Music of My Mind #3

Misunderstood isn’t a song that you’ll ever hear on the radio.  The distortion heavy opening melts away into a double helix of poetry and piano.  The distortion hints its way in from time to time, accenting the emotive lyrics at times when the piano and light acoustic guitar seem inadequate.  Building to a crescendo, the song explodes in a rapture of noise – guitar, piano, drums, vocals intermixed and embracing each other the way someone who is misunderstood would want to be….

I don’t remember the first time I heard the song.  It may not have stood out in any considerable way.  Even today, with my love for the song well known, I may skip over it.  It’s a song for a moment.  For a feeling.  For me, that feeling is often exhaustion.  As someone who is always on the go, someone who is always trying to do their best, something always trying to get things done – Misunderstood represents the final straw.  The time when I want to scream, “I want to thank you all for nothing at all” and feel good about it.  Those times are  rare and they don’t last very long – but they happen.  They happen to everyone that’s human.  Maybe Misunderstood won’t be that song for you but I’m sure you have one.

How I Fixed Twitter For Me

Twitter is broken.  It always has been – from Fail Whale to Spammers – there is always a problem.  Still, it’s one of my favorite places to interact with the web – from finding breaking news or interacting in small exchanges (FriendFeed for longer ones)- there are few technologies I’ve incorporated into my daily life like Twitter.

I’m a bit selfish – while people like Andrew Hyde are coming up with simple UI tweaks that would help change Twitter on a whole – all I am coming up with a little lifehack that works for me.  I simply tried to understand my Twitter behavior and adapted it from there.

I decided to focus on the notifications.  I am getting 15-70 a day – often from spammers that get deleted quickly.  That was too much to handle – so I decided I needed to do something with them.  I would simply turn them off but the nature of my job means I will want to see who has followed me from time to time.  Instead, I simply set up a filter on GMail that sends all followed notifications into a filter labeled Twitter.  This is simple to do – simply filter all conversations from “@postmaster.twitter.com,” apply a label (‘twitter’ in my case) and have them skip the inbox.  Now – I’m not noticing the notifications I get daily.  I can just avoid them completely.  Twitter problem solved.

I know what some people are thinking.  “What if I miss the cool people that follow me?”  My thoughts – if they don’t capture your attention with an @ reply, your search terms, or in one of your current followers RT’s – are you REALLY missing them?  Twitter is about getting the content you desire and, in cases like mine, being able to be a resource to people.  With third party applications like Tweetdeck – I do not need to follow everyone in order for them to interact with me.  The content I want is based on who I follow.  I never really need to know who follows me.  If someone needs to DM me, a quick @ reply would earn a follow for that.  If I need to DM someone, I’d do the same.  If they won’t respond – well, then I probably shouldn’t DM them in the first place….

In fact, the simple removal of notifications allowed me to focus on what is important in Twitter – Content.  Never one to look at my Twitter follower count, all I want to know is if I’m getting the best information I can.  Sometimes that comes from a Mommyblogger with 40 followers or a Internet Celeb with 40,000 – both are worth the same to me.  My personal policy is that I’ll follow anyone that takes the time to really interact with me once.  Whether that’s a question about my work or a commentary on my musical tastes – if they take the time to write a relevant @ reply – they are probably worth a follow. Sometimes, for established Twitter people – a simply hello @ reply would work.  People are different though.  Some people, like Jeremy Tanner – have other filters.  The beauty of Twitter is that we can each use the tool as our own.  

Which brings me to my next point: this method isn’t something that works for everyone.   The key is developing what works for you and placing a value on what you find important.  For me, knowing who was following me isn’t what drives me on Twitter.  So I filtered that away.  It will be there should I want to peak on the slower days in my life, but it’s not what drives me.  What drives is the conversation.  The more I focus on that – the more Twitter will work for me….

Make me laugh with Twitter

Spammers on Twitter are funny.  The irony between their user names – usually the combination of something like business/social media/money maker + genius/guru/ninja and their misuse of Twitter (pictured above) makes me laugh every time.

PodCamp Boulder + Goremet

Yesterday, as I was sitting at The Cup talking on Twitter, Kit Seeborg (@zsazsa) let me know that I should just come by for PodCamp Boulder.  Since the event was almost over (it was around 3pm) – I figured I’d just stop by and say hi (and enjoy myself a nice cup or two of Flying Dog Beer).  I am so glad I did.

PodCamp Boulder – organized by Jeremy Tanner (@penguin) and hosted at the skinnycorp/Threadless Offices.  Since I missed most of the sessions, I can only really comment on the community.  Boulder has a great community.  There are so many great people and personalities.  While, I haven’t met everyone, the people I have met are all friendly and very intelligent.  I learn a lot just from the random conversations that pop up when people of similar interests get together.

At the end of the day, one of the last sessions was “Thriller” – which involved teaching the attendees how to dance like the Zombies from the Thriller video. (Not sure if it was inspired by this Threadless t-shirt or not, but the shirt itself is awesome enough to get it’s own link.)  I did not participate – mostly because there’s enough video of me dancing online.

(video quality is suspect: sorry!)

After filming some of the dancing,  I instead participated in the final session – including some good bits on micro-celebrity and various talk on consultants, twitter followers, brands and names – all the typical stuff that happens at those things.

After PodCamp, many of the attendees decided to make the trek to Denver and head to “Goremet.” I scored a ride with Cornbread and Jeremy, and we swapped stories of rouge driving and people who talk about their followers.  Goremet was great – the same people who were just talking tech together now watching horror movies and eating Kitty Litter Cake.  We watched the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Jessica Biel FTW!).  After that, I took a ride back to Boulder (Thanks again @stepan) and called it a night.

Overall, not a bad way to spend a Saturday night – especially when it just kind of unfolds organically.

Social Wayne

The Monday after the Chicks Who Click conference, I was interviewed by Wayne Sutton.   We met Monday afternoon at Lijit’s offices (thanks to @tarable) to do the interview.  It was great meeting Wayne and I am honored that he wrote such a glowing review of me as a person and as a new voice in the realm of Social Media.

Wayne, if you have a chance to meet him, is one of the nicest people you’ll ever come across.  He’s intelligent, soft spoken and loves to laugh.  After talking with him for a bit, he promised me that he would wear the Crocs-O-Dial cell phone carrier for the entire year – and he’s keeping a record of it on Flickr. Not a bad thing to happen simply from a small bag of swag that I brought to the conference.

Check out the video interview on his blog and, if you don’t already, make sure you follow Wayne on Twitter.  He’s always up to something and always provide great content.  The best part of Social Media is the social part – there are so many great people that these technological advances bring into our lives.

Slumdog Millionaire

Just go see it.  It lives up to the hype.

Chicks Who Click 09

I’ve been struggling with finding the right words to describe the #cwc09 weekend.  I say weekend because, for the most part, the conference didn’t really end until the last few distant travelers made their way running through the terminal at DIA “texmex in hand” (@samababy).

I’m not usually one at a loss for words.  My blog posts, whatever quality you deem them to be, are crafted at the same tempo as my typing skills allow them to be.  No editing.  No stalling.  Simply shutting down the internal editor to open up what I really feel about whatever it is I’m writing.

So why the loss of words?

Sitting down for coffee with Gwen on Wednesday afternoon, I confessed to quite the post-conference “hangover.”  It wasn’t from the partying – or karaoke – but rather from being around so many high energy people that shared the same passions as I do.  It’s so intoxicating and then, when it’s gone, it leaves something of a void.  I’ve been struggling all week trying to describe that intoxication while dealing with the void…

Photo courtesy of http://www.greeblemonkey.com

I don’t want to forget a single person.  It’s as if, by writing just a few select names, I devalue the bonds formed with others – and that’s just not true.  Each connection I met was genuine and heartfelt – and I feel the community that is built around the event will be a strong one.  I really hope that the conference lives on.  I would love to revisit it again next year – even if I’m still 1 of 4 guys there.  I will try to highlight some people:  I laughed a lot with @geekmommy, @zaellen and @greeblemonkey; talked shop with @samababy; was interviewed by @waynesutton and connected with @zenaweist, @barbarajones, @zsazsa and scores of others.  I apologize if I left any twitter handles out – it’s hard to memorize people’s twitter handles! I hope that doesn’t take away from the connections – if I could name everyone there, I would!  Every person I talked to brought something unique and interesting to the table.  It’s virtually impossible to experience that kind of dept at most conferences.  That’s something special….

So – in summary, I’ll just leave you with the visual evidence of the conference.  Instead of posting photos here, I’m just going to try to link to Flickr sets so that the proper credit goes to the talented photographers below.  For untalented photo taking, you can also visit my Flickr set.

@cr8tvjen’s Flickr Photostream
@zaellen’s Flickr  #cwc09 Set
@waynesutton’s Flickr @cwc09 Set
@gwenbell’s Flickr #cwc09 Set
@greeblemonkey’s Flickr #cwc09 set and afterparty set
@girlontheband’s Flickr #cwc09 set

(you can also search Flickr for the hashtag #cwc09)

CWC09 – Friday Night Tweetup

Since taking over Social Media for Crocs, it’s been an interesting experience.  One of my first public forays was this past weekend at the Chicks Who Click Conference in Boulder, Co.  About a mile from my house, I figured this would be a nice way to dip my toe into the shallow end, meet some excellent people, and learn a thing or two.  As I was dropped off by my carpool buddy Avery, I walked into the B Side lounge not quite knowing what to expect….

I saw @GwenBell and @WayneSutton right when I walked in – sitting at computers naturally.  I introduced myself to Wayne and proceeded to grab a drink and mingle.  People slowly started to trickle in and I had some great conversations with @sopan, @jennyjenjen, Shivani from Samababy, @cr8tvjen about a myriad of subjects.  The atmosphere was light and there was an excitement in the air.  After a little bit, @zaellen and I started to yuck it up and a natural friendship was born.  I don’t think I’ve ever met someone like her before.  Her twitter profile asks, “Is there a way to combine a hippie mom tech freak photo obsessed recycled bottlecap jewelry maker?”  The answer is yes – and it’s Zoom About Ellen.

From there, Gwen kept dragging me around and introducing me to everyone she could think of.  If there’s someone that knows how to work a room, it’s Gwen Bell. As the happy hour at B Side ended (bottomless glasses of wine FTW!), we transitioned to the Tandoori Grill in South Boulder.

(more…)

Engaging on Twitter as a Brand.

I use Twitter for work.  It’s not “officially’ sanctioned or anything of that nature – I simply use Twitter so often and, running the Social Media campaigns, I figured my presence on the site should be somewhat active.

Using Tweetdeck, I just have a column that continuously updates me on the conversations that are occurring around the term “Crocs.”  I don’t bother getting that much more in depth at this time – the conversations are relatively predictable and I am mostly just monitoring and engaging people that offer an “opening.”  (Not sure how to quantify what an opening is – but it’s instinctual).  Anyway, the other day I saw the following tweet:

My response, about 15 minutes after her initial tweet, went like this:

She responded shortly after that everything was fine and thanked me for contacting her.  I continued working like I normally do, responding to various tweets and doing the other aspects of my job.

A few days later, my co-worker Avery messaged me while she was going over the coverage reports that we run daily.  She said I needed to check out this blog – and linked me to 3boys1mommy’s blog – specifically this post.

The original post was never a negative attack on myself or even Crocs – yet the tone definitely was telling.  3boys1mommy is very proud of her independent blogging nature – she’s ad-less and doesn’t write to simply for product placement.  The fact that I tweeted her so quickly after she posted recalled the feeling of “Big Brother” watching.  I commented on her blog to clarify my position (hence the edit at the bottom) but I think she brings up a great point – is this invasive and how will marketing change the medium?

Personally, I am none too worried.  When I contact or engage someone in conversation, I am always transparent and genuine.  I knew the call volume was high with post holiday questions and concerns, so my original tweet was to remedy and help with customer service for the company that I work for.  It was the perfect application of the technology for business – popularized by the likes of Frank Eliason of @comcastcares on Twitter.  However, as these technologies become more mainstream – you have to watch out how you interact with people.  They may find it weird when a brand contacts them.  They may find it intrusive.  The Internet – especially opt-in sites like Twitter – are used in such a myriad sort of way that it’s not always known how well your contact will be received.

I went to a conference this weekend – Chicks who Click in Boulder, Co – and, being one of the only men surrounded by such intelligent women – I brought up the scenario to a lot of people.  The resounding answer – best paraphrased by Doyle Albee from Metzger Associates – was simply, “Now they’ll fear it, next they’ll accept it, and then they’ll expect it.”  The rapid evolution of how we communicate shows he’s probably right.  Still, it’s good to be reminded that people outside technological circles may react adversely to the intrusion.

3boys1mommy was a good sport.  She was commenting on the social phenomena and nothing was really meant to be directed at myself or at Crocs, Inc.  In fact, I’d like to believe that I’ve made a positive connection with her – we tweet to each other every now and then and she affectionately calls me “Crocs Guy.”  That leads me to start brainstorming on another post – the separation of personal and brand.  Stay tuned for that one…

2008 in Review

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