Aug 28, 2008 | blog
It’s a new field where there are no experts; no real training for classification or certification, and it’s difficult for folks participating in it to explain how it works. It’s not a lawless field where anything goes, but the cowboys still roam the prairie where social media grazes. Christopher S. Penn describes the problem and the process quite well in his post How to Become a Social Media Expert, comparing social media to the nuances of martial arts training – pretty good analogy in my book.
Since there are no real experts with years of schooling and experience, how does a company find a community manager? Heck, how do they determine what they’re looking for – most companies really don’t even know exactly what they need. Several are starting to here “community manager†more in relation to social media, and I suppose it does make a bit of sense to the average hiring manager.
As I’ve been looking around in this space as a consultant myself, I’ve noticed a bit of mislabeling, and misunderstanding of what these positions do. They can range from being a glorified forum moderator, to the public figurehead of the company in social media circles. The vagueness and inconsistency is frustrating to both those looking to move into these jobs, and the companies who realize they need someone to fill this indefinable niche they have.
Normally, a company would hire a consultant to help define the needs, address the process, and sometimes assist in filling the role. The problem though is… aren’t consultants experts and there really aren’t any social media experts? Catch 22 huh?
Some firms are looking internally and finding candidates in their existing staff. This could be anyone from marketing, to information technologies, to human resources (and beyond). Sometimes it’s easy to get noticed and get in front of the right people. Other businesses are going for the big guns and hiring out consultants from the A-List to assist them in their social web endeavors.
At least, several of the A-List actually have participated in building, shaping, and forming the concepts of the social web through the work of Cluetrain and their own pieces through the years. This is a great place to start, even for organizations with small budgets – many of the thought leaders in social media give away really good information for companies to start from.
So in this nascent “industryâ€, there is confusion on both the side of organizational need and individual growth in social media. The next step for those mastering the dark arts of the social web is to be bold, go forth, do good things, and prove that you have the vision and understanding. Both to the founding concepts of Cluetrain and to the fiscal responsibilities of corporations that want to participate in, not control, the message.
Photo credit: .mw
Apr 9, 2008 | blog
These public bitchfest’s by the supposed “A-List” really need to be taken offline. This crap has filled my RSS reader for too long – I want to be reading real, valuable, useful information from these “thought leaders”, not this drivel. If you can’t share an opinion in a way that adds value – why bother?
I haven’t bothered to read up on the current brouhaha involving Loren Feldman/Mike Arrington and Shel Isreal because I really couldn’t care less. The result is that TechCrunch has less value today than yesterday, and I now know that I’ll not even bother to stop in at 1938 Media. I’ve got better things to waste my valuable time on.
If you’re wondering when blogging will overtake MSM, you’ll first have to get the leading online “publications” to stop acting like 10 year old playground bullies. Until that happens, and people working on high-profile sites start acting like real professionals blogging will remain a little Gen-Y pipedream.
There – I feel better now. 😉
Feb 8, 2008 | blog
So I was sitting at my local coffee shop this morning reading feeds, Twittering and writing. Not an unusual morning, but like other times a person gets inspired, it came from a comment from someone. This time from Jeremiah Owyang via Twitter. While talking about a the new Egos site created by Guy Kawasaki he Tweeted:
My recommendations to you: somewhere in the middle, develop your own feedreader of high value blogs and alerts everyone is unique
What occurred to me is that I didn’t think much about the a-list much any longer. While the semi-annual meme of beating on the a-list being a favorite sport for many bloggers, something any committed blogger will realize after awhile is that they develop their own a-list. This is simply the list of bloggers that they read and are influenced by.
It becomes less about the celebrity status of the blogger and more about the value of their content. I think it was Chris Brogan who started calling his personal list of favorites “Rockstars“, and it’s an apt title for a list of people who continually influence you on a daily basis. Hey I know good ‘ol Diamond Dave did that back in the ’80s for a heck of a lot of people. 😉
I’m sure a number of people are sitting back saying that I’ve missed the point of “The A-List”. They’d point out that this group of high-profile bloggers control the topics on Techmeme, Tailrank, et al. I don’t see that – I see a *lot* of great bloggers moving that conversation all over the place. At any rate, that’s not the point of this post. I’m really just talking about building your own list of blogs and bloggers that influence you.
Here are some opinions I’ve developed (though some are obvious 😉 )
- There is no one definition of the A-List – everyone’s a list is different
- “The A-List” everyone talks about are just bloggers – albeit with industry insight
- The more time you spend reading in the blogosphere, the more important the content and less the celebrity status of the blogger
- Your A-List will include high-profile bloggers, because of the value they bring to you, just like the lower-profile bloggers you read
I guess I just want to people to keep exploring and finding that content that has value to you. Don’t worry about if they are part of “The A-List”, there really are some great bloggers among them and many of their observations are relevant to the conversation that we’re looking for.
So, the A-List stops being “The A-List” when the reader realizes that each blogger brings value to the conversation and you start looking beyond who they are and more at what they say. What’s your take on this?
Photo credit: jzawodin
Mar 4, 2006 | blog
With the recent discussions of A-Listers, debates on whether traffic is the right/wrong reason to blog, and the success & failure of memetrackers to correctly track and rate blogs, I felt I needed to voice my opinion. The only problem was that I didn’t think I had anything to contribute to the conversation. Discussions on “a-listers†& gatekeepers really got me thinking about blogging more as what it really is – a discussion, a conversation that everyone can be involved in.
Everyone has an equal opportunity – I can tell because watching my states shows what search & blog tracking bots have crawled my blog. Knowing that – I feel confident that if people are interested in what I’m saying, they’ll click a link and arrive here to read my opinion.
The thing that really has attracted me to blogging is the opportunity to voice my opinion – it’s not a natural thing for me. Some people may disagree at work – I have a tendency to disassemble some pretty-well thought-out or well-meaning ideas/solutions. But that has to do with what is best for the company, what fits within the company policies, security requirements or budget constraints that I’m aware of. My personal take on technology, where it currently is, and what we should be expecting is a wholly different thing, and would probably surprise many coworkers.
Writing is the other thing that has attracted me to blogging. It is something that I’m ok at. I mean I write great technical pieces at work, documentation, how to manuals, procedures, polices, etc… but that is dry analytical stuff. Blogging is my own thoughts, perspectives and opinions. So offering them up for public consumption has taken a few steps for me – and allows me to really work at perfecting the writing thing. I’m getting better, though my old high school English instructor 20 years ago would never believe I would try my hand at writing and publishing to a public venue.
As the discussion of A-Listers progressed, I found that I did not have a problem with the group many call a-listers. Though many of us are live in different geo-political spheres, the discussion to me has invoked a lot of thought. A lot of new ideas of what blogging, technology, corporate antics, personal time, and in general life may be about – at least for me. The discussion of this same group being “gatekeepers†to the blogosphere is an interesting viewpoint, but does not bother me in the least. If what I have to say is important, or relevant, people will find the site – surely there is enough technology tracking the blogosphere for anyone to find content to their tastes.
My viewpoint on the idea that traffic is the ultimate gage of a sites “worth†or that I need to generate traffic for my blog to be relevant is this: who cares about traffic? Ok, I’ll admit that just like the idea of being a “rock star†was alluring I was 14, the idea of being an “A-Lister†can also be an alluring draw. The reality is that blogs are a platform for conversation. They are a personal space that you can customize to your needs, to tailor to your viewpoints, your opinions and interests.
Some recent articles & posts on how some of the new memetrackers do not seem to be picking up or ranking everyone’s blogs correctly is troubling, but will work itself out. I doubt that anyone at these companies has any ideas of being “king-makers†or being able to pick and choose who is on the A-List or whatever. The phenomenal growth of each new Internet market niche is enough to make any company struggle to keep up with demand or growth.
So with this long post I’ve laid out some of my basic ideas of recent discussions. Probably its too-long a read for a blog post – I seem to remember reading somewhere that long posts are a “no-no†in the blogosphere, but I believe that additional context is needed from time to time. And, the best way for me to grow my writing abilities for short posts is to build a few long ones from time to time.
