Watch it and you would realize why we are a confused lot!

In an interesting info-graphic of a recently published research titled “How Social Media is Ruining Our Minds“, it was observed that, over the course of the last ten years the average attention span has dropped from 12 minutes to a staggeringly short 5 seconds. That’s right! Just 5 seconds! People around the world spend close to 700 billion minutes on Facebook every month, and there handling over 1.6 billion search queries per day on Twitter and 250 million tweets per day (Oct 2011). Those are huge numbers!

In such times, there ought to be better strategies for Social Media engagement for individuals as well as business. Almost as prevalent as blind social media evangelism is the level of fatigue and ennui around it.

Driving social Media or being driven by it ?

Information as the building block for Social Media Platforms

In my opinion, one of the key influencers of the Social media phenomenon is around the word Information. In an article first published in 1995, advances in computers and data networks inspire visions of a future “information economy’‘ in which everyone will have access to gigabytes of all kinds of information anywhere and anytime. Ten years from now we may find the economic institutions of the information economy a similarly unremarkable part of our day-to-day life. (The Information Economy: How much will two bits be worth in the digital marketplace? – Hal R. Varian, 1995).

I would like to believe that the Social Media is a direct consequence of this information economy and its main drivers are . . . → Read More: The Social Media Fatigue – Life in the Information Economy]]> We live in interesting times. Did you know that many people now access their Facebook profile the first thing in the morning and It is difficult to communicate with some people, because they are not social media savvy.

In an interesting info-graphic of a recently published research titled “How Social Media is Ruining Our Minds“, it was observed that, over the course of the last ten years the average attention span has dropped from 12 minutes to a staggeringly short 5 seconds. That’s right! Just 5 seconds! People around the world spend close to 700 billion minutes on Facebook every month, and there handling over 1.6 billion search queries per day on Twitter and 250 million tweets per day (Oct 2011). Those are huge numbers!

In such times, there ought to be better strategies for Social Media engagement for individuals as well as business. Almost as prevalent as blind social media evangelism is the level of fatigue and ennui around it.

Driving social Media or being driven by it ?

Understanding the Why

Information as the building block for Social Media Platforms

In my opinion, one of the key influencers of the Social media phenomenon is around the word Information. In an article first published in 1995, advances in computers and data networks inspire visions of a future “information economy’‘ in which everyone will have access to gigabytes of all kinds of information anywhere and anytime. Ten years from now we may find the economic institutions of the information economy a similarly unremarkable part of our day-to-day life. (The Information Economy: How much will two bits be worth in the digital marketplace? – Hal R. Varian, 1995).

I would like to believe that the Social Media is a direct consequence of this information economy and its main drivers are the terms Informational Activity and the Information Industry. Information could be of different kinds. They could be functional, instructional / actionable, recreational, motivational, confidential, philosophical, knowledgeable etc. Each of this information created could be either short lived or meant to last for a certain amount of time. It could be a valuable one or a useless one. It could be global or it could be local. It could be a created bit or it could be shared bit.

In the times of the Social Media and Social Networks, this information is getting created at a rate faster than ever before. Emails, Tweets, Social network updates, are best when they are consumed fresh and the rise of technological platforms that ensure a 24X7, seamless experience, we end up consuming more than we can handle. Social Networks and Social Media platforms are the facilitators of this information dissemination and promoter for information exchange.

In the times of Social Media, we are the champions of creating Information. From amateurs to professionals across all age groups are creating this information. Practically anyone with an access to the technology has the power at his fingertips to create the information, which could then be shared and consumed at a much larger platform in this globalized world.

However we should understand that every-information that we consume, takes some of our energy. It is this excessive consumption of energy that brings in the fatigue.

Nobel laureate economist Herbert A. Simon puts it nicely, “What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it. Technology for producing and distributing information is useless without some way to locate, filter, organize and summarize it.”

On one side you have excessive information being created and on the other hand, there is only a certain amount that the brain can process and consume. This is resulting in Social Media Fatigue.

What is it resulting in?

You are being watched. Every thing from whom you follow to what you read to what movie you saw to whom who hanged out with. It has taken over our lives.  This takeover of the life by the Social Media Networks is something that needs some pondering over. The times we live in often reminds me of the note in the George Orwell’s classic 1984, Big Brother is watching you. Social Media and Networks are the new Big Brother.

In a research done by Retrevo, for over 1000 participants, they found that close to 42% of the respondents accessed Facebook the first thing in the morning. The Retrevo Gadgetology study also shows that 48% of those polled say they update Facebook or Twitter during the night or as soon as they wake up. And 19% of people under the age of 25 say they update Facebook or Twitter anytime they happen to wake up during the night; 11% over the age of 25 say they do the same thing. (March 2010)

Social Media and Social Network Sites on its face value seem like just a new set of cool tools for involving people for consumption of information, but the impact of that is beyond that.

For example young people are using social network sites for:

• Keeping in touch with friends and acquaintances;
• Developing new contacts often with friends of friends, or people with shared interests
• Sharing content, engaging in self expression & exploring identity
• Hanging out and consuming content including commercial and user-generated content
• Accessing information and informal learning
• Participating in informal groups, and formal youth engagement opportunities;

We have become adept at Multi tasking and become masters of the usage across platforms. The impact is felt on the mind on our Social status, the personal self, the position in the society, and also on our productivity.  Our conversations are in 140 characters or less and videos that are often under 10 minutes are used as a tool to pass on judgments easily. We have become more opinionated and have developed a knack for raising our voices over anything we feel is not right. We keep waiting for a basic notification of an information bit we created getting acknowledged.

All these are leading to the fundamental change in the way we view and consume information. Because the information has to be processed at such a higher rate, it is but natural that fatigue sets in early.

Addressing the Social Media fatigue problem

With the overload of information all around, it is so easy to be disillusioned, frustrated, feel lost. It becomes necessary to identify a way address it.
“We all know very well that activity within social networking can lead to distractions. With one click, we can find ourselves hopelessly lost in a labyrinth of fascinating experiences that have nothing to do with our initial focus. Serendipity is part of the splendor of social media, but it is something that necessitates discipline to learn, entertain and be entertained, while also staying the course. In the end, we exchange time and privacy for exposure and attention.

The reality is that the cost of social networking is great and without checks and balances, engagement can cost us more capital than we have to spend. The net result is then social and emotional bankruptcy. And, the most difficult part of this unfortunate state is that it is at first difficult to recognize and far more exacting to overcome.

 – Brian Solis, principal at Altimeter Group, a research-based advisory firm in The Human Cost of Social Connectivity

It is important for both businesses and individuals to understand this. Here are a few tips on how this could be addressed.

1.The veracity of Information in consumption

At times we do feel overboard with the entire information flood around us. Not everything we see and read is trustworthy, reliable, and even true. The key is to get to the truth of the information. This filtering out of information based on what is needed versus what is just useless mass would enable to get to actual information that matters most. It would also enable in building the trust with the consumer and the creator of the information too, which would further allow to have better engagements.

 2. Rethink the Social Media Strategy when it comes to sharing

Like they say, an overdose of everything is bad. For businesses and individuals this mean that they need to see the Social media technologies as a tool that enables them to relate more to the user but not overdoing it. The novelty of social media can wear off soon (as is evident by the numerous ones that did not take off), leaving all those fans and followers wondering about the unexpected dip in activity.

 3. Get SMART in your engagement

Fight social media fatigue by getting a S.M.A.R.T (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timed) plan in place. This means that we know the reasons why we are on a Social Network, understand what we want to get out of it, be realistic in our assumptions and devote only a certain amount of time to it. Scheduling the time for the Social Media engagement also works wonders.

4. Understand the Value add and do not get burdened

Every Social Network or Social Media Technology is created to bring in some value add. We need to understand what it is. Whether twitter can be an avenue for our daily news, or Facebook is a better source for getting accolades on photographs that Flickr. The answer lies in understanding what value add what social networks provide. Always remember what you are on the Social Media platform for. Do not start out to do things that are potentially beyond the intended usage of the Social Media platform, which results in feeling burdened about it.

5. Understand user’s online behavior

Understand the key profiles like influencers, motivators, consumers, creators etc. in your network. Tools like Klout measure the online influence of their users and content and provides with a score. This measure of influence is primarily seen as the ability to drive others to action.

6. Do not be a master of all

With the constant rise of social networks, and peer pressure, we often give in to the temptation of being omnipresent across social medias. This is not only bad for privacy issues, but also brings in the tiredness resulting from the obligation of being active everywhere. Choose the SM platforms and tools that really benefit who you are and who you’re connected with. Do not just sign up for the latest thing without some understanding of what you’re signing up for.

In conclusion

It is evident that we cannot do away with Social networks and Social Media Technology, for once a particular technology has penetrated a significant portion of the market, it may be very difficult to dislodge it. While a lot of us will agree that social media has added much to our lives, let’s just not forget that it is NOT life itself. Our online behaviors have changed and so have our notion of relationships and commitments.

Platforms will come and go, and the impact that these Social Media platforms will have is going to be a lot more than what it is. A few Social Media platforms are already doing that, and constantly finding ways to engage the user to have a more lasting impact.

The need of the hour is to understand the human potential in being able to cope up with this. This is important for both the businesses as well as the individual.

 (This is a re-print of the article that appeared in the Issue 3 of the Social Technology Quarterly magazine, published by Kuliza Technologies Limited. )

The solutions that the designers are now catering to solve include cross platform, experience rich solutions to solutions that have a high social impact. The need of the hour is to become good problem solvers and the gamut or problems that is being addressed by designers independently and also in cross expertise teams, is huge these days.

Here’s an interesting presentation that I recently came across that talks about the 100 things to watch out for in 2012. I am confident that designers would play a significant role in many of them too.

I have been a loyal Canvera customer since quite some time now, and was recently at a Tweetup organized by Dhiraj and team. It was something that I could not miss, especially when the a thing on the agenda was to show around the Canvera’s production facility. As a photographer, it is very simple to just see the final output in the form of a photo book. But it has always fascinated me to know the level of complexity that one goes through to get a book that is more like a piece of art in itself. The awesome books that come out are a treasure of memories and a testimony to that is that all my clients who have received the Canvera photobooks have loved it!

Needless to say, all were amazed at the amazing facility in terms of the equipments that are being at par with the best in the world, the quality of paper and the processes in place.

What impressed me most was the attention to detail that is paid at every step. Whether its in the consistency across printers or the lamination of the pages or the cutting of paper or the multi level quality assurance checks or to ensuring privacy of the customers and the photographers.

It may sound easy, but when you get to know that all these have to be done in a maximum turnaround time of 48 hours, you are left amazed! Moreover the challenges that . . . → Read More: Why I love Canvera – notes from a Tweetup.]]> One of the amazing things about being in Bangalore, is that you are always surrounded by some amazing people, who are so passionate about what they do. It is no wonder that it is the Startup city in India and you get to meet amazing entrepreneurs. Dhiraj and Peeyush from Canvera are two such folks!

I have been a loyal Canvera customer since quite some time now, and was recently at a Tweetup organized by Dhiraj and team. It was something that I could not miss, especially when the a thing on the agenda was to show around the Canvera’s production facility. As a photographer, it is very simple to just see the final output in the form of a photo book. But it has always fascinated me to know the level of complexity that one goes through to get a book that is more like a piece of art in itself. The awesome books that come out are a treasure of memories and a testimony to that is that all my clients who have received the Canvera photobooks have loved it!

Needless to say, all were amazed at the amazing facility in terms of the equipments that are being at par with the best in the world, the quality of paper and the processes in place.

What impressed me most was the attention to detail that is paid at every step. Whether its in the consistency across printers or the lamination of the pages or the cutting of paper or the multi level quality assurance checks or to ensuring privacy of the customers and the photographers.

It may sound easy, but when you get to know that all these have to be done in a maximum turnaround time of 48 hours, you are left amazed! Moreover the challenges that they face by doing a business in a country like India, is something you have to appreciate the founders for and taking up the challenge.

Another thing that has impressed me a lot at Canvera (and which hope is never compromised) is the customer service. From the attention given to each query, and being patient with what is needed, it is very much evident that the folks out there take Customer Service very very seriously.

A trip like this had my respect level for the founders and the people involved in the smooth running of Canvera, go many levels high! When your belief in something becomes stronger, there is nothing but a world class product and service that you can expect, and I have been thankful that Canvera is able to provide that so far!

The company tagline is “Take Pictures. Leave the rest to us.” , and I have slowly come to firmly believe that.

That’s the new age customer relationship management and goes by the term Social CRMs. A lot of debate goes on the legitimacy of the phrase Social CRM. On one side of the argument, there are the believers who think that this is just another fancy term, riding the Social Wave, and on the other side of the argument you have people who swear by anything social and believe it to be of an immense value add. I for one do think that SCRM is here to stay, and it can only promise to grow with more and more businesses adopting social media technologies.

I deal with design and through this article I wish to seek out the challenges that designers face and should consider when designing for Social CRMs. It may be noted that these are just an indicative list and not a definitive one.  With changes happening almost everyday (Facebook introduced the Timeline as I write this), the challenges can only increase.

In the earlier days of the traditional CRMs, the engagement with the customer happened around three domains, ie. a. Sales, b. Marketing and . . . → Read More: The designer’s challenge to Social CRMs]]> Everyday I log onto twitter, I read about someone complaining about a problem they are facing with a particular service that they use. In almost realtime, a lot of others who face similar problem simply re-tweet the initial tweet about the complain. What this could result to is a negative publicity of the service, to the extent of a fear of losing a customer. In almost no time, there are the representatives from the company in context, replying to the tweets and assuring of a quick turnaround to the customer’s concerns. If that is not enough there are social channels that people reach out to, these days when they do not get a response.

That’s the new age customer relationship management and goes by the term Social CRMs. A lot of debate goes on the legitimacy of the phrase Social CRM. On one side of the argument, there are the believers who think that this is just another fancy term, riding the Social Wave, and on the other side of the argument you have people who swear by anything social and believe it to be of an immense value add. I for one do think that SCRM is here to stay, and it can only promise to grow with more and more businesses adopting social media technologies.

I deal with design and through this article I wish to seek out the challenges that designers face and should consider when designing for Social CRMs. It may be noted that these are just an indicative list and not a definitive one.  With changes happening almost everyday (Facebook introduced the Timeline as I write this), the challenges can only increase.

In the earlier days of the traditional CRMs, the engagement with the customer happened around three domains, ie.
a. Sales, b. Marketing and c. Service and Support.

With the rise of usage of social media platforms being used for things beyond just the customer engagement, promotions and post purchase support, the notion of the Social CRMs goes higher than the above mentioned three domains. Amongst all of this change, the main change is in the role of the customers.

What has also changed is the increase in the data load of the systems. One is not just tracking and keeping a note of customer feedback and questions and relationships, but more data in an efficient and process-centric way.

The ultimate goal of the traditional CRM was to have a customer get back to buy more stuff from the same outlet or retail. The goal of the SRCM also primarily remains the same, though the parameters and the channels have increased.

As Paul Greenberg writes, ‘Social CRM is a philosophy & a business strategy, supported by a technology platform, business rules, workflow, processes & social characteristics, designed to engage the customer in a collaborative conversation in order to provide mutually beneficial value in a trusted & transparent business environment. It’s the company’s response to the customer’s ownership of the conversation.’

Social CRMs is more like a design strategy exercise that is often supported by various tools and technologies and the strategy is based around customer engagement, interactions and experiences. So apart from the traditional goals of marketing and customer query answering and increase in sales, a SCRM  is also looked upon as a source for peer-to-peer customer support, idea management, market research, product launches, advertising channels, promotions and brand reputation management.

The customers today are better informed and have a lot more channels to vent out. So the value addition that SCRM must bring about and influence at a larger scale is important. This in my opinion is a design problem and the solution should be done through a proper design and not by force. We are not talking about just going overboard with the social media technologies, as there is always the danger of over-selling.

In this context, I seek to outline some of the challenges that the designer faces .

1. The complexity of dealing with offline and online world at the same time.
More and more people are spending more time online. With the advent of cloud computing and usage of the cloud to manage large systems, the user is connected 24X7. Our lifestyles are being monitored all time and as a result we tend to expect more of the service at all times.

2. Understanding the users.
This has been a designer’s classic problem space, but with every passing year, the users seems to get more sophisticated. There are more social technologies that are being adopted every year than the previous ones.  One of the biggest  goals of the designer needs to be keep things simple in this complex world too. In the present context, the users (customers) define the processes and also define the hours in which they seek the customer service and engagement.

3. The notion of identity.
In the earlier days of the CRMs, there was more personal relationships with the person that would often have a face to face meeting. In the days of the Social CRMs, often people  tend to have a different persona that they present online and in the offline world. So the key is to ensure the seamless integration of both the worlds.

4. Share it to engage in it.
A lot of the things happen realtime and as a result of the identity point, one is often in the risk of sharing too much. For a designer this is challenging as the issues of privacy and trust become important to take care of. Often the user fails to understand the legal implications of being involved in a Social CRM and often it could lead to situations of brand reputation being at stake, to public defamation. It is the duty of the designer to engage the users in a way so as to avoid the situations mentioned.

5. Customers are your channel of advocacy
Decisions on buying and becoming loyal to a brand are highly influenced these days by peers and the discussions that happen across the different channels. It is not about “sell & forget” any more. The relationship with the individual goes beyond that. The design should be flexible to enable the cycle of purchase, enjoyment, advocacy, bonding. This could only lead to a valuable customer for life.

6. Multiple channels
Unlike the earlier days where the CRM relied on one channel, these days the Social CRMs often rely on multiple channels. The customers define the dynamism of each of these channels and as a result keeps the brands on their feet. It is not uncommon to hear of a change in brand loyalty often these days due to not being able to cater on one or more of the channels.  In the ideal world, one would expect the same customer experience, no matter what channel one is looking at, be it the social media technologies one or the traditional face to face interactions.

7. Changing platforms and the issue of scalability
With technology penetrating more and more into our lives, reaching out to the right representatives at any point of time, from anywhere is happening and it is not limited to only a particular device. Mobiles, tablets and of course the laptops and hi-tech systems have made life complex. Dealing with issues of web portability and being able to provide the same wow user experience across platforms is the key.

8. Making sense of the chaos
The main challenge for the businesses is to translate the pillars of Social CRM  i.e. the fans, likes, shares, re-share into sales. All these pillars of the SCRM leads to a lot of data being generated. Making sense of all of it is important and only then can the SCRM be of value immense value add for them. For the customers, this also holds importance, since their decisions are opinionated on the past experience of the others. The key here is thus to translate it into a data-driven-high-user-experience design,  such that it can be beneficial for both the designer and the business. Tools such as information visualizations and analytics can be of immense to the designers too here.

9. Understanding the limitations of Technology.
There has been a lot of debates around whether designers should understand technology or not. In my opinion they must. I am not talking about making them do the code work, but at-least have a good understanding of how technology and the frameworks that they are designing for function.

10. Business process integrations
Whatever said and done, the Social CRMs are primarily aimed at driving sales growth and improving customer service. For the designer to understand this, means that they need to get a better understanding of the way the Business works. This can especially be important for those businesses adopting Social Media technologies for the first time.

The goals for the businesses should be to ensure that Social CRMs can be used in a strategic manner and through countless experiments on the customer side as well as the business side.  It is not only important to look into the low hanging fruits and reward the customer as a one off thing, but to look into a SCRM as a means of engaging with the customer for a longer period of time, or perhaps for the entire life. It is only then that can one think of a change that would be more transformational and would result in the way the business adopts the SCRM and as a result gain the trust of the customer.

Businesses need to realize that Social CRM is not merely a channel to push the different discounts and deals to either all or elite group of customers. It’s not only about incentivizing the whole customer engagement models. It’s about providing an experience that goes stays with the customer through the different stages i.e. promotion to engagement to transaction to prophecy to return for engagement.

In conclusion.
One has to remember that what we are talking about it nothing new, but an evolution of the traditional CRMs. In order to be a person who can be good at the whole notion of Social CRMs, you have to have an understanding of philosophy, social dynamics, cultural aspects, the technology platform. In my opinion, a designer is the only person who comes close to having some sort of understanding of the above fields and as a result face the immense challenge. The designer who are trained to think form the human/user/customer perspective are a lot that would be the best suited. Though no one can deny the fact that this is a lot to ask from one person. But hang in there dear designers. You are a valued lot.

The notion of followers

Over the course of this article, I wish to do a construct of the notion of the Social Media Technology as a new kind of media. I shall refer to Bolter and Grusin, amongst others to understand why the notion of the Social Media technology is a New Media that plays out on the notion of remediation. I shall be looking into this with the example case study on Social Commerce and how the notion of media and Social media is changing and will continue to change the way we do our commerce.

Marshall McLuhan one of the greatest writers on media . . . → Read More: The Social Media Construct – a case in remediation]]> They say that the Social Media Technologies is the in thing right now. Some call is fashionable, while some call it a necessity to keep up with the times, while some see a real value add in it. While many companies adopt it, not all understand it completely. It is now well accepted that the Social Media Technologies (SMT) are an integral part of the marketing budget of any company.  The adoption of SMT should be tied down to a business need and an assist with the business processes. Apart from the usual goals of increase in sales, the one thing that the social media technologies has done is, making the consumer more informed and help them in taking decisions that are influenced by a gamut of reasons. Come to think of it, the advent of SMTs follow a similar pattern.  resulted in the way the audiences are exposed to media. We consume stuff in a different way than we used to in the days prior to the SMTs. To support the claim of Social Media technology being omnipresent in the lives of many now, one has to understand where this comes from.

The notion of followers

Over the course of this article, I wish to do a construct of the notion of the Social Media Technology as a new kind of media. I shall refer to Bolter and Grusin, amongst others to understand why the notion of the Social Media technology is a New Media that plays out on the notion of remediation. I shall be looking into this with the example case study on Social Commerce and how the notion of media and Social media is changing and will continue to change the way we do our commerce.

Marshall McLuhan one of the greatest writers on media says and I quote, “We become what we behold. We shape our tools and then our tools shape us.“  It is in this context that I analyze the Social Media Technologies construct. The SMTs have changed our lives and that is a fact that we accept. But at the same time, it has also resulted in a lot of users (or consumers) of leaving the traditional media forms. This can be felt over the numerous discussions I have with the present internet users, who claim to do just about anything, from watching movies to hearing music to writing to painting to socializing to entertainment, over a Social Media platform. This article hopes to provide an argument for the rise of this phenomenon and I use the notion of Remediation to provide an argument of why SMS is nothing but a construct of the traditional.

Bolter and Grusin in their landmark book, ‘Remediation: Understanding New Media‘ , talk about the basis of the creation of a new media. The broad claim is that every media re-mediates itself and it does so through a series of other concepts in the form of ‘Transparent Immediacy‘ or ‘Hypermediacy‘. They term this as the ‘double logic of remediation‘.  We as technologists and designers are constantly looking to remediate to create something that could be exciting, engaging and has an awesome user experience. The same argument can be applied to the Social Media technologies.

“Remediation is the process whereby computer graphics, virtual reality, and the internet define themselves by borrowing from and refashioning media such as painting, photography, television, and film.“  This is an important note, as the context of the SMTs is an online system. We take the notion of the existing mediums of media to re-create and as a result re-mediate the existing into a new technological framework. The rise of the usage of Facebook (almost over 800 million users) to do almost anything is just a testimony to that. Americans spend close to 101,000 years of time over Facebook in a single month! We have more and more people checking their Social Media presence updates first thing at the start of the day, goes onto to signify that the boundaries are blurring. The real world becomes analogous with the online world. This phenomena also is manifest in the fact that there’s also a significant is the increase of the conversations about the virtual life on the real life and vice versa.

Analyzing a medium through a semiotic theory view point,  we know that there is the notion of a signifier (the one making the claim, and in this case the media which is the audio, text or the video) and the signified (the meaning of what is implied through the signifiers). The channel for this relation earlier were the traditional forms of media viz, television, radio etc. and now is the Social Media Technologies. This notion of “Transparent Immediacy” is the perfection, or removal, of the gap between signifier and signified, such that a representation is perceived to be the thing itself. The intent therefore, is to design and build a medium that aims to do just that.

‘Transparent Immediacy‘ is at play the moment you think about engaging an audience with a strong online presence, where you expect the user to spend more time online. You wish to make the viewer forget the presence of the medium and believe that he is in the presence of the objects of representation. Because of the extent that social media has taken over our lives, we are no longer aware of confronting a medium, but instead stands in an immediate relationship to the contents of that medium. The principal of transparent immediacy refers to users’ desire for immediacy in access, understanding, and interaction. This is to say, users want an immediate connection with the medium. This is also true in the present context when we want everything at the tip of our fingers and responses faster. For eg., we write a mail, or a post on Facebook or tweet and expect a reply, likes, or re-tweet or a reply to tweet almost immediately. We forget the presence of the medium as a medium and assume it to be present right there in front.

The other concept is the notion of Hypermediacy, which is in totally the opposite side of the spectrum to Transparent Immediacy. Hypermediacy is a “style of visual representation whose goal is to remind the viewer of the medium”. Hypermediacy plays upon the desire for immediacy and transparent immediacy, making us hyper-conscious of our act of seeing (or gazing). This means that it does not stop only at the transparent immediacy, but goes a step ahead and make the user aware of its presence. So the usage of the words like tweet, blog, wall, share, likes it are a testimony to the act of hypermediacy. The meanings of each of these are signified differently than the original meaning of the words. In the context of the Social Media Technologies, it is constructed in a hypermediated manner and the moment these words are used, the users are aware of the presence of the media.

Remediating the Angry Birds experience

Let us take the example of Social Commerce. In the ideal situation of a perfectly remediated environment of the social commerce world, that tries to remediate the instances of the real life physical shop, there should be no difference between the experience of seeing a product in person and on the computer screen.  Designers and technologists have the challenge to strive towards that. To make things simpler, let us take the example of a Online store front.

Let us do a small comparison of what aspects an Online Storefront remediates in order to provide the same shopping experience as a real store.

1. The availability of a product brochure and ability to experience the product in its full form. In the ideal case the businesses should also able to give the tactile experience to a store too. The haptic feedback provide to the user would be the missing cog in remediating the experience of the store entirely and the physical representation of the product catalogue. The detailing of this experience to which is possible through the existing available technologies would be an interesting thing to work on.

2. In a store you ask questions to the sales persons. On a online store front, having the feasability of the being able to talk to anyone at any point of time, during the course of the surfing through the store, would be remediating the notion of the sales persons. The experience

3. Man is a social animal. We go to shop with people around us. We take feedback from people. We call others whilst, we are doing our shopping and we immediately take feedback the moment we come out of a trial room in a cloth shop. In the remediated experience of the online store, allowing the users to the extent of having them experience the same notion of gaining feedback is essential. It is this particular notion, of people relying on, getting influenced by the feedback, comments and suggestions of others; that makes Social commerce so much more interesting (and challenging).

4. Ability to provide recommendations, push promotions through a channel that is easy to access and connect with the customers.

5. Post purchase, we always provide feedback about something. Whether it be good or bad. Recommendations are made after the usage of a product (or service). Post purchase engagement is a key part, when looking into a shopping experience. Remediating this important experience is essential for success of any Social commerce avenue.

While the above could be applicable to just about any online presence, it is the social part, that differentiates a social commerce platform like say a Facebook store, compared to any other  online commerce avenues. Thus in my opinion, a social commerce platform is the only platform that can remediate as close to the real life shopping experience, than any other.

The challenges
What I have mentioned here is the remediating the experience more than the media. The challenges however come more when it comes to remediating issues for which there is no real remediation possible. Remediating the notion of trust, or the issues of privacy is something that continues to remain a challenge to the designers of Social Media platforms.

In conclusion, Social Media technology can be seen as a construct of the Transparent Immediacy and the Hypermediacy. We are adopting Social Media technologies in a way to remediate the lifestyle we live out and the lifeworlds we live in. The key is to make this experiences as more immersive and interfaceless when we talk about immediacy. On the other hand, hypermediacy allows us to remain cognizant of the platforms and mediums that we are accessing the information in. It is thus opaque, in the face and often juxtaposed over the virtual-real, which the immediacy had set out to bring about.

Unknowingly it forces a repeated contact with the interface and as a result it becomes an integral part our lives. Social media technologies are repeatedly doing that.  What was once thought of to be completely immersive and “real” eventually comes to be explored as an aesthetics of a particular media format and the only authenticity lies in the experience that the media sets out to achieve by virtue of the things it has to offer.

The arguments will continue that this form of new media is doing exactly what their predecessors have done, i.e. presenting themselves as refashioned and improved versions of other media. In the times that we live in, a medium can never operate in isolation, because it must enter into relationships of respect and rivalry with other (and often traditional) media. It is only when we understand the above, that we can get a better understanding of the new media we talk about these days, i.e. Social Media and develop an appreciation for it.

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This article was originally written for the Kuliza’s Social Technology Quarterly Report Issue 2

Here’s more about the video from Wikipedia: Powers of Ten is a 1968 American documentary short film written and directed by Ray Eames and her husband, Charles Eames, rereleased in 1977.The film depicts the relative scale of the Universe in factors of ten (see also logarithmic scale and order of magnitude). The film is an adaptation of the 1957 book Cosmic View by Kees Boeke,and more recently is the basis of a new book version.Both adaptations, film and book, follow the form of the Boeke original, adding color and photography to the black and white drawings employed by Boeke in his seminal work.

In 1998, “Powers of Ten” was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.

You have to check this out if you have not done so. Even if you have, its always awesome to see it one more time.

The presenter does a great job of highlighting some interesting Truths an Dares. Having been in the UX field for quite some time now, I know recruiting it a big challenge to anyone dealing with UX professionals. To me subjectivity of the field is hugely responsible for it. And secondly, it is the notion of calling oneself a designer, just by learning a few tools.

I would soon be putting up a presentation on my experiences with recruiting in the UX field. Would love to hear from more people who are into it.