Blogger Interview - Dawid Pacha

And just when I ‘threatened you’ with a little bit of Polish, here is a little bit more from my homeland. My fellow social media specialist, Dawid Pacha, has agreed to spend few minutes of his very busy life to respond to my questions – remember my reasons for conducting blogger interview? I am excited about the various motivations of people to share their lives on-line and the unpredictable magic in how blogging sometimes changes our life. It changed mine enormously, so I want to see if other bloggers share my experiences. Let’s see what Dawid says:) Enjoy!

Sylwia: Hi Dawid, thank you very much for agreeing to respond to my questions:) How did you get involved in social media?

Dawid: The Internet and computer geeks are still wrongly recognized as antisocial and closed individuals. I was always been perceived as a people person. Social Media is a way for me to connect with other like-minded persons. It stopped to be only a hobby a few years ago when I started working on my first startup, then I decided to dedicate my MA Thesis to Social Networking Sites and started working in a Social Media Marketing Agency.

Sylwia: Do we really live in social media galaxy?Dawid: The Social Media Galaxy is a term I coined in the reference to Marshall McLuhan’s ‘Gutenberg Galaxy’ and Manuell Castell’s ‘Internet Galaxy’. They both stated that technologies connected people around the world. In the first

Dawid: The Social Media Galaxy is a term I coined in the reference to Marshall McLuhan’s ‘Gutenberg Galaxy’ and Manuell Castell’s ‘Internet Galaxy’. They both stated that technologies connected people around the world. In the first case these were mass media, especially printing press and in the second one the internet. However in my opinion technology is essential, but not the only factor. We had some of these technologies in 90’s and we weren’t that much connected. Social Media is more about the user than the technology. People changed their attitude to privacy, the amount of time they spend on the computer, they began to be more interactive, more trustful. It’s a phenomenon and a whole new universe.

Sylwia: Where are your presences on-line? Which is your sun, and what are the planets?
Dawid: You must refer to my Social Media Galaxy;) Sun used to by my Twitter profile, but now Facebook account becomes the biggest star as it is my identity on the web, whenever I comment on blog posts sign up to a new service I use the Facebook Connect. My planets would be other Social Networking Services like Esgieh.pl (my own startup), Goldenline and Linkedin and blogs like SocialMedia.pl where I share knowledge on the new technologies and their impact on us, brands and economy. My Earth is my home page where I try to do some blogging every now and then and I aggregate most of my activities around the Social Web.

Sylwia: Tell us more about your studies of social media. When you started to learn more about it, did you have access to its Polish terminology?
Dawid: I started reading a lot about the Social Media, especially about Social Networking Sites in 2006. During the last year, I’ve been trying to translate this Social Media phenomenon to the academic language. I am doing my PhD on Crowdsourcing. So if anybody would be eager to share some research I would be very thankful. Anyway, the terminology is pretty different when used by marketers and different at the university community. I don’t like the simplified versions of the former, not the stricter set of terms of the latter, so I try to stay in between.

Sylwia: How would you describe the current state of social media in Poland?
Dawid: Polish market is very specific. We have strong brands that compete with global ones. All I hear during Social Media related events is Facebook, at the same time Nasza Klasa has 5 times as big active users (10 million). One may say we are far away from the western countries in adoption of Social Media technologies because we don’t tweet too much, Polish competitors on this market aren’t too strong as well. On the other hand, Polish Wikipedia is very advanced. Our Market is very diversified and fragmented, mainly because there is a lot of Internet users and we speak in a specific language that encourages our start ups to target national audience only. Global brands are often too late with translating their services into Polish.

Sylwia: According to recently published statistics, Facebook is catching up with Nasza-Klasa. Can you tell us more about the Polish social network and what you think 2010 will look like for those two sites in Poland?
Dawid: Facebook is catching up but it is still only David in comparison to Goliat (nasza-klasa.pl). However in terms, if media citation I guess Facebook wins;). I think Facebook will be gaining this year in relation to NaszaKlasa, but will not reach as big audience because it is still too advanced for the average user.

Sylwia: Slightly different question: there is still a lot of discussion around Internet censorship, proposed legislation in Poland and we start to see TOR mentioned as well. What is your view on it?

Dawid: I think it all started when the identity of a famous political blogger was revealed to the public by a newspaper. The level of comments under articles on big publisher’s sites like Gazeta or Interia started to be an issue last summer. I believe that the freedom of the Internet should be protected and I support these people.

Sylwia: You work in social media marketing (@spolem). How does it affect your private interest in social media? Do you/Can you separate the private and the professional?
Dawid: I’m taking the engagement approach, meaning that I spent part of my time taking part in marketing related discussions on the Internet. Sometimes it is really difficult to separate my professional comments from the private ones. However, in the end, I guess this is a great way to make new connections in comparison to the old one, which was going out to fancy parties with free food and open bar for marketers.

Sylwia: Can you mention three bloggers/social media theorists who inspire you the most?
Dawid: I would definitely mention Jeremiah Owyang, Brian Solis and maybe Steve Rubel.

Sylwia: Did blogging change your life?
Dawid: Definitely. It forced me to rethink some ideas and concepts and makes me feel like I contribute at least a little bit to this World Wide Web.

Sylwia: What are your plans for near future?
Dawid: My plans are to grow and manage the Internet community around Warsaw School of Economics at esgieh.pl. I also want to put much more effort into my blogging. In the meantime, I am running a few project called Social Media Papers. It will be a user-submitted directory of resources to papers like reports, ebooks, presentations, white papers, all related to social media.Sylwia: Would you like to share anything else with us?

Dawid: Thanks Sylwia for the interview. To our readers: join me in the discussion, if you have anything you would like to know about Polish Internet or would like to discuss Social Media in general just drop me a line. You can find my Social Media profiles and email address on my private home page.

Sylwia: Thank you, Dawid!:)