We Can Monitor the Zeitgeist of Humanity Using Tools

The monitoring the Zeitgeist of Humanity using tools isn't the point of this post, but it should be the takeaway.

Why? Because the power of social technologies to empower humans across the globe to change the world for good and to live from a place of purpose is a key way we should all be using social media regardless of how we use it in our business lives.

Forward wind to Scott Klososky and a talk I heard him give recently (word on that note - if you haven't heard him speak, find out where he is and go. He's incredibly inspiring).

Because we know what we know and don't know what and who we don't know, it's easy to think we have heard every talk and every speaker who has anything to 'gift' an audience in the world of social media if you live and breathe it every day. That said, we all have our own micro-circles we travel in and Scott isn't really in circulation in mine.

Here are some takeaways, summaries and key points:

Word-of-mouth is driving more leads than search is right now and he went into the transition from Web 1.0 to where Web 4.0 will lead us to give us a snapshot of where we are today. From his vantage point:

1.  Web 1.0 was about connected organizations, i.e., building websites so you can connect with customers and other businesses. It was the start of the death of paper mail (note: the postal service is now losing $3 billion a quarter) and of course the decline of newspapers.
2. Web 2.0 is about connecting people (social technologies) which is obviously changing the world and how we interact with each other. We can connect with people in ways we never have been able to before. 
3. Web 3.0 is about pervasive computing, where mobile devices will be able to control everything. Every device will be connected to every other device. We are already seeing pieces of this in place today.
4. Web 4.0 will be about connected intelligence (s).

Let's look at various stages of immersion with social technologies:

• Consumer-to-Consumer
  • Connecting with family and friends
  • eWord-of-Mouth
  • Rating & Recommendation Systems
  • UGC (user-generated content)
  • Citizen Journalism
  • Discussion Groups
  • Business-to-Consumer
    • Socially-Directed Buying
      • SEO and PPC
      • Social Media
      • eWord-of-Mouth (applies to both areas obviously)
      • Organizational Voice (so many companies do not put enough time or thinking into this point, which frankly I think should be at the top)
      • Online reputation management
      • Crowdsourcing
      • Location-based marketing (geo-loco is growing, i.e., Foursquare, Gowalla)
      • Viral Video – Old Spice success (so he's sexy, okay, very sexy) and United Breaks my Guitar disaster are great examples.
      • Business-to-Business
        • Socially-Facilitated Selling
          • Social CRM
          • Social recruiting
          • Rivers of information
          • Online industry experts
          • Organizational voice
          • Online reputation management
          • Virtual team support