Unleash Your Inner Superhero
Posted on Wed, Sep 15, 2010
By Peter Gett
Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending the 140 Character Conference in Boston, a gathering of people from all different backgrounds to share how they leverage social media in their professional lives. Each presenter had 15-20 minutes to talk and the topics ranged from education to military to journalism and beyond. Chris Penn, (@cspenn), the vice president of strategy and innovation at Blue Sky Factory and the co-founder of PodCamp, was originally slated to give a talk on measuring marketing ROI in the era of the real-time web, but I like to believe he knew some Metis folks were in attendance and, therefore, changed his topic to Internet Superheroes. Regardless of the reason he switched it up, his presentation was amazing. I’d like to share a few points he discussed with us.
In this age of the “real-time web”, a phrase that was commonly repeated at the 140 Character Conference was: information moves faster than a speeding bullet.
A video of a plane crash landing in the Hudson River, which would normally have to wait until the evening news, gets disseminated through various channels in a matter of seconds, and within a few minutes, anyone in the world can see the heroics of Captain Jay “Sully” Sullenberg. A process that used to take traditional media hours now takes the average citizen mere moments. It’s almost supernatural.
So what kind of powers can you, the ordinary user, possess? Well how about mind reading, like Prof. Xavier? By following big names on Twitter, you are literally seeing into the minds of some of the most influential people in the world. Access to the thoughts and opinions of celebrities, politicians, industry leaders and religious figures has never been so prolific. Even Pope Benedict has a Twitter feed, although I’m 99 percent sure it isn’t actually him doing the tweeting. I’m not even sure what the Pope would have to tweet about! (Probably: “how crazy is my super tall hat? LOL!” or something along those lines). But the fact that you can go online and follow the UK Prime Minister, Bill Gates, LeBron James and President Barack Obama on the same website is nothing short of incredible.
Not satisfied with just one super power? Well alright then, how about super vision, like Superman? With services like YouTube you have the ability to see content from all over the world instantaneously and nearly simultaneously. From the election protests in Iran to flash mobs in Japan, from wild fires in California to penguin colonies in Antarctica, video content on the web has exploded in the last few years. In the U.S. alone, over 12 billion videos are accessed every month, and worldwide there are over a billion videos viewed every day.
These powers are nothing compared with the power you never realized you possessed. You have the ability to be in multiple places at the same time. You’re like Nightcrawler, but hopefully tail-less. With tabbed browsing becoming the norm, users are able to check out the Asian economic markets on one tab, the latest Twitter trends in the U.S. on another tab, and video from British Parliament’s latest session on a third tab -- all in the same window, all simultaneously, all in real-time.
Combine these powers and you have become the strongest Superhero this world has ever known. You’re a mind-reading, all-seeing, omnipotent force and your only kryptonite is a shoddy internet connection or a phone with no apps. But as Spiderman’s greatest influence, Uncle Ben, has taught us, “with great power comes great responsibility.” I believe it’s safe to say that most web users spend their time lurking; that is, passively viewing videos, browsing other’s Twitter feeds, or checking their friend’s Facebook updates.
But with all this power at our fingertips, Chris Penn believes we have a responsibility to do good with it. He urges us to “awaken our inner superhero” by doing more than just casual browsing. Generate content. Retweet important stories. Post pictures and videos of anything you think is significant. Use these powers to better yourself and your community and/or network.
The world needs more superheroes, and now more than ever it is possible for ordinary citizens to step up and save the day. Let Chris Penn’s words be the radioactive spider that turns all you casual browsing Peter Parkers into social media Spidermen (or Spiderwomen, of course!)