Facebook in Real Life

January 29, 2009 By Leave a Comment

While catching up on my RSS feeds tonight, I came across a new cartoon from HubSpot.  The title of this new cartoon is: “Facebook in Real Life: Throwing Sheep”.

hubspot-facebook-sheep1

This cartoon made me laugh a lot and reminded me of this video that I came across last year:

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If you haven’t checked out the series of cartoons that HubSpot has been producing lately, take a look at them….they’re pretty funny :)

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Filed Under: Facebook, Hubspot, Social Media, Videos Tagged With: , , , ,

The Reduction of Personal Interaction

January 23, 2009 By 16 Comments

Yesterday I was running a few errands when it struck me.  With the advancements of technology moving into the retail and consumer spaces, it is possible to go an entire dahandshakey of being out without ever having a personal interaction.  Take this sample morning of running errands as an example:

  • You leave your house and stop at the gas station.  Since you’re paying with credit card you never go inside the store and therefore never have an interaction with the clerk.
  • Next, you stop at the bank to deposit a couple checks, check your balance and withdraw some cash.  You do this all from the ATM.  Alas, no interaction.
  • You run across the street to the grocery store.  You go inside and grab one of the personal scanners.  As you walk through the store you scan your items and bag them.  You head over to the meat counter, punch your order into the touchscreen and a few minutes later grab your turkey and cheese from a slot where they placed the items when the computerized system called your number.  When you’re done shopping you head to self-checkout, dock your personal scanner, swipe your credit card and are done.  No need to have personal interaction.
  • You plan on staying in tonight so, while still at the grocery store, you head over to the Redbox movie vending machines.  Again, a swipe of your credit card and out pops this week’s 2 new releases that you really wanted to see.  Catching on yet?  Yep, no personal interaction.
  • When you get out to your car you remember that you brought that pesky bag of coins that have been laying around the house.  You head back into the grocery store and hit up the Coinstar machine.  Dump in your coins, choose to receive an Amazon gift card, and off you go.
  • Next stop, recycling some bottles from the Sunday football routine.  Nope, no need for personal interaction here either.  Pop your bottles in, grab your receipt and off you go.  You’ll save them for the next time you run through self-checkout at the grocery store.
  • You remember that you need some cleaning supplies, some pet food and a few other things.  Time to hit up Walmart.  The biggest retailer in the entire world.  Surely you’ll have some personal interaction here right?  Nope.  You grab your items, head to self-checkout, sign the little digital reader and off you go.
  • After a tiring couple hours you head home, log into Amazon and buy a couple books you’ve been really wanting with that gift card you got from Coinstar.

In that scenario there was no need for any personal interaction yet you were very productive and probably spent the entire morning running around.  While this is great from a productivity standpoint, is it hurting the chances for us to have meaningful face-to-face interactions?  I think so.  Furthermore, this isn’t even taking into consideration what these technologies are doing by reducing the workforce, increasing the bottom line of these corporations, and the many other factors that come into play with implementations of more and more advanced technologies into the consumer space.  Granted, I prefer to use these technologies as they allow me to stay highly productive and move at my speed, not the speed of others around me.  But, it is interesting to look at from a higher level, more global standpoint.

This is another reason why I am in love with social media.  What I didn’t add to the above schedule is that after all that, you come home, log into Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and GTalk and have 50+ meaningful conversations with friends from all over the world.  However, there is something about face-to-face interaction that is very important.  It is one of the things I enjoy the most about going to conferences, meetups and other networking events.  There are some things that can only be gotten from face-to-face interactions.  Maybe that is one of the reasons why I enjoy this social space so much….because it is social and there are less and less opportunities for me to have meaningful face-to-face discussions with the gas clerk, sales rep, movie store employee, etc.

What’s say you?

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Photo by: Litandmore

Filed Under: Conferences, Social Media, technology Tagged With: , , ,

The Transition from Cable to Internet TV

January 22, 2009 By Leave a Comment

In about a week I will be moving up to Boston.  For the first time one of the calls I will not be making during this transition is to set up cable service.  We have decided to forgo paying for cable and just watch selected shows via the Internet.  Nowadays most prime-time shows are available within 24-48 hours on the major network sites.  There are also a bunch of other websites out there that stream TV content such as Hulu and Joost.  Sure, I won’t be able to watch all of the shows I like to watch now but that’s ok.

Not having cable will make me even more productive and buy back precious time to spend doing things that I care about a lot more than a one hour TV show that I watch just because it’s on.  Also, watching TV on my laptop saves me time because I don’t have to sit through all of the commercials.  A TV show which has been posted online generally only has a couple 15-30 second spots.  That makes an hour long show on a traditional TV only 45 minutes or so on the Internet.  Even if you watch a lot of TV, this by itself could greatly increase the amount of time you have for other things.

One of the even more interesting things is that as more people turn the Internet for their TV consumption, we’re going to continue to see additional features built in.  For instance, take what CNN did for President Obama’s inauguration.  In my opinion, CNN provided more value on their website because they had multiple camera angles, live conversation via Facebook, and it was mobile.  Need proof that it was successful?  Mashable reported that as of 3:30p ET, CNN.com had approximately 21.3 million live video streams since 6a ET, a high of 1.3 million concurrent streams at one time, 136 million pageviews, and over 4,000 Facebook status updates per minute during the broadcast.

On the morning of the inauguration CC Chapman recorded this video which I think explains this point perfectly:

I know I’m not the only one making this transition.  So, what does this mean for advertisers?  Let’s discuss in the comments below.

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Filed Under: Videos Tagged With: , ,

Synchronize, Backup, and Expand Your Social Networks

January 19, 2009 By 3 Comments

What would you do if you woke up today and found out that overnight Twitter closed up shop?  What if it was LinkedIn?  Facebook?  Would you be able to still stay in contact with the networks you have spent time building on these platforms?  My guess is that you would remember some of your contacts, especially those who you talk with most often.  Of course, as the new platform popped up, you would find your way back to some of the other people whom you don’t speak with often but who are very active in the various communities.  Well, to help lessen the damage that such an incident would cause, Christopher S. Penn and John Wall, from Marketing Over Coffee, have to put together a free ebook on synchronizing social networks.

You can download the free ebook here.  Then, after you’re done reading it, make sure you synchronize your social networks.  Are we connected on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, FriendFeed, Flickr and the others?  If not, take the time to friend me up on these networks.  You can find all of my active networks in the FriendFeed widget to the right.

Also, make sure you subscribe to Marketing Over Coffee.  It is one of the best marketing podcasts out there!

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Filed Under: eBooks Tagged With: ,

What I’ve Been Reading Lately

January 14, 2009 By 16 Comments

One of the things I love most about traveling is that it gives me a chance to read.  I love to read but don’t take the time to do so when I’m at home but there are A LOT of books that I want to get through.  While traveling for CES last week I had the chance to read a few books.

barackinc1

This book was written by Barry Libert, chairman and Rick Faulk, CEO of Mzinga.  Barack, Inc is a quick and easy read that packs a punch by providing business lessons from the Obama campaign.  The way in which Obama led this nearly flawless campaign is a case study which everyone in business can learn something from.  These lessons are presented throughout the book along with actionable information that the business reader can take back and use in their organization.  The book is organized into 4 parts which summarize how the campaign was run so successfully:   Success You Can Believe In, Be Cool, Be Social, and Be the Change.  Though I have read and watched a lot about the Obama campaign, I was surprised at some of the stories which are presented in the book.  It was very interesting to read how hands-on Obama was and how effectively he developed a strong team that helped him to raise tens of thousands volunteers to help in the effort.  I would definitely recommend this to anyone involved in business who are looking for some tips on how they can be a better leader, especially during tough times.

twitterrevolution

As Twitter continues to become more mainstream, there are more and more people inquiring into how to use Twitter, and other forms of microblogging, “properly”.  There are a lot of different strategies depending on what your goals are and how you want to use the service.  Twitter Revolution: How Social Media and Mobile Marketing is Changing the Way We Do Business & Market Onlineby Deborah Micek and Warren Whitlock serves just this purpose.  It is aimed at the user who is considering signing up for the service or is at a beginner level with using it.  The authors do an excellent job of providing lists of resources, suggestions directly from the Twitter community, and tips to help you advance your learning curve with the service quickly.  Even as an advanced user of the platform, I found the book reminding of little things that I’ve been meaning to do.  Due to how fast the service, and resources around Twitter, are changing, the authors are constantly updating their online portal for the book, twitterhandbook.com.

savingworldSaving the World at Work is an interesting read by Tim Sanders on what companies and individuals should and can be doing to make a difference in other ways besides just the bottom line.  The book is filled with remarkable stories of how just one person helped someone else out or saved the environment from hundreds of millions of pounds of waste.  As Sanders tells these stories, he provides the reader with information on how they can make a difference in their organization or communities.  What I like so much about this book is that what Sanders suggests doesn’t take a lot of money to do, it doesn’t even take a lot of time necessarily…it just takes someone stepping up with the want and will to make a difference.  As the inside cover states: “Every one of us, regardless of title or position, can inspire our comapnies to change the way they do business, helping them to become a positive force for enriching people, communities, and the environment.”

I am really looking forward to 2009 as I will be traveling more than I ever have before.  Not only will this give me the chance to meet tons of awesome people, it will give me the opportunity to read a lot of books.  If you have a book coming out, I’d love to read it.  Ping me or leave a comment below :)

What are your “must reads” right now?

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Filed Under: Book Reviews, Business strategy, Twitter Tagged With: , , , ,
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