The boat slide quickly along the calm sea, but tidal waves were forming and threatening a rough voyage. We stood on the deck gazing at a blue ocean, green trees, and towering peaks of snow. A peaceful scene wrought of turmoil and storm that reminds you the world is not always beautiful.
The conversation moved to social media in mining. One old man (much older than me) asked: “Could social media change mining as we know it?”
Another younger man asked: “Is mining effectively using social media?”
I ventured answers, which I record here. These are my opinions, not necessarily those of all who stood on the deck as the currents swirled.
“Social media and their effective use have brought down Arab governments. Think what they could do to mining in the hands of skilled opponents.”
And: “The mining industry is not using social media, and I despair they ever will find an honest way to use it effectively.”
Use Facebook and you can coordinate a protest of a million young people. A million protestors gathering in unison and peace can bring down a tyrant, or close a mine.
Use Twitter and you can change minds and hearts with pithy, hard-hitting phrases. An example: The Pebble Mine is a choice between salmon and cheap jewelery from Wal-Mart. One hardly need ask, which do you choose?
Google Earth affords a view of every mine and the cuts into the forest. Slower than Facebook and Twitter, but equally inevitable. I can see the deck chairs on the patio of my in-laws suite in Huntington Beach. You can see every oil sands tailings impoundment and every clearing for a new mine. And the pictures are not flattering.
We can argue the wisdom of protecting innocent civilians from the wrath of a 40-year dictator and his venial family. But the air waves pulsate with opposition to Arab kings and princes and none shall escape the wrath of young people disposed of all but their cell phone and Blackberry.
So too the mining industry or an individual mine could find itself under concentrate attack by opponents skilled in the use of social media. As the newly-announced Republican presidential candidate said today: “Why hurry to register when you can move so fast via social media?”
At the right moment, Republican hopefuls will announce and then we will see a blitz of e-mails, Twitter Feeds, You-Tube postings, blogs, and all the rest. And I suspect that next US president will be the one whose organization most skillfully manipulates the social media.
Yet the mining industry does not even know what these media are, or is scared to look at them, net alone use them.
In a speech last week to the Alaska Miners Association in Juneau I urged the mining industry to take a faster, more positive, and more aggressive approach to using blogs, You Tube, and the rest, to deal with opponents who tell and broadcast lies about mines. Only thus can we have a civil debate. For hopefully in the West we can debate vigorously without resorting to fighting and no-fly zones.
Let us look at blogs in mining, for I know a little about them. There are few blogs about mining–see my blogroll on the upper right hand-side of this page. Many are good and readable. Sadly many are neglected or venial. None openly attack mining when it veers from the straight and narrow. Where are the other retired miners and mining supporters who know mining, who can write, and who could–but do not–blog? To them I say: write a blog on what you know and what you think, and enter the fray of debate about mining. Negative or positive, you can contribute.
Where are the blogs written by opinionated workers on mines and in mining institutions? To them I say: it is your duty as people who benefit from mining to enter the fray and say what you truly believe. Complimentary or attacking, you are doing a service in promoting honest debate about mining.
The mining industry cannot afford to let the battle field be owned by those who write well about the sins and failures of mining. The mining industry cannot afford an unending litany of condemnation of mines because the writers oppose mining as a philosophical tenant.
Talking about it, or writing about it as I do now, is not enough. Mining workers must start blogging, twittering, face-booking, and more. For if you do not, be sure there will be a one-million man march against your next mine, before you even know the opposition is gathering.
Once you have mastered the art, it takes no more than an hour over coffee in the morning, or half an hour after brandy at night. If you need ideas and help in setting up a blog, call on me. I would gladly help. Or pass you onto to Zoe Mullard who recently completed her thesis on this topic.
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It was Zoe that pointed me recently towards BASESWiki, a collaborative site for discussing CSR issues and practices across all sectors. I think it is in fact superior to blogs, which fragment thinking and opinion, rather than binding it together. I guess there’s room for both approaches. It’s all good stuff!
Hi Jack,
My name is Izzy LaBranch and I work for the Northwest Mining Association. We began our social media platform and website to promote mining last August. Our public awareness campaign called “The More You Dig – It All Starts With Mining” is targeted at college students and hill staffers to teach them about the importance of mining in their daily lives. Please check out our website and our facebook/twitter pages. This is the first attempt by the mining industry to reach out to this demographic on the internet and at their campuses. I work with SME student chapters all over the country to throw events at their campus and pass out educational materials about mining. I have already thrown an event at University of Nevada, Reno and am planning to reach out to other campuses in Colorado, Utah, and Arizona by the end of the semester.
I was supposed to speak at Alaska Miners Association meeting in Juneau last week but couldn’t make it. Please become a fan our page on facebook and check out the several different blogs I write on our website. Your blog has been one of my sources for the website!
Thanks, Izzy LaBranch
Hi Alistair and Jack,
There’s also a similar wiki project for mine design – minedesignwiki.org I think is the address.
You might also be interested in my thoughts in my blog post on “How Social Media Can Benefit the Mining Industry” http://www.miningman.com/Blog/February-2011/How-Social-Media-Can-Benefit-the-Mining-Industry
(Sorry for putting in a link away from your blog, but my post discussed a lot of the things you’re mentioning in this post!)
Cheers from a fellow mining engineer and blogger.
- Jamie
Good Jack.Well done.I hope you get some fellow bloggers interested
Jack – Thank you (again) for your ideas and openness to social media, and to Jamie for sharing his blog posting on social media in the industry. I think social media is still unestablished in many industries and as you both mentioned, rather than shy away from it, these tools should be embraced in the early stages in order that they can be used to enhance both internal and external communication.
It is important to remember that there are different degrees of social media engagement and a company does not need to dive in on all platforms – but rather a staged approach, that starts with listening to what others are saying on these platforms may be an informative way of deciding how to engaged online audiences with information and actions that are relevant to them. As Jamie points out in his post that these tools are useful for: Accessing free information and discussions (which I read as “active listening”).
While overcoming the fear factor of social media is one challenge, it is also important for companies, regulators and communities (and others) to establish some rules of engagement on these platforms such that everyone is accountable to what is said and written, both in formal and informal settings.
While those opposed to mining are more apt to rely on social media outlets to share their message, one has to note the hypocrisy of an argument against mining produced on a machine that would not exist without it.
I agree the mining industry could benefit from use of social media outlets and have not found much out there myself except for a handful of periodic tweets from the Pebble Partnership in support of mining stacked against a mountain of tweets in opposition to the project.
Great post, Jack.
Great article. A lot of our customers in the mining industry don’t use social media so you have hit on some great points!
Jack and Jamie – I don’t write in often, but I follow your blogs. Thanks for the good work, and I hope your message here is taken up in earnest.
You’re right – if we don’t come out from underground every once in a while to let people know we’re here, we might just get plowed over by those who do not understand where wealth and resources come from.
Thanks!