Jeremiah's post: Defining Online Community

As I have become more entrenched in social media over the last few months, I have experienced some fairly impressive social networking moments. Most of events have been wide-sweeping with major buzz to boot, others have been...I guess what you would call little online whispers - very little conversations but the content is extremely important to me.

Some of my non-work related social networking highlights include: receiving an endearing "pay it forward" compliment on facebook; being part of Beth Kanter's amazing efforts with the help of Chris Brogan to raise enough money ($10/contributor) within 24 hours to send a Cambodian woman, Leng Sopharath, to college; helping the fight against breast cancer through Frozen Pea Fridays: experiencing bumrushing the charts for Joseph Jaffe's Join The Conversation; having my nieces and nephew choose to friend me on MySpace and Facebook, being interviewed by Kim Dushinski for her soon-to-be released mobile marketing book; and, yet another moment today with Jeremiah.

This morning Jeremiah set out to define "online community" through a posting on his Web Strategy blog, followed up with twitter dialogue and blog conversation. He is asking the community to hone in on its self-defined term until the definiton "online community" melds into that which it is...real-time.

Community sourcing at its finest.

I'm looking forward to this community-made and endorsed "online community" definition to be posted on wikipedia.

Twitter spreads the word on Frozen Pea Fridays

Thank you Chris Brogan!

You introduced me to Connie Reece through a post, saying she's a person to follow on twitter. Through Reece and you, I met Susan Reynolds. And now I follow her day-to-day battle with breast cancer through twitter and her Boobs On Ice.

And frozen PEAs have a whole new meaning for me.

The Frozen PEA Fund site has a wonderful video from Connie explaining why the fund was set up.

More details on getting involved:
See the frozen PEA pool on flickr

Connie's post on The Social Media Consortium's every dot connects blog.

A twitter feed to follow PEAple

And of course, Brogan's post on Susan, finding a cure, and the power of social networking in helping people. 2 PEAS in a pod + 2 tweets equals much more than 4.

PEAS on Earth, social media friends!

Social Media Buzzwords and Twitter WOM

Ah, it's days like today that make me so happy to be part of the everchanging social media landscape.

This morning through Pete Blackshaw's Facebook group, Consumer-Generated Media, Pete directed me to his ClickZ article, "Official 2008 Buzzword Forecast."

Pete is a passionate, enthusiastic speaker; a cutting-edge marketer; and, IMHO a social media guru. He calls it like he sees it (and 9 out of 10 times, he nails the trend at hand) and he is personable, meaning he let's people in - so he's authentic regarding work, play and family.

Yep, and there's no kick back for me on this...I only know Pete through webinars, his blogs, and facebook. I'm touting him only because his blog is relevant to my work and he writes relevant, conversational posts in a way that helps me educate through out my organization without overwhelming.

Anyway, Pete's Buzzword Forecast is a must read and share. He has a pulse on socnet subjects marketers are dealing with, terms we will be using and his defensive brand strategies are spot on.

And another great post of Pete's is his post on Peter Kim's Top 20 Marketing Blogs.

And here's the other 12/11 social media occurrence that I had to write about, Jeremiah Owyang's post on Twitter. Jeremiah's current gig is a Forrester senior analyst and he is best known for his blog, Web Strategist.

In his blog post today, Jeremiah talks about the changes he is experiencing with Twitter. Those that follow me know I'm all about this microblogging utility. Twitter has changed the way I consume media as with many others as well.



Jeremiah tweeted about his post and low and behold, look how many people have commented. Over 200 the last time I checked. It appears his post is so popular his host server is down at this time. Twitter is lagging today as well, maybe it has to do with the Jeremiah buzz as well. WOM is going strong on Twitter today.

On Twitter:
Follow Pete Blackshaw: http://www.twitter.com/pblackshaw
Follow Jeremiah Owyang: http://www.twitter.com/jowyang
Follow me: http://www.twitter.com/zenaweist

Facebook is now living in the reality of our opt-in world

So I'm reading Mark Zuckerberg's Beacon apology on the Facebook blog today and I unconsciously start humming Madonna's Material World. And my inner voice is singing - "We are living in a opt-in world and I am an opt-in girl. You know that we are..." and for those of you that know me - yep, even my inner voice is singing it off tune.

Anyway, I'm surprised that the up-and-coming, over-buzzed, media-darling, "we are grassroots", all about community Social Networking Site (SNS) didn't get from the get that communities live in an opt-in world and we *all* are opt-in girls - well, people. (sigh)

Seriously, how could there not be an uproar over constantly having to opt-out? That's so first days of email campaigns logic - faulty, slimy logic.

I wonder if Facebook did any user acceptance testing with Beacon? Not in the UI but in the actual concept down to opting out with every action. Are they that removed from the conversation pulse that they would need to do testing to know how wrong opt-out is? I'm a little stumped over the rush to market and the lack of common sense.

Lesson here: Don't lose sight of what got you to where you are.

There's good news, Zuckerberg did respond (finally) and admitted Facebook's mistakes over the last several weeks with Beacon. Yep, they changed their tune...Facebook is realizing they to are living in an opt-in world.

Inbox 2.0

I've been mulling over some posts about Inbox 2.0.

Is what Yahoo and Google are delving into really the next evolution in social networking sites? I might be simplifying it but to me, everything I've seen shows me more of a LinkedIn management functionality with all the mail components we are used to seeing but crystalized - kinda like going from standard tube to HDTV.

The Google and Yahoos of the world are creating a way to help us manage our social media tool kits. I don't know that their Inbox 2.0 will meld into trumping social networking sites per se.

I have my social media tools that help me manage and optimmize my relationships, however there's more to SNS. There's the networks, groups, apps (some useful, some fun, some random.) There's the reaching out to friends of friends through various activities on SNS. There's the ah-ha stumbling upon information that you come across while catching up with your friends' lives through their profiles.

With that said, there's the contextual tracking part that gives me the weebie jeebies in a small way. Do I want information gathered on the email context of every message I receive? Do I want advertising shown to me, contact possibilities given to me from the information that comes through my email? If I'm getting my email app and storage for free - well maybe. As long as I can decide the parameters and can opt-in to the behavorial targeting options - well maybe.

I'm looking forward to the mesh up montage that allows me to have my social media tool kit in one place, provides me with the technology to fine tune it and keep the information I want to stay personal - actually personal - not having to opt-out to keep it personal.

Here's a few Inbox 2.0 articles:
Deva from Email Dashboard provides food for email thought
Brian Solis' Inbox 2.0 strategies post
Techcrunch Mike Butcher's Inbox 2.0 post.

Lots of discussion going on. We'll see how it pans out.

Blog 101 - Lee Lefever style

Lee's latest "how-to" video tells a simple and concise story of why and how people blog:


Check out all of Lee's videos on his YouTube page or through his company's site Common Craft.

Social Media Snack Done Right

I follow some social media strategist on Twitter as their tweets typically provide snippets of industry commentary. These 140 character cliff notes help me quickly shift through the vast about of social media information out there and find what's relevant to me - *right* now.

This morning, it was Jeremiah Owyang's tweet that caught my eye:




The middle tweet in particular, given that I'm in web marketing. I clicked on the link to Jeremiah's blog and proceeded to read the specific posts that he recommended.

It was quick, simple and really h e l p f u l.

WOMMA + Viva Las Vegas = Recipe for Success

Start with an overview of the success of the Halo 3 viral campaign, mix in Hazelnuts - aka Sister Hazel fans, throw in a deep dive into the aftermath of Dell Hell with Lionel Menchaca who turned listening on its ear with passionate customer advocacy, a dash of Cranium flare from the Grand Poo-Bah, a pinch of love from Andy Sernovitz and pack in a few dozen relevant breakout sessions, mix well and bam!

You have a recipe for WOM success!

Yes, that was last week's WOMMA Summit. And it was lipsmacking delicious for this conversational marketer.

Though there were many nuggets of juicy social media information including commentary on metrics, brand case studies, influencers, ethics, and so on, my favorite summit quote which Spike captured, sums up social networking perfectly for me:

“From the outside looking in, you can’t understand it. From the inside looking out, you can’t explain it.” - Ken Block, Lead Vocalist, Sister Hazel, on the magic of communities.

Excellent summaries on the "No Fans, No Band" Sister Hazel WOMMA session:
John Bell
Kaitlyn Wilkins
MGH Bloggin Team

More to come...

Joseph Jaffe uses social media to practice what he preaches

Ok, this post is very late in coming and I apologize, I've just been absorbing other people's thoughts on Joseph Jaffe's crowd-sourcing, social media extravaganza.

You haven't heard the bumrush buzz? Read on...

I am a Facebook friend of Joseph Jaffe, part of his Jaffe Juice group on Facebook, read his blog, as well as follow him on Twitter. Yep, I'm a Jaffe Juice Junkie :).

Joseph invited me along with several other folks to join him in his "Bumrush the Charts" social media PR event.

Jaffe asked people to participate in a monumental event - purchase his latest book, Join The Conversation, on Sunday, 10/21 via amazon.com and help him break the Amazon.com Top 10.

Jim Tobin provides a great recap of Joseph's PR 2.0 tactics.

Joseph incorporated the social media elements he discusses in this book to sell it. It was an incredible event to experience.

Yes, I bought the book, see below in true socnet etiquette, Jaffe thanks me at 2:15pm:


and when will my name ever appear before Karl Long's again? Seriously, very nice touch, Joe!

And I'm over halfway through the book and using nuggets everyday in my current role, more to come...

Twitter - get it across in 140 characters or less

You ask a question on Twitter and you get a plethora of answers.

They are quick snippets refined to the gist of the point.

For instance, check out Chris Brogan's tweet from earlier this morning:



And look at the creative, across-the-board responses he got.

And critics say there's no conversation with Twitter. It's extremely interactive. Jump into the twitterati. Start by following me at zenaweist.

Lil'Grams - parent-style microblogging

Brian Solis blogged about the "twitter for parents" - Lil'Grams. The founder, Greg Narain, describes Lil'Grams as my memories, my way.

As a parent of 4 little ones, I'm looking forward to testing Lil'Grams, out because I need some place to brag and document about my kiddos that's easy to get to, shift through, and share. And can I tell you, I have all the scrapbooking supplies but do not have the time to keep up with all that. This looks promising, more later.

The Second Bubble? Go ahead, burst it.

I was talking with a friend of mine last week about my concern for the second bubble. All this hype, all this over-evaluation - it reminds me of 2000. It depresses me a little, because I know the utility is here, the tipping point has passed and this isn't just buzz - it's here to stay.

And we are smarter, less impatient, less risky...we've learned from the last go 'round, right?!

Then I read Steve Rubel's twitter a few moments ago:

Rant: The Web 2.0 World is Skunk Drunk on its Own Kool Aid http://tinyurl.com/ytaeyz

And at first, that ugh! feeling in the pit of my stomach started...but I kept with his thoughts - thankfully. His post helped get my hopeful back on.

The quick buck folks will come and go - they flock to socnet sites today, mash-up opportunities tomorrow, but there are some sustaining stars that continue to make the web a better place, regardless of cashflow potential - thankfully.

The passionistas are a constant and you know what?

It's gonna be all right.

10/30 UPDATE
More Bubble talk New York Magazine fashion from John Heilemann.

Social Networking 101

Ok, as I try to explain social networking to my offline friends, it's easier to just show them with something they are interested in that's on a socnet site - then it clicks for them.

However, I always start with showing them Lee LeFever's "Social Networking in Plain English" easy-to-understand quick video:


All of LeFever's social media videos on YouTube are very informative, quick and stand up to his claim - Explanations in Plain English. Lee and Sachi have crafted an amazing company called Common Craft and their blog is worth subscribing to - plum full of great brain food.

Socnet @ It's Finest - Twitter, Blogs & Facebook help send Cambodian Girl to College

Beth Kanter's personal non-profit fundraising campaign, for me, is one of those wonderful socnet phenomenons that I feel honored to be a part of. Using twitter, blogs and facebook, Beth raised most of the campaign's funding in 2 hours.

I found out about Beth's efforts through Chris Brogan. He sent the following tweet:


I clicked the tiny URL and immediately wanted to help out. The price was right - ten bucks - that's lunch out or a trip to Starbuck's. I could manage that especially for a great cause!

And 57 other socnet souls thought the same thing. Below is the list of the people, who through socnet actions, chipped in to help out Leng this semester. Kudos, everyone!

And it's not to late to get your "feel good" on...
Your $10 Can Send Champhearom to College & A Big Thank You to the Other Contributors!



Thank You to These Great People Who Have Already Contributed to Beth's Campaign:

Shirley Williams
Michael David Pick
Preetam Rai
Wiebke Herding
Peter Cranstone
Polly Thompson
Nicholas Booth
Fernanda Ibarra
Britt Bravo
Kelley-sue LeBlanc
Laura Whitehead
Allyson Lazar
CindyAE
Andrew Carothers
John Powers
Neesha Rahim
Anal Bhattacharya
Steve Bridger
Lloyd Davis
Donna Callejon
Chris Brogan
Anonymous
Joyce Bettencourt
Erin Vest
Philip C Campbell
Jane E Quigley
Steve Spalding
Amanda Mooney
Ann Miller
Donna Papacosta
Christopher Lester
Zena Weist
Connie Reece
Mary Reagan
michael dunn
Anne Boccio
S Michelle Wolverton
Israel Rosencrantz
Clint Smith
Stephen Keaveny
Scott Schablow
Justin Kownacki
Neha Yellurkar
Amie Gillingham
David Beaudouin
Edwin S Coyle III
Liz Perry
Haystack in A Needle
Ian Wilker

Seth's wikipedia post

See Seth Godin's post and interesting discussion re: students using wikipedia and other online sites for homework references.

My thoughts...
Using Wikipedia to begin your fact finding mission is great, citing it is even better, but you need to use it in parallel with other resources to validate your findings. Crowd sourcing is good, but digging a little deeper can only help validate your point is accurate. Multi-sourcing is the key point here.

11/2 UPDATE
Found this excellent wikipedia classroom assignment article through Steve Rubel.

Twitter - helpful posts, definitions, stats

This is going to be an organic roll, as my friends and I find articles, blog posts, stats on Twitter, I'll be adding to this post. If you want something added and don't want to comment, twitter me at twitter.com/zenaweist.

In the Technosailor blog, Aaron Brazell's The Golden Rule of Twitter Marketing is an excellent fundamental on two key twitter points: transparency and authenticity. It's a quick "here's what works and stay away from this stuff."

UPDATE on Forrester Microblogging discussion:
From Jeremiah Owyang
Peter Kim of Forrester (colleague) responds to Robert Scoble (former colleague) http://tinyurl.com/23f9qq

10/23 UPDATE on California fires:
More Twitter utility re: CA fires...see
Community Tweets in the SoCal Fires or go directly to twitterers nateritter, ginatrapani or kpbsnews.

Sheila Scarborough's excellent twitter post jam packed with useful Twitter insights.

10/29 UPDATE Chris Brogan on Twitter:
Brogan's Twitter starter pack. This article on Guy Kawasaki's blog is full of twitter insight.

11/8 UPDATE Steve Spalding on Twitter:
Spalding's cliff notes of Caroline Middlebrook's robust Twitter How-to. Spalding's quick read shows business and personal uses. Both blogs are excellent reads.

11/21 UPDATE Twitter as a Marketing & PR tool:
Lee Odden's comprehensive post on Twitter and how to use it as a social/play and social/communicate tool.

A Vision of Students Today

KSU student video on consuming media in a multi-tasking, multi-user, multi-influencer way.

Twitter Utility - yes, there is real value in this app

If you don't have any idea what Twitter is all about, Wikipedia's definition and this quick Twitter 101 video from Nick Danforth should get you up-to-speed.

Ok, I have to admit the first time I checked Twitter out I couldn't make heads or tails of it. What was all the buzz about? It looked random and a little self absorbing. Really, who cares what I'm doing in 140 characters or less????

Then an online savvy friend, Melinda, who is a usability guru told me her twitter hooked story - the twitter event that made Melinda a tweet lover.

She followed a close friend from the first pangs of labor through child birth. This friend was across the country, and Melinda received updates instantaneously on the labor and birth event. Melinda was overjoyed to virtually hold her friend's hand through labor. And her friend has the history of her labor, in her own words - one 140 character message at a time.

This hook made sense to me.

I could stay up-to-date with friends that I didn't keep in daily or weekly touch with by following them on twitter. So I thought I'd give it a shot.

I hit an immediate roadblock. None of my friends, even my online friends, n o n e of them were using twitter, except for Melinda, who is always 3 steps ahead of trend :). I felt bleeding edge and a little scared. It reminded me of when I bought Broadvision stock back in '95. What the hell was I doing?

So, as I had done with BVSN, I went looking for business friends. In this case instead of stock counsel, I was looking for business-related friends that might be twittering.

They were easy to find...my facebook counterparts and socnet savvy thought leaders were out there twittering away such as Seth Godin, Chris Broganand Jeremiah Owyang. These master bloggers whom I gleam extremely valuable cutting edge information from daily - were of course all twittering.

With twitter, I immediately started getting 140 character golden nuggets - cliff notes of their blogs or random bouts of knowledge. These business-related tweets made twitter an instant utility for me and a multi-checkpoint daily ritual.

Then came my twitter hook. My mom was diagnosed with brain cancer a couple of weeks ago. This wasn't too much of a shock as she had survived stage 4 non-small cell lung cancer 6 years ago. My siblings, father, mother and I were headed to Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis to tackle this tumor (which ended up being a 3x4 mass) with the cancer team.

I knew once I got to Barnes, I wouldn't have time to check work, home email nor text all my extended family, friends, and co-workers regarding status. You would think we'd have plenty of time, but we had been through this before and the Barnes staff swarms. There is NO downtime and we knew that 24/7 resolution was what we were in for.

So I sent out a few mass emails (work, friends, fb friends) and notified people via a few blogs. I let everyone know to follow me on twitter/zenaweist or go to my fb profile to view my latest twitter update.

I was surprised at how many not online savvy folks just winged it, signing up to follow me without issue, and how a few online zealots didn't take me up on my twitter request.

Anyway, I started twittering Sunday night before we left for STL. I kept updating my tweets through the entire week of testing, testing, seeing 25 drs and residents in 48 hours, testing, surgery, ICU, recovery - YES,
R E C O V E R Y! WAHOO!

The tweets helped keep me calm through the whole, stressful ordeal. Having to post in 140 characters or less, it helped me to focus, not be hysterical. Just knowing 20 or so people were following me and my family, giving Mom their support - it was powerful. Knowing those 20 were updating countless other people, it took the update burden off my family.

People sent us words of encouragement through twittering back, calling, posting on my fb wall, and emails. This circle of followers kept my family positive. Being positive helped me, my family, and especially my mom.

And I'll continue with updates as "Miracle Mom" heads into radiation next week.

And news on the followers that signed up to get updates from me, they aren't just lurking. They are creating their own hooks as well. This is a fantastic app with utility. My hook is just 1 of 1000s that happen everyday.

Share your twitter hook with me, I'd love to read about it.

UPDATE: Here's Jeremiah Owyang's insightful Twitter post.

I get a lot of facebook golden nuggets from the facebook observer. One of my favorites is a quick summary of some of the fb business apps @ http://tinyurl.com/2nf23h
.

Tracking Influencers

Excellent conversation pulse (tracking influencers) info from PR 2.0's Brian Solis @ http://tinyurl.com/2t2ejv.

Also, if you haven't seen Dove's Daughter of Evolution video, it's Onslaught.

20 Question Version of Go Where Your Consumer is...

Do you know where your target consumer's online socnet haunt is? Is it facebook, is it MySpace, is it Gather, Bebo, Ning? Is it the cute Yahoo mashup?

Are you listening to the socnet conversations your target is having? Is it passive listening or active listening? Are you monitoring the conversation pulse? Have you identified the influencers? Are you joining in to the conversation offline (emailing influencers, building relationships) and online, taking notes, paying heed to input, appreciating feedback, making changes? You know - embracing the multi-influencers' say.

Are you moving from the mindset of consumer to prosumer? Because you need to be, your target is already there. Your zealot target is on socnets keying their ideas to someone, are you listening? Are you asking for collaboration with R&D from a multi-influencer base?

Do you know what your target consumer's favorite widgets are? Are you creating them in your target's socnet space?

Or are you only developing online banners and maybe SEO/SEM that drive to your corporate site or a campaign microsite? Paying for strategic planning, ops, hosting, creative development and hoping the masses will still keep coming to a site just for you.

Hmmm...the prosumers have aggregated their content feeds into their socnet page/profile. So the content is coming to their page so they don't need to go out to the content sites that run the cool rich media panel ads anymore. Do you feel socnet is bleeding edge? It's actually leading edge and a perfect venue for conversation pulse - trend analysis.

There's definitely a need for an online media mix, I'm not suggesting anyone walks away from traditional online advertising, corp sites (your revenue stream), etc., just join in to the socnet conversation, it's time to take a deep dive (start with toe in the water if need be) and make socnet part of your online portfolio.

Kevin King, SVP of Edelman, recently shared with me and I'm paraphrasing "in online, content used to be king, now conversation is king."

Is conversation king with your organization?


Ok, so I asked 16 questions, more to come as I revise this...I'm exhausted.

The Emmys are green, round & interactive

Read as the 5 "bloggers" key in what they are experiencing @ the EMMYs live @ http://tinyurl.com/3aj7qt . Now that, my friends, is pretty darn interactive (just stopping short of bleeding edge interactive - the masses being able to key to the Elite 5 to get even more engaged.)

All coming from Prospero.

The power of a tinyURL

My all time favorite quote is: It's not the moments you live, it's the moments that take your breath away.

I just had one of those "take your breath away" moments that wakes you up and makes you re-energized.

I just received Chris Brogan's latest twit:
Curse that JnSwanson . His blog post made me cry: http://tinyurl.com/26hnjr. That's a first.

Chris is an amazing social media mastermind always willing to encourage us noobs along the way. I recommend his blog to anyone I can - ask all my co-workers and MySpace & fb friends.

I have to tell you though, Jon Swanson's post moved me, no it shook me to the core. It made me realize this - this whole socnet thing that I'm caught up in - isn't all about business, or Web 2.0, or learning how to squeeze more into the day, or getting in front of the latest socnet site, or finding tips on juggling the chaos of a working mom's life.

There are life lessons and treasured moments that your friends lead you to with a tinyURL and twitter that take your breath away.

Brand Autism - don't buzz term a spectrum disorder

See Brad Beren's iMedia Connection article with my thoughts on the coined phrase "brand autism" live on Brad's blog - please comment there.

The shift in marketing...conversational branding

Marketing is changing...the true share of voice - honestly, is consumers' conversations. We need to listen and join into that conversation. The goal of our marketing should be to generate consumer conversations - preferrable good buzz, not bad - about our brands.

We need to focus on building loyalty by joining into the consumers' conversations about our brand, helping them out with issues they run into with our products, listening to their concerns, letting them know we are not only listening but paying heed to their suggestions - valuing their input...it's building relationships with our customers, becoming their friends, letting them in as our confidants.

Through a comment from Pete Bradshaw's consumergeneratedmedia.com, I found Brandon Murphy's blog post on the the marketing spiral flip flop which is an excellent summation of the marketing shift that's occuring.

3 key Murphy quotes:
1) "Instead of finding ways to interrupt and disrupt consumers’ lives, we should be looking for ways to attract consumers, offer them something of value through our communications, and befriend them."
2) "That’s a problem for many of us because we’re still trying to sell something to a mass audience. Instead, we should be finding ways to fuel conversation about our brands and to create something of meaning that they can carry to others."
and finally,
3) "The purpose of marketing is to generate conversation between consumers about your brand."

My add to that is the purpose of marketing is to generate conversation among consumers about your brand and to embrace the conversation by having 1) your ear to the ground, 2) your eye on your 3 screens, and 3) your fingers on the keyboard so that you can join in the conversation.

for hire

influencer for hire

this concept scares me...your online cred will take a nose dive.

"I think follow up acts are 100x harder online than in traditional media."

Mark Cuban quote from a Steve Rubel interview in 11/06.

Let your objectives join the conversation

Proactive objectives
Reactive objectives

These are your offensive and defensive objectives, in business planning we all have them in some form or fashion. John G. from Comcast said something revolutionary in a webinar a few weeks ago. And I'm paraphrasing here..."It's not proactive and reactive only now, your objectives need to be interactive to bring you success." If we only listen or we only shout out, how in the world are we going to be a part of the conversation?

"It's not the company, it's a person"

I read that quote somewhere in an article where someone was explaining the difference between a press release and an individual responding to a comment on a blog. I'll find the link at post it here this week.

I'm actually finding, I prefer a response to a blog from a person commenting on the blog in the blog - vs an email or any other form of comment. I received an email from the CEO of Fisher-Price last week...I wish I would have seen him respond to a few of my friends' blogs.

So if I respond to a blog, I respond with my name...not a "John Doe," and I am authentic, sometimes over the top passionate, but always myself. I don't shout out corporate speak. I listen to the conversation and respond in kind. In kind...yes, in kind...sometimes a little passionately over the top in kind but still, in kind.

My shift

It started as a "toe in the water" test.

I'll create a facebook profile and search for the buzz. Check facebook out because I need to, but like MySpace not really use it.

Well, facebook was different from the moment I put my big toe in.

It didn't feel the least bit cold, it was refreshing because it's intuitive to set up. I didn't need to bone up on my HTML which I haven't attempted since '95. And, how novel...facebook told me how many of my colleagues were already on facebook (unlike MySpace when I set it up) so I had a community right off the bat.

I was wading in the facebook pool without much effort.

So several of my cohorts had profiles on facebook and immediately engaged me in their conversations. I felt the utility immediately. I was swimming laps in no time, but I didn't feel winded. No more toe, I was diving into facebook apps, groups, networks and seeing the relevance immediately.

Honestly, it's been a long time since I've been this excited about anything on the internet. And the internet is my job - and I'm passionate about it.

I'd have to say the last time I felt this much relevant internet innovation was in the early '90s when I saw Yahoo for the first time on Mozilla - though it was left justified text and gray background, it was revolutionary to me because the utility was there for me - Yahoo was a filter, a search engine - it made simple sense, easy to get.

facebook is revolutionary to me because it is all about me and my relationships on so many fronts and it makes simple sense.

So now what? My stroke has fundamentally changed (last feeble attempt at the swimming metaphor, I promise.)

I've shifted from my "check email, blogs, look into socnet sites" routine to "check facebook and all connected to my facebook profile" routine, then if there's time - I get around to the others.