Social Media, Brands and Friendship

It seems like anytime I shop in a store or hear a commercial, a brand or commercial entity of one sort or another asks me to become a fan or a friend on Facebook and to follow them on Twitter.  As someone who tries to help businesses figure out how to use social media to connect with their customers through these channels, this post may sound strange and even hypocritical.  But there’s something that’s been bugging me lately, and it’s time to say it out loud-

I am not sure I want to be a fan or friend of every brand out there.

C.C. Chapman had a great post recently, with a video that asks whether or not a brand cares about you.  When I think about it, only a few brands seem to care about me as more than a wallet.  And to be honest, why should they?  A brand is usually a straw person, a legal construct- it’s a liability shield protecting personal assets in case anything goes wrong.  It’s not a neighbor, good or otherwise,  no matter what State Farm tries to tell you.

Yet we seem to want to anthropomorphize brands into people.  We ask questions, like “What’s a Brand’s personality?”  Yet the personality of a brand is decided frequently by committee and a team of marketers, and the proof of whether or not they’ve guessed right is whether or not the consumer buys into this story.  It’s a company, a corporation, a manufacturer, a retailer.  It’s not real.

The people that run the business are real.  The people who give voice and talk to customers and engage are real.  But how far does that relationship really extend?  When do I think or feel a company cares about me, personally?

The closest I come to feeling like a brand actually cares has been my experiences at Disney, where everyone at every level seems to go out of their way to make sure your day is going well.  It enhances the experience, and while you may not be inviting the shop clerk, bus driver or bellhop over for dinner and drinks, you get the impression that they are being engaged for more than just a tip.  They say things like “Welcome Home” when you check in, and make the experience as much like family as it can be, and this is about as close to reciprocity as I’ve seen a brand experience get.

In contrast, let’s take a typical retail experience.  For example, I am extremely fond of Williams Sonoma and many of their sub-brands like Pottery Barn.  (And I should disclose here that Pottery Barn was founded by Paul and Morrie Secon, and they were close family friends of ours – so I have some affection for the brand based on that alone.)

We have Pottery Barn furniture, dishes, and Williams-Sonoma is by far my kitchen gadget store of choice.  I have their cookbooks, and I am a fan on many levels.  But when I saw a prompting when buying something at the Pottery Barn to become a friend on Facebook, I started to think- maybe I don’t necessarily want Pottery Barn to be my friend.  Despite the fact that Morrie Secon was a lovely man, played french horn, and one of my parent’s friends who I always loved to see come over, Pottery Barn was sold long ago and is no longer Morrie and Jonnie, his wife, and Paul- it’s a company.  I’m not talking to Morrie if I follow them on Twitter or Facebook, I’m talking to a representative of a larger company.

Even as a company, it’s not that we aren’t fond of one another.  I have a long standing relationship with the Company.  I’ve written positive blog posts about their simply outstanding customer service.  I would highly recommend them to my friends.  But we have a largely transactional relationship.  They have stuff I want.  I give them money, and they give me the stuff I like.  Pretty simple and straight forward.  But the reciprocity of a true friendship pretty much stops right there.  It can’t give me a hug like Morrie used to, and ask me how things are going, and to be honest, it doesn’t really care, as long as I keep up my end of the relationship and keep buying stuff at regular intervals.

Chuck Williams doesn’t come to dinner despite the fact I cook “his” recipes  (the carrot soup is awesome) and even serve it on “his” dishes.  I get emails, but they never offer to come babysit, or just have lunch, or meet up for drinks.  Our friendship is limited to a one way exchange of sale emails from them to me, and my giving them money in exchange for goods- that’s where our relationship largely ends.  And that’s the way we both like it, 99% of the time.

However, I want to be able to get in touch with someone to solve any problems after the sale.  I want that level of friendship, and to be honest, Pottery Barn has held up that end of our relationship very well.  They are responsive by phone and in person, and I have even called headquarters to remark at how great my experience has been.  Even without Morrie and Paul answering the phone, I still feel like I get my concerns or feeling heard, which is great for any company, especially these days.

But do I want to be a fan?  Do I need more contact with Pottery Barn than the catalogs and emails?  Do I want to hear more from them on twitter?  They want to take our relationship to the next level, and I’m not sure I’m ready.  I feel pushed, a bit, and unsure of what this new level of commitment will mean.  Do they want me to attend their cooking and decorating classes and take a turn with other fans selling aprons in the lobby?  How much more of my attention and brain space do they want?

It’s ironic that I’m finding that I might just be ready to start placing sensible limits on my devotion and engagement with brands.  While I appreciate the efforts to strengthen our relationship, it’s starting to feel, well, a little bit smothering.   I’m not necessarily ready to, say, start seeing all sorts of other brands on the side, but you never know- too much of a good thing sometimes makes people stray to the wild side.  They might start perusing Restoration Hardware catalogs, and maybe even take a peek into an Ethan Allen on the weekend, just to see what such a walk on the wild side might feel like.   Before you know it, they’re buying new vegetable peelers from Bed, Bath, and Beyond and buying vanilla from Trader Joe’s, while insisting the quality is the same.

This is the crux of my problem with the new “Add Me”  and “Follow Me” frenzy-Companies and brands want to collect people like baseball cards or frequent flyer miles, with their data and email addresses acting as points- yet I’m not sure what the ultimate goal is.  He who has the most emails wins?  If social media is about building relationships, if friendship means something more than a typical customer-business transaction, then how does being your friend on Facebook or Twitter extend or enhance our relationship?  How much more of my attention and money do you want, really?  And what are you going to do for me in return to make this social relationship something more special than just more ads?   If you want a relationship, then let’s have one- but let’s understand the terms and conditions up front, and not pretend we’re friends if all you really want to do is upsell me at every turn.  That’s not what I would expect over dinner with Paul and Morrie, after all.

I’m not sure how all of the brands flooding into the social media space are going to find the balance between engagement with their customers, and possibly overwhelming them with such faux love and concern that it starts to feel like we’re getting stalked  in our in-boxes by bad boyfriends while trying to play solitaire on Facebook.

I’m not sure what my current limits are for giving Brands my attention all the time in all channels- after all, when does that kind of passive demand for attention start to feel like the neediness we all find pretty unattractive?  When does the scent of desperation start to fill the air?  When will you start to leave me alone, and accept that our relationship will be limited?

I am fond of brands and companies like Pottery Barn.  But unlike the real life relationship I had with Morrie,  I’m  starting to search for the boundaries of  the relationship with Pottery Barn, so I don’t have to feel we have to break up in order for me to get some breathing room.    That said, please don’t be offended if I don’t follow you on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook.  I think we’re close enough already.

Tags: attention, brands, communication, facebook, friends, Morrie Secon, Paul secon, pottery barn, social media, twitter, Williams Sonoma

Book Review: Switch by Chip & Dan Heath

I’m just finishing “Switch: How to change things when change is hard” by Chip and Dan Heath.  As I’m sure everyone who knows me knows, Chip & Dan Heath wrote one of my all time favorite “business” books, “Made to Stick” which talks about how to express ideas so they’re memorable and make an impact.  When I found out they had a new book coming out, I immediately placed a pre-order with Amazon.  Shortly before the release, when I got an email from one of their assistants asking me if I’d like a copy sent to me, I said “Of course!”  I was flattered that they knew I was a fan of their work and reached out, and I was excited to be able to read the new book.

I’ve ended up with two copies of Switch now (my pre-order and the promotional copy) and I am thrilled to have two, since it’s a book my husband is now starting as well, and this will eliminate any book battles at bed time, akin to our competition to read the last Harry Potter, when the first one to bed got to read the book and the other had to wait until the next night for a crack at it.

I love books that seem to get to the fundamental nature of problems and conflict, boiling things down into their essence and parts, so you have a new lens or template through which to view the world.  Made to Stick did this very well, condensing disparate parts and pieces of what makes stories, ideas, and messages of any sort memorable into a template of sort that helps me every day when I look at how to present ideas to others in a compelling way.

Switch takes on the huge problem of why change seems so almost physically painful, whether that change is personal or professional.  When we look at a big problem, like education or healthcare, it can seem impossible to tackle.  The problem seems too big.  There seems to be no good place to dig in and start making a change, and there seems to be too many external restraints that need to be overcome to make the problem seem remotely doable.  It may be written off as a “cultural problem” or a “system”problem or even a “few bad apples” problem, but in the end, a few small changes can often lead to cascading change, much like Malcolm Gladwell talked about in The Tipping Point.

Switch starts out with an analogy that change can be like a rider on an elephant on a path.  The rider is analytical by nature, the elephant is big and emotional, and the path is the things that need to be done to move forward to get to the destination that we all aspire to by creating change.  While I was initially not in love with this analogy, but it works in the book as a tool to frame out the different parts of creating successful change or innovation in any group or situation.

For change to be successful, all three of these components need to work together- the facts and numbers analytical portion must be happy; the moody and resistant portion of the group must be reasonably happy and convinced that they’ll give change a try, and the pathway needs to be clear enough and short enough to motivate the riders and elephants to choose it as an option or alternative to the status quo.

Let’s take a personal situation and apply this formula. (It’s easier than solving healthcare in a blog post.)

I just walk/ran my second half marathon.  For someone who just really started a concerted fitness program seven months ago, this would have seemed like a silly and crazy thing to even consider a year ago.  My elephant knew I needed to get in shape and get healthier, but there always seemed to be a reasonable excuse to avoid the gym- the pathway to health and fitness seemed foggy and the goal was noble but not specific and defined.  My “rider” knew what I needed to do, but we needed to construct a path to get there.

One of the steps was finding a personal trainer.  This way, I get to work out privately, and I’m coached so I pushed myself more than I would on my own- I have someone to impress.  I have an appointment to keep, and I’m not discouraged by the extra-fit others that are already at my destination, but just show me how much farther I have to go, causing a distraction from the smaller steps I need to take every day.

Another huge step was to find big external goals to work for, like these half-marathon events.  The distance events are like the end of a semester exam, as much as measurements of strength or pounds or inches lost are.  They are a test of strength, endurance and preparation, and show me what I can accomplish, as well as providing a comparison point for past performance.

By creating a pathway with many little goals along the way and big tests, the goal of better health becomes more achievable and more doable.  Every day behavior like skipping workouts or eating too much crap has its own built in penalties- for any endurance event, you pay the price for everything you did right or wrong along the training path.  This then makes the daily changes a bit easier to do as well, knowing the big wall is coming up fast as the race approaches.

I need the numbers- the analysis of the progress to satisfy my rider.  I need to feel good about myself and the changes that are occurring to satisfy the elephant, who might rather be eating girl scout cookies and watching Project Runway.  And all of this is easier when the path is much more specific, clear, and the change looks doable in its chunked-out parts.  It makes even thinking about doing another half-marathon possible, because I know the change is possible and the next goal is attainable, because I’ve done it before.

The brilliance of Switch is that this formula is tied into Maslow’s heirarchy of needs and one that applies to almost any situation.  For example, most of the strategies suggested to help kids with ADHD succeed in school involve not trying to fundamentally change the child, but change the environment to help the child do what’s needed.  Checklists of chores takes the amorphous “Do your chores” and breaks it down into specific, doable tasks, itemized and specific.  Showing a child how to be a bit more organized, and giving them tools that help ensure that they can keep the system up, with frequent checks, develops new, more constructive habits.  Getting rid of the daily speedbumps that turn a child off course- whether that’s always having things ready the night before to avoid morning panics, or smoothing the homework path by putting all their tools in one box and having a set place and time for work, or even putting hooks by the door so everything is available and convenient are small changes that can lead to big results.  Change can occur even in kids known to struggle in school, but they need those small successes to satisfy the elephant who needs to feel good, and they need “stuff to do” to satisfy the rider, but the pathway and environment are just as critical to success.

IDEO, the legendary design firm, works so well because their template works to make change of systems or design of new products integrate almost seamlessly into the way things are done.  they start out with understanding the problems or issues at hand- really getting to know what’s going on and how the situation isn’t working.  They then observe people using current products, or working with a customer, to understand how things are done now, and to start to get ideas about where a system or process might eb breaking down. Then they start the brainstorming and visualizing possible solutions ot the problem.  They rapidly put together prototypes, and then evaluate and refine what worked or didn’t work with the inital attempts, to tweek and further diagnose what will work in the end.  Then, they take their final product and implement it- what Seth Godin calls “shipping”- because all the greatest ideas in the world are worth nothing if they aren’t actually put into use.  Success means shipping- you’ve got to get the ideas out the door and into the real world- where the rubber meets the road.

While I’m still thinking a lot about Switch, it’s a book that helps me tie together all the separate ideas discussed above:

- how personal change and cultural change aren’t really so different;

-how many people problems can be solved by tweeking external environments and expectations;

-how good design and understanding problems are both key to making change successful,

and how in the end, it’s all measured by the implementation, and satusfying both the numbers people and the emotional folks as well- it’s a good change if people can see the difference and that how they feel about the change may be as critical to the outcome as any other part.   Never short-change the power of dedication, passion and enthusiasm- they will carry you pretty far down even a murky path, provided the obstacles aren’t too big at first.

I would definitely recommend Switch, another excellent book by Chip & Dan Heath- and don’t worry if you don’t love the metaphor of the rider and the elephant.  Like all good mysteries, it makes more sense in the end than in the beginning.

Tags: books, change, chip & dan heath, culture, economics, education, elephant, path, rider, switch

Challenge Yourself

If there’s one concept that keeps getting reinforced for me over and over again it’s that I do my best when I do things that are challenging.  It means exploring unknown territory.  It means doing things where there’s often a risk of failure.  It means also believing in yourself that anything is possible, and that you learn more by taking risks and failing than never having tried at all.

This weekend, I participated in Disney’s Princess Half-marathon.  Going into the race, I had not done as much distance work as I should have, and I was seriously concerned that I was going to be scooped up off the course for exceeding the time limits.  My attitude was less one of “I know I can do this” but more one of “Well, what choice do I have now?  I’ve backed myself into this corner and I have to do it.”  I could have opted out.  I could have complained about the cold, or feigned a pulled muscle, or any other reasonable sounding excuse- but I would have always known it was just that- an excuse, a rationalization for not taking the risks, for not facing the fear of failure.   And as I looked what I thought was a very realistic risk of failing in the face, I decided that even if I did fail, I certainly would learn something from the process, and then I would do better next time.

Much to my surprise, I finished the race and felt better afterwards, physically, than I did after the Philly Half-marathon.  I wish I had done a few things better, both in training and during the race itself, but I learned alot about myself during this process, including:

-Determination to get through will carry you farther than you think;

-The fear of humiliation is a very strong motivator;

-Preparation, even a little bit, is better than none at all;

-Experience matters, and the more experience you have, the smarter you get about things;

-Knowing yourself- your strengths and weaknesses- and being honest with yourself about them will help you come to terms with them, and help you move forward, whatever the task might be.

Having met my goal to finish the race, and to beat my Philly time leaves me feeling like I met my goal, but I want to do better next time- not skate by, but truly push the envelope towards not just passing, but excelling.  I’m not saying I’m looking to win a half marathon any time soon, but I know I need goals and expectations that are personally meaningful and go behind simple pass/fail metrics.  Pass/fail is okay, but somehow, the pass is less satisfying if you feel you got by by the skin of your teeth.

Translate all of this into the business world, and it means exploring new pathways and taking on challenges where success might not be guaranteed.  It means expecting and delivering more.  It means finding a balance between work and play, but maintaining a focus about the big picture as well.

While physical challenges are easy metrics to talk about, intellectual challenges are not always as easy to discuss.  When was the last time you attended a conference or meeting that was foreign to your field?  Unconferences are great for this- the synergy of people from different fiields and interests.  And there are professional conferences, like the famed South by Southwest Interactive and the upcoming Social Media Plus Summit in Philadelphia, where the power is not only in the information shared, but in the people you meet who are not necessarily just like you.  (Disclosure- I am speaking at the Summit)

As part of this past week’s trip, I attended the Association of Professors of Gynecology and Obstetrics (APGO) conference, to help present our pilot project producing educational podcasts for OB GYN residents.  Sitting in a room full of largely doctors and nurses involved in the training of new physicians gave me some insight not only into the challenges faced in health care, but how limiting vertical-only conferences can be.  (I’ll write more about this on another post.)

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the issues facing education of new doctors are the same ones facing educators in k-12 or college education.  There are issues of multitasking, of focus, of engaging the students, and even about what evaluation methods are most appropriate.  There are issues of what constitutes a pass and when should people be passed along with the equivalent of a gentleman’s C and when should there be a stricter pass/fail metric, especially when the lives of patients are ultimately at stake.

While this may seem more extreme than a kid flunking algebra, I’d argue that if a kid cannot pass, we need to take a look at why not and how to help that person become competent, assuming they want to reach that goal as well.  The life of that eighth or ninth grader, in terms of their self-view and whether or not they have the skills they need to be competent as an adult may be at stake every bit as the health of you or your mom or sister if your doctor is skating by with a “pass only” mentality through their training.

Motivating people to succeed means getting them to understand the concept of challenge and that failure and risk of failure is actually not something to fear, but is actually a learning opportunity- it provides you with more information about how you can do better the next time.  All A plusses all the time means you’re not being challenged enough.  There’s nowhere to go, to improve- and that means it’s time to move on.  And it means that there’s a real risk of getting intellectually lazy- if you never face failure, you never face any fear, and you never have a chance to grow.

I’m embracing challenge and taking risks both intellectually and physically, because I need to know my limits and how I can do better every day.  What about you?

Tags: APGO, challenges, disney, learning, preparation, princess half marathon, training

Privacy- Do We Have Any Anymore?

I listened to the most recent Media Hacks episode of Mitch Joel’s excellent Six Pixels of Separation podcast, where the guys were discussing everything from the Please Rob Me website, geo-location apps like Gowalla and Four Square, and even Blippy, my favorite example of a channel for overshare that was even highlighted at this year’s TED conference.

Couple this with the recent issues about kids being “monitored” by the Lower Merion School District, which is now being investigated by  the FBI, and you quickly can come to the impression that privacy is over.  The school district case is a mess, but it raises lots of interesting questions about where school and governmental authority begins and ends.

I have been online for longer than I care to admit, and I know that when I put something up on this blog, or Facebook, Twitter or any other channel, it’s open for anyone and everyone to see.  I will be accountable for anything I put up here forever, thanks to Google and the miraculous Internet Wayback Machine.  I know that, and I take that into account before I post things, knowing that clients, future clients, friends and relatives and anyone else out there have access to everything.  But where does the concept of privacy start and stop?

Everyone seems to have a different line they draw for themselves.  Some people don’t post anything having to do with family- no pictures of them or their kids online.  But then this rule is subject to violation when kids appear in someone else’s photos that get posted, when you’re in a group shot at a party, or other ways where your carefully scripted version of public and private is violated by well meaning friends.  Since it’s almost difficult to go buy a traditional film camera these days, and the actual supply of film at the local camera store yesterday was sad compared to the wall of film they used to stock, the majority of photos are digital, which obviously enhances the ability to share and exchange them, which people then do, meaning any photo- innocent or compromising- can become public domain with a few keystrokes.

This is not meant to freak anyone out, but it’s simply a fact that the old rules of privacy are being eroded away, bit by bit, byte by byte, over time.  If I were practicing family law, for example, I would definitely try to monitor both what my client and their soon-to-be-former spouse were doing and saying online- in a public forum, that information should be admissible as evidence, although I’ll be frank that Facebook was not created when I took evidence in law school in the early ’90’s.   On the other hand, the fact that there is this openness and discoverability might just work to keep people together, because they can’t hide that information from each other, either.  Transparency keeps everyone a bit more honest and accountable, but when does this constant stage pressure become too much?

We leave a digital paper trail behind us that should not be alarming so much as causing us to think a little bit, at least, about what we’re doing, what choices we’re making and why.  We can create incredibly rich and important relationships with others online.  I keep in touch with friends all over the globe now, that I otherwise would lose that sense of relationship and of being current in each other’s lives without these tools.  I learn new things every day, share information, and have fostered business relationships through these tools, and the fact that people can find out almost anything they want about me before we ever meet.  This “pre-vetting” is like a fast track towards trust, friendship and sometimes, business that works far faster and far more efficiently than ever before.

For all these tremendous positives, it also means that people know when I am cranky with my offspring, when I’m available, when I’m out of town, and just about everything I’m doing.  My trainer knows where I’m out to dinner and potentially doing something I shouldn’t if I check in with foursquare, but my clients also know when I’m in the office for the same reason.  I’ve agreed to make this information accessible, and I bear the fallout, good, bad and indifferent from this connection.

And my kids are growing up in a world where that line between private and public is fuzzier than ever.  It’s taken me years to become comfortable with all of this- will this be the new normal for them?  Will future politicians always have to see pictures of themselves as a child, ranging from food on the face to those first girlfriends, just by a few quick searches online?  How will anyone be able to be perfect all the time?  Will our standards finally change and we’ll have to allow for people to make mistakes and change their mind, rather than be somehow wedded to an opinion they had back a decade ago?

I have no idea where the concept of privacy will be in five years or ten.  Where courts will decide the constitutional rights to some sort of privacy exist, at least as far as the State is involved, is going to be difficult, especially when people are so willing to share (and overshare) with no thought at all.   Hopefully, we’ll decide much of our right to privacy still exists within our home, but we’ll have to see how the case in Lower Merion Township turns out, and whether inviting a governmentally owned computer into our house gives up some of these rights or not.  There’s tons of litigation like this ahead, you can bet, so all you law students out there- make sure you’re paying attention during Con Law and Evidence.  Your career could depend on it.

Tags: Blippy, foursquare, gowalla, internet, lower merion school district, Mitch Joel, privacy, six pixels of separation

Bringing Local to the Web

When you put up a website,it’s easy to take for granted that you are creating a platform that lives without traditional boundaries. Instead of being limited to contacting people in your local community or neighborhood, you can reach people all across the globe.  That’s incredibly powerful, but for many businesses, they are less concerned about reaching people in Dubai, but more interested in reaching their friends and neighbors.  Maybe not just within one State, perhaps, but people in a drivable geographic distance, especially if you deal with personal services.

Get Found, Become Engaged

There are some basic tools that can help.  Using Google Local to make sure our business shows up in local search results is a good first step.  Checking out what people are saying about you online through Vanity Searches and by using Google Alerts is another great idea.  This pair of resources makes sure your business can be found on google, even if you don’t have a formal website, and that you know what people are saying about you online, so you can get a sense of your reputation and perhaps even enhance your customer service or offerings in response to that feedback.

Reviews and Recommendations

With the rise of many location-aware applications and websites, ranging from Yelp, to Gowalla to Foursquare, not to mention newer, augmented reality applications, people are leaving messages and recommendations  (pro and con) to their friends about your business, whether you know it or not.  More and more of these review sites are being added all the time, which is enough to make any business owner crazy.  If you run a restaurant, making sure you can participate in something like Open Table, might help get you new business as well.

Asking people to give you recommendations on LinkedIn after a job well done will help you build your reputation for excellent work, and asking clients to connect with you on social media sites, like a Facebook Fan Page might help you increase engagement with your existing customers as well as helping them spread the news of our business to friends and colleagues.

While Twitter can be a very noisy and very global place, you can increase its value for you by looking for people in your local area who use the platform.  Hubspot has a great tool that will let you find the twitter elite- the noisiest people in your area
, who might be great people to contact about special offers or news about your business, as they are likely to pass it on to their audience.  Finding and driving your local audience on big social platforms, whether it’s geo-targeted ads on Facebook or focusing on local folks on twitter may even be worth more to you than traditional ads, assuming you know how to measure these efforts.

The Delaware Social Media Initiative

Ken Grant has started a plan to help put Delaware on the map as a social media hub.  While it certainly isn’t as early to the game as Boston or San Francisco or even Philadelphia, Delaware has some surprising advantages that are making this a realistic and very doable goal.  First, as a small state, we have the advantage of local connections that are easy to transfer online.  The distance between Main Street and the State House was never all that far here, but social media is making it easier than ever for local people to have meaningful interactions with local and statewide politicians, as well as our representatives in Washington.  While we don’t see Joe Biden as often at the Greenville Brew Ha Ha, we still can run into Mike Castle at Purebread Deli when he’s in town.

By helping the small and local businesses develop an online presence, we’re making it easier for people to find the great local resources we have here by essentially amplifying the word of mouth that already exists.  It makes it easier for people from surrounding areas to find out what’s available, and what they can do after they finish touring Nemours, or Hagley or Winterthur.  And what’s great, is more and more people are coming out to social events ranging from Ignite Wilmington to DelTweet- the Delaware Tweetups, nad finding out that social media can have really positive effects- especially when matched up with the ability to come together, and shake hands in the real world.  Web folks and social media geeks are now helping local businesses figure this stuff out and what might work for them- and we can have a state-wide impact quickly, becaause of the size and close knit nature of our community.

We’re finding out that local and global can come together nicely, step by step.  We can grow business and awareness and not break the bank doing it.  We can share tools and teach people to do this, to be more effective at what they already do to attract customers and new business and retain the old, without costing them a fortune in the process.

The Delaware Lab, as I like to call it, has an amazing group of people involved, and all are entering this online world with a sense of wonder but also a sense of what is realistically possible.  I know I’m trying to make sure everyone knows how to make real measurement of the before and after of their efforts, because for every business, the implementation and the success rate will vary.

Most importantly, I know we’re helping a community that like many, has been hit by the recession.  People are stressed and looking for new ways to do business, and this helps open a door to trying something different.  Our local media and government officials are being incredibly supportive, including the New Castle County Chamber of Commerce and the State Chamber of Commerce.  We have Fortune 500 companies in our midst, small businesses, and everything in between, and people are starting to work together towards common goals.

It’s exciting to think the year is just beginning, but we have a real chance to move our whole state forward in a short period of time.

Sharing Ideas

How would you move your local community forward on the web?  How do make something that creates a world wide platform and turn it into an affective local business generator?  How do you bring everyone together in a community?  We have the advantage of small- but how would this work in California or Texas for example?

I think this is the next big thing for communities- bringing their stories and resources online and making other people, regardless of the distance, sit up and take notice.  What can you do to help your local community today?

We’re dreaming big here in Delaware.

Tags: Deltweet, foursquare, google alerts, google local, gowalla, hagley, ignite wilmington, internet, Joe Biden, local, local web\, mike castle, nemours, web, winterthur, yelp