The same goes for social media.” “The impact on people is that, now, those under 34 years of age have been immersed in the technology since they were born,” he says, quoting computer visionary Alan Kay who opined that technology is only technology for people who were born before it was invented. So, in the context of ‘digital natives’ under the age of 34 – the so-called GenC because they’re connected – Pride sees three defining traits in social media. First, people see themselves as micro-celebrities. Many US universities now have courses in personal, online brandmanagement training because being able to manage your brand online is now more important than being able to produce a three- or four-page CV, “which shows the increasing importance in personal brand management”, Pride says. “It’s very hard to take things off the internet, whereas Facebook is controlled by the person. The internet is like the telephone for an increasing number of your members. They’re wanting to be engaged.” Second, social media is a “selforganising meritocracy”, he says. It can subvert hierarchies, and so users must be aware of “the tone and voice” they use. Third, social media empowers people. “There are no more secrets. We believe ‘us’, not you. People believe an anonymous blogger rather than you, so how you build trust is critical.”

One of the biggest technological innovations in the past five-to-10 years is cloud computing, Pride says. He uses the analogy of the early days of electricity. In the US in 1890, more than 8,000 businesses owned power generation equipment, located next to water. “Now we buy it from a central grid. Similarly, through the cloud, digital natives are far more innovative.” This unprecedented access to information is leading to the informed consumer and the democratisation of content production. “Once content and production were the domain of the very rich and powerful, such as Murdoch, Packer and Fairfax,” Pride says. “This is now giving way to the information community.” This is not new – there have been ‘information communities’ since the beginning of time with people sitting around the campfire, telling others where the best places to find food are. “Social media is not changing this human behaviour, just accelerating it. This is not a fad,” Pride says. Social media is a channel that amplifies. It used to take movie executives two weeks to see if a new film was a flop – now they know in 48 hours. The 55 million tweets that are posted each day show it’s meeting a need for real-time searching, compared with Google, which is good for information that’s a day old. So, Pride asks, who’s making Twitter work?