Leadership in the Internet World

The new social internet is possibly the greatest flattening force of all time. Many forces have worked to empower the un-empowered and to level the playing field. But no technology before has had the power and momentum that the social internet has today.

First, what is the social internet or Web 2.0. The social Internet as I use it is the Internet that we experience today where everyone has the ability to interact with all content on the Internet. When the Internet was created users (with lots of skill) had the ability to post pages. As the Internet advanced the skill level to post content was lessened and more people shared content using email and the advent of bulletin boards. Now, social networks are growing and people can share content from short quips to longer pieces like this blog.

In a world where hierarchies are flattened more people can lead and therefore should lead. A flattened world gives us the opportunity to part of many more communities than we might have been able to be in before. Micro communities can form in a community, a church group, and concerned citizens or in any other form. These groups need a leader and not just to type the name of the group but to help create a culture of how the group should be used.

When the South Metro Chamber of Commerce embraced Meetup.com as their tool of choice for their event promotion and RSVP tool they worked to create a culture that meet the Chambers needs. This was lead by the staff and for the most part followed by the members of the Chamber. People are very observant of culture and norms for the most part and will pick up quickly. A leader needs to right the path ship sometimes if things get out of hand.

Leaders need to lead with content. Last week, Denver lost the Rocky which leaves a gap in information gathering and truth telling in the community. This is the perfect opportunity for more people to write online but those who choose to establish themselves as experts must check their sources. We cannot expect citizen journalism to stick if we do not have local news that is covered with accuracy and integrity.

It is often times easy to hide behind the Internet and not have integrity when posting online. Even if you are not worried about your comments being tracked back to you in the future (and you should be) having integrity should not be something that stops when you press keys rather than say something in person or with a pen. Remember that the Internet is an open community and if you would not post it on I-25 it probably should not be posted on social network or other public forum.

Leadership means taking risks. We have ideas about strategies that will work but these strategies need to be fleshed out and tested. As a small business and using the newly opened tool box we can test quickly and little risk. Try a new tactic on Twitter, tell friends about something new on Facebook, run a sale, start a blog, announce a new product in a new way, think outside of the box and embrace the new technology.

Risk does not mean reckless abandon for social norms. Because there is an indelible record of your experiments be wild but keep in mind the culture of your network and who your users are. A friend came to me recently with the idea for the name of a new blog that could be offensive, and though the name of the blog would have garnished lots of attention and 9 out of 10 adults would not have found it offensive I still suggested another name that alluded to the same concept without using a word that some people might find offensive. Be wild, but do it in a way that anyone can see.

No matter what I tell you or experts tell you we are all experimenting. Break the rules. Great leaders always have. They break them and then they set them.

Seth Godin brilliantly discuses leadership in our new Internet world in his book Tribes but he says it all with his subtitle – “We Need You to Lead Us”. Help lead us all to making the best possible communities around our organizations, products, passions and things we crave to be connected to.