This is a video (below) that I directed, shot and edited for YouTube Play, a collaboration between YouTube and the Guggenheim Museum to unearth and showcase the very best creative videos from around the world. Leah D’Emilio worked together with me as producer adding her insights and helping me turn the concept I wanted to express into something magic.
Social media is one of the primary vehicles through which we interact with society. This is redefining the concept of privacy. My intention is to discuss how privacy is being redefined using the following 3 aspects of private self:
Watching others/sharing our physical self through video.
Written thoughts on personal profiles.
Private conversations in public spaces.
– With a Panasonic GF1 I recorded various angles of a woman’s body as she laid in a dimly lit room. It is a test of the viewer’s perception as to which part of the body she is being shown and from which perspective. She symbolizes our desire to watch others and how we become “naked” as we expose our lives online.
– The text scrolling along the bottom of the screen are real updates written by random facebook users who have kept their profiles public and therefore searchable on youropenbook.org. Using key search terms I was able to find very personal written statements from complete strangers who would probably never say what they wrote in public, yet their thoughts are available for public search.
– Finally, the third element of “Privacy” is the audio recording of a public space in New York City. The audio element of this project reflects how anyone can listen in on private conversation in the “real world”, paralleling the idea that anyone can “listen in on” what would be considered “private conversation” in the virtual world.
In this project the video’s role is elevated as the primary vehicle bringing these aspects together to discuss the future definition of privacy.
“Privacy” will be examined by a jury of experts that will decide which works will be presented at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York on October 21, 2010 with simultaneous presentations at the Guggenheim museums in Berlin, Bilbao, and Venice. The selected videos will be on view to the public from October 22 through 24 in New York and on the YouTube Play channel.
I’ve been interviewed by Dario Salvelli for Wired Magazine about Finland and the recent announcement (1st of July 2010) of the legal right for every Finnish citizen to have access to a 1Mbps (megabit per second) broadband connection.
The article was published on Wired Italia but since it offers some interesting stats and insights I thought to share an English version here on my blog:
Enjoy it and as usual feel free to share your thoughts with comments or via twitter @vascellari! (please remember to link back to this post so it will be easier to track and aggregate the conversation, thanks).
Andrea
Italy, 2010. Families with no PC were reduced by only 2% in the last 8 years, yet new families subscriptions of users that are willing to pay a surcharge on fees just to have a connection to 100 Megabit grew of 40% and about 78% of households with broadband access has at least one child under 18 years old. An incentive to implement the NGN (next-generation high-speed network) in Italy and not wait for the 2015 deadline set by AGCOM to assign broadband services to reduce the digital divide.
In this context, is it possible to imagine a law that includes the Internet as a fundamental right for Italian citizens? Other European countries are heading in this direction. On July 1, Finland became the first nation in the world in which every citizen has the right to access the Internet with a minimum of 1Mbps connection. This law will serve about 4000 Finnish families that still suffer from digital divide and will force providers to install cables out in Finnish rural areas where 5.3 million people live.
The village of Karvia this year will already have a 100MB connection. The plan of the Finnish Government is in fact broader and plans on providing access to 100 Mbps in 99% of the territory available by 2015 by using fiber optic and agreements between mobile operators who already use UMTS900 technology to build and expand the NGN.
“What Finland has achieved is unique not only in terms of technology but especially socially – says Andrea Vascellari, the CEO of itive.net, a digital strategy agency with offices in Finland and New York – This step also represents a turning point for strategy and communications for business, government, education systems and public institutions. In an era where the Internet is no longer an option but a core part of our daily lives we just have to hope that this decision made by a small country in Northern Europe like Finland will inspire others to move in the same direction.”
Anne-Mari Leppinen is Finnish and works for Suupohjan Seutuverkko[disclosure, Suupohjan Seutuverkko is itive‘s client], a company owned by six local municipalities (an area of 3700 km2 for a total of 30 000 persons) which aims at building an open fiber optic network that is already among the fastest in Europe. The purpose of this company is to build the network and use it but not to offer services: all the service providers have the same opportunities to provide services to clients on fiber and users can freely choose who to trust.
The network built in the city and region of Kauhajoki can already replace all the data traffic such as broadband, cable, satellite, digital TV and phone connection. In addition to this in Kauhajoki the fiber is used to improve the efficiency in real estate surveillance, remote control of industrial production and it also enhances the quality of life of the elderly people that live at home.
“At first I thought this law wasn’t a big deal because I thought the minimum speed of market regulation should be more than 1Mbps – writes via email Anne-Mari – This is because here everyone already has a connection with access of 1Mbps or higher, our clients already have some 10 Mbps and some 100Mbps symmetrical connection. When I read that Finland was the first country in the world, I immediately changed my mind. I hope that the next step is to implement an open access fiber optic network because it is the only way to get a qualitative competitive network and reach people who live outside the cities: in fact the problem is that the network operators want to invest (i.e. in fiber) only in the 20 biggest cities in Finland to receive higher revenues from the investment. This is understandable but what about all the other people? In rural areas people have no choice and are blocked by a monopoly that makes the total price and quality of connections far from reasonable. I hope the situation will change after this new law.”
“We were among the first to create an open access fiber optic network and many others are now following our path. The Finnish government has promised that by 2015 all the citizens will be able to access 100Mpbs but can only guarantee that the fiber optic will not be more than 2km away from all homes. This last section to get the fiber at home will be expensive for families (from 500 to 1000 euros) and I think the Government should give grants or support for these miles if you want people to really connect on fiber optic. The other problem is that so far the Government has not specified whether the network will be an open access network: this could potentially re-create monopolies that build closed networks with public money. This year, for example, on about 8 fiber optic projects that have public support ours, Suupohjan Seutuverkko, is the only non-commercial and open access one.”
Finland is not the only European nation that looks at the Internet as a civil right of citizens: In France, the Supreme Court has ruled that Internet access is a right, while Spain and the United Kingdom have similar laws in the pipeline that should be approved respectively in 2011 and 2012.
The Finnish ICT Minister Suvi Linden recently declared to the BBC: “We considered the role of the Internet in Finns’ everyday life. Internet services are no longer just for entertainment“
Several of the projects we work on with our team at itive.net imply change. The real difficulty is when we have to deal with systems and organizations that are often trapped by rules, both contractual or cultural that don’t leave space for innovation or paradoxically force innovation to adapt to old paths and 20th century structures. I’m not here to whine about it, in the end this is often a reality that consultants, including myself, are used to dealing with. What I would actually like to do is drive your attention to this TED video by Clay Shirky on how cognitive surplus could change the world.
Have a look at the video and check the notes I shared below…
Here are some of the points that I found interesting:
– Cognitive surplus = free time & talents (motivation/generosity) + consumer & share (tools/tech)
What happens with cognitive surplus? Human motivation and modern tools allowing that motivation to be joined up in large scale efforts. – Social vs contractual motivation. In the 20th century we thought that the lack of contract would let people operate without any constraints… unfortunately this is not true. They operate with social constraints instead of contractual ones.
The advantage of social constraints is that they construct a culture that is more generous than the contractual constraints do. On the other hand what’s broken by contractual constraints stays broken, and this condition can persist over long time periods. – So the trick is in understanding where we are laying on the economic side and where on the social side. – Communal vs Civic value
Communal value: created by the participants for each other. We find it everywhere we have large amounts of public data available online (photos on flickr, videos on youtube, etc.).
Civic value: created by the participants but enjoyed by the society. Goals are not just set up to make life better for the participants, but to make life better for everyone in the society in which the system is operating. This is not just a side effect of opening up to human motivation, it’s going to be a side effect of what we collectively make of the concept. – Long story short: people have a lot of free time, and they can do better when not trapped by contractual constraints. So organizations designed around the culture of generosity will be able to achieve incredible effects without an enormous amount of contractual overhead. – The key: Support people who are trying to use cognitive surplus to create civic value. By doing that we’ll be able to change society.
Thoughts? Share them here on the blog or via twitter @vascellari.
Email notifications? Yes, but only for comments left on groups and personal profiles. That’s how Facebook works. No email notifications for the administrators of Facebook Fan Pages.
1) Just click on the ‘Like’ option at the bottom of the entries you post on your Facebook Fan Page. You’ll receive an email notification every time someone will comment on it.
2) Make sure that all the boxes under ‘Links’ in your notification account settings are checked (Account Settings > Notifications > Links)
UPDATE 1: If you still feel that it’s pretty strange to ‘auto-like’ every post, here’s another tip: Add a short comment on each entry so you will receive email notifications on the following comments 😉
UPDATE 2: Fan Page Notifier is a service which alerts you when someone posts on your favorite pages in Facebook. I just started to play around with it, have a look and let me know if it works for you too! Thanks to @nikan for the comment & suggestion!
Why this is useful?
This is great to monitor comments on recent and especially previous updates. Without email notifications there’s no other way to be notified on any interaction on older updates shared on your Facebook Page.
If you have any other suggestion or tips on how to get Facebook Fan Pages email notifications share it in the comments or via twitter @vascellari (please remember to link back to this post so it will be easier to track and aggregate the conversation, thanks).
Since we are talking about Facebook Pages, here’s mine. On this page you’ll find interesting news and insights on strategic PR, marketing, social media and communications that I don’t share anywhere else.
Everybody loves lists…well, this is a ‘mega list of lists’! During the last 3 years I’ve put together a collection of links that lists PR and marketing content related to the social media universe.
I will keep adding new items to the list and if you are a regular subscriber of my blog you’ll find all these updates in my reports. In this post I mentioned only ‘lists’ but in my reports I include other valuable content too like stats, case studies, ebooks, white papers, info-graphics, etc. so if you didn’t subscribe yet to my blog but you think it would be a good idea, grab the rss feed and stay tuned! 😉
Age Of Conversation 3 (AOC3), the book that I co-authored with an amazing group of marketing pros, is finally out and you can get it on amazon! It’s available in:
(the proceeds will be donated to an international children’s charity of our authors’ choosing – stay tuned for more updates). Once again a special thanks goes to Gavin Heaton and Drew McLellan for inviting me to join this great project.
What’s the book about?
Age of Conversation 3 captures the distinct shift from social media as a hypothetical consumer loyalty tool, as it was considered only a little more than a year ago, to its current state as a staple in the modern marketing toolbox. Although the book covers more than just social media, the topic is ubiquitous among the book’s 10 sections: At the Coalface; Identities; Friends and Trusted Strangers; Conversational Branding; Measurement; Corporate Conversations; In the Boardroom; Innovation and Execution; Influence; Getting to Work; and Pitching Social Media.
Enjoy it and let me know what you think about it here on the blog or via twitter @vascellari!
What’s NEXT in the Booming App Economy? We’ll find out next week…
May 11 & 12 I’ll be in Berlin (Germany) for the 2010 edition of the NEXT. Once again I’ve been invited as an official blogger so stay tuned on this blog by subscribing via RSS to get all the juice straight from the event and follow me on twitter (@vascellari) for all the live updates from the venue. I’ll arrive in town the 10th and I will leave the 13th, so if you want to meetup let me know!
What?
We discuss how the currently exploding mobile app store ecosytem (App Economy) affects the digital strategies of companies. The question of how companies will meet their consumers on mobile devices will affect the business models faster than PCs and the Internet did in the past. Therefore the 2010 edition of NEXT presents the most interesting Game Changers and examines with and amazing speakers lineup the booming App Economy.
Who?
The organizers are expecting a hundred international speakers and up to 1.500 participants. Amongst them will be decision makers of the media, technology and advertising sector, agencies and service providers, investors and start-ups. It is the only conference that unites the Internet community with brands and leading companies.
Where?
The NEXT conference will take place at the STATION-Berlin, Luckenwalder Straße 4-6, 10963 Berlin.
Meet the itive.net at NEXT! Every time I take part with my team (itive.net) in an event we meet many interesting people full of ideas and talent. Often times we end up working with, supporting and helping some of these people develop their projects. If you want to meet us at the NEXT conference let us know via twitter @itive or contact me personally @vascellari! We would love to meet you face to face in the real world and talk together about your projects! See you soon in Berlin!
I will eventually update this post with more info… stay tuned!
What steps do you need to take to create a valuable online service or business
What’s the strategic approach that an individual can follow to create value, authority, credibility and the opportunity to make business online
Video highlights below. Enjoy it!
@Robin: Thanks for the great time, it was nice to see you again! 🙂
Andrea
Video highlights:
Anyone can do what she/he wants for a living
There is one thing that everybody should keep in mind. Nowadays, more than ever before, everyone has a chance of doing what he or she loves for a living.
Going Global
Why? Because we are going global. With a simple blog and few clicks you have the chance of connecting with the entire world. It’s definitely interesting period the one we are living in.
Being Passionate
At the base, before focusing on technology, it’s important to be really passionate about what you are doing. I see way too many people who are unsatisfied with their jobs, and I can’t stand that. Maybe it’s because I am an entrepreneur. I really do what I love. I love my job. That is what I am really passionate about in my life and I think everyone has some passions. I think they should go for it. Online you are instantly connected with the entire world. You will find other people that have your same passions becoming your target audience, whether you do it for business or not.
What you do doesn’t have to be necessarily related to business (it could non-profit etc.) but let’s say that you have the possibility of finding a place to express yourself. Usually, if something is done with passion, you have that drive to go on that usually other people do not have. It’s not going to be easy. Every time you do something, you will find roadblocks. Ultimately, passion is the drive that makes you go on. Nothing really starts or works in first place if you do not really want it badly.
Start By Listening
First thing you should do is to start by listening a little bit what’s going on and understanding who is already out there. Let’s say you want to start your own small business. You should carefully listen to which are the other players in your field and to understand in which environment you will have to move, because sometimes it will happen… you won’t be the first. You definitely have to pay attention to them, and then of course build a presence on the web that express your strategic communications plan. It doesn’t have to be just ‘a blog’, your online presence is going to be the gate between you and the world or your target audience, so it has to be done really carefully.
Jump Into The Conversation
After that, you can start to jump into the conversation that is happening out there – I do not want to say “join” the conversation, because I am sick of hearing it. Everyone is talking about “joining the conversation” and just few people actually do it. Anyway… you have to start to jump into that, where the conversation is already happening, with your audience, with people within your niche. After that, when you establish a basic connection with this environment that is out there, then you can start to be proactive.
Build Trust, Engage Deeper
Once the trust is built, then you can start to engage at a deeper level and eventually this will translate into business. It could also be just for a passion or for the organization you are working for. It just depends on which is your focus and what are your objectives.
When Does The Money Show Up?
The money comes after you establish a real connection with your audience, after your target audience trusts you. The money will come after, as a consequence.
I tell you an example.
Every time I go to Venice – I come from Venice region in Italy – I go to the market on Friday morning. I go there and buy some good fresh fish. There are tons of people that are selling fish, but I always go to the same lady. There is no way I can go and buy fish from anyone else, because I bought fish from her for years.
How she convinced me at first?
observing the crowd and stopping me when she noticed that I need some fish,
showing me the really good fish she had,
why would have been better to buy from her and not from others,
giving me good tips on how to cook fish, and so on.
She established a real emotional connection, so I trusted her and I became her client.
You can basically do the same online. At that point – after you have built all these connections – is where the money is going to come. It’s going to be a consequence.
Word of Mouth
Another important thing is what you call in Italian “il passaparola“, the power of word of mouth. Happy clients will talk to other potential clients and they will bring them to you. It’s going to be also your community that will help you and your business grow.
What is it?
Relationships that people have on the web can be described with concentric circles. The innermost represents the people we trust the most, our closest friends. When we start to move out from that close group of people, our trust starts to fade away until we reach the point in which we start to rely more on the opinions of ‘experts’ or more authoritative and recognized voices in that space.
Update based on comments: Existence of multiple groups of circles around each individual. Each one of these groups is dedicated to a specific niche (professional, personal life, etc.). Although certain contacts can be present on different groups, according to the niche we are looking at they can have a different level of influence/trust.
Why it’s important?
The understanding of the trust circle dynamics can offer great positioning advantages for brands, strategists and other communications practitioners. Understand where you are standing or where you should eventually be helps the listening process, the engagement, the acquisition, the support and the retention of your target audience.
Take this as a conversation starter. What would you add to it? What’s your take?
I’d love to hear your thoughts here in the comments or via twitter @vascellari (remember to link to this post!).
“Hey Andrea! When will you release a new post on your blog? Can’t wait for it!”
I’m happy when I receive direct messages like this one. Yes I will keep blogging, I’m just going through an intense period that doesn’t leave me much space for producing ‘free content’ here on my blog.
In the last 6 months business exploded for my team and me at itive. We are taking care of several new projects and have new clients waiting down the line to work with us. This period in which I’m living now got me thinking about the time I spend creating and sharing free value VS payed work for my clients.
The good side of the free content is that it helps me to share snippets of what I do with people who find value in it and end up contacting me when they need help with their marketing, PR, web design, etc. This ultimately translates in more work for my team. Sharing free content on my blog also gives me the chance to exchange thoughts, ideas, and opinions with you. Learning from each other is priceless. I am and will always be thankful for what I learned and will keep learning from our conversations.
On the other hand, the client work I do with itive is what ultimately puts food on the table and pays the bills. So when new projects come, I have to take care of them.
I see many other friends and colleagues changing their relationship with the free content they produce. Here are a few names:
Big changes also for the magic duo Terry Fallis & David Jones that recently left Inside PR in the hands of an outstanding Martin Waxman (@Terry @David: Martin rocks but I’ll miss you guys).
Gary Vaynerchuk is slowing down too because he needs more time to focus on other areas to stay on the edge.
The balance between investments in free VS payed is my dilemma and it’s not something that I extend to the people I listed. Someone might be drowning in new tight schedules, others have less or nothing more to say so they are reducing the amount of time for producing free content to leave space for other activities that add more value at a personal level or for the organization they are working for. Priority is shifting.
I feel that we (content producers) all have arrived to a point in which we are evaluating more carefully where to invest our time, energy and experience.
Am I going to start charing for my content?
I don’t think this will happend anytime soon. Part of the what I produce will keep being released for free, but recently I’ve been thinking about if/how this will change in future.
There’s a wind of change blowing in our industry that is making me and many other content producers think. Do you feel it? What’s your take? And if you are a content producer how are you dealing with it?
