• What’s next
  Christopher Penn on what's next in social media, decentralization coming to social networks, importance of email lists, trust, and making awesome products
  (tags: socialnetworks technology email)

I used some slides to illustrate particular points:

The video of the presentation is here:

Public Sphere: Government 2.0 - Des Walsh from Kate Lundy on Vimeo.

BlogWorld & New Media Expo, held in Las Vegas, has been a highlight of each of the past two years for me. It is such a great gathering of people who are actively involved, or otherwise interested in learning about, blogging, podcasting and video blogging. There is an amazing lineup of speakers and topics and a wonderfully diverse group of people attending - by no means just a gathering of geeks (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

BlogWorld & New Media Expo 2008

The organizers boast, justifiably, that BlogWorld & New Media Expo is “the only industry-wide trade show for the blogging and new media world”.

This year promises to be bigger and better than ever, now that BlogWorld Expo and a former, partly parallel event, New Media Expo, have merged into one event. Dates of the Expo and main conference are October 16-17, with with an exclusive Social Media Summit as an all-day event on the previous day, October 15. The Expo and all the conference sessions are held in the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Although my focus in the past couple of years has been on the conference sessions - especially last year when I was helping with the management of the conference sessions as well as presenting - the Expo part of the event is significant in its own right. Frankly, when I first heard about the idea of a blogging and new media expo I wondered what would be on display: my wondering stopped the first time I visited the Expo.

The event website lists some of what you will find in the Expo:

…publishing platforms, design companies, web/blog/podcast hosting companies, aggregators, add-on services, plug-ins, widgets, computer hardware & software, wireless services, podcasting products, wireless & high speed ISPs, VOIP companies, on-line advertising networks, news readers, RSS/syndication services, search engines, consulting companies, affiliate program partners, new media products and services…

In fact, there is so much to see in the Expo and there are so many interesting people to speak to at the various stands, that it can be a challenge fitting all that in and participating fully in the conference program. A nice challenge to have.

And then there is the networking, around the Expo area, in the coffee lounge, between conference sessions and at any of the plethora of parties and other social events over the few days. Sleep is optional.

Disclosure: As well as being a huge fan of the event, I’m an affiliate of BlogWorld & New Media Expo, so if you click through from here there is a potential benefit for me. If that’s a problem, just use the basic web address - http://www.blogworldexpo.com . Either way, do check it out and if you do attend, please make sure to track me down and say hi!

There are excellent discounts on tickets right now but they close in a few days time, on July 1st. Click on the banner below for more information.

Picture BlogWorld & New Media Expo by adrants, via Flickr, Creative Commons

I plan to live blog the event with the help of Coveritlive and am embedding the code for that here. I’ll switch it on in the morning. In the meantime you can register to be reminded when it goes live.

Planning to have some other colleagues teaming up so as to make it as informative a feed as we can.

This is the event I posted about a couple of weeks ago as Open Government Camp and Social Media.

Because I’d thought of the event till now as something of an upscale barcamp, I think I’d been feeling fairly relaxed about the idea of speaking, if I happened to be chosen out of the array of people offering to speak.

Now that I have an idea of who is expected actually to attend, I’m feeling a tad nervous (which is probably not a bad thing in terms of assisting my concentration on doing the best job I can on the day).

There are some 150 in person attendees expected and 200-400 simultaneously online. I understand there are few or no spare seats now. About a third of the registered in person attendees are from Government including agencies, staffers from several portfolios, as well as some politicians including Minister Lindsay Tanner and Senator Kate Lundy.

That I’m speaking only for 10 minutes, with 5 minutes for questions (as are most of the speakers) doesn’t of itself make me less nervous: I don’t have a lot of time to get my points across.

My topic is “Why parliamentarians and public sector managers need to participate actively in social media (briefing papers and slideshows won’t cut it)”. This is a riff on a hobbyhorse of mine, that if senior people in any organization want to be most effective in terms of how social media works, they need to get in and participate. They need to be players. It’s not enough to be able to say “Oh, yes, I’ve read about that.” What being a player might mean in practice is something I’ll be rehearsing over the next few days.

In the meantime, to help me get an up to date perspective on the topic of my presentation, I’ve posted a question on LinkedIn Answers:

Where can I find examples, lists, blog posts case studies for serving politicians and senior public sector managers as active users of social media?

There has been one, very helpful, answer so far and I will report here in due course on the responses that come in over the next few days.

I’ve also set up a CoverItLive link to help me report on the day.  I’ll be posting the stream here on the blog, closer to the time. If you would like a reminder of that, please enter your email address in the form below.

This is the RSS link for the CoverItLive stream.

Please, if you have any suggestions as to what I should try to cover, your comments will be very welcome.

Although it suits some commentators to proclaim the demise of blogging, Josh Gordon in his report The Coming Change in Social Media Business Applications, says that blogging is shaping up, along with LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, as an increasingly relevant social media tool, indeed perhaps the most relevant such tool for business.

While Twitter and Facebook get the headlines, the social form organizations are turning to most as they look to the future is blogging. Some consider blogging “old” social media, but it has proven itself an effective communication tool. The ability to reach a mass audience with a personal point of view and invite comments is very powerful. (emphasis added)

The report’s broad argument, based on the survey results, is that there is a shift underway in how businesses use social media, from being “a general communications tool, mostly for public relations and marketing” to being seen more as an “essential tool for customer engagement”.

The survey looks at:

• An overview of current and intended uses of social media
• Business uses of Twitter
• Business use of networks “like Facebook and LinkedIn”

The report presents a range of data, generously illustrated with charts, pointing up the overall finding of a move to use social media more for connecting with customers (including customer communications) and prospecting.

One finding which I found particularly interesting was from a comparison of social media between small and large companies. The study found measurably a stronger pattern of use by smaller companies:

“The smaller the company, the more frequently social media is used to improve external communications.”

Companies with 10 or fewer employees are 30% more likely to use social media for public relations, branding and understanding customers. And they are twice as likely as large companies to use social media for lead generation.

There is at least one practical reason for the difference of emphasis. Smaller companies often or always have to do more with less, so “…smaller companies can make big inroads by focusing more on social media” (than, say, on advertising).

Larger organisations use social media more frequently for internal communications and collaboration than do smaller companies.

Interestingly, companies surveyed are more encouraging than discouraging of social media use by employees. 28% have a formal policy for blogging.

The most used social media platforms in the survey group are LinkedIn 79.3%, Facebook 77.2%, Twitter  75.3%, and blogging 68% (MySpace is used by only 17.2%).

The study is based on a survey conducted with members and visitors of the Social Media Today online community, actively involved professionally in social media.  That looks to me like a fairly specialized, “insider” group and while I found the results fascinating, I would be interested to know how the findings would relate to a wider catchment of companies “in the wild”.

You can download the report - no charge, no sign-in, from the sidebar link at Social Media Today.

I’d be interested to know whether you, dear reader, would agree from your experience, reading or research that there is a resurgence, or at least a continued use, of blogging in the business context?

Namely to point people to a couple of videos of the amazing Gary Vaynerchuk, @garyvee on Twitter.

During the conversation after the Toastmasters event, and in response to a question from the business owner with whom I was speaking, I started to explain about social media, then noticed a puzzled frown appearing. Rather than ploughing on, as I’ve done in other such situations, I suddenly had a brainwave, to send him a link to the recent Gary Vaynerchuk CNN interview on making money doing what you love.

To whet his appetite, I mentioned briefly the Gary Vaynerchuk success story, that he took a $4 million wine business and used social media to turn it into a $45 million business and that I saw and heard him speak last year. I told him that anyone who wants to know what’s going on should watch the video.

Not surprisingly after that, he said he would like to see the video. Yesterday I sent the link.

My new rule

Then today I had a Skype call from a colleague about introducing me to some IT people who want to get into the local market. I checked out their site - very smart looking but no sign of social media - started to ask some questions, then thought “Gary Vaynerchuk video”!

So I immediately made up a new rule which I communicated to my colleague: “I’ll only talk to people about how social media can help them grow their business after they’ve watched the Gary Vaynerchuk video and are willing and able to talk to me intelligently about that.”

I’d sent him the link, he was watching while we chatted and he said he thought that was fair.

Then I added to the rule another Gary Vaynerchuk video, short and to the point, about social media and demonstrating ROI .

It’s so quick that it’s easy to miss what Gary says, which is:

I’m just not intrigued, or interested, or in any shape or form motivated to convince big companies that they need to do this. The smart ones will and then they’ll win. The dumb ones won’t and then they’ll lose. I really don’t care who wins and loses.

Having this filter is not about being arrogant or not wanting to talk about one of my most favorite topics, social media. I can talk about it till the cows come home, as some long-suffering friends and family would no doubt attest.

It’s about getting an idea of who is likely to be genuinely interested in knowing more and possibly applying it, and thus, to be frank, a potential client or co-venturer, as distinct from someone who is just making polite conversation or picking my brain, without any evident likelihood of that turning into business.

Naturally, depending on the circumstances, I may well continue to have a chat with someone on the subject before they have had a chance to watch the videos. But my thinking just now is that that will be the exception rather than the rule.

One thing I may do is to offer the following short links to the videos, which I can write, say on my new business card : http://snipurl.com/garyveevid1 and http://snipurl.com/gveevid2.

If I feel there are signs of a possible business collaboration I could get their permission to call them in a couple of days to see what they think. Case by case judgement.

But I am seeing this more as a filter than as part of a pitch.

As a social media strategist who is a former Federal and State public sector executive and over several years a consultant to various government agencies, I’ve wondered from time to time how the sort of conversations that occur around social media in the business context might translate across into the public sector.

But I’ve spent little time on the subject of government and social media, apart from an occasional blog post.

An initiative backed by Australia’s social media savvy, long term blogger Senator Kate Lundy has prompted me to get off the fence and join the discussion. I have registered to attend the Public Sphere Camp, Open Government: Policy and Practice, on June 22, to be held in Parliament House, Canberra. Some camp site!

As befitting the topic, it’s an open event, physically and virtually:

Anyone is welcome to attend the Public Sphere Camp, however seats are limited in the physical component of the event which will be in Parliament House (Canberra, ACT - details on registration page). Anyone will be able to see streaming video online and participate in the event discussion via Twitter, and we will ensure there is liveblogging on the day to also help capture the ideas presented on the day, and to capture external feedback on those ideas.

There are a lot of aspects to the topic “Open Government”, some of them quite technical. It’s clearly not all about social media and I don’t intend to get into a bout of social media barrow pushing, but I’m working on the assumption that policy and practice on open government will have to incorporate some up to date and even adventurous thinking on the role of social media. And a well thought out strategy (which will include a wide margin for flexibility, fast prototyping and “failing forward” - not an easy call for government administration!).

Certainly the US Government’s Web managers see, in line with the new Administration’s program, the need for a “government-wide strategy for using social media tools to create a more effective and transparent government”.

I don’t know if we’ll get to that level of policy commitment in Australia in the foreseeable future, but I hope that we can have a practical discussion in the meantime. And as a former public servant, my idea of a practical discussion on this topic includes, front and centre, what it means for the people who will be charged with implementing the policy - the public servants.

So I’ve put my hand up to speak in one of the 15 minute (including questions) slots and indicated I’d like to talk about the cultural change implications of employing social media in the service of open government. Stephen Collins may have dibs on that topic, having signalled it before I did, and if he gets the nod that will be fine as he certainly knows the terrain. I am just hoping the topic gets an airing, however briefly.

Public servants at various levels, from departmental heads and managers of particular programs to people dealing directly with the public on a daily basis, are going to be affected by any serious policy implementation in this field. Not all are going to be comfortable with the kind of openness and transparency social media can bring, or with the speed of impact. Some will resist - actively, passively - some will try to be inconspicuous, others will relish the opportunities social media provide to better serve the citizenry.

Whatever happens, things won’t be the same.

Photo credit: Parliament House, Canberra, Australia, by stage88 via Flickr - Creative Commons license

Some cool people I know have produced a cool tool for creating short map links for your email, Twitter, social networks and blogs.

If you have ever gone through the process of trying to send to someone, successfully, a link to a Google map, you will know that the process is, putting it politely, a nuisance. The URLs are just so long!

This for, instance, is the Google map for where I live

View Larger Map

This is the URL:

http://maps.google.com.au/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=-28.184858,153.544257&spn=0.038205,0.077248&z=14

I’m always concerned that, in transmitting a link like that, in an email or on a forum, it can get broken up and thus not work.

So up till now I’ve tended to use one of the standard URL shorteners, like TinyURL or SnipURL . So if I use, for example, TinyURL, that long URL comes out something like this: http://tinyurl.com/tweedhds

Which is ok, as far as it goes. But for the recipient it could be a link to any web page, not necessarily a map.

What if the shorter URL was more obviously a map link?

This is what the application aMAP.to provides.

How it works, basically, is that I go to the site, http://amap.to and enter the location I want. A Google map is produced and I can create a link, or links. For example, the long link above becomes, in the short version, http://amap.to/a3dqp I can also generate a longer link, more informative than either the source link from Google or the short version from aMAP.to, spelling out the street and street number, town/city, zip/post code, country. I can even create my own custom link (with a bit of extra code tacked on), such as http://amap.to/wheredeslives.._362g5

In the example here, it looks from the map as if I am living in or on the Tweed River. In fact, although I live on the shore of the Tweed River I don’t live on the river itself. Although there are some perfectly lovely houseboats nearby. Why it looks that way is that I’ve moved the red marker because I can’t show my exact address (long story, but it won’t show on Google) and if I put the marker closer to the house it comes up with a street number that’s not ours (and I don’t know who lives there).

Incidentally, the red marker impressed me, because I can’t see with the original Google map how to have a marker like that.

There is more to it than that. There is a huge amount of information loaded into the aMap.to tool, including over 140,000 hotels worldwide, some 200,000 Wikipedia pages with travel-related information.

For example, one of my favorite hotels, which I recommend whenever someone is looking for an excellent, not expensive hotel with free wifi, close to transport, clean, helpful staff etc etc, in New York City, is the Pod on E 51st St. In the past I’ve given people just the URL for the hotel. Now I can give them a customized map referenced URL with more information - and the map! Here it is: http://amap.to/podhotel_2m6mz (no liability, not responsible if you get a grumpy desk clerk etc etc etc).

aMap.to is a project of Social Horizon, a development team based in Brisbane, Australia. They are seriously smart, creative and passionate about what they do.  And they’ve traveled a lot.

This is what they say about aMap.to:

We think that there is still a lot more that can be done to improve the way that people find and share travel information via the web and mobile devices. aMAP.to is the first of our tools that will help guide people to a destination, supported by travel related information that they may need to plan their journeys.

I like it. And not just because the people at Social Horizon are friends.

But they are nice people, with real smarts not just about tech things and worth talking to if you have a project you think they might be able to help with.

From my observation over a number of years, the About page is one of the most neglected or poorly executed parts of many blogs and other websites. I don’t know why that is, but I suspect that in some cases it might be because the site owners don’t realize that people could be making judgements about them and their business from that page. I really do wonder whether a lot of people actually look critically at what they have on their About pages.

It all got to me, in a mild sort of way, a couple of days ago, when I was endeavouring to find out something substantial about some of the people who had chosen to follow me on Twitter. I was amazed, as well as frustrated, by the number of sites that told me nothing of any value about the owners. And I’m not talking here about the ones whose “about” information turned out to be a sales landing page promising me instant riches for no work. I’m talking about the ones who, going by the few lines about them on their Twitter profile, looked genuine and looked as if they could be interesting people for me to follow.

I said in a tweet, half-jokingly, that I felt a blog post coming on. Someone then asked me when that would appear. Sprung! So here are my 5 Basic Rules for Creating an Effective About Page.

Incidentally, in the process of developing this post I checked on the stats for this site and found that, in the past month, the About page was the fourth most visited. That reinforced for me the need to work on making my About page as effective as I can.

The five basic rules are:

• Tell us who you are
• Tell us your story
• Choose first or third person
• Show us a picture of you
• Tell us how we can contact you

Rule 1. Tell us who you are

This can be primarily about your site or about you, depending on where your blog or other website fits in your marketing strategy.

For people whose business is focused completely or mainly on what they do, coaches, consultants, personal trainers and so on, my recommendation is to be very brief about describing the site and more expansive about who you are, what you do and why (see also Rule 2).

What doesn’t work, for me anyway, is an impersonal sentence or ten full of buzzwords but not really telling me why the site is here or who you are, really.

This sort of thing (I made this up to protect the guilty, but you can find plenty of examples of the type):

XYZ Corporation provides leading edge technological solutions in the online space, for just about any industry you care to name, going forward. Our team of highly qualified specialists covers every conceivable Web technology and we deliver great value for money. Try us, you won’t be disappointed.

When I read that sort of thing, my first question is “Us”? “Try us”? “Who is/are ‘Us’?”

Compare that with the lucid, direct opening sentences in the About page on Darren Rowse’s Problogger site:

Welcome to ProBlogger - a Blog that helps bloggers to add income streams to their blogs.

My name is Darren Rowse and I’m a full time Blogger making a living from this new and dynamic medium from blogs like Digital Photography School and TwiTip.

By the way, I never cease to be amazed at finding blogs with lots of posts, quite current, but no discernible information about who the author is or what he/she does. I believe some people quite simply forget to include that information.

And if you have a WordPress site, please, please put something about yourself and your business, however brief, on the About page that comes pre-set with an explanation of what the page is for - as Lorraine Nepomuceno mentions in her post on About pages. It’s the one that reads:

This is an example of a WordPress page, you could edit this to put information about yourself or your site so readers know where you are coming from. You can create as many pages like this one or sub-pages as you like and manage all of your content inside of WordPress.

Apart from anything else, leaving that default text there can say one of at least two things: “I’m a newbie and don’t know my way around my own site” or “This is a sucker-trap site and is only here to get you to click on an ad so I can make some money from you today”.

And you surely don’t want people to think either of those.

Rule 2: Tell us your story

James Chartrand of Men With Pens, in an excellent post on About pages, explains why you should tell us your story:

Everyone likes to hear a story, and every single person in this world has a story to tell. A bland description isn’t going to interest people, but a story hooks them in every single time.

That’s it. And as the author goes on to point out, everyone has a story, or several stories. Maybe not a story like those you were as a youngster regaled with by your favorite, eccentric uncle who sailed the seven seas, dug for gold in Peru and went mountain climbing for relaxation. But a story nevertheless. The story of who you are and why you do what you do, the story of the service you provide or product you sell and why you are passionate about that.

Think of your reader saying, I’ve got this far on your site - this is your chance to give me an idea of why I might find you someone better, more interesting, more fun to do business with than with any of your competitors.

The ReadWriteWeb About page is a superb example of a succinct, informative, interesting page which tells us what the site is about, the founder’s story and then a short story for each of the contributors. And it has pictures of each (see Rule 4).

By the way, the story doesn’t have to be short. You may have a longer story that could be of interest to the people you would like to reach: see for example the (for me) fascinating page about twit.tv, established by podcasting legend Leo Laporte and friends - the page is amusingly headed Huh?

Rule 3: Choose first or third person

Frankly, I fluctuate on whether it’s better on an About page to use the first (I/we) or third (he/she/they) person. I’ve seen each of these on the sites of different people who have clearly put some effort into designing and writing the page. I don’t believe any one can justifiably say one is better than the other, in all circumstances.

Darren Rowse and Yaro Starak use the first person. Chris Brogan and the ReadWriteWeb site use the third. Each reads well to me and is interesting, leaving me wanting to know more about these people, what they do, how they do it and how that might help me with my business goals.

If, like many of us, you were brought up not to sing your own praises, using the third person might help. And if you still find it a challenge to write good things about yourself and how well you do them, consider asking a friend or colleague who knows you and your business to give you some help.

Rule 4: Show us a picture of you

Although I realize that not everyone is comfortable with the idea of putting a picture of themselves online, I believe that an About page without a picture of the person behind the site, as in the business owner or project leader, is deficient. If there is a team, I recommend that there be either a team photo or individual photos, as has been done by, for example ReadWriteWeb.

And while there will usually be some expense involved, I believe it is better to have a professionally-shot picture than an amateur one from your pocket digital camera. I would also try and get something that makes you look as friendly as you can, not one of those mug-shot, “deer caught in the headlights” pictures.

With a blog, if you have a picture of yourself in the sidebar, as I do here, it can actually look odd to have the same picture on the About page. In my research for this post I noticed that, whether intentionally or by happy circumstance, Chris Brogan has solved this differently, by having a different photo, with a quite different facial expression. Yaro Starak has a headshot of himself in the banner on his Entrepreneur Journey site and then a half-length picture of himself in a jacket, looking relaxed (as a successful entrepreneur might well look!) on his About page.

Formal business dress, casual? All I can say is to think about what you want people to get a sense of about you, in terms of business. I used to have a picture of myself down at the beach in a Hawaian shirt, which was a way of saying “I’m not one of your corporate consultant types and I don’t need to do a hard sell”. But I was concerned that people might think I was so laid back I might not be businesslike enough for them. The picture is still out there on a few sites but I’ve been replacing it with one of me in more “dressed up” attire - but still no tie (been there, done that)!

Rule 5: Tell us how we can contact you

Believe it or not, just as on some sites it is difficult to find out much or anything about the person or people or company behind the site, so on others which have an About page of some sort it can be difficult or very difficult to work out how to make contact if you wish to do so. Why have a site and not make it easy for people to get in touch?

For example, Coach Deborah Micek (@coachdeb on Twitter) has a very informative About page and great pictures that give a sense of the dynamic, friendly, highly focused person she is in real life, and at the bottom of the page, highlighted in bold and a different color from the rest of the text, quite specific details about how to get in touch, with a toll-free phone number and an email address:

Deborah can be contacted directly at RPM Success Group toll-free at (888) 334-8151 or by e-mail through support@rpmsuccess.com.

I’m personally a great believer in having a dedicated Contact page (for WordPress there are a couple of excellent plugins for this) and also having some contact information on my About page (as CoachDeb has done), making it really clear about how people can get in touch.

A request

Writing this post turned out to be a lengthier task that I had originally estimated, partly because I realized that some people might check out the About page on this site to see whether I was walking my talk. That meant that I spent quite some time re-writing and refining it. I believe the result made the effort worthwhile, but I would value any comments which could help me make it better, i.e. more effective.

Also, if you have examples of excellent, even just plain good, About pages, which could be your own, please share the link in the comments section (I hate to have to say it, but experience tells me that I need to say here that attempts to use this invitation as an excuse to spam will fail).

This might not be a story you would pick up from the online media. As far as the mainstream media goes, Twitter gets plenty of flak, for being trivial, time-wasting, lowbrow - you name it. As an example, you could read Stephen Matchett’s less than subtle piece in the Australian newspaper this week (I usually enjoy reading Matchett who has a great sense of irony, but this was apparently an irony-free day for him).

Is there a lot of trivia on Twitter? Undoubtedly.

Is there a possibility of serious business on Twitter, or enabled by Twitter? There are two guys in China who would say so.

Winser Zhao and Peter Davison met through Twitter and have now launched an ambitious venture under the banner China Travel 2.0.

China Travel 2.0 is a two week tour of China, from June 1st to June 14th, for travel editors, and aims to incorporate an understanding of how travelers learn about possible or planned destinations. The tour is framed in a perspective of “past, present and future” - looking at historical China and also at the changes taking place.

There are six editors listed by name so far on the site, with a strong presence from the social networking field: Julie Schwiertert Collazo from the Matador Network, Maria Kosmatos from Offbeat Guides, Donna Airoldi from TravelMuse, Craig Martin & Linda Martin from IndieTravelPodcast, and Janelle Nanos who runs the Intelligent Travel blog at National Geographic TripFilms will also be represented. There is an impressive list of sponsors.

As the website explains, the China Travel 2.0 logo incorporates “YouYou” the Panda. The logo is intended as a reflection of modern Asia, with China as its biggest country and “YouYou” the panda, with suitcase and lantern, is ready for travel and adventure.

Chalk one up for the Twitter-helps-business records.

So it was a real fillip to pick up yesterday the video link embedded here for an interview he gave on CNN. It’s a brilliant explanation of how social media works for business and the opportunities available for people to build real income from things about which they are both passionate and knowledgeable.

I hope you will enjoy and be as inspired by Gary in this interview as I was.

And picking up on an oblique reference by Gary to Tumblr, I’ve re-visited my Tumblr site and started a bit of updating. Not quite sure how it fits in, but when someone as knowledgeable and successful as Gary Vaynerchuk mentions something like this, I take notice.

By the way, his secret of success? Apart from the long, slogging hours of hard work that is?

Two words.

“I care”.

And what’s Twitter really about?

“It’s word of mouth on steroids.”