Imagine the a magnificent playground where anyone can find their way to enjoy life to its fullest. There is one attraction in particular that is strangely irresistible to visitors. I can’t explain why it’s so popular but I get understand its attraction. That attraction is the Merry Go Round. It is an attraction that requires communion with other visitors.
As children the merry go round taught us how to work together. We loved going round and round. Some of us would jump on and off as the ride kept going without care to how it was used. It kept going and going as long as we kept going and going.
Now, imagine this merry go round is attached to a generator. The kids playing on the merry go round spins the generator and the power generated lit up a whole network of buildings that was shared with the homes of its employees. The kids are rewarded with the currency of community, love, and joy. Is it a fair trade?
This is the business model of social mediums in the tech sector today. The visitors of their sites laboriously produce a product that is sold by the site’s owner.
This leads me, and it should lead you too, to wonder how a truly social company would operate if it were completely transparent. Well to do that, we would have to decide what the fuck a social company is. If we were to base it on how today’s social media companies operate it would involve spying on your neighbor. I had thought that society deemed spying on your neighbor to be an act of anti-social behavior. Honestly, we should not refer to these companies as social media. They are actually social engineering. They are not aiming to serve society. Their aim is for society to serve them. Under the guise that the visitor on the merry go round gains more value than the company selling their time as power generated.
And in that I think we’ve found our definition. My bias is that the word social involves sharing and/or collaboration. At a social gathering, members of the community come together to share an experience. Social Services reaches out to the less fortunate. Social media, on the service, is where people share content. Social mediums are exchanges. They exchange many forms of currency, including information.
To be continued…
Author: Jeff Donnelly
Game Designer. In both business and life, the potential is limited by the number of transactions available. Life is like a game. Jeff designs games that allow people to realize their full potential.