Contemplating mankinds ability to understand infinity, or even very large numbers, the complexity of today's IT needs approaches the inifinite. Every company HAS to committ to big data to provide the cirtical metrics to drive success. Once you begin to measure and manage around metrics, you instanly become a a big data company. Very few people on earth can understand the complexity of a state-of-art data center providing support for massive amounts of data extraction, collection, and management.

So if we can accept that very few people can grok the inifinite, the rest of us reach our limits. This point may be different for everyone, but after that point we must rely on our fath that what's beyond our understanding is consistent with our beliefs. However, we must confess that beyond that point, we really have no proof that those beliefs are true.

Culture Convergence

The complexity of other aspects of our businesses are also reaching the inifinite. They are: lead generation, marketing, and sales. For me, there is no way to disprove that ultimate culture convergence will produce a problem so complex, that we will not be able to understand it. At the very minimum, once again, probably only a handful of people on earth willbe able to wrap their minds around media convergence with social media. 

I don't believe anyone can tell me what the implications of all of our main cultural channels growing into one glopy mesh of media. Nor can they provide any proof that this convergent point is any more real than a quasar in the outer reaches of space.

Metcalfe's Law

Early on in the creation of what we now call the Internet, The inventor of Ethernet, Bob Metcalfe observed: "the usefulness of a network increases at at an accelerating rate as you add each new person to it." 

Typically most industry experts believe Metcalfe's Law works in favor of the owner of the network, but I believe that this is a narrow view. It misses out on the fact, that we each now "own" our social network. So it follows, that if our social network becomes more useful with each person we add, then every company must strive to have as big a network as possible. this is something I've been trying to accentuate recently. 

Now I can't prove that Metcalfe's law applies to social networks, partly becuase I think our understanding of social networks is very narrow and. What I can say is that Metcalfe's law has been proven to fit in nearly every case of a highly successful network. 

How do I increase revenues with socila media

If I could summarize the grand challenge of social media marketing, it would be: "Will using social media increase my company's revenues?" Frankly there is very little evidence that this is true. And come to think of it, if I had that evidence, it might be something I don't want to share too widely.If you know what I mean.

All I can really answer is that based on my understanding of convergence culture and social media, it has to! I don't have the proof, yet; but we'll get there soon. What I do know is that some of the main ways to generate more revenue follow from these strategieis:

I think an exploration of how social media can increase revenues must assess how social media helps in each of these five strategies.