Future Progress Constrained by Social Media

We all know that the social media complex has problems.  They mess with the mental and emotional health of our children, amplify misinformation, prioritize sensentational information, and distort the world through filtered lenses.  But in addition to all of that, they are slowing our ability to make progress as humans. The following is my personal argument only.

The fundamental principle governing human progress dictates that to maximize individual potential, we must confront and overcome the systemic barriers that limit us. Societal limitations include challenges like climate change, inequality, resource scarcity, and political polarization – all demanding collective action and large-scale reform. Social media, however, is purposely designed to amplify divisive content which is an obstacle to collective, and unified action.

The Convergence of Human Bias and AI in Shaping Our Future

In his insightful book, "The Loop", NBC News technology correspondent Jacob Ward delves into a pressing issue of our times: the interplay between our evolutionary instincts, biases, and the burgeoning field of artificial intelligence (AI). Ward's analysis rings especially true for professionals grappling with the future of technology, information, and societal influence.

Historically, our cognitive biases - those instinctual and learned shortcuts in decision-making - served as vital survival tools against threats like predators or enemy invasions. Today, these same mechanisms are being intricately woven into the fabric of AI systems, leading to a unique set of challenges. The AI algorithms, learning from our biases, begin to shape our choices in ways we scarcely notice.

Consider how AI influences everyday decisions: from the food we consume to our political beliefs, or even the relationships we forge. Each interaction online - a tweet, a liked comment, a clicked link - becomes a data point for AI, further personalizing and, worryingly, narrowing our world view. Ward poignantly terms this phenomenon 'The Loop': a self-reinforcing cycle where choices become ever more constricted, driven by efficiency and capitalist motives, yet masked by a veneer of convenience and tailored to our subconscious leanings.

'The Loop' represents more than just a narrowing of consumer choices; it signifies a potential stagnation in personal growth, curiosity, and diversity of thought. The irony lies in how these AI systems, fed by our innate biases, are largely opaque to the average person. The result is a world where we are increasingly presented with choices that we don't realize we are making.

Ward suggests a two-fold strategy to break free from this loop. Firstly, there's a need for awareness - acknowledging our hidden biases and how they inadvertently shape the AI-driven world. Secondly, and perhaps more challengingly, is the conscious effort to define and pursue the life we desire, one that transcends the ease and allure of automated decision-making.

As professionals, we must recognize this intersection of past instincts and future technology as a pivotal point in our societal evolution. Understanding 'The Loop' isn't just about critiquing AI; it's about introspection and actively choosing a path forward that embraces diversity, curiosity, and continuous learning.

In navigating this loop, we stand at a crossroads between repeating historical patterns of narrowed perspectives and forging a future rich in varied experiences and open-mindedness. The choice, while influenced by AI, ultimately remains in our hands.

*I use generative AI to assist in all my work.

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Kevin Benedict

Futurist at TCS

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***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Our Future and Media Literacy

In my work as a futurist, everything I read lately seems to suggest a need to become more "media literate". What is media literacy?  ChatGPT describes it as follows, "Media literacy refers to the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and create media. It involves a set of critical thinking skills that enable individuals to navigate the complex and rapidly evolving media landscape, identify credible sources of information, and make informed decisions about what to consume and how to interpret media messages."

Just this week, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, acknowledged under oath, that his news commentators endorsed many falsehoods knowingly to keep their audiences happy and agitated.  Tens of millions of people were influenced by these false accusations - a siren call for media literacy.  

AI generated version of me

Our future will include tsunamis of falsehoods from not only our own internal sources, but from our enemies'.  All of us are going to be exposed to information purpose-built to make us fight with each other. We will be presented with fake images (see AI generated of me), fake video, fake audio, fake articles, etc., designed to create confusion and agitation. It is critical that we understand how to analyze information and see through these tactics, strategies and attacks.

Organizations have collected over 5,000 pieces of personal and behavioral data on many of us.  This information is now being used to personalize mind attacks on individuals. This information was collected from mobile applications, e-commerce sites, social media and psychographic profiles and other places.  We are now being led on a journey of long-term mind-manipulation, often without us even realizing it.  Read much more on how this is being done on my blog here.

This isn't a secret.  There are no hidden conspiracies here.  It's all very public.  We must be media literate enough to recognize how all sides are engaging in it, so we don't become the victim of it.  

Let's not, however, interpret these influence campaigns as business or politics as usual.  This is not normal.  Artificial intelligence, social networks and massive quantities of personal and behavioral data on each of us means that mind-manipulation campaigns can be personalized for everyone based on our age, backgrounds, ethnicities, incomes, culture, education level, careers, religion, philosophy, lifestyle, etc.  They know us by our social media photos.  They know us by our online activities.  They know us from hundreds of data breaches around the world.

All of this information has been consolidated in the hands of organizations with nefarious intent.  Many sell this collected information to the highest bidder, which can often be nation states that are unfriendly to us.  This purchased information is then used in campaigns to change the way entire nations think and vote - one individual at a time.  

Is it any wonder that our social cohesion is stressed?  Is it any wonder our politics are increasingly divisive?  Do you sometimes wonder why there are so many heated political arguments between family members?  Is it any wonder that race relations seem to be getting worse, not better?  None of this is an accident.  Russia has a long and well documented history of using information operations against their opponents.

It's both the intended and unintended consequences of our fondness for technology, and our human desire for connection, community and love.  Our desires have made us vulnerable. Our desires can easily be exploited by organizations determined to use our vulnerabilities to influence our thinking.  What's different this time is that organizations now have direct access to our brains through our media and social media consumption.

The strength and fortitude of a nation is often measured by its social cohesion - the degree to which they are unified around shared ideals and vision?  It is these very ideals and vision where enemies seek to create disunity.  Here is more from ChatGPT, "Social cohesion and political stability are important factors for any country's security and resilience. Therefore, it is in the interest of any country to address its internal divisions and work towards greater unity, not only to defend against external threats but also to build a more prosperous and harmonious society."  Is your country coming together and becoming a more harmonious society?  If not, why not? 

This week, the New York Times contained an opinion piece that clearly articulated the strategies an opponent would employ to make us weak.  "Over the past two decades, China has built formidable political warfare and cyber warfare capabilities designed to penetrate, manipulate and disrupt the United States and allied governments, media organizations, businesses and civil society. If war were to break out, China can be expected to use this to disrupt communications and spread fake news and other disinformation. The aim would be to foster confusion, division and distrust and hinder decision making." 

 

We must all recognize the world we live in today.  The world's battlegrounds today are just as often in our own minds as on a battlefield.  Our enemies are purposely messing up our logic, thinking and increasingly our holiday dinners.  

All of us should do our part to be attentive, aware and media literate.

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Kevin Benedict

Futurist at TCS

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

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***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

The Current and Future State of Social Media and the C-Suite

In this FOBtv episode, I interview social media expert Paul Parmley about the current and future state of social media in the context of the C-Suite.  What has the C-Suite learned, how are today's leaders using social media and what are the trends.  It is a fascinating discussion!

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Kevin Benedict

Partner | Futurist at TCS

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

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***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Will Force Win Wills?

Technology is giving life the potential to flourish like never before - or to self-destruct. ~ Future of Life Institute 

As Russian military forces invaded the Ukraine in an unconscionable act of violence and devastation, their armies of social media operators joined in and were deployed to the internet to digitally influence the opinions and will of the world watching in horror.  The goal of these operators was to influence their own people to support their aggressions through disinformation, while demoralizing their adversaries, and confusing a worldwide audience with disinformation to prevent them from acting or interfering.

Kyle Chayka recently wrote in the New Yorker, “the invasion of Ukraine is by no means the first conflict to play out over social media, but it is perhaps the first war to be mediated primarily by content creators and live-streamers rather than by traditional news organizations.”  Because social media operators are now the major source of news for many if not most, this has become a hugely important and strategic digital battlefield.   

Echo Chambers Involving Old and New Media

Twitter has been widely credited with influencing the 2016 US presidential election.  Not because lot's of voters read tweets, but because lot's of journalists do.  Many of these journalists work for traditional media, which includes TV, radio, newspapers, newsletters, etc.  The sheer volume of controversial tweets generated ensured that journalists looked no further than Twitter for topics to cover.  This kept the spotlight on those who understood how both traditional and social media works, and were skilled at exploiting it.

Journalists and their editors understand that controversy and outrage are good for business. CBS's executive Les Moonves was quoted in 2016 as saying, "the Trump phenomenon may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS." And by now we all know that social media algorithms thrive on engagement, and there is no better tool for engagement than tweeting outrageous things.  The cacophony of controversy fueled both traditional media's and new medias' business models.  A win for all media - if not necessarily for democracy.

The Vulnerable Targets of Social Engineering and Mind Manipulation

It is disturbing to learn that if social engineers identify you as older, prone to conspiracy theories, low-informed and/or less educated, working poor or black, they will target and bombard you with nonstop disinformation on social media at a level much higher than others.  Why?  To answer that question let's review the rules and strategies social engineers follow to bend the minds of the most vulnerable:

1. Research has shown that less-informed and less-educated voters are more likely to believe falsehoods.
2. Social engineers have found it is easy to mislead older people and those prone to conspiracy theories.  
3. Those that already have a bent toward conspiracy theories are most inclined to spread unverified rumors.
4. Social engineers understand that the most vulnerable to mind manipulation are the lower-middle class, working poor, elderly and blacks. These groups are driven by the insecurity of their place in society and in the economy. They’re easiest to influence by sharing stories that others are out to trick them and the world is out to get them. 

Social Engineering Escapes the War Zone

The phrase social engineering splashed into the public's view as a result of actions from a cluster of companies whose services focused on influencing and manipulating people's thinking.  The history of these companies is complex, but seems to have all started with Strategic Communication Laboratories, which became SCL Ltd, then it became SCL Group, which then created a subsidiary called Behavioral Dynamics Institute (BDI) and another subsidiary infamously known as Cambridge Analytica, a company that was intimately involved in influencing US voters during the 2016 elections.  Cambridge Analytica stated at the time that their expertise was in "behavior change," "military influence campaigns," "psychographic segmentation" and other types of mind-manipulation.

SCL Group's services focused on psychological operations (psyops), which is a strategy to alter people's minds through the use of rumours, disinformation, bots, fictitious accounts and fake news.  The BDI subsidiary claimed they had several leading psychologists and strategists on staff that developed tools to better understand audiences and to shape their behaviors.  They claimed they had invested over $25 million USD in developing scientific approaches for "influencing target audiences." They provided services such as delivering training in counter-Russian propaganda in Eastern Europe funded by the Government of Canada, as well as conducting research on target audience analysis which has influenced counter-insurgency doctrine. 

Social Engineering - Mind Manipulation at Scale

Social engineering poses potential threats to human rights, markets and democracies. These concerns are based on the notion that humans are a product of their environment and the information they consume.

The average person in the US spends approximately 3 hours each day consuming data from their device screens.  That totals about a month and a half of screen time each year.  We are influenced by that time, and it changes our thinking and behaviors.  Is our time investment making us better or worse as humans, parents, employees, leaders, mentors, friends, etc?  Are we being influenced to become the kind of person we want to be?

Our addictive dependence upon the internet and the information therein is the revolutionary development of our time. Today, we have approximately 26 to 50 billion devices connected to the internet. For every PC or handset connected to the internet, 5 to 10 other devices will be sold with their own internet connection. These devices are both collecting data on us, and pushing information/disinformation to us. The applications, platforms and the messages we receive from them are not random. They are purposeful and managed by organizations intent on influencing us. Often these influencing efforts are invisible or overlooked by us. The influence strategies and campaigns being directed at us are called social engineering - the focus of this article.

Facebook Decides What People Think

The preamble to the United States constitution is so 1787.  Back then our founding fathers wanted important decisions about our nation's future to be decided by "We the people."  Today, however, we have opted to let social media and big tech companies make some of our most important societal decisions without us.  I'm quite certain that is not what our founding fathers intended.

Here is a excerpt from an article in the New York Times today, "The social network [Facebook] announced on Wednesday that it had started changing its algorithm to reduce the political content in users’ news feeds. The less political feed will be tested on a fraction of Facebook’s users in Canada, Brazil and Indonesia beginning this week, and will be expanded to the United States in the coming weeks, the company said."

Revealing Mind Manipulation Techniques

In Washington DC, Silicon Valley, Russia, China, New York, Iran and thousands of other locations around the world influencers are developing and implementing strategies that exploit human vulnerabilities to sell products and amass power.  Many of us so called "influencers" and/or "marketers" have studied for years and learned how we can utilize current social and collaborative technologies and databases of followers/contacts/connections to influence people.  We have developed content that appeals to our targeted audiences and collected followers.  Although these technologies and efforts in most cases have been used to distribute useful knowledge and advice, they can also be used for nefarious manipulation. 

For the past month I have been working on a project about the future of information, truth and influence.  The violence and insurrection on January 6, 2021 in Washington DC has made me regret I had not started this project and shared it years ago.  I believe it is our responsibility, as influencers, to be transparent and share how social and collaboration technologies, databases and networks all work together to impact the way people think.  As recent events have demonstrated, there can be extreme power with real-world impact derived from online influence.  We as influencers have a responsibility to help our readers become more critical thinkers that understand how online influence and mind manipulation happens so all of us can be more alert and critical consumers of online content - and better citizens and more educated participants in our democracy. 

Here are some introductory talking points:

1. Current and future information related arguments are and will be more dangerous than in the past because of their direct, personalized influence on vast numbers of targeted individuals, businesses, communities, societies, governments and economics.
2. Targeted influence campaigns over time can change people's perception of reality and can quickly turn into mob, swarm and cancel culture behaviors.
3. The combination of in-depth individual profiles (consumer/voter data) and targeted social media messaging strategies means external parties can create a personalized "messaging bubble" around each of us that will over time influence how we think and view the world.
4. Organizations are increasingly using society’s networks to directly attack their opponents' leaders, decision-makers and members in order to destroy their unity, credibility, fortitude, perseverance, confidence and willingness to serve. 
5. There are increasingly well funded and highly effective influence operations being implemented to change target audiences’ reality based on their emotional vulnerabilities and current perceptions of truth.
6. The velocity of information and disinformation today is overwhelming gatekeepers, fact checkers and audiences everywhere, and those with nefarious intent understand this and are skilled at introducing misinformation into societies' conversations.
7. Influencers and information manipulators today have thousands of ways to distribute ideas, and the speed advantage over traditional gatekeepers to get these ideas (true or false) quickly and widely disseminated before they can be fact checked and censored.
8. The strategic influence advantage goes to the side that fields the most credible and compelling messages for a particular group’s reality and emotional vulnerability.
9. Information is being used both defensively, offensively to change the way people think.
10. Those who control what goes into an audiences' brain  – controls them and the power they represent.
11. Provocative information (both real and fake) fund media and social media’s business models.  It is in their financial interest to amplify engagement, agitation and anger to increase ad revenue, readership and influence.

This is just a start.  Please recognize how this works.  Understand these strategies are funding the business models of social networks.   Organizations that are intent on changing the way people think are willing to invest billions to accomplish this.

All of us connected humans are subjected to a daily bombardment of intentional internet-based mind manipulation, including our customers, prospects, middle schoolers, consumers, elderly, depressed, discontent, agitated, vulnerable, ignorant and criminal.  In a recent study it was found those age 65 and older shared over six times more fake news articles than did the youngest user groups in the study.  This older group simply doesn't seem to understand that influence campaigns are being deployed to impact their thinking, and that they are being unwitting participants in it.  Please make sure you are not one of these.

If you find yourself agitated, angry or motivated to share an opinion or article with others on social media, first ask yourself where did this information originate from, who are the sponsors of it, and what are their motivations for stirring you up?  Who benefits from this agitation?  What are the outcomes the original authors are hoping for?

Social media companies have recently tried to tap down misinformation, however, research indicates that despite these efforts the viral nature of false news continues to take advantage of the algorithms that gin up what people see on those platforms. The [social media] algorithms often reward outrage over accuracy and telling people what they want to hear, or what gets them angry can easily overwhelm the truth. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/22/technology/georgia-senate-runoff-misinformation.html?referringSource=articleShare.

All people and organizations today must realize they are immersed in an information and misinformation battlefield and critical thinking and analysis are absolutely required.  Business leaders are starting to recognize this as a survey conducted by The Leadership IQ, consisting of 3,272 business leaders reveals:

• 59% are concerned about ‘fake news’ in the workplace 
• 24% rising to the level of ‘very concerned’ 
• 64% are concerned about ‘alternative facts’ in the workplace 
• 27% rising to the level of ‘very concerned’
• 58% believe that nowadays it is easier for people to get away with lying

Misinformation can not only divide a country, but it can also kill hundreds of thousands of people as our current experience with the Covid-19 pandemic demonstrates.  Here is how it works, "Fake news operates by ‘masking healthy behaviors and promoting erroneous practices that increase the spread of the virus and ultimately result in poor physical and mental health outcomes’ by limiting the dissemination of ‘clear, accurate, and timely transmission of information from trusted sources and by compromising short-term containment efforts and longer-term recovery efforts."  https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11077-020-09405-z

Influence campaigns and strategies are so recognizable today many even have their own names.  "The Russian model, rests on the principle that people get convinced when they hear the same message many times from a variety of sources, no matter how biased…If you make a claim that is truly outrageous, it will attract attention and eyeballs, spread far and wide, and ensure that people hear it repeatedly — and over time begin to believe it. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/russia-hasnt-just-hacked-our-computer-systems-its-hacked-our-minds/2020/12/17/7ddd72a8-40a7-11eb-8bc0-ae155bee4aff_story.html

As I wrap up this article, let me leave you with the basics of a nefarious mind manipulation or influence strategy in the hopes this will help you recognize and understand what is happening when you see it in the future.  People seeking to manipulate others by giving them an "alternative information ecosystem" all seem to follow a similar playbook:

1. Establish a goal.  What thoughts, mental frameworks and opinions are you wanting to promote or change in your audience?
2. Identify target audiences.
3. Understand their emotional vulnerabilities.
4. Understand the demographic groups most vulnerable to mind manipulation are the lower-middle class, working poor, elderly and blacks. These groups are driven by the insecurity of their place in society and in the economy. They’re easiest to influence by sharing stories that others are out to trick them and the world is out to get them. 
5. Use high numbers of coordinated communication channels, social networks and messages to distribute and echo messages.
6. Disseminate truths, partial truths or outright fictions to support your views.  Understand that consistency or credibility is less important than the volume of messages.
7. Call all dissenting sources of information, truth and influence fake and villainize any and all critics.
8. Use frequently repeated narratives that support your audiences existing views to harden them.
9. Focus messaging on improving the “status” of your audience over other groups.
10. Provide a spokesman willing to say the impolite things others only think.
11. Find, list and promote your target audiences' grievances.
12. Blame elites and specific demographic segments for all grievances.
13. Sow distrust in existing institutions, norms and leaders. 
14. Offer simplistic solutions to grievances.
15. Empower your target audiences with "secret" information and conspiracies that make them feel special and valued.
16. Give them a "holy" purpose and mission greater than themselves to urgently promote and defend.
17. It's helpful to focus attention on a one of a kind, visionary leader that has easy answers to complex problems, and promote him/her as the only one capable of solving the big pressing problems of your target audience.

These, of course, are necessarily incomplete, but hopefully after reading this list you will be more alert to the impact of the content and information you are consuming.

Read more on the Future of Information, Truth and Influence here:

• The Vulnerable Targets of Social Engineering and Mind Manipulation
• How Social Engineering Works on Our Brain
• Disinformation is Both Expensive and Deadly
• Social Engineering Escapes the War Zone
• Fooled by Psychographic Profiles and Social Engineering
• Social Engineering - Mind Manipulation at Scale
• Conspiracy Theories and Their Impact on Employment Opportunities
• Ideas as Competitive Advantages
• Facebook Decides What People Think
• Twenty-One People Who Control the World
• The Utility of Truth
• Human Thinking as Friction
• Selling Beans During Boycotts, Buy-cotts and Disinformation
• Mixing Business and Politics Requires a Strategy
• Swarming and the Requirement for a Chief Values Officer 
• We Can be Silent No More - Influencer Strategies and Responsibilities
• Our Minds on Facebook Algorithms
• Secrets, Brands and Global Swarming
• Facebook's Infodemic on the Pandemic
• Reality is Required
• Covid-19 and the Value of Ideas

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Kevin Benedict

Partner | Futurist | Leadership Strategies at TCS

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Digital Intelligence

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Our Minds on Facebook Algorithms

As a futurist, I write often about the advantages of digital transformation for organizations and how early adopters gain extra advantages that aren’t available to laggards. One of the best demonstrations of this point was when Brad Parscale, the digital director of Mr. Trump's 2016 campaign, shared that using Facebook was an important factor in their win.  In his words, "Facebook moved the needle for us."  He understood how Facebook's computer algorithms worked before others did.

Let’s pause a moment to define what computer algorithms are. A computer algorithm is software code written by people - in this case Facebook employees.  Algorithms consist of rules and code that enable software to perform automated reasoning.  How does Facebook use them?  Kevin Roose, a technology columnist for The Times, describes it as follows, "The platform [Facebook and its algorithms] are designed to amplify emotionally resonant posts, and people and organizations that are skilled at turning passionate grievances into powerful algorithm fodder win.”  

Facebook’s algorithms are programmed to amplify content based on these rules: controversy wins, and negative content beats positive content.  Facebook’s algorithms love arguments, debates and agitation.  Parscale understood this before his opponents.  A recent Forbes article also supports this view, "The recommendation algorithms on social media might be complex and somewhat mysterious, but they generally favor engagement; thus, controversy."  If you want to attract a mass audience on Facebook or many other social media sites be controversial - that's how the algorithms are programmed.  It's not truth or virtue, it's whatever causes audience engagement (i.e. high blood pressure).  Higher audience engagement, not surprisingly, equates to higher ad revenue for Facebook.

Secrets, Brands and Global Swarming

How long does it take to ruin a brand, destroy sales and devalue investors’ millions?  The answer is seconds.  In today’s world of 24-hour news and perpetual social media feeds, one ill-conceived communication can destroy as much investor and employee value as a pandemic.  This demonstrated fact, means companies must seriously consider how they can remain engaged with their customers and markets, culturally relevant and good stewards of their brands’ and company’s value all at the same time.

Historically, large corporate brands would simply designate a tightly controlled team of corporate spokespeople.  The members of this team would speak on behalf of the company and read official company communications to the press word-for-word.  Limited news and internal communications with employees meant there was little knowledge employees could share externally - even if they wanted to.  Today, however, all employees, no matter their position have direct access to hundreds of news sources, and the ability to communicate directly with an audience of billions of internet and social media users.  Employment contracts offer little barriers to late night drunken Twitter barrages in this environment.  

Digital Expert Interviews: SAP's VP of Influencer Marketing, Jim Dever

In this episode I interview Jim Dever, SAP’s VP of Influencer Marketing, and learn how influencer programs work, the value SAP receives from them and the key strategies and tactics behind influencer marketing.  Enjoy!

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Kevin Benedict

Senior Vice President Solutions Strategy, Regalix Inc.

Website Regalix Inc.

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***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Digital Technologies Must Disappear in 2017

Almost a year ago, I wrote these words, "Technology has reached the tipping point for me, it moved from a help to a hindrance."  The plethora of adrenaline and endorphin inducing mobile apps, 24x7 news, notifications, alerts and updates, drip fed my brain and hindered my "deep work and deep thoughts."  In Cal Newport's new book titled, "Deep Work" he posits that most knowledge workers need concentration and substantial time, dedicated and uninterrupted, to produce their best work. He argues that a lot of technologies and open office layouts today inhibit creativity, "deep work" and "deep thoughts," and are the very things that are most highly valued, and one of the key differentiators between humans and robots.

Newport argues that we must understand and optimize the conditions that enable our brains to work best.  To sum up his argument, constant drip feeding technologies serve to prevent deep thoughts and deep work, our most valuable assets.  He recommends that we restructure our working environments, schedules, times, activities and technology uses to provide substantial "deep thought" times so we can maximize our brain's thinking.

A phrase I like to use is, "Just because technology can do it, doesn't make it useful."  Don't get me wrong, I am a huge fan of technology and have dedicated my career to understanding, teaching and using it, but we must all realize that technology has not been designed to maximize our brain's potential.  Often technology is designed to replace or degrade our brain's function, or to appeal to our addictive vulnerabilities.  Have any of you, like me, lost themselves in a computer game, and then realized it was 4 AM?  I did that when Doom first came out decades ago.  I realized early on my brain was vulnerable to these games, and banished them from our home ever since, at least until Angry Birds came out on my iPhone and I welcomed back 4 AM.

In our professional life, it is so easy to let our email inbox and calendar invites become our boss and dictate our day's focus.  Do any of us really believe this is the most productive behavior?  Does our inbox recognize our priorities, goals, focus, deliverables and ambitions?  I don't think so, so then why let it boss us around?

If we added up all of the mobile apps we have on our phones, then list all the possible alerts and notifications they each can provide, plus add in how many emails, messages and updates we see, and then add our social media and news feeds, it will literally be hundreds or even thousands of distractions daily.  Do these distractions make us more productive or efficient?  I don't think so.

In 2017, we need to reevaluate technology and take back our brains and purpose.  We should be guiding our technologies, not the other way around.  Technology needs to disappear into the background, while productivity and purpose should be our siren's call. We have approximately 700,000 hours between our birth and our death. About 350,000 of those hours are spent in our careers. How many of those hours do we want to waste on technology enabled distractions? I first published some of the following list nearly a year ago, but I needed the reminder, and perhaps it would be helpful for you as well.  I propose the following:

1. Our schedules and activities must reflect our purpose and goals, not our inbox and social media feeds.
2. We must recognize what activities offer value, and what activities do not.
3. We shouldn’t have to read through hundreds of useless email messages to find the three necessary to complete our job. Communications need to change and email must disappear behind a veil of utility and productivity.
4. Someone emailing us, does not mean we need to respond.  
5. We shouldn’t have to check dozens of different locations, apps and websites to communicate with our work colleagues and friends. All of these various collaboration and communication platforms need to disappear into a consolidated and efficient aggregated solution like Slack.
6. Communication technologies should disappear into the background, and the quality and utility of the message improved by technologies.
7. Email and meeting driven schedules must disappear, in favor of schedules that honor purpose and deliverables.
8. Prioritize thinking time and mental productivity, and dedicate the time they deserve.
9. Scientists agree that the creative parts of our minds work better at different times of the day. Those times need to be reserved, blocked and honored on schedules, to optimize productivity.
10. The requirement to develop, store and retrieve dozens of different passwords and user names must disappear. The ability to accurately authenticate a user must become more efficient and secure.
11. Trivial messages and alerts from hundreds of different sources arriving 24 hours a day must disappear. Trivial messages and an urge to immediately respond must not be allowed to intrude on our thinking, creating, planning, sleeping, loving, relationship building, driving and the handling of dangerous equipment.
12. On-premise IT solutions, hardware and apps that serve to distract from the business, and offer no additional business value, competitive advantages or market agility must disappear into the cloud.
13. The 200+ mobile applications on my iPhone must disappear into an artificial intelligence engine that will access their functionality and assist me even before I ask.
14. Mobile applications that are not personalized, and are not contextually relevant should disappear. I don’t care what you sell, if I am not interested, or it is not relevant to me, I don't want to see it.
15. The routine process work I do on my computer must go away. Intelligent process automation should be pushed down to individuals. An AMX mobile app should process my expenses without me. It should only alert me to exceptions, not the routine.
16. Technologies and the use of technologies that hinder creativity, productivity and innovation must disappear.

In the lifecycle of any technology, there is a time when we should be enamored and distracted by how it works, but these times must quickly pass and the technology should disappear into the background. I propose that digital technologies should improve and optimize our brain power, and make the human experience richer, deeper and more purposeful than ever before.  This year, I am more committed than ever to making technology work for me, not against me, by being less intrusive and distracting.  What do you think? Message me.

Follow Kevin Benedict on Twitter @krbenedict, or read more of his articles on digital transformation strategies here:

1. Merging Humans with AI and Machine Learning Systems
2. In Defense of the Human Experience in a Digital World
3. Profits that Kill in the Age of Digital Transformation
4. Competing in Future Time and Digital Transformation
5. Digital Hope and Redemption in the Digital Age
6. Digital Transformation and the Role of Faster
7. Digital Transformation and the Law of Thermodynamics
8. Jettison the Heavy Baggage and Digitally Tranform
9. Digital Transformation - The Dark Side
10. Business is Not as Usual in Digital Transformation
11. 15 Rules for Winning in Digital Transformation
12. The End Goal of Digital Transformation
13. Digital Transformation and the Ignorance Penalty
14. Surviving the Three Ages of Digital Transformation
15. From Digital to Hyper-Transformation
16. Believers, Non-Believers and Digital Transformation
17. Forces Driving the Digital Transformation Era
18. Digital Transformation Requires Agility and Energy Measurement
19. A Doctrine for Digital Transformation is Required
20. The Advantages of Advantage in Digital Transformation
21. Digital Transformation and Its Role in Mobility and Competition
22. Digital Transformation - A Revolution in Precision Through IoT, Analytics and Mobility
23. Competing in Digital Transformation and Mobility
24. Ambiguity and Digital Transformation
25. Digital Transformation and Mobility - Macro-Forces and Timing
26. Mobile and IoT Technologies are Inside the Curve of Human Time

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Kevin Benedict

Senior Analyst, Center for the Future of Work, Cognizant Writer, Speaker and World Traveler

View my profile on LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Kevin Benedict Interviews Social Media Expert Gerry Moran

In this interview we learn from Cognizant's social media expert Gerry Moran on how companies can effectively leverage LinkedIn to reach, engage and connect with their markets.  Enjoy!

Video Link: http://youtu.be/HcXF-r73Nk0

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Senior Analyst

Digital Transformation, EBA, Center for the Future of Work Cognizant

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Amplified Influence and Mobile Apps

Businesses, and let's be honest most of us, are interested in amplifying our influence.  I remember reading adventure books as a child about pioneers and woodsman that craved isolation, and that would move whenever neighbors settled close enough to hear, but that's not an effective strategy for influencing people.

I started writing my blog on enterprise mobility, www.MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com in 2006.  At the time I was the CEO of a mobile platform company and intimately involved in dozens of custom mobile software projects at any given time.  Daily I shared experiences, mistakes, lessons learned, strategies, etc.  Over the next few years thousands of people subscribed to my blog (I now have over 5.7 million page views since 2009).

I remember two emails in particular, both arrived on Mondays.  One from a fortune 500 company in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, saying they had read my articles, downloaded my trial software, and were ready to purchase it. Another email came from Christchurch, New Zealand.  Seems the folks in a large engineering and utility firm regularly read my articles, understood the capabilities of our software and wanted to submit an order.  Both of these emails reflected an amplified influence.

These days when I attend conferences on enterprise mobility it is not unusual for people to shake my hand and say they have read my articles, or if less fortunate, watched my videos for many years.  I still find that notion crazy!  I live in Boise, Idaho, which is not exactly main street America!

SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) solutions are giving, aware businesses, capabilities far beyond what was possible only a few years ago.  The two examples I listed above were from countries far from mine.  I was able to generate sales and close deals on the other side of the world with very little investment.

Is your company effectively taking advantage of these influence amplifiers?  Are you using SMAC solutions for this purpose?

In addition to sharing content from thought leaders - you need a strategy.  Mobile content and mobile apps are an important part of that.  I use Google's Blogger platform to blog. It has a mobile app.  It sends out my content optimized to be read on either a mobile device or a bigger screen.  I record interviews with the camera app on my iPhone.  I edit it on the mobile iMovie app.  I upload it to YouTube where it can be viewed on the mobile YouTube app.  I tweet about the video on a mobile app, and upload it to the mobile LinkedIn app.  All of these actions are part of a strategy to amplify influence.  It works.

In the past 36 months, I have taught digital transformation and mobile strategies workshops in 17 different countries.  In the past few months I have received invitations to speak in South Korea, Belgium, New Zealand and Portugal.  I live in Boise, the most isolated state capital in the United States.  The next nearest big town is 300 miles away.  What if your giant multinational company were employing these kinds of strategies hourly?

If you haven't already, I would encourage you to develop a full strategy on how to use these mobile and social media tools to amplify your influence, marketing and sales.  Digital transformation is happening all around us at a breathtaking speed.  It is making the once impossible, possible today and your competition is learning fast.

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Kevin Benedict

Writer, Speaker, Senior Analyst

Digital Transformation, EBA, Center for the Future of Work Cognizant

View my profile on LinkedIn

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Browse the Mobile Solution Directory

Subscribe to Kevin'sYouTube Channel

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Join the Google+ Community Mobile Enterprise Strategies

Recommended Strategy Book Code Halos

Recommended iPad App Code Halos for iPads

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Mobile Technologies, Delights and Family Life

The Benedicts

Mobile technologies are having a massive impact on our economy, society and culture.  Much is written both here and in many other places about these impacts and changes.  In this article, however, I am going to share some personal ways mobile technologies are having a significant impact on our family.

I publish articles, videos and newsletters daily about mobile and SMAC technologies and trends.  I can continue writing and publishing uninterrupted no matter my location in the world as long as there is Internet connectivity.  This was not possible even a decade ago.  I am still amazed by it.  Today, I can and do publish content from airplanes via WiFi!

Our son graduated last year from Boise State University and went immediately into training and schooling in preparation to serve as a military officer.  While going through training his class had a social media team that would post updated pictures of their training and exercises to Facebook nearly every day.  This simple act, was incredibly important to us and his friends.  We experienced his life, in a small way, through near real-time pictures and social media.  Every day we would search the faces of sweating soldiers for our son and study the photos intently to understand what he was doing and experiencing.

On most weekends, we were able to catch up briefly with our son via his iPhone.  Sometimes for only two or three minutes, but those minutes were precious and highly anticipated.

As his graduation neared, we visited the Facebook page of his organization to learn the details of graduation, schedules, how to dress, where to stay, rules and advice.  It was extremely helpful!

Now as an officer, with a more regular schedule, he can communicate with us and his friends regularly through texts, emails, Facetime and even voice!  He can easily pay his bills, complete his banking and conduct business in Boise, Idaho while he is located elsewhere.  Nearly all of his finances can be managed via his iPhone.

The distance that separates us is minimized by mobile communications and social media.  In fact, last week he uploaded a photo of some materials in Boise that he wanted to sell and posted it on Craig's List.  He is not currently located in Boise, but that is not a limitation these days.  I love it!

A few months ago our daughter graduated from high school.  This summer, as she was preparing to enter the university, her freshman class developed a Facebook page and everyone starting introducing themselves, their class schedules and their dormitories.  She quickly met her classmates, her roommate, and started developing relationships and preparing according to the advice others were sharing online.  We, as parents, will still feel the pain of separation, but also be comforted by the ability to communicate and witness our daughter's experiences via social media and mobile technologies.

Here is another example of how digital and mobile technologies are enhancing our lives.  This week my lovely wife asked her online community about problems with our dishwashing machine.  She received over a dozen responses full of great advice and recommendations within hours.  Some of the advice actually worked!  Problem solved at no cost!

In another example, a small group of us are very active in helping refugee families integrate and adjust to Boise upon their arrival from overseas.  It takes a surprising amount of organization, planning, scheduling and coordination to help new refugees.  They have a massive amount of paper work, appointments and meetings to attend.  They have language classes, schools, medical appointments and case managers to communicate with.  They are all on a timeline with pressure to get integrated, working and sufficient ASAP.

Integrating our refugee friends
into Boise (State) society

When we started working with refugees, we quickly realized that outfitting the refugees with mobile phones was an absolute priority.  It was critical to be able to find people, ask and answer questions, respond to emergencies and arrange transportation to various appointments.  This became quickly apparent after searching the streets of Boise many times over several days for various families and family members that had missed appointments and transportation arrangements, and experiencing deaths and births among the refugee community.

Today, the refugee families we work with are all organized and outfitted with mobile technologies.  Many of the families are now also communicating via SKYPE and Google+ with family members in their home countries preparing them for the journey to Boise.  Mobile and online technologies enable families to maintain and foster relationships with friends and relatives separated by thousands of miles.

I am not one of those people to pine about days gone by.  I love mobile and social media technologies!  It can and will be abused, but that cannot diminish the benefits and delights these technologies bring to the lives of my family and millions of others.

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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant

View Linkedin Profile

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

SMAC News Weekly – Week of December 9, 2012

Welcome to SMAC News Weekly, featuring the latest news and numbers relating to SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) that I come across each week.

Also read Enterprise Mobility Asia News Weekly
Also read M2M News Weekly
Also read Mobile Commerce News Weekly
Also read Mobile Health News Weekly
Also read Mobility News Weekly

Each of us is impacted by SMAC.  We all use mobile devices and social networking solutions like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.  We use search engines, maps and weather apps, all of which use analytics and are in the cloud.  SMAC is the combination of all of these trends coming together on mobile devices.  This convergence is impacting businesses in many different ways.  We will do our best to capture these by reporting on the SMAC trends, numbers and forecasts in this weekly newsletter.

Implementation of big data solutions will grow by a compound annual growth rate of more than 30 percent and will speed up pervasive analytics deployment. Big data spending is expected to increase from about $470 million in 2012 to $1.4 billion by 2016. Read Original Content

Forty-four percent of security professionals working at enterprise organizations believe security data collection and analysis could be considered “big data” today while another 44 percent believe security data collection will qualify as “big data” within two years. Read Original Content

Research shows that the quality of customer service among banks has increased as more turn to social media to address customer inquiries. A study by Virgin Media Business has revealed that nearly two-thirds of UK high street banks using Twitter are responding to customer complaints and questions within an hour. Read Original Content

While social, mobile, analytics and cloud technologies add a new dimension to your model, to fully maximize their value consider the sum is greater than its parts. The formula for the Future of Work is called SMAC - social, mobile, analytics and cloud on one integrated stack, where each function enables another to maximize their effect.  To learn more about SMAC and Cognizant please visit http://www.cognizant.com/futureofwork/smac.  This newsletter is sponsored in part by Cognizant.

Microsoft developers now have the option to deploy their Windows Server based applications in the Amazon Web Services, and it's just the latest Amazon move to solidify its position as the true cloud leader. Read Original Content

Big data analysis platform provider Coveo has landed an $18 million funding round led by Canada’s Tandem Expansion Fund. The company recently launched its Coveo for Salesforce product, integrating Big Data insights into Salesforce CRM interface. Read Original Content

According to Information Week, 18 percent of big data-focused companies in the InformationWeek 2012 State of IT Staffing Survey want to increase staff in this area by more than 30 percent in the next two years, but 53 percent say it'll be hard to find people with the required skills. Read Original Content

Research firm Gartner expects big data to drive $28 billion in IT spending this year and $34 billion in 2013. And according to IDC, 90 percent of digital content will be unstructured data -- i.e., the emails, voice and video Autonomy technology handles -- by 2015. Read Original Content

Intel is aiming to extend its recognition with the open source, developer and big data arenas by now offering an open source programmer tool aimed at supporting big data analysis. The Intel GraphBuilder tool has been specifically engineered to help handle big data for computer learning. Read Original Content

Recent Articles by Kevin Benedict

The Role Big Data Plays with the Real-Time Enterprise, Mobile Strategies and Field Services
Smart Grids, ERP, Big Data and Mobility
Kevin Benedict's What's New in HTML5 - Week of December 2, 2012
Notes from the Enterprise Mobility in Defense Conference
M2M Analysis by ABIresearch
Enterprise Mobility and the Military
Chat Mobility with Me (Kevin Benedict) on December 7th
Connecting the Strategic to the Tactical - Enterprise Mobility

Recorded Webinars of Note

Netcentric Strategies Enterprise Mobility Survey Results

Whitepapers of Note

5 Tips to Minimize the Impact of Rising Fuel Costs in Field Service
Mobility Innovations for the Next Generation Utility
On The Road to Agile Mobile Business Applications

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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for SMAC, Cognizant

Read The Future of Work

Visit MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.