will be permanent and many others just as transitory? (I think so.)

Markets of people will always naturally throw off waves of specialized efforts/functions where they are needed if it is a <mostly> free market.  Specialization is a natural human behavior but it does not necessarily confer profitability. From yet another time horizon, however, we can see how common the challenge of profitability is to many new businesses these days and, how it is also a common theme across markets of people in this larger era (longer time horizon) we've been passing through for two decades. This is not an empty observation even if it does demand one specific manner of response.

And while this last thought may not matter today or next week or even next month, that does not mean it is not timely and useful when considering the changing shared values in the market you mean to serve.

How we collectively value things changes as social mood changes. It is precisely because of this that certain old ways of doing business have never gone out of existence, and are seen to come back over and over repackaged as if brand new. If you lean on the idea of social mood as a primary underlying factor in the markets we serve, you begin to see how this is our way of reminding ourselves what shared values matter most.  Those are the longer themed lessons. The shorter themes generally look at changing shared values that underlie many social fads. That these common themes have a polarity is as important as the period through which they cycle. Seeing this right now is giant opportunity for businesses of all sizes. It is best used as a complimentary perspective, not a specialty by itself. Yet during times of significant change it will appear to stand on its own.

Finally, consider these unfolding social "trends" and how they cam impact your specific business:

• socially speaking, the cost of inclusion (to groups of all kinds) is going to trend upward. Barriers, requirement, and certification will matter more overall...

• transparency is a socially shared value that will grow in importance across many social boundaries and at the same time privacy right of groups and individuals will be  proactively pursued. 

If either of these may matter to you read the previous post on this blog.Dave

Why Privacy controls will matter more soon to everyone (What our shared reactions to uncertainty tell us about social trending issues and changing business policy)

7 23 10 thread folder is growing fat...I do not post all links but is easy to search at his point...The NYT had a great discussion this AM that finally transcends Facebook and looks at the era when Privacy became a concern broadly...The Web Means the End of Forgetting NYT 7 10

5 17 10 trend is reported in all manner of mainstream media. This flash graphic link is proof of the trend and how this discussion was late, not early.  See this annual progression of privacy details on FB

5 13 10: Wired Magazine link re Open Alternatives to Facebook Grow  5 12 10 FT link added re European privacy concerns  (9 links total to-date added on this thread) The subject is almost a mainstream discussion now whereas it was only a few months ago when digital execs were still opining on how "it's different this time" in the digital environment. And while that is true in many regards, this trend is happening because how we value things is changing as it always does with social mood.

This post was first published in early March. Until further significant developments the thread will be suspended. Privacy is a closely held shared value among people in a free society that waxes and wanes with social mood. Social networking is here to stay but changes in dailyt practices is clearly ocurring now. The original post follows:

As social mood changes what we pay attention to changes.

The very same can be said, broadly, for people (Americans) in the digital environment right now. How so?

The broad issue of Privacy was growing large several years ago (2001-2003). Think Patriot Act, the NSA's warrantless spying, and the internet in general.  Then it began shrinking away from the headlines in 2004 as social mood redirected our collective attention for the golden age of the granite counter top. This could easily be a longer detailed discussion but my intention now is to simply lay out one aspect of the landscape of social trends we are witnessing now as they relate to privacy (as a shared social value).

Privacy is looked upon as an issue of relevance to all people and every business in the US (and the world too but I focus on the specific social mood as it relates the the US right now)

The birth of the new universe of social media tools is about sharing through user generated content. It tells us a lot about how we view content and its relevance in our lives. Social media has shown us clearly how 1) it is not a fad, 2) it is about specialization of focus, and 3) The era of Choice must be served by enterprises (as it relates to content dissemination). In order to see how our collective shared values related to privacy issues (on many levels) are expressed requires only a little bit more discernment.  

When we (large groups of people, on average) view the uncertain events of the future in a more optimistic manner, we are more inclined to share broadly with expectations that lead to more inclusiveness connecting us to ever wider groups of people.  When we, (in our social aggregations seen as a moving average) view the future with a more pessimistic sense, we share less freely, or more selectively. This is a patterned social behavior and from a this larger perspective we can always be seen to be in a period of social expansion or social correction that expresses one of these two states. The values expressed today by most social networking enterprises (related to privacy issues) are positioned as if we are in a period of social expansion. When looking at the longer term time frames we are clearly in a period of social correction and eventually changes (related to privacy concerns) will be demanded by customers, and corrected for by these companies.

CNET published a discussion about privacy yesterday where Mark Zuckerberg (Face Book founder)was quoted as saying privacy is a generational issue and therefore seen differently by Y's and Xer's compared to most Boomers. His position is that 'it is different this time' for today's younger digital networkers. I disagree with his basic assumption and by doing so I am generally predicting that the shared values in the US towards privacy will re-emerge and come to dominate issues faced by digital enterprises across the US in the years directly ahead. Attitudes towards Privacy are about trust in a sense and I have written about how to see trust related social trending issues in a previous post. It all boils down to social mood and where it is headed in general. For example: During the past two years we've witnessed dramatic changes to the financial landscape. An important part of these events occurred because risk aversion became an important new shared value in our society. You don't need to think too hard to see how important risk aversion has been as an underlying causative issue in our economy.

As our shared values evolve in the groups that we attach ourselves to we can reduce these changes to some form of optimism or pessimism toward the uncertainty of the future.This is the essence of social mood.

At some point in the not too distant future, this shared pessimism will manifest as a greater need for privacy, both personally and for enterprises too. These are not separate issues but, in fact, directly connected.

As this need for privacy reasserts itself, it will likely be incremental. Many businesses that began by willingly sharing our information about ourselves will retreat from this posture to a less all-inclusive format. Membership in many platforms was often free to everyone and that seemed to serve both the business and the customers as the platforms grew. At some point "we" will require incremental "costs"(requirements) for inclusion in our networks as groups of people begin to recognize the importance of prudence related to this changing shared value.

Instead of viewing this as a prediction, consider it a behavioral pattern to watch for as it expresses itself. I believe Mark Zuckerberg is making a mistake when he cites a generational factor in the willingness to share personal information more freely. Every generation is indeed different in some ways. However, the variable attached to shared values related to privacy matters are affected by the always changing social mood. Business enterprises will eventually respect this fact and are sure to change going forward. Right now, it may seem like it is not that way at all. Allow for change because it is coming. 

The underlying issue (inclusion vs. exclusion) discussed in this post is given more thorough discussion in a few areas in this book pgs 230-235. It's worth buying if this subject is relevant to your business.

(or you can start with this DVD)

I still see Face Book as a somewhat faddish enterprise (even if they have 350 million users)but the larger digital networking trend is a permanent part of our social infrastructure. This era of Choice, as it relates to media, is about putting the consumer of content in control. Your customers should not trip over your business model because it is convenient for you not to find innovative solutions.  On the other hand, the intellectual property concerns of many media companies may benefit from this same changing set of shared values. The important thing to remember is that these circumstances change over time and how issues related to values toward privacy oscillate between extremes. For now, it is fair to say we are nearer one extreme and likely to head smartly in the next direction for a few years+.  How can an enterprise use this? The most obvious answer is to use the new two-way nature of marketing communications to stay in tune with your key constituencies. And while this last suggestion is obvious to anyone doing it now, using social mood to anticipate trending issues is still ahead of its time. Go for it.

This post belongs on my media blog but for now it is worth taking this deeper look through the Root Trend. Dave

further reading on issues surrounding this collective set of values:

posted: 3 17 10  How Privacy Vanishes online  NYT

posted 3 24 10  European Privacy Battle Looms for Facebook and Google  AP

posted 3 29 10  Sharpen The Pitchforks. It’s Almost Time For Facebook’s Privacy Wake-Up Call Tech Crunch

Facebook Seeps onto other Web Sites  NYT 4 18 10

Facebook's Gone Rogue; It's time for an Open Alternative  Wired 5 07 10

posted 5 07 10 Face book Glitch Brings New Privacy Worries  NYT 5 07 10

Tell All Generation Learns to Keep Things Offline  NYT 5 08 10

Facebook faces Fresh Privacy Concerns FT 5 12 10  (European focus)

Here's the Privacy Line that Facebook Just Crossed  Business Insider 5 09 10

Open Facebook Alternatives Gain Momentum, $115k  Wired 5 13 10

Social trends reflect the polarity of shared values

This is not just a blog about explaining social mood or some me-too effort at what other people call socionomics.  I have considerable regard and respect for those efforts.   They are distinct in many ways from what I am doing**.  Having spent years within earshot of those on Madison Avenue and having always appreciated behavioral science, this approach to "seeing" social mood is, at the very least, a required effort for two reasons: First, the goal of any good science effort is to break down an area of interest into the basic structural components so that the general understanding surrounding the subject has greater utility.  Second, the general approach I suggest is really an adaptation of watching those use the original tool from market observations that generated this subject of social herding relative to social mood. 

In my own thinking, behavioral expressions by groups (markets) of people that exhibit polarity are critical to better understanding of how to use these ideas in a practical setting.  When I distill the ideas I've collected over four years on a cork board, this is where I am at currently. It's not quite clear enough yet, but, it's getting closer:

Social trends are threads of shared memory as they relate to key (shared) values.They have form and follow a path.  Shared social values have a base polarity that swing over different time horizons from one relative extreme to another in a manner that reflects (some degree of trend) of the larger social mood and these influence social trends we see around us.  Trend lines visible in data driven depictions are evidence of the shared memory of crowds (markets) and can (when properly used) be early evidence of how changing shared values will impact specific markets. This is the usable aspect of what I call the Root Trend or (the behavioral shadow projected by us as a result of our natural expression of social mood). How we value many things changes as social mood changes.

Stated up in the mast of the blog too: This matters to marketers. 

Alas, it remains (for now) a little too hip for the room. And while changing social mood may assist the current mindset by raising the need to know during the next phase of the social correction, I also am endeavoring here to offer another very specific example of how polarity among shared values within trending issues can guide outcomes.

The media thread in the right column became its own blog 18 months ago and is also a developing book. I've mentioned this before and am still hard at work on it.  (It's definitely not in danger of being late though 2010 is a firm goal.)

In the meantime, here's a specific example of an important social trend with polarity that we may all watch develop. 

Two posts ago I wrote:

More on the link between social mood and consumer behavior: the most basic social expressions

In this post I discussed the polarity of trust from the group perspective. (You really do have to see that post, and most everything here, from the perspective of groups or else it can be misinterpreted.) As social animals we naturally employ trust as a tool but, as social mood changes how we specifically apply the tool changes with the polarity being differing degrees of cooperation and control. "Cooperation" and "control" are the polarity in the social trust trend and so how groups of people express this polarity depends upon the degree of trend of the larger social mood and how much change occurs in this central social state (of Americans). 

Let's take it a step further and identify one more trend with polarity of expression in two dimensions. 

Even if you are not in the media business you cannot help be aware of how much trouble the industry is having because of the disruptive effects of the internet upon the basic business model. Businesses are social tools we create to deliver both personal value and social utility.  There are two trends running through the media business and social sphere right now that may seem different but they are really different expressions of the same core value.  IP or intellectual property rights are, according to media companies (content businesses), under siege. Technology has conspired to un-protect their business model when it remained naturally protected for many decades. Adaption to this disruption has come slowly and in the meantime profitability has declined. Many blame what they call theft of their IP.  I submit it is a natural reaction to supply and demand issues where we are collectively re-pricing the socially recognized value of content. (admittedly, it is hard to use a macro trend to square any one experience)

The second trend to recognize is the erosion of personal privacy of individuals in the US due to this same technology expansion. This trend became a big issue at the social nadir in 2003 and 2004 then it began receding. It will come back as the larger social trend is expressed and, in time, we will see the IP trend as a business expression of the same general trend that the personal privacy trend represents. The core shared value in this case is how we value Ownership rights (towards intangibles). To me, this is the key to using what I call the root trend. Identifying social trending issues using changing shared values (that have obvious polarity) can also help determine what degree of trend carries what implications (historically). Using our history as a guide, we can pair developing issues to likely directional outcomes over larger chunks of time. By approaching trending issues from this broad angle, it is less about prediction and more about understanding the present social momentum better (in a larger/longer framework)..."what really matters to the market".

It is my conviction that many businesses get lost in the white noise of the moment in order to service their immediate needs and can lose touch with their most relevant constituencies by trying to maximize the moment. Since I know enough about the media business to appreciate how this happened, I offer an example of why this trend viewing method should be learned and applied for better strategic outcomes in times of social change. (like right now)

The typical publicly owned media business serves three masters. The share holder, the advertiser or sponsor, and the consumer of their content. The conflict of interest is too much in a changed world with a digital environment. Fundamentally, you can say that there is balance missing from the business structure. Trend-wise, you can say that the new trend where consumers of content exert their need for Choice is paramount (The Era of Choice is media's dominant trend). The psychology of the market for content tells us, if we listen closely, that the social trend is more powerful than the legal issues surrounding sharing content (Media is a higher order social tool).   Structurally, the market for content is forever changed absent significant new technology. 

So, where does that leave us right now?! Ownership rights. Eventually the IP concerns of media companies will be somehow paired with personal privacy concerns and the market for content will respond with solutions that address these needs as one trend when it matters enough in the macro social environment. <The fact that it will is a benefit of seeing what is called the degree of trend as it relates to aggregate social mood.>

This observation highlights why trend studies must focus upon societal boundaries. Ownership issues, when they arise, will be discussed as they relate to the laws in a specific country.I also suspect that the laws of different states in the years ahead will matter to both people and businesses a great deal too. Google's China issues this week are a great example. (The third link below is good for these general kinds of discussions)

For now, just try to see how issues like personal privacy concerns and IP can be two differing expressions of the same shared value, and why this issue may become as central to people in the US now as it was 233 years ago when we created our founding agreement.

Large periods of social correction are all about groups focusing on those issues <shared values> that matter most and bind a people together.They must be changed or reaffirmed.  Shared values, in a social context, guide us on how to see trend issues more clearly in markets of people.   Dave

**ps. After reading this post you might wonder again where this may be going. Eventually, this work can and will be broken into small enough pieces so as to create a distinct subject called social trending dynamics. Eventually, many good things can grow from that effort.

as always, here are links for those interested in looking deeper at where these ideas began:

Socionomics  by Robert R Prechter 

The DVD

Progress in socionomics

The original observations that lead to socionomics

Much ado about nothing? (Getting clearer on what "Free" means)

There are many references in the media universe this month to Chris Anderson's new book,  Free.  <Wired mag link for overview>  Chris has interesting ideas and is usually a good read.   I've not read the book quite yet but the Wired magazine article discusses the broad ideas.  Yesterday, I read a thoughtful reprise from Malcolm Gladwell in this month's New Yorker. 

I am not sure how either would respond to this perspective but, the developing social mood offers us valuable insight on "free" indirectly that I have addressed in a series of posts on the (iroM) media site lately.  I'd like to broaden this thought significantly here, while keeping this short.

The word "free" inspires a specific idea in my mind related to the digit 0 (zero).  Free implies it costs no money but, the use by marketers often evades the reality that while requiring no money, there are meaningful other requirements.  Does this seem like too fine a point in how they discuss the topic? The authors might think so. So might the producers of various content in the world of old media but, in the months and years ahead I figure that anyone using the term "free" is more likely to be using outmoded scales for a world that has gone well beyond this old way of seeing. "Free" requires we use a new ruler to measure its subtleties, otherwise it is increasingly likely to be considered a partial (one-sided)truth:

In years worth of notes related to social trending dynamics, social mood's basic message to me is that as social mood changes, how we (collectively) value things changes. This means things of all kinds and especially those not related to money. I see our shared values of all kinds changing very rapidly these days as the social correction progresses. That is the point of social corrections. We must go through an experiential group process of sharing and deciding what we (Americans), collectively, value most <what really matters> and continue on with our smaller group endeavors in a manner that reflects those agreed upon shared core values. Whether the bulk of the process is conscious or unconscious is less relevant than what actually happens. And while not all social corrections are as pervasive as this one, that distinction is a topic for another post. Instead, let's consider the example media enterprises are offering us right now and compare it to the broader social universe as implied by the notion that businesses are being forced to offer so much for free digitally these days.

Media posts on better metrics    Here, Here, and Here

During May through July, I posted three parts (links above) about why one of the immediate top priorities at old media enterprises, is to design and employ more detailed and sophisticated metrics that describe consumer engagement with content. It's not just a good idea that it be done. It is essential. New media companies have metrics that characterize what is best described as a revolution in marketing information related to consumer engagement. The old Don Imus-ism of "I Talk, You Listen" is a worn out pair of shoes seeing its last wearings on older demographics more resistant to change. 

There is a deeper implication to this particular period  of "free" unfolding in the digital universe that is worth seeing from a broader perspective. The best analogy is to compare it to when the electron microscope came into existence and our shared consciousness of the world changed. When this happened an entire new world of structures was revealed, as if they were brand new, and immediately inspired new ways of seeing and creating with regard to the new structural reality.(though it had always existed)

So my conclusion is simple. I believe "free", as it is being discussed, is today almost always an oversimplification and that marketers need to make much finer distinctions during this new technology driven Era of Choice as to what Free really means.  In the same way that metrics describing engagement with content must now become more sophisticated with a finer focus,  so too must our appreciation of what "cost" means to consumers.  For more than a generation the formula for marketers talking to consumers has been to roughly ignore any costs beyond those measured in dollars and cents unless it was an obvious inconvenience being removed and sold as added value.  Channels were more limited compared to today and by definition, so was the level of Choice available to consumers.

Think about two examples: Products that limit or add features and because of this they require consumer adjustments and exact incremental costs from consumers whether purchased or not (think cars). Then there's media content consumers waiting through long sets of commercials for what they hope will be worth it. These are very specific "costs" <read as a form of "uncertainty">that can be avoided today by incurring additional costs using technology. These kinds of costs are more often time oriented after initial purchases of simple technology. Feel free to see the new level of organization required on the personal level as a microcosm of the social reordering that is happening in the world of content monetization.

It is no surprise that all this is happening in a period of broad deflation in the American economy. The social correction dynamic is the highest order consideration in seeing trending. From there we may go on to see how during this period of deep social correction we are experiencing <collectively> deflation in many forms. Deflation is a psychological group state; one that implies specific needs than cannot be met by a bank adjusting interest rates.  Deflation is a mandate from us, to us, to prioritize core values and re-allocate social capital <and other kinds of capital> accordingly. This particular social correction is requiring a completely changed focus that will allow us to see small things much more clearly so that together we can become more efficient at a higher level.  Down the road, these efforts will take us another step in our collective union as a people...to engage in another period of social expansion once everything is in order.It is one giant process with many little components that parallel the larger process.

This is obviously worthy of a much longer post but free to me is something requiring exactness these days, and I do not think the discussion has been attempted yet, nor do I think the "free" many see today is thought of as the same "free" as those offering it.   Free, as it relates to content in the digital universe is an incredibly narrow perspective on what has been the most dramatic development in our nation's history. The white noise surrounding the discussion focuses mostly on negatives even when attempting to state them as positives. Social resources are being freed up because we can now be three of four times as efficient. I am certain blacksmith's felt the same way once upon a time as people stepped off of train cars in their town without the need for a sew set of horseshoes. Blacksmiths did not die off. Their creative skills were employed differently in a changed world and the mechanic was born.

Free is a very different kind of conversation for marketers in the presence of a digital universe. It requires precision and focus associated with broadly seeing a new permanent world of two way marketing communication conversations.  Ignoring non-monetary costs is no longer sensible if marketing is to be applied as an evolving quantitative discipline. With this changed perspective must come changes in how we value other things closely associated to both media and marketing best practices. All of this is the work of a social correction <in just one or two corridors of our complex society> and marketers must seize this perspective or risk missing a lot.  

Lastly, it is essential to remember this conversation is not a negotiation. No one needs to win or lose a point about "free". The Era of Choice is showing us how consumers of everything are in control like never before and that has to be respected....especially their perspective on what is free and what is not. Accepting this does not mean giving up valuable ground. Accepting this notion promises a wealth of insight and future prosperity. Dave

how we value things collectively changes with the developing social mood

When I list a must read story it is because when I view the details through the lens of social mood's changing influence upon how we collectively behave and I think there is an opportunity for profound insight.

In today's NYT story What is Free about Free Markets?

The implications in the article seem to suggest troubling long term issues embedded deep in our way of being American as we have come to know it in our lifetimes. Here's the payoff in seeing social mood (socionomics) for what it is and how it operates in our society and our economy. Seeing events through this lens does not promise easy answers but it does offer a better view of cause and effect in a time when blame is passed around like a party favor.

How We Value Things Changes with social mood. Not just strange and misunderstood financial derivatives. We are willing right now to forsake free markets to save us from unknown danger. Our shared perceived value of what free markets offers us (socially) has declined in the face of perceived danger.  The future is uncertain always and yet now we fear terrible things will result. Practical people might scream back at me "You fool!, The financial system is about to collapse!"  To that I ask the following: What was happening with regard to all of this just three years ago as many American flipped condos and measured their kitchens for granite counter tops? Plenty of very smart economists were writing about all of these excesses then but they were labeled perma-bears, Danny dooms, and pariahs, even. These days, anyone who tells "smart" people this was foreseeable, it is not only agreed with but, you are likely to be told 'why bother having the conversation'. Well, the value of free markets is a great reason among many!

Social mood, is part of our nature as it relates to social behavior when in large groups. We choose to focus on individual needs and wants <in our society> but how we behave, how we create, how (social) trends can best be seen, is through the lens of the developing social mood and the group dynamics that result from this perspective.

Check out this flow chart I posted a long while ago. It is a simplified visual interpretation of the foundation of socionomics called the wave principle. All of this is very relevant now. How we relate as individuals to this process is also very relevant to businesses and marketers because a changing social mood affects demand in the markets we serve. My new web site about media is just one example of how this can be applied specifically along with a providing healthy respect for free markets and what they can teach us about competing effectively...versus what managed markets taught us  re the media business during the past 70 years. Old media is crumbling because it was never prepared to compete widely. Stronger competitors make better products that sell for competitive prices. These are just a few of the many of the benefits free markets bestow upon a country.

If you run a business then consider this diagram. Understanding social mood will not make decisions for you but it will tell you better which questions matter most.    Dave

The breadth and depth of social mood is the utility to marketing management

I've added a new article link to the Good Reading section in the right hand column of the blog. It's a link to a Floyd Norris article in the NYT and he writes about financial matters. (A Little Pity, Please, For Lenders). Before you read the article, try seeing it through this perspective. 

The new national pastime of finger pointing, failures, cheats, and the lessons for marketers

I am republishing this December post with just a few updates and links as this trend thread is developing broadly and we can benefit by looking closer at what it says about changing the 'social condition'.  Today's Washington post has an excellent article titled  Ritual of Repentance
The Post-Scandal Litany of New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer Has Familiar Echoes
 

The Current Inflection Point in Social Mood is the Most Important Trend Change of Your Career

Inflation and Deflation are in a death match

Social mood is now changing at a very large degree of trend

Of the two statements above, the second of these matters much more than the first and chances are you've never read about the ever present dynamic of social mood and how it affects you in the markets you serve and the rest of your life. The following post is something I wrote to two people close to me; both of whom are in the path of two very industry specific, multi-generational trend changes ( I do not mention here) but especially in the general sense as offered through the perspective of 'the developing social mood'.

In the spirit of a blog, I can only post bites here and bites there, but this conversation is relevant to everyone, no matter who you are...follow along...

How We Value Things Changes #2

The chart, in the 'keep reading' section is a visual display of how I see social mood  relating to what is the ultimate process of the root trend. Yes, I use the name root trend in some ways like social mood but mostly as the process by which social mood exerts influence and is translated into indivdual action and especially patterns in consumer behavior. The chart was my first workable translation of why this is more than a series of esoteric observations and how it matters to marketers and decision makers.

Yes, a lot can be said for simply being abreast of current trends in consumer behavior but, when you add the larger dynamic of social mood and an appreciation for the degree of trend unfolding, there is the opportunity to find patterns and important subtlties where none existed before (except to the weathered & "tuned-in" professionals who can sense the changing tides in their industry). This work will help give it a name and a face. It also very clearly uses and at the same time parallels the observation used in The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. By using his stated three preconditions for a tipping point, amd together with an understanding of social mood, one can see aspects of consumer behavior from what is very likely, a better perspective.

How We Value Things Changes

This theme has emerged most prominent in my thinking in the area of social trending. Of course it is obvious but why things change is the point behind the blog and socionomics in general. It is worth discovering. This simple point, how we value things changes, has been the impetus of my work and is at the heart of the developing social mood. It is not one point to be covered in an article for those craving soundbites. Over time I will post on many differening subjects from this perspective. If you want to see it for yourself, you simply have to adjust you own thinking and expectations. Social mood, the root of most social trends, has always been present among us collectively and there are invariably many more ways to see expressions of it than we will discuss in these pages. Perhaps we can visualize many more expressions together.

Consider the following questions:

How much do houses cost these days? food? clothing? an average car? How much do they cost in dollars and how much do they cost in other measures of value? How do those values shift over long periods of time?

On a decade by decade basis what laws are changing....and how? 

How does our Federal and State governments prioritize their budgets?

What are the top five conversations most likely at a social gathering?

What do the headlines and front pages tell us about these changing values?

Changes in the aggregate social mood is at the root of all trending in society. It is as dynamic and three dimensional as any one living person yet it embodies all members of a society. Social mood is the result of ongoing human interaction and is naturally ocurring. Robert Prechter refers to it as an endognenous force and one that produces shared impulses that are distributed amongst all people in a society. I suggest you consider the trends discussed here in light of Malcolm Gladwell's tipping points in that the larger trending process must go through individual mechanical steps as it manifests across all relevant groups of association in a society.  This, over course is a fluid process as it happens. I beleive it is worth looking more closely provided this larger construct of social mood is the backdrop, otheriwse it may be too easily broken down into behavioral segments that obscure imporant meaning for marketers.

It is how we see ourselves as individuals but have a common link to the whole through a shared and unconscious set of behaviors that quietly and pervasively influence the final result of our collective activities.

The standard view that we are bombarded with everyday of our life tells us simply that we are individual reactive agents responding to events in the world around us constantly.  The socionomic perspective instructs us to consider how this thinking is misguided and in return for an honest effort over time to see how expressions of social mood correlate with social trending of all kinds, then we can begin to see (perhaps slowly), with incredible clarity, how trends reflect what is perhaps the most basic of human instincts. In the language of marketers, trending of all kinds can be seen in new light and many more discovered by understanding how to see differing trends. In this process trending will become seen as patterned social behavior, and this may be viewed in the same way we view flocking birds and schooling fish, and herding gazells. The trends we find using an understanding of social mood need not have great significance to them as all forms of social behavior have a significance, even if they are about a new cool kind of shoes to wear.   

How though does this suggest the point of this post?: How We Value Things Changes.