The Evolution of Social Media Club
May 23, 2007 by Chris Heuer
It is with great sorrow that I write this post today. I have been searching for a business partner to help me realize some of my visions for many, many years, and in Howard Greenstein I thought I had found “the one”. He is a bright guy that has been through this before and has many of the skills that are really well suited for this type of work, but he wasn’t happy, so I must respect that.
As Howard so eloquently expressed in his post, the reality of running a community organization from day to day is much different than the idealism that inspired it. The vision of improving the world around us by bringing people together to share their understanding of the emerging Social Media market is vastly different than trying to manage a global network of local groups and online activities without sufficient resources.
The main reason for not announcing this sooner is that I needed time to reflect on the situation and on how my path might change as a result of this news – on what this really means for me, personally and professionally. When I met Howard, I was looking for a CEO to take the reigns and build the organization – to operationalize the vision and allow me to be the visionary, evangelist and thinker – to let me focus on my strengths and mitigate my weaknesses. As anyone who has personally met me will tell you, I am a fairly self-aware sort of guy, and I am very clearly aware that managing an organization and all the little details is not one of my natural strengths. Though I have done it before and could do it again, I just don’t want to –I want to be happy doing what makes my heart sing, and I know what that is and what it doesn’t.
While Howard’s observations are indeed true, there is of course more to this – a sort of more which Howard politely avoids bringing to light, but which radical transparency compels me to note. One of the ideas I have been evangelizing around the knowledge economy for the past several years is that “the number one factor of creating value in the knowledge economy is the ability of smart people to collaborate effectively.” We just never hit our stride, with different work styles, different ideas of success and the geographic challenges Howard mentioned contributing to the difficulties we faced.
Personally, I have gone from the high’s of the dream and all its possibilities to the reality of not enough resources, mounting personal debt and the struggles of being overwhelmed each day with too much to do. In short, I am tired and ready to find another way forward, to take this in stride and make a course correction that will let us accomplish the goals of improving media literacy and hosting conversations amongst social media professionals and those seeking to learn.
Unfortunately, I too must step down, or more aptly, I need to step back so that I might be able to make a living, pay for some of my wedding and pay for my monthly living expenses. I have focused too much on trying to do things for the community and not taken care of myself properly. I did this with my first startup, only I gave employees salaries when I could not afford to take one, learning the hard way how wrong this was. The thing is, that if we had money to pay people, I probably would have made that same mistake again (especially to get you involved Dave).
So what does this mean for Social Media Club? In the short term, nothing – monthly meetings will continue, we will continue to blog to the sites, we will complete development of our new social network through drupal and I am still responsible for shepherding the vision forward. All this really means is that I can not spend all my waking moments thinking about how to build the club and can no longer afford to hold out hope that I will soon be getting a salary from Social Media Club. Instead, I need to invest my attention in promoting myself as a Social Media consultant, customer advocate and social software architect/analyst – as a big thinker, new media marketing maven. I need more consulting gigs or I need to find the right job for my unique talents – both of which I am immediately moving towards and will write more about shortly. Sucess here will let me continue to cultivate the club as a part time endeavour.
We will continue pressing onward with the Social Media Workshop Series – this is a great event we have designed, and we will be working on doing several more cities in the fall such as Austin, Boston and New York.
I will soon be announcing more details (and seeking more input) on our new community site, to be run on Drupal, which will provide real value to the membership and value for the membership dollars already received.
I am now investigating how Social Media Club might be reorganized as a 501(c)6, a non-profit designation for trade associations which will make Social Media Club a member owned organization, or put another way, a sort of co-op. This was a large part of my original vision for the club, which I confided in private with many who can verify this idea. I think members of the club should benefit from the value we co-create with one another. I alluded to this in part in my comment on the Social Media Now “when users attack” post.
In closing, while this is very difficult in the short term, Social Media Club is not going away, we just need to find a new path forward together – and I will need your help to do so. I still have very high hopes that Social Media Club will accomplish its mission and fully serve the community in the way I had intended, but to continue to try to do things in the same manner as I have, would surely be proof that doing the same thing and expecting different results is the epitome of ‘being crazy’.
If you are a co-founder, I really need your help more than your dollars. If you are a local leader and not yet a paying member, please consider doing so in order to help move the organization forward – it will be a requirement of the new organizational structure as it takes shape, so we should all have some ’skin in the game’. Stay tuned for more to come later this week, but more importantly, join the conversation about what we can do together as a community on the Social Media Club mailing list…
“The only service a friend can really give render is to keep up your courage by holding up to you a mirror in which you can see a noble image of yourself.” George Bernard Shaw.
Chris, thanks for the continued inspiration. My cheque is in the post. While it is always nice to get things for free, you eventually have to decide what things you most value.
The leadership, inspiration, enthusiasm, excitement and education that you, Howard and Kristie have provided to all of us is without equal to any group of people I have ever had to the pleasure to have been involved with.
I think many of us looked at you guys and wondered how the energy and the virtual tsunami of ideas and opportunities that SMC revealed could be sustained and managed simply because you all are so far ahead and where you go so many want to follow.
As they say, ‘It is hard to be a prophet in your own times’, but that doesn’t mean that we talk about any of what you have done with SMC in the past tense, oh no! It has to be for all the reasons that you and Howard state in your posts…you guys can’t be expected to do it by yourselves.
All I can say now, is that I am so grateful for what you have done, and for all that you have sacrified for the SMC and our community.
Please re-balance and re-new, then we will together find new ways to make this thing you have created move forward in a new way.
What you all have done is nothing short of magnificent…and all that goodness and hard work and vision is recognized, appreciated and will not have been in vain…the work is too important and the ideas and opportunities too great.
Sorry for such a long post, but I feel terrible that I didn’t say “Thank you” more strongly for all that all of you have done, because I have thought it so often.
Social Media Club (To Be Continued…)
Thank you both. I just wish we could have done more, so I guess I will still be trying to do that.
Part of my blessing (and I guess my curse) is that I wake up everyday and see the world with fresh eyes – so coming up with a never ending supply of new ideas and things we can do to make things better was never a problem. Executing on them has been the real challenge. In my mind being visionary is about seeing the world as it can be rather than how it is. To take that vision and execute on it well is still the hardest part – inspiration and enthusiasm is the key first ingredient, but without the structure and hands in place to do the hard work behind the idea, well… you get the rest.
I have had the great pleasure of meeting and working with great people such as yourselves and many other from around the world. Good people who are working hard to do the right thing and trying to make a difference – people who care about more than the bottom line, but who understand that we need to have a bottom line in order to hold up our lofty ideals.
I can’t begin to express my gratitude to everyone who has contributed towards making this real, and especially to those who are going to be able to step up and help take this to the next level.
I wanted the co-founders designation not to make an extra buck as someone intimated recently, but to really establish the idea that this is not just Chris’ thing – it is OUR community, and we are all truly co-founders and co-creators of it together.
Thank you Laura.
Two things are for sure, start-ups come and go but that is not easy to swallow for those on the front lines of coming and going.
The other is that you start from now.
I’m here to support you as you move to the next step in any form.
Chris, you have my continued support. I never viewed the co-founder commitment as a way to generate additional money for you — I always saw it as an investment in a visionary start-up, and as a value to us in our ability to be identified with the founding of the group.
Howard, I have also appreciated the opportunity to get to know you and work with you as well.
And Kristie, well, you are the Diva! What else can I say? It’s always a delight to work with you on Social Media Club details.
I look forward to continue helping you all as we reorganize the group and move forward. You’ve started something of great value, and now we’ll figure out where to go from here.
Chris,
As a small business co-founder we obviously saw the same vision you had and will continue to support you and do our part to make SMC a valuable organization. Feel free to call upon Tris and myself to help in any way we can.
Ditt what Jim said. We’re committed (maybe should be committed) to SMC and its vision. You can count on us to lend a hand.
Wow. I remember meeting you for the first time when you organized web 2.1 (I still have that t-shirt somewhere!); digging the Berkeley BrainJam in Feb 06; and now on the eve of participating in my first SMC (virtual no less!) – this announcement.
I admire everything you, Kristie, and the collective that has risen up around the core principle of “The point is people” has done, and hope I can help in some small way to move it forward.
Tomorrow, Millions of Us will be announcing a land grant in Second Life for Social Media Club for 2007. Nestled in a great neighborhood with the likes of Wired and CNET, I hope that we can take what you have started and move it into one of the most noted virtual spaces.
I wonder if the world will be ready for you when you have recharged your batteries…!
Wow, this news is quite a shock (but quite understandable), as we had just become a founding small business member hours before your announcement. My company has been actively following SMC (at a distance thus far) and was looking to start getting more involved as everyone here seems to share the same passion and vision as we do for the social media space. Please let us know what we can do to help out!
May I suggest a “future of Social Media Club” concall with the co-founders and other friends of SMC?
On first blush, I like the idea of non-profit status expecially if the Club can focus on serving and educating under-served communities.
Best of luck to Howard and Chris.
Long live the SMC!
Chris,
thanks for your honesty in this, leadership, and vision. I still think this can work and you actually make a living. Maybe not today, but soon.
I’m hoping in the near future to be able to have the resources, both time and financial, to better support SMC.
I’m realizing more and more how well your vision connects to my personal visions and dreams — and I want to work to make it ALL happen.
Keep SMC alive in whatever form you can.
We will absolutely set up a conference call with all Co-Founders for next week (most likely Wednesday May 30th), to discuss the current projects we have on our plate, the future roadmap for the organization and where we can use help to ensure we meet the goals set out in the original post.
Details will be sent via email.
Cheers to your noble efforts and well-earned respite. Concentrate on the most important stuff – health, family, happiness and all that.
Social Media *is*.
[...] I happened upon this post today, announcing the scaling back of the pioneering Social Media Club, which dedicated itself to “the purpose of sharing best practices, establishing ethics and standards, and promoting media literacy around the emerging area of Social Media.” [...]
Да, реально в этом что-то есть. А раньше я был довольно наивен
Ну что ж – времена изменились 