In the land of radical transparency and social media, leaks and speculations happen all the time. Rumors about Apple and future product launches happen daily, becoming almost a sport unto itself. Proctor and Gamble announced some layoffs this past week as it transfers some of its marketing online, and in the same news release, they discussed new Tide Pods, and their delayed launch.

Then I ran into a problem using Nestle’s Skinny Cow app on Facebook, where they are running a promotional contest for their new Skinny Cow Candy.  The app has been doing a loop and not letting people enter their information or play the game, and as you can see below, on Day Three-Four, people are getting seriously annoyed.

I think these recent examples show how tricky product launches are becoming. Once any information about your product leaks, any variation from the rumor or speculation will get negative press.  If you don’t exceed expectations which build with or without your help you are opening up the product and your company for public discussion and getting taken out to the woodshed.  Add on what such speculation can do to a stock price as such rumors propagate, and you have a really crazy world with expectations I’m not sure very many people can match.

In some ways, the new Kickstarter model has an interesting spin on product launches.  Entrepreneurs help get funding from other folks online, and then in turn, offer early models of the product or other bonuses, or nothing but thanks, to investors.  But because it is investment in possibilities, and investors are kept in the loop through emails and blogs, it’s more like a joint venture where everyone is rooting for the entrepreneur to succeed.

Larger companies have a disadvantage here, but could they possibly change their product launches to be more interactive in earlier stages?  Could they invite people in to see the sausage beng made?  And would that be better or worse for larger market competitive advantage, if other people know what you’re up to in advance?

The online world is a tough place.  You open yourself up to lots of criticism, only some of which is fair.  Take the Skinny Cow problem.  They are trying something new, for a new product that people love, myself included.  The customers want to engage further, but between the evolving nature of Facebook and a demanding audience, you get a lot of unhappy customers that like the product but start to see you as disconnected and not delivering on the promises you made with the contest.  This tends to have the opposite effect a promotion is supposed to have, making people more unhappy with you and your product than inclined to engage and spread the word.

Product launches are going to get trickier, whether it’s physical products or services, and I think we’re all going to have to watch, learn and evolve in a rapidly changing online environment where small glitches can lead to big headaches for a company.

[As an aside, I think this drives home a lesson many of us including my friends over at Marketing Over Coffee, Chris Penn and John Wall say frequently, keep your information and data analysis stuff on your own website rather than a third party site like Facebook.  This contest probably could have run just as well on the Skinny Cow Website and avoided issues with having a "like gate" on Facebook, and just had a link driving Facebook folks over to your main website to play- equally effective with none of the headaches.

I also went to the effort of looking up the company that was the Agency for Skinny Cow.  As someone who plays in this online space, I figured I would give them a heads up that the app was broken and things were starting to get ugly, as I started to feel for whatever poor soul is trying to manage and respond to the fallout on the page itself.  I looked at it as being a good internet citizen.  That's a story in and of itself for my next post, but suffice it to say, finding and following up on the digital trail finds that the more cooks who contribute, the less control any one person has to fix things when they go bad.

As of this morning, when I tried to log in to Skinny Cow again, I got this message:

At least it's a sign they are trying to fix this, and hopefully figure out how to handle the unhappy customers left in the wake.  I do worry that every time something like this happens, companies will become a little more wary before running contests and other promotions on Facebook, and what kind of effect that will have on the digital space overall.  Time will tell.]

Interestingly enough, the more I use the networks as a way to share what’s of most interest to me, and engage with friends and colleagues without any concern for their rank or alleged influence, the more satisfied I am with my engagement with social media.  And as it turns out, this less prolific method of using social media has had beneficial effects.

At one point, it looked like many of the influence measures were taking volume into consideration more than any other factor in rating your ‘importance” online.  But now that I am overall, less prolific through channels, picking which channels to share things out on, and varying the channels, the greater the increase in my measures.  My first thought seeing this, was “weird.”

Now, I’m thinking that the measures may actually be starting to look more at quality over quantity, spread of the information, but also cross-channel participation.  Measuring influence is a tricky business at any level, and even harder when the data points you look at are your own and subject to internal bias.  The message I feel comfortable in sharing at this point is that authentic engagement seems to carry more value than volume.  I think all of us with a lot of experience on digital channels have known this at our core for a long time, but it seems as if the “rating agencies” are starting to pick this up as well, and that may be a good thing for the space as a whole.

What do you think?  Do you see any value in these “rating agencies”?  Why?  What do you get out of it?  Do you care what your klout or peer index are?  Or is it truly just a side benefit of what you do already?

Compass Points

*Quick note- I accidentally published this piece before it was edited- a quirk from using the iPad to compose in the WordPress app and save in draft format, which I messed up. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Sometimes, we know we’re going to encounter a problem that needs to be solved. But when we choose to take on that task may be more open to discussion.

For example, if you know your car is beginning to hit that age where repair costs start to outweigh the value of the vehicle, you have at least two choices. The first involves starting to shop for cars and deciding to find a replacement before it dies on some back road in the middle of the night. The second is to wait for it to die completely, and then make a more urgent and forced decision on alternative transportation. There’s clearly middle ground between these two choices, but procrastination tends to box you in on choices and timing, where doing some advanced planning may give you a wider range of alternatives and cause less stress. (This, of course, leaves you with less dramatic stories to tell as well, so that is something to consider, I guess.)

Many people get stuck in the research loop. They start planning, but they are always looking for that one better option, the one elusive piece of data that will make the choice easy.  I know I get stuck there, sometimes, thinking I’ll find just that one thing that will be the tipping point on a decision.  often times, data can just be more data.

There’s actually a whole psychological syndrome about this called the Hamlet Complex or Hamlet Syndrome, where people get stuck in the “to be or not to be” loop, paralyzed by making a choice, and fear of making the wrong one.  It’s caused by over-thinking decisions and as a result, becoming paralyzed from just making a choice and getting on with it already.

For these folks (and I think we can all go there sometimes), something that forces their hand, like a crisis, makes them feel better, because they can hardly be blamed, the rationalization goes, if they had to make a quick decision without a lot of information- it was an emergency! It wasn’t my fault! We paid too much, but we had no choice! The truth of the matter is that there were plenty of opportunities to do some advanced planning, or make a faster decision, and perhaps a better decision, but they just couldn’t find the trigger they wanted to pull.

I feel this sense of frustration often with some committee work I’m involved in. There’s general agreement of where we want to go. There’s general agreement of what the right thing to do is. But issues like time, money, logistics, etc. all seem to get in the way and give people an excuse against making a decision.

For example, let’s look at Apple’s new textbook initiative. We all have known since the Kindle came out that digital textbooks were coming.  Many of my kid’s classes have “at home” textbooks on cd, online portals to supplement the text, etc. because the current textbook purchase cycle is TEN years.    Is there anyone who REALLY thinks in the digital age, that text books purchased today are going to last TEN years in almost any subject? Do we really think kids won’t be reading digital textbooks within that time frame? Because if we know that’s going to be the case, why don’t we start the transition and planning for that process now?

There are lots of really good reasons why (or why not). Not every text is ready for digital right now. Committing to every child having a laptop or tablet scares the crap out of teachers, administrators and parents, who are themselves just getting used to these things. It will be expensive. It will require teaching teachers and students about digital citizenship and some of them will make mistakes.  Some of the mistakes will be more serious and have more consequences than merely doodling the margin of a school text or losing a book and having to pay for it at the end of the year.  Many teachers may not be comfortable adopting their lessons to an online world, or giving up top down control in the classroom. But I ask again, if we know that it’s coming, why aren’t we planning for that today?

It turns out if youset a firm goal and deadline you have to work towards, everyone can then start to make firm plans to meet those parameters. As long as a goal stays in the “some day”, or “wouldn’t it be nice if” range, it is as good as water through a sieve. It means very little without verbs in sentences and things to do behind the mission statements and platitudes.  Without nailing down what you want to do and when, it merely becomes another dream, ephemeral and unlikely to become reality.

So I ask you, as I ask everyone- what are you saying “Sure, but not now” to in your life? What excuses are holding you back? What are you afraid of? And what would happen if you just said- ” OK, so if not now, when?”   When will I finally commit to accomplishing this goal I know I need to accomplish?

If it isn’t tied to a date, or specific goal or course of action, you simply aren’t serious about committing to the goal, so take it off the table and forget about it. It’s worthless to you. It’s up there with my hopes I’ll finally get that extra two hours in a 24 hour day to accomplish so much more. Since Hermoine Granger isn’t showing up with a time turner, I have to deal with reality that there are only 24 and not 26 hours in a day, and make sure all those lists of some day tasks are put into a timeframe to be accomplished.

What will you move off your some day list, where your dreams are waiting for the stars and planets to align, and move it onto the front burner, where you have to work to make it happen?

It takes guts and commitment to go for your dreams.  It takes courage and conviction to face difficult decisions and take painful action now to make tomorrow better.  It’s not easy to pick a direction and go for it, especially when it’s a time of flux and change.  But I know waiting until the “right” moment means there will never be a perfect right moment and we’ll never achieve anything by waiting on the sidelines, hoping rather than doing.

Despair.com poster

1. Moment by Moment Political Commentary. There have been so many presidential debates, and so many candidates literally churned through the media on a daily basis, we’re seeing more people comment on the most inane, minor stuff, reminding me of this great Despair.Com poster- Never Before Have so many people with so little to say said so much to so few. We’re spending more and more time commenting on every action, decision, rumor and the like, very little of consequences is actually happening.  While I appreciate commentary and insight, so much of it is not always based on all the facts, but just cherry-picked tidbits, that it’s virtually useless. It makes me ask whether or not the media circus is driving our political discourse with commentary that sounds more like sportscasters calling a baseball game.  It certainly seems to rival the influence on decisions that are made as much as donations and special interests do.

2. Everything’s On Fire! There’s entirely too many emergencies going on demanding my attention daily.  There are faux urgencies being injected into everything from the toothpaste I buy (If you don’t use this now, your teeth will discolor and fall out!) to Groupon and Living Social Deals (Now! Today Only! Act!!) to political fundraising (If we don’t get X dollars from you today, we’ll lose everything!).  I don’t know about you, but this faux hype is wearing me out.  It’s having one major effect- I’m getting really good at saying No, turning off these things, opting out of your newsletters, etc.   It’s like the boy who cried wolf- if you don’t save the emergency speech for the true emergency, I’ll stop paying attention to you all together.

3. Decision Impairment. This is the opposite, but a direct result from the Emergency! Problem. Based on the huge options for research, choice, and the constant hope of a better deal, and rumors of that “perfect thing” being just around the corner, I see tons of people paralyzed from action, unsure of when to pull the trigger, afraid of making a mistake.  Too much information paralyzes people from making decisions, and sometimes, more data is confounding rather than clarifying.  This fear of making mistakes leads us to avoid making any decision at all, and it keeps us in a rut.  My friend Julien Smith, is publishing a great book on this on December 7th.  It’s called The Flinch, and it will be available for free in electronic format for the Kindle, Nook, iBooks- everywhere.  We have to learn to take risks, to stretch, to even gamble with making mistakes- we learn a ton from them, and quite frankly, rarely do they turn out to be mistakes at all. But if you never make a decision and commit, you’ll never reap any benefit at all.

4. Privacy Issues.  People have realistic concerns about how much of their stuff online is private.  Basically, despite the appearance of privacy and firewalls online, I basically assume that anything I say or do online is on the public record.  This means the aggregate of my ideas, things I share, pictures, etc. will make up my digital – and real life- reputation, so I need to be responsible for this. It also means that whatever anyone else says about me will also be part of that reputation.  This means I have to live in such a way that I’m comfortable with people saying what they want, even if it’s not particularly nice- they are allowed to have their opinion, and maybe they are simply not my audience, and that’s fine.  Bt it also means that if I want to share truly private information with someone else, I should be selective with that, just like you would be when you decide to share personal info with friends offline. I get that some things should be private- and I’m a big fan of the Constitution.  But I also realize that I have some control over what is public and private- at least what I choose to add to the conversation- and I need to take a second to consider whether EVERYONE needs to know stuff or whether, maybe a phone call or email would be a better choice than a Facebook post.  Privacy, like security, may be as much for the illusion of privacy or safety than for the real thing, especially online.  If it’s important, know the difference.

5. Everybody’s An Expert. Google exists and we can have information at our fingertips at all times.  But information is not experience, or knowledge or wisdom.  Just because you went to school once, does not make you an education expert.  Learning how to construct curriculum, meet the needs of a diverse set of learners, and perform in front of them successfully every day is a real art and should not be subjected to the same moment by moment assessment of performance that Basketball players get on the court. Likewise, just because I can go to Home Depot and buy cool tools does not make me a general contractor.  Heck, there are some things I can teach myself to do, but I think we all have to be a little more wary of when we need to call in help from the field.  Watching one video on sink installation does not make me a plumber, and I shouldn’t try to armchair quarterback a professional’s every move when they come to fix something.  Let people with experience and expertise do what they do best.  And know when you’re in over your head and ask for help.

*Photo courtesy of Profound Whatever from Flickr

The one thing I’ve discovered after working in and around social media for nearly six years is that the image presented is not always all that it seems.

If you look through the headlines, there are numerous accounts of folks getting into trouble because maintaining the exterior version of themselves, their real life avatars of who they want to be, does not match up with who they feel like inside their heads, when no one is watching.  And it happens in social media all the time, when we perceive one thing about someone, but it may just be a small snapshot of what’s really happening in their lives outside of Facebook and Twitter.

In real life, the difference between perception and reality catches people up every day. People regularly overspend to try to portray themselves as successful, even if their bank accounts are empty.    They take on jobs they know they can’t handle.  My favorite joke on this is  that “The ego is writing checks the body can’t possibly cash.”

I’m guilty of doing this from time to time.  I want to do 20 things but only have time for four, and so I have to choose.  But choosing is hard, so I take on more than I can handle, causing myself stress and panic.  And I do it more often than I’d like to admit in public, but I bet you do this too.

It’s that old power of magical thinking, where you tell yourself “I’ll get everywhere on time, as long as the traffic gods cooperate”  which, by the way, they almost never do, especially when you are in a hurry.  Yet, despite all of our experiences that tell us to leave a bit early, to compensate for poor GPS directions, or bad weather or whatever, we still end up making mistakes we could have avoided because our egos get in the way of our analytical, common sense.

As stories of people “biting off more than they can chew” fill the headlines, I’m reminded of that old summer enforced reading classic, the Picture of Dorian Gray. The external picture we get of people’s lives is that they are somehow blessed  and privileged in a way we can only imagine. In the meantime, getting to this place of perceived success was not always easy or pretty, and maintaining your place on the top is even more difficult.  As much as the public loves success, it also loves Schadenfreude, the perverse joy we get when we see the mighty and famous are just real people and make silly mistakes, just like the rest of us.  We can’t wait to see that underneath the perfect exterior, lies a grizzled portrait in their attic, like the Picture of Dorian Gray, where the summation of their vice and sin is paid for, convincing us yet again that Karma is a bitch and there is somehow divine justice in the Universe.

I often wonder how the US became the Schadenfreude capital of the world.  I like to think it started back when TV shows like Dallas and Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous made it to TV, giving everyone a view of a world very few ever enjoy, and making it seem like this was a commonplace and normal thing we should all aspire to. The world of aspirational thinking got an adrenaline shot in the arm, and its current day successors, ranging from Housewives of (name your ritzy suburb here) to MTV Cribs to the Kardashians, to even the more modest and achievable Martha Stewart continue to set standards beyond the means of the majority of folks out there who live modest lives.

It used to be that you would have to do something to be successful and earn the ridiculously expensive and lavish things in life.  ”Reality TV” seems to portray lavish and silly as something that could happen to you, if you could just think of a plot line with enough drama to get the TV folks and sponsors interested.*  This makes people think they are just one lucky break or lottery ticket away from the good life, but they don’t ever consider that even if they had “the good life” they would still be themselves.

No matter how much we try, we can’t outrun ourselves and our own inherent problems and weaknesses.  We are who we are, and the greater the disconnect between our real selves and the public version of ourselves, the more likely we are to face a crisis point. You don’t need me to point out examples of that- pick up any newspaper and read about the latest public figure who has had a comeuppance or the people who bought too much house and ended up in foreclosure as a result.

Here’s the take home message: The more I wish to obtain something or become something, the more I need to construct the reality of my life to support that move to a different space.  For example, I’m not going to lose weight if I don’t exercise and eat better, and construct my life and habits to help make those changes a sustainable reality.  Otherwise, I’m just going to continue on with the status quo, while my dreams of being a size 8 remain just that, ethereal dreams with no grounding in reality.   (I may secretly hope that I have in inverse Dorian Gray problem, where the outside is getting older, but the inner portrait is twenty-two and sculpted… but I digress.)

When your internal and external reality are pretty well matched, life is simple.  You are in What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) land, and there’s no need to be something more or different that who you are.  It’s a place of acceptance and responsibility, and while it may not be as exciting as jetting off to Cannes, it’s less stressful and more sustainable in exchange.  And that’s nothing to sneeze at.

*However, I doubt the producers will ever show up to “Greenwood PTO 19317″ to see how the moms in this community work to bring people together and help improve our schools, because we’re all simply normal, hard working folks.  Where will they get a full season of TV worthy drama in episodes entitled “Are we going to be able to get a one to one laptop program going or not?” and “Running the Book Fair is like chasing cats” that will keep sponsors and audiences coming back season after season?  Then again, if it solved our school district’s funding problems and improved my kid’s experience at school, I’d sign up in a minute.

Soap operas, like telenovellas are often morality plays and ways in which our brains and our lovely motor neurons can watch other people behave in ways we might never have the guts to, and see the resulting success or disaster.  So for example, if Erica Kane of All My Children gets married and divorced more often than teen age boys change their underwear, we can both pity her, envy her- whatever we want- with no real world consequences, because it’s all safe and pretend.  It’s a sink for all of our personal drama and emotions, where you can gossip about these people with your friends and neighbors with no real world consequences at all.

Fast Forward to 2011.  Fast Company writes an article asking if the cancellation of the soaps, which started losing audience in the 70′s, means the death to daytime drama all together.    What I think everyone is missing here is why soaps began to  lose their audience in the first place, and why they aren’t needed as much as ever before.  Here are 5 reasons why soaps, despite their delicious, guilty pleasure aspects are likely Gone with the Wind:

1. Changing workforce demographics and less free time.  Starting in the 70′s, many more women went back to work.  That’s true even more today, so the overall number of people looking for TV entertainment during the day is smaller than it used to be.  Even the latchkey kids don;t get home soon enough to be a reasonable audience.

2. Rise of The Talk Show Gradually, over this same period, shows like Phil Donahue and Oprah came along, starting to explore topics that were never talked about on TV.  Even Oprah is ending her reign over afternoon TV after 25 years.  While Oprah always dealt with difficult topics with tact and sensitivity, this was often replaced by folks like Maury and Jerry Springer, where the audience and guests seemed to be more interested in seeing the fight (like waiting for accidents in Nascar or fights at a hockey match) than what was actually being discussed or solving any problems rationally.  It makes for exciting TV, and if you’re a soap opera, how do you compete, with your close up shots, tears and meaningful moments, with women getting ready to deck their cheating spouses three channels away?  No contest, even if it doesn’t appeal to any higher values we pretend to hold.

3. Rise of Reality TV.  There’s a whole genre of shows out there now, ranging from Survivor (which is an intentional set-up that seems reminiscent of some old soap “stranded on the desert island” story lines) to the Housewives of Beverly Hills to Cops and even shows like Biggest Loser and America’s Next Top Model that have drama and discrete story lines and type-casting that put most soap plots to shame.  If you want to see drama in young girls, watch Top Model.  If you want to see housewives mixing it up behind closed doors, there’s both the non-reality “Desperate Housewives” as well as the Bravo series to fill the bill.  While the casts vary, the basic human characters and archetypes don’t change all that much.  And again, how can Vicky Bucannan and her family’s newspaper business (at least that’s what they did in the 80′s) on One Life to Live compare to Tyra Banks handing some girl a modeling contract and tons of cash?

4. Cable, Internet and the Explosion of Choice. Between the infinite number of channels and the availability of programming in demand both through TV and computers, I can see almost anything any time I want to.  No longer limited to the 4 major networks, the fragmenting of audiences up and down the dial means soaps are no longer the only afternoon choice between 1 and 4 pm.  With all these choices, I’d really have to prioritize soaps, and with all the other ways to get my entertainment needs met, well, it’s hard to compete.

5. Social media- the Killer App. The main thrust of this whole post is right here- why do we need soap operas to fulfill our needs to live vicariously through others when we have twitter and Facebook?  You no longer have to guess at what’s going on behind closed doors, people tell you voluntarily!  You can destroy your own reputation or that of others with a few simple photo posts from your cell phone!  With the Wall Street Journal reporting that 1 out of 5 divorces are caused by Facebook, and that 66% of lawyers claim that Facebook provides the primary source of evidence in divorce proceedings, you have all the drama you can stand at your fingertips, without even working hard to collect it.  You don’t even need to speculate!

So in case it isn’t clear, the point to all of this is that soaps have been replaced in our lives by being able to watch the salacious details of real people on TV or even people we know personally so frequently, we have no need to live vicariously through them.  We don’t need too many unlikely contrivances that result in long lost daughters or people coming back from the dead or the like of Soap Land, and if we want some of that, there’s always Survivor and the Amazing Race.

But by taking away this safe way to experience dramatic emotions without having to actually act them out in our personal lives, you can’t help but think the soap opera will still come to digital media.  The reasons why the soaps worked as TV and as an art form was this sense of vicarious thrill and schadenfreude of being somewhat more put together than others.  Now, depending on the network we self-select, we can either feel better about ourselves or much worse by looking at our twitter stream.  Do you want to be Chris Brogan?  Would you rather be Michael Arrington? Follow them and mirror their moves!

Unfortunately, reality still comes to bear when we realize that we still have to be the people we are, and live with the consequences, good and bad of our actions.  Our actions just have a much wider audience than we realize, as I found out when my friends started commenting on my son’s change in relationship status when he announced he was “taken” on Facebook. (Middle school crush…) Opening the books of our lives makes many fewer things a secret, which both keeps us honest but also makes our mistakes and errors in judgment all that much harder to overcome. Even Republican Presidential contender Rick Santorum has a Google Problem these days.

Besides our sense of privacy and keeping our baser natures in check, the only thing we’re really going to lose and miss  by the death of the soap is a training ground for really great actors that had to deal with new material and crazier story lines almost every day.  Meg Ryan, Tom Hanks, and even Elizabeth Taylor appeared on soaps.  John Stamos, Demi Moore and Kelly Ripa busted their chops in daytime drama.  And if you need 10,000 hours of experience to get good at acting, I guess we are going to have to look to the Disney Channel to find all of our next great artists, in which case, I fear for the future of TV as a whole.

Public speaking is one of the biggest fears people have, and it was one I had for a long time.  It took practice, finding my voice, and developing a style that worked for me, and now, I actually love speaking to audiences.  Getting over the fear wasn’t easy.  It involved listening and watching other presenters, whether it was in person or through podcasts and radio, to see what they were doing and why it made for compelling and successful content.  It involved coming up with and testing theories about finding story arcs, constructing narratives, and finding the things that make for compelling stories that people want to hear.  Participating in events like Ignite, Pecha Kucha and Battledecks (also known as Improv Powerpoint Karaoke), helps too.  All of these quick fire presentation events have formats that help you learn to speak and think on your feet, helping conquer those fears in a fun and friendly atmosphere.

By watching and learning, taking notes about presentation style as well as about content, while watching others present, I’ve learned so much.  I will readily admit to borrowing and mimicking aspects of presentation styles from others, refining them in such a way that they become my own.  For example, Seth Godin does a great job using his slides to illustrate his talk, not BE his talk.  Couple this with the fact that the brain can’t process two language-based inputs at the same time, and you realize that too many words on slides will have people reading your slides and ignoring what you are actually saying.  As a result, I try to design my talks with slides that illustrate my points, or support them, and provide me with visual prompts, rather than as note cards.

When I see other people present, I go into the experience with a set of expectations.  I am like a sociologist, listening to what is being said, but also looking at the presentation as a whole and seeing what works and what does not from an audience/personal engagement aspect of things.  I want to be engaged as an audience member, entertained a bit, and come away from the experience feeling like it was a good use fo my time, measured either by information shared or by being entertained or enriched by the time we’ve spent together, just like I would expect from any sort of theater performance.

This was reinforced again for me yesterday, when my husband came home from a presentation he had just done, and we started talking about how we present and how we work an audience.  He had used some of my slides for his presentation (while he’s a physician, they were discussing how they were using social media within their practice) and he was remarking at how interested people were in the topic.  He talked about watching comedians on TV, and how he had taken to walking more and moving when presenting, and how that movement seemed to work both for him and increase audience engagement as well.

The art of public speaking of any kind is essentially maintaining attention and telling a great story.  Even in unstructured conversations or interviews, like this fantastic one between Ira Glass and Marc Maron, the back and forth has to seem to have a purpose or something revelatory about it.  There has to be some sort of tension, some sort of build, and then delivery of information, or answering a question, like any good narrative story line.  But if it’s seems just like an opportunity to talk about yourself, like showing vacation pictures or slides in days of yore, people just don’t care, even if they care about you.  You have to make your story meaningful.  There has to be some take away.  You have to make yourself iconic, or an example, or somehow universal.  Once you have the structure of what the deeper meaning is, then you can fill in with autobiography, with stories and examples to illustrate the point.  But without that larger structure or narrative, people lose patience.  they aren’t sure where you are headed or where the payload will be.  And if you can’t give them that early on, you will lose them in that critical initial 140 seconds, and if you’re lucky, you’ll be able to get them back.

Or you may just end up seeing them sneak out the back, heading to the bathroom, but never quite making it back into their seats.

Social Media Barbie?

By the time Podcamp NYC rolled around in April of 2007, I had to worry about getting too many twitter updates by text and having to pay a fortune as a result- in the old days of limited texting and before the iphone and mobile internet were ubiquitous. We had over 1000 people sign up for Podcamp NYC and about 625 show up, including folks who came over from the UK to attend. It was a heady time, indeed.

Flash forward to 2011. Twitaholic reports the most popular twitter users, and the first “geek” that appears on this list of main stream celebrities is Pete Cashmore of Mashable at #56. The rest of the top users looks like a list of People Magazine/TMZ top favorites, by and large. This isn’t surprising given that when I polled a Finance Class at a local university where I was a guest speaker a year or so ago, only a handful of college students were on Twitter, and they were largely following celebrities and using as their National Enquirer.

Twitter has changed over time. It’s not just where the A/V club hangs out anymore. We would follow our real life friends, and people we met at conferences, as a way to keep in touch. It became an international hang out to keep in touch with people we wouldn’t otherwise talk to as frequently. It kept friendships alive and people in touch in a low-cost, high-benefit manner. Reciprocity with friends and followers was much debated, and people would look at the ratios of friends to followers as a measure of how social, antisocial, attention hungry, or desperate you might be.

I think friend and follower ratios have to be re-thought as a metric that tells you anything meaningful these days. When I was going through my friends lists to see whether I needed to pare it down to raise the signal to noise level, I found out that the people who aren’t following me back are largely news organizations, governmental organizations, local businesses and others where I want to know what’s going on in their world or industry, but don’t really need or want them to follow me back in some large gambit to appear either more popular or engaged. I want to know, for example, what the CDC is up to, but they don’t need to hear about my world, so I don’t take any offense to this mismatch.

But if we’re entering a new world with programs like Twitter, and external value measures like Klout and PeerIndex giving anyone who wants them “numbers” about how we conduct our lives on these networks, people who dabble in marketing and PR should probably be aware of what these metrics say about them. Just like having any other Google Alert or listening post set up to monitor what people say about you, do you need to know what these numbers say, what they mean, and what actions you take go into changing them? Probably, at least a little.

Yet if we look at who people follow, just as numbers, rather than looking at whys, or strategy or deeper meaning, we really learn nothing useful about them. I used to basically not follow anyone back I didn’t know, and then I realized I was missing out on lots of possible relationships that might be helpful, if I took a more open approach.

If you look at the people I follow on Twitter, it’s generally a combination of friends, people I’ve met at conferences, people and businesses in Delaware and Philly (my “hood”), places I’ve gone or am intending to go, business contacts, people and businesses I want to learn about, fellow members of the bar, social media types, teachers and folks I can help- there are many distinct groups and social circles I cultivate, all for very different reasons and to stay “in the know” as much as possible.

This means my ratio of friends and followers is no longer “in sync” and I’m starting to follow more people than are following me. But given the number of broadcast-only channels available on twitter, this one to one metric on friends and followers is no longer the same metric is was back in the day. The rules about Twitter and how to use it continue to evolve, as the numbers and types of people on Twitter continues to evolve. And it means I’m going to go ahead and follow people to get news and hope to interact and add value, regardless if the feeling is always mutual. I will follow people because I think there’s value or potential value there, not just a quid pro quo in a quest to increase stats.

As we look at Twitter, what it’s good for, the “right” way to use it, and what all these numbers mean, I think we’re going to have to continually evaluate that the ground rules change as the audience changes and evolves as well.

Metcalf’s law tells us the more nodes, the more value there is in the network, and as Twitter evolves, it’s the power and diversity of your network, and well as the strength of those ties – the mutual exchange value of those ties- that provide the worth. But much of the perceived value of influence (and any attached metric) is just a guess at what the real emotions are that people feel when they connect or their friends recommend things to them. I’m not sure we’ll ever really know how influential and meaningful we are to people, but I know that the numbers don’t tell the whole story of the value we each add or extract from the network as a whole. That’s something only the individual can really know, and I, for one, will not let these numbers or old rules about balance or ratios rule what I do on these networks.

As my dear friend CC Chapman says- Rules are like rubber bands- time to go out and stretch and even break a few. The old rules are not the rules that apply now, and wisdom lies in knowing which ones to throw out and when. Make sure you let your “hard and fast” rules change and evolve, and take all of that advice everyone hands out with a grain of salt. Do what’s best for you, and experiment. Without that, you are looking for cookie cutter results in an improv world.

Gumption, from the Brooklyn SuperHero Supply Store

In order to really make strides, we have to be willing to experiment.  We have to be willing to take risks, and we have to be willing to be wrong and fail.  I know I had tons of this as a kid, but keeping this sense of willingness to make mistakes, knowing things could go horribly wrong, gets harder to maintain as we get older.

The problem with success is that it can make you scared to fail.  Once you’ve done something well, you can back yourself into a corner where nothing other than further bigger and better success seems acceptable.  Yet you only get to future success by keeping that same sense of experimentation and risk alive that you had in the beginning, where everything was an exciting adventure and you really had nothing to lose.  Once you achieve success, you do have something to lose, which can slowly eat away at the “No Holds Barred” attitude which made you successful in the first place.

From time to time, I struggle with keeping the “Go For It” attitude alive.  But I know if I don’t keep experimenting, tinkering, playing, adapting and changing, stagnation can set in.  Experience leads to better and more fine-tuned experiments and a better ability to predict outcomes ahead of time.  But experience can also make us cautious and nervous.  You can get trapped feeling that any failure will lead to embarrassment and humiliation, or feeling like you’ve disappointed others- powerful negative emotions.  But that fear can be paralyzing and hold you back needlessly.  This makes it critical to balance experience and experiments, with an emphasis on Experimentation.

The Definition of Gumption is initiative; aggressiveness; resourcefulness; courage; spunk; guts.  While you can buy it by the barrel at theBrooklyn Superhero Supply Store, it’s really that fire that burns within, and helps you attempt what may seem challenging or maybe even impossible at times.

I’m reminded of this quote from Lewis Carroll I keep in my office:

“There is no use in trying,” said Alice; “one can’t believe in impossible things.” “I dare say you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day.  Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

In order to keep moving forward, we have to keep the dreams alive.  We have to believe what some people may think of as impossible is probably and even easily accomplishable, if we put the right pieces of the puzzle together.  You see companies like Apple and IDEO approach every product from a “What would make our lives better?  If I could have my dream device, what would it do?  What would it look like?  What problems would it solve?”  They have a vision and a dream, and they’re willing to take all the steps necessary to make those dreams come true.  They are also willing to push boundaries and possibly fail, but get back up again and try.

Companies like Microsoft seem to be less willing to experiment and fail.  Their success has made experimentation riskier, but by taking the tried and true path, they don’t seem to be doing anything other than “more of the same” rather than rethinking and developing something truly exciting.  Tried and true is calming.  It seems more secure.  It’s boring, but it can be profitable.   But we are living in an age of rapid change and evolution where taking the tried and true path may actually be the riskiest thing of all.

Becoming comfortable with constant change and risk isn’t always fun.  It can give you stomach aches and sleepless nights at times.  Sometimes I want things to slow down just so I can have a moment to breathe and consolidate, before getting back on the treadmill of change. (This is called vacation and leaving your iphone at home on purpose.)

The rate of change is faster than ever before, and as a result, we have to accept that we have to just make the best decision possible at the time and move on, rather than trying to reach a perfect decision every time.  We need to embrace experimentation, look at life as a big lab for our experiments, and go for it.  We need more gumption, and a little less fear.

I know those are my goals- what are yours?

My sister when she worked at the Atlanta Zoo

I’ve been mulling over the following problem for a while now, and while this idea may still be half-baked, I thought I’d toss it out for commentary and see what you think.

Over on Edutopia, Jenifer Fox and I are managing a group on Personalized Learning and Differentiated Instruction.  When we speak with teachers about what’s required to meet each student’s individual learning needs in the classroom, some folks approach the issue as “This is something I do anyway- It’s a natural part of great teaching” and others approach it as “Great- this is something else I have to do and don’t have any time to learn about.”  This difference is almost 180 degrees, between one of acceptance and one of resistance.

I started to think more about teaching being child-centered in the same way we talk about business becoming more customer-centered or gadgets working best when they are end-user centric. I think it’s a difference in how you frame your work- is it all about what you do, how you perform, and what you accomplish for the company and for others, or is it about what you get out of the equation- how much you’re paid, what the work conditions are like, if you feel valued, if you like your boss, etc.

If you watch movies like “Waiting For Superman“, you see this difference spelled out in black and white.  Is education and education reform all about the adults- who is paid what, where do they work, what are their benefits, and the like, or is it all about the students, and how we can give them the best education possible?  In your daily job, how much of your performance depends on how you are treated versus what you do to make sure the job is done to the best of your abilities?

These issues are intertwined and not easily parsed out, I’ll grant that.  If you don’t have the tools you need or the information necessary to do a good job, your results will show that.  You can feel hampered, voiceless, ignored, and otherwise impotent to change or take control.  You feel like you have to ask permission before doing anything, and as a result, you feel powerless and likewise unmotivated, to do anything else.

But some people don’t wait for the right tools or training or block time to be delivered to them- they go out and find what they need.  They do research in their off hours.  They read books that aren’t required or assigned.  They are intellectually curious about their field.  The set hours for their job are more fluid, because the lines between work and play blur a bit.  They love what they do, and even if it’s challenging, they like the puzzle.  They do more because they feel compelled to do more- for their own growth and interest, as uch for the others they work with or for the company.

This may also be the difference between a job and a career.  A job has you looking at the clock, a career is all about your personal growth and development along with what your performance may be.  I’ve had my share of jobs over the years, but even in those jobs, I felt I could only really perform when I put myself into the work- when I cared about what I was doing.  No one else can really make you care- that’s an internal light switch you have to flick yourself.

Here’s two examples.  My sister, Beth (pictured above), volunteered and later worked for the Atalanta Zoo in the Primate House.  Her interest lead to a job she loved and was very good at, but it started out with a passion that drove her to get educated and do what she needed to turn the passion into a really interesting and rewarding job.

In contrast, another relative of mine was in sales for years.  He’s always been great at sales,  and he’d sell anything, including items he really knew little or cared about at the end of the day.  But being a personality guy, he’s the sort who could sell ice cubes to Eskimos.  For him, he would do whatever he had to, work as hard as need be, to meet quota and stop.  He’d pour on the gas if there was an extra reward involved, and then slack off after the reward was won.  He was the kind of employee who drives bosses crazy, wondering why he won’t work consistently hard all the time.  And the truth of the matter was that my relative had figured out the game of work and played it very well.

However, a number of years ago, after being laid off from this type of sales job, he decided (at the urging of everyone around him) to finally sell something he loved more than anything else for a change- boats. Now, he works harder and longer hours than ever before.  He loves his job.  He eats, breathes and sleeps it.  He’s better at it than in any other job.  Even with variances in the market, he does well, because he really knows and cares about his product and his customers in a way he never did before.  He learns more about everyone and their needs, and works harder to find a better match between the client and product.

He’s become a different person because he finally is doing something he loves and cares about.  The switch was turned on.

Do you think there’s a difference between a job and your work?  This may be what Seth Godin talks about when he refers to work as your “art”- it’s what you would do even if no one were watching or making you do it- you do it because it’s a part of you and you care about it whether you’re on the clock or not.  I can’t wait to her what you think about this- let’s continue the discussion in the comments.