OK, it does happen quite a lot, but that doesn’t mean it’s on the mark each time.

A recent post by Greg Verdino caught my attention, where he commented on Generation Virtual, a Forbes article by Gartner’s Adam Sarner.

Generation V (for Virtual), which isn’t a generation in the traditional sense, is a collection of people who use the Internet (a lot) in order to get and share information.

This paragraph really encapsulates the whole thrust of this article:

In 10 years, the largest influence on all purchases will be the virtual experiences associated with them, and, therefore, more money will be spent marketing and selling to multiple online personae than marketing and selling offline.

That’s a pretty tall claim. Let’s dissect this article and see what makes it tick.

According to Sarner’s article, Generation V (there is no age requirement to belong to this “generation” by the way) has three behavioral attributes:

• To use technology as a day-to-day tool to facilitate communication that is not bounded by the previous limits of geography.
• Generation V members demonstrate an overwhelming desire to participate through involvement in global communities
• Finally, the value set of Generation V differs subtly from that of its predecessors. Its members have an overwhelming belief in a meritocratic environment: the value of collaboration, that “we” is more powerful and valuable than “me” and that sharing increases the value of something rather than diminishes or erodes it.

I can buy these three points and I see a lot of myself in them, even if I think that Generation V is a misleading term.

However, Sarner makes a few other statements that I don’t buy:

Web 2.0 signaled a “V-day” shift of control from company to customer, where increasingly powerful virtual environments and social networking communities proliferate. While traditional wisdom has focused on customer identification for one-to-one targeted marketing campaigns, cross-selling and so on, the reality of Generation V members using multiple personae (e.g., Amazon reviewer, eBay seller, Second Life avatar, “World of Warcraft” blood elf, digger, blogger, YouTuber), and the sheer power of their growing influence, means that customers will have a host of online personae driving your business relationship.

As a social media enthusiast, I can certainly appreciate what’s being said here. Although some of the more high profile flexing of social media muscle has been in a negative sense (e.g. Dell Hell, AOL Customer Service), somebody must be using it in a positive way.

I’m not sure that I buy the idea of multiple online personae as a focus for marketing campaigns. I mean, what is World of Warcraft going to market to me if it uses my online persona/character as a basis for anticipating needs: more gold? Better items? Or a new Lexus and whole life insurance?

And how is that going to help P&G market toothpaste to me? Following Sarner’s logic, there would have to be some kind of virtual toothbrushing experience (the Sims v. 10.0?) in order for a company to find the best way to sell me toothpaste.

This is assuming, of course, that I’ve provided 100% accurate information in my profiles AND that my behavior on these services is largely consistent with my non-virtual life. Sorry, no battleaxes or magic wands here. I’m not too keen on the virtual toothbrushing concept either.

The eBay, Amazon.com, etc. activity might be a better basis to market to me, but my Digg behavior might not. Maybe I voted for a story to help out a friend. Maybe I voted for a story because I thought it was well written, even though I don’t care that much for the subject material.

Here’s some more thoughts to consider:

Discovering customers’ true identities becomes irrelevant.

Good, because for the most part I’m happy to remain anonymous to the companies that I buy from.

Multibillion-dollar third-party customer data providers, business intelligence and analytics markets will shift from collecting demographic information to psychographic information to better understand these various personae and their behaviors.

Not necessarily a bad idea, but again it assumes that the way I behave online matches the way that I behave offline. Amazon.com already does this to a certain extent through its built-in recommendation system (largely built on other people’s behavior, not mine), so there is a precedent for this, but it goes dormant after I leave the site, nor does it necessarily provide useful information to other merchants (assuming that they can get access to the data).

Companies will create multiple interactive, virtual environments as a way to orchestrate customer exploration toward purchases.

I don’t see any CPG (consumer packaged goods) companies having any success at doing this; not for a disposable or short lived product. Larger, more expensive goods… maybe. Services… maybe. And I think technology, including networking, bandwidth, etc. is going to have to become cheaper, more powerful, and ubiquitous in order to make this work.

By doing so, they will benefit from a deeper understanding of how and what people are exploring or buying, who strays from the normal path and why.

This creeps me out a bit, to be honest. I’m already a bit uncomfortable with the incomplete information I have on Facebook. Why would I go even further for a faceless corporation?

As a member of Generation X I don’t think I’d be willing to take the leaps of faith in this article, even though in many ways I fit the profile of Generation V.

My children, on the other hand… they may see it differently. At their young age they’re already starting to immerse themselves in the online worlds of Ty, Ganz, Lego, and Hasbro, so perhaps they will be more open to this sort of thing.

We didn’t have anything like those websites in my formative years, so it’s harder for me to understand. I’ve certainly spent my fair share of time in social media and in on-line games, but I see it in many ways as a distraction from the “real world” as well as a place to get information. If my job ever changes such that I become more dependent upon virtual interaction with other people, I may see it differently.

Adam Sarner is undoubtedly more informed than I am about trends, technology, and social media (for Gartner’s sake, I hope so), so in some respects I should give him the benefit of the doubt. On the other hand, this article strikes me as a dumbed-down white paper (i.e. missing a lot of technical terms, supportive evidence, etc.) that someone created to put a stake in the sand so that they’d look clever a few years from now.

Maybe Sarner will be right. I just see too many potential problems to allow me to make that same leap of faith.

So, here they are:

1. Set up a “no pitch” Wiki and remove the “banned PR” lists.

This Wiki would serve a similar purpose to the infamous “no call” registry set up by the US government. Bloggers/journalists/executives can voluntarily register so that they won’t get any unwanted PR pitches. In fact, they probably wouldn’t get any pitches at all.

Pros:

• Makes it very clear, in a public forum, the identities of the people who do not want to be pitched to.
• Less ostracizing than a black list.

Cons:

• Unless flexibility is built in, bloggers/journalists/executives will be cut off completely from PR folks who do provide some value.
• Compliance is voluntary and unenforceable.
• Subject to gaming through the use of aliases and fake accounts to hide the identity of the rabid pitcher.

2. Set up a different Wiki whereby PR firms and employees publicly pledge to respect the rules of engagement for contacting bloggers or journalists.

If they break the rules, then they’re removed from this Wiki and are effectively blacklisted by omission.

Pros:

• Would provide a means for self-regulation.
• Does not publicly ostracize the offenders.

Cons:

• Compliance is voluntary and unenforceable.
• Subject to gaming through the use of aliases and fake accounts to hide the identity of the rabid pitcher.

Shoot holes in them, please

Now, as I’ve previously stated, I don’t work in the PR field and I’m not an A-list blogger, so I really don’t know what other party deals with when their work is a job, not a hobby.

Therefore, I invite those people more knowledgeable than me to tear apart these two ideas and, if they can, build something better. Let’s go!

P.S. (edit after publication) - these two ideas are band-aids, though…

P.P.S. - interesting discussion on this topic by Mack Collier at Marketing Profs Daily Fix.

Geoff Livingston and Jason Falls have both posted some pretty passionate responses to the latest major poke in the eye at the public relations industry. Gina Trapani of Lifehacker has begun a public blacklist of PR folks who’ve not followed her “rules of engagement” for contacting her, similar to Chris Anderson’s public blacklist from a few months ago.

Credit: IrisDragon.

Neither Geoff or Jason are very supportive of Gina’s list and offer their own insights into the PR profession while pointing out that bloggers aren’t always perfect either.

Now, I’m neither a writer or blogger as accomplished as Trapani or Anderson. Moreover, my only experience with public relations is:

• when I was responsible for public relations for my local Toastmasters club
• anything I do related to my social media presence

So, as I write, I write as an outsider. I’ve had some pleasant interactions with both Jason (in person) and Geoff (online) and, of course, I’ve enjoyed a lot of Lifehacker content and have had some positive interaction with at least one person involved with Lifehacker. I like Wired.com and The Long Tail, too.

I guess I’m trying to say that I’m relatively unbiased.  Or biased towards both sets of stakeholders.

The comments that I left at Geoff’s blog summarize my thoughts on this topic:

I’m of two minds about this situation where PR firms are being publicly blacklisted:

a) On one hand, the behavior of some people working in the PR industry may resemble that of the telemarketer, except E-Mail is the medium instead of the phone call. With all due respect to all those people who are trying to make a living as telemarketers, virtually no one wants to speak to a telemarketer and, taken in the aggregate, they disrupt one’s life with little chance of finding a receptive listener. A similar thing happens with the mass E-Mail campaigns used by some PR people, or so I understand. Eventually disruptions will produce a negative response.

b) On the other hand, many beginning bloggers and journalists have probably been in the same situation as both the telemarketer and the faceless PR employee: no one knows you, no one cares about you, and no one has time to talk to you, let alone read your blog. I’ve been there and it took months of work to start to build a network of contacts. You can become quite desperate to make contacts and you may try mass-marketing techniques because you’re willing to try anything. And you’ll make mistakes, like not checking to see how a blogger, professional or entrepreneur prefers to be contacted, or spamming a bit as your frustration and impatience wear thin when you don’t get a response.

I’ve tried to be balanced so far. However, I do tip in one direction with my next comment:

The sad thing, of course, is that some people forget how hard it was in the beginning after they’ve passed through that part of the Dip and become intolerant of the “noob”. Or maybe their impatience of the successful person is genuine when they feel that they aren’t being listened to. Nonetheless, there may be a hint of hypocricy in the behaviour of the journalist, professional, or entrepreneur who erects barriers to communication and, worse still, publicly flogs someone who screws up.

This position is somewhat consistent with my Role Model 3.0 post and follow-up to that post from a couple of weeks ago. On one hand, I argued that accessibility and two-way communication of some sort is a hallmark of the modern role model or thought leader. On the other, I acknowledged that these people have pressures on them that many of us don’t have to deal with, as was pointed out to me in a private conversation with a successful blogger (pun intended).

I tried to look at it again from another angle:

Just like in social media, would it not make sense to try to build contacts among the more accessible bloggers and journalists instead of trying to go directly to the Trapanis and Andersons of the world? In fairness to them, why would they want to talk to new sources if they’ve already built a somewhat trusted network of contacts, especially if the new source doesn’t respect the rules of engagement ?

However, I still come back to this:

• If you’re going to blog under your own name and identity and make public various ways that you can be contacted… it’s only a matter of time before they’re used, regardless if you have “rules of engagement”.
• If you make an extreme response to something, expect an extreme reaction.
• Remember that at one point in time, nobody online knew who you were, didn’t want to listen to you, and didn’t want to know you unless you had a previously established reputation offline. And that didn’t start out full-blown, either.
• Everyone practices public relations, marketing, sales, etc. whether it’s a role or a full-fledged job.

So, what do you think? Is PR a virus that must be destroyed? Are PR people “just folks”? Are bloggers and journalists “just folks”, too, or are we getting too big for our britches?

Catch the Brainwaves is our ongoing series of interviews with a variety of folks participating in blogging and social media. I ask them ten questions and they respond with their brilliant answers and insights! Today we have a special Q&A session where we are featuring Toronto Globe and Mail technology writer and blogger extraordinaire Mathew Ingram.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then let’s begin!

1. What kinds of changes have you observed in a journalist’s work during the past five years?

I’ve noticed a lot of changes as a result of the Web. What used to be a newspaper’s normal flow, with stories written in the afternoon and filed in the early evening, has become a 24/7 stream (or close to it), much more like what a wire service does. Stories begin on the Web and in many cases are updated and end on the Web, and in between they are packaged and printed in the paper. I’ve also noticed an increasing amount of feedback between the Web and the paper, with readers comments and the popularity of stories helping to change the perception of those stories within the paper and occasionally adding value to them as well.

2. Do you see any potential conflict of interest if a professional journalist has an active social news or social bookmarking user profile (e.g. Digg, Reddit, Del.icio.us, etc.) where they are actively submitting, voting, or commenting on stories?

I don’t really see that as a conflict at all. Bloggers do it, so I don’t see why a professional journalist shouldn’t do it. Provided that they are actually trying to be part of the community, and aren’t just submitting and voting on their own stories then I think it’s fine.

3. Do social media make any aspects of your life easier? Harder?

Social media make many aspects of my life easier — particularly the part that has to do with generating story ideas and tracking the development of issues within the Web and new media. I guess the only thing they make harder is sorting through all the content that’s out there, since Twitter and RSS and so on can produce a pretty gigantic stream of stuff on a daily basis.

4. Is it difficult to turn work “off” these days, when the world seems to follow us wherever we go?

It is difficult, but in part I think that has to do with the fact that for me it’s not just work. I write about the Web and technology and social media because it interests me, not just because it’s my job — and so I am pretty much always connected and reading and looking around for things, and responding to comments and so on, regardless of what my “work” hours are.

5. In your opinion, is privacy really dead or seriously compromised with the multitude of ways that people can find out information about us?

I’m not sure it’s dead really — but I would say that privacy seems to be much more of a continuum than it used to be, where people are comfortable opening up their lives in certain ways to certain friends or family or co-workers or whatever, depending on which social networks they’re using. It’s when those different groups collide that I think there can be problems, and when people use information they find on a given network for other purposes.

6. Do you have any concerns about the mutations of the English language to include LOLspeak, 133t speak, and the rise of the letter “Z” as a catch-all consonant? (And do you pronounce it “zee” or “zed”?)

I still pronounce it “zed” because I’m old I’m not really that troubled by those sorts of things, to tell you the truth. I think language continually evolves, and there are idiosyncracies that emerge at various times that may become popular with a certain group but overall things still change relatively slowly — and some of those changes become so useful that we don’t even notice them. If you think about it, the language itself is a kind of social network, like Wikipedia; people are voting all the time on the type of language they want, and eventually the culture as a whole decides.

7. Are today’s more popular blogging platforms (Wordpress in particular) needlessly complex or cumbersome? Or are they just fine? Should we strive for simpler and easier self-publishing?

I think things can always be easier — and there are some Ajax-powered Wiki services that make editing and publishing pretty simple, not to mention things like Tumblr. But that said, I’m a big fan of Wordpress — it is extremely easy to use, and yet is almost infinitely flexible as well, which is a rare combination.

8. Would you say that the blogging A-list (i.e. the Technorati Top 100) is an anomaly or will those voices remain strong as the blogosphere (or the Web, perhaps) segments over time the way that television audiences now divide their video watching time between the big networks, cable, satellite, DVD/downloaded video, YouTube, and purely Web-hosted video?

I think the “A-list” is probably something that will change over time, and become less of an influence — in a lot of ways the blogosphere is still a little like the early days of television, when there were only a couple of dozen influential people. But I think the early pioneers always have influence, simply because they’ve been around so long.

9. Pretend the Internet is destroyed overnight. What do you do the next morning?

I guess I would start hunting for a newspaper

10. What one piece of knowledge, advice, or wisdom do you have to share with our readers?

As much as possible, do whatever it is that makes you happy. Passion makes up for a lack of money a lot better than money makes up for a lack of passion.

Thanks to Mathew Ingram for sharing his brainwaves!

When you encounter a new blog, you might want to get some idea of what’s been written there before. That way, you have some idea of what to expect when you read the blog.

I have a popular posts page, a listing of the posts with the largest numbers of page views, but I’ve come to the conclusion that sometimes a popular post is different from the normal content in one’s blog. Sometimes posts are written specifically to get social media attention…

:: whistles and looks away, hoping no one notices him ::

Other posts, although they might not be as popular, may give a new reader a different, more representative sense of what your blog is really about.

Therefore, I’m going to include links to some of my favorite Broadcasting Brain posts which might not have been so popular. Maybe you’ll like them, too.

Can you trust the news? My thoughts on how to deal with media lies and disinformation.

You can actually hear me speak at the link in this post

I wrote this post after exchanging E-Mails with an A-list blogger, it was a pleasant surprise

 
The Power of Context, or EVERYBODY Knows John! - just some thoughts about name dropping and the use of a person’s first name or nickname

The appropriate platform is in the eye of the beholder - not the best-named post, but still, it’s a topic that I believe in quite strongly

Size does not matter (in the blogosphere) - this post is on my popular posts page, but I think it’s worth repeating

There you go, a Broadcasting Brain B-Sides post!

Whether or not you think Alltop is a good thing, there’s really no downside for me, and most bloggers like me, to being included in Alltop’s Social Media page. If anything, I benefit from it more than Alltop does. I’m listed alongside a lot of bloggers that I read and admire. Alltop’s already thrown me a little bit of traffic.

It’s all good.

I’m of the same mind as Chris Brogan about Alltop. If Alltop opens up the blogosphere to people who don’t use RSS, other blog directories, or the like, then I think we all benefit. Let’s face it, there are far more people who don’t dabble in social media than do. Every bit of exposure helps. It’s a good way to help people find your blog.

Some people think Alltop has been overpromoted or that it’s riding on Guy Kawasaki’s reputation. I really can’t judge the former; time will tell us whether or not the latter is true.

Alltop’s method of displaying RSS feeds may be basic functionality that an idiot could use (or make), perhaps even redundant, but it sure doesn’t hurt anyone. Plus, it’s aimed square at the heart of that HUGE TAIL (not just a long tail) of potential readers.

Thanks to Alltop. I hope we all benefit!

Grab a nickname, a cool outfit, and BAM! You’re a member of Twitter Club! Or, heck, come as you are and just Twitter with everyone!

You can talk all day long with your pals, share secrets and exciting things, and remind each other how great Twitter is! If everyone else just understood how cool Twitter was, they’d want to join too!

So why don’t more people join? It’s really cool… right?

The club of the 21st century

Setting (most of) my sarcasm aside for a moment, Twitter is like a lot of other clubs, such as:

• the Glee Club
• the Chess Club
• the Drama Club
• the Yearbook Committee
• the Rotary Club
• even some of the less popular sports clubs.

Granted, Twitter is a club that’s close to 1 million members strong, but I’m sure that the Mickey Mouse Club and the Merry Marvel Marching Society had some big numbers in their day, too.

It’s still a stomping ground with limited appeal; you have to like Twittering.

It’s not nuts and bolts, it’s flesh and blood. And words. Lots of words.

Lately bloggers write about the relevance of Twitter, its technical stability, and its potential to ever generate enough revenue to be a viable business. Twitter does have some useful, though limited functionality, and a devoted fan base.

However, if there’s any value to Twitter, it’s in the interactions and relationships between its users and, to a lesser extent, the information that’s stored there.

T-W-I-T-T-E R-C-L-U-B: Twitter Club!

Twitter’s really a big social club.

Picture a gigantic club house, not unlike a gigantic dance club and bar, where you can:

• drown in 500,000 simultaneous conversations
• listen to smaller groups in the “room” or network that you happen to be in
• sneak off into the corner with one friend and whisper short nothings (not necessarily sweet ones) into each other’s ears

Now, add into the mix a series of:

• actors
• salesmen
• fanatics
• politicians
• random buffoons…

 and the picture’s complete. It’s Twitter Club!

Not to say that Twitter Club isn’t cool or fun. It’s just that Twitter Club is also like a trendy nightclub where you can sit around and chat, in a limited sense, for free. You can pick up your mobile phone and call someone on the other side of this huge club and chat if you want.

There’s no bar, no real music, and there’s very little room to dance.

People love to hang out there anyway.

Yelling sweet nothings in a noisy room

That’s not to say that you can’t have some meaningful interaction at Twitter Club. It’s just that the odds are stacked against you if you try, much like trying to debate economic theory or existential philosophy in a disco when the mirror ball’s lit up and the music’s pumping away, while hordes of sweaty people try to shake their bodies to a beat.

In the end, a club will make it or close down if the economics aren’t there. However, if people still want to hang out together, twitch to some music, or just soak in the rare kind of vibe, they’ll go to a new club. This is probably what will happen if Twitter Club is forced to close, as long as people still like to hang out in similar clubs.

But why don’t more people come to Twitter Club?

The problem is that not everyone likes the same kind of clubs, the same social situations, and the same diversions. This, in my opinion, is why Twitter might not make it into the mainstream.

Not everyone wants to join a huge club like this.

Twitter Club can be fun, exciting, and rewarding, like many other clubs. However, the value that you extract from Twitter Club is related to the energy you put into Twitter Club.

A lot of people probably won’t like Twitter Club: they aren’t geared towards these kinds of club interactions.  It took me awhile to get into it and I’m less fanatical than a lot of members.

But we really want more people to join! How?

On the other hand… maybe it just takes some encouragement and a few friendly faces to get the party started. And isn’t that really what keeps clubs going? Not the locale or the architecture: it’s the people.

Maybe Twitter Club will stay intact and get a killer make-over. Who knows?

But… if your friends go somewhere else, chances are you will, too. It’s all about having fun… with them.

Wherever.

Once again, ReadWriteWeb provides a few new nuggets of insight for social media practitioners. Marshall Kirkpatrick provides information about the best and worst times to submit news stories or blog posts to social news and social bookmarking sites.  Read his article to get a better understanding of Jake Luciani’s study (or, for that matter, read Jake’s own post about the study.)

In short:

• Thursdays are the best days, Tuesdays aren’t far off (in my opinion)
• Saturday, Sunday, Monday are the worst days
• Wednesday and Friday are somewhere in the middle

In terms of time of day (all times in GMT):

• Midnight to 2 AM and 4 PM to 10 PM are the best times to submit to social media
• Between 10 PM and midnight is the worst time slot for submitting to social media; 8 AM to 2 PM look fairly weak as well
• Every other time is average

This information might be useful to anyone who wants to become a Top Digger (I’m still at 711 in the top 1000 list) or other social media maven - every little bit helps.  However, as with any of these studies, the information should be used as just another piece of data in your social media strategy and you shouldn’t rely too heavily on timing.

I know that in my own experience, I used to submit Digg stories early in the morning (my time) and I seemed to have better success when I submitted stories at different times of day.

Marshall’s article also made me wonder about the timing of blog posting. Are some days better than others?  Are some times better than other times?  In the RSS world it shouldn’t really make any difference because the posts are always there in your reader, waiting for you, right?  Or does timing matter?  I tend to check more than once per day, although I reserve noon hour my time to review a certain collection of social media blogs.

And so, on this Monday, the beginning of my week (possibly yours as well), I’d like to hear what you think.  Do you read blogs on some days or than others?  Certain times of day more than others?

If you read through the Twitter website and various accompanying literature it seems pretty clear that Twitter was intended to be used via SMS messaging from mobile phones or other portable communication devices.  The Web functionality almost seems like an afterthought in its original design.  I’m probably wrong about that, but there certainly seems to be an emphasis on SMS capabilities.

I took a quick poll about a week ago and of the dozen people that responded, virtually none of them used the SMS functions and did all of their Tweeting via their PC or laptop.

I find this interesting given the frequent issues with Twitter’s performance.  It makes me wonder if the problems with Twitter aren’t just an issue with the number of users, but because more and more traffic isn’t SMS. 

So, the question I have for today is:  how many people are using SMS to interact with Twitter?  I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

Catch the Brainwaves is our ongoing series of interviews with a variety of folks participating in blogging and social media. I ask them ten questions and they respond with their brilliant answers and insights! Today we are featuring Patricia Mayo of Comhacker.org and Nowsourcing.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then let’s begin!

1. When you read, do you prefer paper or are you an on-line, electronic reader?

I prefer the best of both worlds - PDF downloaded to my Blackberry. That way I’m not chained to my desk and I’m not contributing to paper waste

2. “Live free or die” – does that motto resonate with you?

Absolutely, otherwise I wouldn’t have stayed in New Hampshire for 6 years, joined the Free State Project, and associate with mostly Libertarians. I have a great big button on my purse - I mean huge 5″ diameter - with the famous Benjamin Franklin quote “Those willing to forfeit liberty for security will have neither.”

Although, it goes much deeper than that. My father, who passed in 2003, spent the large majority of his teens and early twenties in and out of jail for charges like “threatening the life of the President,” “vandalizing government property,” and other similarly patriotic acts The apple did not fall far from the tree. Daddy was my favorite, after all.

Nowadays I toil away at exposing media lies and working for media reform. This June, in fact, I’m going to the Free Press conference on media reform. It’s much better to bark up one tree and figure out how to fix that one, than to just bark up them all.

3. Are we getting to the point where words alone are not enough? Put differently, have we become dependant upon images to complement our words, especially online?

If you are targeting the general public, absolutely yes. The attention span of the casual Internet user is too short to be captivated by any kind of even truly useful headline. You have to give the general public something cutesy to focus on and draw them in - and unfortunately, that will only get worse as more websites are created and thusly demand our limited time.

However, if you are targeting academics, scientists or other technical groups, pretty pictures actually get in the way more often than not. The fundamental difference between these two groups is they inherently want information, they want to learn, and will spend days on end hunting for the right thing. The general public, on the other hand, is mostly just seeking entertainment or “something” useful.

4. Ever think about writing a book? If so, what would be the topic?

I am actually writing a free ebook right now on getting the most with virtual assistants through effective communication. This will eventually be turned into a full-on series about specific areas of effective communication - such as in management, marketing, relationships, etc. There’s a mailing list for anyone wishing to keep up to date and ask any specific questions they need answered - the signup form is on every page of ComHacker.

As far as actual physical in-print books with an ISBN and PITA distribution agreements, I have quite a few in mind. One is on my existential philosophies (like Uniform Social Standards), another on my discoveries within cognitive psychology and mass media, and I’ve been thinking about a remix of swarm theory.

Gosh, put that way I sound like such a stuffed shirt. Then again, anyone who knows me through Twitter or even in person would probably think of all that as being out of left field. Which brings me to the idea of writing my memoirs. I have been through quite an interesting life, and some of the lessons I have learned - such as keeping to myself the fact I analyze every single word anyone ever utters or scribbles - would be best if put to use by others too.

5. Let’s talk about social media for a moment. Do you think that large organizations are starting to understand the potential value of social media (blogs and more)? Or does social media really have an impact on a large corporation?

In the United States, definitely yes. The fact that Wal-Mat, Sony, and Microsoft have all had their fair share of fake blogger and social media bribery scandals stands as testament to both accounts.

Remember the Kryptonite bicycle locks? The company that made those was literally brought to its knees by one person posting one YouTube video on breaking into their locks with a ballpoint pen. And let’s not forget the special number sequence for hacking the HD DVD encryption key. Someone thought it important enough to write a cease and desist letter - social media therefore must have an impact on companies that can afford to lose a few hundred thousand dollars without even so much as a flinch.

However, remember that I specified the U.S.A. (we’re not the world, we just haven’t realized it yet). South Africa is actually fairly closed to the idea of using or even watching their reputation on social media. And who can blame them, really? The vast majority of Internet users are in developed countries - but it would be wise of them to at least tap into this market and encourage importing their goods.

6. Where do you think ideas come from? Pete Townshend (the Who) used to think that his song ideas were a divine gift or otherwise were created by a higher power. Others think otherwise. How about you?

Oh dear. Now you’ve just gone and set me up to be contradictory.

As much as I admire and appreciate Pete Townshend, Van Morrison, and The Grateful Dead, I have to say ideas come from subliminal connections. Taking drugs (as just about every musician does, famous or otherwise) often helps subliminal thought processes to move more into the cognitive realm, and thus new ideas can happen more rapidly - but there are less risky ways to encourage subliminal and cognitive mergers.

One of the most recognized and common ways is meditation. I use that in combination with sleep deprivation and polyphasic sleep to feed my idea machine as well as boost productivity, metabolism, memory, and lucid thought.

But to elaborate on the “subliminal connections” I mentioned before - absolutely everything within the range of your five senses, whether you consciously register it or not, is remembered. In the case of whatever you are doing at any particular point in time, everything within the range of your five senses at that moment is linked together into one cohesive bubble in your subliminal and cognitive mind-spaces.

Later on you can recall that entire bubble if the most unique input is re-triggered. That “input” could have been stored in your subliminal or cognitive mind-space, doesn’t matter - so long as it was the first of its kind.

Take for instance scents trigger the most vivid memories because our sense of smell becomes tolerant so quickly - eventually, you just don’t smell your perfume or cologne, so you don’t realize you’ve bathed in it. Unlike any of the other senses, not only are you not cognitively registering that scent, you’re not subliminally registering it either. Therefore, scents are most commonly the most unique input and thus trigger more vivid memories than any other sensory inputs - because only one thing smells like bacon, and that’s bacon.

Back to my point - obviously, not a whole lot is unique. If a memory doesn’t have a unique sensory marker, it just gets jumbled into a larger bubble with a few loose links to some cognitive thoughts - think of it as a tag cloud, except every bit of information is a tag. When you think or see something that contains some of the same information from that tag cloud, you mind kinda “clicks” on that tag, quickly digests the information to see if it’s relevant, and just might give you a subliminal connection - an idea.

How quickly you can come up with ideas is entirely reliant on how much you use your brain and how much you encourage your brain to “index” subliminal information through drug use, meditation, and sleep techniques.

Simple, isn’t it?

7. Can you list five things that you couldn’t live without?

Can I? Almost certainly. Will I? No.

…

…ok, you win.

1. The bare essentials for survival - food, water, air. Didn’t want to be a smart alec and use up three for something so obvious and trivial.
2. Humor - because I’m not good at being dull. That would mean I’d have to be perfect too, because without humor, nobody could laugh at me either… and being perfect is just way too much work.
3. Access to more information than I could ever digest in an entire lifetime. If there’s nothing left to learn, what’s the point? I don’t care if I don’t have Internet access - so long as I can travel, new experiences count as information too.
4. Some way of expressing myself and sharing information. I don’t care if I have to stand on a soap box in the middle of Timbuktu and holler my message while the Pamplona bull run is in town… so long as they can listen and run.
5. And last but not least - Liberty.

If you’re wondering why all of the above are more like concepts rather than things - I’m against materialism and senseless consumerism.

8. Do you feel that you are accomplishing the things that you want to have accomplished at this phase in your life? Do you have a schedule, conscious or unconscious, that you are following?

If you had asked me that when I was 12, doing graphic design for anyone that didn’t mind my age (or didn’t ask) - I would have told you “hell no, it’s moving way too slow.”

If you had asked me that when I was 14, the general manager of a cybercafe and computer build and repair shop who single handedly took the company out of the red and positioned it to sell for a few million dollars, only to get booted by the new owners because I was too young - I would have told you “hell no, it’s moving way too slow.”

If you had asked me that when I was 16, married and technically a legal adult but nobody believed me - I would have told you “hell no, it’s moving way too slow.”

If you had asked me that when I was 18, stupidly trying to start my own magazine (I had no clue what I was doing!) - I would have told you “ack! I can’t keep up!”

If you had asked me that when I was 20, deer-in-headlights lost, following anything with some kind of promise, desperate and hopelessly flip flopping from job to job - I would have told you “F off, I gave up.”

If you had asked me that when I was 22, finally having found my spot in the world working my way up the copywriting ladder from the bottom up - I would have told you “I think I can make it. This isn’t a pipe dream anymore.”

And now that you’re asking me just 1 month before my 24th birthday, I can safely say I’m doing better than I thought I would be by now (once I got my head screwed on straight). I would have been content making maybe $1,000 a month for the next year, but the fact I’m doing more than double that and hardly breaking a sweat has actually caught me by surprise.

9. Pretend the Internet is destroyed overnight. What do you do the next morning?

Celebrate and focus on direct mail and “old fashioned” B2B networking for my clients, and get out more often ;D

10. What one piece of knowledge, advice, or wisdom do you have to share with our readers?

Don’t just drink one person’s kool-aid. Always always research and find out more before you buy something (especially anything to do with making money online), hire someone, start a business, or accept some bite of information into your psyche - opinion, fact, or otherwise. In simpler terms - don’t accept anything at face value.

After all, the face is merely a cover around a very interesting book.

Thanks to Patricia Mayo for sharing her brainwaves!