Bye, Bye Barbie – Hello BlackBerry

– Caity Kauffman is a 20-year-old, social media-obsessed journalism student dabbling in sports writing, news writing and broadcast. Follow her on twitter at @caitykauffman.

As technology is filtering down to younger and younger generations (I have a friend who gave his three-year-old niece his iPhone when he upgraded to the 3G. No joke.) there is a rise in the concern of its effects on the developing brain.

Being born in the late-1980s, I’m the first generation to literally grow up in a digital world. Somewhere in the depths of a scrapbook, there’s baby picture of me poking away at an IBM computer the size of mini-fridge. When I was 10-years-old, my parents gave me my first desktop Gateway. I filmed and digitally edited my 13th birthday party, and the same year I got my first cell phone – a silver Motorola flip phone the size of a brick. I don’t have veins, I have wires.

Question is: is the digital world helping the Internet generation utilize our brains, or are we just distracting it with multitasking overload?

There are times, I’ll admit, my digital savvy has been more distracting than productive. I’ve fiddled away hours clicking through Facebook statuses or played mindless hours of Guitar Hero until my thumb nearly cracks off.

Last week, my honors reading class at Florida Gulf Coast University discussed of Don Tapscott’s “Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation Is Changing Your World.” Our class of seven (plus one journalism professor to keep us on track) seemed to all agree that the baby boomers’ implications that NetGen-ers lack concentration, productivity and retain less information aren’t all true.

Tapscott wrote about interactive technology, and how regularly playing an action video game can change how the brain processes information.

John, an outspoken, bearded philosophy major can vouch for video games, using Halo as an example. “You notice your radar, how much ammo you have, where your teammates are, how much life you have left all while you’re having a conversation with your team on a headset,” he says.  “We are able to instantly compartmentalize every aspect of the game.”

I guess it’s no surprise teenage boys lock themselves into their bedrooms for hours at a time, committing virtual massacres inside their TV screen: there’s a hell of a lot to process simultaneously.

Audrey, a soft spoken 21-year-old from Malaysia, takes multitasking to an entirely new realm. She says in order to concentrate, she listens to Chinese music (one of four languages she speaks) as she reads her textbooks that are written in English, writes her blog in English all while switching back and forth from Facebook.

She does admit the the United States’ reliance on technology has made her a little lazy since moving to the states to attend college. “I grew up in Malaysia, and we had to memorize a lot,” she says. “Here, we copy and paste. I think it has to do with culture.”

But why memorize when we carry around Google on our iPhones?

As much as my generation is reliant on our BlackBerrys to help us find the nearest coffee shop, I think it has to be more with efficiency than laziness. The world moves faster than ever, and there’s an increasing urgency for productivity. If Merriam-Webster says “google” is a legitimate verb, then Google I will.

How Intuit Stays Relevant Using Social Media

Christen Wegner is a former journalist turned resident Gen Yer on the communications team at Intuit. When not on Twitter, she is usually texting, on Facebook, or writing for various blogs like Small Business United and TurboTax.

One of the hottest topics for any business, from the small to the large is social. So my first thought when Kyle Lacy sent me a tweet asking me to write a guest blog post I was like “Oh cool, Intuit is doing so much, yay, let’s share.”

So I started collecting info regarding all out campaigns, events, and information and started sharing that with friends and family. But what floored me was what I would find out after talking with a couple former coworkers. Companies are actually still banning their employees from social media – things like Facebook, Twitter, and gasp, personal blogs.

I guess I live in a little bubble and take for granted the fact that at Intuit, we are trusted that we will do what is right as THE voice of Intuit on social channels. And without those social channels there is no way Intuit could have done anything fun, interesting or relevant to what small businesses want and need.

One of those conversations was with a former colleague who told me her company has just blocked Facebook and MySpace from their computers stating employees were “wasting too much time on the social networks.” Of course, her IT department didn’t account for the mobile applications and now employees are frequently seen gripping their Blackberry’s and iPhones.

Thriving with social

When I joined Intuit, social media wasn’t new but it was this undiscovered territory. We were trying to find the right balance between keeping our employees happy and keeping them productive. Happily three years later I can sit here, write this article, have TweetDeck running in the background, and occasionally check out Facebook.

In fact, Intuit encourages employees to do just that. We have employees who train customer service reps, engineers and developers how to start interacting in such social channels. On our Intuit Community dozens of different employees interact every day answering questions, solving problems and simply act as a sounding board for our customers. And what is even better is the Community is where customers go to talk to other customers as well.

And our Small Business team was one of the first teams at Intuit on Twitter. Today we have more than 50 teams and individuals out there. What they learned early on meant a change in strategy for Intuit and insights into how we can help small businesses succeed.

Much of that success led to a desire for other social networking events like town halls, small business events, and a blog where regular experts discuss their tips and tricks (http://smallbusiness.intuit.com/blog/). All of this to help small businesses succeed in business and thrive in the social realm.

Over the last eight months we have managed the Love a Local Business Campaign in which Intuit is putting small businesses on the map. The idea is that fans, including customers, vendors, employees, and the community, determine what small businesses deserve some love with winners receiving small business grants.

That’s right, free money for doing what these small business do every day – take care of their customers and being social.

A big part of our strategy reflects a changing world where people and businesses are increasingly connected. We want to arm all small businesses and employees with tools , ways to listen, and create strong customer engagement as one small business community.

I don’t think any of this could have been done without access to our social channels. So thanks Intuit for letting me and my team stay relevant. And the hope is that our work helps small businesses stay relevant as well.

I Don’t Care About Your Clients. I Care About Their Friends.

Here is a quick thought for your Monday morning. I always try to get a point across in all of my seminars surrounding the concepts in social media and the Internet. it goes something like this..

“As a marketer in this age of online communication.. I don’t care about your clients… I care about their friends.”

This concept has been gaining importance according to the rules of viral marketing and online marketing. When we are focusing on lead generation through social media it is extremely important to understand what SELLS your product or service. What story do you tell the end-user that pulls people toward your brand? How do you get people involved passed the direct mail piece or the tweet you sent out yesterday?

You get your current customers to tell the story for you.

You train your happy clients to tell their version of your story!

It is a fact of nature right? We tend to have friends that are similar to us… your friends… your business contacts… your important professional network… the closest people tend to have the same type of values.

We want to our clients to sell our story. Referrals are the best way to gain business leads and social media has created a platform to make that sharing… so much easier.

Education and the ability to teach your customers the art of sharing is and will be… extremely important to growing your business in this new age of online communication.

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Only the Passionate Survive

I’m going to be completely transparent with you right now… not because it is something all of us “preach” in the world of Internet communication… but because this is where real and meaningful content is created.

I’ve been dragging through my life the past couple of months and I’m trying to put my finger on it… put my finger on the pulse that has been slowly fading… trying (like many people) to figure it all out.

I’m not dragging because a lack of great business. I’m not dragging because a lack of business or professional recognition. Everything is good in the world of business and I am blessed.

Maybe I just need a reboot? Maybe I just need something to push me into the realm of satisfaction? Maybe the key is… I’ll never be satisfied… and maybe I am okay with the notion of never stopping.

Maybe it is just the stress of owning a small business… but maybe I am okay with that as well!

Through my life I have read countless business books. I have had the pleasure of reading everything from Losing My Virginity by Richard Branson to Made to Stick by the Heath brothers and there seems to be a central theme in every book:

Passionate individuals

Richard Branson LOVED music. The Heath brothers taught us the art of telling stories about the things we LOVE to do. The central theme creeps through every page… the theme of only the passionate surviving.  Seth Godin’s recent blog post talks about passion in the workplace:

“I don’t think there’s a relationship between what you do and how important you think the work is. I think there’s a relationship between who you are and how important you think the work is.”

It is truly only the passionate that survive through owning businesses, economic downturn, and competitive environments. It is only the passionate that are creative enough to push into new territories, use new technology, and create new products.

You have to be obsessed with what you do… up to the point of it becoming a true passion.

What does it mean to have true passion?

1. You have the ingenuity and drive to create new products and offerings for your clients.
2. You don’t hesitate at change and welcome diversity.
3. New technology and communication techniques are implemented… always.
4. Your employees love what they do… they are the direct reflection of yourself.
5. You are known as the go-to-person in your location and industry because people can sense the passion in your eyes.

You could create an endless list but I am set on the idea that creativity and innovation are a sign of true passion.

I am going to make a conscious effort to rediscover that true passion and push past the worthless space of “not-knowing.” Life is way to short not to know what you want to do.

And if you are not feeling the “passion.” Find another way.. find another route.. find that diamond in the rough.

Does Your Employee’s Personal Life Matter to Your Company?

There have been a few conversations circulating among my network pertaining to the personal life of employees being spread through the social sphere. Here is the overall question:

Does your employee’s personal life matter to your company? Does it affect your company brand?

Some say yes and some say no. The way an employee acts and talks outside of the work has never been more scrutinized than right now. We are living in a world where a mis-sent email, random tweet, or Facebook picture could damage a company and the guilty employee. Let’s run a scenario:

Employee A sends out a Facebook status update to their friends about a club they attended the night before (this could even be a tweet). The status update reads:

I had such a good time last night at Club XYZ. We were really boozing it up and I might have went home with a somebody, but I woke up at my apartment. So we are okay!

Now, I’m not saying that anyone would actually send this… it is only for this scenario. Let’s say that a follower took offense to the comment because the employee worked for a company that touted “ethical values” and shared the comment with their friends… which in turn was shared by a few other people.. and a few other people.. and a few hundred people.

Now the question is… does that affect or hurt the employer? Should employers be more conscious of their employees use of social media? I am torn on the issue and because of this… I decided to ask the opinions of Abbie Fink, Jay Baer, and Jason Falls.

Abbie Fink is Vice President and General Manager for HMA Public Relations :

It is important to remember that there is a very fine line between personal and professional when you are in the social media space.

At our office, I want my team to have some personality and encourage that, in fact.  But knowing that they are representing a variety of different clients, we periodically remind them that any statements on their personal pages must reflect well on us as a business and that of our clients. It is also what I advise when working with clients who are finding their way around Facebook, Twitter, etc.

My guess is that one such post from one employee on their personal page would not damage the employer’s brand. But again, it will be important for that employer to have guidelines in place and monitor what is being said.

Jason Falls is Founder and Tough Guy at Social Media Explorer

That’s why employers and employees need to have social media policies. It’s disappointing that an educated adult would say something offensive or potentially damaging to their career or their company in a public forum, but people mistakenly think that protected Tweets or certain privacy settings mean no one will see it. If you post it, people can see it, capture it, index it and even replicate it so it never goes away.

I tell people they should assume everything they post on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and so on can be seen by their spouse, boss, priest, rabbi, minister, children, grandmother, employees and competitors. If you know that and then post something foolish you get what you deserve.

Companies need social media policies for instances just like this. It can take me less than a minute to see the Tweet, find out who sent it and who they work for. Even if things are private the individual can be found on LinkedIn and Google is really smart and connects the dots. If the individual had been through social media training and been given a company policy it may have stopped the offending tweet.

Jay Baer is Founder and Consultant at Convince and Convert

The lines are continually blurring between personal and professional lives in the online environment. Does it affect you if your employee is a closet dominatrix and readily shares that information to world? Of course it does! It didn’t matter ten…twenty…thirty years ago but it matters now.

It is important to educate your employees on the use of social media and without a policy your dominatrix sales person could sink a client or your bottom line.

There you have it. Jay, Abbie, and Jason are thought leaders in the industry of digital communication and I highly value their opinions. It is important to have a social media policy in place when you encourage your employees to start using social media. The world is an open book and your employees could harm your brand or potential business.

For more information on social media policy development check out Jason’s blog : What Every Company Should Know About Social Media Policy

Blubbering Blogger

Today’s guest post is by Melissa Mattingly. Melissa is a graduate from Depauw University in 2007 and works for the Indianapolis Convention & Visitors Association in the membership department. She is a cheer coach at Speedway High School and lives within walking distance to the Indy 500 withhusband Eric, and crazy mutt, Knuckles.

It takes me approximately 4 minutes to decide what I want to order when I go to McDonalds even though the dollar menu is probably my favorite “cookbook.” Sit me down in a fancy restaurant; you can bump it up to 15. Put me in a department store fitting room and you’d think I might have been taken hostage. Holy cow, it can take me an hour to decide what I (@MelMatto if you’re interested) should tweet!  Ask me to write a post about social media and the blog might be extinct by the time I’m done. Alright, I’m not that bad – but when Kyle said my timeframe for completion was “as soon as possible…450 words or less” I almost fainted.

Within this past year I thought I really wanted to start a blog. The problem I ran into is that I didn’t know why. Was it just for myself? Was I hoping to throw insight to helpless followers? I didn’t know what I wanted out of it and I still feel like that should be rule #1 when starting a blog. If you can’t even fill out the “about” section how are you suppose to have a successful blog?  I know some people just wing it and as the blog ages, it grows into something with meaning – but I’m way too OCD for that. I’m more of a step-by-step kind of gal. Give me a recipe; I’ll bake you a cake. Give me instructions; I’ll build the best Lego castle you’ve ever seen. But simply throwing food and Lego’s at me will only result in one colorful, crunchy lump of dough.

I even went as far as creating a page (seen here) but never started because I knew when I started I would have to keep up with it and what if I ran out of ideas? What if – gasp! – no one cared what I had to say but my mom. Most importantly, does the web really need another blogger? Does the web really need another so called “professional” to give their opinion on a topic they may have minute experience with? I remember around 10 years ago when the only bloggers were tweens with an open heart diary. Now there are so many conflicting opinions to process it’s turning into a psychological disease. “Information Overload,” according to Wikipedia, states: “As the world moves into a new era of globalization, an increasing number of people are connecting to the Internet to conduct their own research and are given the ability to produce as well as consume the data accessed on an increasing number of websites. Users are now classified as active users because more people in society are participating in the Digital and Information Age. This flow has created a new life where we are now dependent on access to information. Therefore we see an information overload from the access to so much information, almost instantaneously, without knowing the validity of the content and the risk of misinformation. When the individual is plunged into a fast and irregularly changing situation or a novelty-loaded context … his predictive accuracy plummets. He can no longer make the reasonably correct assessments on which rational behavior is dependent.”

Now again, Wikipedia (in a sense) could be seen as another blogger so maybe this statement has no warrant to some of you but where does it stop? I’m proud to be an American and believe in free speech to its’ fullest but can blogging dumb people down? Does it cause people to rely too much on what others say instead of making their own decisions? I, for one, honestly don’t have any answers. But if I do – maybe that would be a good topic to start my blog.

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Social Media Creates TRUE Networking

I have talked at length about the value of combining your offline and online networking. I have been believer in the absolute value of social networking sites being the pinnacle of true networking… the pinnacle of creating a valuable relationship between two people.

I was reading a post at the Winnepeg Sun called The Re-Wired Generation. Although this article was written about the Internet driven Generation Y it had an excerpt from University of Toronto sociology professor, Berry Wellman:

“Far from replacing face to face time and breeding a generation of reclusives, Facebook and Twitter are actually enhancing interpersonal relationships offline…

The Internet is complementing, continuing and maintains relationships,” he said. “It’s letting weaker relationships stay in contact.”

There was a time in the business world where you would meet individuals at networking events and forget them the next day. The faces and names would be categorized into a business card pile and shoved into a dark desk drawer. This “networking for forgetting” has been all but erased if the two people are connected on a social media platform  like LinkedIn. The personal development between an individual and their client is based on touch-points. The more touch-points you have with a person the greater the relationship (we would like to think so). The essence of social media is built around the touch-points on the Internet. Can you connect to prospect using LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook? The wealth of information given to you in a single sitting is exponential!

Instead of dismissing social media and using the old forms of communication. Try developing your weaker business or personal relationships using an online model. You may be pleasantly surprised.

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B2B Marketing through Social Media and Blogging

What is the one thing that comes up time and time again in our educational sessions at Brandswag? B2B use of social media. I have heard plenty of reasons why social media could not… should not.. be used to sell the B2B world.

What do many B2B companies do right now for marketing? Direct Mail? Newspaper Advertising? E-Newsletters? Many of the outbound forms of marketing still work for B2B sales but blogging (in my mind) has taken a mainstream stance when building trust and thought-leadership in a specific industry.

There are some truths to the thought that content can build trust between individuals. Many of us look at B2B marketing as fundamentally different from B2C marketing. Honestly….. (in my humble opinion) there is hardly any difference.

We are selling to people.

Business to business based companies are still selling to people. The CEO of a distribution company is still a person despite the fact he deals with companies instead of an individual.

If you are sitting at the helm in a B2B company remember to start a blog that contains content, daily interactions, client thoughts/opinions and industry news. Your purpose is to create an informational powerhouse that keeps people reading…

And involved them in your story… your brand… your legacy.

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A Philosophical Debate Over Personal Branding

I decided to move the conversation happening over on Facebook (surrounding personal branding) regarding my post on Dan Schwabel’s Personal Branding blog: From Identity to Personality. Be Remembered.

————————————————
Dave Bennett:
Dear Social Media Expert, twitterific and facebookish Kyle Lacey,

First off let me say that I respect what you’re doing in marketing, you’re pushing the edges of the field, you’re making people money, and you’re (hopefully) doing something that you love. All things I respect and root for in this world.

I have some issues, a few philosophical peccadilloes that I need to pick with you and the industry you participate in. So from one double major in philosophy to another (I think I remember you being involved in AU’s philosophy program) let me start my being acerbic and dispensing with pretense.

What you call identity and personality seem to really be pretentious self-projections. Don’t get me wrong, they might be really successful self-projections that gain favor, popularity, and a following but they are far from human dignity.

What you see as the point of self expression is external recognition. But the self is something internal and independent from what others think of you, if you are basing who you are on how to attract others, then you really are nothing at all. You’re a pretentious clone of perceived likes and dislikes, a customer service invertebrate bending to the latest marketing trends.

My issue isn’t really with customer service or with marketing, its with the collusion of these two and personal identity. When in reality your virtual representation is really the most controlled and least personal representation you can come up with. That is something I am ok with, but call it what it is: namely an advertisement, don’t continue to add to the massive amount of illiteracy out there.

What I mean is that there are many people who can read, but few who are literate, few who mean what they say and understand what is meant when they read. Don’t add to the misuse of language and self-understanding in your furthering of marketing, viral marketing, etc.

Branding myself is the biggest pretense yet, and while successful, crosses into the unethical when it associates the person solely with the symbol. As if a symbol could ever really encompass a person, especially when personal branding doesn’t really represent the person at all but the concoction of personal investment in an idea or product.

I guess what I really want to know is: when you leave an emotional response on twitter or facebook, create a following, if your emotional response is raw. If it is independent of your desire for a following. And if it isn’t then is it you or a self-projection of you? A dumbassed question really, but it begs the ethics of human dignity.

Where is human dignity in self-branding when self-branding doesn’t allow for unpopular responses? I hate the idea of selling your “self”, because what is sold isn’t “self” but what the customer wants. Call it what it is.

Basically, I’m wondering, where do these things fall into twitter and facebook marketing? How does self-branding differ from self-projection?

Me/Kyle:

Let me first state that the idea “from identity to personality” is loosely based off of a excerpt from Emotional Branding by Marc Gobe.

“Identity is descriptive. It is recognition. Personality is about character and charisma. Brand identities are unique and express a point of difference. But this is only the first step. Brand personalities, on the other hand, are special. They have a charismatic character that provokes an emotional response. American airlines has a strong identity, but Virgin airlines as personality.”

One other thing to think about in terms of my post:

The things I write about are not suppose to based in any type of philosophical nature… it would be like scientist arguing my logic using scientific reasoning. I write and discuss concepts in business communication, period.

The post you read and responded to… was merely an idea behind personal branding. I am not arguing the point of self discovery and emotional response in terms of inner angst (or beauty). I am plainly talking about the concepts of a story… the emotional stimulation a customer or client will receive when they connect with something you write or say..

I write what I think because it is reality.. it isn’t steeped in some inner personal conflict or unrealistic interpretation of identity vs personality. It is business plain and simple… I will give more soon. Thank you for your thoughts. I love debating and trying to solve issues in communication!

———————————-

What do you think? Is it worth furthering the conversation on this blog?

Marketers Can’t Speak Human

This graphic hit me hard. A simple design and yet such a profound message. Why don’t marketers know how to speak human?

Also… a simple questions. Why is it so hard?

As marketers… shouldn’t we strive for perfecting communication on a daily basis? How do we create a message that will resonate with our customers… our company? How do we take an idea and transform it into a living… breathing… story? How do we take a product/service/offering and make it speak Human? Why is it so hard?

In my opinion… the root of the problem is our inability to separate the bottom-line, our text book learning curve, and our customer voice. It is hard to get to the point where we are being more genuine… than business driven.

Could the answer be the Internet? We are only beginning to understand the power of the Internet and the tools inside of this vast network of people. We are no longer products and services but people. Customers are people first… and buyers second.

Why don’t businesses know how to speak human? They should. We should. You should.

There is no better place than here. There is no better time than now.

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