Category Archives: Social media

Books, Current Affairs, Executive, Management, Positioning, Social media, Startups, Technology

The seven business books I believe are right for right now

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These books, which I've read or am reading, are works whose content can inform business life. 

The Power of Pull:  How Small Moves, Smartly Made, Can Set Big Things in Motion.  John Hagel III, John Seely Brown, Lang Davison.  Aptly describes the change that is afoot and how anyone — and any business — can sustain relevance and connection.

Team of Rivals:  The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln.  Doris Kearns Goodwin.  Shows how competitors can collaborate when their leader is clear about the objective and recognizes how their motives can help reach the goal.  [Side benefit:  I found the description of the actions of biased journalists soothing.  If this country survived a civil war and those reporters, it can survive anything.]

The Divine Comedy.  Dante Alighieri [The John Ciardi Translation].  Amazing that despite every other kind of growth, the human character really never changes.  Very useful.

I Hate People:  Kick Loose from the Overbearing and Underhanded Jerks at Work and Get What You Want Out of Your Job.  Jonathan Littman, Mark Hershon.  The authors do an outstanding job of categorizing every personality you can encounter in the workplace.  The psychology and the comedy of pathological behavior.

Delivering Happiness:  A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose.  Tony Hsieh.  Sometimes nice works. Here's how to do it and prosper without becoming a patsy.

Power:  Why Some People Have It — and Others Don't.  Jeffrey Pfeffer.  How to get comfortable with power and decide whether you want it.

Overlook Much, Correct a Little:  99 Sayings by John XXIII.  Hans-Peter Rothlin, editor.  The musings of an enlightened mind, these thoughts inspire action that benefits every stakeholder in an organization — most especially, oneself.

 

 

 

Branding, Social media, Startups

How to be yourself in 2010

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This morning brings massive coverage of the launch of Path, an iPhone app that gives you social networking capability with your fifty closest friends.  Some writers are calling it the anti-social network, but Path is branding itself as a personal network.

The most intriguing line to me, though, comes from the Path's own blog post.

Because your personal network is limited to your 50 closest friends and family, you can always trust that you can post any moment, no matter how personal. Path is a place where you can be yourself.

A place where you can be yourself.

Maybe this means being able to share photographs of yourself in a hot tub on Path so you can refrain from doing so on Facebook, where potential employers might see you.  From what I understand, this is a major concern today.  Being able to share photos of yourself in full bacchanalian vigor without fear of reprisal or unemployment.  So I guess it might be a good thing that we now have a more contained space for doing that.

But.

I want to be the same person on Twitter that I am on LinkedIn that I am in my neighborhood that I am when working.  I might express myself a bit differently in each venue, but essentially, I'm me.  I think that should be the goal.

How to do that — to be one self online, in person, on the job and on the town?

  1. Practice the fine art of holding back.  Do you really have to share that photo or that thought?  Consider whether you are adding to a conversation or merely grandstanding.
  2. Share the thoughts and the pictures that portray the better side of yourself.  If you must share something negative or questionable, make sure it winds up making a positive point.  And watch out for sharing too much information, anywhere.
  3. Understand that you will, in all likelihood, mess up.  Be ready to acknowledge that and move on to the next opportunity.  And do the same for others.
  4. Listen and engage.  Think about what you are reading or seeing and how it might expand your thinking or your understanding of a situation.  Ask questions and converse.  This is one of the best things about online networks — expanding our circles, expanding our perspectives.
  5. Be consistent.  There are people with whom you don't have to hold back — but you should always be the same person.  Otherwise, you'll drive yourself crazy.

 

Social media

Two social media themes: March 9 2010

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Now that we have multiple social networks for multiple purposes and interests, with new ones emerging and gaining traction regularly, technologists and user experts are thinking about what's next.

Turning activity across networks into actions the user manages:  Making it possible for people  on one network to communicate with people on other networks, in terms of content and activity, without leaving their original networks.  But will the networks allow it or continue to buttress the walls in their gardens?  Adrian Chan via Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb.

Turning fans into buyers into communities:  Several of these principles for how not to kill a startup are amazingly appropriate
for how to turn targets into buyers.  Starts with knowing who you are
and who your customer is and where the twain must meet.  Greg Boutin.

Positioning, Social media, Television

The future of marketing

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It's refreshing to see writing at the top of this list from The Future Buzz, capturing the writer's opinion about the 15 necessities for tomorrow's marketing career.  Usually, if someone can write, he or she can think.  "Can write" means more than stringing together words; it means making a point with a beginning, a middle and an end.  Whether or not you're writing a blog post or a brochure.  I'm glad to see writing make the top of one list, at least.

The folks at the Marcus Graham Project know this.  Their presentation during a week of AAAA gatherings in San Francisco was refreshing because it addressed an old problem in new way.  They are shining a big, bright light on television and how we watch it, and they're integrating the traditional message — caution of over-watching — with delivery that young people can understand.  Without sacrificing the quality of the writing.  The project is asking questions many entrenched advertising gurus should be asking — and the project's leaders are offering solutions that make sense and entertain while they engage a new demographic in industry leadership.

I hope these guys keep writing.

Social media

Your tax dollars at work — or not: Michigan builds a social network

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In a really bad move, the state of Michigan decided to build a standalone social network for high school students making the transition to college.

Governments — and corporations — should really think twice about creating mini-bureaucracies not just because of the cost and waste but the effort required to attract people inorganically from where they are.  Networks like Facebook [born in the university setting!] and Twitter grew by word-of-mouth, not fiat.  A word to the wise.