SU Comments

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Purchase a book, help save a child’s life.

Recently, Dr. Mani contacted me, asking if I’d help promote his new book.

“Think, Write, Retire” is now available at Amazon, and if you’re interested in online marketing, I recommend you go right away and purchase it.

Let me say from the start, I haven’t read the book yet, but it’s on my reading list. I have read the manifesto and found myself nodding as I read. Both from it and other things I’ve read by Dr. Mani, I can tell you that he has the ability to lay things out step by step and make you go, “Ahha! I can do that!”

Now, even if you’re not interested in marketing, I still heartily recommend Dr. Mani’s book.

Here’s why:

Dr. Mani is a marketer. He’s also a heart surgeon in India. And he combines both into his Children Heart Foundation.

Whenever you purchase a copy of “Think, Write, Retire“, all profits from the sale will go to sponsoring a child’s heart surgery.

And now, let me tell you why Children Heart Foundation is one of my favorite charities.

I have 2 not-as-little-as-they-once-were boys. I know how much I worried over them when they were little (and how much I still do, although I try to hide it more now). I can’t imagine the devastation of discovering that your child has to have surgery to survive…surgery so expensive that at first you go into shock trying to figure how you’re going to come up with the money to pay for it.

Dr. Mani is determined to save the lives of as many children as possible. To do that, he donates his own skills and time for free. But of course, hospitals cost money, even outside of the doctor’s care. Nurses, technicians, equipment, and even rooms and food have to be paid for.

That’s where we come in. Every time we buy a book for 19.95 or send a donation, we’re helping to cover part of that cost and save a child’s life.

Want to learn more about Children Heart Foundation?

Here’s one of my favorite articles about Dr. Mani, explaining why he became a pediatric heart surgeon.

The Dr. Mani Children Heart Foundation website.

Here are some of the children who have been helped so far.

The last time I wrote I mentioned that I was going to try podcasting.

Talk about a big flop! I’ve discovered that I’m a much better writer. Perhaps I’m too much of a perfectionist, but I really didn’t come up with a podcast that I’d consider worth sharing.

I did do an interview with Shannon Cherry which I’ll share soon, the end was cut off for some reason, so I’m learning how to do audio editing (to clip the interview at a reasonable place). Thanks so much, Shannon, for the interview and showing me how it’s done! I’ll definitely have to more of them.

In the time that I’ve been avoiding writing, I’ve still been studying social media sites. And I’ve come to a conclusion that I really didn’t want to face.

Social Media is dying.

I guess I should mention that I don’t think it will be dead anytime soon. You won’t wake up tomorrow or even next year to find Soc Med has disappeared off the face of the earth.

So why do I say it then?

1) It’s grown stagnant. For a body of water to stay fresh, it has to have a steady stream of new water coming into it. If that stream is blocked off somehow, the body of water grows stale and stagnant and eventually the things that live in it wither away and die.

Social Media early adopters get laughed at sometimes, since they’re always looking for the next best thing. But the next best thing is like the stream that brings in fresh water and their innovations keep the older sites from going stagnant – and there hasn’t been anything new in a while now.

2) It’s become mainstream. My mom and great aunt are both on Facebook, the flower girl from my wedding is on twitter. I read a statistic the other day that there are more people using the internet to visit social sites than there are people using the net to look up porn. It sounds funny, but that’s a huge change!

The problem with mainstream is that it kills innovation and creativity and the effort is put into crowd control. Think about your favorite non-chain shop or restaurant. At our favorite, they know our names when we walk in. Often, the waitress greets us with our drinks already prepared. They know our favorite foods and will mention something they think we’d enjoy trying if it’s new, or tell us if one of our favorite soups is what’s being prepared that day.

Now think about Wal-mart or any major chain store. In the electronics department of our local Wal-mart, most of the video games are behind glass. When I want to purchase one for my boys, I have to first find someone to wait on me then wait while they figure out who has the key for the cabinets and to find where that person is. Often it can take 20 minutes or more, just to make sure the game is the one the boys were hoping for. If we decide to purchase the game, another 15-30 minutes can easily be added on to the time estimate.

3) Spam is out of control. When I first started using email, spam was practically unknown. Then marketers discovered how great e-mail was for their business and how easy it was to purchase groups of e-mail addresses. Soon after, spam e-mail became a major problem. Now, I only check my e-mail every couple days knowing that even with my spam filter, a good portion will still be unrequested and unwanted junk mail.

When I first started using twitter, spam was practically unknown as well. With the rare exception, a friend request was always from a real person. Now, easily 8 out of every 10 friend requests I get are from spammers, and I can easily spend more time trying to determine if someone is real than I used to spend tweeting.

4) Sites are buying up competitors. A few days ago when I was talking about this subject with Allan, he pointed out the fact that when a company is working to improve, it buys companies that help it in some way. But, when a company feels secure, they start buying up competitors and potential competitors instead. Facebook’s recent purchase of FriendFeed seems to fit the bill here.

5) Removal of Social Media from titles. Among business people who handle social media functions, there has been a growing movement to remove Social Media from their title. Yes, they often do more than only handle social media, and their arguments are well thought out, but it’s still a sign that soc med’s star is fading.

6) The teens and college students have left. Whenever Twitter first came out, it quickly became known as a site where teens could text their friends and tell them what they were doing. Facebook was started to connect college students. Now, when I talk to teen friends, asking if they’re on online social sites often earns me an eye-roll and a “Um, no.” As surprised as I’ve been at the number who use Skype, I’ve been just as shocked at the number who don’t use Twitter or frequently even Facebook.

So what do you think? Is social media here to stay in all it’s glory, or in a few years will we look back and say, “That was fun, what’s next?”

I’ve always been a firm believer that age doesn’t matter.

Social media has reinforced that so many times. I’ve met teens that could converse as well as any adult I know…and adults who acted more immature than any 6 year olds I know.

Which is why, when my 11 year old wanted to go roller skating while we were on vacation last week, I didn’t hesitate to come along although Ken and I did laugh at how much of a klutz I am and how dangerous it could be.

If you had asked before, I would have sworn it was only 3 or 4 years since the last time I went skating. In fact, it had been over 15 years since I’d roller skated, and unlike bicycling, it’s apparently not really something you remember how to do.

As I discovered when I crashed backwards and managed to somehow twist my arm behind me.

I’ll be okay, but for now, I have a very, very sore arm which makes doing much typing difficult, so for the next couple weeks, I’ll be exploring podcasting.

Cross your fingers for me, I’ve participated in quite a few broadcasts, but haven’t done my own podcast before. This will be interesting.

You’d think with all the problems with spammers on Twitter, every real person would take great pains not to add to the spam themselves.

So why then, does my twitter page fill up every day with messages like: We’re giving away a free airline ticket today! FOLLOW @Orbitz & RT this msg to be eligible to win http://blog.orbitz.com/orbitz_blog/2009/06/orbitz-twitter-giveaway-official-rules.html

Last week everyone was posting #squarespace tweets. Squarespace wasn’t quite so bad, at least people could write whatever they wanted, you just had to make sure and add the hashtag somewhere in the tweet.

Don’t get me wrong, winning either an iPhone or a plane trip would be nice, but when I see a new retweet of the same product every time I refresh my screen, it gets a bit frustrating.

Retweeting to draw traffic isn’t a new trick. Remember twibes? With twibes, you could join or create a group to follow a topic you were interested in. Only problem? In order to join, you had to tweet that you’d joined.

Even worse than sites that have you tweet to be included are sites that ask you to DM your friends.

Just a few days ago, I looked at a new twitter game, “two tweets and a lie”. In order to play, you enter two truths about yourself and one lie. Then people can see how well they know you.

The problem? When you click invite, unless you’ve unchecked it, it sends direct messages (DMs) to up to 200 of your followers (you can select how many to send it to). Their excuse for asking you to spam people’s DMs? “We need your love!”

Sorry, I don’t think spamming DMs should even be an option. I decided not to play, took my ball and went home.

So what about the Million Dollar Drawing?

Well, my plan was to get my 6 year old to draw a picture of a million dollar bill. He started it and quickly decided that drawing dollars is hard work. But if I can get either him or my 11 year old to draw one for me, we’ll figure a contest and give away the picture.

Any suggestions on the kind of contest to have? Only one hard and fast rule, it definitely won’t require spamming your friends on twitter.

I’ve always loved card games, and still remember my Dad teaching me to play Rummy, “Think, Te-ge. What would be the best way to play that hand.”

But, outside of showing me how quickly he could take my allowance from me, and a couple times of playing with dominos as chips, we never gambled.

So it wasn’t until a couple years ago when my favorite MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) added poker to it’s list of “parlor games,” that I finally learned how to play.

It didn’t take long to discover that most of my friends really didn’t know how to play either. Oh, they might have a better idea of what constituted a winning hand, but over the long term, they could easily lose as much as I could. So, I started studying the tables; when I found someone who was winning, I’d watch how they played.

Before long, I could recognize the handful of excellent players as soon as I saw their name. And one day I sent a message to the best one, telling him how much I enjoyed how he played and that I was trying to teach myself by watching him.

Would you believe most people had been afraid to approach him and he had hardly any friends online?

His online name was Lorenor (or Lore for short) and Ken and I became great friends with him. Over the next year (until his job started limiting his playing time), the three of us studied poker together, sharing what we learned and constantly encouraging each other to improve.

Of course, we didn’t just learn from Lore. Once Ken and I had decided that we wanted to learn poker, we sought out the best real players too, practically memorizing books by players such as Doyle Brunson and Phil Gordon.

Two lessons in particular I carried away from those days:

1) Learn from the best. Following and listening to the best in any field is like giving yourself an instant promotion. When you’re picking up their knowledge, you’re shaving time off of the things you have to learn for yourself.

Mistakes in poker, like in business, will happen, and are often costly, but learning from the best will help you to recognize the cause of the mistake, learn from it, and continue on, instead of deterring you from your goal.

2) Don’t be afraid to reach out and say thank you. Everyone, famous, infamous, or somewhere in between, likes to know they’re appreciated. And writing a quick note to say “Thanks, I’ve learned a lot from you” might even open the door to a new friendship in real life as well as in an online game.

It’s Friday again, and that means that on Twitter, it’s #FollowFriday.

In case you’re wondering what #FollowFriday is, or why on earth there’s a hashmark in front of it, here is the post I wrote previously explaining.

So, today I’d like to introduce you to four new friends:

I have to start with @nethead. After all, he’s turning 29 today (we shan’t dispute a year or more). Even if he didn’t share the best links (free singles from Amazon or the latest update to CCleaner), you’d still want to follow him, because even better than the links, nethead is an awesome friend!

Next, I would like you to meet @Ozegold. Ozegold, otherwise known as Allan Cockerill, is my partner here on SU Comments and also writes Coffee with Allan. In all honesty, he is one of my very best friends, and has the patience of Job (he’s married to the wonderful SWMBO (She who must be obeyed) and they have 4 daughters, and still he has the patience to listen to all the wild ideas I come up with).

@MailOurMilitary is my third recommendation today. When I was expecting W, Ken was still in the Navy. I remember a girl down the hall from me was giving birth and her husband was coaching her…over the phone because he was at sea. It hit me then how great of a sacrifice the men and women who answer the call to serve are making. They often can’t take a week or even a day off to be at the birth of their first child nor can they alway come home to sit at the bedside of a beloved relative. And yet, something as simple as a card or an e-mail saying “We appreciate you.” can mean so much to them.

@mousewords is my final recommendation for today. She is an outspoken advocate of C02 awareness, after surviving Carbon Monoxide poison. She is also a gifted author and artist, and her book, The Rosewood House will be coming out later this year. On top of all that, she’s a great friend, who’s quick wit and charming personality will make you feel as though you’ve known her for ages.

Hope you enjoyed meeting today’s recommendations. Feel free to recommend people I should meet in the comments.

May I share a story with you?

You might have heard it before, it’s one of Aesop’s Fables. It’s title is The Man, The Boy, and The Donkey.

One day, a man and a boy set off to the market to sell their donkey.

As they were walking, a group of people went by and laughed. “What use is a donkey,” said one of them to his friends, “if you don’t ride on him?”

Hearing this, the man hopped on the donkey while the boy continued to walk beside.

Soon another group walked by. “Look at that lazy man,” commented one. “Riding while he leaves his young son to walk. Look at how tired the poor boy is already.”

Hearing this, the man turned beet red and quickly jumped off the animal, lifting the boy up instead.

Before long, they came to yet another group. “Can you believe that boy? Riding while his father walks. What a spoiled child!”

Now the father was running out of ideas, but finally climbed on the back of the donkey with the boy. While the donkey plodded along, another group came past them.

“As perfect an example of animal abuse as I ever saw,” said one traveler. “Look at those two sturdy men straining the back of that poor donkey. Why they should be carrying him instead of making him carry them.”

As soon as the group passed, the father lifted his son down and tied the donkey’s feet to a pole. Hefting the pole over their shoulders, the man and boy set off with the struggling animal.

Soon, they came to a bridge, and as the donkey stuggled, it threw the man and boy off balance enough that donkey and pole were dropped into the river below. Being unable to get to his feet, the donkey drowned, and the man and boy were forced to go back home penniless after the day’s adventures.

Recently, Mark Allan of StumpMarkus had me on his show to discuss Twitter. I always enjoy our discussions, not least because Mark comes from a purely marketing background and I’m a social networker through and through so our approaches are often radically different.

The great thing is that people get to hear two different approaches and can decide whether they like one or the other, or parts of both, or perhaps neither.

After Mark’s broadcast, I went looking to see how other people thought twitter should be used.

My conclusion was that I feel sorry for anyone who’s just getting started and trying to figure the “right way” to use it. In fact, that’s when I recalled this fable.

I need to admit that I’ve been the man in the fable before too.

When I first started twittering, there were people who were saying “follow everyone” and others saying “follow only those that you know.” Then there were the people saying “tweet about everything” and others saying “you should limit your tweets each day and only send a few.”

Gah! After a while if you’re not careful, you’re afraid to follow or tweet about anything.

A few of the twitter debates I’ve seen recently:

Follow everyone or follow (almost) no one.

Tweet often, carry on conversations on twitter or never carry on conversations, take them to another medium, and tweet only a few times a day.

Retweet or don’t retweet.

So what do you do? Especially if you’re just getting started on twitter, how do you decide on a plan that will help you ignore all the people telling you that you’re doing it wrong?

I’d love to hear your ideas.

After reading tweets by Chris Brogan (who’s tweet I can’t find now) and Mack Collier about Robert Scoble’s post on Web 3.0 (and whether FriendFeed is the best example of the coming webolution…my vote is no, if anything, I’d say Facebook is, so far) I started thinking about our habit of naming things.

Each time the web starts changing shape, we feel it needs a new name. Sure, why not! After all, it’s nice being able to differentiate Yuppies from Hippies, right? Or, oh wait, some of them are the same people and have they really changed that much inside?

But people cling to names. It doesn’t matter that a better title for Web 2.0 would have been the social web, it is and likely always will be, Web 2.0 and in the future, people will scratch their heads and have to look up what made Web 2.0 different that say Web 1.5 or why we suddenly went from just being on the web to giving it a name in the first place.

I for one am grateful that I don’t have to get a new name every time something about me changes. Can’t you imagine what life would be like?

Friend walking by: “Hey Teeg! Why isn’t she answering?”

Other friend beside them, “Oh, she’s not Teeg anymore, she’s a couple years older and has some grey hair, so now she’s Teeg 2.0.”

But, if we have to seriously rename the web, you know, the place where many of us come hang out every day and it changes because we influence in by what we like, use, want, need…if we really have to give a new name because it’s changed yet again, may I suggest the Now Web?

At the least, 1000 years from now, when some alien culture is studying our records, trying to figure what these humans were like, they won’t have to wonder exactly why we changed the name of the web yet again to still another number that really didn’t explain why a new name was needed in the first place.

Image via CrunchBase

When friendfeed rolled out their changes a couple weeks ago, I was interested but skeptical.

Perhaps I’m one of the few, but I really liked friendfeed like it was before. Not having everything post in real time meant that I didn’t get 4 copies of the same post from the same person because they really liked their discovery and shared it all over the web.

One thing that I did like was the fact that I could now add my twitter friends to my follow list.

With 50 or so friends, it was easy to brush off a few multiposts (while muttering under my breath about sites that make changes without thinking about the implications).

Perhaps I should have thought of that before I added my twitter friends, but all I was considering was finally being able to “like” or “comment” on someone’s tweets without having to retweet so people would know what I was talking about. In a matter of minutes, my friendfeed list grew almost 10x as big as it had been before…from around 50 to close to 500!

I had thought multiposts were bad when I was following 50 people!

So, my goal for today was to make friendfeed useful again. I’m doing that by using one of the same methods I’ve been using with Twitter – creating groups.

Friendfeed makes it easy to sort friends by groups. Besides asking what group you want a friend in when you first add them, if you click on “Browse/edit friends” (at the bottom of the Friends box to the right on your friendfeed page) you can hover over anyone that you follow and a box will pop up with the option to edit the group(s) that friend is in.

Clicking on edit will allow you to choose from a list of groups. Home feed, Favorites, Personal, and Professional are the premade ones, but it’s easy to add another if none of those are exactly what you want.

If you don’t want to see some feeds when you first open friendfeed, simply unclick “Home feed”. This way, you can see the posts that are important to you first, without your home page being overrun by multiposts.

I’m curious. What do you think of the new friendfeed changes? Is it easier to use now or do you wish they’d go back to the old style? Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Read this post from Warren Whitlock on Facebook today:

It made me think of something I’ve begun doing lately that I’m really enjoying.

Throughout my day there are minutes here and there that I’m stuck standing in one area, such as waiting for the microwave to cook something for 2 minutes or watching a pot of boiling water or even brushing my teeth.

Instead of spending that time doing nothing, I’ve begun dancing. It doesn’t matter what kind of dance, or even how good it is. Some days I’ll see how much ballet I remember, sometimes I do the twist.

Often my 6 year old joins in. He especially enjoys twisting with me, and has decided ballet is harder than it looks.

All told, I probably spend 10 minutes or so dancing during a day. Not a lot since most of it is in 2-3 minute intervals.

What surprises me are the results of those 10 minutes.

My son is learning to like different kinds of dancing. He even asked Ken if he could take ballet (haven’t convinced Ken on that one yet though).

He will come to me while something’s cooking and ask, “May I have this dance?” How can you turn that down?

I feel better about myself when I dance. When most of the day is spent at a desk, even 10 minutes of exercise feels good.

Even 10 minutes a day helps me get into shape. I don’t know if I’ve lost any weight, but I know that my clothes are fitting better. At least in part, that’s thanks to dancing.

It stimulates my brain. After having a severe case of writer’s block last month, I discovered one of the best cures is activity; getting your body moving helps to wake up a sluggish brain.

So, do you dance? If you do, what is your favorite way to fit it into your schedule?