Five Ideas That Matter

Search tools are not infallible, as anyone can testify who has taken content metrics sourced from Google, Technorati or their peers at face value, and been burnt. Here is some evidence, from a recent internal research project.

Chart 1 plots the number of results reported by Google Blog Search in a simple search string, banded by month using the advanced search interface.

Chart 2 plots the same results if you throw away the number of results reported by Google, and count actual results by hand.

There is a critical issue here for metatrend analysis – the old business cliche of garbage in, garbage out applies: if data are junk, no valuable insights will be created. Researchers working within social media need to understand the limitations of the tools that they use, and incorporate an effective validation process into their workflow.

A Metatrend method paper is in draft form, so more on the implications of accuracy and reliability in tool selection later.

Brands, politicians and newspapers still rely on polling to find out what people think. Yet people express themselves all day long on the Web.

To tap into their memes we reviewed megatrend predictions from a variety of sources: futurists, market research, advertising agencies, banks, technologists and trending websites. That is the basis of the first Metatrend paper

The megatrend predictions were, overwhelmingly, made in the period 2005 – 2009. They are not disposed solely towards a crisis-driven viewpoint and they typically draw on economic determinants such as age, demographic patterns, health patterns, urbanisation and its consequences, technological innovation and geopolitical shifts.

We subjected these to a typical social media analysis, which means reviewing a variety of social uses of key terms around blogs, tweets, comments and search.

The diverse, sectoral and broad megatrends we reviewed show that most futurists are talking a common language that doesn’t necessarily reflect the true nature of change, nor a popular perspective on it.

The common language says:”The fast developing economies globally will create further demand for oil and food resources that require significant breakthroughs to accommodate. Add in urbanisation and an aging population. The needed breakthroughs will not be possible in an oil economy. Coupled to the profound impact of negative ecological conditions, the established economies must draw on all their ingenuity to compete against low cost competitors or risk profound and disruptive change to the established way of life.”

The question for those working with social technologies is whether the analysis of behaviours around the Web can provide a different perspective and maybe a platform that leaders can use to inspire and transform enterprises and society. That is what we are hoping to answer on this site.