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Before we go any further…

I want to point out that what I am describing here is a process, a way of looking at how we create whether it involves groups of people or individuals and what we need in the way of tools and environments to support us along the way. The concepts and processes are not linear or pretty and admittedly leave lots of room for further exploration and development.

Let’s get going..

Now that we have the creative spectrum somewhat sketched out let’s see how it can work with the social media. The primary element of social media, in fact its’ keystone is connectivity at levels that far exceed what we could have imagined even a year ago. And… this connectivity has different levels of applicability depending on the users intent and goals. Before we look in detail at specific social media let’s try to find what Creators, Makers and Producers need to succeed, what tools are most useful to them. The brief list below summarizes common tools and methods, some have been available but limited in their usefulness.

Brainstorming - This is one of the fundamental tools of creativity. While it is possible that it can be done alone, in this context it is considered best used interactively with 2 or more participants.
Collaboration -Whether between those working in like media or dissimilar media collaboration is often a tool for generating new outcomes. Often new ways of seeing the same problem/issue or a new direction or concept emerges through collaboration and interaction
Critique and feedback -In order for creatives to successfully achieve their vision they need to engage the eyes, hearts and opinions of others as a reality check. Given their goal…does their concept or theory attain the desired outcome?
Moral and professional Support - Just as critique and feedback are important to the creative process so is having access to moral and professional support. This kind of support can be everything from a colleague being a phone call away to a regular mastermind group that provides encouragement and professional mentoring. provide user friendly tools for dialogue.
Background research - One of the early steps in a creative venture is background research designed to find out what if anything has been done before and what the results were.
Market research - Separate from background research is the particular type of research linked to the branding process. Market research is important in the concept stage as well as the producer stage, however, the intensity of its use may vary throughout the spectrum.
Client/customer support - Good customer support which can include helping customers use their products, to getting usability feedback is very important .
Visibility- Visibility contributes heavily to a product’s success… the more extensive the visibility possibilities generally the better the sales. For visibility to work it must give the users the ability to be seen by their buyers.
Customer/client communication -Being able to communicate in a direct and timely manner to customers keep them informed and up to date for new developments is a strong determiner of success.
Market connection - Having reliable channels to connect to markets is also very important to ensuring good communication with users and being able to respond to changes in market preferences.
Relationship development - The relative ease with which potential relationships can be identified and developed between Makers and Producers and their markets as well as amongst their colleagues cannot be underestimated. This factor is particularly important now with the decline of traditional interruption based marketing.

Now lets take a more focused look at these in relation to the Creators,Makers and Producers. A word of caution…this is at best an approximation and for simplicity sake implies that the spectrum overlap areas will also include overlap in social media usefulness.

Creators

Since this part of the spectrum leans heavily towards the conceptual ( see part 1) tools that will be the most useful are the ones most likely to enhance creative thought. Their primary needs are:

Brainstorming
Collaboration
Critique and feedback
Moral and professional Support

Makers

Again as described previously in part 1, this group starts to interact with the market while at the same time providing feedback to the original creators of the recipes and templates they are refining. Their primary needs include:

Visibility
Relationship development
Market and background research
Moral and professional support
Customer communication
Relationship development
Market connection

Producers

This part of the spectrum’s needs are quite different than the others in that it is heavily market focused. The primary needs of Producers are:

Visibility
Relationship development
Market and background research
Customer communication
Relationship development
Market connection

In summary the Creative community needs the following environments and tools:

Interactive to easily sprout and nurture creative thought and interact with peers
Relationship building to enable easy relationship development with their markets peers
Market focused to help build and maintain visibility and disburse brand messages

The next step…

is to take a look at social media to see what tools are available and which type of media works best for Creators, Makers and Producers respectively. Let’s first look at what constitutes Social Media by definition…Wikipedia describes it as

“Social media are primarily Internet- and mobile-based tools for sharing and discussing information among human beings. The term most often refers to activities that integrate technology, telecommunications and social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio. This interaction, and the manner in which information is presented, depends on the varied perspectives and “building” of shared meaning among communities, as people share their stories and experiences.”

Organizing Social Media

Blogs and Microblogs web site that allows individuals or groups to produce an ongoing conversation, microblogs limit uses to small bursts of information.
Interactive/Social networking networks that allow users to interact directly either in real time of very close to it.
Social network aggregation sites that gather all of the social media messages and content and categorize it for reading
Events networks online networks that allow users to organize users around specific subjects and schedule live on-site meetings.
Wikis a web site that allows collaborative editing of its content and structure by it’s users
Social bookmarking sites that allow users to save, recommend and comment on web content
Opinion sites consumer evaluation, review of products and services
Photo and Video sharing sites that provide a means of sharing organizing and sharing photographic and video content with users
E-commerce sites that allow users to sell products they created or are re-selling

Matching the needs with the tools

Now lets organize these according to how they can help the creative community with an eye on the specific needs Identified earlier.

Brainstorming - Collaboration

Microblogs / Presence apps Twitter, Pownce and Jaiku
Photo sharing Flickr
Video sharing YouTube,
Interactive Networks shapshifters, deviant art, Behance network. Likemind, Ning
Wikipedia wiki’s, forums and membership sites

Critique and feedback

Blogs & micro blogs Twitter, Pownce and Jaiku
Wikis PB wiki
Photo & video sharing Flickr,YouTube
Social/Interactive networks shapshifters, deviant art, Behance network. Likemind, Ning
Wikipedia wiki’s, forums and membership sites
Opinion sites epinion,ask

Moral and professional Support

Social/ interactive networks Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, deviant art, Behance network Likemind, Ning forums
Event Networks Meetup

Background research

E-commerce Etsy, e-bay
Wikipedia
Microblogs / Presence apps Twitter, Pownce and Jaiku
Social bookmarking Delicious, StumbleUpon,Digg, Mixx, Reddit
Event Networks Meetup

Market research

Blogs
E-commerce Etsy, e-bay
Social/ interactive networks Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, shapshifters, deviant art, Behance network Likemind, Ning
Wikipedia wiki’s, forums and membership sites
Event Networks Meetup

Visibility

Blogs & micro blogs Twitter, Pownce and Jaiku, blog catalogue, good blogs
Photo & video sharing Flickr,Youtube
Social/ interactive networks Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, deviant art, Behance network, Ning
Event Networks Meetup
E-commerce Etsy, e-bay

Customer/client communication

Blogs & micro blogs Twitter, Pownce and Jaiku,
Photo & video sharing Flickr,Youtube
Social/ interactive networks Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, Ning site
Event Networks Meetup
E-commerce Etsy, e-bay

Market connection

E-commerce Etsy, e-bay
Blogs & micro blogs Twitter, Pownce and Jaiku
Social/ interactive networks Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, Ning site

Relationship development

Blogs & micro blogs Twitter, Pownce and Jaiku
Social/ interactive networks Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, Ning site
Event Networks Meetup

Part 3…..

will will take a closer look at just what and how Creators, Makers and Producers can utilize social media from Facebook to Twitter to YouTube.

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A Different Look at Creativity Part II: the social media mix

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Social media?

Many of my posts so far have hinted at a phenomenon that has increased pace of change in the world leading many to wonder often doubtfully about it’s role in day to day life. Much of the doubt comes from those who are mystified by technology and can’t imagine how technology can help them. Since the phenomenon I am talking about is technology based but it is and will effect the way we live our lives far more than we can imagine now. Technology and specifically the web has been seen in the not to distant past as an isolating influence on our culture, causing us to lose touch with the world around us as our intimate circle of friends shrinks. There have been fears of a growing social alienation especially in the iGeneration as we have tried to understand the meaning of Facebook, MySpace etc. Not even a year ago I really didn’t see the point of Facebook but that has changed.

Starting to converse

Of course the phenomenon I am talking about is Social Media. A recent article in the NY Times by Clive Thompson discloses the true nature and value of Social Media both to our relationships and to our businesses. It also hints at the role it can play in creating community…something we collectively seem to be longing for. Joseph Jaffe in his book Join the Conversation talks about the changes in the marketing world that are occuring as the result of Social Media/networking especially as it has hastened the demise of advertising as we used to know it an event which has long been over due.

Isolation moves to connection

Before I go into how all this should concern us as artists let me continue with the thread brought up by Thompson’s article and Jaffe’s book by brining in another player t he guy who pretty much star ted it all, Mark Zuckerberg the college student behind Facebook. You see a couple of years after he launched it he realized it’s major problem was the time it required for users to stay up to date with their friends…so he set out to fix it. Overnight, he set up what has come to be called the news feed that works very much like RSS subscriptions permitting friends to basically “subscribe” to each other’s updates. The next morning saw a major revolt when users began logging on to their Facebook pages. They flooded Zuckerberg with e-mails wanting the old system back. But Zuckerberg knew his audience well within a couple of days everyone was happy. The primary point of contention was much the same as today when non- social media users as”why would I want to know every time Joe eats a sandwich and what kind he is eating?” or “why should I care if he broke up with his latest girlfriend?” Well it turns out that they ultimately did want to know those tidbits and they found that knowing them created a different level of knowing their friends…kind of like having them in the same room.

Ambient intimacy at work

Ambient Intimacy

What they were experiencing was something social scientists have called ” ambient intimacy” it is in essence similar to the feeling of closeness we have when we sit across the room from someone and watch their quirky mumblings, or gestures. Individually such actions have little meaning but lumped together over time they start adding up to a description of the person’s mood, their inner workings. If you are an unabashed people watcher you know what I mean! Friends found themselves much closer when they met because the time distance had shrunk, they were able to converse as if they had just seen each other…in short they knew more about what was occurring in each other lives and how it effected them.

Facebook,Twitter and the tools for conversation

Facebook is no longer the only game in town, last year Twitter broke the surface followed closely by Friend feed. Both of these services offered one thing, a way to stay in touch a way to be closer to each other yet remain far away. Both services are what has become know as “micro-blogs” limited by the amount of text that can be written they have become a way for people in a particular circle to stay in touch and more importantly to widen that circle or have different circles for different levels of acquaintance.

So last year when I found out about Twitter I joined but really didn’t get it until the last few months. Coupled with my Facebook toolbar for Firefox I now get regular little blurbs that pop up on the bottom of my screen whenever one of the people I am connected with has something to say. That very action has allowed me to get to know what used to be pretty close to complete strangers. As a result, I have several potential partners for workshops or seminars each having a strong skill I am lacking in. I hinted above about communities, again this is one of the things social scientists have found occuring more and more as a result of staying connected with each other. And these communities are no longer limited by geography. Families like mine that are spread across the globe can stay connected and in each others lives much better than an hour phone call every couple of months.

Artists Twitter?

So…how does this help us as artists? Well, in a nutshell it provides us with tools we didn’t have available even as recent as a year ago. Furthermore, it has along with Tivo has played a major role in the demise of traditional advertising. It has essentially changed the way we can help our clients and patrons by giving us the means to develop and maintain conversations that are based on a many-to-many model instead of a one -to-many model. It has empowered our clients and patrons to converse with us and us with them around what we offer and how we deliver it, it allows us to focus more on them and them on us. As a result, artists can develop networks of clients/patrons everywhere they go and they can stay in each others minds so when an artist travels to an art fair their local follows know to show up and also know what treasures await them.

For the fearful these tools are a threat because they nag at their self esteem, bringing judgmental demons, but they also remind us that our success ultimately depends on us and our ability to adapt and grow. An example of the strength of these networks happened to me last week someone on my Twitter feed saw one of my posts and commented on it…the world is indeed changing as it shrinks the revolution is here and we are it!

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