Tag Archives: Facebook

Your Computer Is Not Your Friend

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There was a time when I forgot how important friends were. There was almost zero people in a twenty mile radius I could call if things were difficult.

I forgot that spending time on social media is not “social” time.

I literally didn’t have good girlfriends–and it was negatively affecting my life.

Community is not just something you build so you have users for your website. It’s something you REALLY need in your life. I’m pleased to say I’ve been on a bit of a friendship “binge” lately–getting so much joy out of hanging with the girls. Even if you’re in a great relationship, there is no replacement for girlfriends. Not having them has left a gaping hole in my life–don’t make the same mistake that I did. Friendships take some effort–you need to invest your time and energy–but if you aren’t thriving in the friendship portion of your life you are really missing out. Life is dreary without friends!

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Friends do the following for you:

Laugh with you about the ridic stuff that women have to go through.
Complain about the lack of a female James Bonds.
Stop you from hitting refresh on your email.
Allow you to complain about your man while understanding you love your man.
Don’t try to fix the stuff you complain about, but just listen.
Asks you “what’s on your mind” without having it permanently etched in a data base somewhere to sell to Facebook marketers.
Shares honest stories about what’s happening in their lives (much better than the plethora of Facebook yacht or weight loss photos on Facebook).

Ask yourself if you have people in your life who you don’t talk business with. If you look around and you’re hanging out with people just because it will help your career-you are living a life out of balance. Take a serious look in the mirror about your life. Social media does not make people happy. Go out there and make some real friends. I did it and I feel so much better. I feel human again.

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The Compulsion Trap

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I’m fully aware of my compulsiveness. I believe it has fueled my success and….
taken fuel out of my success.

Compulsions are something we all have–most of the time as a way of escaping the moment.

On a related note, “Women Food and God” author Geneen Roth has a way of talking about managing your SELF. She calls it “keeping the patient comfortable.” I took a workshop from Geneen and realized that we–especially women–spend a lot of time outside of our body.

We’re not home.

We distract ourselves from life–and we experience a watered down version of it. We all have different reasons we decide to check out of reality, check out of our bodies, check out of the moment. While momentarily checking out can seem to ease pain, anxiety, sadness, fear—I believe the strength we gain by living in HERE NOW strongly outweighs any short-term painless pleasure of living in distraction.

On a related note there was a popular article published this week in the New York Times called “The Busy Trap.” Consider this excerpt from the essay:

If you live in America in the 21st century you’ve probably had to listen to a lot of people tell you how busy they are. It’s become the default response when you ask anyone how they’re doing: “Busy!” “So busy.” “Crazy busy.” It is, pretty obviously, a boast disguised as a complaint. And the stock response is a kind of congratulation: “That’s a good problem to have,” or “Better than the opposite.” Notice it isn’t generally people pulling back-to-back shifts in the I.C.U. or commuting by bus to three minimum-wage jobs  who tell you how busy they are; what those people are is not busy but tired. Exhausted. Dead on their feet. It’s almost always people whose lamented busyness is purely self-imposed: work and obligations they’ve taken on voluntarily, classes and activities they’ve “encouraged” their kids to participate in. They’re busy because of their own ambition or drive or anxiety, because they’re addicted to busyness and dread what they might have to face in its absence.

Whether we’re aware of it or not we all have ways of managing our anxiety, sadness, anger, frustration–all the things in life we go through as human beings. Busy is a solution to the anxiety-conundrum, but what happens when we realize that we rarely take even five minutes in our day to make sure we’re really present, in our bodies, home?

ADD, OCD, ADHD, Multi-Tasking, Switch-Tasking, the usual

What I believe will help us feel more internally calm on an individual basis is becoming more aware of the ways in which we escape what we go through. I believe as a society we are addicted to escape. Escape is a form of compulsion–no matter the activity.

According to Wikipedia a compulsive behavior is “a psychological condition in which a person does a behavior compulsively, having an overwhelming feeling that they must do so.”

Ok so sometimes this urge or feeling is actually a blog I want to write down. But it can also be an urge to put some chocolate in my mouth, or check my Facebook. I could be multi-tasking, and according to Geneen Roth that could be eating chocolate and checking Facebook at the same time. She’s right. Am I really tasting the chocolate when I’m looking at friend’s pictures of sailing trips, weddings, and babies?

At the incredible “Women, Food and God” workshop I attended Geneen Roth took us through an exercise where we were given a piece of chocolate. We were asked to close our eyes, smell the chocolate, feel the chocolate, put it to our lips, lick the chocolate, savor the chocolate in our mouth. It was the best damn chocolate I ever ate in my life. And 300 other women felt the same way. The entire audience laughed.

Geneen showed us that focusing on the one piece of chocolate made it a very different and pleasurable experience–much more so than wolfing the chocolate down in between tweets, Spotify and the New York Times.

Multi-tasking, Switch-tasking, Accomplishing Nothing

They say that multi-tasking just means doing a few things very badly. When you are distracted whatever you’re doing loses focus. I believe I’m not the only one who does this. I believe most of us don’t even realize we spend very little time actually in our bodies. We are trying to rush through our days doing as many things as possible. When was the last time you sat down at the table and really tasted your dinner? That means eating without distractions–no Facebook, no TV, no anxiety inducing conversation with family, no work.

I believe that most of us aren’t aware of our inability to sit still. And we’re certainly not aware of our compulsive behavior.

Here’s a list of compulsions. Do you have any more?

  1. Working
  2. Eating
  3. Working out
  4. Shopping
  5. Drinking wine
  6. Drinking coffee
  7. Smoking (I don’t smoke)
  8. Chewing gum
  9. Watching tv
  10. Texting
  11. Instant messaging
  12. Reading
  13. Emailing
  14. Checking email
  15. Opening the fridge
  16. Petting the dog
  17. Talking
  18. Biting nails
  19. Picking cuticles
  20. Touching our hair
  21. Tapping
  22. Facebooking
  23. Tweeting
  24. Sharing photos
  25. Pinning
  26. Throat clearing

There are many more on this list of compulsive behavior–some of which are far more destructive. While we might not have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, which can make life debilitating, many of us have a small version of that. We are functionally a little dysfunctional.

I will be the first to admit I have incredible trouble sitting still. But now I’m more aware of my minor case of ADD, OCD, ADHD or just plain old Gen Y’er–whatever you want to call it.

I manage my own Gen Y-ishness by exercising in the morning, taking deep breaths throughout the day, closing my eyes for a few minutes if I have to. I get up every two hours because I have to take my dog out–but it’s one of the healthiest things I do during the day to keep me fresh.

I also stop myself if I notice I’m starting to open Tweetdeck, Facebook or email while I’m on the phone. I will close it off and pull out a post-it note and take notes regarding the call I’m on. I’m giving myself the ok to slow down. Really slow down.

I want us all to slow down and try and give everything we do the gift of our attention. By slowing down and focusing on one thing at a time, 100% we will all notice the quality of our lives improving.

The truth is there is time enough in the day to slow down.

While I don’t expect you to completely change, I do want to encourage you to be more aware. By being aware you will have a better understanding of yourself and your best work-environments. You will also notice the quality of your relationships improve (by giving people the gift of your attention), and the quality of your free time improve.

If you make time for deep breathing throughout your day you will also notice that you are more relaxed and better equipped to manage your day.
Don’t forget the big, important word “BOUNDARIES” and make sure to draw them for yourself on a daily basis.

Is Facebook Making Us Sad (And By “Us” I Mean Women)?

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I recently came upon an article “Is Facebook Making Us Sad?” The article above draws on a research paper “Misery Has More Company Than People Think: Underestimating the Prevalence of Others’ Negative Emotions.” The findings reported the negative effects on mental health are exacerbated by the “keeping up with the Joneses” mentality on Facebook and other social networks.

These articles both argue that Facebook is characterized by “the very public curation of one’s assets in the form of friends, photos, biographical data, accomplishments, pithy observations, even the books we say we like. Look, we have baked beautiful cookies. We are playing with a new puppy. We are smiling in pictures (or, if we are moody, we are artfully moody.) Blandness will not do, and with some exceptions, sad stuff doesn’t make the cut, either. The site’s very design—the presence of a ‘Like’ button, without a corresponding ‘Hate’ button—reinforces a kind of upbeat spin doctoring.”

The Fabulosity Competition

I see women all the time talking about how fabulous their life is online, like it’s some kind of “fabulosity” competition.

In the article “Is Facebook Making Us Sad,” the writer suggests that Facebook has a “special power to make us sadder and lonelier. By showcasing the most witty, joyful, bullet-pointed versions of people’s lives, and inviting constant comparisons in which we tend to see ourselves as the losers, Facebook appears to exploit an Achilles’ heel of human nature. And women—an especially unhappy bunch of late—may be especially vulnerable to keeping up with what they imagine is the happiness of the Joneses.”

That includes showcasing what seems like abundance, or wealth. And for women, wealth is not always equated to dollars–it’s equated to what might be seen as physical wealth.

Some of us acknowledge the fact that celebrities in America are worshiped like Gods. Instead of caring about what goes on in Third World Countries and other problems in the U.S. we distract ourselves with Jennifer Aniston’s love life in US Weekly. I don’t mean to be Debbie Downer here–I am just as guilty and have sat in many nail salons reading many of these magazines. But I acknowledge that celebrities, especially female celebrities, are worshiped (like religious figures)–and they generally fit a certain physical quota. These images are EVERYWHERE and are so normative to us that women feel they should be mirroring what they see in the media. I am not saying all women are like this (I can hear my friend Genna’s voice in my head saying…Blake I’m not like that…) But I think that this is part of the problem. Women are held to unrealistic standards, and compete offline, online to mirror this kind of 2011 Cleopatra-esque figure.

I don’t claim to be a saint, or deny that I get my hair done and I go to the gym. I do. But I’m tired of seeing what I see as a female self-esteem crisis unfolding around us. And getting worse.

And I don’t think this is my own paranoia.

There are countless studies that show how much Americans spend each year on beauty. In the WSJ it was reported that the beauty industry is worth $58.9 billion in the U.S. In addition Newsweek reported in an article, “The Business of Beauty,” women ages 12-24 buy more cosmetics and skin care products than any other age group.

We spend more money on beauty in this country than we do on education. Does that seem counter-intuitive to you too?

Women are not worshiped generally for what they build or create, but rather are rewarded for having good looks. People who refute this are just turning a blind eye. It’s impossible not to notice–it’s everywhere. And this won’t stop until women start supporting each other and give up trying to fit someone else’s notion of physical perfection.

And in considering what sometimes seem like an ongoing beauty competition Megan O’Roarke in “Women Are Unhappier Than Ever” argues that the drop in happiness is pegged to an anxiety caused by “women’s feeling that they have to perform well across more categories [including beauty].”

She argues that “the women’s movement has decreased women’s happiness at this moment in time, because ‘the increased opportunity to succeed in many dimensions may have led to an increased likelihood in believing that one’s life is not measuring up.” The paradox of choice model might explain, too, why men’s happiness has also declined—just not as extremely as women’s.

I am not writing this because I feel that the intentions are bad, but to be honest as a woman and a woman who feels self-aware and hyper-aware of what goes on for young girls, I am just tired of it.

Can you imagine if we put as much effort into supporting each other as we put toward improving our looks? This whole idea of “measuring up” seems to be attempts by women to be loved, to feel respected, to get opportunities, to gain the admiration of their facebook friends….but I can’t be satisfied with the idea that no one else is fed up with what is going on today.

I hope that in my lifetime we see viral change across the world, that women need to start helping each other and stop competing with the Joneses. We can do better than this!


My Video Response To Malcolm Gladwell Controversy–Does Egypt Need Twitter?

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Last week I saw quite a few tweets flying around that I found unsettling. They were in response to Malcolm Gladwell’s comments on the Egypt Protest in his article in The New Yorker “Does Egypt Need Twitter?”

 

For example here is a tweet I saw from marketing blogger @JeffJarvis: .

And this is my response.

Social media is an important new channel, but people have been staging coups for centuries.

The medium has changed, but the message has not. Let’s not forget the important issue here–the actual people and social turmoil. That’s the story.

Not the importance of social media. And let’s not beat up journalists who are not afraid to bring us back down to earth. We are very disconnected from the reality of a situation on the ground like what’s happening in Egypt, so it’s easy to get lost in the headlines. The story is the poverty rate in Egypt is 40%. That’s really high. And I feel compassion for these people.

I’m not saying freedom to use the internet is not important–it is.

But I am saying the media focuses on the headlines that
will draw audiences, and pay advertisers. Let’s not believe everything that we read without being critical thinkers…
including headlines about Twitter and Facebook.

Sheryl Sandberg, Marissa Mayer and Cleopatra–Women Leaders Groomed For Success

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I’m reading a biography of Cleopatra and I’m learning some surprising facts about Egypt’s last queen. Cleopatra, who was known for her “wit” and…for being a “prankster,” outlived all of her brothers. In the book she is hailed as a “shrewd strategist and ingenious negotiator.” She was a woman who “reshaped the contours of the ancient world.”

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Cleopatra’s story was a variation from the norm. She was one of the most powerful and fascinating women in history. And…her success was not an accident. She had a rich network of women before her to mentor, guide and support her.

Cleopatra could look to any number of female forebears who built temples, raised fleets, waged military campaigns, and, with their consorts, governed Egypt. Arguably she had more powerful female role models than any other queen in history. Whether this resulted from a general exhaustion on the part of the men in the family, as has been asserted, is unclear. There would have been every reason for the women to have been exhausted as well. But the standouts in the generations immediately preceding Cleopatra’s were–for vision, ambition, intellect, universally female.

Cleopatra had more support than most women today, two thousand years later.

COO of Facebook Puts a New Face on the “Womens Movement”

When people criticize the womens movement of the 60′s and 70′s they argue that now women are just expected to do more.  Women are expected to get to the top of the corporate ladder, raise the kids, and keep herself together.

One woman who understands how to navigate a “man’s world” is Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook. And she wants to help other women do the same. At first glance, the modern corporate world might not look like a “man’s world,” but it sure does after seeing Sheryl’s recent data.

For real?

  • Out of 190 heads of state, nine are women.
  • Only 13% of the members of parliament are women.
  • In the corporate sector 15% of the executives at the top are women.
    –note–>This percentage has not moved since 2002, and is now going in the wrong direction.
  • In an industry that appears to be more female friendly–non-profit–only 20% of the executives at the top are women.
  • According to a Columbia University study, success and likability are positively correlated for men, and negatively correlated for women.
  • And lastly, 2/3 of male senior managers have children, while only 1/3 of female senior managers have children[vodpod id=Video.5168279&w=425&h=350&fv=vu%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fvideo.ted.com%2Ftalks%2Fdynamic%2FSherylSandberg_2010W-medium.flv%26amp%3Bsu%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fimages.ted.com%2Fimages%2Fted%2Ftedindex%2Fembed-posters%2FSherylSandberg-2010W.embed_thumbnail.jpg%26amp%3Bvw%3D432%26amp%3Bvh%3D240%26amp%3Bap%3D0%26amp%3Bti%3D1040%26amp%3BintroDuration%3D15330%26amp%3BadDuration%3D4000%26amp%3BpostAdDuration%3D830%26amp%3BadKeys%3Dtalk%3Dsheryl_sandberg_why_we_have_too_few_women_leaders%3Byear%3D2010%3Btheme%3Dcelebrating_tedwomen%3Btheme%3Dnot_business_as_usual%3Btheme%3Dnew_on_ted_com%3Bevent%3DTEDWomen%3B]

In her Ted Talk,  Sheryl shares a short story. She talks about the time she visited a venture firm in New York for a pitch. She was in a meeting and at one point she excused herself from a table full of men to go to the ladies room. She said the host of the meeting looked suddenly embarrassed–there was no womens bathroom on the floor. The office had been there for one year.

This means one of two things.

1. Either no woman before Sheryl had attended a meeting on that floor.
2. Meetings were only attended by women who didn’t drink liquids.

Probably the former.

The point Sheryl makes is women are “dropping out.” She attributes this to the messages women tell themselves, the messages women tell the women they work with, and the messages women tell their daughters. She also says we-as a society-put more pressure on men to succeed than women.

It’s obvious we need to do a better job of paying attention to the lack of women in leadership.

Power Players are groomed…

What I learned living in New York City–a town laden with young powerful people, many of whom came from wealthy families–is people are groomed for success. Success is rarely an accident. Successful people are supported, trained, and resourced.

More than anyone–today’s girls need this support.

You’ve heard this before but I’ll say it again– women need to do a better job of supporting each other in the corporate world.  With so few positions at the top, the competition is cut throat. And women step on each other to get there. What we don’t realize is this is counter-productive.

What is scary is the data you saw at the beginning of this blog most likely will not change for decades.  In considering today’s female workforce, the little girls today aren’t seeing behaviors we want them to necessarily mirror. 

Marissa the engineer

In a recent Newsweek interview with Marissa Mayer–Vice President of Geographic and Location Services at Google–she talks about how Google culture has evolved to hire more female engineers.

Marissa recalls being interviewed at Google, and being the first woman engineer to be hired. She said:

Right away during my interview, [Google cofounders] Larry [Page] and Sergey [Brin] said, “You know, we have seven engineers, and they’re all guys. But we’ve thought a lot about how we want to start our company, and we’ve read a lot of books, and we know that organizations work better when there is gender balance. So it’s important to us that we have a strong group of women, especially technical women, in the company.”

I am impressed with Marissa’s experience with Sergey and Larry (I don’t know them-just prefer to use first names). This stuff shouldn’t be hard, or complicated…it’s just about putting a little extra effort into supporting women in the workplace. And if we make initiatives–like Google did–and they lose momentum, give a gentle reminder. Marissa did it. Here‘s another excerpt from her interview:

There was one point in the early days when we had hired 16 men in a row into engineering, and Larry said, “You know what? If we get to 20, I’m not going to sign any more offer letters until you start producing an equal ratio of women.” That was the moment when we really started recruiting for technical women, helping to build programs around it, really putting a lot of effort into it.

We all know it’s in the best interest of women, girls, and the entire world. We need women running this world too.

*just for the record, my boyfriend Jacob watched this Ted Talk with me. Very refreshing that some guys get it.

Investing in Your External Community or the Future Valuation of Facebook? My Interview with Retail Prophet Doug Stephens

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This week I am at Blog World in Las Vegas– in light of the event and the upcoming webinar my company blueKiwi Software will be hosting on social business for retail with speakers Esteban Kolsky, Principal with ThinkJar and customer Laurence Mayer of Corporate Training for Louis Vuitton–I interviewed Doug Stephens, President of Strategy Consultancy Retail Prophet Consulting.

Doug Stephens is thought by many to be one of the world’s only retail industry futurists. He’s worked with some of North America’s best known retailers and brands including Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Hudson’s Bay Company, Disney, Loblaw and Benjamin Moore. Prior to founding Retail Prophet Consulting Doug spent 20 years in retail holding senior international roles, including the leadership of one of New York City’s most iconic retail chains. Doug is the author of Retail Prophet’s Shift 2020 Retail Trends Report and a member of the Retail Wire Brain Trust. He is also founder of the Retail Prophets industry think-tank and a Contributing Blogger to Technorati’s business channel. In addition, Doug sits on the advisory board of the Location-Based Marketing Association. Check out our interview to learn more about external community management, social business and the future of retail!

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Blake Landau : Doug you have told me before it’s a mistake to build communities on Facebook. Why do you think this is the case?

Doug Stephens: In the short-term, I don’t necessarily think it’s a mistake for brands to build communities within Facebook. For many brands, a Facebook page serves as a good introduction to what hosting a community is all about.  And I know given Facebook’s growth that it seems counterintuitive that brands should look elsewhere but in the longer term I do foresee the need for brands to establish communities outside Facebook for few reasons;

Firstly, when brands put money into developing a presence on Facebook, they’re really contributing to building the assets of Facebook – not their own.   When they drive traffic to their page, they’re adding to the richness of Facebook’s database, not their own.  They are simply the curator of something that Facebook ultimately owns.  I think brands will slowly awaken to this and begin to look for ways to better allocate those assets.

Secondly, as branded Facebook pages become increasingly ubiquitous, I think companies will seek to create greater levels of differentiation.  The only way to achieve this will be through developing their own branded communities.   There will be a more exclusive feel to many of these communities, in contrast to the communal feel of Facebook.  They will likely represent consumers who consider themselves a step above merely being a Facebook fan of a given brand.

Lastly, I think building a social community outside Facebook makes a stronger statement about both the brand and the consumers that join it.  It signifies the desire to offer and engage in a somewhat deeper and perhaps more meaningful relationship or dialogue.

The ultimate goal should be to create a branded social experience that has such high perceived value that consumers would literally be willing to pay to belong to the community.  If you can get to that level, you’ve really created something remarkable.  Look at it this way; People pay to get into Disney World for a reason.

Having said all that, I do feel that Facebook can and will continue to serve as one of many access points or paths into these branded communities.  It’s still a great place to initiate Consumer interest in your brand.

BL: What do you think is the future of the retail industry as it relates to purchasing patterns?

DS: We’re at a really interesting point right now in North American retail.  We’ve essentially come to the end of an era – that was sort of sped to its conclusion by the recession.

For about the last 30 years retailers have been able to count on relatively steady and robust demand across a massive and homogenous consumer base – the baby boomer family.  When you add a historic level of credit spending into the equation it was like rocket fuel for retail.

All signs are pointing to the beginning of a very different looking period, where demand is increasingly less predictable, consumer preferences more fleeting and customer segments smaller and more diverse.  There’s no one consumer group that constitutes the bulls eye anymore.

I think we’ll continue to see growth in both the super-luxury and super-discount segments but a widening value gap in the middle. And all consumption will be more thoughtful than we’re accustomed to.

BL: Why do you think social business will be important to the retail community?

DS: For the same reasons social business was important 200 years ago.  Social business isn’t new.  If the village shoe maker wanted to stay in business he needed to understand the needs and preferences of his customers.  He also needed to know first-hand what made them happy.  In turn, his customers would either spread positive or negative word of mouth. None of that has changed it’s only been digitalized.  The mass media era, beginning around the 1920’s was really just a fad – a blip that lasted less than a century.  In every other time in history, businesses succeeded by connecting personally with their customers.  We’re simply returning to that.

BL: In your opinion is it important to have a customer engagement strategy and collaboration strategy on the same platform?

DS: Yes.  You may recall through 1990’s companies everywhere were preaching the benefits of employee empowerment and connecting every employee to the needs of the customer.  Unfortunately, very few companies could actually execute against that rhetoric.

A social business strategy that places internal collaborative systems at the center of the customer community achieve this implicitly. Every employee can then be connected to both the needs of their consumer and also to the internal collaborative process in meeting those needs – there can even be points of cross-over where customers become co-collaborators.  This requires enormous trust on the part of companies in their people.

BL: Are retailers ready to buy social business software platforms?

DS: Like everything else, I see a real spectrum of understanding and comfort in the retail community with respect to social marketing.  Early adopters like Best Buy and Starbucks are already there.  For many others, a branded Facebook page is still a daunting idea.

Statistically anyway, the majority of major brands surveyed indicate that they’ve at least made social marketing a budget item for 2011 but I doubt that a high percentage are far enough along the curve to consider developing their own communities outside facebook.  Like most things however, when it hits the inflection point it will tip quickly.  The goal for all brands will be to own the best social experience in their category and I don’t believe that can be achieved without taking ownership of the platform.

For more on Doug Stephens you can reach him at www.retailprophet.com

What Alfred Hitchcock Would Have Said About Facebook (For Business?)

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What would Alfred Hitchcock have to say about social media? His film Rear Window (1954) hits the premise of social media on the head. The film is about voyeurism. And as the script reads ”we’ve become a race of Peeping Toms.” Sixty years later I think Alfred would agree.

Why are so many of us addicted to Facebook? Because we arguably enjoy watching others and being watched–this is not mean to sound creepy. We are interested in each other’s stories. And Facebook helps us tell the story of who we are through old kindergarten class photos, political/social causes, music and sometimes even photos of our breakfast.

While I try not to bore my networks with photos of my breakfast, I manage my online social profiles with openness. Just like jumping into the ocean when it’s really cold, first you dip your toe, then up to your knees, then your waist and then you adjust and dive in. Slowly we are submerging ourselves in social.

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Social Media and Business?

My progression into social media for business was slow. One podcast show turned into a blog, which gave me the courage to do video interviews and eventually other media. I slowly fell in love with content creation and sharing.

And I’ve come to terms with imperfection. I can’t omit all the “ums, ahs, likes or you knows” in my podcast interviews. It’s all out there, floating in cyberspace…forever.

And in addition to all the media out there I still have moments where I’m conflicted about social nuance. This includes which friend requests to accept, reject, remove etc. And just like in real life there’s no one size fits all rule book. It’s generally a “case by case” “use your best judgement at the time” type of situation.

And most of us are still pretty clumsy with this–the blind leading the blind.

Some smart people are trying to solve these issues with us–well maybe not the venting issue mentioned above, but the two areas that are still sort of vague for most of us: enterprise 2.0 (internal collaboration) and social CRM (external collaboration).

You Really Want All That Stuff About You Up There On the Internet?

At a certain point we will have to learn to lose our self-consciousness. It’s a small sacrifice we make for the rich returns we get from sharing. This includes ignoring “the tyranny of public opinion.”

It’s no secret that a lot of us are still clumsily trying to leverage social media internally and externally. There is a lot of talk about brands “losing control” but what about our own individual brands?

How do we maintain our privacy without alienating people (friend requests dangling in limbo)? How do we avoid hurting people’s feelings and maintaining some kind of control over our own online personaes and profiles?

Again there’s no one size fits all solution, similiar to the fact that there’s no one size fits all solution for organizations and their social strategies.

More questions raised include: How can we participate without revealing too much? Do I really want my parents to see the same photos my friends see? My boss? My colleagues? My customers?

I mentioned I had a friend who was visiting the doctor for a very personal check up.

The doctor obviously was a very personable and warm individual, told my friend to add her on Facebook. Just in case of emergency. If the doctor was off duty, she could easily be pinged in an emergency.

The dialogue went sort of like this:

Doctor:“Just add me on Facebook!”
Patient: “What? Really?”
Doctor: “Oh of course, just don’t write on my wall asking for the results of your test. Once I had a patient who wrote on my wall ‘did you get the results back from XXX test?’”

[And it wasn't a test to check a fever]

While consumer packaged goods companies seem to be leading the charge leveraging Facebook to understand consumers, other industries are awkwardly following suit–out of necessity more than anything else. The use of Facebook for business will only progress.

But do businesses really want to always be watched? And what is the best way to watch customers? What would Alfred say?

So what are your opinions on public versus private? How much do you want to share? What are the dangers with Facebook and Enterprise 2.0 or Social CRM?

The Social Network: “Good Artists Borrow. Great Artists Steal.”

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Last night I saw the Facebook film about Mark Zuckerberg “The Social Network” based on  Ben Mezrich‘s 2009 nonfiction book The Accidental Billionaires. Fact or fiction, the film paints a very human portrait of seemingly insensitive Mark Zuckerberg.

The film could have easily had a different name such as “Good Artists Borrow. Great Artists Steal,” Misunderstood“ or even the old quote “Heavy is the head that wears the crown.”

The film was written by Aaron Sorkin. None of the Facebook staff, including founder Mark Zuckerberg, will be involved with the project. Eduardo Saverin, was a consultant for Mezrich’s book.

My question is how can someone, fifteen days younger than me, accused of calling his users “dumb *****” and making business cards that read “I’m CEO…B*tch,” still be the youngest billionaire in history?

I’ve been a Facebook user through its many iterations. Facebook and I have had our own tumultuous relationship. I have dumped Facebook–I have crept back in the middle of the night to my patiently waiting lap-top to undelete my profile. I then had the mixed feeling of relief and nervousness to find all of my information perfectly in tact.

To answer my own question above, the reason Mark Zuckerberg can get away with acting belligerent, is there is only one Facebook.  His product, while flawed and not ideal for business use, speaks for itself. It truly is addicting.

What was interesting in seeing the reactions to the film about The Facebook was something in the paper. The Guardian:

Mark Zuckerberg is portrayed in the film [The Social Network] as a highly intelligent, socially awkward young man driven by the ultimate goal of making the world more connected – ironically at the cost of his own friendships.

CRM & Social Media: Relationship Status? “Undecided”

Social media has  gone mainstream.Maybe it’s the fact that my local greasy spoon restaurant is on Facebook. I remember five years ago, like Mark, using Livejournal. We have come a long way.

But now there is another shift going on. More related to something more serious than blogging on Livejournal.

For one a mini war in the blogosphere and on Twitter. Many of you have vocalized your annoyance to me regarding the social media vs. CRM war. I agree-I’m not a fan of public lashings—it’s just unnecessary. When was the last time you had a Director of Marketing or CMO contact you after reading a comment publicly disciplining another blogger?

Yah me neither.

Serious Business for Serious People

The discussions about the validity of Facebook for business bring up a bigger issue. The folks who are on “the business side” (whatever that means) position the social media marketers and PR people as fluffy. Social media=not serious business.

I’m tired of reading that the social media world is full of ego-stroking and wasted budgets. That “real business people” don’t exist within social media. Social media is here. It’s mainstream.

Arguably Social CRM will be mainstream soon as well.

The Business Side of Creativity

Facebook was originally built to solve a problem-according to “The Social Network” the problem was he couldn’t get girls. Mark Zuckerberg spent hours and hours and hours programming. That was what he was good at. Translating ideas into code and making them appear as user friendly tools for his peers to connect. He turned that loneliness or feelings of social inadequacy into a brilliant product. So far no one can touch him.

Mark Zuckerberg might be some kind of mad artist. I should know because I grew up around them. My mother is an artist.

Her friends tell me  artists and business people are the same. They are problem solvers. Problem solving and creation of art both stem from creativity. Kathy Herrmann once commented on my old blog. She wrote something I’ll never forget:

There are two ways to express power: as control or creativity. Control is a destructive force that drives people apart. Creativity brings forth something new and life-giving.

And here’s the thing about control versus creativity. They’re opposing ends of the same continuum.

You can’t do both at the same time.

So are you creating or controlling?

Me And My Biznass Will Sit Out This Facebook Cotillion

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Don’t get me wrong. I like Mark Zuckerberg. I am excited to see young leaders out there innovating and connecting the world. Hell yes to young people showing other people that the possibilities are really endless.

But MZ has proven to be one young leader who is acting his age.

If Mark were in a courtship with his users, the last two years have felt like a Cotillion dance. A waltz in which the Facebook user has her toes stepped on and head back-handed, again and again and again. Sorry Mark but I’m not the only one saying this. Check out Jason Calacanis, CEO of search engine Maholo.com who had some words for Mark.



“You have a glib and reckless approach when it comes to people’s privacy…”

This morning I came across this tweet by @Ed who agrees with Jason Calacanis regarding some of the new Facebook settings.

Facebook gets even creepier. This should be for pages/businesses/groups only, NOT people http://rww.tw/9Smg9t (@rww) #privacy

I agree with @Ed. Some of Facebook’s new moves are downright creepy.

There’s a new Facebook Feature which allows you to subscribe to particular user’s feed of updates and activity. It is yet to be seen if users will be able to opt out of this function. Looking at Facebook’s past decision making I’m guessing we won’t be able to. We never know which direction Mark is going to take us on this waltz. My feet hurt trying to keep up with MZ’s jolting dance moves.

As ReadWriteWeb says:

This feature is going to be a big deal. It will facilitate greater interaction between a user and people of interest by placing updates about those peoples’ activities in the highest-priority place in the Facebook interface, the inbox with the strongest signal-to-noise ratio by far.

Another jolt from Facebook came about this week with Apple’s release of Ping a new social music discovery service. When released last Wednesday Ping could integrate with Facebook, until users woke up on Thursday–only to find it didn’t. Smack.

Facebook is like a teenager who doesn’t know who she wants to be.

Facebook you looked better before all the enhancements of make-up, piercings and plastic surgery. You don’t even know who you are anymore. And your shoes are too big.

While a few companies have gained traction using Facebook for marketing, word of mouth and targeted advertising, it does not accommodate business needs. Facebook makes it easy to share information very quickly, but most of us aren’t ready to lose full control–and that makes sense. It’s business, not your frat buddy’s kegger from last Friday.

Hoody-Esque Facebook Mentality-Not For Everyone

Facebook established itself as a tool for college kids–it’s a hoody-esque mentality. And while I love the hoody-esque mentality (hey I went to UC Santa Cruz and hail from the surf capital of the world) I know this does not suit business needs or the individuals who run them.

Not all conversations,  especially with customers, suppliers, partners and the crowd, should be public.

Facebook questions is another example of disappearing privacy settings. No matter how much Facebook tries to be Yahoo! Answers or borrow from any assortment of start-ups (ahem Four Square) it will still make the same clunky and obnoxious decisions for its users. All questions are public.

When I watch MZ interviews I can’t help but cringe. I can’t help but feel MZ doesn’t know what he’s talking about–and he subsequently gets himself into a lot of Larry David moments. He scares me considering the scope of Facebook’s user-base and MZ’s lack of leadership experience. There’s a reason many inventors and founders do not end up running their companies.

From one Gen Y’er to another….slow down MZ!

Below is a chart tracking Facebook’s growth. But with the rate that MZ’s empire is growing, his moves are dangerous considering the scope of his user-base. First look at the chart below. Then listen to MZ’s interview (sweaty interview) where he says flat-out he “and his friends are continuing to push…”

A few minutes into this very painful interview MZ takes off his hoody. It’s a Facebook hoody with the mission statement embroidered on the inside.

“Making the world more open and connected.”

When I moved from California to New York five years ago I learned an important lesson. Not everyone wants to share everything all the time. California is a state that has this lovey dovey mentality, and the technology capital of the world happens to be California. I’m telling you now WE ARE THE EXCEPTION. (Yes I know it sounds like I’m yelling–I am).

As shown in the chart above Mexico, India and Indonesia trail closely behind the U.S. in its increased usage of Facebook. We need to account for cultural difference and social nuance here. I am a little afraid for MZ. There will mostly likely be big backlash from the global business community.

No matter what country you hail from, privacy is a universal thing.

Some things are better left hidden out of customer-view (or replace customer with employee, manager, friend, parent, child, partner etc). We all just need to make better decisions and know how increasingly public our lives are becoming. Social media is a blessing and a curse. It needs to be treated with caution.