Category: neck deep in the zeitgeist

Why Google+ will replace ice cream

Dave

The Boy eating ice cream with two spoonsDisclosure: Post title is fatuous linkbait.

I was on vacation last week when Google+ happened. I kept my email inbox in pretty good shape when I was away, but when I returned I felt like I was a week behind on creating circles and +1’ing and learning all the new stuff. Some folks dove in head first. Chris Brogan, for instance, is all over Google+ and has even replaced his Facebook icon with a Google+ logo with the phrase, “I have moved,” and unless I’m missing something, he’s shut down his personal Facebook wall. He really has moved.

I’ve seen lots of useful how-to articles, and lots of posts from people pondering the significance of Google+ for social media in general, business in particular and, inevitably, whether or not Google+ will replace Facebook. That’s a big, thorny question. So I’m going to ignore it.

I’ve joined quite a few new social networks over the last decade and a half, starting with a “pre-WWW” forum on the old Delphi network “a competitor of AOL, Prodigy and CompuServe” called “The UK American Connection.” It consisted mostly of Yanks asking Brits questions like, “I watched Cracker last night. What the hell does ‘naff’ mean?”

I joined Friendster just in time for my girlfriend “now The Mrs” to tell me it was dead. I joined Twitter in May of 2008. I still remember the first person who followed me “former colleague Jeff Batte“, and pondering my next follower, an American journalist living in Germany. I spent hours trying to work out how I knew him and why he would follow me.

My point, if there is one, is that I have yet to see a new social network take off as quickly as Google+. I’m sure there are statistics that either support or refute that, but for me it seems that my nerd friends “and I have created a circle for you called “Nerds”” are taking to Google+ extremely quickly. “Cynical Girl and Pixie of the Apocalypse Laurie Ruettimann linked on Facebook earlier today to a Mashable post that said Google+ was about to hit 10 million users, so as you can see, I’ve done my research.”

It takes me a while to work out how I feel about a new network or online tool, and I’m the kind of person the slow, dull-witted “how to” videos were created for. Unlike Brogan, who within minutes had written a post outlining 50 ways Google+ could be used, I have to be shown it, and shown it again. And again. Then I will become a violent convert.

So far I think Google+ has tremendous potential to unite messaging, photo sharing, video calling, chat, document sharing and other features. This may be the locus that brings the value of Google’s various services and applications into one place. But here’s why I think it’s gotten so popular so fast:

This morning I was flipping back and forth between Facebook and Google+. I have lots of good friends on Facebook, but also a lot of people I’ve accepted as friends who I don’t actually know, or know very well. I accepted some of those out of politeness, and I haven’t taken the time to hide or unfriend the people or companies who clutter up my stream. I scroll for a while before I come to an update from someone I really want to keep in touch with, or something I really want to read.

My Google+ stream, on the other hand, has been filled with interesting posts and long, enjoyable comment-thread discussions with clever people. It feels the way I’ve heard other people describe the early days of Twitter. Everyone I’ve added to my circles so far is someone who I know personally or have built an online relationship with.

So maybe we like Google+ so far because we haven’t cluttered it up yet, and because it’s easier to keep tidy? Time will tell. Just like Twitter, it will be months “years?” before we know the real value.

Should you join now? You don’t have to “and Doug Haslam has posted a cogent argument in favor of Google+ patience“, but so far it’s fun. And if you’re a marketer or communicator, I suspect it will become mandatory before too long. Google’s previous attempts at social networking “Orkut, Buzz, Wave” didn’t take off, but Google+ is so much more than even the sum of all three.

image by me

Do we need new titles?

Dave

a very nice photo of a roseI’ve been tired of the arguments over “social media experts” for a long time. There’s also the recurring meme about people with unusual titles “ninja, guru” and that one bores me as well. If all you have to write about is semantics, dig a little deeper.

But here’s a nomenclature discussion that makes sense to me. The PR firm GolinHarris has tossed out their old title scheme and adopted a new one:

Strategists, who analyze a client’s business;

Creators, who develop new ideas and engage in brand storytelling;

Connectors, who reach target audiences through media and other channels;

Catalysts, who manage client relationships.

“Thanks, and a tip of the blog hat to Publicity Club of New England, where I found out about it.”

I’ve always been a big fan of clarity and saying what you mean. Those titles seem to me to say pretty clearly what those people do “with the possible exception of Catalyst—that one seems a little less descriptive and more like marketing speak”.

With the speed at which things are changing in the communications and marketing world, and the different ways we are pursuing those activities, it makes sense to rethink the way we talk about what we do. Two of my three most recent titles didn’t exist five years ago.

The big question, of course, is will this provide clarity and value to clients, or will it confuse people? Regardless, it’s a bold step and one that seems to me to involve more than just semantics.

What do you think of those titles? And do you think we need new ones, or should we let the old ones evolve?

image by suchitra

If you can’t explain it to your parents, maybe you shouldn’t invest in it.

Dave

Color screenshotThere’s an article in The New York Times “via TechCrunch” about the demise of Color, the something something photo sharing something location-or-other app that got a lot of attention months ago for raising $41 million and was therefore, far more annoyingly, responsible for another rash of “bubble” rumblings.

The TechCrunch article says Color “was supposed to be the app that changed proximity-based sharing.” The Times describes it as a “photo-sharing cellphone application.” Color’s website says:

Simultaneously use multiple iPhones and Androids to capture photos, videos, and conversations into a group album. There’s no attaching, uploading, or friending to do.

I downloaded Color to my iPhone when it launched, played with it for about two minutes and gave up on it. When you open the app, what passes for instructions is a drawing of a bunch of people apparently taking pictures either of nothing or of one another with their smart phones. The legend says, “Take photos together.”

Why? Of what?

Now I’m not just being curmudgeonly. I use a lot of apps, social media and otherwise, that many people would consider pointless. Plus, I wanted to like Color; I like taking photos and I like social networking. But, in the time I was willing to spend, I couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to do with Color or why it would be fun and interesting. I can almost get it, but not quite.

I’m not necessarily an early adopter and over the last few years I’ve been concentrating on enterprise social media, so most of the questions I’ve fielded and explored have been about Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and blogs. They all have their skeptics, but it’s not that hard to explain the value of each to someone willing to keep an open mind.

To people not on Facebook who ask me why they should care, I tell them that Facebook is creating, essentially, a “shadow Internet” that makes it easier to share news, messages, photos, videos and other information with people you choose to connect with. Most people, unless they’re just being bloody minded, can see the value in that. “To the people who ask, “Why should I care what my friends are doing?”, I have no answer nor do I wish to help you work that one out. Maybe you need more interesting friends.”

When people ask me about Twitter, I tell them it’s a messaging service that allows you to get short news updates on a variety of topics from people and organizations you find interesting and valuable. I show them how I get the majority of my news, both about my profession and the world in general, from Twitter. Again, even the skeptics who conclude it’s not for them can see that it’s not just a waste of time.

I tried to understand Color and couldn’t, and still don’t. Hence my suggested rule for investing, as described in the title. Can you explain the value of the social network you want to invest in “or build” in 50 words or less in a way that your parents will understand? Without a digression? Without PowerPoint?

“Of course, I’m old and so are my parents, so you might want to substitute “grandparents.””

I’m not worried about a bubble fueled by social media because I’m convinced that a great deal of what is being created is worthwhile and valuable. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of hype and money going in the wrong directions.

If the elevator pitch only makes sense to other folks inside the social media fishbowl, maybe that should tell you something.

Yes, you can be an introvert who likes being the center of attention

Dave

a tree standing alone in a large fieldEvery now and then I’ll get into a conversation about introverts and extroverts. People sometimes think I’m kidding when I say I’m an introvert. Sometimes it’s because they’ve seen me speaking before a roomful of people, or acting goofy to get a laugh.

When I first took the Myers Briggs test, I was right on the borderline between introvert and extrovert. The last time I took it online I had moved a bit to the E side, but not by much.

I’m thinking about this because I’ve spoken at two conferences in the last week, and that always gets me thinking about human interactions and my reactions to them. Also, my friend Emily just posted a link to a post by Jerry Brito called Top Ten Myths About Introverts. Not everything in that post applies to me, but a lot of it does.

I hate small talk, for instance. I would much rather someone walked up to me at a cocktail party and said, “Tell me what your first decree would be if you became emperor,” rather than, “So, did you see the game?” And it’s true, as Brito points out, that if you get me talking about something I’m interested in, I won’t shut up for days.

Years ago I heard a description of the difference that made sense to me. Extroverts recharge their batteries by being around other people; introverts do it by being alone. That is definitely true for me. I love going to conferences, client meetings, parties and other intensely social events. But when I hit a wall, I need to get the hell out and be by myself for a while.

I suspect a lot of the people we see on the podium at conferences feel the same way. I know I’ve had similar conversations with people I’ve met on the speaker circuit.

How about you? How do you recharge your batteries? Alone or in groups?

image by Malulux

Maybe it’s just time to look for a new job.

Dave

pushing a boulderI spent the last two days at the MarketingProfs B2B Forum in Boston. As always, it was an excellent event filled with great information and smart people willing to share their experience and expertise. In addition to leading a workshop and participating in the final wrap-up panel, I volunteered to do some “one-on-one therapy” sessions with conference attendees on the topic of enterprise social media structure, policies and integration “you know, the stuff we write about in The Executive’s Guide to Enterprise Social Media Strategy“.

I spoke with half a dozen folks and was happily surprised at how far along they were. A year ago, many of the conversations around enterprise social media were pretty basic: Who should “own” it? Do we need to be on Facebook? But these folks came to me with very specific questions about staffing, generating and sharing content, tracking results and other nuts-and-bolts stuff. It was great fun.

I also spoke with several very smart folks who I really couldn’t help very much. Everything I suggested, they’d tried. They were intelligent and adventurous and read the right blogs and the right books and went to the right conferences. We struggled to come up with ideas to address their particular problems. In the end it came down, essentially, to “I work for a company “or a boss” that just doesn’t care or get it no matter how much I show them what our competitors are doing, or what the industry best practices are, or the conversations about our brand we’re ignoring.”

What do you do with that?

I know a lot of people in the enterprise social media world who have pushed similar boulders up similar hills and had great successes. They are people whose names you may know, and a lot are mentioned in our book, like Zena Weist and Bert DuMars and Nichole Kelly and Chris Moody and Lee Aase. “And some of them have changed jobs since the book was published.”

If you’re the person inside your company who has been pushing the social media boulder up the hill, I want you to know three things:

1. There aren’t many people like you.
2. Eventually the people standing in your way will know you’re right.
3. You are more valuable now than you’ve ever been.

It’s up to you, obviously, to decide how much boulder-pushing you want to do. Maybe you like your boulder. Maybe you like your hill. Maybe I’ve taken this analogy too far.

But if you’re beating your head against a wall and feeling like you’re failing, I’ll bet you’re not. You may think you’re doing it wrong, and I promise you, you’re not. If you’re thinking you could finally break through if you just worked harder or smarter or longer, that’s probably not it, either.

Maybe it’s just time to look for a new job.

image by Krikit

Remove the word “Facebook” and no one would care

Dave

By now you’ve probably heard the story of the woman in the Netherlands who got a tattoo on her arm showing the faces of all her Facebook friends. And by now you’ve probably also heard that it’s a hoax. Many of the more than two million people who viewed the video on YouTube commented to express their views on getting a permanent reminder of a passing fad.

Let’s try a little exercise. Read the following sentence:

“A woman in the Netherlands got a tattoo of all her Facebook friends on her arm and it became an international news story.”

Now read this one:

“A woman in the Netherlands got a tattoo of all her friends on her arm and it became an international news story.”

I don’t think so.

I live in a town where I see odder tattoos nearly every day. I remember seeing a guy years ago who had tattoos all over both legs, including a crossed knife and fork, and a cow hiding behind a giant piece of broccoli. When I tended bar in London last century, I saw a young punk on the King’s Road with “GLASGOW” tattooed across his forehead. “”So where are you from? Oh, never mind.””

In the annals of tattooing, getting your friends’ faces on your arm could actually be considered charming and sweet. But add the word “Facebook” and it’s a scandal and an outrage.

I’m immersed in this every day so I get tired of the hype machine that tacks “social media” or “Facebook” onto what are essentially phenomena that have always existed. Houses got robbed, people got stalked, photos got misused and people got fired for saying stupid things long before social media came along. Unfortunately, it’s the hype machine that plants the idea in people’s minds “including executives of enterprise companies who should be getting value out of social media” that social media is evil and dangerous.

Social media is just another way of communicating. It’s a set of tools and, to a certain extent, a philosophy of sharing and openness. But it’s not a religion. It’s not a political movement. One day the novelty will have worn off, the fears will have subsided and social media tools will be just a normal part of our lives, like the telephone and the Internet.

“But then what will we blog about?”