Comments on: The Future of Social Media and CRM May Not Be What You Expected — SMC Seattle February Event Recap

By: Customer Relationship Management

Customer Relationship Management — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 05:30:53 +0000

We use the Customer relationship management 4.0 sample data for demos. Have you thought about making your examples consistent with that data?

By: Charlie Laughtland

Charlie Laughtland — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 02:28:10 +0000

I wasn’t able to get tickets to the event, so I appreciate your recap, Jaremy.

The crux of Sarner’s presentation is a bit out there for me, but it certainly raises some interesting questions. I’m with Joe and Phillip on this one. The average user is drawn to social media sites because they give him an outlet for sharing pieces of information about himself, learning about his friends and connecting with new persons, NOT watered-down virtual personas.

People clearly value the genuine interaction that social media allows, and that’s tough to replicate.

By: Simon Drake

Simon Drake — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 15:03:38 +0000

I have already started making a digital persona – I have converted The Art of War by Sun Tzu into a digital persona. The current means to replicate yourself into data, and then incorporate ‘thinking’ and getting it to fetch and evaluate goals on the internet AND make sure you don’t run out of toilet paper at home – that is a long way way.
However, many people are starting. I predict in a few years I can make an adequate digital personas of you (that can answer interview style questions) for about $5k.
Also remember that creating your own personabot will be a lot more difficult than filling out your Facebook profile.

By: Jaremy

Jaremy — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 08:50:44 +0000

Chris- I like that idea. I think ideally that’s what a service like Last.fm does with its technology for listeners – takes your preferences and past listening history (since you can log music you’ve played through iTunes/WMP) and goes “this is something awesome you’ve never listened to before that you’ll really like. It’s getting there, but the step from that to what you’re describing is still another huge leap. I’m still waiting for society to all be driven Minority Report-style by total automation.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 05:25:50 +0000

The best tangible future scenario for a “bot” would be… getting into a vehicle and saying: “Take me to a good Italian restaurant I’ve never been to before.” The car would know what your definition of “good” is, where haven’t been yet, your distance preferences, etc. Moreover, it would drive you there. It’s a good mix of serendipity (your ad hoc choices) and your preferences.

By: Phillip Runyan

Phillip Runyan — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 02:34:09 +0000

The idea of “personas for different purposes” already exists. How long have we indulged in things we wouldn’t want to bring up in a PTA meeting or possibly to your own parents?

We have lived in a world of personas (screen names) since the inception of the web. I think the direction we are heading in is just the opposite of what Sarner suggests – there will be more visibility. Look at the web in its beginnings. You would never share your first let alone you last name, address, phone number etc… MySpace, while a pioneer for web 2.0, played in that realm, create a profile with a username, not your own – now look at LinkedIn and Facebook. We are creating visibility by saying “I have a name, I have a job, I have a partner, this is the city I live in, the bars I love… and I want to share this with you.”

We will always have “personas” whether in bot form or fulfilling a fantasy. I personally do not think we will become so disconnected from each other that we won’t want to leave our homes to go on a first date. Maybe one day that will be “old fashioned” but I doubt it. Just my $0.02.

P-

By: Henry Yamamoto

Henry Yamamoto — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 23:14:20 +0000

When I first read this I was thinking, “Did he just base the future on the SyFy TV show Caprica?”. This is how Cylons take over the earth.

By: » Spring Creek Group :: Blog – I Didn’t Write This, My Personabot Did

» Spring Creek Group :: Blog – I Didn’t Write This, My Personabot Did — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 21:13:48 +0000

[...] a snark-free look at the talk, check out Veronica Sopher’s post on the SMC Seattle [...]

By: Jaremy

Jaremy — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 19:20:42 +0000

Joe, I absolutely agree with your points on fulfilling physiological needs and convergence of digital personas. With regards to Sarner’s belief of fragmented personas, it should be noted that he expects there to be a colossal privacy SNAFU within the next few years. I think his thought is that we will have multiple profiles for 2 main reasons. 1: We each have different ‘faces’ that we put on for different people (one face at the PTA, one with friends, one at a concert), and that those personalities will show through on the internet; and 2: If there’s ever a huge breach in privacy, it may cause people to become more wary about what information they share with certain companies.

I think Sarner’s idea of a Personabot for jobs is very interesting. It absolutely will never happen in the near term, but FWIW, more and more hiring managers and recruiters are reviewing resumes electronically rather than reading them. If there was a way to optimize more of the interview process electronically in order to save personnel hours, I wouldn’t be surprised if HR departments took advantage. Still, we’re talking a long, long way out.

Thanks for the comment, Joe. Sorry you couldn’t make it to the event!

By: Joe McCarthy

Joe McCarthy — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 18:13:46 +0000

This does sound provocative ... and although I missed the event last night, I'll take the bait now. I can imagine that Linden Labs (producer of Second Life) or Blizzard Entertainment (producer of World of Warcraft) may be open to interviewing Personabots, and I can even imagine that a slightly broader range of employers may have a preference for WoW guild masters over lower-level WoW players (or non-players), but I believe even they will still want to interview physical persons rather than digital personas. The claim that the Internet will fulfill our physiological needs seems especially dubious to me. Personas might thrive on virtual food and a virtual home in Second Life, but persons still need physical food and a physical house. The Internet can connect us with sources of food and housing, but it cannot fully satisfy those needs. I interpret actualization as an ultimate mode of integration. Maslow describes it as "the desire to become more and more what one is". I interpret Sarner's prediction of increasingly fragmented personas as disintegration (or, at least, disunity). If anything, with the growing popularity of Facebook pages and Twitter handles, not to mention RSS and aggregation, I believe social media is helping physical persons reach a state of convergence with our digital personas or identities, rather than promoting increasing divergence and multiplicity. Finally, while I believe that social media can promote posturing in the short term, over time, it tends to reveal more of the real person behind the persona, increasingly approaching the much-heralded age of authenticity and radical transparency.