So for the last couple of years I’ve had a split personality in my work practice — on the one side, digital engagement and social media in communications, and on the other, corporate web management. And the two sides of my work often seem to run on parallel lines with neither side seemingly touching the other.
Recently I’ve been puzzling why that is, but then the other day I saw these nifty sketches of various computing paradigms:
Source: rhinman on Flickr
And it hit me — the two sides of my work are rooted in completely different views of what the web is about. Duh!
On the corporate web side of things, my work is very much rooted in the idea of the web as a collection of tools, with the focus being the management of key tasks and online service delivery. Fixing or improving the website is my key priority here.
On the digital engagement side, my work is coming from the evolving point of view that is shifting from the web as media (remember when the web was going to be the “new TV”?) to the web as a social information ecosystem (web 2.0, government 2.0, etc.) The corporate website in this view is but one touch point, as engagement ideally should happen where our stakeholders are, whether in social networks or in the blogosphere etc. (& honestly, it’s mostly still theoretical for us).
I’m not too sure what to do with this insight yet, but those sketches show for me really clearly that while possible, it’ll be challenging to bridge the divide.
What's a spaghetti test?
Nice article and those infographics on computing are superb!
As for the death or purported miss of TV over IP (and not just the web) I happen to be watching my local CBC evening local news (for Montreal) online via their website while I was reading your article.
I still think it’s the future – and certainly the big Telcos and ISPs à la Bell / Rogers / Videotron seem to agree as they struggle to transition into being the media providers on top of being the guardians of the pipes.
Robin
Great post Peter. I often feel that at work, my online interaction is almost exclusively one-way communication: I take a lot from the web, but give back very little in comparison (there are several reasons for this). And things tend to move very quickly in my day-to-day; so much so that my window of opportunity for participating is very small most of the time. By not contributing when I’ve got stuff to contribute, my ‘content’ can easily become irrelevant in a short period of time. Not sure how this will change, but I like your framing of the situation. It nicely illustrates the difference between individuals as consumers of information and individuals as participants in an evolving discourse.
Thanks @Robin – I’ve heard variations on this phrase a lot over the last little while: “video as the ultimate social object,” ie video content embedded in social relations facilitated via online networks. done right, you can participate in it, or better, co-create it. which to my mind is something different than TV that happens to be delivered via internet pipes.
@Cara: thanks – I fully understand that the window for individual participation is often tiny. Witness the relative silence of this blog over the last few months. But the aggregate in online participation is still growing worldwide. I take solace in that!
Thanks for your post Peter. I sense a similar tug in opposite directions. Sitting in e-comms much of the work is focused on web publishing however people come to us for advice on much more that simply publishing, they want to know more, and use more of the Web for all sorts of activities and initiatives, much of it centered around engaging their communities / stakeholders in their content: making it relevant/useful, making it better, growing it. People are starting to know and understand that simply publishing content on Web sites is not necessarily mean you have delivered on your mandate. The nagging feeling that there is more to the Web content than that is growing and e-comms / Web advisors are going to be asked and tasked to guide and support the evolution. Sometimes it feel strange, sometimes it feels right.