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I was part of a very interesting conversation the other day about location sharing sites. The conversation centered around why using these sites is different for men than women, in particular because of the security & privacy concerns that women have.

Will We See a Gowalla Gangsta or a Foursquare Fiend?

Maura Thomas was questioning whether giving her location out constantly was safe. Someone else voiced the concern that sooner or later Foursquare or Gowalla would run into the same issue Craigslist did with the Craigslist killer. Of course the website PleaseRobMe entered the conversation, just to round off the fear theme that was the center of the conversation. I admit, at first I was slightly dismissive of these claims and concerns, mostly because I believe we have become obsessed with threats, to our children, women, homes and the nation. After a couple of days of contemplating the conversation I decided to reach out to a few women that I know are users of these tools and get their opinions on the concerns, how real they are to them and what precautions they take as women.

The three women who helped me so greatly were Jessica Smith, Sarah Vela & Michelle Lemire. I’m extremely grateful to each of them for taking the time to share their thoughts with me.

An overwhelming sentiment shared by all three was that while security is always an issue, it should not be a paralyzing one. Not taking part in something that is available to everyone, e.g. Social Location sharing is not the answer. In fact all agreed that sharing your location can actually enhance your security, as Jessica Smith responded “It’s not like it’s only opt-in for the bad guys”.

The gameplay, especially that offered by Foursquare was actually important to some, “I may be a wee-bit competitive by nature, so “fighting” for mayorships and badges is fun.” Michelle said. Why shouldn’t women join in the games?

Again all three women thought that the site pleaserobme.com raised some valid general concerns, and hopefully made people take a second look at their privacy settings but didn’t increase their individual fear of using the sites as they felt it was extremely unlikely burglars would be checking Foursquare to find out if someone wasn’t home. Much more likely that they would cruise neighbourhoods looking for empty houses. As Sarah pointed out “most attacks on women are carried out by someone close to the woman”.

Safety Tips

Some obvious places were raised as places not to check in, these included children’s schools, home, friends homes and anywhere you wouldn’t want your boss/significant other to know about. The interesting thing about these tips is that they apply equally to men and women. In fact the precautions that these women all suggested are just generally good advice for anyone, man or woman.

Three things they all agreed on were:

• Ensuring your privacy settings don’t reveal information that you don’t want to share, e.g. email, phone number
• Knowing your network before connecting with people
• Realize that you don’t have to connect these tools to your other networks, e.g. you don’t have to send all your checkins to Twitter or Facebook

What precautions do you take when using Location Social sharing sites?

Social events need not be a huge affair, but they can be extremely effective. They should definitely be a part of any social media strategy that your organization is considering. From a marketers perspective they can be a good way to persuade the C level that the trip to Vegas will be more than just a non-stop party.

Having created your Facebook page, your Twitter account(s) and your LinkedIn page how do you take that work out to the real world with a consistent message? How do you leverage all that online work when you meet people in real life?

For some reason this is still one of the biggest puzzles for a lot of organizations. They understand face to face marketing & sales, they go to tradeshows, conferences and other events, but for some reason when they get there they completely forget to utilize their Social Media efforts.  Here are some suggestions to make that connection easier.

Four simple things to do

Let’s imagine you are sending a team of four people to a tradeshow in Vegas with a booth. If all your efforts are focused on the tradeshow floor you are missing a big opportunity. Why not create a tweetup at a bar, perhaps in the hotel that the tradeshow is being held in.

• Use Twitter to find out who is going to the tradeshow. It’s as simple as sending out a tweet asking just that.
• Create a hashtag for your event that reflects your company name and/or the main event.
• Put up signs at the event – just simple ones printed in the business center of the hotel reminding people to Tweet the event, use your hashtag, checkin on Foursquare and send a shout.
• Have a couple of door prizes for people who tweet your event, maybe even have a few quiz questions about your company or the event and reward the first person to tweet the answer.

These simple steps can turn an ordinary conference trip into something a lot more creative, that has tangible results that can be built into the trip autopsy.

What does your organization do to move Social from online to the real world?

As children we hear the word No a lot. Why? Because we are being shown boundaries. By discovering these boundaries we get to understand where the limits of our world are. It helps us set expectations.

However, it seems that as people mature into adulthood they seem to forget that is what the word is for. They seem to find the word unacceptable. Most surprisingly they seem to find it unacceptable in the business setting. I have been in consulting in one form or another for nearly two decades. In that time I have discovered that the hardest lesson for consultants, account managers & business owners to learn to say to clients & customers is No. Usually it only comes after the consultant has been pushed and pushed. Instead of setting boundaries early the No comes almost as a surprise to the client.

Helium Hands

People who have trouble saying No to requests have a tendency to overburden themselves, then guilt themselves because they might let someone down. Had they used No earlier they wouldn’t be in that position. No isn’t a bad thing, No helps others find boundaries, helps them define what your limits are and helps them learn to respect them. In business it can be especially useful. Telling a client, or a prospective client No can save a lot of issues later in the relationship.

I have seen people that I respect & like be guilted by others who have taken advantage of the fact that they know the other person is always willing to help. However, that willingness to help is usually expressed by them  saying yes. This constant saying yes, which I lovingly refer to as “helium hand” because the hand rises like a balloon whenever volunteers are asked for, is not good for either person. If you really want to help say No sometimes, not to be offensive, but to empower the requester. They will find someone else to ask, or they will find a way to get whatever it is done, on their own. That might mean they choose another provider, maybe you lose them as a client – if you do then you probably were going to anyway.

True, there will always be those who refuse to believe No applies to them or that they are somehow more deserving than others who have been told No. But it’s possible to reduce the numbers of them by practicing the use of the word more often.

Do you use No when you should or do you suffer from helium hand?

SXSW Interactive starts at the end of next week. Yes, next week! This means for many the opportunity to meet with people that have influenced them online face to face, perhaps for the first time.

Some people will see this as an opportunity to try and convince an influencer that they have the next killer {app, blog post, book idea, social network website} <<

Who Are You?

While it’s great that this person, in whatever way, has influenced you, don’t assume that:

1. You know them
2. They know you

If you have had no previous interaction with them before, you have never bothered to leave a comment on a blog post, Re-Tweet them, offer encouragement etc. why exactly do you think that in a few minutes at the end of a panel you are going to convince them to be your new BFF?

SXSWi can be the place to start that engagement. If you say you read a person’s blog, then really read it. As a blogger, I can say nothing gets my attention faster than someone who quotes one of my posts to me and then makes a point about it. They don’t have to agree with me, in fact it’s great when they say, you said “blah, blah, blah” but I think this! Good discussion will ensue.

Read the book

If the person you want to meet has a book out, read it. Not just the first few pages, the whole thing. Write a list of things you like and don’t like about it. The concepts that you agree with and the ones you don’t quite follow. Now you have something to talk about. Better still, do a book review of the book in a short video, then email/tweet the person with a link to it and tell them you reviewed their book. Talmadge Boyd has some great advice on how to put this together.

Don’t expect to have the conversation about their book in the few minutes at the end of the panel. Ask them for a biz card, give them one example of a concept that you’d love to discuss with them and ask to email them about it. This gives them a reason to remember you, and a reason to engage with you. Develop a relationship with them first, because as much as you might see them as influential, they are human beings first and they, like you, want to get to know someone before they become involved.

Of course if you just want a fan pic with them that’s usually cool too!

Who do you want to meet at SXSWi?

Influence. It has always been an emotive word. Always been something that has attracted some types of people. The ability to exert influence over others. The world of Social Networking, Social Sharing & Social Media has created more opportunities for more people to become influential and to witness the amount of influence particular individuals have increase.

While at first this might seem a good thing, almost a leveling of the playing field it brings with it a new set of issues for many. The myth that being a blogger with a certain number of readers will bring recognition as being influential is a common one. The “many” see a few people being selected and think that it is as easy as that.

Many PR companies base their selection of bloggers on what they perceive as influence. What this has created is commonly referred to as the A list. That select group of bloggers that are perceived as being extremely influential, able to sway the masses with only a few words.  Having them review your product or service is almost as good as a celebrity endorsement and a whole lot cheaper.

But is this true? Follow any of those on the A list long enough and you will see some form of rejection of the pressure they are under to deliver this influence. They are asked to do more, produce more, by an increasing number of people. Not just companies but individuals who feel that they only need a few mentions, tweets or a blog post and their idea will take off because of this one persons influence.

But really, lets look at the math. If an A list blogger has 10,000 page views per day is it better to court them or 10 non-A list bloggers who get 1o00 page views per day? Which is more effective at getting your message out?

As a blogger would you rather try and build an empire around your blog at a national or international level or build a local circle of influence that has a more tangible impact where you live? I’m not trying to say that you can’t do both or that by doing one you should give up dreams of the other. However, how many High School quarterbacks play in the NFL?

My point is, in aiming to be the next Chris Brogan, Darren Rowse, Brian Clark you could miss out on being you. Being a big fish in a small pond is always considered a bad thing as though it has no value. But what if your ability to influence your local “pond” created real change?

Instead of striving to be someone else why not try to be you?

One of the reasons that sites like Foursquare, Gowalla & MyTown have become so popular beyond just the ability to share your location is the game play aspect. Not only are you asked to share, but you are positively rewarded for doing so, in fact the more often you share the more you are rewarded.

The upside for the businesses whose locations are shared is that they get free word of mouth promotions everytime someone checks in. Now comes the same functionality from two sites for products on the web. GetGlue, from Adaptive Blue & Hollrr, from well Hollrr.

Both have adopted the same concept. Encourage you to share products you like with your “friends”. Let’s look at each in turn.

GetGlue

Glue wins a lot of points for its ease of use, they have a firefox plugin that creates a glue toolbar which appear whenever I am on a site that has products displayed. This toolbar is almost like a personal shopper. Not only does it give me the ability to share the product by simply clicking “Like” but it shows me who else in the Glue community has liked this product, it shows me similar products and if I want, allows me to see other suggestions.  I like this feature a lot. If I am shopping online it allows me to see what others that I know think of this product, this is even better than the embedded ratings & reviews that sites have on them.

They reward sharing with changes in status, encouraging users to strive for “Guru” status. Achieving this opens up another dimension to the service – special offers. Guru’s are eligible to win free stuff from Glue sponsors. DVD’s, Books and other offers on a regular basis. So there is a tangible reward for all this sharing. Overall I’d say Adaptive Blue have done a great job of combining Social Sharing with ratings & reviews, with game play.

Hollrr

Hollr is a less developed platform, no browser plugin, which forces me to return to the site to conduct product “Hollrrs”. Hollrr’s are rewarded with badges, in a Foursquare style reward system. Hollrr has a more cutesy, Web 2.0 feel to the site than Glue but no tangible rewards. I like the game play but there are features of the site that need some work. For example it couldn’t find my email contact friends or Twitter connections who were using the site, even though I know a couple of them are. A small bug, but huge impact. If I am being asked to share socially, the first group I want to do that with is those with whom I already have a connection.

Overall, I’d say that Hollrr needs work, cute badges are easily trumped by real life rewards. Make it easier for the user by providing a browser plugin so I don’t have to keep coming back to your site.

Both these services would do well to explore the Mobile avenue and create apps that allow integration with cameras in Smart phones. I’d like to be out in a real life store and “Like” or “Hollrr” a product from there, now that is real social sharing.

Have you used either of these services? Which do you prefer?

We have at our disposal a wealth of software tools that all us to connect with both people we know in the real world and those that we only know in the virtual one. As we grow our connections the volume of information coming to us from all of these connections can seem overwhelming.

I have some 4500 followers, on Twitter, not a huge following compared to many. If I were to try and use just the Twitter website to stay in touch with all of them it would be impossible, so instead I use Tweetdeck. I have about 20 columns all well organized. Followers added and sorted into how they fit into my greater connection set.

Facebook is the same, with over 1100 connections on Facebook lists become essential to help me sort through all the communication. Facebook itself tries to help me by only showing me status updates from those people with whom I interact most.

Does Shouting Equal Quality?

Therein lies the problem. I interact with those people because they appear on my home page most often. I tweet with those people who appear in one of my columns. I hear those who shout loudest, but are they always the ones I should be listening to?

Is volume in either quantity or sound a measure of worth of content? If I come to a party at your house and stand in the middle of the room and shout out what I have done with my day am I adding more to the party than the individual standing in the kitchen sharing the profound thoughts with only two others?  Probably not.

With all this software that supposedly “helps” us are we in fact missing out on the good stuff. Are we missing the diamonds in a mountain of coal? I am constantly seeking out ways to find those diamonds. From adding ever more columns to Tweetdeck with less and less people in them, to creating more and more lists in Facebook. Certainly one method that I have found that has proven useful is to categorize people in multiple ways. Location, Job, Subject etc is one way to make sure I don’t miss out.

How are you making sure you don’t miss the diamonds?

The Austin Chapter of the American Marketing Association, an organization for which I volunteer, recently ran into trouble with Facebook.  The trouble began when the chapter tried to set up a couple of event announcements for events being organized in Austin for  marketers to attend.

Firstly, Facebook would not allow the word “free”, even though there is no charge to attend the event. Eventually the word complimentary was found to be acceptable. Secondly, having created two events. The page admin received the following stern warning from Facebook that the chapter:

“significantly slow down or stop this behavior. Further misuse of site features may result in a temporary block or your account being permanently disabled.”

This is surprising for two reasons, firstly, the chapter is a non-profit, it provides information to marketers who are both members and non-members, it’s fans all understand that when they become fans of the page. Secondly, the chapter only posts one or two events a month. This hardly strikes me as misuse of site features!

I checked the Terms of Service to see why Facebook would think we have fallen foul of their rules. Surprisingly there is nothing in either the General terms or the special provisions applicable to pages about the number of events you can promote in a given timeframe.

So what is really going on with Facebook? Are they trying to bite the hand that feeds it? After all if Marketers stop running ads on Facebook where will their revenue come from?

Facebook either needs to make its terms of service clearer or they need to make their messaging clearer when they rap organizations on the knuckles for “misuse of site features”.

Have you or your organization run into issues with Facebook and their terms of service?

I often refer to myself as a writer. The funny thing is that, while I have a bunch of different qualifications from formal education, not one of them says I’m “qualified” to write. I didn’t study English, Journalism, Creative Writing or any of those other disciplines so often associated with writers.

LipSmacking…

What I really am is a talker that types fast. A few months ago I saw a comment left on a Facebook post that said – “Fast typists have more friends”. I love this concept. In this world of “online” friendships, being at least a competent typist certainly helps. I am what used to be called, and for all I know still is, a touch typist – that is, I don’t look at the keyboard when I type and I use both hands to type. Rather bizarrely I learned to type in the military on an Imperial 66 typewriter. A monster, industrial grade typewriter that had all the keys blacked out. To pass the course you had to be able to type at 40 words per minute with only 5 mistakes.

I still remember vividly that course, it is probably the most useful skill I have ever been given. Later, when I became a software developer it helped me write code and now as a blogger and writer it is indispensable. But typing or the mechanics of writing is not what makes you a writer.

As I said at the opening, I really see myself as a talker that types fast. I’ve always been a talker. In high school it got me out of trouble with the bullies, in trouble with the teachers and others in authority and not a lot has changed.

Plan For Your Audience

Writing, especially for different audiences needs a plan. One of the best ways I have encountered to achieve this is to map out what I am going to write in the same way I would if I were going to deliver the same content as a presentation.

Start with a concept, break that down into ideas, explain the ideas, before you know it you have an article, a blog post or a presentation. So why is public speaking useful. Unlike writing, there is no backspace, no grammar or spell checker – other than the audience and they aren’t as always as undiscriminating as a software tool.

Standing in front of an audience to share your ideas makes you hone those ideas, ensure that they are grasped by the listener and shared properly. Unlike writing, speaking to a group of people gives you instant feedback. You can tell by the looks on their faces if they get it or not. You can tell if you are building toward your point properly or not.

Often with writing you get little or no feedback, sure you might get comments on your blog, occasionally an email but they are usually only sent by a few small percentage of the actual number of people who have read your writing. Getting feedback from a live audience helps you understand what concepts you are good at explaining and those you need to refine.  Applying the lessons learned from those can make you are more engaging writer.

How do you improve your writing?

I decided to get out of the office to write today. Sometimes a change really is as good as a rest. Recently I have started a number of new projects, some collaborations with people I really respect, others solo projects that I hope to develop into something much larger in the coming months (YouAreHereApps) is an example.

In addition to that I just started submitting articles to Read Write Web, the first was published last week and I just became the Austin Twitter Correspondent for Examiner.com, where I will be writing stories about Austin people using Twitter in different ways.

All of this is in addition to running a successful Marketing Communications company (we just signed another Fortune 500 company last week) and volunteering as VP of Events for the Austin Chapter of the American Marketing Association.  If all of that wasn’t enough I am also doing an increasing number of speaking appearances.

So why am I sharing all this (other than to toot my own horn? – I thought I’d say it before the cynics out there did).  I’m sharing it because sometimes I get asked where do I find the time, and why do I bother trying to do so much at once. The simple answer to those questions is “I get bored easily”. The more complex one is that, I approach building a business the same way I was taught to cook pasta. If you are not sure its done, throw it at the wall and see if it sticks.

It might not be the way they teach it in B school, but I’d rather try things and see if they work than find a book on it and read someone else’s attempt. Business, like so much else in life is not a spectator sport. Either play or go home.

Out or Up?

So when do you build up and when do you build out? Lets take a look at what I am doing – a lot of what I do at a personal level revolves around writing, and sharing my thoughts. I’d call that building out. Establishing new footholds, new storefronts for my writing and for readers to find my writing.

Building the IncSlingers, and the associated activities that I engage in around that (upcoming conference, Youarehereapps etc.) is building up. Its taking an established plot and adding new floors to it, raising it above the existing skyline so that it becomes more visible.

Which direction are you building?