Epigraph: “So go on reminding; surely, reminding is profitable.” (Al Quran 87:10)

By Zia H Shah MD

I have never been invited to CNN and have a premonition that I never will be.  I do not fit their definition of an expert or a person of interest.  In the past that would have meant a condemnation to lead a life as a ‘nobody,’ but, not any more.

Today, I can have thousands if not millions of followers in Twitter or other social media, if I incrementally build my portfolio.

The most dramatic event of the decade has been that anyone, who has some thing important to say, even if he or she is a ‘nobody,’ has the luxury to send his or her message out to at least 10,000 opinion makers of his or her choosing in Twitter and receive equal importance or heading level in their inbox, as President Obama, President Clinton, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and the Pope Benedict XVI, who are some of the most recognized names, on our planet.

Generally those in positions of power and influence are not interested in the opinions of every Tom, Dick and Harry, even if the opinions be correct and valuable.

In the world of the rich and the famous, only the powerful count.

Our world is a plutocracy, a rule by the wealthy, and ordinary individuals labeled as ‘the masses,’ hardly matter, unless they are a part of a large poll or a voting group.   Rather then judging the merit of any opinion, we, the humans, first gauge the social standing of an individual and then evaluate his or her opinion, for accuracy or utilitarian value, more often than not.

We are geared in this mode of thinking by our evolution from primates and the large apes, who had been intimidated, led and managed by alpha males, over the millennia.  We are always in search of alpha males or the social leaders and want to salute them or at least scratch their back, so they might scratch ours.

Only one thing has changed in millions of years, as we have evolved from our parents that we share with gorillas and chimpanzees, in our contemporary world today, some of the alpha characteristics, come in female gender, as well.  The struggle of have-nots with haves has been a constant theme through out human history.  Interestingly, Twitter has created a silver lining for the have-nots, who may be in beta or gamma disguises, in our human society.  If you are one of them I have good news for you.

If your 10,000 alpha recipients, the opinion makers, the world leaders in politics, religion, academics and journalism, have an impression that the other 9,999 alphas may be reading your comments in Twitter, suddenly, your comments begin to matter.

Nicole Winfield wrote in a recent article in the Huffington Post, Pope Benedict On Social Networking: The Virtual Is Real:

Pope Benedict XVI put Catholic Church leaders on notice Thursday, saying social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter aren’t a virtual world they can ignore, but rather a very real world they must engage if they want to spread the faith to the next generation.

The 85-year-old Benedict, who tweets in nine languages, used his annual message on social communications to stress the potential of social media for the church as it struggles to keep followers and attract new ones amid religious apathy, competition from other churches and scandals that have driven the faithful away.

The Muslims can certainly take a page from the Pope’s book, who has a billion followers in the world and at least a few million in Twitter as well.  His message this year repeated exhortations from previous years about the need for respectful dialogue online, for users to present themselves authentically and to listen, not just preach.  What this means that rather than blindly retweeting the Muslim messages, we need to have a dialogue rather than a monotonous monologue.

This means knowing our audience.

Twitter allows everyone to have up to 20 lists of 500 members each.  Each list could be of confirmed accounts of world leaders, in religion, politics, academics and journalism and you could micro-target your messages, making them relevant to current affairs and suitable for the members of the list, so that they are likely to notice them in their inbox, rather than ignoring them.

My daily message in Twitter does go to the Pope as well and I assume one of his secretaries gets to eyeball it.  In future as technology improves and websites can capture glances of the readers as well, Twitter may report back to me, as to who scanned my message and for how long!

I have made lists of many of the opinion leaders in the world.  For example, I have a list of the Senators of USA and my list is labeled as ‘Senators.’  So if I tweet by using this list, by starting my tweet with:

@my twitter name/my list name

it will go to all the recipients included in my specific list.

My name in twitter is @ZiahShah1.  So, to give a real life example, if I start my tweet with:

@ZiahShah1/Senators

it goes to all the US Senators in my list and my message lands in their inbox, with all the other important messages they were waiting for.

They may choose to ignore, whatever I write on a given day, but, George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, an influential German philosopher of the 19th century said: “Once the world of ideas has been transformed, reality cannot hold out for long.”  It can be done, one tweet at a time, like a steady water stream cutting through stones.

Hegel’s prophecy is about to come true in decades to come, as some of the 10,000 alphas begin to read the messages of the betas and the gammas as well.

A revolution is happening in our global village, in democratization of sources of human knowledge, from the elite or a chosen few to every Tom, Dick and Harry, including me.

You can be a part of it as well.  Welcome aboard, introduce yourself, say a greeting and join the discussion!

Normal
0

false
false
false

EN-US
X-NONE
X-NONE

/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:”Table Normal”;
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:””;
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:0in;
mso-para-margin-right:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt;
mso-para-margin-left:0in;
line-height:115%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:”Calibri”,”sans-serif”;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-fareast-font-family:”Times New Roman”;
mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}