We're not having a discussion about Newtown. We're having several.

Like so many people, I continue to struggle with my own feelings about the horrible tragedy in Newtown last week.  I've seen several people talk about the need to have that "difficult discussion" about gun control or mental health or our culture of violence or [insert silver bullet here].  I saw Nate Silver's interesting piece about how this discussion is getting framed, and I saw the coverage on the sudden silence of the NRA.

Frankly, I don't think the lack of a discussion is a problem.

The lack of listening is.

I skip around the internet a lot, looking at the discussions in various online communities.  Each community I visit has been talking about this.  However, once again I see the scourge of homophily - the more civil and thoughtful discussions are essentially taking place among like-minded people, while the much-less-frequent discussions between those with differing opinions seem to be taking place in relatively brief, often heated exchanges in comment threads on social networks.

I dusted off my old "discussion clouds" trick to see what the chatter looked like in the various communities I watch a lot. Basically I grabbed a bunch of the more popular blogs in my feeds who covered this issue, and pushed their posts through the cloud generator at Wordle.  It's by no means a scientific analysis, but here's what I got.

The Moms: Liz Gumbinner, Joanne Bamberger, Catherine Connors, Kristen Chase, Erin Kotecki Vest, Julie Marsh, and Rachael Herrscher.

The Science Crowd: Emily Willingham, Daniel Lende, Chad Orzel, John Horgan, Drug Monkey, Keith Kloor, and Mark Hoofnagle.

The liberals: John Aravosis, Josh Micah Marshall, Pam Spaulding, Markos Moulitsas, Oliver Willis, Matthew Dowd, and Dave Brockington.

Conservatives: Glenn Reynolds, Ann Althouse, Megan McArdle, Michelle Malkin, Erick Erickson, Eugene Volokh and Peter Tucci.

Notice anything about these?

Moms aren't talking about guns. They're barely mentioning guns.  They're talking about kids. They're putting themselves in the shoes of the parents at Sandy Hook.  They are showing empathy.  Scientists are looking not specifically at guns, but at violence, what may or may not cause it, and what may or may not correlate with it.  Liberals are talking about how easy to get guns - I note my pal John's post asserting it's easier to buy a gun in the United State than real French cheese.  Conservatives are looking much more at the perpetrator of the specific crime in this instance - it's not a gun problem so much as it's that the alleged killer (Lanza) was evil.

But one thing is also clear after looking at all the posts - the communities aren't talking with each other.  (the liberals and conservatives are reading each other and arguing, but in many ways that's a larger "political community.")  And I know Megan McArdle's piece (linked above)wasn't written with an audience of moms in mind:

I'd also like us to encourage people to gang rush shooters, rather than following their instincts to hide; if we drilled it into young people that the correct thing to do is for everyone to instantly run at the guy with the gun, these sorts of mass shootings would be less deadly, because even a guy with a very powerful weapon can be brought down by 8-12 unarmed bodies piling on him at once. Would it work? Would people do it? I have no idea; all I can say is that both these things would be more effective than banning rifles with pistol grips.

Yes, this is an actual suggestion and was NOT intended to be sarcastic.

I don't have the words.

Social media in 2013: nothing will change

blah blah blah

It's mid-December, so it's time for "5 things your company needs to do in social media next year," "what to watch for in social media in 2013" and the rest of the thought leadership posts from the social media ninjas/gurus/rockstars.  They've all been optimized for your googling pleasure.  I tend to ignore them.

Here's all the advice you need to know about social media in 2013 and beyond.

Know who your stakeholders are, go to them, ask them what they want, and give it to them. 

That's it.

Don't believe anyone who tries to sell you a "Twitter strategy" or a "Pinterest utilization model" or anything that measures success in "likes."

Invest heavily in strategies that learn as much as possible about the most important stakeholders you have.  If they're on, say, Facebook, then be on Facebook.  If they're not, then don't worry about Facebook. Just go where they go, listen to what they discuss, and be relentless about serving their needs and being relevant to their interests.

Measure your success in people. As in, "We built a list of 250 people we think are important, and we built relationships with 230 of them."  Define an influential person as someone who can get others to act simply by asking them.  Define degrees of influence by the number and types of people this person can motivate to act. Define a relationship in terms that make sense for the situation - they see you as a resource, or they'll act when you ask them to, etc.  Be very specific in what you want people to do and how you build relationships.

Build relationships with as diverse a group of influential and strategically relevant people as possible.  Don't build relationships with only a collection of people who are very similar - You won't be able to do much with that. Prioritize relationships with people who have influence in more than one community.

If you're looking for thousands and thousands of people to instantly take an action or be informed or directed in some way, create and place a compelling ad.

This is how I've approached online social media since I started doing it in 2006.  It's really all I've ever done.  I've learned new tools along the way because the stakeholders I care about use them.  But it's not about the tools - it's never been about the tools, and it never will be.

Social media has always been about people, influence, and relationships.  It will be in 2013 and beyond.

Are tech companies global sovereigns?

Last week the Internet in Syria disappeared.

The communications shutdown immediately evoked memories of similar action by Libya’s Moammar Gaddafi and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, and it sparked fears that President Bashar al-Assad could be preparing to take even harsher action against Syrian opposition forces, which have recently made significant advances in the battle against the government.

It's no surprise that local rebels, pitted against the Syrian government, have used online tools to coordinate their activities. While the Syrian government denies they actually shut down the 'net, they also told an obvious lie at the same time (they said their major airport was open, but it's closed) and most international observers think it was an intentional strike intended to disrupt the opposition or perhaps launch a new attack.

But then something happened - Google and Twitter turned it back on. Or at least some small part of it.

Google and Twitter have announced they have reactivated a voice-tweet program to allow Syrians affected by the shutdown of the Internet to get messages out.

The companies did this before in Egypt, when that country tried to disrupt the organized resistance there.  The US government was apparently prepared for this sort of thing, having sent 2000 "communications kits" to selected people in Syria. (I'm not sure how they did that without significant blowback.)

Since the Syrian government denies they cut the 'net, they can't really protest effectively if tech companies try to fix things.  But if this is what all the national security experts say it is, then I'm thinking it's just a matter of time before countries across the world take the extraordinary step of recalling the ambassador from Google.

Because it seems that's the level these tech companies are playing on.

I've written  on the power companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Apple have exerted over cultural and some political issues.  But this is different.  This is geopolitical security.  These are issues of sovereignty and war and revolution.   While what they're doing right now may be helpful, I think it's fair to think about how much power we want to give the folks who help us play Angry Birds, find a good local restaurant, or share pictures of our kids.

Read Rebecca McKinnon's Consent of the Networked and check out her blog - she's the most authoritative and clear voice I've heard on the topic.