Global problems require social solutions

I’ve had problems logging onto the internet all morning but, finally, I managed.

I am still energised by the extremely important role the inernet played yesterday during President Obama’s inaguruation. It was fantastic seeing people comment on Twitter and Facebook and watching the inauguration live on Cnn.com/live. 

However, as soon as I came back to check the market’s reaction following Obama’s inauguration speech, I found that that the outlook on Wall Street was still bleak. Why?

Wall Street thrives on results. But, so far, we have only seen rhetoric coming from Obama. So that might be a reason. However, I think there’s more than what meets the eye.

Let’s assume that financial markets are places where people meet to take decisions. Now, we all know that the best decisions are informed-decisions. So we need informaton in order to take decisions.

Are we sure the kind of information markets are receiving is enough? I don’t think so. The current crisis is proof of wrong decisions taken on wrong information.

This means information needs to change. How? Social media might be the answer.

In fact, the World Economic Forum, which groups more than 2,500 experts from al over the world is this year using MySpace and YouTube to get the reactions of normal people ahead of a summit with a special title: Shaping the Post-Crisis World.

The post-crisis world should be based on greater social itneraction. We are already witnessing the beginning of change. But more needs to be done.

Tesco starts tweeting

British retail giant Tesco started tweeting through its US arm Fresh & Easy, The Telegraph reports:

A sample Twitter exchange from earlier this week involves a customer called “songrytr” noting that stock levels had seemed “a little sparse” on recent visits to his local branch, to which Fresh & Easy responds that levels tend to be a bit low at the end of the year due to shipping schedules.

Though perhaps not gripping correspondence, Twitter does help to establish loyalty by giving customers an active way of communicating with the company’s management.