Jim Huston: Mixing social media and business

Fred Flintstone is probably better qualified to comment on rocket science than I am to do the same on social media. However, social media “fossils” like me might have their place and provide some value.

Wikipedia states, “Social media are media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable communication techniques. Social media is the use of Web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into interactive dialogue.” A communication and relationship revolution is taking place that is driven by both technology and propensity. Without the technology, nothing new would happen. Without the propensity (the desire and the inclination to act like social beings), the technology would merely sit on our shelves and wither.

What’s Happening. Social media allows individuals and groups to connect, interact and change behavior at the speed of light. Twitter, YouTube and Facebook have been credited, at a minimum, with accelerating the revolution in Egypt that saw the downfall of Hosni Mubarak.

The film “The Social Network,” directed by David Finch and starring Jesse Eisenberg, chronicled the founding of Facebook. It won three Oscars and lost five. I saw the movie, and I’m still trying to figure out what the fuss is all about.

The first social media revolution. In the book “1,000 Years, 1,000 People: Ranking the Men and Women Who Shaped the Millennium,” the authors rank the most influential men and women of the last millennium. At the top of the list is Johannes Gutenberg, 15th century inventor of the movable-type printing press.
Why did the authors place him at the top of their list? I’d say that it was because he started the first social media revolution. Europe and the world were changed for the better and forever.