Tag: socialmedia

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TED 2012: Leap Day Highlights

Leap year comes once every four years. But what to do with an extra 24 hours?

This year I had the opportunity to spend Lead Day feeding my mind at a simulcast of the 2012 TED conference. I am a big fan of TED. The conference was started in 1984 by my first year architecture professor who envisioned a gathering of great minds discussing big ideas in technology, education and design. Chris Anderson took the reins, expanded the scope and now TED is nearly omnipresent. The TED Talks videos can be found all over, and TEDx events leverage the popular format on a local scale.

Last year I attended the local TEDxOrangeCoast at Segerstrom Hall — a remarkable day in itself. And this year, the big TED conference in Long Beach (a 3-day event) opened their virtual doors to TEDx attendees for a simulcast of the Day Two talks. In Orange County, we met at the beautiful Soka University performing arts center.

TED speakers get roughly 18 minutes on stage to share their stories–which are varied. Their titles range from techno-illusionist to ethnobiologist; from secret keeper to code activist. Some are selected for their ability to move and inspire. Others for their research (and certainly NOT their speaking skills).  And some are just plain entertaining. The net result? Brain food for fertile minds. Leap Day inspiration!

Eventually you’ll be able to see these talks online. Until then, I wanted to share highlights from two of those speakers, as well as observations from the backchannel.

Reid Hoffman, Social entrepreneur

Reid Hoffman is probably best known as co-founder of LinkedIn, the popular professional network. He’s also an investor, and entrepreneur and most recently, an author.

One thing Reid is not: a great speaker. He referred to a written script during much of the talk, making for a dry presentation of an important topic.

The delivery was lacking, but the message — while not really new — was worth hearing again.

We used to “climb the corporate ladder.” According to that model, when you graduated from college, you took an entry-level position. You worked hard and got promoted. With each step up the ladder, you gained responsibility, power and money.

That model no longer works. Today, the paradigm is not the ladder, but the network. We need to think like entrepreneurs, and treat our careers like a business. To be clear, understanding and leveraging your network is not the same as “networking.” It isn’t exchanging business cards and calling prospects. It is looking at your actual network of friends, colleagues and cohorts. Your network includes the people that you can help, and who can help you solve problems, move mountains, and get things done.

Not surprisingly, Dunbar’s Number came up. Reid suggested that 150 is not really a network limit, but memory limitation. Tools (such as LinkedIn, of course) can extend our memory, allowing us to build bigger networks.

What piqued my interest was Reid’s thoughts on how your network is a reflection of who you are. This isn’t really a new idea. Even as teenagers, most of our parents wanted to make sure we didn’t hang out with the “wrong” crowd. But in today’s world of connected-ness, many people see a connection as a prospective customer — and the more the merrier. In reality, it’s less about the numbers (unless you’re only about the numbers), and more about who you want to be. Whether we lead or follow, the crowds we run in reflect who we are.

Lior Zoref, Crowdsourcing advocate

I loved this colorful kid from Tel Aviv. He opened with a video recorded a year ago, where he shared his dream of speaking at TED. His best friend mocked him, but Lior promised that when (not if) he finally did speak at TED, he would play this video to remind him of his words.

Lior Zoref is not a household name. He is not particularly famous. But he is an evangelist for crowdsourcing, and his fervor for the wisdom of crowds was his ticket to the main stage at TED. Lior presented what he claims was the first-ever “crowdsourced TED talk.”  He tapped into his network of friends on Facebook and Twitter to help him create his talk — a mix of crowdsourcing stories from around the globe, liberal doses of humor and an extremely fun, live crowdsourcing experiment.

Photo: James Duncan Davidson

Early in his talk, he brings out a live ox onto the stage. The audience is asked to pull out their smartphones, visit a special web site and enter their guess at the animal’s weight. He continues his talk, and towards the end…

Over 500 people submitted their guesstimate, with responses ranging from 385 pounds to over 8000 pounds. The average of the crowd came in at 1792 pounds. The actual weight of the ox? 1795 pounds… just three pounds more. An amusing, live illustration of the wisdom of crowds.

Can crowdsourcing really make us smarter? Perhaps, but not all kinds of questions are well-suited to this kind of “guess-the-number-of-jelly-beans-in-the-jar” kind of problem-solving. Would you want to design a bridge the same way?

No matter what you think of crowdsourcing, you had to admire Lior’s enthusiasm and his ability to dream big.

Back in the Real World…

There are a few people that I repeatedly bump into online and offline, and at TED I had the opportunity to break bread with two of them over lunch. Chris Fleury and Emily Crume. We are perpetually crossing paths at various local events such as SMMOC, and over and over online. It was great to get a chance to know them better. The face-to-face interactions proved again to be as valuable — or more valuable — than the simulcast speakers of TED.

There was much more at TED than will fit in 1000 words. Here are some additional highlights:

This post was percolated with the help of the ingenius Dashter.

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Brian Solis is MUCH Taller Online

Author and analyst Brian Solis was in Orange County yesterday, speaking about The End of Business As Usual, how the consumer marketplace is changing, and how you can adapt the way you work to lead in this new marketplace.

Let me just get this out-of-the-way: Brian Solis is indeed much taller online. It’s fair to say that he is not tall. Which is perfectly fine, although it really would have been helpful in the large ballroom where he spoke if he were on a stage. Seriously.

What he lacks is physical stature he more than makes up for with his message and his passionate delivery. Solis is a life-long student, and social media has been his passion. He dove into a deep research of sentiment analysis–what he calls the interest graph–on Starbucks just because it was interesting. And as it turns out, it was (and is).

An Experiment in Crowd-sourced Note-Taking

During Solis’ talk, I monitored the back channel on Twitter. I tweeted key points and notes, and pulled out a few of the choice tweets from others in the audience to create the following overview.

The Consumer Market is Not One Audience

deborah_gibbsDeborah Anne Gibbs – @deborah_gibbs
Types of consumers: 1 traditional, 2 digital, 3 connected (#mobile + #socialmedia) #OC @briansolis

Too many companies using social media “channels” (Facebook, Twitter, Google+ et. al.) consider it a means of reaching The Audience. The fallacy is that there is no single audience. There are multiple demographics. Different kinds of consumers. If you’re trying to get people to buy a product, you have at least three kinds of consumers: The Traditional, The Digital, and–most recently–The Connected. Each group has different needs and expectations. Don’t treat them as one, or you’ll put off at least two and maybe all of them.

Social Media is Not a Digital Broadcast Medium

jcorseyJenny Corsey, APR – @jcorsey
Reach the people that will help you reach your customer. Speak to and through people to share your message. @briansolis #LinkedOC #OC

It wasn’t long ago that speakers would ask the audience to turn off their cell phones and put away their computers. To be “fiddling” with a cell phone was considered rude to the speaker. Of course, today savvy speakers know that if you can reach the connectors, you have people who will willingly spread your message.

Don’t Be Medium-alistic

mgallizziMatthew Gallizzi – @mgallizzi
Why should people follow you? What value do you bring? #foodforthought #linkedoc #oc

DigitalLADigital LA – @DigitalLA
Don’t be Medium’-alistic – designing for the technology medium instead of the purpose and human need #OC

Don’t design to the medium. Think about the people you want to connect with. What do they want from you? What can you offer that will make their interaction with you — whatever the channel — a positive and mutually beneficial experience?

BrandonSkaarBrandon Skaar – @BrandonSkaar
@briansolis Chief Experience Officer the new CEO #oc

There were a few great examples Brian shared of companies that are innovating and creating new experiences for the connected consumer:

  • BetterWorks leverages game mechanics to provide perks and rewards for employees — a very clever model that progressive HR groups should be looking closely at.
  • GiantNerd is a sports and outdoor equipment retailer that rewards it’s customers for helping other customers. In the process, they’ve created rabid fans and turned customers into a peer support network that outshines traditional customer support.
  • ShopKick is an iPhone app that uses geo-location to let you earn rewards from local retailers that you would use anyway. And it’s approaching the sort of frictionless participation model touted by Mark Zuckerberg at F8.

If there was but one key take-away from Brian’s talk, it was to start with the end in mind.

What do you want to accomplish?

The key message Solis made is that most companies (and probably a lot of people) are not asking–and answering–the right question when down to the WHY they are using social media.

AndreaMemenasAndrea Memenas – @AndreaMemenas
“Presence is not a strategy.” – @briansolis #oc

Prior to the launch of Google+ business pages, a big company called Solis to ask when they were going live.

“Why do you care?”
“Because, we need to be ready and have a strategy for Google+ and create a page.”
“Why do you need that?”
“Because all our competitors will be there.”
“So? Why do YOU need to be on Google+? Why are you there? More importantly, why are your customers there, and how do they want to interact with you there? What can you do to make them smile?”

Having a presence on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest or whatever rolls down the interweb tomorrow is not enough.

DevineLinesMitch Devine – @DevineLines
“What is the Meaning of Like?” via @briansolis #oc http://t.co/nsc6m5dv

And collecting friends, likes, +1s or any of the other new social verbs should not be your objective.

Consider Facebook Analytics. They are not, in spite of what Facebook might lead you to believe, a measure of success. Facebook analytics can only measure activity (and only those activities that Facebook values). Facebook can tell you how many “likes” you received, and comments, and other metrics of activity. But none of this captures value or even tells you if what you are doing online is driving success.

CarterKrisKris Carter – @CarterKris
Social analytics – what is the real end result you are seeking? Measure that instead. FB engagement can= absolutely nothing @briansolis #OC

ellenlynnEllen Henderson – @ellenlynn
Although the crowd isn’t always wise, there is wisdom in whatever it is you find. You learn more anytime you study people. @briansolis #oc

There is value in metrics. But automated reports only go so far. Real wisdom comes from actually reading tweets rather than just analyzing them (especially when analysis by software alone).

eperryeperry – @eperry
What are you designing for and what do you want people to walk away with? @briansolis #linkedOC #OC

The question to ask when thinking about any form or channel for social media is this: What is it you want to achieve? When you’ve sorted out your strategy, then you can look at the market, the different kinds of consumers, the various channels and develop a strategy that incorporates everything to help you reach those goals.

Are You a Change Agent?

EmilyQuestionsEmily Crume – @EmilyQuestions
Are you a Change Agent? It takes courage + it takes vision says @briansolis #oc @LinkedOC

AAAReneeRenée Barrett – @AAARenee
“Do your employees have a #vision & #mission? If not, don’t put them in charge of #Social #Media?” #OC #SM #Enthusiasm

You’ve done your homework. You’ve thought long and hard about your strategic business goals and devised a strategy to connect and communicate with your customer using a range of social and other means. You have asked your customer what they need and want, and are prepared to deliver. Who do you have in the driver’s seat?

Today, you need to be a change agent, willing to take risks, and even willing to quit if the company isn’t willing to make the right changes. That takes balls.

Final Notes

I really enjoyed Brian’s talk, and look forward to reading his new book this weekend. He’s a terrific speaker, and refreshingly hype-free — a rare treat in social media circles. If you get a chance to hear him speak, go!

The event was organized by Bryan Elliott, of Linked Orange County. He does a great job of getting some excellent speakers to Orange County on a monthly basis. If you haven’t joined the group (it’s free), check it out.

This post was curated by Dashter, a wonderful tool for curating tweets within WordPress.

Oh, and as for the “taller online” bit, that was Solis’ own self-deprecating humor.