Over the past few months we at arcalife have tried progressively harder to talk with VANOC over an obvious opportunity that will benefit all Canadians at little cost. We’d like the opportunity to provide a richer experience for Canadians and international visitors wanting to secure and share their memories from the Olympic Games in an online scrapbook or space for people to record those special moments.

VANOC says it already has something like this in place. Rumours are abound about the troubled CODE project, security and privacy issues and infighting with the Canadian Tourism Commission. There are significant concerns where people’s memories will reside after the Games are finished and the websites close down. Should this not be properly addressed by a site that is specifically designed to enhance legacy? Arcalife is a leader in this space, and hey, we’re a small business based out of Vancouver!

You might think that timing is an issue – if you weren’t around in 2006 when the contract deals were made. The problem is that lots of companies were around, and from the look of things, local web firm Raincity Studios and colleagues tried their damndest.

It seems that no matter how good the opportunity, the scope is set, the desks along with the resources at VANOC HQ are reducing by the day - they have gone mobile and good luck finding them in the nooks and crannies of Whistler. As for the idea of helping local businesses, it’s well off the radar. 

Talking with Vancouver’s Mayor Gregor Robertson a few weeks back at the California Market access bootcamp, his view was that “…unfortunately, VANOC is so focused on their objective that they aren’t able to look beyond it, to other opportunities...”. This is certainly our experience to date.

Does VANOC or any other Olympic body have an objective that encourages leaving a lasting imprint on local businesses and communities, or is this just global big business played out in a tightly defined locale? It leaves us with the impression that VANOC has already fallen short of the Olympic ideal, as a result of politics, BC bureaucracy and backroom business deals.

I believe that the Games will be successful, fantastic, exciting and competitive and that Vancouverites will extend the warmest of welcomes to all of our international visitors. I believe the Games will provide general prosperity for Canada and it’s corporate giants, but when it comes to smaller local businesses, the jury is out.  We certainly feel left out in the cold and I would like to hear from others who have had similar experiences, or better, yet, from VANOC.

When Facebook was originally envisioned, I’m pretty sure that few people could have foreseen how it would turn out a few years down the line. Over time we have clearly changed the way in which we interact with others on line, as well as the way we interact with the tools themselves. The same is also true of many of the ‘first to market’ social networks that have organically evolved in recent years. Our use has now changed to the point where there are some glaring contradictions that are either ignored or not recognized in the ways we connect and share online.

Top 5 (ish) Contradictions in Our Social Networks: · The increasing amount of personal information being shared on open networks with barely known acquaintances · The popularity of general purpose social networks in fulfilling specialized needs for our communities · The brevity of our accounts versus the longevity of the content we create · The value of our presence and contribution and the challenges in monetizing it · The ownership of valued networks and information versus the policies which currently govern them · The singularity and clarity of a shared message/sentiment amid the noise of millions · The connectivity created within the networks themselves with the restrictions in the interfaces between them · The volume of information created, versus the lack of attention to retaining the information that has true value

Are these contradictions really a problem? My view: some are, some aren’t – and of course they are related. The key question to ask is: "Will these contradictions take care of themselves over time or is intervention required by us the social participants?".

The monetization of our contribution and the value of information – people inherently understand that mass involvement means opportunity, and opportunity means money. The market will take care of the rest, and already is in Second Life and maybe soon in Facebook.

Sharing personal information on open social networks – for now this is a problem. While the herd is getting larger, you can’t quite convince yourself that there really is safety in numbers. We the participants need to increase our social portfolios by choosing appropriate networks for the kinds of information we are sharing. This in-turn will reduce the barriers between networks and drive specialized networks tuned to our communication and information sharing needs. In the long run this will work itself out as people realize that sharing more personal information with more people doesn’t necessarily add more value.

The longevity and amount of information we create – for a couple of reasons this could be a problem for now.

Firstly, most established spaces will be reluctant to let go of the policy grip they have over the information we have put on “their” networks. In some cases these sites have responsibilities and have to spend money policing the content that gets uploaded. This will get worse as the war over digital rights continues and the monetization of our networks continues…. sounds a little like ownership don’t you think? Right now the issue of ownership has been left cloudy by stories of information retention on account closure and immortalization of deceased peoples accounts.

The second reason is a more lofty and for me more important issue; about what happens to our information once we are gone and what do we think is worth keeping. The idea that we should retain information is not a new one, but the suggestion that some content from our Facebook or Twitter account should be considered an information asset or information heirloom to be passed on, is quite a foreign concept to most. There are however a few forward thinkers out there already verbalizing this idea of a Digital Estate. I am excited to find out where this leads, but it’s often the lofty issues that get left by the wayside, and as a social networking entrepreneur I am not prepared to leave this to chance.

Most leaders of social networks are aware of at least one or two of these contradictions, since solving them secures their future or their fortune. Maybe it’s not wise of us to leave these decisions in the hands of the few – after all isn’t social networking all about participation ?