Social Arrival

 

We went on a bear hunt at the weekend (it was my sons idea). Being present with the kids and my wife and being outside is like oxygen for me. Halfway round he started to get a little bit scared and then slowly (and with more urgency) declared that he wanted to go home. He knew what the outcome would be (that we would meet a bear) and he was having NONE of it 😂

Going on a bear hunt, not this time!

This got me thinking about outcomes and the concept of time (my theme for this week). And if we could see the future would we change it? I know my answer to this already.

When I got home I watched one of my favourite films Arrival. Starring Amy Adams. It’s based on a short story by Ted Chiang called story of your life. Every time I watch it, it has me sobbing into my t shirt.

HUGE SPOILER ALERT

Linguistics professor Louise Banks (Amy Adams) leads an elite team of investigators when gigantic spaceships touch down in 12 locations around the world. As nations teeter on the verge of global war, Banks and her crew must race against time to find a way to communicate with the extraterrestrial visitors. Hoping to unravel the mystery, she takes a chance that could threaten her life and quite possibly all of mankind.

By interpreting the aliens language she starts to see time as non linear and experiences flashes of the future. She starts to see time the same way the aliens do.

"Like their ship or their bodies, their written language has no forward or backward direction. Linguists call this "nonlinear orthography," which raises the question, "Is this how they think?"

The way Denis Villeneuve plays around with the concept of time itself through editing and the haunting soundscape by Johann Johannsson gives it an otherworldly feel.

It poses the simple question would knowing your future be a gift or a curse, and is free will simply an illusion? 

It’s such a grounding film in regards to reminding you to be present and live in the moment. The way the aliens perceive time reminds us that if you knew what your future was, could (or would you) change it and how language and our ability to communicate is powerful beyond measure.

The two aliens (affectionately dubbed Abbott and Costello) slowly teach Amy Adams character their language and I think there is a parallel between how learning social and the interplay of communicating in realtime through your content rewires the brain over time. It forces you to see the world through a different lens.

Communication 

Using social is all about communication. It's about imparting ideas and starting real time conversations in a digitally created space. It’s what we do with those conversations that become important.

Whether that be through our profiles and our personal brand (defining how people think about us) or our content (the mechanism for driving people to that brand).

For some of us, these huge knowledge gaps (like invading aliens or bears in a cave) create fear. But we have to remember that just like learning a new language there are some hurdles we need to overcome to get the basics down. Once we get past these (etiquette and cultural differences mainly) we start to understand how to communicate better in this digital always on and ever connected landscape. This empowers us to be be better connected and start building more relationships at unprecedented scale. Time and space can’t stop us here!

Language 

Our tone of voice and personal brand also takes time to develop (do you think I started out writing this way on my newsletters on my first one? Of course not.). 

Understanding who we are, what our values are and what we care deeply about goes some way to help us start to define what our digital presence looks like.

Again this takes time but slowly we start to own our voice, enabling it to get stronger and cut through the noise on social. Enabling us to get in front of and speak to the people we need to.

Time

The mechanism of social allows us to create something that lives outside of our day to day experience. It builds a picture of who we are that lives outside of our time (or the 24 hours we have in a day).

Understanding that this takes time to implement (and that this is perfectly normal) just like learning any new language, will start to help you understand the longer term ramifications of how you harvest the return on that time investment in the long term (through followers and content). Creating a legacy which will predict a more hopeful future. One which results in growth and prosperity for your company (not just in terms of revenue, but culturally and on a person by person basis too).

The real question is if you aren't engaging on social you can already see the predicted outcome of that future, as your competition begin to embrace it and move their conversations and awareness into your potential customers digital sphere.

Trust

There are moments in the film where Louise has to learn to trust those around her. She also learns to trust her instincts as well as her process and trust is huge on social. Trusting ourselves as we take out first steps on social and trusting in our own expertise is important in building confidence to be ourselves. When we are ourselves on social it also inspires trust in us, and that's what people buy into first. Us.

There is something so hauntingly beautiful about this film that really gets to the core of what it means to be human, that ignites a sense of joy and grief in me at the same time. It reminds me that it’s miraculous that I’m alive, that I have a family that loves me and that I need to be present with them as much as I can.

And that’s a pretty powerful message, one which translates well to social I think.

"You know I've had my head tilted up to the stars for as long as I can remember. You know what surprised me the most? It wasn't meeting them. It was meeting you."