Reading FriendFeed tonight and a particular comment stood out and got me to thinking more about disillusionment.

If 2008 goes down in history as nothing else, it will go down as a year when many realized that they were laboring under some very large illusions. The shock of those illusions falling away is evidenced daily in our headlines: the housing market, the stock market, and even personal tragedy as a result of the Madoff scandal.

We all have our illusions. And if you’re reading this, odds are that you’ve had a few of them shattered recently. I’ve certainly had my share of disillusionment and disappointment this year and frankly I don’t expect that 2009 is going to be much different.

Further more, I really don’t want it to be. By definition, to be disillusioned means to no longer be under an illusion. And how is that not a good thing?

As Stephen Covey put it so eloquently in Seven Habits, “The map is not the territory.” So, if the map isn’t the territory, the difference between the map (how we view the world) and the territory (reality – the way things really are) must be the illusion. And I think there is still a lot of gap left to be exposed.

So, what do you think is it going to be? “Back to Reality” or “More of the Same”? Which will be more difficult in the long run? How disillusioned do you want to be?

I’m currently working my way through the following four:

Reality Check by Guy Kawasaki
Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky
Buying In by Rob Walker
Welcome to the Creative Age by Mark Earls

I’m of the opinion that it’s not so much what a book says that’s so important, but what it makes you think. Each one of these is making me think differently about my industry, the economy, and my opportunities. And frankly in trying to synthesize what I’m seeing, reading, and experiencing right now I’m coming up with more questions than answers. Here are a few of the excerpts that I’m wrestling with…

From the end of Chapter One of Reality Check:

“Instead of pursuing professional entrepreneurs, we should figure out how and why ordinary people can do heroic things. Dr. Phillip Zimbardo of Stanford University and Zeno Franco of the Pacific Graduate School of Psychology wrote an article called ‘The Banality of Heroism‘…about this very subject.

The short explanation is that heroism requires the presence of a ‘heroic imagination,’ which the authors describe as ‘the capacity to imagine facing physically or socially risky situations, to struggle with the hypothetical problems these situations generate, and to consider one’s actions and the consequences.’”

From p-69 of Here Comes Everybody:

“Professional self-conception and self-defense, so valuable in ordinary times, becomes a disadvantage in revolutionary ones, because professionals are always concerned with threats to the profession. In most cases, those threats are also threats to society; we do not want to see a relaxing of standards for becoming a surgeon or a pilot. But in some cases the change that threatens the profession benefits society, as did the spread of the printing press; even in these situations the professionals can be relied on to care more about self-defense than about progress. …evidence that the ecosystem is changing in ways they can’t control usually creates considerable anxiety, even if the change is good for society as a whole.”

From Walker’s introduction to Buying In:

“When marketing experts in particular talked about the birth of a new consumer, what they were really talking about was the re invention of their own business. Many popular business gurus have become fond of declaring that the advertising business is, as one announced not long ago, ‘on its way to extinction.’ What these people mean is the end of “traditional” advertising…”

And finally from p-76 of Welcome To The Creative Age:

“Everything has changed; all of the condition of the world which spawned the ‘Marketing Revolution’ and on which the current order was built have been demolished. Marketing is a product of its time and that time has gone. All swept away. All flotsam and jetsam.

Out goes the idea of a grateful attentive consumer. Out, the idea of a pliant punter, ignorant of our trickery. Out, too, the idea of the proud and powerful organization. And out the idea that we own our employees. Hey, like our customers, have a choice and know it.”

Four different authors. Four very different viewpoints. And yet the same themes of revolutionary change, the impending death of our existing models, the need for action, and new ways of thinking are peppered throughout.

Charlene Li of Forrester and Groundswell fame said something last week that bears repeating. Paraphrasing: “Pay attention to the relationships, not the technology.”

So I ask, who are you reading? What are you thinking? What are you doing differently than you were six months ago, three months ago?

Wish no more.  Carter Rabasa has a solution for you at “Twitter-to-FriendFeed Contact Sync (v 0.62). Hat Tip to @markobon for passing this along.

Here is a quick review of how it works:

1. Go to Contact Sync: https://twitter2ff.appspot.com/

2. Type in your Twitter username and password

Sync - Step 1

3. Type in your FriendFeed username and remotekey (there is a link to FF to retrieve the key)

4. Start following your friends in Twitter that you follow on FriendFeed.

Nice work Carter! We’ll be looking forward the ability to sync Twitter with FriendFeed next.

I’ve been a fan of despair.com since the early 2000’s. Besides finding them downright funny and insightful, posters like “Blogging” above, similar to “Consulting” in my previous profession, help keep my attention focused on the primary objective: bringing value.

Take a short break and peruse through the despair.com website. Find one that makes you grin at your humanity and share it…

Step III: Maintain Perspective

Started over four weeks ago, this post (and this blog in general) has fallen prey to an overzealous work schedule, a major pitch, the natural consequences of taking my own advice, and perhaps most importantly the need to be authentic.

Things are never so good that they can’t get better – and never so bad that they can’t get worse. Whether this turns out to be a u-shaped, v-shaped, or “hockey-stick” recovery, it is going to be what it is going to be. Worrying about it isn’t necessarily going to help. What is going to help personally and economically is doing something about it.

I’m at my best when I have a challenge in front of me that I can engage in, a solid team around me that can I can depend on, the right tools at my disposal, and the energy and creativity to pop me out of bed every morning ready to tackle the day. Unfortunately for me, without the last one, the other three lose most of their effectiveness. I highly suspect that I’m not alone in this regard.

So, whether you call it “sharpening the saw” or “recharging your batteries,” my questions to myself – and thus to you, are these:

1. What is it that really makes you tick?
2. What renews you?
3. What keeps you productive and effective?
4. And most pointedly: What are you doing to ensure that those things are integrated into your lifestyle?

For me, the last month, in addition to all the overtime, has been an experiment in stepping away from the computer after work and reconnecting with my friends and family. It’s been a month of dinner parties, long walks, concerts, movies, photo-walks, great motorcycle rides, delving into new books, and generally counting my blessings and being thankful.

As a consequence, while I’m probably no more rested than before, I’m certainly feeling more balanced and more capable of dealing with what comes my way.

As you may guess, there’s more to follow, but for now, I’m focused on consciously redesigning the rhythm, cadence, and speed of my life. What are you doing to maintain perspective?

Related:

Step I: Double Down

Step II: Dig Your Well Before You Need It

Attendees (l to r): Photo 1: Nick Sobrak-Seaton, Ryan Kuder, Daniela Barbosa, Robert Scoble, Glen Campbell. Photo 2: Ryan Kuder, Daniela Barbosa, Robert Scoble, Chris Saad, Alicia Lin, Melodi Cowan, Glen Campbell, Adeo Ressi, Bill Sanders. Off somewhere on the phone when the photos were taken: Michael Fortson & Hrag Chanchanian.

It was a night of wine, cheese, cigars, and much conversation. And with nothing off-topic, it ran from politics, to the current economic situation, to startups, to war stories, and even to the Octopus. We even took the obligatory FriendFeed break here, and here.

In all we had a great time. The weather was perfect and the Ritz staff kept the firepit stocked (even if Adeo did have to cajole and tip heavily to have them refill it after 10PM). Thanks to Robert for initiating and everyone else for coming out. Come on out and join us next time!

Step II: Dig Your Well Before You Need It

If you were laid off today, who would you call? I don’t mean your spouse or best friend. I mean who would you call to help you find a new job? Grab a piece of paper and a pen and make a list. Now, how long has it been since you had contact with each one of them?

Odds are if they are people that are genuinely in a place to help you find a job, then they are very busy and it’s been awhile since you’ve been in contact. Take a moment and put yourself in their shoes. If you called them for help in finding a job right now, would they jump at the chance to go to bat for you, or would they fall into the “reluctantly obligated” category?

The point of this little exercise is to intuit how well maintained you’ve kept the “well” of your network. Now is the time to invest in any deferred maintenance you’ve been putting off because you were so busy. So, let’s talk specific actions:

Get Connected

It doesn’t really matter how many people you know, if you don’t have up-to-date contact information for them, it’s going to be pretty difficulty to let them know that you need their help. The tools of social media are a powerful way to manage your contacts and make sure you stay in touch. And because everyone doesn’t use the same tools, the more active you are on various platforms, the wider you can cast your “net.” At minimum I recommend the following:

1. LinkedIn: LinkedIn is the obvious social network for most professionals. Last week Dave McClure posted on the demise of resumes and gives tips for pimping out your LinkedIn profile.

Here’s a little free tip. I’ve still not responded to a single request for a recommendation on LinkedIn. It’s not because I don’t think that someone is worthy, most of them are, but I’m busy. I intend to, but I know that it takes effort to write a good recommendation and it’s just not a priority for me. So, when did I write my first recommendation? When someone wrote an unsolicited recommendation for me. It’s the principle of reciprocity – you’ve got to make a deposit before you can make a withdrawal. So, pick people that you respect and whom you know respect you, and take the time to write a recommendation for them. Most likely, they’ll take the time to return the favor.

2. Plaxo: Provides auto updates to your Outlook Contact list when people change jobs, change phone numbers, or move. I explain how I use it as a central database here.
3. Facebook: It’s not just for college students anymore. I’ve reconnected with a lot of people that I’d lost track of over the years with the “people you might know” feature. Back in the day we were just co-workers – now many of us are in a real position to help one another.

Stay Connected

It of course is not enough to just know someone and have their contact information – how often are you in contact? Speaking professionally, you should have at least three concentric circles in your network.

1. The Core: The first is those with whom you have a solid personal relationship and working history. This circle should consume most of your time and effort.
2. The Center Ring: These are generally people who you’ve met, had some significant interaction and would know you if you called them on the phone.
3. Everybody Else: Self explanatory.

Especially for the Core and the Center Ring contacts, I recommend looking over this list every month and thinking about whom you should invite call or invite out for lunch. It will help you avoid that awkward “Hi, I know we haven’t talked in two years, but I need help finding a job” conversation.

Add Value

Adding value and the investment it requires is going to differ for each group.

For the Core, it’s usually more personal and time consuming. Some will come to you. I regularly serve as a sounding board to my fiends who have small businesses. I also review materials and participate in brainstorms with some of my former consulting colleagues.

With others, you’ll have to spend a little time thinking about the world from their perspective. What problems and issues are they likely to be running into right now where you can be of service and make a contribution? And then, over that lunch or drink, make sure they understand your area of expertise and let them know that you are available as a resource. Even if they never call you, they’ll appreciate it.

For me, adding value to the Center Ring mostly consists of passing along select articles on things that impact their industry, providing insights into my areas of expertise, and introducing people to new technology.

For everyone else, use social media. Make sure that there is value in your updates. I use Ping.fm to simultaneously post information on Twitter, Facebook, Plaxo, and LinkedIn when I find them valuable, timely, and relevant to my wider network. And this should go without saying, but when people comment on your posts or updates and other activities, respond. Say thanks. Appreciation in and of itself is a deposit.

Yes things are bad out there. Yes you just committed to working 20% harder at your job or business. And yes, this will take time and effort. I submit to you however that it is an investment that you can’t afford not to make.

Building and maintaining a network require time, patience, and consistent effort. So, get cracking. If you don’t like my approach, fine – tell me yours. I’m always up to learn something new!

Related:

Step I: Double Down

Step III: Maintain Perspective

Newsflash! File under “Things are NOT good!”

One year to the day after climbing to its peak of 14,164.53, the Dow Jones Industrial Average sank 678.91 points, its third-largest point loss on record, to finish at 8,579.19, pushing the blue-chip index under the 9,000 level for the first time since August 2003.
The Dow’s close leaves it 5,585.34 points, or 39.4%, under its year-ago high.

I think most of us have been holding our breath waiting for this “storm to come ashore” for some time. Waiting and praying that it wouldn’t come ashore near us.

Well it’s here. And it’s impossible to know how long it will be before we can even see enough to assess the damage. However, there are still things you can do, actions you can take, to increase your chances of both surviving the storm and making sure that you come out relatively undamaged on the other side.

I’m not a financial or political expert, so I’ll leave that kind of advice to others much better suited than me. What I do know is that careerwise, I’ve weathered the last two of these (1987 & 2000) relatively well, coming out in better shape both times. So, here is Part I of my advice to the individual contributor:

Step I: Double down right where you are.

Yes, I’m being free with my definition of “double down,” but you get the point; increase your investment in your job or career now.

Now is the time to make sure you are contributing where you are. Your income stream is one of your most valuable assets. And when companies start “right sizing,” being on the most valuable side of the ledger can mean the difference between an opportunity for a battlefield promotion and a pink slip.

It’s not always true, but in a downturn it is; you had better be carrying your weight and then some. In an economic downturn, people that get things done and don’t complain tend to get promoted. People that slack, worry, and get distracted by things they can’t control tend to under perform and get laid off or fired.

You want more specifics? Here you go:

1. Focus on what you know and what you can influence. Brad Feld published a great post on this a couple of weeks ago. It reminded me of Stephen Covey’s admonition to focus on your circle of influence, not your circle of concern.Folks, this means get your head out of the polls. Make your mind up on your candidate of choice and move on to more important things. Unless you have a great deal of passion about your candidate and you really are an influencer, you’ll improve your lot in life more by ignoring the current political distractions and focusing on where you bring value.
2. Increase your value by at least 20%. If you are working 8 hours, work 10. If you are making 10 sales calls a day, make 12. Increase your output, effectiveness, or results by 20% and you become much more valuable to the team you are on. In my experience, the hungriest don’t always get fed first, but they usually get fed better in the long run.Start with getting close to whoever signs your paychecks. I don’t mean in a brownnosing, sycophant way – if that’s your mode of operation, then they are probably already over you already. Smart owners, leaders, and managers instinctively know the difference between a “suck-up” and someone who is simply “riding for the brand.”

   What I mean is get to know them and their business problems well enough that you understand what they want, what they expect, and what they value. Make sure that you are doing what the check signer considers most valuable and important about your job. You might find that where you spend most of your time isn’t valued at all. And better to find out now while you may still have a chance to change it.

3. Stay flexible. “Blessed are the flexible for they shall not be bent out of shape.”If you define your career by what you “don’t do,” or “only do,” you had better be in the top one percent. In a recession, a solid utility player will beat a great single talent player more often than not. Besides, by stretching out and learning new skills, you’ll gain greater depth of vision and experience. You might even position yourself for more responsibility in the process.

My read is that this storm is the harbinger of a long cold winter. However, even a long cold winter is just that; a season. This too shall pass. Spring will come around again and I choose to see the winter in front of us as a challenge and to rise to that challenge.

Agree or Disagree? Weigh in below with your thoughts, reaction, or experience…

Related:

Step II: Dig Your Well Before You Need It

Step III: Maintain Perspective

I have four major activities in social media:

1. Consuming Media – Analogous to a Spectator. It is where my look for my news, read other blogs, and generally consume other media
2. Managing Network Contacts – Somewhat analogous to the Joiner category, but there is an active element to managing contact information of all my social circles
3. Interaction – Combining elements of Collectors, Critics, & Creators, this is where I interact with my social network.
4. Creator – What I consider pure Creation relative to my blogs and flicker account

With that in mind, let’s revisit the slideshare snapshots and walk through the information flow:

Consuming Media

Managing Your Social Media Slide 2

First, you’ll notice that the map is divided into Personal and Professional with a significant amount of overlap. I’ve found that while ultimately there is no privacy on the web, this publishing framework keeps my work colleagues from being bored with tales of motorcycle trips and my motorcycle buddies from becoming dazed with the flood of information regarding advertising, marking, and social media.

I use iGoogle for virtually everything blog, other RSS, or news related. I find it gives me enough customization to make sure that I can access what I need whether I have a half hour to catch up on the news or only five minutes.

Managing Network Contacts

Managing Your Social Media Slide 3

I use Plaxo as the central service for keeping my contact database updated, backed up and synchronized across both my personal and professional email as well as my iPhone. As you can see, three is a one-way sync from Linked-In to Plaxo as well as two-way syncs between each Outlook contact list. With the addition to a two-way sync with the iPhone I’ve insured that no matter where information gets updated, everything is synchronized and I have all my contacts at my disposal no matter the location.

Interaction and Creation

Managing Your Social Media Slide 4

The light blue boxes represent interaction and the dark blue represent creation. Although you’ll find me on other social media services, my primary places of interaction are Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, and FriendFeed. My primary places of interaction when it comes to creation are the motorcycle blog, the tech blog, the company blog, and Flickr.

Starting from the left, you can see that my Flickr account publishes to FriendFeed. I follow several photographers on FriendFeed and as a newbie amateur, I’m interested in getting feedback and learning more about what I’m doing and not doing to create a great photo.

My motorcycle blog publishes to nowhere. My friends that are interested know where to find it and can subscribe via email or RSS feed. Both my Flickr account and my motorcycle blog do a bit of crossover into the professional category only to remind myself that this isn’t truly private content and I go on rides with a few of my co-workers.

Facebook likewise sits squarely in-between personal and professional. Consequently, you’ll get a little more personal flavor from me in my updates, but no incriminating photos or “sheep-tossing” applications.

Twitter and Delicious are both set up the same way. They both are published to three places: The side bar of my blog, the side bar of Real Branding’s corporate blog (currently in beta), and to my FriendFeed. Blog post to this blog are published to RB’s corporate blog as well as to FriendFeed.

In addition, I use Ping.fm to publish some updates out to multiple applications (indicated by the red circle with a P). Occasionally there are things that I feel would be of interest to everyone on my database. I’ve set up my feeds to make sure that when I do use Ping.fm that I’m not creating an echo.

This overall set-up simplifies my social media usage and allows me to focus on using social media as a way to help me get my job done by staying on top of the industry news (iGoogle), link to important information through my browser (Delicious), comment and link on other items (Twitter), and generally keep up with my colleagues and the state of social media/advertising (Facebook & FriendFeed).

And while this is a snapshot of how I’m currently using these apps, I’m always open for new tricks and tips. Which social media applications do you use? How do you manage them?

Now that we are all publishers and are all hyper-connected, the nature of managing information flow, social interactions, as well as our own time and productivity is changing as well. With that in mind, I put together a presentation for our recent company off-site that addressed the way I’ve set up my social map to handle information flow. This post is the first in a series expanding and explaining that flow. I hope its helpful and more importantly, I hope many of you will contribute your methods, tactics, and approaches to managing the ever expanding social map. Perhaps together we can continue to devise strategies and tactics that will allow us to “tame the beast.”

However, before we get to the not-so pretty graphs and visuals (I am clearly not a designer), I’ve found that there are two things that help me manage my time and productivity when interacting with social media.

1. Knowing my objective
2. Committing to a schedule

Knowing Your Objective

To get the most out of any endeavor I believe that it is critical to understand what you want out of it. Although I may have more specific objectives for each of the individual services to which I subscribe, overall my objective for participating in the social media space at almost every level of the Social Technographics ladder (Spectator, Joiner, Collector, Critic, & Creator) is threefold:

1. To Learn
2. To Contribute
3. To increase Real Branding’s visibility and reputation as well as my own.

To make the most of your investment, know why you are investing in the first place.

Committing to a Schedule

If you don’t have a commitment to a schedule, you will frequently find yourself spending far more time with Social Media than you had ever intended. Face it; there is a lot of great information out there; from the technical to the political to the breaking news to lolcatz. Think about how much time you are willing to commit and then commit to it. And commit to making the time correspond to your objectives.

The Map

With that in mind, the snapshot below of my primary social map without the information flows. If you want a sneak peak of what’s next, download the PowerPoint from slideshare and walk through the animated slide.

Managing Your Social Map

Next we’ll tackle the categorization (depicted by color) and review the where and why of the flow diagrams.

In the meantime, if you haven’t drawn out your social map, identified your objectives for being active, and set a schedule, take some time to do so. And remember, it doesn’t have to be pretty to be effective… ]]> http://technacea.com/2008/09/28/taming-the-beast-managing-your-social-map-part-i/feed/ http://technacea.com/2008/09/28/taming-the-beast-managing-your-social-map-part-i/