horsepigcow

After having coffee with a male friend today, I came home and changed some of the information I share with my “friends” on Facebook. I felt incredibly conflicted doing this.

The context of our conversation was the following: I’ve been asked out at a fairly normal, even healthy rate, by men I meet while out and about, but as soon as they ‘friend’ me on Facebook, there seems to be an extreme amount of vanishing going on. According to my male friend, my level of disclosure is too much for most men to stomach (in his words, men want “mystery” or at least to think that there is a challenge to getting a girl’s number and information). Of course, my reaction was that any man that couldn’t handle a few foursquare check-ins and posts about my son and life on FB wouldn’t be man enough to deal with me anyway, so good riddance. However I wondered in the back of my mind if removing my phone number and tightening up the privacy settings just a wee bit wouldn’t hurt anyway.

As I did this it occurred to me that there was a new ‘class’ of women emerging in the world. When I open up FB, most of the posts talking about personal lives, posting whereabouts and having deep discussions about sex and modern love are by the women I have as friends on FB. Many of them single. Most of them list their contact information, including phone number. The number of posts by women seem to be far greater than those by men – and I have more male ‘friends’ than female by far (it’s the circles I run in). And this seems consistent with some of the most recent research about who is participating on social networks (more women). Only a few years back, though, it seemed to be the opposite.

Only 3 years ago, it seemed that women were more closed in their use of social web tools:

Women were keeping their Twitter accounts private, their Facebook accounts only open to close friends and they certainly weren’t joining the social networks that broadcast location at a major rate. I’m not sure what the percentage is, but it does appear that women are dropping the “women need to be private for safety” line in exchange for the “women need to be public for success” line. At least in my circles.

Recently, this article came out proclaiming that, well, we as women don’t really “need” men anymore as we are earning more money, more educated and have the majority of the buying power now. Hell, we don’t really even need them to make babies thanks to modern science. My favorite line in the entire article is:

Guys, one senior remarked … “are the new ball and chain.”

Still, as I remarked to my friend (who thought I repeated the line “I don’t *need* a man” too many times to be a neutral statement), I would like to have a healthy, long term relationship with a man, so I’m trying to get to the bottom of the vanishing problem (and vanishing before I can even have an IRL date). As he put it, “You probably don’t want to be dating normal men anyway.”

Bingo. “The normals” is a term I’ve heard come up more and more lately. At one point it was used to describe non-early-adopter types that you want to attract to your startup. At some point, it became people who don’t ‘get’ our crazy social web lifestyle. The lifestyle where we are recording every moment, happening, thought and occasion in some sort of digital form and quite often broadcasting it to everyone. It is quite addictive, really, especially when it is so full of every day rewards: increasing your friend base (geographically as well as numerically), getting you hired to teach others to do this stuff, small bits of fame here and there and interesting moments every day. Broadcasting and connecting with other broadcasters becomes a way for life to get super interesting quickly. It isn’t trivial, either. The knowledge I accumulate through my random conversations daily has made me dangerous at a cocktail party. Who needs to read the paper anymore when we pass around articles before they are published and dissect them as a collective?

“The Normals” who are part of those conversations are left in our opinionated dust. In our crazy social web world, we gain one another’s respect by our deep analysis of social issues. In the ‘normal’ world, we are seen as complete airbags. But there is nothing wrong with our neverending quest for knowledge or desire to share every bit of that knowledge accumulated (being the awesome knowledge brokers we are), it’s just, well, a little abnormal…for ‘normal’ people.

And it’s worse for women. A man who knows lots of stuff, shares it and gets excited by this knowledge is seen by most as industrious, ambitious and smart. Not all women, but many women see this man as attractive and someone with great earning potential. A woman who exhibits a keen desire to share knowledge (for instance, to talk about data, the future of economics and the changing socio-cultural climate) on the other hand is really ONLY seen as attractive by men who are excited by those conversations. For male “Normals”, this woman is emasculating at best.

It’s a stereotype stuck in another era, really. As the presence of women as the leaders in the workforce grows, it will be more an more crucial for women to be knowledgeable and ready to share and strut that knowledge. And not only will it be necessary for our professional lives, but, hell, it will become apparent that knowledge is freakin awesome, so we will want to pursue more of it. At some point, “The Normals” will occupy the minority, too, because survival will be directly tied to our knowledge and ability to share it…but that’s a whole other post.

I knew there was a reason that I’ve found nerds sexier than jocks and rockstars as I’ve grown older (and wiser). They seem to understand that holding her own in a debate on the future of nuclear energy or whether China is the next superpower is the sexiest thing a woman can do and that a woman who blogs, posts her geo-location and scours the web for interesting articles to post on her FB profile is just being smart about her data. The mystery that turns nerds on is in figuring out how to read between the lines of her Twitter stream, how to decode the latest Blip.fm playlist to find out how she really feels about you and looking at her Flickr favorites to understand how she wants to see the world around her. Love is knowing that she shares what is happening with thousands of people, but her innermost fears with only you.

So I maintain that a man who asks for my number but cannot handle my level of disclosure is not the man for this modern woman. And I’m afraid it’s his dating pool, not mine, that is getting smaller.

Just this morning Christopher Carfi pointed a most excellent post on the Blogher Blog entitled, “Manifesto: I am not a brand.” For those of you who have seen my live rants (aka speaking gigs), you know that one of the zinger one-liners I have delivered from time to time is: “Instead of a personal brand, why not just get a personality?” So I ran off to read Maureen Johnson‘s most excellent post (and wonderful rant – I so identify with her on the half-sized water bottles) right away.

I’ll make you go and read it yourself, but I do want to clip a portion or two of the manifesto that struck me as “OMG yes! WTF?!! Exactly!” moments:

We can, if we group together, fight off the weenuses and hosebags who want to turn the Internet into a giant commercial.

and

Make stuff for the Internet that matters to you, even if it seems stupid. Do it because it’s good and feels important.

Not only does her language pull on my heartstrings (totally using the word ‘weenuses’ from now on), but her general outlook. And the thing about her general outlook is that it is gorgeously utopic like mine. That neverending, undying even if the crap is kicked out of it faith in the core goodness of humankind and the possibility that things CAN be made better and more people just have to believe in it and get behind it and the world will transform into a better place for all of us…cause what we are doing right now just ain’t working. I mean, it looks like it’s working for some and then we are promised we can all have that if we’d just get off our lazy asses and work a little harder and step on a few people to get there. And when I say “that to which we are promised”, I mean some sort of luxurious life complete with high end handbags with big logos and more legroom on flights. But somebody has to sit in cattle class, eh?

Let me back up a bit here. I had a bit of a tipsy debate with a very smart person I know (who, in any case, one should never argue with sober OR tipsy, but I gave it a go) and afterwards he said the sweetest thing to me, which made me realize I was right all along:

“I enjoy your un-ending optimism..”

Because I argued that, much like Maureen, I believe there is a better way to approach the world. Why have we structured everything around ourselves to be about the almighty dollar? And why is the almighty dollar pretty consistently the reward for weenusism? For hustle? And stepping on other people? In the end, there is only so much of the almighty dollar to go around, so as I said earlier somebody has got to sit in cattle class and it isn’t always the lazy arses. Quite often it’s those people who are “making stuff that matters, even if it seems stupid because it feels good and important.” You know, people like artists, writers, teachers, inventors (before they sell to 3M), academics, activisits, non-profit workers, small business entrepreneurs, volunteers, musicians (before they sell to Disney), open source coders, the people who serve you your triple shot latte extra hot, students, dancers, actors, yoga instructors, mechanics, etc.

Not that those of us that sit in cattle class don’t want to make gobs of the almighty dollar, it’s just not at the top of the priority list. And thank god for that! Because if everyone was focused on the hustle of making the almighty dollar at any cost, this world would be a lonely cesspool none of us would be particularly fond of living in. We need the people who don’t prioritize the almighty dollar. Too bad we don’t value them.

I’ve been luckier than most. I’ve sat in the parts of the plane with lots of legroom, been served by an in-flight sommelier, laid flat to sleep and gotten the high quality free socks on the overseas flight. It’s an awesome feeling. Mostly because I know that it’s rare and tomorrow I’ll be flying in cattle class again and treated like a number. And I’m not saying that cattle class needs to go away or that we’d be living in a better world where we didn’t have to struggle at some level. But I do wonder why the hell having an in-flight sommelier is more important than making sure nobody in the world goes to bed hungry. And I wonder where the hell the venture capital is that will fund the projects “that matter, even if they seem stupid because they are good and important”.

I spent four years in SF Bay area watching all sorts of hustlers and weenuses get funded for their projects that didn’t really matter, were going to be the next Google and were certainly not good or important. Many of those projects are long gone along with the VC money. I also watched as really good people working on really great projects that were good and mattered struggled to find funding. Some are still working (on the side) on those projects. Some have been hired by companies like Google and Microsoft (and believed they can incorporate their good and important ideas into the big machines). Some have seen awesome community traction and found homes to support them (like and VRM). And though there is a fund for social enterprise in existence, it can’t handle all things that are good and important.

Our priorities are seriously off in this world. And I know that a good number of people agree with me. I would venture to say that there are enough people that agree with me that, as Maureen says, can “group together, fight off the weenuses and hosebags who want to turn the Internet into a giant commercial.” The voice is growing, we just need more examples. Look, I don’t have money. I’m still trying to figure out how to pay my rent next month. But there are people who do. And I believe strongly that social enterprise…or the “stuff that is good and important” is and can be profitable, too. It’s just more equitable, that’s all. And if it fails monetarily, well, at least there is a net gain for the world (not just a bunch of auctionable foosball tables and aeron chairs) just for the sheer existence of that project, which contributes to fighting off the lonely cesspool world we don’t want to live in.

Now…only if we could find that benefactor for our startup that is about being “good and important” while I’m at it.

After a lovely dinner with some friends and a half a bottle of wine, I was snuggled up with my dog and my laptop, thinking about some upcoming presentations and the assumptions I had in my approach. These assumptions are:

• For those who share their personal lives online, the majority aren’t too concerned with privacy as we understood it previously (concerns about security, etc.) and will freely trade privacy for the benefits of openness
• The benefits of openness are mostly to do with connecting with other people – both friends and friendly strangers – but also growing one’s social capital (increasing network, access to resources, goodwill, trust, etc)
• The idea is that the more open we are, the more we personally and professionally benefit, but sharing – in itself – is seen as positive
• Things seen as ‘inane babble’ to those who don’t share (what we are eating, where we are going, random thoughts) are highly important to those who do share and are part of the fabric that connects us
• Above all, those who share want to be heard – this is not seen as narcissistic nor egotistical, but rather as a contribution to the greater good that is connecting, building trust and creating community

Poking around the web, this type of information was philosophically waxed upon, but not really quantified. Most surveys were centered in buyer behavior and tool usage. There weren’t any questions being asked about human to human connection. At the same time, I received a survey from Cindy Kelly who I thought asked some great in-depth questions, so I clicked a link at the end of her survey to make my own.

The results? In just 24 hours, the survey spread through Twitter, Facebook and email and over 1,200 people took the time to answer the hacked together survey (questions formed unscientifically and from my heart).

Now I get to look at the data, which on first glance is WOW. People truly expressed themselves in amazing ways. I’m already publishing the results openly and raw for anyone to see (and here is the pdf of the summary results). The survey, itself, was completely anonymous, but I’ve glanced through to make sure nobody said anything too revealing to identify themselves. I’m releasing the data under a CC-attribution license so anyone can use it in their own work. This much value cannot be kept under wraps!

I’m going to take my next steps unconventionally as well. It’s not going to be one of those reports where I have some graphs and type out paragraphs reiterating the graphs. During the survey, I had several people pass along amazing resources that align with my questions:

• A fantastic New York Times column by John Tierney on what nytimes.com articles people shared via email over a one year period – great stuff forwarded by Matthieu Guyonnet-Duluc
• A great survey of a similar nature to mine (but asking slightly different questions) by Samir Balwani – forwarded by Tamar Weinberg
• danah boyd’s talk from SXSW Interactive this year that brings up some interesting points about the new privacy being control. – discussed on the Project VRM List
• A 2003 Paper by Jonathan Haidt and Dacher Kelter on awe that was referenced in the Tierney NYTimes column as the thing most likely to incite sharing articles.

I’ll be using some of this material (and some of my other research/experience) to analyze and interpret the data. If you have any additional resources, I’d be very open to including them in the report/analysis.

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A few people have expressed their concerns to me that this is research being done outside of an academic institution or not following a recognized research methodology. FWIW, I did an undergrad honors thesis, was on the Dean’s List, loved writing papers (always got A’s) and ended up doing a stint as a research assistant to masters and ph.d. students – many of whom followed the letter of the law when it came to research but ended up with really boring outcomes. I may not be doing this ‘right’ (meaning scientifically or under any rules), but I am doing this with the right level of curiosity and openness. Perhaps recognized research methodology is another one of those old skool dinosaurs that needs to get a little more creative. Either way, the raw data is open so feel free to interpret it in the way you’d like!

I’ve spoken before about whuffie deposits and withdrawals before. I’d like to think I deposit a lot into my whuffie account. I help people out with their campaigns, vote for them when they ask and generally follow links, photos and blog posts I see and RT, comment and pass along when necessary. I also spend a good amount of time helping friends out with advice, time and encouragement as well as spending a good amount of time on giving stuff out in general for free (posting links from my research, writing blog posts like this one, working for a large percentage of time on movements that help the general community like Coworking, etc.). So, all in all, I deposit quite a bit into my whuffie account.

On the withdrawal side of things, I ask for very little. I have only asked for RT’s and passing things along when it has to do with a charity or a movement that benefits others. I rarely, if ever, pass along links to my blogposts and ask people to read (although I do post them to twitter now since they are infrequent). I love to highlight others work more than mine and have a problem in general asking for withdrawals.

So, when the voting for Cogaoke came up, I decided that I could ‘spend’ some of that saved up social capital/whuffie and get myself enough votes to be near the top of the performing list.

How it works: last year the fine folks at Happy Cog created Cogaoke, a once a year karaoke contest taking place at SXSW Interactive. Contest hopefuls created a profile and got people to vote for them to compete. Only the top 20 voted would get to compete for the coveted title of Cogaoke Champion. I was #21, which meant I missed out on competing and went and cheered on my friends who got to compete in the top 20. This year, Cogaoke is only allowing the top 15 voted up in advance to compete and changed the rules of voting (you can only vote once per day – last year, you could refresh your browser and game the system). Being utterly disappointed that I didn’t get to compete last year, I was prepared this year. I had to treat this seriously if I was going to get in the top 15 and be allowed to compete.

So everyday for the past ten days, I’ve been barraging my followers on Twitter and my friends on Facebook to vote for me, trying everything from enticing them with the fact we will wear lingerie to perform Lady Marmalade to explaining that the vote itself takes less than 20 seconds to complete (no sign up required). I even posted a screenshot on Flickr giving instructions that show how easy it is.

Taking into account that there are four of us in our group doing the same thing daily and cumulatively having the largest following on Twitter and Facebook, the results have been quite shocking and a little disheartening. Calculating the number of votes we get per day, it’s just over 100. Divided between four of us, that is 25 each. And seeing that I’m voting 5x for myself (one on each browser and one on my phone browser) each day, that’s 20 per day! Seeing that I have 31,815 followers on Twitter alone, that’s 0.06% of my followers that are actually voting (and that’s taking into account that people are voting only once!). Not to mention that I also got the infamous Gary Vaynerchuk to ask his 878,000+ followers to vote and my SEO friend, Dean B to sprinkle it through is network…which got us probably a couple dozen votes in total.

I’ve said this before but haven’t had great proof of it: NUMBERS OF FOLLOWERS DO NOT MATTER. I did a quick survey of the top 15 as of 3:00 pm today, comparing their ‘reach’ (twitter followers/facebook friends) and their votes and as you read down the list you will see that there is absolutely no correlation as to how many votes people have compared to their ‘reach’:

Now…I won’t make any leaps into why it is that four attractive women who are real people, give a good amount to their community, have loads of followers, and offered lingerie donning have such a low percentage of votes to Twitter followers. I’m sure there are loads of factors involved, but I will say this:

• your number of followers has little to do with your ability to influence
• the larger the number, it seems, the lower the engagement per follower generally
• numbers do not equal action in the real world – which should be the true measure of influence

Certainly, voting for a karaoke contest is not an action of higher purpose, I get that, but the ‘spend’ of 10-20 seconds should correlate at some level. I’ve seen similar discrepancies when trying to engage at a low time/energy spend high purpose level (asking to retweet and/or vote for a good cause).

I pretty much know for a fact that numbers don’t matter, so some follow up questions to this are:

• have networks grown so big and saturated with content that few people pay attention anymore?
• did RickRolls, spam and phishing get us to the point where we don’t trust clicking on links anymore?
• does everyone just hate karaoke? Or me? Or me singing karaoke?
• since the promise of social networks and influence is obviously bunked, is there truly a path of influence that is decidedly old skool? (for instance, RogerNiner, who is a Karaoke Artist in his real life actually has a great list of people who support and follow him for his gigs via email) Or is it impossible to *really* figure it out because there are so many mediums and everyone has a different depth of engagement?

At the end of the day, I’m glad this happened. I’ve been looking for a good example to show in my presentations that demonstrates how little the numbers of followers/friends on social networks means when it comes to real world action. Unfortunately, the example may cost me the ability to compete for the second year in a row in Cogaoke…

Oh yeah…and of course VOTE here if you haven’t already! Today is the final day! (no sign up required btw)

One of the messages I’ve been lucky enough to be spreading lately is that of questioning the gap between business and human values. I started thinking about this issue almost two years ago, but wasn’t able to quite shape it into the message I needed to get across until earlier this year when I was preparing to give a workshop at Best Buy HQ for the Social Media Club Reality Check Series in January.

It occurred to me as I finished up The Whuffie Factor and was traveling around talking about it, there were parts of my message that were valued by business leaders and other parts that were glossed over. Those that seemed to make people squirm were the touchy-feely ones like Embrace the Chaos and Find Your Higher Purpose, which IMO are the most advanced ones. They require a major shift in thinking from being very traditional business thinking to being very human-centric. For me, this is a no-brainer. It’s key. Businesses sell to humans, why shouldn’t they align with human needs. But what I discovered as I delivered my message is that I seemed to be speaking a foreign language. And not only was it foreign, but it was undervalued. “Where is the 101? Should we have a Facebook page or a Twitter account or both?” “How do we measure ROI?” was thrown back at me like nothing I said had sunk in. I was told by colleagues that my message was too basic. Huh?

That’s when I began to realize that there is a deeper misunderstanding here than the economics of social currency – which is what TWF is all about and I started preaching in 2006. But as I heard more and more social media types describe these social economics (whether they used Whuffie or Social Currency or Social Capital or…), something wasn’t changing: the business approach to online communities. Social capital wasn’t being described as a currency that works differently, but in tandem with market capital, it was being described as a thing to be mined…a justification for a social media strategy. “Look at all of the social capital we can leverage to make more money!” This was so not my intention.

And then the lightbulb went on! I realized that what was wrong with the whole picture was the gap between the underlying values of business:

• Profit
• Process
• Efficiency
• Return on Investment
• Risk Management & Planning
• Maximize Resources, Minimize Waste
• Reliability
• Accountability
• Growth
• Hierarchy
• Competitiveness & Winning
• Dedication & Loyalty
• Control
• Etc.

…and the underlying human values that drive community:

• Compassion
• Generosity
• Connectedness
• Freedom
• Love
• Truth & Authenticity
• Courage & Fidelity
• Charity
• Wisdom
• Stories
• Openness
• Personal Growth
• Beauty
• Etc.

Certainly, there is reason to some of these value-gaps. As business has grown and the ability to reach wider, global audiences has increased, efficiency and process help drive the planning for expansion. And with profitability at the core of all these values, that is necessary. But as businesses started to move into a very sacred space (and I like to compare our online communities to that of the forests of Pandora on Avatar in my presentation), these values begin to poison the very human interactions we have there. All of a sudden, things shift and the things we hold so dear are being ignored (or de-valued “tweeting about what you are having for lunch is so inane!”), co-opted (community members, themselves, becoming ‘personal brands’ or what I call roboticized) or exploited (community sourcing is the process of exploiting generosity). And this is not the direction we need to go in IMO. I believe strongly that, rather than business injecting business values onto our communities to business ends, we really need to turn the tides and teach business how to espouse human values again…or as Gary Hamel writes in his excellent column, put soul back into business. It is human beings, after all, that are necessary to the success of any business (whether employees or customers).

Which is why I DO mind the gap between business values and human values and why this has become the focus of my most recent work and presentations:

As the presentation states, we humans are growing less and less trusting of where we are spending our money and our time (working), but we still desire that connection. No, we don’t want to be chummy with companies, but we are seeking out those brands that espouse human values to spend our time and money with. And that is the key here. It’s not just a nice thing to do, although I believe that without this shift, the world is going to get a whole lot scarier – think the current economic crisis but worse. It’s also a smart business move. There is much more business can learn from the values driving the growth of online communities than where to target the next generation of buyers. Call it a revolution or a paradigm shift or what you will, but it is happening and it needs to be said over and over until the shift is made universally. This doesn’t just make for a better future for humans, but for business as well. Like it or not, we are living in a consumer society and we may as well make it a harmonious relationship.

So, yes, I DO mind the gap and so should everyone else. We spend a great amount of time on connecting, sharing, being generous and creating beauty. This is incredibly valuable and IS making the world a better place. Let’s keep it move in that direction.

[photos by: shutterstock]

Most all of us, whether we notice it or not, spend a good part of our lives in some form of consumer-company interaction. Whether we are shopping for groceries, banking, paying rent, shopping for clothes, picking a movie, buying a book, selling our services, working for a company whose services we are performing for customers or eating at a restaurant. I’m not sure what percentage of our lives are spent on one side of the equation or the other, but I’d guess that a good majority of our time is spent consuming or selling.

And though I dislike the term ‘consumer’, the truth is that in today’s world, that’s what it resembles. It’s transactional, impersonal and more often than not marginalizing. It’s as if it is in the DNA of business to push the limits on how badly it can treat the customer to maximize revenue. And over the years, it seems, that limit has been creeping further down the rabbit hole of customer hell. Pain limits are pushed to a level where the customer *almost* decides the transaction isn’t worth making with the business, but when the customer gets used to that pain level, the business pushes the pain further. And so on until we are so used to poor treatment, the simplest gesture that makes us feel empowered again feels like a win.

With online soapboxes like Twitter, blogs and Facebook, though, the individual has the ability to connect with other individuals to get a better deal, and the bigger the soapbox, the more we are empowered. The only problem is that business has got wind of this soapbox and works strategically on shutting it down.

I was working away at my computer today when my phone rang. I picked it up to hear the friendly voice of a representative from CIBC, the bank I deal with in Canada. “How are you today, Miss Hunt? I’m calling to see if I can help you with the issue you were having with CIBC the other day.” I paused to wait for it, “You know, the one you posted about online?”

Bingo. CIBC is using some tracking software to pick up mentions on Twitter and the blogs (most likely will reply to this post, too) and then saw that I have over 30k followers and that particular rant started a rather large conversation. Because of this, my ‘issue’ was escalated to a personal service department where I now have a personal service agent who I may call at any point with issues. Awwww. Isn’t that nice?

No. It’s strategic. And it’s a lovely and nice way to try to silence me. Like attracting more bees with honey. Or being the sun in the parable about the wind and sun in competition to remove the coat from the man. And the gentleman I chatted with at CIBC was awesome and said he’d relay all of my suggestions to the proper decision makers and gave me his personal number and released some money from the hold, but I’m still not satisfied.

Because, well, I don’t take bribes (#12) even when they don’t look like one. I want change. I don’t want to see change for me, I want to see change for everyone. I want banks to stop experimenting with how far they can push us before we cry ‘uncle’ on their policies and start thinking about how they can help us achieve our dreams with customer-empowering policies. I want business to invest in technology that streamlines and helps the customer experience, not technology that spies on us. I would even go as far as sitting down with executives at CIBC for FREE to understand what the hold up is and to consult with them on improving their system for customers. I’d even connect them to the right talent to implement the system. Hell, I want this so badly I’d even pay for this to happen.

Every business starts facing a decision to make: are we here to serve customers or are we here to get rich? Conventional wisdom, set by standards that are unproven and short-sighted, leads most businesses to pick the latter. But picking customer happiness as the core driver to your business is actually the better way. It leads to satisfaction, loyalty, positive word-of-mouth, efficiency and, ultimately, riches for the business. Happy customers means you spend less on customer acquisition and retention, employee retention and recruitment, innovation (you are more innovative, but use less resources), and operations (happy customers lead to more efficient operations as you, by definition, become more efficient). You’ll beat the competition every time because they can’t figure out why customers flock to you while they have rock bottom prices.

As I‘ve been quoted saying, ‘Designing your product for monetization first, and people second will probably leave you with neither.’ As the market tips more and more towards the whims of the customer, this will ring more and more true. Now is the time for us to use all of the power we have to move business in the direction of customer-centric thinking. It’s good for everyone.

[photo credit: JLMaral on Flickr]

I love disruption, especially when one is disrupting towards a positive end. When there is the ability to disrupt a dominant system that discriminates against people or favors those already in power – such as well, North America – I love it even more. So firstly, to outline what I propose to disrupt:

1. Stereotyping – somehow, even though we examined stereotypes eons ago, the attitudes seem to persist. The problem is that now they persist in more subtle ways. Not so easy to put our finger on it and call it out, which is an issue.
2. Individuality over community – this one is easy to spot and many will tell me it’s a good thing. I don’t think it is. There should be a balance, but if anything, I believe the balance should tip in the favour of community. Many studies have shown that putting community interests first actually benefits the individual more in the long-run. See: Non-Zero and The Origins of Virtue.
3. No-Choice Consumerism – I’m not referring to monopolies as much as I am referring to the lack of choice we actually have in choosing to opt-in or opt-out. I love to shop. Anyone who knows me knows I have a bit of a passion for it. But when I do, I struggle to keep in charge of my own experience and outcome. There are too many situations where pressure, scare tactics, smoke and mirrors and general exploitation come into play while I’m trying to make a decision.
4. Life Inc. – Also the name of an awesome book by Douglas Rushkoff, it’s also the reality of a world of people emulating corporations. I see this all of the time: people concerned about their personal brand, creating an elevator pitch for their lives, choosing friends based on ability to connect to powerful people, creating an image they can never live up to and when it falls apart, they try to sweep under the carpet. It’s emotionless, inauthentic and getting really boring if you ask me. I wrote about it a little here.

There are a few other themes, but I want to move along to the disruptions. Disruptions are unlike movements or protests or even flashmobs. They don’t require a great deal of organizing and you can’t really plan when you are going to perform them. The one thing they DO require is courage because they are about being hyper aware of the moment in which you see one of the above themes playing out and then questioning the theme openly – at the expense of being called a party pooper. But the awesome part of disruptions is that they are extremely powerful. When someone tells a racist joke and, instead of laughing, you say, “That’s not funny,” they will think twice about telling that joke again. So…here are 15 easy everyday ways to disrupt a system:

1. Flip around your pronouns when storytelling, especially where they have been heavily gendered. Refer to a man caring for the kids/doing housework, refer to a woman as the CEO, etc. Not only are you breaking the cycle of bias in the brains of your listeners, you will get their attention. Like Chip and Dan Heath say in Made to Stick, the #2 way to make your idea stick is through unexpectedness.
2. When talking to someone who uses gendered pronouns (or having someone tweet or blog gendered pronouns), gently suggest they read the previous suggestion. OR you can answer back flipping the pronoun if you want to be more subtle. It will make them think about it from that point forward.
3. Look people in the eye and smile at them as you walk by them. Add a nod or ‘good day’ once you get the hang of it. This one is super simple and incredibly catchy. Research has shown that smiles spread.
4. Diversify your examples. Find out what is happening beyond the whositwhatsits in your professional world and educate yourself on the people doing great work at the edges. In technology, it’s me looking at what’s happening in India, Europe, China, etc. as well as what’s happening in Silicon Valley. Bring up these examples in conversations that highlight the whositwhatsits over and over again until people spread it onwards.
5. Call out sexist, racist, homophobic, xenophobic or any other ‘minority group as stereotype’ jokes, references, slurs or language. This sounds like a d’uh thing, but it’s really hard. Doing so makes you look like a party pooper. But really, the person making those comments should know that they look like an arse. You are doing everyone a favour.
6. Don’t buy products from companies that offend you or treat you badly. Most of us do this already, but sometimes it’s really really convenient. Hell, I have a plan with AT&T. I need to not do that anymore. And I buy from American Apparel, even though their ads make me really angry. I need to stop that, too. It’s inconvenient, but important to send the message through not spending our money to support bad companies.
7. Take the time to talk with people with vastly different opinions. This is really hard. I usually get about 5 minutes into these conversations and want to scream and run away, but persistence (and patience) pays off. The first step is to stop trying to get them to listen to you and listen to them. Find a point of connection. There is usually more than one of those. Hear them out. Understand where they come from. Believe it or not, we usually want the same things, we just disagree on how we get there. Once the defenses are down, you’ll find great solutions together and inform your own opinion.
8. Take the time to get to know people with vastly different experiences of the world. This always blows my mind. I learn WAY more from having conversations with people who don’t fit the ‘mainstream’ experience of the world than I do from bestsellers.
9. Start taking people to task who talk about new media marketing in the same way Mad Men used old media marketing. If I see another new media guru use Don Draper’s creative style as the ideal to uphold in marketing, I’ll scream. No, that ‘carousel’ episode is still the epitome of how things ‘were’ (creating some sort of illusion to sell a product) and does not represent really connecting to one’s customer. The real power in online communities comes from the ability to connect with new friends and old on a human level. Emotional. Real. It’s less about how a company can co-opt and exploit that and more about what companies can learn from this. (more about this at a later date)
10. Admit to your mistakes. Openly. Brutally honestly. And take responsibility for them. Then learn from them.
11. Get to know your neighbours. Even the crab apples upstairs who tell you to turn down your bass. Spend time getting involved with your neighbourhood associations, events, etc. Reach out and create a supportive community. This is something else I need to do. I find this really scary. I don’t know why. The benefits outweigh the potential rejection.
12. Don’t take bribes. What I mean by this is don’t take a free voucher or delivery or whatever a company offers to you alleviate the pain they caused you with your transaction with them. Instead, ask for them to fix the problem. Take them to task and offer to give suggestions that may help them improve their service. For instance, I ordered a microwave from Future Shop and then got totally dicked around by their awful call in center. When they figured out I had >25,000 twitter followers, they contacted me offering all sorts of things, but I refused. I said, “I don’t want you to fix this issue for me, I want you to fix this issue for everyone.” Who knows if it’ll be effective. I haven’t shopped there since. I told them to call me when the call center is fixed and I’ll try them again.
13. Leave product reviews. There is a reason why sites like Yelp, Chowhound and Amazon are so popular. It’s because of people like you and I leaving product reviews. I rarely buy anything – even offline – without checking the Amazon reviews. Yelp and Chowhounds are my personal foodie guides wherever I go. And in Montreal, I found this amazing list of restaurant reviews. Generous people sharing their knowledge everyday makes the world an easier place to navigate.
14. Demand your data. Why? Because if this awesome group has their way, the future will be driven by the customer and then you’ll want all of the content and reputation and identity and history you’ve been depositing around the internet for years. It will be valuable for your experience and for YOU to leverage your own power. So, click on that little ‘suggestion’ tab or ‘feedback’ button and say to the networks you are making more interesting with your contributions: “Hey, have you thought about giving me the opportunity to export my reviews/tweets/photos/connections/shopping history/preferences/etc to use elsewhere?” The more requests they get, the more they’ll be pressured to do this.
15. Use all the tools available to you to call out injustices and bad experiences. The beauty of the web is that there are literally hundreds and even thousands of others who have experienced similar situations. If you get pissed enough and have enough momentum, you can even start to do something about it. The United Breaks Guitars videos did an amazing job of getting dozens of people to share their experiences (and also refused to take a bribe by asking United to make a donation). And as I wrote here, even spreading the word through blogs and tweets makes a difference.

Of course, these small steps are only icebreakers to apathy, but we all get so busy that starting somewhere that fits in our schedules yet is bigger than a tweet is a good start. And each of these small disruptions packs a big punch. Good disrupting!

The presentation I gave at nextMEDIA in Toronto today. Basic premise, let’s put human stuff first when using the ‘new’ media (and in every case, in fact). Stuff like personality, quality, relationships and taking the time to invest in the people you follow/follow you is really important for being able to raise that crucial social capital that helps us achieve our goals at the end of the day (job, growing our business, changing the world, raising money, etc).

[image from: Shutterstock]

I was fortunate enough to be part of a webinar with Beth Kanter today. Beth gave a fantastic presentation and I really enjoyed our conversation (I’ll post the link once it’s available).

But what I enjoyed the most was when, in response to a question about figuring out how much Whuffie one has, Beth showed a great diagram:

that will be in her book coming out next year, The Networked NonProfit.

What I love most about the way Beth thinks of measuring is that the impact, not the influence is the final goal. The big prize. All too many times, people stop at the influence part: how popular is that person? how many followers do we have? who is talking about me and my company? how much love do people feel for me?

This is one of the biggest reasons I don’t like to measure Whuffie. I get the question time and time again when I talk about the book. The question I *should* be getting is ‘what can I do with my Whuffie?’. We should be less concerned about how many followers one has and more about what that person does with that many followers. Not only is Whuffie left better in the non-fungible, ephemeral realm, but it is inconsequential. The measure needs to be in the impact. If we concentrate on our influence, we forget the end goal. We get caught up in our ego.

And ego isn’t where we want to get caught up. Fame for fame’s sake. Followers for followers sake. This all turns into, “Look at me! I’m influential! It makes me special!” It’s easy to get caught up in, but don’t. Which reminds me, an influencer who tends to not dwell on his famousness, Chris Brogan, talked about this the other day. Enjoy:

Remember the impact. What will be your legacy? That you were just famous for being famous (i.e. Paris Hilton and/or Vaporware)? Or that you made a difference, built something revolutionary, or led a real change in the world?

[Please don't read this if you haven't seen the season finale of Mad Men - serious spoiler alert]

For three seasons of Mad Men I watched in frustration as Don Draper seemed to get away with anything and everything. A handsome, well-dressed, privileged, tall white guy that could take everyone in his circle for granted, lie to them, cheat on them and treat them like garbage, yet continue get everything he wanted. It was a frustrating parable for me, a woman who spends a big part of her daily routine trying to make the world a place where people like Don can’t get away with murder. But there he was and people loved him. Hell, even I had to love him.

Of course, he was “good” to the people who didn’t say anything. He bestowed his wife, Betty, with all the finery she wanted at home, provided a good life, said the right things to let her know she was lovely. Yet, he cheated on her at every turn, lied to her constantly and treated her like a child when it came to her real, human concerns. She was solipsized by his personality as merely an extension of him. With his former secretary and now copyrighter, Peggy, he kept her secret and gave her a good promotion and an office. She should be grateful, right? Only she paid for his graciousness along the way by keeping his secrets, working her weekends away (while he played), jumping when he said jump and taking his constant belittling.

It wasn’t only the women who were kept at arms length with Don, it was also the men. He didn’t really have any friends. No sense of loyalty. He spent most of his time peacocking around, proving that nobody could own him. And nobody could. They feared him and were too scared to talk back. Too scared to stand up to him. In fact, Don’s ‘relationships’ were akin to having thousands of Twitter followers but little engagement with them. Looks impressive from a distance, but rather ineffective in the long run.

Until the last part of this season…or at least the last two episodes…where you saw his controlled world break down around him spectacularly because he forgot that the glue that holds together worlds when times are tough is relationships. And relationships aren’t something that Draper understands. When the people around him finally get the gumption to say ‘enough is enough’, Draper has to face the fact that he’s broken everything he tried to build by forgetting the most important part of life: connections to other people.

I’m sure Draper isn’t going to change overnight and become a warm, caring individual. I doubt that he’d be as interesting. But I look forward to the next season where he realizes that he does have to invest the time into ‘throwing sheep‘ a bit more and building those soup friends. Ruling through fear only creates resentment and de-motivates. And I look forward to the world that is tuned into The Draper having an epiphany themselves that the best way to get to the top is through being networked, notable AND nice.