Clicktivism is a form of digital /online engagement that requires the extraordinary effort of one of your fingers, possibly the index, to associate yourself with something… err.. digital, or the digital representation or articulation of a cause or an idea or a Facebook friend’s ingenious joke.
Sorry, this is my definition. Harsh? OK, this is how it is defined in Techopedia:
Clicktivism refers to the use of social media and the Internet to advance social causes. It uses the metrics available through Web analytics to optimise Web pages, emails and online petitions. This optimisation is meant to increase user engagement and maximise a campaign’s page views.
Clicktivism is a controversial form of digital activism. Proponents believe that applying advertising principles such as A/B testing increases the impact of a message by leveraging the Internet to further its reach. Opponents believe that clicktivism reduces activism to a mere mouse click, yielding numbers with little or no real engagement or commitment to the cause.
There you are. Some people are on my side, others will think I am missing the point of the clicks.
I have no problem with clicking and ‘liking it’ on Facebook. But I cannot accept that it only has a good side. Serious engagement needs action beyond your index finger. There are multiple examples of great social causes that have accumulated six figure clicks/likes but that, when the cause has asked for a bit of money, they only get three figures, if they’re lucky. A click is a great alibi.
Do we have the same inside the organization? I am not talking about the real clicks/likes that an internal digital platform (enterprise social network of some sort) may have, but their equivalents in human interaction terms.
Yes we have. It is represented by the email with a significant number of people on the distribution list, that contains a reply such as ‘OK with me, Peter’. Or the ones of the type ‘I am not sure I understand’, with no reference to what needs to be understood or the specific questions to ask.
Monosyllabic, written checking-in is hardly human engagement. Yet, we all do some of this at some point.
Let’s progress human evolution beyond clicking and liking, shall we?
________________________________________________________________________________________________
THIS THURSDAY – 18:00 BST/19:00 CET – join me and my team for our final webinar in the Feed Forward Series. [1]
Digitalization in the Covid era – High Touch and High Tech
The ‘Covid-19 era’ seems to have discovered ‘digital’! Suddenly the world has been ‘zooming’ in the way that Sherry Turkle pointed out many years ago in her book ‘Life on screen’. Before this extraordinary disruption we had all become hyper-connected. But, did we become hyper-collaborative? This webinar will bring insights into the not very well solved tandem ‘high touch- high tech’ and how we can shape a future where the human condition wins.
As this new world order sees digital taking the lead – with remote working, virtual events and more connectivity than ever before – are we truly collaborative and how do be maintain the human factor?
Bring your critical thinking brain switched on. It’s a serious business. It may also be fun!
We hope you a can join us – register here [2]!