No dumping 
Companies who continue to subscribe to blindly dumping on us will soon find themselves working to publicly undo their mistakes.
- Products- You can’t know what we think or want unless you talk to us.
- Advertising- Stop launching. You’re not NASA.
- Solicitation- Who talks like that? Let’s have a real conversation.
- Support- I don’t believe my call is important.
- Public relations- We’re not buying what you’re selling.
- Processes- Which and how many hoops do I need to jump through again?
The social web is alive
The social web isn’t a dumping ground. It’s alive. It’s not an anonymous vessel for you to fill with corporate broadcasts. Before you stick you’re toe in, you should take the temperature and look around. Notice that it’s sprinkling. You don’t see companies pouring themselves, you see individual people and lots of little bite-sized interactions.
The four behaviors of the social web
I’ve witnessed four common roles. While it’s true that some of us gravitate to some roles more than others, most all of us have been one of these at one time or another.
1. Droplets
Droplets occur when someone puts something online. Second-by-second, minute-by-minute, this micro content asks us to engage with it. This results in a a persistent sprinkle of little conversations or even unanswered ideas. The surface of the social web is peppered with new blogs, Tweets, comments, responses and other droplets.
2. Readers
Just like it sounds, people read or consume tons of new content everyday. Much to traditional media company’s dismay, this is where our attention is. There are some people who never participate in anything else other than reading. This behavior represents the biggest population.
3. Distributors
These folks spread what they find through retweeting nuggets they find on Twitter, social bookmarks, links on blogs or in comments and even through word of mouth. This is one of the most important behaviors of the social web: Sharing.
4. Polishers
Some droplets have profound resonance and get riffed on by other people in follow up thoughts. For example, in this post I’m polishing ideas I read from JP Rangaswami (Pearls) who was polishing something he read Hugh McCloud (social objects). Polishers dimensionalize ideas by adding their own perspective to them.
Pearls
Pearls aren’t a behavior, they’re a result. Pearls have gravity and get our attention. They take on a life of their own. Pearls are memes like this year’s election.
My sense is that the next stage is evaporation, where the Pearls get picked up and distributed by the mainstream. But that’s a different post.
