The problem with social (the term)
Categorised under: Enterprise 2.0
Thomas Vander Wal has written about the problems with the word social (as in social media, social tools). To quote:
I have run into the connotation of social as a term that has associative connotations to the hippy movement (the slide image Andrew uses with his presentations), socialist (non-capatalist or anti-capitalist tendencies), redundant term to use with business, and more. While most of the people who I engage with inside organizations do not have the negative connotations of social, there is normally a senior manager with ability to veto a project or put it under great scrutiny who has such connotations. I hear many people say that it may be easier to get these individuals to change their definition, but that is as naive as saying they can get a Boston Red Sox fan to believe the New York Yankees are a lovable baseball team. This transformation is rarely possible, thanks to the Cold War, 60s anti-establishment, and years of reinforcing the associations of the term social to strongly negative connotations.
Tags: social media, social software
James Robertson is the Managing Director of 
2 Comments:
Really try to avoid using the “s” word at all these days. Always push the advantages of any tool as to what the outcomes will be to the people involved.
Good advice Karl! “Social” is like every other technology trend. We start by focusing on the tools, and eventually get beyond that to talk about what we’re actually doing with them that’s valuable…