Stardust Global Ventures

Everybody is all up in arms over facebook places. Why? Confusion!

Let’s answer a couple of questions those of you who have never used location based services may have.

First of all if you’re using your computer, facebook places will not be told where you are or what you are doing. It doesn’t work that way.

Second, if you don’t use facebook on your phone you have no worries. Facebook places can’t possibly know with no input where you are or what you are doing.

Third, even if you do use facebook on your mobile device you still have to access the places tab and tell it where you are. For instance, when I am out and about in the world using facebook on my phone I have to open up the application and then manually open places and then type in where I am and it has to recognize that as a place or I have to tell it that where I am is the location of, for example, Lorenzo’s pizza. If I don’t tell it anything, it has no knowledge. GPS still has to be activated and linked with facebook in order for it to have any idea where you are.

The hype over facebook not being trusted is a whole other issue. I definitely understand there is little reason to trust facebook because they’ve certainly not done anything to garner trust. They’ve allowed your information to be public in spite of the steps you may believe you have taken to keep your privacy locked down. But location based services really are not smart. At least not right now. All of them, facebook included give you controls and you then set the privacy to whatever you choose. If you have facebook and don’t use it on your mobile device you have not one thing to fear. You don’t have to mess with your settings at all and it won’t matter one iota. You are as safe as you were before Places came to be.

EDIT: My friend Dameone Welch-Abernathy pointed out the one thing I forgot to mention. If you’re still really freaked out about all this, the one thing that guarantees you are not checked in is if you go to your settings and change other peoples ability to check you in where they are. Seriously though unless you have really skanky friends, they probably wouldn’t if they knew you didn’t want them too.

The old bait and switch.

This morning I was pointed to a link at Sysomos Blog . They ask the question, “Is Twitter really about lots of followers?” Fascinating since they don’t answer that question, they simply suppose it is, and explain how to make your twitter stream appealing to the masses.

Personally I vacillate a bit, but unless you are working for a company, building a company, trying to reach ‘the masses’, so to speak, I don’t happen to think attempting to reach millions of people and have a million+ followers on twitter is a goal. And, this article, while not totally off the mark, certainly begs the question ‘why’? Why is it important to be interesting enough to garner a bunch of new followers? Why does it matter at all how many followers you have?

Think for a minute about the Kevin Costner movie, Field of Dreams. If you build it, they will come, or if you tweet authentically people will follow – but it’s all about your goal, isn’t it? Does it matter for you if you don’t meet the industry ‘standard’ for number of followers? Why are we all expected to race toward a number that someone has set out there as important to reach, especially if we aren’t marketers. Or are we?

Are we marketers?

To be fair, all of us to a certain extent are marketers. We may not be marketing a big name product but we do market ourselves. The struggle, though, is that every second person on twitter is telling us how they have the answer to getting more followers, or some other ridiculous thing, and we get confused.

Let’s think about what really matters to us.

Are you a mouthpiece for a company, either your own or someone else’s? Is your goal to achieve a large audience so that your message is heard and possibly the reason someone makes a decision? If so then your numbers mean something different than the average person’s. Still, we need to remember there is a difference between broadcasting and engaging. This distinction is really getting muddied.

Dunbar’s Number

Well known anthropologist, Robin Dunbar theorized the number 150 as a mean number for processing ability in group size. The actual number will vary between 100 and 230, but 150 is what we can expect to be able to have in our network and still feel connection with. Others have posited this number is too low, with more recent numbers coming from a study of the US that suggests a mean of 230 with a high of 290.

Any way you slice it, there is a limit to cognition. These numbers are meant to provide explanation for how large a group can work in consort without conflict. In other words, there is a limit to the number of people we can positively impact.  There is no gaming the system, and there isn’t a great deal of difference in socio-economic/intelligence quotient.

What do you need to know?

Let’s assume you have a large network and it is necessary. What you need to know is that the larger your network, the less percentage of engagement there will be. As it grows you will become more like a megaphone and less like a conversationalist. The reciprocation will be lost and just as in the past with movie star idol worship, you will stop being a person and become a commodity. Own it, or get out of it but know what you’re getting when you go for those big counts. Don’t get me wrong, you will still have conversations but the actual numbers of people you will become personally involved with and stay personally involved with will diminish.

What’s your goal?

What you want may depend on what you’re doing. If you’re using twitter for business you have an entirely different goal than someone who is simply trying to stay connected. Understanding the difference is the key. Don’t be fooled. You are important and deserve a rich network full of people of your choosing. Whatever you do be considerate of those you connect with and keep your eye on the prize. The prize is what you want to gain from the involvement.

Sheryl wrote Of Weddings, Honeymoons and Authenticity, and described some of our life activity to perfection. Since moving to Walla Walla, real life and the priorities that come for us as a couple together have been a central part of our life. Her post made me think about something I’ve been considering for a while now too.

For friends and colleagues who’ve known me a while, you remember I oversaw the Realtime Unified Communications Community for four years. I’ve worked in the communications and networking industry for 30+ years, written several books and countless white papers and documents. I also produced hundreds of interviews, podcasts, videos and product evaluations. Some of you may wonder why you aren’t seeing that today. I thought I’d take a moment to explain.

First, my work with Realtime was a paid position that ended in December of 2008. It was a collaborative experiment with one of my publishers to explore how the Web 2.0 approach and social networking could be used by the publishing business. Realtime is quite successful and we have an ongoing great relationship. The business simply moved in another direction.

I’ve worked as both an employee and an independent contractor since 1980, balancing the challenges of both. Longtime friends know that I’ve focused on technical education, information security, and other networking concepts far beyond telecommunications, VoIP and unified communications. All of those interests remain, but today I focus heavily on enterprise architecture for global business.

Sure, I still consult with businesses of all sizes. I’m a big fan of local business and likely to do anything I can to help a business in my community flourish. That goes for my network too. My community isn’t confined to where I live. It includes my network online, which is quite global.

If I write about a business or product here, it isn’t just to write or keep fodder moving through the tubes. I don’t cut and paste press releases with a passing comment. Mostly, I delete them. They’re obsolete. I may write an occasional review of a product, service, book or some such because I’m interested and it caught my attention.

While I work entrenched in enterprise architecture (MPLS, QoS, Unified Communications, informatoin security architecture, network management, etc.), I don’t write a lot about that here. That work is focused, at the detail level, for my employer, CSC. When I talk about it here, I’ll be more focused on general trends, strategies, best practices and such. My highly technical focus is something that is paid for, and dedicated.

We’ll both always write about the things that excite us. We are after all geeks to the core. Mobile and wireless technologies – the elements of casual computing and hyperconnectivity are key elements of our life. They help simplify life, enabling us to focus on the things we hold dear.

I expect to write more personal things online. The things about our life, where we’re headed, things we’re doing that matter to us. I want to start writing more. I think this is a place where we both want to share ourselves in a complete and authentic way. Not just work, but as people.

As people, we’re focused on the human and humane aspects of networking. That means engaging with the people I’m connected to. It means sharing more than ideas and success stories or touting the latest hot technology. It means being human and real.

Like Sheryl said in her post, we want a future life on the beach. That’s going to take some time, work and planning. And I expect we’ll share our journey to get there. And then, our life from there.

Just got through reading one of Robert Scoble’s opinion pieces on privacy. He makes some good points but more than that, it made me consider just what it is that most of us really mean when we talk about privacy. Have a look at his post and then let’s talk. http://scobleizer.com/2010/05/08/much-ado-about-privacy-on-facebook-are-we-protesting-too-much/

I don’t necessarily always agree with Robert but he definitely makes me think. I don’t think a locked down website is what most people want from Facebook. I know that’s not what I want. It is what everyone says they want, but maybe we should ask ourselves to really consider that. I think we want something else entirely.

You all know I’m female. Like it or not females are addressed by a certain segment of the world population differently than males are. While it doesn’t happen often, I have certainly had my share of requests for friendship by people who send a message telling me I’m ‘hot’ or asking for my IM so they can contact me directly. Usually they want me to use Yahoo, which sort of tells me something must be in yahoo I am not privy to because while I have a yahoo account for Flickr, I do not use yahoo.

So with these experiences, and a long term account on Facebook as well as a long term life online, it caused me to really think about what I would like on the web regarding privacy.

I want control of who has the ability to communicate with me. That’s all. I want people to treat their online neighbors as they would their next door neighbors and not expect they have the right to write derogatory things on their ‘walls’ or send mail that is inappropriate. I don’t want strange men or women to publicly hit on me, I do not want them to come to my place of business, ie email, linked in messages, blog, or wherever else i may be conducting business to ‘call me out’ like a high school bully. I expect to be treated on my public spaces the way I would were we in the same physical space. With dignity and respect. I think typing has emboldened us for some reason and I think we should step back and really consider when we all got the right to be mean and insensitive to one another.

I have recently had to block someone on Facebook. I blocked them because they were sending messages I don’t appreciate receiving. It’s not that I care if they see my profile, I only choose to not receive messages from them because they apparently struggle with the common courtesy I talked about above.

Since I’m writing this on my iPhone, I’ll end now. But think about it. Is it really privacy or simply some measure of control that has been missing from online life?

A while back Tom Foremski wrote a post called – Dirty Little Secrets: Social Media Is Terrible at Promoting Products.

I have thought about that and he’s right. Social media promotes social media, or to take it deeper, Social media is what companies use to promote themselves. But no one is successfully promoting a product with social media. What social media is doing is enabling communication.

Are Brands social? I don’t think so. We pay attention to brands because of cultivated credibility. People brands may be social, but typically by the time they reach recognizable brand status they are not nearly as social because they are too busy and bombarded, so people brands find the other people like them, and are social there. It no longer matters that they aren’t social because they have built enough credibility that WOM takes over and becomes all that matters. Even bad word of mouth rarely impacts them. Most treat that as sour grapes.

As a people brand grows, does social shifting happen where they no longer have to engage because the people who built and helped them now do all the ‘social’ for them? Is it asynchronous – where you, the brand, no longer have to be involved? I believe this to be the case.

Is the assumption that by having 100k + followers that you have then achieved such a state of brand identity you are no longer required to engage? How then do we maintain credibility? We don’t expect the products to jump off the market shelves at us as we walk through a store, why then should a people brand expect and get unconditional devotion? Do they now have whuffie, or karma to spare and other people perpetuate their brand for us?

I’d like to not confuse a Brand with Engagement. Engagement happens between people looking for something, be it friendship, products, or information, and those providing what we’re looking for. The best engagers are not the brands we already identify. Those brands have all become part of the old broadcast media mold. No, the best engagers are people who haven’t yet arrived. Hmmm, I wonder if that’s an argument for high turnover in social media? I think I’ll save that for another post.

Who of you have not heard some major brand tell you, “We listen and we respond”, only to ask a question and either get nothing in response, or get the canned response that they will respond as soon as possible but due to the massive number of requests it may take a while? Is this what we want from engagement? Can we even call this engagement? I think this is LAME!

What we want from engagement is a front facing contact, someone who is representative of the brand, not the brand, who will take the time to help us out. We don’t want someone identified as a brand because as soon as we identify a person as a brand, they have reached a status that defeats the purpose of the front facing person. A brand simply doesn’t have enough to give to that many people. Certainly not the engagement piece.

Brian Solis recently wrote the book, Engage: The complete guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web. I haven’t personally read this book, in part because I have not had an opportunity, but there is another piece to it. I don’t think Brian engages well, except with those in his immediate universe, and I find it incredibly difficult to get excited enough to buy a book that is supposed to teach engagement from someone who is now his own brand. Certainly Brian is successful, you really can’t argue that, but why is he successful when he doesn’t eat his own dogfood? I believe Brian is successful because he has reached that brand status that many wish to reach, and yet so few ever truly achieve. But reaching that status now means he is incapable of being a person and truly engaging the way most social media people engage – which illustrates my point.

This isn’t a piece on Brian, and I’d rather not make it about him which is why I’m only linking to his book, not to him on a personal level. He is merely an example of the big picture I’m trying to paint, certainly not the only example, just a good one.

Once upon a time most Brands paid attention, asking questions about how they could do better, or what they should do differently, or even how to make your experience better. Once they get to the royalty stage, the only thing that shakes a brand up is a need to combat bad press, in other words the need to defend themselves.

You are certainly capable of making up your own mind about all this. I just had some thoughts, and where better to put them than here?

On a final note I’ll end with something I saw on twitter just moments before posting this. Practice what you preach, better yet, don’t preach. Just practice!

Makes sense, don’t you think? If you aren’t living it, walking the walk so to speak, at some point people will notice.

Technorati Tags: Tom Foremski, Sheryl Breuker, Brian Solis, Personal Brand, Engagement,

Every parent, teacher, educator and administrator in the world should watch this video. Twice. Then they should have to take a test.

This is the single most compelling talk from the recent 140Conf.

Our kids ARE the foundation that we’re building the world on. We don’t need drones and workers. We need thinkers and doers. Achievers and explorers. We need to teach our children to create, collaborate, build and network.

We need to do it now!

Don’t just shrug this off. Watch it. Share it. Spread the word. And teach your children well. Then teach help mentor three other children.

From time to time, I’ve read tweets from @ajleon. Tonight I followed and subscribed to his because he said something that’s one of the key messages many of us have been talking about for a long time. He just said it with a a story that resonated.

First go read A Tale of Two Starbucks. Go ahead and do it now. It will open a new window and you can come back. We’ll talk briefly about the lesson.

That’s important. Think of it as the 11th commandment. And it cuts in more than one direction.

We’re all active in social media and many people talk about managing our personal brands. The truth goes far deeper.

You own your brand. You own your employer’s brand. You own your client’s brand.

Your employees also own your brand. Your consultants, partners, marketing and PR agencies own your brand too.

I read a number of people talking about businesses controlling social media. So many of the so-called experts out there to day are glib and easy with pronouncements that corporate control of social media is bordering on evil.

Earlier we watched an old movie called Identity Theft. It was the tale of a young woman’s experience with having her identity stolen and her reputation destroyed.

In AJ’s story, Starbuck’s identity, their brand, was given willingly to a woman who ruined it. Ruined their brand. Fortunately another Starbuck’s employee may have saved that reputation for AJ.

A tale of two Starbuck’s may be a tale of two messages. One positive, one negative.

It begs a question of all the social media experts out there. You know, you people who know it all and pronoucegood vs. evil. You solo entrepreneurs who’ve never actually worked for a large business, but have all the answers.

Do you protect your identity information? Are you cautious about identity theft?

Would you advise your business client to leap right out in harms way and allow all employees….de facto custodians of their identity and brand without seriously considering policies and the ramifications? I know many of you espouse just that.

I say to businesses, be circumspect in running your business. Be smart.

Many posts I’ve read lately, events that have taken place and online conversations led me to consider this again. It feels like a good time to remind myself, and I share this self-reminder with you all.

All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school.

These are the things I learned:

• Share everything.
• Play fair.
• Don’t hit people.
• Put things back where you found them.
• Clean up your own mess.
• Don’t take things that aren’t yours.
• Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.
• Wash your hands before you eat.
• Flush.
• Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
• Live a balanced life – learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
• Take a nap every afternoon.
• When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
• Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
• Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup – they all die. So do we.
• And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned – the biggest word of all – LOOK.

Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.

Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all – the whole world – had cookies and milk at about 3 o’clock in the afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.

And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out in the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

[From All I Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum.  http://www.robertfulghum.com/ ]

The “experts” whoever they are, can’t teach us any more about the basic principles of good conduct and civil behavior. They can explain the tools, but we already have the basics.

Many of you have read or seen the interviews I did about the Chile earthquake. I thought I’d tell you in my words what happened and then I’d like to share some thoughts on what social media really is from my perspective.

Saturday, February 27th, 2010 I awoke and got a cup of coffee. It’s the first thing on my agenda after a quick stop at the washroom. I had a few slurps and then went to the office to get phones. This is a common routine for Ken and I. Coffee then phones.

After getting phones, I look to see how many emails and messages there are, clearing them from my phone as I go. Then I typically open tweetdeck. Tweetdeck is the twitter client I use most often on my iphone. Once I have looked at twitter I head to facebook, because while I have a facebook app on my phone it doesn’t show me my pokes and my goal as a rule is to clear up anything that is an action item. Pokes are action items.

Saturday began like any other day, but I got stuck at tweetdeck. Both Ken and I noticed a number of tweets regarding an earthquake in Chile. My brother’s wife is there so our ears perked. We started searching google for news, looking at trending topics on twitter and in general seeking any information about the status of the people in Chile.

Once we saw the magnitude of the earthquake, 8.8 is HUGE, we started wondering if we should contact my brother to find out if he heard anything. I decided to attempt to call Chile to see if maybe all was ok in Santiago, which is where Maria was, and of course couldn’t get through. Call failed. Call failed many times and by now I was getting nervous. I looked at Ken and asked if he thought I should call my brother. We agreed I should.

I woke my brother up from a sound sleep to give him horrible news. An earthquake had occurred and we had tried to reach his wife and couldn’t get through. He said he would start trying. He was so distraught! There is nothing like having to share with a family member bad news. Really bad news. My heart went out to him but I believed it was better he know what happened than to wake and hear it elsewhere.

My brother and I quickly got off the phone with each other so he could start his long vigil while trying to find out what had happened to Maria. In the meantime, I too went to work to see if I could find some answers.

I can’t tell you how often I have been asked what hashtags are and how to use them. I have certainly used them for basic searches before this, but they became a lifeline.

Quickie def. of hashtags: A hashtag uses the hash symbol [pound sign] on your keyboard to draw attention to a specific topic or word.

When I was looking at the trending topics I quickly saw patterns. #Chile was big, #chileearthquake was too. #terremotochile was the biggest one at the beginning of my search so there I went, to http://search.twitter.com/search?q=terremotochile
I noticed a lot of people had many other hashtags so back on twitter I started posting random tweets, at first with no hashtags, moving to hashtags.

I honed my tweets and eventually started getting responses from people until the final response that really was a game changer for us. This one, from @jpcoderch:

We soon worked out the details and he went to work in Chile trying to call my sister in law. It took approximately two hours until he finally got through to her. Maria sent a message back with the code word twinkie, a pet name she uses for my brother so we would know it was really her.

The rest is really history. The interviews I did with the BBC as well as CBS Miami and even the conversation I had with a person from MSNBC which led to a story on their blog, that’s all easy enough to discover and share and it has been shared enough that I do not feel compelled to again.

What hasn’t really been talked about, though each of the news stations attempted to put their own spin on it, is the value in social media. I’m not talking about the communication potential or the way we might all find our next job, but the life altering value I have personally experienced. It also changed perceptions for me.

Prior to this incident, I had relationships with a few fairly well known web-celebs. Do you know only a handful of our moderately well known friends communicated any interest in what was happening or offered on any level to put the word out, and none of them, unless pointed to our situation offered support of any sort? Does this surprise you? I was not surprised, but it did give me pause to consider who we align ourselves with and what value are they in our lives if when something that really matters happens they aren’t even be in the audience as silent support. How engaged is that? I’ll save that for a later post.

Is social media important? Yes. Is it really important? Yes! Social media empowers it’s users to find their own information, to seek out people and ideas to enhance their lives, and provides opportunity to gain perspective. Prior to now, we were fed our ideals, socialized by big media, and brainwashed into believing all was as we were told. The innovators of the world didn’t buy into it and created tools that we can all use today to find what the real truth is. It is also much more as our story clearly demonstrates. It is an organic connection to the whole planet that allows us to see there is more than just us.

My thoughts have been building. I am in the process of writing a much more detailed post about engagement and social web celebs. For now, let me just say thank you to all who helped us and encouraged us through an incredibly trying and frightening time. We were very lucky to have the tools we have to be able to get to a result that was ultimately a gift. We found our family member alive and safe.

We hope all whose paths crossed ours during the awful Chile earthquake have had the kind of outcome we had, and for those who did not – our hearts grieve with you for all you have lost.

Technorati Tags: #terremotochile, #Chile, #earthquake

First the written news:

Friends, Family Go Online To Find Loved Ones

MIAMI (CBS4) ? Amid the devastation in Chile is a communications meltdown leaving people with few options. There are virtually no phone calls, but lots of digital messaging.

Moments after hearing about the earthquake, tweeter Sheryl Breuker in Walla Walla, Washington tried reaching her sister-in-law in Santiago, Chile. When she couldn’t get her on the phone, she turned to Twitter.

“So I gave out her phone number to a couple people. About two hours later, we received notice that she was safe, she was OK,” Breuker told CBS4′s Gio Benitez over the phone.

Total strangers went out to find her sister-in-law in Chile. They found her.

“What I learned was that the person helping us was also missing family and had not yet heard from his family, so it was a pretty big deal, and pretty awesome, honestly,” said Breuker.

Today, phone lines did not connect families, but fingertips did.

“You’re pretty much a social media expert, in a sense. I see you have like 18,000 tweets, did you ever expect something like this to happen?” asked Benitez.

“Absolutely not. I’ve been doing this for a long time, and you hear these stories of people having these experiences, certainly nobody I know,” said Breuker.

Follow Sheryl Breuker on Twitter here.
Follow CBS4′s Gio Benitez on Twitter here.

Note: Moved the CBS video below the fold to stop it from running every time people hit the web site. You can see it below Continue reading “Behold, the power of social media” »

Imagine awakening only to learn there’d been a major earthquake in Chile, where you have family. We did.

Many of our friends know Sheryl’s brother Brian and his wife Mariali. We’ve all been friends for quite some time (Jaiku, Facebook, Twitter), but now we’re also family. She lives just outside Santiago, not far from where the big earthquake hit this morning.

We immediately tried calling, texting, online, but no contact. Power, water, and phones are out there. In many areas the devastation is severe. We simply didn’t have any idea. We reached to social media. Everywhere.

People responded, mostly by retweeting. The power of the retweet is something we take for granted. A man we didn’t know in any way sent a simple tweet that he was in Chile and
asked how he could help. We scrambled to give him every bit of useful information that we could come up with.

He messaged several times that phones were out and he couldn’t get through. Then, amazingly he said “as soon as I get a chance I will go to the address you gave me.” Through Twitter, we made contact with someone in another continent, but close enough to go physically check on our family.

If that isn’t magical enough for you, if you really don’t understand the power of human communications through technology, the power of what we can do together, within two hours of our first contact with this man, I got a DM in Twitter than said “found her! she is OK…. she told me to tell Twinkie to stay cool, she is fine!” And an email with more info on how to try to contact her directly.

Twitter’s a tool. The power is in the people, but the reach and potential is far bigger than you understand. Until your life is personally and directly impacted, you simply can’t truly appreciate that power.

Technology gives power to communications tools. Communications tools give power to people. People impact one another and change the world.

Our deepest heartfelt thanks to @jpcoderch. You are our hero of the Santiago earthquake JP. Now we’re connected. At some point Sheryl and I hope to visit Mariali in Chile. It’s a part of our family. I hope we can take you to dinner one day and get to know each other in person as well

Side note: Many of you know our dearest and best friend, JP. What an interesting bit of serendipity that our new friend and hero is also JP. John Paul and Juan Pablo. Two gentlemen and friends who touch our lives.

Social media = ROTC or Return on Trust & Credibility. I grabbed that from friend, Shashi Bellamkonda and think it incredibly compelling. One of the things we all look for when trying to understand the value of social media is a way to define it so it makes sense en masse. In attempting to define the ROI it gets a little sticky because there are so many different sets of analytics and no one can agree on a standard. For more on my thoughts on that here is an article I recently wrote for Women Grow Business in Washington DC – Replacing ROI’s Old Monetary Vision.

Last night I was pointed to a great article that actually helps remove some of the mystery around social media and the value it has in the world we live in today. One of the biggest indicators is that social media investment is minor if anything at all, and your return is potentially huge. I’m sharing from the article but I hope you’ll go and read it in it’s entirety.

The SBSI found that nearly one out of five small business owners are actively using social media in their business. Small businesses are increasingly investing in social media applications including blogs, Facebook® and LinkedIn® profiles.

And further to that is this next paragraph by small business owner Dr. Alan Glazier.

“In order to meet the growing challenges of a tough market last year, I was forced to consider alternative options to keep my business visible,” says small business owner Dr. Alan Glazier, CEO and Founder, Shady Grove Eye and Vision Care. “With a very small investment in social media marketing, I was able to generate new business opportunities. Our Google® ranking is consistently number one for many of the phrases people use to search for eye doctors in and around my city and we have received a “bump” in terms of new visitors to the site. My blog has been picked up by different news sources and led to media interviews. I am now recognized as a thought leader in social networking within my profession and lastly but most importantly, my marketing budget has been reduced by more than 80%.”

Let me just reiterate, the cost of social media is minimal. As stated above, Dr. Glazier lowered his marketing cost by 80%. What could your company do with that 80%?

Of course, it’s not enough to simply create a presence in the online world of marketing venues. People want to have a relationship with those they hire. I would caution you that engagement must be a part of your marketing campaign. Broadcast messages will not build a customer base. You must use tools, video, audio, and messaging systems to encourage a relationship.

Today, small business is winning. It’s winning because they are resourceful and far more attuned to their clients. During an economic downturn such as we have been experiencing for the past 18 + months, small business success is a key indicator of the value in social media.

Yesterday Ken wrote here on stardust three key factors to success. Adapt, Adopt, Adjust. This should be every small business’ mantra. Social media must be included in that.

Remember, Social media = ROTC or Return on Trust & Credibility. We build our trust through social communication. Credibility will follow with engagement.

I was just reading an article by David Reinhardt entitled Think There’s No Room for Social Media in the Workplace? Think Again!. It gives some great points to consider, but I think the issue goes far deeper. Reading David’s piece is a great starting point for thinking, so go do that first. I’ll wait. When you get back, I’d like to share some added comments on on his seven points.

Before we go further, let’s debunk one of the great delusions of the day. Social media is in the workplace already. In nearly every workplace you can think of. It’s already there. Be honest with yourself. Social media is in schools. It’s in planes, trains and automobiles. It’s in restaurants. It’s even in the bathroom, as troublesome as acknowledging that may be.

To deny social media is already in the workplace is to bury your head in the sand. If that works for you, continue. But before you do, consider this. if you bury your head in the sand, you’re in a very dark place with nothing to see. And, note the picture. Your ass is a target. A big target. If you’re comfortable in denial and placing your ass in the air as a target, just remember you’ll never see what’s coming when your ass gets blown out of business. You’ll remain blissfully ignorant as you fly into the abyss of that long, dark goodnight.

Or, you can pull your head out.

People naturally gather around common points of interest
Humans are social creatures. We gather in communities, tribes, enclaves and neighborhoods. We share stories of the events in our daily lives, both business and personal. It’s ingrained in our nature socially back to the the early origins of our race.

In the workplace, we gathered at the break room, coffee pot and water cooler. Today, we can gather and share space online without being physically colocated. We can and do. And we will. The workplace cannot change our nature.

People like visuals
Not only are we social creatures, we’re visual creatures. Those early clans in caves told stories around the fire and left pictographs of their world. The social web is our canvas. It’s where we paint the pictures of our world and our lives.

We share pictures, words, music, what we had for lunch, and personal snips from our lives. We also share what we do, what we think, our ideas and ourselves in the workplace. To stop that would dehumanize us. In today’s information economy, dehumanization simply doesn’t fit. We are not drone workers in a factory and will never be that again. We, as a species, have evolved.

People are increasingly able to use complex websites
The web has become our natural home. For many, it’s what we’d refer to as our third place. Home is our first place. Our job is our second place. Our third place is where we choose to spend time. With the information age and communications technologies, the delineation between these places has vanished. Just as we can timeshift and placeshift our work to any time and any place, we all integrate our social selves into our work life as well. And we do.

People want to be able to add their own content
The old broadcast media world is dying. Quickly. The gatekeepers of news, information and entertainment have lost the reins. No matter how the clutch at them, that horse has run away from the old media cart. Everyone is an author. Everyone is a mdeia producer. We add content to the global body of knowledge constantly. And we like it. The concept of 15 minutes of fame is very much relegated to the abyss alongside the legacy broadcast media that promulgated the very idea. Why should you or I be relegated to 15 minutes when we have something to share every day? We shouldn’t. We aren’t. And we won’t.

Different people have different styles of working together
Just as there have always been loners and teams, there are different working styles among individuals in the connected world. Some people love to share; others do not. But companies have said for years, “our greatest asset is our people.” Really? And how do you encourage that asset? Not by trying to control how they work together. The greatest productivity comes from letting all that brainpower that works for the company unleash something new and innovative. That comes from the personal freedom to kick ass, not from the handcuffs of being told how do to every little thing.

Micromanaging people by telling them how to work, and how to work together has never been effective. It never will be. Today people will change jobs 20 or more times during the course of their career. The old model of taking a job “down at the plant” where dad worked, then spending 40 years there simply doesn’t fly. The workplace is changing and many of us are simply independent contractors who choose who we work with and how. The smart business leverages this reality by giving people the ability too work together in ways that are effective. For many of us, that must include social media and networking. It’s our lifeblood in our career. It has replaced the old human resources career guidance process. Like what McKinsey called Frogs in a Wheelbarrow, the best performers will jump to the most suitable work environment.

Even that model is evolving. That model applies to digital immigrants – those of us who grew up in the legacy analog world, but today live in the digital world. Digital natives entering the work force have always had open and unfettered access to the digital tools of now. They simply aren’t interested in working without the tools they view as basics of life. A business is going to have to embrace digital natives or shutter the doors over time as baby boomers exit the workforce.

Information that is not found might as well not be published
Publish or perish is no longer just a rule in academia. It’s a reality we all live with every day of our lives. We feed the Internet machine with so many routine actions. We publish our lives without thinking. Even those who don’t know their lifestream is published, are publishing in some fashion.

Use your ATM card. Swipe your employee ID. Enter a door code. Private transactions, though private they may be, are published somewhere.

If you aren’t on the Internet, you don’t exist. If you don’t publish, there is no record of your existence. Publishing in the now, is the word of mouth stories our ancestors told by the fire in caves. It is our record. Our existence.

As a business manager or executive, if you’re asking how to control social media, you are asking the wrong question. You cannot control social media. You cannot contain conversation. You cannot dictate. It’s far too late. Just as China cannot contain the vocies seeking expression, you are fighting a hopeless cause. In business, that’s counterproductive and costly. Not smart business. So be a smart business person. Pull your head out of the sand, and quit exposing your backside.

It’s easier than you think.

Adopt social media technologies with an open mind and thoughtful steps.

Adapt to the world as it changes. You have to be flexible.

Adjust work flows, business processes and management oversight to make the best use of the power of social media. Don’t expect to control it. You can’t. Slip into the groove. Like driving down the highway, and sliding into the slipstream of that big 18-wheeler, find your comfort zone and slide into the fit the brings value to every involved.

It’s easier than you think. Need help? Contact us.

Caveat: This is Ken’s opinion and post about Google Buzz. Sheryl and I have pretty different opinions and experiences. Don’t infer that she agrees with anything said here.

Last week the buzz hit the Internet to a flurry of very mixed reactions. My own reactions have been pretty mixed thus far too. Mostly the Buzz feels like a rug burn, but I want to be open about it and really give it a fair chance. I really really want to give it a fair chance.

Then there’s this:

Excuse me? Is Schmidt channeling Jerry Yang and leading Google to be the next Yahoo? Take a hundred days Eric. You can afford it. Get out of the way and let your team fix the damage. The worst thing an exec can do is pour gas on a fire, and you sound like a kid with a gas can and a book of matches. Go have a long conversation with Jyri Engestrom. By conversation, I mean go ask him what you should do, shut the hell up and listen. Take notes. Then get out of the way.

Up until today Schmidt was a long way from my list of executives in dire need of a smack with a clue-by-four. But he fought and clawed his way onto the list. Yes, one of these days, I’ll disclose who’s on the list and why. If you’ve followed for any length of time, you already know some.

Where was I? Oh yeah…Buzz. I’m left with questions. No answers. Ideas. No warm fuzzies. I see possibility. I see ego. I see the GOOG in a new light, and it’s not pretty. I could wax sarcastic about doing no evil. I could compare the sly and underhanded way Microsloth makes users de facto beta testers. I could point out how Google made a move to out Microsoft the big M by doing so openly, with a brash attitude. I could.

But that would take effort. Like Buzz, it would take more effort than any return could deliver today. I’ll save it for another time when I’ll get more out of it. And I’m saving Buzz until some time when I’ll get more out of it. More return for all the draining work it takes. Maybe. But really I’ll just step back and wait for some indication that the voices of reason, like Jyri, have been heard and somebody down at the Googleplex has done something really smart.

Creating and unleashing Buzz just because the technology made it possible does not creating a winning solution. For me, today, Buzz isn’t as big a flop as Wave, but it’s all fizzle, no sizzle. I’m putting Buzz in the hold file as something to dabble with when I’m very bored.

Since we’ve made the switch to iPhone, partly out of necessity after my Blackberry died, we’ve spent a bit of effort exploring apps. In my view, many are a great waste of space. They’re a variation of digital noise cluttering the app store, vying for attention.

Some, but not all. Bleam is an app that recently caught our eye. As it turns out, a friend (Dean Landsman @DeanLand) is partnered up pretty close with their marketing efforts. Bleam’s new, and their pitch is, I’d say, understated. Hugely understated. Here’s what they say:

Bleam
Local Instant Messaging

Mobile social networking just got a whole lot easier – thanks to Bleam for the iPhone™ and iPod touch™.

Because Bleam uses Bluetooth and/or WiFi to create an instant network, you don’t need a service signal to connect with the people around you. Just turn on Bleam and chat publicly or privately, share photos and exchange contacts with other Bleamers.

You don’t need to know someone’s ID or phone number to start Bleaming. Just be within range. And since Bleam networks iPhones together, your range will extend much further than with other Bluetooth messaging apps.

We have just submitted Bleam 1.1 to the App Store. Bleam 1.1 will let you set up multiple profiles. It’s the perfect feature for Bleamers moving between a variety of social settings – from business conferences to conference championships, lecture halls to concert halls.

So get Bleam now!
WHERE YOU ARE IS WHERE IT’S AT!

Neat and simple, but it’s an app that made me think. Walk with me down the path a ways…

Let’s begin with an appreciation of the etymology behind Bleam, because that alone hearkens to our roots, the jargon of our heritage, and for some of us, simply brings a smile. From the Free Dictionary:

(jargon)

bleam – To transmit or send data. “Bleam that binary to me in an e-mail”.

Ok, so perhaps it’s just nostalgic for guys like Dean and I who’ve been there and back. Still, it feels like a respectful hat tip from the iPhone generation to the past, and I like that. I won’t show you all the screen shots. I’m not here to do a review. I’m here to acknowledge the door Bleam flings open.

The opening screen sets things in motion. it simply says, I’m hunting. Seeking a connection media and peers (Bleamers) on that media. ‘Nuff said.

Bleam is an ad hoc chat tool. Think of it as a back channel you put up , take down, join or leave at will. Any time. Any place. You are the network if there isn’t one.

You can exchange information either in public or private. Here’s a sample:

I picked this shot simply to show how you can transfer text messages, pictures and contact cards. Certainly the obvious future ideas could include other media – video or music.

It’s interesting. A tidy little program that fills a gap. Sheryl and I tested it and were quite pleased.

I can’t do Steve Job’s impressions, but allow me to channel him for a moment…and another thing

Bleam portends a future that isn’t here today. I’d challenge the Bleam developers in ways I’m pretty confident Dean has, is and will continue to challenge them. This is a nice point of entry. Don’t let it be the end game, because there is so much more. Think about how Bleam does what it does, through options of WiFi and Bluetooth, and let your imagination stretch a bit further than chatting with your BFF.

As a speaker and presenter, I see my iPhone, iPad, device of choice using Bleam’s core to connect with a Bluetooth-WiFi enabled projector in a conference room. I don’t want or need a laptop. Let me Bleam my presentation to the projector while I walk around the room giving my talk.

As a listener, let me Bleam music to my speakers. In my car or my house. Or let me Bleam it to Sheryl’s nephew’s audio system, properly enabled of course, when we go visit.

When we get on a plane because we’re traveling to some exotic destination (no we are not going back to Waseca, MN), why don’t you let me join the Bleam driven network on the plane to send me movies and audio.

In fact, just Bleam enable my house and appliances. We’re still waiting for Smarthome 1.0 to become a reality. Let’s skip it and go to Bleamhome instead. Let me use WiFi and Bluetooth in my really smart home. I can control lights, fixtures, temperature, turn on the oven (and check how long the roast has left to cook) and all manner of wireless controls. Without wires. Without infrastructure. Simply enabling the connector widgets.

Widgets? Yep. Hardware and software widgets. Bluetooth/Bleam enable a lightswitchand sell it for $25 instead of $1.95. I’ll buy one for every room. Don’t build a supersmart home nobody can afford but the elite. Widgetize the process making migration a consumer owned and operated experience.

I recently wrote some pretty favorable things about another app service…Foursquare. I think Bleam is bigger and has more potential than Foursqare. Go to Bleam and check it out for yourself. Or go on your iPhone and get it from the app store. But don’t overlook it. It could be your future.

Disclaimer and note to Dean and the Bleam Team: I haven’t been paid or asked to write this. We bought the app. That’s right we shelled out the whopping 99 cents for each of us. No compensation or external motivators. That said, Dean…Bo… when you get ready to move into new areas, I’d love to help with strategy, direction, biz dev and what Bleam might do  in a bigger way. Keep me in mind.