To anyone who has met me, it probably doesn’t surprise you that I read a massive amount of information online every day. Today I came to the topic of using profanity as a leadership tool, reviewing sources around President Obama and Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz.

As a social media professional (AKA writer, speaker, videographer, tweeter) , I am constantly reviewing how individuals use different forms of media to distribute messages.

Technology is so inherently tied to us that it doesn’t take the act of publishing a book or being interviewed to have profanity be connected with your name or organization. In fact all we have to do is look at the casual restaurant table talk happening around the world and we find ourselves being transmitted to the world.

Sometimes this is by choice: we carry netbooks, cell phones, digital cameras and associate ourselves with people who carry the same.

Sometimes it is not by choice: Everyone carries a cell phone capable of being your best friend or enemy today. Continue Reading »

Two weeks ago I had the privilege of presenting digital media at Disney Interactive in partnership with the Washington Technology Industry Association. As expected, we sold out the event and had a variety of executives from Washington businesses in attendance.

Three of the largest “wrap your mind around it” items are covered on slide three, four, and sixteen (detail below) – along with a partner brainstorm and diagram sheet on slide twenty. The full deck is included below.

SLIDE THREE: Growth of Conversation. Is a simple visual really: from 2007 to 2009 we have seen 342 million conversations grow to 588 million. That percentage shift is noteworthy, but the larger trend to look at is how much of the conversation shifted from being “on site” to “off site”- this is the magic shift that identifies how the audience has seized control of communication channels.

I need to gripe. My below comment that I made on TechFlash really says it all.

Fellow Seattle blogger John Cook was covering how a study by Famecount.com put Starbucks as the biggest consumer brand utilizing social media, but the idea just didn’t sit right with me.

The most essential part of the disagreement is the conclusion “social media works” for them. Knowing how many larger organizations are dealing with the social media evolution crisis, I am fully aware of good dollars being thrown into the chaos simply for organizations to claim superiority in a virtual game of monopoly with little (or no) revenue driving result.

My commentary is simple:

While I love Starbucks (heaven knows I drink enough coffee from them), I think this has an entirely different message about social media working (or not working) for them.

Without understanding the massive amounts of budget being thrown into these campaigns and the results they are mustering, the numbers in this type of scoring are entirely flawed.

The fact that Starbucks (a retail chain with in-person locations and lots of contained foot traffic) is compared to Skittles (who has no in-person locations and shares foot traffic with 500 other candy brands) shows how entirely off the comparison points are.

Have the millions (or tens of millions) in marketing dollars supporting the digital effort paid off? It costs A LOT of money to brand signs, cup holders, gift cards, coffee cups, CDs, WIFI entry points, tradeshows, speaking engagements, etc, etc.

The Elements of Media

Once we think about traditional, digital and mobile segments, we then have to think about the elements that are causing these segments to evolve and find adoption. The first three types of media (land, sea, and air), combine with the affects of social and hyper media (weather and time.)

Within the concept of “weather and time” , we have unique experiences that often present themselves as incredibly complex.

Yet as complex as this all sounds, keep in mind how simple humans really are when it comes to making our choices:

• We look for a simple way to get things done.
• We often push buttons out of curiosity.
• We seek constant encouragement and motivation.
• We usually select things based on want, not need.
• We hunt for areas of personal reward.
• We try to help the people we know. Continue Reading »

In presenting this topic with many groups and having many conversations with leading industry peers, I have detailed hundreds of different shifts in how we communicate. We are now in the age of instant information gratification where we search for information within our personal and professional networks, seeking to find the singular source of credible and sound business advice. Simply said: we want better and more accurate information faster.

The unfortunate and sad thing is that social media adoption and user generated content has broken our previous utilization of media (if not the way we communicate as both individuals and groups entirely), we are simply finding our traditional models of communication suffering from an insane amount of irregular and unsupported information that creates digital noise.

Our biggest challenge is that few of us know how to sift through this noise.

Ultimately our lives have come to a crisis point: we strive to learn in a classroom that looks more like a playground for toddlers: everyone is talking, too many people vying for attention but having nothing to say, and the one conversation we are interested in learning from is muffled by the roar of commotion.

As we connect this crisis with our understanding of how media and communication historically worked, we have to redefine how we choose to relay our messages today. Continue Reading »