February 27, 2010 75 Comments

Are We Experience Facilitators

Trey Pennington I just heard this from Trey Pennington at this offsite summit event that’s the after-event for Like Minds in the UK. I can’t really talk much about the whole conversation that spawned this, but I wanted to pull out this nugget that Trey said:

We are experience facilitators.

My take on his line is this: we’re building bridges between companies and customers in how those two parties experience their interactions. Want that a little less fuzzy? (Remember, this is a thought in progress.)

We social media marketing types can help companies build better experiences back and forth between companies and people.…

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February 27, 2010 100 Comments

The Anywhen Manifesto

broken clock I’m at war with those who threaten anywhen (the state that the Internet provides us by allowing me to write this when I want and you can consume it when you want). To that point, I’m writing a very small manifesto of thought. Here’s what I believe with regards to anywhen. You’re welcome to sign on (or not).

The Anywhen Manifesto

We believe that time-shifting is every bit as important as work-shifting.
We will push back on the unintentional urgency people put on us.
We will seek out time-shifting-friendly means of interacting (like Google Wave).
We will attempt to respond in a timely fashion, but as it meets our other duties and obligations.…

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February 26, 2010 279 Comments

The Assault On Anywhen

hear no evil **UPDATE: This isn’t CLIENT communications. This is friends and colleagues.** I’m frustrated. I just spent about 20 hours without connection to the web. No email. No Twitter. No blog comments. No nothing. The technical reason was that my flight was seriously delayed, then held in the air, and then when I got to the UK (where I write this), I learned that neither of my phones is GSM-enabled, so I’m without communications technology.

But none of that is why I’m frustrated.

I have SEVERAL emails from people complaining that they didn’t hear back from me. In most of them, it was within 24 hours of the original mail.…

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February 26, 2010 93 Comments

Stop Talking About Yourself

arrows Check your last 10 blog posts, your last 10 tweets. Are they all about you. Are they all about your products, your services, whatever it is you’re pushing? How many are about you versus those that are about others (either directly about them or empowering them)?

I just went to a few blogs in a row to get a sense of it. Here are some of the ratios I saw, with self-referential in the left, and about others in the right:

* 9:1 (not saying who)
* 1:9 (my blog)
* 0:10 (Christopher S. Penn wins most selfless).
* 0:10 (Julien Smith is the same.)
* 1:9 (Brian Clark).

Those were just a few I checked out. Most were heavily weighted towards talking about others (though often citing examples from our own perspective).…

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February 25, 2010 43 Comments

Give Your Speech Change the World – Video Book Review

My friend, Tim Sanders sent me this book by Nick Morgan, Give Your Speech, Change the World: How to Move Your Audience to Action (amazon affiliate link). I admit that as a pro speaker, I wasn’t sure what I’d take from it. Well, I took tons from it, and you might, too, either as a beginner or someone with some speeches under your belt. Here’s a quick video review:

Direct link to the video

Anyhow, it’s a keeper. Thanks Nick, and thanks Tim.

People always ask which camera I used to shoot my video. I use the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3 (that’s a review of the camera).…

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February 24, 2010 111 Comments

Comments From Social Media 101

In the book, Social Media 101: Tactics and Tips to Develop Your Business Online, my new book, I told people to come by and comment on parts of the book. Here’s the page for that.

If you’re here, it means you’re part of the conversation. If you’ve yet to pick up Social Media 101, it’s more like a reference book for the revolution than it is a breakthrough. I’m proud of the book. It’s comprised of some of the best of my writing from this site. I’d love for you to be part of it.

And thanks to those of you who bought the book. It means a lot that you support me. …

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February 24, 2010 168 Comments

The Different Ways I Communicate

The Ways I Communicate

Sometimes, I go on Twitter to share information. I push some of it through my @chrisbrogan account. I have a more “pure” feed at @broganmedia.

Other times, I go on Twitter to connect with people and build/strengthen relationships. I go on there to read what they’re saying. I spend a little time “showing up,” because in business, just showing up is important.

Part of what I do on Twitter – maybe most of what I do on Twitter – is work-related. Even if I’m chit-chatting, it’s because that’s part of my job, part of my role as someone in the space.…

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February 23, 2010 109 Comments

Our Perception of Others – Kitchen Table Talks

In this edition of Kitchen Table Talks, I wanted to talk about how we perceive others, and how that relates to us. This stems from a conversation I had recently where someone said, “Oh, but YOU never are nervous before a speech,” and when I confessed that I was, she said, “then how come you never talk about that?” So, here I am:

If you can’t see the video, click here.

Direct link to the video

What do you think?

People always ask which camera I used to shoot my video. I use the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3 (that’s a review of the camera).…

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February 22, 2010 64 Comments

Journalism is Not Publishing

A whole storm of responses came up to my pointing out this article about AOL’s new content strategy and how AOL is hiring up tons of displaced journalists.

The storyline of what most people are saying is, “Yikes. It’s pop culture over hard journalism. Society will collapse. Etc.”

First, let’s be clear: the pursuits of journalism and the pursuits of publishing aren’t the same.

Journalists seek to create compelling information that is helpful and news-worthy.

Publishing seeks to push more product, deliver higher circulation value, and create more value for sponsors/advertisers/money-holders.…

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February 21, 2010 194 Comments

When This All Gets Cool

Toy Story Ride

Social media are a bunch of tools. They let us see things a bit differently. They empowered new ways of working together. But they’re just the tools. When this all gets cool is when we start really turning this stuff on our own passion projects, on our bigger goals, on what COULD happen.

What projects would I work on, if I were over how cool social media is?

  • Start a public list of Twitter accounts from local businesses. Point everyone in your community to it.
  • Start small mastermind groups on Google Wave (I have an incredible group going. Very small. Very useful.)
  • Donate four hours a week to a charity, giving them more promotion and exposure for their causes, equipping them with more ways to find what they need.

    • …

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