Archive for the ‘Networking’ Category

Dabbing my toe left and right in the stormy waters of Social Media, I bumped into a fascinating quote from Google big boss Eric Schmidt (Google him, it’s impressive ). He said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal: “I don’t believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time… I mean we really have to think about these things as a society… Young people may one day have to change their names in order to escape their previous online activity.”

This is a concern I have voiced for a long time now. Do people really know what they are sharing? Do people really want to tell every last detail of their most private lives online, for Google to index? Do people realize that that very cute picture in that minuscule teenie weenie yellow polka dot bikini is available for their future boss? What about the massive tagging of pictures taken by smartphones in the dark of a hen night? Do people realize Tweets are indexed and kept, long after their authors have deleted and forgotten them?

Schmidt has a point. Digital citizens should be more aware of the digital traces they leave behind. Some social auto-responsibility is required, indeed. Some social clean up even: map your real friends. Find a circle where sharing is mutual and well defined. Un-friend and un-follow the shady ones. Be online street-smart. And we need more e-netiquette. The freedom of waving your digital camera around ends where someone else’s freedom (for privacy) begins. An opt-in/opt-out for tagging?

We all can become social-digital smarter. But we’ve all been young. We’ve all partied. We’ve all made big, social mistakes. Luckily, for my generation, the memories of those mistakes have been blissfully eroded by the softening hand of time. Should we now be merciless on youngsters that made that one drunken mistake online? Should we continue to judge that one girl for loving the wrong guy just a bit too much, and ending up tagged on exgirlfriends.com?

Maybe Eric Schmidt and his all-powerful Google have a responsibility here: can you get a second chance from Google? Imagine, mister Schmidt, if a youngster made that one online mistake, and motivates why he/she would like to see it blown into –permanent- oblivion.  Could you alter your logarithm, and give the kid the rest of his/her life back? Would that not be easier, more respectful, and more educative than just offering future generations the possibility to change their names?

But I do not want to put the entire burden on Eric Schmidt’s shoulders, I agree with online consultant Suw Charman-Anderson who said somewhere:  “As a society, we are just going to have to become a bit more forgiving of the follies of youth.”

My colleagues from the London office invited me to speak at their healthcare event “How to communicate with the 21st Century Patient”.  Highlighting the importance of digital media seemed a logical thing .  More and more patients turn to the internet as their first source of information, confronting their medical practitioners and doctors with the information they have found online. Dealing with this “dr Google phenomenon” is something that is changing the medical playfield, and frankly a bit of a challenge.

A freelance healthcare writer, co-presenting at the event, is an excellent    journalist (with a focus on print media). However, I had to disagree with her when she stated that off-line information is per definition better than on-line information, and that online providers of content are mostly inferior to off-line providers.

And that is when the sleeping journalist in me roared. When I was a young press monkey, older journalists were better, and journalists with a blue accreditation cards were better than the ones with a green card. Now the quality debate shifted to it’s online, or offline.  Honestly, that is enough nonsense to propel a pound of half-cooked beef in an orbit around Betelgeuse.

It is NOT about off line or online. It is about quality of content. If the content is good, crosschecked, weighed, referenced, footnoted, transparent, honest and correct…. I could not care less if it is written by a journalist with a diamond incrusted press card, or by a nerdy blogger in a Hindustani basement.

Encyclopedia Britannica, the self-proclaimed God of wisdom, proves to be less correct than the crowd sourced, wiki-drafted, and community controlled Wikipedia.

Trust me, you will also find fine and balanced content online. Written by journalists; bloggers; moms and dreamy eyed students. Not all of those have nihil obstat press card blessing… who cares?

Shuffling through my weekly mountain of undigested news, I stumbled on a nice article in the Wall Street Journal on how Digital Media have created countless gigabytes of text, sound, and images… most of it created by people who understand little of the professional standards and practices for media. One might think that this produces an un-fresh sea of mediocrity, eroding quality and acceptability, and steering humanity as we know it directly into chaos and intellectual collapse.

But do not jump too quickly to the wrong conclusions. Since Gutenberg invented the book press (and people eroded contemporary literature with vulgar versions of the Bible and its interpretation) , every increase in freedom to create or consume alarms people who want to defend the old system and set of metrics….  Every century, the “old ones” accuse the new technology to make the younger generation stupid. And still, humanity seems to get smarter, week by week…

Close to two billion people today are connected to the same network, spending more than a trillion hours a year of free time, creating a cognitive surplus so gigantic that even a tiny fraction of it that can be seen as “valuable” creates breathtaking positive effects.

The Wall Street Journal states that: “Increased freedom to create means increased freedom to create throwaway material, as well as freedom to indulge in the experimentation that eventually makes the good new stuff possible.”

On this rainy Sunday I agree. We’re watching a digital revolution: on communications, media, press, conversations, connections, privacy, work/life balance, and countless other holy grails.  There is never an easy way through a revolution. We’ll have to ride it out, bolting the rails just in front of a fast moving train.   Of one thing I’m convinced, in the end, when we will lick our wounds, and watch how the dust settles… we’ll discover it will have made us stronger, and smarter.

I’ve been passionate about location based services for ages. In my humble –but very wise - opinion, the various possibilities for location based offerings are endless. True, location will only pay-off and be widely accepted when it will be closely linked to the psychographic and econo-graphic profile of the user. And the user needs to be in full control of the level and focus of the LBS information coming through his shields… But we’re not there yet.

After GPS in car and navigation on mobile devices, the first steps of true location based applications are surfacing fast. Twitter, Facebook and other networks scatter to embed location in their offering.  Gowalla and Foursquare constructed their complete business model around it.  Most users still look a bit hesitant at these services. Checking into places is a nice gimmick, but what does it really bring? And how quick do people tire of collecting mayorships and badges? Pay-offs will have to be found to keep as well consumers as businesses and brands in the game.

The tracks are now being laid in front of the fast moving train. Starbucks, the coffee phenomenon, already rewarded frequent customers with a collectors Barista badge on Foursquare. It now jumps a hell of a step further by offering a stunning 1 dollar discount to people holding a Starbucks mayorship on Foursquare.  

Getting a full $1 off a $4 Frappuccino is a baffling discount. For the first time, loyal customers get a tangible pay-off for their location based social media advocacy of their favorite brand.

Collecting badges, adding new places, posting reviews and sharing tips just jumped from mouth-to-mouth sharing in a game-esk set-up to a possible lucrative business with a direct ROI for participants. The rules of the game have fundamentally changed. Did any-one notice?

Meeting a great delegation of Porter Novelli West Cost while in San Diego was nice. Great to see some real people on the old avatars. And I must admit, the Surf and Turf that I attacked during the Social Media chat was…. Mjummie. And huge! This is just a lobster…tail .

Dear Yves,

about a week ago I sent you an open post, tweet and mail: on you and Twitter. You probably did not see it, but lots of people (yours truly included) offered you some insights and do’s and don’ts on social media.

But you and your colleagues had a busy week, we know. A week where the people of this country, and people interested in this country followed every single syllable of the politicians that are negotiating the future of this country.

You twittered about nice flowers and our Belgian tennis babes. Nothing wrong with that. And you went to sleep at 1 in the morning on Wednesday. One of my American followers found that useful information. And in the midst of the negotiations on the future of Belgium, you found time to tweet about cycling.

And half the world was amazed to hear two hours later from sleepy journalists that you did not find the solution to Brussel-Halle-Vilvoorde.

@alexanderdecroo warned on Twitter that he would bring your government down, if you had not a solution today. Did he not tell you? See, you could have known if you would have followed him on Twitter?  And @svengatz said already on Wednesday he would split something, anything really. But you do not follow Sven either.

I realize negotiating is hard and perilous work. But looking from a distance, we, communications people, see a clear lack of communication. People who do not reach out, who do not find each other. Who talk, but do not listen. Who communicate egocentrically…

Maybe, going forward, you and the other politicians could start interacting, listening. To each other. To citizens. That can start with real simple things. Like following each other on Twitter.

Tell me how you tweet. I’ll tell you who are…

sincerely,

@dannydevriendt

Since people follow me in (in? through? on?) Social Media, life becomes increasingly complicated. O yes, facing multiple ethical dilemmas here. I do like interaction, sharing and even cynical or ironical snowball fights.  But would it be wrong to employ an expert hit-man to deal with all of the lunatics on social networks? I hear they come cheap these days.

Honestly, I’m not interested in adding to your barn in Farmville, and your fish in Aquarium really would be better off in sushi. I did not receive any complaints about my reproductive hardware, and do not need a system upgrade for that. I have followers by the thousands, so am NOT interested in buying half a Pondukuriststan province into following me (buying followers, you’re joking, right?).

The 350 million dollar you want to put on my banking account would just get me in major trouble with my ego and the Belgian tax authorities. I am not into renting exotic beauties either… I hate anything that smells like TrueTwit, and if your golden formula to get rich is working, why do you still bother bothering me?

So I’m looking for a Cyber Rambo willing to root out the evil accounts, bots and tweeps that dirty my online existence. There is good money to be made

As an avid addict to agogics, the science that studies inter relationships and social interaction, I am fascinated by the incredible way social and digital media sweep most of our know standards under the carpet. For ages a carefully constructed framework of rules, do’s and don’ts, etiquette and ancient wisdom has been keeping our relationships in balance. Dates with chaperones, draconian ways of progressing in a relationship… getting to second or third base was really a hassle. Announcing a relationship to your social web required careful consulting and had to adhere to a very specific set of social (and moral) standards. The picking order on who-to-inform-when-of-what was crystal.

Nowadays, a plethora of quick and very revealing technologies permit your social online communities to follow your life in the most revealing and private depths of your being. And yes, your status updates, location beamers, and tagged pictures are carefully being analyzed by Aunt Beth and uncle Freddy.

Trust me, they’ll spot that new gorgeous witty blonde in your life quicker than you can deal with. And when is a relationship official? When you introduce him to your parents? When you take her to that friend’s diner? The first joined breakfast? Or an updated Facebook status that beeps from “single” to “it’s complicated”?

O my, as a social media consultant I can see golden times ahead of me …

I am the mayor of Avalon, a secret Eden in Normandy. And I collect other Foursquare mayor-ships like ancient warriors glued scalps to their Hokenavaloha Spears. But there is a new game in town: the Quest for the ultimate Foursquare badges.

A new breed Knights of the Round Table boldly crosses city borders and mountain ranges and dwells in ridiculous expensive cocktail lounges and fashionable trade shows to collect and unlock the most prestigious badges.

For you, dear readers, that have been living under a stone for the last 14 months, good morning,  Foursquare is a location centered application that allows users to update their location, and share it with friends.

In this most Holy Quest, some are really pushing it far. Let me tell you the tale of fifteen-year-old Parker Liautaud and 44-year old David Newman who are on this  most very moment racing themselves through endless miles of powder snow and wee-wee freezing temperatures to be the first to check in at the North Pole.

That’s right. The North Pole. Just to unlock a badge that looks exactly like this.

O well. Let them have it. I will personally leave no stone unturned to get an even greater badge. This one.

You get it when you recklessly showed up in 25 different pizza places.

Do you hear this, Parker and David? 25! Choose your battles carefully!

Arrived in Austin, Texas, after a stormy, bumby and hellish journey of just under 20 hours. Bit broken, bit beat, bit grumpy, way tired but nothing a Texan stake and some Mexican Tequila-enhanced beer can’t cure.

Arriving on Austins friendly airport always makes me smile: deep-rolling Texan accents and real-blue jeans. A cabdriver with a Stetson reassures me: I really made it to Texas, spending the next days and nights on and around #SXSW (Social Media Wonderland). I’ll keep you all posted!

By the people, for the people. It sounds like a Revolution credo, but it is really what social media is all about. News that is aimed at consumers can now easily circumvent journalists and media and hit millions of online users faster than Richard Hammond can crash a car. Everyone is scrambling around to find creative ways to harness the power of these social media, because it can be an extremely effective way reach out to a targeted audience. While websites are static, social media opens up the dialogue wide open with your audience, allowing interaction and discussion. Just be careful not to bite off more than you can chew

Here in the Porter Novelli Brussels Towers, we’re installing a Social Media Lab on our fifth floor. We conveniently branded it PNBR5 (area 51 was already taken….). It’s an area dedicated to studying Social Media phenomena’s and to integrate online strategies and tactics into communication models. Here online buzz get’s measured, analyzed and rendered into accountable intelligence.  We have training facilities, a meeting room and a fridge.

That will do for now …

I spend more time on the road than I care to compute. A formidastic part of my life seems to consist in trying to get from point A to point B while on point C yellow clad pointy haired entrepreneurs put obstacles on the road because they want to make it better. Or something.

Too often, before that snail of traffic moves, I surely have enough time to get acquainted with most of the people around me. That nose plucking sweaty teenager in the pimped up pink Clio behind, the yelling kids in the back of the Beamer in front, the aspiring Elite top model on my right. They are not moving either. They are intriguing.

But there is simply no way to shout out on a highway: “Hey! You look interesting! Want a tissue? Great car! Where do you work?” Nope. Everybody looks around, listening to some bonobo-on-steroids on the radio that is way too awake and loud for the beginning of a day. No way to connect. No way to reach out.

That’s why I decided to put my Twitter handle on my car. Hoping it will become a new trend. So people can Tweet me goodmorning on the highway. It’s safe, because we’re not moving anyway. It’s social behavior. It’s fun. I got a tweet from a Landrover Discovery today, and it made me smile. just for that I’ll keep TweetTweet, the tweet car on the road.

To paraphrase Snow Crash (great book):  The TweetTweet car has enough potential energy packed into its motor to fire a pound of bacon into the Asteroid Belt. Unlike a Johnny box or a BoomBoom beater, the TweetTweet car unloads that power through gaping, gleaming, polished exhausts. When you put the hammer down, shit happens. TweetTweet is in touch with the road, starts like a bad day, stops on a peseta… And it’s bloody stuck in traffic somewhere near you. Send me a tweet

As an old journalist, it’s fascinating to see how news is evolving in a lightning fast way. Before, the only way to get something in the press was for corporations and their PR people to draft a press release, send it to a journalist, and then follow it up using all kind of tactics ranging from a nice diner, a stalking phone call or an exotic field trip to assure the editors attention. Journalists were dignified. I was God. Without our royal consent, no news would pass. We were the ultimate, personified and slightly bribable filter between news providers and the general public.  PR consultants and company communications people would throw their best at us to add our scalp (a nice bylined article, a favorable product review) to their clipping book.

With 80 million bloggers around, and citizens that Twitter, FriendFeed or Facebook quicker than the badly implemented software on their iPhones can handle, information becomes for the first time truly decentralized. Conscious web users have a plethora of tools to share their views, real-life-product tests, opinions and grieves with the inhabitants of the World Wide Web.

There is no faster, better or more balanced way to spread information. By the people, for the people, socially controlled by a busy cluster of very critical web users.  News that is aimed to consumers can now easily circumvent journalists and media and hit millions of online users in an eye blink.  Forums, bloggers, social networks and very active Twitter jungle birds are passing along what they identify as news faster and more thoroughly than the classic news channels. Corporations scramble around to find creative ways to harness the power of these social media.

As a former God, it amuses me tremendously. J

It was predictable. With more people on social media channels like Twitter or Facebook than I´d care to feed, sooner or later those networks had to be tapped in to. After the spread of silly adds, desperate people trying to boost traffic to a usually ridiculously bad website, or smartasses phishing around for logins and passwords, crowdsourcing seems to be the next big thing.

The principle is geniously simple: you ask those in your network to help you out with advice, or by answering a specific question. Tap into the collective intelligence of your hang-arounds and you by-pass expensive third party vendors, and Rolex-ed market analyzing consultants. People who are well connected can easily datamine a couple of hundreds, even thousands followers or Facebook friends. Cheap, easy, fast. Then, it´s just a question of a bit of common sense and some good analyzing software to turn this data into charts, insights, trend previews and shiny statistics.

People as Marian Salzman, Martha Stewart, Don Tapscott and many others have found clever ways of using Twitter as a spider web for collecting data. And that is a good thing.

I do have some future looking concerns though. People are genuinely so happy to help out in these online communities that they answer to calls for help and info often. Too often. Over the last week I´ve been asked my opinion on healthcare, millennials, blogging, the situation in Israel, baby food, tracking software for photographing stellar constellations and the ideal coach for the Belgian national soccer team. On 4 of these items I do have insufficient knowledge, insight, or authority to add anything useful to the conversation. Still I was asked, and I did answer.

I´ve seen outcome of crowdsourcing – based analyses that was dead wrong, because the question was shot at a wrong but very enthusiast audience.  You catch my drift: to gather great insights on most topics, laser profiling your focus group is very important. Crowdsourcing is testing the water with your toe. For indepth analyzing, the ability to narrowcast down to selected audiences will differentiate data butchers from data surgeons…