Under the Influence

That we are influenced in this world, that goes without saying, but to know ourselves is to know whether influence shall inform me or whether the influence shall conform me.

"Under the influence" means being intoxicated.  I cannot complain about being intoxicated by social media when it is I who am the drinker.  Nor do I wish to lead a protestation that she would not drink.  In all things considered there is eventually how our choices transform or reform us as human beings - and in many cases conformity will not trouble us, because conformity is the rule rather than the exception.

Influence to me is not a leadership but an energy.  It is an energy that I can utilize to shape the way I transform social media into energy media.  Others may want to transform social media into marketing and that is their wish and way - my way is experiential media at the individual level.  Since it is an energy I look upon it as media flow and not a media show. 

We think that respect needs us to curb our emotion, but respect needs us to curb our reason, for when I look at the most vicious cultures, it is found in academia and in scientific circles.  Scientists and educators in trying to maintain standards engage in a form of disrespect that eats even their own.  Great scientists have felt this wrath when their discoveries flew in the face of the reason that prevailed, and when these scientists had proven themselves, why was it necessary for them to endure such a torturous process of discovery.  At the same time reason has used war that disrespects core values of humanity, as human beings become the test vehicle of that reasoning - and this is called good in the name of science.  Respect in the 21st Century needs to emerge as a more diverse value and very few of us have got to that point.

It is in Twitter where I have tried or at least made an attempt to manage media flow and in turn this into personal energy.  To turn social media into learning I needed to transform it into energy media.  When we are on a diet we are engaged in a social action when we are conscious of how we look to others, but when we engaged in nutrition we are engaged in personal development.

Apart form CityVP being my Twitter account, I also have 9 other accounts above that form what I call my "Spectraneuron".  Each is limited to 168 accounts and that only for the reason that I am paying homage to the idea of 24-7  (or 24 x 7 = 168).  Otherwise it is actually more sensible to further prune the lists I use, including reducing the number of lists, but again 7 represents a personal preference for me which is symbolic of the 7 days in a week.  That they have not been used ever since I moved my attention to LinkedIn and then BeBee needs to be rectified and I need to do some housecleaning when I return to these personal learning portals

So the role of influence is no longer a given to me, for I want to treat media as an energy - an energy that does not negate relationship but which educates us and transforms us.  If media is an energy that is transforming us, then it is solely ours.  Everyone must take responsibility for their own learning and here influence is an interruption because we become followers.

The Pied Piper nature of the influential is one that I need to be cognoscente of.  The act of assuming oneself to be an influencer equates with a much greater responsibility for acquiring followers and I do not think in the long-term that is good for me or the follower to be burdened that way.  The influencer then is always at the mercy of feeding his or her followers with content and the follower is simply following and is less likely to view media as energy media.  When I look at the number of content served by an influencer on a given day,  it often amounts to more than that influencer possibly could have watched.  If I want to use media as an education I must remain with it and not just share it willy-nilly because followers are expecting to be fed.

The act of unfollowing then is a necessary pruning for us as learners.  If we choose to be marketers then that is quite a different story and different pathway.  This remains my learning journey until the forces of marketing consider my journey to be unacceptable to the dogma of influence.  On Twitter I have tried out this approach to pruning and limiting, but I also recognize how much identity and skin is glued in the meme of influence and the need to feel relevant.  We can either have an influencer curate the content for us or we can stop trying to influence others as an intention and instead leave influence to be an individuals personal choice.  I like the mode that I am pursuing which is to treat the online media space as a huge learning laboratory.

In the physical world our bodies touch, the act of acute following is called stalking, but online we need influencers as the trust vehicle for content, but if that is our view of trust, then that means we actually exist in a culture of distrust.  I don't want people to be followers, I don't want to guide what it is others choose or do not choose to do and in that I find freedom of learning, because then I am no longer a follower, but a thinker in search of other great thinkers.

Addendum Wed Aug 10th 2016 - Milos Djukic "Influencer Marketing" Buzz

Influencer Marketing : Milos Djukic asks "Influencer Marketing in Social Media - YES or NO?

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