The tongue-in-cheek celebrity response to Twitter’s raucous social media culture pierces through a lot of hubris. Mean Tweets says what many of us involved in online community management feel.

Life as an online community manager, blogger or personality today requires dealing with some idiotic nastiness that people spew on social media

There I said it. That’s what many community managers and corporate online marketers think.

Though we kneel (or ignore) because customer service and repuation best practices demand it, one cannot help but think many times we’re just stroking egos and delivering attention.

I don’t need to go any further than the recent Hitler Tea Kettle crisis that JC Penney suffered online. What a ridiculous mess. Frankly, the Reddit community member, media and people who generated this issue were grasping for something to complain about. And I’m saying that as a descendent of the Anti-Defamation League’s founder (you can watch my professional analysis of that crisis here).

In one recent “crisis” I was involved in, a community member called out a blogger who had posted a negative (and rather dramatic) accusation. The blogger admitted they posted the piece to garner attention.

On and on and on and on. It’s hard to take many social media brand crises seriously anymore.

We Must Respond In Spite Of…

You never know when the issue is real and significant. Consequently, we must vet each complaint and negative remark as a serious matter. By the way, this isn’t something that applies only to social. Good customer service extends to phone calls, in store exchanges, and written correspondance.

At the same time, community managers need to be measured in vetting nasty remarks. Some of them are real. Others are over-charged with emotion. People say things behind a keyboard that they would never say to your face.  Others say mean things for a rise, to get attention, or because they want another free xx or a discount from brand x.

Most of us respond to the somewhat nasty to the civil complaints, and then shake it off. In spite of social media experts loud proclamations to the contrary our businesses won’t crash. The long term brand impact of a social media crisis such as taco licking pictures is Highly Debatable.

Consider the following:

• Chrysler still sells cars in spite of its F bomb tweet
• Chik Fil A’s online gay rights crisis hasn’t shuddered the doors on its hundreds of franchises.
• Kenneth Cole still makes shoes in spite of its Egypt tweet made in poor taste.

A more remarkable list of brands would be the ones that have literally failed because of a social media black eye. I’m struggling to think of just one company.

What’s the impact of people  on Twitter (and Facebook and on their blog) and complaining and saying whatever nastiness comes to their mind? Complaints mean less.  People who need to use social media to air out serious issues are the ones who suffer the most. It takes a cacophony of negative updates to bring about serious attention these days.

There’s a great similarity  between responding to online nastiness and parenting. I have a two-year old who screams and whines periodically. I take her seriously, but more often than not I try to find out what’s bugging her. Does she have a diaper issue? Is she hungry? Or tired? Do her teeth hurt? Or does she just want company? I don’t overreact every time she cries.

I’m not sure if there is much of a difference between vetting Soleil’s issues and mean tweets.

What do you think?

Geoff Livingston on Google+

While online marketing conversations may revolve around Vine or Facebook adding hashtags or Taco Bell’s taco-licking employee, businesses may not care.  So we commissioned a study with Inc. Magazine to determine the state of digital marketing amongst small and medium businesses, as summarized by the above infographic.

The State of Digital Marketing for SMBs (download here) shows businesses have a very pragmatic approach towards digital marketing with a heavy focus towards sales, branding, new customer segments, and finally online engagement, in that order.

Respondents had definite thoughts about what marketing success looks like: 71.2% said sales, 53.7% said leads, and 34.1% said top rank in search.

My big takeaway from the study is that businesses care about revenue and customers, above all else. Everything else is nice to have or a fun water cooler chat,  but is a contributing factor at best.  When in doubt, marketing needs to revolve around ROI and other key perfomance indicators. I guess that’s why they call it business.

What do you think?

Geoff Livingston on Google+

Strong opinions throughout the social web bear a resemeblance to  the 19th century romantic movement. Consider the sheer force of emotional passion and righteousness behind espoused ideals.

The romantic movement responded to the constraints of the early industrial era and enlightenment, a way for the mind to break free from the machine. Purity in terror or love or freedom — expressed in art and movements like nationalism — dominated the 19th century psyche.

What’s old is new again, I suppose. That shouldn’t be surprising though.

Today we face a new confining threat to our identities, the digital definition of who we are. Online identity is expressed through the social graph, and the “big data” that it yields.

We confront hard truths about ourselves, including how much or little we are liked, and why.  There’s nothing quite as humbling as realizing people like you for your cute dog instead of your brilliant political expositions.

Ads pushing products and services targeted by behavioral data tell us what we should buy. We fiddle with privacy settings yet find our lives read to us online, searchable, indexed, and found, not by people, but by corporate databases seeking to expand sales.

The digitization of civilization is inescapable. Humanity must deal with new ways of expression, and in the measured digital social context there is an escape, a real way to be a person apart form the machine. We can yell,  defend  a firm ideal, be heard,  find others like us, and co-exist together!

There is great force expressed online in black and white opinion about the deepest of issues like Syria and religiosity of political opinion. It continues to the mundane, what is the right way to comment or the proper workplace of the future, virtual, shared, or traditional offices.

Through forcefulness, we polarize and pool together. That is why the dramatic romantic ideal stands out in opinions. The purity of an ideal gives us something to grasp onto, debate, and believe in or fight against.  Depressed romantics describe loneliness in an epic and dramatic tone, appealing to others who share the common feeling. Expressed idealism identifies and builds subcommunities.

Black and White

Image by Magnus Ekwall

Perhaps the human soul craves certainty in such times. God knows how fearful change can be, especially when we feel powerless to stop the inevitable march of an evolving society.

Upon deeper examination and through the strains of experience, we find idealism lacks the dysfunctional craziness of human culture. Even in the villainous characterizations of people and movements we find contradiction, eddies of behavior that defy the ideal.

In Nazi Germany the Widerstand, a group of citizens resisted Hitler’s power and might. More than one billion+ Islamic people practice peace instead of plotting and blowing up buildings every day, a mass testimony  to the beauty of a faith in the face of extremism.

Twentieth century novelist Dawn Powell once said, “Satire is people as they are; romanticism, people as they would like to be; realism, people as they seem with their insides left out.”

The dream of an ideal state rarely meets the test of reality. As attractive as black and white ideals may be, they don’t have much pragmatic application in this world.

Consider the Marxist vision of the commune. Throughout the world, the United States included, people attempted to build commune-based societies and governments. Whether they were grand in scope like the Soviet Union or smaller hippy communes, these efforts failed in the face of real life issues. Economics and human nature forced the community ideal to yield to an anti-utopian reality.

Is There Hope for Romantics?

Image by Marco d Maggio

People used to call me a romantic. I remember proposing to my wife. We flew to Provence, spent a few days in the country, and then boarded a train to the Riviera.

I was such a Nervous Nelly, and taped the ring in my sport coat so I would not lose it. It was hot out, late summer, but I refused to take the jacket off and was sweating profusely.

Finally the train arrived in Cannes, and we checked in. It was almost sunset. We walked out to the dock, and sat down looking at the sunset over the bay.  She smiled, knowing (because I’m a spaz).

I got down on one knee and proposed, and she said, “Of course.” BUT, it didn’t end there. Back in the hotel room a massive bouquet of white flowers greeted her. Finally, she was surprised and the tears streamed down her cheeks. Then the coup d’etat, I took her to the hotel roof top to enjoy a seven course meal with the twinkling lights of Cannes as a back drop.

My idealism persisted in other ways beyond the affairs of the heart. I had strong notions about the way work should be, how communications should be conducted by entities, even how social media should benefit society. And though I fought for these things in different ways, inevitably reality forced me to face a lack of pragmatism.

It’s been a long time since someone has called me a romantic. Probably because I rarely exhibit such passion about any particular ideal anymore. It takes a lot for me to back an ideal with pure emotion and a long hard fight.

Maybe my innocence has been shattered — albeit later in life than most fools — by what I have seen.

Still, passionate feeling exists within. I do care about society and ideals, but rarely wear them on my sleeves.  I cannot help but to identify with Henri Frederic Amiel when he said about love, “[I] cannot escape from the ideal of it. A companion, of my life, of my work, of my thoughts, of my hopes; within a common worship — toward the world outside kindness and beneficence; education to undertake; the thousand and one moral relations which develop round the first — all these ideas intoxicate me sometimes.”

Love is such a powerful word, and the purest of ideals. With love we find a hope that things can improve, even if the advance is just a little.

The Notion of Progress

I’ve had the priviledge of working with many young people over the years.  Millennials have strong opinions about the way things should and should not be, a bit of the romantic ideal.

Today, my team talks about change quite a bit, and the need to evolve practices for the better.  We call it the battle of inches, an acknowledgement that sudden revolutionary change toward the right (or the wrong) is not likely.

We have to accept progress instead of perfection.  The ideal is not attainable, at least immediately.

That’s not a reason to give up.  Evolutionary change occurs by focusing on small shifts and progress. Those small acts add up over time to create big change.

Lao Tzu, the father of taoism, said, “All difficult things have their origin in that which is easy, and great things in that which is small.”

When you work towards a significant goal with dedication, focus, and an unrelenting commitment to achieving your vision, things happen.   When sudden moments occur — particularly in the public eye — the hours and labors necessary to realize that notable achievement are rarely seen or discussed. Sudden unprepared successes are truly rare.

Romantacism is great if you’re willing to truly fight for an ideal, and stick to it until everything possible is said and done. The frustrated romantic lacks the patience to commit and see things through, to make the ideal a reality through pain, toil and progress. But the romantic that operates out of love will commit to an ideal, and suffer through the necessary toil to achieve it.

Like many things in life, with passionate belief it’s important to keep our heads in the clouds and our feet on the ground.

What do you think about romanticism?

Geoff Livingston on Google+

Returning to basic relationship principles is a constant theme in marketing conversation. If you want to build on relationships, then say thank you.

Yet, in this fast age of Internet business and new millennium expectations, people say thanks less frequently.

Consider the receipt or post transaction communication most people get from companies, either online or in real person. You get hit up with coupons and requests to buy more. Personally, one of the best parts about buying the old fashioned way in a store are the smart clerks who invariably thank you and shake your hand. Go Nordstroms!

I don’t know how many times I have referred someone business, provided them a speaking engagement, etc., and they failed to say thank you. In some cases, people are arrogant about these interactions, feeling like they deserved the opportunity. Those are the ones who won’t receive again.

It may be the 21st century, but there is something to be said for acknowledging someone’s investment in your business — either money or time — with a simple thank you. Thank you acknowledges and sustains the relationship. It’s a basic symbol of respect.

Here are five ways to consider saying thank you:

Send a gift (not a discount to go buy more): The Washington nationals sent season ticket holder Nats Bucks, $100 or more of free food and gear at the stadium. Nice touch.

Thank you and nothing more: Smart nonprofits are very good at this. You donate, they say thank you, and nothing more. Their next communication may be a solicitation or an update on monies vested, but the initial communication is a simple acknowledgement of gratitude.

Hand written note: Want to impress the daylights out of someone? Send them a handwritten thank you note that expresses your gratitude for how their time/investment impacted you.

Reciprocate: Most bloggers expect reciprocation after a series of link shares and mentions. I personally feel like you should do this IF you feel the other person’s content warrants it. Content has to fit the community, too. Giving to get is not really a good motive, in my opinion. A thank you should suffice.

Endorse/Refer: In a world of gratuitous Likes, +1s and recommendations on LinkedIn, taking the time to refer someone or write a great review about them and their service is the ultimate gift. A well written endorsement says a lot about how much you care.

What do you think?

A version of this post ran originally on the Vocus blog. Image by Jen Collins.

Geoff Livingston on Google+

The role community members play in creating and developing successful brands is a stark change. This collaborative shift is caused by technology in the form of social and  mobile, and a new “we” ethos brought on by millennials.

Last week, my friend Jeremiah Owyang and the Altimeter Group team released a major study called The Collaborative Economy that drove this point home.

Brands continue evolving from something discussed to collaborative distribution channels built on the premise of sharing products and services. In many ways, collaboration provides an opportunity for businesses to create a new sales channel, something I will discuss later this week on the Vocus Marketing blog.

Beyond the core business opportunity, the movement marks a larger economic and cultural shift towards community based models.  Socialism and its less successful offshoot communism produced global failures centered on fulfilling the ideal of community based sharing. In an ironic turnabout, the collaborative economy leverages capitalism to fulfill that  ideal through a pretty cool market based approach.

Not Everyone Wants, Needs or Can Afford to Own

Collaborative business models provide customers a new choice, the ability to avoid ownership while sharing and enjoying an experience. Some collaborative customers may not want to maintain or would not have access to offerings prior to companies like AirBnB and Uber.

Smart brands have been engaged in this model for years, even decades.  Consider that Harley Davidson has allowed motorcyclists to rent bikes at local dealers.  Or how Amazon turned excess server space into the cloud hosting model.

Whether the business is B2B or consumer expensive investments can be made accessible to larger groups of customers though community-based economics. Renting or selling shares empowers brands to embrace more of their potential community. For example, a BMW dealer in Jeremiah’s report noted that one rental car produced nine new sales.

Some people will always prefer to own, and know a product or service is theirs alone and won’t be touched, used or experienced by someone else. There are some products and services that just don’t fit this model. Not everyone wants to share their runway debuted piece of clothing or expensive athletic shoes.

But the collaboration model has mass appeal and significant societal, economic and technological drivers. Better yet, it’s battle tested.

My Shared Collaborative Experience

The Nationals unveiled a new electronic ticketing system for season and partial season plan holders this year. The new Ultimate Ballpark Access makes sharing tickets with groups and friends much easier. It’s a primary example of using technology to empower a collaborative experience.

As a father of a two year old, I could never consider a fulls season ticket plan for a baseball team. So I bought a partial plan.

I “own” my seat, and have access to playoff tickets before the general public. BUT, there is no way I can go to even 20 games.

Ultimate Ballpark Access allows me to share the tickets with my business colleagues and friends by simply typing their email address in and pressing send. If I wanted to, I could sell my excess inventory through StubHub on the system. The technology helps my little community of Nationals fans share my humble 20 game experience. Go #Natitude!

It’s a great experience made possible by technology, and it also acknowledges the truth about sports leagues that have more than 10 home games a year: Most casual and even loyal fans can’t make the time commitment to attend a majority of games. But many Washingtonians consider themselves Nationals fans. Many locals would like to attend a game or three throughout the year, but don’t want to commit financially. StubHub serves as a channel for fans that want access to tickets reserved for season ticket holders.

We can now share that experience with ease thanks to technology.

Now if my local Porsche dealer will let me share a Cayman S a few weekends a year, I’d be a happier man!

What products, services and cause activities would you be willing to rent or share?

Geoff Livingston on Google+

Image by Vindaloo

Over the past few months I babbled about a secret project in blog posts now and then. It’s time to lift the curtain and reveal the project. I intend to release a science fiction novel at the end of summer.

Here’s some more babble for you. Exodus (Book One of the Fundamentalists) has been 19 years in the making. Nineteen fricking long years.

But first let me thank Patrick Ashamalla and A Brand New Way for this incredible new web design. It’s a responsive design offering unique experiences for the traditional web, tablet and mobile visitors. Check it out!

The new site accommodates Exodus with both its own section and RSS feed. The book will be available for purchase in both print and electronic editions, and will use the RSS feed to publish each chapter over a course of 70 days. Empowering people to read the book for free is a side benefit of independent publishing. If you want a preview copy in late July/early August, sign up for book updates, too.

I hope you enjoy the new experience, and thank you for continuing to read my stuff. Now, onto the book…

A Tale of Two Decades

Exodus is the opening salvo in a science fiction trilogy that centers on the themes of utopia in a technological dark age, and the disruptive power of religious fundamentalism. In later entries to The Fundamentalists, the power of technology and principles of freedom are examined as the narrative progresses through steam punk to hard science fiction.

Exodus was first drafted in 1994 as my senior creative writing project at American University. My literature professor and mentor told me I’d be crucified if I published it. It has been refined six times since then, including a near miss with a publisher in 2004.

I believe Exodus has always been a keeper, one that just needed more wisdom as well as the ability to effectively deliver a captivating product.

All of this effort — an effort that is now finally coming to fruition — was necessary. Without it, I don’t believe the product would have been ready. Without the business books, social media marketing experiences, and yes, failed attempts to find a publisher nine years ago, I would not have found the courage to release book myself.

Reading Guy Kawasaki’s A.P.E. and C.C. Chapman’s Amazing Things Will Happen were the final pieces of motivation. The creative war fought within ended, and the final push began last January. I hired editorial support, and the rest is history.

Exodus may still fail. I know that. But I’ll be damned if I don’t follow my heart’s passion, and release this book.

I probably won’t blog about the novel itself again until August, but if you do read it, you’ll see some essay themes threaded in the text here and there.

Sign up if you’d like private updates. I hope you’ll come along for the ride.

Once again, thank you for continuing to read me through the years.

Geoff Livingston on Google+

If you think small, you stay small. That’s why companies and brands that treat social like a unique practice — a box within the larger whole — will struggle to achieve results and intangible outcomes.

Building seemless customer experiences should take the fore in all strategies. Yet according to the CMO Survey, the integration gap in companies is not closing, in spite of years of research showing that cross-tactic coordination produces more sales.

The struggle to achieve ROI and real business impact with new media strategies is a direct result of focusing on individual tactics. Rather than simply discuss integration, an easier approach may be to consider building from the customer’s viewpoint.

Customers don’t care about social, in-store, mobile, content marketing, white glove treatment for influencers, or any of the other strands of spaghetti you see strewn across the marketing blogosphere wall. They don’t care about integrated multi-channel approaches either.

No, customers care about a damn good experience. If you think customers are wed to one channel, one type of medium or a partcular influencer, you are sorely mistaken. They want what they were promised at purchase.

Marketing is Not a Product

Ask any rationale human being who is not a social media marketer what they care about most — a great product or a decent blog community. The latter means little in comparison to getting the actual result they purchased.

The first job of a marketing strategist is to get beyond their practice and consider the big picture. That’s regardless of tactic — social, PR, marketing, direct, etc.

Customer experience begins with the product or service. Marketing’s job is to extend that experience before and afterwards so that people trust the brand, and can enjoy and interact with it (if they should choose to do so).

Marketing is not the final product. Yet for some reason we treat it like a stand alone offering in our marketing conversations online. It’s frustrating to hear conversations about companies modeling after Red Bull, and then watch hundreds try to become a media company. Much of the resulting customer-centric content is created haphazardly with a blind eye to customer-brand relationship.

Marketing is a series of non-linear communications emanating from a brand (directly or indirectly) that customers choose to participate in. Even paid placement — native, billboard, magazine, wherever — can be ignored.

Media companies report on an editorial mission that serves readers. So without a maniacal focus on serving customers with extended value, content marketing (a step lower than pure editorial in customers eyes) as a social and search tactic fails to market effectively.

Instead of fancy marketing efforts, a simple focus on customer needs can make a big difference.

If a customer base is best served with short answers on YouTube, then give it to them. If a customer base prefers not to talk about missile defense on Facebook, then listen to them. There is no easy one size fit all solution to customer communities.

Think in 3D

Image via Wikimedia Commons

Perhaps the greatest flaw in thinking about strategy is to stay inside the tactical tool box. Businesses and nonprofits should thread social into the overall customer experience to fulfill its maximum potential.

Many organizations think about social as a silo. Then they move into a hub and spoke model to integrate.

Consider social a core function of interacting with customers, and putting the customer experience in the center of the company universe. A universe is three dimensional. Even an atom is three dimensional.

Customers and people and objects never interact with a universe in linear fashion, and that’s why silos, and hubs and spoke models create weaknesses. Today’s Internet enabled world seamlessly blends with other real world activities and media. Customers can interact with a brand through many disparate paths. They can bounce up down, left right, and across your universe. Consider this real and fractured path:

Mobile web browsing —>
Friend who is an employee —>
Magazine and web site research (including blogs and social chatter) —>
Store browsing —>
Third party website to purchase —>
Customer service to ask a question —>
Twitter to complain —>
Customer service —>
Workplace, forums and Google+ group complaints, brand tarnished.

In this case, though many marketing pieces were in place, the product didn’t meet the promise. There was a gap between the customer expectation and product marketing. Trust was built and then destroyed, creating a net negative experience for the person and the brand.

Everything, everything is part of that customer-centric universe: Human resources to serve them, marketing to build and maintain trust with them, sales to consummate a relationship in an honorable fashion, operations to ensure the product is built, and finance to ensure the health of the customer-centric organization.

Marketing leverages brand strengths and builds on them, while observing weak points and addressing them internally. Ultimately, everyone’s job in a company or nonprofit is to build a comprehensive experience, a small brand universe that customers enter and exit at will. Social media and networks are just paths in and out of that universe.

It’s not a perfect marketing world, but we can always strive towards progress.

What do you think?

Geoff Livingston on Google+

A colleague has been struggling with some negative talk on the back channel and asked me how I deal with it. When someone slights me, I use that resentment to drive me further, finish hard projects, go the extra mile, and get up when I fail.

This is the famous chalkboard moment. Sports teams often use slights and trash talk to go out and hand it to the opposition.

Michael Jordan admitted a similar fueling approach when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame. Jordan was criticized (justly), probably because he said he did it to prove all of his critics wrong. He also revealed several resentments toward players that were in attendance.

I recently heard a story of a woman who was in a difficult marriage. Every time her husband angered her, she would go into their backyard and dig, then plant. Within six months she had a magnificent garden. She said that garden made the issues with her husband less omnipresent and more tolerable.

No one should be so brazen as Jordan and publicly list all their grudges. But when I receive a slight, am criticized unjustly (at least in my mind), or flat-out bullied, I hold those wrongs closely to me and use them for fuel to go do something positive.

Go Out and Build Something

I know of only one way to stop thinking negatively, and that’s to take action towards positive outcomes. Really, I’ve never been a good person to piss off, but age has its benefits, and I have learned that response rarely does anything positive, so I try not engage when angered. Success is the best remedy, and the ultimate vindication.

It’s always best just to let go and forgive, but sometimes I just can’t do it for whatever reason. Those justified moments of anger? Yeah, I need to find good projects to throw my angst into. There’s too much energy inside of me to simply breathe and let it go most of the time.

It’s not fight, it’s not flight, it’s forward. Though it appears that I’ve turned the other cheek, in reality I’ve just turned on the afterburners.

Is it the ultimate expression of spiritual health? No. For a healthier approach, check out Peg Fitzpatrick’s tips on how to handle nastiness.

I realize how flawed this motivation is, but it is progress. It’s just how I process slights, and why I do some of the things I do. I hope some day in the future, that slights will be non-factors in any way for me.

Usually half way into the project — something I wanted to do anyway for personal reasons — the raison d’être is forgiven or the angst has subsided, and love for the project carries the momentum. You have to do work because you love it, otherwise it’s going to leave you feeling empty inside. There are never enough wins to fill a bottomless hole.

Do you use slights for motivation? How do you process them?

Geoff Livingston on Google+

After reading last week’s post on science fiction, Erin Feldman asked me to suggest a few books in the genre. Of course, I was delighted. So here are my favorite science fiction books (and trilogies) of all time. You’ll see they span sub genre and era.

1) The Diamond Age (Or, a Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer) by Neal Stephenson. If you gave three young girls with different backgrounds a primer based on the the ultimate algorithm-based artificial intelligence, their lives would still end up completely different. And those with the most advantages may have the largest handicaps. Simply brilliant analysis of semantic technologies, and quite a dystopian look at nano-technology, too. Check it out.

2) Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan. Imagine if your soul could be backed up and stored in the cloud. You’d need a chip in your cordial stack to access motor functions, and to identify your soul if the physical body should fail. Assassins could forever wipe you from the face of the earth by destroying your cordial stack chip. This premise drives one of the most bloody and violent books in the cyberpunk genre. I loved it!

3) The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkein: Do I need to say anything about this cornerstone of fantasy and science fiction (the trilogy was originally one long book). I’ve read the stories of Middle Earth well over ten times in my life, and loved the movies, too. The compelling battle of good versus evil painted in a dire light still grips me every time.

4) The Half Made World by Felix Gilman: Perhaps the best steam punk book I’ve read, Gilman offers a post modern approach to the genre and adds historical, fantasy, and western elements into a powerful commentary on American society. A captivating read, and one that forces you to consider the archetypes we hold so valuable in the United States.

5) The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. In a world of extremism, what would happen if one side won the battle of public opinion? Margaret Atwood’s dark view of a religious state in the former United States has women enslaved, serving society. Something to consider as political PR becomes increasingly charged with religion and extreme points of view.

6) Neuromancer by William Gibson. An inescapable science fiction masterpiece, anyone who reads this blog can imagine Gibson’s Neuromancer. Plot twists include dark forces acting behind the scenes in a cyberworld, artificial intelligence come alive, and hackers fighting wars between governments and corporations alike. This book accomplished a rare feat by winning three major genre awards, Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick, and is quintessential science fiction.

7) Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey. Leviathan Wakes forces us to consider genetic engineering as a weapon within our solar system, and also bridges the concept of a distant long-departed alien super intelligence. It’s a relatively new space opera with a post-post modern detective plot. I loved it, and thought the tension of the protagonists’ struggles was well done.

8) Dragonlance Chronicles Trilogy by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. They say every fantasy book after Tolkein is just a reinvention of Middle Earth. Well, this trilogy was the book series that best mirrored the Dungeons and Dragons craze. In fact, it was part of it. Dragonlance spawned more than two dozen sequels, and of course, several games. Tense and compelling, this is pulp science fiction at its best. Enjoy!

9) Dune by Frank Herbert. The word “epic” doesn’t offer Dune justice. While Herbert and son wrote a series, it’s hard to compare to the original. Space opera, religious impact, prodigal son, feudal society, aboriginal roots, and on and on. One of the rare page turners that captivated me enough to forgo sleep. It’s easy to see why Sting tried acting in the failed movie rendition (see above video clip). Thank God the TV series better served the original novel.

10) Foundation by Isaac Asimov. There are several Asimov books that could have made this list, but the original Foundation trilogy is the series of books that I love most. Asimov is an original hard science fiction master, and fathered the concept of a galaxy populated by man as the only sentient being. It’s an incredible look at math, technology and how we continue to war no matter how advanced we become. Like Tolkein, you cannot consider yourself a science fiction aficionado unless Asimov is in your mind.

Image by Subarino

11) Pattern Recognition by William Gibson. This is the first book in a loosely knit trilogy about the Blue Ant agency from the father of cyberpunk. Lost in a post 9/11 world searching for agency head “Big End’s” crazy request for information about a video, our heroine Cayce Pollard takes us through a bizarre and poignant commentary of today’s Internet culture.

12) Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A Heinlein. This 1962 Hugo Award Winner pushed the genre into a new direction, and examined themes such as religion, sex and love. A few years ahead of its time, Heinlein also examines what its like to grow up in isolation and then be admitted into society as an adult, in this case, a by product of early colonization on Mars.

13) Sundiver (Book 1 of the Uplift Saga) by David Brin . How does a species rise to prominence? The Uplift Saga looks directly at what causes dolphins and apes, and yes, even human beings, to rise and become sentient beings. They need Progenitors to help them get there. Great compelling science fiction looking at genetics and space travel. This first book opens the saga, and books two and three Startide Rising and Uplift War both won the Hugo and Locus Awards, and with Rising also taking the Nebula Award.

14) The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks. I almost didn’t include this book because each new addition to the Shannara lexicon seems to water down the value of the story and plot line, turning it into a cheap ploy to sell books. Yet, I have read Sword of Shannara several times, and it is probably the best piece of elf world Tolkein-esque fantasy outside of Lord of the Rings. Read the first book and skip the rest.

15) Black Sun Rising by C.S. Friedman. This may be the least well known book of my favorites, but I really liked it because it deals with fear as a supernatural force. In conquering fear, we survive and prosper, but by feeding it we create darkness. A fantastic fantasy-based metaphor for our very real-world problems.

16) Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. Another page ripper, this one deals with some interesting ethics, in particular child soldiers. There are similarities to Handmaid’s Tale in the future vision of society and how people are scripted into roles. Like other books mentioned in this list, the original is phenomenal but I could not get into the larger series. The movie adaptation comes out later this year.

17) Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko. One for the vampire/werewolf crew. I’m not much for this sub genre, but this particular serious is phenomenal and transcends into a bit of magic and fantasy. Sergei’s work is set in present day Moscow, and like other Russian authors of yesteryear offers a gritty view of everyday urban society. I loved every single book in this series.

Some greats like Arthur C. Clarke, Philip Dick and Ray Bradbury are not on the list, but I really wanted to offer books that I Loved with a capital L.

What would you add to the list?

These are Amazon links, but I am not an affiliate and will not profit through any purchases you make. Some of these reviews were featured last year on Spin Sucks.

Geoff Livingston on Google+

Freedom allows many things, good and bad. The rationalization of justified Internet vigilantes arguably falls in both camps, depending on your perspective.

We love the archetype of the vigilante, the person who goes out and meters justice when authorities fail to do so. In a romantic sense, it makes sense. Consider our pop culture heros; Batman, Iron Man, Jack Reacher (in spite of Tom Cruise), Clint Eastwood’s many tough guy characters, and on and on. We worship their ability to right wrong in the spite of flawed protection mechanisms.

Thanks to the Internet, practicing vigilantism has never been easier. Social media empowers anyone to speak out for justice, and successful acts are met with attention and notoriety.

That’s unfortunate. Vigilantism (or “digilantism” online) is dangerous because the actor may not be well grounded in their ideas of right or wrong.

Here’s an example: In 2011 a Reddit community member spearheaded a campaign against an online scammer. The only problem was that she was fundraising to fight cancer.

In the Internet era, the tools of vigilante punishment have changed. They now include reputation attacks, bullying, anonymous vandalism of websites, and worse. In recent years, diglantes acted on a wide range of wrongs, including the PyCon dongle incident (sexism), Anonymous attacks (corporate wrongs), and the Boston Bombing (Reddit community).

It’s way too easy to meter punishment these days. Sometimes justice serves as the veil bullies hide behind. Nowhere is this more evident than private groups and communities who act on their own. The severity of mob justice can cause one to forget the original provocation, creating permanent tar and feathering moments that scar recipients forever in mind AND Google. Watching flash mob justice is frightening.

Some vigilante acts are wrong, and others are not. Thanks to the psychological reasoning of justice it’s rarely a clear cut case.

The Egotism of Vigilantes

Image by Brian K.

Personally, my greatest errors have been when I decided to teach somebody a lesson… Because I had been wronged or knew better.

I was the judge, jury, and decision maker. Fueled by an anger that needed better outlets, disgusted by injustices or others acts, I sought to correct wrongs.

There were a couple of cases where the wrong was very real, most notably with BP’s Deep Horizon oil spill. I’m still rather proud of the response, CitizenGulf activism.

But lesser acts, the call-outs and the online sniping, were not good. It’s quite egotistical to know better than others. Right or wrong, it’s not my place to go out and teach people lessons. No one knocked on my door and made me God.

That’s why today when something needs to be said, I try to do so without identifying individuals. I feel unequipped to determine who deserves to be criticized publicly. Who am I to harm someone’s career for doing it the “wrong” way?

Yet, there are times when we need to stand up and fight. With an innefectual government, the need for third party answers will only increase. I believe that civic activism is needed now more than ever.

The Chaotic Future

Image by ykcky

In William Gibson’s Neuromancer and Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash we see Internet culture transform society with warring (and sometimes anonymous) communities. Governments lost effectiveness as more people are able to subvert its control. Private parties and corporations grew more powerful, able to act independently and often wrongly.

If these and other visions of the future hold true, government will continue to lose power with time, developing a deeper need for self protection. Where does one draw the line?

“Since the governments are in the pockets of businesses, who’s going to control this most powerful institution? Business is more powerful than politics, and it’s more powerful than religion. So it’s going to have to be the vigilante consumer,” said Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop. Her company offered beauty products that prohibited the use of ingredients tested on animals, and one of the first to promote fair trade with third world countries.

Activism and social enterprises like the Body Shop feel better to me than vigilantism. The protocols of civic activism are well known. From public cries of protest against practices and corporations to formalized nonprofits and grassroots lobbying, we’ve seen some powerful examples of successful activism recently.

The growing strength of the same sex movement across America is a testimony to the power of tenacious resistance. On the corporate front, Disney yielded to public dissatisfaction about the company’s makeover of the Brave character Merida. While the many blogs protesting the image change made a difference, perhaps no statement said more than the 220,000 petition signatures on Change.org.

Then there is the government. When is vigilantism justified? When justice is not served? When the our society authorities fail to protect us in any facet of life?

Ugly Consequence

Image by Mike Hendrickson

Generally, I think everyone’s right to be free and live without oppression of belief, faith, ideaology, etc. should always be protected. I can’t say what good and evil are in most cases, though.

What may be a bad idea or a mistake, may actually be the opposite. Poor judgment can create natural consequence, a necessary experience that causes someone to grow and learn. People should remain free to make mistakes, in my opinion. Consequence dealt through the crowd’s hands online can add further wrong to a situation.

It’s really an uncomfortable topic. Words and judgement hold great power. On a philosophical level, when we judge and condemn others publicly we wield this power, for wrong or right.

Many times these shaming moments seem excessive. I wonder if there are better approaches to seeking justice than straight forward attacks.

Remember John Walsh, and his show America’s Most Wanted? Walsh used his TV show as a means to find suspects, people wanted for acts of murder and other crimes. It was his way of fighting crime after the murder of his son Adam in 1981. What a great use of a media in context with the existing court system to seek justice. “I figured out how to catch fugitives without a gun,” said Walsh.

When justice is needed perhaps more people could act like Anita Roddick and John Walsh.

No matter the course of government, there were always be rights and wrongs in society. Deciding to act against these wrongs is something that should be weighed carefully, rather than the simple reaction of pushing a return button in anger.

What do you think of the murky nature of Internet vigilantism?

Geoff Livingston on Google+