I really enjoyed the conference, mainly because it was small and intimate. I met a lot of new people like @jakrose, @yarby, @benjamingetz, @CaseyLBrewton, @MCDolphens, @GenevieveJooste, @Mysticle, @arsbars, @RichTucker, @waynesutton and many, many more. The size of this conference makes it one of the most approachable, memorable and fun conferences I’ve attended in a long time. If you get a chance to attend a Social Fresh event in the future, do yourself a favor and go.

As I mentioned, a lot was talked about during the event, but I walked away with eight key takeaways that I thought I would share with you.

• Remember “You don’t need a social media strategy. You need a brand strategy that leverages social media.” —Chris Kirubi, Chairman of Coca Cola Nairobi
• You/me, we need to be paying much more attention to #LinkedIn
• Being there before the sale is marketing…at the sale is sales…after the sale is service. —@gregcangialosi
• Social media is a beast. The beast must be fed and it’s food is content. —@gregcangialosi (One of my favorite quotes of the day)
• Communicate internal social media policies frequently. Make it precise, efficient & frequent —@DavidBThomas
• Marketing in the socmed space requires more people than you think. —@bwdumars
• Quality, (story and creative) is more important with web video because it stands alone and has to be good enough to get noticed.
  and finally…
• Seriously, bacon gum balls are the best thing I never want to eat again. Thanks @masstransmit

To top it off, here are some new online resources that I found out about today:

• glassdoor.com —an inside look at what companies are paying their employees
• socialmediagovernance.com —A fantastic source for guiding social media use within your company
• Radian6.com – listen, measure and engage with your customers across the entire social web

Did you go to Social Fresh or have you been to a social media conference lately? If so, what was one thing you learned? Leave you thoughts in the comments below.

If you’re reading this because we met at the pre-event tonight, or we will meet tomorrow at the conference, let’s connect:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• LinkedIn (kyle.chowning@halogentv.com)
• Google Reader (shared)

Please feel free to leave your connect info in the comments below. I’d love to follow you too.

It’s official. I’m a Charlottean.

This past Saturday, I arrived in the Queen City after a beautiful drive over the Smokey Mountains from Nashville. As you can see, I had my first car in tow. It’s a 1968 Mustang Fastback that I’m proud to say has been a family car since it came off the lot. My grandfather bought it (I have the original sales invoice for it still), my parents dated in it and I’ve had it since 1991. But I digress.

The plan was to arrive in Charlotte and unload our new house while Kristy and the kids drove over from Nashville to arrive to a half-way unpacked house.

As of today, Monday, I’m staying in a hotel in Charlotte and my wife and kids are in Nashville waiting for me to call with good news.

We’re in limbo…

To be honest, I am not genetically created to like out-of-my-control situations (just being honest).

Since arriving, I’ve looked at exactly 10 more rental houses, on top of the 20 or so that I’ve seen on previous trips. I’ve pursued four homes, only to have them be too expensive, rented or mysteriously unavailable. Also, it turns out that 90lb labs are an issue too.

We’re in limbo…and I’m still not really liking it.

Yet, strangely, I am.

There’s something about this process that is frustrating, yet fulfilling all at the same time. While I’m very much in the middle of my transition, here are three things that I’m holding onto for dear life right now:

1. Change, really is fun!
   Think about it, you can either get mad, worry, be full of anxiety, or, do your best and trust that it will work out—because it will.
2. It’s not what you think it should be
   This can be the most frustrating because we spend a lot of time crafting the perfect change, only to realize that what we think change will look like, and what it will really be, is two different things. It’s best to plan really well, and be faithful to walk with one foot in front of the other—no matter what comes your way.
3. Don’t get distracted
   This is the most dangerous of them all because it can come in many, unexpected forms: self-pity, lingering in the frustrations and doubt, just to name a few. Here, you begin to second guess a lot. If you’re here, do what you can to find the off-ramp and fast.

Nobody is perfect at change and embracing it looks different for everybody. Personally, I claim to really like it, which is me believing #1. I “really like it” because of the unpredictability of #2, which is ultimately supposed to be about #1. But right now, I’m looking for off ramps.

The reality is, in the next few days, or even in the next couple of weeks (#2), my family will be settled (#1) in our new home here in Charlotte and the difficulties of this change will begin to subside. I only hope that next time, I’ll remember these days and strive to fully embrace change. After all, it really is fun.

Most papers I wrote in school were plagued with red marks and the reoccurring phrase: “awkward sentence.” In fact, that statement was used so much that I have screenshots of the squiggly line with the words written above, etched into my memory. No matter how hard I’ve tried, they won’t go away.

Over the years, I’ve taken the criticism I’ve received of my writings to heart. Essentially, all of critiques, well intended or not, reinforced what I had already been told—I write awkwardly. Since the word “awkward” is never used to exemplify a positive experience, it’s not hard to imagine that this repetition had negative effects on my desire to write. It didn’t matter what it was for, I accepted the reality that I was a “bad writer” and that got me out of writing pretty much anything of importance. After all, who wants the “bad writer” to take lead on a group project or advertising copy? Me either.

In college, I confided with one of my professors that I was really struggling in his class. He asked me a handful of questions and promptly diagnosed me with a “learning disorder.” Immediately afterward, he stated that his wife dealt with these kinds of “issues” and that gave him the moral authority to diagnose me. Great, so not only am I a bad writer, but now I have a learning disorder. No wonder my motto in college was “C’s get degrees.” I was convinced.

It’s only been in the past five-to-six years that I’ve dared to challenging these, and other voices. Before then, these people represented the authority and no matter what I thought, they were right. So, when teachers told me I couldn’t write or worse yet, that I have a learning disability, I believed them. As much as I didn’t want to, I did, I have and to some degree, I still do.

So, why do I write this blog?

As much as I would like to say that I write to become a “Tribe” leader, grow a following or boost my stats, it’s not like that for me. Sure, I get distracted by those ambitions, but at the end of the day, I write to silence the voices and the resistance. I write to prove to myself that I’m not a bad writer. I write to, in some ways, prove to my teachers that they were and are wrong.

Seth Godin has been one of the primary catalysts in helping me re-evaluate the things that have impacted my life the most. To be honest, this has given me an incredible amount of permission to challenge the voices and systems that have shaped who I am to this day. What I am finding is, it’s not that they were totally wrong, but they weren’t entirely right.

Why do you write?

The truth is, it takes as much time to think of something fresh, as it does to think of something stale.

Which one do you prefer?

Which one do you get excited about?

Which one do you share with friends, colleagues and family members?

I don’t know about you, but with the invention of the internet, I see and hear about a lot of ideas.

Most of them are stale. Very few are fresh.

So how do you know if your idea is fresh? People will say things like…

“Finally!”  or ”I wish I thought of that!”

If you’re going to put the time and energy into creating something new, make sure it’s fresh, but most of all, remember this:

Nobody else can bring what you have to the table. You are unique. You are one-0f-a-kind and your perspective and creativity only rivals your own. Own it. Dig deep, be diligent to deliver fresh ideas. It’s just more fun.

You may resume your regularly scheduled reading.

If you’re company puts a significant value on whether you’re on time, working your hours and sitting in your seat—not talking, checking Facebook, making coffee—you name it, there’s a good chance your company is managed based on the industrial revolution management style. In short, this style is based on managing factory workers. Each worker has a specific role. If you weren’t in your seat, you weren’t producing. Low producers get fired. High producers get rewarded. It’s easy to see how working long hours is an indicator of a hard worker. Hardly.

While this is just one style of management, it happens to be the one in which I believe that most companies operate from. These paradigms aren’t inherently good or bad. In fact, if it’s all the boss or owner knows, then at the foundation it’s true and accordingly, good. The problem is, with every new generation that enters the workforce, corporate cultures are faced with new challenges—or what I would like to offer as opportunities. What worked in and with a previous generation, will not work today.

In the book, The Five Love Languages (Amazon), author Gary Chapman, introduces the theory that people receive and give love differently: acts of service, quality time, receiving gifts, words of affirmation and physical touch. He claims that if we strive to understand how people around us receive love, we will be far more effective in making people feel loved. Using management as our framework, it’s easy to see how the industrial manager would conflict with the gen-y manager. More often than not, each feels misunderstood and oftentimes rejected. It’s not that one is right and other is wrong. It’s that they just don’t work well together. They value different things.

There are scores of articles and books written on both of these management styles. I’ve listed a handful for your review below. If you’re wanting to get a head start, here are five ways that you can understand and maximize your gen-y workforce:

1. Managing Gen-Y based on time and butts in the seat will not get you results. Set goals and base their success on results. This generation will work hard when asked.
2. Remember that most jobs today don’t create widgets, they create mind work. This kind of work doesn’t have a beginning or end—it always is, so give them the flexibility to work when and where they are most creative. Your bottom line will thank you. Just ask Google.
3. Life/Work integration is a significant issue to the Gen-Y workforce. They are more likely to want to work with you, not for you. Why? Freedom. If you can create a culture that allows life to happen, yet still have high expectations, your culture will always win. They’d rather get fired for not performing than being late.
4. Social media and blogs are a part of life/work, so please, stop monitoring its consumption. Sure, this would mean that people may spend too much time here, but if you’re doing #1, you won’t have a problem.
5. Perhaps the most important of the five is that this generation wants to be heard. They do not expect you to act on all or any of their ideas. They just want to know that you understand their perspective and opinions.

While this list represents five ways you can start today, there are many more. If you’re a twenty or thirtysomething reading this post, I invite you to leave a contribution. Tell us your opinion about this generational management dance. If we, the generation, want to be understood, being heard is the first step.

Research

If you’re like me, you might be reading this saying, “nice theory, but how do you know this? Show me the proof!” Good point. Here are a handful of articles to get you started. There are scores more.

Management is Still Fighting the Industrial Revolution
Excerpt: Management was originally invented to solve two problems: the first—getting semiskilled employees to perform repetitive activities competently, diligently, and efficiently; the second—coordinating those efforts in ways that enabled complex goods and services to be produced in large quantities. In a nutshell, the problems were efficiency and scale, and the solution was bureaucracy, with its hierarchical structure, cascading goals, precise role definitions, and elaborate rules and procedures.

Moon Shots for Management (Harvard Business Review)

What Millennials Want (Wired Magazine)

The Millennial’s Are Coming – 60 Minutes
Great Quote: Faced with new employees who want to roll into work with their iPods and flip flops around noon, but still be CEO by Friday, companies are realizing that the era of the buttoned down exec happy to have a job is as dead as the three-Martini lunch. … “The boomers do need to hear the message, that they’re gonna have to start focusing more on coaching rather than bossing. If this generation in particular, you just tell them, ‘You got to do this. You got to do this. You got to do this.’ They truly will walk. And every major law firm, every major company knows, this is the future,” Crane explains.

Millennials in the workplace do not agree with the work ethic standards of past generations
Interesting: Millennials in the workplace actually expanded on the Gen X foundation of casual Fridays to not only make everyday casual but to further show that how they dress is an extension of their individualism. While Gen X or boomers see this as sloppy, the millennial generation views their dress as freedom of expression in color and style and furthermore, as an extension of how they speak.

What is Foursquare?

Foursquare is a relatively new social networking tool that gives people the ability to “check-in” at all kinds of places: cafes, bars, restaurants, parks, homes, offices—you name it. Think of it as an easy way of telling other users where you are.

As a local business owner, Foursquare provides you the ability to reward loyalty. Marketing says that it’s far easier and cheaper to market to your existing customer than it is a new one. So, Foursquare now provides you the opportunity to identify and reward returning customers by offering them “Specials,” which are  discounts and prizes you can offer your loyal customers when they check-in at your venue. Each venue also has a Mayor—someone who has checked into your business the most in the past 60 days. (I’ve provided a full list of “specials” that Foursquare provides below.)

There are lots of benefits of using Foursquare, but the biggest is the ability that the app brings of putting a name and a face with your contribution. Not for marketing reasons per se, but because it helps you, the business, connect with the people who are in need.

Example

Let’s say that Merridee’s in downtown Franklin, TN wants to give away a 500 loaves of bread during the month of May. One way to facilitate this would be to set up a “Check-in Special” with Foursquare so that every time someone check’s in, they are notified of the offer and are given the opportunity to get, or give away, their free loaf of bread. It’s as easy as that.

The Benefits

There are two main reasons why Merridee’s, the business, could benefit from using Foursquare to facilitate their donation:

1. They leverage the power of social networking to spread the word, thus, lowering cost of time and resources used in their efforts
2. Using Foursquare’s robust analytics, they would be able to see impact of the effort, both from a reach and loyalty standpoint

The Risk

The reality is, Foursquare is relatively new and not a lot of people or businesses are aware or are using it yet. You may end up answering more questions about Foursquare, than giving away bread.

The Benefit

Beyond the goal of distributing 500 loaves of bread into a community that desperately needs assistance, you’ve taken the first step towards identifying and rewarding those people who love and support your business.

My Recommendation

If you’re up for new ways to connect with your loyal customers, you can’t go wrong with this approach. It makes sense on so many levels. As more and more business grab a hold of the power and potential of Foursquare, there will be a momentum and, eventually, an expectation that you’ll be a participant in this space.

In the end, Foursquare is a fast and effective way to reward real-time loyalty. Furthermore, it will help you personalize your service, know your customers better and continue to reward them, again and again, for being patrons of your business.

• Mayor Specials: unlocked only by the Mayor of your venue. Who’s the Mayor? It’s your single most loyal customer.
• Check-in Specials: unlocked when a user checks in to your venue a certain number of times.
• Frequency-based Specials: are unlocked every X check-ins.
  Example: Foursquare users get 20% off any entree every 5th check-in!
• Wildcard Specials: always unlocked, but your staff has to verify some extra conditions before awarding the Special.
  Example: Show us your foursquare Swarm badge and get a free drink!

The caution refers to my avid use of the usual social networks: Twitter, Facebook and my recent new interest, Foursquare (thanks Jeff Hamilton!). Over the past couple of years even my mom has spoken up on the topic of making people aware of where you are; which ultimately reveals where you aren’t.

To be honest, I am totally on the fence around this topic. Sure, I think that it could be stupid, but my logic says that so is riding in a car or flying in an airplane. The odds that a tweet or Foursquare check-in having negative consequences could be the same. Or are they?

Now, the real issue isn’t about what’s likely to happen, or not. It’s really about how it makes my wife feel. She hasn’t told me to stop, but I am well aware that there is a thread of concern that that she feels that my activities could have consequences. Noted. Very well noted.

The question is, what do you think? What are your practices?

1. Don’t think social media, think social marketing. – Social marketing is more about empowering, organizing and training select staff members to engage on social platforms—and building a corporate social presence—than it is about paid media placements.
2. Know your objectives first—then develop your social strategy. – Broadly speaking, the most important objectives relate to creating deeper relationships with customers and branding.
3. Recognize the secret ingredient: trust – Clearly, marketers see an opportunity to leverage this peer-to-peer trust factor by participating in and influencing social conversations taking place on the Web. But the way in which they do that is critical. The first step toward earning trust with consumers, as in any relationship, is to listen. [If you haven't read Chris Brogan's Trust Agents yet, do it soon.]
4. Listening comes first. [When @ComcastCares entered the Twitter space, they did so by listening first. It wasn't until they understood the medium and how their customers were using it, that they actually went public. Planning and preparation are key to success in the social space.]
5. Don’t just barge into a conversation: Add value. [In fact, nothing will get you ignored faster.]
6. Be authentic, transparent and humble. [Social media is about conversation. It's not a platform.]
7. Recruit from your core: the brand enthusiasts who already love you. – Digital communities allow marketers to both find these coveted consumers (through listening) and empower them to share a brand story with many others.
8. Target the coveted influentials. – Some consumers have more clout than others. These so-called influentials, representing about 10% of the population, according to Keller Fay Group, have an undue influence on others because of their extensive digital networks and perceived expertise in particular areas. Keller Fay believes that influentials are 130% more likely than others to talk about brands on any given day.
9. Adopt a long-term/real-time approach. As blogger and social media expert Joe Jaffe has frequently said, “[Social media] marketing is not campaign; it’s a commitment.”
10. Integrate social media with other online and offline communications. Social media represents another stream of touchpoints for the marketer, but they are most valuable when integrated with other consumer activities, from search and e-mail to watching videos and reading news online.

Whether you are a brand, or someone trying to figure out how to engage with people inside the social media sphere, this is a great list to go by.

What are your social media best practices?