Tag Archives: People

Social media best practice: be authentic

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Jeremy Tanner tagged me: I need to chime in and tell the world, in all my infinite wisdom, what a “social media” best practice is.

Interestingly enough my knee jerk reaction was to say either:

  1. if you call it social media you’re doing it wrong, or
  2. just stop trying, FFS.

At least, that’s the way I’ve felt in the recent months. In fact, it’s a new rule for me on twitter. If you’re a self-proclaimed “social media” guru, then you’re not.

That leads me to my point: to be successful in social media (or any media, I believe) you need to be authentic. It goes back to one of my personal favorite posts: my thoughts on transparency and honesty. If someone is extremely active across a variety of services and trying to connect with so many people (Linkedin, twitter, pownce, etc.) it sends the message that you’re convincing me I need to listen to you. It’s like trying to advertise your product after building it and calling that “marketing.” The biggest way to fail is to reach out to as many people as possible just to broadcast to your followship.

Instead, be an authentic person. Just be you and the right people will find you. For instance:

  • Penelope Trunk, although a writer (its her day job to make uninteresting things interesting), is a geniune lady who will bare all and do her best to connect. I consider her the Britney Spears of the internet sometimes but she’s authentic and, thanks in part to that, has a tremendous followship; in both size and passion.
  • Gary Vaynerchuk, although a marketer (its his day job to get the message out to everyone), is a geniune guy who will talk to anyone and go out of his way to make them feel important. He’s a busy guy but spends most of his day just talking to people via e-mail, twitter, facebook, and so on. In turn, he’s built up one of the most popular video podcasts about a product that no-one had ever thought to look for online: wine.

There’s my thoughts on how to do social media the right way. Agree / disagree?

Tag, you’re it: noah kagan, Andrew Chen, Ramit Sethi. (original link)

Top Websites That Aren't (Yet) Mainstream

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Lets dive right into them, shall we? I present to you, the websites that aren’t quite mainstream … yet.

1. GMail

  • Who: Google
  • What: Free e-mail with lots of space, IMAP, mobile accessibility, powered by ads
  • Why it’s cool: GMail was on the cutting edge of webmail with a huge giveaway of space and a smart interface coupled with the awesome power of Google search.
  • Why it’s not mainstream: People are afraid of Google still. They see the ads and think that your information is no longer private nor secure and that your precious e-mail and information will be sold to spammers and advertisers. Ironically enough, Google is one of the best at combating spam.
  • Send me an e-mail

2. Hulu

  • Who: NBC, News Corp (and now the content of dozens of others)
  • What: Free access to legitimate television shows and movies in high quality, powered by ads
  • Why it’s cool: I can watch Comedy Central shows, Food Network, Fox, etc. in high definition with less advertising and all for free. I can even subscribe to the show and get alerts when a new episode is up.
  • Why it’s not mainstream: Nobody has heard of it. And NBC continues to botch up their video content by releasing stuff like NBCOlympics.com. So, we all assume media companies don’t get “real” video yet and wander over to YouTube.
  • View my public profile on Hulu

3. Newsvine

  • Who: Veterans of Disney, ESPN, and other media organizations; MSNBC
  • What: News from multiple sources PLUS the ability for anyone to write, “seed” (post an existing) or comment on an article.
  • Why it’s cool: We can contribute the news and read about whats important to us. Plus we can engage with others and talk about stories, debate points, create long lasting friendships, call someone a retard, the list goes on…
  • Why it’s not mainstream: I think it’s too much work for someone to ‘seed’ the news and it gives little value for me to share it with someone else. To many, there is not enough incentive to write articles either. The only saving grace is the fun in arguing and being social on the internet. More people are interested in participating but I don’t think they know about their options.
  • Add me as a friend on Newsvine

4. Twitter

  • Who: Obvious (Ev Williams)
  • What: 140 character message broadcast to anyone who wants to “follow” you (and you get to follow people back)
  • Why it’s cool: It’s like chatting with only the people you want to listen to via SMS, the web, and many other applications
  • Why it’s not mainstream: People still don’t “get” it because nobody has explained it the right way to people. You can’t just say “you have to do it” because everyone can see through internet fads. Not everyone is into making random connections with strangers on the internet. Plus, the site really isn’t what I’d call user friendly.
  • Follow me on Twitter

I thought about adding a “how to fix it” to each of these but nothing about them is broken. They’re just different, unknown, and misunderstood websites that may just always maintain that “web2.0” charm.

But then again, only the “early adopters” were using these sites:

  • Facebook – why do you need a profile online? I have real friends.
  • Google – what else is there to search for? I found the porn.
  • Craigslist – we already have classifieds, they’re called the classifieds.
  • eBay – I can buy cheap things at Wal-Mart.
  • Amazon – books belong in stores (so that I can read them for free!).

The One About The New Job

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Now that I have a few spare minutes to collect my thoughts I figured I’d share a little about my professional life as of late:

The Previous Employer

If you’re not aware, I left my job of 11 months and 3 weeks (just barely a year) this past July 18th. I had been working at Ernst & Young* and made a quick decision to move on to my passion: the internet. The firm itself is awesome; they’ve definitely earned the many awards and recognitions (a top 25 employer for a decade according to Fortune). I learned a lot, worked with great people and clients, and I don’t really regret anything about my time spent at E&Y.

Lessons learned from my first full-time job out of college:

I’ve learned plenty from my other experiences and jobs but this one is a bit different. It was my first full-time job out of college (not an internship, not a part-time job); one where I had bosses, business cards, a phone number, responsibilities, performance reviews, etc. Some things may be obvious or things you’ve read about before–but this is the kind of stuff I finally learned from experience.

  • You’ll never love everything about any job. But it’s definitely possible to dislike most of it.
  • The people you work with are extremely important (50 hours is different than a few times a week).
  • Hopefully you like those people if you don’t like the work, or else things get frustrating.
  • Despite management’s best attempts, I’m still convinced I can work an entry-level corporate job from home.
  • And I could probably do a typical entry-level corporate job in 20 hours a week.
  • Many people still see the ‘ladder’ and the need to ‘pay dues’, they’re the rule, not the exception
  • Some people are very good at getting work done, but that doesn’t mean they can manage / lead
  • Big companies are great because there are processes and structure that help support you
  • The wealth of knowledge is “out there” but so damned hard to collect and organize
  • Traveling can be fun no matter where you go (anywhere from Lexington to Atlanta)

…and I could go on and on.

The Current Employer

I’m now working for Crowd Favorite which is an internet company specializing in WordPress (the software that powers this website), custom web development and design, consulting, and builds some web products. Surprise surprise, I’m working on the web!

I suppose this isn’t new: I’ve moved around a lot and some people might look at that as being scattered or unfocused. But, guess what: all that moving around and dabbling paid off! I found something I really enjoy (and I think I’m good at it, too). How do I know? For starters, I’ve been excited to go to work all 10 days these last two weeks (and enjoy checking / responding to business e-mails during some of my spare time)!

My job is a mixture of things but I think we could describe it as a mix of the following:

  • Account management: working closely with customers to help address things including future development needs
  • Business development: following up with individuals that are looking to use our services, deciding what we can do to help and make sure they’ve fully explored their projects
  • Project management: managing project goals and tasks, scheduling them internally, managing budgets, updates to clients, etc.
  • Internal projects: there are some things we’d like to do internally and I’ll be managing those, too

So, that sums up what I’ve been doing and what I’ll be working on. Everyone I work with is great, I’m happy, excited and learning plenty each and every day.

—

* Note: this is the first and only time the firm name was used on my site (for employment / search engine / opinion purposes). They were aware of devinreams.com and I was aware of their awareness.

Top three lessons from online communities

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map of online communities by xkcd

I’ve seen, first hand, the challenges faced when trying to get a group of people together on the internet. I’m a member of a of a number of online communities. I’ve also helped found a few communities. They include:

  • 9rules – a group I really wanted to become a part of, the best of the best content
  • yopos – something noah and I tried to start (coming again soon!): young professionals
  • Twenty Somethings – a group of attractive, witty, smart bloggers all in their twenties
  • Employee Evolution – smart professionals guest blogging about work, life, entrepreneurship
  • Brazen Careerist – the natural extension of EE, network of existing and new bloggers about the above
  • BarCamp/New Tech – online and offline, meetup with some local nerds
  • SXSW/CommunityNext – organized events/conferences around a community
  • AKPsi – offline, but 50+ college students with an interest in business (VP/President)
  • Two other college clubs – again, offline but a good look at how people interact

And I’ve done tons of observation of popular online groups (FlyerTalk, Zen Habits, Get Rich Slowly, I Will Teach You To Be Rich). Here are my top three lessons learned.

Existing community must already be strong

When I say strong you need to have an extreme amount of quality or quantity. A little of each will not be sufficient.

Employee Evolution and 9rules attracted people because of the high quality–they both grew very quickly. On the other hand, yopos sought out to do the same and, I admit, consistent quality wasn’t there (and we didn’t have the numbers either).

In college, AKPsi was one of the largest groups in the business school (100+) and because of that it kept attracting more and more people (network effect). Once our numbers started to drop off we had to quickly focus on quality or else we’d get stuck in mediocrity. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened. We had generations of mediocrity in the group, as the numbers diminished even they left. By the end of my college career the group dropped to a quarter of it’s original size. The same happened with two other groups–when the strength dwindled, the community failed.

Without the quality or quantity it’s very hard to do anything. You could take five very talented people and create something amazing. If you have 100 people, odds are you will find some great, active, and interesting people worth sticking around for.

People always talk about meeting up, rarely do

It must be how we are hard-wired as humans, but no matter what your group is–people will want to meet in person. People will try to organize and coordinate these events but they rarely happen. Even in college, where we met as a group every week, it was challenging to have people commit to anything outside of something we’ve already structured for them.

Lucky for the internet there are groups like the SXSW coordinators who will put on an event for everyone to go to. But even with 9rules we never saw any official “get togethers” no matter how often it was brought up. I’ve seen the same start over at Brazen Careerist and I question what will come from the discussions (I have a good idea, though: nothing).

Some obvious exceptions to the rule are groups like BarCamp. These still usually require a big investment from one or two people (and that’s it). If you want something to happen you have to take the initiative yourself at first. Then, make sure you have the strong community to help in the future (see previous point). People usually need to see value first.

Now, the inverse of this is also true: people love to participate a lot in the beginning. Say you open up a forum: people will chat about anything and everything they think of on day one. By day ten they have less to talk about, less to reply to. The challenge here, depending on your group, is maintaining participation and having people come back (quality and quantity help).

There are key participants, focus on them

No matter where you go, one will notice the “key” players. Especially in a discussion environment like a forum. Within five minutes of surfing FlyerTalk it was clear who knew what they were talking about and was respected by the group. When I started yopos there were a few guys who were very eager and I didn’t have them time to focus on them and empower them to help with the community. Lesson learned.

CommunityNext had a ton of people show up and a lot of it was due to key figures. Get them involved, get them in your group and make sure people know about them. One of my favorite stories was watching Hiten Shah try to fix the wireless network at Stanford. People noticed him working on it and one or two people stopped and offered to help.

What about you? Do you agree or disagree? Have you learned anything worth sharing?

PS: I’ve been working on updating and consistent-ifying my look. Click through to devin reams and let me know what you think. Oh, and be sure to tell your friends about my services.

Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior

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UPDATE: If you’re looking for a free copy of the book, head on over to okdork.

I finished reading an awesome book that’s about to come out: Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior. These book comes from the same guy (and his brother) that wrote The Starfish and the Spider.

Ori and his brother take another Tipping Point slash Freakonomics approach to this book which is very successful and very good at communicating complicated concepts. By using stories I’m able to quickly grasp the idea, and then I have a vivid application of the concept that I can turn around and use to share with others. This is the kind of book you read today and talk about with everyone you run into for the next three weeks.

The main point of the book is that we are often drawn to doing dumb (irrational) things and making decisions that make no sense… but in reality, they do. These are some of the concepts that can help us understand why people behave irrationally:

  • We fear a loss: if we sense we’re going to lose something, we’ll do everything we can, and make stupid choices, to try and reverse it (even if we know it’d be smarter to give up and accept the small loss now). Example: stock market.
  • Incentive can actually deter us: Our brain makes a decision based on either the intrinsic (do the right thing) or extrinsic (give me $10) reward–but that financial motivation may backfire and prevent us from doing something. Example: your company wants you to find new business and you do because it’s a good challenge and develops your skills… but then they introduce a $50 reward–you decide that’s not enough incentive to sell new business.
  • We make a wrong decision if someone else does, too: studies show that it takes just one person to agree and then, suddenly a bad decision becomes a good one. A simple confirmation is all it takes. Example: crossing the street without looking when the guy next to you steps out.

Go read the book and you’ll realize, yes, this is what is going on all the time. It helps explain so many behavioral (and economical) decisions that, hopefully, the understanding of ‘sway’ can help you make better choices (about yourself, your products, your approaches, etc.).

Book Website: swaybook.com*
Amazon page: Sway goes on sale June 3, 2008

* Another book with an online (video-based) trailer. Very cool, and much better at explaining the book than I can. Check it out!

My Favorite Passengers, Part II

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I’ve traveled quite a bit lately and have been working on being able to entertainingly come up with some common passenger profiles. Here are a few more of my findings:

  • The laptop wielding road warrior: Two trips in a row have I sat next to a woman who insists on working on a spreadsheet or e-mail as soon as her butt hits the seat. The plane takes off, the flight attendant is seated, oooh, yeah? You’re gonna sneak open your laptop before we’re at the “safe” altitude? You risky son of a gun–I’m sure those three minutes were absolutely necessary.
  • Leave the light on, you don’t need it: It’s 10:00 PM, it’s been a long day and we’re all headed home. It’d be nice to get some rest. But no, I’m sitting next to you and you want to stare into space with the overhead light on. Of course, the angle glares right onto my face but I’m not going to say anything (or sleep any). Oh, but once we plan to land you realize its on and turn it off. I swear the cabin is 90% darker now.
  • The seat yanker: Why the hell, once you get onto an airplane, are you unable to stand up under your own power? Is there some amazingly intense gravity field keeping you in the seat? Because apparently you need to use all of your strength to pull on my damned seat! Try using your legs!
  • The talker: Yeah, there’s a time to talk to people and meet new folks–but you’re not interesting. And when the conversation is 90% you talking and the rest me just saying “yup”, “true”, and “oh” why do you NOT get the clue? Do I need to put in my headphones and start reading before I even get to my seat to avoid this? Yes, yes I do.

    • And there are so many more. People are amazing, unique creatures. But somehow the majority of people start to lump together into these profiles once they jump on a plane. Which are you? ;)

My Favorite Airline Passengers, Part I

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I’ve done a bunch of flying in the last few months (for work and training). I still get a little excited every time I fly. Airports have so many people and airplanes have so many people in a small spot. This means excellent people watching. I’ve come up with some of my favorite passenger profiles:

  • Can’t fit anything in the over-head bin: Why does it take 30 minutes to get 100 people on a small commuter plane? Because of this guy. Maybe if you owned a less awkwardly shaped bag you wouldn’t struggle to find a bin that a L-shaped opening. Seriously, you weren’t that good at tetris, why do you think you can manage this bin? Go find another one and let me guy by!
  • Wonders why there isn’t a blanket: Why are you making a big deal? You paid $400+ for this seat and your happiness is hinging on a pillow / blanket. Those things are gross, expensive, and if it’s such a necessity–why don’t you pack one? Stop bothering the flight attendant and making me listen to you.
  • Slept through beverage service: If you can’t stay awake for the 20 minute boarding process, 5 minute taxing and 15 minute ascent before beverage service why do you deserve a cup of Sprite? Are you really that tired? Was there nothing you could’ve done to pass the few minutes before a drink would come around? Apparently so because now you and the seven other lazy passengers are going to make the attendant go back and forth between the galley. That’s 14 trips he or she didn’t need to do.
  • The seatbelt sign doesn’t apply to me: The plane touched the ground, seatbelt off! Dude, you’re in row 24–you won’t be grabbing your bag for at least 12 more minutes: sit down! Oh and why did you think it was cool to get up and go to the bathroom whenever you wanted? The light is on because it’s not safe, dummy. I’m glad they called you out over the intercom, you self-centered tool.

Please tell me you fit one of these profiles because you make my flights go so much faster! And if you’re not, please tell me you find as much pleasure in these people as I do.

Never eat alone at work

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Just don’t do it. Eating alone, though easier and more enjoyable sometimes (especially if you like yourself as much as I do) we should all do our best to become acquainted with the people at work.

If you’re very entry-level (and young, like myself) it seems very mature of you to invite a group of people to lunch. Taking the quick initiative to say “hey, did you bring a lunch?” is all it takes. I’ve tried my best to go to lunch with everyone in the office because it’s the only real time you can sit down and just talk. If your job is like mine you end up staying focused and serious all day–always business. This time lets you relax and hear a little about the people you spend so much time with. And we all know, work is so much more fun if you enjoy the people you work with.

Even if you’re just talking about work or laughing at shared past experiences you still build rapport. In a group of people at lunch, even if they’re talking about something I’ve never experienced it makes for something I can talk about later (hah, this is like that one time at _______ you were talking about). Plus, it’s better to be interested than interesting (people will like you more).

It just makes sense, I don’t know how else to put it: never eat alone at work.