Social engineering

Writing a new post for Computable, I am used to ask some comments in front of publication. And who you can use best if you're going to write about Social Media? Yes, friends in your network. So discussing title, keywords and message we came about the patterns.  

So why not do the same to get some pieces of information that can be helpfull in finding the 'sound bites'. Monetizing large scale at these Social Networks is not in our reach but the 'crumbs' are still interesting. And after being accused as 'Nasty Social Engineer' the title for this post was found. Afterall it's about the pattern that we should have seen before. 

Not so social Media
"Give me a place to stand and I can move the Earth " Archimedes once said to explain the effect of leverages. Social Media seem indeed to be the turning point to earn billions. But the leverage for media attention is not in the message but all about emotion. So who's really making the 'big bucks' and who is actually loosing?

Information is now the fourth production factor and in many ways constitute capital. That LinkedIn created a gold mine of billions by 'data mining' the knowledge that's hidden in there social network obviously speaks to the imagination. But there is nothing socially about this earning and is simply 'business as usual'. Who has access to the 'taps' in these networks can benefit from them as now appears.

So perhaps it’s time to get attention for ‘Business Intelligence in the Cloud’ now the crowd is lured into these open networks. Knowing you, can help in different ways to be succesfull as not only recruiters utilize this information for their benefits.​ As result of the new EU directive about cookies and the 'Call-me-not register' call centers seems to harvest their essential information from these 'free' sources and Internet games. Greed is the best way to get your information. How often did you provide  information to get some discount?

Me Too 

Beyond attention to Cloud Computing the other hype that scores high on the agenda of management is 'Social Media. Infected by Microsoft's success with the promotion of Windows 7 it’s  a logical and strong 'Me Too' reaction. But I think the success of Microsoft was all about frustration of Vista. Utilizing these social media networks for marketing seems to be cheap but it's only a channel. To be succesfull like Microsoft you should respond to emotions such as fear, curiosity, frustration and greed. So that's more like social engineering with the same tricks used by other channels.


What's the value of Twitter and similar microblogging services? Mathijs van Nieuwkerk (a popular Dutch TV anchorman) disapproves the emotional incontinence of twitter. And from a journalistic point of view 'one-liners' maybe not the best source for news. But the same media also reflect the reasons why twitter is interesting. The most striking is the 'attention value' of this medium as selected short-list. That seems a self-fulfilling prophecy to me as it simplifies the hidding of real and bad news. But most managers do not often read more than the first line of an e-mail. Activities of CEO’s simply do not allow reading long emails or blogs. 

So calling e-mail is within 3 years replaced by Social Media is a nice opening to the attention of many CEO's. But this is very similar to 'front running' and shows that 'sound bites' are not a good way to inform you. Sounds a bit like the effects of the financial crisis where greed was also most likely the common factor. Social media is a blast to comment, but governing is the opposite of (re)acting and requires more than a catchy 'one-liner'. And unlike social networks e-mail have a few opportunities to verify the authenticity of the sender.

Patterns we should know

Who controls the network is at the end the big winner as the rumour about KPN should have learned us. Even ‘Deep Packet Inspection’ is ultimately just a form of capacity management it showed information can be used in multiple ways. Earlier TomTom was already discredited because it had sold information about use of there network. Promising improvement is easy at economic prosperity but who sees his income running in the opposite direction is looking for new earnings.

After the Internet bubble, it seems that the same tricks are used by social networks. Remarkable because there are actually relatively few new things about these networks. But with the improved user interface they suddenly have the attention of management and marketing. That seems a lot like the attention Usenet was given after initiatives like FTD made it easier to find the right information. Often this network is also used to distribute malicious software by using the same lever of greed.