Cafe Witness

This Blog Is Relocating

2009-07-28T12:16:00.004-05:00

If you're a reader or subscriber of this blog, first of all, thank you. Secondly, if you'd like to keep receiving updates, please follow me over on my new site & blog.

Years ago, I started Cafe Witness as an outlet for my casual observations. (I've always considered myself to be an armchair sociologist who just happens to make a living producing media.) But since my "personal brand" (if we must use that term) includes all aspects of my personality -- including the cynical, sarcastic and idiosyncratic side most often on display here -- I feel comfortable merging this POV with my allegedly more "professional" side.

(Also, many wise people tell me it's good SEO to merge my two sites, and I prefer to merge them into the domain I own, rather than this one that's owned by Goooooogle.)

So please, follow me here (and update your RSS subscriptions accordingly). I can't say Cafe Witness will never be updated again, but for now, let's consolidate our efforts and see where that gets us.

I'm Bored With Your Brand

2009-07-23T08:16:00.004-05:00

I'm bored with everything about your brand. I'm bored with your logo, I'm bored with your public outreach, and I'm bored with the endless obsession over what your brand means to others.

In fact, if I never hear another word about your brand again, I'll sleep better at night. (And I say this as someone who works in marketing.)

Stop worrying about your brand -- and, more importantly, stop making me (and everyone else you don't really know) worry about your brand.

Just do something.

Do something amazing, innovative, world-changing. Start small but aim big. Or not; small is hard, too. Just get it right. Or try to get it right, relentlessly.

The more amazing, innovative or world-changing your actions, the more likely other people will start talking about you. And they won't be talking about your brand because you want them to; they'll be talking about your brand because they want to.

Except they won't be talking about your brand, really. They'll be talking about your actions. And actions are a lot bigger than a brand.

Image by Tambako the Jaguar.

5 Thoughts on the Future of Media

2009-07-20T07:00:00.000-05:00

As a former agent at UTA, Barrett Garese has better insight into the future of media than most of us do, and he's blogged a fascinating essay about where he thinks film, TV and web content is headed. (In a nutshell, he believes the key is to capitalize on the inherent differences of each platform, rather than insisting on convergence.)

While reading his essay, I realized my own response would be longer than appropriate for his comment column, so I've posted it here. My thoughts will make more sense if you've read Barrett's essay as a primer, but I think these points stand on their own as well.

I'll Stop the World and Converge With You...

The convergence of film, TV and web is happening, but that doesn't dilute the power of each individual experience -- film is still film, TV is still TV, web is still web, etc. What this DOES create is a NEW experience format: the convergent format, in which content is specifically designed to either:

A) feel different across all platforms (in which your viewing experience is specifically engineered to suit the screen size or format, possibly going as far as editing with different shots or angles, depending upon the delivery method), or

B) be different across all platforms (i.e., the web version of a show is completely different, while still complementary in theme, to the film version, etc.).

Your Home Theater is Not Actually a Theater. Discuss.

Audiences anticipate different experiences depending on the distribution method. We expect to immerse ourselves in a film experience (minus the live distractions), while we expect to be distracted from the TV experience (because we're at home). Thus, we're already anticipating a different kind of content to be shared across those variant platforms -- and when the end result doesn't match our expectations, our engagement with that content may suffer. (Or, it may surprise us.)

We also expect a difference in on-screen quality relative to the effort it takes to obtain the image (i.e., driving to a theater at 7 PM should reward me with a higher quality experience than watching something on my phone at 3 AM). And we expect the content to connect with us on differing levels dependent upon our applied attention -- mindblowing films can't be processed in 5 minute increments via stolen wi-fi during your lunch break, whereas 3 hours in a theater had better provide you with a deeper and more profound experience than 30 consecutive episodes of Tiki Bar TV (which, it should be said, I love).

LOOK AT ME.

The biggest expense for online content should be promotions. You can create an amazing show for $5, but you're releasing it into a medium that A) not enough people are paying attention to, yet which is B) paradoxically flooded with crap (which may explain A).

If I were to produce a new web series (after concluding Something to Be Desired), I'd be sure that the promotional plan was in place before the first episode ever hit the web; the days of "throwing it out there and seeing what happens" are best left to people experimenting in their own free time, not people who are expecting to gain the necessary traction to validate (both artistically AND financially) their investment of time, money and effort into a web property.

Whither the Studios?

Eventually, existing corporate studio behemoths will become distribution companies that happen to have (presumably exclusive) contracts with production houses. Rather than focusing on producing AND distributing their own in-house content, they'll profit from their primary assets (reach and volume) and leave the creative aspects to the producers -- who will in turn be grateful to not have to worry about being both creative and ubiquitous at the same time.

That said, there will always be exceptions. In the long run, it's still cheaper for Verizon to produce its own web shows than it is for them to subcontract with a production company, and it's still more profitable for an indie prodco to bootstrap their way into self-distribution than it is for them to produce their own content but only keep a percentage of those eventual revenues.

A Soap Opera Without the Soap Had Better Be a Damn Good Opera

Content producers need to rely less on advertising and more on the inherent value of the content itself. Gone are the days when content is produced as a lure to hook viewers into sitting through commercials -- nor can content *be* produced under a presumed business model that eyeballs = advertising opportunities = profit. Cut out that middleman and what are you left with?

You're left with an audience who'll pay you directly for what you create -- or for the experience it creates in them -- rather than a vessel with holes waiting to be plugged by commercials.

This also impacts media being produced for traditionally large-scale distribution. Just because a show isn't pulling in the millions of eyeballs it needs to validate its TV time slot, it doesn't mean that show couldn't be profitable at a lower operating cost with web-based distribution. If I were the producers of a canceled darling like Pushing Daisies (and if I still owned the rights to that property), I would shrink the budget, post 15-20 minute episodes (or segments) online, and invite the fans to pre-pay for next season's DVD in advance; that initial influx of cash could be used to fund part of the upcoming season, which means the prodco isn't scrambling to line up sponsors now and then waiting for a year-end DVD windfall to break even.

Thoughts?

Image by perreira.

Must the Show Go On?

2009-06-23T11:29:00.005-05:00

Now that I'm moving to Baltimore, I'm faced with a very tough decision: what to do about Something to Be Desired, the web series I've been producing here in Pittsburgh since 2003.

If you've never seen STBD, you're not alone -- although we're the web's longest-running sitcom, we're also one of the smallest, due mostly to my own inability to properly promote the show WHILE producing it (WHILE also making a living). Because our extensive (and talented) cast all work for free, our only actual expenses for the show are equipment, hosting and time; otherwise -- and if we didn't enjoy it -- we never would have lasted 6+ years.

Now, since the cast can't relocate to Baltimore with me, continued production of STBD becomes nearly impossible without major restructuring. As I see it, I really only have three options:

* Keep producing the show in SOME format, which would require lots of advance planning, remote scheduling and copious amounts of driving (or flying) time -- which obviously inflates the cost of production.

* Let the cast (and whomever else would like to volunteer their camera services) continue to produce the show themselves, and I could advise / assist (within reason) from a distance.

* Cancel the show.

Still Ready for Their Close-Ups?

So far, most of the cast members I've heard from have fallen into 2 categories:

* The veteran cast members would like to see the show continue, but they don't particularly mind if it shuts down either. After 5 or 6 years, they can accept that this particular creative outlet may have reached its end. They would just prefer to see the show end on a high note, rather than as a mass of jumbled loose ends.

* The newer cast members are more vocal about wanting the show to continue, since they've only begun exploring the experience (and their characters). Then again, they also tend to be the cast members who are most actively pursuing stage and film work in Pittsburgh, so they admit this makes them even harder to schedule -- especially from a distance.

Ironically...

... this question of the show's future comes at a time when things have been going quite well for us.

* The fashionistas at Pittsburgh-based ModCloth have offered to outfit some of our cast members for next season's episodes.

* Last year, we were nominated as one of the Top Web Series on Yahoo's annual web video awards. (We lost to The Guild, but that's okay -- so did everyone else.)

* YouTube had begun promoting last season's episodes on the front page of their Entertainment section, resulting in thousands of new views we wouldn't have enjoyed otherwise.

* Web video press like TubeFilter and TilzyTV gave us some ink (or pixels, if you're a purist).

We'd even begun filming some scenes for Season 7 in HD, which would be a big format change for us (and would hopefully help highlight those new ModCloth outfits).

And Yet, in the End...

... it all comes down to me. Over the years, I've struggled annually with the decision of whether or not to keep the show going. Some days (or years) have been harder than others, but the fact that I was collaborating with a talented cast of actors to create something WE controlled was always enough to power me through the down times.

And now, just when it seems like the show may be finding its footing, all signs point toward how logical it would be to shut it down and start anew with something fresh in Baltimore. (Which I'm sure I'll explore regardless of the future of STBD -- there's something to be said for a local creative outlet.)

I know that as long as I have at least one actor and at least one viewer, I have at least one reason to keep producing STBD. And as long as I'm still interested in telling the ongoing story of this cast of characters -- and I am -- I also have a personal reason to continue.

The question I have to ask myself now is: Is it worth it?

Baltimore Bound

2009-05-28T10:44:00.005-05:00

Last Friday, Ann and I went to Baltimore. She had a job interview that morning.

On the way home, they emailed to offer her the position.

Suddenly, I've gone from a champion of Pittsburgh to a soon-to-be transplant to Baltimore. What a whirlwind one email makes.

Since I freelance for a living, nothing I do professionally will change despite my new address. (In fact, since most of my current work comes from the New York area, I'll actually be closer to NYC in Baltimore -- maybe I can cut down on the car-destroying road trips.)

Nor will my cultural identity change drastically. To wit:

Pittsburgh is a wonderful, historic, affordable and underrated city with an identity crisis and an ongoing youth population drain.

Baltimore -- from everything I've read so far -- seems to be a wonderful, historic, affordable and underrated city with an identity crisis (namely, its "kid brother" proximity to Washington, DC) and an equally debilitating population drain.

So far, so similar.

The big change will happen in my own personal fishbowl. I've been fortunate to meet dozens of great people here in Pittsburgh whom I consider my friends, acquaintances or the regularly interesting extras in my life. I'm sure those same personalities exist in Baltimore, but our shared Pittsburgh experience won't be in place to help break the ice.

This move also has direct implications for my involvement in PodCamp Pittsburgh (i.e., not much involvement at all) and the future of Something to Be Desired, the web series I've been producing here in Pittsburgh since 2003. I haven't yet decided what that future will be, so I'll consider it over the next several weeks of apartment hunting, U-Haul packing and the waving of goodbyes.

And thus, this is the beginning of my hat tip to Pittsburgh -- a place I'll always consider to be some part of "home," no matter where I live -- and my opening bow toward Baltimore, which will become my home for the next chapter in this occasionally surprising book I'm reading called "life."

I wonder if Baltimore has pierogies...

Photo by stevehdc.

We Need a New Water Cooler

2009-05-13T14:08:00.005-05:00

Now that Twitter has removed a feature they claim only 2% of their users were using (and which nearly everyone I follow has been complaining about, which I guess means we ARE that 2%), something has become clear:

We need a new water cooler.

Twitter is often described as a "virtual water cooler," serving as a gathering place for people who work remotely. It's where we who don't have officemates (or who don't care to speak with the same 10 people all week long) go to bounce ideas off people half a world away, in real time, with minimal obligation or investment of attention.

But when the service terminates one of its own best reasons for existing -- the ability to stumble across other users via "fragmented conversations" (a functionality, it should be stressed, that THE USERS THEMSELVES invented) -- it becomes clear that Twitter is less concerned with serving the needs of its core users than it is with appealing to the masses. (After all, the masses bring the money; the 2% do not.)

And when the service then schedules planned downtime at noon PST on a Wednesday, those of us who rely on it for our daily conversation stream realize it's time to create a backup plan.

You wouldn't keep every document you own on one hard drive, thus stranding yourself if it crashes. So why are the bulk of our conversations contained within one service?

Seduce me, Facebook. Dazzle me, Plurk. Rise from the dead, Jaiku, and provide for us a valid alternative to the service that no one wanted until everyone had to have it.

Image by dennis.

Suddenly, I Need a Car

2009-05-07T11:12:00.006-05:00

Last night, I was driving home to Pittsburgh from the Business Smart Tools conference in Connecticut. I was driving uphill, in the rain, and I heard a rattle in my engine. Since my heat shield has been loose numerous times in the life of my car -- a 2000 Honda Civic with 152,000 miles -- I figured I'd need to get it tightened when I got home.

Then, something shot out from underneath my car. Sparking, smoke, a THRUB THRUB THRUB noise coming from the engine...

I decided to pull over.

So, at around 9:30 on a rainy Wednesday night in the middle of I-80, my 2000 Honda Civic came to its final stop. The tow truck driver explained that I'd shot a rod through my engine block, which (if I understand correctly) means a piston escaped from the motor by way of the motor casing. That means the motor has to be replaced, which would involve disassembling (and then reassembling) the entire engine -- around a $1000 to $2000 repair for a car that's worth, at best, $1500.

Side note: I'd introduced Scott Monty from Ford at the BST Conference just a day before. At this rate, I hope I never have to introduce a heart surgeon...

So: Anyone have any car-buying advice for a guy with strictly average credit and a very slim rainy day fund?

Your Customer Is Not Your Problem

2009-05-04T11:21:00.005-05:00

Two very different experiences this past week have taught me a lot about the value of positive customer service -- and the need to create a workplace environment that encourages and sustains it.

When Good Road Signs Go Bad

A week ago, I noticed that the five-way stoplight at the Forward and Murray Avenues intersection of Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighborhood was broken. One of the light's cycles -- the side that faces traffic coming off the I-376 exit -- was lasting at least 2-3 times longer than it normally does. This is odd because that's usually NOT a high-traffic approach; it also extends the wait time for those on Murray Avenue, which results in 8-block traffic jams during rush hour.

So I contacted PennDOT, informed them of the problem (via email form), and someone wrote me back within a day to explain that traffic lights are the concern of the municipality, rather than the state. They also said they'd forward my email to the Pittsburgh traffic office -- which, I'll admit, is where I thought this story would end.

Today, I received the following email from Amanda Broadwater, P.E., Municipal Traffic Engineer for the City of Pittsburgh's Department of Public Works - Bureau of Transportation and Engineering:

Dear Mr. Kownacki,

Within the State of Pennsylvania, traffic signals are the jurisdiction of the City. Therefore, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation forwarded your comment to us regarding the intersection of Forward and Murray in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood.

The City of Pittsburgh has identified [that] loop detectors are malfunctioning at the intersection. This type of problem happens often during wet weather. When this occurs, the maximum time allotted to the approach with the bad loop is displayed during each cycle, rather than the green time being traffic responsive. Obviously this creates greater delays on the other approaches of the intersection.

The electricians will be back on site today to try and remedy the problem. However, it may be necessary to completely replace the loop detectors. If this is the case, a timing change will be needed to ease congestion during preparation of the work. If a timing change is needed, it should be in place by mid week.

I wanted to highlight Amanda's response for two reasons:

* What speedy turnaround time from a pair of agencies that probably receives dozens (if not hundreds) of similar reports every day.

* What a thorough and understandable explanation! I would have expected a form letter saying "thanks, we'll get to it." Instead, Amanda went to the trouble of explaining the issue to me in layman's terms and then suggested a date by which the work should be completed.

On the Other Hand...

Last week, I stopped at a Wendy's just off the Hazleton, PA, exit on I-80. I've been to this Wendy's half a dozen times over the past year, because that exit is a regular pit stop on my business trips between Pittsburgh and Connecticut.

This time, I was one of the only customers in the place, and the staff of 5 or 6 seemed frustrated. Maybe it was because I was disrupting their side work, or because of something their manager may have said moments earlier. Maybe they were just having a bad day.

But when the kid gave me my order and I said "Thanks," and he just grunted at me with the body language that let me know I was his problem, not his customer, it clarified two things for me:

* There's a reason front-end workers in fast food and retail only get paid a minimum wage, and

* I need to stop eating at the Wendy's in Hazleton.

Conversely, although I disagree with their politics, I enjoy the experience of ordering food at Chick-fil-a. Why? Because their employees (at least in Pittsburgh's Waterfront location) are perpetually in good moods. Not the kind of fake smile most employee handbooks insist their cashiers sport, but the kind of jovial attitude that lets me know they enjoy working there -- and that they're happy I'm spending my money with them.

Like PennDOT and Pittsburgh's Department of Public Works, I'm not Chick-fil-a's problem. I'm their customer - and they'd like me to stay that way.

Photo by lawgeek.

The Thankless Job of Being Ahead of the Curve

2009-04-22T23:58:00.006-05:00

This week, the world was all abuzz about the mainstreaming of Twitter thanks to Ashton Kutcher & CNN, Oprah Winfrey, USA Today and countless other "names" who've taken up the habit of Twittering.

Of course, by "world," I mean the relatively self-obsessed cadre of regular Twitter users -- myself among them -- who thought social media was a pretty cool club until the stars showed up. Like the aesthetic suckerpunch that comes from seeing the captain of the football team wearing your favorite indie band's t-shirt, the mainstreaming of any subculture is a tragedy for those who were there first. In one seemingly innocuous act, whatever exclusivity there was that bound you all together is now eroded. It's like your girlfriend taking a sudden interest in Star Trek -- or your mom using Facebook.

You know who wants your mom to be on Facebook? The people who create the service and the people who profit from the service.

You know who doesn't want your mom to be on Facebook? The people who use the service -- or, at least, the ones who used it enough to make it useful to your mom in the first place.

Being Useful Is the Fastest Way to Die

In order for any business or service "succeed" -- social media included -- it has to go mainstream. This means it has to be considered useful (or at least interesting) by the masses. But since "the masses" tend to be less interesting than the individuals who comprise them, when something does generate a wide appeal, it tends to do so at the expense of the individuals who partly defined themselves through it. And as the originators of a subculture leave, they take something with them: the originality, eccentricity or unconventional wisdom that made that subculture worth noticing to begin with.

So now, as blogging, podcasting and social networking become commonplace, the power centers behind these tools shifts away from the geeks who'd started them and becomes concentrated within the same media conglomerates for which these tools were originally conceived as an antidote. (This is not unlike veteran political skewer Al Franken eventually being absorbed into Congress.)

How Many Coonskin Caps Is One Fail Whale Worth?

What we've been seeing this week is the lamentation of hardcore Twitter users who've realized that their much-maligned (and yet, paradoxically, much-loved) service may be on the brink of becoming mainstream -- and, simultaneously, irrelevant.

If all these Twitter pioneers sound bitter, it's because they realize society is now waiting for them to pull up their stakes and migrate away from Twitter, on toward some other as-yet undiscovered social media country... that can be colonized and mined for profit, by others, in another 2 or 3 years.

Meanwhile, any book written decades from now about the success of Twitter will almost surely mention Ashton Kutcher's name, but it probably won't mention yours -- even though you were there first.

Image (taken along the Oregon Trail) by Fokket.

Where I'm Speaking Next: The Business Smart Tools Conference

2009-04-21T07:00:00.002-05:00

On Tuesday, May 5, I'll be conducting a pair of workshops at the Business Smart Tools Conference in Stamford, CT. The subjects I'll be covering are the two I spend the most time with online: video and Twitter, both in terms of business use.

The BST Conference is aimed squarely at companies who are just starting to explore social media. Admittedly, as someone who's been creating social media for years, I often take it for granted that everyone already knows what I know. Then I meet someone new -- or I organize a PodCamp Pittsburgh -- and I remember that technophobia and learning curves tend to keep some people away from the web. This event is intended as a way to break down some of those barriers and get new businesses interested and up to speed on the potential of social media.

Other speakers include Tom Guarriello, John C Havens, Cindi Bigelow, Albert Maruggi and Scott Monty, who's been working wonders on the social media front at Ford.

Want to attend the BST Conference? Register with the discount code "twitter" (no quotes) and save 20%!

Want to hire me to speak at your event? Contact me on Twitter, or leave your email address in the comments below.

I Have Seen the Future, and It Is Me

2009-04-20T06:00:00.000-05:00

I was profiled in a KDKA TV News feature about Pittsburgh's young entrepreneurs. Reporter Andy Sheehan talked to several local innovators about the ways our businesses differ from the norm -- my tendency to work from cafes while producing STBD, for example, or the wisdom of converting a home into the (multi-employee) office for local design firm Blue Tomato.

As always, most news items about young people in Pittsburgh tend to focus on two themes: whether we'll save the city by reinventing it, or whether the city will empower us to make our dreams come true. This particular clip does a bit of both -- which is typical of the city's identity crisis. As the region with the second-oldest population in the country (behind only Miami), Pittsburgh is forever torn between the need to redefine itself and the presumption that it doesn't have to.

If I were a casual viewer, I'd probably think every one of us featured in this video -- including Nick Pinkston and Kellee Maize -- are naive young crackpots who need a real 9-to-5 job to drive some reality down our throats. But, on the off chance that one of us succeeds, that same casual viewer can take pride in the fact that we didn't listen to their conventional wisdom after all.

What I Do: The Floodgates of Self-Promotion

2009-04-03T07:00:00.000-05:00

Sometimes this blog goes quiet for awhile, and people might suspect I'm slacking off. While that's often true, sometimes I actually have legitimate(-ish) work to do.

This week, three different videos (that I had varying amounts of involvement with) have hit the web simultaneously. As much as I'd love to promote each of them independently, I happen to be leaving for vacation in Seattle + Portland shortly, so I've decided to group them all together and minimize my own horn-tooting.

Talking Tea with Joe Torre, Phil Simms & Terry Francona

This is a promotional video that the Creative Concepts agency filmed for Bigelow Tea. I happen to record and edit nearly every video that Creative Concepts produces -- including another Bigelow Tea video we filmed this same day, which generated a little buzz over on Chris Brogan's blog.

Something to Be Desired: Episode 6.7 "The Red Scare"

In addition to my corporate media work, I also produce the web's longest-running sitcom, Something to Be Desired (STBD). We've been on hiatus since mid-December, but I finally found the time to edit a new episode for April Fool's Day. (Fun fact: this episode was filmed on Sunday night, then edited and posted on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the Torre video above was filmed before Christmas.)

Pittsburgh City Councilman Bill Peduto Answers Questions from Lady Elaine

Pittsburgh city councilman (and occasional STBD guest star) Bill Peduto asked me if I could do him a favor: a local blogger named Lady Elaine asked a series of questions to all local electoral candidates, and instead of responding in text, Bill wanted to work the questions into a video. The results are above -- and yes, there are puppets. (And in case you're wondering: no, the puppets were not purchased with city money... but at least one came from eBay...)

Side note: after posting these videos side by side, I realized my camera work and editing style remain fairly consistent from project to project, regardless of who I'm filming or why. Evidently, I've developed a personal method that works (for me, at least).

So, for everyone who follows me on Twitter and occasionally wonders what the hell I actually do, now you know (some of it, at least).

You're Not Worth My Time

2009-03-26T06:00:00.001-05:00

It's widely believed that our attention spans are rapidly eroding. MTV, the Internet, multitasking or globalization may be to blame, but regardless of the source, everyone seems to think that nobody pays attention to anything anymore.

But why should we?

Online, people skim webpages for relevant information. When they find something they're passionate about, they'll devour endless amounts of related material across multiple media platforms. Otherwise, they zip through the bare basics -- enough to wrap their heads around what everything may mean -- and then they move on to something new.

The key word there is "passionate." Not everyone is passionate about everything. Some topics are more alluring than others, and some purveyors of information do a better job of hooking an audience than others.

The real problem? It's getting harder to make a living by being mediocre.

Gatekeepers Gone Wild

Long ago, the public was content to have their media handed down to them by OTHER PEOPLE who decided what information was worth their time. Today, the means of distribution (and production) have been disrupted to the extent that anyone can engage with any type of media at any time and in any format (give or take), which means the gatekeepers are dead.

And they're pissed.

The gatekeepers believe that some media and information is more important (or of a higher quality) than others, and they want to "save you" from wasting your time on the inferior and impractical. But modern audiences have realized that the critics, agents and hitmakers don't speak for everyone, primarily because they don't UNDERSTAND everyone -- and so we no longer trust anyone who attempts to tell us what we SHOULD be embracing.

Beyond that, there's the issue of sheer quantity. A new piece of media isn't competing against dozens of distractions anymore; it's competing with the sum total of all human knowledge and experience, most of which is available at the click of a button.

Given all of this, how can anyone expect that 21st Century digital boys and girls would voluntarily spend ANY time reading / watching / listening to something they personally consider to be uninteresting?

This Blog Post Is Already Too Long

Yes, I understand the elite's self-aggrandizing concern that allowing the public to educate and entertain itself is akin to letting them overdose on junk food, junk media and junk lifestyles. But that's a cynical defense: just because something is necessary, important or vital, that's no excuse for it to be achingly boring.

So next time you're tempted to lament that "no one pays attention" to you, buck up: people are obviously paying attention to *something* out there, and there's no reason that something can't be you.

Get interesting.

(And don't tell me fables like "reading is dead;" it isn't.)

Image by moriza.

Hating Twitter Is Like Hating a Hammer

2009-03-25T07:00:00.001-05:00

There's been a lot of social media hate thrown around lately, mainly by people who hear about services like Twitter in the mainstream press and then, once they poke around a bit, reject it immediately and with much gusto.

The bitter invective comes from all sides, including Jon Stewart, Gawker, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and this amusing cartoon.

And they all miss the point.

I Would Rather Eat Live Children in a Barrel Than Use a Power Drill

Twitter, like all social media, is a tool. It can be used to entertain, to share, to self-promote, to inform or to educate. Unfortunately, casual observers rarely see the breadth of its use because the bulk of its users aim low, and use the service in inane ("OMG drinking tea cuz I'm sooooo tired lol") ways. Thus, they conclude that these are the only ways the service can be used, and they choose to decry the service (and ALL of its users) as the worst humans on the planet while simultaneously distancing themselves from anything associated with it.

Explaining to these people that Twitter has also been used to exonerate innocents from jail, unite outsiders during a tragedy and raise life-saving donations doesn't always help. If anything, it only seems to exasperate them further -- as though they wonder, "If you CAN do all that stuff with Twitter, why DOESN'T everyone?"

But asking that question is like asking why every building isn't as gorgeous as the Taj Mahal. Trust me: it isn't the hammer's fault.

Image by Being Yogendra.

If YOU'RE Not the Boss of Me... Who Is?

2009-03-24T07:00:00.000-05:00

Last week, blogger Joyce Dierschke asked a not-quite hypothetical question: Do you censor yourself online? Her example, of whether or not she should have re-posted a link to a (biased) political video that she personally found amusing, encapsulates a question we all ask ourselves on a regular basis:

When I'm online, am I allowed to be me?

The answers to the question are (if you ask me) far too complicated, because they can only be revealed by first determining who you are AND what you believe.

Some Things to Consider About Who "You" Are:

Are you a person or an employee?

Are you a brand or an individual?

Are you more concerned about being authentic or about getting paying work?

If a potential client decided they didn't want to work with you because of something you said or did online -- essentially, because of who you are (and the judgment they believe you display) -- would you regret the action in question?

Are you using the internet for communication or self-promotion?

Is your belief system permanent, or does it evolve over time?

Would the person you are today be embarrassed or ashamed of anything you did 10, 5 or even 2 years ago?

Are you steadily advancing toward a specific goal, or are you exploring for the sake of experience?

Do you expect greater integrity from others than you do from yourself?

Does transparency trump ethics?

Forget Big Brother -- EVERYONE'S Watching

Every decision we make online is a personal decision, undertaken privately (or so it seems) yet available publicly to anyone who knows how to look for it. Classic concepts of privacy, identity and "the self" are in flux now due to the web's multiple layers of "personal branding" and anonymity. And while Jonah may have believed that God could see him even when he was inside the whale, Jonah also never had to deal with recruiters scouring his friends' Facebook accounts for all his potentially incriminating kegstand photos.

So before you start censoring (or uncensoring) yourself online, perhaps you should first figure out who YOU are... and who you answer to.

Image by amanky.

5 Ways to Increase Your Blog Traffic: Chris Brogan vs. The Watchmen

2009-03-20T07:00:00.005-05:00

As I've mentioned before, I notice whenever Lijit reports a spike in my blog traffic. Normally, that spike is caused by someone with a wide online reach (like Chris Brogan) mentioning something I've written, which then drives that person's audience to me (for that day, at least).

But this week I learned a huge lesson: Chris Brogan is no Rorschach.

When Chris (and the rest of the standard social media Twitterverse) mentions something I've written, I may see a peak of 700 views on that particular post.

When I wrote my review of the Watchmen film last week ("10 Things People Don't Seem to Get About the Watchmen"), I had no idea what would happen next:

Somehow, that Watchmen review really touched an online nerve.

Admittedly, Chris Brogan's original retweet of my post (which referred to it as the "best Watchmen review. Ever.") had something to do with it first finding an audience. But that 17,000+ traffic spike is 25 times the normal "Brogan Effect" on one of my posts. This means my Watchmen post reached some kind of escape velocity and broke out of our social media fishbowl (where most of my and Chris's audience tends to live), and crossed over to an equally-passionate (and, presumably, much larger) niche: traditional comic book fans. (It also had legs: look at the numbers 5 days later, vs. the 8 readers from the previous Sunday.)

My attempts to figure out exactly where all this additional traffic came from have been patchy at best, but I suspect Reddit had something to do with it. It also appears to have been retweeted at least 50 times (with another 15 thanks to Copyblogger), and then it may have continued on being retweeted under other names / descriptions.

All of which leads me to...

5 Thoughts on Increasing Your Blog Traffic

1. Write Something That Appeals to the Hubs. I could write amazing blog posts all day, but if none of them were interesting to the folks that OTHER people listen to (like Chris Brogan or Copyblogger), no one would ever see them. I could spend months building an audience that's comparable in size to Brogan's, but that's also time I could spend making interesting media, which is what provides the hubs with interesting things to talk about. (It's a cycle, people; find your spoke.)

2. The Title Is the Hook. If someone likes what you wrote, they'll want to tell other people. In this age of Twitter, they need to be able to explain WHY your article is interesting in about 100 characters (not counting the characters they'll use for the link, plus any "retweet" attributions, etc.). What better shorthand than an interesting (or provocative) post title that does their work for them?

3. The Summary May Also Be the Hook. Sometimes a title doesn't sum it all up. In that case, provide a one-sentence summary of your article or a series of mini-theses within the post itself that readers can cut-and-paste as their "aha" quote to explain the post's relevance. (Things move quickly on the web; making the promotion of your work as easy as possible is imperative to getting it seen.)

4. Don't Confuse Your Traffic with Your Niche. I make a living doing social media, so that's where the bulk of my audience comes from. As a result, the majority of my blog posts are aimed squarely at the audience I expect to be serving. But that's also a closed loop; if all I ever wrote about was blogging, social networking and Twitter, I'd never attract an audience with other interests, and my total possible audience would have a limited cap.

On the other hand, I doubt most of the 17,000+ readers who saw my Watchmen post are interested in social media, which means 95% of them probably have no reason to return to my blog; they were simply passing visitors who were here for one specific post. (In fact, my subscribers have actually gone down since the Watchmen piece ran.) So as great as it is to see a massive bump in numbers, don't kid yourself into believing that the people who find you are necessarily interested in everything you have to say. (And don't get depressed when your subsequent posts fail to reach those eye-popping numbers.)

5. Pay Attention to What's Working (and What Isn't). Personally, I think every blog post I write is great. But not every post resonates with my audience. Some of my best articles (in my opinion) languish with nary a comment, while others (that I wouldn't necessarily expect to catch on) somehow find a life of their own.

Studying the habits of my readers helps me understand what topics most often generate comments AND which posts (or titles, or summaries) most often get redistributed. It also helps me understand when I might be wasting my time. For example, I have a tendency to share my convoluted theories on why and how certain aspects of social media work, but my audience doesn't seem to care. So no matter how interested *I* may be in my ideas, it's evident that my audience isn't (yet), which means I'm much better served by writing articles they ARE interested in (based upon past indicators), with the presumption that my aggregate audience will eventually grow to include new readers who WILL care about what the old readers didn't.

Oh, and a bonus tip:

Don't Feel Compelled to Write Something Every Day. Some people believe that daily content is the only way to maintain an audience. Wrong. People aren't reading you because you're around, they're reading you because you're good. Sure, it's great to be both, but when forced to decide, most thinking mammals prefer to read quality over quantity. And the better you are, the more your audience will forgive your infrequency between bolts of spine-tingling relevance.

I'm a Fag

2009-03-18T11:29:00.007-05:00

Not really, but that's beside the point, because that title was decided for me last week. [NOTE: Update at the end of this post.]

I was walking the two blocks from my apartment to the grocery store when two of the neighborhood kids -- girls between the ages of 8 and 12, I'd guess -- noticed that I was:

* wearing a light red (to them, pink) hoodie,
* carrying a recyclable grocery bag (to them, a purse) over my shoulder, and
* bouncing when I walk (which is a happy family trait)

Thus, in their eyes, I was a fag. And they let me know it.

On my way home, the older girl called out to me, and when I looked over, she -- in all the slow-motion magnitude that cinematographers use to signify a watershed moment in one's life -- flipped me off.

I decided to shrug it off, since kids are kids. But I filed it away, knowing that it would boomerang back around again, since kids are also pack animals. And it did.

Yesterday, I was walking Rufus and a gaggle of neighborhood kids -- all of them white and lower-middle-class -- were playing one someone's lawn. When I walked past, they let me know my new name ("Fag Peter") and hurled insults at me and my dog for a full two blocks, loud enough that I (and, certainly, anyone else in the neighborhood) could hear quite clearly. Again, I chose to ingore it, but it does pose a number of interesting problems:

* I now brace myself every time I leave my house, expecting to be venomously insulted by children.

* Since these kids likely know where I live (and what I drive), property damage or vandalism is not out of the question.

* Presuming that everyone else on the block heard these insults and has thus far decided to say nothing about it, I presume they don't mind the neighborhood kids slurring anyone else who walks through.

I'm Wondering How Best to Handle This

If we were all kids (or adults), I could react in an appropriate way (fistfights, reasoned discourse or litigation). If I was a kid and they were adults, I could tell my parents and get the police involved.

But as an adult being harassed by children, my options seem starkly limited. As mentioned above, their parents and neighbors don't seem to think that insulting someone is a reprimandable offense. And even if I did approach their parents, I suspect one of the following things would happen:

* It would let the kids know they were getting to me, thus fueling their desire to further harass me

* It might get the kids in trouble, thus legitimizing their anger toward me, or

* The parents might not see anything wrong with it, and accuse me of either provoking the kids or otherwise causing a needless problem.

As I See It, I Have Four Options:

* Walk Rufus on other streets, and avoid my own neighboring block at all costs (thus living as a prisoner in my own neighborhood)

* Walk everywhere with Ann (which might at least momentarily confuse the kids long enough to Google the term "fag hag")

* Confront their parents, or

* Confront the kids

Also, I should point one bit of clarification:

* Although I'm not gay, it's not the "fag" insult that bothers me. They could just as easily (and nonsensically) be calling me a cripple or a nigger. What frustrates me is that these kids are evidently growing up in a neighborhood where judging someone based on outward appearances, and then slurring them in the streets, isn't deterred.

Granted, I'm sure each of these kids will learn a lesson someday, when they display their prejudices against someone their own age -- or, as adults, against someone who doesn't mind beating the shit out of them -- but for now, I feel unnecessarily cast as the moral protagonist in some afterschool special, in which I know have to reach deep inside and find some pearl of wisdom that will make this all worthwhile for everyone involved, when really I just want to buy groceries and walk my dog in the neighborhood where I'm paying to live.

Thoughts?

3:21 PM UPDATE: While walking Rufus this afternoon, I passed by the homes where some of the kids live, and two of their parents were at work (on laptops) on their porch. I introduced myself and explained the situation to them, and we had a fruitful (I think) discussion about it.

They were upset, apologetic and, I think, embarrassed that any of this happened. One of the moms admitted that she'd heard the kids yelling something yesterday, but since their voices all blend together when they're in a pack, she couldn't make out what they were saying. They each said they'd talk with their kids, both individually and as a group, because they said their kids know that kind of behavior is wrong and they want to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Here's hoping this works out, and that we can all move forward as a neighborhood, rather than seeing an escalation in petty insults.

Shepard Fairey: Hero or Hypocrite?

2009-03-11T10:02:00.006-05:00

[NOTE: Update at bottom of the post.]

This week, the Pittsburgh City Paper reports that now-legendary street artist Shepard Fairey -- he of the Obama "HOPE" poster -- is suing local graphic designer Larkin Werner over the use of the word "OBEY" in association with Werner's own indie art project, Steelerbaby.

In a nutshell, one of many designs for Steelerbaby merchandise says, simply, "Obey Steelerbaby." Fairey's lawyers claim the use of the word "Obey" is trademark infringement, because Fairey himself first became famous for a series of street art featuring an image of Andre the Giant (remember him?) and the word "OBEY" -- which he then evidently trademarked at some point over the past 20 years.

The ironies, hypocrisies and questions raised by this story are numerous, including:

* Fairey was originally sued by the WWF (now WWE) for his copyright-infringing Andre the Giant images in the first place. But who really "owns" an image? And if that image is of a person, doesn't that person have the final say over where his or her image is allowed to be used?

* Fairey has been under fire from the Associated Press, who claim his Obama "HOPE" image is a blatant infringement on a photo they own the rights to. Fairey's response is that the "HOPE" poster is a derivative work, which means he has the right to use the original image as a basis for something new. If that's his defense against the AP, why wouldn't it also apply in Steelerbaby's case?

* Larkin has yet to be sued by the Pittsburgh Steelers (or the Kewpie doll company), either of which would probably have a much better reason for doing so than a corporation founded by a fellow "street artist."

* Can you realistically trademark a commonly used word?

* At what point does an artist cease to be "street" and transition to becoming "corporate"? (Is it when your work is installed in The National Portrait Gallery? Or is it when you countersue the AP?)

* Am I the only person who thinks now is a great time to push for wider adoption of Creative Commons licenses, as opposed to copyrights and trademarks?

What do YOU think? (Because we already know what Gawker and Steelerbaby think...)

UPDATE (March 23, 2009): It seems Shepard Fairey dropped the lawsuit against Steelerbaby.

10 Things People Don't Seem to Get About the Watchmen

2009-03-09T12:30:00.000-05:00

As a devoted fan of the graphic novel, I'll admit that I approached Zack Snyder's Watchmen adaptation with some serious doubts. I didn't think anyone could pack the full breadth of the story Time magazine has called one of the 100 Best Novels into a linear theatrical experience.

I was (mostly) wrong. Snyder's film is slavishly reverential to the book -- sometimes debillitatingly so -- but no one can say that Snyder didn't get it right. Of course, in this case, "it" means "translating the comic to the big screen, panel-for-panel," which is part of the reason why it's seeing so many negative reviews from people who've never read the book.

And thus, in the interest of being an apologist for the entire Watchmen experience, I bring you 10 Things People Don't Seem to Get About the Watchmen:

1. This isn't a film, it's an homage. Snyder knew this movie would be violently dissected by legions of rabid fanboys who consider Watchmen to be an untouchable, unadaptable work that legitimizes the entire genre of sequential art. So instead of applying his own vision to the project, Snyder realized that his only recourse was to literally translate the comic book directly to the big screen, panel by panel.

As such, there's very little negative commentary that any fan of the book can level at this film, because what does AND doesn't work on the screen has been lifted almost completely from the comic itself. To criticize the film is, fundamentally, to criticize the book -- or, more awkwardly, to criticize the fanboys themselves, who may now be realizing that the book needed to be given a life of its own if it was expected to stand alone as a film.

Which, of course, it wasn't. The Snyder version will be remembered as a near-literal translation from page to screen. Whatever version comes next, 20 or 30 years from now, will finally be able to depart drastically from the strictures of the book because now everyone knows what the thing would look like on the big screen, and the bigger question will be, "What could it look like?"

2. The film was destined to be a commercial failure. There's no way to adapt Watchmen to the big screen without spending obscene amounts of money. And there's no way to recoup that cost without promoting the film to look like an action-packed blockbuster, so unassuming audiences will flood the multiplex. But the book is really a drama / mystery, so populist audiences are bound to be disappointed, because...

3. Watchmen is not a superhero movie. Nearly every criticism I've heard of the movie is that it was boring. Considering that Watchmen is a story of life, love, death, politics, time, reality, sanity, physics, fantasy, sex, violence and the meaning of life, it's safe to say that the people who bought into the stereotypical rhythm of the trailer a) didn't bother reading the book, and b) were grossly disappointed to not see a 3-hour action sequence.

4. The wooden dialogue was never meant to be spoken aloud. Snyder decided to stick with the actual dialogue from the book at nearly every turn, and that's a mistake. What's written in a word balloon is written for the eyes, not the ears. If the dialogue sounded stilted -- or, worse, if the emotional impact of the statements was blunted by their hitchy delivery -- that's because it only worked on the page.

5. Watchmen is rated R. "R" means Restricted -- in this case, due to violence, nudity, sex, language and adult themes. People who complain that Watchmen isn't a "safe" popcorn movie that they could take their kids to clearly weren't paying attention to the whole ad. (And people who lament that this kind of sex and violence undermines the story miss the point that this is the point.)

6. Watchmen is political. So much so, in fact, that whole political diatribes are being written about it. But it isn't specifically conservative or liberal, because every character operates according to his or her own morality and personally-defined ethics. EVERY aspect of modern society (and politics) is coldly evaluated throughout the course of the film, and the final interpretation is up to each member of the audience.

7. Alan Moore is not God. His fans may say he is, and Moore himself may believe he is, but the truth is, Moore is just a very good writer in a genre without many talented peers, so he towers above the rest. This overinflates his ego to the point of absurdity, and makes him do silly things like condemning any adaptation of his work as an atrocity. Watchmen may the be Sistine Chapel of comic books, but the greater implication here is that there are so few Notre Dames to challenge it, which allows Moore the architect to get away with petulant murder.

8. Watchmen was published in 1986. Since then, a quarter-century has passed, in which time most of what was genre-shattering about Watchmen at the time has now been assimilated into pop culture. The concepts of superheroes as "real people," traitors operating under noble pretenses, hyper-violence as an art form and anti-heroes as protagonists have become the norm in pop culture, rather than the breaths of fresh air they were when Moore first introduced them to the comics world. Even the idea of pop music lyrics riding shotgun within a comic page was revolutionary then; now, using those same songs in a soundtrack gets it labeled obnoxious. In order to fully appreciate Watchmen, it has to be viewed within the context of its own influence.

9. It's not all about the big blue penis. Let the record show that when you hand an American audience a story about philosophy, psychology, politics and personal responsibility, all they'll be able to talk about is the big blue penis. (So maybe the world still isn't ready for a Watchmen movie...)

10. No, there will not be a sequel.

Responsibility Is for Suckers

2009-03-06T00:14:00.005-05:00

I have a dog, but I don't have a backyard. Thus, I walk my dog several times a day. So do dozens of my neighbors -- but evidently not all of them carry poop bags, because the neighborhood is becoming increasingly poop-filled.

This makes me wonder about the mentality of people who think it's okay to let their dogs poop on someone else's lawn, or in the middle of the sidewalk, and just leave it there. Clearly, these are not people who buy into the concept of cleaning up after themselves, or being "good citizens," or respecting anyone else's property.

These are the people who've figured out one of life's little secrets: personal responsibility is for suckers.

Why We Reward Mediocrity, Miscreants and Motherf*ckers

Despite what all 78 variations of Law & Order would have us believe, it's actually quite hard to get caught doing something wrong, and it's even harder to get punished for it. The reasons for this include:

* Evildoers tend to be smart, highly-motivated or both
* There's not enough time to right every wrong
* Justice suffers from scalability, and
* Most people just don't care

At the end of the day, after we're done bickering about which heinous offenses are worth our time and effort to punish and remedy, the fact remains that most wrongs will never be righted because, quite simply, there are too many of them to act upon. How can we care about child soldiers in Uganda, corruption in our government AND poop on our sidewalks?

So the mediocre, the miscreants and the motherfuckers tend to get away with murder. Not because we condone it, but because we simply lack the Batman-like vigilance it would require to take each and every one of them down AND STILL HAVE TIME to enjoy the positives in life (if we could even appreciate them after a marathon of righteous ass-kicking).

Plus, practically speaking, what's anyone going to *do* about it? Nothing. If someone else's dog (or child) shits in your yard, you have to deal with it. Unless you know who it was, but even then, what are you going to do? Demand that they clean it up? How? With what? And where's your leverage in that argument?

Evildoers know that justice may be on your side, but our universal avoidance of conflict is on theirs.

If You Can't Beat 'Em...

Last week, someone broke glass all along the sidewalk. The glass is green -- maybe a car window? -- and, initially, was confined to an area between two houses. The problem: one of those houses is for sale, and the other is occupied by people who don't care. So that glass has been sitting there for about 10 days, unattended, scattering itself across the full width of the sidewalk over time. It's reached the point where I have to pick Rufus up when I walk him down that block, because the odds of him stepping in glass are too great for me to risk it.

I know what you're thinking: if the glass bothers me so much, why don't I clean it up?

Because if I stopped to clean up someone else's mess on the street, where do I draw the line? Do I start cleaning up messes in other people's yards, too? Do I carry a broom, shovel, dustpan and gun with me everywhere I go, "just in case"? (Okay, maybe that's overkill; I don't really *need* the shovel...)

All of which means I'm just part of the problem. The person who broke the glass didn't clean it up, the people who live beside the broken glass won't clean it up, and now neither will I.

And why should I? Responsibility is for suckers.

Photo by What What.

Stop Telling Me I'm Amazing. I Know.

2009-03-04T06:59:00.001-05:00

When was the last time someone came up to you and launched into a glowing report on how smart / talented / wonderful you are, and you preemptively cut them off with two words:

"I know."

I'm pretty sure your answer is "never," because doing so is considered rude, ungrateful, egotistical or any other personality trait we apply to celebrities who've lost touch with "who they are" and "where they come from." (Evidently, remembering "where you come from" implies that you should never admit that you aren't there anymore.)

Instead, conventional wisdom mandates that such exchanges must always proceed as follows:

Fan: "You're amazing!"

Hero: "Shucks. No I'm not..."

Fan: "Yes you SO are! And here's why!" [produces voluminous list of rationales]

Hero: "Well, if you say so..." [smiles sheepishly and stares at his own $4,000 shoes]

Such interactions imply that having enough confidence in your own work that you don't need to pretend to be validated by the words of others is somehow a character flaw.

But why?

Because the fan must also feel validated by the hero.

The Inverse Value Proposition of Being a Fan

In the eyes of the fan, the hero already appears to have everything. The hero is getting paid to do something that the fan considers to be a dream job, and by definition, having a dream job means that the possessor of said job would naturally be forever thankful. (After all, if the fan were in his hero's shoes, he'd be thankful.)

Conversely, if the hero no longer appears to be thankful for external validation, that means the hero has "changed," and it now becomes the job of the "fan" to instead tell the hero that he sucks. This is because the fan must feel as though his outreach to the hero is justified by imparting information on him that the hero would never otherwise know (or at least admit to).

All of which means that the rules of modern interaction were obviously written by fans who made the mistake of approaching too many heroes who were confident enough in their own abilities to not realize they needed "others" to validate them. (This makes sense, because their heroes were too busy doing heroic things to bother deciding how they should feel about them; that job fell to the fans, who had a lot of free time on their hands.)

I'd Like to Forget All the Little People

The bizarre lesson being taught here is that being confident enough in our own abilities to not constantly require external validation is somehow wrong. It's not. Not that you'd know that from the hyper-self-fascinated world of social media, where every view / follower / comment is analyzed to ensure maximum validation for the recipient, but it's true:

It's okay to be confident in yourself.

You don't have to be a douche about it, but you're certainly welcome to admit to yourself -- and, yes, to others -- that you are good at what you do, that you do stand out from the crowd and that you really did expect to succeed all along.

And if you're so good that you can be a douche about it and still remain at the top of your game, let's be honest: there's only so much time in the day, and sometimes douchebaggery is the finer part of brevity. So accept the obligatory applause, walk away, and get back to being a hero.

Because if you're good enough at being a hero, the fans will write your legend for you... whether you want them to or not.

Image by Our Hero.

How Long Is Your Internet Celebrity Shelf Life?

2009-03-03T00:38:00.008-05:00

Remember last year's video for Weezer's "Pork and Beans"? It was filled with all the YouTube stars of the moment.

How many of them are still recognizable today?

Internet fame is fleeting. People become disproportionately famous for (usually) doing something novel or unusual, once. And then they attempt to turn that one-time novelty into a brand. And then they try to get paid for it.

Some Schticks Last Longer than Others

Gary Vee has been successful both promotionally and financially with his Wine Library TV webcast, a gig that's grown beyond the confines of the internet and gotten him invited on The Conan O'Brien Show. Gary's content is primarily information-based, which means it's built to last over time instead of flaming out when he can't think of a better punchline.

In order for Gary to start losing traction, he'd need to be outperformed by a competitor who offers:

* more compelling information
* higher-quality content
* better ease of access, or
* a more widely-embraceable personality

And even if that were to happen, Gary still has one more ace in the hole: he was first. Some fans won't ever migrate away from the pioneer, even if the competition is stronger, because legacy occasionally trumps legitimacy.

How to Avoid Rickrolling Yourself

If you're planning on becoming "internet famous," make sure you're extraordinarily:

* informative (particularly within a scalable niche)
* entertaining (at least to a dedicated audience)
* engaging (because nothing replaces authenticity)
* original (and unlikely to be duplicated)
* available (everywhere), or
* first

Unless you're one of those things, odds are, you'll never become the kind of celebrity whose exploits titillate the rabid throngs. Instead, you might be relegated to the island of one-hit web wonders, where the real estate is cheap and the skyscrapers stretch forever upward...

Social Media + Job Hunting (1 of 3): Defending Your Online Reputation

2009-02-26T12:15:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, I spoke at The Art Institute of Pittsburgh (my alma mater) about the ups and downs of managing your online reputation in this era of Internet job searches.

Also speaking with me was Norm Huelsman (Assistant Director of PR at AIP), who discussed the importance of converting online networking into offline relationships, and why you need to own your work (and your brand).

Tony Corasaniti (VP/Director of Career Services at AIP) spoke third in the lineup -- I'll get his video up soon.

(Note: there are very few visuals in these presentations, so you may be better served by listening to them.)

If you'd like me to speak about social media at your event, you can contact me on LinkedIn or Twitter.

All Politicians Are Marketers

2009-02-25T07:54:00.000-05:00

All politicians lie. Some lie more than others, but none of them tell the truth all the time.

Neither do marketers.

The difference is, the rhetoric of politicians is designed to motivate the people who already agree with them, while the rhetoric of marketers is designed to create awareness of a product in the minds of people who may not be consciously aware that the product even exists.

Thus, the content of the words is largely useless, but the way those words are delivered says a lot about what the speaker thinks of us, and what we think of ourselves. So if we can momentarily agree to ignore the content of political speeches (and marketing campaigns) themselves, what we're left with is our emotional response to the rhetoric.

Are we inspired and energized by the words we hear, or do they talk down to us and insult our sensibilities? Do we want to be uplifted, or would we prefer to be reassured that someone else knows best?

Politicians and marketers are each betting that their words can make you do something you wouldn't do otherwise -- cast a vote, buy a product, take an action. You almost never need to do what they're asking you to do, but their words make you think that you should. The trick is to figure out whether you want to do what they're asking of you, or whether you feel you ought to.

The most successful marketers are the ones who can sell us back to ourselves.

Image by r. e. wolf.

The Brogan Effect 2: Electric Boogaloo

2009-02-24T07:59:00.000-05:00

Last week, I mentioned that a retweet from Chris Brogan had resulted in 21 times my normal daily blog traffic. When I mentioned this, a commenter asked what effect my blog post about "The Brogan Effect" would have on my traffic that day.

As it turns out, a lot.

Once again, according to Lijit, my daily traffic (which normally hovers around 30 visits, or so Lijit tells me) jumped to 563 visits on the day I posted "The Brogan Effect." That's about 18x my normal traffic, or just a hair off from the previous instance. (And, yes, Chris Brogan retweeted *that* day's post too, so the same effect still applies.)

As I mentioned before, Chris isn't the only person who drives traffic to my blog, nor does that traffic always stick around after his initial "must-read" suggestion has been heeded. (In fact, last week, my traffic steadily declined each day after the initial Brogan bump.) But it's becoming clear to me that one way to generate a large amount of daily traffic is to either:

* write a post that the influencers (like Brogan, whose word is trusted among his readers) enjoy and recommend, or

* write about the influencers themselves, because their sheer association with a blog post is somehow magnetic.

This leads me to two larger observations about the future of blogs and media:

* In this new millennium, as Gary Vee implores, anyone can become a content creator, but that's still not enough to topple the existing media congolmerates. However, being a trusted thought leader of thousands *could* be enough, because that kind of clout leverages both the distribution AND marketing power of those corporations into smaller, individualized channels that prompt direct action. (Lucky for you, I've assembled 10 ways to become a thought leader.)

* If writing about the influencers is the best way to aggregate an audience -- at least for a day at a time -- does this mean we'll all be reading (and writing) a lot fewer posts about original concepts and a lot more posts about what other people are already doing? I know none of my posts that involve critical analysis of a subject generate anywhere near the amount of feedback as the sound bite-friendly, personality-driven ones do -- probably because the web isn't designed for analysis, but snapshots of distraction.

All of which means I should probably find a way to work the word "Brogan" into everything I write from now on, just to make sure my bills get paid on time... and so should you.

Image by Randy Stewart.

We Need More Trolls

2009-02-23T06:59:00.000-05:00

Here's a paradox: most web services don't reach their full financial potential until they've attracted users who don't even appreciate the service in the first place.

Consider Facebook: sure, it was all the rage among the social media set a few years ago. But it couldn't be taken seriously by the mainstream until the people it was never intended for decided that they needed to use it. So, paradoxically, the service that was initially designed as an exclusive connection service for college students can only be considered to have "arrived" now that your grandmother can use it to stalk you.

This method of "acceptance" (and, therefore, acceptable financial risk for investors) is not limited to the web. If you've studied film history, you know there was a time before Star Wars, The Godfather and Jaws, in which a film was considered "a success" if it made more than $30 million and / or garnered a few awards. Now King Kong can become one of the biggest-grossing movies of the year and still be considered a financial flop. Expectations for mainstream success state that a film is only "a hit" if people who have no reason seeing it in the first place are somehow motivated to do so -- and budgets are based upon *those* projections, not the more realistic concept of actually attracting your intended audience.

This translates directly to YouTube, where numbers are all that matters. And no video that's garnered more than 60,000 views has done so without attracting both "the choir" (who simply parrot the video's merits in the comments) and "the trolls" (who believe everything is worthless). Only then can someone say their YouTube video was "a success."

One of the many ironies inherent in this arrangement is that a service, tool or medium can only succeed if the rule-breakers, innovators and trend-setters adopt it early enough to make it interesting -- and then that interest must be borne out by attracting the bulk of society, who couldn't care less about the original reason the service, tool or medium was invented in the first place. Only then, once the original intent has been polluted, the initial audience driven away and whatever magic made the experience remarkable in the first place has finally been expunged, can the world at large finally admit that the entire venture has been a worthwhile success.

By that rationale, anyone with a new business idea should find the shortest distance between themselves and the mass attraction of trolls. Because, ugly and destructive as they may be, trolls are also a harbinger of something else: an IPO.

Image by flisspix.

The Comments Ate My Baby

2009-02-19T07:50:00.000-05:00

Some blog posts elicit more comments than others, and when the occasional "hot button" post (or anything on Scobleizer) attracts massive amounts of comments, it gets me thinking...

How many comments is TOO many?

As a Blog Writer...

... I would say "there's no such thing as too many comments," because the more people take the time to respond to something I've made, the more I know I've connected with my audience. (Minus all those people who post comments that add zero value to the conversation and simply act as a free ad for their own URL).

I also enjoy hearing people's differing opinions, or seeing them make additional suggestions that are relevant to the topic at hand. One author can't nail a topic from every angle, so it's great when interested commenters can add depth and breadth to the conversation.

As a Blog Reader...

... I rarely read beyond the first 10 comments on a given post, because so much of it is either empty congratulations or a stock battalion of "yes, but" arguments.

That said, when a topic DOES spur a healthy (or heated) debate, I'll read much further down the comment stream, usually until the sentiments begin rapidly duplicating themselves.

And, as a Commenter...

... I'm more likely to leave a comment on a post if I'm either among the first responders to that post (and, thus, more likely to have my comment read by others) *OR* if I have something to add that I believe is both valid and as-yet unsaid by anyone who's commented before me.

In my opinion, there's no sense in adding yet another voice to a string of comments unless that voice extends the conversation beyond its existing borders. Which is ironic, because as a blog author, I don't mind redundancy in the comment stream; when I'm in that role, every comment carries with it the added value of validation.

So, how do YOU handle (or leave) comments?

Image by lammy.

Even Prostitutes Get Paid

2009-02-18T07:59:00.000-05:00

Last week, Gary Vaynerchuk told the audience at SocComm that FOX, CNN, The New York Times, etc., were all "dead" because any one of us can use the internet to become a media mogul tomorrow, without anyone's help.

I disagree.

Not because I think FOX, etc., are thriving right now, but because I don't believe the problem is a matter of content control. It's a matter of distribution and awareness, and those are two areas where the multinational corporations have such a head start over the little guy that it isn't funny. (And I won't even get into the trust gap between well-funded, well-researched news sources and a guy with a blog in the middle of nowhere.)

So what's an independent media creator to do?

For starters, here's one way social media can start to level the playing field between "us" and "them":

Stop Putting Your Videos Everywhere That Videos Can Possibly Go

Quick - where's the best place to find web video? YouTube? Veoh? Blip? Vimeo? Viddler? No matter your answer, you're still right, and here's why: because they all show the exact same thing.

Imagine if traditional TV were to suddenly adopt that model, in which you could watch CSI: Miami on any channel, at any time of the day, in multiple formats and resolutions. Well, that's great... but why would we need 500+ channels?

We wouldn't. And we don't need 50+ video distribution channels, which continually pollute the already-impossible-to-navigate web video world with ever-more duplicated content.

Divided, We Stand

TV stays alive because each channel has a stable of shows that can't be seen anywhere else (until they hit syndication). Web TV hasn't made that connection yet because it doesn't believe in its own quality or validity. It's so desperate to be seen, it's willing to give itself away for free across dozens of websites, and then it complains privately that it isn't making any money or being taken seriously.

Here's a hint: if people can get you for free anytime, any place, they'll never consider paying for you at your own convenience.

Someday in the very near future, Blip TV (or one of their competitors) will step up and tell their top 20 shows, "Hey, here's some money. Keep producing one new show a week for the next year -- and DON'T cross-post anyplace else (besides your own homepage) -- and we'll take care of the rest." Then we'll finally see Web TV reach a valid adolescence, where audiences will pay for ease of reliable access to quality content, and show creators will begin to earn what they're worth.

Until then, if you want to see quality web video, just spin the Google bottle because the kisses are all the same -- free, wet and desperate.

Image by slowburn.

The Brogan Effect

2009-02-17T07:59:00.001-05:00

Last week, I witnessed the direct impact of a referral from Chris Brogan on my blog traffic, and I thought it was significant enough to share.

After having not blogged since December, I finally got back in the blogging habit last week. One of those posts, about the reasons people don't talk to each other at social events, grabbed a lot of attention on Twitter -- and the bulk of that attention was driven by a single re-tweet from Brogan:

My friend @justinkownacki doesn't want to meet you - http://is.gd/jihd

True to the form of a verified thought leader, Brogan's acolytes ignored his warning and swarmed my blog in huge numbers. (Huge for me, anyway.)

By the Numbers

* According to Lijit, my normal weekday traffic (as measured by their service) hovers somewhere between 30 and 40 hits per day.

* On Thursday of last week -- the day of the blog post mentioned by Brogan -- my traffic jumped to 769 views. (That's 21 times my normal traffic.)

* I have over 2,000 followers on Twitter; Chris Brogan has over 40,000 followers. That means Chris has approximately 20 times the reach I have on Twitter.

* That one retweet by Chris of my initial blog post announcement was then retweeted at least 6 times by Chris Brogan's followers.

* My Friday traffic also jumped to 224 views, which is 7 times my normal traffic.

* I gained over 100 Twitters followers on the day that blog post hit; most of whom were already following Chris, but not me.

Admittedly, Some Other Things to Keep in Mind...

* The blog post itself was titled "I Don't Want to Meet You." It doesn't take Copyblogger to tell you that contentious blog titles often elicit clicks and rewteets.

* In point of fact, my own mentions of this post on Twitter were retweeted at least 7 times all by themselves.

* Influence is disparate. Fellow Twitterer Lily Hill also drove new traffic here, with her followers retweeting her mention of my post another 2 or 3 times.

* Despite the influx of new readers (and commenters), my RSS subscriptions only jumped by 6 people.

So What's It All Mean?

* It's currently impossible to track EXACTLY how much traffic was driven by any one of the mentions of my blog post on Twitter, so all traffic estimates are just that -- educated guesses.

* It's often hard to tell which retweets come from where, since people often paraphrase the original in order to fit within the 140 characters while also hopefully giving proper attribution to where they found it.

* Either most blog readers still aren't using RSS subscription tools, or the new readers who came here via Chris and Lily decided that the *rest* of my blog output wasn't worth subscribing to.

And, of course, the one undeniable truth:

* In the aftermath of a huge awareness spike, I now feel the need to be INCREDIBLY RELEVANT to anyone who stumbled across my blog and now expects pearls of Brogan-approved wisdom on a daily basis.

Or, as Randy (one of Brogan's followers) put it:

Glad @ChrisBrogan yelled it out, he's rarely wrong, if ever

So if I think *I* have pressure meeting people's expectations, something tells me Chris's followers' expectations for *him* are almost Neo-like. (Somehow, I doubt that makes either of us sleep any easier at night.)

Photo by m0xie.

They'll Never Know Who You Are Unless You Break Into Their Homes

2009-02-13T06:50:00.000-05:00

After the conversational stir caused by yesterday's blog post, I'm happy to report that there was a healthy intermixing of complete strangers at last night's Pittsburgh Twestival. (Congratulations to Holly Maust and Mandy McFadden for organizing a great event, and special thanks to Derrick Brashear for manhandling the A/V duties like a man possessed [by his own techxpertise].)

And yet, at least one person mentioned that he hadn't even heard of the Twestival until yesterday morning. (In fact, he'd just heard of the worldwide event at 5 AM, and he said to himself, "There's no way Pittsburgh would be involved in this." And then he scrolled down the list of participating cities and was amazed to discover he was wrong.)

To me, the bigger question isn't "why would one automatically presume that Pittsburgh wouldn't be involved in such a thing," but, "why wouldn't someone have heard about a fairly major event until the morning of?"

I'm pretty sure the answer has to do with closed loops.

I Can't Hear You Because I Won't Stop Talking

Because Holly and Mandy travel in a slightly different social media crowd than I (and the rest of the PodCamp Pittsburgh organizers) do, each group doesn't always hear about the events that the other group is involved with. That's because all the chatter about these events tends to be confined to our existing Twitter / blog / podcast / social network loops -- which means we'll talk about them endlessly to ourselves, but the information will be lost to anyone who isn't already tracking those channels.

The long-standing knock on social media is that we're a giant fishbowl of geeks who talk endlessly about ourselves to each other. Based upon the disconnected subdivisions I'm discovering among the Pittsburgh social media crowd, I think it's likely that every city has its own disparate groups who are caught in their own feedback loops, which means we're actually all a bunch of even SMALLER fishbowls stacked inside the same dunk tank.

So how do we break out?

By breaking in.

You be Me for Awhile, and I'll Be You

Sure, we're all swimming in our own fishbowls, but SO IS EVERYONE ELSE. And for every person who knows what Twitter is, there are a thousand (at least) who don't, which means THOSE people are getting their information from other sources. And guess what: they don't think they're missing anything, because if something's important enough, they presume it's already found a way onto their radar.

So get on their radar.

To do this, you'll have to step outside your comfort zone and step into theirs. Everyone has a different information-gathering routine, and you need to figure out what everyone else is doing when they're NOT engaging you (because, right now, they aren't -- so spending more time getting the word out through your existing channels is just polishing the same fishbowl).

You may have to traffic your message in unfamiliar territory. You may have to explain things that you currently take for granted. You may even have to engage different TYPES of media, because not everyone is on Twitter, or Facebook, or even the internet. But they're all somewhere, and they're all reading something, or watching something, or listening to something else. And that something probably isn't you.

But it could be.

(Image by samatt.)

I Don't Want to Meet You

2009-02-12T07:37:00.000-05:00

I had a great time at yesterday's Open Coffee Club, where investors, entrepreneurs and wild cards (like myself) came together at AlphaLab for some quality face time. The catch? Although I met 3 or 4 new and interesting people, I spent most of the event talking to folks I already know.

Why do we do this?

Why do so many of us attend "face to face" events and then spend the bulk of the event talking to the same people we knew yesterday? Isn't the entire point of a social event to meet people you wouldn't otherwise have the opportunity to talk with?

And yet, when faced with the prospect of cold-contacting a complete stranger -- even at an event where everyone allegedly has multiple overlapping interests and is ostensibly there PRECISELY to make new contacts -- most of us who don't already have an elevator pitch burning up our tongues opt for the woobie of familiarity.

I think the reason why is 3-fold:

* The known payoff from talking with a friend is preferable to the unknown outcome of talking with a complete stranger. Especially at an event where you're not sure what everyone's area of expertise is, and you're afraid you won't be able to extricate yourself from a conversation with someone who offers no direct value (in your opinion).

* We have no idea what our true value is. So instead of trying to explain why we think we're valid to a complete stranger (who, we presume, is automatically judging us and comparing our net conversational worth against that of everyone else in the room), we'd rather talk with people whom we already know appreciate us in some capacity.

* We have no game plan. Sure, the concept of being surrounded by "interesting people" is alluring, but once we're in the situation, we immediately presume that everyone else who's there has a much more specific agenda. If WE don't, we wouldn't want to waste anyone's time (or our own), so we aim for the low-hanging fruit of familiarity instead.

All of this usually results in small clumps of conversations among people who obviously already know each other OR, in a variant, people of a similar age / gender / dress code, who gravitate together because they imagine that they must have something in common. And if you've come to such an event alone and aren't wearing a popularized "uniform," you're probably floating along the fringes, eating the free food and conspicuously pretending to check your text messages, so no one knows you're privately terrified of making contact.

If so, here are 5 tips for breaking up the monotony at your next "live" event:

* Pre-set one goal. Maybe you want to meet one prospective collaborator. Or bounce a vague idea off 5 people. Or collect 20 business cards. As long as you have a concrete goal, you can focus on accomplishing that first, and then any chatting among your friends won't feel so guilty.

* Talk to the loner. Immediately beeline for the nearest person who appears to be floating adrift and engage them directly. As you've probably noticed, small groups tend to be where the loners will eventually wash up anyway, so you might as well cut out the middleman and form your own small group right from the get-go.

* Bring people together. Chris Brogan is the master at this, usually because he's swamped with conversations and needs an elegant escape clause. Following his method, start by engaging someone you DON'T know. Find out their story, in a nutshell. Then rope in your nearest friend by asking the new person, "Have you met my friend [NAME] yet?" and physically deposit them in a conversation. This allows you to then step away without leaving the new person alone, which is probably how you found them.

* Make a scene. This is where talking with your friends actually comes in handy. Once a pack of you are talking about something, get contentious / absurd / offensive / funny, and raise your voices. Move around. Draw attention to yourselves. Because nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd -- especially one where a wallflower can expect to linger and observe without being drawn into the fray because the fray seems self-contained. But here's the catch: once you've attracted some spectators, then draw them directly into the spectacle. Ask them a question, use them as an accomplice in a recreation -- whatever it takes to incidentally break the ice and help them feel like they're now a part of the fray. (Because they are.)

* Refuse to leave until you're out of business cards. This means you're forcing yourself to meet new people until there are none left. It also means you probably want to arrive with fewer than 500 cards in your pocket, or you'll be making friends with the caterers and janitors, too. (Which, depending on your pre-set goals, may not be such a bad idea after all...)

NOTE: Dropping the cards in a stack near the coffee cups doesn't qualify as dispensing them. Man up, people.

This image of Woycheck trying unsuccessfully to frighten Jim Russell into fleeing was taken at a previous AlphaLab event by Michael Fulk.

10 Things I Learned at SocComm

2009-02-11T01:33:00.003-05:00

I spent yesterday driving to and from New York City to attend the first Social Communications Summit, a meeting of the new media minds organized by Jeff Pulver. Amid the flurry of driving, schmoozing and driving again, I gleaned a few bits of wisdom. Here, in no particular order, are ten of them:

* Social media has become a haven for people who like to talk loudly, and at length, about what they think they know.

* When it's barely 10 AM and the audience Q&A has already forced one speaker to restate the scientific definition of "reality," I become acutely aware that the buffet table is only offering decaf.

* We need new demonstrable criteria for what defines anyone as an "expert" in any field -- especially something as subjective as communications.

* I disagree with part of Gary Vee's assertion that "FOX is dead. The New York Times, CNN, all of them: dead." Most people seem to confuse the distribution mechanisms, the content and the companies. The physicality of the daily newspaper is in decline, but the New York Times is not dead; people still require information. The Times (and every other news / entertainment company) has the resources, reach and ability to place that information in the possession of those who desire it, for a price. The way it reaches them may change, but by no means does a shift in the distribution mechanism mean that a whole company or medium is "dead;" nor does it mean that the power has shifted to the content creators, who still -- like it or not -- require some variation of a trusted "gatekeeper" to ensure that their content is seen by the maximum number of people. (Although, I will concede that it's possible to now include "yourself" in that list of gatekeepers who are keeping your work from being seen.)

* Privacy and property law are going to be HUGE issues for these media in the coming years; Pulver's right to be training everyone's attention on the policy discussions surrounding what we can and can't do (yet / now / for a little while longer).

* Lots of rhetoric from 2005 (i.e., mass media is dead, each of us can become a mogul, etc.) still being tossed around, but the core issues (money, innovation, proliferation) still involve much grasping and posturing, and few verifiable answers.

* It's quite awkward to watch the people who hover around Chris Brogan, Jeff Pulver or Gary Vee, waiting for the opportunity to introduce themselves and slip immediately into "the pitch." These three get immense pleasure from having the power to connect people, bring disparate personalities together, and generally act as "hubs" for disruptive thinking. And yet, for a medium that's allegedly built around being social, too many people seem to be confusing "social" with "sales."

* That said, I've realized that I don't have it in me to "work the room." I'm more content to chat with a few people, and (ideally) have an enlightening conversation or two, than to make the casual acquaintance of an eventual stack of business cards. Either I haven't distilled my essence into the proper elevator pitch, or I just don't feel the driving need to impress people. (I'll let my razor-sharp wit and rampant douchebaggery do that for me...)

* Amber Naslund = thank god for real people.

* Lots of the top minds in these overlapping fields (mobile technology, content creation, marketing, law, etc.) are saying the same things privately and making the same predictions and proclamations, but using slightly different terminology. Methinks the next shift in fishbowl consciousness is upon us; look for it to trickle down into easily-quoted memes by the end of the year. (Keyword hint: "reputation", not "brand".)

* The staff at the 3LD Art & Technology Center were friendly, helpful and generally seemed to be on the ball about most of the event's logistical needs. However, they -- like most first-time "new media" hosts -- were woefully underprepared, wifi-wise, resulting in lots of people not being able to connect. Oddly enough, instead of forcing attendees to actually pay attention to the presentations, the absence of wifi somehow seemed to destroy everyone's ability to focus. This resulted in a day-long plethora of bite-sized hallway conversations, which may be proof that the social media crowd has now been programmed toward distraction, regardless of availability.

* Driving in New York for the first time? Not as hard as I thought it would be. But driving in New York for the first time and tangling with a duplicitous Google map, unmarked road construction, throngs of pedestrians militantly dedicated to walking slowly and a bladder so full to the point of rupture that I actually contemplated the physics of peeing upward into an empty water bottle while in motion? Slightly more difficult than it should be. (Indeed, you're welcome for my $10 "donation," Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel...)

Thanks to Jeff, 3LD and everyone else involved in organizing and executing the event. I suspect it'll be fuel for a number of conversations over the coming days, and hopefully some of these nagging questions about the future of social media will begin to find their answers -- preferably without the disapproving eye of The Law.

Image by Michael Lewkowitz.

Twitter Is a Mistress Who Demands All My Time

2009-02-09T13:35:00.005-05:00

As you may have noticed, I've not blogged much lately -- but I've been Twittering like a fiend.

Why?

Because Twitter is far more immediate than blogging, requiring far less attention to detail and almost zero long-term commitment; it's the one-night stand of social media communications, while blogging involves trust, semi-permanence and the occasional post-hangover apology.

But as fellow Twitterer (and blogger) Mack Collier mentioned in a recent tweet, there's still a reason or two to blog: comments and perpetuity.

Twitter is great for stream-of-consciousness observations and spur-of the moment conversations, but it provides minimal connectivity or context. Unless you were "there" when that "conversation" took place, you'd never be able to piece the whole story together without painstakingly searching through the timestamped tweets of everyone involved. (I know Plurk does that better, but let's be realistic; no one you know is using Plurk BUT NOT Twitter.)

Blogs allow a coherent (we hope) thought to exist in relative perpetuity, web-wise, and it also allows the comments of all involved to be attached in context, so that something resembling a "whole story" can be easily understood even months or years after the fact. So, obviously, there's SEO-driven and self-legitimizing reasons to blog, and to allow others to comment back to you.

But in this age of 140-character Twitter gratification, is anyone thinking in structured paragraphs anymore? Or have we reprogrammed ourselves to make sweeping statements in the shortest sentences possible? Does the concept of expanded and supported thought wither when everything we know about someone is gleaned from text bites?

I'll be attending the Social Communications Summit in NYC tomorrow; perhaps I'll come home with answers. Meanwhile, look for tweets from the event, and (if it warrants one) a blog post afterward.

(Wise men once claimed that "content" is key, but I wonder if "context" will surpass it...)

Image by ClawzCTR.

Loyalty vs. Community

2008-12-09T12:06:00.004-05:00

I'm a tech slut.

I was just trying to post a link to Twitter that needed to be shortened. In the past, I would have used TinyURL, but since I discovered Tweetburner, I've been reluctant to go back. Tweetburner lets me see how many times a shortened URL link has been clicked, so it's endlessly more useful than the services that *just* shorten links.

But Tweetburner was down.

So I considered crawling back to TinyURL, until I remembered a service called bit.ly, that does the same thing as Tweetburner AND lets me actually see WHERE my clicks are coming from.

Score!

So now I've opened an account on bit.ly, and I'll probably never go back to Tweetburner.

Why? Because bit.ly is better and its URL is shorter.

Thus, I'm a tech slut. I don't stick with the services that work for me; I migrate to the services that are working RIGHT NOW, and I'll stay with them until they break. Then I'll site-hop again.

And yet...

Twitter itself used to break on an hourly basis, and the bulk of its users stuck with it -- me included. This, despite the fact that there were numerous BETTER services out there (Pownce, Jaiku, Plurk, etc.).

Why did we all stay with Twitter when it was unreliable and nearly useless, and yet I'm able to jump ship from Tweetburner without looking back EVEN THOUGH IT'S ONLY GONE DOWN ONCE?

Because Tweetburner isn't a community, it's a service. It's a tool I use privately to improve my public communications.

Twitter *is* a community. The service itself may break all the time (thankfully, it no longer does), but that alone isn't enough to force the bulk of its users to migrate away.

Which makes me wonder...

What's the breaking point at which a community will abandon a service that unites it?

Photo by reallyboring.

PittGirl and the Trouble With Being Anonymous

2008-11-21T15:12:00.006-05:00

As most Pittsburgh bloggers have already noted, veteran 'burgh blogger PittGirl has closed up shop (although she's still Twittering). Easily the most popular blogger in the area, she was also a mystery of sorts, due to her strident anonymity. And, in the end, it appears that a potential compromise of her anonymity is what led to her decision to commit blogging seppuku.

As much as PittGirl's anonymity was the "hook" of her self-created brand, it was her writing style that kept her core fans coming back for more. (After all, a mystery is interesting, but a comedy is eternal.) So it's ironic that her anonymity -- aka the packaging that surrounded her REAL product, her writing -- would be what ends up robbing her fans of the opportunity to enjoy more of what they've come to enjoy.

It's a bit like Reese Cups going off the market because someone told them they had to change their wrappers to green instead of orange; I sincerely doubt the Reese Cup fans would stop eating their favorite candy due to a packaging change any more than PittGirl's readers would have unbookmarked her if they knew her name.

But PittGirl's decision to walk away is less about the foibles of packaging than it is about the cultural problem that led to the packaging conundrum in the first place: the need to be anonymous.

Who... ARE You?

In her case, PittGirl genuinely believed that blogging under her real name might get her fired (or, to speak the parlance, Dooced.) Whether that concern was real or perceived, it was a risk she wasn't willing to take. But why did it have to be a risk in the first place?

Why is society so uptight about what its citizens say?

Why should what YOU, the employee, say or do in public directly affect anyone's perception of your company?

Because everyone is afraid. Of what? Of everyone else? Despite the fact that we no longer have to fight one another for food and shelter, we still live in a constant subconscious fear of what everyone else THINKS of us -- and we all believe that ANY OTHER PERSON could squash our lives just by blinking.

That has to stop.

Who Do You Think You Are, Anyway?

Are we still operating in the perceptual Dark Ages, where we believe that everyone else is as perfect as they claim to be? Does showing a glimpse of humanity, a personal flaw or a whiff of disagreement with the party line automatically brand a person as "dangerous," worthy of being shunned or shown the door?

Why do we give companies the benefit of the doubt, but not the people who WORK in those companies? (And your instincts might lead you to believe that we actually do just the opposite, but if we did, why would people be afraid to post photographs of themselves at a party on their Facebook account for fear that an HR troll would find a reason to fire them as a result?)

Something tells me that PittGirl would have been ENCOURAGED to blog on behalf of her company if all she had to say was glowing and positive. So why does society only want to reward the people who DON'T encourage us to improve upon the status quo? What good is a coal mine without a canary?

And, in the extreme, what is it that any one person could possibly say or do that's SO MUCH WORSE than what any of the rest of us could say or do?

Look around. I guarantee you that everyone sitting near you right now is hiding a secret that they think would make you shun them for life, IF YOU ONLY KNEW.

Guess what, people: if we shunned everyone who had a secret, we'd all be eating alone forever.

So let's each grow some backbone and admit to a very unpleasant truth: that not everyone will like us ALL the time -- including (for various reasons) our employees, friends and families. Get over it. The ones who tell you how wrong you are from time to time are the ones you can trust when they actually tell you you're right.

And as for the anonymous folks out there, whether you're noble or trolls, here's a thought: whatever you have to say is far more resonant when you believe it enough to say it with a straight face -- preferably your own.

How Bad Typography Can Help You Solve Problems

2008-11-14T15:05:00.004-05:00

Last night, I attended my first Refresh Pittsburgh meet-up, held at the local tech startup incubator, AlphaLab. Refresh Pittsburgh is an informal group of designers and programmers, looking both to network and to learn from one another (and their occasional guest speakers). Although I'm not a designer, per se, I *am* a creative type (or so I like to claim), so I enjoy hearing how other creative types solve their problems.

Yesterday's guest speaker was Samantha Warren of Viget, a design firm in Washington DC. (She also blogs here. She gave a kick-ass presentation on bad typography, and how (and why) it can kill your web experience. And then she showed how she would have redesigned one horrible site in particular, taking us step-by-step through both her technical AND her theoretical processes.

What I appreciated most was seeing her decision-making process, and learning HOW and WHY she arrived at the conclusions she did. Sometimes, she realized her initial presumptions or goals were incorrect midway through her process, so she backtracked to redesign her end product. Fellow speakers and presenters of the world, take note: knowing that a speaker can admit to being wrong, and then seeing the steps she took to fix things, made me trust her (and her process) even more.

In the end, the two lessons that stuck in my head most clearly were:

* (Samantha's intentional lesson): Don't let the details (like typography, design or even functionality) drive the project; let the PURPOSE drive the project, and the details will fall into place.

* (Samantha's unintentional lesson): When presenting, always make sure to include the URLs of any interesting sites / services you might mention. If you catch the audience's attention, they'll want to know how to learn more.

Other cool tips and tidbits you may know (but I didn't):

* Ms. Warren considers the 3 pillars of web typography to be: Legibility, Hierarchy and Expression.

* A gent named Jakob Nielsen developed a design concept called the F-Pattern, which (counter-intuitively, if you ask me) seems to make sense.

* Ms. Warren suggests designers evaluate all information on a webpage in terms of order of importance, and then allocate the proper typographical weight and direction of attention as required.

* Use phark or siffr for image replacement -- which, as a non-designer, I can barely even understand, but I suspect some of you know what she's talking about (and it seemed important).

* Texture, texture, texture.

If any of this sounds interesting to you -- or if you suspect you would have learned more by actually attending the meet-up (rather than reading my shoddy secondhand journalism), perhaps I'll see you at the next Refresh Pittsburgh event?

Image by ErokCom.

10 Ways to Become a Thought Leader

2008-11-12T11:54:00.004-05:00

When I was a kid, I wanted to grow up and become an artist, a chef or (in one bout of misplaced humanism) a farmer. Today, kids grow up wanting to be social media rockstars and thought leaders. (And by "kids," I mean "thirty-five year-old desk jockeys," but I digress...)

Why the newfound passion for "thought leadership"? Because in uncertain economies, one thing still counts: influence. You may not have two dimes to rub together, but if you can convince the guy next to you that You Have Ideas, he'll probably buy you a cup of coffee just to hear you out. And that's how people without real jobs can stay alive when the depression comes.

So, without further ado, here are 10 Ways YOU Can Become a Thought Leader:

1. Get It Out There. History is littered with the corpses of people who put off sharing their big ideas because they "weren't ready yet." Do you have an idea? Share it. If it sucks, people will tell you. If it's good, people will steal it. And if it's great, people will tell you it sucks and THEN steal it. (Watch for this; it means you're on to something...)

2. Be Controversial. No one quotes the moderate, and even when they do, no one remembers what he said. If you want to be remembered, be extreme. If you want to be influential, be extreme AND easy to read. No one likes long-winded crackpots.

3. Make It All About You. Human beings have a natural tendency to cast the spotlight off themselves and onto other people, especially when they ask things like "How are you?" and "What do you think?" Be resilient. That spotlight was made for you, and the longer it's cast across your luminescent talents, the longer an opportunity the world will have to bask in the shadow of your genius. Thus, never miss an opportunity to turn any conversation into a time-worn anecdote about A Lesson You Learned (Preferably In Three Acts).

4. Start a Religion. Hey, it worked for L. Ron Hubbard and Jesus.

5. Influence the Influencers. Remember Basquiat? He was forever surrounded by low-level starmakers, but it wasn't until he literally threw himself at Andy Warhol that he got "discovered." Who's the Andy Warhol of your field? Get on that person's radar, and then don't leave -- at least not until you're bigger then he is. (Then run, because he'll probably want something.)

6. Repeat Things. This is a fast-paced world. People often completely ignore the best advice, even when it's right in front of them, because they're distracted. Or skimming. Or both. Don't let them miss out on your gems of wisdom.

7. Be Vague. If you give people a 10-step plan to upright the economy, you're a policy wank. If you tell people that "Savers Are Losers", you're a thought leader. Go with that.

8. Repeat Things. This is a fast-paced world. People often completely ignore the best advice, even when it's right in front of them, because they're distracted. Or skimming. Or both. Don't let them miss out on your gems of wisdom.

9. Be Prolific. It's not enough to have one good idea. Have dozens. Because if you're capable of being a genius once, people will expect you to be a genius in all cases. DO NOT DISAPPOINT THEM.

10. Preach Common Sense. Because life isn't all that hard, when you stop and think about it. In fact, it can be summed up pretty easily: say, think and do the things that make your life, and the lives of those around you, as fulfilling and rewarding as possible. But these days, no one actually has the time to stop and think; they need YOU to do that for them.

And they'll pay you for it.

(Photo by farlyj)

NeighborhoodWalk: Greenfield (Rufus + Trash)

2008-11-11T12:58:00.003-05:00

Today is the date for Neighborhood Walk, an idea that sprouted at PodCamp Pittsburgh 3 by the Rust Belt Bloggers group.

In a nutshell, city dwellers are encouraged to roam their own neighborhoods today and make note of anything interesting. What do people need to know about your neighborhood? What's good? What's bad? What resources, architecture or quirky highlights might the world (or at least Pittsburgh in general) benefit from knowing about?

Having just moved to Greenfield a few months ago, I'm still finding cool new houses all the time as I walk Rufus numerous times each day. But owning a dog has also made me hyper-aware of all the edibles people leave laying around on the sidewalks. So today Rufus and I decided to document our afternoon stroll.

Included in the above photostream: over a dozen candy and fast food wrappers, a shirt, a sock, the box that a child's school ruler came in, flattened packs of cigarettes, and a vandalized mail supply box (just for kicks), all in a 2 block radius. Also: Rufus managed to eat at least 3 sticks and half of a Wendy's wrapper during the taking of these photos.

See other Neighborhood Walks here.

Obama Won't Get You Laid

2008-11-06T12:35:00.006-05:00

Now that the afterglow of an Obama election victory has worn off (because in these days of 24-hour news cycles, no emotion lasts for long), the question is this:

"Now what?"

While most of the world waits breathlessly to see whom Obama appoints to his cabinet, what kind of dog his kids will choose for a new pet and which brand of toilet paper he prefers in his executive suite, I'd like to turn your gaze away from the nonstop media roar and toward your nearest reflective surface and ask, again:

"Now what?"

Barack Obama will do some great things while he's in office. He'll also do some incredibly stupid things. He'll make choices that will endear him to some and piss off others, and he'll be involved in matters and actions both great and small.

But one thing he won't do is get you laid.

Because electing Barack Obama is no longer anyone's passion -- he's already elected. Now what do you do with all of the energy and effort that was catalyzed to help this moment occur? What do you do with all of your passion, your newfound interest in politics and your increased awareness of the needs and wants of the world?

What do YOU do?

Because Barack Obama's a busy man. Sure, he's appreciative of all the work you did on his behalf, and he'll do his best to reward you by governing as fairly as his conscience dictates. But he doesn't have much time to return the favor directly, by helping YOU achieve YOUR next goal -- you know, that one on your to-do list, right below the now-scratched-out entry that says "Get My Free Starbucks."

So...

What do you WANT to do?

What do you NEED to do?

Go do it.

Because history will judge Barack Obama, but history's a long way off. In the meantime, you have bills to pay, relationships to tend to, and your own goals to achieve.

And now, after 2 years of wondering, waiting, hoping and working your ass off to help your candidate get elected, it's time to turn that energy back on your own life and solve your own problems. Overcome your own challenges. Move your own mountains.

Because America's first black president is an amazing story, but you've got a story of your own.

Start living it.

Who Starts a Company During Economic Collapse?

2008-10-29T10:07:00.004-05:00

Yesterday, I attended Demo Day for AlphaLab, a local tech startup incubator here in Pittsburgh (and a sponsor of PodCamp Pittsburgh 3). The six companies they're currently working with will be nudged out the door at the end of the year, so yesterday was their chance to spread their wings (and make their pitch) in front of a roomful of potential investors, advisers and other interested parties.

But will any of their ideas fly?

Web-Wide Ripples of Discontent

Earlier this week, Steve Woolf of Epic FU (formerly JetSetShow) announced that they'll be ending their relationship with (formerly-considered-to-be) rising web video production company Revision 3. Due to international economic calamity, among other factors, Revision 3 is dropping numerous shows from their lineup, including Epic FU and Gary Vee's Wine Library TV -- which is odd, considering they're some of the web's most successful niche shows.

Perhaps their production costs outweigh their current revenue potential, but the long-term implications of this decision seem to be: Revision 3 can't afford to keep incubating emerging web video hits long enough for them to take flight on their own.

So if a company that's supposedly trafficking in The Next Big Thing (aka the web video revolution) can't keep their flagship shows afloat, what does that mean for companies like AlphaLab, who are incubating similarly-positioned, service-driven companies whose business plans hinge upon Web 2.0 metrics?

Building Houses During a Forest Fire

Every new company is fighting an uphill battle during this economic downturn, not to launch or to grow, but merely to validate their own right to exist. New ideas and properties that might have had a few years to experiment and develop an audience won't have that same luxury from investors who will increasingly be looking exclusively for "sure things" -- and if there's one field that's anything but "sure," it's the entire social media spectrum.

Admittedly, the AlphaLab-supported companies I consider to have the most potential -- Chogger and GameHuddle -- seem sexy to me because they're social media-based, and that's the arena I work in. But just because I can see their potential, that doesn't mean investors -- or customers -- will. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that these companies may be the exact right idea at the exact wrong time: concepts that COULD be sticky and even useful, if only their business plans didn't rely on large numbers of niche users having the time to find them, use them and spread the word.

In this economy, time is even less abundant than capital.

So: how can emerging companies -- social media-based or otherwise -- insulate themselves from an uncertain economy? Or, do new companies need to stretch beyond existing patterns of business thought and seize upon new opportunities before those uncharted waters seem too hazardous for anyone to fund?

Screw the Latte; Where Are the Hand Towels?

2008-10-28T14:12:00.003-05:00

I was at a Starbucks last night, overhearing the barista (who may have been an assistant manager) loudly discussing her method for getting into the flow of the workday. She was lamenting the ways customers can then derail her flow when they mention pesky needs like, "Oh, the washroom is out of hand towels." As she explained, when she's in "the zone," the customers need to wipe their hands on their pants and stay out of her way.

But here's what's funny about that: I don't care how well-managed or slickly-operated a cafe appears to be on the front end; if the back end is broken, it ruins my experience. And if you, as a cafe manager, can't be bothered to ensure that your customers have (for example) a pleasant washroom experience, then no amount of effort expended on the front-end facade will make up for the back-end derailment of THEIR "zone."

Generalized moral of the story: are YOU focusing on the right priorities to ensure YOUR audience is having a great experience, or are you mismanaging your time and effort, leaving your customers with shoddy memories and chapped hands?

My Digital Child Is in Kindergarten

2008-10-24T13:18:00.003-05:00

This week, we launched the 6th season of Something to Be Desired, the web's longest-running sitcom.

Since the first episode arrived in September of 2003, that makes the show 5 years old -- which means, if I'd invested all my time, money and effort in procreating (rather than this more ambivalent "creating" thing), my kid would be entering kindergarten... and, like dad, he/she would probably be skinny, sarcastic and prone to conspiracy theories...

We're also converting our site to a WordPress theme as we relaunch, so we have some bugs to work out, plug-ins to add, etc. Which brings up some good questions, like:

What do YOU like to see as part of a web video site?

What would help YOU better understand and enjoy the website / series / experience?

What information would YOU like to see more of?

And, do YOU have any suggestions on great ways to help promote and spread the word about STBD?

If you're a longtime viewer, thanks for sticking with us! And if you're new to STBD, relax: this season is going to be our best yet! (PLUS, it comes with a dog!)

Post-PodCamp Pittsburgh 3: 5 Ways to Gauge an Event's Success

2008-10-20T09:41:00.005-05:00

First off, thanks to everyone who attended PodCamp Pittsburgh 3 this past weekend. Although we haven't tallied the final check-in numbers yet, all practical indications (like perpetually running out of food) point to this being our largest and most well-attended event yet. (Either that, or everyone got a free tapeworm in their swag bags...)

Also, as one of the event's primary organizers, I can never thank my fellow organizers enough. I know how much work went into planning PCPGH3, and even though things never run 100% smoothly at any event -- much less one involving technology -- I'm exceedingly proud of how well things came together this year. Everyone did a great job and I'll be very happy to work with all of you again next year... after we all hibernate for a few months.

However...

After throwing a huge event, I think there's a temptation on the part of the organizers to pat themselves on the back and say, "well done." But when it comes to social media events like PCPGH3, we won't *really* know how well we did at organizing the event until several months from now, because the long-term impact of education-based events like this can't be measured immediately. We have to see what people DO with the information they learned here.

So, in the meantime, here are 5 Ways I'll Be Gauging the Success of PCPGH3:

1. Attendance -- Although we had our largest number ever of pre-registered attendees, we'll need to tally the final head count before we know if our active numbers are actually increasing or remaining stable. The good news is, I didn't recognize about half of this year's attendees, which means we're definitely bringing NEW people in. (Also, weather plays a factor in attendance, so don't judge a summer event straight-up against a winter event, etc.)

2. Press Coverage -- If your event is a success in the eyes of the attendees, they'll talk about it afterward -- in our case, via blogs, Flickr, Twitter, etc. The more we see, the more we'll know that the PCPGH3 experience was share-worthy, and that's always a good thing.

3. Who Follows Up? -- We're holding a smaller, informal gathering on Wednesday, November 19 @ 7 PM at the Firehouse Lounge in the Strip District. Our goal is to support the conversation (and the community) that coalesces every year at PCPGH, but then seems to recede as the months intervene between events. Knowing that people want to keep the discussion (and the activity) alive beyond an annual clip is a good indicator that the ideas they encountered at PCPGH3 have traction.

4. Who Takes Action? -- Since PCPGH is an event designed to help people learn more about creating web media, it follows that we like to see our attendees creating newer, better things all the time. The long-standing content creators here in town won't be fading out anytime soon, but for the dozens of attendees who don't yet blog or podcast, who among them will start experimenting and reaching out for help when they need it?

(One great way to stay involved is to join the newly-created OMGPittsburgh blog, launched for us by Bostonian weekend-expat Chris Brogan live at PCPGH3.)

5. Who (or What) Will Become Next Year's Success Story? -- A year ago, none of our attendees had been a finalist for major web awards like the Bloggies or the Yahoo Video Awards, but this year, that (twice) changed. So did the idea that you can't invent a new word and have the public take notice (bacn, anyone?).

So will someone else take the lessons they learned (and the relationships they built) at PodCamp Pittsburgh 3 and use them to build the next killer app, the next red-hot web series or blog, or even expand their business? If they do, then the concept of PodCamp Pittsburgh as a reliable incubator of game-changing ideas will live on.

How do YOU think we did at PodCamp Pittsburgh 3?

Photo by Locobone, who would have made this available under Creative Commons License if he'd thought about it... ;)

PodCamp Pittsburgh 3: Meet Our VIPs

2008-10-15T01:11:00.016-05:00

Although PodCamp Pittsburgh 3 is a free event, we decided to offer this year's attendees the opportunity to pre-register as VIPs. The perks of being a PCPGH VIP -- in addition to having a lot of abbreviations to throw around -- include some advance notoriety (i.e., a listing here), a swag bag and a free PCPGH3 t-shirt.

Following are the profiles of some of our PCPGH3 VIPs -- namely, the ones who wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to get some extra exposure for themselves and their work. (Those who didn't must only be coming for the free t-shirts...)

PCPGH 3 VIPs (Listed Alphabetically by Last Name)

Aaron Aiken (Twitter)

Aaron is a Web 2.0 junkie who will jump on any bandwagon offering private beta invites. He is passionate about personal finances and happens to write a blog on the subject with his wife, Lindsay. He writes to fulfill his passion and dreams of writing full-time one day. Aaron believes strongly that change can only come if one is willing to grow. His advice (to anyone who does not ask for it): “Track your spending for the next 30 days and get on a budget.”

* Areas of expertise: Writing, creativity, learning, and his Blackberry Curve 8310

* Areas he'd like to learn more about: Podcasting, getting more traffic to our site and developing repeat visits, growing a community, and using social media to raise awareness of our website.

********

Lindsay Aiken

Lindsay is a full-time nanny and part-time college student studying Massage Therapy. When she’s not working, she enjoys writing for her personal finance blog that she maintains with her husband, Aaron. She hopes that their blog will be useful to other people their age, helping to teach them the importance of properly managing their money so they will be prepared for the future.

* Areas of expertise: Writing, creative organization, and frugal living

********

Kathleen Danielson (Twitter)

"I am a college student just learning about social media. I'm eager to learn more about the way information spreads online and how people connect and develop relationships using different tools across the web. I'm studying International Affairs at George Washington University, concentrating in Global Public Health. Hopefully, I'll eventually be able to combine my passion for international affairs with my passion for social media."

* Areas of interest: viral marketing, social networking, human interaction, lolcats, video, blogging, building community, evangelizing web 2.0

********

Megan Engle (Twitter)

Megan is the Social Media Manager at the Michigan Nonprofit Association, and is currently working on revamping the MNA blog. She enjoys exploring new ways to cook vegetarian food, polishing her near-extinct Arabic skills, and figuring out what's going on in the world of social media.

Outside of work, Megan can generally be found walking her chocolate lab Mort, sporting a Kentucky Wildcats t-shirt, thinking about whether she passed the Michigan Bar Exam, and mourning the loss of The Wire, which she thinks may possibly be one of the greatest television shows, ever.

* Areas she'd like to learn more about: blogging, audio (podcasting), video, social networking, and ways for nonprofits to use social media.

********

Shawn Farner (Twitter)

Shawn Farner is a senior at IUP with an unhealthy passion for both social media and community service. After his December graduation, he hopes to work for a web startup or for a business trying to establish a social media presence.

********

Tim Grubb (Twitter)

Tim podcasts with Jen Sadler on Brain Gravy and insists, "We're not alcoholics with a drinking problem, we're Alcohol Enthusiasts with a podcasting problem."

********

Tim Hindes, Pittsburgh Tech Council (Twitter)

In his current position, Tim oversees all aspects of marketing and communications efforts for the Pittsburgh Technology Council -- one of the sponsors of PCPGH3. Tim's job focuses primarily on electronic media and strategic communications. In addition, he was responsible for project management of the Council’s new Web site, dedicated to highlighting membership benefits, member profiles, case studies, new products and added services. Strategic planning, brand development and marketing partnership relations were additional areas of Tim’s responsibility. While at the PTC, he developed other viral marketing media, including social marketing channels, blogs and interactive networking groups. His communication plan helped earn the Council the ASAE Gold Circle Award - Honorable Mention, in 2007, for electronic communications.

Based upon his marketing expertise, Tim also serves on two advisory boards including the Business Administration Advisory Committee for Pittsburgh Technical Institute and the Sales & Marketing Network Advisory Board of the Pittsburgh Technology Council. Tim is a 2000 cum laude graduate of Allegheny College in Meadville, PA, with a bachelor’s degree in Communication Arts and a minor in Society, Art and Science. He currently resides in the South Hills of Pittsburgh, PA.

* Areas of expertise: Marketing, Blogging, Lead Generation, Social Media Strategy

* Areas he'd like to learn more about: Networking, More Blogging, SEO, Podcasting, Business Usage

********

Blake Imeson (Twitter)

Blake is a junior at Grove City College, working on a degree in Entrepreneurship. Blake does part-time SEO and Social Media consulting. Connect with him on LinkedIn.

* Areas of expertise: SEO, Blogging and Social Media

* Areas he'd like to learn more about: He is a huge fan of Wordpress and Firefox.

********

Alan Jakub (Twitter)

Alan is a Web Designer with experience in WordPress, Podcasting -&- Graphic Design He's also online at Dr-T.

********

Julie Morey, ElasticLab (Twitter)

Julie Morey is currently the Chief Creative Officer at ElasticLab -- one of the sponsors of PCPGH3. In 30 years as a designer, art director and brand strategist, Julie’s work for brands like Vehix, AT&T, Quiznos, Nextel, Herman Miller, American Express, Nordica and Public Television has resulted in both dramatic results and creative recognition. With a strong background in commercial production, a mid-career opportunity to lead creative efforts promoting a spirit of ethnic diversity for AT&T, MTV, HBO and TBS has fueled Julie’s love of the social medium. In 2007, she began developing Elastic Lab with a firm belief in the creative future of film and new media. Julie has earned more than 150 awards including the One Show, Communication Arts, Clios, and International Broadcasting Association (IBA).

* Areas of expertise: brand design, film production, advertising

* Areas she'd like to learn more about: music, new technologies, blogging

********

Melody Platz

* Areas of expertise: Travel writing, maintaining multiple blogs and creative writing

* Areas of interest: Humor, History, Eating, Science, Good Friends and Sleeping

********

Walt Ribeiro (Twitter)

Walt Ribeiro's "in your face" teaching style has created an entire community of those interested in music or not. "The Internet's Music Teacher" has consistently created a fleet of dedicated viewers, and shares his lessons, passion, and knowledge of music (and more) everyday. Ribeiro now teaches music lessons full-time online as "Your Daily Music Lesson with Walt" for sites like Revision 3, Ustream.TV, and more.

* Areas of expertise = The Internet's Music Teacher, Social Media marketing, Orchestration

* Areas he'd like to learn more about = Networking, production, distribution, marketing

********

Jen Sadler (Twitter)

Jen is a Podcaster/Freelance Social Media Consultant from Essex, Ontario, Canada. She podcasts at Brain Gravy.

********

Scott Tyler

A beer geek and snob extraordinaire...

********

Come meet these fine folks and hundreds more at PodCamp Pittsburgh 3 on October 18-19!

This Weekend: Pods, Puppets and Smarm

2008-10-15T00:08:00.010-05:00

PodCamp Pittsburgh 3 happens this weekend at The Art Institute of Pittsburgh, and as a primary organizer of the event, I'm excited to meet, teach and learn from fellow social media creators -- as well as people who haven't created anything yet but who are very eager to learn how.

In that vein, PCPGH3 is helping to promote the 10th Annual Black Sheep Puppet Festival that's happening all week here in Pittsburgh. Part of the event involves a live 24-hour "puppet reality" experiment, in which teams of puppeteers are grouped together and given 24 hours to create a full performance -- including making the puppets from scratch. In addition to helping the BSPF set up a wireless connection for their live webcast of the experiment, we're also helping them use Twitter and other services to spread the word.

Plus, I'm launching the sixth (!) season of our web sitcom Something to Be Desired on Monday -- but if you're at PodCamp on Sunday morning, you'll be able to see the first episode of our new season in front of a live audience. Meanwhile, we'll be filming scenes for an upcoming episode of STBD during the Black Sheep Puppet Festival, so look for excerpts from the BSPF on STBD and see them both at PCPGH3.

(And now I'm out of acronyms for the week...)

Broadcasting to an Audience of... None?

2008-10-14T10:44:00.005-05:00

Yesterday, I was invited to speak about Something to Be Desired (the web series I produce) at Point Park University. One of their broadcasting classes likes to invite local media creators to chat with the students during an informal luncheon, and help them understand what "working in the field" is really like. Since they thought STBD was a good example of a web success story, I was happy to share what I know (and admit what I don't).

The students were friendly and inquisitive, and lobbed several tough questions (beyond the obligatory "how do you make money" and "why are you still in Pittsburgh?"). I and STBD actor Will Guffey (Leo) gave them all the information we could, bored them with endless anecdotes about our "process," and did our best to demonstrate that our six year-old web media series is just as viable a communications option as... well, as a paying job...

Interestingly, when I asked the students what web TV shows they currently watch, or what podcasts they listen to, they told us they watch very little -- mostly existing TV shows that they didn't have time to watch during the week. None of them subscribed to any shows, and they didn't download them to watch on a mobile device, either -- even though several of them had video-enabled iPods.

Then one of the students asked if either of us blog, and then she asked why ANYONE would blog, or why anyone would take bloggers seriously. Admittedly, this is not an easily-answered question, especially in light of chicanery like the (false) CNN iReports of Steve Jobs's heart attack. But, more importantly, even asking this question proves that journalism and broadcast students (or their professors) are highly suspicious of "new" media -- and why shouldn't they be?

So... if the future broadcasters of America aren't watching web media... who is?

And... if web media is not being taught as a viable option in most broadcasting classes... why?

(I think I know, and it has to do with "credibility," "economy" and "job security." What are YOUR thoughts?)

Photo by digitalvisions.

An Audience Without A Reason to Care Is Just a Bunch of People That You Have to Clean Up After

2008-10-08T10:21:00.006-05:00

Every three months, downtown Pittsburgh's art galleries unite for a free Friday Night gallery crawl. All the spaces are open to the public, the arts organizations mount new works and performances, and there's free food and drink for everyone who attends.

As you might imagine, people usually show up in droves for these events. And then, afterward, almost none of them come back. (At least, not until the next free event.)

Why?

Because just getting an audience in the door once isn't enough to make them want to come back on their own. You have to make the effort to get their attention, yes, but you also have to dazzle them while they're in your space AND give them a means to stay involved even after they've left.

And all of that requires a lot more effort than just handing them a mailing list.

The Fallacy of Eyeballs

At concerts, all bands love to leave mailing list sign-up sheets around the merch table. Mailing lists are useful, but getting people to admit that they want to hear more about you is only one step toward RETAINING that audience; it has nothing to do with GROWING an audience in the first place.

If all a band did was play four shows a year and then hound their mailing list to buy a CD every week, they'd have the support of very few people. So why would an arts organization -- or YOUR company -- be any different?

Give People Handles

The takeaway is the key. A band sells (or gives away) copies of its CD. Their fans play that CD for other people, and their interest in the band spreads. People start talking about that band and developing an emotional or intellectual alliance with the band's style, content and point of view.

Being a fan of the band becomes an active part of each fan's daily culture, and it becomes a natural act to share their passion for that band with others.

The organizations involved in Pittsburgh's quarterly Gallery Crawls can hand out postcards, fliers and mailing lists all they want, but they're not handing out anything people can actually take away and share. Nobody gives their friend a flier, but they will give them a CD.

So what can artists or organizations provide that would be a "CD equivalent"?

What could someone take away from your business / site that would enable them to tell another person about you, and illustrate WHY they think you're so interesting and worth getting excited about?

You Don't Know a Thing About Me

The other major stumbling block most of the Gallery Crawl organizers face is that, for many attendees, this will be the first (and only) time they'll ever walk through a gallery's or theater's doors. If they don't understand what that space is about, what kind of work it normally produces, and why its work actually matters (not to the world at large but to them, the individual visitor), they won't have a reason to come back because they won't even know why they should.

How many websites do you visit where you can't immediately figure out WHY it exists? Did the site designers provide you with sufficient answers on the About page? (Did the site designers provide an About page at all?) If not, was the site still sufficiently interesting that you cared enough to explore it on your own, or did you press the "back" button and try to find something else more obviously rewarding?

Artists face this challenge every day, and yet so few of them bother to make themselves interesting AND easily explainable. The same conundrum applies to social media. If I visit your site or download your podcast and I can't immediately understand who you are and why you're doing what you do, do you really expect me to spend my own valuable time figuring out why you matter?

If you or your organization / site / company is able to generate occasional bursts of traffic, but you never seem to actually RETAIN it, ask yourself what it is that you're NOT doing to dazzle / engage / explain yourself to them before they leave. Then, make every effort to solve that problem. Because if you don't, all you end up with are some half-eaten cheese plates and a few scribbled names on a mailing list, and neither of those are going to pay your bills.

Photo by Pete Lambert

Tweeting Up Is(n't) Hard to Do

2008-10-02T07:00:00.000-05:00

The first (to my knowledge) Tweet-Up in Pittsburgh happened last night at the Firehouse Lounge. Organized my Holly Maust, Mandy McFadden and Nicole Miller -- three women I'd admittedly never met -- it was great to get out and meet some new faces in the social media space.

One thing I find amusing about all of this is that none of us involved with PodCamp Pittsburgh 3 had ever met anyone else at the tweetup -- which means, if Pittsburgh's social media scene is this splintered / varied (and we've already had two PodCamps to get everyone together), imagine what your city's scene is like.

What else does this mean? That our social media scene is growing, and that's a very good thing.

Also: if you're looking for a great dessert, try the Firehouse Lounge. The bartenders tell me that their chef is actually a pastry chef, and the dessert I tried -- a triple chocolate mousse -- was amazing. (I also heard rumor of "bananas foster wontons" being experimented with as a future possibility, and that's just intriguing enough to be worth a return trip all by itself...)

I hope to see our new Tweet-Up friends at PCPGH3 in two weeks. Meanwhile... when's the next Tweet-Up?)

Photo by Teejay Hanton

PodCamp Pittsburgh 3: Three Questions

2008-09-26T11:11:00.006-05:00

Fellow PodCamp Pittsburgh 3 planner Dawn Papuga posted three questions aimed at social media people this week, as part of her weekly "Friday 5" series intended to provide bloggers with writing prompts. Here are my answers:

Q: What brought you to social media, and what keeps you hanging around?

A: I started creating web video in 2003 (and I still am) because I liked the idea of immediate feedback. I knew I could release an episode of Something to Be Desired and hear what people did (or didn't) like about it within minutes, rather than months or years. It's that sense of instant communication, and the interesting people I've met as a result, that keeps me involved in creating media for the social set.

Q: Which social networking tool gives you the shakes when it’s not updated or is experiencing down time? (Podcasts, Blogs, Micro-blogging, etc)

A: I'm pretty sure this question is a not-so-thinly-veiled primal howl over the Fail Whale sightings at Twitter, and I'll agree -- for a tool whose sole purpose is to connect people immediately, it's quite frustrating when that tool is down (and quite addictive when it's up, which is why none of us complainers have migrated away... yet... even though we idly threaten to do so on a regular basis...)

Q: What kind of insight could you offer to others on a topic at PCPGH3?

A: I'm already on the hook to host several sessions and moderate a few panels, so if you join us at PCPGH3, you'll hear my POV on such topics as:

* Creating serialized, sustainable content
* Avoiding social media burnout (and bouncing back when it happens)
* Using Twitter (and other social media tools) for business
* What constitutes "success" in social media?
* Feedback: The good, the bad and the ugly (and why we need it)

If you'd like to learn more about social media, or simply commune with fellow bloggers, podcasters and other content creators, you're welcome to join us at PCPGH3 -- and it's free! See you there.

Pennsylvania Encourages Car Accidents

2008-09-17T09:44:00.004-05:00

Ann was driving to work a few weeks ago when she encountered an old station wagon filled with lumber, driving slowly in the lefthand lane. She tried to pass it on the right, and while she was doing so, the station wagon veered into the right lane and hit her.

Since they were on a bridge, there were no other witnesses who'd stopped. The driver -- an older man -- got out (of the station wagon that had no damage), inspected the two dents he'd made on Ann's front fender, and proclaimed that she could get them pounded out for $15, so there was no need to call the police. Just to be safe, Ann got his license and phone number, and continued on to work.

There, she noticed that her driver's side headlight had also been dislodged, which would seem to increase the total cost of damages. Both I and her boss suggested she file a police report. Ann called the police, who came down, looked at her car, and said, "Why did you call us? You're wasting our time."

Apparently, with no witnesses and minimal damage, there was no need for Ann to have called the police. (I wonder what level of damage is required for the police to be necessary.)

The cop suggested Ann report the incident to her insurance company. (He also ran the other driver's license plate and found that it didn't exist in the system, but that's because the guy turned out to be driving on a temporary license / registration.) Ann called the other driver to get his insurance info, but when he learned the cops were involved, he became so belligerent that the cop had to get on the phone and tell the guy to calm down and co-operate. That was when the guy started insisting that Ann hit him -- which, if you looked at the damage done (or not done) to the two vehicles, would have been a physical impossibility.

Nonetheless, when all was said and done, Geico informed Ann that because the other driver disputed her claim, and because there were no witnesses, this would be termed a no-fault accident and, therefore, Geico would not be pursuing the nearly $300 extra Ann had to pay beyond her $500 deductible in order to complete the final repairs.

So, in essence, driving to work that morning cost Ann more than $700 because an old man who couldn't see out his windows because his car was overloaded with lumber veered into her lane and hit her, all because no one else stopped to claim witness.

The lesson? If no one else is around, drive as recklessly as possible, because they can't catch you.

This reminds me of an accident I had back in 1995, when I was turning left under a yellow light and a driver coming from the opposite direction sped up to beat the light and broadsided my car, forcing it onto a median. We had witnesses AND we had an admission of guilt from the driver directly to the police. And yet, in the end, it turns out that the accident was actually 75% MY fault because I was turning left. And in the state of Pennsylvania, the person turning left is always at fault.

Interestingly, that same driver who, at the scene, was apologizing profusely and telling everyone within earshot, "Oh my God, I hit you!" would later attempt to sue me for whiplash and other injuries suffered long after the accident. That case was later dropped, as far as I know.

(The lesson here? In Pennsylvania, you should always speed up and hit anyone making a lefthand turn, regardless of witnesses. It's not irresponsibility or road rage; it's called "a free upgrade" to your current outmoded vehicle.)

The Social Media Etiquette of Facebook

2008-09-16T09:54:00.006-05:00

After holding out for years, I finally joined Facebook last week for business reasons. (Namely, a client asked me to manage their Facebook account, and I couldn't do it without being a member.)

And now, only a week later, I'm ready to cancel my account.

It's not that I don't like Facebook. (I actually don't care enough about it to like it or dislike it.) It's that I already have other means to stay in touch with the people in my life, so Facebook seems like one more redundant outpost in an ever-thickening sea of social media distractions.

That, and I've already run up against the same experience-cheapening bugaboo that crippled my experience on MySpace -- the obligation to add friends. My girlfriend became flabbergasted when she learned that I hadn't added everyone who'd requested my friendship on Facebook, and she wasn't buying my excuse -- that I didn't see the need to keep up on a daily basis with every single one of them -- as a valid one.

Herewith, our argument:

Ann's Point of View

By joining Facebook, I've silently opted in to playing by the site's publicly-agreed upon code of ethics. Part of that code involves the automatic acceptance of anyone who bothers to send you a friend request -- at least as long as you actually know that person. As she sees it, why would you join a public site like Facebook and then suddenly become choosy about whom you "allow" to see your public information? NOT accepting every friend request that comes my way is incredibly impolite, and is a basic misuse of the service.

Justin's Point of View

By joining Facebook, I've agreed to nothing beyond the explicitly stated terms of service. The site provides an experience that I, as the user, am in control of, not an unspoken code of conduct. And part of that experience involves me deciding whom I need (or want) to keep in touch with on a daily basis. As mentioned previously, nearly anyone I interact with these days has numerous ways to already get in touch with me -- am I not then allowed to use Facebook as a more private version of a public space? Or must I bend to the will of anyone with the balls to request my friendship, because that's simply how it's done?

What do you think?

Two Ways to Spend a Night in the Dark

2008-09-15T10:45:00.006-05:00

The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra recently issued a call for bloggers to cover this year's season of performances, so I threw my text-based hat in their web-based ring. They took me up on it, and now I'm one of nearly a dozen bloggers who'll be offering "outside perspectives" on various PSO performances over the next 8 months. If you're a fan of classical music (or incongruous and occasionally insightful commentary about it), you can follow the PSO group blog here.

Meanwhile, a case of celestial irony: Shortly after attending the PSO's "sneak preview" concert -- at which new maestro Manfred Honeck was not in attendance -- I posted my first PSO blog entry, entitled "A Night Without Honeck". Suitably amused, the gods then caused a wayward tree branch to collapse on some electrical lines in my Greenfield neighborhood, resulting in A Night Without Power for me and about 30 of my neighbors. (Since Duquesne Light is still swamped with reports of outages, we're not expecting ours to get fixed anytime soon.)

As a result, four of my neighbors gathered on their shared stoop last night and listened to the end of the Steelers-Browns game by candlelight, on a battery-powered radio. I couldn't quite hear the details from my open window, so I wandered down and listened to the closing moments with them. Funny that it takes an act of nature (and NFL scheduling) to force people who live less than ten feet apart to actually make the effort to introduce themselves.

Lastly, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has an interesting profile about the hard-fought rise of Maestro Honeck, who -- since he wasn't the apprentice to an established conductor -- decided to become one by starting his own orchestra. Talk about innovating your way to success...

Photo by Sriram

Perseverance (Or, Succeeding Because You're Too Stubborn to Quit)

2008-09-11T20:00:00.002-05:00

NOTE: This blog post is my entry in the 2008 Heart Kids Tweetathon, organized by Dr. Mani to help raise money for children with heart defects. His theme for this year's event is "Passion, Purpose, Persistence."

When I quit my day job in 2005 to live the luxurious life of a freelancer, I never imagined how difficult a life I was volunteering for. Instead of the sanity (and health insurance) that comes with a steady paycheck, I was opting to live by my wits. I was stubborn (or cavalier) enough to think that I could make at least as good a living on my own as I could from all the clients my day job had worked so hard to bring in and keep happy.

In short, I was wrong.

Not about the money part, but about how easy I thought it would be. I took the security of my salary, and the ease with which work fell into my lap, for granted. I spent the better part of two years struggling to make ends meet, paying credit cards with credit cards, and dressing five layers deep in the winter to save on heating bills.

I was a mess.

But I was also stubborn. I refused to blame anyone other than myself for my inability to live a comfortable life. (Well, at least in the end, after I tried a bunch of excuses and realized none of them were legit.) More than anything, I knew that what was separating me from success was my own attitude and motivation, not some karmic conspiracy to keep me down.

So I kept at it. I made new connections, pursued new clients, took chances. And, most importantly, I had support - from friends, from family, and from people who refused to let me sink too far to recover. (Perhaps not coincidentally, all of the business I currently enjoy comes from clients who were either acquaintances of mine or who recommended me to their friends.)

I'm not quite living the life of luxury yet, but I've also held fast to my promise to myself, that I would find a way to avoid having to work a 9-to-5 job again. I hated not having control over my own destiny -- and even though it took me several lean years to figure out exactly what kind of responsibility comes with that control, it's a lesson I wouldn't trade. In fact, I highly suggest it. There's no better way to learn what's inside you than to put yourself through incredible difficulties simply because you refuse to change your course without achieving success.

Just make sure you bundle up in the winter.

Photo by Evan Prodromou

Baghead: Big Screen Social Media?

2008-09-11T12:43:00.004-05:00

Ann and I saw Baghead last night, a pseudo-horror comedy love story docudrama thing. It was part of Pittsburgh Filmmakers' ongoing promotion with the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, in which attendees of a film are invited to stay afterward at the Harris Theater and discuss the film over free food and drink.

Most of the folks in attendance last night enjoyed the film in the same way you might enjoy seeing your kid sister in a high school play -- at best, she did better than you expected, and at worst, it's a phase she'll grow out of. Ann and I, on the other hand, really enjoyed it, but that's because we recognize it for what it is: a big-screen version of what we're already doing.

Baghead is the story of four struggling (read: ne'er employed) actors in LA who, after sitting through a mediocre film at a film festival, decide they can do better than that. So they drive up to a cabin in Big Bear and set out to write their dream movie, the kind that will make them all stars. Of course, egos and sexual tension get in the way. And then there's the guy who keeps showing up at their window with a bag over his head...

It's a simple story that plays with genre conventions, but it's also a triumph of the DIY aesthetic, mining some of the same territory as The Blair Witch Project. But where that earlier film was groundbreaking in so many ways, Baghead is almost its direct descendent, proof that its conceits -- handheld cameras, shot on DV, improvised dialogue, self-referential awareness -- work even better in this age of videoblogging and microcinema.

Classical cinephiles might not place Baghead in the same category as Lawrence of Arabia, and they'd be right not to; it's a little movie about a (relatively) little thing. But we social media types should be rooting for the success of a film like Baghead, because it's a big-screen version of what we're all aspiring to create: it helps break down the barrier of expectation between film fans who only appreciate grandiose spectacle and those of us who believe you can still tell an engaging story on even the most meager means.

Liquid Sundays: How to Make YOUR Event More Social

2008-09-10T09:41:00.007-05:00

This past Sunday, the minds behind Liquid Sundays, Pittsburgh's bi-monthly fusion of music / art / fashion, invited several bloggers and podcasters to attend their latest event at Olive or Twist downtown. The night featured music from:

* Central Plains (a Pittsburgh semi-supergroup)

* TheeAdora (femme-fronted pop rock)

* The Lost Sea (country folk rock, and my personal favorite of the night)

These performances were interspersed with a DIY fashion show featuring designs from local boutiqes Sugar and Pavement. Plus, discounted drinks, which is always good.

The upside? Decent bands, fashionable people, trendy-yet-functional locale, and a collective of artists and promoters who truly care about Pittsburgh and are endeavoring to help build out its social scene by bringing people from numerous artistic backgrounds together.

The downside? A few lighting issues (the first runway interlude was barely lit, which seemed to defeat the purpose) which were quickly corrected, and a few audio issues (like the space being ill-designed for multiple sonorous amplifiers), which couldn't be.

But my primary observations of the night have less to do with what WAS there than what WASN'T there:

* Apart from the drunk guy who tried a little too hard to get to know me, I didn't meet any people at this event that I didn't already know, and

* Live art / music events are still notoriously averse to the actual idea of connecting people, but they could very easily become better at it - and so can YOUR event.

How?

Identifying the Problem(s)

Admittedly, the main reason I didn't meet anybody new at this event is because I didn't try. I already knew a dozen people in attendance, so I had more than enough conversation to go around. Plus, it was sonically impossible to hear anyone over the din of the speakers, so it didn't make sense to strike up a conversation with a complete stranger when I could barely hear myself.

On the other hand, this event -- like most concerts and performances -- wasn't designed to introduce people to one another. It was designed to showcase the work of the people organizing it, and in that context, it makes perfect sense to drive all of the focus toward the art on display.

But why invite bloggers and podcasters to an event that makes it a challenge to gather information about the people and personalities involved? If we can't divine your story, it's much harder to then explain your story to other people, and isn't that the whole point of putting yourself out there -- to generate a discussion?

Solutions: A Performance Isn't a Conversation - But It Could Be

The Lost Sea perform at Liquid Sundays
In no particular order, here's a laundry list of 10 ways all future art events / gallery openings / concerts / meet-ups / etc. can improve their social functionality.

1. Make nametags available, regardless of the type of event. Even if it's an ultra-hip shindig, give people the option to make their names or other info public. At all levels of conversation-dom, icebreakers are key.

2. Artists: post multiple contact streams. Email signup sheets are functional, but leave out full-contact postcards for visitors to take away: email, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, etc. Give people the option to contact you in the way that's most convenient for them (and therefore the most effective for you).

3. Liveblog each event. Posting handbills before an event is a necessity. Liveblogging / Twittering / Brightkite-ing an event should become one. This not only gives the live attendees another avenue to meet each other, but it allows people at home to enjoy the event without being there -- and they'll be more inclined to show up next time.

4. Announce your tags. Create search tags for your event / art / music, or hashtags for Twitter, so people will be able to find evidence of the event more easily. Then let people know what those tags are, so they can properly tag all their photos / videos / blog posts that they're creating on the spot. List the tags in all promotions, or call them out from the stage if necessary, but don't let people's media go forth anonymously - or else you lose out on valuable (free) promotion.

5. Schedule "quiet time." Dial down the "between bands" music for a few moments, and give people a chance to meet each other without shouting.

6. Give something away for free, just for coming. Bands: make an MP3 available for download -- maybe even a live cut from the show. Artists: make a photo or image available as a downloadable wallpaper for laptops or cell phones. Let attendees take part of your show home with them, and then they'll have something to show others. (If content control is an issue, post this free media in a secure part of your site, and give attendees directions / passwords during your social network follow-up; see below.)

7. Collect media your attendees have created. If people have tagged their media properly, you should have no trouble finding photos and video from your event. Repost the samples you think are the best on your event's groups / blog, and give credit to the people who enjoyed your event enough to celebrate it afterward.

8. Use Twitter to centrally connect your attendees. Twitter is promotional, but it's also functional. Multi-location or multi-day events can use it to keep attendees posted on schedule changes, location switch-ups, upcoming showtimes, etc. That means fewer questions for your volunteers to answer, and fewer opportunities for your attendees to miss something important.

9. Overlap with similar events AND completely different events. You can use social networks to find people who share interests similar to those offered at your event - armchair photographers, foreign film fans, etc. - but why not reach out to people who have NOTHING in common with your event? Mash up your fashion show with a beerfest, or your gallery opening with a rap battle. It may sound crazy, but how many new ideas -- or buzz -- do you see generated by people speaking strictly within the same echo chamber? (Hint: Not as much as you get from mixing it up.)

10. After the event, add attendees to your network. Include the URL of your event's group on Facebook / MySpace / LinkedIn / NING, etc., on all signage and promotions before and during the event. Encourage people to join / follow your event on the social network of their choice. Reach out to the people who did attend, or who join your network after the event, and thank them personally -- don't let your interaction stop when the lights come up.

In short: give people handles and they'll carry your story onward to others.

10 Ways to Be a Social Media Asshole

2008-09-09T09:40:00.004-05:00

You may have heard that social media is "all about the conversation." That may be true in some cases, but not all. In fact, for some people, social media is simply about finding new and interesting ways to be an asshole - it's Machiavelli's "The Prince," as applied to text boxes.

If you're finding it difficult to irritate people on a regular basis, here are ten tips you can follow to aggravate even more people - many of them strangers!

1. Insult people loudly and publicly. Bonus points if you don't know the person, but you do know enough to know that he / she / they must be horribly, horribly wrong. This will endear you to everyone else who shares your opinion, and will make you seem like a man / woman / composite persona that's not to be fucked with.

2. Leave scathing comments in public places. Nothing says "I've seriously considered your work / opinion and respectfully disagree" like personal attacks injected into one's thoughtstream.

3. Always be anonymous. Never say with public faces what's best typed hidden in private places.

4. Always ignore grammar / spelling / punctuation. Clear and legible disagreements are best left in the classroom. As a person with unbridled truth to share, you're free of the rules of class.

5. Steal other people's work. Creative Commons licenses never hold up in court, because Americans know that anything available to the public is fair game. If they didn't want you to take credit for their work, they wouldn't have made it public in the first place.

6. Talk endlessly about yourself. In a world of nearly 7 billion people, nothing is as interesting as you. Always find a way to turn topical conversations into conversations about you - especially when you don't know what people are talking about in the first place. (One great way to do this is to lead off with "Speaking of ___," and then immediately change the subject to that head cold you're not quite over.)

7. Namedrop like it's your job. Because it is. That's because people may not remember you, especially if what you're doing is redundant or unremarkable -- like, say, being a "social media expert" or "communications guru"-- but they'll damn sure remember who you had lunch with last week. (And by "had lunch," it's okay if you forget to add, "in the vicinity of," or "at the same conference as." Because even if you *didn't* technically "have lunch" with Seth Godin, he undoubtedly follows you on Twitter, so he might as well have been at your table when the server girl spilled all that water on Andrew Baron [at the next table].)

8. Pontificate loudly about why all new ideas will fail (or PHALE). And then, if they don't, take credit for their success by insisting that the creators of said idea must have taken your warnings seriously and changed their business plan.

9. Blame designers for your inability to understand their services. Because if it doesn't work exactly like Google, Flickr, MySpace or anything else you already know, it's new, and new design is bad and likely to fail (see above).

10. Make all private emails and messages public. Because if so-and-so had really meant it when they direct messaged you in confidence, or asked you to sign that non-disclosure agreement, they wouldn't have used the internet for such sensitive communications. As mentioned previously, if it's on the web -- even behind someone else's password-protected intranet firewall -- it's fair game. (The people have a right to know.)

Do you have a favorite approach that I've overlooked?

Fantasy Football: Making People Obsessive About Your Brand

2008-09-08T12:35:00.005-05:00

I'm in two Fantasy Football leagues this year, and if things go as they should this evening, I'll be 1-0 in both leagues. I won one of these leagues -- managed by Jim at Sportsorcacy -- last year, and came in second in the other, so I may know a thing or two about fantasy football, or I may just be quite lucky.

But one thing fantasy football forces me to be is obsessive.

In order to compete in a league with cash on the line, I need to know more than my opponents. This means that I, like people in every city in the US, will be paying razor-sharp attention to every play, every injury report and every news item, seven days a week for the next 16, in the hopes that some overlooked bit of information will give me an edge in my fantasy football leagues.

And this means your waiter at Chili's tonight probably knows more about the injury status of all 16 starting tight ends in the AFC than he does about his own nephew. You think the NFL isn't thrilled about that?

So... how obsessed is America with YOUR brand?

Your Free 10-Step Social Media Diploma

2008-09-03T09:06:00.006-05:00

I received an email from Full Sail University today, touting (among other things) their Master's Degree in Online Marketing.

Seriously?

Can an educational institution really offer a justifiable Master's Degree in a field that's barely five years old, with precious few documented and proven success stories?

Curious (if not incredulous), I read their program overview, whose 12 courses include:

* 1 class on New Media Marketing Analysis
* 1 class on Web Metrics and Analysis
* 3 classes on Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
* A Final Project and Thesis, "in which you’ll create and produce an Internet marketing campaign for a company that you’ll select as your subject of study"

And, perhaps most interestingly:

* An Internet Consumer and Behavior class, whose description begins:

What makes people motivated to search, research, and buy products on the Internet?

That's the kind of insight you'll be getting for a "Master's Degree" in Online Marketing? You'd think knowing what makes consumers tick would have been covered somewhere in undergrad, no? Or is the internet really all that different from reality?

That's what the accountants at Full Sail would have you believe, I'm sure. But all a course like this really does is flood the marketing field with inexperienced hacks who'll be able to charge their clients Master's Degree fees while outsourcing the actual work to people like me, who know how to do it.

(Side note: does Full Sail list the names and credentials of anyone who designed their Master's Degree courses? I didn't notice it on their site. You'd think most of us who create social media for a living would have heard of anyone Full Sail claims is worthy of bestowing Master's Degree-level knowledge, no?)

So if you were considering spending precious tuition money on a Master's Degree program in Online Marketing, Social Media or any other current buzzword that schools believe they can make a quick buck on, let me suggest this cost-effective alternative:

Your Free 10-Step Social Media Diploma

1. Read Blogs. It really doesn't matter who you're reading, so much as that you *are* reading. For marketing types, try the Ad Age Top 150. For anyone, read Chris Brogan; he's the equivalent of a walking Master's Degree in all things social media, and his blog is free.

Reading blogs helps you understand who's talking, what they're talking about, and why -- plus, how (and when) they're doing it.

2. Comment on Blogs. It's not a conversation unless you're talking, too. Be polite, be relevant, be brief. Above all, be yourself. (Unless yourself is an asshole; social media already has a lot of those, so you're not cornering much of a niche.)

3. Start Your Own Blog. Once you know how other people are doing it, start one yourself. Maybe it's about you, or your business, or your city or fields of interest. Maybe it's about all of those things. Start with one, find your voice and structure, and expand as necessary.

4. Subscribe to Blogs. Use Google Reader or another RSS aggregator to create your own daily reading list. Again, what you're subscribing to is less important than the act of *actually* subscribing in the first place, and understanding how it's done. You can't expect others to subscribe to your ideas if you don't make the effort of subscribing to theirs.

5. Design Your Own Blog. Maybe you're comfortable mucking around in code, and maybe you'd rather leave that to the people who do it better than you. Experiment with WordPress, Blogger or TypePad, or ask someone with design experience to set one up for you. Trade your expertise -- be it in marketing, recipes or landscaping -- for theirs. (If you can't barter, you can't sell.)

6. Use Twitter. If the web has a water cooler, it's Twitter. The chief current example of "microblogging," Twitter is an endless stream-of-consciousness discussion, the cultural zeitgeist in a bottle. Ever-changing, it forces you to think fast and be brief.

7. Listen to / Watch Podcasts. A podcast is the (poorly-conceived) name for any web audio or web video. It can be embedded on a webpage or downloaded to your hard drive / mobile device. It can be corporate or independent, entertaining or informative, serialized or stand-alone. iTunes has a wide variety of shows listed, while Blip TV, YouTube, Sclipo and Podanza each appeal to a different crowd. There are others; experiment.

8. Create a Podcast. It can be audio or video, short or long, interesting or dull, bad or good. No matter how it turns out, you'll learn something in the process of trying to explain yourself to a worldwide audience of complete strangers. And your next episode will be even better. And better. And better. (Authors allegedly start out by writing 1000 horrible pages; bloggers and podcasters get up to speed a bit faster, and without having to recycle all those trees.)

9. Check Your Stats. Creating media and not observing its life cycle is like dropping a baby into a jungle and hoping for the best. How are you supposed to know whether it stands a fighting chance? Use Google Analytics, Lijit and other stat-tracking tools to see who's finding your media, how they're getting there and what they're doing when they discover it. Then, once you have a handle on the whos and whys, you can better execute the hows -- as in, how to create media people want to see, and how to help them find it.

10. Get Out of the House. A computer is a tool, not a destination. Social media implies "people," as does marketing, which implies "market" (which, in most cases, is comprised of people). You may meet people online, but you don't know them until you're in a room with them -- and they don't know you, either. Join a Tweetup. Attend a PodCamp. Ask when your local chapter of Flickr photographers is getting together, and tag along. The connections you make in the real world only strengthen your relationships online, while providing the kind of interpersonal experiences that create trust, friendship and honest interest in what others (and you) are doing.

Navigate your way through these ten steps and you'll already know more about social media and online marketing than the graduates of most pricey online degrees -- and it won't have cost you a penny. Save your money; start a blog.

UPDATE: Chachi pointed out that I can't very well offer a Master's Degree without a printable diploma, so he graciously created one especially for you. Download your Online Marketing and Social Media Master's Degree diploma here.

Photo by m00by.

Who Determines the Shelf Life of "Modern" Art?

2008-08-26T08:55:00.000-05:00

I saw a very cool play last night at the Bricolage summer reading series: Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom, by Jennifer Haley. It's an ultra-modern parable about communication, expectation and the nature of reality, cloaked in the guise of a horror film spoof.

The story centers around a fictional MMORPG (the titular "Neighborhood 3"), in which disaffected teens lose themselves -- literally -- for days on end. The game is a complex quest to eradicate the zombies who threaten to overrun a picture-perfect suburb -- which, the players notice, is a mirror image of their own suburban housing plan...

I'll let you draw your own conclusions about the play's themes and politics (or you can read this review of a prior performance in Louisville, which unfortunately seems to have missed out on so much of the play's dark humor). As I consider my own feelings about the play -- which I very much liked but am still processing -- a few thoughts enter my mind, such as:

* How well will hypermodern works of art age in an era of ever-increasing nostalgia, when the millennium bug already seems like it happened a generation ago?

* Can a work of art be judged a success or failure by a critic whose frame of reference doesn't encompass the ability to appreciate / process / understand the work of art?

* What's the cutoff age for understanding irony? (In my experience, irony seems to have a self-contained 30 year "generation," give or take, which suggests that the basis of humor / irony 'shifts' every quarter century or so.)

* What are the artistic reasons to create something "in the now," vs. something of an indeterminate time? How does that choice affect the audience's experience today, or in 100 years?

* How do you assign merit for a collaborative work in which the author or creator is separated from the audience by a wall of actors, interpreters or players? In these cases, who determines where the success or failure of the idea's execution lies?

* What is an artist's proper recourse when an audience or a critic misses the point?

* Which of our current cultural touchstones will still be memorable -- or even recognizable -- in 20 or 50 years?

Thoughts?

Why Should We Care?

2008-08-20T10:38:00.004-05:00

Brian Conley (right) with Jeff Jarvis at the
2006 Video on the Net conference in Boston.
Brian Conley, creator of the videoblog Alive in Baghdad and a tireless campaigner for human rights, was reportedly detained in China after filming (and webcasting) a street protest for Free Tibet.

This comes just days after internationally famed artist James Powderly was arrested and detained for a similar display of pro-Tibet dissent during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

As of this blog post, I don't believe either man has been heard from since his detention.

And yet, if you read the comments from either link above, you'll notice that the majority of the commenters make the same case: these guys are either too dumb to realize they'd be jailed for protesting in China, or they simply got what they deserved.

Funny, I always thought the ideals of the West were built on the concept of freedom of speech and sticking up for the oppressed.

So, in a cultural climate of zero support... why bother?

And, more importantly, why should we care?

Technology Trumps Humanity Every Time

The world has always had its fair share of corruption, violence, war, famine, human rights atrocities and general self-destruction. But now, thanks to the internet, news of these disasters and tragedies can travel around the globe instantaneously.

Instead of making us all give a damn, however, this overwhelming surge of negative news is simply making us all more jaded.

Now, instead of caring about how one person (or government) is destroying the lives of innocents, we lament that this negativity is ruining our day. Harshing our mellow. Making us aware that the world is not always a bright, shiny (and stark white) iPhone commercial.

We resent that.

We're now so much more aware of just how shitty a place the world can be, I think we're all subconsciously tuning out anything that doesn't provide us with an escape from that reality.

We also have to earn so much more money during this troubled economy just to keep up with our comfortable level of consumption, we don't have the time, energy or resources to care all that much about anything that isn't adding to our coffers or providing us with relief and amusement.

And, even if we did develop the urge to care about something, we still have to cultivate the strength and awareness to take action -- and to know HOW to take action. That requires research, which is time intensive, and often requires sacrifice -- none of which really fits into our modern schedule.

This explains the proliferation of impassioned blogs and tweets about every meaningless technological ripple under the sun -- every new iPhone model, WordPress plugin, or beta test invitation -- and the comparably deafening silence whenever the subject changes to sociological issues. (Except politics. Every LOVES to let the world know what they believe, even if that belief doesn't necessarily translate into action.)

So where do we go from here?

Web 3.0 as Lightning Rod or Escape Clause

As the web gets more intelligent (both the services and their users), we have a choice: we can use this worldwide connectivity and instantaneous data transfer to accomplish more progress faster than any other generation has previously...

... or we can use it to distract ourselves from the horrors of reality, which seem to be ever-growing in number and degree.

I don't blame people for not caring. I don't even blame them for thinking that we should string up the people who DO care. After all, the people who care make the rest of us look bad.

When we hear about the actions taken by people who care, we run the risk of realizing that we probably could have done something more productive with our day than whatever it was we actually did do -- populating databases, animating spinning logos or selling goods to be purchased solely with discretionary income.

If only everyone would just settle down and stop caring, we could all get on with our lives.

And yet...

... would we need to distract ourselves from the terrors of the world if there weren't quite so many?

And would there be so many if those of us who did care actually... took action?

Social Media: The Problem With Being Free

2008-08-18T09:11:00.005-05:00

One of the endless questions surrounding social media is: "How do I monetize?" Meaning: how does one person convince other people -- whether it's that person's actual audience, or advertisers eager to reach that person's audience -- to pay that person to do what he / she actually wants to do for a living?

Common Cents

In most cases, a person simply seeks out a job that other people already publicly admit is worth being paid for. Garbage collectors, graphic designers and accountants are all worth paying for a job well done, or so we believe. So why not bloggers, podcasters and other social media creators?

The catch: people have long been used to paying garbage collectors, graphic designers and accountants. They're also used to paying for records, movies and live entertainment. And they'll sit through commercials on TV as long as they get their shows for free.

But no one is used to paying for web content, because the web has always been "free."

"Free" Is in the Eye of the Beholder

In truth, we all know the web was never "free," so much as it was "subsidized." People were willing to spend their time and effort creating a network of information and entertainment, often for no financial gain, simply because they enjoyed it or saw value in the existence of such a network.

But no one can do that indefinitely, and people capable of producing professional quality work (or at least work that resonates with audiences of a size similar to those of the professionals) are not going to produce their work for free forever.

Parking Is Like Sex...

... or so goes the Seinfeld joke: Why should we pay for something that, with a little effort, we can get for free?

But that logic applies to everything in life. Why pay for CDs when you can download them for free on filesharing sites? Why pay a landscaper traditional wages when you can employ day laborers for far less?

No one is exploiting web content creators (yet) by *not* paying for their work, since few web content creators are currently charging a reasonable fee -- or any rate, for that matter -- to engage with their work. In that regard, web content creators are exploiting themselves by not attempting to charge for their work in the first place.

Having grown up using the internet, the concept of charging for information that's always been free could be seen as the death of the very ideals that the internet was founded on.

Or it could be seen as a very necessary step in the maturation of thousands of prospective artists and business owners, to realize that what we do is worth getting paid for.

If I Don't Like You, and YOU Don't Like You...

The bigger question -- WHO will pay for it -- can't be asked until each of us admits that what we're doing is worth something to someone, somewhere. Since most of us create content for free, we're used to it. We have the POV that even making a few hundred bucks a month is probably "more than we deserve," all things considered. After all, we know the cost involved in our work, and we've been willing to shoulder it ourselves for so long, it's become part of the process.

Wouldn't getting paid for what we do be equal to "selling out"?

How can we compare our work to the work of Hollywood, Madison Avenue, etc.?

What's our work actually *worth*?

The Short Stick Economy

Advertisers are leaving print publications in droves, leading to magazines and newspapers cutting costs and closing doors. But that ad revenue isn't being reassigned to the web, because the web doesn't charge the same amount for ads that print publications do.

That's because the web still prices itself as an inferior product, across the board, compared to every other mass medium.

As a result, those of us who create content for the web have horrible benchmarks to judge ourselves against. We can't aspire to earn as much as content creators in other media because our own medium gives itself the short end of the stick at all times.

Asking a web content creator to evaluate the value of his / her work is an impossible task, because we're trained to think that:

A) What we're doing MUST be free to be online,
B) What we're doing is online, and therefore amateur, and
C) What we're doing is being created for a medium that has yet to create a sustainable economy in the creative sector.

Therefore, all aspirations to get paid are pipe dreams until each of those realities changes.

And guess what: the sustainable economy that will provide realistic benchmarks for individual financial success among web content creators CAN'T be created until we get past those first two roadblocks -- and those are roadblocks we set up for ourselves.

Photo by Emdot

5 Things My New Puppy Is Teaching Me

2008-08-13T10:52:00.005-05:00

Ann and I just moved apartments so we could get a dog, because our old place didn't allow pets. During the week of our move, we went to volunteer at the Animal Rescue League, where we saw an adorable black cockapoo puppy named Roo. He was in a two-dog household, but the owners decided they could only afford to keep one dog during this down economy, so Roo was given away.

After thinking it over, we decided to adopt him, even though we'd always presumed we'd adopt an adult dog from the ARL instead. It's turned out to be a great decision, because Roo -- now renamed Rufus -- is a wonderful puppy with a great attitude and a temperament that complements our lifestyle. (It'll be even better once he stops mouthing everything in sight and can be alone for longer than 5 seconds, but hey, we're all learning...)

In that vein, here are 5 Things My Puppy Is Teaching Me:

1. Being Responsible for Others Comes Naturally

My long-standing objection to having a dog was that Ann and I lead fairly active, freewheeling lifestyles. She's never sure when she'll be home from work, and I tend to zip all over the city during the day. Having a dog would require us to be home more often, stick to a schedule, and spend valuable amounts of time training him -- even moreso now for a puppy.

Despite the fact that my autonomous days have been disrupted, I find that I've almost automatically adjusted my daily routine to accommodate the dog. I'm always hyper-aware of where he is in the apartment, I strive to make sure he's content (and not chewing on something he shouldn't), and I even take faster showers (so he has less time to steal the bath mats).

It's a sobering moment when you realize you could probably add a child to the equation and still maintain your sanity AND productivity (or most of it).

2. Success Isn't Dependent on a Schedule

These days, I definitely lose time during the day due to potty walks, playtime and training. And yet, I've managed to keep up with all of my freelance work and still engage in (slightly fewer) social obligations. How?

Part of it is adjusting the schedule that had been working for me to a new one that works for all of us -- even if it does include an early AM potty walk. The other part is realizing that I *have* to get things done in the time I have available, which means I spend less time on meaningless fluff during the day and more time plowing through to-do lists while the dog is asleep. Had I not been willing or able to adapt my workday, I'd be miserable AND unproductive, while the dog would still need his potty walks.

3. Always Plan Ahead

When I do go out, I usually have to bring the dog with me, which means I need to pack everything he needs in advance. This means I need to keep everything in an orderly place, so I can grab it and get out the door with minimal hassle.

Oddly, I've found this observation is starting to trickle into my daily workflow too. For example, if a client needs a video edited differently, I find myself providing two or three versions of the change instead of just the one I like best. I find it saves time to give them choices up-front, rather than making each possible change one-at-a-time and slowing the review process to a grinding halt.

4. Cleanliness Is Crucial

Puppies will eat almost anything, so we have to keep our floors clean of debris - food, trash, shoes, fabric, etc. Fortunately, we were already clean people, so this isn't an issue -- although you never realize how messy or disorganized you are until you notice how many things you've naturally left laying around for your dog to get into. (Couch cover pull-strings, anyone?)

A clean apartment also helps me notice when something is out of place or missing -- and helps me discern whether this was something Ann moved, or something Rufus moved. (One of those causes is preferable to the other, because it means I may need to do a mouth sweep to pry loose some plaster / caulking / sandal straps...)

5. Never Stop Adapting

Since we moved apartments, we're also still in the unpacking stages, which means our place looks slightly different almost every day. That's something both Rufus and we are adapting to, as we collectively decide where the best "home" for everything will be. Sometimes what works best for us humans turns out to be a bad idea when the dog is involved -- like noticing his habit of eating through the cell phone charger when it's (conveniently) left plugged in.

Likewise, every day has been a cavalcade of new experiences for Rufus. We don't want him to get mired in a routine that robs him of interest in new places / people / experiences, so we try to introduce him to someone or something new several times a day. This, in addition to traditional training and play, keeps him active and alert, and ensures that he'll always be open to new people and ideas.

How many of us can say the same thing for ourselves?

A Cup of Tea with Wally the Green Monster

2008-07-31T12:46:00.005-05:00

Last month, I filmed a promo video in Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox. The PR company I work with, Creative Concepts, organized a meet-up between Bigelow Tea's president, Cindi Bigelow, and Wally the Green Monster (aka the Red Sox mascot). The fruits of our labor -- which, off-camera, included evading all the public tours who were trying to swarm Wally -- can be seen at the Bigelow Tea blog.

Notes from the FCC Hearing on the Future of the Internet

2008-07-22T08:53:00.003-05:00

If you couldn't be at yesterday's FCC hearing at Carnegie Mellon University, here's what you missed:

* Over 45 minutes of keynotes to open the hearing, in which all 5 commissioners + Representative Mike Doyle thanked each other for being there (repeatedly), then told the audience what we were all about to hear (also repeatedly). We spent so much time talking about what we were about to hear, I barely had time to hear anything at all.

* Internet pioneer and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban read from his laptop and told us that the future of the internet will be... 3-D?

* John Peha, a CMU professor, read from a Power Point presentation in which he raised numerous (legitimate) questions about fair competition, fair use and copyright infringement -- i.e., what happens when an ad for one cable company is embedded in a video streamed over a competing cable company's broadband? What's the difference between protecting one's brand and restricting user access to information?

* Mark Cavicchia (CEO of WhereverTV) spoke about the need to expand bandwidth limitations to allow for decreased restrictions on "capped limits" for broadband users. For example, under some proposed broadband service plans, you could expend your entire allotment of Gigabytes for the month just by downloading one (legal) movie file. That doesn't help anyone -- least of all the markets the film and internet industries are trying to establish.

* Nathan Martin from DeepLocal spoke at rapid speed about the regulatory issues constraining his company. Lots of good points, summed up with, "Why could we do "TASK X" 3 years ago, for free, and in a matter of days, whereas now it would cost us tens of thousands of dollars and take up to 6 months to be approved by regulatory commissions? You have the pipes; let me compete."

* David Eun from Google talked up the existence of YouTube as a repository for the most amazing educational content on the planet -- some valid points, but delivered in that kind of slow, belabored way that made me think he'd rather not be speaking on a panel.

And then it was 5:30 and I had to leave, even though the hearing would be stretching on until 8 o'clock. (Peripheral lesson learned? If the FCC can't even stick to a schedule when moderating a hearing, what else is the government unable to manage?) However, I was impressed with the rhetoric of the FCC commissioners themselves -- especially Commissioner Michael J. Copps, who (along with Rep. Doyle) gave me the best impression that the government is very aware of what's at stake in the internet's battle between private intellectual property, corporate interests and the public good.

Let's just hope they can solve these thorny problems in less time than it took to introduce these panels...

When Good Taglines Go Bad

2008-07-14T10:08:00.003-05:00

One of my favorite corporate taglines comes from Rite Aid, whose receipts issue their coda: "With us, it's personal."

I'm sure this is a tagline that the corporate decision-makers looked at and said, "Now *there's* a message that lets the customer know we care about them." And maybe some people actually get that when they see this slogan. But for me, the stark bluntness of that statement comes across as something menacing; a vague threat that lets you know exactly where you stand, should you decide to create problems for them (like asking for a price check on that pack of gum).

With a little digging, I was able to unearth a few of Rite Aid's rejected taglines, including:

* "Rite Aid: We know what you did."

* "Rite Aid: Don't make me come down there."

* "Rite Aid: You think we're kidding?"

* "Rite Aid: We'll come for you in the night."

* "Rite Aid: Lock your doors."

* "Rite Aid: Revenge is a dish best served in aisle five."

* "Rite Aid: We fucked your mom."

The moral? When choosing a tagline for your business / website / screenplay / business card / missed connection on Craigslist, make sure you analyze it from all angles -- not just how you intend for it to be understood, but how others *could* understand it.

Also: don't shoplift at Rite Aid. They know people.

Who Are You Trying to Impress?

2008-07-10T09:29:00.004-05:00

Last night, I saw Harmony Korine's Mister Lonely at the Harris Theater. Afterward, Pittsburgh Filmmakers and the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership offered free food and drink, intended to spark a post-film discussion among the strangers in attendance. (This is supposed to be a good thing.)

Unfortunately, strangers, bound solely by the shared experience of having just seen the same movie, have nothing else in common yet (that they know of). Result? Out comes the posturing, the pomposity and the need to impress one another with armchair film school dissections of "symbols" and "meaning." (I nearly choked on my stuffed grape leaf -- catered by the inimitable Affogato -- when someone posed the [rhetorical?] question: "Was the pastoral violated?")

In the end, I doubt any friendships were forged from this discussion, but I suspect more than a few people went home worrying, "Did everybody else think I was smart enough?"

Anatomy of a Conversation

When we're thrown together in a pseudo-social situation, the quaint tradition of "breaking the ice" often gives way to the more aggressive method of preening like alpha males / females, meant to establish a social hierarchy we can all understand (and find -- or reject -- our place in).

In every social situation, there seems to be at least one of the following:

* The conversation driver
* The friends of the conversation driver
* The people who WANT to be friends with the conversation driver
* The people who DISAGREE with the conversation driver
* The dropouts who eat the free food and make snide comments in the background

(Hint: this last group is almost always the most interesting group, due possibly to the fact that they're coincidentally the most impossible to actually meet.)

This conversation rarely has the opportunity to become inclusive because it automatically becomes a pitched battle between two (or more) speakers vying to establish that their opinion is the "right" one (at least for the duration of this situation).

If that's the case, why bother speaking at all, if the only reason to get involved is to try and out-shout the opposition? Wouldn't a lot more be accomplished -- and more bonds between conversationalists be created -- if we all agreed that the perfunctory building of these walls was a waste of time?

Your Comfortability Makes Me Uncomfortable

Not everyone is so eager to let their wall down. Some people enjoy that distance because it keeps them from getting too attached, or seeming like they're too interested, or too available. They need to impress others before they can take their wall down, and convince themselves that they have "the upper hand" in the conversation.

If you see this type of behavior encroaching on your social interactions, whether online or in person, why not try one of the following:

* Agree to Disagree. Table the contentious issue for the moment, and then actively find a point on which each side can agree. Knowing that each side's disagreement stems from a common starting point can reduce the sense of "The Other" that often fuels the need to establish conversational dominance, and instead replaces it with a simple curiosity about how each side arrived where it is now.

* Agree... For Now. Maybe you still disagree with the other person(s), but you're astute enough to realize that endlessly arguing about details isn't going to move the conversation forward to a deeper, more engaging state. So agree with the other side, for now. Admit that you may not have all the facts, or that the other person might (gasp) actually be "right." A concession isn't a defeat; it's simply a way to pause the invective, which can disarm a conversational "opponent" and provide an opportunity to move the conversation ahead to new topics.

(PS: If you temporarily agree with someone else, you owe it to yourself to follow up afterward and see if their argument actually does hold water. You may be surprised to find it does.)

* Volunteer to Be the Underdog. Often, contentious conversations are all about establishing a social pecking order. The other side doesn't even care if they're right or wrong, so much as they desire to be seen as the dominant voice in the conversation. In that case, let them be it. NOT needing to appear "perfect" can immediately nullify the race to build artifice, and win you some subconscious respect in the process. Suddenly, the race to build higher walls is replaced by the race to dig deeper moats, inviting more and more people to get closer, and closing the gap of The Other that makes getting to meet new people -- and caring about them -- so damn hard in the first place.

This doesn't mean you need to divulge a laundry list of All The Horrible Shit That's Ever Happened to You. No one loves a self-flagellator, but everyone appreciates a person who can honorably assess his/her own shortcomings, even as they're content in their strengths. That's called "being a real person," and it's a much better way to create a meaningful conversation than endless ideological pissing contests.

(And, for the record: no, the pastoral was not disturbed, because there was no pastoral in the first place. But Samantha Morton does one hell of a good American accent, and those stuffed grape leaves were fabulous. I would have mentioned that during the post-film discussion, but I was too busy eating the free food and making snide comments in the background.)

5 Things I Learned While Apartment Hunting in Pittsburgh

2008-06-18T06:00:00.000-05:00

This week, I spent huge chunks of time tracking down a new apartment. Our lease is up at the end of July, and since Ann wants to get a dog, we're moving to a building that allows dogs. (That means we had to find one first -- and in Pittsburgh, that's no easy task.)

In doing so, I learned a lot about Pittsburgh, realtors, and myself. To wit:

5 Things I Learned While Apartment Hunting in Pittsburgh

1. Dogs Are Pariahs

As most of my Twitter friends heard this past week, owning a dog in Pittsburgh makes you the least desirable of all apartment renters, judged by prospective landlords to be slightly less savory than thieves, grave robbers and amateur yodelers. It seems the average landlord in Pittsburgh would rather rent an apartment to a convicted criminal or a scab-heavy leper than to someone who owns a dog. We don't even have a dog yet, but we did learn that the quickest way to cut a conversation with a realtor short is to ask, "So, what's your pet policy?"

Oddly enough, cats are far less problematic. Evidently, shedding and clawing is far preferable to shedding and barking.

2. Landlords Often Forget That EVERYTHING Is a People Business

Most of the landlords and realtors we encountered were decidedly chilly in their demeanor -- some even downright dismissive. (And these are the ones who allowed dogs.) Only 2 or 3 treated us like people, rather than names on a call sheet, and took the time to connect with us on a more-than-functional basis. Unsurprisingly, those are the ones whose apartments we seriously considered renting.

Note to landlords: If I'm about to pay you over $1500 and commit to living under your roof for at least the next year, you could treat me like a person from the time we first meet. (This includes phone contact.) You could make me feel like you care about my needs and well-being. You could stop making excuses for the less-than-perfect conditions of your properties. You could give me the impression that you'll be concerned if our power, water or heat go out in the middle of the winter. In short, you could put some effort into being a person, rather than a business owner or an employee.

3. I'm All Growns Up

Several places we looked at were in buildings obviously intended for grad students -- aka, not overly spacious or in the best shape, but centrally located and affordable.

As a single guy, I would have jumped at the chance to live in one or two of these places -- especially considering their proximity to the social locations I already frequent. After all, I wouldn't have viewed them as long-term living solutions, but more as temporary places to sleep between jobs, social events and other such gallivanting. (When you're single, your apartment is where you go when you're not doing something interesting.)

But as a 31 year-old man in a committed relationship, my (our) needs are different. For one thing, we have more stuff than I would if I were single (see below). For another, we tend to stay home more often. That makes space, and the *use* of space, more important to us than it was to Single Justin. We like to entertain guests, so we need a space that's suited to the needs of social adults, not beer pong-playing students. And since it's cheaper to cook dinner for two every night, rather than always eating on the run, we need a kitchen that we can *live* in, rather than a tiny one where I can microwave something for solo feeding.

4. Stuff vs. Things

When you're looking at an empty apartment, trying to imagine where all your possessions would go, you can usually approximate the big items. You know where your furniture (beds, dressers, couches) would go. You also know where your stuff *might* go -- all the vague items you know are in every room but can never quite articulate, like lamps, storage containers, filing cabinets, smaller chairs and computer equipment.

But what about all that crap? All the boxes, bins and seasonal items that you only think about when you can't find something you actually *want* -- like a toolbox or a photo album that you swear is in "this closet somewhere."

Ann and I have aggregated a LOT of crap over the years, so we had to look beyond the obvious space and consider the phantom space -- the closets and basements that don't seem important in your daily life until you realize you have zero space and must resort to storing your shoes on the dining room table...

Suffice it to say that we picked a place that allows us to expand, instead of something that's "just big enough" for who we are today.

5. Location, Location, Location... Kind Of

As a freelancer, I don't have to worry about the home-to-work driving distance -- but Ann does. As long as she's working in the Oakland / Shadyside area, we thought we should look for something nearby -- Friendship, Shadyside, Bloomfield, etc. -- so she doesn't waste time and money driving long distances twice a day.

We also identified the things we do and places we go on a regular basis -- grocery shopping, bookstores, banks, coffee shops that stay open 'til midnight -- and tried to look for apartments that would be near as many of those locations as possible. It didn't make sense to save money in one capacity -- like proximity to Ann's job -- if we'd only be driving further to everything else.

In the end, we found a place in an area of town -- Greenfield -- that we never would have thought to look in the first place. Not just because we hadn't realized it was closer to Ann's work than we thought, but because it's in an area that feels more like an actual neighborhood than the places I traditionally seek out. Instead of being surrounded by grad students and commuters, we'll be living among people who own their homes, who have families, and who take pride in their houses and yards. For someone who hasn't had a yard in nearly ten years, this will be a change of pace -- and, since ours is paved, it saves me from having to mow it.

I may be all growns up, but I'm still not ready for yard work...

3 Tips to Keeping Your Freelance Calendar Flexible (and Your Head on Straight)

2008-06-04T11:51:00.011-05:00

In the comments on my earlier post "5 Tips for Freelancers," reader Stephanie Booth mentioned that she was having trouble setting aside work dates for clients who then cancel on her without having fronted any payment in advance -- leaving her with an empty calendar and too few actual paychecks.

Unfortunate as this type of occurrence is, there's nothing technically wrong with it. If a contract hasn't been signed, and up-front payments haven't been guaranteed, a client is perfectly within her rights to cancel any proposed or pending work. Of course, that doesn't make life any easier for freelancers like Stephanie, who could have allocated those saved dates to other work (or other, paying clients).

In that vein, here are three tips for managing those clients who seem to take up all of your time... without actually paying for it.

Don't Write in Pen What Should Be Written in Pencil

Often, a client will ask if you're free to meet or work on a specific day (or days), which may give you the impression that you have a guaranteed gig. But if your client is simply gauging your availability for possible future projects, or if "something comes up" that derails their intent, that guaranteed gig will often turn out to be nothing more than a suggestion -- and one that doesn't pay.

SOLUTION: Don't commit to any dates that aren't explicitly confirmed by the client. If you use scheduling software like iCal, etc., mark down any dates the client has inquired about with question marks, so you'll know you *may* have a conflict on that day. Then, if another client makes a similar, concrete request for the same day, you can decide if it's worth negotiating a different work date with this definite client or if the earlier possibility of work is more important than the promise of an actual gig. (Hint: It almost never is.)

Confirm All Dates at Least X Days Prior

As a freelancer, it can be difficult to know what you'll be doing tomorrow, much less a week or a month from now. That's why concrete additions to our calendars are so important -- they provide the structure that we base the rest of our surreal work lives around. The earlier you can turn a question mark on the calendar into an exclamation point, the easier it gets to navigate your own life.

SOLUTION: If you have to juggle multiple clients on multiple days, confirm all proposed meetings and work dates X days in advance. (For me, X might be one week; for the less flexible, X might be a month. It all depends on how much stability you need to feel confident in your own workflow.) If a client cannot confirm a proposed date by your cutoff point, politely inform them that you'll do your best to keep it free, but you cannot guarantee that your time won't be requested elsewhere.

As an added bonus, you'll likely find that the clients who can commit earliest to their proposed work dates are often the clients who pay on time, too. (THOSE are the clients you'll want to be most flexible in accommodating, for obvious reasons.)

Insist on Partial Payment Upon Reservation of a Date

If you find yourself assailed by clients who book up your calendar and then cancel all their appointments, your best recourse is to bill your clients as soon as a date is confirmed. Even a nominal fee will remind your clients that your time is worth money, and they shouldn't take either for granted.

SUGGESTION: This type of semi-drastic measure is best covered in a contract between you and your client well in advance of the start of work. If you're unsure whether you'll need to take such a step, include this verbiage in your standard work agreement, but denote that such fees are optional and may be invoked by you only if necessary. (This is a politely-worded warning that abusing your time will eventually lead to expenses.) Also, be sure that both you and your client are in agreement on your definition of terms like "confirmed," so you don't start billing them in a seemingly arbitrary (and indefensible) fashion.

This tip may not be necessary -- or pleasant -- for everyone, but it definitely separates the "talkers" from the "doers." And, in the end, all the talking in the world doesn't get a freelancer paid -- doing does.

The Culture Gap

2008-05-28T09:39:00.003-05:00

Last week, I saw a play that was written by an African-American playwright. It dealt with issues of gender, race and identity. It tackled sensitive subjects like sexual abuse and racism. And it was framed around an iconic myth of nature, hope and redemption.

And I hated it.

Not because the play was heavy-handed, unsurprising or obvious (which it was), but because it was being lauded despite these shortcomings. Lauded, I felt, *because* it was a play about a different cultural experience than what the theatregoers in Pittsburgh are used to. In this particular case, I felt quality (or its absence) was being ignored in favor of political correctness -- of the NEED to champion a work of art that presented a less-omnipresent POV than that of the Straight White Male that governs so much of American society.

My continued evaluation of that play, and of my experience with it, have prompted numerous questions over the past week, including:

* Am I unable to connect with art created by artists from different cultural backgrounds because we lack the same shared experiences?

* Does our cultural background directly impact our ability to emotionally or intellectually evaluate art?

* Is mediocre art from underexposed cultures given a "pass" by the cultural gatekeepers simply because they feel obligated to promote any voice from within those cultures that are willing to step forward?

* Does allowing mediocre art to flourish do a disservice to the potential artists from within a specific culture by lowering the bar of expectations?

* Is it fair to compare art from various cultural backgrounds? Is it racist NOT to?

* How profoundly does a difference in gender impact one's ability to understand another?

* What larger cultural or social implications arise when art created for "shock value" ceases to provoke a "shocked" experience in its audience? Does that mean we've diverged too far from a "norm" of behavior, or does it mean we've simply assimilated that previously "extreme" behavior into our larger frame of reference and nullified its impact?

I don't have answers to any of these questions, but I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts.

The Importance of Getting Paid

2008-05-15T05:37:00.001-05:00

When you're a freelancer, NOTHING is more important than getting paid. Not finding new leads, not meeting your deadlines, not exceeding client expectations -- NONE of that compares to making sure there's money in your pocket and your bills are paid on time.

Over the past 3 years, I've learned that the act of physically getting paid by clients is much harder than it should be. Some of this is due to clients moving slowly -- after all, no one wants you to get paid more than YOU do -- but most of the trouble I've had getting paid stems from complications that I can improve on my own... and now, so can you.

5 Ways to Make Sure You, the Freelancer, Get Paid

1) Request half your fee up front.

Depending on the specifics of your freelance gig, a job you begin in February may not pay you until June. After all, it can take weeks to assemble all of the related materials, weeks more to complete the work itself, and then weeks (or months) of reviews until the client decides the work is complete.

And all that time, you're working but not getting paid.

Brand new clients should expect to pay you half up front for new contracts. Longtime clients may be more flexible, and agree to pay in increments as milestones of a project (initial plan, mock-ups, each review round, etc.) are reached. But if a client is reluctant to pay even a portion of your fee up front, you need to decide if you can complete the job while not seeing a penny for 3 or 4 months. (Odds are, unless you have a massive nest egg built up, you can't; rent doesn't give you a 4 month reprieve.)

2) Never presume an invoice has been processed.

Most clients are quick to respond when they receive an invoice. Their confirmation that the invoice will be entering the accounting system helps us sleep at night, knowing we can expect to be paid within the agreed-upon turnaround time.

Recently, one of my clients claimed to have not received an invoice. When I called their accounting department to clarify, the resulting wild goose chase included, among other proposed solutions, faxing a copy of the overdue invoice to a specific accounting employee -- who, it turned out, didn't actually exist(!)...

If a client doesn't confirm receipt of an invoice, call to verify it's been received. Be pleasant but, if you're not getting an affirmative answer, be persistent -- at that stage, nothing is more important than ensuring that your invoice is processed as swiftly as possible. Remember, it's not the client's job to make sure you get paid; it's yours.

3) Make friends within the company, to help when Accounting falls behind.

If you're good at what you do, it's hard not to make friends within your client company. Keep in touch with these people, even when they're not directly involved in your current projects, because you never know when you may need to ask them for help after the impersonal folks in accounting can't find last month's invoice...

4) Be consistent in your invoicing procedures.

Most clients have one specific procedure that they request you follow when submitting invoices. This helps them avoid overlooking an invoice, which could trigger late fees if they don't pay on time. It also protects you in case you need to prove that an invoice was submitted properly, so any dispute can't be blamed on your inability to follow directions.

I recently attached a client's invoice in an email in which I also answered a client's question. Upon receipt, the client replied to follow up on my answer, resulting in a longer email conversation. Unfortunately, the client didn't notice the invoice was also attached, which resulted in that invoice not getting paid until I noticed it was overdue. In this case, simply sending two different emails (one delivering the invoice, one answering the client's question) could have saved me an additional 30 days of waiting to get paid -- since, in this case, the client wasn't wrong for not noticing the invoice because I'd diverged from standard procedure.

5) Deposit your cash immediately.

This might seem obvious, but it's amazing how often checks can languish, awaiting deposit in your account. Maybe you think it's more important to meet today's deadline, or maybe it's more convenient to deposit that check tomorrow when you're running other errands.

Wrong.

NOTHING is more important than getting paid -- and that includes the physcial act of depositing that money in your bank account.

This step is doubly important if your bank (like mine) places additional holds on out-of-state checks. In my case, when a non-Pennsylvania client pays me, it takes an extra week to actually receive that money because my bank holds that check for 5 business days. Add in the time it takes for the check to physically travel from my client's desk to mine -- up to 5 days, depending on when and where it's mailed -- and that's over 10 days between the time a client thinks they're paying me and the time I can actually apply that money to bills. (So when that check comes in, the last thing I can afford to do is "get to it tomorrow"...)

REMEMBER: When it comes to freelance work, NOTHING is more important than getting paid. If you keep your bank account full (or at least "not empty"), you'll survive long enough to acquire more clients, get higher-paying work, and (if you're really good at what you do) build a nest egg that will make each of these "get paid now" steps a little less harrowing.

Do you have any tips for getting paid? Add them to the comments below!

Spiders, Starfish and Central Command

2008-04-25T15:31:00.004-05:00

Bureaucratic as it may be, a certain truth made itself apparent to me today:

When working with large groups of people, make sure everyone is on the same page.

All for One and One for All

The Spider and the Starfish is a book that touts the adaptability of "leaderless organizations." It was a big success because people love the idea that they can work freely, without having to answer to 100 bosses.

Of course, they still have to answer to at least one...

Even a Starfish Has a Head (Sort Of)

Here in Pittsburgh, several dozen of us are working to bring PodCamp Pittsburgh 3 to life in October. While I love seeing so many passionate people dedicated to the same common goal, the downside is, sometimes we move too fast for our own good.

Today, we launched registration for the event... only for one of our co-organizers to notice that we hadn't actually worked out one of the financial details. As such, we had to halt all registration until that detail is worked out -- a situation that may require getting up to 10 people together in the same room (or on the same conference call), just to make sure something we *think* we all agree on is something we actually do agree on.

So, ironically, having *more* volunteers than we've ever had before is actually slowing down the entire planning process because we've now realized we don't have those top-down approval procedures in place. Of course, once we do, life gets better -- so, in light of that concept, here are...

3 Tips for Working with LOTS of People

1) Know Who's in Charge of Whom.

Sooner or later, everyone has to answer to someone. Knowing who you have to answer to, and procuring their approval (or working out any discrepancies) early on, saves you the worry of wondering if you're on the right track.

2) Talk Regularly.

There's nothing more frustrating (for both sides) than nearing completion on a project, only to find out that you're doing it wrong. If you need approval, get it. If you have questions, ask them. Don't presume that something being "almost done" is a license to do it incorrectly.

Likewise, don't keep people waiting for your approval. Delegation only works when the people expected to carry out the work know that they actually *can*.

3) Keep it Simple.

No one needs to open their inbox and find 100 emails, only 90 of which actually pertain to them. If you need approval on a dozen aspects of your project, sum them up in one email or phone call and direct it to the appropriate person(s).

Presumably, this means you'll need to work out the specifics of your project as early in the process as possible. The more actions that can be auto-approved (because they meet pre-approved standards), the faster that work can get done -- and the more time everyone saves.

Do you have any more tips that have worked for you in the past? Leave them in the comments below.

I'm Going Hollywood (Briefly)

2008-04-12T14:20:00.006-05:00

Fans of pulp films and social media, check this out: I'll be moderating the talkback portion of tonight's discussion at Pittsburgh Filmmakers featuring Brett Leonard, director of genre favorites The Lawnmower Man and Virtuosity. Leonard is in town to chat about the future of social media and discuss plans for his own upcoming web series, which marks another merge point between Hollywood and the wild west of the web. Should be an interesting time.

If you're in Pittsburgh, stop down to Filmmakers (477 Melwood Avenue in Oakland, 15213) at 7:30 PM tonight. Free food + drink, plus a chance to chat with a talented and eloquent director in the cozy Melwood Screening Room.

(If you have questions for Mr. Leonard but can't be here personally, drop them in the comments section and I'll do my best to pass them along.)

I'm Up for a Yahoo Video Award!

2008-03-12T09:20:00.004-05:00

Well, actually not *me*, but Something to Be Desired, the web sitcom I created and have been producing since 2003.

I learned yesterday that STBD is one of 5 finalists for "Best Series" in the 2008 Yahoo Video Awards. Very cool! We're up against 4 other talented contenders, and it looks like each of them alerted their supporters (aka, "blurbed their mailing lists") long before we did, so now we get to play catch-up.

It's an uphill battle, but we Pittsburghers know a thing or two about hills...

If you'd like to vote for us, you can check our little box and see the results here. (And if you do, thanks!)

And, if you've never seen the show, you can check it out on our homepage -- or, if you're in a Yahoo mood, watch it here.

Here's our most recent promo:

Why the Democrats Fear Kucinich

2007-12-13T12:24:00.000-05:00

Given today's news that Dennis Kucinich has been barred from this week's Iowa presidential debate, you might be asking yourself: what could someone do to get barred from a debate?

The answer: not being a "serious" candidate.

... which, according to the Des Moines Register, is proven because Kucinich doesn't rent office space in Iowa. Instead, his campaign organizers there work out of a home office.

Evidently, NOT wasting money on needless office space and transportation costs makes a person a false presidential candidate. Really? Sounds like good fiscal and environmental judgment to me...

The larger problem is that Kucinich receives no mainstream media support, precisely because his entire progressive platform goes against the regressive / centrist politics of the existing Democratic party. Kucinich must realize he can't actually win the party's nomination, but he DOES realize his true value is to ask the hard questions of his fellow candidates, forcing them to explain their questionable choices.

Funny thing: he can't do that if he's not on the same stage they are.

Say what you will about choosing between "the lesser of two evils" in the "two-party system" next November, but America's best chance for political and environmental progress is getting shut out of the race by those whose interests would be disrupted if he were granted a louder voice.

Democracy in action?

ShowClix: A Pittsburgh Social Media Startup That Gets It Right?

2007-12-11T14:58:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I met with Lynsie Camuso, one half of the dynamic duo behind recent Pittsburgh-based social media startup ShowClix. But, as I quickly realized (and as Lynsie herself was quick to point out), ShowClix isn't a social media company -- it's a service-based business that uses social media tools. (Or, in other words, they actually have a business plan.)

ShowClix, in a nutshell, is the friendly independent alternative to Ticketmaster. Considering Ticketmaster is one of the most-reviled companies on the planet, ShowClix has an easy story to tell. But just being the "good guy" isn't enough to win an uphill race, so Lynsie and her team are looking for ways to include the community-driven power of social media to help her startup gain an advantage against Ye Olde Behemoth.

For example, ShowClix has created strategic alliances with influential bloggers like Perez Hilton, which help them gain brand name traction among a key demographic: pop culture obsessives who actually *go* to live events.

They also host their own ShowClix blog, "The Shlog", which is part concert announcement board, part entertainment gossip and part personal opinion. (Do I sense a Perez influence in recent posts needling Angelina Jolie and Harrison Ford? Perhaps -- but it's nice to know a blog is written by a human, rather than a press kit, no?)

ShowClix has a relationship with Innovation Works, an investment firm dedicated to revitalizing the "tech economy" in Southwest Pennsylvania by supporting "independent business ideas" (aka concepts not hatched in a CMU think tank). This is an arrangement that's good for both IW and ShowClix, which seems to be wisely plotting their path to credibility AND profitability.

Let's hope this is just the beginning of profitable Pittsburgh web startups. Lord knows we have room for a few more along that ever-expanding "Technology Corridor"...

Social Media Fears Among Parents

2007-12-07T12:34:00.000-05:00

During lunch yesterday, I overheard an exchange between a man and woman working together.

He: "Did you see the new ___ video yet?" (I forget the video name; it's irrelevant here.)

She: "No. Is it on YouTube?"

He: "Yeah."

She: "OH!" *Hand goes up in protest* "No YouTube in this house."

As she went on to explain, she has a ten year-old at home, and she wouldn't dream of exposing him / her to the evils of social media.

She: "Did you hear about that girl who hung herself because she was talking to a boy on MySpace?"

Me: "That wasn't actually a boy --"

She: "I KNOW, it was the PARENTS!"

So, yes, because of some truly asinine and despicable actions by a small group of people, at least one family (and probably thousands more) have decided to bar all forms of social media from entering their house.

Never mind that this selfsame ten year-old is probably, even now, surfing YouTube at school / a friend's house. (Kids won't be stopped from sniffing out taboos.) What's more interesting is that, instead of taking this opportunity to educate their child on the proper way to navigate a dicey situation -- meeting people online -- these parents have instead decided to write off a whole wide swath of the internet as evil.

I'm not a parent yet, so I'm probably out of bounds in commenting upon parenting techniques. But I am a child OF parents, so I have half the equation settled, and that means I CAN say this:

I would appreciate my parents much more for helping me understand the pros and cons, the dos and don'ts, of social media interaction (or anything else) than I would being told that "X group of people" are simply off-limits. (I might not realize the nuances of this difference until 10 years later, but it would happen.)

Sticking your head in the sand when something untoward happens may be a good short-term solution if you need to catch your breath, but it's a lousy long-term strategy for creative problem solving. And, unless I'm wrong, parenting seems like 100% creative problem solving.

Side note: Why do I suspect this same family, which bars their child from using YouTube, still allows him / her to watch traditional TV? (Notice she didn't say, "No *internet* in this house.) As though mainstream media is somehow "valid" content because it's produced by people with real jobs?

Five Ways You Know You're NOT a Social Media Expert

2007-12-06T01:59:00.000-05:00

Following up on my previous post about what constitutes expert-dom, let me add a further thought:

YOU are not an expert.

Lately, I have been inundated with Twitter requests from people claiming to be "social media experts" or "marketing experts" or "business experts."

Let me tell you something: if I've never heard of you, you are not an expert.

I can name the people I consider "experts" in most fields on one hand. Thus, if 200 of you are claiming to be "social media experts," at least 195 of you are lying.

While we're at it, here are...

Five More Ways You Know You're NOT a "Social Media Expert"

1. You don't have a blog.

2. The only people you interface with are "fellow A-Listers."

3. You spend more than 10 minutes a day on MySpace. (This includes MySpace employees.)

4. You can't explain what you actually DO in under 25 words.

5. You still need a day job.

What Makes a Social Media "Expert"?

2007-12-04T11:20:00.001-05:00

Chris Brogan has just announced he's devoting his next 100 posts to providing social media tips for the rest of us. Chris usually has good ideas and common sense insights, so he should be able to provide a useful lantern for those people still crawling around in the darkness.

Announcements like this do lead me to wonder, though:

What Really Defines Someone as an "Expert" in Social Media?

Consider that social media is a hodge-podge of:

* Content creation across multiple media (text, audio, images)

* Managing interpersonal communication across multiple platforms, and

* Engaging one's audience in meaningful ways...

... it could therefore be argued that "social media" is really just "(the new) basic communication."

Why be Spoon-Fed Common Sense?

There's nothing involved in social media that isn't already obvious to the average person. There's nothing awe-inspiring about aggregating followers, spreading a message or spurring individuals to action. We like to think there is but, truth be told, humans have been doing that since the Stone Age.

And, in that sense: what makes one of us more of an "expert" at communicating than others?

Is it the amount of MONEY a person makes from communicating?

Is it the size of one's LEGION of followers?

Is it the POWER one wields as a by-product of communicating?

A Disclaimer

By the way: this isn't an attack on Chris or anyone else. For example, I consider Chris Brogan to know more about communication than most people. In my estimation, he is a communication expert -- but what numbers validate that claim in black and white?

What are the metrics for being an "expert" at communicating?

iProng Magazine Launch (featuring Moi)

2007-12-03T20:26:00.000-05:00

Bill Palmer's iProng Magazine celebrates its launch party today in LA. The mag, which is PDF only, focuses on all aspects of the social media culture, from tech and trends to content and community.

You can download a PDF version of the magazine here -- which includes my previous blog article on the similarities between punk rock and social media. Evidently, I'm a back-page columnist. Woot.

Chris Dodd Internal Campaign Email "Snafu"?

2007-11-30T13:27:00.000-05:00

*UPDATES AT BOTTOM OF POST*

I don't know how I got on the Chris Dodd email list, but here I am, getting weekly updates from his campaign. Most of those updates are (understandably) requests for donations from his supporters -- sometimes blandly and obviously so.

However, none of them were accidentally transmitted internal emails from Campaign Manager Sheryl Cohen to fellow strategist Tim Tagaris.

Until today.

(Evidently, Ms. Cohen figured out how to email the WHOLE mailing list after all -- see below.)

Transcript of Email from Chris Dodd Campaign to ENTIRE Mailing List:

From: Sheryl Cohen [EMAIL ADDRESS@chrisdodd.com]
Reply-to: EMAIL ADDRESS@chrisdodd.com,
To: JUSTIN'S EMAIL ADDRESS,
Date: Nov 30, 2007 12:36 PM

Tim,

I made a few small changes to your email draft -- you'll see them below.

Would have sent to the entire list myself, but I could only figure out how to send this test.

I know you're concerned about sending another fundraising email, but we're only $40,000 short of hitting our November goal, and that money will help keep us on the air and talking about ending the war in Iraq and the Constitution. And honestly, our supporters online are so terrific and have come through for us every time.

Plus, with votes on the war and retroactive immunity coming up, our leadership will help keep the pressure on other presidentials to keep their word.

Ask people to give at this link so we can track the goal publicly.

http://chrisdodd.com/goal

Thanks,

Sheryl Cohen
Campaign Manager, Chris Dodd for President

On Nov 30, 2007, at 10:53 AM, Tim Tagaris wrote:

>
Chris Dodd for President

Dear Friend,

Think about it for a second. Do you truly know what you'll get from the other candidates if they win the nomination?

If you really want the answer to that question, don't ask a person where they are going -- ask them where they have been.

Why do some candidates spend as much time apologizing for a career full of bad votes as they do talking about how they'll remedy the fallout if elected?

Why can't we get the simplest of answers to the straight questions from others?

And why do some just flat out skip the tough votes?

From authoring the Family and Medical Leave Act to his often single-handed efforts to restore the Constitution, you know what to expect from a Dodd Administration.

We set a goal about a week and a half ago to raise $100,000 online and we'll need your help right now if we're going to meet it.

Please get us there by contributing $25 right now.

http://chrisdodd.com/goal

Thirty-four days.

If you feel strongly about our fight to end the war in Iraq, prevent war with Iran, and restore the Constitution, we need your support right now.

Our field operation is humming along and our current "Restoring the Constitution and Rule of Law tour" is drawing larger crowds than we've seen at any point in the campaign.

But we need your help to keep it going.

Thirty-four days.

Your contribution right now will ensure we have the resources necessary to continue the fight through January 3rd.

http://chrisdodd.com/goal

You've come through for us every time.

Not much time left.

Let's get it done.

Tim Tagaris
Chris Dodd for President

********

The Lesson Here?

Actually, two very important lessons can be learned from this conundrum:

1) If you're going to accidentally email thousands of people regarding internal political communications for a presidential candidate, make sure you don't say ANYTHING that could be used against you if it fell into the wrong hands. (Good job, Ms. Cohen!)

2) Please, please teach everyone on your staff how to use the email system.

Please.

*UPDATE* Immediately after posting this blog, it occurred to me that the Dodd campaign may have purposely "leaked" this email, knowing that the blogosphere would swarm to it.

At least, if they DIDN'T do it on purpose, that's how I'd spin it, anyway. (Notice how the email is actually entirely positive, and meant to draw attention to a campaign that's obviously not among the "major names" in the news these days?)

*UPDATE* All of which brings up a valid question: What's worse: gaming the social media system to make $40,000, or being legitimately incompetent?

Give the Gift of Sanity This Christmas

2007-11-30T12:50:00.000-05:00

Christopher S. Penn posted a great holiday gift-giving guide over at his Financial Aid Podcast -- one that has nothing to do with fashion, technology or Elmo and everything to do with honesty, compassion and common sense.

(Plus, it includes a section on Gifts You Can Give Yourself!)

You can download the file here, but you'll have to go here to thank Chris.

A Sobering Thought

2007-11-28T15:56:00.000-05:00

As I was laying in bed yesterday, it occurred to me that, in all likelihood, I'll be dead in 60 years.

I'm 30 now, so -- at best -- that means I'm 1/3 of the way to my grave.

Not that it bothers me. But it does get me thinking...

When I go, will I have lived a life I can be proud of?

Will I have accomplished most of the goals I pursued?

Will I have seen and done things that made my life worthwhile?

I suppose the answer to those questions will be up to me, in my final hours. But I'm also aware that the fuel for those answers will be found over the next 60 years or so. That means every choice suddenly takes on a bit more weight.

Suddenly, "just getting by" doesn't seem worthwhile.

Suddenly, "living comfortably" doesn't seem good enough.

Instead, I'm well aware that I have a LOT to do on the road to a life I can remember with pleasure and contentment in my final hours, instead of frustration and regret.

Seasonal cliché? Possibly. But nonetheless relevant.

How are YOU doing on your road toward the Great Unknown?