On Twitter, I pointed out a great article by Jack Neff about Unilever CMO Simon Clift. Several people appreciated the article, but one person responded back that they felt Unilever was morally bankrupt. I’m not sure from where her stance came, but that was her take.

You are, of course, entitled to your opinion, but where you run into a potential risk is by letting your opinions get in the way of learning something new. I learn best by paying attention to how others do things, especially when I’m learning how not to do things.

If we don’t look for models, if we don’t separate our feelings from our efforts to learn, we miss many opportunities. That last bit bears repeating slightly differently: If you can break out the concepts from the content, the entire kingdom becomes yours. Learn about what people are doing, versus what exactly they’re talking about.

Getting caught up in the little things or falling into the story instead of paying attention to its structure means a missed opportunity to learn. There are lessons around us daily, several of which we can apply to what we do. From that excellent restaurant server teaching us how to blog a better offering of dessert, to the observations gleaned from paying attention to our rivals, we have chances to learn.

Are you separating out the lesson from your other feelings and emotions?

Photo credit omniNate

Clearly, I have no better ideas than you on that, but I do have some thoughts on what you can do to prepare for the news ahead. These tactics all fall into the bucket of “if apples all start falling off the tree, at least try to be the shiniest, best-placed, easy to pick up apple out there” school of thought.

With that said, here are some thoughts for you.

25 Ways Social Media Prepares You for the Downturn

First: Be Proactive

In a situation where everyone’s repeating the gloomy news, I advocate that you put your house in order. Other, much better websites will give you the how-to for your financials. I’m thinking about you, your career, and the face you show the world on the web.

1. Google yourself and see what shows up. If it’s not what you WANT to have show up, start building up a main site, and pointing to it using outposts.
2. Tidy up your LinkedIn profile. I’ve shown you before how to improve your LinkedIn Profile and how to make your LinkedIn profile for your future. Get cracking.
3. Get on Twitter. Make sure you have a nice avatar, and easy to remember name. (Amazing how some folks don’t do this.)
4. Then, start using Twitter Search intelligently. Look for search terms that make sense for you. (Try this query as an example.)
5. Make your blog ready for business. Or, make your blog a business unto itself.
6. Pick up great financial advice from trusted sources, so that you can live within your means.
7. Look for discounts, like 50% off attending a great conference (email me to see if I have more tickets left – cbrogan at crosstechmedia dot com). – Plug for my conference, but hey. Financial in nature.
8. Build conversational relationships with other business people in similar roles at other organizations on Facebook, on LinkedIn, and elsewhere AHEAD of needing the job.
9. If your job is location-specific, start a local community blog targeted for business types in your area. Make it about the community at large, but feature prominently in it. Share this information with local news sources, local press, on Craigslist, etc.
10. Take new photos of yourself and upload to Flickr, nicely labeled with who you are, your blog’s URL, etc, so that people might find you and your likeness easily when Googling.

Money-Making Opportunities

If you’ve got to find new ways to make loot, don’t fret. Just put some effort into finding which money-making opportunity might pay off the best for you. As others are worried about their jobs, why not find ways to augment your earnings in the short term by trying some of these ideas.

11. Investigate products you can sell on your website. Consider getting an affiliate account with Commission Junction or LinkShare
12. Sell your own educational products on your expertise, especially if it would help retrain someone out of a job.
13. Expand your offerings to cover new service or product ideas.
14. Shift your existing pricing with the current economy in mind: shorter terms, different payment options, one time deferred first payment, etc.
15. Seek stock opportunities to purchase for your portfolio in their depressed state (if you’re into stocks).
16. Sell the first ten pieces of advice as consulting to other people in the community out of a job.
17. Look for project sharing opportunities, especially if you do something that’s somewhat modular like web work.
18. Look for ways to consolidate your business practices with other people. There might be economies involved in partnership that would make a world of difference.
19. Find ways to revamp old products or services or offerings and re-sell them today.
20. Turn 3 hours of your “after work downtime” into “serious business planning” work time. (It’s 11:40PM as I write this, if this gives you any idea how seriously I treat this step.)

Five Quick DON’Ts

Sorry to end on a negative, but while you’re at it, make sure you don’t fall prey to these kinds of situations.

21. Don’t sit around amassing news stories on what’s going wrong. Yep, stuff’s going wrong. Deal.
22. Don’t worry that big companies won’t buy your product or service. Find the product or service that they will buy.
23. Don’t join groups of fired coworkers, no matter what they say the goal is. They are often pools of negativity, and if those folks also don’t have jobs, why would you look for jobs there anyhow?
24. Don’t jump at the first thing just because you like eating. The second thing is almost always right behind it. Give yourself space to evaluate.

Smarter minds than mine will tell you how to weather the storm from the financial perspective, but maybe some of this will help you out.

Any other advice that you want to share with the gang?

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Photo credit, Tony the Misfit

I found some posts from myself and others that will help you prepare for conferences. But before I go into that, I wanted to share a little about how I came by some of this advice. Not only do I attend many conferences in a year, I’ve been working in the space for over 2 years already, myself.

My Background in Events

I’ve worked with some truly legendary conference people. Jeff Pulver knew the magic formula for a powerful community event that worked on several levels. I learned tons from him and Jason Chudnofsky while running the Video on the Net event.

I also work with Christopher S. Penn and the astounding Whitney Hoffman on the PodCamp events that we co-founded. We learn something new from every camp, even when we’re not organizing them. (By “we,” I mostly mean Chris and Whit.)

My current business partners, Stephen Saber, Nick Saber, and the rest of the folks at CrossTech Media have given me even more perspective, different models, and a whole new view on how things are evolving. Things like “big is out; small and meaningful is in.” We have an amazing show with David Meerman Scott, Paul Gillin and some incredible speakers and exhibitors at the New Marketing Summit this October, and I’m really proud of that event.

Observations About Attendees at Events

This year, at the amazing SNCR event in the Sonoma Valley, David Alston from Radian6 pointed something out. There were two conference experiences happening in the same room. Even though the event organizers made every effort to have attendees feel connected and included, half the room (maybe less) were active on Twitter, and having an entirely larger conversation, while the other half wasn’t even aware of all the activity.

It seems to me that most events now almost need to anticipate having a hash tag (something like #nms for New Marketing Summit), and an active Twitter back channel.

Another observation: the people who prepare to attend an event come away with a much different experience than those who just show up. This becomes very important, because it turns out that you, as a prospective attendee at an event, might find a completely different end result, with only a little bit of consideration and just a hair of pre-planning.

On the eve of going out to MANY events over the next 40 days or so, I wanted to compile some of the best advice I’ve received or written about with regards to how YOU can get more out of conferences.

Advice for People Attending Conferences

Things I do BEFORE a VON Conference – Jeff Pulver.

Getting More out of Your Speaking Opportunities – Jeff Pulver

Preparing for PodCamp DC with the Jeff Pulver Method – Christopher S. Penn

Be Sexier in Person – Me.

10 Ways to Make Your Next Conference Better – Me.

Using Social Media to Meet People – Me. ( Picture look familiar?)

What’s Your Advice?

What would you add to the list? How else can we prepare? What is your pre-event and post-event ritual?

I believe that social media (things like blogging, podcasting, video, collaboration, and social networks) delivers actual, tangible results to businesses and individuals, if done with a purpose. The trick of it all is working within a strategy. It’s easy to run off the rails and just use the tools without any kind of goal in mind. Hopefully, some of this will help.

Besides, the best advice is the advice that works for you. Nothing to do with what I think at all. In any case, I’ve compiled ten posts about social media that I think might be useful to you.

My Best Advice About Social Media

1. Social Media Starter Moves for Entrepreneurs
2. Social Media Starter Moves for Entertainers
3. Social Media Starter Moves for Small Town Businesses (written by Becky McCray).
4. Social Media Starter Moves for Real Estate
5. Social Media Starter Moves for Freelancers
6. 50 Steps to Establishing a Consistent Social Media Practice
7. 50 Ways Marketers can use Social Media to Improve Their Marketing
8. What Social Media Does Best
9. Social Media Strategy – The Planning Stage
10. Social Media Strategy – Aligning Goals and Measurements

Photo credit, striatic

1. Social media isn’t that scary, but it is different than what you’ve been doing. For one thing, it’s far more messy, and requires a lot more hand-holding.
2. You have SO MUCH to gain from figuring out some of these tools and the way we’re using them. And one difference from typical businesses: most of us social media types are very willing to share what we know. Just ask.
3. I love every one of you who makes an effort to get to know me before you have to market something to me or pitch me. It works out so much better when you and I have talked in some non-pitch way beforehand. And it only takes a few minutes every now and again to say hi.
4. I’m tired of adjectives. Your new website isn’t innovative. The word doesn’t mean anything to me any more. Further, let me decide if it’s innovative.
5. Bloggers aren’t all the same. I’m definitely not the same as Michael Arrington at TechCrunch. I’m not the same as Seth Godin. I’m not the same as most bloggers. I’m just doing my own thing, and they’re doing theirs. It pays to understand which of us you’re trying to reach for what, and reading the last 10 things we posted, just to get a sense of whether we’re the right kind of person to write about your thing.
6. Blogging isn’t the same as releasing marketing materials.
7. Putting up commercials on YouTube isn’t videoblogging.
8. Be human first on social platforms like Twitter or Facebook. I know Lionel Menchaca as a human and as a Dell employee. You can do the same.
9. Understanding Technorati and Google Blogsearch and Summize goes a long way towards helping you listen and hear what people are saying about you, your client, etc.
10. You’re doing great things here and there. Sometimes, you’ll get praise for it. Other times, it might be overlooked. It’s still great.
11. Great things are erased quickly when you mess up.
12. If you mess up, say sorry fast. Acknowledge that you made a mistake, and then act on what you can do better next time.
13. There’s lots you can teach we media maker types, too. I learn lots from you every day. I do this with phone calls, and by reading what you’re sending me. It’s a two way street.

There. That’s what I wanted to tell you.

What do you want to tell me?

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The Social Media 100 is a project by Chris Brogan dedicated to writing 100 useful blog posts in a row about the tools, techniques, and strategies behind using social media for your business, your organization, or your own personal interests. Swing by [chrisbrogan.com] for more posts in the series, and if you have topic ideas, feel free to share them, as this is a group project, and your opinion matters.

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Photo credit, Mark Hillary