Archives for September 2010

Have you ever heard the saying, “One man’s blessing is another man’s curse?” Boy, you sure do experience that on a daily basis in the world of Social Media. I was reading a post that Beth Harte and Geoff Livingston wrote called The meme to end all memes (check it out) and it really made me realize that some of the stuff people complain about online is kind of, well, funny. Now, I am taking a risk by writing this post, of course. If I ever make serious gripes about these things, you’ll be able to throw this post in my face (if you remember I made it). However, I am so certain that these are problems I would LOVE to have that I’m going to motor on ahead.

1. I have so many people following me that I just can’t keep track. Okay, now, I know that there is some level of annoyance there, but in the time it takes to post something like that, you could easily wipe out at least 27 spam bots. It can become like a video game. Remember the old game “Bonk”, where little heads would pop up at a faster and faster pace and you’d have to try to hammer them down?

2. So many people ask me questions, it’s like, I can’t ask myself deep questions now. Personally, I love answering questions. I wanted to be a reference librarian for a really long time. So here’s my deal. Any questions you don’t feel like answering, you send on over to me. I’ll charge $5 for every question I answer on your behalf. Being a Liberal Arts major, I can and will answer any question. It might not be the right answer, but it will satiate the person’s desire to be heard.

3. I have to sign copies of my book so much my hand hurts. I haven’t *really* seen this one, but I bet people say it. I charge only $3 to fake your autograph for people.

4. Why do people not tweet exactly like I do? I’m perpetually amazed at people who nitpick about how other people tweet. I have some filing to do. It will distract you. I promise.

5. It’s so hard to get working today in my cozy pajamas. I just really want to beat these people up sometimes. I’ll be honest. And that’s coming from a Pacifist. I can’t even squish an ant, but I want to beat these people up. Get up at 5:30 and be scraping ice off your car by 6:30 so you can get to your office early. Fully clothed.

6. I get so many books to review, it’s like, totally dude. I would imagine, on the one hand, that this could be a lot of pressure. You have to read books that people give you and review them, and people care what you think. Wait, what’s the problem?

7. I was going to work more but my spouse made a great dinner, so I have to go. No, I kind of want to beat these people up too. Again…Pacifist. Quakers in family history.

8. I achieved all of my dreams and it’s like, what do I have to look forward to now? Retirement? Living? Not tweeting in my stream anymore? Lots of stuff ahead of you. For real.

9. I am in so much demand. *sigh* I want to say something right here. If I ever get frowny because people want my charismatic, knowledgeable little self all the time, which is what one would assume I would have been working for in order to get there, you can write a blog post about how much I have let you down.

10. I am too nice for my own good. Clearly, based on this post, I won’t have to worry about that for quite awhile.

Of course, there are downsides to everything. I’m not debating that. But really look at the stuff you complain about. Are you sure you’re looking at it the way you would have looked at it 5 years ago? Ten years ago? Nothing is perfect. Nothing ends up exactly as we want it, maybe. But a lot of things in life are really good and we end up missing them because somewhere along the way, being angstful became trendy. I think it had to do with Seattle and flannel shirts.

Be happy about what you have right now. Take a break from lamentation. The glass is more full than you might think.

From early 2007 through about February of this year, I ran an online charity group called Homespun Helpers. The idea was that people could make whatever they wanted, from baked goods to crocheted baby bonnets. They could donate to any charity they wanted. All you had to do was post a picture of the items to our Livejournal community blog, tell us where the items were going, and then I’d keep a running tally. Over the period of the group, we donated about 7,000 items to all kinds of charities all around the world. The idea really had me thinking all the time, and I had all sorts of grandiose ideas that I would bounce off my poor, defenseless friends. One day I called a friend with this ridiculously complex concept (I can’t even remember what it was now). She stopped me. “Do you know how to do this part of this step?” “No.” “Well, do you know how to do this this and this?” “Um…no.” “Maybe you should rethink this?” “Maybe.”

Sometimes, I wonder if I have really shaken the temptation of trying to run before learning how to crawl, then wobble, then walk. For example, I’m out here in my blog world offering marketing advice in a lot of my posts. Should I be? I have never worked for or with a Fortune 500 company. I don’t have a story about how I took a little start-up and made it into a Fortune 500 Company. I’m okay with the fact that I haven’t become a power house. I’ve been at this for less than a decade. But should I be blogging from the vantage point of someone who knows stuff? Maybe not. Maybe I’m trying to run before I really know how to walk.

Lots of runners

In a lot of the conversations I have with people in the Social Media world, it seems like this problem of rushing is a bug that bothers many individuals and companies. Last night during #custserv, for example, someone mentioned that companies are training their CSRs to do live chats before the people have really mastered the phones. Companies are rushing into Social Media saying, “Oh, it’s gonna be great, we’re gonna sign up for Twitter, we’re gonna end up with 5,000 followers in the first day, we’re gonna convert 3500 into customers by day 3, and it’s just going to EXPLODE from there!”

Well, as many of us know (and you don’t have to be around for very long to learn this) that kind of thinking tends most often to lead to Heartbreak Hotel. That, in turn, can lead to ongoing feelings of failure and discouragement. Really it shouldn’t though! It’s just that we’re all trying to get to the top as soon as we can so that we can then….what? Set a new standard? Buy a house in the mountains? What are we rushing for?

Enjoy the bumps and bruises of learning

Learning can be ugly sometimes. When little kids are learning how to walk, they often fall down, then bump their heads on the table as they try to get up. Learning how to ride a bike without training wheels can be pure torture. Falling down over and over on the driveway is hardly enjoyable. Few things are more stressful than learning how to drive. But we do all of those things because we know that the pay-off will be worth it eventually. It takes a lot of time to learn how to walk,then to run, then to skip and hop and jump, but we keep at it without even knowing what we’re doing. We keep trying to figure out bike riding because we envision ourselves riding through beautiful forests and up steep mountain trails. We go through the sheer terror of learning how to drive because we know the independence that comes with that skill.

Why should our work be any different? Learning how to use Social Media may seem really boring compared with all of the case studies you see about how this or that company became ruler of the world by making 1 tweet. But it’s worth it to learn how to do it right, isn’t it? Writing an e-book sounds like a lot of fun if you compare it to reading 5,000,000 blog posts and 2,000,000 books, but imagine how much more skillful and knowledgeable you’ll be if you just give yourself time!

The pot on the stove is bubbling

Keeping ambition in check is hard, especially when it feels, if you believe the stories out there, that you are in a horse-drawn carriage at the Indianapolis 500. However, I think it’s essential to keep that ambition tied to the anchor of reality. I am trying to learn everything I can so that I don’t take steps backwards. I am leaving myself a trail of breadcrumbs so I don’t get lost on my way to the giant house made of candy. I am enjoying the journey. I view it like the process involved in making, say, mashed potatoes. You put the taters in a pot of water, and at first you are just trying to get the water bubbling. But slowly and surely, the boiling really starts to go to town, and all of a sudden your pot lid is on the ceiling, defying gravity momentarily.

Do you find that you or your company try to run before you know how to walk? Do you jump into things reaching for the heights before you look to see what you’re jumping into? Tell me your perspective. I’d love to hear it.

1st Image by clifford shirley. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/fotomedia

2nd Image Credit: http://www.sxc.hu/profile/roxinasz

When I was in fifth grade, I was a real goody goody. Sometimes, this worked to my advantage. However, a lot of times, to be fair, the teacher would have to punish me right along with everyone else. On days when the class was just talking too much for her to stand, we’d all have to sit down at recess and copy “Silence is Golden” over and over again. I still hate that phrase. I felt it was really blatantly unfair that I had to sit there when I hadn’t been talking at all.

Lately, I’m starting to feel that same twinge of concern, trepidation, and “Hey man” in the Social Media world.

I haven’t been doing this game for very long, but so far, about once a month, one of the people I respect in this space has written a post about how they are tired of people failing to value their time, or they are tired of how people take advantage (or try to) of their expertise. First there was Chris Brogan’s post called “Make the Ask.” Then Tamar Weinberg wrote a post called “The Audacity of Free.” And now Lisa Barone of Outspoken Media has written a post called 15 ways to handle “Pick your brand” requests.” All of them cover the same types of information. All of them, in different ways, reverberate with frustration.

Now, as an idea type person myself, I totally sympathize with these kinds of frustrations. I’ve written about this before, in fact. But here’s the problem I’m having. The people who are writing these posts are people whom I view as role models, as teachers, as mentors. The fact that they choose to post blogs and articles based on their years of experience ensures that I can keep on learning so that I can pay it forward to people with less experience than I have. That’s the way the game is supposed to work.

Unfortunately, folks like me are becoming collateral damage in the growing war between the (insert your preferred title here..expert, thought leader, influential person) and the people who do not respect them. In order to learn and in order to grow, I would like to be able to ask small questions of these people. I’d like to be able to say, “I didn’t understand that part of your blog post. Can you clarify it?” Sometimes I like to ask other questions too. I’m a born questioner. But all of these posts filled with righteous indignation are making me seriously debate with myself before asking any of those questions. It is making me feel like I should not ask for time or a smidgeon of advice because, no offense to the grey masses team, but I don’t want to be classed as a person who fails to respect time and knowledge.

Of course, the great irony of life is that the people who really are guilty are probably not affected by these posts at all. But it would be of a great help to me if these posts of understandable frustration could delineate what is considered offensive and what is not. What falls into consultation and what falls into friendly mentoring or teaching? I never want to be in a position where I ask a question and then feel like I should ask to be invoiced. So, thought leaders, I’m asking you this one question. Where is the line between the brain-pickers and the students? And which one am I?

Image credit: http://www.sxc.hu/profile/clix