Perry

Hewitt

Author: Perry Hewitt

  • Serendipitous convergence

    The day after the Berkman Center convened news thinkers to talk truthiness and Alan Rusbridger spoke of the impact of open journalism, KONY 2012 broke all records for viral video.

    All the right ingredients for the perfect social case study of discerning “truth” after the narrative spreads like wildfire. The Guardian asks “What’s the real story?” while Kristof that this scrutiny obscures the key point about the devastation. As the competing narratives unfold, am looking at people quantitatively analyzing the impact to understand more about the inherent risks and opportunities in social news’ accelerated spread.

  • Rusbridger on open journalism

    How can we harness this [digital] revolution we’re living through to provide a better account of the world around us?

    Alan Rusbridger, editor of The Guardian speaking last night on open journalism at the 2012 Goldsmith Awards. See also their contemporary take on the Three Little Pigs…

  • Understanding Truthiness in Digital Media

    Yesterday the Berkman Center hosted a conference focused on defining and dissecting the ways propaganda and (mis)information spread online. As usual, the stellar participants contributed along with the presenters to deliver a thoughtful and provocative event.

    There are already several liveblogs, and Storifies, and a whole host of tweets tagged #truthicon from people able to stay for the full day. The morning session I saw reminded me that amid all the technology excitement (at its annual peak with the Dow high and SXSWi this weekend) there’s a lot to watch out for with the deliberate and accidental creation and spread of misinformation online – there was good fodder here for the tech dystopian crowd. Individuals and institutions need to think about how we educate ourselves in the critical thinking and practical tactics to get the truth out there as we all wade into the fray.

  • Content & design practices from HBO Go

    AllThingsD interviewed Allison Moore, SVP digital platforms at HBO. HBO Go is one of my favorite apps, and provides, just as she describes “an incredible digital experience for our customers…just like they have with our content…wherever consumers expect us to be.” The “wherever they expect us to be” part is pretty impressive, with existing or planned content distribution partnerships with Roku XBOX, and more …

    Another point she raises about how the app design “not only brings in some kind of immersiveness and color and zap… but also gets out of the way.” In web and app design, this is the biggest tension – knowing how to convene users with your brand content, and how to support that convening, and then judging when to get the hell out of the way. Not as easy as it looks.

  • Google+ today: From sausage fest to ghost town

    Google+ today: From sausage fest to ghost town

    Throughout 2011, it was clear that Google+ was mostly a male bastion. Mashable reported that if you were to throw a dart at Google+, it would be more than twice as likely to land on a man’s profile as a woman’s profile. Ensue hue and cry.

    This week, the Wall Street Journal puts Google+ on ghost town watch, pointing out that users spend a mere three minutes a month on site versus six-seven hours on Facebook. Meanwhile, Pinterest is soaring, with growth driven largely by women. Think about it, guys.

  • Everything is a remix

    We live in an age with daunting problems. We need the best ideas possible, we need them now, we need them to spread fast. The common good is a meme that was overwhelmed by intellectual property. It needs to spread again. If the meme prospers, our laws, our norms, our society, they all transform.

    That’s social evolution and it’s not up to governments or corporations or lawyers… it’s up to us.

    Everything is a remix [web video series]

  • Brand democracy is not brand anarchy.

    Just read The Role of Brand in the Nonprofit Sector which pointed to the emerging acceptance of brand as strategic asset that goes beyond tactical fundraising tool.

    There’s an interesting tension between the rise of individual voices through social media, and a dated perception that messaging hierarchies mandate institutional lockstep. This is definitely a  top  FAQ: “why bother with any kind of communications coordination in the age of social media?” For me, the answer is that social presents an opportunity to reinvigorate brand messaging – to listen and to reach out to constituents (be they employees, supporters, alumni) to understand more about your brand’s resonance — and then to use that understanding to craft messages that stick.

    The authors said it best: democracy != anarchy. Working with nonprofit brands serves up an opportunity to learn and engage with social to refine brand positioning.

  • Welcome to the age of big data

    It’s a revolution,” says Gary King, director of Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science. “We’re really just getting under way. But the march of quantification, made possible by enormous new sources of data, will sweep through academia, business and government. There is no area that is going to be untouched.

  • What new leadership looks like

    Last week I was lucky to hear two fascinating talks: from Bill George, HBS prof and author of True North, and Wael Ghonim, the Google employee and internet activist who energized pro-democracy demonstrations in Egypt just over a year ago.

    The theme that emerged for me was distributed leadership. George spoke about IBM’s collaborative organizational structure and shifting definition of leadership. In a workforce of 440,000 employees, he described IBM as cultivating 40,000 of them for some kind of leadership role. Ghonim focused on current and future challenges for Egypt and pointed to the importance of the many “ordinary” young Egyptians in the uprising — while disavowing narratives that position him as the movement’s hierarchical leader. (Good NPR review of his book, Revolution 2.)

    The point about the death of command-and-control and emergence of new, global organizational models is not a new one. What was striking to me was two such different men with vastly different life experiences, both underscoring the imperative of reaching that conclusion.

  • From SOPA to Susan G. Komen to Superbowl

    Hard to believe that in fewer than three weeks, social media has been front and center on three major news headlines: the SOPA defeat, the Susan G. Komen (apparent) reversal on Planned Parenthood, and tonight’s Superbowl. The first two events mark social’s expanding role in leading and shaping public opinion; the Superbowl stands out as the moment when social was self evident enough that TV ads featured hashtags with no explanation. (I can remember being asked to provide explanatory copy for ads featuring the cryptic “www.lotus.com”  back in 1997.)

    We’ve come a long way from 2007 when tech pundits saw Twitter as “stupid and lame and small …  [and] real addictive”