Last week I had the chance to attend Blogwell and the Social Media Business Council (SMBC) meeting in Austin, Texas. I am not going to go into too much detail in this post, partly because Blogwell was more than adequately covered here, and partly because I can’t really talk about the SMBC meeting – as we were reminded multiple times ‘what gets discussed within the Council stays within the Council’. SMBC is a community of social media leaders from 160 global brands, and last week’s event was hosted by Dell (and included a tour of Dell’s Social Media Listening Command Center). Colleagues from companies such as 3M, AT&T, Cisco, Coca Cola, Fidelity Investments, General Mills, Hilton, McDonald’s, REI, RIM, SAP, Symantec, UPS, Wells Fargo and many others engaged in a very open and honest dialogue about the challenges we all face as we try to figure out this ‘social media thing’.
I am generally not a fan of the “viral video.” I get the value, but most of what gets passed around to my in-box tends to be the “dancing kitten” or “funniest-home-video-dad-gets-hit-in-the-groin-by-his-5-year-old’s-baseball-bat” variety. What I gravitate toward, however, are the videos that show you a new way to view the world, on innovation, on perspective. Take the mundane and make it extraordinary. Inspire me. That is what I love about this video and why I have Tim Clark’s blog to thank. If you are not one of the 13 million who has seen this already, take 3 minutes to view it. The premise is “Can you quickly get people to change their behavior if you add an element of fun to it?“
How does this fit into Social Media? I operate from the premise that we all are overwhelmed with information in our daily lives – texts, emails, URLs, videos, blogs, msgs, etc. In fact, my blogging to tell you that you are inundated with information becomes the social media equivalent of Schrodinger’s Cat. My blog, while well-intentioned (and brilliant!), becomes part of your daily noise.
What if we focused our energies in 2011 on solving the problem, not just improving the tactic. Our usual approach is to improve the tactic, the function. We build a better escalator – faster, smoother, more colorful perhaps. How about we start with the problem, devise a way to successfully implement toward that goal, and then – here is the tricky part – actually execute against that idea! Crazy, I know! Instead of building a better escalator, make the experience of coming up the stairs more enjoyable and arguably more fruitful for the denizens of the subway.
What do we want to solve in 2011? How about how we communicate, how to filter out the noise, how to connect with like-minded individuals around the globe, to connect with people on a meaningful level? Let’s solve that. In the “valley of innovation,” what we tend to hear – and far too often – are ideas like . . . .
It is Twitter only with x features, y faster, for z cost,
It is email . . . on steroids.
Let’s throw the old premises out the window and invent from the problem we are trying to solve. That would make a great “Top 10” list for 2011. Now, if you will excuse me, I have a xylophone ramp to build.
When it comes to the numbers, bigger is better. 500 million active facebook users – impressive. 65 million tweets a day on Twitter – wow! 85 million people in 200 countries trust their business profile to LinkedIn – astounding. However, in our rush for all things “bigger,” “greater,” or “more” we have missed the biggest number of them all – 1. One. The gender neutral, third person singular. Uno. Never before have we had a greater opportunity to tap into the power of the individual, the power of the one. Influencers to obsessives. Let’s face it: a dedicated someone has more sway than the largest group of uninterested followers or disinterested bystanders.
While attending the Bees Awards with a group of colleagues in San Francisco a few weeks ago, I was pondering how they could make a goat cheese pizza the size of my thumbnail (complete with tiny slice marks) while admiring the obvious signs on the statues in the Legion of Honor – “this is not a coat rack” next to the Degas or “please do not place your drinks here” next to the Rodin. Before I do like so many of us do – taking refuge in my Smartphone – I met Marcy Mendelson. Marcy is an acclaimed Bay Area denizen and photographer. She is also a passionate cheetah conservationist. Intrigued, I set down my goat cheese pizza on the nearest Faberge‘ egg I could find and engaged in an actual conversation.
For the love of all things cheetah . . .
Marcy is fascinated by cheetahs (I know, you have heard the “while-attending-an-award-ceremony-I-met-cheetah-girl-story” before, right?) (more…)
RT @DeniseSBecker: @SocialB2P I read your article on Forbes today re 10 leadership lessons . TY, it was one of the best reads I've had http… 4 weeks ago
RT @bernadettek: You don't measure an influencer by their klout score just like you wouldn't measure a friend by a credit score via @Social… 4 weeks ago
