Blah Blah Bleric

You, Reading Twitterville

I've just done two things.

1.  I read an ancient (by internet standards) ebook by Seth Godin.
2.  I got my advanced copy of Twitterville.

Godin's 2006 ebook Flipping the Funnel shows readers how to give their clients the chance to be a mouthpiece for their companies. In the ebook, Godin presents his website Squidoo--a social databasing site designed for people to give shout outs to the stuff they like: blogs, products, companies, services, and people.

To do so, you create an account and create a lens. For example, there are tribute pages developed for writers and bloggers like Guy Kawasaki.

Of course, the lenses are ranked so you can find the best of the best fast.

So, I flipped Godin's funnel, creating my own megaphone, and made my first Squidoo lens about Twitterville: How Businesses Can Thrive in the New Global Neighborhoods.

You can check out my lens on Squidoo. I think, if you want to agree with my plug for the book, you can add a comment or click a thumbs up maybe...we'll see how Squidoo dooes, er does, participation.

      

After making the lens, I kept that megaphone tight to my cyber lips and tweeted about it (the man loves to shout out...blame Godin for the magaphone).

Now I keep on "talking" right here. These words. These words are me, a customer, becoming the salesman for two things:

1.  Seth Godin
2.  Shel Israel

Both of whom, I am happy to promote. Now I'll put down the MEGAPHONE!

Image credit: backyardentrepreneur

Official New Word

Alert the folks at the Oxford English Dictionary. We have a new word in the esteemed family of English language words. It's a purposeful linguistic defect practiced by millions of Twitter users and the unfortunate journalists and bloggers who write about Twitter, tweets, tweeters and the Twitosphere.

You can follow me on Twitter: @tweric

The Hero of Web 2.0

This is a tribute to a stranger. But, things have changed quite a bit, and truly "friend" and "stranger" mean different things these days...the days of Web 2.0!

The Inspiration

I just saw a post at SocialMedian.com about Robert Scoble.

The news is that Scoble--well known for his blog "Scobleizer"--is leaving his current job. I never knew he had a job, but I know a little about his blog and him. If you are into social media, video, blogging and such, you probably know who he is.

I am quietly a fan. So, I commented on the SocialMedian post:

"I love that guy. Never met him, but have seen and heard him on videos. He's like the objective correlative of web 2.0 for me. Especially with that tripod and camera. The super hero aspect: "Fearlessly shooting video anywhere he goes -- it's Super Scoble -- able to stream megabytes while tweeting, able to transport digitally to be on the scene at CES, at Google, or anywhere geeks are triumphing!

Ok, that's enough. No offense intended -- I truly admire the guy. And the triumphing geeks. Well some of them."

I follow him on Twitter and FriendFeed, but I don't know Scoble. But then one day I got a twitter email. It said _Scobleizer_ was following me! I felt proud. Yes -- the mighty Scobleizer was following me on Twitter. I win!

Well, not so.

The Impostor

I bounded forth to Twitter so I could send him a note of thanks. But @_scobleizer_ (with the underscores) was a fake.

Impostor!

Curse you impostor, who made my hopes and dreams rise, only to be crushed. Woe is me.

The Interception

Until *horns blaring* the real Robert Scoble did in fact follow me on Twitter!  I wanna think I earned it. Either from good tweets or pity. Well, one good tweet anyway. With pity in it.

After the impostor both thrilled me and slammed me, I tweeted about the fake Scoble and how Twitter SWAT had shut him down (or her). I also included a sad little bit at the end (see Twitter screen shot).

That was lunch time on January 23rd. By the end of the day, the real Robert Scoble was following me.

I'm no news breaker in the tech world, but I like to think that Scoble checks my twitter feed every morning as he gets ready to take on another day.

  
I guess that's my brush with social media fame. What's yours? Oh and by the way, here's the email about the real Scoble following me. Yes, I kept it!

                    

FriendFeed Mystery

Nothing to see here folks. The questions regarding the choices given when subscribing to a profile in FriendFeed are nothing to talk about.

Therefore, I will write about it.

When you subscribe to someone’s feed in FriendFeed, you get a list of choices. Those choices, and the feature of adding your own, correspond to the feed files in the upper left corner of your FF page (see pic, circled in red). When you subscribe, the default Home feed is checked, but you can un- check it, can check one or more of the other categories, or create your own.

The other choices are there for your preference of which feed lists to file the new feeds in, and then, ultimately, to filter your feeds with when you are reading your feed.

I added one, just to try it. I subscribed to a complete stranger and made the category “Who I Don’t Know” which is often the case. I “know” people through Facebook, Twitter, and FriendFeed, but I hardly know anyone from my face-to-face life who is using these tools.

Maybe in the future, like tomorrow, the large majority of the people we meet will come from relationships that start online.

And maybe, "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 [web pages]."

Blagojevich Already in New Office

I will miss posting innocuous blogs about Rod Bloggyretch. It's so comical to see obliviousness parading about like victimhood.

And that hair!

In fact Blagojevich takes his new post as President of the Hair Club for Men immediately where he will take over doing ads like the one made famous by client and President, Sy Sperling.

I can't grab the pic without permission, but this picof Blagojevich with wife and with the Obamas and Kennedys is wonderful. Michelle Obama looks great (I feel like I work for Style Magazine or People).

Now with Blago out, it appears that they will "fumigate state government," according to a Yahoo News post. That makes me picture copious types of bugs living in Blagojevich's hair. Maybe these bugs talked to him and told him to auction off the senate seat. He should have used Ebay.

Oh well, I'll be looking forward to those Hair Club ads. Work it. Sell it.

             

Bye Blago! I'll find something to entertain me. But I won't forget our time together.

Photo Credit Link: MashGet

Web 3.0 The Backlash

Web 3.0 could be all about who you follow. Who do you follow on Twitter? Who do you follow on FriendFeed? Are you getting all the latest tweets and posts? Hurry, hurry, because there's a brand new application starting up tomorrow and you'll need to know who to follow there too. I just hope it's not a clique fest (click pun, get it?).

*Sigh*

Erick Schonfeld wrote a piece hoping that web 3.0 would "be about reducing the noise," referring to his overload of tweets and posts to wade through. I too hope the innovators will streamline many people's web 2.0 reality: 40 user names  passwords, 30 video sites, 10 networking must-views...and 5 new ones tomorrow. There needs to be a backlash of some sort.

Today I read about the ridiculous act of spitting in Michael Arrington's face. I certainly can't say for sure what that was about because the *ahem* gentleman who spit hurried off so that his point, if there was one, will not even be known. (Perhaps he'll blog about it from his cowardly lair.) But it's easy enough to to sense a backlash in the act. I don't know too much about Arrington or Tech Crunch, but I read Tech Crunchand have already referenced one article in this blog (Schonfeld's). I do know enough to see influence when I see it--and Arrington has that. Arrington is web 2.0.

Another phenomenon of web 2.0 is a rather unattractive part of people's profiles. Mine included. Take FriendFeed for example. Each profile includes feeds from You Tube, Seesmic, Twitter, blogs, and more. It ends up looking like a Cub Scout shirt full of merit badges. Sure, I got kicked out of Cub Scouts, so that might have something to do with my current rant.

Anyway. Backlash. Revolt. Fix. Improve. Make it easier for Eric. And try to fix it before I even realize it's broken. Thank you.

Geraldo Makes Blago Look Good

Nobody can actually make Blagojevich look good in public opinion, but in an interview, Geraldo's mustache dwarfs Balgo's...hair thing. Blago calls his impeachment trial a "kangaroo court," as he sent a PR firm to represent him while doing the talk show circuit.

Geraldo chased Blagojevich down to the parking lot of The View. Wow. Geraldo and Blagojevich together on TV...wonderful.

Do You Believe in Time?

When I started grad school in St. Paul, Minnesota, my college roommate was moving to India. He was going to work with a doctor in Madras, Tamil Nadu (now Chennai) to teach people about keeping the water supply clean. We talked a lot about his trip and then, casually, he said, "You should come and visit me there."

And I laughed out a, "Yeah right."

But then I thought about it. Here's some Eric-logic. If he were spending a summer at a lake cabin in northern Minnesota and invited me to come up for the weekend, I would take him up on the offer for sure. The only differences, really, between getting to northern Minnesota and getting to India are distance and time. Even back then, although not formulated in my mind, I had decided that I did not believe in distance or time. So I went to India.

It was wonderful. We met in New Delhi, traveled across northern India, and ventured up to Kathmandu in Nepal. Then we explored the west of India from the Thar desert to the beaches of Goa. It was a wouldn't-change-a-thing experience that I still think about regularly and that happened only because I didn't let Distance or his nasty cousin Time rule my thinking.

Nonetheless, we do let time rule in the work environments of America. Get in early. Stay late. Impress your boss with long hours at your desk. Adopt an attitude of eating lunch at your desk! That attitude prevails in offices coast to coast.

But, basing work on time logged is, well, behind the times.

I've been reading Why Work Sucks by Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson because I've noticed that work does, in fact, suck, especially since I left teaching at the colleges.

                                                    

Teaching college courses--being faculty--is unique because faculty members are not measured by hours on the clock. Faculty have specific performance measures--results to achieve--like classes to teach, office hours, department meetings, and expectations to publish. Other than a set schedule for the few hours for class times and office hours, nobody watches a clock for faculty.

Since I went corporate, I've been lucky. I have always had managers who get it, caring less about hours and more about my results. I could not survive under a strict, clock-focused 40-hour work week. If I had such a rigid manager, someone would blow a gasket.

Even though I've had it good, my larger work environment has included hourly employees and trainers who must often adhere to a regular 9-5 class schedule for training new hires (who must be conditioned to the clock immediately). So, the flexibility I had was reigned in significantly by potentially jealous coworkers. If they complained about my fancy pants designer schedule, my manager would inevitably have to bow to the prevailing time-based work ethic and lay the smack down on me.

To keep a modicum of flexibility I have always been "good" by not pushing it regarding my schedule. What does that mean? It means, because I am efficient and proactive, that I get my work done quickly and have many hours "to kill" at the office feigning work and appearing busy. Is that what people want?

Seriously? Really??

If my work is done--and well--why can't I go home to my family? My wife would be thrilled if I came home at 2:00 some Tuesday. I could pick up our daughter from pre-school so she wouldn't have to load our three boys into car seats to go get her! But, in practice, if I left at 2:00, many time-bound co-workers would be mad. Understandably so.

What they should be mad at, though, is the time-bound work environment.

In truth, nowadays, even hourly employees can be on a flexible schedule! Imagine that. And if you, like me, do not believe in time, then you might prefer ROWE: Results-Only Work Environment. That is the philosophy of CultureRx--check out their website to learn more. I found out about ROWE through my sister.

My sister's friend, Marissa, works for CultureRx, which started in house at Best Buy. When the company emerged on its own, Marissa moved to San Francisco.

Curious, I asked my sister if the company locates its offices in San Francisco. But they do not. Marissa just wanted to move there, for personal reasons, and since CultureRx doesn't watch a clock and doesn't expect her to log hours at a desk, she can work from anywhere. As long as she gets her work done: results only. Beautiful.

I am a fan of the ROWE philosophy. I hope to spread it (quickly) all across America. Maybe one day, with my work done, I can leave at 2:00 without using the escape hatch. Until then, keep quiet about the escape.

Blagojevich to Declare War on Japan

My oh my. As an armchair psychologist, I can say that sometimes an exacerbated narcissistic complex can make a guy seem a little full of himself.

The Associated Press published this quote from the now infamous Illinois governor:

"Dec. 9 to my family, to us, to me, is what Pearl Harbor Day was to the United States," Gov. Rod Blagojevich told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday. "It was a complete surprise, completely unexpected. And just like the United States prevailed in that, we'll prevail in this."

I really love this guy. In a he's-thoroughly-entertaining-without-meaning-to-be kind of way. I just hope he knows the difficult road ahead of him. Attacking Japan and then Germany will not look good right now. However, if the bribery-hating, corruption-opposing American people are Blago's "Japan," then bring it, Brillo head.

But, then again, we might just take his lead. I wrote about that already in a blog post called In Praise of Open Bribery. There is a legitimate argument, and transparency is the new covert.

The Who—How Routine

Social media and networking require a lot of work. Mike Fruchter writes lucidly about what social media is (and isn’t) in a splendid article that includes a fun video. Fruchter also has a blog posting that details 40—yes 40—elements to getting started in social media. Both are must reads.

But, for the busy, I thought I would add a few shorter tips.

The first I’m calling the Who—How Routine. It’s a simple way to get going in the morning thinking about what you will accomplish today regarding your presence online, your social media connections, your brand development on the web. As you put on your shoes (assuming two here), think who? for one and how? for the other.

Who—are you going to contact today? Think of a person. Yes one. Even though you might amass 4 billion friends on Facebook and 20 million followers on Twitter, think about just one person to make contact with today. Keep in mind that social media works best when you are a real person, and that means you will have to get a little more intimate, from time to time, than posting a few words that get scattered to your legions of fans.

How—are you going to reach out to that person? If you are like me, you are chock full of user names and passwords for your various accounts for your internet connections: LinkedIn, FriendFeed, Seesmic, You Tube, SocialMedian, and more. That one person you are going to connect with today might use many too. Be a little creative and choose wisely—something to entertain? To amuse? To enlighten? To inform? As a former writing teacher, I used to call this your purpose. Basically, the level of formality might help you choose a media: You Tube for amusement, perhaps?

As an example, when I thought who today, I thought of Louis Gray. When I thought how, I went with good old email—found on his website. I had a formal question for him, so I didn’t want to use Twitter or any other tool that might detract from my serious question.

Anywho, I did the Who—How Routine and accomplished my mission. It’s simple, quick and easy. When you have more time, read Fruchter’s two articles. And don’t confuse Who—How with hoo-haa…that’s something else.