Doug Poretz's  Instablog

As readers of my blog DeathOfTime.com may know, I became extremely frustrated over the past few years as I met with experts in new and social media.  The communications firm I co-founded has enjoyed substantial success since we were founded in August 2000, and that, combined with 40 years in the communications business, has led to my ability to meet with lots of people who are well-known and considered experts in new and social media. 

A long time ago, I came to the conclusion that if someone trying to explain something to me couldn’t do it clearly in a relatively reasonable period of time then the problem wasn’t mine – it was theirs because if they couldn't explain it to me, then they didn’t know what they were talking about.  That thought continued to come to mind as I met with these experts.  They could explain what they were doing and how they used their favorite tool or two.  They couldn’t explain how it all fit into the context of achieving specific goals by communicating well-crafted messages and then using whatever distribution channels could get those messages most effectively and efficiently to a specific audience.  That’s what I was concerned about.

Although my own firm has been scoring major recognition (and new business assignments) for the way we have been using social and new media, I was personally not satisfied that I clearly understood what was happening from a 100,000 foot level.  I decided that rather than depending on the perspectives and advice of others, I wanted to see for myself how these tools were being used, and how they could be used, and how they could influence communications in the future.  So, I (with the full support of my colleagues) decided to commit virtually all my time starting January 1, 2009, to immersing myself in enough of what was happening to build the understanding I wanted.  At my blog, I have been writing about my observations since then.

For those who may be making investment decisions about various communications industry plays, here’s what I believe is an accurate prediction.  The communications revolution is very serious, deep and wide.  New distribution channels, blogs, microblogs, search engines, online advertising, building and nurturing and making sense of online communities, online polling, mobile applications – the impact of all these is real and probably in the final analysis even greater than you may now think.  But I’m willing to bet the impact is going to be quite different than now envisioned and it may well be slower evolving than it would otherwise be if it weren't for a counter-productive trend emerging among the experts.

The impact of new media tools will be different than currently envisioned.  For one thing, many of the predictions about the future of new tools are being made by people who have incredible vested interests in the growth of that space, and that taints their views.  In addition, these gurus can be both an expert about their tools and a moron about communications as a whole, so they often do not really understand the tools within the broad context of integrated communications campaigns and strategies.  So although they may be accurate in their predictions of how Twitter will be used next, I do not trust their predictions about the future of communications, and that is much more important than the future of any particular tool, regardless of how hot it may be now.  Furthermore, the entire arena of new communications tools is way too dynamic to make predictions with a substantial degree of probability.  Just look at Twitter, which new media gurus often point to as the ultimate tool that will change communications.  No doubt that Twitter has had impact on the way people and organizations communicate, but it did not even exist until about three years ago, and has become dramatically well-known and used really within the past two years, and that is being liberal.  Twitter is a phenomenon, no doubt.  But what tool and system is being put together right now, on a napkin at a lunch, which will become the new Twitter in two years?  And what impact will that have on communications?  And will it be so significant that it shakes Twitter to its core, the way Twitter is now doing to Facebook?  And what about the entire direction of journalism, which seems to be dying and being replaced with some sort of neo-journalism?  Isn't that going to change communications at least as much as the rise of new tools?  So, those who are predicting how new/social media will evolve in the future are so premature and so narrowly focused that if they turn out to be correct it will be more attributable to luck than anything else.

The pace of the evolution could be slowed by virtue of a new “political correctness” among those who are the new/social media gurus.  I’m reminded of those who promulgated the idea of a “new economy” during the dot-com boom.  Under the logic that prevailed among those experts, not only was the bottom line irrelevant to a start-up (which is probably rational for a period of time), but so was the top line (which may make sense in some rare instances but generally is a recipe for disaster, as the vast number of those dot-coms and their investors discovered).  During that time, I was struck by the tone of those who believed in the “new economy” even more than by their logic.  They not only possessed a certainty about their philosophy, they voiced their views with an arrogance that dismissed those who would say:  “Hey, you know, I am sort of concerned about a company with this valuation but not a penny of revenues.”  The response:  “You just don’t understand the new economy.  You are behind times.  You are going to be too late to the party.”  That has been a common characteristic of the vast majority of new/social media experts with whom I’ve met (with some notable exceptions).

I have been told with absolute certainty that my blog postings have to be just this length, and posted at least this frequently, and promoted this way.  I have been told that my blog needs to have a very narrow theme.  I’ve been told that it must have a “cloud” and it must be on the right hand side (as opposed to those who believe for sure that it should be on the left hand side, as opposed to those who believe it is outdated and shouldn’t be on the blog at all).  I’ve been told it’s best if the theme isn’t narrow and I should just write about whatever hits my fancy at the moment.  I have been told “you can’t say that on a blog; the blogosphere doesn’t like that.”  I have been told to forget about Twitter and Facebook and take a look at Wikis because that is where the future is. 

I have appreciated all the advice that has been afforded.  I’ve gotten some hints and tips that have indeed proven to be helpful.  BUT, I think the tone of certainty and arrogance from those positioned as experts (usually as a result of their own promotional effort) have been counter-productive. 

New and social media is and should be the Wild West.  It is new and unexplored and hardly close to what it will be like ten years, five years, one year from now.  How can there be arrogance about what is right and what is wrong, what is “proper” and “improper,” what the rules of the game are in a game that has hardly begun?

Want to see new/social media and other tools really explode in unique ways never before envisioned?  Tell the gurus to stop setting rules and try adopting some degree of humility about what they do not know.  Try things even the blogosphere doesn’t like.  Make mistakes – make plenty of mistakes.  In the process discover what has been overlooked.  Search for the new models.  Be as open and as radical and as unconstrained as the tools themselves give you the opportunity to be.  To do that, tell these guys who have all of maybe two or three years of experience in the space to calm down, get a grip, appreciate the dynamism of the space and stop trying to establish rules about what is right and what is wrong.  If we can do that, we’ll get to the future quicker.  So, next time you hear “You’re not supposed to do it that way; you should do it this way” your response would be:  “Thank you very much.  Now shut up.”

Today’s news includes statistics that only emphasize the phenomenon I’ve written about before:  look at quantitative trends and you’ll be a pessimist but if you look at qualitative trends you’ll be an optimist.  As you read the following, consider these questions:  How long can statistics such as retail sales keep going down while confidence in the prospects of a recovery keeps going up?  At some point, if the quantitative statistics don’t flatten out and start moving north, wouldn’t confidence start heading south?  Alternatively, if confidence keeps going up, will that be enough to pull the economy northward with it?  I think the answer has to do with what is giving rise to the confidence, and that is Barack Obama.

First, today’s quantitative statistics: 

§         Retail Sales:  Seeking Alpha summarized the news as follows:  “Retail sales fell 1.1% in March vs. +0.3% consensus. Y/Y sales dropped 10.7%.  February revised to +0.3% from -0.1%. Total sales for Jan.-March declined 8.8% from a year ago.”

§         Producer Price Index:  They summarized the news this way:  “Producer Prices declined 1.2% in March, vs. consensus of 0.0%, and after gaining 0.1% in Feb. and 0.8% in Jan. Core PPI 0.0% vs. consensus of +0.1%. Year-over-year, prices dropped 3.5% vs. consensus of -2.2% and February's -1.3%.”

On the qualitative front: 

§         The Washington Post reported today that a recent research study by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press shows that Obama has the support of 88 percent of Democrats as opposed to only 27 percent of Republicans approving.  But Republicans are actually shrinking as a percent of the population even as the percent of Americans who consider themselves Democrats is increasing, so the net support for Obama is very high.  That support is also very deep (that is, the people who support Obama support him intensely).  The news media is stressing the fact that this is the widest partisan gap in approval rating of any president in the modern era.  But I think the news about the gap between Democrats and Republicans is becoming increasingly irrelevant, largely because of the Republicans’ incredibly inept communications campaign. 

§         I think the real significance of this poll is seen when juxtaposed with the recent New York Times poll that showed that despite the fact that 70 percent of the respondents were “very” or “somewhat” concerned that someone in their household would lose their job within the next 12 months, “the number of people who said they thought the country was headed in the right direction jumped from 15 percent in mid-January, just before Mr. Obama took office, to 39 percent today, while the number who said it was headed in the wrong direction dropped to 53 percent from 79 percent. That is the highest percentage of Americans who said the country was headed in the right direction since 42 percent said so in February 2005.”  

I believe that we are increasingly seeing that popular support for the president is translating into broad confidence that things will improve.  But the president continues to work down expectations, which he should be doing.  Thus, people who believe in both him and the nation’s eventual economic health must be willing – at least for now – to give Obama lots of time to get things moving in the right direction.  From that I conclude that the general population is “hunkering down” for a long economic winter.  That will probably show up in continuing depressed statistics such as car sales and other retail sales, as well as the sales of homes.  And that sounds to me like at least a temporary self-fulfilling prophecy of continuing poor quantitative statistics.

Revisiting the core question:  How long can the divergence between optimism that the country is going in the right direction coexist with worsening economic data?  The answer in my opinion:  as long as Obama keeps in place his constituency of the broad economic and political middle.  I also think that the poor economy is going to be around for a while, so that if Obama is able to keep his support in place (which I would not bet against), he will far surpass any other president’s reputation for being a great communicator.  But if he doesn’t, the optimism that will be a necessary ingredient to a recovery will not be there.  And the economic recovery will take longer to evolve and will probably emerge with much less vigor.

Isn’t it ironic, therefore, that the resurrection of wealth so desired by the Republicans will be dependent on the popular support of the Democratic president?