I attended the Gnomedex 9.0 Social Media Conference in Seattle. While it was wonderfully informative and every single person that I met was engaged, interesting, and accomplished in some productive way related to social media, I was left with some troubling observations as well as some very inspiring moments.
Observation:
1. Trillions upon trillions of dollars are being transferred to Social Media with the persistent extinction of old media dinosaurs – does anyone care?
2. Advertising concerns, print media, corporate HR, were strikingly absent from the corporate vendors on site and in among the sponsors – they should have been hovering over in helicopters.
3. There were ONLY a few hundred people in attendance – there should have been a few hundred thousand (6619 Tweets sent).
4. This event should have been gold plated – it was not, which leads me to some of the inspiring moments.
Inspiring Moments:
1. Many of the presentations reflected social priorities like the environment, using social media to empower yourself and the people around you, and empowering less developed nations.
2. Relative absence of commercialization
3. Gnomedex 9.0, means that 9 have occurred and this is what it has “evolved to”. As a worthy social experiment in itself, this shows us what social media WILL evolve to
4. Building trust was a predominant theme
Read Between the lines:
Social media reflects social priorities, not Wall Street Priorities – in fact, the table has turned. For example: Twitter will be charging Corporations to view social media – after corporations failed to get people to pay them to view social media.
Every single business transaction is subject to a similar “reversal” relative to social media space. The World has no idea what’s coming down the tracks.
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