What’s up

Just a quick post to highlight the new semester I’m in. It’s going to be a bit of a bear, but interesting.

Currently, we’re in planning stages for the development of my team’s social community. The name has been nailed down, it will be called ArtStarters.org

The first steps were outlining our project scope (who will use it? what problem are we helping them solve? what tools will we give them?). Next is to take our list of tools and give them greater depth, outlining in detail what they have to do (input first name, if no first name upon ’submit’, refresh page with error note) that kind of thing.

Next steps will be to begin shopping for developers. Additionally, we’re taking an internet law class so we understand how to write terms & conditions, what’s legal to ask users to undertake, what we open ourselves up to legally by hosting the sites, etc.

My third class for the semester is my one and only elective and is outside the Annenberg Communications school. I’m in a class in the business school looking at the business of the networked digital industry; how is the internet and the demand for ‘always on’ going to affect companies like Nike or General Mills? What do the hardware companies need to do to keep up? Just how far behind IS the U.S. in terms of internet speed and connectivity (umm, way far; we’re about to go 4G which I vaguely recall is like 10MB and South Korea is consistently at 40MB, um, yeah, bad news bears). It should give me a wider global perspective on how networks are changing business cases.

Finally, I’m going to be writing a little eBook, so keep your eyes open for more info on that one!

Trying out Prezi…

<object  width=”320″ height=”200″> <param name=”movie” value=”http://prezi.com/bin/preziloader-beta.swf?prezi_id=145536&amp;experimental=embed”/> <param name=”allowfullscreen” value=”true”/> <param name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always”/> <param name=”bgcolor” value=”#eaeae2″/> <param name=”lock_to_path” value=”0″/> <param name=”autoplay” value=”no”/> <embed id=”prezi” src=”http://prezi.com/bin/preziloader-beta.swf?prezi_id=145536&amp;experimental=embed&amp;lock_to_path=0&amp;autoplay=no” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowfullscreen=”true” allowscriptaccess=”always” width=”320″ height=”200″ bgcolor=”#eaeae2″> </embed> </object> <p>from <a href=”http://prezi.com”>prezi.com</a></p>

Did it work?!   If so, then what you’re seeing is a class presentation based on a paper I did for my research methods course.  The assignment was to use a content analysis to study something, so I applied it to the question of the impact of eWOM on movies.

Old German guys…

Awesome Lego Philosophers; Laotzi, Aspacia, Averroes, Thomas of Aquinas, Decartes and Marx (Thanks to Helico on Flickr for offering this under Creative Commons)

It’s been some time since I’ve had to worry about old German philosopher guys, but since I got back to school this week there was no time wasted in dredging them back up.  In my Thursday class, we mumbled our way through some pretty heavy concepts on two forms of community, which a fun German philosopher named Tonnies contributed to the world.  “Gemeinshaft” and “Gesellshaft” plagued my thoughts for several days following the discussion; should I worry about pressing into use my single semester of college German for pronunciation?

But it all linked up today reading a piece assigned for my Technologies (Wednesday) course by danah boyd (no capitals necessary).  Checking out a piece she wrote on social software, I see links!  Oh yes, oh yes.  Mainly, the fact that a push to return the internet to a social space (as compared to a place for shopping, though I like that, too) is also a push to return to roots of community versus commerce (Gemeinshaft vs. Gesellshaft; ta-dah!).

But what does it mean???  If I distill what I’ve got so far, it’s nothing short of miraculously simple:

Act like a neighbor! Mr. Rogers had it right all along.

Imagine you sell knives for a living (we’re playing pretend, c’mon, just do it!); would you walk over to your neighbor’s house and tell them “I’ll only let you use my portion of the sidewalk if you buy these knives I’m hocking.”

OR would you act friendly, discuss your kids, your dogs, the day’s news and IF they ask “how’s work going” mention needing a new kitchen utensil, well then, you’d throw in a thought or two about your knives and offer them a great deal?  Yeah, I thought so.  Well, that’s what we expect you to do as a corporate citizen in our virtual communities, too.

I’m not alone, here.  Online marketing consultant Pistachio writes a fantastic post about how Twitter is her village; and Mark Gehrke (Mandala Life Media blog) agrees that “We’re all in this neighborhood together.”

It’s a global village out there, and the bazaar is only a tract of land.

All the (social media) are belong to us

Tonight was my first session of my first class as a graduate student in USC’s Annenberg Program on Online Communities.  As we went around the group (all 11 of us) for introductions, it was quickly apparent that while I’m not the only PR/marketing person in attendance, I might be the only one viewing things the way I am as the theme I heard was less about how to engage and more about how to monetize.

This leads me to a discussion of where I think that corporate involvement with online communities should be placed.  I know that everyone wants a piece of a pie that is decreasing quickly, so I likely won’t get my way, but in a perfect world, this is what I hope for:  building great sites should belong to the people with the vision, whomever they may be, but please leave corporate interaction in these communities to the PR people.

I’m not just saying this because I’m greedy (though to a small part that’s true); I’m saying this because PR has the basic skills for this sort of outreach.  We are story-tellers by trade, we are faced daily with the challenge of researching our clients and finding new things about what they do or what they sell that is interesting and inspiring to the rest of the world.  We are NOT just here to sell a product.  On a fantastic day, I might influence someone to buy a car; on a daily basis, however, I’m just trying to make sure that the people who want to know have the chance to know.  I’m not out to make a sale, I’m here to engage in conversation and that’s what social media are all about.

And just for a little back-up – a fantastic post by Social Media Club co-founder Jason Falls lays out his thoughts on why PR should be the keepers of the social media keys here.

From the mouths of the PR industry reps, a post on how damaging it could be for social media (and companies trying to engage responsibly) if the sales happy few managed to over-saturate the world with their tactics, rather than letting people who care to participate do it the right way.

**Update: January 14 – Todd Defren has written a post about PR people ‘getting it wrong’.  Lends itself well to the discussion here.

It’s not that everyone who talks about monetization is getting it wrong; I just think they’re too quick out of the gate on the corporate end.  Please, those of you BUILDING these communities, continue the good work of figuring out a profit model.  Those of us working in from the outside, however, still have a lot to figure out about joining the community rather than over-running it.