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Econ 101 Meets Social Media 101 Priceless? For those of us that care about accuracy and insight, the demise of professional reporting is a sad, sad thing. This week a writer in the New York Times asserted that high prices were the “cause” of food shortages in North Korea. Then my local paper, the Wisconsin State Journal, reported the reason condos take so long to sell in Madison is that there aren’t enough buyers. So, for the record, I just want to note that there is an entire discipline –called “economics”– that explains how supply and demand affect prices in the market place. In the absence of professional reporting, you’ll have to do the heavy lifting and read up on it. The tyranny of lists was once again driven home to me this week by a social media how-to-find-a-job checklist that a colleague sent me. Not only did it contain over 10 categories of things to do, but each category also had up to a dozen individual subcategories (”Send thank-you notes!” “Let colleagues know you’re looking for a job,” etc.). And the final set of things to check off included “100 Best Blogs to Follow,” “50 Ways to Use Twitter,” and “30 Ways to Land a Job.” At what point does all of this become too overwhelming? My guess is that even an unemployed person has limits on the time and energy they have available to devote to blogging, commenting, e-mailing, calling, researching and (of course) submitting resumes. Which is why I liked this advice best of all: “Do something that has nothing to do with the world of social media.“ In a somewhat delicious revenge article on Thursday, former Microsoft researcher Dick Brass really stuck it to Microsoft for being an organization culturally resistant to change and innovation. Not afraid to name names, Brass identified specific people with specific personal agendas who thwarted the efforts of his own pet project, tablet computing. Unsurprisingly, Brass claimed that obstacles to progress were based on power struggles, personal opinions and miscommunication, rather than opposition to the technology itself. Microsoft did fight back; however the company’s response was fairly muted. One can only imaging the scrambling that took place behind the scenes amongst those people who must have been jockeying for position in authoring the best rebuttals to Brass’ assertions. In probably one of the worst sentences to ever leave the corporate communications office of a Fortune 50 company, Microsoft noted that “what matters is innovation at scale, not just innovation at speed.” Yeah, right. Econ 202, or “Yes, in fact, I *am* the boss of you!” In a capitalist society, organizations are highly dependent upon the rule of law to maintain profitability, particularly when it comes to intellectual property rights like trademarks, copyrights, etc. This also extends to the work performed by its employees, whether they are assembling left-handed brass widgets or creating research that impacts the stock market. Therefore, it really shouldn’t come as a surprise to Forrester research analysts that their employer (that is, the company that pays them to research and write) wants to control how they blog about their work. You can’t take things from your employer without the company’s permission, whether it’s widgets or whether it’s words. As for those crying “free speech,” they need to revisit what the constitution protects, exactly. Just another case where the demise of professional reporting leaves us in the lurch. |
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I vote: Inane. When you wake up in the morning, do you want to have a dialogue with your toothbrush? A conversation with your shampoo? A discussion with your coffee maker? It’s curious to me that marketing mavens are continuing to pound the drumbeat that manufacturers and service providers need to engage their customers in a “relationship experience” if they are going to survive in the 21st Century. In SocialNetDaily this week, the Deeter Gallagher Group again trumpets that “to be effective in social media you must — engage people in two-way conversations” citing Ford Motor Company’s CEO as their role model. Yet watching his YouTube video, I was struck by how uninteresting it was. So in answer to their (likely) rhetorical question “Twitter: Inane Chatter or Powerful Conversation Channel?” I vote “inane chatter.” But perhaps that’s just because I drive a German car? A huge part of the social media revolution is the explosion in text messaging as a way to send status updates, check e-mail, or just chat with friends and coworkers. But should we be doing this behind the wheel? Research shows that just TALKING on the phone while driving is dangerous enough, but increasingly drivers are taking their hands off the wheel to punch tiny keys while navigating through rush hour traffic, down highways, or even while lost and searching for an address. Think you’re above it all…that you can multitask better than that idiot in the car next to you? Don’t be so sure! According to CommonCraft, which has put out a number of fun and practical social networking tutorials online, the best way to explain “social media” is to imagine you’re in a village of ice cream makers. Personally, I found this example to be somewhat perplexing. And as an economist, I had to laugh when at the end of their explanation, they noted that if hundreds of small entrepreneurs began making and selling their own ice cream it would have an “uplift” effect on the village’s sole ice cream factory. Seems to me that if this tutorial is correct, social media is really all about beggaring thy neighbor while we all go broke together. Forget about those pictures of grandma or your trip to Yosemite, wouldn’t you rather have a blow-by-blow record of everything that everyone you know is doing 24/7? For years there have been products like the Ceiva digital frame that allow you to electronically upload pictures to friends and family. But at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, companies like Kodak began promoting the idea that it’s not about digitally replacing classic photos. Rather, it’s about sharing a constant stream of updated pictures of your life. For example, if you just had a baby, no doubt you’ll want to ensure that every single person you know “can share in every moment of your child’s life.” I wonder, do these frames come with an “off” button? |
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HOW TO BE A SOCIAL MEDIA MILLIONAIRE Okay, so here’s what you should do - follow these [insert random number of] easy steps and you too will reap the riches of the internet! Hope springs eternal, right? So many people play the lottery, and yet the lottery always makes money. That’s the only reason I can think of that people so eagerly provide (and follow) links to sites that make social media get-rich-quick promises. This is just me, but my advice is “don’t fire your boss just yet.” After all, the Great Recession isn’t quite over. Earlier this week I received an e-mail from a company offering me a free sample of their product and also mentioning “hope you have a good time while you are in L.A. this week visiting your cousin.” Now, I’m sure that on a marketing manager’s strategy plan, this looks like a great idea. Something along the lines of “Personalize your e-mails and create a connection with your customer.” As for me, however, I just found it to be creepy. Sure, I blogged about my trip, but I wasn’t trolling for free products. If you have a smartphone, you’ll never need to worry about finding the closest gas station. Or for that matter, the fastest way to get to the closest brand of gas station which you prefer to use, which has the lowest price. By the same token, if you’re just feeling lonely, new mobile social networks like Foursquare and Gowalla promise to help you find your nearest friends (literally). But will this lead us to become as socially dependent on technology? After all, if you’ve ever relied on a GPS service to get somewhere, you know how quickly you can become attuned to a computer that tells you what to do next. Every time I finish paying for the services of yet another home repair professional, I ponder how much wealthier I would have been had I learned a useful trade instead of wasting my time in college getting a degree in Spanish Lit. Peter Kim points out, however, that as the internet and social networking goes increasingly mobile, the real winners are those people who can design mobile web applications. So maybe the real money is to be found in creating web apps that help people find good plumbers? |
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The Bad, the Good, and the Beautiful Beware the Lords of the Clouds! Never a fan of the concept of “the wisdom of the crowd” (otherwise known as “mob rule”) I was drawn to a piece in the NYTimes this week that touched on some of the concerns that arise when pack behavior is used to enforce conformity of thought and action. One of the most pervasive cries from the self-appointed digerati leadership is that anyone can take anything they find anywhere for free and use it anytime for for any purpose. Quoting the someone frightening-in-appearance but quick-witted Jason Lanier, the article notes that individual creativity suffers from a form of “digital Maoism” when all information is free and is managed collectively. Kind of reminds me of the massive famine that occurred in China after the collectivization of agriculture - Mao and his cohorts refused to hear that the system wasn’t working, so his officials walked away with every last grain of rice while the peasants starved. The stodgy older sibling of social networks, LinkedIn can sometimes feel about as stale as conference room coffee and as relevant as last week’s meeting agenda. But it remains a place where at least some intelligent conversation can take place. This week when one member posted perhaps the one-millionth one-liner update warning to us read-my-blog-on-social-media-or-perish-in-your-old-fashioned-dinosaur-ways, another member stepped up to the plate and begged to disagree. My new hero, Mike Spear (Director of Corporate Communications at Genome Alberta) replied “Social media is far too often becoming a link hunt where I am given just enough info to perhaps whet my appetitite then have to click through to get the meat.” So folks, rather than just posting a link to your blog about social media, why not actually ENGAGE in social media? LinkedIn allows us to do this — it’s called the “Discussion” feature for a reason. As both a marketer and a public speaker, I’m well aware that creating a viable public brand means delivering an edited version of yourself, or your product, or your company that still rings true with your audience. One way of being authentic is to take the Guy Kawasaki/Chris Brogan self-assured “I’m speaking so you’d better pay attention” approach. Another way to accomplish this is to combine brilliant writing with personal passion and a strong dose of humility. My new favorite person in that regard is Naomi Dunford of IttyBiz. Proving, perhaps, the value of going beyond 140 characters, Naomi is not only very ‘real’ but she clearly knows what the hell she’s talking about. For example, check out “How to Make Unstupid Goals.” Speaking of real people, ever since “meeting” her on a webinar a month back, I’ve been fascinated by Penelope Trunk of Brazen Careerist. Frank, funny, forthright and occasionally foul-mouthed, Penelope is another genius-muse to watch for. Often wickedly amusing, Penelope offers matter-of-fact advice to Gen Y professionals, and through her company has created a social network that allows younger adults to control their professional identity from college and on into their careers. Whether she’s talking about leadership, ROI, blogging, or her life with Asperger’s, Penelope walks-the-walk of her firm, by creating her own seamless online identity. Which seems pretty authentic to me.
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What’s New in 2010 Our brains This isn’t exactly “news” but the way that people of all ages are interacting online may be affecting the way we think. According to Lady Greenfield, professor of synaptic pharmacology at Lincoln college, Oxford, this is the first time in human history where both adults and children are “playing games by themselves”. The danger, she fears, is that attention spans will become shorter and societal levels of empathy will be reduced. (Just read the comments section of any controversial blog, for that one). Personally, I recommend clicking on the link just to hear her beautiful accent. Be forewarned however, it’s a massive five minutes long. Friendship has been huge focus of attention online for a long time (remember Friendster?) but it’s also calling into question what makes human relationships meaningful. Several years ago Leisa Reichelt, a prescient London-based researcher, coined the term ambient intimacy to describe the cloud of relationship-messages that engulf people (phone calls, texts, e-mails, tweets, status updates) 24/7. But is this high level awareness of the details of the lives of others really meaningful? Back to Lady Greenfield, who opines that the true test of friendship is not how many times you’ve texted one another. Rather she recommends you ask yourself, to whom would you lend money? Talk to for an hour? Call in the middle of the night? Long gone are the days when computer geeks wore lab coats and pocket protectors working in a chilled room in the basement. Now they have polished their act and have become a ubiquitous presence online with blogs, websites, apps, and other social media channels. But sometimes highly technical folks are still a little challenged when it comes to communicating about information critical to business. That’s why I adore this new social media graphic by Elliance, which very clearly delineates for companies how online resources and responsibilities should best be divided up. Even a right-brained guy like me can understand it. An oft-cited poll last summer noted that “87% of adults said they prefer dealing with others in person instead of via computers or smartphones.” With changes in the way we think, make friends, and do business based on accommodation to social networking, will that change? Areas where we need more research – airline passenger statistics, analysis of the success of online dating services, and minutes of phone call usage compared to non-speaking communications. Sometimes I wonder, will our mobile devices themselves become our new best friends? |
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‘Twas the end of recession, or at least so we hoped our 401ks empty, jobs lost, but we coped
When I logged of Facebook and Ma closed her apps we then settled down text-less, for an overdue nap
Then out on the internet, there arose such a meme our cell phones were buzzing, we turned on our screens
Chris Brogan was preaching, the end of all print cancel the paper, switch to EVDO with Sprint
And Guy Kawasaki, pronounced with much glee “Excellence is outdated, why just look at me!”
Turn to your networks yeah, even LinkedIN Community’s waiting, are you hooked up with Ning?
Search through your tweedecks for those postings that rave About the world’s future (about… Google Wave)
There are dozens of webinars gurus promise to offer! “Top ten” ways to increase all the bucks in our coffers
The fifty top lists Of the one hundred ways on building (no effort) that fan page that pays
So we sat down to reading or, at least then, retweeting the lessons we learned that seemed worth repeating
Social media’s the answer To find colleagues and friends And to sell our junk faster in two thousand and ten. |
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Social Media for the Rest of Us This week I joined a brand new group in Madison, WI for people in the marketing and social media field. When I told the group manager I’d like to add my blog to their list, she asked what my specialty is. After thinking about it, I replied “my readers are educated, intelligent, professional and successful people who just aren’t focused on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. My goal is to sift through everything that’s happening and distill for them just what they need to know.” Let me know if that’s working for ya! Because that’s where the money is? Chances are, if you’re member of an official LinkedIn “group”, you’re getting more than your fair share of spammy notes regarding multilevel marketing schemes. So I posed the question on an open forum in LinkedIn and asked how others are handling that. Based on their responses, I wrote an e-mail to the managers for a PR group and a Madison professionals group. I explained that I was unaffiliating with them since my reasons for being on linked did not include having other networkers selling me goods and services. But my real question is, are MLMers really finding it lucrative to prey on Linkedin contacts? One Good Acronym Deserves Another A hot social media topic these days is about determining what the return on investment (ROI) should be for these networks. Given the demise of print advertising and the decreased importance of broadcasting, executives are concerned about limiting their recession-decimated marketing spending only on proven outlets. According to Lee Odden from TopRank Online Marketing, you can’t measure the medium, because it’s not a strategy. Or as he puts it “what’s the ROI of a telephone?” The answer, according to blogger Harish Kotadia, might be to look instead at key performance indicators (KPIs) like comments, fans, bookmarks, and the like which are generated from having an effective online presences. Wonder if that’ll work for the most important acronym - the CEO. Raving Reviews Last week media expert Peter Kim asked whether companies should “really be listening to these people who are telling the world their opinions” when they make comments or post online to their social networks. The way he sees it, “status updates are carefully crafted to create a particular image, perhaps with the intent of getting a new job, settling an old score, or selling social media advertising.” He forgot to mention that a lot of people are just trying to get noticed! Do you rely on reviews from Yelp or Amazon or Yahoo? How about Twitter and Facebook? Should the providers of goods and services be paying attention? |
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The Triumph of Hope Over Experience - There are approximately 1,372,936 people online right now who want you to attend their free social media webinar so that you, too, can launch your business into the stratosphere. Or at least the blogosphere. Examples of success abound - Dell selling millions of dollars of computers through Twitter being the one most frequently cited. You will also hear about Comcast customer service, Burger King’s “friend vs. Whopper” campaign and many more. That’s why the most refreshing article I’ve read in the past three months was from John Naughton, of the Observer. The title says it all: Facebook now has 350m users - and there’s no point in advertising to them. Too big to fail - It’s a sobering thought, but in the tech world, no one’s really so big and powerful that they are completely immune from failure. And I’m not just talking about TimeWarner sloughing off AOL this week like so much dead skin from a bad sunburn. Despite all the hoopla, it’s entirely possible that Apple’s iPhone will eventually be as popular as its computers (i.e. not very). The same goes for penniless Twitter or its impoverished cousin Facebook. Many thought, for example, that Microsoft was one giant that could beat Google at the search game. But these days if someone says “Bing” you’re probably thinking “Crosby” not the floundering search engine. How much is too much? Well, that depends. This week the University of California’s Global Information Industry Center claims to have counted every single last piece of “data delivered to people … measured [in] bytes, words, and hours of consumer information” during the course of a year. The report throws around all kinds of numbers I’ve never heard of before - but most are reminiscent of the late Carl Sagan’s “billions of billions”. The irony here, of course, is that this massive study, funded by huge corporations and conducted by one of the country’s biggest universities, completely misses the point. The reason social media is exploding right now is that it CONSTRAINS how much people can write. Not just the standard Twitter 140 characters, but everywhere in texting and blogs and comments boxes and the like. Less is more, indeed. How “Real” is Real Time? Can you imagine attending a play where the actors had never rehearsed? Reading a book that had never been edited? Being stuck in a meeting where someone just yammered on and on endlessly with no purpose? (Well, that last one, okay). Great marketing, good TV, and even excellent “improv” is all the result of practice, practice, and more practice. There’s a lot about the instantaneous nature of technology that is liberating and helpful. Using a smartphone to find a gas station when the meter is on “E”, for example. But when it comes to interpersonal communications, I couldn’t agree LESS with media star Jeremiah Owyang when he claims real time “isn’t fast enough.” Perhaps he’s never read Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol. Sometimes the best told tale is one you have to wait for. |
Totally Oz-some! - December 4th
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G’day McMate On vacation in Australia last week we discovered that “free wi-fi” is not yet a well-established concept down under. In fact, our hotel offered internet access at an astronomical $30 per day! And at many of the places where I could find a pay-for-use signal, the fees were equally aggressive. Unwilling to pay and yet even more reluctant to be severed from my online social network, I was relieved to find a free solution. At McDonald’s of all places. But I wonder, does fast internet sell fast food? Ads for Adverts In a case of the shoemaker’s child going barefoot, it looks like the Interactive Advertising Bureau could use a little PR makeover. The online ad industry group is worried that people might be creeped out by ads that recognize an individual’s location, income, shopping history, etc. So in order to alleviate the public’s fears, they’ve launched a campaign called, believe it or not, “Advertising is creepy.” As an article in Advertising Age notes “it’s a complicated issue and asks a lot of consumers to fully understand.” Or not. Visiting an Emerald in the City : After writing in my personal blog about a very enjoyable run through Sydney’s beautiful Centennial Park, I was surprised to receive a nice e-mail the next day from Craig Easdown at the Parkland’s Office. His note was remarkable for a couple of reasons — (1) he explained how he found my name through an automated blog search and (2) he offered to give me a free calendar if would drop by his office. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to pick up my free gift, but I definitely left with a great impression of a beautiful location. True social networking, it seems, means using technology AND maintaining the personal touch. Speaking of Aussies Truth be told, I started following Simon Mainwaring because I liked his Twitter profile photo. Of course, looks aren’t everything. But since there are a zillion people out there blogging about social media, it’s hard to figure out who might be worth following. Aside from Simon’s impressive credentials, a quick glance at his photo gave me the impression he was professional and friendly — not just a slick snake oil salesman. In this week’s blog he opines that “where you are, will become who you are” because he sees the mobile phone becoming the central hub of all communications. Sounds less creepy, when he says it! |
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Why is Facebook Lactose Intolerant? You might be surprised to learn that sweepstakes, giveaways and other contests are fairly tightly regulated by a variety of government entities. And in case you haven’t noticed, Facebook is fast becoming the go-to site for that kind of activity. That’s why it makes sense that their lawyers have been hard at work coming up with a failsafe way of protecting the company from litigation. Still, I can understand the ban on contests that feature dangerous weapons or controlled substances, but why the ban on dairy products? Schadenfreude Everywhere you look, social media experts are touting teenagers as the technologists of the future. The holy grail seems to be about how to capture their attention, tap into their expertise, and remain up to date with their ever-changing interests. So it was with not a little joy for a middle-aged guy like me to find out that the kids don’t know everything. This week on Brazen Careerist (which is a sort of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter mashup), I discovered that even the under-30 crowd can use a few tips about how to write a blog. Nice to know that in the 21st century, age and treachery can still overcome youth and skill. Visual Basics There are a million and one tutorials on how to use social media sites, but many of them are either overly complicated or too simplistic. That’s why I want to give a shout out to Wildfire, a company I’m using to help me with a client project. Their method of explanation is to use step-by-step screen shots, which is my all-time favorite way of learning something. It’s like my car, I don’t need to know how it works, I just need to find the ignition. Location, Location, Location What’s the “next big thing”? As technology evolves seemingly at the speed of light, entrepreneurs, technologists and pundits are constantly trying to figure out what the future will look like. And more importantly, how to make money off it. The consensus of the moment is that location based services will be the landscape-altering next step. In essence it’s about discovery — not just you finding the nearest pizza joint, but companies and applications finding out where you are and targeting your perceived needs. Intriguing as it is, it makes me wonder, will electronic privacy one day become a crime?
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