SMC Happy Hour: Web 2.0 Wrapup from The Palace Hotel

October 19, 2007

I was very fortunate to be hanging out in the lobby of The Palace Hotel checking in with a few friends from Web 2.0 Summit on Friday Afternoon – check out our chat with Joseph Smarr, Salim Ismail, Richard MacManus and Jason Hoffman – very insightful stuff… The victory of open source platforms, the open social graph/bill of rights, the latest from Yahoo! Brickhouse, the importance of the iPhone SDK and other observations from Web 2.0…

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The Evolution of Social Media Club

May 23, 2007

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…

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Is this really called Social Media? Yes!

January 31, 2007

Jeremiah Owyang is one of the brightest and most influential commentators on Social Media and Web 2.0 today (I know because I track these things with BuzzLogic, a company I advise), but he writes in a post this morning that he hates [has been challenged on the use of] the term social media, and asks that you help come up with a better term [if you have one]. The discussion on his blog is insightful and very helpful in bringing more people to an understanding of this issue, and the proper usage of the term – something that has gotten way out of hand with regards to the term Web 2.0, with some enterpreneurs calling every piece of software Web 2.0 regardless of how true it is. This is a conversation I appreciate, and one that I had with Mike Hudack of Blip.TV back at Portable Media Expo 2006, which you can listen to here in this ‘Beercast’ entitled “What is Social Media Anyway?” He also felt the same way as Jeremiah, but changes his mind after our conversation – perhaps in part due to the level of beer consumption before noon that day.

As with many other commentators on the naming of Web 2.0, I not only have a problem with the 2.0, but also with the simplification of using only the term Web. If you look really closely, that term is completely wrong on many levels, but that did not stop it from being widely spread as a defining phrase of our era. The thing is, “AJAX Internt Applications for Communications and Collaboration” just does not roll off the tongue as easily – nor does it allow for much individual interpretation that creates personal relevance – it makes it hard for people to ‘own’ the term and its wider meaning. When talking about Web 2.0, I get to the heart of the matter, and it is not much better. I often talk about the idea of Web 2.0 (or Web 2.2 if you were paying attention in November) as the Live Web, Open Web, and Social Web – and so much more. Memes are seldom perfect usage of language, they are really just symbols of a deeper meaning – a linguistic iconography if you will.

The language wars (like that we went through around the broader idea of what I have been calling the Social Media Release) are a part of what we go through in conversations and deliberations to get to a deeper, and more widely accepted meaning. This process is good to a degree, as long as good intentions are at play and people are focused on supporting one meaning over another rather than predatorially attacking and pushing down another. Unfortunately, there are still smart people who resort to slinging mud and derogatory aspersions at those who disagree with their view on the world instead of being engaged in the longer discussion required to come to an understanding of the real points of disagreement. Personally I feel that if it is that important, people should take the time to consider and discuss all viewpoints of other respectful participants – as I am doing now, even though I am serving as Conference Chair of Content Week in San Diego at the moment.

To get back to Jeremiah’s concern though, I do think the key word is Media [definition 2, noun specifically from that link]. What makes this era and this medium different is not possible to perfectly encapsulate for everyone’s agreement – becuase what is different is unique to everyone based on their socialization and prior experience. It is really some different versioning of the broader concept of media – which can only be called Media 2.0 because of the broad acceptance of Web 2.0 and its wicked sisters. How about “New Media 49.5″? Perhaps we should take into account cave paintings, Guttenberg, the penny press, radio, television, interactive and all the other versions of media we have experienced? Yes, what makes it different is the interactive nature – the read/write Web – the conversational media – participatory culture through media – knowledge sharing – collaboration in the commons – blogging – podasting – convergence and so much more. But aren’t these all just subsets of the broader term already?

The phrase that is gaining wide acceptance amongst real people (not just early adopters and technologists), is indeed Social Media – I saw this sometime ago actually, registering our domain name in March of 2006, watching it gain wider acceptance with each and every passing day since. While I appreciate Chris Saad’s perspective (most especially his insights around the importance of attention), I feel that Media 2.0 is a term that appeals to a technical audience more so than my grandmother, and is only practical because of the success of the meme for Web 2.0, not because it would stand on its own. It will work for some people and I am sure it will gain traction, which is fine, and the Media 2.0 Workgroup will be successfull (with such bright writers, it darn well should) but the reality is that the phrase Social Media ecompasses the key aspects of the deeper meaning we are speaking to, for the broadest group of people. It is a medium for communications between people – this is about bringing people together through communications and collaborations tools within the context of the different passions and interests they care most dearly about.

I came to the naming of Social Media Club through looking at the brilliant insights of branding shown by 37 signals and their approach to the symbolic use of language through widely understood terms, rather than nonsensical words which needed meaning created for them. BaseCamp, where we come together to prepare for our journey and organize our stuff. BackPack, where we keep our stuff to take with us wherever we go. CampFire, where we gather with colleagues for warmth and conversation. Wow – they are smart aren’t they!

In regards to whether or not this is a buzzword, or a meme with legs, I think it is here to stay. For some it replaces the use of the term Web 2.0 – for others it represents something completely different. David Blumenstein talked to me about Web 2.0 being the tools and technologies and Social Media being the content (can you please chime in here David). To an extent, it is the content produced within different forms of Social Software, but again it is so much more, and we could debate that term for quite some time as well, but let’s not just yet – after all, we do need to get some work done between these deep conversations from time to time…

Community Marketing could work well – but again, only to a degree and only for certain people. I am sure this will be discussed widely at the upcoming Community 2.0 Conference if you are interested in that conversation (BTW, I am speaking there and will be blogging there occasionally). In a sense it is related to the idea of using the word ‘audience’ to refer to people. It is the view of the world seen from inside an organization looking out, rather than looking at the world as a whole which is an important underpinning of this era – with the people inside organizations, participating in the communities, interacting with other people, realizing their common ground and working together for their collective benefit.

Besides, we also know that “Social Media” Club is adaptive once all media is digital, we live in a 3 screen world and have fully realized persasive connectivity with very rich read/write tools through integrated hardware/software solutions like that I imagined for sharing and annotating television programs in my post on Twitter from a few weeks ago. As the term Social Media loses prominence in a few years, the pronunciation merely changes to “Social” Media Club. The focus on media however, is a part of our roots and our desire to bring all media producers together to understand the Importance of Social Media.

What do you think? Am I on target here, are we going to be ok a year from now known as Social Media Club? Or is Jeremiah right, and we are still in need of a better term?

[update - just heard from Jeremiah, and we are in general agreement - he is merely responding to challenges he is getting from those against the usage of the phrase, with a challenge to them to find a better one]

This is the third of my weekly columns we are calling “A View From The Middle” – it is still in its birthing phase, so the format might change a bit, but they are generally deeper posts about the important things I see happening, not on the fringes, but in the middle with everyone else. You can subscribe to the feed for these posts here which will be my specific musings on Social Media, Social Software, Web 2.0 (uggghhh) and the broader socioeconomic transfromations that are underway.

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Most people want to ‘get it’: Are you willing to help?

January 21, 2007

web22 - 039.jpgI do get a kick out of the entire dustup over the social media release – very happy to hear people talking about it really, even if some don’t fully understand the deeper purpose and the broader implications. Those progressive, anti-establishment folks screaming that our efforts are co-opting social media are doing the exact thing I expected from them – attacking instead of offering help. This is exactly what I did back in 1994-96 when I launched an interactive agency. When any traditional agency would make a move into interactive, we would, to borrow a term from Stowe Boyd “skewer them”. If you have paid any attention to what I have been writing about the purpose for Social Media Club, you will know that this is one of the main points of what I am trying to accomplish – if you get it, share it. Not if you get it, scream at others who are trying to get it and ostracize them while calling them stoopid.

With some age and experience, has come a bit of wisdom about economic realities and human behaviour. It is only natural to want to be combative and tear down the things we don’t understand or dislike – or to throw out an entire barrel of apples for want of getting rid of a few bad ones. The funny thing is that many ‘pro-people, anti-organization’ folks are completely disregarding the fact that these organizations are made up of PEOPLE! People who want to do the right thing, people who want our help, people who want to get it and make things right.

Regardless, this is finally the beginning of the manifestation of the cluetrain principles in our society, with companies entering the conversation in a real and meaningful way. Yes many will stumble and make big mistakes (which can hopefully serve as lessons not to be repeated by others). Personally, I expected such an uprising long ago – this sort of confrontational approach is what lead to the fall of netiquette and the tighter embrace of greed over good sense. It lead to all sorts of problems with people not getting the point, nor being open to new ways of thinking, because those who really understood what it was all about were dismissive of anyone trying to figure it out – especially those older than themselves. Worse, it limited the potential for having meaningful conversations and made management harden their position rather than engaging in meaningful dialogue and understanding why things were different and how they could engage properly. It made management dismissive of those PEOPLE who really wanted to change inside their organizations rather than supportive of them.

From my perspective, this is about more than whether or not the press release is evolving into the social media release, it is about whether or not people want to find ways to help each other do things right, or if they want to find conflict and enjoy the fight. The dust will perhaps not settle for a long time, but in standing for progress and seeking what is best for the whole of society, I will continue to support the golden rule and do my personal best to stay true to The Four Agreements.

There are a lot of good points on both sides of the argument, but the finger pointing about ‘you don’t get it’, or ‘getting social media all wrong’ is not going to be helpful for anyone. There is much to be learned on both sides though, and that is the purpose I have for bringing communications professionals together with bloggers, podcasters, journalists, students, non profits and for profits – to learn together, from each other. Yes, there are many who do not understand that the very nature of how we relate to one another as human beings is changing and continue to do things the wrong way. Are these people going to learn more if you call them names and disparage them, or are they going to learn more if you appreciate that they are PEOPLE and give them the respect that they deserve for being human while trying to help them understand how they can do things differently?

I am not going to get into a tit for tat on every post and every point in this discussion because we have a lot of important unfinished business that must be addressed first, but please know where I am coming from and that my goal is to serve as a catalyst for the good cause. Transforming society through the economic engine of business and technology and communications is no easy task, and I am sure there are things I will get wrong, as will each of us, but our intentions are clear and our objectives are probably pretty similar to yours, even when our tactics and approach may seem diametrically opposed.

In the end, ‘getting it’ is an internal shift that we can not easily force on anyone – people have to want to change for themselves – it is an internal realization that what has worked in the past is no longer working. You can bludgeon people into submission to your way of thinking or you can engage in respectful dialogue and make inroads by helping them along the way. In the end, how you choose to approach this world changing mission is your own. In the end, this is my noble pursuit.

This is the second of my weekly columns we are calling “A View From The Middle” – it is still in its birthing phase, so the format might change a bit, but they are generally deeper posts about the important things I see happening, not on the fringes, but in the middle with everyone else. 

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Beyond IM: Welcome to the EM era

January 14, 2007

Instant Messaging (IM) is not dead or even dying, but EM is about to change everything. While IM emphasizes the immediacy of the communication, EM can represent the value of the communication. Then again, like any communications channel, what gets transmitted can also be pure drivel. EM, however, has tremendous potential for solving some of the biggest problems I face on a daily basis, and have been thinking about for over a decade, most especially the idea of annotating the world around us and sharing key insytes about what is happening and what I see as the important matters of the day.

What is EM? EM is “Everywhere Messaging” – in particular, Text-Web-IM-Blog/Site. Some may think the distinctions I am going to make are not important enough to consider it a separate category, but as we explore this topic further, it will become apparent that EM is game changing. When this idea struck me the other day, I did a search to see if anyone else was talking about EM yet and found little on the subject. In fact, only 470 results on Google and only 2 on Technorati, none of which talking about EM in the way that I am thinking about it. The #1 result on Google is a great paper on ACM from 2000 which is informative and visionary, but still thinking of it as a communications tool, and not within the context I imagine it as an annotation tool, a publishing tool, a personal journal, an instant feedback mechanism AND a communications tool.

I started thinking about the idea of EM the other day when I finally gave in to peer pressure and began to use my Twitter account. As you may know, it takes a lot to get me (and most people) to change behavioural patterns and make a new service a part of my daily life and routine. The value proposition must be compelling, it must be easy to use and it must ‘feel good’ to use. While Dodgeball seemingly has all these characteristics as well, I never fully embraced it enough to change my ongoing behaviour – even when other members of my community became addicts. Why is this? Well I believe the key difference was found by removing the prescribed context of physical proximity from the usage of the tool. The use of Twitter is not ‘artificially restricted’ by the instructions of use or the social purpose for which it is prescribed.

The reason for making this very big distinction between IM and EM is that the purpose and usage is quite different. I primarily use IM for communicating with another person – whether that is texting or IM’ing from my laptop does not really matter. One might argue that IM is on mobile phones, making it ‘everywhere’ you are, and rendering this distinction moot, but that is missing the point. With Twitter and other EM services, the purpose is not about communicating with another person instantly. While I could send a direct message to someone over an EM channel, it is probably not something that has a time imperative on it – ie, it is more about sharing something with someone at some point in time than about conversing with them right now.

Most importantly, with EM, I believe the message is more about me, my needs and my desire to be heard – it can also be more self serving along the same lines that social bookmarking is – to help me find something later. EM can just as easily be a tool for publishing (start following my Twitter account or check in on my personal Blog sidebar if you want to see this in action) as it is a tool for communicating with those I trust, or those that want to know what I am doing or thinking. As a tool for publishing, it can also be a tool for annotating and sharing.

For instance this morning I was watching a little TV while waiting for breakfast and happened across the Sundance Channel’s Iconoclast series – this was the pairing of Dave Chapelle and Maya Angelou. The connection the two of them built in front of my eyes, together with the depths and poignancy of their insytes actually brought me to tears – it was so moving. Now there have been many other experiences with media and the world around me that has really touched me in a way that inspired me to think differently, or to simply recognize the value and want to share it. More often than not, this moment passes without being captured because of more pressing matters – in other words, not having enough time to note the source, add my insytes and share it with you.

This morning, I Twittered this update “touched deeply by iconoclasts with maya angelou and dave chapelle“. While such a short statement does not have the depth of a blog post, I was able to apply the OHIO principle (Only Handle It Once) and publish the key information, instead of doing nothing. A whole new world of connectivity and knowledge sharing will soon open up through EM.

Of course, at this stage Twitter is really only a feature, a robust one, but it is not a complete solution within the contexts I envision it will be. As such, I expect to see numerous new uses of ‘Twitter like’ functionality in many other products, for many other communities very soon (if it is not happening already). The real interesting things happen when people can begin to use EM together with TagSpaces and other intelligent routing. It would be really great if Twitter would know that I have Direct TV and combined that understanding with some basic short codes such that I could have had a link to the show automatically appear in the message. This could look like “CH549:Inspired by Maya’s wisdom and Dave’s soulfullness, a must watch show”. The backend would see that I am on DirectTV, that channel 549 was Sundance and the time was 910am, at which time the Iconoclasts show was on air. Take this a step further with the ability to link directly to the video clip that preceded my EM and now things get really interesting…

Of course, there are many other potential uses we should consider beyond annotation and sharing key insytes. I have seen Twitter used to simply share a state of mind, which in an odd ways makes me feel more connected and less alone, even when there are no physical ears upon which my feelings land in my immediate surroundings. It can also be used for quick reviews, promoting something/someone and publishing just about anything else. I could even see where a TagSpace could hold all of a given community’s insights on a given issue or topic, where it could spark a conversation, be included in a Wiki, or even be used as a polling mechanism.

Once EM evolves to include audio/video, to enable tagging by others and other intelligent backend functionality, the importance of this evolutionary product will be clear to all. As with most game changing innovations, you can’t fully understand it without experiencing it. After you do, it will be great to hear back from you on other ways we might be able to use it or improve it. So go ahead and try it, you might like it!

So the big question is, what do you think of EM and some of the uses I propose here? Does this make sense?

This is the first of my weekly columns we are calling “A View From The Middle” – it is still in its birthing phase, so the format might change a bit. We will be announcing and starting a few other interesting things later this week.

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Get thee to these events (if possible)

November 1, 2006

There seems to be quite a bit going on right now (ok, always) around the world of Social Media. I have come to realize that even though I depend on Upcoming as my main event notification system, Upcoming is not the source of choice for many folks. Until I can resolve this electronically by having all calendars pump into one master database – I am going to start collecting all Social Media events (not just ours) from around the world, and post them here on the site twice a month. Now, I will preface this by saying, I am merely one person trying to do a good thing. I might miss some. If I do, please let me know as I want to put them on my radar.

Also if you know of events that members of our community would benefit from, please submit suggestions to calendar [at] socialmediaclub [dot] org and we will do our best to post them here. I will also, in the essence of full disclosure, note the events hosted by BrainJams/Social Media Club with an ‘*’.

So, here are events coming up (in date order) that I would recommend you participate in. Each one brings something cool to the plate – conversations, product demos, collaboration, etc. Some are free. Others are not. But we find them all worthwhile:

:: UPDATED ::

11/07/06 – added The New PR Conference in London

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