Broadcasting Brain

• In blogging, people have been classified as A-list (which Dave Winer now seems to refer to as tech industry superdelegates), B-list, C-list, etc. all the way to people who aren’t on a list. And, of course, there are blogs which are spam or otherwise just there to earn revenue and trick people into clicking on links.
• Paul Gillin listed at least two different ways to categorize bloggers in the New Influencers.
• There are the original bloggers from when the term was coined over 10 years ago.
• There are the people who were active on bulletin board systems, Usenet, and other message boards for at least 10 years before that.
• Now there are a lot of people online who not only blog, but who use a wide variety of social media to communicate to the world.

Do any of these labels hold any value any longer?

Should we drop all of the labels denoting hierarchy and instead focus on labels that focus on either the media that we use or the subjects that we like?  Surely the best use of labels is to either find experts, enthusiasts, or at least kindred spirits?

Shouldn’t we all just call ourselves creators?  Or communicators?  Or (and this is tongue in cheek) Broadcasting Brains?

As always, I’m curious to know what other people think about these ideas.

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Credit: David Mignoni

Note: this tool is dead simple and easy to use. If you’re an experienced social media user, you probably know about this tool already. If you don’t, then here you go! If you already know about this tip, then please pass it on - to someone who could benefit from this knowledge - by E-Mail, bookmark, link or some other method. They’ll be very grateful and think you’re a genius. If you’re feeling generous, though, you could tell them where you heard about it. Thanks!

I have used this tip to write dozens of articles and blog posts. I’ve used it to hit Digg’s front page 15 times. I use it regularly on StumbleUpon, Reddit, and every other social media website that I’ve ever used. I’ve used it to help grow my subscription numbers to be much larger than they were when I started blogging. And so on.

Are you ready?

I’m sure that using this tip could help you become wealthy, famous, and respected.

Are you set?

And I’m giving to you absolutely free of charge.

Then…

Here it is…

This tip for copying hyperlinks (more commonly known as links) has saved me hours of effort and tedium.

You probably already know how this works, but it hasn’t been THAT long ago that I discovered this tip. Maybe you don’t know it yet. But you will!

It’s very simple (and it’s especially designed for Windows users; I’m sure Mac users have an easier way to do this:)

- Position your mouse pointer directly over the link that you want to copy. Make sure the mouse pointer is touching the link.

- Click on your right-mouse button (or left if you’ve remapped the buttons.) A menu full of options will appear on your screen.

- Click on the words Copy Shortcut that appear on the menu. (Note: this works in most Microsoft applications. In the Mozilla Firefox Web browser, however, I believe the term Copy Link Location appears instead. Therefore, you need to look for the word Copy followed by works like Shortcut, Link, or Hyperlink to use this command.)

- Now you can use your Windows Paste command to make this text appear anywhere, like a Word document, a blog entry, the Address bar of your Web browser, or just about anywhere you want the link to appear.

For those of us who are more visually inclined, here’s a picture:

This tip is dead simple, but it saves me so much time, effort, and aggravation that I don’t think I could blog without it.

I expect that most of my readers already know about this tip. Regardless, please forward this tip to someone who would benefit from it. Thanks!

Elmer Thomas of Thinking Serious is one of my fellow editors at History of Blogging, where we try to feature interesting and useful content of various types.  Elmer’s an entrepreneur who provides advice to other entrepreneurs:  check out this article about Google Apps.

Elmer’s also active in social media, including Digg, Mixx, and Propeller.

Check out his blog - it’s great!

My cool social media acquaintance Kristen tagged me with a meme (see the post title) so I decided to respond. I was tagged with this once before and responded. I was tagged a second time (I think) but I forgot to respond to that. And so, I’m responding to both Kristen and blogger X with this.

In keeping with the theme of Broadcasting Brain, I’m trying to restrict these 8 random things to be about communications and social media (broadly speaking - I’m including a couple of other creative endeavours):

1. In elementary school I played a shepherd boy in the annual Christmas concert. Unfortunately, my fly was open during the whole performance. At least I had clear underwear on.

2. I won second place an oratorical contest in sixth grade, then never competed again.

3. I gave a horrible, horrible speech (this wasn’t a competition) when I was student council president in my senior year of high school. I started it by saying “Welcome back students to another fun year” in a Stephen Wright-ish voice. It was awful. I tried to make up for it by winning 3rd place in a Liars contest later that year.

4. I once set off a panic at work by using the phrase “no showstoppers” in an E-Mail to some colleagues in France, who apparently misinterpreted the E-Mail to mean that there were problems on our project. Oops.

5. In 1994 I wrote an entry for Project Galactic Guide (sort of a real world version of the Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy) about the longest covered bridge in the world.

6. Also in 1994, I wrote a silly little story/thing called “The Bobby Chronicles” that was somehow published online and was listed in John Labovitz’s e-zine-list. I appear to have lost any electronic copies of that document, but here’s what I submitted for the E-Zine listing:

“Tales and commentary about the lives of Generation X types trapped in rural New Brunswick, Canada. More often than not, the zine will be short, mostly factual, and not terribly serious. “Bobby” has several meanings, including ‘redneck’. This zine is -not- written from a redneck’s point of view. A stop on one of the dirt roads feeding into the info highway.”

It was an inside joke and you had to be there to get it, I guess. However, I was interviewed on the radio in 1994 or 1995 because of this E-Zine, which was quite bizarre at the time.

7. I used to belong to amateur press associations for many years. One of them, APA Centauri, is still active today.

8. I used to be part of a group that did some really small-scale improv a la “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” A few people still remember those times with great fondness to this very day.

So, in the spirit of this meme idea, I’m hereby tagging Nick, Steve, and Jeff.  Have at it, guys!

I found a few interesting reads yesterday and the most interesting was from the blog PR 2.0 by Brian Solis.  Brian seems to be a public relations (PR) practitioner who’s trying to advance his profession through some thoughtful ideas.  For my own part, my only public relations experience was through my local Toastmasters club, so I can appreciate that it’s not always the easiest profession and that there’s at least a smidgeon of that discipline in many, many roles that we fulfil.

His latest post, about the evolution of the public relations discipline, immediately caught my eye because of a reference to former (?) Strumpette Amanda Chapel, who’s constantly, shall we say, stimulating discussion of some sort or another on Twitter.

Whether or not you particularly like or care about public relations, it’s probably worth your time to read Brian’s post, as well as his links to a previous post addressed to Chris Anderson, editor of Wired, where he identifies some problems with the way some PR professionals do their work.  I think Brian’s got good intent and good ideas, for what it’s worth.

Brian’s post ties at least in part to the whole area of influence, which I wrote about a couple of months ago.

And that’s today’s food for thought.

The value of social media is in its ability to quickly convey messages that are:

• important
• useful
• interesting
• entertaining

to people, in groups or individually, with the added bonus of correction, elaboration, clarification, and other feedback from those who received the message so that the overall communication brings benefit to the largest number of people.

There. Go use that to get rich now. Please remember who told you this earth shattering secret.  You’ll never have to read another blog post or E-Book or article again.  You can thank me by linking back to this post or bookmarking it.

OK, <sarcasm off>, in all seriousness, I do think that every useful piece of information that you’ll ever read about social media should have these ideas in its heart.

I’d really, really, really like to know if all of you Broadcasting Brains out there agree, disagree, or if the post gave you heartburn.  Please share your thoughts.

Oh, and please read IttyBiz sometime.  You’ll pee your pants laughing, raise your blood pressure (or lower it, I suppose), shake your head in wonder and learn important stuff.  And the author is Canadian, so according to super secret Canadian content regulations, I have to plug another Canadian blogger every now and then. 

OK, the Canadian content regulation is a lie - bloggers do lie every now and then. 

Actually, I just think it’s a great blog, especially if you run your own business out of your house and want to be able to go outside again without being considered a public menace due to stir craziness and/or frustration. 

Sorry, Naomi, this might not be the best recommendation you’ll get, but it’s free and (hopefully) entertaining!

Social media is for sharing knowledge and sharing experiences.  I would argue that the best output occurs when the knowledge and experiences are linked. I would also argue that the author or creator is the best judge of the appropriate venue or medium to publish content.

People started sharing knowledge and experiences in bulletin board systems, Usenet groups, and by E-Mail over 25 years ago.  Personal websites arose as Internet access became widespread and affordable, including the ability to share images.  On-line journalling was extremely popular earlier in this decade.  Social networks like MySpace offered improved ways to share content with large numbers of people.  Other types of content sharing have grown, like audio, video, and image sharing.  And, of course, the blog is in the mix, straddling it all.

The ends of social media should be to share knowledge and/or experience.  Otherwise, we’re better off writing or sketching off-line and keeping that content off of the Web.

Paul Cheney has an interesting post about changes in the “blogosphere” at Conversational Media Marketing, which was inspired by Robert Scoble’s post The Changeosphere.  Chaney provides an informative timeline of evolution in social media during the past few years and also comments on the evolution of blogging during the same time.  He suggests that 2008 could be a big year for business blogging and also echoes one of Brian (Copyblogger) Clark’s ideas about value blogging, where blog posts are more article-like (”teaching, informing, and offering unique perspective”) and less about personal anecdotes.

I would compare these two types of blog posts in this way: 

• Personal anecdotes are stories about how your cat loves the new flea collar, scratching post, and cat food that you bought her.  Or hates them, as the case may be.
• Informative articles tell you where and how to get the best flea collars, scratching posts, and cat foods.

Both types of writing have their strengths and weaknesses.  Both are cool.  But I see the latter as being almost inextricably linked to commerce (short term or long term) whilst the former is just about sharing.

If you read the blog posts that I’ve linked to in this post, do you start to get the impression that blogging is being converted to a tool of business instead of a tool of the enthusiast or the expert?

Look, a blog is typically driven by a content management system that can do cool things.  There’s no reason why businesses should not use a blog if it helps them.

At the same time, I’m a bit concerned by the implications in some of these posts that blogging is no place for the amateur or the volunteer enthusiast.  It almost seems like these writers are saying that more personalized, “journal” writing really shouldn’t be published in blogs.

Maybe it’s worth remembering that the Web was originally a medium for sharing knowledge amongst researchers.  That blogs were originally a means to share links to interesting and informative websites.

Now, to be fair, many social networks either didn’t exist or else they were in their infancy as blogging established itself as the flagship platform of social media.  Over time, we have seen the emergance of social news, social bookmarking, content sharing, and social networking as alternate means of communication.  Tumble logs and microblogging are also available.  And good old journalling, like LiveJournal, is still around.  You can argue that blogging either filled a void or created demand for experience and knowledge exchange before the more specialized forms of social media were created.

However, if something is essentially free to use, you really can’t prevent people from using it.  Like, say, Wordpress or Blogger.

Blogs should be available to whoever and whatever wants to use them.  If someone wants to blog about Fluffy’s new flea collar, then by damn, they should feel free to do so.  If someone wants to use a blog as a front or shell to earn money through Adsense or affilate marketing, go for it.  If businesses want to use blogs as a marketing channel, there’s nothing wrong with that.

All I’m saying is that this medium is available to virtually everyone.  If someone wants to spill their guts about some esoteric fixation with the high probability of having an audience of one dozen or less, while mixing audio, video, or images in their content, there’s no reason why they should feel that they need to do that at MySpace, Facebook, or some other medium.

Blogging is not purely a “business communications and marketing tool”.  First and foremost, blogging is a communication tool.  We measure our successes in this medium by the goals we set or the interests we pursue.  Sometimes the interest is self-expression, pure and simple.  Maybe a creator is satisified if they find one kindred soul in the wilderness or amongst the roaring crowd.  Should there be any limits on the media used to do this?

I don’t think so.  How about you?

Warning: if you’re not interested in a rambling, slightly unfocused blog post, this might not be the right post for you.

I’m not a pro blogger and social media isn’t my career; it’s my hobby. I’m an IT guy who knows more about “meatball” business processes and mid-range, antiquated enterprise systems than Web 2.0, marketing, promotion, or how to use a Blackberry.

Nonetheless, I’m good at mentally dissecting things and finding flaws. I’m also good at testing software. And I can write well. Some of that experience applies, I’m sure.

The amateur’s view of social media

As I continue along this voyage of discovery in social media, I become a little more aware each day of how much I do not know. There are mainly aspects of marketing, advertising, public relations, and networking that I don’t have any practical experience with.

So, if you’re looking for the magic bullet, the quick fix, or the ultimate source of wisdom regarding social media, you aren’t going to find it here. Go visit blogs written by people like Maki, Chris Brogan, Muhammad Saleem, or Tamar Weinberg: they’re far more experienced than I am and they write well. I don’t think they have any magic bullets either, but they do have a lot of good stuff in their blogs.

Hell, I even created a social media blog listing - go check those blogs out. I missed a lot of good blogs, but there’s still plenty to chose from there.

On the other hand…

Social media is a young field and lots of things are changing. People have an intuitive sense that this ability to link friends and strangers in webs obvious and hidden is powerful and can be used to accomplish great things.

Or maybe it’s just another channel to force crap down other people’s throats. I don’t know.

I will say this, though: social media has given me the opportunity to get in contact with some pretty interesting, cool, and knowledgeable people. That’s worth something.

The value of social media?

I don’t believe that there’s a motherlode of gold lying in one place on the Web. I don’t think you can find valuables that weren’t already lying in wait.

People used to pan for gold in parts of North America, sifting through rocks and dirt in order to scrape together enough valuable material to eke out an existence.

Prospecting for minerals is still big business. In the past, it was only economically viable to harvest raw materials when they were close together, reducing transportation, handling, and extraction costs.

Can social media be used to mine for creative gold by harnessing the wisdom and power of the crowd, cheaply extracting and pooling valuable information that becomes even more valuable?  Can you use it to get ultra-creative ideas for your own blog writing?

I don’t know. I’m curious to know more. But somehow I think that’s a whole lot more valuable than trying to insert more messages into conversations where they may or may not fit. Or to start conversations with alterior motives, just because people think that these new channels are ripe to be exploited.

A closing remark of sorts

I’m lucky. I can get away with writing stuff like this because I’m not dependent on social media to earn a living (nor is it very likely that I’ll be that lucky, after writing this post.) I think there’s a lot of good people who are trying to use social media to earn a living. I’ve communicated with a number of them. I’m not trying to rain on the parade, but my skepticism is starting to emerge a tiny bit.

I have more faith in the intent and power of people to use social media than I do in having corporations or organizations trying to use social media to sell products, services, or even ideas.

I think the great potential of social media is to promote the individual, not the group.

I can get behind that.

Just a few quick observations:

My Twitter follower experiment, which I made an update to a few days later, seems to be paying off.  I know that at one point I was following close to 1400 people.  I started trimming that number down where it seemed to make sense to do so.  Today I’m following 1044 other people. 

However, the number of people following me has increased.  Currently there are 633 people who follow me (and thank you!) on Twitter.

On Digg, I’m pleased to report that I hit my short term goal of getting into the listing of the top 1000 Digg users.  Or, at least I will when they refresh the list, unless things go wonky somewhere.  By the way, the composition of the top 1000 Digg users list is determined first by the number of Popular Digg submissions, and secondly by your % of popular submissions to overall Digg submissions.  You can see the current status of the Digg top 1000 list here.  Next stop:  top 500!

My Technorati ranking is slowly climbing toward 100, which is another 2008 goal.  I think I’m at 87 but I think the next recalculation will take me to 89.

Subscriber count:  my subscriber count is in triple digits.  Not quite where I wanted it to be yet, but overall it continues to grow, which is quite gratifying.

StumbleUpon:  I’ve actually hit the 200 friends limit a couple of times and had to rearrange some things.  StumbleUpon has been a wonderful resource for this blog!

On top of all that, I’ve been interacting with lots of cool people. 

It’s nice to see progress!

I guess I made an impression with a “guild ridden apology”.

In all seriousness, it’s an interesting article by the folks at Nowsourcing.