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Thoughts and things I care to shareCampfire Computing Part 2
As always its the simple things that make the difference, and so it was this weekend. Ok, it’s not a campfire, but one of those fire-pit thingies that you can set up on the patio. It’s been an incredible month since we’ve moved to our place just out of town, and we’re beginning to settle into a relaxing routine.
Amy, Brianna and I are enjoying the stars in the sky, and the crickets in the yard. Watching the fire flickering away and playing “20 questions†to pass some time. Its been awhile since we’ve had some quite time like this, and its nice to have it right in the backyard instead of several hours drive away.
There’s a lot of writing I do that never makes it anywhere. Sometimes I think make a mistake in not publishing more posts when the muse strikes. Like tonight. There’s a lot of things that come to mind and, for once, I’m not going to talk business, or strategy or ideas around any of it.
Instead, it’s really about the simple things in life. Family, quite time, a flickering fire, and getting a chance to listen to it all.
Oh, and an the occasional shooting star doesn’t hurt too much either.
So, for all of us rushing through our days and weeks. Please don’t forget to take a day, an afternoon, or an evening, and sit down with family or friends. Or simply take time for yourself and relax. A few hours can make all the difference and is the recharge we all can make use of in our busy lives.
What Is An Expert?
What is an expert? Is it a guru? Is it someone who has thought deeply on the subject? Or is it someone who has actually performed work and generated results? So many people today are scrambling to become a social media experts, then it’s quite confusing to businesses looking for talented help.
The reality in social media, as with any burgeoning industry or trade, there are none. Or at least, there are only a handful who truly have the skills, but will never call themselves experts. I’ve really enjoyed Christopher S. Penn’s explanation of experts in social media. Relating the rise or growth of individuals who have explored the space before many others got there.
In two of his posts from June 2008, Who is a social media expert? and How to Become a Social Media Expert, he recaps the analogy of Japanese martial arts to social media and (ironically 😉 expertly describes why it’s difficult in the world of social media to identify a true expert.
There simply isn’t a better description of what it takes to start down the right path to be a viable social media professional than those two posts. There’s a lot of great content on the Internet to help folks figure it out, and experimentation is a great leaning tool. But as a professional practice, there are many pitfalls to claiming expert status.
As with project management methodologies, there are just too many ways to do the same thing. What works for one client, for one project, for one product, isn’t necessarily what will work for the next. Even if it’s an update to the previously successful product that enjoyed a thrilling viral marketing campaign.
There are talented folks out there though, and these are the one’s that you want to seek out. Whether it be for a contract job, hiring for training purposes, helping change the culture in your company, or running that stunning viral campaign.
They’re not hard to find, but they are hard to get scheduled as they’re often in high demand. So don’t hesitate to ask consultants who inspires them, who they learn from, or what resources they use to learn new things. Their answers are indicative of professionals who know their stuff. For true experts realize that they don’t have all the answers, they are aware that surprises await in every endeavor, and they have the resources to deal with everything that is thrown at them.
So while you should be cautious of those who claim (scream?) expert status from their online profiles, you’ll also find a growing group of real professionals in social media that come from all backgrounds… and that’s for another post.
It depends…
Funny how many questions have answer that start with those two words. This tends to be exceptionally true of the coporatization of social media.
- What if I call my boss a jerk on Twitter? It depends…
- What if we find bloggers defacing our product images? It depends…
- What if my company finds me posting on Facebook when I’m home sick? It depends…
- How do we monitor the blogosphere for our multiple brands? It depends…
The complexities of the requirements for big business and their employees is not as clear cut as it is for small, aggressive start-ups. In the end, the reality is that discretion is required on both sides; by the people who post or create media, and the people who read or consume media.
Gaining Consensus – Why?
A challenging part of employing social media concepts within an organization or large company is getting everyone to agree. With so many parties with differing interests, one wonders how things ever get done.
I’d like to posit the idea that consensus is not required to explore the opportunities that social media present. Sure, you may (or should) gain approval from the group you’re working with, getting the every executive, or department, or business unit’s buy in just won’t happen. At least not in the timeframe you’ll need to reap some of the rewards of joining your community.
Consensus is one of the problems that social media may be able to solve as well. As large companies continue to consolidate resources internally, they also create more silos for information, and push the decision making to a select few at the top.
Sure, these fine folks have years (decades in many cases) of business experience that allows them to plot the course for large companies. However, these same folks are now spreading themselves quite thin and it requires more time to make decisions for each business. This translates into slow moving companies that can’t adapt fast enough to changing market conditions.
In this, social media allows faster interaction across the organization. By leveraging both the business experience of executive staff along with the day-to-day mid-level management that is tracking the trends of each business, large companies have the potential to move almost as fast as a much smaller organization.
The need for an open, transparent culture still exists though. Without it, the company won’t have the ability to try new things and learn from them quickly.
Social media is more about cultural and conceptual changes than technological. And you don’t need consensus to understand that either. Good luck.
Undiscovered Opportunities of the C-Suite
Sometimes you don’t know what you have in front of you. The opportunity to change.
That’s what lies before today’s C-Suite executives if they choose to explore it. What I’m talking about here, of course, is really about relationships. With the advent of social computing in the second half of this decade, the power has shifted from producers and marketers to people.
The challenge, of course, is for today’s executives to leap into the deep end of the pool and embrace these new relationships. To build new loyalty into their customer base, by demonstrating the ability to listen, learn, share and improve.
This is a great opportunity that current executives and VPs have that their predecessors didn’t have. The ability to change the relationship and make it one built on the trust and respect of quality products and honest interactivity. This goes equally for internal communications. The opportunity to use these same open and trust building methods within an organization is huge. Especially with organizations that are struggling with employee engagement and moral in these trouble economic times.
It goes beyond displaying good will, however. Any effort in using social computing for building new relationships requires a commitment to open dialog, acceptance of public feedback (both good and bad), and the willingness to discuss this in a public venue.
The point here, is that our current executives have this powerful new option that their ancestors did not. The question is, how many are of strong enough to take that bold step?
Image credit: Envios
Personal Branding Mag – Issue 8
Personal Branding Magazine - Issue 8
The latest issue of Personal Branding Magazine is available now at www.personalbrandingmag.com! One of the most informative resources for building the brand of you, this month it focuses on female brands. From publisher Dan Schawbel:
Volume 2, Issue 4 is dedicated to female brands and their impact
on business and our culture. Women have had massive opportunities through the internet to come together and share ideas. In this issue, we’ve
interviewed some of the brightest and most talented female brands on the
planet, including Sarah Austin, Laura Ries and Natalie Gulbis, to explore
what women are doing to make this world a better place. There are many tips and strategies for women who want to control their careers and command their futures, as well as for men who are looking to learn from these talented women.
Features:
- 28 articles total covering female branding
- General personal branding related topics
- Interviews with: Sarah Austin, Natalie Gulbis, Laura Ries, Toby Bloomberg, Valeria Maltoni, and Anita Campbell
- How to define yourself
- The importance of personal brand consistency in social networking
- Visit our new Facebook page
Dan Schawbel announces the new issue:
You can get get a year’s subscription to the magazine here. If you’re not sure you want a full subscription, please check out the sample issue today!
Disclosure, I author the Social Media Explorer column for Personal Branding Magazine.
The ‘Un’ Sell
There’s a perspective that we take in social media that has many qualities and discussions around it and I’ve been starting to use a name or label for it: the unsell.
The idea behind the unsell is that you really aren’t selling at all, but rather letting the product or service speak for itself. Past the initial “hey, I’ve got this product/service, what do you think of it†pitch, the idea that quality sells itself is key.
Through organic word of mouth, the quality or potential of what you have is what sells it. This is the classic unsell.
What we need to strive for today and in the future is that whatever we’re doing for our customers or employers speaks for itself. If it needs a bunch of fancy charts and graphs to describe why it’ll save money, trim expenses or save the planet, then it really doesn’t cut it.
So I’d like to learn from you, because you’re the smartest folks I know, what are you ‘unselling’? How have you applied ‘the unsell’ in your work? What kinds of things are companies doing right in social media that they aren’t talking about?
Photo credit: Stewf
The Youth Movement
It’s an interesting time we live in. Economic turmoil, changing social norms, 100 year old publishing businesses crumbling, and new media powerhouses being established. You’d be hard pressed to give our present era a pass and claim it to be not as important as <fill in your favorite era here>.
Along with these incredible times are some challenges for every business, and everyone that works in them. The reality is that the past decade has brought incredible change in our communications and social structures because of digital communication. Included in this is the first generation raised entirely within the Internet, and mobile communication revolution of advanced technology.
This generation has experienced the freedom of wireless connections from an early age, and rediscovered the power of text communications. The “kids†in this generation have expanded their mental and reflex capacities through vigorous sessions of online, multiplayer, interactive & collaborative games. These folks have no stigma about being online, and this generation comes prewired for online social interaction. They have the ability to actively team-build without preamble and pep talks, can do business virtually without the need to meet in person and can work with folks on the other side of the globe as easily as they work with people in the next cube.
This is the youth movement of today, and they’re entering your business right now. These young folks are part of the largest workforce to enter the American business landscape since the boomers. They are your new entry level employees and they know what’s up. They’re smart, fast to learn new things, and anxious to prove themselves. With the Baby Boomers retiring and GenX/Y moving up, these folks coming out of college are bringing a revolution in relationship management with them.
Are you ready for them?
Photo credit: eddiehosa
Run a blog? You’re a Community Manager too!
So you’ve got a blog, or maybe a Facebook page, or another profile on a social network or new media site somewhere out there. Do you regularly post or update it? If so, it’s likely you have a community around it, whether or not you realize it.
You may have people who want to learn from you or share ideas with you. Are you prepared to take on that opportunity? You should because these folks are your greatest fans and can be part of your own brand/PR army that goes out doing the grass-roots efforts you would never think of.
Its especially critical for businesses in these tough times, to learn these methods and reward your community for being part of the team. They’re there to help, even more than to cheer you on – all they want is to be involved.
Microsoft figured this out over a decade ago with their MVP (Most Valuable Person) distinction. They discovered early adopters were talking about their products in forums and chat rooms. Instead of trying to control this critical group, the decided to engage them. By equipping them with additional tools and information, they were able to seed the market with knowledgeable, respected people. These people gave honest reviews, constructive criticism, and in general, useful feedback that the company then rolled into new product design.
Does your company do something like this? Have you really thought about rewarding your community? Why wait, start today by reaching out as yourself and not in the name of the company. Start sharing your experiences, challenges and success with theirs goes a long way to being part of that community, and from there, you can all do so much more.
Good luck!
Photo credit: Andy Tyler
Have questions? Want to learn more? Please feel free to contact me if you wish – my contact info is in the sidebar to the right. Email is probably the best way to get in touch, followed closely by Twitter.
What Open Really Means
It’s hard to be a medium or large corporation these days. The demands are not small, with expectations of investors, disappointing market performance, employee needs, government regulations and oversight… there’s almost no time left for the most important part of any business: customers.
Of course, that’s where the current craze around social media comes in. The expectation is that any company can use all sorts of free tools to stretch marketing and PR dollars, and maybe make the customer feel more welcome picking up your brand at Wal-Mart.
But that whole scenario is bound to bust as surely as your pick of economic bubbles.
The reality is that to really engage using social media and realize honest benefits requires more than a passing interest in new shiny things. Social media requires real openness, and if you’re not willing to be open, people can tell.
The power of this new ideal comes from the willingness to have an open culture. That means that there are no artificial barriers between departments, positions, business units, or people. It means that interacting with the public is a part of every position, not just the domain of marketing, PR, and an occasional press release from the CEO.
Openness means that the C-level is talking in public forums alongside the shipping department, or accounting, or human resources. Bringing openness to a culture means that everyone is able to talk about nearly anything.
With that being said, it’s ok to still have intellectual property and protect that. You’re right in protecting developing business plans, or new products, or several other types of information an organization holds and makes money from. However, beyond that, an organization can talk openly about the challenges it faces, or hold up a consumer enthusiast group as a model, or any such thing that shows a human side of a company.
Sometimes we, that is companies, worry too much about what the competition may think. Organizations can get wrapped up in being too professional. Being open about things doesn’t take away from any of this. When done from a position of transparency, and honest intention of open interaction, a company can grow a much more loyal consumer base, and open source their own PR army. But that’s another post.
😢
“We are not enemies but friends.”
Live your life.
Completely.
Without fear.
Live it with Love, compassion, empathy, tolerance and joy.
Treat every person with the kindness, respect and dignity they deserve by the very virtue of being a human being.
Out riding this rainy, wet spring. Got 1,000 miles on the clock with more to come this season. #IMRG #IndianMotorcycle
Watching early seasons of #GoldRush. Fun seeing @GoldrushRick in season 3! Hope his new season is off to a good start!
Oh yes I did! https://www.instagram.com/p/BsRDO9ogSO0/?utm_source=ig_twitter_share&igshid=1kha5yzhjq3ot