Almost Savvy » Networking

Just Because We’re Social Networking “Friends” Doesn’t Mean I’ll Go To 3rd Base With You

Irene Koehler — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 00:34:16 +0000

You Don’t Bring Me Flowers Anymore

Where did the romance go? When did we stop asking, “Tell me about yourself,” “Do you like to take long walks on the beach?” or even the tired old line, “What’s your sign?” Suddenly, upon meeting someone new, they immediately try to score and ask me to go over to their place to seal the deal.

Am I talking about my dating life? Hardly. I’m talking about my relationships with people where I spend much more of my time – online.

Talk (And Listen) To Me

We’ve all read the advice that the most effective ways to leverage the opportunities to build relationships with new people online is to be engaging and interested in them, by having a conversation that includes both listening and responding. Why then are people and businesses promoting themselves and trying to get me to buy their stuff as soon as I connect with them? It feels like I’ve just walked over with my hand extended intending to introduce myself and I get propositioned. Uh…ewww. All I can say is this doesn’t work with me – not in the real world and not online. If this happened at a live networking event, the conversation would go something like this:

“Hi. My name is Irene. It is nice to meet you.”

“Well (pretend you heard your name here), I’ll bet it is nice to meet me. You’re lucky you met me just in time because, boy do I have the answers to all of the problems you have or may have one day in the future. I know you’ll love my product/service/website so much that you’ll want to run out and spontaneously tell everyone you know about it, so here are some extra cards to pass out to all of your friends. Hey, you’re awesome, hope to talk with you again soon. Bye now.”

“Uh, what did you say your name was?”

Have you had this experience? When this happens online, it takes the form of email, newsletters, Facebook mail or direct messages on Twitter. As soon as you’ve “friended” someone on Facebook or followed someone on Twitter, you immediately receive newsletters or messages telling you to “click here” to do something – which benefits the other person. I’ve seen this on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

(click to enlarge images)

You Lost Me At “Click Here”

I connected with you because I wanted to get to know you. Consider it a first date, or the possibility of a first date. I don’t want you to kiss me, tell me what I need or invite me over to your place. If you do, you’re out. On Twitter, this is one of many reasons I will immediately unfollow you. On Facebook, I’ll unfriend you. On LinkedIn, I’ll disconnect. Through our connection, you have additional access to contact me directly. This access is a privilege, not an opportunity take our relationship where I’m not ready to go. No, I don’t want to come over to see your etchings or listen to your stereo (yes, someone really did ask me to do this when I was in college). I most certainly do not want to click on your link to buy something or find out more about you. It’s rude and presumptuous. It’s spam and, most importantly, it’s all about you.

When you want to talk, let me know. I’ll be here. In the meantime, stop groping my email address and trying to get to 3rd base. It ain’t gonna happen.

Social Networking Friends vs. Real Life Friends

Irene Koehler — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 22:36:56 +0000

While many of us use social networking tools differently, most of us struggle with similar questions and challenges.

Should I connect only with family and good friends on Facebook and only business contacts on LinkedIn?
How secure should I feel when using Facebook’s privacy settings to determine which groups of friends can or cannot see particular photos?
Should I be concerned when someone tags me in a photo or I comment on someone else’s post?
How can I organize the people I’m connected to so I see updates and news from the people I care about the most?

Social Networking Lines Get Blurred

With the unprecedented growth of Facebook, it has become the largest social networking platform by far. Even when we start out with one strategy, we can have a hard time sticking to the plan. We may have planned originally to connect only to family and friends, but then our co-workers found us there and we couldn’t really ignore their Friend Request, now could we? And then, there are the other parents in the carpool. And, a few of their kids wanted to become Facebook Friends, too. All of a sudden, our neatly organized idea of how we wanted to compartmentalize our activities online has gone to hell in a hand-basket.

When did things become so complicated? Is this because social networking is new? No, gathering with our friends, sharing news and planning events is not new. I’m sure this has been going on since the early days of humans interacting and forming communities. Doing all of this online is the part that is new and this is where things get really interesting – and a little messy.

The Real Life Social Network

I’m excited to share a thought-provoking presentation about Real Life Social Networks from Paul Adams, a blogger and researcher at Google. The presentation highlights research done to understand how real-life networks work and how current social networking platforms, like Facebook, work with or against these existing relationships.

With the internet abuzz about the rumors, and fairly high likelihood, that Google is hard at work at its own social network, possibly called Google Me, this makes Paul’s take on networking all the more intriguing. Could this be a glimpse into what’s next from Google?

I encourage you to walk through his presentation below. Don’t be intimidated by the large number of slides (216). Many of them are just images and he includes explanations where context is needed. Even if you don’t make it through the entire presentation, you will come to see how moving our offline, or “real world,” networks to an online environment (and then, throwing in a bunch of people we don’t know as well) starts to get complicated. Lots of food for thought here.

Which of his points ring true with you with regard to your own use of social networking? Anything else you’d add?

The Real Life Social Network v2

View more documents from Paul Adams.

How to: Turn On/Off LinkedIn Notifications

Irene Koehler — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 16:51:46 +0000

From the AlmostSavvy mailbag:

David asks, “How do I stop receiving an email each time someone connects with me on LinkedIn?”

Great question, David!

LinkedIn can be a real workhorse when it comes to our networking efforts. The potential benefits are huge, but filtering content can become a challenge. The good news is, like most networking sites, we have the ability to customize how we’d like to receive information from our connections.

I’ve recorded a short video demonstrating how to change how you receive these notifications from LinkedIn. Let me know in the comments if this was helpful to you and if you’ve got other questions.

LinkedIn-apalooza! Ready to rev-up your profile?

Irene Koehler — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 16:00:04 +0000

If you’re a professional or business person, you know you need to be using LinkedIn wisely, right? And, college students, that goes for you, too. If you don’t know why it matters or know deep-down in the pit of your stomach, you know that you’re really not all that sure what to do with LinkedIn, then this is for you……

I’m excited to be partnering with O’Reilly Media to present a free webinar on using the more advanced features of LinkedIn on April 20. Here’s the deal…this webinar is for people who have already customized and optimized their LinkedIn profiles. If you start actively using LinkedIn’s more interactive features without having done the critical work on your profile first, you won’t get nearly the value out of your efforts as you would have otherwise. In fact, this can work against you.

To bridge this gap and make sure to catch everyone up so you are ready to get the most out of the O’Reilly webinar, I am offering another webinar before then to cover all the customization tips and details which are often overlooked.

Be sure to register and mark your calendars for:

April 20, 10:00 am (Pacific) LinkedIn Beyond the Basics – In partnership with O’Reilly. This is FREE
April 23, 10:00 am (Pacific) LinkedIn Basics Webinar – Regular price $39 (a great deal!) 50% Discount code to be shared during O’Reilly session

What questions or tips would you like to have covered in the sessions? While I probably won’t be able to cover everything, your input is most helpful as I prepare the best presentation to meet your needs.

Yet Another SXSW Post (And, No, I Don’t Know If You Should Go Next Year)

Irene Koehler — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 17:37:36 +0000

I wasn’t going to write about SXSW (South by Southwest). After being asked by countless people what I thought of it and whether they should attend next year, I gave in. Rather than write a comprehensive overview, I decided to just fill in the gaps with a few points which may be helpful and different than what others have said.

I attended the SXSW Interactive (tech) Festival, which overlaps with the SXSW Music and Film Festivals, to some extent. The focus of each event is different, with the music and film events having been around longer than the interactive one. I’d guess that this unusual evolution has led to a tech event which is more like a festival than a pure conference. Add over 20,000 SXSW Interactive attendees to the mix and things get crazy in a hurry.

First and foremost, I am neither in the “OMG, SXSW is the most awesomest experience ever!” crowd nor the “SXSW sucks since it became less of a pure tech event” crowd. It’s just an event; it’s not the devil and it’s not Mecca. If it has changed over time, so be it; what hasn’t? Some changes we like, some we don’t. We’re grown-ups and make choices to attend events which work for us and skip those that aren’t a fit.

Thoughts and Tips for Next Year

Panels, Workshops, Keynotes, Oh My!

This is not like any other conference you’ve attended. At any one time, they may be 10-15 events happening and competing for your attention. The agenda is mind-boggling and impossible to process on the spot. SXSW has an online tool which allows attendees to view the sessions and select those of interest ahead of time, narrowing down the field and creating a customized schedule.

While I did a little planning ahead of time, I thought I’d figure it all out once I arrived. Bad plan. It is chaos and the sessions are in different venues, on different levels, in different rooms. The layout of the Austin Convention Center is absolutely confusing. I missed more than one session because it took me too long to select the one I wanted to attend and to navigate my way there. Argh! Definitely, I’d recommend doing more advance planning.

Even armed with a plan, you’ll find yourself in some sessions that don’t meet your expectations. Maybe the content isn’t what you expected or you’ve got presenters, who may be good at many things, but presenting isn’t one of them. There are better ways you can be using your time, so feel free to quietly head for the door.

The larger issue for me was one I’ve been feeling a lot lately after attending many tech and social media events. A lot of speakers and panels have begun to sound the same to me. Perhaps, I am the beneficiary of the vast opportunities available here in the San Francisco Bay Area and realize others may not have had similar opportunities.

Regardless of one’s circumstance, rather than waste time complaining or feeling frustrated with a session which doesn’t appeal to you, find something that does.

Meeting Friends – Old and New

At a normal conference, it is fairly easy to connect with friends, bump into acquaintances you didn’t know were attending and network with new people. Here? Not so much. With sessions, events, dinners and parties taking place all around downtown, coincidentally finding yourself at the same place at the same time as that friend you were really hoping to see isn’t likely. I had wanted to meet up with a few people, yet, despite our tweets and emails trying to coordinate schedules, it never happened.

Once again, the key is planning. I only decided to attend shortly before SXSW and didn’t spend any time thinking about who I wanted to meet with and letting them know I’d be there, too. That said, there is nothing like serendipity. Be open to meeting new people. If you see the same person in a few different places, go ahead and introduce yourself. Chances are you have similar interests making that person a potentially wonderful connection. (I’m talking to you, Carissa O’Brien, who magically appeared almost everywhere I went. We’ve yet to agree about who was stalking whom.)

The Infamous SXSW Parties

If you’ve only heard a little bit about SXSW, chances are you’ve heard about the parties. They are huge, many with several hundred people at a time packed into crowded clubs. Keeping up-to-date on which parties are where and when, which are invitation-only, open to anyone with a SXSW badge or open to anyone period, is an exercise unto itself.

More than one person I met told me the best thing about SXSW Interactive was the parties and that they had not attended any sessions. Anyone who knows me knows that I am not the party-going type (an understatement, to be sure). Waiting in long lines to enter dark clubs and yell over the music to my friends is not my idea of a good time. Still, if someone else wants to do that, it doesn’t really impact the experience for me. I chose a more low-key approach and connected with friends over quiet dinners and had actual conversations. Whatever your style, know that there are options and do what feels right.

Have a Gadget Plan

As you might expect in a tech crowd, the number of shiny objects was overwhelming. Brand new laptops, mobile devices, and cameras of every variety. Amidst the chaos, some gadgets are bound to become separated from their owners. I saw many frantic tweets regarding missing cameras and phones.

Prior to heading to Austin, I read a blog suggesting that SXSW attendees password-protect their phones to prevent any unauthorized access. As I waited to board my flight, I dutifully began the process of adding a password to my phone. I then thought about the fact that, should I lose it, a password would do two things: 1. Prevent access to my email and other accounts, and 2. Absolutely guarantee that I would never get the phone back. You may not agree with me on this, but I decided not to set up the password. Frankly, I’m not even sure that I agree that it was wise decision.

Well, and I’m sure you can already see this coming, I lost my phone for the first time ever. It was only hours after I arrived in Austin. My luggage was inexplicably still at the Oakland Airport. I was tired. Suffice it say that I’ve had better nights. Well, it turns out that someone found my phone right away, was smart enough to reply to the last text message with the phone’s location, handed my phone to the person on the other end of the text who returned it to me – all within about 10 minutes. (A million thanks to the mystery woman who found my phone and to my new BFF, Mark Pedrelli, for returning it to me.)

Whatever you do, think about how the device might be returned to you if lost. This applies to conferences, travel, everyday running around town. If I only had two things in my hand and managed to unknowingly drop one of them, it can happen to anyone.

Tweets and Check-ins

At any tech conference, you’ll find a handful of people live tweeting the content. Multiply this by 20,000 and the fact that many are retweeting other’s SXSW tweets and our friends who aren’t at SXSW are left gritting their teeth at the noise. Throw Foursquare and Gowalla check-ins into the picture and the internet is little more than a stream of “I’m here,” “Cool, now I’m over there,” “Hey, did you hear that Bill will be there soon?” coming from Austin. I gently suggest that we keep in mind those who aren’t there, but tied to our streams, and remain sensitive to what works for them (other than unfollowing and unfriending us).

Finding a Place to Stay

Everything happens within a relatively walkable area in downtown Austin. It is easiest if you find a place to stay right in the area. Buses and shuttles are plentiful if you don’t. The hotels right downtown aren’t cheap and get booked early, so keep that in mind. As an alternative, I found jillions (yes, I counted) of listings on craigslist.org for places to rent in the area. Many really nice folks in Austin decide to get the heck out of Dodge during SXSW and make a couple of months rent by letting someone stay in their place for a few days. It can be much more affordable than the hotels.

Is SXSW for You?

To those who have asked me if they should attend next year, I can only say is: It depends. As with any conference, talk with friends who attended, take a look at the content, the overall experience of being there, how easily you can access similar content through other means, cost, etc. and decide if it is a fit for you.

Were you there or know someone who attended? How would you answer the question, “Should I attend next year?” Please add your thoughts below.

How To: Enjoy SXSW (Without Being at SXSW)

Irene Koehler — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:35:43 +0000

Over the next couple of weeks, you may be hearing and reading a lot about SXSW (read: South by Southwest). In the real world, it may not be that big of a deal, to many in the tech, film or music worlds, it is a must place to be to see the latest and coolest things happening and mingle with those making it happen.

While all the festivities take place in Austin, Texas from March 12 – 21, there should be quite a bit of content you can enjoy from the comfort of your own home (or office…just don’t tell the boss you heard it from me).

The festival has three primary tracks:

I’ll be attending Interactive events and will be blogging one of them (my blog posts will end up on the SXSW site, not here). If you happen to be at the Microsoft BizSpark Accelerator event on Monday, be sure to stop by and say hello. This event will be streamed live online for those who’d like to watch. I’ll be sure to post a link on Twitter and to the AlmostSavvy fan page on Facebook, so stay tuned for that.

Massive schedule of events

Stay up to date on the full SXSW schedule of events here (note that you can filter the massive schedule with “browse by” options near the top of the page) and what you’re able to watch online here. And, if you’re game, you can always experience it by watching the Twitter stream here, though my guess is that this will be extremely chaotic as it will be a mix of content from cool panel discussions, people wondering when the bus will arrive and a few late-night tweets from party which are certain to be regretted the next morning.

Is it too noisy?

If you’re using Twitter and finding that the SXSW tweets are clogging your stream while you’re trying to focus on other content, before unfollowing your friends en masse, check out these options to simply “mute” tweets containing certain keywords or hashtags.

Bring it on

So, sit back and enjoy the event, whether you’re in Austin with cowboys boots in tow, or at home in your jammies.

Which of the events look most interesting to you? Will you be there or have you been before? Any tips for me, a first-time attendee?

Coming Soon: An Interview with YOU!

Irene Koehler — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 17:40:09 +0000

As the blog’s readership and community have grown, I’m continually impressed with all of you. I’m pretty sure that I’ve learned far more from you than you have from me. You share your thoughts by commenting on blog posts, sending emails and tweets, and participating on my Facebook fan page. Through all of my activity online, I’ve met so many fabulous people I never would have met otherwise. We’ve done business together. We’ve helped out each other when one was in the midst of a crisis (OK, so that was mostly me in the midst of a crisis). We’ve become friends.

There is no reason I should keep all of this networking and connection awesome-ness to myself. I’d like to do a better job of bringing you all into the conversation. Sure, you are talking with me, but I’d like to do more to involve you in the learning and teaching, while giving you a chance to get to know each other, too. With this in mind, I am hoping to do regular features about YOU!

I’m not yet sure how frequently I’ll post these features; that depends on a number of factors, including your feedback on the idea. I would record a short interview to learn a little about you and how you use social media, possibly including any questions or tips you may have. At least for now, I’m thinking this would be open to any interested members of the AlmostSavvy fan page who have access to a webcam and mic/speakers.

Your Feedback Is Everything

I’d very much like your feedback. Would you be interested in being featured? What suggestions do you have about how you’d like to see this implemented? And, if I do go ahead with these features, I’ll need a snappy name for them – any suggestions?

Do You Have a Digital Business Card? (Register for .tel for free)

Irene Koehler — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:12:41 +0000

We all want to be found more easily online when our friends, potential clients and employers Google us. We’ve set up our LinkedIn profiles, started blogging, created websites, invited others to be our friends on Facebook and tweeted like crazy on Twitter. With all of these fragmented presences online, wouldn’t it be nice to have a directory of all the places we can be found, plus the option to include our email address, phone number and tags which help the right people find us and get in touch? That way, we could direct people to just one place to be referred to the various ways to contact us and find out what we’re up to. It’s sort of like a virtual phone book; you remember the phone book, don’t you? They used to be useful way back when, before we found contact information online and started using them only as doorstops and booster seats for kids not tall enough to reach the dining table.

There are plenty of easy ways to do this now. Each offers their own features and options for customization and discoverability. Among the options are:

Today, I am focusing on registering a .tel domain (you may be more familiar with other domains, such as .com, .net and .org). To help me understand the benefits of owning my .tel domain, I met with Vincent Largilliere of Digitrad, who was kind enough to walk me through the set-up. First, it is important to understand that registering a .tel domain is similar to registering any domain – it is not free, unlike the other sites I’ve listed above. For that fee, though, you have more control of your information because it is a completely different site, rather than just a page on someone else’s site. I encourage you to look at the features of each type of directory listing. There is no reason you can’t use more than one of the options above.

What is .tel?

From the Digitrad website:

(click image to enlarge)

The .tel allows you to store, publish and update online all your contact information and keywords under your unique domain name, without the need for a website

> For individuals, .tel is a business card fully secure and customizable.

> For companies, .tel is both a limited public directory open to customers, and a internal directory, complete and secure for you and your co-workers .

All the extensions are identical, .tel is different: classical extensions link a website to an address, .tel links an address to an identity. This is its specificity and main strength.

.tel will allow you to increase your visibility on the Internet, to optimize your referencing, but also and more importantly to manage your personal digital identity as you see it, with the flexibility and the security that you need

More information can be found on the Digitrad website here.

Want to register .tel for free?

Vincent has offered free registration of a .tel account for AlmostSavvy readers. If you’d like to grab a year’s free registration of your very own .tel account, take a look at the video and keep reading.

In the video, Vincent answers a few questions about the value of .tel and walks me through the set-up process. You’ll note that I had to do quite a bit of editing (it seems we both talk too much!).

Following our session, I continued the set-up process. Take a peek at IreneKoehler.tel now.

To get a code for free registration of your own .tel account, simply add a comment below sharing why you’d like to try it out. Be sure to add a valid email address in the appropriate field (that’s how I’ll get the code to you).

Many thanks to Vincent and Digitrad for offering free registration to AlmostSavvy readers to allow you to see for yourself how you might use it to your own best advantage to manage your online reputation and visibility.

Thanks also to the kind folks at the Skoll Foundation who loaned us their conference room to tape the interview above, and thanks to Adin Miller for connecting me with the Skoll Foundation.

Also, in the name of full disclosure, Vincent did buy me a crepe while I was in Paris attending LeWeb. The crepe was not in exchange for this blog post, but I understand that perception is everything. Frankly, if anyone ever wanted to compensate me for a blog post, I’d hope the going rate would be something greater than one crepe and an offer to give blog readers a discount code. Evidence of said crepe.

Ready for Yet Another Social Platform? Here Comes Google Buzz

Irene Koehler — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 19:58:30 +0000

Are you ready for a new social platform? Here comes Google Buzz, which brings social elements right into you?Gmail inbox.

With so many of us using Gmail, this just might stick. It will be rolling out over the next week. You’ll be notified when it is live for your account.

As of now, it will integrate will services including Flickr, Picasa, YouTube, and Google Reader. You will be able to connect with Twitter, but only to pull in content, not to publish tweets (at least, not yet). Facebook is absent from the list.

As always, I’ll give it a try and get a feel of how it can work best for me. Right now, I retreat to Gmail to hunker down and get work done. If I have the ability to customize Buzz and turn on/off at will, then life will be much easier.

I see huge potential upside to Buzz. With the power of the enormously popular Google products and an already built-in user base, this could be a winner. More accessible than other networks, but less geeky and intimidating than Google Wave. Some have labeled this the “Twitter killer,” haven’t we heard that before about other new?platforms? We’ll have to wait and see.

Robert Scoble has written an interesting and more detailed post about why he believes, after several failed attempts by Google to go social, Buzz just might succeed. TechCrunch has also published a post on why Buzz may gain traction in ways Wave has not yet been able to achieve. Both posts are great reads for those wanted more detail and analysis.

What do you think? Will you give it a try? Take a look at the high-level overview from Google and let me know your thoughts.

Happy Holidays! Please Enjoy This Spam

Irene Koehler — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 17:25:23 +0000

Over the last few weeks, I have been inundated with holiday cards and greetings of all types. While this is typical at this time of year, this is the first time I received so many automated cards and emails, most of them from people I don’t really know.

On Facebook, there are applications which allow you to post a greeting card to the “wall” of all of your Facebook friends. Once I started receiving a lot of these, I deleted them from my wall as it made it difficult for someone to find my “real” content, the stuff I wanted to have on my wall. On LinkedIn, I received email from many of my connections wishing me well, but these were broadcast messages, not sent to me specifically. And, most of them included information about the sender’s product or service or request for help in a job search. “Happy holidays. Click here to find out more about me.” Makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.

While I know most people had good intentions, being on the receiving end of these impersonal messages began to feel like I was being spammed. I felt that they were taking advantage of technology which made things easier on their end without regard for those on the receiving end. Yeah, I know that receiving those long holiday letters about what extraordinary things your neighbor, Bertha, and her kids have been up to over the last year can be seen as impersonal also, but at least these came from “real” friends and family and were specifically addressed to us.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for taking the green high-road and saving trees along the way, but you can keep your spam. And, furthermore, don’t send me any more spam disguised as holiday fruitcake personal greetings.

Image courtesy of pandemia

Almost Savvy » Networking

Just Because We’re Social Networking “Friends” Doesn’t Mean I’ll Go To 3rd Base With You

You Don’t Bring Me Flowers Anymore

Talk (And Listen) To Me

You Lost Me At “Click Here”

Related articles which may interest you:

Social Networking Friends vs. Real Life Friends

Social Networking Lines Get Blurred

The Real Life Social Network

Related articles which may interest you:

How to: Turn On/Off LinkedIn Notifications

From the AlmostSavvy mailbag:

From the AlmostSavvy mailbag:

Related articles which may interest you:

LinkedIn-apalooza! Ready to rev-up your profile?

Related articles which may interest you:

Yet Another SXSW Post (And, No, I Don’t Know If You Should Go Next Year)

Thoughts and Tips for Next Year

Panels, Workshops, Keynotes, Oh My!

Meeting Friends – Old and New

The Infamous SXSW Parties

Have a Gadget Plan

Tweets and Check-ins

Finding a Place to Stay

Is SXSW for You?

Related articles which may interest you:

How To: Enjoy SXSW (Without Being at SXSW)

The festival has three primary tracks:

Massive schedule of events

Is it too noisy?

Bring it on

Related articles which may interest you:

Coming Soon: An Interview with YOU!

Your Feedback Is Everything

Related articles which may interest you:

Do You Have a Digital Business Card? (Register for .tel for free)

What is .tel?

Want to register .tel for free?

Related articles which may interest you:

Ready for Yet Another Social Platform? Here Comes Google Buzz

Related articles which may interest you:

Happy Holidays! Please Enjoy This Spam

Related articles which may interest you: