modern day graffiti

i have been bleating on for years that your website is your piece of real estate, online. it's been the best way for me to explain it. these are the highways we all travel along, hoping the road also brings a customer to our door.

this is still true - but it's far more complex.

social websites have created more highways, more ways and you are far more visible. and that makes you far more vulnerable.

if we consider the giants for a moment - telstra, macdonalds, bonds, and vegemite recently to name a few... if these guys ever step out of line with their public, the public soon let it be known to them (think major brand having to pull a product off a shelf because of public backlash). therefore customer service is premium however they would still regularly take a battering. the response from the public comes in via word of mouth, letters to the editor and more recently via social media. the power of the community voice is only just being realised and unleashed (ie we have just begun).

so, when this translates to a small business, what does it mean to them? well, - you are right, the same can happen. a small business may not have been the target of a letter to the editor previously, however they may have had their retail shop front vandalised, a window broken, a paint smattering because someone has taken offense and the law into their own hands or simply been the subject of malicious gossip (WOM).

the modern day graffiti is of course a combination of malicious gossip, comments via our facebook statuses (that only friends see sure... however...), talking (word of mouth is still the almighty powerful), to setting up facebook groups, blogging, etc etc etc.

so, be careful, if you are online in business remember you are at all times vulnerable.

why do you think politicians dont allow you to write on their wall? i disagree with this by the way? is it because they are afraid of the questions that may be raised? or simply they are too lazy to answer?

why do you think there is a facebook group called "Real men don't cheat on, lie to, or abuse woman" that you cant write, contact, upload a foto or do anything with? It has over 604,000 fans so its name alone has inspired something (i dont mind that you cant interact with that one... it's purpose is there as a statement only).

so, think about what your business is. consider when setting up a facebook group that you allow access as appropriate. interaction is not just about the good... its the whole picture, good with the bad, honest with the not-so and you should be willing to respond and answer everything. otherwise - why do you have that wall open for business?

happy to interact...

so i unearthed a new trend today. can facebook help?

Image by .Andy Chang. via Flickr

i am currently doing my diploma in business and i was in the strategic marketing class of 09 talking about target markets, segments, and trends today.

the example we were discussing was around the 9 year old v the 12 year old.
what do they want?

i have this almost exact scenario at home ie the 10 year old with the 15 year old, so i related well.

we summed up that kids today still want what kids 50 years ago wanted - ie the latest and greatest in "whatever". whether that be the latest shoe, trend or dress that "whoever is wearing".

so, it got me thinking - well, what is the equivalent rebellious act then (we can examine why my head traveled this way another day)? ..... so, to keep moving to explain myself, in my day the rebellious act was getting into the disco / niteclub underage (i never did - im so nerdy). my kids arent doing that... mainly as they've started earlier... my 10 year wants access to Facebook so much so that she doesnt see it as wrong to "lie about her age". yep - between her and a friend they had even worked out what year they would have to put in.

i stopped it. however. here's my dilemma.

a while back i was told BEBO was for 10 years olds and said she could use that - to only discover they also had the 13 year old restriction. so, no facebook. no BEBO. no social networking platform for 10 year olds???

what do we do?

we know facebook is populated by females my age - who probably have kids - who probably want to play with all the applications - who cant because they are too young.

can facebook help?

i call on all of you to respond to this blog if you think facebook should create a parental control / kids version. perhaps it is a sub account from mine that i can approve the stuff my kids do - or maybe it's just a mini site with limited access and applications? love to hear how you are managing this in your own households :))

charlie talks about status updates

Charlie Helen Robinson shares what becky says "what matters is what "is"..." xc

Harry Ballzak says "... and don't take it for granted, that what you think "is" ... is the same as what other people think "is" is."

charlie helen robinson says "good morning globe" xc

lets keep it simple.

status updates are surely a new way of communicating in their own right? we have laughed frequently about people using twitter to send out to the globe some of the most meaningless pieces of trivia ever written or known to mankind. And yet, whilst we have this capability, we don't use facebook in quite the same way. but... we do use the status update to, well... update. that said, facebook is quite unlike twitter in that you dont need to update as often to remain "seen". thank goodness. i personally believe therefore that this is making it a more powerful tool. with more impact.

lets think about that impact.

we all have a laugh with our updates. sometimes we get serious. other times we offer advice or news or promote something. we occasionally add a throw away line because that's the mood we're in. then other times we use it to send hidden messages to someone in particular. we catch ourselves having a giggle with those "in the know".

so, if i change my status to "charlie helen robinson thinks people should mind their own business", my work colleague might think "eeek, i should never have trawled through her tagged fotos cause it's none of my business what she does after hours", my friend might have thought "oh charlie's got the sh*ts on with xyz" or that friend of a friend might just think...

lets consider that.

after many months/years socialising online its easy to recognise that its still a learning process for all - including me. and in the big scheme of things is it really worth writing a status update that will or quite possibly hurt another? mostly unintentionally but sometimes deliberately.

we are all human, we all do feel and sometimes this will spill over to a status message etc and a reaction. i say again, we do it mostly unintentionally.

consider that the comment ("charlie helen robinson thinks people should mind their own business") could have been very innocent ie i could have been directing it towards my neighbour who i see peeking over the fence? hey - it sounded fun... surely?

perhaps next time i could have written "charlie helen robinson just saw her neighbour peeking over the fence".

now, that may sound too politically correct or even confrontational (especially if my neighbour was a friend on FB and saw) - i'm not saying im innocent here... but it is something to ponder, consider and adjust ways. do you agree? i will.

the age old quote "if you have nothing good to say - say nothing at all" comes true. you have the ability to leave your status blank if need be.

"charlie helen robinson says i love you all, even those with flaws, because i know you love me and mine". xc

ps there are some people who will have the guilts for the worlds sins -- there's only so much you can do!!

Day One Hundred & Thirty Nine

Day One Hundred & Thirty Nine, originally uploaded by charlierobinson1966.

what a crazy day. yes another one. i survived it yet again tho... so couldnt have been too bad. hurt a friends feelings but it was only because i have to be selfish for a while. anyway... the journey continues.

some stuff i want to share:

great article - comment away - let's debate:
http://wordsworx.com/archives/31-Blogs,-Facebook-and-Twitter-the-new-e-pulpits.html

my work project announcement caused a busy week:
http://www.electranet.com.au/adelaide

dead reds barossa gets a sponsor:
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1610126453#/group.php?gid=16116545564&ref=ts

and i'm canning dead reds five until october when it will come back with a slightly more polished appearance. stay tuned xc

Day One Hundred & Twenty Eight

Day One Hundred & Twenty Eight, originally uploaded by charlierobinson1966.

mum, why do you keep doing your twitter fotos with me in the background?

>>because ive been home all day and i have nothing else to talk about?

OK, that's fine.

================

health. it's important. and it sucks when we're sick. but she's a good spirited kid and she has been quite good about it all really (no sooks). she did try and be brave and get up earlier today but she realised just how crap she felt!!

having said that - she has read me out of house and home...!! LOL

=================

but during the day (when on LinkedIn actually) i noticed a friend post about an awareness day. so i asked him if he'd posted it to FaceBook (no) and if he knew about Newsmaker (no). The only reason i mentioned it to him was because he's from a charity organisation and they dont always have the big dollars for expensive media campaigns. Hey - who does these days?

He has subscribed to Newsmaker now and I've helped him create a FaceBook event, here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=98920887541

Anyway... then i watched a new YouTube channel and the girl was talking about social media with Jeremiah Owyang (from Forrester), who said "the thing about social media is that it's inexpensive".

No surprises in the statement HOWEVER social media does take effort to get it right. And that's the bit people forget.

Cheap as in "no dollars". Not so cheap as in "time".

Jeremiah should know - he confessed to doing his 2 hours of reading before work ie between 4am and 6am (and then sometimes on the weekend as well). That's dedication for you!!

xc

Day One Hundred & Twenty

Day One Hundred & Twenty, originally uploaded by charlierobinson1966.

@charlierobinson says hi to @spotrick


Where all this started today:
www.plurk.com/p/rm6ec

So I responded. But to do it, I had to take a candid snap on my fone. Upload it to Twitpic via Dabr, then right click to get properties, copy/paste the image properties into @spotricks response for him to see the image. Fairly clunky but I got there!!

Here’s my answer:
twitpic.com/4iimw

Took me back to my silliness when creating my own emicons (as I call them in brief)

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=31297&id=606666685&l=2119e3932e

interacting with experts: lee hopkins speaks

I recently met Lee at an Adelaide Bloggers meet. This lively, energetic man presented himself before me with a massive smile and I thought, yep, that’s what I expected. I loved that. The fact that I had read numerous of his blog articles, followed him on Twitter and generally felt great to personally meet him was exceptional. And it was great to have that same experience in person.

NOTE: Personal branding & how you present online is dear to me (what you see is what you get is important) and in backing this statement I have even personally supported the likes of Dan’s Personal Branding Magazine which is a good read on the subject. Lee's personality comes through well online - and matches his offline. I like that.

So, I asked Lee to write a guest article for me. The theme for this article had to be “interacting with business, groups and friends online". It follows.

For some background about Lee, “he consults to large and small companies as a management psychologist with a passion for employee communication. At the forefront of new communication technologies, and a leading thinker on communication strategy in an online environment, Lee is a widely-read commentator on communication issues.”

Check out LeeHopkins.net

When I first met Lee, his passion was Second Life. And, it’s no wonder. He is currently conducting doctoral research into Second Life and more details can be found on his Second Life blog (leehopkins.net/secondlife) and on his staff page at UniSA (people.unisa.edu.au/Lee.Hopkins)

I’d like to now share Lee’s article and let him do the talking:

Using new technology to do old-fashioned things like communicate with people

"Some companies are turning to new technology to support their globally-dispersed teams. Although email hasn’t yet been replaced as the ‘killer’ application yet, I know from both personal experience and through discussions with others that email no longer has ‘pride of place’ as the most-valued communication tool.

For many, the rss feed reader (like FeedDemon or Google Reader) is now the ‘first port of call’ in one’s day. Spending 15-20 minutes updating oneself with the news headlines, industry movements and the views of one’s peers is, for some, more valuable than many anything else for ‘setting oneself up’ for the day.

I know of several companies who are re-designing their intranets to include social media tools such as wikis, blogs, podcasts, widgets and rss.

However, of course, not everyone has access to a computer, internet access and a feed reader. Which is where savvy companies are using mobile phone technology to communicate to their employees and key stakeholders. And, for the moment at least, it is a great way to breach attention-barriers. That is, until we start receiving ‘garbage messages’ from the corporate communications team on our mobiles. Just as we learnt to ignore banner adverts on web pages, so we can learn to ignore mobile phone communications if the relevance of the messages pumped at us drop below a certain threshold.

Of course, to baby boomer managers and business owners, these new communication tools can appear ‘irrelevant, time-wasting and stupid’. In my experience it is the baby boomer manager that is the biggest stumbling block to the workplace use of web2.0 technology. Because they can’t immediately ‘see’ a use for these tools, or see themselves using them, they automatically dismiss them.

But even baby boomers can be wrong.

Like many boomers, I myself first thought of the virtual friendships formed online through community sites and tools as ‘imaginary’ friends. But once I actually spent some time in these communities and developed some friendships, I realised how wrong my prejudices were.

Of course, ask any teenager or twenty-something if their friends on MySpace, Friendster, Orkut, Meebo, Facebook, inter alia are ‘real’ or ‘imaginary’… you’ll be laughed at. To Generation Y, and a growing number of Generation X, they very much are ‘real’, even more real in some cases than their face-to-face friends. There is a powerful opportunity to ‘open up’ online that some find difficult in face-to-face situations.

Of course, whilst some of these web2.0 tools can be ‘challenging’ to the baby boomer manager, in my experience NOTHING is wierder than the 3D collaborative virtual environment. Or as we know it, Second Life.

For many boomer managers, virtual worlds like Second Life are so ‘out there’ that they are perceived to have absolutely no value in the business world. But companies like IBM and Sun Microsystems have joined dozens of universities in setting up islands and meeting rooms, where customers, clients and suppliers can meet, share documents, present to each other and discuss business issues.

Universities are reporting results in cross-student collaboration far better than they originally expected. Denise Wood, senior academic and leader of a Second Life research project at the University of South Australia, told me that she was amazed by how the various students interacted online in ways they never would offline. For example, students across all undergraduate years interacted in Second Life; third years were swapping ideas, hints, tips and experience with first years, and so on. This would never happen offline, Denise feels.

Even though 3D collaborative virtual environments like Second Life can be ‘clunky’ and hard to navigate through, the ability to engage with fellow team members one-to-one via private chat sessions, and at the same time still engage with the main one-to-all presentation, whilst watching and listening to a PowerPoint presentation, allows time zone or geographically dispersed teams to build up socially cohesive relationships.

I am not alone in predicting that the 3D online environment will be mainstream within five to seven years. I have discussed the issue with senior futurists at Adobe, Microsoft and IBM and all see the 3D web as the way of the future, all of them building tools for use now (including their own virtual worlds) behind the firewall.

Hopefully, the smart business communicator will realise the 3D virtual environment, currently shown in its most advanced form by Second Life, is too important an environment not to learn about.

Although businesses in Australia have been surprisingly slow to adopt these new communication technologies, now that conservative companies like AMP and Westpac have acknowledged that they are ‘experimenting’ in the 3D web, the communications future for the 3D collaborative company is so bright I gotta wear shades!"

-end

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Bio: Lee Hopkins consults to large and small companies as a management psychologist with a passion for employee communication. At the forefront of new communication technologies, and a leading thinker on communication strategy in an online environment, Lee is a widely-read commentator on communication issues.

He runs a blog at LeeHopkins.net and has over 170 articles on business communication available for reading at LeeHopkins.com

He is currently conducting doctoral research into Second Life and more details can be found on his Second Life blog (leehopkins.net/secondlife) and his staff page at UniSA (people.unisa.edu.au/Lee.Hopkins)

Denise Wood details: people.unisa.edu.au/Denise.Wood

FB at work. the new culture. thought number two

how many of you still get joke emails?

i have to say that at work i really don't get any. it's quite peaceful in that regards. my email inbox at work is for business related matters. i communicate / chat / send jokes and play via FB. i do it when i have time. i do it in a spare moment when i need a refreshing light relief. i do it in a break.

it's an interesting concept to think that we have brought back the "formal communication" to the business email inbox whilst still allowing ourselves to have fun.

original: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=7906677061&id=6397284684&index=14