Social Networking and the World of Gurus

I often will check out the blog that is published next to mine.

It is strictly a random blog and often it is something in a foreign language that I don't know. The photos are cool.. so it keeps me looking.

The blog next to mine one day brought an interesting subject to light.

Fayza.me - Fayza Elmostehi
Fayza

This blogger works as part of the Schipul web marketing company in Houston TX. They have a whole section on their website that focuses on consulting companies with websites to include social networking into the design. Fayza does this as part of her job.

One of her entities was the Houston Zoo. The usual corporate website was one of her responsibilities as well as as developing connections on social networking sites. She found that there were Flickr groups of photos of the Houston zoo that could be linked on a frequent basis and tied to the Houston Zoo website. She even developed a "Photo Day" where patrons of the zoo could upload on their site, the photos that were taken during a particular period of time. There were also many people that gave good advice to others going to the zoo that could be referenced in a live section in the website. We are all reporters, we are all photographers, we are all critics.


It is interesting that the new social networking tools are being used to fulfill a vital need for the gen x and millennial generations. If you have a particular need from a company the old email piece is often ignored while the customers that help other customers in social networking contexts is alike and well. What does that mean? Its pretty strange that the best corporate advertising in this era occurs from customer to customer with some interaction from the company. The movement away from top down interaction is huge.

What are the vehicles of this movement? Web pages with their structure tend to be the static source of information in this world. Little details may be targeted in branching so that the particular audience for subsets of information may be sourced. My friend Ron had trouble with his new washing machine. It was throwing up an error code. He went on the web and found his model but was unsuccessful in finding his error code translation. Doing a google search for a more general information about the washer, he was able to go out in specificity and found a pdf for his model along with many other models in a very as he would describe it "nasty looking website."

He downloaded the pdf file and was able to determine from the pdf file that the error code was coming from the drain filter. Using his trusty ohm meter he realized that the washer was still running the drain sequence when the drain was full. The little pump had burned out. From this pdf, he was able to figure out the number of the part he needed. The local appliance part supplier was pretty amazed that he had a part number for them. They did not have that part in stock (no surprise there) but he was able to order it on line.

It is this kind of focus in, focus out, focus in, we really need to be teaching our students in this new era. Many are doing this all the time. The old term paper pales in comparison.

It would not surprise me that there are people in my facebook group that could help in such a quest. The average facebook group is just over 150 people strong. Do you think that any of them have done some of this kind of search on the web?

Corporate America is monitoring what is said about them in these social venues as well. There are social network readers that may be set up to monitor mentions of a particular product or service. These specialized virtual robots, when connected to actual people in the offices are the most valuable asset to clear up tangential miscues.

I think the most interesting series of events occured with Linzi and her Ipod earlier this year. She sent in a Ipod for repair to a company that promised swift turnaround. That didn't happen. Her plight was revealed to many people also contemplating such a repair. A corporate black eye was sent out via other blogs and social networks and soon the company made many offers to correct the situation.

This kind of thing really rocks my generation. It hard to believe that we are so close to someone that can get soemething done!

I guess that is why they took the unincripted Blackberry away from Obama!

: ) Pat