Life Advice from the Technologist-in-Chief

Life's full of little ironies. On the same day former British PM Tony Blair was telling David Letterman about how he got his very first mobile phone AFTER he left office, President Obama was telling school kids to watch what they post on Facebook.

Blair, only 44 when first elected Prime Minister, told Letterman about how his first attempt to send a text - not realizing his name was not attached to the message - resulted in a reply of "who are you?" Humbling words for the man who. 24 hours prior, was the second most powerful politician on the planet.

That, by the way, was only two years ago.

Fast forward to now, only hours before Blair's Letterman debut, when the current most powerful politician in the world was dispensing sage tech advice to school children across the country via a video and Internet link.

Responding to a question about how to succeed in business or politics, the first words from President Obama's mouth were not eat a good breakfast, wear clean undies or even finish school. His recommendation: be careful what you post online - words, pics or video.

Good advice, since what you write at 15 will still be around somewhere at 25, 50 and for your obit writers to mine for pithy quotes like "LOL. Wasted. Again." Your future employers will be looking, too, according to recent stats, and they are notorious for having even less of a sense of humor than your parents. Hard to believe, but true.

President Obama's words on the topic of social media probably won't join the ranks great presidential quotes. Hopefully he did, though, save a few future leaders from explaining how the YouTube video of them jumping naked into a frozen lake in January seemed like a good idea at the time.

Not that I have any personal knowledge of such activities. Really.

More Stupid Corporate Tricks: The Sports Edition

I’ll admit to being biased. I think most college sports executives played one too many downs without a helmet. The recent attempt by the Southeastern Conference (SEC) to ban Twitter, Facebook and other social media from their football games proves my point.

At one time in the past seven days, the SEC released a proposed policy that would have banned fans from updating their Facebook status, posting a game photo on Flickr or tweeting from the stands at any SEC football game. No calling the brother-in-law to brag about your seats or blogging about that game-changing interception caught before your very eyes.

Seems the SEC believed being sports fans would be violating the SEC’s copyright and their lucrative contract with CBS Sports by reporting their own game updates. The solution, of course, was to act like a salmon and swim upstream against the massive current that is the omnipresence of social media.

After about 24 hours of being bombarded with “Are you kidding me?” messages from the blogosphere, alumni and season ticket holders, conference leaders relented. The new policy makes it clear that you can tweet from your seat as long as you’re not making any money doing it:

“No Bearer may produce or disseminate in any form a “real-time” description or transmission of the Event (i) for commercial or business use, or (ii) in any manner that constitutes, or is intended to provide or is promoted or marketed as, a substitute for radio, television or video coverage of such Event. Personal messages and updates of scores or other brief descriptions of the competition throughout the Event are acceptable.”

That’s a reasonable policy, but why all the drama that damaged the SEC credibility and presented an image of an organization hell-bent on holding back the tide of progress? Let's hope other organizations and executives look at the SEC's example and skip the Hail Mary pass (and excessive sports analogies) to save their reputation the harm and embarrassment.

Is Twitter the New Canary in the Coal Mine?

Overused analogy aside, it is a fair question: Is Twitter the latest version of an early warning system that can tip a business that trouble – monumentally big trouble – is right around the bend?

While legions of businesses are finding ways to use social media in their communications and marketing and top advertisers are rapidly moving to Facebook, the number of executive skeptics reveals too large a number of leaders stuck at the starting line.

According to a new survey by Minnesota-based Russell Herder and Ethos Business Law, 80 percent of executives surveyed agreed that SMM has the potential to help improve customer relationships and corporate reputations. However, half said they fear social media could be detrimental to employee productivity, and 49 percent believe that using SMM could damage company reputation.

Those companies surveyed who are not using social media say they are not using SMM primarily because of concerns about confidentiality or security issues (40%), employee productivity (37%) or simply not knowing enough about it (51%).

Those are not insurmountable issues and should not be a barrier to bring the benefits of social media to your organization.

If you’re among the businesses still afraid to take the plunge, here’s a suggestion of how to stick your toe in the water (and how I’ll weave in the Canary – Coal Mine theme): Use Twitter, Facebook and Technorati to search for your company. You might be surprised what you read and you could find the next business or reputation crisis brewing without your knowledge.

Need a case study of how to use SMM as a reputation tool, look no further than the US Air Force. Public Affairs officers tracked public opinion - real time - on Twitter after an Air Force One photo-op over lower Manhattan sent people running into the streets fearing another 9/11 style attack was underway.

In short order, military officials quickly and correctly assessed the situation to have moved from a public relations coup to a PR disaster based on the comments of New Yorkers posted on Twitter and other social network sites. If the Air Force had only used traditional tools, they would have been far behind the public opinion curve and ill-equipped to deal with the heat the fly-over generated.

Once you discover there’s a whole conversation about you going on without you, chances are you’ll leap into SMM, too.

Come on in, the water – and coal mine - is fine, even if the metaphors are mixed.

Need to know more about how you can and should use social media, send me an email at james.lee@c2m2a.com or visit my Web site for more information.

Why Can't Old (Media) Dogs Learn New (Media) Tricks?

Time Warner is casting AOL out onto the street by the end of the year. News Corp’s MySpace has seen traffic and revenue decline so fast the site has gone from “Who’s Who” to “What’s That?”

Why is it that traditional media companies have such a difficult time with new media properties?
Ten years ago Ted Turner said the merger of AOL and Time Warner was “better than sex.” Rupert Murdoch, upon buying MySpace in 2005 said “young people don't want to rely on a God-like figure from above to tell them what's important.”

There were both right and both wrong.

Both companies hyped the value of new media, then promptly tried to run them like their other media properties, where change is predicable and innovation glacial.

Time Warner milked the AOL dial-up service cow for all it’s worth, finally hitting on a money making strategy to own separately branded, ad supported destinations like MapQuest, Moviephone and Engadget.

MySpace, once the highest flying of the social network sites (and still the highest revenue producer) is seeing traffic and ad revenue decline and shift to rivals Facebook and Twitter almost as fast as users can type 140 characters.

MySpace is still the destination of choice for the young and the restless, but not so much for adults who have discovered the power of social networks. MySpace traffic fell 2% in April 2009 compared to 2008. Facebook traffic grew 89% over the same period. Ad revenue you ask? MySpace is projected to drop 15% and Facebook to climb 10% this year.

Why the rapid reversal of fortunes for MySpace? Web users, especially social networkers, are not like newspaper readers and television viewers. They are more demanding, and with an infinite supply of sites that will cater to their needs (and whims), very fickle.

Let this be a lesson to all owners of new media properties. Listen to your users. If you’ve been running a newspaper or television empire, they know more about what needs to be done than you do.