Why be there in person when a camera phone will do

Last month our Delvinia Insight group published the Dig Report detailing ways Canadians use (or don’t use) their mobile phones.  We found that the camera was one of the most used feature of mobile phones but close to 60% of users share their photos in person and over 30%  don’t share their photos at all.  Only a small percentage share their photos through email, SMS or by uploading them to social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter.

In my opinion, the reason most users don’t share their photos is because they don’t see the value in it for them or they don’t see how sharing the photo’s can be used in their daily lives.  Yes, they took a nice picture but unless there was a reason for someone else to see the photo why bother forwarding it.

When I first purchased my mobile phone I tried out the camera but similar to Delvinia’s Dig findings I only shared them in person if I shared them at all.  Recently, I had an opportunity to use my mobile phone and camera in a real world situation and now I see how useful the feature can be.

My newly engaged friend took a trip to New York to try on wedding dresses.  I wanted to be there with her but unfortunately couldn’t go.  With my mobile phone I was still an active part with the dress shopping even though I never left Canada.  As my friend tried on dresses, another friend snapped pictures with her camera phone and with a few quick key strokes the photos were emailed out to me and a few other friends.

I accessed the photos with my mobile phone and I was able to email and text my comments. My friend had 3 people with her and another 3 people remotely helping her find a dress and we were able to use the camera and the sharing features of the mobile phone in a useful and effective way.  Even though these types of life experiences are better in person, for those times when I can’t be there  it looks like my cell phone can do a pretty good job being there for me.

An Opportunity for Change

If you live in Toronto, it is hard not to hear about what has been going on with the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) front line workers and commuters of the TTC.  For those that may have not, it started a couple of weeks back when a TTC rider took a picture  of  TTC ticket operator sleeping behind the ticket window and posted it on the Internet.  This was followed by another rider taking a video of a TTC bus driver taking an extended break and posting that video as well.  The media have loved this type of issue with story after story.

This led to the TTC Chief General Manager Gary Webster issuing a letter to the TTC employees saying that their customers deserve better.  Brilliant.  This led to TTC staff creating a facebook site called “Toronto Transit Operators Against Public Harassment” and they are threatening a Work-to-Rule Campaign. Once again…brilliant!!

What is really happening is that social media, mobile cameras and devices, and the fact that people have incredible power today has led to people fighting back.  And management and unions alike are struggling with how to deal with this.  And just check out the firestorm of comments on the various media sites around this topic.

A work to rule campaign against the very customers who ride the TTC?  Aren’t work to rule campaigns supposed to be used against management as a negotiating chip?  But the unions are trying to use the same tactic on an issue that TTC Management has absolutely NO CONTROL over.  And all that the head of the TTC said was, “Serve our customers better”. The TTC Operators are trying to fall back on collective bargaining agreements that are between management but not the customers themselves. 

Well the winds of change are among us, and it is time for TTC Management and the Unions to realize that the public has a voice and they have are now entering a period where their traditional collective bargaining agreements have very little control over that voice.  The TTC is not alone.  This is occurring everywhere that people are using a service that a union-management relationship exist, including such established union environments as the Peforming Arts.

I don’t have the answers of what will be the solution for this issue, but I do know that it is time to change the way both unions and management look at how they work together to deliver products and services to customers.  It is time for unions and management realize that this new digital age is upon us and it is only going to grow.  For the TTC workers, what do you think will happen if they actually implement a work to rule campaign and disrupt service for TTC riders, all because they don’t want to be videotaped or pictures taken when they do something wrong.

What they don’t realize is that they can turn the tables, and people will do the same thing for something good.  Imagine the great feeling TTC employees will have when people videotape a TTC Bus Driver helping someone in distress.  They will be hero and the TTC will look great.

It doesn’t have to all be bad.  It is just different.  I hope that both the TTC Management and the union representing TTC workers can sit down and realize that this is not going away, and that they need to change they way they will address the public outcry in the digital medium.  Applying their traditional methods of controlling the situation will no longer work in this digital age.   They need a new perspective and that starts with embracing the fact that digital technologies have given people incredible power and control, and they are speaking up. 

This change won’t be easy, but it will happen. This is only the beginning…

Killing in the Name goes to UK Number 1 – A Social Media Triumph for the People?

The Number One Christmas Single on the UK music charts always receives a lot of attention, but this year there was extra drama thrown into the mix. For the past four years the Christmas Number One have been winners from the Simon Cowell’s UK singing talent competition The X Factor.  This year, however, UK rock fan Jon Morter was determined to strike a blow in defense of rock and against the manufactured pop star phenomenon. He created a grassroots campaign to sell more copies of a song and block a fifth straight win for The X Factor factory by. Morter chose 90s hard-rock band Rage Against the Machine and their controversial 1992 track  ’Killing In The Name ‘.

When all the sales were complied, Killing In The Name sales totaled 500,000 copies while Joe McElderry’s The Climb trailed behind with sales of 450,000. Killing in the Name was not available as a CD single and became the first download-only Christmas number one, as well as the biggest download sales total in a song’s first week in the charts.

Rage Against the X-Factor (as the campaign became dubbed) has been triumphed by some as an example of the power of social networks over the traditional media powers-that-be. After all, the The Climb hit had a hit TV show, a huge marketing campaign behind it with deep in-store discounts bringing the price down to as little as 30p in some stores. Killing in the Name had no budget, one passionate individual with a noble goal. It just so happens that Morter was not alone in his frustration with The X Factor and the Facebook group began to attract hundreds, then thousands of members (the group now boasts over one million members). The cause quickly spread throughout other social networks such as Twitter, Bebo and MySpace.

There are several factors that came together to help make this campaign successful: an interesting cause (if given the chance, who wouldn’t want to cause even a small measure of grief to Simon Cowell); an easy conversion (simply buy Killing in the Name at the UK iTunes store), and good old Word-of-Mouth. The rest took care of itself as mainstream media caught wind of the campaign and it was features in newspapers and on TV across the UK.

One week later, Killing in the Name dropped to #40 and Joe McAlderry moved up a spot to #1 anyway – Sony may have been the big winner, as both artists are distributed by the media company.

So, has anything changed? Was this really a triumph of social media, or simply a coincidence? Could this have happened without Facebook, Twitter and other high profile social networking platforms? Sure, in the past hit songs have become hits regionally then went on to become national and international hits – but they took months, sometime years to achieve this. The Rage Against the X-Factor campaign took just a few weeks. Things can happen fast in the online world, use that speed and efficiency to your advantage, be aware or your brand could be blindsided.

Photo credit:http://www.flickr.com/photos/penner/ / CC BY-SA 2.0