CHART OF THE DAY: Messaging Apps vs. Social Networks

While you were busy growing your empire on Facebook these last few years, something interesting has been happening in the non-US parts of the world and in particular, among those crazy kids that won't get off of your lawn. 

Global usage of the top 'messaging' apps, (like WhatsApp and WeChat) have caught up with global usage of the top social networking apps, (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram). Here's the chart, courtesy of Business Insider, then of course, some FREE comments from me after the data. 

Some quick thoughts on what, if anything this trend might mean for for HR/Talent pros:

1. Messaging, like regular old SMS texting, is always going to be the most effective way to get people's attention. If you can get into a candidate or prospect or employee's 'white list' of messaging buddies, then you can capture some valuable attention and even more valuable mindshare. Of course this is easier said than done, so for now most of us will just keep emailing....

2. Communication preferences and habits, as evidenced in how some of these messaging apps dominate in certain countries and among certain age cohorts, vary quite a bit around the world. While the US has been slower to adopt messaging compared to say Asia, other parts of the world see messaging as their de facto communication medium. Some of this is probably due to the greater tendency in many non-US parts of the world for internet usage to be almost completely a mobile-device scenario. And for many of these users, Mobile = Internet = Messaging. Whatever the reason, any HR pro that has to operate globally has to be aware of how local audiences want to and expect to interact and communicate.

3. Some of the elements that have fueled the growth of messaging apps are bleeding into workplace or enterprise apps as well. The best recent example would be Slack, a corporate communication platform that works on both smartphones and computers, and seems to be succeeding where other attempts to create corporate social networks, i.e. the "Facebook for the Enterprise", have struggled, by replacing e-mail as the main communications channel inside firms.  Organized around short, direct and group messages, organized into topics or projects, Slack seems to be catering to the same kinds of people who have adopted messaging apps overall. 

Anyway, one last thought, take a look at what kinds of apps your kids are using these days too. Chances are they are using much more messaging and less 'social networking' than you think.

Have a great day!

Persistent sameness

I read two really interesting pieces over the weekend, the first was a really long, (I mean really long, give yourself an hour or so to take this one on), review and analysis of the Sony Pictures Entertainment hack. This is an endlessly interesting and evolving story, I blogged about it briefly last week, but even just a week later it is probably worth revisiting, as the repercussions from this case are only just starting to be felt.

The second piece that caught my attention is quite unlike the Sony tale, is much lighter (fitting the start of what is for most a short, holiday week), but no less interesting, just in a different way.

The piece comes from Citylab.com and is titled 20 Years of Street Photography Shows Just How Boring We All Are, a review of the work of Dutch photographer Hans Eijkelboom over that past two decades.

From the Citylab piece:

Since 1993, he has worked on his "photo notes"—arriving in a city, setting up on a major street, and then, within 10 to 15 minutes, choosing a recurring visual theme before shooting in the same spot for one to two hours. Once he's done, he puts the best examples into a grid, with the place and time at the bottom of the page. This technique yielded a stream of Louis Vuitton-style murses in 2006 Paris, a pack of Canadian tuxedos (denim on denim, see the image on the right) in 2007 Amsterdam, and an army of shirtless rollerbladers in 1997 New York.

I grabbed the example of the Canadian tuxedos to run with the post, but you really should click over to Citylab to see some of the other examples that Eijkelboom has captured over the years. And the interesting part is that these collages of sameness only take about an hour or two to compile, and probably could be even larger if they were not edited down for presentation.

I am not going to overthink the significance of these observations and images, it is pretty obvious I guess that most folks like to fit in, to swim with the prevailing tide with respect to fashion anyway. I suppose the greater danger arises when we allow this tendency towards sameness to extend other areas that are not as trivial as fashion choices. I will think about that when I see the 27th article this week about why 'Employee engagement is important' or '5 Tips to be Super Amazing in 2015' that gets shared relentlessly on social media.

When we all tend to dress the same you get the funny and sort of ridiculous images in the Eijkelboom works. When we all seem to read the same things, quote the same quotes, listen to the same Ted Talks - you get the idea, we end up with something worse that a picture of two dozen people in the same shirt.

It's worse that than, but it's much harder to take a picture of what it looks like.

Have a great week!