Demystifying the web and more. Come join me.
December 22nd, 2008 — Projects, social networking
For more information about @wellwishes, @tipjoy and how you can contribute $2.00 and feed your Twitter addiction at the same time, please visit Pistachio Consulting.
This post stolen from Jeff Sass. That man knows all about social networking addiction.
December 21st, 2008 — Meetups, St. Louis, social networking
So it just goes to show that if you can’t go to St. Louis, the people will still come out. That’s right, our second Tweetup in St. Charles county area was a success. Before you read my take on it though, I’d like you to read Jeff’’s Tweetup post.
Back? Great.
As Tweetups go, this was a great crowd. We had both techies and non-techies, men and women, and the mix worked well. The conversation wasn’t just stuck on the latest Twitter tool or tech tip.
Lisa, @StL4Closeures, talked to us about real estate and politics. Karen, @KarenStL, talked about her recent networking experience at BarCampStL. Sharon, my wife, jump in and talked about being a parent and bus driver. It was one busy table.
The location turned out to be busy but well liked. Trailhead Brewery is located on the St. Charles waterfront area, in the historic area of town. Trailhead provides a fun and warm atmosphere for getting together, as well as a great selection of microbrew beers.
All these elements made this an above average experience. How do I judge that? I judge it by the relationship impact. Huh? Yes, it’s about relationships.
Out of this Tweetup, Jeff, @jpickell, met, Chris, @idonotes, and others that he’d only known via Twitter. They really hit it off, and I see collaboration coming for those two. That’s just one example of how real face to face time can be a plus.
What did I learn? On a practical level, I learned to plan the location better, but knowing what circumstance might affect it. It turned out they were packed due to activities on Main Street.
On a social networking level, I learned that word of Twitter, though fast, isn’t always efficient. I used simple broadcasting to my followers to alert folks of the Tweetup. This proved less than fully effective. Where I saw the response was in people that follow me and few others right now. The more active involved folks on my stream missed the message altogether.
Feedback I received indicates that a more direct and targeted approach would work better. This would include as much advance notification as possible with an effort to reach as many relevant individuals as possible. Aiding this would be the fact that I keep a group column in Tweetdeck just for tweets by locals.
Another lesson was that not everyone is equally interested. Some will respond online and honestly be fully committed. Others will reply and not really plan on turning up. The rest will ignore the offer like it was never heard. The key is to not worry about the head count but about encouraging folks to come with the intent to add value.
On that last point, and my final one, adding value isn’t about being the most knowledgeable about Twitter, social networks, or Web 2.0. Bringing value to the table is about your willingness to join the conversation, form relationships, and get over your fears.
Luckily the best way to get practice at these things is to show up to more and more similar functions. Cheers to those that do.
I look forward to seeing you at an event near you in the future.
December 15th, 2008 — Blogging, social networking
Inside the SEARS Wishbook — A $500 Grant a Wish Giveaway! - Liz Strauss at Successful Blog.: “Every year when I was a kid, my mom would sit us down with the Wishbook from Sears. She’d have us make list of what we wanted for Christmas…. The tradition came with a solid promise that at least one item on each list would end up under our tree. My list kept me busy for hours — busy dreaming, and wishing, and learning the life skill of filling out order forms.”
The above reminds me so much of being a kid. When my sister and I were young our parents would bring home the catalogs from the big department stores like Sears. Traci and I would sit in the middle of the living room reading through the catalogs dreaming of the wonderful things within.
As a grown man, I still love to browse a catalog when it’s gift giving time. Just now I do it online. Sears has long been online and offering even more choices there than can be found in their corner store.
This year Sears is out to share that joy through offering gift cards through a simple bit of blog magic. They’ve asked a few bloggers to share the wealth by doing a simple contest on their blogs.
Each blogger had to go exploring at Sears and get their own wishes granted, then write about it on their blog. The bloggers then get to offer some prize packages worth $500 to the lucky winner.
One way to enter is to write a blog post about the contest and link back to the post. I’ve chosen Liz Strauss to show some love to as her article really brought back memories for me.
I’m especially fond of the Images, Music, and Words package.
Hats off to Liz and Sears. May they spread much joy this holiday season.
December 14th, 2008 — Conference, St. Louis, social media, social networking
It doesn’t look like much. It’s a small white board with some slap dash writing on it. Heck, it’s almost like chicken scratch in places, and the lines aren’t straight.
The board contains the presentations held during BarCampStL, BarCamp St. Louis. Notice the list isn’t formal, neat, and LUNCH is the biggest entry, but that’s how things work at a BarCamp.
BarCamps are about an unconference style versus the traditional way folks get together for conferences. Instead of elaborate planning and plotting up front, it’s about the dynamics of real people interacting spontaneously.
St. Louis’s first BarCamp went extremely well in part because of this informal style. It was cooked up by Ryan Keeter, Michael Austin, and yours truly had a hand. The planning consisted of finding a spot, getting a sponsor (thank you Network Solutions), and posting the date, time and place. Okay, someone had to work the deal with the City Museum, but that’s part of finding the place.
Real magic happened between the people who showed up and the venue. There were over a dozen of us that attended, not including the drop ins from the City Museum IT guy and our bartender, Tatyana. Each person brought their unique point of view and their backgrounds, but they also brought their hopes and visions about the future.
These individuals showed up and presented, listened, took notes. They learned, instructed, and discussed their plans. Bonding occurred not just over that, but over the food as well. (pizza, wings, salad, sodas, waters and a round of beers)
Enough about all of that though. I’d like to just mention one person I bonded with, Karen Goodman, aka @karenstl. Karen had some great questions about social networking in general, and specifically on Twitter. Luckily I was able to share some insight in those areas. In exchange, Karen gave me the grand tour of the City Museum. Here’s her collection of City Museum photos.
Everyone that attended was a rock star in their own right. I’ll be covering more of my experiences with those folks in upcoming posts, as well as some pictures of them and the City Museum. Look for more link love as well.
If you posted about BarCampStL, please link here and I’ll link back to you as well.
Please show our sponsor some love, Network Solutions.
December 2nd, 2008 — social media, social networking
Yes, you PepsiCo, are you listening?
There are many of us out that blog and use social networks that are fans. Sure, we may not be the top five in the A list, but is our thirst and opinion any less important?
It has recently come to my attention that Pepsi has a room on FriendFeed. This room is purportedly for Pepsi fans. It’s a bit odd of an arrangement though. It seems in this room only a few select individuals can actually post.
Pepsi hand picked four guys to make all of the posts. The rest of us FriendFeeders get to just make comments. Those will even be moderated. Don’t believe me? Here’s the scoop from the room.
Welcome to The Pepsi Cooler. Join us as together we shape Pepsi’s social media future. We’re changing the way we do things and want to have you along for the ride. Contributors include Bart Casabona, Bonin Bough and Josh Karpf from Pepsi and Steve Rubel from Edelman. Note: comments are held for moderation but we will get them up as quickly as we can.)
Pepsi just doesn’t seem to get it on more than one front it appears. They hand pick the talkers; they moderate the comments; they claim you are joining them as ‘we’ shape the future of Pepsi’s social media future.
News flash, that future came without you. Pepsi folks have been talking about you online for quite a while now. They’ve been sharing stories, facts, pictures and forming groups without your involvement. Have you totally missed those of us doing that sharing?
Here’s a clue Pepsi, join the conversation and community, don’t try to run it. Your few fans that realize the room exists aren’t likely to use it. They can’t even post there. Where’s your presence on Flickr? What about Twitter?
It’s not enough to have an idea on those platforms. It’s about joining in and being part of the talk your fans are already having.
On a personal note, I’ve been posting pictures, and writing good things about your Diet Pepsi brand for 2 years now and not a peep from you. Perhaps you’d have noticed that if your team had searched around a bit for those conversations instead of trying to push it down to your fans.
I’m calling you to the mat Pepsi team. Step up your game. Bring out someone on your team that loves your brand and is ready to be the face of that brand on the social networks. Find someone that will find us fans, and those that aren’t, and engage them where they are.
Where are you? I stand here in the midst of web 2.0 waiting for you.
November 29th, 2008 — social networking
The most important thing in every relationship. Really we spend an immense amount of our lives communicating either actively or passively.
Our society is very judgemental of the ways and what of our commincations, be they spoken, written or physical. Perhaps rightly in some ways though. For few people take responsibility for the how, why and what of their own communications at all.
In this day and age, not only are many more conversations possible but they are actually happenning. It’s an exciting time and taking ownership of our side of those conversations is even more important.
For Christians, the Bible speaks on more than one occasion about taking our tongue under control, and beyond that our thoughts. For everyone in general, much worldy advice has been given and I won’t belabor that again here.
One point I did want to make is to reinforce that whether we intend to or not, we are constantly in communication with those around us, both in our homes, at work and online. People we’ve never met and know well in the same day we send out signals too.
My encouragement is that we put our best face forward and attempt to postively communicate. Not just be passive but choose what we say, to whom we say it, and in what manner it gets said. Have a lover? Have you made a connection with that person intentionally lately? How about that coworker two cubes down? Talked about anything but being bored at work?
What are you communicating?
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This is a ‘best of’ post; it’s taken from a blog I had temporarily titled So Possible.
I still feel the same way about communications. It’s important that we take it seriously. So many of us have become all to complacent and easy going on our online communications especially. We find ourselves quickly escalating beyond simple banter to the risque without even trying. Other times we catch ourselves making light of a tragedy simply because the speed and conciseness of online tools lends its self to that.
Take back your online life by taking stock of how you communicate. Make adjustments. Be the owner of what you say and do. You won’t be sorry.
November 22nd, 2008 — social networking
It’s time for the Twitter Gift Swap again. WickedStepMom has organized it this year and quite a few folks have signed up. I’ve already started looking for ideas as to what to send.
Above is the wonderful gifts I received last year. What a great surprise they were. I love the mug.
What would you want for a gift from a semi-stranger? Someone you know only from Twitter? A mug seem too safe for you? You’d rather not get personalized under garments I’m sure as well. What’s the happy medium?
If you draw my name, I have some suggestions for you.
November 17th, 2008 — social networking
Are you being held hostage by social networking and social media? Is it keeping you back or keeping you inside? Are you too tied up by it to break free for even a minute?
You talk about writing that great novel. Your wife is bugging you about planning a vacation. Work is something you squeeze in between blog posts, or sometimes during.
Has your social crew become your only friends? When was the last time you took time to have coffee out with some friends? Besides a Tweetup I mean.
If these thing describe you, then there’s a good chance you’re being held hostage. You are a hostage of social networking.
Is it a bad thing? Yes. It doesn’t seem like it at first. Friends seem to develop overnight. Folks come out of the wood works to join you for chit chat every day. But something happens along the way. You find you just don’t have time to get in those daily blog posts anymore. That’s just the beginning though.
Next to be sacrificed are those special projects. Oh sure, you still jump in and hammer a nail here and there, or fix a leaky faucet, but the big projects die a slow death.
It progresses to canceling plans that might take away from that Friday night live podcast you’re now hooked on. Your online time grows until Friday nights end up ending on Saturday mornings.
Perhaps there’s an intervention, but what happens next is the work invasion. It starts with checking your blog stats during the day, but it ends up progressing to checking your Twitter stream hourly. Finalliy you’re keeping it open just in case. Don’t want to miss those important mid day tweets.
Where does it end? Who can rescue you?
It ends when you turn and walk away. You must be your own rescuer.
Don’t be lulled into a false sense of non-addiction when you’re physically separated from your computer and the internet. Take active choice and walk away.
What to replace it with? Replace it with time spent in a good book, time with your wife, playing games with the kids. Heck, take up a side hobby. Try taking some long walks, or visiting the museum. Travel works for some. It meets so many needs.
Whatever you do, walk away. Don’t let your social networking rule your life and hold you hostage. It’s okay to let it be part of your life, but it shouldn’t be your only life. Don’t let it put a bullet right between the eyes of your life.
November 14th, 2008 — social networking
This is the no frills, short and to the point guide to get you started in social networking.
You’ve always wanted to be one of the cool kids. Do these things.
1) Sign up on Twitter. (Be sure to upload a profile picture. Anything with your face.)
2) Visit the following Twitter folks’ pages and friend them:
3) Read and reply to our Twitter messages. Replying is easy. If you are using the website, see the reply clicker here.
You can also reply to someone by type the @ symbol and the Twitter ID, e.g @tojosan.
4) Pay attention to the ongoing conversations. Jump in when something catches your eye.
5) Send out your own Twitter messages once you get some followers. Talk about your day, about your fun, sad, frustrating, and powerful moments.
It’s really that simple.
Things you don’t need to get started.
1) A blog - much overrated and over talked about. Everyone has a blog, but unless you’re already invested in one, don’t bother. You can always start one later.
2) A good camera - a camera isn’t even required, but you’re going to want one. Any cheap 35mm camera will work when you’re ready to take some pics to share.
3) A video camera - get one when your heart screams for one, else skip the big spend. Join some friends to make videos if you get the urge to try it out though.
4) Naked body parts - you don’t need to get naked to get attention. To get the most attention, pay the most attention.
Advanced bonus material:
1) Check out and follow any of the folks on Twitter Alltop.
2) Get a Flickr account. Share your pictures.
3) Get a Twitter client. My favorite is Tweetdeck.
4) Attend a Tweetup. When twitterers meet in person in one’s home nest.
This may seem like a bare bones tutorial, but I’ll cover alternatives to Twitter in a future post, as well as some quick and dirty steps to joining the social media bandwagon as well.
October 23rd, 2008 — social networking
How do you know when you’re a social networking addict? Here’s a few of my favorites.
