I can’t keep up.

If I just manage my inbox, that’s about 10 hours of work a day (600 new mails divided by 1 minute each). If I spend time on Twitter, on Third Tribe, on Facebook, on my blog (in the comments), that’s another 3 hours. If I take two phone calls or do a webinar, that’s another 2 hours.

We’re up to 15 hours before even doing production of anything (no blogging/writing/creating for clients).

I looked through my Flickr photos at some of the fine people I got to see at SXSW. In almost all cases, I saw them for only a few minutes. I did my best to be attentive, to show that I cared, to make sure I learned about something that was on their plates. But I rarely got any deeper than that.

To fix this, I have to redraw my lines. I have to rethink how I connect, and reconsider how I will continue being of value to you. Before I’m no longer a value.

Extend Relationships

My friend, Jon Swanson has told me for years that I need to build disciples. By this, he doesn’t mean mindless sheep (a post for another time). He doesn’t mean that I just teach the masses and the masses do. He means extended relationships. At the end of the story, Jesus has 12 guys doing a lot with their own interpretations on how to implement their beliefs.

Does the Bible language freak you out? Michael Jackson, in designing This is It, pointed out that the dancers that swirl around him in each performance were to be extensions of how Michael expressed himself in dance. So, they weren’t just doing something to do it. They were giving Michael even more reach than when he just did it himself.

I have this, of course. I have New Marketing Labs to help execute social media execution ideas for our client partners. I have friends and colleagues in this space who have lots of similar interests and different approaches. I will call on it more.

Shining the Light Even Brighter

There are others doing exceptional work in this space. I’m a fan of Jason Falls, Jay Baer, Valeria Maltoni, and many others. I’m going to work harder to point out the people in my network who do great work, and I’m going to help others find them to start meaningful connections that match what you deserve.

By shining the light on others who are doing good work, I’ll hopefully point you to opportunities I can’t service or that aren’t the regular fit for New Marketing Labs.

Rethinking My Direction

The work we’re doing at NML is strong. What I’m doing with me overall is a lot more foggy. I’m going to rework that and be very crisp and clear on what you’ll get from me in the coming few years. That way, we’ll know better whether what I’m sharing aligns with your interests.

The sense of where I’m heading is that I’m stretching a bit out of just marketing and I’m going to work on equipping others for business success through education and experiences.

In other words, I’m going beyond social media and helping show how human business works.

Redrawing My Connections

I can’t keep up with every email and contact as it stands. I’ve got Diane working more than enough hours just negotiating my speaking and travel arrangements. We’ll figure out how to redraw the ways I respond so that it’s manageable, reasonable, and timely. I can’t have you waiting so long in between touches.

In the End

We all do this. I’m just laying it out so that you understand where I am, but more so, so that you understand how we must all process, reconsider, rethink, and redraw the way we do what we do. What got us here won’t always get us there.

Make sense?

Save Yourself a Blog Post or Twitter Comment

If your immediate response is, “Well, that’s the price of success,” just save it. That doesn’t help anyone. And yes, it’s the price of success. Learning how to scale is incredibly difficult.

The difference between me and others in that regard is that I’m the only one actually sharing the process with you, so that you might learn something out of it for your own efforts.

* Oprah
* Jon Stewart
* Conan (especially if he doesn’t go to Fox)
* Rick Sanchez from CNN (from the news perspective)

To me, the thing they’re all missing is a deeper integration to social media tools for two-way conversations, for a deeper sense of loyalty and connectedness. Jimmy Fallon does that stuff reasonably well, but then, his show isn’t all that interesting to me. He’s got the social thing figured out a bit better, but the payload isn’t there.

Derrick Ashong, the guy who interviewed me from Oprah Radio made a good moving coming out to South by Southwest, because he showed, in that gesture, that he knew where the stories were, that he could get information from the ground-level stuff that we all uncover, and that he was there to learn as much as he was there to pluck stories from the air.

I think what’s next for media and entertainment will be a hybrid, not a fast shift away. But I think it will also be gatekeeper-free.

What say you?

I have intent on the brain. So does Tim Sanders, it turns out. During my speech at the first ever GR2L event (get ready to live), I talked about shifting from connections into intent. I was talking about networking at that juncture. I want to expand. And I have a comparison/analogy to light this up.

The difference between talking about human business and social media and doing it is the difference between having recipes and running a restaurant.

We go to events and network. We collect business cards. Why? Because we don’t know what else to do. We know we’re supposed to network. We talk about why it’s important. The thing is, what do we DO with these? Jon Swanson wrote about switching back to a dumb phone when he realized that he didn’t really have to check email and Twitter every waking hour.

Jon’s restaurant doesn’t need an always-on recipe. See it?

Intent and Execution are the gold standard

My friend (I’m calling us friends) Tom Peters has spent decades on the variation of the theme that “execution is everything.” He pushes us over and over again to DO. Because again, Tom knows that having a box of recipes is nothing compared to executing on them and putting food down in front of people. Tom urges us to look at the buying trends in the world and realize that Baby Boomers and Women should be our main markets (in most cases).

Tom’s restaurant caters to those crowds quite well. Are you doing the same?

Open With a Few Dishes

Having a huge recipe box of ideas is one thing. Starting a restaurant and seeing what your guests like is another. We’re all in this space picking up ideas. We go to big events, we read tons of books, we surf hundreds of blogs, but if we’re not trying a few of these recipes out, we’re not really moving forward. We’re thinking plenty more than we’re doing.

What recipes should you start on today? (Here’s a hint: pick just a few, or one, and learn to make it so that your guests sing.)

I Believe This is a BIG Thing

I think we have to accept that we have a big enough recipe box. I think we have to look at what kind of “restaurant” we want to run, what kind of guest we hope to attract, what kind of cost-per-dish we’re aiming for, and what kind of experience we want people to have…

…and then we have to DO.

Will you take a moment and talk about your restaurant? I know I’m hungry.

But I want to talk about more. I want to do more.

The guy in that photo is Mark Horvath from Invisible People. He caters to the homeless. Directly. He and Liz Strauss walked around giving pizza to homeless guys while they were here. They talked to the homeless, made them feel seen.

As well as meeting me, I want you to find Mark and say hi. I want you to make HIM feel the way you make me feel. He’s doing good work.

This is Melissa Leon and AJ Leon from TheLACProject, a human business company. They are doing AMAZING things. Find them in the hallway and talk about Africa and social good.

On another note, Thom Singer. He just wrote about a giving moment that happened at a party at SXSW. Man, I wish I went to that party.

What We Could Do: Networking

We need better networking tools. We need to build a “I’m ____, and I’m into _____ , and I’d love to talk about _____ , and I’d love to meet people into ______ , or just ______ . I like _____ food. If I were to support a cause, it’d be _____ , but I’m open to ____ , too” kind of tool.

We need to give new people the warmest welcome with some kind of “I’m new here” badge.

Can you see it?

What We Could Do: Panels and Speeches

We need to give the new people more to talk about. We need to give them more fundamentals. We need to strip out some of the entertainment value and get back to sharing our big ideas, our golden thoughts. (Me included. I think the panel that Julien and I gave was fun, but not as informative as we could’ve made it. Next time.)

We need to bring our A game, our A ideas. Maybe some of you did. I spoke to a few hundred people, and no one gave anyone rave reviews except for the panel with Jeff Jarvis, and the talk by Clay Shirky. (Note: I didn’t see hardly any panels, so I’m not talking from experience, as much as I’m talking from what the buzz reported).

What We Could Do: Sponsors and Exhibitors

We could do lots more in these regards. I think sometimes, as attendees, we forget that the sponsors are helping pay for the experience. How can we do more things to pay them back for that? Yes, we pay for the ticket. I think we would do well to grab a quick interview with a few sponsors while we’re out and about at all these parties.

What We Could Do: Interpersonal

People still anxiously talk all about themselves. We could ALL just ask about the other person, get to know what they’re doing, and share our best intentions of understanding each other. Sounds hippie, but that’s how things really get done. It doesn’t get done when you start into your pitch before really even getting to know us.

Might Just Be Me

Know what I saw more than anything else when I really took a moment to look around? Lonely people. I saw people not connecting. I saw lots of people who could’ve used a little attention. And I saw many people with lots of energy looking for a place to put it. And that means we have opportunities.

This wasn’t a rant about SXSW. It’s a post begging for a new way, a more engaged way, a human way to bring out the best in our efforts and time and expense.

What say you?

Can’t see the video? click here.

Direct link to the video

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).

He has a @toysoldiergames Twitter account that he’s working on using for other promotions and to educate his customer base. I think it will do super well.

This isn’t rocket surgery kids (as my Boston friends say). This is marketing. It’s deadly sniper-level good marketing, because Mick makes it about MY comics, and about Ray’s Warhammer 40K miniatures, and about other people’s specific stuff.

And Mick runs a small store with just a few employees. If he can find the time to sell this way, you have to really think about it.

Think he sells more than people who don’t do this? I’m guessing yes. You?

By simply sending money, the problem is softened a bit. But there has to be more.

According to Crittenton, we can help by:

• Donating money.
• Giving other goods.
• Mentoring
• Internships
• Outreach

Some of the opportunities I was thinking about when I wrote when this all gets cool is the opportunity to do more in the form of mentoring, internship, and outreach. When I think about all the moms I met at the DisneySMMoms event, I realize that there are some really hard working women out there figuring out new ways to earn money for their family.

Lori Falcon is one. Erika Lehmann is one. Melissa the Consumer Queen is another. They’ve all found ways to make money for their families using the web. (There are obviously non-web ways to make money, too.)

I wonder what we can do. I wonder how we’ll continue to help. What ways will YOU help? What can you give to the cause in the way of mentorship and outreach?

Simon is marketing director for Bar B-Ria, an upscale barber shop experience for gentlemen in Bogota, Colombia. They offer everything from massages to haircuts to manicures and pedicures, and a bar full of top shelf liquor, including a new favorite rum, Zacapa from Guatemala. I’ll tell you what advice I had for the place upon appreciating their services and their commitment to guest experience. This is mostly tactical. There’s still something to learn from it.

Turn The Revenue Measure From “Dollars Per Day” into ” Dollars Per Guest”

Because the entire plan of Bar B-Ria is hinged around delivering excellent guest experiences, it dawned on me that measuring revenue by day instead of dollars-per-guest means that opportunities get lost. For instance, I love Zacapa rum. When I walk in the door, it should be one goal of the Bar B’Ria team to pour me a glass (and add to my bill). This is how places like Disney think. They work on delivering maximum guest experience, but they calculate on dollar-per-guest, as do cruise ships, as do many other hospitality experiences.

Build Relationship Databases

I recommended that Simon have each guest in a database that tells them my preferences all the way through. Do I like gel in my hair after the haircut? Do I want my massage hard or soft? Why shouldn’t everyone in the place know that upon my arrival? It’s going to benefit my experience, and it’s going to improve my perception of the service. You can do this easily with Google Docs, better with BatchBook.

Partner With Hotels

Simon needs my dollars. I’m a US guy in Colombia and the service he offers is premium-but-inexpensive by American standards. If I hadn’t had friends from Colombia, I’d have never heard of Bar B’Ria. The people of Colombia in general don’t know much about it yet, and the men here aren’t yet convinced that a $30 haircut is somehow better than a $4 haircut.

Hotels that cater to people from other countries or vacationers would be a great place to build a relationship with concierges, maybe even to sponsor/advertise. Simon could earn much more by building bridges between the places where people who can afford the experience are and into his establishment.

Until more folks come and see the value for themselves and use it to treat themselves.

Word of Mouth Referral Program

Simon would do well to give me a card upon leaving that offers someone a free drink or a scalp massage or something else. He should give me 3-5 per visit. Imagine the experience: I’m done with my massage and my haircut and my delicious rum, and I am about to leave the venue. Aren’t I going to go forth and spread the word? It’s the perfect opportunity. Should 3 of those people come in with my referral, I’d maybe get a small benefit back: my own free scalp massage, perhaps.

Little Things Add Up

Over all the various ideas I gave Simon, they weren’t immediate millions-makers. They are all experience-enhancing and tactical. They all relate to giving guest value that results in improved revenue and guest acquisition. None of what I talked about had to do with the web. That’s almost the easy part, right?

Your Ideas

What would you add to this, oh social media friends. Give a few ideas in the comments on what you’d do to amp up the social elements, and tell me how they’d help Simon. (I’ll share my ideas in the comments a day or so later.)

Good?

(Oh, and I found this video in Spanish about the venue, if you want more inspiration.

VERY special thanks to Carlos Pardo for help finding the link to the place, and for the hospitality he (and his amazing parents) showed me at their family home for dinner while in Bogota. (And ladies of Colombia: he’s single.)

So today, I wanted to write about my love for blogging, and hopefully, you’ll pull from this some ideas or affirmations for what you’re doing.

I go way back, but the tech is new

I’ve blogged in one form or another since 1998. I haven’t owned my own domain for that long, and my early blogs were on WYSIWYG technology (Trellix, invented by Dan Bricklin, actually), and yes, I had a Geocities account (Area 51, baby) ,and a Tripod account, and all that old stuff before I finally got a blogspot blog, then some other tech I can’t remember, and then finally WordPress. I use WordPress because it’s got a strong developer community, because it has a lot of plugins that are useful, and because I liked the themes I could get for it. I use the Thesis theme (affiliate link) and sell it because I love it so much.

My home on the web

Blogging is like my house, or in most modern times, it’s my showplace. It’s not as messy as my mental house. I keep my blog focused on helping others do human business. If I want to write about my kids, I can do that at Dad-o-Matic. If I want to complain about air travel, I have Twitter. I keep my Facebook account as a personal-ish account.

So blogging, as it were, becomes my showplace, my storefront, my “here’s where to get the best of me” site.

Relationship Building

I love the relationships I have with the people who comment on my blog. It took me 8 years to get my first 100 readers. I cherished every one of them. I even take the occasional screenshot of how many RSS subscribers I have because I’m humble and proud each time I hit a new milestone.

And the number in and of itself isn’t interesting. What’s interesting is that so many of you are wonderful contributors to my community, to my education, and to the great pursuits that we all share.

Lead Generation

I went from a blog that only 100 folks read to being a blog in the Top 5 of Advertising Age’s Power150. It was a total lark that I joined. I forget who was kind enough to tell me there was a list. Well, the few times I’ve spent time at number 1 were fun, but to be honest, that’s only a little bit of social proof. Here’s how I get business leads from my blog.

I write about the way I see things, bits about how I might implement it, and ideas that companies can see themselves considering. Companies then reach out to me to either speak or bring New Marketing Labs in and do work for them. The blog got me the book deals for Trust Agents and Social Media 101. So, it’s really paid off well, my time in blogging mixed with my ideas on new ways to do business.

Homebases and Outposts

My blog is my home base. It’s where I want you to go when you find me on Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn/wherever. Because it’s the biggest part of understanding who I am and what I know how to do. I give you a “Best Of” page so you can find some of the meat of what I believe in an easy-instead-of-chronological way.

My outposts are things like Twitter, Google Wave, Facebook. Those are places where I connect and do something, but it’s not to replace the homebase. I think all these posterous and tumblr side projects can be cool, but rest assured that they detract from the value of growing a solid community. Outposts are where you meet people in the commons. The homebase is where you derive most value.

The Blogging Practice

I write all the time. Blogging helps me with this. I wrote about the writing practice not to long ago, and I write about writing often. It’s not that blogging is hard. It’s that blogging is a lot like going to the gym and it requires a constant practice, like playing the horn, like drawing, like dating. Meaning, it’s a verb. The more you do it, the better it can get.

Blogging as a Storefront

I sell things via this blog sometimes. For instance (and much of this is affiliate links):

Thesis WordPress theme
Third Tribe Marketing (our members-only marketing forum).
Beyond Blogging, an ebook I participated in.
Trust Agents, my book with Julien.
Social Media 101, my own book.
Countless books on Amazon.com, as I read and review quite often.

You don’t have to sell on your blog. It’s just an option that’s there if you want. Those projects above have helped me go to events that I otherwise couldn’t attend, and they’re helping me save for a new home for my family. Blogging gave me that, too.

My Own Magazine/Show/Media Empire

Growing up, none of us had the opportunity to “really” make our own media. We could do magazines by photocopying stuff. We could waste all the ink in our deskjet printers and pretend we were doing desktop publishing. We could record wav files and email them to our friends if we had a week.

But these days, you can be a podcaster, a videoblogger, a blogger, and you can make your own media. You maybe didn’t think of it this way, but the Huffington Post is what “feels” like a mainstream newspaper put together with blogging technology. It’s grown to be bigger than lots of newspapers, a top blog for years running, and yet, it’s just what we’re doing, done bigger.

Meaning, you can be whatever you want. You win on a huge mix of things, but you CAN do it. Distribution is free. Opportunity is nearly free. It just takes a powerful plan and a lot of execution and refinement.

I Love Blogging

And I hope you continue to do what you’re doing. We don’t need fewer blogs. We need more passionate blogs. We need more blogs that educate and inform and instruct and give us what we want. We need more Copyblogger and more Jon Swanson and more The Oatmeal.

And we need you.

You in?

I’m sitting here at Zemoga’s offices in Colombia. I realized that I wanted to be able to find a “Team Zemoga” list, click on it, and then dump the entire team into a list on my Seesmic Desktop. I realize that I can follow other people’s public lists, but the functionality is just a bit too clunky still.

I want the ability to take a Twitter list and share it as a new “team” list, with the ability to quickly manage the “follow/followback” as well as the ability to DM them almost like they’re IM users.

Make sense? Is this just me?