Over at Our Westwood (http://westwoodblog.org) I recently expressed my frustration that candidates in the upcoming September 14 primary for U.S. Congress and State Senate were unlikely to debate. I have a proposal for doing this online that will serve our communities, respect the candidates and voters, and increase participation and interest in the political process.

This needs to be local–sponsored and endorsed by real people with a stake in their communities. I’ve contacted the people I know in the area who run community sites like Our Westwood, and I am assembling a coalition to invite the candidates to participate. We will take on the responsibility of moderating and facilitating the public participation to avoid having the debate hijacked by extremists and “trolls.”

I think the format should be a hybrid of structure and openness. The debate will consist of three phases:

Phase 1: Developing Questions

During the last week of August, we will use “crowdsourcing” technology like IdeaScale to collect suggestions for questions and then vote the best questions to the top of the list. This phase will be “wide open” to anyone with an idea–i.e. no complicated registration, no verification of identity, anonymous participation OK. Then, our organizing committee will select 5 questions from residents to form the basis of the debate. If we can manage video interviews with those people, we’ll go out and record their questions directly using a Flip video camera.

Phase 2: Candidate Responses

We will set up a content management system with a structured commenting policy:

The questions will be posted by the debate moderator one per day at 9am. The candidates will have a window of 4 hours (the response period) before any response is published. This allows each candidate to respond but does not allow them to see their opponent’s response first. No public commentary is allowed yet.

After the initial responses are published (1pm), an additional window of 4 hours will be provided (the rebuttal period) during which candidates can respond to what their opponent said. At 5pm, the rebuttals are both posted and then the issue is open to public commentary.

Phase 3: Public Commentary

Public commentary will be available to users who register and provide basic identifying information and agree to a code of conduct. First name and town will be publicly displayed, but the person must also provide a last name, phone number, and email address for potential verification by the debate organizers. Anonymous comments will not be published. Comments can be text or video submissions, display a photo of the user if desired, etc.

If the candidates wish to continue participating, they may add their own comments. The candidate accounts will be officially verified and highlighted–i.e. no impostors allowed.

5 Days in September

I envision the debate cycle as consisting of a total of 5 questions–one per day–starting Labor Day, September 6. The public comment on question 1 will overlap with the response and rebuttal periods of subsequent questions, but I think it will be less complicated than that sounds.

What is needed?

Candidates – What I am suggesting here is a much more effective venue for communicating with voters than television, radio or a town meeting. We really need the people (see below) but if we make this work, I think it’s a venue of tens of thousands who will be able to really get a sense for why and how they should vote. I have not formally invited the candidates yet but I’d like to do this for our local Democratic primaries for State Senate and the 9th Congressional District of Massachusetts. With what we learn from this…perhaps we can cover more elections in the future.

People – I’m reaching out to bloggers and activists across the region because ultimately, we need to drive people to this. We can all post our little “you should vote” public service announcements, but I think a more effective way to stimulate civic participation would be to send people to a site where they can actually get useful information to help them make a decision about the primary. Also, I think the discussion itself will create interest and make it more likely people will vote.

Technology – There is definitely a big technology element to this project and although I can spec it out and could probably build it–I could really use help from a Drupal or Wordpress guru who could create the site that powers this. Managing it is going to be “hands-on” so I don’t need a bulletproof fully automated software application here, but I need someone who really knows how to set up these kinds of user profiles and custom workflow rules in a way that is super easy for participants to use. I want an open source solution here–something you would be willing to describe to others–not some proprietary system or custom-coded application. This is something that should be possible to create in a day or less. If it takes longer than that, you are over-optimizing.

Draft

I’ve sent a few emails and talked to a few people–now I’m blogging for feedback. I’m open to suggestions and modification by anyone willing to help pull this off.

This past weekend at the Burlington, VT ECHO Center, I saw this curious sign:

Once I downloaded the app reader described on the sign and pointed my iPhone camera at the honeycomb pattern, the software decoded that pattern into a web address and started playing a video about a tree planting with the Missisquoi River Basin Association in Highgate, VT. (It works off the image displayed here on your screen too–try it out!)

Watching the video on an iphone while standing in front of a museum display case was a bit awkward (better with earphones), but because I took a photo of it, I was able to access it later. That is much easier than bookmarking a URL or keeping track of a paper brochure.

It worked smoothly–the app install on my iphone went quickly and then it was just as easy as snapping a photo. The app viewfinder displays a frame that turns green as soon as it recognizes the pattern. Then, it sends you straight to YouTube.

My mind started racing. The code/patterns are free and easy to create on the BeeTagg web site. The process is very similar to a URL shortening service like bit.ly–just go straight to the BeeTagg Generator, enter a url and even add your own logo…then save the resulting jpeg image:

Then post that up on a billboard, right? It makes more sense than putting long web addresses on billboards or reading them over the radio.

But I was thinking of other applications–local content for my community. It’s fun to embed user-generated content like YouTube videos into a blog post, but how do you get people to the blog in the first place? I’ve written travelogues like this bike trip in France report but what if I could leave posters with codes on them behind at stops along the way for future travelers to watch?

I could design a walking tour of the historic district of a town with these codes posted at the various stops. How hard would it be to go around town with a Flip video camera, record short narrations by local people who grew up here, then print out some laminated signs to post? A project like that could be done in an afternoon and then it would be a free resource for the community.

How about a scavenger hunt? Find the BeeTagg and watch the video that leads you to the next clue.

How about tutorials and assembly instructions? Scan the code on the IKEA box and watch someone put the dresser together. Many times. Repeat. Try again. Recharge the phone. Better idea: snap a photo in the store, then go home and launch the product page in your web browser where you can visualize it in the room, then click a button to order.

What makes this revolutionary is that it shortcuts the cumbersome process of remembering and typing a web address into a browser. In the same way that bit.ly and tinyurl made it possible to quickly share links on Twitter, these BeeTagg codes can take links off the computer and into the physical world where a person can simply snap a photo.

Real estate listings. Forget about those “talking house” signs that ask you to sit in your car and listen to the am radio for a narrated Realtor pitch. Just scan the code off the for sale sign, go home, and load up the listing. Like this:

The potential applications are endless…and liberating because they can be done by people for free without complicated software. Having a Smart Phone with a camera IS a bit of a barrier, but for now, this is a low to no cost technology that might connect a few more people to their communities through a clever use of technology.

Comment spammers are relentless. I spend time every day just deleting the comments that make it through Akismet and other spam filters.

The spam-filtering service Akismet defeats most automated spam, but I suspect there is a class of low-wage human-powered spamming going on based on some internet marketer’s idea of link building.

The reason some people post short comments like “Nice job. Keep up good work.” or “Good information, thanks for the post!” is because the comment form gives them the opportunity to link to another web site. That link becomes a part of my blog because it is published with the comment. This a legitmate way to build connections between bloggers. When I comment on someone else’s blog that has much more traffic than mine, I hope that people will check out my site to see what else I’m writing.

But the reason spammers comment on blogs is to improve search engine rankings. Links from blogs to web sites increase the ranking of those sites, because search engines believe sites with many inbound links are more authoritative and creditable. So a business might pay a marketing firm to go out and comment on all the blogs they can find. Then, they report back to the company: “we’ve generated 100 inbound links for you!”

The sad thing about such an approach–apart from my annoyance at these bozos–is that it is a fraudulent scam on the companies who are paying the “internet marketing firm.” Read Google’s opinion of comment spam on their blog. The message from Google is clear:

• it does not work; they will detect it and ignore it
• it can hurt you; they will penalize sites that use it

My simplistic description of how inbound links affect search engine ranking is NOT very accurate. Google has spent the last decade refining their algorithms for ranking sites. So it is not as simple as getting some links.

None of this is new. I’ve been deleting comments like this for years, and I try to avoid even thinking about it because it is a distraction from working on something that might actually generate some revenue for my business. But I think all bloggers should review Google’s recommendations on how to fight comment spam just to make sure they are not just hitting the snooze button every day for years. Let’s walk through Google’s recommendations with some real world practical commentary…

I think the CAPTCHA and Akismet approaches are the most worthwhile to pursue. Many of us set up our sites years ago and it’s worth a review of the technologies available to update our sites to make sure we are minimizing the amount of predictible spam, then, just delete those bogus comments that slip through.

This post turned into more than a few minutes diversion…feel free to submit your own comments and links to practical ways to fight spam. I’m sure this post will itself create a moderation challenge for me.

Last Friday night, I attended an unconventional book-signing/networking party in Boston that brought together Gary Vaynerchuk, Jeff Cutler, and Mike Langford along with the usual suspects of the Boston social media scene. I picked up a copy of Gary’s book and then–because I missed the earlier train home, had an hour and a half to read it while waiting for the next commuter rail.

Gary is a “rock star” in the social media space because he used Twitter and Facebook to take his video blog, Wine Library TV, to stratospheric levels of popularity. He’s an inspirational phenomena of optimism, energy, and attitude whose contagious enthusiasm motivates and inspires.

I have a skeptical streak…and I will not to waste time here critiquing but instead focus on my takeaways. Like so many sources out there…you take what you need; you find the parts that challenge you to think.

People like Gary have aligned their passion with a platform that essentially makes sharing and self-promotion one and the same. The more he talks, the more people want to listen. Are his ideas revolutionary? No. Is there some deep insight in this book that will change your life? No. Is there a plan you can apply to your business idea to make a fortune and replicate Gary’s success, including a 7-figure book deal? No. So what is the point?

The point is that social media channels like Twitter, Facebook, and blogging give every person the power to both publish their own experiences AND, more importantly, CONNECT with others who share and amplify those passions. Find what you love to do and “Crush it!” Every person can become an enthusiastic authority about something and then, as they draw attention to their passion, perhaps they can “monetize” it. It’s not even all about money though really–if you could just afford to live your dreams, would it matter to make $60 million or $60 thousand a year?

But on this path, you really need to “Crush it.” To do that, you need to love what you are doing. A hobby blog about something you are kind of interested in is not going to do it. Starting a blog at your company and following the steps to promote it…is not going to do it. It’s not that Gary Vaynerchuck has a great video blog about wine. It’s that Gary Vaynerchuck is the Wine Library TV guy.

It’s not about expert opinions. I don’t know if Gary is an expert on wine. It doesn’t seem to matter. If you want a professional wine evaluation, I’m sure you can get that from people who are much less famous and making a lot less money. But they are boring. Gary is fun. You can complain that it’s not fair (if you are one of those people, for example) or you can realize, hey, it doesn’t freakin matter. Maybe if I find the thing I love and share it with everyone, they will love me enough that I can just do that and be happy.

But you’ve got to Crush it. Can you think of 100 or 500 blog posts you could write about the thing you are excited about? Do you want to scour the internet for information on that topic, commenting on everone else’s blog and engaging with everyone you can find? Are you motivated to hustle in this way? If not, don’t bother because there can be only one.

You need to find that passion…the thing that keeps you awake at night and is the burning fuel that will sustain you through what others would see as a lot of hard, tedious work. The good news is that social media gives you another tool that has the potential to hit the ball out of the park.

But you also have to pay the rent. That statement is the dream-killing, self-defeating reality check on so many aspirations for so many people. Fine, so pay the rent. Get a job and work 8 hours a day or whatever. But that leaves 16 hours for other things. After family and eating…ok, I guess you need to give up sleep. That’s the deal, really.

If you want to turn a dream into reality, you need to “Crush it.” You go “all in” on it and when you see an opportunity, you throw everything you have at it. Sunday, the Patriots beat the Titans 59-0 in 3 quarters of football. That sucks for the Titans, but it’s what happens when one team gives up against a team that doesn’t have a concept of “dialing things back a bit.” It does not mean you have a license/excuse to neglect other priorities…but when you are doing the thing you love–you need to give it all you have.

The passion is hard to find.

I found it hard, it’s hard to find, oh well, whatever, nevermind.

I don’t really know what Curt Cobain was thinking when he wrote that, but for me it symbolizes the fleeting nature of dreams for so many…especially those of us in Generation X who allow our cynicism to truncate promising optimism.

I do not write from the platform of a $60 million wine busines. I’m excited I found a project to do some consulting work this week that could turn into a longer term project. But what keeps me awake at night is thinking about how I can take this topic of active transporation, apply it to my town, and pull together my love of cycling and running, my desire to be a part of civic life, and my analytical and techincal skills to not only support my family, but make my world a better place.

I’m looking forward to a social gathering and speech tonight where Dan Schawbel will talk about “personal branding”–how you market yourself to other people. I’ve had an amazing amount of interest in my story of using social media in my search for work, including a number of media interviews, most recently a front-page story in the Boston Business Journal.

I’ve expanded my network greatly, but I recognize I am still not very narrowly-defined…people send me job listings I’m way under or overqualified for and they are surprised when I talk about my involvement in local issues. The “mash-up or blended life” is not a great “closer” for an interview. And pursuit of starting my business Dave Atkins Media! is confusing–am I looking for a job or work or both?

Update:

I’m including the raw video footage below from Dan’s talk. This will not win any awards for production quality, but the content is worth listening to…

I don’t spend a lot of time watching TV but I find the subtle evolution of commercials fascinating…an evolution that tracks my own gut reactions pretty well. I should document more of these because these subtle corrections happen all the time…not unlike how things worked in Orwell’s 1984. We don’t notice most of the time…but the subtle changes alter our perceptions of the brand.

An early ad for Sprint was almost giddy with the idea that people would pay for access to the wonders of technology–like the ability to update your Facebook status from your phone.

[youtube]mG_T58ePrj0[/youtube]

But then, the economy soured and Sprint tried to acknowledge that with this ad in Central Park.

[youtube]XWDaAHXil14[/youtube]

Now it’s about giving everyone access to the network so you can save money.

But I felt (and probably others did too) that CEO Dan Hesse in his fancy long coat and expensive scarf, and filmed in a highly stopped-down aperture made it seem like he was almost blue-screened into the shot with those “ordinary people.”

So Sprint decided to roll up Dan’s sleeves and put him in a limo with a laptop, riding across a bridge. I could not find this precise version of the commercial online…it was quickly updated by placing some stickers on the window of the car to make it obvious he is in a taxi…

[youtube]jd9l17F_9zQ[/youtube]

Now Dan is one of us, a guy you could bump into hopping out of a cab. At the the end, he says “I’m workin from the road today!”

Maybe I’m imagining things…but I think the marketing folks at Sprint have been listening and fine-tuning these ads all along. Partly, it’s just different campaigns, different seasons, etc. But the change from limo to taxi was subtle and effectively erased from anywhere I could find online.

Fans of Battlestar Gallactica certainly noticed a more blunt mid-course campaign correction in the evolution of KFC’s promotion recently. Originally dubbed the “Frak Pack Sweepstakes” it quickly turned into the “Can’t say that word on TV Sweepstakes.” But if you look closely, while the ad has been sanitized in most places, one of the prizes remains the “Big Frakkin’ Bag.” If the humor is not obvious click the links above for a more explicit discussion of “Frak.”

Yesterday’s Social Media Jungle in Boston was full of great discussion and ideas. One discussion leader, Justin Levy, advocated the need to stop talking about social media and start doing. But many of us are trying to figure out how to help others who aren’t ready to “do” yet.

Justin has used social media to help make his Caminito Argentinian Steakhouse successful. His Prime Cuts blog is all about food–he uses the site to talk about something he cares passionately about and that passion and enthusiasm contagiously engages his customers.

But Justin is also General Manager of New Marketing Labs where Chris Brogan is President. These guys are “social media rockstars.” He’s totally practicing what he preaches, but it’s a little bit like the crazy hypothetical of working a job next to Lance Armstrong and having him tell you that you ought to be bike commuting.

I asked what advice he’d give to a company that was unlikely to have the time to do it themselves–but how to preserve authenticity. His answer was to find someone who could write passionately about something relevant to the company.

That’s much like the strategy I’ve adopted for my first client, Heroix, a vendor of applications monitoring software. I’m blogging about what I know–the technology operations day-to-day life and relating stories of what I learned the hard way. I’m passionate about improving things–eliminating frustration and utilizing technology to make people’s work easier. That’s a trait I share with many of the people who should be customers of Heroix. I’m not trying to directly sell their product, but to help them connect with their customers.

But as my wife quickly noted, this is not reproducible. I’m using a part of myself to execute the strategy and there’s only so much of me to go around. But it did give me an idea for moving beyond “consulting company” or “solopreneurship.”

What if we truly think of marketing as a partnership between enthusiasts and producers? When I worked at ConsumerReview, their approach (for flagship site MTBR.com) was based on the idea of having a passionate enthusiast like mountain biker and founder Frances Cebedo manage a community of people who wrote reviews and shared tips. I think, if you are Gary Fisher, Trek, or Santa Cruz, and you want to get into the social media space, you need to find guys like Francis to blog, tweet, and manage your facebook pages. In fact, that is exactly what Trek is doing with their Trek Life site.

It’s daunting to tell people they should be doing things like blogging, tweeting, participating in Facebook, etc. when they don’t want to. And social media is not some advertising campaign you can just pay someone to execute effectively. It is all about making personal connections and engaging in person-to-person communication, not business-to-consumer commerce. So find people not to speak for the company, but to participate in what they love under the sponsorship and guidance of the company. Hire a third party to facilitate and measure effectiveness (hint: that’s Dave Atkins Media!).

But now…I need to get back to following Mr. Levy’s advice and stop talking and start doing…

This economic downturn is different from 2002, especially in the tech/internet space because of how people are responding to it. I was speaking with a reporter from TheStreet.com yesterday who was interviewing me about my layoff situation, and it struck me that perhaps my outlook is not uniquely optimistic, but shared by many others. I’m sure there is plenty of negativity to come and that we are only beginning to experience the disruption, but I know my response has been fundamentally different.

In 2002, the website everyone I knew was following was F*ckedCompany.com. Every day, that website published “insider stories” about the unbelievably idiotic things that were going on in companies. It also served as a bellwether of discontent and early warning of impending layoffs. Companies lived in fear: “I hope we don’t end up on that site!” Employees could not wait to post their stories of incompetent managers, wasteful company largess, and the doom and gloom stories of dotcom bust and failure.

I visited that site just now and, “Pud” reports, the site is “sorta [F'd].” Good. Who’s got time for that kind of self-pitying crap now? I’m sure it’s out there, but it is not what I’m seeing.

In 2008 I see people of all ages networking like crazy, emphasizing their positive aspects, working together to help each other, and being optimistic about the future. Maybe it is driven by Millennial enthusiasm and entrepreneurship, but I see it from my generation (X) as well as we go to networking events, join career clubs, and use social media to connect and learn.

It is early in my own quest and I’m still finishing out my time at work until the official layoff happens. But it feels like a much better world than the last time around. I tell people I see massive disruption…whole industries may be lost and millions will lose the jobs they have today. But this is the moment of change. Books like Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat described how things were going to change and Nicolas Taleb’s The Black Swan warned us that the future would be unpredictable. There will not be a gradual change, an evolution in the way we live and work…instead change is coming in waves we cannot control, but must struggle to navigate as best we can. There is no time to spend worrying or wishing about what might have been. We must embrace the future and make it ours. That is what I see happening.

I had the opportunity to speak with a local reporter about my layoff and search for work. One of his questions was whether I had advice for other people.

I was hesitant. I don’t have a complete success story to tell yet, but I can describe what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. I think social media gives us a far more authentic and easier way to establish and maintain a personal network.

A friend asked me if he should “post something on LinkedIn.” As I’ve connected with people I know, I find there are plenty of people who are not on LinkedIn, many who have never heard of twitter, and few who would consider Facebook as part of a job search. So, while I do not have a ready-packaged story of how social media got me a job, I thought it would be helpful to give examples of what I’m doing, on the chance that it would give other people ideas.

Dan Schawbel wrote a great piece a few weeks ago on the real way to get a job using social media that mirrored what I’m already doing. But there is an almost overwhelming amount of such advice out there and I hope that by describing my specific case, it may help people better visualize what they can do…to see the value in these activities…

Let’s start with LinkedIn. There are some great tips at ImOnLinkedInNowWhat, a blog that complements a book, but here’s what I’m discovering…

At a bare minimum, joining LinkedIn will allow you to:

• put a version of your resume online so you can send people a quick link in an email like this: http://www.linkedin.com/in/daveatkins
• keep track of co-workers who may change email address/company/etc.
• give you an opportunity to have past and present co-workers write recommendations for you that show up on your profile. Not heavy duty recommendation letters, but just short positive statements…then, other people will see your profile linked in from your friend’s profile.
• allow you to research people you may be interviewing with.

To illustrate this last point, here’s what I did recently: I saw an interesting job that seemed like it might be a good fit on Startuply.com. Before sending in a resume, I looked over the list of founders and searched for their names on LinkedIn. From viewing their public profiles, I could see that one was an MIT alum like me. Then I searched for him on twitter and started “following” him. In addition to sending my resume, I sent a message directly to this person and arranged a phone call–not necessarily to interview for the position, but to connect for networking. When I spoke with him, I had his whole resume in front of me. I also noticed another company he had founded that sounded very interesting…which led to my discovery of BlitzTime.

I did not get the job. But I did make a good connection that led to connections with more resources (see my blog post about BlitzTime). I did not see my phone interview as a defeat, but rather a step in the process. I was learning. I was expanding my knowledge and increasing the probability of finding opportunities.

There are many more uses for LinkedIn…I’ve only scratched the surface here…but my point is to answer the question of “why bother?” and perhaps fire up a little interest in learning more. I too had read advice about using LinkedIn, but I had to take action to start to find value. There is a certain leap of faith and comfort without concrete returns that should be a part of any job search strategy.

The best advice I can give is to stay positive. An article in US News offers 7 Reasons You Won’t Get a Job in 2009, but it’s worth the read to recognize some old ideas that are DOA today. Most of the things they talk about don’t even make sense to me–e.g. who sends copies of “recommendation letters” to a potential employer? But two “mistakes” stood out for the value a positive perspective lends to your efforts:

1. You’re using your connections to find a job. Their point is that that you don’t get a job from your direct connections, so don’t waste your energy there. If your friends have a job for you…you would already know. The point is to use your connections’ connections…to have your friends and colleagues thinking about who they might know who could help you. So when you talk to the people you already know…you ARE NOT begging for a job. You are giving them an opportunity to help you through who THEY know. When you think of it this way, I think it removes a lot of pressure…but it does force you to think of what to tell them so they can effectively help you.
2. You see your job search as personal and private. For many people, being laid off is a personal defeat, an embarrassment. When I had to lay people off in a previous job I told them it was not the same as being fired and that they had done nothing wrong…but I think they thought it was just BS. Others got to stay, so they must have been better. Whatever. We don’t have time for that kind of thinking now. I’m telling everyone who will listen that I was laid off and am looking for work. I say “looking for work” because while I did recraft my resume to empahsize my 13 years of internet technology operations experience, I am also launching an interactive media consulting business and looking for work where I can sustain myself independently.

As you can tell from the links in this post, I’ve spent a lot of time writing. I don’t recommend people start there unless they are already doing it. I’ve been blogging here at DaveWrites for over 2 years and have written probably over 250 thousands words on topics as diverse as religion and economic development. It’s my way of finding structure and purpose to what I feel I must do.

Landing the next gig is all about possibilities. It would be fair to criticize time spent on unproductive tasks, but in previous job searches (albeit where I was already employed and had more time luxury to wait for results), I think I limited myself by some self-analysis. In this quest, I do feel there is not enough time in the day, but I am not at all frustrated–I feel I have a million things to do and try…and of course I will adapt as I go along. The enemy of success here is to cut off possibilities by being prematurely critical. I feel that much of what I’m doing is “building a sail” or a “spreading a net.” I don’t know how a newspaper article about my being laid off will directly translate into opportunity…but it is all part of doing what I can do, utilizing all the tools, resources, skills, people, contacts, connections, and ideas I can to ignite a fire of interest in Dave Atkins.

The advice from many on Twitter these days seems to boil down to a desperate quest to build a massive following. A tweet this morning promised a way to generate something like 20,000 new followers in a day. Then there are e-books about how someone built a massive following…by writing a book about how to build a massive following–it’s ridiculous.

I joined twitter last Spring and slowly accumulated a little over 500 followers. I did not have a grand plan, I just started following interesting people and followed back anyone who appeared human and mildly interesting.

But as I’ve looked at this in the context of actually making Twitter work for a client, I’ve become a lot more selective. I believe the ideal place to be on Twitter is to follow and be followed by a group of people who share a common interest but don’t already follow each other. In that situation, you can gather enormous amounts of useful information and re-tweet it back to a network of folks who will find it valuable.

It’s hard to consistently generate massive amounts of original content. As in blogging, the vast majority of information being published is simply repetition of ideas already published elsewhere. It’s not about coming up with a new idea…it’s about connecting people to ideas.

Connecting is different from “exposing.” Great writing is about telling stories in a way that the underlying ideas literally resonate with your audience. The connection is not simply making a person aware of an idea, it’s making them aware of how they relate to the idea. It’s infecting them with the passion that inspires you.

On Twitter, you have only 140 characters of text to work with. I’m the kind of person who can sit back and write 2000 words off the top of my head, so Twitter is good discipline for me. Words alone don’t suffice.

Connecting actions are what matter. The most influential people are the people who share the most relevant information. They re-tweet each other’s posts–posts that link to some other blog or news article they found valuable.

The top spots are already taken. The people who have 50,000 followers quickly sort out into a handful of people who are the Twitter elite and the rest who are using some scheme to get many followers. Trying to compete with Robert Scoble is pointless because numbers alone don’t matter.

You have to ask yourself what does matter. At one extreme, if you are running for President of the US, then having 90% of the people on Twitter follow you is a good start…but it’s hardly determinative. You need millions to not only be aware of you, but to vote for you. On the other hand, if you have 100 people you follow and who follow you back…and when you ask a question, you get 5 answers right away, that’s probably better than having 10,000 random followers who are equally likely to follow you as they are to follow someone’s cat.

It’s the same thing with blog comments…quality over quantity. I recall one blogger I like was on Yahoo for awhile and every post generated hundreds of often idiotic comments. Meanwhile, her regular blog grew steadily and was interesting because the comments were thoughtful and intelligent. You could see the connection happening between writer and responder. The massive following of idiots on Yahoo was impressive in numbers, but worthless in terms of anything that mattered.

So my strategy for my client is to stake out a niche, to follow people who have something to say that matters in that niche, and engage with them, connecting them to each other and sharing information in that niche that matters to them. We may have 100 followers or 1000. But I’m not going to try to rig some chain letter twitter campaign just to be able to say we have thousands of followers.

Social media is fundamentally about conversations. Blogs, Twitter exchanges, even random comments in response to a Facebook status, represent new opportunities to connect not only on a personal, but also business level. My business is about developing strategies for getting those conversations started and using them to engage clients, constituents, and customers in a dialog that strengthens existing relationships and helps lead to new opportunities.

Clients

I wrote about using social media in my search for work and it is fair to question the effectiveness of it. I’m meeting people, but I don’t have a job offer. However, I am developing relationships that are leading to business opportunities. Working with business owners to develop their own strategy for this kind of engagement is how I can help other professionals.

By simply friending people on Facebook or following them on Twitter, I maintain awareness of what they are doing. Do you get holiday cards from your Realtor? Of course. It’s all part of their effort to keep you aware of them so you will utilize their services again in the future or refer friends to them. But traditional efforts to maintain connections like that are very limited because they require expense and broadcast approaches that are transparently marketing efforts–a “turn off” to many of us.

Imagine if I friended my Realtor on Facebook. I would occasionally notice her status updates and the repetition of her name would strengthen her brand. In the case of a criminal defense attorney, he is probably hoping NOT to find clients among his Facebook friends! But everyone you have ever worked with or known in person is a potential referral. Everyone knows people in need. If you solicit their help, they may be turned off by it. But if just stay on their radar–your name will be the first name they think of when an opportunity presents itself.

Constituents
My WestwoodBlog has generated a good deal of interest in town, but I have yet to convince the elected officials to participate directly. There is still a desire to control information–out of a legitimate need to ensure official information is accurate. But the blog plays a role in surfacing issues and providing a less official forum for residents to talk about things.

I’m not looking to be hired by the town to blog–in fact, I think an official blog of the town would lose credibility among people with dissenting opinions. But towns should consider all forms of media and develop a strategy for communication that is a two-way street. I’ve described how towns might use wikis…and I do believe elected officials should be blogging. There may be be a role for Facebook, Twitter, and even private sector solutions like Customer Relationship Management systems, e.g. Salesforce–but relabeled as Constituent Relationship Management.

Towns need to do more that put up websites and broadcast information to their residents. I can help customize a strategy to start a real dialog.

Customers
My first client is a local technology company. I will be blogging for them, setting up a Facebook fan page, and tweeting regularly. My strategy for them is to build awareness of their brand–as a provider of software that helps IT professionals keep their systems running–by telling stories of relevance to their target audience and engaging that audience in a helpful exchange of information. I will be telling my own stories of things I’ve learned the hard way and tweeting about helpful tips and tricks.

In this case, my own domain expertise in technology is invaluable. But I could just as easily partner with a company who had a story to tell in another area and just needed a strategy and platform to tell it. My eclectic background in technology, media, politics, economics, business, law–and passion for issues of sustainability and creative fulfillment–gives me a flexible canvas upon which to draw.

The goal in social media is relationships. It is fundamentally different from information or even communication…it is the process by which we engage. It’s what’s been done in other venues for years–on the soccer field, around the water cooler, by word-of-mouth. But the tools we have today give us an opportunity to develop new channels, build stronger relationships, and ultimately, find and create new opportunity.

I can imagine fewer more terrifying social experiments than what I signed up for last night. Blitz Time is a service for “speed networking” that sets participants up in a series of short, one-on-one phone calls with other people. Surprisingly, once I began, it was not nearly as scary as it was fun. That is saying a lot for me, a guy who is afraid to order pizza on the phone…

I learned of Blitz Time through my research on LinkedIn for background on another company I had seen a Startuply job posting for Lead Technologist. When I searched LinkedIn, I found one of their founders, Jeff D’Urso, was an MIT Sloan undergrad alum like me. The job there is more for an uber-developer that I am not (e.g. Mike Buhkin, Dean Ebesu, or Jay Walters), but I noticed Jeff was also involved with this intriguing company, Blitz Time.

At Blitz Time, members create a profile, similar to LinkedIn, then register for phone networking events. These can range from an Executive Round table series every Friday morning at 8am, to the Social Media Discussion I attended last night. When the event started, I called into the Blitz Time phone number, listened to featured speaker David Alston, from Radian6, who spoke about social media monitoring, then was launched into a series of conversations.

As I connected with each person on the phone, their profile information was displayed on my web browser, so I could quickly see who I was talking with. A timer in the top right counted down my 5-8 minute window of opportunity. And the two of us…talked.

It’s like a cocktail party from home and without the difficult “how do I break into this conversation?” and “how do I move on?” moments. But yes, it can be challenging. How do you quickly make a phone connection with someone you have never met before? How do you communicate who you are and get your point across without “holding forth” too much? How do you listen and draw the other person out when you have nothing to go on except for this profile information you are reading from the screen of your web browser?

Afterwords, you can go back and access the profiles of people you talked with and send them emails to further connect. In what seemed like terribly short span of time, I met some very interesting people including Giselle Conyette, a writer and blogger from Canada, Aliza Sherman, Cybergrrl and internet pioneer who is moving to the remote town of Tok, AK from where she works virtually all over the world, and restaurateur Justin Levy, who is using social media to connect with his customers at his Northampton, MA Argentinean Steakhouse.

I definitely need to follow up with Andrew Rohman, whose web design company Neptune Web is located nearby in Somerville, MA. And I hope I gave Beth Bridges, from the Clovis, CA Chamber of Commerce, some ideas on how a blog like my WestwoodBlog, could benefit a community.

The other people I spoke with (wow, 10 people!) were all interesting and our only real challenge was dealing with the short time frame. I wished I could hit a button to request more time or simply that we had a couple more minutes. At times, I did feel like I was “holding forth” too much or that I garbled and minimized my “brand.” No, I pretty much bungled that in many cases as I struggled to describe who I was in a short pitch. It is the same challenge in real life, but on Blitz Time, you don’t have the distractions of a real life meeting, you are more focused and comfortable at home than standing in front of someone in a busy room of people, and you automatically get the business card exchange, along with a profile including links to everything the person does.

I think Blitz Time can be a useful “tool” in the networking arsenal. Clearly, it appeals to “power networkers,” but it was surprisingly accessible for a phone phobic like me. It is like twitter in that it is a great potential leveler of access–you get your 5 minutes that might be very hard to get otherwise. You risk coming across as a bozo…but that kind of risk can help you grow and probably become better and more confident in real world interactions. I highly recommend people check out this service and attend one of the upcoming events.

Update:
You can now view:

• Dave Atkins interview with Tory Johnson on ABC NOW
• Susan Kang Nam talks about Salty Legs Job Club with Tory Johnson
• Madeline Laurano talks about finding her new job

Staring into a television camera for a remote interview was a surreal experience. I felt spontaneity and improvisation that is challenging to describe. I suspect, for celebrities, the feeling changes, and it becomes like just another conversation. Those who have never done it probably think it sounds terrifying. There is fear, but not terror. For me, I felt the sensation of being completely and utterly “on,” with no safety net, no ability to control or plan, and an almost detached sense of hearing myself respond in the moment.

In that moment, I found my instinct and preparation ruled the day. There is not time to consider 5 seconds ago and no time to plan the next 5 seconds. There is faith that who I am will show and hope that what I’ve told myself is truth will reveal. But there is no analysis, there is only the moment…a moment that goes on for several minutes and then is gone.

I was one of several people interviewed by ABC’s Tory Johnson about the Salty Legs Job Club here in Boston. By interview standards, this was easy–just asking me about my layoff, job search, why I joined this club and how it has helped me. It wasn’t as substantively difficult as standing up at town meeting and speaking in favor of a controversial measure. But this type of interview is very different from many “hot seat” moments.

The interview is conducted in a studio with me just sitting in a chair looking at the camera and listening to an earpiece. “Keep looking at the camera!” “Don’t look around!” It took tremendous concentration to keep focused on that camera lens and not to let my eyes dart around as I normally do, especially when thinking.

Without a person to look at, I had no visual feedback on what I was saying. I had to listen…but keep looking at that camera!

Neuro-Linguistic studies have shown that people subconsciously move their eyes to different places depending on how they process information. When talking to another person, face-to-face, we spend a great deal of time mirroring and negotiating empathy to establish rapport. But in the absence of another face…what would happen? For me anyway, I would be doing a lot of imaginative thinking, trying to fill in the gaps based on listening and theorizing. If you go to the first link above, you will see drawings that illustrate how when we do that, our eyes will be looking…all over the place! And on camera…not a good look.

Maybe I’m over thinking it, but if I look a bit stiff on the broadcast, it is not so much fear of the interview as the effort and focus involved in doing such a blind conversation.

But it was an incredible rush. It was not like being grilled in front of a tough audience or job interview. In those cases, you have the pros and cons of body language and nonverbal communication. But on camera, I’ve got nothing; no feedback other than what I’m hearing in the earpiece. Still, there is something exciting about that…something authentic and testing. I try to plan many things but in this circumstance, preparation is everything. I was fortunate to be coached by another club member, Robert Padgett, a PR professional, and of course, the subject matter is me, so that is a topic I should know. But it is still very validating to throw myself out there and land on my feet.

I prepared by knowing myself. I prepared by my attitude and demeanor and commitment to do this and not look back. I didn’t do it just to help find a job–although of course I hope people see the interview and that leads to more opportunities. I did it because I knew it would challenge me in personal ways that would make me grow. And it would, of course, give me something to write about until the day when people want to hear more of what I have to say about topics other than being laid off.

Salty Legs Job Club

When the interviews are available online, I will link from blog.davewrites.com to the segments on our founder, Susan Kang Nam, talking about creating this job club and one of our members, Madeline, talking about how being a member of the club helped her leave one job and find a more fulfilling one.

The club does not have a website, but all our members are very online. Rachel Levy, a Boston area marketing professional, is blogging her job search and publishing great articles on using twitter, video thank you notes, and automating/organizing the job search effectively.

Towns, cities, developers, business leaders and activists should seize the communication opportunities available in social media to collaboratively and cooperatively plan their economic futures.

I recently blogged about how Boston World Partnerships is developing a social media approach to facilitate connections between “movers and shakers” in Boston and globally promote the city. I subsequently chatted with Eric Schoenfeld and got a better sense of how they are in the process of preparing to launch what will be a resource and affinity network–like an alumni network for the city. It could connect all those who identify with the creative and intellectual “gravitas” that is Boston in a way that fosters collaboration and cooperation. I see this project as a way to address the criticisms and comparisons of the culture of the past–most notably the Saxenian appraisal of why Silicon Valley beat Boston in the 90s race to be a technology capital.

That’s big picture stuff. But there is a great deal that can be done right now by individual players to improve the lines of communication and thereby make growth more manageable. Social media is all about conversations. In the business context, it is about using new tools like blogs, wikis, facebook, and twitter to converse with customers. But in the local government context it is about resident and business constituencies.

We have a chronic problem with communication. Elected officials feel attacked by activists. Activists feel like the government ignores and disrespects them. Other residents just grow tired of hearing about it all. And developers and businesses are universally suspect as presumably only profit-motivated. Politics is viewed as a game to be played in secret with winners and losers determined by money and connections. In such a cynical world there is no trust. Without trust, there can be no collaboration and no cooperative work for the “common good.” I think we can do better.

• I encouraged the developer of Westwood Station, to post to WestwoodBlog, and while it is not a full-blown “conversation,” I am glad to see a couple of articles addressing resident concerns about cost-cutting and rental properties.
• Back at our last town meeting, we had a controversy over alcohol licensing and issues of fairness with respect to local grocery store chain Roche Brothers. CEO Rick Roche posted several times to the blog and responded to questions from residents.
• During our town election, I set up the Selectman candidates to blog and conducted podcast interviews with them.

These were small steps and I believe more conversations like these can help us move closer to a more transparent and trustworthy engagement between people in town. I think that kind of trust–even a contentious but working relationship–can make governance, development, and growth better. How?

• An ongoing blog, email newsletters, short videos, and photos of development progress would engage the residents in changes that are happening. Short periodic updates–with the opportunity for residents to comment–could demonstrate a serious commitment to listen to the needs of the community on an ongoing basis. The newsletters and website now are one-way communications that have been carefully polished to pitch a message–I’m talking about something a lot messier. The value is not only in the information, it is in the openness of the process and the willingness to potentially make mistakes and then have to react. There is an additional advantage to the developer as well: Other communities are following the activities of the developer and “girding” for their own fights. If the dialog between residents and developer were published for all to see, it would speak volumes of whether words matched actions.
• Roche Brothers has a strong, positive reputation in the community because they help just about every local organization in some way or another. Rather than simply tell that story or convince others to repeat it, Roche Brothers could look for ways to connect with residents online. No supermarket I know of has an official blog or facebook page, but there are informal facebook groups of Wegmans fans (15,000+ members) and blogs like We Love Wegmans and Wegmans Wire. I don’t know that an official group would be useful, but perhaps monitoring and participating individually is the best approach for now.
• I believe there is a sense among elected officials that residents who are upset about decisions are partly to blame because they don’t bother attending the right meeting. People show up at Town Meeting and want to amend an article–they are told that it is too late; they should have gone to the FinCom meeting. But mostly, people just don’t know what is going on and so they assume the worst.
  What if one or more of our selectmen blogged regularly? Not the long-winded things I write, but just a couple paragraphs a week? What if they responded to things that were posted online as Selectwoman Sarah McDonald did in Dedham recently. What if they read neighboring town blogs and discovered, a month in advance, issues that were likely to affect our town such as Dedham’s Adult Entertainment district on our border?

Social media is a very new field…there is no clear blueprint of how and what the “correct” strategy for towns and businesses is. But there are definitely new opportunities emerging to connect with people in constructive ways that increase transparency and provide opportunities for conversations instead of secrecy and misunderstanding.

Social Media writers describe how blogging can be used to connect with customers and influencers…and at a personal level, to build your brand and personal network. But so often, they are talking about people who are already established or who have now made it “big.” Blogging can be valuable for everyone, even if your objective is not to start a company or become a celebrity. Here are some examples of how valuable my blogging–which reaches an audience of perhaps a few hundred people–has helped me achieve influence at work and within my community.

Work

At first, I was apprehensive about people at work finding my blog(s). When I started DaveWrites, I was isolated in a small startup company and looking for a new job, maybe a new career. But I had no network and no connections to anyone on the east coast. I started blogging because I really wanted to be a writer, and rather than sit around trying to figure out how to become a freelancer and support my family, I realized I could just start writing. It helped me personally to see that I was multidimensional and no longer defined by my job. Eventually, I found a new job at a great company–although I was doing essentially the same kind of work, the blog had added a personal and satisfying dimension to my experience.

I believe the blog also helps my influence at work. Coworkers are reading my blog–and I think that is good. It’s obviously not a blog about technology (my primary responsibility at work), but part of my challenge is to grow beyond my image as a tech expert. The blog exposes more of me than people experience in the office. I think it helps communicate a more complete view of who I am. It is not a replacement for developing more connections and relationships–but it is a thing I can do easily and well that is better than trying to strategize in a vacuum about how to change my image.

I don’t know how generally applicable that is for others. If people think you are wasting your time blogging when you could be working, that’s a danger. And of course you can’t blog about stuff that you don’t want everyone in the office reading. But I do think it can help present a more complete image of you as a person, if you do it well.

Community

When we moved to Westwood 2 1/2 years ago, we (my wife) knew a few people from her Mom’s groups. I wanted to get involved in the town both socially and with respect to local issues. I set up a blog at http://westwoodblog.org and then worked to get relevant content on the site. I solicited the local candidates for selectman to write articles and conducted podcast interviews with them. I published anything I could find that I thought others would find valuable. As our election and town meeting came up last month, I found my blog in the midst of a discussion over highly contentious issues and suddenly local media and prominent people in town wanted to talk to me. Things have quieted down a bit now that the meeting is over, but I did what I set out to do: I used the blog to help the town and get myself involved.

I am not saying the blog was a “launching pad” for me, but it has helped me over a most fundamental hurdle of involvement. Some of the early entries on this blog talked about town meetings and community and whatnot, but it was all talk until I started talking with and about my town. This doesn’t mean that everyone should start a blog about their town in order to get involved, but for me, it was a good move.

Profession

I really enjoy writing, but I feel this blog is not something I would want to fill my life. So what is my plan? Well, when I considered a career change, I ran into so many roadblocks and “leap of faith” no-gos that I realized I needed not to find the perfect answer, but just to do something. But my passion was more in writing than in many of the interesting things I fantasized about. Just to digress…some of those ideas were:

• put my law degree and admission to the bar to use by practicing law
• go to graduate school in political science or urban planning
• get an MBA
• start my own internet company

It’s overwhelming to scheme big plans. I know, fundamentally, if I want it bad enough, there is nothing I cannot do. But those kind of all-or-nothing dreams are hard to find and sustain. It is inspirational to read books like Banker to the Poor by Muhammad Yunus along with other books about social entrepreneurs who dedicate their lives to making the world a better place. But it is hard to wake up one day with the idea that will carry you forward on a journey like that. You need many little things that allow you to discover your purpose.

DaveWrites was born out of my job search and it was originally intended to focus on Economic Development. One thing I have been doing offsite along these lines is to write book reviews at All About Cities:

• Concrete Dragon – the urban revolution in China
• Suburban Transformations – a planning and development methodology to reform our suburbs
• The Missing Class – the “near poor” in urban America
• Wikinomics - implications for cities

Is that a career for me? Hardly. But it is something I can do with a blog that I can’t do otherwise. It contributes something valuable and people seem to like it. Publishers have started sending me books to read. I met Paul Lukez (author of Suburban Transformations) here in Boston and have made some basic connections to people in the practice of planning and architecture. Baby steps, definitely. But steps nonetheless and far better than just sitting around thinking maybe I should have done something different 20 years ago. If I had read Jane Jacobs when I was 20…

Another fascinating thing to me is how blogging connected me to other writers. My blog review from last week (and the commentary from the bloggers I talked about) illustrates how I am not in isolation anymore. When I started, I was impatient about everything; now I look back and see a lot of growth, for me personally at least, in a short period of time.

I don’t have a strategic plan for blogging and my career. But I have used the platform and technology to engage much more effectively than anything else I could think of at the time I was wallowing in a sea of unrealistic fantasy choices. The plan for now, probably for the next 5 years at least, is to just keep it going while we raise our kids. Some people have a plan; I don’t. But I know you don’t get anywhere by standing still.

Town governments should consider using wikis to encourage citizen involvement, deliver greater transparency in the public policy process, and achieve faster, more comprehensive solutions to local issues.

A wiki is a website made up of pages that users can add to or edit using a web browser. Changes are recorded and preserved in the version history of every page. I’ve blogged about wikis before, but here I detail specific examples of how this technology could be used by a town. I also consider some of the practical limitations and implementation issues that might stand in the way of adoption.

The wiki approach to collaboration is a fundamentally different way of creating documents. Instead of passing a single document around through multiple, serial drafts and edits, the entire document remains in a constantly evolving form, on a public website. Individual contributions are de-emphasized because it is possible for any person to make small or large-scale changes at any time. Individual authorship blends into a collaborative, consensus product. When this process works, it can solve a number of participation challenges that are especially relevant in the context of local policy action:

• Individuals can contribute when and where they have time and expertise – Rather than attend a series of meetings, a person can follow the development of a document over time and submit their modifications at 3am or whenever they have time. If a person has special expertise, they can fill in with much greater detail or correct misunderstandings of details that often escape review in higher level discussions.
• The entire process is public – the wiki is hosted on a public website and can be set up to send automatic notifications of topic changes to interested persons via email.
• The process itself can be engaging – One reason residents do not bother to attend meetings is because they have no clear idea of what is to be discussed. Or worse, they do attend and find that 90% of the meeting is about a topic they care little about and their issue has already been decided. Not only can participation be intimidating, but giving up 2 hours of a weeknight to go watch a government meeting with no substantive opportunity for participation quickly sours the average person from following the civic process, especially in the early, formative stages of policy, when their input could be the most valuable.

  A wiki is no cure-all, but it provides a much lower barrier to entry and a way for residents to research the current status of an issue–to better understand how to join the conversation. Furthermore, because the focus of a wiki is on producing a tangible, consensus product–a document–it can be a very substantive experience–not just a discussion arena. Below, I will talk about some of the complementary things needed to make a wiki work–to prevent it from being a “flame-fest.”

• The process is ongoing and adaptable – By the time public policy is presented for a vote at a town meeting, the issues have been crystallized into a simple yes/no choice. Residents line up for a few minutes to “be heard,” but the “losers” go home frustrated and dissatisfied. It’s often too late to participate in a meaningful way as the battle lines have hardened and advocates have assembled their arguments to win, not discuss. A wiki, used to help formulate public policy prior to a formal meeting, gives residents a much great opportunity for participation and can be a tool to help the community develop policy over time.
• The process is more transparent – Massachusetts and most states have enacted Open Meeting Law legislation to prevent public matters from being decided through back room deal and crony networks. It is illegal for a town board or commission to meet in private to decide policy. Meetings must be announced, made accessible to the public, and recorded so that residents and the media have access to meeting minutes. Email alone does not help transparency, in fact, the Attorney General advises, in her guide to open meetings:
  

  …Like private conversations held in person or over the telephone, e-mail conversations among a quorum of members of a governmental body that relate to public business violate the Open Meeting Law, as the public is deprived of the opportunity to attend and monitor the e-mail “meeting.” Thus it is a violation to e-mail to a quorum messages that can be considered invitations to reply in any medium, and would amount to deliberation on business that must occur only at proper meetings. It is not a violation to use e-mail to distribute materials, correspondence, agendas or reports so that committee members can prepare individually for upcoming meetings.

  I was unable to locate any legal references to wikis in public meeting law and my query to the Attorney General resulted in a referral to my local District Attorney’s office. It’s a hypothetical question as to how a wiki would be construed, but my argument is that a public wiki better serves the purpose and intent of open meeting law than a legally-compliant public meeting. The wiki is always open. Whenever a document is modified, that change is preserved and visible in the revision history of the document. Residents can subscribe to notifications of changes and follow the evolution of policy at a much greater level of detail than simply attending a meeting. In fact, residents can step into the process at any time–they are not constrained to limited meeting times or reliance on knowing the right board member to get their input included. Armed with this information, when they do attend public meetings, they have the background and material to meaningfully participate.

• The process is organic – the truly revolutionary thing about a wiki used for this purpose is that if it works to effectively gather the input of residents, it is beyond the control of politicians. It would not eliminate the need for expert studies and professional research work, but such work could support the education of the community, not simply be an expensive consulting project the town pays for which is then disputed by opposing factions. Because the wiki is a website, it is easy to include hyper links to documents and other resources. It can be used to collect all the information around a particular issue…imagine if we had good “documentation” about the policy systems our governments create. Imagine a website that pulls together all the resources, studies, and public discussion used to craft policy…then, imagine that that website is built for free by the community, not just a marketing vehicle devised after the fact to sell the town’s idea.

By now, the cynics and realists have long been shaking their heads at the impossible optimism of such a dream…yes, it is not automatic. I wish I could lay out examples of how this has worked effectively, but I’m trying to make the case myself for why my town could utilize this process and I don’t know of any examples! I do know a broad outline of what it would take to address the most fundamental challenges though:

1. It will be chaos!–or nothing – anyone can edit any page? Vandals will make it impossible to be useful. People with usernames like RandomInterloper will go in and replace the thoughtful writings of DaveAtkins with idiotic gibberish. Or perhaps, less dramatically, non-residents will contribute to the process. The wiki can require registration and email validation. Key pages can be made read-only. Problem user accounts can be disabled and ultimately attempts can be made to block those users. Online Community management is tough.

   It is important to set the intended scope of the wiki and adapt it as necessary. The wiki is not just something we throw out there and expect to work–it has to be part of an overall strategy of community engagement. If the wiki becomes more a discussion board, then we start a discussion board in parallel. If town leaders want to prevent their opinions from being overwritten, we can have a blog to run in parallel. When pages become disorganized, leaders of the project will need to gently reorganize things. It is inescapable that a successful wiki requires a resourceful, web-savvy champion to help manage the chaos that could ensue and cultivate adoption and participation.

2. people here are not technical enough for this – wiki software tries disparately to simplify the way pages can be edited, but I think the challenges are actually more procedural than technical. It is hard to edit someone else’s work, not because you don’t know how to make a font bold, but because you feel like you are doing violence to their writing. You send people a link to a wiki page and it’s not that they don’t know how to click a button that says “Edit,” it’s that they don’t know what they are really supposed to be doing. We cannot simply throw it out there and expect anything to happen. People need to see not just the value of the information, but the value of modifying the information.

   A wiki needs to start with a small group of people who believe in its potential and are excited to try using it. It may be that a wiki is nothing more than a place to record meeting minutes at first…or to post the meeting schedule…or to upload some key documents…whatever it takes to get people looking at it. To build momentum, there is a great deal of offline work to be done and a search for early adopters. When the project begins to work, users will help each other and technical problems will not slow anyone down.

3. what about people without internet access? Digital Divide! – this sounds great, but won’t it just be a tool for geeky rich guys with internet access? It’s part of a strategy. It’s not a replacement for public meetings or traditional methods of political engagement (that have worked so well). When you consider all the advantages the wealthy and connected (people-connected, not internet-connected) have, this can only expand the level of participation.
4. the town has a website, why do we need this? – The town website is usually primarily one-way informational. It’s not a tool to develop policy, it is a means of communication. The kind of wiki I am proposing is not an encyclopedia like the wikipedia, but a working document model. I’ll illustrate below good and bad ideas for how to use a wiki…

As I described above in many cases, the wiki is just a tool for helping solve a particular policy issue problem. Its best use is where there is a need for multiple people to collaborate on learning about an issue and developing a consensus document or plan of action.

My town is in the midst of a great deal of tension over a massive proposed development that will create a “mini-city” of shops, restaurants, office and residential space. When I state my support for the project, it draws fire from the opponents. So, if I were to suggest starting a wiki topic on something this contentious, it would be a recipe for failure as proponents and opponents overwrote each other’s views, turning the site into an erasable message board.

However, a wiki might have been a useful way to develop a shared vision in the town of our economic development future. What can we agree on that we want in the town? What are our options? When there are topics that become contentious, we could create a message board so that a threaded discussion could proceed there as people argued over what was appropriate to include in the wiki.

Another project in my town involves the creation of a Public Access Cable Channel. I started a few wiki pages on this topic and at our next meeting, I hope I can convince others to help me fill in the details as I have been educating myself on what is involved in such a project. We have a sort of standardized startup manual/kit, but we need a way to organize our local information and tap the resources of people who are busy and perhaps do not have time for marathon meetings to discuss all the details. Honestly, I don’t know if the wiki is the way to go, but it seems as long as the project is information-gathering and constructive/creative, this tool is useful. If people want to debate about things…that will become evident over time.

I’m not linking to my town’s wiki here…because I feel I need to do the face-to-face groundwork first. If anyone is interested, I would be happy to send links, but I think the fist step is understanding the vision of what it could be. I welcome comments and suggestions on this very, very long blog post–especially any reports of similar activities in town and cities.

Today, the city of Boston will announce a website that is described by the Boston Globe as a “Facebook-like social networking website.” That description fails on so many levels to communicate the value of what the city is doing.

Boston World Partnerships is the non-profit created by Mayor Menino to promote economic development in the city of Boston. The concept is so much more than a website…it’s how we use modern communication technology to market our talent and facilitate development. It’s part of the answer to the question I was asked by a Selectman in Westwood as how a blog could play a role in a policy debate other than allowing residents to “vent.”

Social networking is about using technology-enhanced media to connect people and ideas and start constructive conversations. Of course it’s also about connecting with all your friends from college, but in the business and political context, we can use blogs, wikis, twitter, facebook, and even myspace to give more people more opportunity to participate. It’s not just about people venting or individual citizens complaining–it is about finding, connecting, and leveraging the human capital of our communities. The Boston World Partnerships site is clearly at the business and professional end of this spectrum:

Mission: Boston World Partnerships informs business leaders worldwide about the competitive advantages that Boston offers, and connects them with the resources they need to locate and grow here. We also work to strengthen the general business climate and to help existing Boston businesses achieve sustainable success.

It is admitedly a long stretch to go from my small town blog and experiments on twitter to something of this magnitude, but the principles are all there. Use social media marketing to market a city. Connect the “movers and shakers”–whether they be individuals, entrepreneurs, non-profits, activists or whatever. There is no need to be held back due to hierarchical planning and bureacracy when we can connect the people who know how to get things done and support their efforts with an infrastructure that takes advantage of the latest technical and media innovations. This is the future–not just future technology, but the future of applying business and marketing principles to public and social policy.

I am featured in a story today in the Christian Science Monitor, Blogs: An Effective Job-Hunting Tool?, but after describing my efforts positively, the article quotes one naysayer in particular who does not understand the context of my efforts:

Not everyone shares his enthusiasm. “Blogging and Internet searching for jobs is worthless,” says Drew Stevens, a business growth consultant in St. Louis. “Almost 65 percent of positions are discovered from your network and peer group.”

I wrote about how my blogging has greatly expanded my personal network and increased my influence even before I was laid off, but it is worth re-iterating here how social media is a complement to offline activities. I have difficulty finding the time to keep my blogging up because I am so busy with other efforts that have been generated from the relationships I have developed and strengthened through social media.

Business Networking expert Diane Darling calls this “hybrid networking.” It’s really about using all the tools available–and the concepts apply to customers and clients as much as to a job search.

It is much easier to ask someone you’ve exchanged a few quick tweets with to meet for coffee than to try to call into a company cold. You establish your substance through the more complete information you can exchange online, but then you meet in person to solidify and establish a more personal trust and respect.

I don’t want my story to just be about my search for work–it’s not. The process of using social media to start and develop conversations with a network of people is directly applicable to companies and consultants because networking–at a personal level–is fundamental to developing business relationships. You don’t just put an online store up and wait for customers to show up. You have to work it, you have to get out there and meet people who can introduce you to other people and spread the story of your product until it hits a receptive ear.

People don’t want to hear a sales story. If I were out there just saying “hire me please,” it might generate some sympathy, but if you don’t have a job for me, it probably ends there. The same is true for a company or product.

I could tell you about a company that makes software to monitor whether or not your servers are all healthy…but if you don’t have servers or are not technical–it is a dead end. What if I told you a story you could relate to about people solving problems and their passion for their work? You might know people who work in the industry that could relate to stories like that. Even though you are not a customer, you now have something interesting and relevant to pass on. I don’t want to give away the specifics of this strategy because it is actually part of a proposal to a client, but my point is that the essence of building a network of opportunity is connecting with people on a level they can relate to so they become ambassadors of your brand. The brand carries your message out across the vast sea of people who are not potential direct customers until it catches the attention of those who are.

I have a backlog of blog entries about things other than job searching, but I thought it was important to put the news story in context. Also, of course, I think making these points and tying them back to a business purpose creates a blog entry that is relevant and interesting enough for people to refer others to and spread my name further afield…to capture the interest of clients who would want to hire me and put my resourcefulness, creativity, and passion to work.

So go read my about page, watch my ABC News interview, and tell the world about Dave Atkins!

Social media strategists and consultants should take a good look at the Salesforce platform as a complement to activities like blogging, twitter, and facebook. Until I spoke with John Durocher, a VP at Salesforce who specializes in the Financial Services Industry, I thought of Salesforce as strictly a CRM product. But what Salesforce is doing with their Ideas application–and their cloud computing approach, could be the next level of customer engagement.

According to Vida Killian, Dell’s IdeaStorm manager, Dell’s Digital Media Vision is to “engage in relevant conversations with out customers online, 24/7, worldwide in all major languages.” After some initial missteps, Dell began blogging and working to engage customers in the social media space with their Direct2Dell blog launched in June 2006. IdeaStorm was launched earlier this year as an augmentation of Dell’s social media strategy to move from one to one conversations to one to many collaboration opportunities.

IdeaStorm provides Dell customers with the opportunity to suggest improvements to the product and see those suggestions become a part of the product development cycle. To date, over 10,000 ideas have been generated and a visit to the site will show what ideas are currently bubbling to the top of the list.

The video below gives a very quick (1 minute) view of how IdeaStorm works to move ideas into reality:

[youtube]Y0SOXW_K56w[/youtube]

Salesforce has launched a number of demo and early implementation sites using the Ideas application. Dell’s IdeaStorm and MyStarbucksIdea are the first sites to fully implement what Salesforce describes (perhaps too “corporatistically”) as “community in a box,” but if we leap past the rather non-organic connotations of that moniker, we find the proof is in the practicality that these sites are working to serve their purpose: generating ideas from the user community.

It is probably too early to tell if these applications are working, but what I find intriguing is how the Salesforce approach offers the potential to leapfrog over many implementation details and get a relevant conversation started quickly.

John compared what Salesforce is doing with applications as akin to an iTunes store for applications–the AppExchange allows a business to quickly try out applications to see if they were effective or not and then move on to others. That sounds expensive, but then consider how expensive it is to “dabble” in social media. My favorite caveat I’ve learned is that new media initiatives are “easy to start, but hard to finish.” It takes about an hour to get a blog started. But then, you realize that the theme you chose is not so great and you want to customize things a bit so you start messing around with the css. You download a bunch of plugins and maybe even edit the php code a bit because you need it to do something differently. When you are doing this in the comfort of your home as a fun learning experience, it’s no big deal. But when it becomes work…and people are not just reading it but wanting to know if it is working…it’s not so easy after all.

I think Salesforce is different from just “better tools.” There are plenty of products out there designed to allow “non-technical” people to make web things. In the web 1.0 world it was all about creating a WYSIWYG web page editor. In web 2.0 maybe it was Drupal. But ultimately, you find the people maintaining the sites are either technical or became pretty technical pretty fast because they needed to.

Instead of asking communicators to become programmers…or trying to build the perfect tool set for them…what if we could create simple plug in applications to do certain clearly defined tasks? OK, IdeaStorm may not be as “authentic sounding” as a blog by a product manager engaging in one-on-one conversations with customers…but it is more likely to be effective, certainly in larger organizations where the challenge is how to integrate so many smaller ideas into a larger product. Ideastorm may not provide the direct connection that some support rep twittering and fixing your problem on the fly does. But isn’t it the next level? Isn’t this the essence of truly and authentically involving customers and developers in the process of creating products that truly meet their needs?

I’m also excited by the potential community/government uses for these apps. When I set up WestwoodBlog I chose the Drupal platform mainly because I thought I would be getting multiple residents to blog as they do at myDedham. I wanted more community “plumbing” than Wordpress offered a year ago. But as I start to think about how my site could play a larger role in improving town communication, I run into two types of limits:

1. Time – I need to keep my editorial voice going, I need to invest time to keep my “ear to the ground,” and do behind the scenes activity to encourage involvement.
2. Technology – I need to turn myself into a Drupal developer to get some features I’d like to have. How about a simple form to report a streetlight out? I’m sure Drupal has some ugly UI-challenged way to do that, but even if I don’t do any real programming work, it is not something I can just “try out.”

Salesforce makes their platform available to nonprofits for free. There is still solution architecting work to be done, but it would be a great abstraction to be able to say, ok, turn on the trouble-ticketing system for that…or use the ideas application to gather input for pedestrian and bike saftey. I will have to investigate further and see if there is something I can use here.

To take it a step even further…this is the kind of development we need to make large scale cooperation work. I can foresee so many initiatives becoming bogged down in the detail of running a blog and keeping up with community management issues. I suspect this kind of software approach could save tons of time and money in projects like what Boston World Partnerships is doing to create a community to promote economic development in Boston.

I don’t think there is really such a thing as a “community in a box,” but it would make a lot more sense to serve specific functions with specific applications than to try to extend the conversational value of social media too far into implementation details. A blog is not the ideal place to report a broken streetlight because the tendency will be to simply talk more about it and no one will likely go fix it. Pretty soon, people get tired of just talking. Integrated applications could deliver the results that make conversation meaningful and relevant to customers and constituents.

Everybody wants to be the last person to move to Westwood. That’s how one resident summed up a controversy over plans to build a horse stable and operate an “elite dressage barn.”

I’ve put myself in the midst of controversy by blogging about it at WestwoodBlog. And I believe I am learning some principles that our town and other towns could use to better manage these situations in the future. I am not a Public Relations professional, but I believe the root of all this conflict is fundamentally grounded in the relationship and communications between town, developer, and residents.

Problems

1. The formal process is inadequate.

It’s not enough to follow “the rules.” A review of the documents, meeting minutes, etc. on the town website reveals there has been no shortage of procedure. But there is always some person who remains unsatisfied and many issues that must be re-argued over and over again.

2. Communication never ends.

When I spoke with people connected to this process, I quickly felt their frustration over a matter that, to them, had been going for months. I was amazed that anyone would care so much about this issue–to hire attorneys and plan on filing a lawsuit to prevent a neighbor from putting horses on their 16-acre farm. But it fit the pattern of discontent in this town that to me is more about a lack of trust than a lack of information.

3. Local politics cannot be strategized.

Residents who oppose change have a huge advantage when the town, developer, or business owner commits to a public plan. It’s like having Patriot’s coach Bill Belichik hand over the playbook to the Jets before the game. We ask for openness and transparency, but then, when it is provided, opponents use this information to selectively counter everything.

Solutions

We need a conversation, not a sales pitch. We need to recognize that the process is dynamic and evolving. We need a system that can tolerate uncertainty, ensure voices of objection are heard, but work towards a definitive compromise resolution.

I believe in this case a blog can help. I provided a sort of “brokered anonymnity” to the parties involved–doing research on my own to find facts and then posting those facts into the stream of opinionated discussion. It’s not going to resolve this issue. But I hope it is a start.

I believe there can be an economic development role around communication. There is a facilitative component–to ensure that dialog happens in a public enough space that serious objections are raised early and frivolous objections can be publically answered. For example, in the case of the horse stables, I was under the impression that the farm would be using public land to operate their business. “What’s next, a snowmobile rental shop in the winter?” I thought. But that’s not what it was about at all. I also had concerns about how the trails would be affected, my dog and kids, etc. It turns out these issues have been raised and there are specific ways they can be handled as well.

But it is asking a lot for a business owner to engage in a one on one conversation with every person in town who wants to get involved. That’s where social media could play a valuable role.

The blog can collect opinions and fact is a less structured way than the local newspaper and a less formal way than the town website. When the newspaper reports on this issue, town officials get small quotes if they are available. The story is presented and cast a certain way, then the business owner is left to deal with the fallout.

I ask people to go to the blog, but I run into a number of objections and problems:

• Residents do not want to state their names because they fear public ridicule and meanness from people with opposing views.
• Officials do not want to be characterized as speaking for the whole town or on behalf their board or commission.

We need a more comprehensive communication engagement. For example, our selectmen and members of boards and commissions could write short updates on a regular basis about what matters were being considered. These kinds of updates would not be long summary documents, but just status updates like: “Tonight, we heard about the horse stables to be built on Sandy Valley Road. A number of residents are concerned about traffic, waste, and the impact on the Lowell Woods.” If other people in town were following that person on Facebook, Twitter, or through an official town blog, they might be inclined to ask questions early–before the threat of lawsuits was looming and public officials were advised to stop talking.

I don’t have the answers here, but I am hoping to generate some commentary from other bloggers, social media advocates, and PR people about their experiences. There is a great deal of frustration in these development challenges…and the town has limited resources to invest in a big plan or strategy. But it seems to me there is a solution here–or an approach at least–that would be valuable to learn and teach to municipalities seeking to better serve their residents.

For a long time, my engagement with social media has not been organized. But now, much as we go through our holiday card lists, I’m looking at how I can use social media to connect and reconnect with everyone I know.

The Big Three
Social media and networking encompasses so many sites that it is overwhelming to keep track of them all. But there are really only three that are broadly adopted and serve specific purposes relevant to me: Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

What are these sites?
Facebook grew out of the concept of the freshman picture book. It puts a photo with the name of a “friend” where “friend” is a relatively loose term that I define as anyone I care to know what they are doing and who might feel the same about me. Facebook friends don’t need to be people you could call to bail you out of jail or watch your kids while you go to the emergency room.

Twitter is like passive instant messaging. You “follow” people you are interested in. Everyone posts updates in 140-character bursts (the limit is to allow posting via text messaging from cellphones where the message is limited to 140 characters). When you log in to the twitter web site, you see all the updates from all the people you are following. “Follow” in this context is very light…it doesn’t mean you follow like you follow a leader. It’s more like I continue to “follow” the Oakland Raiders and hope someday they win a game.

LinkedIn has been around the longest and is the most professionally-oriented site. It’s like an online rolodex, an address book of connections–people I know personally. I may not have worked with them, but I know them enough that I would feel comfortable connecting them with other people. There is a basic level of trust required for connections.

I believe these three sites are the key ones anyone needs. MySpace…I don’t know. My Mom joined myspace and so I joined too, but I feel like it is more about creating your own personal web page–which I do through my blog. So I don’t maintain myspace. There are tons more sites, but they are generally for the super-social media fanatics.

Why Bother?
I spend so much time in the social media space that I think many of the folks there just don’t get that 99% of the population still doesn’t “get it” or see the point. So here’s why I bother–or at least why I think these services are worth my participation.

Facebook is great because every time someone updates any information about themselves, that update is visible to all their friends when they log in. It’s like an on-demand Christmas Letter. If you don’t log in, you don’t need to care. But if you do log in, you can see what people are doing. You see photos they are posting, links to interesting websites they are sharing, and groups they are joining. You also see lots of “application activity” which manifests itself in weird status updates like “Joe just bit you and turned you into a zombie.” Whatever. I ignore that stuff. Or maybe it is interesting to me. “Diana took the favorite movie quiz–see how you compare.” The point is that you can keep up with what people are doing without being intrusive. It is fun to see what people are doing and may prompt you to renew old friendships.

I’ve also written about facebook in the context of how it can be used to build community. When we started attending the Dedham Unitarian First Church last year, I started a facebook group for them and continue to follow what people are up to, even though we have now started attending First Parish, United Church of Christ, here in Westwood.

Twitter is immediate. It is accessible. Like Facebook, it allows you to follow what other people are doing, but the 140-character limit forces people to be really concise. The magic of twitter is how quickly communications can spread through a network of connections. When anyone I am following replies to something someone they are following says, I see that other person’s name in the feed like “@daveatkins.” That might prompt me to go look at their profile and follow them. A conversation can begin and quickly create a network effect.

Twitter is not just about status updates like “I’m thinking of having a beer.” The people with thousands of followers use it to push out interesting bits of news and information or to comment on current events. You can ask a question of the “twitosphere” and sometimes a person will answer you:

question for cyclists: what style do you call those handlebars on fixed gear bikes…short bars that go out and forward…not drops, not mtb 6:52 PM Nov 19th from web

AlanLamb @daveatkins time trial (TT) bars also known as bullhorns. 6:56 PM Nov 19th from twitterrific in reply to daveatkins

The real fun of twitter is the accessibility. It is like instant messaging in that you can fire off direct messages and replies to other people. If you are intelligent, genuine, and honest, you will likely engage them in a conversation. I’ve met people on twitter and cultivated working relationships in the real world. It can be like a cocktail party where your ideas and passion–forcibly limited to 140 characters of text–allow you to connect and communicate.

LinkedIn, at its most basic level, allows you to post a form of your resume online. But that is only the beginning. Much like facebook, you connect with other people you know and perhaps write recommendations for one another. You can see who your contacts know and ask them to introduce you. For example, if you are interested in working for a particular company you may search to see who you can find that works there and is connected to people you already know. At a bare minimum, you can see their public profiles which may reveal connections you were not aware of, similar interests and backgrounds, etc. I was just searching on a company and found that someone I worked with is directly connected to the VP of Engineering…so I shot her a quick email.

There is a great book and website, I’m on LinkedIn, Now What? that is full of ideas on how to better utilize this service.

Putting it All Together
Networking is HARD for me. For years and year, I KNEW that I needed to do a better job of networking, but I was always turned off by it. The idea of an “informational interview” seemed so stilted and uncomfortable for me. It felt like using people. Once I had a job, I was really focused on that job and that company and I didn’t really have much of a life outside of the two separate spheres of job and family.

Now partly, I have changed. But I also think the social media tools we have today make a huge difference in our ability to maintain casual relationships and develop new ones. It is not about substituting digital relationships for real ones–it is about the ease with which we can stay connected to our real relationships with people and start new ones.

There are many, many cups of coffee in my future with so many great people to meet and talk with! No awkward phone calls and attempts to cold-call into companies, get around the gatekeepers, then spew a quick elevator pitch to arrange an inconvenient interview where you pretend like you are not just looking for a job. My life is out there…on this site, on my LinkedIn profile, and in the public timeline of my twitter ramblings. We are all so much more transparent now that genuineness and authenticity can be a way of life, not something we turn on during the job hunt.

My social media strategy is simply to make as many people in the world aware of who I am and what I can do. It’s fun–as much fun as possible for a confirmed INTJ personality type like me–to be “out there” like this dedicated to the challenge of meeting people and stretching myself. I feel like I gain something with every person I meet and every old acquaintance I reconnect with–even if they have no connection to any job I might ever want. But of course the reality is ultimately practical and urgent…to land a position or launch my consulting business and cover the health care and mortgage. But I feel I have awakened an optimism and extroversion I did not know I was capable of and hope I will look back on this challenge as a great “kick in the pants” to take myself to the next level…

Sunday night I described my personal brand as a technology leader with over a dozen years experience planning, developing, and operationalizing web technologies. I asked for help matching that background up with opportunities. A number of people have asked me about consulting and freelancing–e.g. “what’s your hourly rate?”

I can create a strategy for utilizing technology in communication that will save a company thousands of hours of misspent time. There are so many ways to spend the precious capital a company raises or earns and all too often, in retrospect, the history of efforts to utilize technology is full of false starts, dead ends, and failed expectations. I’ve learned a great deal from a dozen years of working on the implementation side of startup companies and would like to put some of that perspective to use to help others.

First, when thinking of communication, it is wrong to think as though you were developing software. The essence of communication is a two-way process, the authenticity of which is judged by how responsive the speaker is to the listener. In face-to-face interactions, we do not get to rehearse an entire speech and then deliver it. We start talking, we observe the reactions of the listener, we answer questions and interruptions as we engage in a conversation.

Social media tools–things like blogs, twitter, and facebook–need to be approached with a strategy, not a development plan. We need to understand why we are using a particular tool or technology and be prepared to evaluate and adjust our tactics constantly.

I can listen to the needs of an organization and draw up a strategy. As a technologist, I can take it a step further and describe and implement the details.

Consider a company that is looking for a way to work with existing customers to build loyalty. They wonder if there is something they could be doing with social media or technology, but launching something “half-cocked” is too risky–it might make them look inept and alienate existing customers. And they don’t know enough about the specifics of what they want to do to spec out a proposal.

I start by meeting with the company to better understand their customers and what they are currently doing. You can’t just leap in and start making Facebook pages or telling the CEO that she should be blogging. The point of communication is to engage in a conversation with customers and to strengthen the brand of the company by creating a new, authentic engagement with customers. So before we leap into implementation, we need to really understand the customers and come up with an approach, a strategy, that will guide our actions.

Part of the strategy has to be a way to evaluate and monitor success. As we understand the customers’ needs, we have to think realistically about whether they are likely to respond to our communication strategies and then define a “conversion” as something tangible we can measure.

A goal might simply be better brand awareness…but I would work to identify measurable results such as increased sales, increased referrals, greater utilization of resources, etc. A good strategy ties it all together–not in a perfect plan for guaranteed results–but in a verifiable prediction that we can express in language everyone understands.

Good tactic: We will create a facebook page and promote it through all our other digital channels–e.g. newsletter, twitter, website, word of mouth, corporate blog–and monitor how it grows for the next month. We’ll maintain that page by posting industry relevant articles to it and especially noting linkages to anything our customers are doing online. If we have a blog, we will keep the frequency of posting up and monitor how much traffic is referred back and forth. After a month we will examine the customers who have utilized this feature and compare them with other customers to see if there is any difference in behavior.

Bad tactic: We need a facebook page, a blog, and a twitter account. Make sure somebody posts a lot. Here is a book on social media you should read. Here is training on how to use facebook. Hire a young person to do this because the older people don’t get it.

I’m being intentionally extreme above, but I bet a lot of folks have a strategy closer to the second example than they want to admit. The first example is hard to truly quantify…we will not have perfect data or be able to monitor everything. But the important factor is to have a strategy, not just a plan.

What are my qualifications to provide this kind of strategic consulting? I do not have a degree in “social media” or even an MBA. But I believe I can propose an approach that will allow a company to enter this realm methodically and evaluate whether it is worth pursuing further. I’m not out to sell a big development project and I don’t believe I should be doing all the work. Each customer will be unique–not “one size fits all.”

So to answer the original question, “what is your hourly rate?” I would have to defer to the time-honored answer of “it depends.” I would meet for free for an hour or two, then gather information to draw up a proposal quoting the work on a project basis, identifying the activities to be done and a price for various stages. The initial stage is an assessment which would vary depending on the complexity of the company, customers, and existing activities. The assessment would include recommendations for an implementation phase.

Some significant parts of the plan would require involvement from the client. I would rather coach a beginner blogger than become an expert in someone else’s company. But it depends on what we feel we can do authentically. I would not “impersonate” the CEO, but it might make sense to act as a company identity for certain purposes.

Finally, the strategy should be comprehensive. As I described above, there are always going to be multple pieces that fit together…a facebook page is not of much use if there is nothing to post there, so the content must come from a blog or at least periodic articles that are more than just press releases. Email newsletters are likely a key component of engagement. Getting customers to participate will vary depending on the customers–again a reason to have a strategy and then evaluate. Customers may jump in to a blog and start commenting away. Or maybe the customer base has no desire to be active in that manner. An email newsletter and periodic blog posts that do not generate comments might be considered extremely successful if there is steady readership and the readers are steady customers. A good strategy will help a company manage and evaluate this whole communication strategy–including the possibility that the strategy is not paying off. But at least the client will know what has been tried and will have an answer to those who say “you need to be doing X, Y, or Z.”

If you would like to meet with me and talk about how I could help your business with a strategy for digital media communication, contact me by email at dave (at) davewrites (dot) com.

Sunday’s New York Times Week in Review included a front section article on how bloggers are beating up on John McCain for his lack of internet savoir faire. But author Mark Leibwich made the same error I did when I first commented on a blog post a week or so ago–he invoked the image of Bush the Elder staring in amazement at a supermarket price scanner–an image that epitomized the “out of touch” perception Bush failed to overcome. The only problem with that image is that it is a false one.

When I started writing my own opinion piece on this issue, I could not remember the precise year of that supermarket scanner event…so I googled it. I found that in fact the story of Bush being amazed was false. In fact, the original story was written by New York Times columnist Andrew Rosenthal who took another reporter’s pool story and added the extra “amazement” language…which was quickly seized upon to confirm the perception of George Bush as an out of touch rich white guy who had never had to shop for his own groceries before.

The nature of online writing–the desire to link to supporting information to better inform the reader, coupled with the ready availability of “the google” to find anything quickly–gives social media the potential for greater accuracy. Of course, it is only potential–there is plenty of wasted verbiage online and writers, myself included, will go off on their own opinion fests without checking facts. But it is a much more dynamic model–a model that can be corrected midstream and which invites participation from others. The online version of the New York Times story does have 200+ comments, but I do not see the text of the article changing and I don’t have time to read though all those comments, to see if anyone actually challenges the substance of the original article.

Perhaps it is not an important detail. But it is the kind of detail that gets missed so often in a world dominated by big mainstream media. The image becomes a powerful legend that goes unchallenged to the point that some will argue the facts don’t even matter–it is all about perception. But I think that is where a President who truly “gets” social media would make a difference. It’s not about whether John McCain knows how to read email–it’s whether he or Barack Obama understands how the world is changing and how this technology will fundamentally change how people think and live.

Blog experts say not to post things like “what you do want me to blog about?” because it’s gutless and demonstrates you don’t have a clue what you’re writing about. Well, I’m going to go one step further than that and start a thread here on what could be a business plan for this site.

Thing is, there is nothing new; it’s not like my idea here will be so revolutionary that potential competitors will find my blog and steal the idea. I think a more likely outcome is that similar-minded people will find this idea, realize how they could contribute to it, and join me.

I want to create a resource site, a social resource for people who are and want to live creative, innovative lives. The topic is broad, but it is driven by two realizations:

1) The goal–in addition to helping people, being interesting and relevant, and perhaps helping to change the world–is to make money. To make money, I need a site that can attract a significant, well-defined audience. So, while a blog or site about tools for becoming involved in your community might be a good idea, it would have such narrow appeal that it would not be marketable. In order to be successful–in a way that the founders can monetize it–the site must attract and capture a large audience that advertisers want to reach.

2) The quality of the writing is part of the value proposition. Penelope Trunk did a great job of hitting goal #1 above with her startup BrazenCareerist. It’s a site that clearly attracts the Generation Y professional–young people starting their careers who blend work and life to achieve their still-idealistic goals. But it is not necessary or even desirable for such a site to be 100% valuable content–bits and bits of factoids and advice nuggets. Part of the value of any media is that is enjoyable to experience.

Consider home improvement television. It is theoretically possible to record a show on how to build a deck, then play it back while you work on your deck. But hardly anyone does that. Most consumers passively watch these shows because they like the people telling the stories. They relate to what those other homeowners are doing in renovating their homes and they watch the show not only to gather ideas, but to live vicariously.

A resource for creative and innovative living must be more than tips and tricks, best practices, etc. You can get stuff like that from Lifehacker or many, many other blogs that cater to a specific interest.

The purpose of the site should not be to have the best tips or information you cannot find elsewhere. That’s a very difficult challenge and hard to stay on top of. I think a successful site will present quality in a personal and engaging manner to stimulate good commentary. Often useful, usually relevant, always interesting.

To be continued…

I’m an inherently disorganized person, but I manage to get a lot of things done. It really is as simple–and challenging–as finding time.

There is no balance to be had in life. We cannot plan, predict, or organize our lives so that we create the time we need, when we need it. Something always interrupts us; there is always a need to shift priorities, or things just take a lot longer than we planned. So I’ve come to think of all time as precious opportunity and to ask myself, what can I do with this moment I have now?

A coworker remarked this morning how she just didn’t have time to get into facebook, twitter, blogging, etc. I had emailed everyone that they might like to follow me on twitter. And when people find this blog, or my other blog, WestwoodBlog, or they see the books I’ve read and reviewed, they are incredulous, especially given that I have 3 kids under 4 at home. But I find little bits of time here and there…

On the train to work–once I had an internet-capable phone, I found I could do so much in 20 minutes–checking twitter, facebook, sending some short emails on work related stuff, while I read a book or sketch out ideas for another project. WestwoodBlog was designed in about half an hour on the train. (Of course it took a lot longer than that to implement, but the core idea and commitment to make it happen was something I sketched out furiously in a notebook as the train sat delayed due to some problem.)

It is harder to do the big stuff. But the big stuff is made up of little stuff. I have a vision of what I want in my life and when I have extra time, I chip away at the broad parameters of the “next step.”

There are limitations and compromises…to compare this to running, I know can’t sign up for a marathon given my current schedule because I cannot commit 5 days a week to running. But I can do 10Ks and 7.5 milers and keep the joy of running alive until I’m able to prioritize that kind of training regime again.

My blog…I have some ideas of how to take it to the next level…but for now, it needs to be “what can I do today?” Lately I think what I can do is engage with twitter and let my network and knowledge continue to expand until I find the next incremental leap I can make…to have some patience and be ready for opportunity.

Another way to think about life these days is to compare it to working on a large document. I don’t have the table of contents written, just a theme. And if I tried to write the outline out, I’d get lost in the details. So instead, I write short chapters and save often.

My company’s CEO is about to start blogging and solicited input on what blogs we read. Ever mindful of an opportunity to work “double-time” I decided to blog about what I read here and send her a link…

I do not sit around reading blogs all day. I use Google Reader to follow about 20 blogs. I also scan AllTop for interesting things. The key idea here is that, as I realized for my own readership, if the title and first sentence don’t pull me in, forget it. I don’t “curl up with a good blog” or follow certain personalities as a member of their writing fan club.

The only exception to that rule is Penelope Trunk’s Career advice blog. While I do not always agree with her, I find that she challenges my assumptions and stimulates a lot of controversy about ideas and issues that matter to me. Her blog is about the intersection of career and life; my writing is about what I call the mash-up life. Her post today about twitter, social media, and personal branding is on the same wavelength. Penelope is the person who suggested I start blogging almost 2 years ago.

Other blogs I follow…first the “muse” blogs:

• Modite – Rebecca Thorman is a female, extrovert, version of me if I were 26 years old and not working in technology. She writes from a Millennial/Generation Y perspective about career and life and “walks the walk” as a community organizer in Madison, WI. Her recent post about What Generation Y Fears Most is right on with what I felt when I was 26 and still do today. It’s not just career advice, but how you engage with your community to make a difference. I return to her site because of her passion and authenticity and because her younger perspective is reaffirming or inspiring to me at a different stage of life.
• Escape from Cubicle Nation – Pamela Slim writes about entrepreneurship and is an authentic, reasonable guide in front of much of this kind of writing that just trying to sell a scheme. Her audience is people looking to start their own business. I return to her site because she is a good “curator” of ideas–I believe she is not just trying to sell me something.
• All About Cities – Wendy Waters lives in Vancouver, BC, and works in urban planning/research. She blogs “all about cities.” I found her blog early in my writing, in connection with Richard Florida’s books and Penelope Trunk. I contribute occasional book reviews to Wendy’s site. I follow her because I’m interested in the subject matter and I relate to her situation as an urban parent who is writing and raising two kids…and I find her writing more interesting and accessible than more purely academic sites that cover this topic. She, like I also do, looks for the social connections and implications in economics and urban change.
• Employee Evolution – Ryan Healy and Ryan Paugh created this site as a voice for Millennials who want more out of work than a paycheck. Then, they joined forces with Penelope Trunk to create Brazen Careerist, a network of young bloggers talking about work, life, etc. Frankly, I’ve been less enthralled by this stuff lately. The authentic voices of the founders and good writing of certain key contributors stands out; I read because they stimulate my own thoughts.

Then there are the practical blogs–kind of like news sites–that give me useful information I can use in how I write or what I do at work versus how I think:

• ProBlogger – Darren Rouse became famous as a blogger who makes enough money blogging to support himself with a six-figure income. His blog is all about tips for bloggers on how to make money blogging, plus blogging advice. I scan the headlines and follow him on twitter because he often has useful advice about the craft of blogging or the mechanics of monetization.
• Social Media Today is an aggregation of bloggers like Paul Gillin and others who write about social media. The sheer volume of posts on this site is overwhelming. Too much to read, most of it good. This is where to go to find someone blogging about how to encourage social media adoption in an organization, lessons learned, etc. Scan, copy url, paste in email to team.
• Guy Kawasaki – Marketing Guru Guy Kawasaki surfaces useful companies and provides his entrepreneurial insight based on his insider knowledge working with companies. I don’t follow this as much as I used to because I’ve got my hands full with the company I work for, my “emergent media empire,” and family. I don’t need to know about more cool companies I might want to work for or start!
• Seth Godin – same deal as Guy Kawasaki…I would find this blog very useful if I were responsible for marketing and needed ideas. But I’m not, so I don’t have time to read it anymore.

So now I have just spent more time writing about these blogs than I have probably read in the past 3 months. I really cannot emphasize enough the fleeting attention span–even though I have a clear and deep connection to these sites, most days I spend perhaps 30 seconds on them. But if I see something that catches my attention I will read and possibly comment on it.

The way I “use” blogs is to:

• gather inspiration
• gather information
• engage the community of writers

I don’t just read the blogs; as I comment a few times, the bloggers write back to me. Or they comment on my blog. We sometimes email each other too. Despite how Ethan Klapper dismisses blogging as a one-way medium–”barely social media“–I think it can be very, albeit selectively, social. If I were doing this full time, I’d spend a lot more time with a longer list of blogs, but these are the ones I frequent for now…

The New York Times story of writers “blogging until they drop,” is the kind of silly story we worry our parents will read. Don’t worry Mom, I’m not going to blog myself to death. But upon closer examination, the story did make me think about my own limited, idealistic perception of this field.

My first reaction, upon reading that people were working nonstop blogging was that this article was just another workaholism piece, about how bloggers are martyrcizing the fact that they like to spend long hours on their computers writing. But the blogging world described by the New York Times is very different from what I picture as I extrapolate my part time experience into what I would imagine a full-time effort would be. The article portrays blogging as a sort of “piece-work” world where hack writers compete to crank out technical and political drivel to feed a 24×7 news market appetite. Has it already come to that?

This seems so wrong, on so many levels. First of all, is immediacy really that important? I have subscribed to some of these high powered blogs and after a few weeks, my Google Reader is overflowing with stuff I have not read. It’s just like email all over again. And if you go a few days or weeks and don’t check…guess what? Nothing bad happens. When I need to find something, I will just google it and find a blog post from a few months ago and I’m good to go. Nobody needs the type of immediacy that the market seems to create pressure for.

Secondly, these people have a choice of lifestyle. As I wrote about in my Mash-up Life and Going Mobile, I have found the increasing amount of things to do and ways to be connected to be a liberating and empowering experience. I’m not a slave to technology; I find ways to use it to make my life better.

Finally, the big difference in my experience and the experience of the bloggers described in the Times article, is that I don’t see blogging as an end unto itself. When you tell me, I could maybe make $70K as a blogger…why would I want to do that? If that’s the best you can do as a blogger, you are in the wrong business.

I see blogging and other forms of social media as much more than an information technology. Blogs give us a platform to express our ideas and make connections between the ideas of others. It’s a tool to share the ideas and insight that would otherwise remain locked inside, or would only be revealed within the limited scope of your work in a company. Blogging is a tool, not to become your main income source where you hope someday you can earn close to six figures, but to help you develop a brand, image, and reputation among geographically distributed peers. I don’t have a master plan for myself, but I think for many, blogging will be one of the ingredients in creating a personal brand that makes them experts in the fields and amplifies their value.

The Internet today is not an information superhighway. It’s not about who can find information the fastest or even become the channeler of information. It’s really about connections and people. There will always be high pressure markets that generate rewards for those willing to sacrifice themselves for the immediate payoff. But they are missing the larger picture of why this phenomena is so compelling…of what is driving the demand for information. The unmet need is the need to connect with the right people at the right time and avoid the noise of information overload.

When I first learned of twitter, the service that allows you to broadcast little 140 character messages about whatever you are doing at the moment, my thought was, “Why?” As you can see from the right side of this page, I became a convert and even rigged up a widget on this blog to broadcast the microdetails of my life…and still, a reasonable person should ask, “Why?”

There has been a burst of blogging activity in the past few days/weeks about the newfound virtues of twitter…Meg Roberts, one of the bloggers at Brazen Careerist, writes an good overview with links to more info and good comments that got me started a few days ago. So rather than rehash all that, let me illustrate my twitter experience for those who are wondering what possible value there could be in this.

I signed up and started broadcasting personal updates of my life using my cool new work-provided smartphone. I started following Guy Kawasaki because I’ve been reading his How to Change the World blog for a long time and knew he was an early adopter of twitter. I then friended Barack Obama because I support him and he’s into practically everything online. I sent an email to my coworkers daring them to join me in this experiment…

I quickly noticed that Guy Kawasaki is not posting just the mundane details of his life–he’s posting links to websites, other blogs, ideas. I started following some other topical uses like Pete Cashmore of mashable.com and Darren Rowse of problogger…and a pattern begin to emerge. Twitter can be like a stock ticker for social media. When you follow “thought leaders” in this area, you get a concise, mini-newsfeed.

I thought about following CNN Breaking News–a traditional newsfeed…but decided it was really irrelevant to me. Twitter is not just a breaking news feed; it is microblogging, where the challenge is to post something in 140 characters or less that is compelling, interesting, and valuable to your “followers.” I can follow people I find interesting, not topics or media outlets. That makes it more relevant to me personally because, at some level, these are people I trust, at least to have an interesting opinion.

I started checking twitter from my mobile phone while I was commuting to work, walking to lunch, etc. and felt more connected and informed because I had an immediate connection to what was going on. Last week, it was all about SXSW, the big music and media conference in Austin, TX. It made me envious to observe all these bloggers twittering about what they were thinking during the conference–and the little details of life–like Guy Kawasaki dropping and breaking his digital camera while laughing at dinner with a group including Penelope Trunk and others–added a context that reminded me there is a people community out there–it’s not just about business and technology. It’s fun to be a part of that crowd. It’s fun to work with people who share your passion for innovation and are throwing themselves into trying new things and learning constantly. It would be nice to get that at work, but realistically, at work, people are busy with the specific details of projects and it can’t be a nonstop party…so you “find your tribe” in other ways…that is the whole essence of the compelling value of social networking.

So back to twittering…and an illustration of the power of immediacy (not something my marathon blog posts promote, I’m afraid): Last night, I’m holding newborn baby Marshall b/c he will not stay asleep in a bouncer or swing. Rather than watch TV, I have the mobile phone open, browsing my Google Reader news feeds and twitter. I toss a few updates out to twitter and then notice Guy Kawasaki requesting suggestions for links to a new “Life” category on his AllTop reference site. I click on the link and email him a short note about this blog. He emails back and says, cool, he’ll include it.

I don’t see the category on his site yet and maybe, when he reads this blog, he’ll have second thoughts about its relevance…but it’s an opportunity (getting a link from a major site like that) I was able to seize because of information I would not have had without twitter.

The frequent updates from mashable and problogger have given me information I use at work to promote ideas I have about what we should be doing with our business. It is absolutely imperative, to be influential and successful in the web/media space, to be connected to the people who are “thought leaders.” Those connections lead to opportunities and feed back on themselves. And ultimately, your influence depends on your own “giving back,” so I need to make my own “tweets” a little more substantive than updates on the baby feeding schedule…but it is all part of life and part of the authenticity of the web that is what makes people passionate about the whole experience. It is a world that did not exist a few years ago.

Twitter is not a “killer app.” It might fade away next month or seem less relevant to me. That’s kind of what happened with Facebook for me, although I still use it and have hopes for it…But for now, twitter is easy and powerful. Come follow me! OK, that sounds a little weird…what the heck, just do it!

Last Sunday, news talk shows focused on what the Democrats should do about Florida and Michigan. A consensus seemed to be emerging that the Democratic party should pay to conduct a massive do-over primary by mail. Given the limited time available and the political obstacles to any other scheme, that’s probably not a bad idea. The DNC should pay the bill and just do it so this issue gets resolved instead of reminding people how idiotic it was of the Democrats to allow two huge, critical states to be marginalized to the point that Wyoming’s Democratic caucuses are more relevant than then “hanging chad” punchers of Florida or autoworkers in Detroit.

Does a massive postal mail election seem a bit 20th Century to anyone else? We have this incredible medium–the web–that could be leveraged in so many ways to address an issue like this. But first, we have to get past a lot of misconceptions, vested interests, and cross purposes…sadly, even before I could write this, I realized that is a huge uphill battle. But here is a skeleton idea anyway for a 21st century nominating process…

The goal of primary/caucus events is ultimately to elect a representative group of delegates to attend a nominating convention for the political party. It is not an election in the same way the general election is or how a “first round” primary works because voters are not really voting for the candidates–even in a primary state, the election is simply a poll that is used to apportion delegates who are elected by local party caucuses that no one knows about. The vote I cast for Barack Obama here in Massachusetts will be effected when a vote is cast by a delegate from Massachusetts at the DNC. Maybe.

The caucuses I participated in in Washington State in 1992 were a more direct affair. I attended a neighborhood precinct meeting at Stadium High School where all the North End of Tacoma precincts were meeting and convinced nearly a dozen friends and neighbors to go with me and support Paul Tsongas. Our precinct was entitled to elect 3 (I think) delegates to Legislative District caucuses. Based on our numbers, Tsongas got 2/3 of the delegates. I was elected. Then, at the 27th LD caucuse a few weeks later, we elected a group of about a dozen including myself–about 1/4 of the district–to go on to the Congressional District caucus a month or so later. At that caucus, we still had over 15% for Tsongas, so we we alloted 1 National Delegate–I lost that election, but then at the state convention, I was selected as an alternate.

When people talk about Internet voting, it is almost always in the context of a primary–the web-based or electronic ballot is just another way for random voters to cast their anonymous ballots. It is seen as a technical solution only. I think that is a bad idea, for all the obvious security reasons.

But consider what an internet caucus might look like:

Voters register online to identify themselves with the party of their choice. Then, they prepare for round one of caucusing by casting preliminary ballots and/or announcing their intention to run for delegate at the precinct level on a public website. Everything is open and public. There is no secret ballot and you can change your ballot up until the moment of the official caucus.

The caucus is conducted in two steps: First, the candidate preference selection is done on the night of the traditional primary. Then, neighborhood caucuses are held to elect delegates to the next level. This spawns another round of online debate and discussion and another two-step vote. The process continues as necessary until a group of national delegates is elected.

Throughout this exercise, the voting process is not simply tallying votes…it involves citizens logging on to websites that provide local discussion areas, links to social profiles, blogs, etc. The degree of real-world engagement and transparency is what would make such a process resistant to fraud. It would not be perfect…it could be a total mess of myspace pages, facebook profiles, endless twittering…you name it…but it would be so much more participatory than a single ballot cast in secret once every 4 years.

Now this is a rough sketch…and I can anticipate a million objections because such a system can’t just be thrust upon the current state of affairs…but the final kicker here is that I would anticipate such a system to be formed organically. The Democratic party is not going to hire software consultants to create such a system. Instead, what will happen is political social media networks will aggregate themselves over time to bring in more and more people until the movement is not just MoveOn.org or DailyKos, but a generalized political empowerment movement. There will be a point where a campaign is “one” with the voters–where the majority of people voting for a candidate have participated, through social media, in the actual campaign…and where all the different campaigns are in fact using the same tools and websites to debate and advocate…and voting becomes the final formality.

Way out there? Sleep deprivation? What the heck am I talking about? I think caucuses are often criticized from being insider affairs…but primaries are too anonymous and do not afford voters any opportunity to debate, discuss and engage with one another. I think emerging social media tools could, when combined with the face to face of local caucuses, provide transparency and openness to the caucus process and improve the opportunity of all citizens to participate in the nomination process.

It won’t solve the immediate problem of Florida and Michigan…but I think it is something to think about for the future…and if it truly is a good idea and can be made effective, perhaps we don’t need our current parties anymore…

I’ve signed up with Twitter…so now people have the opportunity to “follow” me and get updates about how I am feeding a baby at 3am, etc. I’ve been meaning to check out Twitter for awhile, to leap across that chasm of “what possible value could this have?” to give it a fair shot at least and see what the fuss is all about…before it fades into being what used to be the next big thing…

Twitter is described here for newbies. Basically, Twitter allows you to send short (140 characters or less) messages out to everyone who “follows” you by subscribing to your feed. It is like the status field in Facebook, but easier to update. You can log in to twitter, use google chat to instant message twitter, or you can text message 40404. This allows “microblogging”–what can one really say in 140 characters? And more importantly, who cares?

I found some answers to “who cares” and “so what” at lifehacker, but they are pretty specious. I could text message myself with random ideas that might provoke blogging–the old “note to self” idea, although now it is more “note to world.” More links and ideas from Meg Roberts at the new Brazen Careerist site. So, I was inspired to learn by doing.

I also added a widget to this blog that shows what my “followers/followees” are twittering about. Guy Kawasaki is prolific–so expect to see many little photos of him as you scroll down for my occasional twitter. I thought, by exposing the widget, I might illustrate any value that comes of this and add something dynamic and interesting to this blog. I told folks at work about this too…but so far, no bites. Nobody wants to be kept up to date about the late night baby feedings, I guess. And I should remember not to twitter things like “Just had great interview at company X.” Just kidding. Really.

Frontline did a great documentary last week: Growing Up Online, about kids on Facebook, myspace, etc. and their often clueless parents. It’s well worth going to the PBS website and watching the show online then talking about it…because I guarantee different people will have different perspectives.

The show was evenhanded and served to debunk many of the paranoias that have been shamelessly exploited by shows like Dateline NBC. At the same time, the show did illustrate how our culture is fundamentally changing in ways that parents need to understand.

The most interesting aspect was how truly connected kids are today. It’s almost a cliche to say that; it doesn’t communicate the full extent. On the hand, kids are constantly communicating the most private details of their lives together in an almost hivelike mentality. At the same time, the internet opens up expressive means that allow kids to explore their creativity and individuality and find others like them. When I was a kid, we just had conformity and freakishness…now, it’s kind of all the same thing.

I wonder if much of the conflict and fear between parents and kids is class-based? It seems ALL kids are online. Most upper middle income professional parents are also online because of our jobs and I think, while we may not completely understand the online world our kids are growing up in, we can figure it out and talk about it with them. But many working class parents don’t have a need for the internet–some of the parents interviewed did not even have their own email addresses–and it must seem completely foreign to them. I do think the connectedness and immediacy changes the way we think about things and probably creates a greater generation gap than would exist otherwise.

I’m not worried about my kids. By the time they are in school, their teachers will be the kids who are growing up online. Our biggest problem will be the parents who still don’t get it who want to fire the teachers who do.

Paul Gillin, author of The New Influencers, gave a lecture last Thursday in Waltham, MA about his book and implications of social media for marketers. I read the book several months ago and recommend it to anyone seeking to gain a quick understanding of what’s going on NOW with respect to social media. I thought the lecture would simply reinforce the book, but actually, there was significant new information and a host of resources.

• Personal expression through online media to a global audience is here to stay. Gillin predicts that within 10 years, there will be only 5 major city newspapers left. The traditional media publishing model–where content and messages are created by large organizations and then broadcast to the consumer–is being fundamentally disrupted by the reality that millions of individuals are publishing their own content. In this society of publishers, a “remarkably civil” conversation is evolving. In such a world, influence is more important than power. And everyone has the potential to be an influencer.
• Think Small. The greatest success stories come from companies of one or two people. A media-savvy realtor creates a website, facebook profile, myspace site, linked in profile, then blogs about something valuable such as advice on living in Seattle. She leapfrogs her competitors, eventually building a realtor network. Or a guy starts blogging about gadgets and eventually has a website, Engadget, that is more relevant (and has greater reach) than PC Magazine. Again and again, the stories of New Influencers are the stories of individuals who use their passion and creativity to earn a platform of influence that increasingly allows them to be more relevent than multi-million dollar companies and traditional advertising campaigns.
• The point is not to understand it: the point is to do something about it. This point is illustrated by another blog post about the MITX Event last week where “heavy hitters” from social media talked about their companies and schmoozed with the Boston media folks. The reality is that everyone is learning and it is more important to be a participant in the game than to find an expert or become an expert. Nobody knows what they are doing. There is no time to wait for leaders to emerge or worry that your strategy might not be the right one. Just do it.
• Opportunity and Competition. You don’t need millions of dollars of VC money to start a company and change the world. See Guy Kawasaki’s post about how he started Truemors for $12,000. Of course, it helps to be Guy Kawasaki…but the point is that the new influencer model of marketing creates incredible opportunities that are hard to control. The goal of viral marketing is to find and engage the enthusiasts to turn them into promoters. Message delivery is declining in importance because marketing is more about relationships between trusted individuals than about crafting the right words. This means that individuals and organizations that can become adept at engagement will have an enormous advantage over organizations that simply have money to pour on advertising campaigns. An Army of Davids will beat Goliath. Don’t be Goliath.

I joined Facebook last year as a crop of 30 and 40-somethings discovered this cool new thing that seemed slightly more respectable than myspace. I recognized the technology and social media implications quickly. And for awhile, I was addicted. But I lapsed as most of the other “older” people I knew didn’t really know what to do with it and it just didn’t become a part of my life.

But I revisited it recently as it seems so perfectly appropriate for something my church is doing. We are putting together a pictorial directory. We are also trying to grow membership. And we are organizing events in the community that I hope will draw interest and people. Facebook is a picture book…but it is so much more. However, I know that for many people who are not already on Facebook, my invitation to join is likely to be their first and only visit because…if you haven’t joined already, you probably don’t see the need or value of it.

Facebook doesn’t make it easy for the late adopters. There is no guide to facebook, no tutorial, not even a page of Frequently Asked Questions. I guess that is by design because the nature of the site is that it evolves and is driven by the creativity and use of its users. It’s not a static resource. It’s an organic thing that people seem to either get or not get. You can always google facebook and find guides to it–but that presupposes motivation. I think the principal and only motivator for the adoption of facebook has been “all my friends are on it.” Well, all my friends are NOT on it. But perhaps we all just need an illustration of what to do to begin to see the value…

The main value of facebook, the thing that makes it more than just a website, is that it effectively publishes your life to your friends. For example, there is a “status” with a link to “What are you doing right now?” that you can update with…whatever. I just updated my status to “blogging about facebook.” Now, all my friends have a “feed” on their pages so when they log in, they see a little note that says “Dave Atkins is blogging about facebook.” It’s not an email…and they can (and probably do) disable the notification when it becomes innane and/or overwhelming, but this is just an illustration of how facebook works. Whenever you take any action in your profile, it gets posted to the feed. So, for example, this is what I see on my feed right now:

I don’t have a ton of friends, so you see a few people repeated here. But notice how everything in blue is a clickable link. You can see how my friends are adding other people as friends. I could click on a name I recognized and add that friend as well. Other people are using applications or posting things…in each case, I may be curious about it and I can just click on the link to see what’s going on. This is the essence of viral marketing activity. It feeds back on itself. Each person who is inspired by curiosity to try something a friend tried contributes to the “virtual buzz” about that thing. And it is all automatic.

When I first joined facebook, this activity alone was interesting for a few months. I would see that someone had added an application that allowed them to display their favorite books, or politician, or generate a map of everywhere they had ever traveled and I would do the same. But after awhile, I have to admit the applications were just overwhelming. People started wanting to bite me and turn me into a zombie. I just didn’t have time for that.

One of the features I had an initial interest in–and which seemed very promising for my church–was the concept of facebook groups. Anyone can create a group about anything. And, of course, when you create the group, it get’s published out to all your friends. When they join, it gets published out to their friends. So, I created a group for our church.

Within 24 hours, all the young people in the church (who had their own youth group on facebook) had found and joined my group. But the real challenge is engaging everyone else. And with all the befriending and group joining going on…well, we get back to the basic question again…what am I supposed to do on this thing?

Here’s what we can do with the group:

• promote events – I created an event associated with the group to promote a Jazz concert by Nhojj to be held February 3 (just before the Super Bowl). That actions does two things: 1) the event is visible to all the group members and 2) the event shows up in the overall Boston network where any user who clicks on it will see the link to the First Church and Parish in Dedham group.
• mass communicate – we can send a message to all group members. Now the church already has an email list, but some people feel the private messaging of facebook is better because it is not clogging up your email with spam and you can easily include links to other posts, events, etc. in the message. If you are on facebook all the time, the private messaging may be preferable to email.
• instant website – the group page is like a mini-website. Other group members can post events, upload photos, upload videos, post comments, and start discussion threads. The church already has a website, but it is a project to maintain it. On facebook, any member can add to the site. Hopefully, people will be responsible, but if they are not, I can modify the permissions, edit the content, etc. And as always, the beauty of facebook is that whenever someone does something, it will be “fed” out to their friends and members of the group.

A couple weeks ago, I blogged about wikis and town government and how that technology could allow mass collaboration to assist the development of public policy. Facebook is different…this is an illustration of social networking, of how we can leverage our connections with other people to spread information quickly. Facebook provides the behind-the-scenes engine to make it automatic so that your actions are communicated to your friends and people of similar interests. Neither technology is a magic solution: we’ve got a facebook group: we’re all set! It takes more, specifically:

• priming - Before I send a mass email to our membership, I wanted to write this article–to illustrate some of the possibilities of facebook to many who are not yet on facebook. If they are already active, they can probably tell me how to improve this! But technology alone is never the solution…it needs people to actually use it.
• maintenance - I don’t know if the group is set up just right. Maybe I need to modify some permisions or change the layout or something. It’s not a “set and forget” type thing. But the effort is pretty small and manageable, I hope.
• contribution - I posted the Nhojj concert as a starting point. There are other events, I’m sure. And maybe I should start up a discussion group. It would be great if someone else jumped in though…

Finally, there is the question of what else “should” I be doing on facebook. OK, I signed up…I joined the church group…what next?

• consider changing the preferences on your birthday – Click the Edit link to the right of Profile after you login to facebook. Unless you want everyone to know you are pushing 41, change the drop down choice under Birthday so it only shows month and day. If you care.

• search for other friends on facebook. It can be difficult if your friends have names like “John Smith.” You can just invite people you know by email address and if they are already in, they will just add you as a friend.
• check out this list of 10 things you should do on facebook
• or these 8 things you can do…
• check out the facebook blog
• Check out all the facebook applications – “applications” are the heart and soul of facebook. I’ve just described the most basic core features here. Applications are things that thousands of developers are creating to do sometimes interesting things like create a map of all the cities you’ve ever visited.

I’ve just scratched the surface. Most people who find value in facebook quickly get addicted to it. We learn as we go. It is different from what many are used to–this is not a place to set up a user account with some fake name or weird screenname like “laughingboy57.” And it can be a little intimidating to know that you don’t know what information is being sent out to your friends. So try not to take it too seriously, but at the same time do be authentic.

Here’s my profile. Enjoy!

A colleague referred me to this list by Tamar Weinburg that pulls together, in one place, links to over 250 blog posts and articles about what social media is and how to use it. It basically gives you the reading list for a crash course in 2008 internet marketing strategy. After you’re done with that list, head over to ProBlogger to figure out how to make money from your blog. And with all the reading, don’t forget to actually blog at some point!

I just finished reading Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance by Atul Gawande. It’s my book club book for this month, and although I didn’t think I would find it that interesting, I was surprised by what I learned.

In the first chapter, Gawande describes how health workers in Karnataka, India responded to a polio outbreak in June 2003. Their task was to inoculate 4.2 million children in a matter of days to contain the one “index case” that had been identified. Eradicating polio is all about the last drop of effort–the immense expense and difficulty of containing outbreaks as soon as they occur. He describes it as a challenge of diligence–of the kind of commitment to do what needs to be done in the face of depressing odds and often impossible conditions. But the doctors do it because they know that this is the only way to win and hopefully add polio to the list of plagues that has been wiped from the face of the Earth. In addition the the Herculean effort involved in vaccinating millions of children around the epicenter of an outbreak, he also notes the information challenge–the problem that every hour that goes by before the outbreak is noticed, the scope of the mop up operation increases exponentially. If we could instantly recognize that an infectious disease was breaking out, the mop up would be orders of magnitude easier. And when we fail to detect the outbreak…it jeopardizes decades of work to eradicate the disease.

The solution to the information problem may be coming…from Google, of all places. Several years ago, the Public Health Agency of Canada, using technology developed by Nstein, Inc., developed something called the Global Public Health Intelligence Network (GPHIN). The system monitors tens of thousands of news feeds from all over the world, performs sophisticated text mining to extract contextual meaning, then watches for patterns that could indicate an infectious disease outbreak. An example could be a pattern of news reports in a region about people with disease symptoms. The system would give medical professionals immediate notice of a potential crisis developing. The GPHIN system was instrumental in containing SARS in 2002.

This technology caught the attention of Larry Brilliant, who described it as the nucleus of what he would like to develop if he had the resources… Brilliant won a 2006 TED prize to help implement his vision, and assumed leadership of Google’s philanthropic division, Google.org. Since 2006, there has been little public information about the progress of this project, but one can only imagine what will emerge from Google Labs to take an awesome idea to the next level.

When we begin to think about the possibilities behind massive parsing and text analytics applied to public media, it is easy to think of a dark side…or at least a more business-oriented, less philanthropic side. I wonder if my blog is being parsed by DoD computers in search of patterns that could indicate I am secretly coordinating an Al Qaeda cell? Are my phone calls being converted to text and similarly parsed? I’m not that worried; to me it seems the positive value is probably so much greater than any conspiracy fantasy I might entertain.

In Malcom Gladwell’s Blink, he described how, in World War II, the British assembled thousands of “interceptors” to listen to encoded morse code transmissions from German operators. Although they could not decode the transmissions, they could, by listening to the cadence of the transmissions, identify the individual “fists” of the Germans. They know who was sending the messages. Over time they were able to use this information to follow the movements of different units.

Text analytics is very different than simply identifying who is talking. But it is a similar step toward automation of a subconscious skill…not so much the development of artificial intelligence, but of a catalyst for collective intelligence. James Surowiecki talks of the great challenge in harnessing the power of the wisdom of crowds as building structures and systems to effectively aggregate the crowd’s intelligence. The kind of text analytics, early warning system envisioned by Larry Brilliant is an evolutionary leap forward–not just for the case of identifying pandemics, but for accelerating the feedback loop in all sorts of social improvement.

Most of what I’ve written here today is simply stitching together a few fascinating articles and other people’s blog posts. But imagine if a Google technology were crawling the entire blogosphere looking for patterns and connections…and imagine you could ask such a system a question. I feel we are venturing into serious “psychohistory” territory here. Rather than fearing the future, we can imagine a world where our many contributions, however ever individually small, might be pulled into a greater good.

I just cross-posted this article on Gather–probably get a lot more views there than here!

I blog about my own search for ways to be more empowered and involved in my community at blog.davewrites.com. I’ve been meaning to write an article on how we could use “web 2.0 tools” to be more effective, but so far, I’ve found nothing positive to write about. I wanted to toss the question out here to see what kinds of constructive suggestions readers could provide to counter my so far disappointing and negative observations…

There is no shortage of opinions out there on politics. I can set up my Google Reader to follow DailyKos, for one very liberal example, and barely keep up with the never ending stream of progressive political commentary. There are plenty more and pretty soon, I just can’t keep up with it all. I can read, read, read, and comment and write about issues to my hearts content…but to what end? There is certainly some personal, self-actualization value in having a forum to talk, but who’s listening? Other people who believe the same thing? Do we really shape overall public opinion? Will politicians listen? Or is it a futile exercise that only serves to make us more upset?

I could go on Facebook and create a group or find a political application that would allow me to hook up with like minded people. The most basic example is to join a candidates group and post something on his/her wall. Maybe I start emailing some high school kid in Florida or Barack Obama becomes my “friend”–along with 145, 097 other supporters. Perhaps, if I dig a little deeper, my actions on Facebook–such as updating my status with “going to a political meeting” or adding all the books I’ve read or taking various polls, etc. might trickle out to my friend network and inspire other friends to be more politically interested…but it’s a very tenuous connection at best.

I found one website that is modeled after Facebook, called essemply.com that was written up in Newsweek over a year ago that explicity tries to connect “like-minded” people. You answer some questions and then you can find people who share your views. It seems to me that’s not really the problem. We need to find people who disagree with us and then find a forum where our discussion of the issues matters and has the potential to effect change.

The website e.politics is a good resource for discussion of how interactive media tools can be used in the political process; but again, I didn’t get a good idea of what I should do next.

I believe online collaboration, enabled by social networking tools, could create an opportunity for incredible citizen empowerment. We could do all or all of the following things to make a difference:

* post videos of voting irregularities to YouTube to put pressure on election officials to avoid voter supression tactics that were alleged in the 2004 Presidential election in Ohio
* contribute to the development of local wikis on non-political but informational resources
* donate money and encourage others to do so via websites like ActBlue
* or, the granddaddy of them all, use MeetUp to find a local meeting of activists

But just arguing and complaining or writing long political sermons among the thousands of similar writings on various websites is not going to do it. I almost feel like we are being distracted from real involvement by how easy it is to publish your thoughts and get drawn into an argument with some random bozo. Is the time we spend reading these things and composing thoughtful comments to responses like “liberals suck” wasted time that would be better spent walking our neighborhoods, going to political meetings, or even just writing letters to Congress?

So, I’m curious…what do others think? And more importantly, what do you DO?

Surely this will inspire controversy:

[youtube]DaEECHjWptU[/youtube]

Regardless of whether you believe there was an organized vote suppression effort by Republicans in 2000 and 2004, imagine how YouTube could transform the immediacy of an issue like this. Instead of years later, when a documentary is produced…or a painstakingly researched article is published…there will be video uploaded during the day tomorrow to raise the alarm of impropriety. Now perhaps it will be a bunch of garbage…but if there is a story to be found, imagine how much faster it will surface.

Update:
See videos posted here

Summary: Nothing major reported…but the mere fact of reporting is revolutionary. I doubt YouTube “coverage” made things fairer…but now we know it can be done. It will be there for 2008. It can’t hurt.

Since my last posting, I have been consumed by work and family. But several books have gotten me to thinking about what an exciting convergence is underway today.

The most recent book is “Wikinomics” –link in sidebar to the book, link here to the collaborative website.

It’s a long book, but the essence of what is going on is that I believe we are entering an era in which small actions by everyone add up to big things. The term “WikiPolitic” I just made up; I mean it to capture the idea that participation models in not only business, but also society in general, are moving towards an environment where everyone contributes what they can, when they can, to a system that over time is learning to effectively integrate these actions into a greater good.

My previous view was that individuals led by action or thought. Certain key people always mattered. Someone had to get the ball rolling. Some individual was behind everything of consequence. Group action was always necessary, but leadership was the difference between success and failure.

It is a new world. Leadership is not irrelevant, but the idea of planning and orchestrating big projects and big ideas to a desired result is just not fast enough anymore. What is important is getting people’s contributions out there: give people a platform, not only for ideas, but for action.

Our politics are fossilized into irrelevancy. I watched the State of the Union address the other night, and I found myself looking at that assemblage of our representatives thinking: what a bunch of old farts! And I’m in my late 30s! I thought, as I grew older, that I would view our elected officials as closer to my age, but it seems they have aged into antiquity. I know, that’s a cheap, superficial observation, but it’s my gut reaction, watching those guys sit there playing their game instead of doing anything that matters.

Barack Obama – I read his other book, The Audacity of Hope. Great. I agree with him on most every issue. But should he be President? Actually, I think what we need is about 50 more of him in the Senate and 200 or so in the House before we start talking about the Presidency. He’s got great ideas, but then so do lots of other people. If he were President, is that the best way to make those ideas happen?

Jimmy Carter – I read his book on Palestine. Thanks for telling me how truly messed up things are in Israel. But what is really amazing is how much work Jimmy Carter has done for all of his life. He’s probably done 100 times more good since leaving office. People can disagree with his opinions, but here is a guy who goes to Lebanon and shuttles around between all the various voting places, demanding that people be allowed to vote. He walks the walk.

Al Gore – Don’t waste your time running again. It’s a distraction. You have found your role as a champion for the environment. But my only hope now is that millions of people will hear your message and start to think differently.

So much else is going on beneath the radar of mass media. Of course there is the blogosphere…and while 99.99% of it is mindless incessant chatter it is also providing a medium for people with good ideas to connect. My blog will not win a Pulitzer prize or whatever. But one person reading the one intelligent post by me might go do something to add to it…and so on…but if I just sit here with my thoughts locked up in my head, nothing ever happens.

There are websites like TakingITGlobal, kind of an activist mySpace, where thousands of young people are connecting to do good in the world. Maybe a lot of it is superficial or naive, but I think we are entering a stage in society where these online tools perform the aggregation function described in The Wisdom of Crowds so that the dumb stuff will cancel out and things that matter will rise to the top. Even that analogy fails to really “get it”–it is not about content–it’s about action. People will filter what they need. The great thing is that we now have a platform to throw our ideas out there.

It took so much to make a difference before. I don’t have time to go to the town meetings on a regular basis or get involved in the town committees on various issues, etc. Nobody with a career and life does. Sorry. If you are lucky to have a career in social issues, great, but most people aren’t ready to be that committed. We just don’t have the time to pay our dues. So we dropped out. No more.

We can find the time to occasionally stay up until 2am writing. Perhaps someone will pick up on a thread we start. Perhaps something will make it to the top of Digg that fires up a few thousand people to do something like they did with the Katrina PeopleFinder project. The barriers to action are dropping. People will find small ways to make a difference instead of sitting there watching the news helplessly.

Times are changing. The WikiPolitic is not about email lists of Howard Dean supporters or 100,000 like-minded blogs all complaining about the same thing. It’s not even about sophisticated ways of organizing old politics. It is about what unexpected collaboration efforts, independent of representative democracy, will be born out of the this new landscape. Blogs, wikis, chatrooms, mySpace, YouTube, flikr, etc. are the many blades of grass on a limitless field of opportunity. We don’t know what is coming next. And no one controls it.

Actually, I don’t have a concrete answer for that, but I finally “got it” just now to understand what’s up with these sites.

Social networking sites make the transaction costs of maintaining “weak ties” almost nill and therefore, have the potential to make all of us (especially those who are introverts like me) more effective in ways that are not immediately obvious. OK, translation…

Weak ties are (summarizing the theory, very crudely) relationships we have with people that are not really friendships, but are enough of a connection and familiarity that we feel we know something about the person in a particular context. I worked with a guy for 6 months. I know a lot about what he’s like in the office. I have no clue about anything else beyond that. I went to school with a guy 20 years ago and we worked together on a project for a few months. But I haven’t seen him since.

Now let’s say you are trying to get your job hunt network put together from scratch. If you read career advice books, you know that you should always be networking, but nobody really likes doing that, so most people find themselves looking for a job change after 5 years of having no interactions with anyone outside their immediate work environment. Most of use feel very apprehensive about being perceived as desperate losers who are now suddenly calling up everybody they ever worked with to get them to try and find a job. And if you don’t know anybody, you’re supposed to “informational interview” which is hard to do without feeling like a fake. You are trying to “work” your weak tie network…but since you neglected it, you have to really invest a lot of strong tie effort just to get it off the ground. Some people are much better at this than others…others grit their teeth and learn to do it and practice until it works.

Now how about a political example…suppose I wanted to learn more about a local political issue…or maybe I have a strong opinion about it and want to do something about it. What I need is access to a lot of people who will hear my point of view and agree with it enough to maybe vote one way or another, make a phone call to a representative, or maybe go to a meeting. I don’t need these people to be my best friends. If I were already active in the community, and it was 1950, maybe I’d be able to toss out an idea at the weekly bowling league game or at the barber shop…but again, that’s not the case now. I’ve met one of my neighbors so far…so what can I do?

I could organize a grassroots movement. Yeah, right. Again, I need weak ties, but going door-to-door and pitching your big idea is kind of a strong tie mode of operation. Would you invite yourself over to your neighbor’s house to talk about health care reform? You can launch into a topic like that with closer friends and family, but if you do it to random people, then they will think you must be running for Congress or trying to raise money.

Social networking sites don’t give you an automatic network, but they lay the infrastructure for preserving the weak ties you naturally create every day. There’s a very low expectation on a site like Facebook, I think. It might be cool to reconnect. I’m not looking to date you (I indicated I was married in my profile!) and I don’t expect you to write me recommendations like on LinkedIn. Let’s just see what happens.

Maybe I will notice an old familiar face and click on their profile and find out they are doing something really cool now. I might email them and say hi. That is a lot less trouble than the email requesting an informational interview because I just got fired and need to find a job. I don’t have to invite them over to dinner and try to develop a relationship with them; we can just be Facebook friends…whatever that is.

I think younger people are starting out with these massive networks. Us old farts are jumping in and not knowing what the heck to do. We see some guy on myspace with 20,000 friends and laugh…that’s silly. Nobody can have 20,000 friends. I’d be happy to have 20. Actually, being such an introvert, I kind of feel like I have 1 best friend and that’s enough. But my criteria for friend is such a strong-tie thing that I underestimate how many people have some kind of weak-tie link to me.

So what do we do with all this? Again, I don’t know. But I think it IS part of the answer to how we rebuild community in our modern world. We overestimate how strong the old ties were because really, they were just weak ties that were massively reinforced by community norms and structures. Everyone knew everyone else in town. Well, maybe getting everyone in town signed up on facebook is a start to 21st century community building.

I’m tired of hearing why something won’t work. Ironically, I don’t think people see me as an optimist, but if I’m not…God help us.

I’ve been reading a lot of controversial stuff lately and it is amazing how much negativity is out there and how quick people are to shoot down ideas. Career columnist Penelope Trunk published a couple of Yahoo Finance columns in the past couple weeks on Etiquette tips in the Generation Y Workplace and advice for women to achieve success. Her suggestions were controversial–like “Show some flesh — but just enough” and “Don’t ask for time off, just take it.” These tips ignited a firestorm of self-righteous indignation and personal attacks from thousands of Yahoo readers.

I read the, “The 4-Hour Workweek,” by Timothy Ferriss. I actually have not heard or read any reviews of it, but I don’t need to…I can already hear the chorus of negativity from people who think his advice is at best idiotic and at worst, immoral. I mean, the central, tangible example he gives as a path to success is to 1) set up some kind of web business where you pass yourself off as an expert and sell advice to other suckers (like he does with the book) and 2) get your boss to let you telecommute so you can work 4 hours a week but trick the boss into thinking you are still working full time.

And finally, I saw the Michael Moore movie, Sicko, which continues his formula of shock and embarrass by asking uncomfortable questions of people and reporting only the facts that make his stories most appalling.

In each case, I do not agree 100% with the message or methods of these authors. However I believe they are all coming from a point of view that is authentic and honest in a search for solutions to problems. We have had enough of the negative–people just telling us “the world is going to end.” Nobody cares. There is nothing we can do about it anyway. So simply identifying the problems in our society merely serves to depress us. I think we’ve all believed that if only the problem could be defined, someone would solve it…but reality is it isn’t happening.

Giving people career advice on how to ace an interview is no good if all you end up with is working in a job you hate. Telling people not to tolerate harassment is no good if they can only see litigation as the alternative to suffering.

Describing a complicated plan to buy real estate or invest in foreign exchange or trade stocks or think and grow rich or whatever…is just a recipe for disappointment. Everybody has a freakin plan to sell you…their freakin plan. We read and we learn nothing because we can’t every really duplicate these things.

And health care reform? As Michael Moore describes, we are kept in a state of fear and desperation, afraid to ask for anything better, accepting without question the counter arguments of how any solutions would be worse than the awesome system we have now. Academics write papers, everybody talks about Sweden and France…but not in America.

But I think the tide is about to turn. It’s not just about radical voices–there have always been people who rattled the cages of the establishment and shocked us. What is different is that I believe we, as a society, are starting to do more learning by doing, learning by experimentation, and are becoming unshackled from our assumptions. It is less dramatic in the career and lifestyle areas, but the longer term implications are for a window of opportunity for social change.

It’s not the advice that matters…in the case of Penelope Trunk, telling people they can take off work without asking is, in most cases, a recipe for getting yourself fired. It’s such a radical suggestion that you have to say to yourself, “Why would she say that?” or “In what world would that work?” The answer is that our workplace dynamics are changing and we need to question what are the underlying principles? It gets people to start thinking and re-examining their assumptions.

As for Ferriss and his crazy book…if you actually read the book you can see that what he is ultimately talking about is how you take control of a purposeful life…now maybe my ideal life is nothing like his, but it is helpful to see the kinds of questions he asked and how he violated “the rules.” It’s not a cookbook to follow in his footsteps, it is an exercise in getting people to think differently and then test their own assumptions.

Finally, for Michael Moore. OK, taking a boat down to Cuba to ask for medical treatment from Guantanamo Bay is a pointless exercise of course. And when he is in Cuba, yes, I bet his people got better treatment than if they had just gone their on their own without the cameras. But we need to stop shooting these things down with the obvious objections and say, “OK, maybe the rest of the world is not perfect…but can’t we just do the things they do right?”

The scant evidence I have for a change of cultural perspective is what I see happening in online communities and social media. People are diving in headfirst to things like myspace and facebook and figuring it out as they go along. The open source movement…linux, etc. seemed like it didn’t have a chance when people first talked about it a decade ago. But people are experimenting and learning all over the place. They are tuning out of mainstream media and going online against steep learning curves to find and create value in many unprecedented ways. A blog entry cannot, in a few minutes of my theorizing, prove anything. But I believe there is a fundamental difference evolving. It’s not my job to write a paper that solves for it all…maybe I just start the ball rolling or kick it along a little bit. Then others will take up the cause.

This is the decentralization of movement politics. It’s a movement without leaders so much as protagonists. A terrible book I once read said that man’s ego was the fountainhead of human progress…the fundamental premise of individualism and key individuals driving everything through their rational ideas. I think the fountainhead ran dry a long time ago and what we are seeing now is the birth of a collaborative–not a collective–will or impulse, that, leveraged by technology-enhanced connections and social media is going to change everything.

Teamsters and Bloggers unite. I’m not sure if this is what I have in mind with respect to the empowerment of the creative class. I think it is incredibly powerful that bloggers can write about labor issues like this, and YouTube makes it possible to watch a video of this whole thing right here:

[youtube]XG8UKw9OhGI[/youtube]

but my first reaction to that video was pretty negative. It seemed kind of very silly to have some geeky guy drive a big rig in to the sound of AC/DC’s Back in Black and make a brief appearance on stage with Jimmy Hoffa (Jr.). But those bloggers and union folks got fired up and are now collaborating on this issue.

If you read the “call to action” and 170+ comments on DailyKos, you will experience that “overwhelmedness” that I talked about in the Mission Statement post below. It doesn’t feel like my fight. But I think the online media activity would be much more effective at communicating the issues than union leaders or newspaper articles with quotes from strident pro-union idealogues and anti-union conservatives.

I cannot imagine unionization in the “knowledge worker”/creative class context. Maybe we’ve all been brainwashed, but we feel we have to manage our own careers, that our jobs are likely to change a lot, and we hope that we play a unique role in our organization, so no one would be competent to collectively bargain on our behalf. We strike by quitting.

PBS NOW ran a short story last Friday about the Montana Meth Project. I’ve seen a number of terrifying reports about a Meth epidemic, especially in the rural and small town west. People are actually coming up with effective campaigns to fight the problem head on.

First, there were the Faces of Meth, before and after photos that dramatically show how methamphetamine abuse makes you look old and pathetic in a few months or years. Then, billionaire software pioneer Tom Siebel went to Montana and launched this all-out TV ad campaign to “uncoolify” meth:

[youtube]jRQY6ay2xHI[/youtube]

I don’t understand why kids would want to do meth, but they do. To fight that, you need a lot more than rational arguments. You need the empathic power of television.

But this campaign illustrates the difficulty and money required to achieve this kind of saturation marketing. These ads don’t do any good on YouTube or some random cable channel. Years of hard work by a billionaire was required to get this stuff out there and build a project that could be replicated in other states. It doesn’t fit any kind of new media citizen empowerment model I’d like to see happening–it is good old fashioned money, power, and dedication to a cause.

I think, however, the media is simply a tool here…and presumably the social networking tools that are out there should be invaluable in helping organize the people to plan and execute these campaigns. But in those cases, I think you are working with people who are already sold on the overall idea. They are living by the “rational playbook” already.

The problem in politics is that elected leaders, no matter how rational they are, have to worry about being reelected by people who are not as engaged on key issues to have invested in a fully rational approach. There is no battle for the minds of the people anymore, only their hearts. So we get videos like this:

[youtube]TNTWYnPi8yc[/youtube]

and stuff like this in response:

[youtube]SSWzoGGmpqQ[/youtube]

Brutally honest differences? The second video is boring and has been viewed by about 20,000 people. Although, if you watch it, it does get to the powerful statement of “funding the war is killing our troops.” The first video is being broadcast on real television to millions of people who didn’t chose to watch it. Almost instantly, you can feel the percentage of Americans who believe Iraq was behind 9/11 increase by a few points. I mean, it’s right there…”They attacked us.” You can see the twin towers burning. And that guy lost his leg defending his children against terrorists. Bring it on.

OK, before I go off on a total rant about the war…what can we do about it? Suppose, for the sake of argument, that I agree with the pro-war cause. Should I blog and comment about it? Should I write an email to my congressperson? Should I make my own video and upload it to youtube?

I could add my pro war sentiments to a number of websites that promote the neoconservative viewpoint. Then, I could go to commondreams.org and moveon.org and write nasty attacks in their forums against the liberals. I could try to find online discussions that were somewhat neutral and engage people in spirited debate. I could create a clever parody or outrageous video that would leap to the top of YouTube’s popularity contest. But honestly, I should probably just write a check to Freedom’s Watch so they can buy some more air time.

I could argue with my friends. But my friends will either agree with me or become uncomfortable because most people don’t appreciate their friends interrupting a discussion of the Red Sox game with argumentative talk. It is not polite.

So really, what I expect, is that my Representative and Senators in Congress will have those arguments. That is what we elect them to do. So it all comes back to putting pressure on our elected officials to do the right thing. The right thing is to fight for what they believe in and listen to the arguments on both sides to come up with a plan of action.

Pressure to “do the right thing” is harder to exert than pressure to “do the thing group X wants you to do.” It’s subtle, but we need an environment where an honest debate can happen, where misstatements don’t end up all over the news, spinning out of control…where reason is respected. To accomplish that, I think we can participate online…we need to shake off the cynicism that your voice does not matter. If you make one comment on a blog post that causes someone to possibly reconsider their opinion, isn’t that more powerful than waiting until next November to cast a secret ballot and then hope and pray your candidate wins and then hope and pray he or she has the guts to do the right thing?

Back in January, I blogged about and coined the term WikiPolitic to describe my optimistic view of a future of empowered, connected people collaborating to solve the problems of the world. The term came out of reading the book Wikinomics and was not meant to mean that wikis, collaborative websites like the Wikipedia, would become political, but that perhaps the sum of all newer collaboration and social networking technologies might allow individuals to make small contributions that would add up to big results. But that’s a Ph.D thesis topic…let’s talk wikis for a moment…

A wiki is a website that allows readers to edit any page, typically by just clicking an edit button on that page. You register an account and then “have at it.” So, someone might start a page, then other people would contribute more pages and edit the existing pages to improve them. The Wikipedia is a collaborative encyclopedia. I might, for example, decide that the Wikipedia needs a page about my hometown of Smithfield, Virginia. In fact, that page has existed since 2002 and was edited just last month. If I saw something wrong on that page, I could fix it.

It’s a long argument about why wikis work, but let’s just set aside all the obvious criticisms for a moment and consider if there is some way this could help us become more empowered to effect social change.

In a blog, typically one person writes an opinion and people comment on it. Community blogs have many people writing and many comments–see my favorite progressive blog sites below. It’s like a running transcript of a political party that never ends.

In a wiki, although the history of all changes are tracked, users are encouraged to delete and rewrite. It is designed to be a collaboration, not just everyone taking a turn talking and arguing. Sometimes wikis have links off to discussion boards so people can argue away until they reach consensus, then update the wiki article. This approach means the ultimate site is very much a group project–not an individual effort. Your long winded opinionated piece will quickly be overwritten by someone with another opinion or simply removed because it doesn’t help get to the root issues at hand.

It is hard to get wikis going. I’ve been trying to get one going at work and while the technical people have taken to it, it has not caught on yet among others. The irony is that the wiki is not a technical thing–it’s just writing and ideas–but it is an approach that techies tend to take to faster than others…so it always seems like a tech thing, not a business solution.

There have been some attempts to set up political wikis…

Campaigns Wikia is one. I took a look at this site and browsed the issues, examining Health Care to see what was going on. Unfortunately, what I found is a lot of information, like an encyclopedia article, but not much of a link to action. Then I found another wikia site, Politics Wikia, that appears to resemble a hub of political bloggers. At the top level, the site is divided into channels for Democrats, Republicans, etc. There is much more activity apparent on this site, but it is all highly politicized…the discussion is interesting, but there is just not the intensity of involvement that overflows my google reader that is pointed at DailyKos and BlueMassGroup for example. I’m overwhelmed and underwhelmed at the same time.

A well-functioning wiki really works to roll up the ideas and suggestions of many people into a collaborative document. It is easier to imagine this working with objective, non-controversial topics where there is a critical mass of contributors who share a norm of peer review…who are all in pursuit of an objective truth.

Even before wikis, in 1996, I was part of a project to create something called SmartVoter. 10 years later, Smart Voter has expanded to several states. One of the key features of Smart Voter was not simply that you could enter your address and see a sample ballot for your precinct, but that we encouraged the local candidates to post information online. This was back when few candidates had their own websites! People found this very helpful for the judicial races and the many lesser-publicized races on the ballot.

I’ve also just recently started a wiki for my town–nobody knows about it yet though, so there is nothing in there except a few articles I wrote. And it is definitely not political–I’m talking about using it to post information about preschool, trash collection, sports schedules, running routes, etc., not how we achieve health care reform or get the troops back from Iraq. I think, as soon as you go political, you are going to draw the fire of extremists and hackers who want to deface your site. But perhaps, if you adhere to a public service philosophy, you can achieve common ground and build participation based on a shared goal of creating a resource.

Update: here’s a good link from Social Media Today about situations where wikis don’t work. And links within to more discussion advocating wikis…

The biggest challenge for post Generation Y folks in using social media/social networking tools like Facebook and LinkedIn is that someone invites us to join, we do, and then we don’t know what else to do. At least that’s what happened with a number of my friends after I got them onto facebook.

This article, Fogeys on Facebook, from Eric Weaver on Social Media Today gives some practical suggestions to illustrate how facebook can be relevant. It builds on the article in Business Week by Jeff Pulver about how he left LinkedIn for Facebook. See also Penelope Trunk’s interview with LinkedIn for ideas about LinkedIn. My sense is that Facebook is rapidly replacing LinkedIn in terms of relevence to most people because it is so much more timely–you can find out what your friends/associates are doing every day. For those who literally want to know everything their friends are doing, sign up for Twitter.

Why? Good question! If you are a “Web 2.0 junkie” then I imagine you don’t need any prompting to sign up for anything and everything, post your life online and just revel in the exhibitionism of it all. But most people don’t have a need for that.

I think we do have a need for a way to more effectively take advantage of (or in my case create) a weak tie network. I don’t see Facebook as a tight collection of my closest friends…it’s anybody I can find that I have even the remotest connection to that might have something in common with me. I’m not competing to build up a huge friend list like some people have; but you never know what interesting thing someone you met once might do and what you might learn from that.

Perhaps I just restated my “Web 2.0 junkie” rationale. I can’t really tell you what to do on Facebook. If it’s not interesting to you, check it out again in a few months.