Mike’s Points

I try not to be an extreme person. I tend to be leary of people who “just love everything.” (Reminds me of the law of diminishing returns.) And, I hate to be around those who seemingly are negative about most everything and everyone.

While that approach tends to make me wishy-washy at times — I think — it does help me to keep things in perspective.

On Twitter, I don’t “favorite” other tweets too often. But, I thought it be worth highlighting some of the 16 great quotes, lessons and pointers I’ve been fortunate to have seen. Not that my opinion necessarily counts more than others, so for what it’s worth, here are some of my Twittered favorites:

Chris Heuer: Blogger relations programs are really more about leveraging personal relations and the reputations we have established in the online world 11:12 AM September 21, 2007

Chris Thilk: More discussion of B2B and social media: It all comes back to knowing the audience and finding the right engagement channels. 09:25 AM October 12, 2007

Jeremy Pepper: I’m seeing a correlation for me with my job happiness and my level of blogging. 11:44 AM October 13, 2007

Lauren Vargas: Amazing people think blog writing is too personal when their phone conversations are blasted in public 07:26 PM November 29, 2007

Phil Gomes: @rickmurray: That and most advertising still relies on the interruption model (30sec spot, banner ad, gatefold). Who likes interruption? 08:11 AM December 13, 2007 from web in reply to rickmurray

DoshDosh/Maki: It seems social media experts are divided into the Digg-SEO type and the ‘PR-conversation-with-the-community-type’. 10:50 AM February 27, 2008

Online Journalism Review: Which is the best free photo gallery editor? http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/080228niles/ 11:56 AM February 28, 2008

Chris Thilk: If your sales dept is always available and your customer service dept is never available, you’ve got it backwards. 11:34 AM March 04, 2008

Brian Morrisey: why i don’t respond to PR pitches. i say no, that’s marketing, not news. dude says, well, how about this other client? like selling ginzu. 03:00 PM March 19, 2008

Ike Pigott: @mikedriehorst - Spring is more than a state of mind: it’s just the Earth being so inclined. (I just made that up. Heh.) 11:04 AM March 24, 2008 in reply to MikeDriehorst

Ann Ohio: “Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” Dr. Seuss. One of my fav quotes 04:31 PM March 25, 2008

Brian Morrissey: Add the Wikipedians to the not-fans category re. Modernista’s site: http://tinyurl.com/2wbeaq 12:19 PM April 02, 2008

Andy Sernovitz: I outed MGM for hiring a team of blog spammers. Spread the word: http://tinyurl.com/58slao 10:12 AM April 07, 2008

Phil Gomes: I hate when people enter a socnet and their first contribution is the social network version of the clumsy-grab-for-breast-on-first date. 12:58 PM April 15, 2008

–Mike

(UPDATED: approx. 12:30 p.m. 4/17/07 with clarification on my point — at the end.) 

I’ve done it. I’m sure we all have. Focus on one line or point — forget the rest — and the launch your critique. And, with Twitter, you can do it easier because the thoughts often are broken up into smaller pieces.

Courtesy of Tom Brio, I was made aware of a guest piece by PC Magazine Editor in Chief Jim Louderback at BC/AC’s blog called strumpette.

Louderback’s piece dealt with a seemingly off-the-cuff comment Twittered by Steve Rubel of Edelman/Micropersuasion:

“PC Mag is another. I have a free sub but it goes in the trash”

If you look at the stream of Rubel’s twitters, you’ll see he was not necessarily pointing out PC Magazine. He was talking about where he looked for his product reviews — going to blogs rather than print and other established media:

“Does anyone read CNET anymore? Webware rocks, but that’s the only site of theirs I visit.” 05:43 AM April 13, 2007

“PC Mag is another. I have a free sub but it goes in the trash” 05:44 AM April 13, 2007

“I search blogs for tech reviews when researching a product.” 05:45 AM April 13, 2007

Yes, Rubel was trying to strut his stuff, with a poor judgment of a comment. There are enough times when Rubel comes off as arrogant. And, this was one. So, if you’re going to be critical, be critical within the context of a piece; don’t single out one bit for the sake of a post.

My big point is that Steve Rubel’s initial comment was not so much about PC Magazine, but it was about established media in general (at least when it comes to tech product reviews). It is in that view that he is wrong. 

Point to ponder: Don’t get bogged done by minutia. Look at the big picture — whether planning for a client/your employer, or ripping a blogger’s post or twitters.

Also, Rubel has a post, explaining his side.

– Mike

For no particular reason (or value to society for that matter), here’s a few thoughts that have popped into my head during the past week . . . .

• I find it kind of funny (at first glance) when a person apologizes over his/her lack of recent blog posts, or the self-admitted poor quality of posts. One could look at it as arrogance. I tend to look at it at those posts (or, now tweets) as the person being realistic that he/she does have a level of regular readers (me, for instance), and maintains a passion and sense of pride over the quality of his/her work.

• I think all bloggers should have a brief audio recording of their voice to help personalize their blog(s). Am I going to do it? Naaaaa. I stutter at times and think I sound too nasally when I hear a recording of my voice. I have talked with Kami, Ike, Phil, the BC part of BC/AC, Peter, and I think that’s it. (Did I miss anyone?) So, on some level, I feel as if I know them better than other bloggers.

• Badges?! Badges?! We don’t need no stinkin’ badges! (Okay, it’s not an exact quote, but close.) . . . . in agreement with Phil’s post on Tim O’Reilly’s draft of a bloggers’ code of conduct.

• Why do thaw and dethaw mean the same? I guess for the same reason that flammable and inflammable do?

• And, inspired by a bit of Twittering back and forth with Andrea Weckerle (plus a comment from Ike Piggot): When will business cards be able to include a small screen or an audio chip with speaker to allow them to offer the card holder a personal glimse into the name on the card?

You may now rejoin your regularly-scheduled life, already in progress.

– Mike

The Web is a great tool and offers great opportunity to connect with people we wouldn’t connect with otherwise.

Duh. You already know that.

But, unless you are a hermit, the social media aspects of tools like blogging, boards and forums, online communities, etc., are NOTHING MORE THAN SUPPLEMENTS TO OUR REAL-WORLD , OFFLINE LIFE.

The world Linden Lab created was called a Second Life because it is secondary, as in a second life. Not a first (a.k.a. primary) life.

The opportunites afforded by the Web is supposed to assist and expand our life. Not replace it.

If you have Twitter account, you’ll be amazed at how often and at what some people Twitter about. On a seemingly continuous basis.

And, this morning I read this — The Wonderful World of Webkinz — in my e-mail (courtesy of MediaPost).

“Webkinz is a social network tied to a toy company that targets young children and places them in a virtual world that is safe, exclusive, and appears to be a lot of fun! . . . .

What I love about this is, it continues to signal the future of online social networking by tying the Internet to the real world. The goal of the company is to sell the plush toys, but the virtual world is a hook and it keeps people coming back!”

I’m not against capitalism and making use of new technologies to make money. But I am leary of efforts that can get children into the wrong habit of spending too much time online, and taking them away from any real world fun and interaction. (Note that I said “too much time” online.)

My fear is that efforts like Webkinz will generate a generation of Web-tied adults: Adults who are more comfortable online than offline; and that first socialize online before socializing offline.

I realize that how much time children spend on the computer and their overriding care falls primarily on their parent(s). Parents have the bottom-line, ultimate responsibility. I also realize there are enough parents who are not involved enough in their children’s lives — and don’t need any help being poor parents.

So, I guess in a perfect world, all children would have high-quality, loving parents. But, back to my main point . . . .

As many opportunities as the Web offers to socialize, learn, “meet” new people, expand our real life, escape our real life, etc. — all those great social media tools must only supplement, not replace or detract from our real lives.

– Mike

Gawd. After reading my own post, I sound like Jeremy Pepper. (Which is not a bad thing.)

Okay, I’ve been dying to try to come up with a clever, catchy Twitter-related blog headline. (How’d I do?)

Anyway, with the Twitter chatter out there among the Twittter haters and Twitter lovers, I’ve thinking about it myself of late.

Twitter is nothing more than another tool. If/How it gets used will determine if it out-lasts its current 15 minutes of fame (though it seems like its fame is pushing 20 minutes). So, I thought of how could Twitter be used for the good of all mankind. And, here’ what I came up with:

• Internal use: For company-wide announements, why not Twitter them, rather than e-mail. Of course, these would be brief announcements (like the Outlook server will be down at noon for a five-minute reset). Though, with internal use, there’d be some licensing involved, which would allow the licensee to expand the dialogue box limit.

• What about integrating a Twitter box into a Wiki-like page or even a service like WebEx when collaborating on a document (presentation, etc.), rather than using a telephone.

• If you have all of your media contacts as friends or followers on Twitter, you can announce when news is posted to your online newsroom. But, isn’t that what an RSS feed would be for? That assumes you have all of your media contacts on Twitter.

• Twitter could be used to broadcast a play-by-play of a game to those who don’t have access to a TV, radio and the game is not Webcasted.

• Bascially, any need one would have to broadcast to an opt-in group a message (an announcement, direction, etc.).

Any others?

– Mike

Oh and yes, I’m on Twitter, too.