I'm Bored With Your Brand

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.

We Need a New Water Cooler

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.

Your Customer Is Not Your Problem

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

Stop Telling Me I'm Amazing. I Know.

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.

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

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

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 Comments Ate My Baby

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.

Twitter Is a Mistress Who Demands All My Time

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

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.

Screw the Latte; Where Are the Hand Towels?

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?

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

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... ;)

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

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

10 Ways to Be a Social Media Asshole

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

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?

5 Things My New Puppy Is Teaching Me

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?