Hyping the Death of the Newspaper: The Media Loves to Cover Itself

[As is often the case, I was inspired by a post elsewhere and as I was writing my comment, I realized I had much more to say on the subject. So here is my longer comment on an article on Wired called, "Dear Malcolm: Why So Threatened?"] I sat in on this years SXSW Interactive panel on the Death of MSM. There seemed to be three camps within the panelists and in the audience asking questions.

1. The MSM Writer: "All of this 'blogging' is really diluting the quality of the writing. I mean, MSM journalists have the degrees, they have fact checking departments, they have a standard to uphold." And they are losing their shirts.
2. The BLOGGER who believes in laissez-faire: "Let the giants die. The Old Gray Lady is losing money, so what. Let her adapt or perish."
3. The Internet Gen Upstart: "Fk'm. I write. I don't make a living at it, I do it because I am passionate. And then I work my day job."

The Huffington Post has done a fine job of not paying writers and basing giving the HuffPo lift to the writers to participate. So as a writer, we are on our own. It's a brave new "social media" world out there and you'd best sharpen your wit and look for your niche.

I keep getting asked, "How are you going to monetize your blog?" My answer, "By getting consulting work and possibly a better job than the one that just laid me off."

The papers won't die. Just as Rock didn't die. They will have to continue to evolve, be more agile, and embrace the "community manager" rather than "editor in chief." Long live MSM. MSM is Dead.

BTW: As a paper copy subscriber to the NYTimes (THUR - SUN) I can't tell you how happy I am on Thursday mornings when the thump on my driveway is double the normal local-only paper. Those two plastic bags, one blue one clear, hold the possibility of excitement, learning, drama, humor. Often I am let down by my overly imaginative projection. But mostly I just love the thrill of unwrapping the ATOMS of paper and getting the ink all over my fingers, keyboard, coffee mug. Yes, the newspapers must and are changing. Some will die. New one's will rise up in their place.

Just think, the "journalist" now has so many more outlets. More job opportunities. How you make your money from it, well... That's where you have to get creative.

@jmacofearth
permalink to uber.la: http://bit.ly/MSM-vs-Blog

Note: I would love your comments here. We can have a dialogue about this.

Also check out my collected Posts about using and abusing Twitter - The Twitter Way

Posted via web from jmacofearth's posterous

Hyping the Death of the Newspaper: The Media Loves to Cover Itself

[As is often the case, I was inspired by a post elsewhere and as I was writing my comment, I realized I had much more to say on the subject. So here is my longer comment on an article on Wired called, "Dear Malcolm: Why So Threatened?"] I sat in on this years SXSW Interactive panel on the Death of MSM. There seemed to be three camps within the panelists and in the audience asking questions.

1. The MSM Writer: "All of this 'blogging' is really diluting the quality of the writing. I mean, MSM journalists have the degrees, they have fact checking departments, they have a standard to uphold." And they are losing their shirts.
2. The BLOGGER who believes in laissez-faire: "Let the giants die. The Old Gray Lady is losing money, so what. Let her adapt or perish."
3. The Internet Gen Upstart: "Fk'm. I write. I don't make a living at it, I do it because I am passionate. And then I work my day job."

The Huffington Post has done a fine job of not paying writers and basing giving the HuffPo lift to the writers to participate. So as a writer, we are on our own. It's a brave new "social media" world out there and you'd best sharpen your wit and look for your niche.

I keep getting asked, "How are you going to monetize your blog?" My answer, "By getting consulting work and possibly a better job than the one that just laid me off."

The papers won't die. Just as Rock didn't die. They will have to continue to evolve, be more agile, and embrace the "community manager" rather than "editor in chief." Long live MSM. MSM is Dead.

BTW: As a paper copy subscriber to the NYTimes (THUR - SUN) I can't tell you how happy I am on Thursday mornings when the thump on my driveway is double the normal local-only paper. Those two plastic bags, one blue one clear, hold the possibility of excitement, learning, drama, humor. Often I am let down by my overly imaginative projection. But mostly I just love the thrill of unwrapping the ATOMS of paper and getting the ink all over my fingers, keyboard, coffee mug. Yes, the newspapers must and are changing. Some will die. New one's will rise up in their place.

Just think, the "journalist" now has so many more outlets. More job opportunities. How you make your money from it, well... That's where you have to get creative.

@jmacofearth
permalink to uber.la: http://bit.ly/MSM-vs-Blog

Note: I would love your comments here. We can have a dialogue about this.

Also check out my collected Posts about using and abusing Twitter - The Twitter Way

Posted via web from jmacofearth's posterous

A Social Media Strategist In This Economy? What's The Value Proposition? by John McElhenney

[Thinking how to frame a dialogue without overburdening the writing with punctuation and he said then I said, I'm going to use one color for my statements and another color for my friend's statements. Hopefully that will make it easy to read quickly.]

On Saturday night a good friend asked, "So what do you do?"

He was somewhat serious. And it got worse from there.

"You are the only friend I can think of who I have not given work referrals to. If I were to sum up what you do in one sentence what would I say?"

I tried a few ideas on him.

I am a Social Media Strategist. "Nah, you've got people like Brian Solis, Chris Brogan and Jeremiah Owyang doing that gig."

I can build communities. "Really? To what effect? To make money? To save money?"

I know how to guide companies to... "No. What's a guide? What does that get them?"

I can assemble the creative and technical teams to do social media projects. "Oh really? Like what kind of projects?"

Launching a B 2 B portal or a B 2 C portal. "What's social about that?"

Okay, so I know how to do online marketing programs. "Boooring. You and the other 100 companies in Austin. What's your value?"

I have these training sessions to teach businesses how to work within the various aspects of social media. "Great. What do you call that?"

Uh, the sessions? That's not very good is it? Hmm... "Not too good. I can't get a handle on that. When I have a client and they need what you do I can say... JMac he's the <insert cool name here>. And make the recommendation and you get the work."

How about a Virtual Chief Social Media Officer? "That's great. That's it. That's what <name of local dude> does. That's his job. Yeah, that's good. Nobody else is doing that. A VCSMO!"

Now I just have to figure out how to tell that story and put the "value" in that proposition. And educate my friend and my potential clients on what a Social Media Officer does, virtual or full-time. So I'm building the DECK on it. Maybe I'll do the book, the podcast and the video presentation on it.

Here is the hero slide of my presentation What Is A Social Media Strategist. Once I get that nailed I can move on to showing the ROI on social media projects that I've been involved in and how that success can and will translate into similar success for YOUR COMPANY.

I will share the entire presentation when it is done. But until then here is my tenant of what I do, or what a Social Media Strategist does:

1. The social media strategist must assume many roles during the course of a given project.
2. The project often needs to be presented/sold/green-lighted by several levels within the spans and layers of a company.
3. Being a master of process and agile methodologies helps a lot in driving projects forward in these multi-team environments.
4. And finally the social media lead has to maintain a supportive attitude across all of the teams that come in contact with various parts of the project. Because one naysayer can ruin the entire program. And you never know where or when that negative leverage might rear it's ugly head.

It is a lot to navigate. And depending on the size of the company the leadership or lack of leadership can get quite complex. But that is the task of the social media strategist at any level. Stealthy and effective, the winning social media ninja can move projects through the darkness and opposition forces to achieve victory. Victory with or without the support of the entire cast of characters involved in the process, but victory (launch) nonetheless.

@jmacofearth (socialmedianinja.net)
permalink to uber.la: http://bit.ly/socialmedianinja

Posted via web from jmacofearth's posterous

Untitled

[Thinking how to frame a dialogue without overburdening the writing with punctuation and he said then I said, I'm going to use one color for my statements and another color for my friend's statements. Hopefully that will make it easy to read quickly.]

On Saturday night a good friend asked, "So what do you do?"

He was somewhat serious. And it got worse from there.

"You are the only friend I can think of who I have not given work referrals to. If I were to sum up what you do in one sentence what would I say?"

I tried a few ideas on him.

I am a Social Media Strategist. "Nah, you've got people like Brian Solis, Chris Brogan and Jeremiah Owyang doing that gig."

I can build communities. "Really? To what effect? To make money? To save money?"

I know how to guide companies to... "No. What's a guide? What does that get them?"

I can assemble the creative and technical teams to do social media projects. "Oh really? Like what kind of projects?"

Launching a B 2 B portal or a B 2 C portal. "What's social about that?"

Okay, so I know how to do online marketing programs. "Boooring. You and the other 100 companies in Austin. What's your value?"

I have these training sessions to teach businesses how to work within the various aspects of social media. "Great. What do you call that?"

Uh, the sessions? That's not very good is it? Hmm... "Not too good. I can't get a handle on that. When I have a client and they need what you do I can say... JMac he's the <insert cool name here>. And make the recommendation and you get the work."

How about a Virtual Chief Social Media Officer? "That's great. That's it. That's what <name of local dude> does. That's his job. Yeah, that's good. Nobody else is doing that. A VCSMO!"

Now I just have to figure out how to tell that story and put the "value" in that proposition. And educate my friend and my potential clients on what a Social Media Officer does, virtual or full-time. So I'm building the DECK on it. Maybe I'll do the book, the podcast and the video presentation on it.

Here is the hero slide of my presentation What Is A Social Media Strategist. Once I get that nailed I can move on to showing the ROI on social media projects that I've been involved in and how that success can and will translate into similar success for YOUR COMPANY.

I will share the entire presentation when it is done. But until then here is my tenant of what I do, or what a Social Media Strategist does:

1. The social media strategist must assume many roles during the course of a given project.
2. The project often needs to be presented/sold/green-lighted by several levels within the spans and layers of a company.
3. Being a master of process and agile methodologies helps a lot in driving projects forward in these multi-team environments.
4. And finally the social media lead has to maintain a supportive attitude across all of the teams that come in contact with various parts of the project. Because one naysayer can ruin the entire program. And you never know where or when that negative leverage might rear it's ugly head.

It is a lot to navigate. And depending on the size of the company the leadership or lack of leadership can get quite complex. But that is the task of the social media strategist at any level. Stealthy and effective, the winning social media ninja can move projects through the darkness and opposition forces to achieve victory. Victory with or without the support of the entire cast of characters involved in the process, but victory (launch) nonetheless.

@jmacofearth (socialmedianinja.net)
permalink to uber.la: http://bit.ly/socialmedianinja

Posted via web from jmacofearth's posterous

Losing Patience & Trying to Find it Again : Repeat by John McElhenney

During SXSW Interactive 2006 I was caught waiting in the first morning registration lines that spiraled around several levels of the Austin Convention Center. I was amped and ready to go AND I was in line. Waiting. Waiting some more. I did have my iPod with me so I was not unhappy, but I was not very patient either.

At SXSW that morning, I was confronted with stupid lines, registration computers that didn't work and standing in one line to PAY and a 2nd line to get my picture taken and then milling about (no line) waiting for the morning's 1.25 hr task, the badge! I tried to keep my joy about me even when I got to the front of the second line, right next to the 1st line. I didn't even have to ask "why." I was sublimely arriving.

And thus I coined my state of mind as continuously arriving at patience. Once I came up with the phrase it became a rally point for me in all sorts of uncomfortable situations. Skip forward to my current state of affairs.

<confessional mode>

• I'm overweight
• I drink a lot of coffee
• I drive like a mad man and like it that way
• I am quick to interrupt (I call it passion, others might experience it as rude)
• I am not all that nice at times
• If I think I'm right I often stop listening to other view points

</confessional mode>

So today I take evasive action. And one of those steps was to swam laps in the pool for the first time in years. (I was a competitive swimmer in high school - 100 meter freestyle)

And I will work to return to patience with the following actions:

• I will listen for more than 50% of every conversation
• I will save my "ideas" and wait until the appropriate time (it's okay to say, let's come back to this, I don't have to offer my solution right away: see 'teachable moment.')
• I will channel that pent up frustration into tennis matches, swimming laps and writing
• I will consider every twitter snipe twice before sending it.

and most importantly...

• I will take a 20 time out each morning after the kids are gone, to center and plan my top-3 for the day. Everyday.

I'll let you know how it's going in a bit.

@jmacofearth
permalink on uber.la: http://bit.ly/my-patience Critically related posts:

• Review, Reset, Action: the BIG GOALS of 2009 (Being Accountable for Our Own Actions)
• Getting Things Done Primer – It’s All About Doing It, not THINKING About Doing It
• Doin Social Media – WIIFM – Whuffie – Creating Beauty Online and WIIFY
• Fire Everything! – Twitter Facebook LinkedIN Convergence – What’s Okay What’s Not
• What Do We Lead About? – What Makes Up Participation vs Lurking vs Flair?
• Puttin Up the BIG GOALS of 2009 – Mid-Year Update in Progress

Posted via web from jmacofearth's posterous

Untitled

During SXSW Interactive 2006 I was caught waiting in the first morning registration lines that spiraled around several levels of the Austin Convention Center. I was amped and ready to go AND I was in line. Waiting. Waiting some more. I did have my iPod with me so I was not unhappy, but I was not very patient either.

At SXSW that morning, I was confronted with stupid lines, registration computers that didn't work and standing in one line to PAY and a 2nd line to get my picture taken and then milling about (no line) waiting for the morning's 1.25 hr task, the badge! I tried to keep my joy about me even when I got to the front of the second line, right next to the 1st line. I didn't even have to ask "why." I was sublimely arriving.

And thus I coined my state of mind as continuously arriving at patience. Once I came up with the phrase it became a rally point for me in all sorts of uncomfortable situations. Skip forward to my current state of affairs.

<confessional mode>

• I'm overweight
• I drink a lot of coffee
• I drive like a mad man and like it that way
• I am quick to interrupt (I call it passion, others might experience it as rude)
• I am not all that nice at times
• If I think I'm right I often stop listening to other view points

</confessional mode>

So today I take evasive action. And one of those steps was to swam laps in the pool for the first time in years. (I was a competitive swimmer in high school - 100 meter freestyle)

And I will work to return to patience with the following actions:

• I will listen for more than 50% of every conversation
• I will save my "ideas" and wait until the appropriate time (it's okay to say, let's come back to this, I don't have to offer my solution right away: see 'teachable moment.')
• I will channel that pent up frustration into tennis matches, swimming laps and writing
• I will consider every twitter snipe twice before sending it.

and most importantly...

• I will take a 20 time out each morning after the kids are gone, to center and plan my top-3 for the day. Everyday.

I'll let you know how it's going in a bit.

@jmacofearth
permalink on uber.la: http://bit.ly/my-patience Critically related posts:

• Review, Reset, Action: the BIG GOALS of 2009 (Being Accountable for Our Own Actions)
• Getting Things Done Primer – It’s All About Doing It, not THINKING About Doing It
• Doin Social Media – WIIFM – Whuffie – Creating Beauty Online and WIIFY
• Fire Everything! – Twitter Facebook LinkedIN Convergence – What’s Okay What’s Not
• What Do We Lead About? – What Makes Up Participation vs Lurking vs Flair?
• Puttin Up the BIG GOALS of 2009 – Mid-Year Update in Progress

Posted via web from jmacofearth's posterous

A Tweeting Fool or a Tweeting Genius? How Do YOU Add Value to the Tweetstream?

[Tim Walker posted the following question. Can genius and social media go together? on his What I've Learned So Far. And in my infinite cheekiness I could not resist an answer. And in my own self-aggrandizement I could not stop at the mere comment, I have to turn the idea into an entire post. So much for 140 characters! So here is a crosspost that might grow beyond the initial discussion with Tim's blog.]

Is posting an answer a form of braggadocio? I am no genius. I am constantly working on patience.

That said, the social media system is inherently interruptive in nature. Twitter being the most insistent model, blink and you'll miss the entire conversation. But is that a bad thing?

So today a study revealed that 10% of Tweeters produce 90% of the Tweets. They can't all be geniuses, and they most certainly would be doing something other than tweeting if they were geniuses.

So... Social media is wonderful within limits. It is important for your sanity to put a bounding box around the influence and interruptions you are willing to tolerate from Twitter, email, IM, blog commenting and such.

Here's a pop quiz, gather up all of your 140 character messages for the last month and put them in a document. Delete all RT's and conversational @ messages and ask: Now, what is the percentage of genius on the page of what YOU created? Original wisdom? Wit? Or shite?

It is increasingly important to turn off the social media interruptions when you are trying to create something of value. Unless your value is in the form of 90 second sound bites, I would suggest you focus your genius on the longer form. How about the genius of Blog commenting, or actually writing the full blog post?

Still genius is everywhere among us. Some geniuses focus their intelligence more effectively than others. And even us sub-geniuses can learn to be more efficient and effective by putting what mental resources we have on the task of posing or answering questions. And that activity leads to a better possibility of creating something of value in the dialogue between us.

[end of blog comment]

Okay Mr. Mac, good idea. So do it. First I used Tweetake to download my last 1,002 tweets into a csv.

And then pulling them into Excel I deleted all blip.fms, RTs, and conversation specific @s to come up with my original content, for better or worse, it's all I got.

And so, from 1002 total tweets I have 347 tweets where I actually created original content. (35% content) The other types of content break down like this:

• RT: 243 (24%)
• @s: 158 (16%)
• Blips: 223 (22%) "listening to" (I disconnected my blip.fm from my twitter stream a week ago, thinking these were not really high-value tweets, fun being a Tweet-Jay, but not really what I'm about)
• Liked/Fav'd: 31 (0.03%)

And let’s see, any genius in there… uh… Well, here are my top 6, self-selected.

1. Can we all just quit calling it SOCIAL MEDIA already. And let's not talk about TWITTER either... Gosh, we're boring ourselves. #gosh
2. DEAR TWITTER, Please oh please oh please let me follow ONE MORE PERSON! Seriously if I forget them I'll never find them again. Thank You. (responding to hitting the "you can follow no more people at this time" error)
3. So, putting some dumb character before the @ now let's other peeps see my @s to folks they don't know. UG! #TwitterFail
4. So... What if someone really were readin all this stuff we're tweeting, I mean, really, like in the DB forever! Would I be more quiet? Nah!
5. blip killed my browser - damn I was almost finished with a GTD post (heh heh - that's ironic) Damn, must focus on task at hand. #gtd
6. Amazing how some tweeps you follow, who have been silent for months, suddenly begin to Tweet their heads off. Welcome to the PARTAAAY!

Nope. But not ONE ADVERTISEMENT and NOT ONE GHOST TWEET. That's right, NOT ONE!

@jmacofearth
permalink to uber.la: http://bit.ly/my-tweet-makup

What I Believe:

• Friends, Tweeps, Links and Groups: Placing Value On Community and Friendship
• Fire Everything! - Twitter Facebook LinkedIN Convergence - What’s Okay What’s Not
• OPEN LETTER TO Guy Kawasakisan - Return to the Way Mr. Kawasaki, Before It’s Too Late For Us All!
• Uber.la’s 1-2-3 Guide To Twitter: GETTING REAL with TWITTER

Posted via web from jmacofearth's posterous

A Tweeting Fool or a Tweeting Genius? How Do YOU Add Value to the Tweetstream?

[Tim Walker posted the following question. Can genius and social media go together? on his What I've Learned So Far. And in my infinite cheekiness I could not resist an answer. And in my own self-aggrandizement I could not stop at the mere comment, I have to turn the idea into an entire post. So much for 140 characters! So here is a crosspost that might grow beyond the initial discussion with Tim's blog.]

Is posting an answer a form of braggadocio? I am no genius. I am constantly working on patience.

That said, the social media system is inherently interruptive in nature. Twitter being the most insistent model, blink and you'll miss the entire conversation. But is that a bad thing?

So today a study revealed that 10% of Tweeters produce 90% of the Tweets. They can't all be geniuses, and they most certainly would be doing something other than tweeting if they were geniuses.

So... Social media is wonderful within limits. It is important for your sanity to put a bounding box around the influence and interruptions you are willing to tolerate from Twitter, email, IM, blog commenting and such.

Here's a pop quiz, gather up all of your 140 character messages for the last month and put them in a document. Delete all RT's and conversational @ messages and ask: Now, what is the percentage of genius on the page of what YOU created? Original wisdom? Wit? Or shite?

It is increasingly important to turn off the social media interruptions when you are trying to create something of value. Unless your value is in the form of 90 second sound bites, I would suggest you focus your genius on the longer form. How about the genius of Blog commenting, or actually writing the full blog post?

Still genius is everywhere among us. Some geniuses focus their intelligence more effectively than others. And even us sub-geniuses can learn to be more efficient and effective by putting what mental resources we have on the task of posing or answering questions. And that activity leads to a better possibility of creating something of value in the dialogue between us.

[end of blog comment]

Okay Mr. Mac, good idea. So do it. First I used Tweetake to download my last 1,002 tweets into a csv.

And then pulling them into Excel I deleted all blip.fms, RTs, and conversation specific @s to come up with my original content, for better or worse, it's all I got.

And so, from 1002 total tweets I have 347 tweets where I actually created original content. (35% content) The other types of content break down like this:

• RT: 243 (24%)
• @s: 158 (16%)
• Blips: 223 (22%) "listening to" (I disconnected my blip.fm from my twitter stream a week ago, thinking these were not really high-value tweets, fun being a Tweet-Jay, but not really what I'm about)
• Liked/Fav'd: 31 (0.03%)

And let’s see, any genius in there… uh… Well, here are my top 6, self-selected.

1. Can we all just quit calling it SOCIAL MEDIA already. And let's not talk about TWITTER either... Gosh, we're boring ourselves. #gosh
2. DEAR TWITTER, Please oh please oh please let me follow ONE MORE PERSON! Seriously if I forget them I'll never find them again. Thank You. (responding to hitting the "you can follow no more people at this time" error)
3. So, putting some dumb character before the @ now let's other peeps see my @s to folks they don't know. UG! #TwitterFail
4. So... What if someone really were readin all this stuff we're tweeting, I mean, really, like in the DB forever! Would I be more quiet? Nah!
5. blip killed my browser - damn I was almost finished with a GTD post (heh heh - that's ironic) Damn, must focus on task at hand. #gtd
6. Amazing how some tweeps you follow, who have been silent for months, suddenly begin to Tweet their heads off. Welcome to the PARTAAAY!

Nope. But not ONE ADVERTISEMENT and NOT ONE GHOST TWEET. That's right, NOT ONE!

@jmacofearth
permalink to uber.la: http://bit.ly/my-tweet-makup

What I Believe:

• Friends, Tweeps, Links and Groups: Placing Value On Community and Friendship
• Fire Everything! - Twitter Facebook LinkedIN Convergence - What’s Okay What’s Not
• OPEN LETTER TO Guy Kawasakisan - Return to the Way Mr. Kawasaki, Before It’s Too Late For Us All!
• Uber.la’s 1-2-3 Guide To Twitter: GETTING REAL with TWITTER

Posted via web from jmacofearth's posterous