What are social media’s mega-trends?
Jun 30th
(If you can’t see this video, click here: “Mega-trends presentation at Social Slam.”)
How would you like to sit-in on a discussion with me, Jay Baer, Glen Gilmore and Jennifer Kane on the most important mega-trends in social media?
Let’s do it!
This video is from the recent Social Slam conference in Knoxville. It was the most fun panel I have been on because I was in awe of my co-panelists! We decided to take a different approach. Jay, Glen and I presented one big idea that we thought was the most important mega-trend and then Jen faciltiated a discussion. It worked out great and I think you’ll enjoy it.
Let me know what you think … If you had to pick one social media mega trend, what would you have presented?
Dead Man Blogging
Jun 29th
“Here it is. I’m dead, and this is my last post to my blog.”
I’ve been haunted since I read those words a few weeks ago.
Jenn Whinnem had hosted a discussion on {grow} about our digital footprint and the implications when we die. Johnny Russo, added a link to a post by Derek K. Miller, who wrote his farewell to his blog community and family in anticipation of his death from a terminal disease. It is a stunning, poignant, post and it ends perfectly. “I loved you, I loved you, I loved you.”
Since that day, Derek’s post has been pounding in my head. When I die, should I just die, or do I publish a coda? What happens with this community? Is there such a thing as a digital legacy and is that something you can prepare for?
In 2007 I suffered an extremely serious spinal cord injury and could have died. The doctors were surprised I could walk afterward and suspected the injury might even affect my cognitive abilities. For months, my brain was on random play, sending unpredictable signals to my arms, legs and neck. I never knew what sensation or pain I would be feeling next. My nervous system was out of control and nobody could know when, or if, this would end.
I was lucky. Other than a plate in my head, the lasting effects of this trauma are minimal.
So I’m acutely aware of how fast you can lose it all. Death had a hand on me and I escaped that time. But it is going to happen, perhaps without warning. Perhaps tomorrow.
How should I use this blog and my other “digital assets” to say goodbye to you, my friends and my family on MY terms? What happens to {grow} and this digital footprint when I die? Will any of you even know what happened? Does any person know how to get into my account to publish something to say, “Well, he’s gone. You can move along now.”
This is uncomfortable, but I have begun writing my farewell blog post. A little at a time. Might take years. But I’m doing it. I am also leaving a set of instructions to my kids so they can find the “publish” button. It’s a start.
I think this makes sense … as much as an emotional issue like this can make sense. I think it would bring closure for all of us, although from my position, it won’t really be on my mind unless I turn into a blogger spirit who can’t rest until somebody publishes the last post! The WordPress Ghost.
How things have changed. My grandmother died exactly 10 years ago. She was a lively, interesting woman but her stories live on only in my mind. As far as I know, not a single video, photo, or voice recording of Grandma exists in the digital world. In fact, if you google her name, the search returns images of Halle Berry. This would have amused her.
All my grandmother left was a box of photo albums and her collection of Hummel figurines. But we’re busy producing fresh masses of permanent, searchable content. Buckets of it. Articles. Photos. Videos. We are the first generation who can potentially live forever through our personal published works. We can have a cyber-soul.
What is that digital life story going to look like for you?
When I started looking into this subject, I found that curating your content legacy and preparing for digital afterlife is becoming a big business. Think about it. As the Digital Natives grow older, of course they are going to want their cyber selves to live on. The ultimate narcissistic final act.
I found hundreds of resources out there to help you manage the digital end game, but here are just a few to give you a flavor of this emerging industry:
Several services will contact loved ones (or hated ones) with emails when you die. They all basically work the same way. You queue up your emails and then the service sends you periodic emails to confirm you’re still alive. If you stop responding, your emails get unlocked and are distributed. This way, you can communicate your passwords, last wishes, and long-held secrets after you’re gone. One site will send your emails on dates you choose for 60 years into the future. An example of a free service is Dead Man’s Switch.
Another cottage industry is the curation of digital assets for future generations. There is a wide variety of options, both free and paid. A site such as My Wonderful Life allows you to put together an online scrap book of everything that was important to you. This company has a great slogan: “You only get one chance to make a last impression.”
While the world of physical assets is fairly clear-cut thanks to wills and legal procedures, digital asset management is confusing. What will happen to your domains? Where’s that Adsense money going? What about your PayPal account? What about the half-finished novel backed up in Dropbox? Entrustet is an example of a company who will manage your assets as your “digital executor” when you pass away.
In the creepy category is Lifenaut.com which promotes ”a database of personal reflections captured in video, image, audio and documents about yourself that can be saved, searched, downloaded and shared with friends.” This information is meant to be filtered through an “interactive avatar,” modeled on you, “that becomes more intelligent as you add more information.”
VirtualEternity also claims to convert the personal data you provide into an avatar — sort of like one of those chatbots that some online companies use for automated but more humanish customer service. “We want to give users the gift of immortality” they say. Basically this is an avatar that you teach to be you.
If you want to keep up with emerging trends in this field, you might want to check out The Digital Beyond, a comprehensive website on the subject examining practical, legal, and emotional issues of a digital legacy.
As I reviewed what I had written, I notice that this started out as a personal post about my mortality and digital legacy and it has devolved into a “how-to” post. Probably some deep meaning there. I’ll let you junior psychologists figure it out.
Any way, Mr. Derek K. Miller has inspired me to get serious about this and I’m considering my digital afterlife and how I want my blog to end some day.
Of course you already know the last line. “I loved you, I loved you, I loved you.”
Why mess with perfection?
8 Steps to help you reach the marketing gold
Jun 28th
Guest post by Jeremy Floyd
Something magical happens when I set foot in a house that I want to buy.
I begin fantasizing about the opportunities to turn it from a house into my perfect home: “I’ll take out this wall … paint this wall blue … add a stainless range hood…” I’ll lay awake in bed, meticulously furnishing the home with our belongings and compilng a giant list of all the home can be.
But something odd happens after I take possession of the home. Seth Godin might call it the resistance. I will just call it the excuses: “Well, I don’t really need to remove that wall. In fact, if we do tear that wall out we’ll stir up so much dust that it we will destroy our furniture.” Then eventually, just as curiously as the thoughts appeared in my mind, the thought of moving the wall completely disappears. Poof!
Now, obviously, I am no Holmes on Homes, and this post has to eventually talk about business right? Well, as a consultant, I find the same phenomena occurs nearly every day.
You meet with the client. During the discovery meeting, your mind races with all the outside observations with the company. You lay in bed awake at night with brilliant innovation, and the next day you return to tell the client all the wonderful changes they can make to “move the needle.” Then what happens?
“Well, we can’t exactly implement that CRM system because we tried it a few years ago and it didn’t work.”
“That’s a great idea, but we aren’t convinced that social media really has ROI.”
“That’s just too radical for our culture.”
The excuses flow like a mountain stream. Here is Floyd’s rule: For every brilliant idea there is an even greater and opposite excuse that is 10x more powerful.
It is built into most companies DNA: RESIST CHANGE. Consultants are hired to improve results while changing as few things as possible. So, the challenge is to either (1) conform to the wishes of the client, (2) demand change — but accept mediocrity and get a fat check, or (3) demand change, do something extraordinary, and possibly get fired.
If you’re the kind of person who wants to stick to their guns and make things happen, here’s a check list of dynamics to walk you through the process …
- Make the List - Create a list of no more than 10 changes that will make a significant improvement in the company. Do not let any known obstacles filter your list. If you see a problem, write it down regardless of how difficult it is to fix.
- Paint the Picture - What does the promised land look like? How will you know when you get there? What will the results be?
- Build Trust - As a consultant, you are not going to walk in the door and lay the 10 item list on the CEO’s desk, send an invoice, and take a 2 week breather in Tahiti. You must establish that you have good judgment and your suggestions are trustworthy. You must demonstrate that the company will benefit from taking your suggestions. This is established in small bites, so keep the list in your pocket and sell the winnable successes.
- Identify the Resistance - Believe it or not, employees within the client company generally don’t like consultants. They may clearly want you to fail or they may just not be batting for your success. The job of the consultant is part politician. You have to know the political landscape and devise a plan to persuade the detractors, but ultimately the key stakeholders must know the detractors and their arguments.
- Strategery - Where and when do you have your best ideas? I find that some of my best ideas come to me while listening to an audiobook cutting the grass, so I arm myself with a pocket-sized notebook and a pen while I’m manicuring the lawn. (I’m so efficient, I know.) Usually, at some point while slaving away on the riding mower, the big idea occurs to me. You decide where that place is and go there with a pen and paper, keyboard and word processor, or stylus and tablet and answer the question: “How do we get from where we are currently to the place in step 2?” Confusing the “how” and the “what” of the plan plague even some of the most seasoned consultants – they usually dress them up with pretty words like “strategy” and “tactics,” but it’s really pretty simple. “How” is the one big idea that takes you from the present state to the “promised land” The “what” are the steps to get from here to there.
- Lay out the Plan - After you know “how” to get from here to there, “what” are the steps to get from here to there? The plan to the client must include the “strategy” and “tactics” to get from here to there.
- Execute like your life depended on it. Here’s what separates the first from second place — the dirty little secret of consultancy — too many consultants develop the strategy but don’t execute. This is perhaps the step that separates the doers from the dreamers. Execution is what it’s all about. Execution is the delivery of the dream. It’s the gold medal.
- Review the List - Now, go back to that list of dreams. Work on the next item. That list is going to make you a super star. That list separates the good from the great. Help clients implement the items they never thought they could. It’s natural that everyone forgets the minutiae of the “first visit.” The truly spectacular consultants go back to the “honeymoon phase” and remember the “wouldn’t it be great if…” promises that they proposed to their clients.
So, where are you? Are you a bronze finalist who brought the great ideas and walked away? Are you the silver medalist who brought good ideas and executed some of them? Or, are you the gold medalist who went back to the original list, and persisted?
Jeremy Floyd writes about leadership, business and marketing on his blog, Between Me and You. He is a partner at Bluegill, a marketing firm in Knoxville, TN, where he develops marketing strategies for businesses throughout the US.
If you need any reminder to never give up on you vision, do you remember this clip from the 2006 Olympics when the “gold medalist” felt secure in the win and gave away the victory?
Breaking Blogging’s Biggest Taboo
Jun 26th
I’ve probably read 10,000 blog posts and there is one topic that I rarely see expressed. So today, I’m going for it.
As a blogger, it’s cool to be annoyed, excited, introspective, outraged, depressed, happy, mad, sad, and glad. But it is never, ever cool to be proud.
I think the reason is simple. Social media at its core is narcissistic. Even though the benefit is connecting with other people, you generally write, post, and tweet about what is going on with you. I mean, it’s the subject you know better than anything, right?
Whether you’re online or offline, it’s generally unacceptable to go around shaking your tail feathers with every accomplishment, but on social media that taboo is amplified because we KNOW it’s narcissistic so we want to show up like we’re as dramatically un-narcissistic as possible.
But as I sit here on a Sunday morning, something very amazing has happened and if I really am honest and write about what’s going on with me at this moment on my social media journey, I can’t avoid using the P-word — Pride. So let’s plow some new ground and write a blog post that admits: “I’m allowing myself one moment, one blog post, to be proud of myself.”
The past few years have been a wild ride. It seems like the career momentum is building week by week and sometimes day by day. The social web enables me to paint on a global palette and I’m enjoying every minute of it.
I’ve had many reasons to feel blessed and grateful to you, my {grow} friends who have been with me every step as my blog creeped into the AdAge Top 50, my book The Tao of Twitter charged into the top 5 communications books on Amazon, and my teaching and consulting activities matured into more interesting and high-profile engagements.
I cannot claim singular responsibility for any of this. There is no such thing as a successful solo artist on the social web. We all conduct our own riotous symphony of friends and followers who help, support and cajole us every day.
Through all this I have done a good job keeping things in perspective and keeping an even keel, but something happened today that eclipses all those professional developments and prompted this expression of pride. I was quoted in The New York Times.
This made a profound emotional impact on me because the New York Times has been such a special part of my life. As a journalism student, I studied the New York Times as the pinnacle of my profession. As an adult, luxuriating in the Sunday Times — filled with art, books and travel — is a weekly oasis. And as an intellectually-curious adult I marvel at the depth of reporting, the artistry of the writing and the power of its importance as a journal of record. When they went to a paid subscription model , I swear I was the first one in line with my credit card.
And now here I am. I’m in there. For good. I feel so very humbled, joyful … and proud.
There, I said it. I’m proud.
By the way, there is an extremely good lesson here about the power of blogging. The NYT reporter, Stephanie Rosenbloom, didn’t find me through connections or because of my reputation. She found me through a blog post about social influence.
In my post Ten Reasons to Blog Even if Nobody Reads It, I mention this possibility of vast exposure as a unique aspect of blogs. To have an opportunity for massive reach, you can’t depend on Twitter or Facebook updates — you MUST have a blog. Blogs are important!
Any way, thanks for obliging me a moment of sunshine, rainbows, unicorns, and celebration. My wife just reminded me to take out the trash so it’s back to the real world. As always, the inexorable tide of daily life has wiped out this moment and it’s back to business. And that’s a good thing.
In the comment section, I invite you to break the blogging taboo with me and tell everyone something that happened to you this year that YOU’RE proud of! It’s an important part of who we are, isn’t it? Let’s celebrate it!
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-Mark SchaeferFollow Mark
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