It's Not the Tools; It's About the People

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We are all on Google+ now. It’s great because of who is here.
We were all on Quora at Christmas, because of who was there.
We continue to stay engaged on Twitter because of who is there.
We are bored with FaceBook because of who is there.
We use LinkedIn because of who we can find.
We use SocialCast in the Social Business Council because of who is there.
We use Jive with the Community Backchannel because of who is there.
We use Yammer in our jobs because of who is there.

It’s not about the tools, it’s about the relationship. The great thing about any social network is the socializing that takes place there. Yes, the tools are nice and a bad tool set can certainly squelch the conversation. But it's not about the tools it's about the relationships.

I've had the opportunity to speak with many people over the past few months who are not at all engaged in the social web. The line goes something like this…."I don't have time for all that social media." What they are really saying is "I don't value those relationships and what I learn there. I get all I need from other sources."

That’s fine. When people start to understand what they can get, the relationships they can build, and what an amazingly large diverse set of ideas is out there, they decide to connect.

Many stick with email and cocktail hour networking. That’s fine, I do that sometime too, but I find it is not at all efficient as a stand alone activity. It’s good when I want to go deep with someone, but at a typical event, I can only do that with 1 or 2 people. At best, I'll touch base with 5 or 10. During that same evening, I can touch hundreds or even thousands through online tools.

Through my Blog, Twitter, Google+ and various private communities, I can keep a conversation going with hundreds and my network can jump into overdrive when needed.

If you don’t want to use the social media tools now and think it’s too geeky, that's fine. We used to say that about CompuServe and then AOL came along to break the ice among the masses. Then came FaceBook and everybody went online.

It is indeed gone widespread. Google+ may not replace FaceBook. Everyone may not get on Twitter, but in the long run, the mega trend is that, more and more, our lives are moving online. What was once called a “virtual” meeting is just a meeting.

Do any of you call your FaceBook friends “virtual” friends? Do you call these virtual conversations? No, it’s a wall post, it’s a message, it’s real interaction.

Social is happening, it is happening in different rates for different people, but there is no going back. As my friend Chris Rollyson says, It’s an “and” world, not an “or” world. We keep getting more ways to connect, as a result we are more connected, and finally we can innovate and move faster.

That is just what’s happening. Don’t deny it.

So go ahead, get social. You can start by connecting with me on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Google+ and while you are at it, subscribe to my blog.

See you online!

Tune In to the Social Web

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I often find myself describing the "social web" to my friends.  Many are interested and wonder what I mean.  I go on to describe it with a simple analogy.

The social web is like an engaging radio station, but imagine you have never purchased a radio.  The signals are moving around, there is great music, stimulating talk, and even some good educational content.  Until you get a radio and tune to the station, you will have no idea such interesting and engaging content is out there.  Buy that radio, tune in and presto! You discover a whole world of knowledge and conversation out there that had been passing you by.

The social web is much like that.  Through the combination of tweets and blog posts, there are exciting conversations taking place.  Most likely, you would really get value if only you knew they were taking place, listened in, and were confident in how to add your voice.

I was with a friend the other day who is searching for an high level business development position as a result of the, all to common, "corporate restructuring" of this day.   He is doing all the right things, making phone calls, attending networking events, and polishing up his resume, but he wanted to talk with me about twitter.  How would he get started and what should he do?  I gave him a short but simple tutorial, starting with my radio station analogy.  You see, he wants to join into the conversation about opportunities within his industry.  He wants to plug into the inside story on developing startups in his field and learn of trends and opportunities out in the market.  He just needed to get familiar with the new medium.

I took him through the basics:  get a nicely cropped photo for Twitter, turn off the protected tweets, start following a few interesting people.  I even told him to look for hash tags in his industry and then seek out and follow those interesting people tweeting with those tags. I think he is well on his way to get in on the conversation.

I have seen this repeated many times.  It is rewarding to bring others into the conversation and help them "tune their radios" to the right stations.  There is the blogging Mom who is now joining the conversation, the budding theologian sharing his thoughts through blog posts and tweets, and the computer network professional who is building his business through a reputation for good work ethic amplified by engaging blog posts and tweets.

You don't need a fancy website, a custom domain name, or even Facebook to do this.  You just need to dive into the deep end of the social web, join into the tweet stream, and maybe even blog a bit.  There is a big world out there with hundreds of millions of interesting people.  Why don't you just "tune your radio" to the right station and then join us in the social web.

Next thought...Building your personal brand on the social web.  Stay tuned.

Mobility Brings Ease of Consumption

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You've probably seen the commercial for the NFL Network where the hi-tech fan goes through his day glued to the content from the NFL Network while seamlessly switching between all his consumption devices: TV, Tablet, Laptop, Smartphone, and then back to the TV when he returns home.  I went through something very similar this week, but without all the dazzling special effects.

My story does not involve the NFL, but rather The 2.0 Adoption Council.  This group really rocks.  It's a great collection of Enterprise 2.0 / Social Business peers that have become good friends in the 18 months that I have been a member.  One of the many benefits of membership is the ability to have direct access to some of the best minds in the industry.  They are called Guru Sessions and take place regularly through a teleconference line.  That could be a good topic for a blog post, but that's not where I'm going with this.  It's just the context.  Read on.

My schedule did not allow me to join the last two guru sessions that typically take place on Tuesdays at 1pm. First of all booking gurus like Andrew McAfee, Shel Israel, Don Tapscott and now Chuck Ganapathi, SVP of Products at Saleforce.com discussing the rollout of Chatter is no small feat. To have an opportunity to have a private briefing with these leaders in our industry is very valuable. It is insight we could never get from our normal channels. Quite frankly, it gives each of us a totally unfair advantage within our companies as we position ourselves to be the leading authority in our organizations on Social Business, Enterprise 2.0, and general state-of-the-art collaboration issues.

The approach is simple. Line up an expert, prepare a few questions, keep a back channel open for conversations and collaboration during the session, and most importantly, archive the conversation for those who could not be there live. I am one of those who really is enjoying this replay capability.   When I think back on it, the sequence of events is quite remarkable. Now, with a variety to tools, unheard of at the beginning of the internet revolution, I can get unprecedented access to some invaluable content.

I want to tell the story so that other early adopters can visualize an approach that I think is indicative of the future. The example I mention is time shifted consumption of the Guru Session content, but you could apply this to any webinar or online event you attend (or miss).

This is what I did. If you are also one who is too busy to catch a session (or any webinar / teleconference for that matter), you can do the same thing too. But like most adoption issues, we often need a little nudge to get us over the hump. Let this be your nudge. This is how I did it last Wednesday.

1. Pay attention to schedule of upcoming sessions (generically, webinars, teleconferences, events and the like), see if I can attend and take part if at all possible.

2. When I cannot attend, monitor the back channel (Socialcast in the case of the council, Twitter hashtag archive for public events), look at the flavor of the questions and answers to decide if it is good to hear the archive.

3. Notice the link to the playback archive, click the button and begin to listen (in my case over coffee the next morning at 5am through my iPad). The MP3 link typically plays immediately in the native quicktime player.

4. Cut and paste the URL of the replay and email it to myself for later listening.

5. Later in the day, while commuting to work, plug my iPhone into the aux jack in my car, Open my email (on my iPhone), click the URL for the replay, listen while driving.

6. When I get to the parking lot at work, put on my blue tooth headset, pop the phone into my pocket and walk into work (while still listening to the reply).

7. Throughout the replay when not driving, glance down at the backchannel discussion in the community (Socialcast in the Council's case, Twitter in the generic case) and follow along in real time with the comments for context.

8. Get into the office, continue listening, log on to the desktop version of the backchannel and continue following along in real time.

9. Write a blog post while finishing the session to let everyone else know how valuable this is. (the sessions and also the ability to consume on multiple platforms).

It's like the recent NFL Network television commercial in many ways.  The spot is really a sci-fi fantasy, but using the tools available now, today's reality is getting incredibly close.

Twitter, The Activity Stream of the Social Web

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I've been on Twitter almost 2 years now and have some observations. I love the transparency and the "Work Out Loud" attitude it promotes. It truly is the nervous system of the Social Web.

Let me mention some basics first and then dig into it a little on how I think this simple tool is revolutionizing interactions on the web. First of all the basics:

• A tweet is a 140 character statement that is sent to followers.
• A retweet (RT) is when a follower finds that interesting and sends it on to his/her followers
• A hashtag (#E20 for example) is a user generated tag that helps identify a topic in the tweet.
• One can search on a hashtag to find all recent tweets on a particular topic.
• When you first sign up to twitter, you have no followers, and you follow no one...boring
• In time, a new tweeter begins to follow interesting people and others begin to find the tweeter interesting and follow him/her.
• Once you get to a critical mass (50 or so followers and following you) it starts to get interesting
• A direct message (DM) is a private tweet delivered to one person
• A @message is a semi-private tweet that is delivered to that one person, but visible only to all who follow both of you that are conversing. You compose the message by beginning with @ followed by the recepient's twitter name.
• A tweeter's full tweet stream (except for DMs) is available for public viewing from the tweeter's profile.
• Many people use twitter.com for their tweet platform, but most use some other twitter "client" or program on their desktop, laptop, or mobile device. There are dozens of good twitter clients available for free.
• Tweets can contain a link to interesting content. Most often the URL is shortened by an automated URL shortener (remember, we are working with just 140 characters here)

The beauty of Twitter is the simplicity. When you put this all together, you have a constant ebb and flow of conversation. The conversations create community. Communities create relationships, and Relationships create lasting value. Let me give you some examples.

The transparency of twitter allows one to "overhear" a conversation. When two people you follow are messaging each other, you can monitor the conversation in your main twitter stream. It's interesting, you learn that a relationship exists just by witnessing the tweets.

Sometimes it's like "high school", you can see who is hanging with the "cool people". For example if there is a "rock star" on a particular subject (call him Jerry) and I see he and a good friend of mine (call him John) are having a back and forth conversation, I can watch and say "Hey, I didn't know John knew Jerry that well". John must be a "rock star" too. My opinion of John is elevated and I suddenly see him in a different light.

The openness of the platform makes it easy to join the conversation. Simply enter you thoughts with the twitter IDs of John and Jerry at the beginning and just like that, you are in the conversation as well. I think that is one of the great appeals of twitter, the ability to have meaningful converations and begin meaningful relationships with just a set of short messages.

Another great thing is the ability to join in and stay out at your convenience. Since the tweets are all captured, you can pick up the conversation later and not miss a thing. However, with the steady stream of tweets, many are missed. That's alright. If someone wants to catch your attention, they just need to enter your twitter name into a point for you and it shows in your @mentions stream.

Finally, there is nothing like the "now" effect of twitter. Again, a "rock star" may be on line tweeting and if you reply immediately, it is likely he or she will see it before it gets lost in the long stream of tweets from other fans. There is nothing else like the accessibility of those tweeting. Generally if you see a new tweet, you can bet they are online right now and reading what comes their way. Yet another way to cultivate the conversation and begin to build a relationship.

I wonder what you have observed in the subtlety of the interactions and relationships you have built in Twitter. Tweet me @jimworth or add your comments below.