Goodbye, Kim Kardashian

Jul 9th

This is a picture of Kim Kardashain with somebody who is not me.

Kim Kardashian and I have finally broken up.

It probably won’t make the tabloids. We’re keeping it quiet. But it’s OVER!

If you don’t know Kim, she is a lovely, self-described “Armenian Princess,” self-help diva, and reality TV star.

When I first started on Twitter, I had no idea what I was doing, so I followed the first person Twitter suggested: Kim Kardashian. I had never heard of her, which was part of the adventure.

Soon, I entered her world of fashion, Hollywood glamour, and famous friends, 140 characters at a time. I was smitten, enthralled, and I hung on her every word! Things moved quickly, and I guess you could say we were an item.

But then it all started to go wrong. The relationship seemed one-sided, especially since she never followed me back. Call me crazy, but Kim — come on! If we’re going to make this work, shouldn’t you at least let me have a say in the relationship once in a while???

If that weren’t bad enough, her whining began. It took SO LONG to get her nails done. Her work-outs were SO TOUGH. Her new dress DID NOT SPARKLE enough. I could hardly stand the incessant “me, me, me.” It was always all about HER. Of course it was. She never followed me back.

Then, the final straw. She started tweeting about her (GASP) “boyfriend.” Kim, what did I do to deserve this? You were … my first. My Little Twitter Queen, my lean, mean Armenian machine. I followed, and followed and followed. For what? To be dumped for a rich, handsome actor half my age? Well, those are good points. Still, I have my pride.

I un-followed Kim today . She probably didn’t even notice as she gets ready for another fabulous day sunning her abs in Malibu. Still, I will always remember you Kimmy — my first, my only, my sweet Twitter-pie.

humor

Six ideas to beat the social media time tornado

Jul 9th

1 comment

My friend Joshua Miller was inspired by my blogs posts on social media exhaustion in two ways: He committed to take a hike in the mountains, and he sent me the following post from Abhijeet Mukherjee. Here’s an excerpt from Mr. Mukherjee’s insightful post on dealing with social media exhaustion:

The truth is that you need information. Avoiding reading feeds or logging into Facebook isn’t the solution to beating social media exhaustion. You need to filter and use information effectively. And that can only happen when you are more systematic in your approach towards dealing with the plethora of information you get everyday. Here are six tips to help you get started.

1. Know what’s causing the overload. Most people check emails 10 times every day without realizing that it is a part of the information overload they are facing. Analyze your work day and decide on the activities which are essential and the ones which you could profit from doing less. For different people, it could be different things. It could be Twitter for you and RSS feeds for someone else.

2. Tame your email. A lot of us are addicted to checking email every 10 minutes. I was once too. Here’s a tip – if you get less than 50 emails per day then check it three times per day and allot 20 minutes to each of those time slots. If you check emails every 10-20 mins, you’ll respond to each in some exaggerated fashion. If you check three times a day, and you need to process 10-15 emails at a time and necessity will force you to find a way to handle them each very quickly. Those who get more than 50 emails per day, set up auto-forward rule or train your virtual assistant. Seriously, if you are someone who gets more than 50 emails per day, you need to start looking for an assistant to handle them.

3. Contain RSS feeds. The main intent behind the invention of RSS was to let people have access to information in one place and save them time. However, too many feeds can easily turn into a source of information overload. When it comes to managing RSS feeds, prioritization is the key. Here are 8 useful tips to manage and avoid RSS overload. If you are a Google Reader user like me then here are some more tips to make you more productive while using it.

4. Set time frames. Use a timer — it’s really easy to lose track of time when you get sucked into one of the myriad sources of information on the net. It happens to me when I am watching YouTube videos. I’ll vow to do it for 10 minutes and end up spending an hour. Sound familiar? Set firm time frames for work and play and use a timer. It could be a physical device or software like this one.

5. Avoid immediacy. It’s easy to get distracted by a random source of information like a Twitter message, breaking news, or an excellent article we come across. These things tempt us to give them immediate attention. And that’s what we need to avoid. Learn to save it for later.

6. Don’t suck up every source. Filtering information sources is an important step toward beating information overload. Identify the type of information you enjoy and associate one major source with it. For example, I have stopped reading newspapers and watching news channels. I have identified certain sources on the Internet where I read all the news I want. Get the picture?

Have some other great tips to deal with information overload ? Let’s hear them in the comments.

business relationships, work/life balance

Put one in the loser column for Mashable

Jul 8th

2 comments

Yesterday there was an article on Mashable that just makes me angry.

Under the title “What Click-Through Rate Can You Expect From Twitter?,” Darren Barefoot uses a survey sample of 60 people WHO FOLLOW HIM to extrapolate that you can reasonably expect a click-through rate of 2.8%.

Forget confounding factors like spammers among your followers, re-tweeting, time of day, or the fact that the finale of “Lost” was on TV, if you have an eighth-grade education you would know this study is HOOOEY. Darren’s “reporting” breaks every rule of statistical validity and journalistic responsibility.

Worse, for this to appear in a forum like Mashable, which I love and highly respect, it’s irresponsible.

Here’s why. This article will now become part of the faux-fact lore of social media. Many people will only remember they saw this number and report it as fact.

It’s already happening: There were 42 comments following the article. Only one of them took Barefoot to task for reporting shoddy statistics. Most of the comments were along the lines of “Great information!” and “Interesting stats, thanks for sharing.”

The Mashable article had been tweeted 270 times, and assuredly re-tweeted many times more than that. Here’s a typical tweet: “Awesome article on Twitter click-thru rates …”

No. It’s not. But that’s the blessing and the curse of viral marketing. The manure gets spread just as evenly as the seeds.

Folks, please remember to use your head on this stuff. Don’t get caught up in the hype machine, and by all means help keep the airwaves clean of garbage like this.

ethics, measurement, research, social media

It’s time for digital de-tox

Jul 7th

2 comments

Smoky Mountains National Park — The site of my digital de-toxification!

Yesterday I commented on the increasing time commitments and frustrations of social media maintenance. To get released from the daily digital tornado, I went cold turkey — escape to the mountains without wireless service, computer or cell phone.

It was tough to get out of town. Calls, deadlines, and commitments to “get to it Monday.” Finally I headed to the mountains … with the cell phone in my suitcase.

For the entire first day I was tired, irritable and twitchy. I’m used to filling every available minute with email and Internet updates and I nervously reached for an iPhone that wasn’t there. Instead, I pulled out a book. Napped. Took a hike. Sat quietly by a pristine mountain lake.

By day two I was markedly more relaxed (isn’t “markedly” a grand word for somebody named “Mark?”). It was begnning to sink in just how much I needed to get away. I found myself regretting that I would soon be back in civilization. It was a relief to break away from the pummeling emails, alerts and requests.

I have a lot to think about. By filling spare time with constant digital stimulus/response, am I efficient or am I a junkie?

A few weeks ago, I wrote an article on how rapid-fire stimulation is re-wiring our youth. How is it affecting me? Am I built for this? Isn’t our DNA wired for hunting and gathering more than continuous text messaging?

In the past six months, time in front of the computer screen has doubled as I attend to my “regular job” AND new demands from social media … which is now PART of my regular job as a marketer, business leader and teacher. How do I adjust to this fact of life and still maintain balance?

Is anybody else starting to feel consumed by the opportunities, commitments and frustrations of social media? How are you dealing with it? What tools are you using to automate, simplify and cope?

There is almost no discussion on this topic on the airwaves. We should talk about it. And by the way, I’m glad you’re here. : )

careers, social media, work/life balance