not an algorithm

not an algorithm

There are platforms that will automate social for you, do everything, except the one thing that really counts, make a person to person connection.

“Social Media” badly used is a terrible misnomer, it is often anti-social media, an effort to remove people from the process.

Maybe we will develop an app to do that, but I suspect not, we are social animals, it is in our DNA, and you cannot substitute that for some digital metaphor.

Our bullshit detectors are enormously sensitive.

Last week, I got another email, personally addressed , so it passed the first test, but the font of my name was slightly different, Boom! Bullshit detector cuts in.

I guess it was better than the Dear Mr. Allen Roberts, or even Dear Mr Roberts Allen, but really it was only just more obviously a machine that had been poorly set up, a SPAM, or the result of my email address being scraped from somewhere I would rather have had it remain private.

Authenticity matters, and it is hard to scale. The tools will get us part of the way, like all tools, but it is how we use them that really counts. Using tools to get you to the point of eyeballing is sensible, a logical leveraging of technology, but few people are happy to eyeball a device and call it “Sally”, and really mean it.

Technology can get you so far, but usually is still requires people to close the social loop