I was sitting in the stands of a basketball gym a few nights ago and talking to one of the major movers of one of the top social media companies in the country, and I had asked him what’s going on at work. I like to see where they’re at sometimes since they are right in the thick of it usually, and I’m always impressed in the directions they head. He told me that they were looking to do more and to do bigger and better things with companies rather than just to pitch or create wikis, and blogs and communities and what not.

Don’t get me wrong, they “do” do more, it’s just that the perception or thought right now with other large companies wanting to get into the social media game is “this is what works with others-so lets do that”. He said they were looking to expand their reach and their depth of  what that can do instead of offering component driven solutions on large scales. Great strategy.

This made complete sense to me. In fact I had been mulling over that corporate perception and social media perception of late with the posts I had been reading in my reader and on some social sites I frequent. 

My thinking was it had become somewhat static, one dimensional and monotone like in its themes. Or maybe stale? Tired? Repetitive?

Think about it, we are creatures of habit and we do what the pack is doing. We see what works and we do the same. Isn’t that the way certain companies are approaching pitching social media solutions to large companies. They see what has been successful elsewhere and then take the same approach and basically say we can do that to? Yawwwwwwwwn. Go ahead and do that. But how bout you stretch out and take a chance on doing something bold and different?

Which was the essence of  what my friend was saying and I applaud their thinking for this. We, and they are only limited by our collective thinking of what social media can do. Right now we’re implementing what we know what works instead of turning it inside out and attacking it from a completely different vantage point.

 I implore that tact with some of the incredible collection of thinkers that I subscribe to. I personally believe that we have only scratched the surface of what social media can do and I plead with you to step back and really think about the ways and means in which we can take this piece of clay that is social media and shape it into things that we have not even begun to fathom as being possible. Let’s eliminate… the echo.