Code, Camera, Action

How does 100% authorship change your business?

• In philanthropy, might it reduce the cult of the expert? Contests and competitions give rise to their own results-based expertise. Scaling, as always, becomes an issue, and people with scaling expertise even more valuable.

• Fundraising comes to look like what Kiva’s Matt Flannery calls “the larger trend toward more connected experiences.” At home, we are all walkathoning (or growing mustaches) and asking our friends to help.

• In journalism and publishing, it looks like the rise of the individual reputation and the individual voice. Blogs over mainstream publications. Aggregators will still be important, be they search engines, social networks, or perhaps mainstream web properties.

• The shift to short, quick, forms like Twitter reduces the influence of professional copywriters. Amateurs have the time to write influential micro posts. Sharing among friends becomes the measure of influence.

• This changes the search engines’ power as the reference source. Right now Google is struggling to keep up with real time publishing. Here’s Jeremiah Owyang on what the search engines’ shift to realtime means for reaching people:

  Search marketers must understand that blasting marketing information through Facebook or Twitter won’t be effective, as search engines will filter out irrelevant messages that nobody listens to.

It comes down to content that’s useful, that other people can share. In a future where everybody writes, will anybody notice if your organization doesn’t?

My post for the Case Foundation blog this week looks the explosion of authorship (with blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) -- and what that means for nonprofits. Click through to the original post on casefoundation.org, or listen to the audio above ipodding pleasure.