I got pretty inspired by Nilofer Merchants post on Harvard Business Reviews blogs about rules for the social era and started to think about what that second word ‘era’ mean in terms of a fundamental shift for media. Because it’s so much beyond social features and technology – it’s about a different operating mindset.

So I sat down and grid to map Nilofers different overarching points to a media context, and out of it came three roads, which I think media companies should figure out how to follow sooner rather than later. So here goes:

1. Go for leaner, not bigger: There is a tendency in media companies that it costs a fortune just to get an idea. Simply because of all the people and parts that start moving by themselves whenever you start to discuss something, and because systems are built for scale and not for being nimble. Going for big from the get go in a social era is like trying to get a supertanker to fit in a bathtub. So media companies really need to figure out how they can go lean, still get to the market with great offerings but more  on a beta base and with such small costs that things can quickly be either killed (if they don’t work) or scaled (if they do work). We need a lot of experimentation and for that to work we need experiments to be lean, mean, cheap and fast.
2. Break the chains and cater for the conversations: Even though most media companies are working to involve readers and users one way or the other through social media, there is still the overall understanding that creating media is a process that goes from A to B to C and beyond, and that nobody can handle that process better than journalists and editors and therefor nobody else should interfere into it. I think that needs to change to. There needs to be a lot more touch points between journalists, researchers and the prospective customers of the content, they are creating, while the creation is taking place. Stories and features need to come more to life and resemble some of the conversations that are being had on different social fora. Otherwise the content will seem stale, unappealing and thus without any value.
3. Foster real sharing of values: Many think that liking something or being a fan of something is related very specifically to the product and not the values they exhume. This is wrong. Take me for instance. I’m fan (yes, sadly) of Blackburn Rovers in the English football Premier League. Not because of the brand itself but of what surrounds the brand; the idea of the upstart who (once) bit the big ones in the heels and became champions against all the odds – because I’m a big fan of the smaller one getting one over the bigger guys. And that sticks. I think media companies need to think the same way; customers are not becoming fans because of the way you do content versus your competitor (it’s more or less alike anyway) but because of what your brand stands for, it’s values and how that tie into the life of your customers. Thus media companies need to get to a much better understanding of what the actual daily lives of their customers are and find that fit. Because once that is found, there is the basis for a kind of symbiosis that new relationships and business can be built from.

No matter what angle you choose to view this from, I think one point is vital to understand: Social is not about technology alone. It’s not a feature that has it’s moment and then withers away. Social is an inherent trait in everybody, and now we just have the tools to facilitate being social in much more efficient ways. Thus social is here to stay. And with that comes the need to adapt to the new reality.

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With the amount of players in social curation, it’s interesting to ask two questions: When are we going to be using all this curation and for what? And where does it leave the traditional curators, the news organizations.

I fully agree with Bobbie Johnson of GigaOM that there is a curation bubble happening. We collect things but to what end? It may be fun and engaging right now, but what happens when the initial fascination wears off? The more we curate the bigger the piles of curated stuff will get and then what? Someone out there must have a couple of possible answers since this has suddenly become such a craze.

When you think about it it’s pretty funny. Because while curation is now ‘all that’ some of the same people advocating it big time have had a great time putting the old curators, news media, down and condemning them to extinction. So will this be the big come back for news media and journalists as curators?

It might be. I have a strong feeling that the world needs strong professional curation, and if hobby curation is what gets people to tick about it again that’s fine by me. But I have little doubt that it won’t be a walk in the park. Because even though the pendulum now seems to be swinging in favor of some of the things news media do best, it comes with a set of demands for news media to really up their game and show what the real difference between professionals and amateurs are.

While there are many great journalists out there doing good work, I’m not overly convinced that the perception is that news media is providing enough value over amateurs. And with the amateurs now coming strong in the field of curation (until the bubble bursts at least) – one of the last classic bastions – an opportunity could end up with a serious defeat for news media.

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