Social Media is a Social Contract

During the Global Peace Convention which happened in Nairobi this past week, Uriel Gbenga of Landmark Internships, Nigeria, said something quite interesting. He said that participation in social media is tantamount to entering into a social contract with other people. I was/am a student of Sociology and Economics and his statement took me back to my University days when we were learning about the communist manifesto and social contracts. I loved those days – reading about the fathers of sociology, their ideas, arguments, and critiques. Sociology was just the ish. But I digress. Given Uriel’s statement, I wanted to explore what social contracts meant back then and how it can be interpreted today.

The Social Contract then
The Social Contract theory, the modern one at least, was advanced by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. According to the Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, “Social Contract Theory, nearly as old as philosophy itself, is the view that persons’ moral and/or political obligations are dependent upon a contract or agreement between them to form society.” A Wikipedia definition that I also liked mentioned that “the Social Contract can also be thought of as an agreement by the governed on a set of rules by which they are governed.” It also asserted that “Social contract theory formed a central pillar in the historically important notion that legitimate state authority must be derived from the consent of the governed.”

Given these definitions of social contract and how Uriel referred to it during the Global Peace Convention when talking about Social Entrepreneurship, I believe that there is a fundamental connection between how the social contract theory was interpreted then and how it can be interpreted now. The times have clearly changed but the fundamentals still remain the same.

Social Contract in the age of Social Media
As we all know by now, social media has revolutionized the way people publish, find, read, and share content. And with loads of content from all across the web as the world wakes up to the reality of everyone being a publisher or potential publisher, something critical happens – Information Overload. But as Clay Shirky aptly pointed out, “it’s not information overload, its filter failure.” When we have so much content out there, we have to find ways to ensure that we don’t miss out on the valuable content by getting drowned in mediocre content. The filter process involves finding the best mechanism to sort out the best content. In social media, authorities and influencers is what you remain with after you separate the wheat from the chaff. What does this have to do with social contracts?

Uriel said that by deciding to follow you on Twitter, I am entering into a social contract with you whereby I follow you on the premise that you will provide me with good content. In the same way that “a legitimate state authority must be derived from the consent of the governed”, in social media, your attribution as an authority in whichever field you write on is not up to you but your readers. It is through their consent that you enjoy the authority status. By your readers subscribing to your content be it through liking your page, following you on twitter, signing up for your newsletter, joining your community, or subscribing to your blog posts, they have entered into social contract with you whereby they acknowledge you as the authority in return for quality content/insight, no less.

When this contract is not upheld, you lose your authority as people unfollow, unfriend, and unsubscribe. So the one thing you should always remember is that a social contract is an agreement with an exploding offer. The catch is that you will continue to have our attention for as long as you can provide us with quality content. The same agreement that was struck between the governors and the governed back then is still the same one that is being made between content creators and consumers.

The question then is; are you holding up your end of the contract?



This blog is authored by Marvin Tumbo

The Invisible Boundaries

I started 2010 by announcing an audacious mission statement for year – Going Beyond Borders; and this I’ve done to every aspect of life. As I press in making this word become flesh, I come to the increasing realization that in this age that we live in, the barriers that hold people back from reaching global impact have not just become blurred, in fact, they are now invisible. And all it takes is a ‘walkthrough-faith’.

How did I come to this conclusion?
Do I have any claims to strengthen this conclusion?

And if I did, are these claims direct products of my experiences?

My answer is yes I do, and out of many I introduce you to 3 personal experiences in the course of the year:

1. Meet by computer engineer from Pune India

In the month of June, my laptop suddenly started having a mind of its own, probably because it’s been compromised; it began drawing back my work flow. My updated anti-virus couldn’t help, online DELL support forums couldn’t help either; I couldn’t tell if the problem was a hardware or software. In a Skype chat with Damola Williams, an IT professional friend in India, he volunteered to fix the computer in the course of our conversation. I couldn’t believe this was possible at first; until he remotely accessed my laptop in Lagos Nigeria from India through TeamViewer, and before I knew it, the computer became normal again.

Because of invisible boundaries, Demola has been able to extend his market share beyond the geography of India to opening up new markets in Africa. Because I have experienced him, I have potentially become an international brand ambassador of his, publicizing this aspect of his service to my local markets. Should Damola decide to pursue this as a business model, he has insulated himself against the economic realities of India and plugged into the global economy. Damola has been able to fearlessly walk through his imaginary boundaries of geography.

2. Meet my conference speaker from Calgary Canada

In this month of October, I hosted the Global Jobs Fair 2010 Employability Seminar. The goal of the program was to open up evolving corporate professionals in Nigeria to global work opportunities through social media. To demonstrate the borderless possibilities of social media to this audience, I decided to extend an invitation to Renate Donnovan, a social media instructor and career coach in Canada, to participate in the program. Without living the comfort of her office, she was able to speak and answer questions from an audience of 120 in Lagos Nigeria through Skype video.

Because national boundaries as we know them have vanished, Renate has been able to stretch the scope of her social impact beyond the students of Bow Valley College in Canada to graduates and young professionals in Nigeria. She was able to make 120 of them see the topics of Digital Identity, Personal Branding and Social Networking from a Canadian perspective. Like Damola, Renate has walked through invisible boundaries.

3. Meet my interviewees across Nigeria

I currently coordinate a national fellowship program for Nigerian graduates seeking professional growth in the Green energy sector through the Green Collar Jobs Fellowship Program. Without the use of traditional media but just posting this opportunity to local social networking websites targeting job searchers in the country, I was overwhelmed with the volume of applications. 3 times, my company’s ISP called that I am exhausting my allocated bandwidth – this was an unexpected success wrapped with unexpected challenges.

In the spirit of creating equal opportunities to preselected, I was compelled to grant all shortlisted candidates interview opportunity, so I resulted to Skype interview. Like Renate, from the comfort of my office in Lekki Lagos Nigeria, I was able to virtually travel to more than 10 states interviewing. Like Damola and Renate, I too have walked through invisible boundaries.

These experiences support that we live in a borderless world, it demonstrates that the walls that hold people back from reaching their dreams are no more, and again, all it takes is just walking through our perceived boundaries.

Who Interviews The Interviewer?

Interviews: every professional strives for one because this is what it makes her. Be it a one on one, panel, telephone or Skype interview; these few minutes unlock a whole new level of life and the realization of long career dreams.
As interviewers talk to us, seating confidently as if they no longer have need for such, currently at the echelon of their career aspirations. One question we seem to often ask ourselves is – do these guys know what it feels like to have one’s next phase of professional life determined by a series of questions or a few minutes conversation?

For the past couple of weeks I have been interviewing aspiring interns around the world; Young professionals seeking internship opportunities in Africa, Nigerians reaching to intern abroad, Nigerians abroad keen to integrate into corporate Nigeria, Graduates desperate to get their very first work experience, Volunteers impatient to get their own platform to change the world and so on. But little do these folks know that as I interview them, simultaneously, I am being interviewed as well; with the same set of questions I pose to them, I get to answer some interviewers too.

The truth be told, this experience for me is a dream come true; looking back those years I travel pretty long distance to cyber cafés to access the internet, in fact, in other to make the most of my internet surfing, my friends and I would do what was called “all-night browsing”. But this faithful day, I can remember challenging myself; thoughtfully asking, what is really spectacular about these organizations I travel miles to elicit a positive response from abroad? Why can’t I be the one to globally receive and review applications, interview, and determine who qualifies or not?

During those days, although we come from different locations yet our goals were all one and the same – to travel abroad either as a student, intern or conference participant. It’s been over a decade now that I’ve traded places, once an unaided internship applicant now a social entrepreneur, creating internship opportunities for the young and aspiring around the world. However, as I give thanks for the remarkable turnaround, the reality remains I’m still being interviewed on a continuous basis.

Just as my interviewees are high in hope; implicitly trusting their applications with me become successful and probably replaying the memory of every aspect of the interview we had; how they introduced themselves, convincingly demonstrating what makes them uniquely qualified, what compelling value they bring to the table and so on. In the same manner, I undergo these discomforting emotions; hoping whatever I had said to my interviewers were well received. And should their decisions be unfavorable, what contingency plan B, C and D do I have in place.

But just this morning, out of a gross gloomy darkness of anxiety, comes a ray of light; a gently mild voice on my inside, a comforting reassurance that my interviewers need me more than I can imagine. My initial response to this conjecture was how do I substantiate this intuition? Then I ask myself, isn’t this evident with those I interview? As I receive their unrelenting follow up calls and emails, trying to ascertain the status of their applications, don’t I smile? Saying to myself, if only they knew how much their applications meant to me, they will contemplate picking my calls.

Although, I am yet to get definitive feedbacks on the outcome of my interviews neither have I done the same to my interviewees, the lesson I take home from the experience is - we are more valuable than we think. So my advice to everyone helplessly stuck on the pending outcome of an interview, be certain that regardless of the outcome, you are so much more valuable!

I end this blog with the lines I picked from the One Tree Hill series – “Most of our lives is a series of images, they past us by like towns on the highway. Sometimes a moment stuns on us and says, it happens, and we know that this instinct is more than a flitting image, we know that this moment, every part of it, will live on forever”. This is what it feels like when we prevail upon The Interviewer to unlock our dream jobs out of their hands; the experience although only lasts for a season, the memory and net effects, inerasably linger on forever.

2010: GO BEYOND BORDERS

Welcome to 2010, a year tagged around the world by churches, communities, companies and countries with several themes. Although unveiled September 2009, no other tagline completely immerses me as CNN’s – GO BEYOND BORDERS.

For me this is so forceful that it has become my personal mission statement for 2010. So illuminating, it beams rays of light, lights through which I found direction to the musings of my heart; thoughts wrapped in fabrics of intense struggles:

• Struggle of location - Patriotism versus Globalisation.
• Struggle for opportunity - Africa’s limited opportunities over Global expansive opportunities.
• Struggle of conversion - Staying Proudly (Nigerian) African or go Truly International.
• Struggle of limits- Should I decide to stay opportunities abound and if I go greater possibilities await.
• Struggle of callings -The World is calling me, Africa needs me but Nigeria is holding me back.

As this struggle climaxes I ultimately realise that never in the history of the world should one strive to globalise than today, in fact the dangers of staying a local champion far outweigh risks of being global player. In his book The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman writes that “the global economic playing field is being flatten”, and that the world is now ones competition not his county. So this suggests you either globalise or you die!

Some however contend that charity starts from (and should end at) home, and to them it is unpatriotic to ditch the challenges within ones boarders over the opportunities outside. They argue that a true Nigerian entrepreneur shouldn’t move his business to Ghana. Nor an American outsource to China or Philippines even when such operations are not no longer sustainable. Even with the stern odds against world-class brands trying to penetrate international markets, they maintain that patriotism compels you to persist in the futility of keep doing the same thing for years and expecting a different result.

I am however of a contrary position, I am convinced, intuitively, that the salvation of many struggling businesses, professionals, entrepreneurs is actually tied to their decision to globalise. The possibilities outside the boarders are enormous: technology, partnership, funding, employments, immunity, speed are all beyond the borders. And all it takes reaching them is simple - and as means I have come up with a set of 4 principles to not only help reach these possibilities but also that would align the calling of patriotism with our 21st century obligation of globalizing.
1. Reach within and share - because now is the era when dreams are happening on a terrific scale if only you would share them properly on social networks.
2. Share and connect - sharing is important but enough, we must learn the science of global networking; the act of making connections and leveraging them to bring our dreams to fruition.
3. Connect and collaborate -collaboration is the server that transforms “software-dreams” into “hardware- realities”.
4. Collaborate globally and implement locally- as these realities increasingly happen, we being to ignite rays of hope around us.

As we think about our 2010; our goals, families, enterprise, and even our various countries; let us renew our drive to breaking out of ourselves by going beyond the borders where possibilities are vast. A realm of near-immortality that immunes against the limiting effects of the colour of our passports and geography; this is a borderless realm where the scale of our goals become standard with which we are measured. A space that stretches beyond territorial marks, boundaries, limits and parameters; this where we grasp as far as our mind can see. A dimension we overcome gravitational pulls that manifest as class, and counties of nationality and professional affiliations; beyond the borders is where the small thinks globally and acts globally.

This 2010 let us go beyond borders!