5 Shiny New Things

Here are five cool new things I read about this week (or thereabouts):

1. Gigwalk--I downloaded this after reading Tom Humbarger's post about it but since it's not yet available in the DC area I can't try it...but it you live in Philly, NYC, Boston, Chicago, South Florida (?), LA, Seattle, or San Francisco, you can make money by doing stuff like taking photos of a place, verifying info about something, or other stuff.
2. Joint-I tried this for a few minutes and I like the concept--which is, apparently, group Twitter chats...but off Twitter. I will say it is uber confusing to try to figure out how to post and the only instructions they give are one annotated screenshot, but I loathe Twitter chats so much and think this is such a promising idea that I'm willing to play around with it a bit to figure out how it works. When I have time, that is. I also presume it means the chats would be archived--which Twitter chats are not--and, again, presumably, in a less cluster-muggy way than Storify or any of the other Twitter chat archival apps which utterly confuse me.
3. Skrappy--Like to scrapbook, but not with paper and real photos? Sean Sweeney wrote about this iPad app ($4.99) on ASHAsphere (the blog I manage) and it sounds very cool.
4. Ok, I didn't just learn about this one but I still love it. Google+ iPhone app's Huddle feature. Private group chat. It's a little crash-y, at least on my phone, but I still like it. And, unlike Beluga, Facebook doesn't own it. Not that Google is much better, but I digress.
5. Think you can't view Flash on an iPad? Try iSwifter (free) or Skyfire VideoQ ($4.99).

Is Sharing Trending Towards Private, and What Does That Mean for Social Business?

Today I participated in interACT!, a virtual conference about cross-channel marketing. I was impressed with the content of the few sessions I watched live, although I was puzzled to see such an inactive Twitter stream from what I presume were marketers at least somewhat dedicated to social media marketing.

A few of my takeaways from the experience:

• In her opening keynote, Sandy Carter, Vice President, Social Business Evangelism and Sales from IBM Corporation, said "social will create more jobs than the internet." Later in the presentation she asked attendees to tweet if they or someone they knew were either a social media or community manager. I was the only one who responded. Call me a pessimist but I'm personally not holding my breath for all the social jobs that are a-comin'. 
• A common thread throughout all the presentations I saw was the fact that marketers and data analysts are busily connecting our social dots--connecting our tweets to our email addresses, sizing up each potential customer's "influence," capturing our social graphs and all the rest of it. This is spawning a whole new industry of software and services--social media management systems, social media monitoring systems, influence graders, social CRM services, etc. etc. Clearly a whole industry is being built upon the fact that we share publicly. But while I see all that stuff exploding, I also see myself and my fellow early adopters starting to share more off the grid. Instead of broadcasting to all our Facebook friends we participate in secret Facebook groups. Instead of tweeting we're using group text apps like Beluga or Google+'s Huddle or Glassboard. We're using mobile more.

What does this mean for marketers who are banking on the ever-increasing river of public intelligence gathering? What does it mean for the new social business imperative that hinges on all of us sharing on public platforms? What happens if the early adopter trend I'm seeing continues and people become networked in more private ways not accessible to the prying eyes of businesses looking to use that data?

Am I being paranoid or is this something others think about?

My New Obsession: Pinterest

Practically every day I hear about a new social networking site. Most of them I just ignore, or do a cursory try just to see what all the hype is about. But seriously--there are only so many hours in a day and, as I've blogged before, I'm well past the point of burnout as far as time spent online "socializing."

But then came Pinterest. Basically Pinterest is "pinning" images you like on different "boards" and seeing what others are pinning. Browsing others boards on Pinterest is like flipping through a magazine. Depending on who you're following, there are lots of home decor and style ideas and just generally pretty pictures. It's relaxing. It's inspiring. And for some reason, addicting. Well, at least for me it is. What's not to like about sharing photos of cute stuff or your dream house or dream wedding or whatever else you dream about or drool over?

For me, it's cute things with big eyes, baby animal videos, movies I love and home decor. I bet you never knew I was a wannabe interior decorator, right? That's the beauty of Pinterest....unlike other social networking sites that are all about how many friends/followers you have, or about sharing links or other not-so-fun stuff, Pinterest allows you to get in touch with your creative side and/or to just zone out and think/share happy thoughts.

But Pinterest doesn't have to be only about fun...businesses are already using it. One of my favorite examples is PediaStaff, who is using it to share speech therapy ideas and resources in a creative, useful, awesome way. I'm sure there are dozens of other examples out there too, and more to come. Who knows...a friend and I may or may not be thinking about an awesome business idea in which Pinterest will be involved....

Happy pinning!

Pharma Companies: Hire a Community Manager Instead of Deleting Your Facebook Pages

A few months ago, I blogged about Facebook's impending decision to make life hard for pharmaceutical companies. According to today's Washington Post, these changes will be going live tomorrow, forcing most pharma pages that have previously had closed walls to open them to allow comments. What isn't clear in the article is whether this means that Facebook is making all page's wall comments open, or whether this is specific to just pharma pages. As you know if you're the admin of a Facebook page now, admins now have the ability to choose whether the wall is open to all comments or just posts by the page:

 (Sorry, couldn't do the screen capture with the "Wall Tab Shows" pull-down showing the other option, which is Only Posts by Page.)

The Post article talks about how some pharma companies will be deleting their pages once the walls are open for comment because of the risk of leaving them open. Really? I mean, I get that pharma companies are in a tough spot with the FDA regulations about reporting adverse events, but honestly, it is not that big of a deal in my opinion. I've worked on pharma regulatory affairs contracts and know about the adverse event reporting procedures, and I've also worked as the community manager of Facebook pages, and combining the two would not be the end of the world.

The article quotes an AstraZeneca spokesman: "We're very strongly committed to social media, but we have to make sure the amount of time and resources spent on [monitoring it for problems] is appropriate." What I'd like to know is since when is spending money an insurmountable problem for pharma companies? Guess what? Social media costs money, just like advertising and sales and everything else pharma companies have no problems spending astronomical amounts of money on. How much would it cost for each of the companies mentioned in the article as planning to delete their pages to just hire someone to monitor the pages for comments and, when necessary, make sure any adverse events reported on the wall are entered into the database? Really, not that much. I've done that job, as have many others like me, and it's not that huge of a job and certainly wouldn't bankrupt the companies to pay someone to monitor the pages.

How do pharma companies think other companies do it? They set moderation block lists in the page's admin settings. They use tools like Buddy Media to set up sophisticated filters to flag comments that might need addressing, or to just block them from appearing on the wall at all. They have actual humans whose jobs are to monitor Facebook 24/7 and address issues as they arise. It's not that serious. Does it cost money? Sure. But how much money did each of the companies already drop on designing the pages and publicizing them? Plenty. Why spend all that time and money creating a page and promoting it, only to just delete it?

I digress, but seriously, pharma companies--in case you read this before you delete your page--how about just hire a community manager and not flush your Facebook page down the toilet?

#ASAE11 Wrap Up

So I'm back from St. Louis and my first-ever ASAE Annual Meeting. It sure was fun. I think I was meant to be a meeting planner because I could pretty much live in an exhibit hall.

While I loved my time in St. Louis and did learn some things, the main thing I think I learned is that huge conferences are not my best learning setting. Just as if you put a kid with ADHD in a huge expo hall then handed them a list of 10 concurrent learning sessions and told them to pick the one they think will be most informative and navigate to it not only on time but well in advance so they will have time to find a seat--oh and also find food somewhere along the way and tune out the 5,000+ people walking by throughout the entire ordeal, it probably wouldn't work out so well for them, the same is true for adults with ADHD. Like me. That basically describes my experience. The sessions I managed to get to and find seat in--or even standing room--were good and I enjoyed them and even learned a thing or two, but overall the experience was overwhelming. Fun, but overwhelming.

Several things did work really well for me:

1. Opportunity for one-on-one conversations throughout the event, including to and from it. Who knew basically the whole plane on both the outbound trip and return trip would be full of ASAE attendees? Well, of course anyone who's ever attended before did, but I didn't know to anticipate that. While I'm not usually one to enjoy talking to my seat mates on a flight (read: I close my eyes and pretend to be asleep the whole time so I don't have to), I really enjoyed having a chance to meet and have great conversations with the people sitting next to me on both my flights. One was a vendor and one worked at a nonprofit, but both were super friendly and we had great conversations, and I learned a lot about both their respective companies. And even though both the expo hall and social events were glitzy and social, I had a lot of great conversations, met a ton of cool people, made some great connections, and learned some good stuff. So while I may learn best sitting in front of a computer or reading a book, the social aspects of the meeting added a dimension that you can't experience online. (And I realize that was said like a true extrovert, which I'm actually not.)
2. The iPad and iPhone conference apps.  Props to ASAE for having both iPhone and iPad apps. While it was sort of a pain that they were both separate and I had to build my schedule twice, it wasn't actually that much of a pain because it gave me the chance to go through the sessions several times and get an idea of what my options were. I confess I didn't so much as crack the covers of the paper program. Programs, plural, actually--the one sent beforehand in the mail and the one given on site. For someone who basically needed a trail of breadcrumbs to figure out what session was where and when, the iPhone app was indispensable.
3. The Ignite sessions. Five minutes, personal topics, compelling speakers--what's not to like? For the attention-challenged like me, Ignite is an ideal format.
4. Joe Gerstandt. I'm obsessed with him. Even though I don't really like touchy-feely sessions like his, he is a phenomenal speaker and inspired even me, the cynic. I mean, really, what's not to like about a guy who does an Ignite session called "Why Profanity Kicks A$$"? When they post the link to the video I will post it here so you can see what I'm talking about.
5. The Parties. Ok, sorry but I liked the parties--sue me. Thanks Higher Logic, Avectra, DelCor and, of course, YAP.

See You in St. Louis

For years, ASAE's Annual Meeting was something that former bosses attended to to hobnob with other association big-wigs. Then, once I knew Patrick (aka Mr. Maggie McGary) it was something he attended and I heard about through him. Once I joined ASAE three years ago and started connecting with other members via Twitter, it was something that sounded really fun and watching Patrick go while I followed the Twitter stream sucked.

But suck no more--this year I'm going! I'm probably the only attendee who is more excited about the Expo part than the sessions (I am obsessed with trade show swag), but I have dutifully planned my schedule using the awesome iPad app and will be guest blogging about the conference for ASAE's blog. If you're curious, you can follow the Twitter-stream about the event.

Why the Nerd in me Knows Ads Will Ruin Twitter

After a week-long vacation and self-imposed break from all things online, I admit this time my return to Twitter was a bit more reluctant than it has been after previous, shorter breaks. In years past, the idea of not checking Twitter for any length of time seemed much harder for some reason. I'm not sure if it's because I'm just well and truly burnt out from the sheer amount of time and energy I now spend online between what's required by my job and my own personal use, or that the ever-increasing number of "places" I feel compelled to visit and participate online has just become too much to handle, or that Twitter itself has just become too much to keep up with. Whatever the reason, I admit I was a bit surprised that I pretty much avoided Twitter entirely for a full week, and wasn't exactly chomping at the bit to get back to it once I could--and had to for work.

Then I saw someone tweet this article "Can Ad-Littered Twitter Keep Its Cool?" and, after a brief skim, thought "no." The article states "Last week, the company said it would integrate Promoted Tweets, 140-character ads from brands such as Dell and Starbucks, into user Twitter streams, placing them high in users' timelines." The piece goes on to compare Twitter to Facebook and extrapolates that because Facebook has succeeded in spite of ads, Twitter will too. I disagree. I think Twitter is already overcrowded and noisy and now that other options exist to connect with the same people (hello Google+), if Twitter turns into an ad-speckled mess, it will just encourage users to go elsewhere (again, hello Google+).

I hate Facebook as much as the next Facebook-hater, but I will say that at least their ads are out of the way over on the right sidebar--the area, usability-wise, that users' eyes tend to block out anyway. But Twitter plans to place promoted tweets "high in users timelines"--e.g. right where their eyes are looking first--which will, in my opinion, quickly prove to be annoying and will cause users to either stop following brands who use promoted ads (ads for a particular brand will apparently only be served to followers of that brand) or stop using Twitter altogether.

Another reason why I think the ads will kill off Twitter is because Twitter waited too long to incorporate ads into their users' collective experience. Had promoted tweets been part of Twitter during the love-affair phase of Twitter where it became the go-to place for me in terms of searching for information, seeing what was happening in the world, and connecting with friends, maybe I would have just accepted it and moved on. But now that I'm used to seeing just regular tweets in the stream, suddenly being barraged with promoted tweets will be that much more annoying. It's bad enough to have the tiny ad at the top of the Echofon Twitter iPhone app I use, but the other benefits the app offers outweigh the annoying-ness of the ad. But if suddenly I have to scroll down through a bunch of ads disguised tweets to get to the tweets I actually am interested in seeing--forget it.

Face it--now is a horrible time to start spouting ads into Twitter users' feeds: Twitter's horrible search capability just got a lot worse now that Google realtime search no longer exists, and the Google+ iPhone app's Huddle feature offers a way to carry on real-time, private conversations with people you actually want to hear from/connect with without having to use hashtags or scroll through scads of promotional garbage, not to mention away from the eyes of brands busy monitoring and responding on Twitter.