The Serendipity Engine

It’s hard sometimes to convince folks that one of the amazing things about the internet and social media has been meeting people you might never know otherwise, and how these friendships, over time, become incredibly useful and amazing. Some of us talk about the importance of these seemingly random interactions as serendipity, or happy, lucky accidents, but they become fortunate and opportune in the same way farming is lucky- you plant seeds, and over time, they can germinate into something miraculous and delicious.

Last year, in January, I spoke at AGS, a graphic design and print company, looking to expand its interactive offerings for clients. They have a series of classes, free and open to their customers and potential customers, mostly marketing managers for businesses and non-profits of all size in the area. I did two sessions on “Social Media 101″, introducing the folks in the room to many of the online tools we take for granted.

Within a week, one of the folks contacted me, Ken Grant, to report he took what I showed him as a to-do list, and was seeing immediate results for his company in terms of the number of hits they were getting from all over the world, and he got invited to sit on the board of their big industry trade show group- tangible results within days, not months. Ken Grant really took to social media like a fish to water, and he has become a true force in Delaware.  Shortly, there were tweetups in the works. Information on social media was showing up in local papers, radio stations were calling for interviews, and politicians started to take notice.  Business groups, like NEWS4Women, Technology Forum of Delaware, and the New Castle County Chamber of Commerce, as well as local community groups like Community Matters, were all engaging and learning about how these tools could work for them.

Wilmington started coming alive.  People were coming out for social events like Ignite, which will have its third version in April.  At Ignite, people hear from folks from all walks of life, in short 5 minute presentations, talking about what matter to them- talks have ranged from Unconferences to the new children’s museum, to how to make your own beer, to self-publishing a book and everything in between.  That alone has been a fantastic and fun way  to cross-pollinate information across the community.

Diana Milburn, from the DuPont Theater has been incredibly instrumental in letting the community have the Ignite event at the Theater, but also offering tickets as prizes, and that’s helped get us out to events as a family more often as well.  The Delaware Symphony has gotten involved as well- the groups one might think of as “traditional” or even “stodgy” are actively embracing everything that building community- local community- through internet tools- can be about.

Yesterday, there was a great Network Delaware event, where Ken Anderson and Congressman Mike Castle spoke, as well as local social media folks including Rodney Jordan, Laurie Bick,  Maya the Twitter Queen, Ken Grant, 2Fish, Wil and Steve who are starting a Wilmington based co-working space called the CoIn Loft, among others, all spoke to a packed room of people about what social media could do to help bring the community together and help their own businesses and efforts move forward.  I was touched and moved when the representative from the local Food Bank said she had also attended my social media 101 session, and afterward started using twitter and other tools to reach out, forming relationships and partnerships that had increased money and food item donations to the food bank.

This is when I realized that so often, we can think that the little things we do- speak to a group, or attend an event or talk to a few people- in the moment, it can seem insignificant, or like a good thing to do, but we underplay what can come from it.    Yet, if you follow the chain of events, AGS asked me to speak, and because I showed people how to use tools I regularly take for granted, those folks have taken the tools and put them to work, and it’s helped all of us, together, to bring our community closer together, to help businesses connect with customers, to generate more business, and to even feed people who are feeling the brunt of the recession through the Food Bank.

It’s so easy to decide to stay home, and not attend an event.  Yet I am finding a year after I spent a morning talking to a group of folks, my community as a whole is tangibly better off and moving forward.  That is the true power of the serendipity engine- of deciding to engage, to help, and before long, exciting things are happening through ripple effects.   I am by no means trying to take credit for all of this, let me make that clear.  I am just amazed at how when you start spreading ideas, they can take on a life of their own, propagate and turn into something much bigger and more wonderful than if you decided to stay home instead.  You can effect change through the smallest of acts, and if you are lucky, sometimes you get to see a small part of the effect you can have.  I got that yesterday, and I feel incredibly humbled by the people I’ve met and the power of teaching someone to fish, as the metaphor goes, being so much more powerful than just handing someone a fish can be.

Tags: AGS, Delaware, Deltweet, dupont theater, Ken grant, podcamp, serendipity

The Secret Sauce- Cross Pollination

Julien Smith asked a question recently- when did you last have a breakthrough idea?  And he suspected they probably didn’t come from a blog, or the stuff that “everybody” reads.  That got my thinking- Where do I get my best ideas and insights?

I get my breakthrough ideas when I read a book outside my typical area of interest.  I get them when I attend conferences that are not in my usual niche.  I get them after talking to someone who I might initially presume I have nothing in common with, but find out they have lots of interests and experiences I can learn from.

One of my favorite examples has been reading business books- management, marketing- and applying those ideas to everything from teaching to parenting.  Likewise, some of the great educators and parenting books have the best advice on how to manage clients, spouses, colleagues, business partners, and yes, even teenagers.

The “big idea” here is that you get breakthroughs when you can take a principal or thought from one area and then tinker with it and learn to apply it generally.  For example, books like Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath talk about how to make your ideas memorable- that works in every form of communication.  It doesn’t matter if it’s a letter, a piece of ad copy, a flyer, a lecture, a poster- all of those ideas work when applied to any situation where you’re trying to make an impact with your stories and information, regardless of the context.  Books like those of Marcus Buckingham and Tom Rath encourage us to try to find our underlying strengths and talents- and those you can also apply anywhere, once you get a sense of what you’re really good at.

I see the best meetups and conferences- like Tweetups, Web 2.0 Expo and Web 2Open, Podcamps, Barcamps and the like- all succeed because they draw from different verticals.  It’s not all “tech people” or “business people” or “PR and marketing” types,  “government people” or “web heads” or “artists” or whatever label you might want to apply- it’s a bit of all of these folks in one space, teaching and sharing and learning from one another, and realizing that all the great ideas are probably not isolated to your industry.  This requires being open to the fact that an event might be different or weird or even not your cup of tea- but you’ll never know unless you step out of that shell and consider, even for a moment, that you might have something to learn from someone you might not ordinarily run across.

A great example of this was the recent Delaware Tweetup at Kildare’s in Newark, DE. DelTweet 3 was the third such event in Delaware, and it brought out people from local businesses- real estate brokers, business owners, bloggers, web designers, advertisers, designers, tech company folks, consultants, and tons of people in local politics, including Governor Markell, who started his official twitter account at the event.  The event showed everyone there the potential power of social media platforms to bring people together to share ideas and to really try to make a difference and make progress.  In a small state like Delaware, working together is particularly important.  Having the Governor see the diversity of interests and perspectives that can be drawn together by something like a tweetup has got to make bringing people together to tackle tougher issues like jobs and business issues seem a little easier and less daunting.

It’s easy to stay within your niche, within your echo chamber.  But the best ideas usually come from outside or from having a new perspective, often brought in from the periphery.   Sometimes the perspectives might seem naive or uninformed, but we can get people up to speed- it’s their fresh viewpoint and experience we need to hear, to look at our situation through a new lens, and see it with a fresh perspective.  We can also learn that people do care about what we do and the decisions we’re making- and that caring, passion and involvement is the energy we can really harness to make a difference, together.

My best advice to anyone who feels stuck, feeling like they are in a rut, or that the problems in their area never seem to change or improve, is to step out of that bubble a bit, and try a bit of fresh perspective.  Read a book yo might not ordinarily pick up- try something by Seth Godin, for example, or one of the gazillion books on my list on one of the other pages of this blog.   (I have an Amazon affiliate store with these books in it and the link is on that page- I get a few pennies if you buy a book from the link, for full disclosure purposes)

Step out of the usual, and you’ll be amazed how many great ideas you’ll start having once you get a fresh perspective.

Tags: barcamp, cross pollination, Deltweet, made to stick, marcus buckingham, podcamp, strengthfinder, web 2.0 expo, Web2open

What Love Means to Me

I met my husband through friends as an undergrad.  We were in the same study group for an intro biology class.  I had a huge crush on him, but never thought he would pay me all that much attention.   It turns out he felt similarly, and we started dating at the end of our sophomore year.  My roommate at the time told me “You two are perfect for each other and will be married with 2.5 children, for sure.”  We thought that was funny at the time, but it turns out that prediction was pretty much dead on.

Now almost 25 years later, we’re married with two great boys, one turning 15 next month, and the other 11. (The half is clearly our vaguely crazy dog.)  We’ve been through easy times and difficult ones, times where there’s been stress and times where things seem like the couldn’t possibly get better.  We’ve been there for each other when relatives have passed away or been hospitalized, when kids have had to have operations, when we’ve had to have operations ourselves.  We’ve been to parent teacher meetings, signed mortgages, invested money, bought underwear- you name it, we’ve probably done it together.  The lines in the marriage vows that talk about “For Better and For Worse, in sickness and in health”- we’ve seen our fair share of wonderful and even some patches where I’ve wondered if we would be able to get out of the ditch and get things back on a better track.  But for all of it, we’ve done pretty well for ourselves, I think.

For twenty-five years, I’ve seen this fantastic man change from a college kid into a well-respected doctor, from a boy to a father, from a boyfriend to a husband, and take on each role well, with its constantly changing demands and stress.  He’s my very best friend, someone who has seen me at my best and my worst, and is always there to not only tell me the unvarnished truth, but to encourage me to reach, to stretch, to try to do more, to be better, and to dream.  He’s seen me vulnerable.  He’s seen me struggle with being a parent, with becoming a mom, with trying to do the right thing even when that seems like the hardest thing in the world to do.

We’ve taught each other a lot about love, and how it grows and evolves over time.  It’s about having  passion, not only for who you are, but for who you can be.  It’s about having hopes and dreams, not only for yourself, but for the other person as well, and for the whole family.  It’s about realizing happy is not so much a destination but the journey, and maintaining a healthy sense of adventure and a very healthy sense of humor makes it all so much better.

I feel so very lucky to have met my husband at a young age, and to have essentially grown up with him over time, to become the people we are now.  I try hard not to take any of this for granted, and to remind myself and Matt that we are really very lucky.

I know Valentine’s Day can be difficult for many people.  We think that someone else is supposed to come along and “make” us happy.  The truth is more that you are in charge of your own happiness.  Your partner or spouse is someone you can share life’s joys and life’s tragedies with, and they will still love you, when you are at your best or at your worst.  Instead of making us happy, they give us someone to share our own happiness with, and we’re both better for it.

I love you Matt.  Happy Valentine’s Day, my love.  Here’s to many, many more.

The Fidelity of Experiences

I’ve started a new book- Trade Off- Why some things catch on and other’s don’t- the ever present tension between quality and convenience by Kevin Maney.

Kevin starts out by talking about what he calls the Fidelity of experiences- which is sort of a drill-down into what Seth Godin refers to as “remarkability.”  Kevin states that fidelity is a measure of the quality of an experience that you can compare to its convenience- kind of like a supply and demand curve.  But he also acknowledges that it’s a problem to get both a high fidelity and high convenience experience- let me explain a bit more.

An iPod touch is a great device at a fairly high price compared to a run of the mill mp3 player, but it has a sense of design of ease of use, and of utility that makes it “high fidelity” but lower on the “convenience” scale because its price excludes all comers to the market- it’s not as ubiquitous as, say, flash drives because of this.  However, the iTunes music store is lower fidelity and high convenience, because you can access almost any music or movie you want, but it may not be equivalent to a CD because an mp3 simply has about 1/10th of the data of tracks on a CD, and movies may not have all the special features you’d get with a DVD set, for example.  Both products are a hit however, and work in tandem to perhaps get close to a high fidelity, high convenience mark, but neither achieve this feat on their own.

This concept of fidelity struck a chord with me.  If we take this concept into social media integration for websites or web design, we have to ask ourselves a couple of questions:  Are we trying to design a high fidelity, high end, exclusive experience, or a high convenience, lower fidelity experience, and if we try to make too many compromises, do we end up just being average and boring?

It’s clear from my recent experience with Google Buzz that high convenience-low fidelity  means a deluge of information into my inbox.  Much of it is useful and interesting, but much of it is simply too much to maintain a sense of focus and importance.  It means I’m also going to have to be more aware of what I dump into that stream, in order to maintain a reputation for being as high fidelity as possible to friends.

I’m currently working with a client that’s all about the high fidelity of experiences and services, and she does an amazing job with maximizing convenience, but of course, it comes with an associated price that reflects supply and demand at the same time.  I wish I had a 4-d model to plot these things out, because I think the gold lies in overlaying the supply/demand curve with the fidelity/convenience curve, and making sure before you launch your product or service, you position it accordingly.

What do you think of the concept of fidelity?  What do you find you are willing to pay more for?  When is good enough simply good enough?  How do you decide what quality versus convenience means to you?  Inquiring minds want to know!

Can a Blizzard Be Part of Global Warming?

Quite Possibly.

(Warning:  geeky science post ahead)

A few years ago, I was in the UK and caught a program discussing Global Warming and the Gulf stream.  In a nut shell, the world’s oceans have a current, or motion called Thermohaline circulation, where based on the temperature and saltiness of sea water, the waters move in a predictable way and help drive weather patterns across the globe.

There’s a thought that as polar ice melts, there’s going to be an influx of fresh water into the oceans, disrupting both the temperature and salinity of the oceans, and possibly shutting down this flow.  This would mean the water that warms up at the Equator, and through the Gulf Stream, keeps places like England relatively temperate would instead lead to more extreme weather, both hot and cold, across Europe and North America.  So could our current rough winter, the snowiest in recent record here in Philly, be a sign of Global Warming rather than disproving its existence?

When I hear news clips of Harry Reid and others mocking Al Gore, saying this tough winter disproves Global warming, I think back to that report on the circulation of the oceans, changes in salinity, and the increase in what seems to be extreme weather over time, and it’s hard not to think that Hotter summers and colder winters, with greater snow totals could very well be part of a collapse of the thermohaline circulation or Northeastern Conveyor, and maybe the politicians shouldn’t be so glib and maybe they should read a little more instead.

Tags: globl warming, science, thermohaline circulation