Joe Gerstandt | keynote speaker, freedom fighter, freak-flag flier

I had the pleasure of sitting on a panel discussion Friday evening considering the impact of social media, and of course we really only scratched the surface of a big and important conversation. 

I am a big believer in the potential of social media tools, but first and foremost I am an advocate for making informed decisions about social media tools.  There were a number of questions and comments Friday night about “how social media will impact ____________” …our brains, our relationships, society, families, government, etc.  Important questions no doubt, but I always have to push back a bit in conversations like this and ask that we consider our intentions. 

The key word in social media is social and what social media really represents is an opportunity to reconsider our relations and our ways of being together…really putting social media to work in substantial ways is more about ecology than it is about technology. 

I have no doubt that we can use social media to subvert hierarchies by building new networks and new kinds of networks of relationships.  I have no doubt that we can use social media to diffuse power.

If we choose to.

We can use social media to build new relationships and add context and reach to existing relationships.  We can use it to:

• experiment and create
• participate in shared inquiry
• tell our stories
• bear witness to the stories of others
• to ask big questions

We can do all of these things with social media and I think that we have already seen numerous examples of this, but it all comes back to our intentions.  Social media might shift some power on its own, but it is not going to diffuse power…unless we use it to do so.  Social media is not going to immediately make organizations and institutions more transparent and more responsive…but we can use them towards that end.

And this is why many organizations struggle to successfully integrate social technology.  They are distracted by the technology and ignoring the ecology.  And truth be told, most organizations are very uncomfortable with the idea of reconfiguring the relationship that they have with employees and/or customers.  Adult-adult relationships with employees and/or customers require a different organizational culture and a different kind of leadership than most organizations have.

Tools are secondary, intentions are primary.  What is that you aspire to accomplish?  How would you like to reconfigure the relationships that are critical to your work?

Be good to each other.