Well, obviously there isn’t any.  However, I do want to share a few secrets with you, so sharpen those pencils and grab a notepad.. here we go.

• There are no social media experts
• Social media is a metaphor
• There is no actual definition of social media

There that’s a good start.

Experts of What?

No matter what you hear from people, there are no experts in social media.  There are people who understand what’s going on and can help advise tools & techniques to use.  The techniques of social media are not secret and not hidden away.

A Metaphor

Social media is a metaphor in that it’s a catch-all paradigm shift in the way we create, share, interact and communicate.  Clay Shirky has a great post and video that talks about the impact to the cognitive surplus in society that is driven by social media.  While his numbers and math may be suspect, the concept he talks about are as true as they are obvious.  The truth is that social media is a marker in the evolution of social interaction of our society, but is made up of totally ad-hoc tools and techniques.  Usually to facilitate creation and distribution of media by different digital, non-traditional communications channels.

No Definition

Well… there isn’t, even though it seems like I tried to write one in the paragraph above.  Social media is about tools, technologies, ideas, resources, and above all - people.

Reality

Of course the reality of social media is the ability for anyone to create and share content with anyone, anywhere.  It crosses the boundaries of print, video, and audio.  It brings the publishing and broadcasting tools of various establishments to anyone with an inexpensive computer and a decent Internet connection.  It gives you a voice in the world, a platform to use it on, and the access to resources to back you up.

It is fun.  It is powerful.  It is disruptive.

Photo credit: cybertoad

The part I really enjoyed was the interaction.  Peter and I both wanted to start a group discussion, and that’s exactly what happened.  There were a lot of great questions from both experienced and new Twitter users, and many people shared their perspectives and ideas on using Twitter.  It reinforced the idea that Twitter is just at it’s earliest stages of uptake.

What I really want to do from Saturday is to thank everyone that stopped by and joined the conversation.  It was great to meet so many people here in the Minneapolis Web2 scene, and I look forward to talking more with you on Twitter and elsewhere.  Don’t hesitate to let me know if you have questions or ideas to talk about - you can find me on Twitter as @RickMahn.

Also, since I didn’t grab the names off the board in the room, I’d like to invite anyone who was there to share their Twitter name.  Just leave them in the comments and others from the session can find them and connect with you.  Any other questions or interest in social web tools that you’d be interested in talking about?  It might be worth putting something together if enough people are interested.

For all the great organizational efforts of everyone at MinneBar, the U of M did a money grab and kept the WiFi closed.  It was the only negative of the entire unconference.  Too bad - I could have done more live-blogging of the sessions and the great vibe of the people attending.

Still, I came away very enthused because of the interest and excitement everyone seemed to have.  I’m looking forward to continuing to connect and build relationships in the social web with these folks.  We have a lot of great talent here in the Minneapolis & St. Paul area, so I know there is some great potential.

See you there!