Month: May 2009

All you need is a Flip video camera. Also, boundless energy and determination.

Dave

No matter how active you are in social media, there’s probably someone out there who makes you feel like a cloistered misanthrope. I’ve met four of those people in the last couple of weeks: Wayne Sutton, Jeff Cohen, Kipp Bodnar and Ryan Boyles. I’m not sure it’s possible with the tools readily available to me to calculate the total number of online presences among the four of them. It makes me wonder what they’re doing that I’m not “caffeine megadosing? voodoo?” or, more likely, what I’m doing that they’re not “watching TV, sleeping”.

Kipp and Jeff came to SAS on Tuesday to discuss what we’ve learned so far about implementing social media into our communications. It was up on the web by Thursday. And they both have day jobs. It took me longer to write a 200-word post about it than it did for them to do it.

Here’s part one of the interview:

David Thomas, SAS Social Media Manager, Part 1 from Jeff Cohen on Vimeo.

Originally posted to Conversations and Connections, my SAS social media blog

Taking the netbook for a test post

Dave
Surely something this tiny must be for me
Surely something this tiny must be for me

My netbook arrived today. It’s an Asus Eee 901. I spent a couple of weeks looking at reviews, and went to Best Buy to try out the keyboards to see if I could live with the size. I read a lot of owner comments, and like all reviews on the web, they tell you every range of opinion you can imagine. Lots of people said the keyboard was too small, others said you get used to it.

I’m wondering right now if I’m going to get used to it. At the moment it feels nearly as painful as the post I typed on my iPhone.

And of course, as soon as it arrives, I get two new pieces of information. First, I read Robert Scoble’s review, which doesn’t even mention mine.

Then I read a Facebook comment from a friend talking about how much he loves his Dell Mini 9 Hackintosh, which was another direction I briefly considered, but I realized I didn’t really want this to turn into a hobby. I purposefully chose the Linux version because I didn’t want to be tempted to add a bunch of programs that would slow the whole thing down, like my three-year old laptop that I curse daily for being so slow. If I had the Windows XP version with the 160 GB hard drive, I’m sure I’d end up installing iTunes at some point. And then we’re back to wanting a faster machine.

So far, I like it. The Andros Linux OS is very simple, as the reviews said. I also read how to install Ubuntu, so maybe I’ll do that when I get bored. The machine is incredibly small and light, and I can imagine it will follow me around. It also feels solid, and it’s pretty quiet. In fact, silent. I also installed Google Gears, which apparently will let me use Google Reader offline, so on my upcoming flight to Heidelberg I should be able to catch up on my “1000+” unread RSS feeds.

I just wish I could hit the damn backspace key.

Never underestimate the power of the gadget

Dave

It is 10:00 pm and I am lying on my back in bed, writing this post on my iPhone. Why would I write a blog post in the dark on a cramped keyboard that, no matter what you think of it, is not ideally suited to larger-than-micro blogging?

Because I can. I just found the WordPress iPhone app yesterday and I’ve been dying to try it, mostly because I think it’s cool. Never mind that I’m making a lot of mistakes, my hands are going to sleep and I have three machines with full-size keyboards in the house.

And why am I obsessed with buying a netbook when I have three laptops?

I’m not going to try to explain the Shiny Object Syndrome. I’m sure many of you suffer from it yourself, or live with someone who does. No big shocker: it’s fun to get cool new stuff.

I wonder how much of that attitude drives social media participation, especially among the early adopters? How much of it is excitement at finding a new vehicle to listen and express oneself, and how much is the desire to get something cool and new?

I know that when I am immersed in the search for a new tech object “such as the one that finally culminated last night in ordering an Asus Eee 901 netbook with Linux”, it becomes a way to carve out a little time to be fully “and selfishly” engaged in something outside my quotidian concerns. It’s almost meditative, as pathetic and Western as that sounds.

I get the same feeling when I’m trying to figure out a new “to me” social media tool like Ping.fm or Brightkite. I wonder how much overlap there is. Obviously you don’t have to love gadgets to love social media. But gadgets can certainly make it more fun.

Maybe we can identify a subset of people where the two interests intersect. What should we call them? Social gadgeteers?

What Chuck D taught me about social media

Dave

Chris Brogan mentioned Chuck D in passing this morning in a post whose title defies being ignored. “In case Dad is reading this, Chuck is frontman for Public Enemy, one of the most principled and politically aware rap groups ever.”

Before I came to SAS I ran web sales and marketing for Yep Roc Records and Redeye Distribution. Redeye distributed PE’s “New Whirl Odor” in 2005. When Chuck came to visit “out in the middle of nowhere in Haw River, NC, 20 miles from Chapel Hill” he made a point of speaking with everyone in the company, going from office to office introducing himself and taking pictures with everyone. When my turn came, he told me to sit at my desk and he sat in my visitor chair, pretending he was applying for a job. It’s pretty damn funny. It’s not on this computer, unfortunately. I’ll post it when I get home. Here’s a cheesy handshake photo:

I'm the one on the right
I'm the one on the right

 

What’s the social media tie-in, other than the fact that Brogan likes Chuck, too? Chuck was beginning a business relationship with us, but he didn’t do it by walking into our office and shouting about what he wanted “even though he certainly could have”. He did it by establishing a genuine human connection with everyone in that company, from the owners to the accounting department to the guys in the warehouse. And I promise you that after he left, there wasn’t a single person in that company who wasn’t dedicated to doing whatever he or she could to help Chuck sell records.

The people who know what’s important in personal relationships know what’s important in business relationships, and they also know what’s important in online relationships. And it’s the same thing in all of them.

:::UPDATE:::

Here’s the photo of Chuck applying for a job:

me and Chuck job interview