I say it tongue in cheek I can assure you! But I really can write my next book anyway you like. But first, I’d love it if you contributed and participated in creating the titles of the chapters. Let me tell you more!

It will be an ebook very much created around you being able to read it via your iPad, tablet, smartphone and, of course your laptop or desktop. We’ve sort of organised the structure. It will be released chapter by chapter from January 2012 until December 2012, at which point I will need a long holiday, and perhaps, you will too. Fourteen chapters, phew! The first and the fourteenth are already complete, oh yes! It’s also going to be our first attempt at a content subscription model. Yes you are going to have to pay a small fee for it!

The title, well that’s already in the bag too; “The Delusion of Social Media.” I’ll be writing several blogs about this over the next few weeks to give you a flavour of where my mind is flying off to with this. However, the titles of the remaining twelve chapters lie with you! I see social media shifting quite radically over the next two years, something the early adopters need to be well prepared for and the early majority will actually create.

Its done! In the past we have operated on some classic assumptions, the influence rested neatly on the three C’s: Crown, Capital and Clergy. It was through these vials of power that things changed. Presently, we have three new C’s: Connection, Conversation and Community. It’s a huge shift, governments, religions and money still have huge clout but the barricades are being removed, playing fields leveled and access to all areas, no matter your position, becoming the norm.

There seems to be a huge helping of unchartered territory these days. Yet its a paradox. It can be overwhelming, scary and daunting, yet at the same time, it can be exciting, natural and amazing. We won’t need the state, church and lots of capital to make things happen in the future, just being connected, having conversations of affinity and being engaged in a community that inspires will suffice. All delivered by a mobile device in our pocket or under our arm that enables real life experiences (IRL.)

There are times when I’m quick to catch on and then there are times when I’m so slow I make the Shuttle Transporter look sprint like. Some of my friends will attest to the latter. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and with most things associated with it, if I’d have known what I do now years, even months ago, it would have saved me getting into a mountain of trouble.

I used to think that there were two types of opportunities, those that are missed and those that are taken. Frankly there isn’t. There are the ‘real deal’ opportunities and the ‘fill in’ or, as a colleague calls them ‘this will do’ ones. My business mentor has thankfully taught me the invaluable ability to spot the difference.

We are absolutely swamped with a plethora of opportunities nowadays. However, not all provide the opulence we think they do. The ‘fill in’ opportunities are often short sighted, short term, shallow. We think they are adding value when, in fact, they are extracting it slowly without us realising it.  They are the comfortable opportunities, the ones that involve less risk, less emotion and less energy.  But bring about eventual apathy, boredom and dullness.

The ‘real deal’ opportunities are just that, the big one, risky, exciting, daunting, progressive and future proof. They are the ones that allow us to see right through to the end, they are long term and, by a freak of nature, offer more stability. Half the time though we potter around with the ‘fill in’ because it’s the easy option, missing a perfect ‘real deal’ along the way blindly thinking we were having real fun, making real money or just really managing it.

As Franz Liszt said “Beware of missing chances; otherwise it may be altogether too late some day.” And it’s the real chances, the ones that exhibit longevity, impulse, amazement and offer compelling experiences that captivate, that are the authentic opportunities. ‘Fill in’ really isn’t an option, well not for me anymore.

I see HMV has embarked upon trying to sell on Facebook (at this point I’m omitting a huge sigh!) Whilst I think its wise to test the Facebook waters, it’s just really re arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. HMV has far more pressing matters to attend to and this just stinks of a company very lost at sea! I set this as a case study for my students recently and over the last 12 weeks we have had some illuminating discussions about its problems.

Its some 5 years too late for Facebook to stall HMV’s significant losses. Whilst a senior executive team has focused primarily on re financing the business just to stay afloat, its caused a distraction from the real actuality; they seem to have forgotten about the customer and how to communicate with them. On top of all of that, its all moved so merrily on. Putting a page on Facebook isn’t going to rescue a company already showing its third profits warning of the year.

The real issues the company have are on the high streets of the hundreds of locations they occupy here in the UK and overseas. They have ignored a consumer surge towards the ‘exceptional experience,’ failed to identify just who their customers are and designed stores around the very people who don’t buy physical products anymore. (Even bigger sigh here!)

The sad thing is that once HMV and its sister company Waterstones are gone they are gone forever and don’t expect WHSmith to rise to the challenge. If only HMV looked at the market place and switched its strategy to creating an amazing, captivating experience for people who are still buying CD’s, DVD’s and books; the over 35′s. It could reduce the number of stores to a select few (like Apple) and deliver very special experiences like small cinema’s and concert areas (I know they have done this but the way they have done it hasn’t worked either.) The scarcity model could work quite well here. Today, a strategy that focuses its physical resources on people who are downloading is futile if not stupidity in flabbergasting proportions.

Jumping on the bandwagon of ‘social’ is not going to rescue HMV, a cold hard look at its overall marketing and communications strategy is. One of the delusions of social media is that people think its going to save them. Its not and it certainly won’t if the thinking behind it is fundamentally flawed and not part of an integrated marketing strategy that dispatches engaging and participative adventures in store! All rolled up by understanding how offline and online need to be synergised. You can’t keep introducing more and more products to try and appeal to a customer segment that drives diminishing returns but you can stem the flow, or indeed create a flow, by creating some unique packaging, unique convenience, unique experience and a little unique content.

We are currently building a brand new website and the first phase will be launched on the 27th May 2011. Its all very exciting and its being structured so that we can add phases two and three throughout 2011 and into 2012.

We’ll keep you updated with developments, however, expect a very new look, new content, more video and some key ideas!

I’ve recently been talking to a few very successful people and a strange inclination seemed to emerge. Each one had a lucid insight into what their utopia was and have spent their lives striving to achieve it. Some of those friends would admit to being in it! Aside from offering me some comfort, (my utopia is openly unambiguous and very clear) as these things do, it got me thinking! I offer this article by way of starting a conversation brimming with potential questions rather than by providing an all-defining answer.

In building communities around our brand, are we not in a position right now to create our own micro community of utopia? Of course, by definition, utopia doesn’t exist its an imagined world, but the very notion that we have the skills, ability and capability to design something where everything around our brand is perfect, may be an attraction too captivating to avoid or ignore.

To refresh, utopia is the name of an imaginary island, it was the subject and title of a book by Sir Thomas More (1516) that had a perfect political and social system. In the novel a traveler Raphael describes an imaginary country on an island. Utopia is also often referred to on a personal level as an ideal place or situation. Early utopian writers were enabled to experiment with ideas of social organisation and creating the ideal society. Oscar Wilde said that any map that doesn’t have utopia on it is not worth looking at. He also said “I can resist everything except temptation.” That though is another story!

Perhaps, though there is, in this new social media world, the seductive lure to venture towards conceiving a community of fans, followers and friends that can together attempt to actualize utopia. Douglas Rushkoff in his book Life Inc describes that we have looked for our future, happiness, our desires, even perfection in the brands we buy from because society around us failed to meet those needs.

We’ll not discuss the Disney effect here, nor, utopia’s relationship with communism and socialism. Critics of the concept are clear that one of the reasons utopia is contrary to reason is that lots of members preclude the conditions necessary as too many opinions prevail. So if you can’t build utopia with thousands of people, because everyone’s definition of utopia is different and that many beliefs would make ‘perfection’ impossible, how about if we add Dunbar’s theory of 150 and build micro communities, then is it possible?

Some would argue (myself included) that the social web is enabling us to do some fundamental human things like share, reciprocate, promote individual right and freedoms, embrace individual responsibility, social cooperation and mutual respect. Attainable utopian behaviour?

If you can aggregate 150 people who have affinity, similar values and ideals, who may be utopian thinkers themselves, whether its achievable or not, utopian thinking may on occasion produce a vision of the future that is realizable and one that can be strived for by the utopian members of a community. And, if that utopian community is around your brand, that could be quite compelling and alluring. Or am I describing the absurd?