4iP asked Ivo Gormley of thinkpublic to share some reflections on the advent of 4iP.
Ivo is currently cutting a documentary, Us Now, on the impact of the internet on government.
I recently interviewed Giles Andrews from the peer-to-peer money lending site
Zopa. He said:
“So I think we have people that deal with us purely financially… to
some it is an interesting sort of social diversion. It is fun. And
to others it is a philanthropic thing where we have lenders offering
money on our markets at uneconomic rates of interest… So, as far as
I am concerned, all those motivations for interacting with Zopa are
good ones but it makes it difficult to generalise and I suspect that
that is something that society is increasingly coming to terms with:
that customers don’t necessarily fit into the easy pigeon holes that
businesses and marketing departments like to think they do”
It seems that even organisations like banks are tapping into social
motivations to give them competitive advantage. Social media seems
to be changing what it means to be commercial and
this is in turn is changing the qualities of what is mainstream.
In this new version of ‘mainstream’ people’s diverse motivations and
input will play a greater role, this is something that public services
are still struggling to adapt to. I hope 4iP will help move new and
existing projects that produce public service outcomes closer to
this mainstream.
Ivo Gormley
thinkpublic
stuart cosgrove on Sat, July 19, 2008 at 8:37 said:
Thanks for your contribution Ivo and agree with its sentiments.
So many of the certainties of business, creative and social exchange
are being reconfigured by social media we at 4iP have challenges on almost every front. But the prospect is exhilerating and our
forthcoming launch in Autumn is our next hurdle. Stay in touch.
Darren Cockburn on Mon, August 04, 2008 at 4:36 said:
Maybe the definition of “mainstream” is the wrong way to look at this - one of the great opportunities of the internet is to allow organisations to deal with many more consumer segments, and address them in the way that is most appropriate (and useful) for that group. The cost of segmentation and conmsumer engagement is dropping dramatically - so maybe the future of “mainstream” really “many different streams”?
Ivo on Sun, November 09, 2008 at 2:46 said:
Thanks for the comments, to try to answer your question Darren; Yes, different types of more individualised communication are definitely a big part of the future, but there is still a yearning, and an important place for, shared experience on a huge scale. There’s something wonderful and needed about being part of a crowd or a movement; we are not seeing the predicted demise of cinema, concert and football audiences as a result of the availability of more personalised or segmented viewing experiences. We now have the opportunity for large scale collective activity to be based on more than just performance and intelligent consumer segmentation, it can be based on large scale self-organisation. This could bring a range of completely different issues into the genre of mass collective experience.
« Previous entry: Levellers, Fishbones and Sir Tim Berners Lee
Next entry: Evidence of Body »