Pioneers of Social Media–TOC

February 14, 2011 · 47 comments in Pioneers

Yesterday, I announced I’ve started work on a new book–Pioneers of Social Media, which will be crowd-sourced and self-published. The essential idea is to write a history of the people who have made history by taking social media into business, government, education, communications, health, entertainment and social revolution.

Below is a partial Table of Contents [TOC]. This, of course, is subject to change. In fact, your response will help me determine who and what I should cover in this book.

I am hoping you will help me changed several of these TBDs [To Be Determined's] into the names of some pioneers.

Working title:

Pioneers of Social Media–They blazed trails for the rest of us.

Ch 1 The Founding Fathers

Ch 2.   Enterprise

Ch. 3  Small Business

  • Intuit--built small business community of 500,000
  • Shashi Bellamkonda, Turned NetSol ranters into ravers through SM
  • Laura Fitton, from stay-at-home mom to small business via Tweet street
  • StockTwits, a Twitter-based community of stock pickers
  • TBD

Ch. 4 Government

Ch 5 Religion

Ch 6 Non Profits

7. Braided Journalism

8.  Social Change

  • Wael Ghonim–Egypt’s Facebook Freedom Fighter
  • Isaac Mao–China’s 1st blogger
  • PigSpotter–Pointing out police abuse in South Africa
  • Laurel Papworth–helping Saudi Women form social netowork
  • Neda–Killed in Iran, recorded on YouTube, symbol of revolution
  • TBD

9. Health

  • TBD

10. Celebrities

  • TBD

11. Miscellaneous

11. Conclusion

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{ 36 comments }

Debbie_h2o March 3, 2011 at 1:06 pm

11. Micellanious or
12. Ad Agency:
- Integrations of Social Media into the world’s largest media budgets
- Social media platform uses for THE largest players on the tightest budgets

skwilder March 1, 2011 at 8:50 am

Shel, let me know if you want to talk about the Intuit Community website. My team created it, developed it and grew it to a nice place for small bus to help each other.

johncass February 24, 2011 at 11:07 am

Sorry, another idea, how about Scott Wilder for Intuit? And Howard Dean’s campaign manager Joe Trippi? I really believe the election cycles have driven business cycles in social media. And if it wasn’t for Joe, we would not have had Howard, and if not for Howard, maybe not the election results in 2008. Stonyfield and other companies were heavily influenced by what happened in the 2004 NH primary.

johncass February 24, 2011 at 11:03 am

Shel, going back and reading the journalism section, what about Dan Gillmor? from his bio, “From 1994-2005 I was a columnist at the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley’s daily newspaper, and wrote a weblog for SiliconValley.com. The blog is believed to have been the first by a journalist for a traditional media company.” Dan literally helped build the industry in journalism and tech blogging.

johncass February 24, 2011 at 10:57 am

Hi Shel, looks like a good list. I think you are missing some really early pioneers in the enterprise section. Jeremy Allaire, and work he did with Macromedia in 2002. I recall in those early days, Macromedia was the poster child besides Microsoft for blogging. Especially before Adobe purchased them. I also think Stonyfield had a huge influence on the industry early on. You have to mention Christopher Barger, not just because he was at GM early, 2007, but also he was head of blogging at IBM, and they had a big impact on the industry.

I also wrote a post with some more ideas.

http://pr.typepad.com/pr_communications/2011/02/finding-the-pioneers-of-social-media-for-pr-seo-hr-law.html

kristiewells February 21, 2011 at 6:59 am

Chapter 1: Founding Fathers should include Chris Heuer (@chrisheuer). In March 2006, Chris (and I) launched Social Media Club (@socialmediaclub) to host conversations around the globe that explore key issues facing our society as technologies transform the way we connect, communicate, collaborate and relate to each other. Social Media Club is a global 501c6 that now exists in over 230 cities and has connected over 200,000 people.

In addition to be the mastermind behind Social Media Club, Chris was instrumental in guiding and educating several Fortune 500 companies along their path to building social media policies and has been championing ‘holisitc business strategy’ since the early 90′s. http://www.chrisheuer.com/2011/01/21/my-focus-on-holistic-business-strategy/

He is not big on self promotion – in fact, he will probably take my shoe allowance away when he learns I am leaving his comment on his behalf – but he is one of the few that really ‘get it’ and has spent a lifetime empowering others to ensure they do too. I feel Chris deserves more recognition and a nod as a founding father of social media as his fingerprint is everywhere in this ‘industry’.

ellenrossano February 21, 2011 at 4:39 am

For the Health chapter, I would recommend Alicia Staley – @stales on Twitter. She is three-time cancer survivor who has established herself as a leader in health activism for cancer survivors and all patients. She survived Hodgkin’s Disease 20+ years ago, a pioneer well before the Internet was available for searching for treatments or finding other survivors. She was on some of the earliest Listserv groups for cancer survivors and is a sought-out speaker at health and pharma conferences. She is the founder of The Staley Foundation and owns http://www.AwesomeCancerSurvivor. Alicia lives in Boston and is one of the most upbeat, passionate and positive people you’ll ever meet.

Liz February 15, 2011 at 7:44 am

Chapter 9- Lee Aase, Mayo Clinic

shelisrael February 15, 2011 at 7:59 am

@Liz Yes, Lee Aase & Mayo Clinic qualify as pioneers. Thanks.

marc_meyer February 15, 2011 at 6:25 am

I would split celebrities from sports. Although @Shaq was a semi-early adopter his impact was different than say @aplusk
I would look at the sports pioneers of social differently than say celebrity usage of social. You could segment teams and athletes versus say music and movie/tv stars…

LoriWitzel February 15, 2011 at 4:38 am

For religion — Rachel Barenblat of Velveteen Rabbi.
She’s been on panels at SXSW re: blogs/social media, is a good writer and a delightful human being.
http://velveteenrabbi.blogs.com/blog/about-me.html
http://twitter.com/#!/velveteenrabbi

jdojc February 15, 2011 at 2:28 am

Not sure where you’d put this but Robert Kozinets (@kozinets) was studying online communities before Myspace! Check out this 1999 paper “E-Tribalized Marketing?: The Strategic Implications of Virtual Communities of Consumption”

http://kozinets.net/__oneclick_uploads/2008/06/etribalized_marketing_emj.pdf

Sharel_Omer February 15, 2011 at 1:57 am

Good luck! seems like an amazing list of people! can’t wait to see the book :)

Tinu February 15, 2011 at 1:25 am

david bullock and brentleary for their research on Barack Obama’s use of social media to get elected, and how businesses can use this infrormation w/ Social CRM. geoff livingston . I think of him as a new media futurist of sorts – he inspires a lot of discussion that bucks the current trends, which is important for growth I think. Could think of about ten other folks, but they’re on my short list. Definitely like your list so far. Good mix of people I’m familiar with, and haven’t heard of yet.

rhappe February 15, 2011 at 1:19 am

I think @chrisbrogan and @garyvee deserve a mention under small business. Chris for showing small businesses how much they can gain by using social media and Gary… for showing the world what he can gain using social media with WineLibrary TV :)

rhappe February 15, 2011 at 1:27 am

Oh – and newmediajim for his unconventional perspective of branded journalism.

mediasres February 15, 2011 at 1:11 am

I like chapter 8.

ariherzog February 14, 2011 at 5:13 pm

If I can persuade you to add me to your government section, I 1) created the first list of U.S. government users on Twitter in 2008 in the months before @Govtwit was created, which you can see at http://tr.im/usgovtwit and 2) co-authored a groundbreaking survey that fall that asked questions to global government employees which you can see at http://www.slideshare.net/ariherzog/ids-government-insights-open-government-initiative-survey and 3) am one of the few practitioners of dually social media consulting and open government preaching, the latter as an elected city councilor.

I recognize the above names in your government section represent the federal sector, so how about the local sector?

MerlynHorton February 14, 2011 at 2:52 pm

12. Tim Davies – envisioning digital youth work.

shashib February 14, 2011 at 1:54 pm

Thanks Shel for the honor

jg21 February 14, 2011 at 1:48 pm

Under Ch. 2 it might be worth mentioning Jonathan Schwartz (@openjonathan), who Apr 25, 2006 became the first Fortune 500 CEO blogger – with “Jonathan’Blog” at http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan – and who subsequently became the first Fortune 200 CEO blogger to tweet his resignation (on Feb 10, 2010): http://twitter.com/#!/OpenJonathan/status/8620937722.

shelisrael February 14, 2011 at 1:55 pm

@jg21 But before him was Bob Lutz who was vice chairman of GM. But you’re right, I should consider them both.

jg21 February 14, 2011 at 2:29 pm

@shelisrael Good point. Lutz certainly must rank as one of the first “A-list bloggers for the Fortune 500.” Schwartz may still get the “First F500 CEO Blogger” slot tho perhaps. @debbieweil would be able to tell us for sure maybe.

johncass February 24, 2011 at 11:00 am

@shelisrael @jg21 I agree, Lutz was the first non fortune 500 blogger. And you cannot forget Jonathan Schwartz, especially with his work at the SEC.

alison February 14, 2011 at 12:51 pm

charlene li and joshbernoff for putting putting a name to the phenomenon that came to be known as “groundswell” and presenting such a compelling business case for social engagement. And, to Li again for recognizing the role of social technology in shaping new rules, roles and relationships for organizations and leadership. With Bernoff keeping it real by grounding the future promise of what social media can achieve in the empowerment of employees.

jeremiah owyang for identifying, legitimizing, and helping to build a professional community around the role of the Web strategist, years before anyone could articulate it, then evolving that role to Social Strategist and more as social technologies were integrated into, and practically overran, traditional marketing.

mashable as one of the leading sources of news, original content and retweets – if I was allowed only one source to follow on Twitter, this would be it.

… and along with Wil and Rosie in the category of Pop Culture Smack, I’ll nominate that blog author from Julia and Julia.

shelisrael February 14, 2011 at 1:58 pm

@alison charlene li joshbernoff jeremiah owyang mashable Jeremiah is already in Chapter 1 as a community builder. Charlene & Josh wrote a great book, but I think Groundswell–and Naked Conversations–followed a trail blazed by Cluetrain. I see no reason to call Mashable a pioneer–although I respect what they have accomplished.

JesseStay February 14, 2011 at 12:46 pm

Thanks for considering me Shel! It’s quite an honor. I’ll see if I can scrounge up some other great ones for Religion for you.

alison February 14, 2011 at 12:32 pm

@CharleneLi and @JoshBernoff for putting putting a name to the phenomenon that came to be known as the “groundswell” and presenting such a compelling business case for social engagement. And, to Li again for recognizing the role of social technology in shaping new rules, roles and relationships for organizations and leadership. With Bernoff keeping it real by grounding the future promise of what social media can achieve in the empowerment of employees.

@jeremiahowyang for identifying, legitimizing, and helping to build a professional community around the role of the Web strategist, years before anyone could articulate it, then evolving that role to Social Strategist and more as social technologies were integrated into, and practically overran, traditional marketing.

…and if we are going for Wills and Rosie in the category of Pop Culture Smack, I’ll nominate that blog author from Julia and Julia.

GilPress February 14, 2011 at 12:31 pm

Samuel Adams and Dr. Joseph Warren. More names in Wikipedia’s article on the Committees of Correspondence. “A major function of the Committees in each colony was to inform the voters of the common threat faced by all the colonies, and to disseminate information from the main cities to the rural hinterlands where most of the colonists lived.”

shelisrael February 14, 2011 at 2:05 pm

@GilPress If I am to include Wikipedia, which is likely, why would I not choose JimmytWales. He was the pioneer. And while I’m on wikis, should I not include Julian Assange of wikileaks?

tamera February 14, 2011 at 12:19 pm

@shelisrael Wil Weaton & MC Hammer come immediately to mind.

Chapter 4: Colin McKay – canuckflack – Canadian Privacy Commissioner’s Office

Chapter 3: radian6

Chapter 1: doctorow

shelisrael February 14, 2011 at 1:59 pm

@tamera canuckflack radian6 doctorow Tamera, Thx. They’re all good suggestions and likely to make it in.

BetsyRayYates February 14, 2011 at 12:15 pm

I vote for edbennett , innovator of the first database tracking hospitals/health care systems that use social media. http://ebennett.org.

shelisrael February 14, 2011 at 11:17 am

Bob, Congrats. You become the first member of the crowd to be a source for my new book. Both Milliband & Lee Aase at Mayo Clinic are excellent suggestions: Shaq and Rosie, not bad–but not sure they were the celebrity pioneers. I just don’t recall who the first celebs were in social media. Maybe Star Trek’s Wil Weaton?

bobledrew February 14, 2011 at 8:46 am

Oh yeah — and what about Jeff Jarvis for Chapter 7, Rosie O’Donnell and Shaq for Chapter 10, and someone at Mayo Clinic for chapter 9?

bobledrew February 14, 2011 at 8:45 am

For what it’s worth, you might think about David Miliband instead of David Cameron. In his time at two ministries in the UK government, he instituted a blogging culture that is sustained and ingrained now.

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