What I Do: The Floodgates of Self-Promotion

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).

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

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.

The Brogan Effect 2: Electric Boogaloo

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.

The Brogan Effect

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.

Your Free 10-Step Social Media Diploma

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.

What Makes a Social Media "Expert"?

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?

Social Media Gatekeeping (Or, Why I Won't Be Invited to San Francisco Anytime Soon)

Brace yourselves, folks: I'm about to depict, with an awkwardly high amount of geekery, exactly why there's a glass fence around the "social media" hierarchy, and why it's so tough to scale it.

In a nutshell, Eric Rice and I stumbled into a conversation last night on Twitter. The subject? Eric was musing about the seeming hypocrisy of every 'must-attend' social media event, in which people who aren't making any money in the medium still feel obliged to fly to an event to be part of some fictitious scene.

At one point, I mentioned that, since the web is built upon the democratized promise that physical location no longer matters, I shouldn't feel hamstrung by living in Pittsburgh as opposed to NYC / LA / SF. However, it's undeniable that "the action" still takes place in the major media centers -- which, if that's the case, essentially means that the liberating power of the web is a lie.

Meanwhile, Eric was Twittering with several other conversants, including Robert Scoble. Roundly recognized as an "A"-List blogger (a title he even affords himself on occasion), he and Rice are in roughly the same media sphere; I'm at least 2 to 3 layers out from there. Thus, they'll twitter back and forth freely, while I'm rarely involved in that echelon of discussion.

Scoble mentioned that he couldn't conduct his work anywhere else than San Francisco, because there aren't that many tech CEOs anywhere else. He also referred to the much-maligned "flyover states" quite genially, although he admitted there weren't many geeks in them; at least, not compared to SF.

However, when it came to Eric's point about "regional isolation" affecting social media, Scoble wasn't buying it:

@spin: you're full of it tonight. If someone wants to get "unisolated" just put "@scobleizer" in your Twitter message.

Hmm. So that's it? All these discussions I've had about the path to web success and here it was all along. (Who knew?)

It was equally interesting to see the following exchange betwixt them, first from Rice:

@scobleizer btw, none of this has anything to do with me, I'm raising hell on behalf of those with unheard voices. So we're clear on that

And Scoble's response:

@spin: I find it interesting that you are raising hell on behalf of people who REFUSE to join the conversation. Why won't they?

Hmm.

Not sure who's REFUSING to join the conversation here. In fact, I'd wager more that Scoble (and the other powers-that-be) see so much of the social media seascape, it's just hard for them to notice any ripples that aren't emanating from their own buoys.

Or, as I said in slightly less apologetic language:

*shrug* Being asked to "join the conversation" presumes there's a gatekeeper. Thanks, Emperor, but I have my own clothes.

Later, while surfing to Chris Brogan's blog, I saw his most recent post. It's a link to a video about Glenda Hyatt-Watson, known as the "left-thumb blogger" because... well, just watch the video. It's an inspiring story all its own -- and exactly why I felt the need to re-tweet it.

Which I did, thusly:

I'm sure this was widely twittered 12 hours ago, but @chrisbrogan 's post about @GlendaWH is truly mindblowing: http://tinyurl.com/225lyz

This post went out, like all others, into my twitstream, and I went back to work.

Moments later, Robert Scoble twittered the following:

@chrisbrogan's latest video rocks. http://tinyurl.com/225lyz

Anyone notice anything amusing in that tweet?

The TinyURL link is mine, created moments earlier, and copied and pasted by Scoble into his own post. Which, innocently enough, looks like he decided to post it out of the goodness of his own heart.

Which, to be honest, he may have.

And Lord knows I'm not due any back-patting for pointing Chris's post out. Odds are, Scoble would have discovered it anyway, sooner or later.

I just find it ironic that, after earlier wondering aloud about the poor, innocent people Eric Rice was coming to bat for -- those who "REFUSED" to join the conversation -- Scoble would have a golden opportunity to credit the messenger in this particular case, and instead choose to clip out the TinyURL and send it off as his own missive.

Full disclosure: I've blogged previously about the pitfalls of social media, including the lunacy of "fishbowl"-driven buzzwords involving use of the term "Scoble___," as in, "Scobleized." It's quite possible that such discussions have raised the hackles of the powers-that-be.

I also have a feeling Scoble's tweet probably brought 100x the attention to Chris's post as my tweet did, since Scoble's followed by far more people on Twitter than I am -- so, in the end, the message was served, and that's the important part.

(And no, I'm actually not upset about it; just highly entertained. Irony is its own best raison d'etre.

I'm also not delusional enough to believe I require credit in this situation. I didn't make the video, I'm not the subject of the video, and I'm not Chris Brogan.

I'm just a guy, smirking away, isolated in a flyover state.)

Are You a Person or a Brand?

An hour ago, Chris Brogan made the following comment, via Twitter:

Clarity of message is worth more than you know. One topic. Go deep. One topic.

When I debated that point, Chris clarified his reasoning:

[S]imple branding. If you come to me and tell me 41 things, I'll remember 3, if any.

Fair enough. The web is an information orgy, after all.

But I think these statements raise a major issue regarding how we conduct ourselves online, what we expect of each other and what exactly we are.

The Problem of Complexity

With so much information (and so many people) sprawling across the web, there's a temptation to force people to summarize their very essence into 15 second pitches.

The upside? The web becomes more easily navigable.

The downside? Each of us becomes far more limited and replaceable.

If you read this blog because you're interested in my opinions, or because you know me personally, then you view me as a person.

If you read this blog strictly because you're interested in social media, then you see me as a brand --- one of many within your realm of information consumption.

I believe I can be both, depending upon my audience. But Chris's comments seem to question whether we can truly have it both ways, especially when we need to make snap decisions about whom to listen to or what actions to take.

So, to be blunt: Are we individuals or are we brands?

The difference (as I see it):

A person...

* Is multifaceted in interests and abilities
* Is frequently scattered and unable to focus
* Stretches limited resources across multiple channels
* Can be contradictory
* Can make mistakes
* Isn't easily summarized
* Has opinions
* Offends 50% of the populace with those opinions
* Requires a steeper learning curve
* Can evolve without needing permission

A brand...

* Is instantly recognizable
* Is best served when narrowly focused
* Can conquer small markets, then expand
* Often weakens as it expands
* Cares fiercely about "message" and "image"
* Must chart a course and follow through
* Changes slowly and uniformly
* Sees the world in black and white
* Can transcend self-defined borders
* Powers an agenda

Why Does It Matter?

Under these conditions, we have two options when "living" online:

* We can be individuals -- free to dabble, experiment, make mistakes and allow for complexities and contradictions...

* Or we can be brands -- restricted in breadth but limitless in depth, iconic, reductive, and easily replaceable.

Each has their pros and cons, but neither is perfect:

* One seems fickle, the other finite.

* One is unclear and prone to failure due to diffusion of message and purpose...

* The other is constricted and struggles to maintain relevance against faster competitors.

What Should YOU Do?

Obviously, that's up to you. Perhaps you even feel you have the freedom to switch between "personhood" and "brandhood," depending upon your audience. (Google might beg to differ...)

However, this differentiation has consequences. It can help you decide things as complicated or mundane as:

* Your screen-name
* Your signature
* What information you decide to make public
* What outside information is "important" to you
* WHO is "important" to you
* WHY you use the web
* When to speak and when to remain silent
* If you use email, or Twitter, or a blog
* If you need a MySpace or Facebook account

Etc., etc., etc.

On one hand, I worry that a web filled with people is too complex to amount to anything more than a headache of contradictions.

On the other, I suspect a web filled with brands would be a soulless and disposable sphere devoid of meaningful interaction.

And yet... to move forward, don't we need some of each?

What are YOU?

Has the Social Network Exodus Begun?

** UPDATES to this post at the bottom **

It's official: Michael Bailey is off MySpace and Facebook.

If you don't know Michael personally, you've probably never been to a social media function. I've known Michael to pop up at PodCamps from Boston to Pittsburgh, and at VON in San Jose and PME in SoCal -- all from his homebase in Missouri. For quite awhile, Michael has been one of the few active cross-coast socializers originating from the Midwest.

And he just admitted today that it's mostly bullshit.

Now, granted, Michael has been known to ruffle feathers. Michael is a pot-stirrer, like myself, and is often just as interested in seeing HOW people react as he is in WHAT they actually have to say.

But he brings up a great point, via Twitter:

When you lower the bar of what really matters and what is important, things like social networks crop up like weeds... You all know how to get ahold of me, you have my email address, my cell #, my address. If it matters, reach out, attach yourself.

Let's ignore, for the moment, the fact that not EVERY interaction requires a phone call or an email. (Michael himself would admit that.) The bigger question is:

What PURPOSE Do Social Networks Serve in our Daily Lives?

I myself never use MySpace for personal communication anymore. When I started blogging and Twittering, MySpace lost out in the time sink.

I've also not bothered to join Facebook. Surprisingly, I'm still alive, healthy and getting work.

LinkedIN? The most it's done for me is pepper my inbox with arbitrary questions from people I barely know, about job openings or tech issues. No real traction there.

Pownce? Never bothered.

Delicious? Haven't used it in years.

What Michael (and I) seems to be saying is: the signal-to-noise ratio (god, I love Web 2.0 buzzwords; perhaps they'll someday have a Smithsonian display all their own) is reaching the point of pointlessness.

I've heard many people, myself included, muse about the possibility of deleting their MySpace accounts, now that they've essentially become spam boxes. Perhaps there's a temptation to migrate to Facebook, or whatever else comes next.

But, for people like Michael, perhaps Seth Porges is right -- perhaps social networking is a trend that's about to end.

Do YOU still need YOUR MySpace account?

(Side note: In the earlier days of Twitter, when the system was even buggier [if that's possible], there was a massive one-day defection to Jaiku. It was led by Chris Brogan and Robert Scoble, two of the most influential social media voices. And, of course, when Twitter came back, so did everyone else.

Had they stayed gone, what would have happened to Twitter?

Michael Bailey isn't as much of an inciter as Scoble or Brogan, but his point is much more valid. I'm interested to see if there's a tipping point here, and how close Michael comes to it.)

** UPDATE (8:27 PM Oct 3rd): I just canceled my MySpace account as well. Odd, how a service I once spent so much time on is now something I avoid at all costs. Granted, when I started on MySpace (in 2004), I was single and the service was new -- two great hooks to occupy my time. But now, I have so many other ways to keep up with people, I just don't NEED MySpace.

I still have an STBD account there, though. Why? Because that's the only way some people watch our show, so as long as there's an STBD, there might as well be an STBD MySpace...

What Do You Expect from Your Community?

A few months ago, I joined the Yahoo Videobloggers group. I was interested in taking the pulse of that subset of the web video world. (I know it's not 100% representative of the web video world at large, but it paints a broad enough picture to be relevant.)

Lately, the topics among the group have veered more sharply from technology to ethics. Most digest updates I receive contain upwards of 20 messages about people's opinions about certain individuals or companies, or the behavior thereof.

Yesterday, a newbie popped out of the shadows to say that he'd expected more technological discussions from the group, and was surprised at the level of personal opinion and hand-wringing taking place. The response from another group member was a reminder that ALL types of conversation about web video are welcome in this space, and that the pendulum would surely swing back to technology soon enough -- once the personal fires had been put out.

That got me thinking: should the Yahoo Videobloggers group subdivide into Tech and Content sub-groups?

And, in a larger frame, what do YOU expect from YOUR community? Are there topics that are off-limits, or that seem counterproductive to the larger conversation?

Too Much Information?

If Chris Brogan blogs about a travel hiccup, rather than community development and social networking, is your day disrupted?

If Seth Godin were to pause the marketing machine and blog for a day about sushi, would his opinion about sushi be in any way relevant to you?

Personally, I know I enjoy Peter King's and Dr. Z's comments about coffee and wine in their respective SI.com columns, mainly because it reminds me that well-rounded humans are writing these articles, not football-driven automatons.

It's the same reason I actually ENJOY seeing the Yahoo Videobloggers group bounce between technology and ethics.

What about you?

Do you believe a group / information outlet should stick to its initial premise for the sake of streamlined clarity and maximum impact? Or do these humane touches ADD value to the overall experience?

And -- what happens if a group (or creator) finds the focus of their work / existence... is shifting?

The Trouble with "Free"

People can only expect "free" content for so long before nobody wishes to create anything due to lack of incentive.

"Jason," Gosford, Australia -- commenter on an Andrew Keen article

How many blogs do you read? How many podcasts do you listen to / watch?

Would you consume the same amount of web content if it WASN'T free?

Most of the web world is betting "no," which is why so much remains free. But for the people who ARE producing work that, under traditional circumstances (and in traditional media) WOULD be considered "market-worthy," the question remains: how do we monetize?

We created the internet under the guise that all content should be free. Then we bemoan the fact that, since we CAN create market-worthy work there, we SHOULD be paid for it.

But how?

People expect ads on TV and radio because they were ALWAYS there, to ensure the media was delivered for free. Conversely, they expect NO ADS in films because they already paid at the door. (So, when theaters started showing ads, audiences were right to complain.)

People expect everything on the internet to be free, OR TO BE A GATEWAY to something ELSE that costs money.

So how do we, who are creating free content (blogs, audio, video, animation, photos, communities, ideas, experiences) get PAID for what we're doing?

The John C Havens / Eric Rice Method: "Charge SOMETHING"

On a recent interview with About.com's John C Havens, he and I debated the merits of EVERYONE charging SOMETHING, so the world would come to understand that the internet was a viable delivery mechanism.

Meanwhile, Eric Rice also recently blogged about the potential for iTunes to at least enable podcasters who use the service to charge SOMETHING for their work, to retrain the audience into not expecting everything for free.

John and Eric are proponents of the concept; I'm more skeptical (for the reasons listed above), though I do see the need to move away from the "all-you-can-eat-for-free" buffet -- for exactly the reason quoted atop this post.

The Andrew Baron / Chris Brogan / Vergel Evans Method: "Charge for SOMETHING ELSE"

Andrew, Chris and Vergel have recently expressed variations on the same theme: "Give away the content as a gateway to SOMETHING ELSE you monetize." Vergel's podcast is all about electronic music creation -- and then he sells mp3s of his songs.

Chris and Andrew champion the concept of giving away videos for free to get people to buy the DVDs, or subscribe to a site to see extra features / content that's unavailable to the (free) masses.

While I CAN agree with this model, it's flawed in one central way: why would I expend dozens of hours and x amount of $ to create something I'm already passionate about, JUST TO HAVE TO CREATE SOMETHING ELSE I CAN CHARGE FOR?

What IS the Internet?

I think what it all comes down to is: how do WE (the creators) SEE new media?

And, how do WE (the consumers) INTERPRET new media?

And, most importantly: How does EVERYONE SEE the internet?

Is it a delivery mechanism unto itself? A marketing and advertising gateway to someplace else? Or a bastion of all things that shall forever remain free?

(And where does what YOU'RE contributing fall along those lines?)

BootCamp PGH Interviews

Joel Witt interviewed several Pittsburgh new media types at BootCamp PGH last month, including Jim Shireman (Sportsocracy), Lindsay Patross (Spreadshirt), honorary Pittsburgher Chris Brogan and me. If you haven't heard these spots yet, you can check them out here.

Life Is Math

Chris Brogan recently mentioned that the best comedy works because we, as humans, can relate to it.

I'll go even deeper: the best comedy works because it's mathematically sound.

As any comedian will tell you, comedy is all about timing... and timing is math. Sure, relatability is the humane filter that determines whether or not we develop an emotional response to something (like humor), but whether or not a joke works boils down to simple mathematics.

The same goes for music, painting, photography, theatre, dance, writing, architecture, film... Everything we consider to be aesthetically engaging and unspeakably profound -- even sex -- can be broken down to mathematics.

Why?

Composition, color scheme, rhythm, tone... each element that affects the "finished product" of art is mathematically based. Change any element, even by a fraction, and you have a wholly different end result -- one which society may react to in completely different ways.

The same goes for life beyond art. Great feats in sports are merely the result of body mechanics. The difference between a great golf swing and one that slices into the woods off every tee might be one-sixteenth of an inch.

Likewise, traffic patterns are entirely mathematical -- humans operating machines that are simultaneously computing millions of equations, all the while being influenced by external data (weather, temperature, distance, congestion).

The entire concept that life is math occurred to me in college, and I recall being profoundly depressed at that observation. Who, at the age of 20, wants to believe that his or her entire life will be dictated by the uncaring objectivity of numbers?

But Chris's post highlighted the element that mitigates the objectivity of math: we're all subjective creatures. Life might be entirely mathematical, but individuality is our one-of-a-kind way of interpreting the exact same set of data.

Or, in other words, I like Whit Stillman movies and you like Jim Carrey... and that's okay.

Bare Basics Tech in a Blue Collar Town

Great observation from expert marketer John Wall: "PodCamps are a reflection of their cities."

Considering Pittsburgh is a city caught between its past as a steel town and its future as... well, we're still figuring that out... it makes sense that we cling to the traditions we know will work: namely, alcohol.

Granted, that's not the only reason Wall calls last year's PodCamp Pittsburgh "the best conference I have ever attended" -- it had something to do with the caliber of talent on display from around the country too. But the post-party at the Tiki Lounge certainly didn't end the event on a down note.

Peel back the bravado for a moment and you'll realize what really makes events like PodCamp tick: the community. People LOVE to come together and share ideas and information. We love to be "in the club."

That's why we're so excited about BootCamp PGH, next Saturday's "bare basics" guide to new media. We realized a lot of people still need a helping hand in becoming comfortable with the web media world, so we decided to offer a FREE event to ease them into the conversation.

Some interesting characters are already on board for BCPGH. Chris Brogan will be there, talking about entry-level podcasting and the value of community. Matthew Ebel is coming to town to share his success as a podsafe musician -- did you know he recorded his last album using GarageBand?! -- the ladies of Spreadshirt will offer their marketing and merchandising expertise, and iJustine will share some of her social networking secrets, guaranteed to help you generate your own rabid following.

Even TalkShoe ambassador Tommy Vallier is coming down from Toronto to help acclimate new faces with new media.

What are YOU doing on April 21st? There's still time to register for BootCamp. Bring yourself, bring a friend

(And yes, if you're wondering, there will almost definitely be another alcohol-fueled celebration after BootCamp. This IS Pittsburgh, after all...)

Video on the Net: The Personal Recap

As with all things web media, it seems like the residual energy from a major event like VON is yet another "snack-based" item, something that dissipates quicker than it should.

It's logical, considering there are another 20 items vying for my attention the day I step off the plane and return to my "normal" life. But, fortunately, that residual energy doesn't fade away completely; it just wanes, ever so slowly, while my attentions are diverted.

So, before the memories fade completely, let me regale you with my personal recollection of the event. Will this be instructive? Doubtful. Will it make you wish you were there? Quite possibly.

I Love People

I'm a social guy. Drop me in a room full of interesting people and I'll find a million ways to amuse myself.

I'm not always the chattiest guy, nor am I someone who feels compelled to meet everyone within eyesight, but I do enjoy finding out what makes people tick.

At VON, I was fortunate to spend most of my time with people I either already knew and valued, or people I met and grew to appreciate in a very short amount of time.

Old Faces

- Chris Brogan, who made the world go 'round

- Jeff Pulver, who provided the gravity (and the raison d'etre)

- Steve Garfield, who continues to pioneer strange and wonderful new ways to use new media

- Brian Conley of Alive in Baghdad, who continues to strike fear in the hearts of insincere videobloggers everywhere

- Jim Kirks of The Clip Show, who remains one of the web's best "undiscovered" personalities

- Michael Bailey of MobaSoft, who has become nearly ubiquitous on the new media social scene. If there's a podcasting event, chances are Michael is on the guest list.

New Faces

- Clintus McGintus, who went from complete stranger to "my roommate" in the span of five minutes. One of the nicest human beings I've ever met, and without an ounce of pretense to muddy the picture. Great guy.

- Sarah Atwood, one half of Nontourage and co-star of the short-lived (but perhaps resuscitatable?) Vloggy-winning podcast Almost There. The female foil for many male egos in San Jose, Sarah proved her worth to the firm time and again.

- Grace Piper, whose Fearless Cooking podcast is truly the work of a woman to be reckoned with. Especially if you're a squid. (AKA Winner of $200 in a hit-and-run poker game at the after-party...)

- Jim Long, whose 17 years of experience as an NBC cameraman have prepared him well for this world of on-the-fly information gathering. Smart, friendly and self-deprecating to a fault.

- Casey McKinnon, the female half of Galacticast. (We'd actually met at PodCamp Boston, but I wasn't in the business of being memorable at that time.)

- French Maid TV's Tim Street, whom I'd also met at the Yahoo Halloween party in October. (Again, I tend to blend in quietly unless provoked.)

- Roxanne Darling, star of Beach Walks with Rox, who is every bit as calming and visibly wise in person as she is when following nature's paths in Hawaii.

- Schlomo Rabinowitz, "enabler to the podcasting stars of tomorrow." Also knows the right time for shots of Jameson. (Answer: always.)

- Toronto podcaster Vergel Evans, who was easily the silver medalist behind Clintus in the "nicest guy / happiest to be here" 100 metre dash.

- YouTube juggernaut Mark Day, who's nowhere near as blood-curdlingly intimidating as I expected him to be when left alone with him for the better part of an hour. Turns out all he needs is a good chaperone through the technological landscape and he's content.

- Nick Douglas, vlogstar of Look Shiny. We thought for quite awhile that we knew each other. Nope. Just turns out I'd seen Look Shiny recently and thought I knew him. You get that a lot in web video...

- Scott Simpson of iTunes, who -- in addition to being generally hilarious in a completely deadpan manner -- told what shall go down in history as, easily, the most paralyzingly funny story at the VON "after-party" circuit. I've tried replicating the moment with several audiences myself and failed; Scott sets a new bar for "dry delivery."

There were dozens of other folks I had a great time with, and whose brains I picked endlessly for some truly fascinating conversations. But many of them are executives or lawyers or other "behind-the-scenes" people, so I'll spare them the association with a blog post that's shaping up to be more "Entertainment Tonight" than "Inside the Actor's Studio."

If I've failed to mention any of the other wonderful people I met and enjoyed the company of at VON, by all means, consider yourselves lucky to remain anonymous.

The Inside Stuff

So, wondering what exactly goes on among a group of half-drunk pseudo-celebrities such as ourselves at an event like this? Here are, in no particular order -- and in no way guaranteed to make complete sense -- what I recall as some of the highlights of my week in San Jose:

- Arrive in San Jose. Make my way to the hotel. Bump into Steve Garfield, Blip TV's Dina Kaplan and others in the hallway outside the "beta party" suite. Dina talks to me for a few sentences before we both realize she doesn't recognize me. Last time we hung out, my hair was about 6 inches shorter. It takes Garfield, who'd lost his voice after SXSW, to explain who I was in pantomime.

- Pulver party suite: booze, piano, poker. Lots of food. Lots more liquor, mostly in people. People who are playing Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero...

- I'm supposed to share a speaking slot with Garfield and Conley. We ask each other what we intend to speak about.

Garfield? The ease and impact of videoblogging with consumer-level equipment.

Kownacki? How to create engaging, sustainable episodic content.

Conley? "I'm just gonna walk up there, kick over the podium and let them all know they're full of shit."

Sounds like a well-rounded presentation...

- At VON, looking for a plug for my laptop. The only one I can find is being occupied by BuzzMachine's Jeff Jarvis. I momentarily consider asking if I can share his outlet, but some obscure form of "don't talk to the A-listers" stigma prevents me from doing so -- which is odd, considering Jarvis is quite a normal guy. Instead, I blog from the presentation room floor until my battery dies, while Jarvis makes small talk with VON honcho (and raconteur) Andrew Lipson -- not even using the computer that's plugged in.

- Wednesday morning. 11 AM. Garfield, Conley and I are due to speak in 15 minutes. My cell phone rings. It's Conley.

"Where are you?" I ask.

"Walking over from the hotel. I never set the alarm. Where is everybody?"

"Waiting for you to speak."

"Oh... Is there any juice?"

- Walking to a nearby Mexican restaurant on a beautiful spring evening with Kirks and Atwood. Says Kirks, apropos of nothing and with complete contentment, "We're gonna die tonight." This strikes all three of us as being perfectly agreeable.

- Never one to look a gift premonition in the mouth, we later find ourselves (and several of the others mentioned above) standing in a Jack-in-the-Box at 2 AM in the part of town that, it can charitably be said, "is where you get shot."

Never before has Michael Bailey taken SO LONG to open a straw wrapper. Seriously. The entire time, all that's going through my mind is the donut shop scene from Boogie Nights. Fortunately, we escape unscathed...

- A cheerful homeless guy asked us if we had "$100,000." As Jim Kirks noted, that's a bum with aspirations.

- Discussing (and toasting to) agnosticism with Conley and McKinnon as the "little people" at VON -- the actual service workers at the convention center, who REALLY make the event happen -- worked their tails off around us.

- Clintus's shrewd manner of ordering rounds of tequila shots when no one's looking. (Somewhere, never to be Flickr'd, there's a photograph of Atwood doing the tango with a parking meter...)

- Upon cashing out from the Mexican place (Chacho's, I now recall), we eyeballed the check. $1,400? $1,200 of which was for alcohol? Our stomachs dropped.

"How many tequila shots did you ORDER?"

"Who's got Pulver's number?"

Fortunately, the error was soon spotted: the cashier had accidentally cashed out the ENTIRE OPEN BAR to our party. Whoops. Situation amended, no bail money needed.

- Observation from Scott Simpson: "If a plane is allowed to fly lower than 500 feet above your downtown, you don't actually live in a city."

- When I die, I want to come back as Jim Kirks's hair. It's uncanny. That sh*t could survive a wind tunnel unscathed.

- And, of course, my now semi-legendary "drunken fan moment" involving the Pitt men's basketball team.

In Closing

Perhaps the signature moment of the entire week came at the end, when the roll call was down to me, Sarah Atwood and Grace Piper as the only three entities left behind after the masses had flown home.

My flight wasn't until 10:45 PM, so I crashed in Atwood's hotel room and watched some NCAA basketball while she labeled Flickr photos. We'd agreed to grab Grace for one final drink before I hit the road to the airport.

At halftime of the Pitt / UCLA game, we headed down to the bar. I texted Grace on the way:

"Drinks @ Fairmont."

Within seconds, she texted back:

"Already in bath with martini. Good luck!"

Rock stars. We may not yet be them, but for a few weeks every year, we can certainly live like them...

Network2 Takes Manhattan

Chris Brogan, Jeff Pulver and the Network2 crew went to Times Square yesterday to relive the glory days of MTV -- specifically, the "I Want My MTV!" battle cry.

The results can be seen here.

No better way to build a buzz than by getting attractive people to shout about your product in Times Square, no?

7 Songs I Like

I awoke to find I'd been tagged by Chris Brogan re: a new meme, started by 7 year-old Aidan Hatch (!), called 7 Songs I Like. The concept is pretty self explanatory:

7 Songs I Like (in absolutely no order):

"Idiot Kings" by Soul Coughing
"El Dorado" by The Tragically Hip
"New Millennium Homes" by Rage Against the Machine
"Some Party" by The Constantines
"The Morning Story" by Running from Dharma
"Time Running" by Tegan and Sara
"Luck Be a Lady" by Frank Sinatra

And now, I tag: Steve Garfield, Sarah Atwood, Jim Kirks, Vergel Evans and iJustine.

(Secret?) Identities

Christopher Penn has a pair of very valid blog posts about how the Web 2.0 is quickly becoming the Matrix 2.0, and on the value of protecting your brand name assets on Twitter.

This got me thinking about a number of related topics.

Self-Defense Real Estate

- Do you own the URL of your name (i.e. "YOU dot com")? If you don't, who does?
- Do you own all available comparison URLs of your name ("YOU dot net, YOU dot tv, etc.)?

If you don't, or if you believe you're "not important enough" to need to, let me ask you this: what happens when you ARE "important enough" to become a household name, even in a very small circle?

Chances are, you'll BECOME popular because other people are talking about you... and other people may realize the value of your name before you do.

The savvy people are out there right now, buying up every URL associated with their own names, "just in case."

The savvier people are out there buying up every URL associated with OTHER PEOPLE'S names...

HappyBaptism.com

- Do you own the URLs for your children's names?

Let's presume that the web, as we know it, is here to stay, and that URLs will still be a valid way around the information superhighway in another 20-30 years.

How many of us have children who -- like ourselves -- may someday grow up to "be someone"?

Imagine how grateful you'd be, as a kid, knowing that your online identity was safely registered by your parents before you could even clutch a mouse. It certainly beats the alternative: knowing that you'll someday need to buy that URL back from some black market identities dealer who's currently using it as an affiliate site.

All Websites Are Actually Real Estate Agencies

- Is your profile registered on MySpace? Facebook? Digg? Twitter? Technorati?...

I recently joined Virb, a new social networking site... or, rather, STBD did.

I initially saw Virb as a new networking / marketing tool -- a cleaner version of MySpace -- so I registered a profile for Something to Be Desired. As I'm writing this post, I realize I haven't yet signed up as myself yet... so I just did.

I could (and should) do the same for every other social networking site on the planet... and every other web app that could be used for marketing, communication and brand imaging. So should you.

EVERY WEBSITE is a potential link into your world -- or your brand / product / business -- for someone else.

Think I'm joking? Google me. What do you see?

As of today, the top search results are:

- Something to Be Desired (the web sitcom I produce)
- The STBD blog
- This blog
- My Technorati tag
- My Blogger profile (including my AIM handle)
- A Jeff Pulver blog post referencing me
- Bryan Person's audio interview with me from PodCamp Boston
- STBD's Network2 show page
- A Chris Brogan interview with me from April of last year
- My MyFeedz tag

Observations?

- The easiest way for people to find me is through my work.
- Blogger and Network2 are ways to find me that I have AT LEAST SOME CONTROL OVER.
- Technorati and MyFeedz tags are ways to find me that I HAVE NO CONTROL OVER.
- Pulver, Person and Brogan's blog posts are also inbound links to my life that I HAVE NO CONTROL OVER.

Two other interesting notes:

- The Brogan interview was several pages down on my personal Google search results in April of last year. (Yes, I ego-surf.) Since then, Brogan and I have each seen our profiles rise, to the point that this same once-buried interview is now hot stuff.

- My MyFeedz tag actually produces no results. I've never even heard of MyFeedz until just now. But evidently other people have, and whatever is said about me there will have a much better chance of being heard by others than what I might say myself on, say, the PodCamp Pittsburgh Feedback page, which doesn't appear until the fourth page of Google search results.

What Does This Mean?

- You'll never have 100% control of how you're viewed by other people -- especially online.
- You DO have SOME control over how you're viewed -- and you should take those opportunities to stake your claim (and "defend your brand").
- You never know when your profile on an arbitrary website, a comment you've left on a blog or something you say in an interview will be stumbled upon by someone else, and THAT WILL BE SOMEONE'S FIRST IMPRESSION OF YOU.

Each of us needs to decide exactly how much of a "public persona" we're interested in cultivating online, and how much of a "private persona" we're willing to live without.

Think Michael Jackson had it bad walking down the street in the '80s without being recognized? That's nothing compared to what Britney Spears contends with from Perez Hilton on a daily basis -- or what you face thanks to Google, MySpace, WordPress, Twitter...

Be the Hero

As I mentioned previously, there seems to be a worldwide subconscious need for "heroes" these days. Times are tough, positivity is waning and people in power seem ignorant to our needs. Everyone is looking for someone to believe in.

Why not be your own hero?

Reality Check

Every so often, when I seem overwhelmed, landlocked or depressed, I'll ask myself, "What would the ideal me do in this situation?"

It's the agnostic's equivalent of "What Would Jesus Do?" It also addresses the same issue: if I were perfect, what would I do in this situation?

Well, I'm not perfect. But I CAN improve. And, realistically, I CAN be a much better person than the one I am now.

So what would the version of me that I can look up to, the version that I would want to be around, the version I (were I seeing myself through the eyes of others) would want for a boyfriend, a son, a dad, a friend... what would THAT version of me do?

Find Your Superpower

Yes, it's geeky, but the analogy applies: all of us have a skill or two that sets us apart from everyone else we know.

Think about your own friends. Ask around. Who are the "experts" at certain things? Or, more accurately, when you think of a person, what do you immediately think of in conjunction WITH that person?

For example, in my mind, Chris Brogan is synonymous with "connectivity." Chris is a community developer, he's a bridge builder, he's a people person. That's his superpower.

Likewise, Christopher Penn is the MacGyver of finance; he could probably find a way to monetize your bathroom if you gave him ten minutes and a paperclip. That's his "mutant ability."

And iJustine is the closest thing I've seen to the apex of the perfect geek storm: equal parts attractive, self-deprecating, nerd and dork. As such, life just falls into her lap. She doesn't control it; things just happen to her. She's a web magnet -- that's her "special ability."

Me? I'm not sure I know what my ability is, but I have a few guesses. (Quite often, these elements are best observed by others who don't see the "alter ego" of the individual every day, and aren't distracted by both the pros AND the cons...)

Take Action

Of course, knowing what your superpower is doesn't help if you don't use it. And, since no one wants to take meaningless action, you won't feel fulfilled until you move toward something you're passionate about.

- Is there a cause you feel strongly about? How can you use your abilities to help that cause succeed?

- Is there a flaw in your current business that you feel needs to be repaired? How can you fix it?

- Is there a brand new business or organization you feel needs to be built? How can you create it?

- Is there a specific person you know of who needs help? What can you do to assist them?

Once you identify the one thing you're most passionate about AT THIS MOMENT, decide what action needs to be taken next to solve the problem. Even if it's just a 10 % action, it's better than no action at all.

Form a Team

Have you ever noticed that Captain America, Spider-Man and Batman can handle just about anything on their own, until a problem becomes so gigantic that they actually need help?

Terrorists? Drug dealers? Stilt-Man? No problem.

But when alien armadas, natural disasters and pissed-off gods come to town, very few heroes can stand on their own. That's why we have The Avengers, The X-Men and The Justice League.

Since new media, at its heart, is all about community, it helps to build connections you can call on when the going gets tough. When a problem is larger than you can easily handle on your own, what other skills (that you don't possess) would help you solve that problem faster? How quickly can you get the word out?

Seek out others who are using their skills to accomplish greater things. Ask what you can do to help. Join forces. Win bigger.

All Change Starts With You

Obviously The Avengers don't come knocking door-to-door, asking if any two-bit hero off the street wants to join. They need to know a person is serious about getting the job done in the first place.

That means you need to take action. Even one small step, and then another, until you're no longer walking; you're running. After that, the rest comes naturally:

Run until you can fly.

Who Do You Know?

Yesterday I mentioned that the new media landscape is filled with uncertainty. The main reason most people delve into it is not because of the promise of untold riches or eventual stability, but simply because it's an unexplored territory. With no rules, expect those which we make on our own and agree to follow, it feels more like the Old West than it does a modern media evolution.

In the Old West, the number one goal was survival. Prosperity is great if you can find it, but you can't build your empire unless you have food, water and shelter first. How did the early settlers make their mark on the new territories? They formed small, close-knit communities that provided for one another.

In short, they formed a lifeline.

Last Night's Lifeline

Yesterday evening, I attended the latest monthly PodCamp Pittsburgh Meet-Up. These gatherings of anywhere from a dozen to 40 people are the miniature versions of what we celebrated at PodCamp back in November: an opportunity to have a large conversation and share our individual bits of information with the larger audience.

It's a community-building effort that allows us to form a bond in this new media frontier, so we don't have to walk through the dark alone.

Among the attendees last night were some new faces. Some folks heard about the meet-ups and decided they wanted to take part, ask questions, make connections.

They wanted to shore up their lifeline.

Everyone at the meet-up has an area of expertise. Everyone there knows something -- maybe 2%, maybe 50% -- about what it takes to succeed in this new arena. And everyone there wants to know what everyone else knows, so they can add that experience to their own repertoire.

But, more importantly, they all want to know they have someone they can ask for help.

Cold-Blogging and the Accidental Creation of a Movement

Last year, I started cold-contacting any blog I could find that was talking, even remotely, about web video. As the creator of Something to Be Desired, a web series that's now in its fourth year of existence, I felt I knew something about the medium. What I didn't know was how to get that knowledge out to a larger audience.

The logical thing to do, it seemed, was to contact the people who were already talking about it and ask them if they'd be interested in talking about us.

Some of these cold-contacts worked out. Most didn't. There's no harm in trying, just like there's no harm in being told that someone's not interested in what you have to say -- all you lose is the stamp, or, in this case, the time it took to send the email.

But of the ones that DID work out, one turned into a much larger conversation.

I stumbled across a blog post from someone named Chris Brogan, who was working in the technology field somewhere in Massachusetts. He'd mentioned an idea or two he'd had while exploring YouTube, in a post I found while searching Technorati. I commented on his post and referred him back to STBD, which he then watched and enjoyed enough to write about on his blog.

Instead of one obligatory post, Chris decided to continue the conversation. He had other questions about new media, and some ideas of his own, and he wanted to know what I thought about them. Over time, what started out as a request for media coverage turned into an actual friendship, with each of us bouncing creative ideas off one another and wondering where this all would lead.

During that time, I observed Chris grow from interested outsider to someone who wanted to take action and learn as much about new media as he could. Why? So he could do... something. He didn't know what it would be, and neither did I, but we each new it was different that what he'd been doing. For all we knew, what he wanted to do hadn't even been invented yet.

In order to find out what it was, he'd need to ask questions. He'd need to acquire information.

He'd need to meet people.

Flash forward to September of 2006. By this time, Chris had befriended a number of mediamakers in Boston and beyond, had begun his own podcasts to better understand the medium, and had taught himself as much of the existing infrastructure in this emerging field as he could. Inspired by the communal energy of the experience, and well aware that he needed more information to expand the conversation, he and his fellow Bostonians decided to launch an informal get-together known as PodCamp -- a grassroots meet-up for bloggers, podcasters and other new media creators to share ideas, opinions and connections.

In essence, one gigantic lifeline.

Now an Armada

Over 300 participants arrived in Boston last Septemer to take part in PodCamp. People came from as far away as Florida and California, Canada and England. All of them wanted one specific thing: to talk to other people who "got it."

When you work in any medium, whether you're a bricklayer or a computer programmer, you understand the kindred spirit and ease of dialogue you find when you discover another person who shares your passion. For new media folks, finding a way to talk, face-to-face, with a large group of like-minded individuals was tricky because everything was (and still is) so new. So when the opportunity to shore up their lifelines tenfold appeared in the form of PodCamp, the un-conference was literally flooded with people hungry for that connection.

Based upon the overwhelming success of the first PodCamp, a number of dominos began to fall. (Not least among them was Chris Brogan's newfound job as Community Developer for Network2, a new creation from Jeff Pulver's Pulvermedia group.) Suddenly, that original blog comment I'd made half a year earlier was starting to have major ramifications.

Since September, there have been two other PodCamps, one in Pittsburgh and one in San Francisco. There's another one scheduled this weekend in Toronto, and yet another in New York City in April, with even more to come later in the year (including the second go-rounds from Boston and Pittsburgh). And what happens at each of these events, regardless of the locale and the logistics, is this:

People meet people.

People make connections.

People establish lifelines.

PodCamp for Housewives

What works at PodCamp works in all walks of life, for one simple reason: it's all about communication.

Every one of us has lifelines. Each of us has a tiny mental Rolodex of friends we know we can call on when the going gets tough, or when we need help moving, or when the fuse in the basement blows at 2 AM and suddenly there's no heat.

Others have massive roll calls of people in their life whom they can call on for any question under the sun: doctors, lawyers, mechanics, repairmen, engineers, babysitters, chefs. There's not one pothole on the road of their lives that they can't negotiate with a little help from a friend.

These differences are merely cosmetic. Neither approach is demonstrably more useful than the other. That's because there are three ways to build your lifelines.

Have a LARGE lifeline

Know as many people as possible. Ask questions. Make friends. BE OF VALUE to as many people as possible. MAKE YOURSELF AVAILABLE to as many people as possible. Like the PodCampers, this will enable you to create a multilayered lifeline. And this way, whenever a problem pops up, you have a giant mental Rolodex to refer to. I call this BEING A HUB.

Have a LONG lifeline

If you don't have the time or the inclination to know everyone, GET TO KNOW PEOPLE WHO KNOW PEOPLE. Everyone knows someone. The more everyones you know, the more someones you have access to. It's a degrees-of-separation thing. You don't need to know everyone yourself, but the people you know may know other people you may someday need to know. MAINTAIN YOUR IMMEDIATE CONNECTIONS, and when a problem pops up, you'll be able to ask those immediate friends for referrals down their own lifelines. This is what makes sites like LinkedIn so useful, especially for the people who can't be (or don't want to be) hubs. I call these people THE CONDUITS.

Have a STRONG lifeline

Just as a lengthy lifeline can come in handy when something far outside your comfort zone becomes an issue, so too can a strong connection to your immediate support group. Sometimes it's not about knowing a guy who knows a guy, nor is it about knowing everybody. Sometimes it's just about knowing THE RIGHT PEOPLE. You may not be the center of attention or the person who makes things happen, but if you PROVIDE REAL VALUE in the lives of others, the bonds you form will enable you to weather more storms than the tenuous connections of a long lifeline, and will draw your central connections closer together. BECOME A SPOKE THAT CONNECTS TO A FEW VALUABLE HUBS OR CONDUITS.

Moving Past Survival

The Old West and the image of a lifeline seems apt when dealing with a new territory, whether it's the wild world of web media or the daunting prospect of college in another city. But eventually your needs change. Eventually the border towns are established, and the class schedules have been mastered, and you no longer need to worry about mere survival.

Eventually, you want to prosper.

This is when your lifeline becomes electric.

Now, you no longer need the bare basics. Now you no longer need the food and shelter and security, because those elements -- even if only crudely and impermanently -- have been established. Now you're ready to take action.

But it's impossible to take action alone.

Just like I never would have created something larger than my own portfolio in college without the connections I made to like-minded, motivated friends, and just like PodCamp never would have occurred without a few curious experimenters wondering what they DIDN'T know, the next steps in whatever venture you intend to embark upon -- whether it's repairing your garage or starting a new business -- won't be taken alone.

You need a team.

If your lifeline is large, you'll have dozens of potential teammates to call on from your hub.

If your lifeline is long, you'll have access to all the answers somewhere along the conduit.

If your lifeine is strong, you'll have a select group of dedicated friends to help you tackle the next task.

What you won't have is the worry that you're about to be overwhelmed, or that you're setting off unprepared, or that you won't be able to accomplish what you're intending. Because even if all of those fears turn out to be true, you know you'll be able to make the adjustments, change course or even retreat to dry land and try again later, with more experience and a different point of view.

That's why they call it a lifeline.