RonAmok!

Last week, I met with a prospect who proclaimed, “Twitter will be dead in six months. You can’t say anything of value in 160 characters.” Putting aside his 14.3 percent character-count inflation, I can’t blame him for his conclusion. Without ever having used Twitter, how could he possibly conceive of any value that might be derived from broadcasting nano-messages?

He just doesn’t understand that audience is an asset. He doesn’t understand that the reward for investing time and money into building an online audience comes when you ask that audience for help–whether it comes in the form of answering a question, sampling a product, or making a purchase.

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Last week, Firefox froze on my Mac. Had it happened on a PC, I would have resolved the problem through the tried-and-true CTRL-ALT-DEL method to kill the process. Being somewhat of a Mac nOOb, I couldn’t figure out how to do it on my MacBook. I wanted a quick answer, so I decided to ask Twitter by sending the following tweet:

@ronploof (1:20 p.m): I know how to kill a process in Windows if an app hangs. How does one do so on a Mac?

Within the one minute, I had three responses:

@WickedGood:@ronploof Open up Activity Monitor under Utilities, choose the task that you want to kill, and click the “kill process” button.

@SpiderVideo: @ronploof force quit fron finder, click apple in top left

@imnico: @ronploof cmd + alt + esc, or Force Quit on the Apple menu on the top left

Within the next three minutes I had three more, one serious and the other two more tongue-in-cheek:-)

@jasontucker: @ronploof activity monitor. Kill process. Or command line style via terminal.

@mayorkl: @ronploof bring it to a Mac store, pay $100, and they’ll tell you to turn the computer off and then back on again. They’re awesome like that

@jeremyMeyers: @ronploof hope you unix

By the end of twelve minutes, the final two (one serious and the other facetious) had arrived for a total of eight.

@SRSLabs: @ronploof Have you tried right-clicking on the icon in the dock at the bottom of your screen and then selecting ‘Force Quit’?

@pmarriott: @ronploof I find the only reliable way to kill a process in windows is to pull the battery or power cord (or both) Guess it works for Mac

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Twitter is a database of opportunities. It’s a lead generator, a coffee shop filled with helpful people, and a support site. Ask it questions and it will return answers.

Photo Credit: streamishmc

Tags: Twitter 140 characters Read This First Ron Ploof Audience is an Asset

My good friend Arthur Nelson is a serial entrepreneur who has founded or co-founded over 20 organizations in his career. Some, like AIRINC are businesses, while others, like TERC are nonprofits. But independent of the company or its mission, he’s identified a common thread that binds them all.

“I’ve never started an organization that ended up doing what it was originally intended to do,” he once told me.

Arthur explains that most entrepreneurs begin work on a problem without having the all of the information necessary to build a successful business–information that can only be acquired through immersion in research. Before this immersion, entrepreneurs can only see symptoms. Yet after speaking with clients who are dealing with those problems, the root causes reveal a better focus for entrepreneurs to build their products and services around.

I’ve found that Arthur’s lesson is applicable to corporate adoption of New/Social Media. The only way to get a true understanding of it is through full immersion. If you’ve never maintained a blog, produced a podcast, or participated in an online community, you can’t have the intimate knowledge required to make accurate decisions about its applicability within your company. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what many companies do, chasing symptoms as opposed to causes.

Understanding New Media is like stepping into the fog. At first, you can only see the hazy outlines of objects in the distance. Yet by walking forward, additional details emerge. The deeper you walk, new outlines and additional details reveal a scene that you couldn’t have anticipated before your journey.

Take Arthur’s advice. Make a plan and then step into the fog. Head for the muffled voices. Participate with the people you encounter. Soon you’ll have a better feel for the role of New/Social Media within your organization.

Then, make the appropriate adjustments and execute your revised plan.

Photo Credit: ferronj

Tags: Arthur Nelson TERC AIRINC entrepreneur New Media Evangelist fog

Seth Godin’s most recent book, Tribes has made it easier for me to speak with my clients. The term is easily relatable, as everyone is a member of some group of like-minded individuals.  If you really want to make a meaningful connection with a person, just ask about their tribes. They’ll open up faster than a ripe banana.

Friday, I spoke with tribal leader (although it says Alumni Relations Officer on her business card) Christina Doherty of Merrimack College. I first noticed Christina’s name when she sent a message to the Merrimack College Alumni Facebook Group, celebrating the fact that the group had just passed 1000 members. Of course your New Media Evangelist couldn’t let this communique go unnoticed, so I contacted Christina to learn more about her use of Facebook.

Christina’s job is “…to engage with the young Alumni…those who’ve graduated in the past 10-15 years.” The term made me wince, because I graduated from Merrimack 23 years ago, and therefore by definition I must be part of the “old Alumni.” But I digress. As a tribal leader, she sought to find a place online for her tribe to gather. A Facebook Group seemed like a natural fit.

When creating the group, Christina noticed that other Merrimack-related Facebook Groups also existed, evidently created by former Merrimackans seeking to connect with past classmates, yet had nowhere else to go.That’s when Christina did something extraordinary, something that all organizations can learn from.

Instead of putting the Merrimack College Alumni Facebook Group out there to “compete” with these other groups, she reached out to them, suggesting that they pool their resources and unify into one. She explained her role at the college, and offered to take over the work necessary for maintaining the groups. Because of her offer, Merrimack Alumni now have a much more robust online community. Christina duplicated the process when creating a Linked-In group, essentially unifying disparate profiles into a single Merrimack Linked-In Group.

Is your company trying to build online tribes that support your organization? Are these  corporate-sponsored online communities competing with or supporting existing ones? Does it make sense to share resources for the greater good of the tribe? Or what if you find a very large and thriving group? Would you, or more importantly, your boss, be willing to take a support role instead of a lead role for the betterment of the group?

Companies looking to form online spaces for their tribes need to take a lesson from Christina Doherty. Find your online tribes. Then, reach out and take care of them.

Tags: Linked In Facebook Merrimack College Tribes Seth Godin