Thanks so much for your thoughtful comment. You know I have always appreciated your insight and value your contributions. My main point wasn’t that I was asking myself ‘what’s next’. I have used and leveraged SocMed jointly with Isabella with, for example, Mental Health Camp. As you know, I’ve volunteered my time and energy for the community at large.

My point here was a bit more specific and narrow in that I was a bit surprised that there are still some insights to be drawn (even if it would seem that there aren’t).

If you’re looking for identifiable paradigm shifts, big or small, it’s worth taking a look at the seemingly innocuous statement Vancouver’s Mayor Gregor Robertson made last week at VanChangeCamp.

He invited everyone in the room to become “unaccredited journalists” respective of the 2010 Olympics. He also used a term I coined years ago when he told everyone to use social media to “leverage Olympic momentum.”

Basically, he said, quit talking about the tool and use it.

The underlying complexity here is that when you do start to actually use the tool in a real world news setting, you will step on the toes of legacy mainstream news media companies who for the last 250+ years, and until recently, held a monopoly on the dissemination of news.

If I understand you correctly in your message here, it seems you’ve reached a level where you want to justify the huge amount of time you spend addressing social media growth and issues, and you’re not quite sure what is next.

The answer is relatively simple – take the mayor’s advice and quit talking about the tool and start to use it to improve not the SocMed community, but instead our community at large. You can watch Mayor Robertson’s video post to VanChangeCamp here – http://blip.tv/file/2296963

and read my post about the event here – http://www.olyblog.com/f/09/VanChangeCampF06202009.shtml

Social media, respective of the traditional business world, is “disruptive” and not as friendly as some people in the tech industry initially envisioned or still wish it to be. Transparency = accountability, and accountability is a tough nut to crack for companies who in the past were able to operate relatively unencumbered and often in a manner perceived by many to be less-than-ethical.

Transparency = accountability = ethics

Too many SocMed events I attend address issues in an esoteric way. It was interesting two years ago, but now it’s boring. I couldn’t agree more with Mayor Robertson when he says it’s time to evolve and apply the discussion to real world events, but I know from personal experience it’s also naive to think everyone in the SocMed world is going to get along and be friendly or even agree with each other. For example, I also carefully watch the Vancouver SocMed scene and I know who is genuine and who puts their personal gain over that of our community. I also have no problem going after the latter.

My suggestion is to pick a side and run with it, but keep in mind SocMed demands transparency and if you have a hidden agenda, sooner than later people will learn about it. In fact, that’s the whole point.

We’ve also reached a level of SocMed maturity where fence sitters will be ignored by everyone and especially by investors with capitol to make things happen respective of politics, democracy, and commerce.

If you want to be taken seriously in the SocMed world, you can’t be non-committal and you have to be working towards the greater good.