Venessa Miemis’ Twitter bio describes her as a “Metacog, futurist and thought architect tracking emerging media and technology trends & impacts.”  Now THAT got my attention.

Currently pursuing a masters degree in New Media Studies at the New School in NYC, she  has been passionately thinking and writing about the future for seven years. Venessa kindly agreed to an interview and I found her views on the connections between social media and education, politics, global community and our future to be one of the most thought-provoking posts I’ve featured here on {grow}. I think you’ll agree:

What is a futurist and how do I get a job like that?

A futurist’s role is to help people anticipate, plan for, and adapt to change. This means tracking emerging trends and seeing how they fit into the big picture and envisioning different scenarios for what might come next. You could call this “developing foresight.”   It’s a skill set that’s in pretty high demand these days.  Things are changing rapidly and everyone is looking for ways to stay ahead of the curve.

At the professional level, futurists are hired by organizations to help them understand the forces and trends shaping their industries, and anticipate the changing needs and desires of their customers in order to stay competitive.  At the individual level, each of us constantly thinks about our own goals and dreams and develops strategies that will help us accomplish them … so in some sense, we’re all futurists.  I do think we’re in a very transformative period in history, and we all need to hone our “futures thinking” skills in order to actively participate in the process of shaping our collective future, instead of just being a passive bystander.

You first connected with me after seeing my blog post on the future of social media.  Please answer this multiple choice question:  As a futurist, I thought Mark Schaefer’s social media forecast was a) entirely accurate;  b) uncanny and without error; or c) the subject of my college thesis.

Ha, well I think you hit on some great themes.  I wrote a post recently, 3 Key Trends Shaping the Web and Society, that looks at some megatrends that are driving today’s developments.  The one that’s influencing many of the social media trends on your list has to do with the increase in complexity around us.

Historically, as complexity increases, we develop better methods for making sense of it. A big challenge we’re facing right now is figuring out how to deal with information overload, and how to separate quality content from noise.  We’re trying to solve the problem through quantification.  As you mentioned, we’re going to continue to see information about ourselves, our habits, our sentiments, and our social connections become much more clearly measured and defined.

This could potentially be an amazing thing.  If we know more about each other, we may be able to begin collaborating on an enormous scale to solve some of the world’s serious problems. At the same time, as you also mentioned, if we’re not actively involved in demanding our civil liberties and digital rights, we may face some scary situations regarding privacy, power and control.  Thankfully, there are organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Peer to Peer Foundation that are dedicated to protecting our rights and values as we transition into a networked society.

One area on your list I disagree with is the notion that the digital divide will continue to grow and eventually become permanent. I think it will be just the opposite.  There’s a concept called “leapfrogging,” which describes how areas with poorly-developed technological or economic bases will skip over the intermediary steps and transition directly into adopting modern systems. For instance, you’re not going to see cables laid all over rural Africa so people can have internet access, you’re going to see an explosive growth of internet-connected mobile phone adoption.  As the technologies get better and cheaper, we’re going to see portable devices and interfaces become more seamlessly integrated into our lives, and it will be a game changer.

What are the social media trends you’re most concerned about?  Most optimistic about?

This passed through my twitterstream the other day: “Understanding how networks work is one of the most important literacies of the 21st century – Howard Rheingold.” I think that complements what I’ve been saying nicely.

While some people haven’t even entered the social media space yet, the rest of us are chomping at the bit and asking what’s next. We’re still very much in the Wild West of the real-time web. Just look at Twitter. There seems to be a new app released every day that’s trying to measure something – ROI, influence, impact, and so on. There are no established rules of conduct or best practices, and people are still arguing about whether it’s more important to have lots of followers or to be on lots of lists. Everyone’s trying to figure out how to capitalize on the space.

I understand that business is about monetization, but I think there’s something going on here that’s much bigger than people realize. It doesn’t fit into our traditional business models at all, because we’ve never had the opportunity before to leverage social networks at this scale.  That’s the next big social media trend: understanding how to leverage networks. We’re all here, we’re all connected – now what do we do?

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the effects of social media in the workplace and the next generation of workers who grew up communicating with their thumbs.  What should we know about this group?

I’m actually rather concerned about this group.  I try to pay attention to what’s going on in many different fields to get a sense of the big picture, and the lack of  “new media literacy” in young people is alarming. You think it’s hard getting organizations to embrace social media — try looking at the educational system. It wasn’t designed for this. Forward-looking teachers see the necessity of bringing social technologies into the classroom to enhance the learning experience and prepare students for 21st century life, but it’s not happening fast enough.

Many young people are not being taught how to benefit from the power of the web as a tool for building a network and for learning. I mean, anyone who uses Twitter or belongs to an online community of some sort has seen that sharing information and learning from one another is not only fun and rewarding, it’s addictive.  Kids need to be shown how to navigate that world too.

I think the social web is enabling an informal learning process to take place that in some ways challenges the validity of our educational institutions.  It might be a bit extreme to tell schools to “‘innovate or die,” but they need to get with the program already. America is already falling behind in so many areas as geopolitical power shifts to other nations. We can’t afford to sit by and idly watch today’s youth go through a system that leaves them appallingly unprepared to compete in a global marketplace.

If the {grow} community wanted to learn more about the work of futurists and their study of social media, can you recommend a few resources?

The World Future Society , the World Futures Studies Federation and the Association for Professional Futurists (APF) websites are good places to start for an overview.  Ross Dawson and Gerd Leonhard focus a lot on the future of media on their blogs.  John Hagel and John Seely Brown both provide great insights into innovation and strategy from a business perspective. I’d also definitely recommend checking out the blogroll on KedgeForward, a blog by professional futurists Frank Spencer and Michael Morrell. It’s an excellent resource for future-focused exploring.

There are also several programs in the country to pursue higher education in Futures Studies. The University of Houston offers a Master of Technology in Futures Studies as well as a Certificate in Strategic Foresight.  Regent University offers a Master of Arts in Strategic Foresight, which is directed by Dr. Jay Gary.  And for those aching to leave the mainland, the Hawai’i Research Center for Futures Studies offer both an MA and a PhD in Alternative Futures through its Department of Political Science.   For a complete listing of Futures programs around the globe, visit this page on the Acceleration Studies Foundation website.

I’ve left the most important for last.  As a futurist, please tell me who you like for the Super Bowl.

My crystal ball has suddenly become very hazy…

Would love to have the {grow} community comment and pose other questions to Venessa!

Follow Venessa at @VenessaMiemis Her insightful blog can be found at: http://emergentbydesign.com/

Inventory — A customer in France made coated metal plates and, for quality control purposes, had to keep a large volume on hand in a warehouse. This tied up valuable working capital. We had the idea to use this as a rapid-turnaround stockpile. They could sell and ship material out of the warehouse for customer emergencies as a premium service — at a premium price!

People — A local company said they needed my help because “everyone was just sitting around” with their business levels so low. I saw this as under-utilized human capital. How could they put these people to use to connect to customers and discover un-met or under-served needs?  Turn EVERYONE into a sales person?  Study the competition?

Information — A client had developed a weekly email update to keep their salespeople on top of changing market conditions. A survey indicated their customers were hungry for the same type of information. Their email was turned into a premium information service to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. They leveraged information they already HAD to create a siginificant new customer benefit.

Services — I recently taught a class on recession marketing. The class content is now an asset, part of my “buffalo.” I turned some of the ideas into articles for my website and now, my blog. I promoted this content through online forums and social media. One article had more than 500 downloads in two days. These new contacts were added to my mailing list for further follow-up. The session was videotaped and edited into short topics for my website and YouTube.

How are you using the whole buffalo in your business?

The GE Social Media Team: Gary Sheffer, Jen Walsh, Sean Gannon, Lisa Lanspery, Mike Eisenreich, Megan Parker and Vivek Kemp

While the case for social media as a marketing channel is compelling for consumer products companies, I’ve been particularly interested in how it is being used … or not … by mainstream industrials.  Earlier this year I assessed the social media presence of most of the major Fortune 500 B2B giants looking for case studies.

I found some great examples, but for fun, I’ve decided to start out with the WORST companies I found out there. With few exceptions, major industrial companies are not utilizing – and in many cases ignoring — social media as a stakeholder connection point. A few fun facts:

• Number of Top 25 B2B companies with more Twitter followers than me (None)
• Worst B2B corporate Twitter-er (by far) — DuPont. An example: “Back off weeds! 4 new herbicides are coming to get you …”
• Most popular corporate social media platform: Facebook
• Percent of companies with either Facebook or MySpace pages: 75%
• Percentage with both: 25%
• Most popular use of social media: A place to post press releases

With no further delay, let’s take a look at the Top Five biggest B2B social media screw-ups.

5. 3M Corporation – I love 3M. I’ve always cherished their heritage of innovation and product development. If any company in America could take advantage of the awesome power of global community it should be 3M. Where are you guys? We need you out here.

4. General Dynamics — There is a not-very-good techno rock band called General Dynamics who dominates the social media bandwidth. That’s a problem for a Fortune 100 company with the same name. This is the time for the company to flex some legal muscle and tell them they were there first! In the corporate world, this ID theft is tantamount to a porn starlet naming herself “Pepsi.” You have to take action on this, General Dynamics! Go kick some techno butt!

3. Oracle Corporation – You would expect an ego-laden company like Oracle to be sucking up the social media space, but not so. The Twitter account is exclusively a press release machine and their other sites are ill-attended placeholders. Larry, look at what SAP is doing with social media. Work it baby.

2. Johnson Controls — This Fortune 50 titan has had their name usurped on Facebook by a bunch of disgruntled employees. An example of social media gone very wrong when you’re asleep at the wheel.

1. Dow Chemical Company. The pinnacle of social media mayhem. The first search result for Dow on Twitter is called “spillspill” and the largest company-related Facebook page is called Fuck Chemical Valley and Fuck Dow (42 members). The MySpace presence has also been hijacked, complete with fake logos, fake employees and a mission statement that includes: “minimizing damage by angry citizens who have been affected by our pollution through legal suits and PR campaigns, making sure scientists who find our products to be dangerously toxic are not allowed to publish.” Dow has a proud history of PR fubars. The legacy continues.

Disclosure: My ex-wife had family ties to the chemical industry. While clinical tests have shown she is toxic to humans, she is not associated with the Fuck Dow campaign.

NEWS FLASH: If you are not being supported by your boss and you hope to pressure him/her into supporting your nascent social media initiative through a “grassroots” effort, it’s not going to work. Not in the long run. For effective, lasting organizational change to occur, it must be supported from the top. How do you gain that support when your boss doesn’t get it?

Who is the “sponsor” of your social media effort?

Here are six ideas to get the boss on-board:

Conduct a “pilot” program. One of the most effective ways to get something started is to propose a temporary project. For example, go to your boss and tell her you want to try a new idea for 12 weeks (which sounds shorter than 3 months!). Explain that you will do this as an added, incremental effort that will not interfere with your normal job duties, you will measure and re-evaluate at the end of the period, and together you’ll decide whether to continue or not. Once the effort gets going and gains momentum, it’s going to be difficult to stop unless you completely blow it. So don’t blow it. : )

Money really does talk. Whatever you do, don’t go into a meeting with a company executive explaining that you want sponsorship to measure your company’s “quality of conversations.” If you are still buying into the “it’s all about the conversation” hype, read this (measurement and ROI) and this (focus on money). Of course the social web is about relationships, but everything measured in an organization SOMEHOW relates back to money, whether it’s profits, donors or funding. Social media is no different. Be prepared to explain how your initiative ties to the company’s objectives. If you can’t, you’re not ready for this discussion.

Preach fear in the morning and redemption in the afternoon. Scare ‘em. Seriously. Fear is a great motivator: Fear of what the competition is doing, fear of being left behind, fear of missing a trend, fear of making a wrong decision. Then, after your boss is shaking in his boots, explain what you can do to beat the competition, keep your company ahead, and make your boss look great … for absolutely no investment!

Plan for problems. When implementing change in an organization, it’s important to have a counter-measure for every obstacle you’re likely to face. Literally write down every possible argument and reason people will argue against your social media proposal and then formulate a reasonable counter measure to address them. And the hurdles aren’t just money and resources. It could be politics and competing priorities. Get your supporters to help you think-through effective answers to anything your boss can throw at you and be well-prepared.

A lot has been written about the “danger” social media poses to companies and brands, but what about the real threat it poses to us as individuals?

Immediate, transparent, global, free communication is one of the most breathtaking information advances since the telephone. But when there is an opportunity for human corruption, there probably WILL be human corruption. Here are the biggest threats posed by the advent of social media:

Risk to personal security. For fun, I follow a few celebrities on Twitter, the digital Post-it note. The other day, one of them tweeted: “Down at Gino’s having a pizza with my boys.” Earlier in the day he had established the city he was in. With this kind of shoot-from-the-hip public broadcasting, it’s only a matter of time before we see the first Twitter-related crimes. Even for non-celebrities, how safe is it to post to the world, “My husband and I are off to Boston for the Web 3.0 conference.” Not very … unless you want your next post to be “Our house got wiped out by crooks while we were away!”

Risk to personal finances. Every time you register for a site, sign up for an app, or populate a social media profile, you are adding to a databank all about you. Strangers can find names, birth dates, family members, school and work history, e-mail addresses and much more. One blog writer recently quipped, “Honestly, it doesn’t take a genius to steal a person’s identity online.” Even more severe than identity theft and the obvious financial ramifications for an individual — we will begin to see online crimes being committed under the alias of another person.

Risk to personal reputation. Thankfully, nobody was holding a video camera in my face during my college years. But the lives of today’s youth are explicitly documented on You Tube, blogs, photo albums, and social media sites, creating a permanent online record. One corporate recruiter told me that a web search is more important to him than a resume. How will your Google-image affect your future job prospects, personal relationships, political aspirations? Did you read about the teen girls who took pictures of themselves in their bras at a sleepover, texted them to friends and then hours later ended up on porn sites? How do you erase something like that? Google never forgets.

Risk to data and information. A few weeks ago, a computer worm, using Twitter, infected tens of thousands of computers as it replicated itself across the Internet. The worm was created by a 17-year-old to “expose the vulnerabilities” in Twitter. The red-hot social networking/microblogging service has been scrambling to plug cross-site scripting and other Web site vulnerabilities to thwart worm attacks but, as one researcher points out, it’s much easier to misuse the Twitter API as a “weak link” to send worms squirming through Twitter.

Risk to personal health. Neurologists and doctors warn that obsessive immersion in screen technologies and social network sites will lead to short attention spans, sensationalism, inability to empathize, weight gain, and a tenuous sense of identity.

Risk to personal productivity. A friend recently told me that he needed to find a way to block himself from social media sites at work. “I’m hooked,” he said. “I can’t stop myself from getting online every minute that I can.” According to a U.K. study, British firms are losing $264 million A DAY on lost productivity due to undercover activities on Facebook. Businesses are starting to look for ways to deal with the social networking problem. Several companies in America already block social media sites.

So, where does this lead?
I’m a fan of social media. These new platforms have connected me to countless interesting people, opportunities and ideas. The purpose of this article is to serve as a counter-point to those who seem to be hypnotized by the hyperbole and beat the drum of social media while ignoring these certain consequences. There is virtually NO dialogue on the risks of the inevitable corruption that will result from having a free and pervasive window into YOUR life.

I’m hoping the dialogue will start now …

Myth number two: “It’s all about the engagement.”  

Myth number three: “Never sell.”

Myth number five: “Social media is all about authenticity”