Its an ordinary day, but you’re doing something special; you’re meeting friends for a coffee in a store down town. You’re chatting, you’re gossiping, you’re catching up,  discussing the merits of disposable nappies or, the latest offering from a mobile network company. Suddenly, right there next to your table somebody starts walking up and down with a placard showing the brand name of those companies on it you have been talking about. You laugh at it, you try to ignore and after a few moments become irritated by it.

Then, even ruder, you’re having a conversation about your next holidays in New Zealand and up pops a message board right there in the middle of the table. It might be quirky to begin with, even fun, but eventually that interruption becomes nothing short of bombardment. That’s what and will happen on a fundamental basis in the future. And it won’t stop there. That person that was walking up and down with the placards with the nappy brand on it, was discreetly looking through your handbag taking data that will help that same person market to you when you’re sat on the loo and on the intercom in your new car when ‘social’ introduces itself to the driving experience. Welcome to in real life what Facebook and Twitter are doing to you online. Of course you know that.

Most of us would admit that when Facebook launched way back in 2004, it was a game changer. It stole the show and created demand for social networking, which individuals across the world didn’t know they needed. In the last year, though, Facebook has changed, as it becomes busy fulfilling the demand not of its users but of the brands that drive its revenue and shareholder value, other brands will see that the gate has opened and the horse has bolted! Opportunities are everywhere, and everything can be remade. Unthink is just one of the first out of the traps.

Facebook’s changes in the last few weeks are just tweaks. Seriously, they’re not revolutionary. When Henry Ford brought the first mass-produced motor car to the market in 1908 it changed the world, but since then the industry has just been fiddling with the original design. When James Dyson launched a snazzy new vacuum cleaner it was a game changer, but since then all they have been doing is fine tuning.

The future is about building several communities full of connections and monetising that rather than creating products and trying to sell them to a bunch of people we are disconnected to. We have forgotten how much social capital really matters as we were busy breeding a couple of generations where human capital was expressed as the sole attribute to have.

I’ve talked a lot about how we have to get up close, intimate and personal with customers. They cost too much to attract and are too valuable to lose. The problem is how we scale that. We are seeing brands and individuals building significant followings and not being able to engage and initiate a cherished relationship, myself included. Its a real head scratcher!

We know and accept that its the density of the network/community not the numbers that matter. We are frustrated with the lack of ability to govern it. We can use IT to listen, identify and deliver customised experiences but we still need to ensure that the algorithmic activity flocks to a common rendezvous with social. The semantic web will create some succor but it won’t provide all the answers. Computers still can’t interpret human emotion, intent and sentiment the same way us humans can.

It’s a social media thing and most people still don’t understand it! I’m not the only one frustrated by the claptrap that has spurted from certain fraternites of the media these last few days about social media being responsible for the London riots. Take a peak at thisislondon and BBC articles.

We will avoid the dumbing down of journalism and the poor standards being exhibited by global media brands including the BBC nowadays. Another time over a drink maybe! Information flows have always being substantially affected by the size and character of social networks. Twenty years ago this happened via physical word of mouth. This week its happened both physically and virtually. Double whammy! That’s why we have seen the sheer numbers of rioters involved, how things changed so rapidly and, as a result, why it got out of control so quickly. Its been a form of viral rioting.

Social networks provide reach, volume and spreadability. There is a lesson here for politicians, leaders of large institutions and anyone in an authoritative position, society and behaviour is re organising itself. I’m not condoning the actions of these misguided and mindless individuals but there is a strong message. Uprisings can happen, even within organisations and very swiftly.

When we don’t understand something, we hastily blame it, granted it also helps if inflammatory headlines sell a few more newspapers. Social networks have energy so yes they can fuel things, but the energy originates from and is created by the humans. We are doing our usual thing; asking what happened, who to implicate and how are we going to punish those responsible rather than the equally valuable question, why it happened?

Those who criticize this generation forget who raised it. We have failed to embed community values, a sense of belonging and the importance of social capital in this rather upturned world that believes that you put the individual first not society. In truth, you can’t expect people to respect authority if every week that authority is demonstrably being shown to be corrupt. We have advocated the relationship between income and happiness despite evidence to the contrary and ignored the strong association between personal and community relationships.

Social media is no more responsible than my Gran. If, you want it your way and social media is to blame, there is no need to feel anguished, the Police will be able to trace, find those really responsible and hopefully bring justice to those people affected by these awful events. In fact, used creatively, social media could be used to facilitate unity and strength in the communities so devastated recently.

Despite the rumours we still have to work for our supper. You don’t do social media, you are social media and that means investment. Marketing just got labour intensive and for those complaining about the lack of time, well sorry tough. The clue is in the title; social.

Building a website, constructing a blog, creating a Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube and Twitter page all free from a cash perspective. How jolly! However, the jubilation can stop there! Social means communicative, cordial, informative, pleasant, organised, popular, polite and public. That takes time, effort and energy. Those that complain that they haven’t the time to write a blog, share content or engage are, speaking candidly, lacking in imagination, or it’s just too much like hard work and/or the fear of change factor is kicking in. As with classic marketing, we had to find the cash to pay for the advert, direct mail, brochure, website or agency to carry out the work on our behalf. Now it’s less about the cash and more about the time. Time to spend online interacting, time to curate information useful for a community, time to build an amazing community around our intellect, because our products don’t matter as much as they used to.

And for those who think they can just sub it out again to an agency. Think again and again. Social media is not about automation, we’ve complained about that enough within traditional fields of communication. For the record I’m not against automated delivery but I’m completely against automated responses! There I’ve said it!

Remember the old saying “going to borrow a cup of sugar” Referred to as the best way of getting to meet or know your neighbour. Just occurred to me, that perhaps we should do this more often in business.

Today is a lot about connections and relationships. We need to get out and about more and visit that company over the road or next door and say hello. Borrow a cup of sugar virtually from that person who has just followed you on Twitter who looks interesting. Better still what about the last person to visit your website or post a comment on your blog. Or, even the customer you haven’t talked to in ages.

We’ve a lot to learn by looking back at how our forefathers built relationships and its a great excuse to use a coffee break productively too!

Phil Zimmerman was recently quoted as saying in the future we will all get our ’15 minutes of privacy’ rather than our Andy Warhol moment. Clever thought, and sadly, perhaps true. Both professionally and personally we are all going to have to manage our online reputations. We’ll even measure and score it. We’ll leave the personal element in the bottom drawer for now.

Measurement will evolve and monitoring is here already. I believe we will be measured independently based on the following five gauges:

Content – More work is online than ever before. With wikis and cloud computing, filing cabinets are becoming a thing of the past and it’s exposed, to some degree for everyone to see. In fact, it’s important that the content is accessible rather than hidden. The quality of that content will be critical. More of us will be publishing our work online, our ideas, knowledge and opinions.

Influence – This will be about your popularity. How many people are following you? How many fans you have? How often you are mentioned or referenced in other peoples content? It’s also about how well you are connected, who you are connected to and how you influence those networks.

Trust – Part of this will be how transparent, open and whether people respect your integrity. It will be about how you deal with the positive as well as the negative issues every business has. Included will be testimonials and case studies that clients quite openly communicate across their own online sphere not your website.

Community – Having a strong community around your brand will make online reputation management easier. A robust set of people full of influencers and passionate about what you do will fight your battles on your behalf. They are more ready to forgive if you deal with problems well. They will be engaged and assist you in managing your reputation over the long run.

How you use social media – This is perhaps as much about sourcing as marketing. The sourcing of innovative solutions, using social media to co-create, participate and share information. It will also involve seeking out top suppliers and partners.

If you want to hear more about this, I’ll be speaking at this event next week: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/509178968

It goes without saying that you earn reputation. If you don’t manage your online reputation someone else will and it isn’t that coffee induced, fast food journalist out to get you. Its not shameful promotion, its now the bedrock of managing your brand and developing a community. Expect to be measuring accurately soon…..