Ryan Anderson dot ca

One of the best books I’ve read in a while is one called Emergency by Neil Strauss.  It chronicles his quest to become completely self sufficient in case of a natural disaster, getting lost in the woods, or some other sort of apocolyptic event that results in a Mad Max kind of society where Mel Gibson rides around the ruins of civilization wearing animal skin and hunting for gasoline.

As such, he finds it necessary to learn how to ride a motorcycle, despite the fact that he’d never even driven a standard in his life.  After a number of stalls and burnouts, his instructor informed him of his problem – he was driving with his sphincter clenched, and that until he learned to relax, all the lessons in the world wouldn’t help his ability to ride a motorcycle.

The notion immediately made sense to me.  I studied jiu-jitsu for about four years, and while I was fairly technically proficient, I was always called out by my instructor for being “too stiff”.  Jiu-jistu is a martial art that’s entirely based in fluid motion in which the entire body works together.  A punch begins in your feet – a throw is entirely controlled by your stance.  Like the force of a whip comes from the energy transferred along its length, the fluidity of motion is what allows a 215 pound male to be thrown through the air by a 13-year old girl (true story).  Introducing tension in the fluid motion interrupts the flow, and weakens the entire stance.

The point of this rather long-winded story is this: one of the biggest problems I see in organizations that want to get into social media is this stiffness, which is usually one borne of fear.  Fear that someone will say the wrong thing, that the organization will be criticized, that someone out there will use your words against you.  But, like tension in a throw weakens your stance, tension in your communications weakens your message.  The result is seen all over the web in the form of sanitized marketing-speak, safe (read: boring) blog posts, and corporate communiques that no one in their right mind could possibly find interesting.

This isn’t to say that you don’t need to be careful what you say on the web – far from it.  However, just like you need to learn to ride a motorcycle or hip toss an attacker, you need to learn and explore social media by doing it.  By engaging in the community, by making mistakes, and by allowing yourself to communicate fluidly.

I completely understand the fear and trepidation that comes before submitting a press release for distribution, an email marketing piece for delivery or sending a large print job to press.  The thing is, social media doesn’t have the same gravity of these things.  Mistakes are easily corrected, and as long as what you’re saying and doing in these realms doesn’t fly in the face of the community or step on ethical guidelines, you’ll recover – and you’ll learn.

Posting something uninteresting on Twitter is not a failure.  Missing opportunities to engage customers in dialogue because of a fear of saying the wrong thing definitely is.  Just relax.

Since I started Fat Canary, I’ve talked to a lot of organizations about social media. One of the trends I’ve seen over the past year or so has been an increased need to bring social media into the organization – no surprise there. The interesting thing has been their reason as to WHY they want to bring social media into the organization.

Perhaps we as PR bloggers and social media pundits have sold our point of view too well over the past four or five years – frustrated by those organizations who “just don’t get it,” but more and more, I’m seeing smart and well-intentioned marketers throwing aside their usual focus on results and driving revenue – you know, that pesky stuff that marketing is actually ABOUT – to invest in social media because either a) their higher ups demand it without understanding it, or b) because the see it as “the next big thing.”

Don’t get me wrong – I think social media can drive excellent results for a lot of different types of organizations, assuming their willing to accept the risk and the culture change that it requires, but not every organization is right for social media. Some require major process and staffing changes that they’re just not willing to make for social media. Some already have the right culture without even realizing it, and with the help of their agency, can dive in and make a serious investment.

The question, when it comes to change, is very well articulated by my friend Joe Boughner.

It seems like I’m splitting hairs but I think they’re important hairs to be split. The tools shouldn’t be leading the strategies. The strategies must define the tools. If your business or association isn’t prepared to be conversational or open, stop trying to get them on Twitter.

I’ve spoken to a lot of organizations who wanted a social media strategy, only to find that what they really needed from us was a solid communications strategy. Sometimes, these included social media components, and sometimes they didn’t, but the important thing is that they were led by outcomes, and not tactics.

I think every organization should explore and understand social media, and that most would benefit from taking the intitial steps of at least listening to what’s going on in their space, but not everyone needs a Facebook page, just like not everyone needs a billboard in Times Square. Marketing is all about understanding your consumer, and bringing relevant information to them while enabling them to inform their tribes about your brand or product. Stop thinking in terms of new media and old media, and understand what your consumer really wants from you – then give it to them.

Geoff Livingston and the Network Solutions team were out in full force at BlogWorld Expo, talking experts on all things social media to create a video series containing a ton of online marketing tips for small businesses. I was honoured to be asked to participate in the program.

To cap it all off, Network Solutions is producing the Solutions Stars Video Conference on October 29 at 1 p.m. It’s a totally free online conference (no travelling), which I’d say is a pretty great deal for small businesses.

To be able to be a part of a lineup of this calibre is humbling indeed:

If you’re a small business looking for more ideas on how to engage customers online, or if you just want a chance to hear great perspectives on social media from a group of really smart people, I highly recommend you take a bit of time out of your day next week.  I promise it will be the best $0 you spend all month.

Image by b_d_solis via Flickr

It’s been a crazy weekend, which is evidenced by the fact that I’m in Vegas, and back at my hotel before 10:30.  I’ve spent the past three days at Blog World Expo, meeting bloggers, talking about creating and promoting content and generally putting faces to the usernames I see flying past my on Twitter every day.

In all honesty, I’ve never come away from a conference thinking that I learned much.  The only value for me, most of the time, is in meeting new people and the conversations that are had in the hallways.  I did pick up some valuable tidbits during a few of the podcasting sessions, which I admit, I know very little about, but overall the lessons I learned came from outside of the conference programming.

Twitter is an incredibly powerful communications tool.  I’ve known for a long time that it’s useful and fun to use, but this weekend for me, it showed its power as a standalone medium.  With a conference full of people on Twitter we used it to self-organize into parties, to meet each other and to introduce others.  This utility came from widespread use in a small area, which is what makes me think that for Twitter to come out of the blogosphere and truly become mainstream in the same way that text messaging currently is, is not out of the question.

We’re all 1% famous.  It was an odd feeling to introduce myself to so many people not knowing if they would not have a clue who I am, or be tangentially aware of me.  In some cases I was very surprised at who knew me, and others were surprised that I knew them.

There’s a lot of hype in the echo chamber. Yeah – as much as there was some great content, there was also a lot of hype, and a lot of facile advice about how businesses should be implementing these things.  I strongly believe that most businesses can benefit in some way from blogging, but social media will never get past where it is if the counsel we’re giving is out of touch with real business strategy.  Many in the blogosphere have a tendency to put themselves above corporate strategists, assuming that they’re just out of touch.  The reality is that we don’t matter nearly as much as we think we do, and until we can move past “join the conversation”- style cheerleading, social media will simply be unable to make a real mark on business.

That said, I met a lot of great people this weekend, and a lot of people far smarter than I with a lot of great things to say.  I was also introduced to a lot of great services, like Zemanta, which I’m using here.  I hope that I’ll be able to make it for next year, and I especially hope that I’ll get more chances to keep in touch with and meet more people like I did this weekend.

File this under “posts I’ve meant to write for two years, but didn’t get around to it until I had a decent camera phone.”

This is the chip truck that sits in front of my bank.  One day, I noticed that painted on the side was the sentence:

If you love our fries, tell your friends.  If you don’t, tell us.

That’s a big part of social media, boiled down to its elements, isn’t it?  Spread the word about our product if you love it, and help us make it better if don’t.  Sometimes, all it takes is listening – really listening – to negative word of mouth.

6am – your alarm goes off.  You awaken to a song streamed over the web, and based on your musical preferences and the day of the week.  You fumble, reaching for the skip button, to listen to the day’s top headlines from your news aggregation application.  The clock gives you the weather report for the day, makes suggestions for what to wear, and reminds you that your first appointment is at 9:00.

In the bathroom, you shower and shave, and add a note to your family’s collective shopping list via the bathroom computer that you need more toothpaste.  In the background, an application has already sent electronic coupons to your phone.  As you step onto the scale, your weight and body fat percentage are sent to your lifestream, altering your online workout schedule slightly to accommodate a slight weight gain over the past couple of weeks.

You head down to the kitchen for breakfast, and add a few more items to your shopping list.  You read the rest of your news at the kitchen table on your e-book reader, wirelessly sync your laptop and phone, and head off to the office.

When you get in the car, you find notifications that your friend has sent you a new playlist of songs he thought you’d like, and a crowdsourced website tells you where the best time and place will be to fuel up that day.

When you arrive at the office, you check your communication timeline, a conglomeration of personal and professional messages sent to you from your social graph through any medium.  You notice that a friend has an art opening that night, so you check your wife and children’s calendar, and seeing that they are free, you add the event to yours and notify them.

Your job is different that it was a few years before.  You collaborate with larger teams, most of which are spread across the world.  Projects are managed through an online system, and all documents are stored within the system.  Software is almost exclusively web-based now, with the exception of high-processor applications like video production and 3d rendering.  You communicate with colleagues through a video instant messaging system that allows group meetings, one-on-one exchanges or broadcast messages that will be added to a timeline.  Email is still part of the organization, but it is primarily used for contracts and purchase orders.

At lunch, you leave the office to run a few errands.  As you walk down the street, your GPS enabled phone alerts you that a friend of yours is in the neighbourhood.  Since you both have your status set to “available,” you call him to meet up for lunch at a nearby cafe which was recommended through your mobile device.

On your way back to the office, your phone once again notifies you that one of the items on your shopping list is available for well below regular price at a store you’re near.  Checking the price, you decide to stop in and pick it up.

After the day is done, you head back home, but first you need to pick up something for dinner.  Before you left work, you checked into your online meal planner, and selected a few favourites based on your mood and how much time you had to cook.  You sent the suggestions to your wife, who narrowed it down to salmon with asparagus and rice.

Knowing that you were out of salmon and low on rice, your shopping list automatically added the ingredients to your list on your mobile, and based on your location, route, best prices and user reviews of quality, directed you to the best store to do your shopping quickly before heading home.

Later that evening, at the art opening, you tell your network via your mobile device that you’re at the gallery, and find out that one of your friends has a colleague in the same business as you at the same event.  He introduces you remotely, and you meet in person and talk about the exhibit.  When you part, you add each other to your respective networks wirelessly, and you tag him as a friend of your friend, and a potential business partner.  This tagging system lets you control the flow of information, separating your personal and professional life seamlessly.

When you return home, you unwind in front of the television for a little while, selecting a couple of shows to watch before bed.  Broadcast television is still around, but you watch most of your television on-demand through your internet connection.  You select one network show, and an independent comedy show from Australia produced by a couple of writers in a small studio.  While you watch, you discuss the show with a number of other loyal fans, some of whom you’ve added to your network.  Your personal ratings and feedback on the show actually affect the content of the episodes, so you always make a point to watch and discuss it.  Since the user feedback module is through your remote control, your wife, a recent convert to the show, gives her feedback along with you.

Your ad experience is the same through all shows, and streams information and commercials based on your profile, and what you’ve requested.  Since you’re planning a trip to Italy in the summer, ads for luxury travel packages are common.

Before bed, you head to your computer to pay a few bills.  The system has identified a cheaper banking plan for you, and noted that you keep going over your mobile minutes, and suggests a better plan.  You click ‘accept’ and it deals with all the paperwork for you.  You check your account where you’ve been saving for a new boat, and read some suggestions from fellow bankers on how to save money faster.  One of the members is a chartered accountant, and makes a suggestion that will help you reach your goal a month earlier.  You contact him through the network to say thanks, and to set up an appointment for financial planning.

Before bed, you set your alarm and wakeup preferences, updating your status to “away,” and taking you off the grid until the next morning.

This was a bit of a thought exercise for me, but I don’t think that it’s a social media future that is too far off. In fact, most of this technology already exists, at least in some asynchronous form.  Here, the recurring themes are a single, unified social graph, ubiquitous access to that graph, integration across all platforms, location-aware services, and above all, non-intrusion.  From a marketing point of view, the ads were all served to an individual as information, not as a mass message.  As a result, they were accepted, and not filtered out.  Above all, the entire experience was unobtrusive and simply part of life, rather than another thing to do or website to check.

Social media has a long way to go before it’s a part of everyone’s life, but as the technology for mobile, entertainment and home computing continues to improve and become more connected, a future of social media as an enabling tool in our daily lives, and as a means of connecting in real life is very likely.

As many of you know, I’ve always been involved with the local arts community.  Sadly, with the demands of a day job being what they are, I’ve not had as much time to devote as I would like – but the one piece of involvement that I have held onto is being on the board of the Ottawa Fringe Festival.

The Fringe, for the uninitiated, is a theatre festival where local, national and international performers converge, and over 10 days, put on over 300 performances (many, many more in some markets) and 100% of their box office takings go to the artists themselves.  The festival itself serves to organize venues, schedules and publicity, but the actual content of the shows is left completely up to the groups that are lucky enough to be selected.

Now, you may think that a not-for-profit theatre festival taking place in Ottawa where all of the box office proceeds go to the artists must be rolling around in thousand-dollar bills and diving into silos of gold boullion.  The reality, however, is that any charitable organization needs to squeeze every last cent they can out of a dollar, and reaching new audiences by buying full page newspaper ads is not even a consideration.

That’s why this year, the festival will be making a major change in focus to include a number of social media marketing initiatives to reach new communities, make new friends, and build the visibility of the festival both locally and on the international circuit.

Blogging. It’s a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised at how many organizations don’t blog about what they’re doing.  We made the conscious decision this year to hire a community manager who would blog not only about what we’re doing, but about what our performers are doing, what our sponsors are doing, and what our audience thinks of the shows.  We have two community managers manning the blog this year, and no doubt other staff and volunteers will get involved as the festival kicks off.

Commenting & Feedback. We started allowing comments on individual show pages last year with some trepidation.  We were afraid of companies trying to sabotage one another, performers complaining about bad reviews… and there was not one issue.  This year, audience members are free to review shows directly on the site, for all the world to see.

Facebook. We’ve had a Facebook group and fan page for a while, but this year, thanks to Refresh Partners, we also have an application that allows users to search for shows they want to see, share it with their friends, and buy tickets directly.  When you select a show you want to see, it sends a notice to your newsfeed, letting friends know the shows you’re attending and when.

Flickr. When you’re dealing with an event that is fairly hard to explain in words, photos are a powerful way of conveying emotion.  As always, we have an official Fringe photographer, but this year, we’re lucky enough to have a photographer who is doubling as community manager and reaching out to local photography enthusiasts to set up a public photography contest for the Festival.  Every day, a winner is chosen from the public Flickr pool, their photo printed and posted at the Fringe tent, and linked online – and the photographer submitting the best photo of the festival, as chosen by our judges, is awarded a gift certificate for dinner at a local restaurant.

Video. A few years ago, wrestling with the idea of video was next to impossible.  Connection speeds, technology, processing tools and know-how was far out of reach, but now that it’s trivial to take a video on a cell phone and upload it to Youtube, there’s no reason for organizations NOT to integrate video into their web strategy.  This year, in addition to gonzo interviews from the festival we’re partnering with local startup Eventbots to place a speaker’s corner-style video booth at the Fringe Courtyard.  Videos are going to be posted on the Ottawa Fringe site, on Facebook and on Youtube to give people a first-hand account of what the Fringe is about.

Real Life – the ultimate social network. At the end of the day, the festival is about art and people – and that’s something that can ultimately only be experienced in person.  Our goal this year was to put ourselves out there, and make some friends.  To solidify those friendships, we’re holding a Social Media Wine and Cheese on the first Saturday of the festival (June 21), where we can meet with members of the community, discuss ways that we can better engage with local communities and improve visibility for the upcoming years.  If you’re an Ottawa blogger, and want to attend, just shoot me an email to ryan (at) ryananderson dot ca, and I’ll give you some more details.

In theatre terms, what we’re doing is a bit of a social media dress rehearsal.  Some parts have been sloppy, some have been surprisingly polished, but the organization has learned every step of the way and sometimes, that’s the way you have to do things.  At the end of this festival, we’re hoping to have a block of clay that we can shape into something that will last for years to come.

If you’re in Ottawa, I hope you’ll join us at the Festival, running June 19 – 21 in the heart of Downtown Ottawa.

Regardless of the field you work or live in, ignorance of what you do or the community you participate is maddening, depressing and disheartening.  It’s what causes rifts in organizations, and is why communicators don’t get along with lawyers, why creatives don’t get along with suits, and why engineers don’t get along with… well, anyone.

Even more infuriating than ignorance, however, is when that ignorance is coupled with opinion and backed up with insistence.  For some reason, I’ve been coming across this type of person more often recently.  Any rational argument I could respond to with examples or statistics, but the ignorant insister doesn’t deal in such sundry as data and proof.  This is the type of person whose line of argument is based on unsupported opinion and anecdote.

“Social media doesn’t work.”

This phrase is like nails on a blackboard to me, because it’s the first warning that I’m going to have to have a conversation with someone who doesn’t understand the first thing about the thing that they want to argue about.

Usually, when I dig deeper as to the meaning behind this broad generalized statement, that lack of understanding comes out very quickly.  First of all, to say that social media “doesn’t work” shows that they’ve already missed the point, fully and completely.  Social media works by virtue of the fact that I’m writing this and you’re reading it – that I’m connected with like-minded people on Twitter and that I make plans with friends on Facebook.  What they mean to say, of course, is that social media isn’t an effective way of creating value for a company, and once I can guide them to this much more rational thought, it’s much easier to point out why they’re wrong.

More often than not, their reasoning is based on one of two things.  Either a) they don’t use social media, and therefore believe that no one else does, or b) they’ve heard people complain about being spammed on Facebook or something of the like, and have extrapolated that to mean that everyone hates every kind of social media campaign through any technology.

As social media “early adopters,” it is, of course, our duty to educate others on community, technology and the culture that pervades it, but sometimes, when faced with a case like the ones I’m describing, it’s best just to walk away.  Sadly, I lack whatever gene it is that would allow me to walk away from a baseless argument, and it causes me to engage in more angering conversations than I care to admit.  Call it a character flaw.

In many way, these arguments are like someone who walked through Chinatown in the summer on garbage day and then spent the rest of his life convinced that the Chinese are “a smelly people.”  As human beings, it’s in our nature to make snap judgements based on little information.  If cro-magnon man spent too much time wondering if the sabre tooth tiger was an enemy or a friendly kitty we probably wouldn’t have made the cut for natural selection.

Of course, it goes both ways.  Assuming that a social approach is key for every business because of your own personal success or affinity for blogging is of equal ignorance.  The wise man knows what he does not know.  The people I have the most respect for are those who admit their lack of knowledge and approach social media from a neutral standpoint and a desire to learn.  They will be successful because they don’t come into something they don’t understand with preconceived notions, and can therefore be objective about how to integrate social media into their business practices, if they do at all.

Both obstinance and zealotry are dangerous traits, and both are derived from ignorance.  Be wary of both, in yourself and others, and you’ll have a better chance of arriving at “understanding” with whatever you do.

Just a reminder that Canada’s first Social Media Breakfast takes place tomorrow – Tuesday, June 10 at 7:30am at the offices of Ramius Corporation - 55 Metcalfe Ave in Ottawa.  We’re very excited that we’ve already reached our goal of 60 attendees, so we’re freeing up some extra tickets.  If you’re interested in attending, just send me an email – ryan [at] ryananderson [dot] ca.

I’ll be posting some photos, and hopefully some video of the event, so be sure to check back later in the week for coverage of the event if you can’t make it.

Big thanks once again goes to Overlay.tv for their generous sponsorship of the innaugural event!

I’m admittedly a little tardy on this, but a few weeks back, RichardatDell tagged me in a meme that asked five questions about the Cluetrain ten years later. It’s taken me a bit of time to put together a meaningful response, but here are my answers.

1) What does the cluetrain manifesto mean to you?

The Cluetrain Manifesto to me signaled the birth of common sense in business communications – the first principles from which almost all of the current writing on blogging, social media and connecting with people online has stemmed. At the time the book was published, I was still taking marketing at university, learning how to yell at consumers, but very little about how talk to people. The Cluetrain was a great wake-up call for the industry to remind us that a) consumers aren’t idiots; and b) the way we’re consuming media is changing drastically.

As RichardAtDell writes, the book has a very grim outlook on the future of business, which I think is vastly overstated, but the point is well taken. The Cluetrain Manifesto is about being human in order to interact with other humans. In many ways, it’s saddening that this had to be committed to paper.

While I don’t profess to be an expert on hypothetical history, my feeling is that had the Cluetrain never been written, we would be light years behind where we are now on critical thought about engaging directly with customers online and being social rather than spending more effort on foisting unwanted messages on captive audiences.

The danger of the Cluetrain is taking it as gospel rather than criticism. To me, trying to change your company radically based on new media fundamentalism is as silly as trying to run your company by any other business book alone. The power of the Cluetrain is to use it as a lens to evaluate how your company interacts and use the theses to improve what you’re doing honestly – not as an infallible guide for any business.

2) Which companies have best implemented the cluetrain manifesto in your opinion and how were they effective?

I don’t know that there is a company around today that could totally live up to the expectations set by the Cluetrain, but there many have taken the spirit of those 95 theses to heart in their marketing.

Dell is the obvious example of a major corporation that has found real value in adding a human element to their marketing through their Direct2Dell blog and the Ideastorm site, and I think they’ve proven that in order to get that value out of going social, you need to make it part of your business practices, rather than just an addition to a laundry list of marketing tactics.

Microsoft (a client) is also a good example of empowering, or at least, allowing employees to blog freely and interact with end users and developers – their clients. When something goes as much against the grain as letting every employee talk to the public, the fact that a company as large as MSFT has done so much to make it happen says something.

3) In thesis 57, the cluetrain manifesto states, “smart companies will get out of the way and help the inevitable to happen sooner.” In light of that thesis, is encouraging employees to use social media and blogging a good idea? Is it really effective, when an employee is encouraged but not directed?

Effective is an interesting word to choose in a situation like this. To me, encouraging employees to blog on their own is a smart move, but in reality, it’s unlikely to directly drive more business. The benefit of such an exercise is much more indirect. Employees that are closer to the community they’re serving, who feel more ownership in what they’re doing, who are forced to organize their thoughts and improve their communication skills.

To really be effective in the traditional sense of the term, however, direction is definitely required, but should be looked at more as an overall business direction than blog direction. If an organization is well-managed and a blogging strategy has a clear sense of purpose, then the benefits of knowledge leadership, branding and communicating directly with customers can be achieved through some work. However, if a blog is approached with a “get me one of those” attitude and corporate bloggers are left to fend for themselves with no clear goal in mind, the results will most likely be unfavourable.

4) How can a company encourage employees to use social media, and empower them to answer customer questions and learn from customers?

There are a few main stumbling blocks that come up when employees feel pressure to engage in social media, but don’t know where to begin. First is the “what do I write about” syndrome, which is common for most first time bloggers. The second is more of an institutional problem – the fear of failure. Customer service failures typically happen in private – on the phone or by email. But social media failures happen in front of the world.

However, both of these problems can be solved with an effective blogging strategy, training, and management buy-in and understanding. Strategy to establish a set of first principles that employees can look to for a compass, and training to let them know what to expect. Beyond that, it must be made clear that it’s okay to fail (at least in small degrees), and that making a choice based on that strategy and training won’t inadvertently end in their dismissal.

5) Do all employees want to talk with customers? If not what percentage want to internetwork and converse

No. Not all employees want to talk with customers. Not all employees want to write. Not all employees want to engage in community. Every company has people like this, and the percentage is going to be different in every company and every industry. You can’t force social interaction – you can merely encourage it and provide the tools and the support to do so. The good news is that every company should have some employees that want to be active in their networks, and who want to connect those networks to their work.

If you don’t have people like this, then my feeling is that you’re either not paying close enough attention, or you haven’t hired the right mix of people.

So, those are my answers. I’ll keep this going, and tag a few people I’d like to hear from. I’m going to tag a couple of Twitter friends who I know will have great answers: Dave Fleet, Ed Lee and Brady Gilchrist. Can’t wait to hear what they have to say!