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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So how do we break out?

By breaking in.

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

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

So get on their radar.

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

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

But it could be.

(Image by samatt.)

I Don't Want to Meet You

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

Why do we do this?

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

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

I think the reason why is 3-fold:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

10 Things I Learned at SocComm

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* Amber Naslund = thank god for real people.

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

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

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

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

Image by Michael Lewkowitz.

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.

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... ;)

PodCamp Pittsburgh 3: Meet Our VIPs

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

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

PCPGH 3 VIPs (Listed Alphabetically by Last Name)

Aaron Aiken (Twitter)

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

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

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

********

Lindsay Aiken

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

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

********

Kathleen Danielson (Twitter)

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

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

********

Megan Engle (Twitter)

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

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

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

********

Shawn Farner (Twitter)

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

********

Tim Grubb (Twitter)

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

********

Tim Hindes, Pittsburgh Tech Council (Twitter)

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

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

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

********

Blake Imeson (Twitter)

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

* Areas of expertise: SEO, Blogging and Social Media

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

********

Alan Jakub (Twitter)

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

********

Julie Morey, ElasticLab (Twitter)

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

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

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


********

Melody Platz

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

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

********

Walt Ribeiro (Twitter)

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

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

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

********

Jen Sadler (Twitter)

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

********

Scott Tyler

A beer geek and snob extraordinaire...

********

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

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

Tweeting Up Is(n't) Hard to Do

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

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

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

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

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

Photo by Teejay Hanton

PodCamp Pittsburgh 3: Three Questions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Social Media Etiquette of Facebook

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

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

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

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

Herewith, our argument:

Ann's Point of View

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

Justin's Point of View

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

What do you think?

Liquid Sundays: How to Make YOUR Event More Social

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

* Central Plains (a Pittsburgh semi-supergroup)

* TheeAdora (femme-fronted pop rock)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How?

Identifying the Problem(s)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

10 Ways to Be a Social Media Asshole

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?

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.

Who Are You Trying to Impress?

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

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

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

Anatomy of a Conversation

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your Comfortability Makes Me Uncomfortable

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

I Haz Bin BlawgTagged?

I was evidently blog-tagged by Dr. Mani regarding the online experience. Having not blogged recently, this is a good opportunity to revisit the keyboard...

Onward:

1. How long have you been blogging?

A: I've been blogging since 2004, when I began by dabbling with a MySpace blog.

2. What inspired you to start a blog and who are your mentors?

A: It was an experiment at first, like most things I do online.

As for mentors, I think that's a presumptuous question, which infers that everyone must blog for a reason and actively seeks to emulate the style of someone else. For example, I may read Chris Brogan's and Seth Godin's blogs on occasion, but we paddle in different boats these days.

3. Are You trying to make money online, or just doing it for fun?

A: I'm trying to make money, period. Paying my rent and eating every day are great accomplishments. If I happen to make that money online, so be it.

Right now, I look at social media as a still-emerging market, so putting all of my eggs in that basket would be ludicrous. Then again, so would putting zero eggs in that basket.

And, rationally speaking, putting eggs in baskets never seemed like a sensible storage solution in the first place...

4. Tell me 3 things you LOVE about being online.

A1: Meeting a variety of people I wouldn't meet otherwise

A2: Consuming large and varied amounts of information

A3: Near-instantaneous feedback on new ideas, breaking news, and other benefits of being plugged into the collective subconscious

5. Tell me 3 things you STRUGGLE with in the online world.

A1: The relevance, permanence and unstable momentum of online relationships (and the movements created therein)

A2: Information overload, resulting in an inability to focus for long periods of time / parse the truly important information from the trivial or temporary

A3: The massive amount of groupthink, errant "wisdom of crowds," and general mediocrity associated with being plugged into the collective subconscious

******

Must I tag others? Fair enough. I tag Julia Roy, Tim Siedell (Bad Banana) and Locobone. Feel free to swap out questions with more relevant ones, if you're so inclined.