People in the Real World

From my parents to friends (other gen-xers)so many look at me like a deer in headlights when I get going on what this and that company should be doing. But then again, most people that I work with give me that same stare, I we are in the tech business! Then I put myself in their shoes & I reel it in and say “a blog is JUST an article, you read them all the time.”
Just because I know it, LOVE it & think we should be doing 100x more in this space…I have to realize that teaching old dogs new tricks, really takes baby steps…and most people are still in the crawl stage.
Thanks!
-jen

right on…my takeaway is that this is a real boost for the people at Molson who are engaged and learning social media and the opportunities to reach out to the world…the conversations are happening…dialogue is ongoing and we need to be there…sometimes just a little hard to sell the “traditionalists” on the benefits…we shall overcome…cheers…MolsonFerg

“If ever I’m in risk of getting a big head about my status on the web, I need do nothing more than stand up at whichever coffee shop has my money that day and say loudly, “Do you know who I am?”

I’d love to be in the coffee shop when you did this…would be pretty funny =)

You are preaching to the band. This was the topic of my Keynote at Online Market World. We are lucky enough to live in a “rarefied air” of knowledge and our job is to educate. I do, on my websites, books and radio show.

A perfect example is a comment my blog received today: “I read the link, very interesting, if difficult to follow for the technophobe like me, carry on your good work though, I think what you are doing is brilliant, even if the understanding of the issues you raise are limited.”

Chris:

Wow, thanks for the props.

Last week I did a workshop — bits and pieces of a presentation that I’ve done frequently. I had to do it twice – the first group was great – went well. But the second group, I was way over their heads — and needed to do a better job of switching levels on the sly. Did get some resistance, but that’s part of the job – dealing with it and turning it around – acknowledging it – but making sure to pack it up in a suitcase and send it on its merry way.

At any rate, being bridge means that you acknowledge and worship the power of the newbie.
http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2008/08/working-wikily.html

Great post, Chris, and right on. I remember being so excited that a post I wrote made the front page of Digg, I called my best friend and told her. She enthusiastically congratulated me and sincerely shared in my happiness…and then said, “So what’s Digg?”

:)

Thankfully I’m not web famous either, but this is still a great reality check for me. I have to shake my self a little when people ask me “What’s a blog?” or “what’s Twitter?” because it feels like such a huge part of my life that I have trouble remembering that other people don’t need it. And that’s cool.

I like the idea of helping others to learn the power of social media. I’m trying to help a local non-profit learn to reach out by using it, to hopefully expand their reach. The idea that we have the power to do great things with it is exciting.

Great article.

Dugg for the subheader “Internet Fame is Lame Outside Our Sphere”!

Excellent article and great reminder that most of the real world doesn’t quite understand all of this social media yet. It seems that the more I work behind my computer, the more easily I could fall into the trap of forgetting that most people don’t understand the purpose of a blog… and it would completely lose them if I began to go into the topic of RSS. Sort of like when someone starts rambling about Star Trek… then I am confused and I don’t care. People don’t have an interest learning about our product if we lose them in our social media talk.

A perfect reminder that in all communication, it’s the benefits that people really want to hear about, not the features.

Thanks for the refresher!

Chris – so timely,so true. I have been working on just this bridge for the past 5+ years [as you know] – reminding the echo chamber of the world outside and the world outside of the beauty, potential and work involved in the social web. Too many miss the motivations underlying the features/tools/communities – no, i cannot “make you a viral video”, or press a button and poof you have a sense of purpose. Frankly, as current headlines demonstrate most people have bigger issues in their lives than how many people follow them on twitter. It is the motivations and what we GET out of our efforts as people that drive the current features/tools/commuinities. As – “technology changes, human’s don’t”. Keep on keeping on man.

Chris: Great post.

I love your comment about Internet fame. I can see the novelty tee shirt now: “I’m big on the Internet” ;)

Chris – great article. I was just thinking about this after a trip to SC, where nobody really cared about twitter, blogs, linked in, etc. Everyone was more concerned with gas prices, covering basic needs of everyday life.

And you are right when talking to people in the “real world” it is essential to teach (not preach) how social media can empower them by offering a way to reach out to the world.

I think I will forward this article to my friend Marisa, who, over lunch was screaming at me that people who do not get technology (especially flickr) needs to get with the program.

I really enjoyed this post. I might be one of the few people in my office that even know what SM is. Some are still working on opening attachments on their Blackberry. I used to think my limited knowledge of social media was a badge of honor until I realized that few people will respect your knowledge of something they don’t even realize exists.

Great post!

Great post Chris. I can’t stress how important this topic is, and I deal with it on a daily basis talking with prospects. Like you said, a truly successful person in this space are the names you listed — those people embracing social media in verticals you wouldn’t expect them to be.

It’s our job as evangelists for new technology to break it down to the simplest of terms, and alleviate fears of what’s new.

Awesome article Chris, it is so true, I find myself sometimes thinking everyone at work is in to social media, but their not, I try to explain, but end up explain to fast and not in a way they would understand. I gotta work on that. Thanks. take care

This was so sooo much needed. It was what I was thinking about for so often. I started a Geek to Real World Translation Guide just because of this post: http://natashasartcandy.com/2008/10/09/natashas-geek-to-real-world-translation-guide/

Because of your post, I’m working starting today on what matters most, to connect in the real world.

This morning my 46 year old engineer-executive brother called me to chat. I love it when he calls. We always laugh about stuff.

After 10 minutes I knew the call was winding down. I said to him, “BJ, you should introduce your company to social marketing.” As usual I talked louder and faster. I always do that when I talk about something I love.

I told my brother that I saw a 16 year old kid on Chris Pirillo’s big blog seminar a couple of weeks ago. I told how the kid said that the most remarkable invention of the 21st century so far was text messaging. I felt like I was telling my brother something really unique.

“Oh, I use text messaging,” said my brother.

That put a pin in my balloon.

Great post Chris. I was having the same conversation with myself while building what I’m thinking is a advanced social media project which I’m trying to tackle the over saturated NASCAR Marketing landscape. Instead of trying to explain the technolgoy I think of what we are doing is building a bridge to it…kind of like using baseball stats to teach kids math…or something like that. Gas on!

You took the words right out of my mouth. I often think about a lot of the things you mentioned, only in my case the problem of not fitting in is exponentially bigger: I’m from rural Kansas ;) I do try to teach people about social media and the intricacies of the internet though, my wife is kind of a bystander of it all, so she is learning just by watching and listening…

Regular reading de-lurking because your post struck a real chord. The idea of paying it forward, of putting petty jealousies aside and helping someone out is SO IMPORTANT. I hang only out (in the blogosphere and in real life) with people who can celebrate the success of others. It’s a much better space to be in–and social networking is all about this.

http://www.wondersandmarvels.com

I think we should all be educators. My boyfriend (who has now started reading your site) knew nothing of Social Media but since we are starting a joint venture I told him he had to learn. When I talk to my mom, she is someone who “wants it but just didn’t know it”. She always talks about how she has been pulled to the techie age and I am so proud to see that since she works with commercial properties in high finance that she has integrated various apps that assist her business. She loves when I come over and share something I did and she’s always writing it down to check it out. She says that ultimately she could care less about Twittering but she wants to know that it exists and what it does. She laughs when she listens to CNN or FoxNews and the anchors say “wow those people on the Internet are blogging about this or doing this thing called Twitter”. She loves that she tends to know about things months in advance because I made her aware.

I agree that my world is virtual and so the gains I have made online, I am fortunate to parlay that into the physical world; however, it’s always good to remember that we operate in a completely different system that most people don’t know anything about.

As always, I thoroughly enjoyed your post. I referenced it on my blog in an effort to spread the word.

Natasha