Steve Rubel, who is normally pretty savvy about these things, comes out today and says:

“So you heard it here first, folks. Twitter is peaking. Now I believe Twitter can get through “the dip” that stares them in the face, but it will need to adapt by: keeping its core users intact, remaining attractive to corporations and celebs and by becoming more organized. Search will help with the latter, but expect a battle as Facebook and Friendfeed both make a concerted push to become the place for all your social stuff.”

This is just nuts.   First of all, I’ve been on Friendfeed for at least 18 months now and don’t find much use in it, except that it helps feed my other social media streams to Facebook.  If it went away, I’d find and use other apps to do the same. Friendfeed has yet to break out beyond the more technically literate crowd.  Considering what Facebook is doing with developing its core product, I don’t think Friendfeed has much of a place beyond its existing niche going forward.

Twitter, on the other hand, I predict, is going to be ubiquitous.  Yes, it’s disorganized today, but it provides an information stream that can be sliced and diced in so many different ways that eventually everyone will be able to find an application of it that suits their needs.

The next big step, I think, is for Twitter, or some other programmer, to come up with an address book that allows people to categorize followers and followings by various relationship types.  I think TweetDeck may be the farthest along toward this.  But if the next generation MS Outlook includes the ability to add social media connections to its contacts data (and I believe it will), that may end up being the thing that locks Twitter into the same class as email as a permanent business and personal communication tool.

So, I’ll be starting mostly from scratch.

As it is with all discussions of innovation, it is important for me to provide you with a little perspective.  This comes courtesy a blog post by Clayton Bell, a fellow Tallahassee Blogger and Twitterphile.  It made me laugh.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Sometimes we forget that we should be gobsmacked by how amazing the times in which we live in actually are.

What I’m trying to do with Whatsnextnow.net is get those of you who grew up in my era, those who can remember the time of rotary phones, no microwave ovens, having to get off your butt to change the channel, etc., to realize that all of the new communication tools offered within the realm of  “social media”  should be considered and approached just like all the other innovations you have adopted in your lifetimes.  Didn’t you crave a TV with a remote once you knew they were available?  Of course you did.

Know this: If you have more than a couple years left before retirement,  this  social media stuff almost certainly is going to matter to your workplace and career in a very big way.  Yes, much of it is now going through the same sort of shake-out period that those of us who bought Betamax TV recorders learned was risky.  But I can guarantee you that several social media platforms are going to become standardized and widely adopted by business for and become part of routine communication functions.

Why I’m here is because I want you to be ready for it.   Conversational social media platforms are to “Business Communications 2009″ as the fax machine was to “Business Communications 1984″ and email was to “Business Communications 1994.”  A recent Pew Adult Social Media Use Study suggests that fewer than 15% of us online adults 45 and older have taken even the first baby steps into establishing a presence, a “social media footprint” so to speak, by creating their first on-line profile.  I’ll wager that more than half of us who have created profiles have done nothing with them.  It may be too soon for many to see the value in it, but unbeknownst to them “too soon” is heading past them like an Airbus (would have used “locomotive” but it’s just too danged old an analogy).

When I write here, I’ll try to keep in mind any age-related disconnects you might have.

Welcome to whatsnextnow.net. I guess the best place for me to start is to tell you what this blog is all about.  Then I’ll explain what inspired me and who I want to help.  Finally, I’ll share with you some of my qualifications as they relate to what I’m trying to do here.

What This Blog is About

Whatsnextnow.net is all about personal, organizational and business communications and the powerful changes appearing on the horizon.  I hope to engage you in conversations about how we can best use traditional skills to leverage Web 2.0 technologies and Social Media innovations .

Now, the term “Web 2.0″ has a rather hazy definition, and you’ll get different explanations about it depending on who you ask.  What isn’t in doubt is that Tim O’Reilly coined the term in 2004, and defined it at length from a technical perspective here.  The definition of “Social Media” is a bit more clear, and Wikipedia’s page on it is very helpful.  But both of these sources aren’t very clear or practical so far as what this new stuff means to people who write, present or build relationships for a living.  So, I will try to distill it down to three big ideas.

Three Big Ideas

1. The first big idea behind all the Web 2.0 hype is that web content – written words, images, video and sound -  is independent from web site design.  In Web 1.0 your content was presented mostly in a rigid, one-way-street message medium, integrated with and dependent on code and design.  Any interaction you may have had with users, was not “with” the content, but parallel to it at best.  Today, thanks to Web 2.0, your content can be made far more flexible; allowing your users not only to easily share it, but also access it and interact with it in lots of different ways. In effect, your audience decides the medium.
2. The second big idea is that because it is unbound, Web 2.0 facilitates Social Media.  The new technologies allow you and your audience to easily share content interactively without needing to know how the technology works.  Use it well and you can inspire people – clients, prospects, stakeholders and others – to become engaged in conversations both within and interconnectedly with your content… and your brand.
3. The third big idea is that these conversations happen in “virtual time;” that is, your “now” shifts to whenever content is read and commented on. This means that these new conversations are bestowed with a sort of permanence and can be revisited and revived numerous times.

Something Scary

These three ideas hint a little at something that can seem a whole lot scary.  As these new communications norms become more widely adopted, you and your organization must manage conversations about your brand in an environment you cannot control and that you probably cannot erase.  If you want to use the new tools, you must have an ever-evolving plan to engage with conversation participants.  Their motives will range from brand-loyal or positively interested to disinterested in or strongly opposed to your interests.  Left unchecked, people who feel they have a reason to dislike you can effectively become your “advertising” and affect your brand.

Know this:  If you choose not to work at managing the new communications environment, it will be managed for you.

With all this in mind, my posts will primarily be crafted with an eye on helping you succeed while making sense of what new technologies are right for you.  The path ahead will require you to become familiar with some new applications, both on your computer desktop and on the Internet.  I’ll write about those that make the most sense and work the best for me; consider me your guinea pig, the one who has gone out to the edge and bled a little so that you don’t have to. If you want to know about something I have not covered, ask me.  If it makes sense for me to test it for you, I will.

I want to encourage conversations here, and I hope to persuade some of the bleeding-edge thought leaders, those actually shaping these new communication modes and applications, to comment and offer concurring and contrasting opinions.

The Audience That Inspired Me

I decided to start this project because I have so many long-time friends and colleagues, those of early Generation X all the way through the Baby Boom years, who have really great old-school communication skills, but are not yet aware of the radically different communications requirements that will confront them during the second half of their careers.

Some people my age understand and apply this stuff well already, but not that many and surely not enough.  A few more may have heard a few things – maybe they maintain a FaceBook or LinkedIn account – but they don’t really grasp the bigger picture of what these developing tools mean for their futures.  Then there are those, I believe its the majority of my main audience,  who don’t get what is going on at all.  I’m concerned they’re about to be blindsided by a whole new reality.

These aren’t just minor things.  They have some very heavy implications:  People and organizations will either work with the new tools to manage their brands, or Google will enable others to manage them instead.

So, I want to help people who, with a little coaxing, prodding and teaching, will be better enabled to use their trusted, proven skills to fully leverage the new tools.

My Qualifications

I began my career as a communications professional in 1982 after earning my degree in public relations. The executive communications and public affairs roles I’ve had include:

• Communications director at a funeral home and cemetery corporation
• Finance director for a congressional campaign
• Fundraising director for a major non-profit group
• Lobbyist for a statewide healthcare organization
• Marketing executive for a public hospital chain
• Consultant at an international training company
• Political campaign consultant & manager (numerous times)
• Communications executive at state agencies
• Communications company president (current)

In 1988, when I first laid my hands on a personal computer, a Tandy 1000TX, I knew that the PC was going to change the way we all communicated.  Ever since, I’ve been both informally and professionally advising employers, clients and friends about computers and information technology.

Here are some of the technology-related things I have done:

• Managed a FoxPro-based demographic and past-behaviour analysis tool to advise my colleagues about how best to handle key stakeholders within our market
• Uploaded my first hand-coded html web page in 1994
• Marketed reports from a voter targeting Access database I created, both to a major statewide political campaign and to several lower tier candidates
• Developed and trained users on a hardware inventory tracking system for a large Hospital
• Wrote content and did design for my first contract to build a corporate web site in 1997
• Passed the test for my first Microsoft Professional Certification in 1999
• Earned my Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) status in 2000
• Founded a niche hybrid computer/communications company in 2000
• Created my first blog in 2003 and have created and been a contributor to numerous, mostly defunct, blogs and forums since then
• Managed the redesign of a state agency project web site
• Advise clients about web content, strategy and selection of new technologies (current)

Two decades ago, my friends looked at me curiously as I lugged a 26-pound laptop around in my work, swearing that they’d never want or need a portable computer. Ever since, I’ve been passionate about what’s next, always curious and always experimenting. While my first company’s run ended thanks mostly to the dot com bubble burst and the 9/11 tragedy, moving me on to other great jobs and projects, I have kept current with all this fascinating new stuff and feel compelled to share it and discuss it.

As I see it, communication is my craft and technology is my toolbox.  That’s why I’m so jazzed about whats next now and whatsnextnow.net.

I hope that you find this site useful and take the time to become a part of the conversation.

Bob Finch