“The revolution will not be televised – it will be emailed, texted, blogged, wikied…”

So says the blurb of Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody: How change happens when people come together.   But, earlier this month, the #4change crew discovered first hand the limitations of social media.  At the first of our ‘Revolutionary Social Media’ chats, the Twitter search was experiencing major delays and people disappeared from altogether, and as a result, we decided to end the conversation early.  Amy’s fantastic post covers the ‘lessons learned in using twitter for a global conversation’.  Here, I’m going to pick up the baton and provide an overview of the discussion which resumed on July 23.

Looking back through the twitter stream, some of the issues raised included:

• Lessons learned from the Iran election, from the icon changing, the State Department and Twitter maintenance, whether awareness-raising should been seen as a success only if it motivates action or whether it’s an end-goal in itself.

1: Create unrealistic expectations for Twtr hashtag 2: Declare #iranelection revolution 3: Democracy unrealized, proclaim social change dead

@rootwork 4:46 AM Jul 9th http://twitter.com/rootwork/status/2548985606

• The changing role of television and other traditional media sources from breaking the news to explaining it.
• Social media may not be the way to coordinate protests or revolutionary activity, due to the public nature of posting.  Social networks, email, mobile, etc are a more private way to coordinate activity.
• Different situations require different levels of anonymity.

Anonymity depends on who you are. If you are a protester in China – anonymity is important.

If you are trying to be a thought leader in the western world, I don’t think anonymity is the right way to go.

@Sue_Anne Jul 23, 2009 10:06 PM GMT

• How social media and Web 2.0 tools can be used to keep governments accountable.  mySociety’s They Work For You cited as an example.  Benefits in governments – like any brand – keeping an eye on what’s been said about them in social media.
• Whether social media tools, such as Twitter, are inherently politically neutral and as such, whether they should bend to a particular government’s needs.

I’ve gone through the stream and saved all the links which were referenced in the discussions, on delicious as well.

It was a really interesting chat, and for me personally, a huge learning opportunity.  Many thanks to everyone who took part.  Feel free to add things I’ve missed, your own take-aways or thoughts on the topic below.  Let’s keep the conversation going.