“Here’s my prediction: by and large we’re still going to be bad at figuring out how to to talk to people.”

I think people are bad at “figuring out how to talk to people” because they spend too much time trying or maybe it’s because they have nothing to say or nothing the people want to hear.

It probably also has something to do with the fact that most of the people making the decisions don’t use social media like they should. Hell, I’m in advertising and sometimes I feel like an ass because I don’t use Twitter and I don’t have a Vimeo account. But, I can’t believe when people I work with (who are my age) don’t even have facebook profiles. Or when I hear people bitch about “print” dying. Where do you think the world is going? Do you look for a job in the paper? No, you don’t. You use the f*ing internet.

And when you actually use the internet, instead of reading case studies and asking someone else to do the research, you’ll probably figure out how to talk to people. Because it’ll make you human again.

Or not.

-Shoddy if not absent understanding of complex forces of the place we’re entering (brand manager doesn’t really understand why his consumer reads http://www.thighswideshut.com but decides to make a play there anyways)

-No real measure of success once we’re there telling us we’ve succeeded or not (how the hell is a facebook app expected to move staplers off the shelf? Or how can we accurately measure that? Do you even want to measure that? Wait…what are we doing here again?)

BUT then I think of the successful ways nations (in the truest sense of the word, not a State per se, but a culture or collective set of values, customs etc.) have seeped their way into different cultures across continents, political and religious borders, and into places where they hadn’t previously been. All without a military or political wing.

Maybe Social Media is the subtle introduction of skinny ties from London to the US to Japan via different channels (magazines, celebs, your friends wearing it. some intended, some not)

So then what form of media is the big, loud, State building, colonizing terror Clay was talking about that launches brand bombs across your city hoping to convince you to join them? Is that the “5 dollar footlong” spot? “Saved by zero?”