The web, the Media Maker’s Guide to the Universe says, is big. Really, vastly big. You just wouldn’t believe how unimaginably, incredibly big the web really is. It’s one of those things that either no one can ever fully understand (or if you did, you’d be driven mad by the knowledge).

Really? Big? Big is a quantification, applicable to nouns.

While we describe the web with adjectives, like we do nouns, we continually approach it as a trend, a strategy. A collection of recorded verbs. The web is fast. The web is dynamic. It’s interactive.

The web is expression. Expression is, by nature, non-quantifiable. We can count words, or theses, defined ideas. But the expression inherent in those ideas – the angle by which individuals make their thesis or concept known – is impossible to measure, because it’s subjective.

If we’re going to assign a value to expression, we need to get better at our caveats.

This article is copyright © 2010 

Before you think about audience-specific methods of experience enhancement, consider Zappos’ lesson: “Don’t fill a need, provide and encourage joy.”

We do this by addressing three key things that people really desire in every online experience:

Simplicity means using small words and phrases, like saying “we can do these three things” instead of talking about having an “action-based strategy consisting of well-defined deliverables”.

Security means not asking for information you don’t need, and explaining clearly why you need the information you do ask for. Among other things.

Sincerity is as simple as never saying “your tweets are important to us.” Ever. No exceptions.

Is that really so hard?

Image by Nina Matthews Photography.

This article is copyright © 2010 

I order my burgers plain. No garnish, no lettuce – meat, cheese and bread. Without fail, however, there is always a pickle on the burger.

This is not unique to this restaurant. Every cafe I go to, every “real” food joint not billing itself as fast food includes a slice, slices, or a chunk of pickle in, on, or around my burger. Every single time.

Why is this a big deal?

It shows uniformity of assumption. In this instance it’s amusing – but I have to wonder how many other places this kind of behaviour happens – and I’m not just talking about where we eat.

How much packaging do you throw away when you buy something? How much inserted advertising do you get with your utility bills? How many times do we really have to hear the phrase “your call is important to us” on hold?

How many pickles, food or otherwise, are we handing each other?

Pickles, metaphorically speaking, don’t even serve a utility-oriented purpose any more. They’re garnish – an inclusion based on an assumption that people really don’t like things plain, even when they say so.

Stop giving me pickles. It’s not polite.

Photo by chefranden.

This article is copyright © 2010 

But don’t call yourself one. Why? Because:

1) There is Too Much New Media!

How many more varieties of communication do we need to fit under one hat? Blogs, online video, podcasting, media production, even “old school” online activity like email marketing, forums and chats. The length of the list plays a big part in determining the amount of raw information an expert has to internalize before taking action on behalf of a client. When you bill yourself as a subject matter expert, part of your job – your basic value – relies on your ability to keep up with changes in trends, capabilities, and capacities regarding your subject area.

Without specificity in your designated area of expertise, your liability is massive – just try explaining to a client why you don’t know about something THEY perceive of as New Media, when you’ve already told them you know All Things New Media. Awkward!

Also;

2) There is No Measurable Qualification for Expertise in New Media!

You can get a degree in journalism. You can’t get a degree in blogging. You can get a degree in graphic design or web design, but not in new media. There are even degrees relating to information architecture, public relations and marketing – but not a usable certification for social marketing.

The lack of standardization is what provides the agility the new media sphere needs to continue being what it is. What this does is take away any reasonable explanation (without tremendous spin) for calling yourself a Guru or Expert or Overlord – without someone else calling you that first.

Pro tip: Even when someone else calls you a guru or expert, never use it in your job title.

3) There Are Too Many New Media Experts!

If you’re already billing yourself as a New Media Expert, consider getting more specialized! While some of us are lucky enough to be real polymaths, not everyone is – and even if you are, using your diverse skills as a backing for a specialty can become a kind of superpower over others with the same specialty!

Alright – so what do we do instead, then?

The most longed for job titles lately involve being experts, knowledge workers, or consultants. But what do you want to consult on?Defining your specialty can be just as helpful for your professional development as building a strong business plan can be for your adventures as an entrepreneur. Being specialized isn’t a drawback – it’s a strategy.

But what do we do about the “expert” part?

Before being called an expert, you need three things: knowledge, experience, and trust. If you think you’re going to become an in-demand consultant right out of high school, college, university, or wherever else you’re doing your training – good luck.

Knowledge you can get from schooling, or in the grit experience. Knowledge always comes before experience, though – even with on-the-task experience, what you do before your understanding of a job counts as education only.

The biggest difference between a 20-something natural and a 30- or 40-something expert is a long history of execution and decision making. Making decisions – and handling the mix of success and opportunity for improvement that comes from those decisions – is the bulk of what we call experience.

Trust – I can’t help you with. Trust is built on the transmission of success. What I can tell you is that without the ability to execute in reliable ways (experience) strategies and tactics that are meaningful (knowledge), trust has a very limited utility. My friends trust me. But that doesn’t mean they’d do business with me.

We can do this better. What does your designation look like now – and what would you rather it be, knowing why we need to shy away from nebulous over-expression?

Image credit – The US Army.

This article is copyright © 2010 

Personal note; no one’s appreciated my fun ajax-based sidebar at all – I may end up removing it after all.

Link of the Week – The 5 Types of Blogs – Which One Suits You Best? (Ink Rebels)

Mack Collier made a good point about sidebars: if we accept them as global metadata carriers, they need to reflect the motivation of the blog itself. Monetized blogs are expected to have ads, archival blogs are expected to have massive navigation capabilities. Think of who you’re writing for – friends? Business? Money? Information?

Mack also made another point – widgets from external services increase load times drastically. Consider this when adding your seventh or eighth “Fan This” box.

The general, immediate consensus was that having some very key information above the fold in your sidebars is a big deal. @amydpp and @tsudo, my apparent twin, mentioned the following which NEED to be in the beginning of every sidebar:

• An RSS button
• A search box
• Email subscription box
• Social networking icons

I agree – this if nothing else will be forcing me to change my current theme.

I asked about 2/3 column testing and left or right handed layouts. @JDEbberly suggested it would make a good topic – I may write about some wireframing things later. @jfavreau suggested hir use of 3-column layouts reduced usability.

Well-designed sidebars act as access points to the archive of the blog – proper cataloguing considerations need to be taken.

@WaynesBNP uses WP Greet Box to make sure the subscribe button is always visible to new visitors.

This led to the great Breath of Inspiration for the night – sidebars really must be global metadata. What you put there is a very good indicator of how you see the reader moving around your space.

This means that post- or page-specific metadata needs its own place, and that has to be respected as well. Author names, categorization, tagging, etc – even related posts, are very important for archival quality Information architecture is a bigger deal than most people give credit for. @erinloechner mentioned, to this point, that related posts in a post’s meta space are a good idea, and can do a far better job than tag clouds.

On that note, tag clouds are so 2008. Give them their own page, with your blogroll, or get rid of both entirely.

What do you think? Are you paying enough attention to the Table of Connections that is your sidebar?

Transcript for the night from WTHashtag, courtesy of Mack Collier.

Also – make sure you join the #blogchat Group on LinkedIn!

this week’s #Blogchat Participants’ List courtesy of Ksenia Coffman.

Image by solo, with others.

This article is copyright © 2010 

As creating media becomes easier, businesses – and business owners and employees – are creating more of their own media. Many don’t have the background that professional media workers do, and as a result, are prone to mis-step.

We perceive these mis-steps most easily as inappropriate disclosure, poor personal judgment, or a lack of self-censorship.

But we also counsel businesses that talking only about themselves, about their business, and the benefits of their work is a bad idea. Why?

Watch this video. Award-winning novelist Chimamanda Adichie speaks about the danger of the single story.

The single story is dangerous from any angle. If your single story is a drunken photo on Facebook, you fail. If your single story is a mis-step with sensitive information, you fail.

If your drunken photo is one story of many – well, you still might want to rethink where you leave your camera. But people are a lot more likely to take the detail in stride at the value of what it is; a detail, not a whole picture.

It’s not just about how you tell your story. It’s about what stories (plural please) you’re telling, as well as how.

What stories are you telling? How are you telling them?

Video from TED Talks on YouTube. Hat tip Justin Kownacki for sharing the video.

This article is copyright © 2010 

We start with:

Exploration, when something is new, after it’s just been discovered or invented. Social Media saw this in the late 1990′s, much as people ignore the time gap between then and now, when Usenet was waning and live chats, blogging and personal TLDs were just becoming relevant.

Exploitation, when anyone and everyone tries to squeeze every ounce of satisfaction and value from something. Hunting before agriculture, the current fishery structure. Slavery. Child stars. MLM. There’s always exploitation where the gap exists between acknowledgment of a resource and real understanding of how to make that resource sustainable.

Ubiquity, when exploitation becomes commonplace, and people stop noticing the novelty behind the resource.

Utilization, when – for whatever reason, be it revolution or evolution of understanding – the exploitation of the resource becomes passe (and even taboo) and people get down to the business of integrating that resource into their lives.

Assimilation / Intuition, where we all forget it didn’t exist before we explored it and get on with our lives.

Discuss.

Image by kworth30.

This article is copyright © 2010 

But does this visibility have any value?

Let’s use me as an example – I’m probably at the high end of average as far as savvy with online media goes. I’m not claiming to be special here, just making a statement; I’ve been online most of my life, building communities. Did it help with my placement in the Influence Project? Here’s the breakdown, as of right now:

• Two people have signed up for the Influence Project directly from my link.
• Two people have signed up from the links of those I’ve influenced.
• When last I looked on Thursday after signing up, I was ranked around 3,400 our of 29,000
• Oh, they removed the numbers: It now says I’m in the 94th percentile out of 32,000+ users, meaning I’ve gone up to around 1,900

So, does this mean I’m influential? Oddly, not at all. Four people signed up, out of 13 clicks on the bit.ly link I circulated (by one Facebook post, three tweets, and one blog post).

We need a better example for contrast. Case study: iJustine Ezarik. Justine is very well known online – in fact, so well known that I’m almost hesitant to use her as a study because I can guarantee I’ll miss critical details. So we’ll be really minimalist about this, and only look at some specifics:

• When I signed onto the Influence Project, iJustine was ranked 9 out of 26000 users. Pretty impressive.
• At the moment, she has more than 4,600 direct sign-ups recorded to her name, and sits in the “99th percentile” meaning she’s likely maintained her ranking quite nicely over the last week.

99th percentile, out of 32,000 users? This conceivably puts Justine anywhere from rank 1, to rank 320 – which is a wide range to be in. What effect does this have on comparative value?

Face value is a quantum currency – as soon as it’s measured, its perceived value changes.

Yes, I’d have expected to see people like iJustine, and even Mr Shoemoney in the top 1 percent. That’s not surprising. When we think about web celebrities and influencers, we can all probably name between fifteen and twenty people – most of whom will end up in the top 1 percent.

Putting people in the top 1 percent isn’t proper perspective for this Project, however. Guessing at where we’ll sit – and being proven right or wrong – is much more interesting.

Fast Company’s concept is pretty simple, and it’s all over the project’s site: You’re more influential than you think. It’s true – I wouldn’t have expected to be in the top 5 percent of influencers online. But look at the numbers – from Justine’s 4,600+ links, to my two is a big gap. That was enough to get into the top 5. What about the other 96% of those who signed up?

Over 30,000 people have less than a combined 13 clicks to their profiles, 2 first-tier influences, and 2 second-tier influences.

This tells me the web, as a whole, is entirely ineffectual at getting people to do the simplest thing it could possibly ask them to do: “Click this link, because what you’ll see there is pretty cool!”

The biggest argument in favour of building community and being a leader – in any arena – is influence. Making a place for yourself where you are given the implicit permission to ask for things (assuming you’re ready and able to reciprocate) is touted as a good idea. What the Influence Project says, however, is that gaining any kind of measurable influence is easy, but can be very distracting from the reality that any influence is only as good as what it’s used for. Using your power for self-assessment (like asking people to pump you up on Fast Company’s dime) or frivolously expending energy flailing your clout about the net is bad business practice.

How can we do better? How can we build lasting influence, measure it, and then put it to good, practical use?

Image by Reinante El Pintor de Fuego.

This article is copyright © 2010 

For the uninitiated – here is Mack’s exegesis of #blogchat.

Stanford from Pushing Social also shared a video on how he sets up for #blogchat that’s worth a watch.

Self-promotion: People! My copy of trust Agents is still up for grabs! Share a Skip1.org related story and win the book (with a little thank you note from me!)

The Planned Topic: How to Use Other Social Sites/Presences to Grow Your Blog.

This is a big one. We’ve identified that it’s far easier to grow your audience in one place by being active somewhere else – growing your subscriber base by using Twitter, finding new LinkedIn connections on Facebook, and so on. But just how do we go about that? Chris Brogan cohosted #blogchat tonight, to talk about exactly that thing.

First: How do you decide which sites you should be active on in order to help your blog?

- Targeting helps – Chris shared FlowTown, a targeting tool I’ll be playing with this week. The base of Chris’ advice during this portion was that finding sites to become active on requires two things: defining the goal of your blog, and finding out where your customers are. If your customers are mostly toastmasters – go be a toastmaster. It makes sense.

The flow is fairly simple, really; identify your goal, and find a niche that goal serves. Look at places like AllTop.com for conversations already in motion. Once you’ve found one, involve yourself. Be the elbow, the helpful newcomer – and really get into the conversation. And please, please (Chris asks) “never shove your updates around the web. Be selective, be specific, be unique. Make each network its own beast.”

Second: How to decide whether to make one of the sites you’re involved in, into an Outpost for your community.

Once we’ve targeted properly, and begun to engage, we need to formalize our outposts and differentiate them from the street corners where we hold conversations. So, we pick outposts by relevance; converse, engage, be in th enetwork. Occasional “conversion forks” (Chris’ term) are the way to go.

Give others the tools to succeed. No matter what tyour goal is – thought leadership, building a channel or media property, or sales – your job on the web (and in life, right?) is to help others succeed at what they do. Your products should back this up, and so should your every action on the social web. Chris’ golden ratio for this is 12 actions for others for every 1 action promoting yourself.

Remember to pick your communication style discretely for each network. MySpace has a different accent than Facebook does, and a different one than Twitter does as well. As much as we don’t want to be shoving our updates around everywhere, we don’t want to duplicate everything either. this can be a deciding factor in whether or not you want to really engage in an arena. Cross-pollination is one thing – heck, even I use automation for some of my sharing – but we should remember to make clear distinctions when we’re using these tools to reduce our workload, rather than trying to appear ubiquitous.

A side note: We’re the special cases here, guys. You and me, the bloggers in the room, we know things other people don’t. We have arcana about conversational flow and reciprocation. All the talk in the world about outposts and goals, media properties and voice in communication style… It’s all arcana. We have two options: We can treat it as arcana and guard it like spies – or we can pull the veil and let everyone in on the wisdom. Which are you better at doing? Why?

The night’s transcript, from @MackCollier

The 250 top participants’ list from @KevinLyons

Drop any further questions for Chris Brogan on his blog – here, as per his request.

Join the #blogchat LinkedIn Group!

Conclusions? What else can we add to this?

UPDATE: @tsudo collected far more semantic details directly from Chris here: Insights into Social Media Marketing

Image borrowed from the awesome Guerilla Freelancing Blog.

This article is copyright © 2010 

Fast company is conducting an experiment. they want to see who the top influencer on the web in 2010 is. All you have to do, is click the link below, and I get a boost. If you sign up and keep passing the project on – where other people sign up and so on – you get a boost, and so do I. It’s a pretty interesting deal.

More on the project later on – the link to follow is below.

The Influence Project – Ian M Rountree’s Influence.

This article is copyright © 2010