It’s actually important

(WORLD) A week ago, I caught a tweet by Internet Psychologist @grahamjones about the first ‘babble’ article on Mashable —the basics of the article was stating that 40% of tweets are about pointless babble. The article even goes so far as to say that it’s as close to a scientific study as we’ve currently got.

I see these articles and think ‘duh’, without banality and drivel, we would have no friends—its the conversational ‘glue’ we need to hold friendships together. I couldn’t help but try and test the water about my own knowledge (absent of any science and statistical analysis) and pose the thought that ‘babble’ = ‘value’:

Thankfully, I’m not talking twaddle and other people agree with me.

This morning I’ve read another mashable post about ‘babble’ based on a report by Pear Analytics on a study of tweets, and minutes ago @emryall sent me a Time article that introduces the topic by stating:

“It’s no secret that Twitter can be a tremendous time-suck. But imagine getting paid for wasting those precious minutes of your day.”

‘Time-suck’? ‘wasting precious minutes’?? Someone needs to start balancing out this negativity, before we’re all placed in the same boat.

I’m getting a little concerned that people are reading Pear Analytics research and Mashable articles and not applying the understanding behind it. I’m no psychologist, so I’ll leave you to ask the experts, but I know from personal experience that relationships might begin with topics of work, skillsets, events, meetings and handshakes… but that doesn’t keep them in your list of friends. For that to happen, you need to share more personal elements such as: tastes in music, whether you’re trying out decaf coffee for the first time, where you’ve been on holiday, and what cereal you’re eating. Twitter, FaceBook and any other type of ‘update’ service achieves all this and more.

Luckily reading through some of the comments on the above articles, other people (but only about 5%) realise this as well:

User ‘Rand’ says: “Most of what people say IRL is pointless babble too.”

Yes! People talk pointless babble all the time.

User Silas Sao says: “Saying that 40% of Twitter is babble is like saying 40% of your life everyday is repetitive. Kind of redundant.”

Yes! Another ‘life’ reference.

User unmarketing says: “I understand the point of calling it “pointless drivel” it looks great in a headline, but it’s those pointless things, like the song your listening to, the movie you just saw or that ur kid just stubbed his toe that opens up casual conversation with others, which leads to relationships”

Hoo-ray, another winner!

Read these articles with a pinch of salt. Understand that ‘chatting’ forms relationships, and with business networks in mind, it contributes to brand awareness just as much (if not more) than pushing a flyer into someones hand.

Keep an eye on the stats by all means, though value the time and interaction you give to others—it might be ‘babble’, but it is very important babble and people need to be aware of it.

How do you react to pointless babble online? Were you aware of the importance of drivel to enhance relationships? Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Right, now that I’ve done this… I’m off for a cup of coffee ;)

… the mice will play

(WORLD) So the boss is off on the other side of the world. The keys to the drinks cabinet have been handed over and I intend to redline the company car until the dust is well and truly blown off. Safe in the knowledge that I can cut ‘n’ paste my way back into action before he returns and know that you lot will back me up if things go Pete Tong. Right? ;)

I’ve already got a tweet out today about the Vistage gig video, and with DKs avatar in my TweetDeck, and a couple of pre-written blogposts waiting, it still feels like he’s around. So don’t get freaked out or start DMing him personal ‘love notes’ as it will be myself reading them at the other end. You have been warned!

Still to come this month, is the latest info on our ‘old media’ endeavours into the publishing world with the launch of Zen and Art of Social Media—I’ll tell more about that later. In the meantime I’ve got a to-do list as long as a call to a Swine Flu hotline.

Already the day has got off to a cracking start, by me losing my phone, getting it blocked by O2, and then finding it again, only to discover that it won’t be unblocked until Wed. So if anyone wants to call me (or MediaSnackers) please go ahead—only I can’t call you until the technicalities are sorted. Hey-ho. Gotta love the digital age hey?

Right I’m done—byee!

CEOs and social media.

(GBR) We're back to continue our consulting tenure with the UK office of Vistage International, the world's foremost chief executive leadership organisation.

Today it's all about creating a grounding in digital media skills and cross-platform understanding so our future social media strategy/operational development with the guys is much easier.

Related post : Vistage Consulting

MediaSnackers Consulting

Versus doing it for free.

(WORLD) Uber-marketing guy Seth Godin has announced the launch of a new service called Brands In Public, which aims to aggregate content from around the web which references a particular brand.

It makes sense if your a brand, to have one place to find this stuff, especially in this growing conversational age where everyone has the means and mechanisms plus a listening network to propogate out their feelings, thoughts and experiences (good or bad).

I can imagine a few small-to-medium-sized businesses would consider dropping the $400 a month on this service, especially if they don't already have a space online where they can respond to online content—although it simply replicates something you can do for free…

Check out NetVibes or use a combination of RSS search feeds and Yahoo Pipes—does the same job and you can put the $400 a month to getting a new blog incoorporated into your existing site.

As for having one place to answer all content created about your brand (which is one of the “selling points” Seth puts forward), surely it's more authentic if you comment and respond where the content is because the person who made it in the first place I guarantee will not care or visit this new aggregated space.

This is the kind of stuff we work on with our consulting clients to help them save money, time and to empower their organisation.

Related post : The Three Pillars

The hub for learning and virtual worlds monthly podcast series.

(WORLD) The fortieth RezEd monthly podcast, produced by MediaSnackers with Global Kids.

Discussions around using World of Warcraft in education with four users and details of a new commercial partnership between Dell and Whyville plus the usual news and events from the Rezed community.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

0.00—0.24 intro
0.25—4.48 RezEd news with Amira and Krista at Global Kids (any news or events can be submitted here)
4.49—5.07 intro to Jim Bower, cofounder of Whyville
5.08—6.12 new partnership with Dell
6.13—8.06 commercial understanding relevance of virtual worlds
8.07—9.45 other opportunities
9.46—11.18 future developments
11.19—11.24 thanks / outro
11.25—12.21 Rik introducing World of Warcraft conversations
12.22—12.54 Lucas Gillispie, Instructional Technology Coordinator, Pender County Schools, North Carolina
12.55—13.48 Craig Lawson, Pender County Schools, North Carolina
13.49—14.32 Helga Brown, Cyber Campus Coordinator Elizabeth City Schools, North Carolina
14.33—15.11 Bing Shao, Undergraduate Student, City University of New York, New York
15.12—17.08 WOW potential use for educators (LG)
17.09—17.42 film making (HB)
17.43—21.32 tackling negative ideas behind gaming (LG & CL)
21.33—23.11 experience of gaming (BS)
23.12—27.20 advice on getting started (LG, CL, BS)
27.21—28.23 wiki for WOW use for educators
28.24—29.22 Rezed WOW group
29.23—29.49 thanks / outro
29.50—32.14 Amira and Krista detailing the upcoming events for the RezEd community (any news or events can be submitted here)
32.15—32.22 outro

Subscribe directly through iTunes by clicking on this icon (download iTunes for free here).

Not using iTunes? Then just copy / paste this feed and drop it into your aggregating software.

Want to suggest someone or put your virtual hand-up to be interviewed? Then get in touch here.

Devour our other podcasts.

Dropping jaws and blowing minds

(GB) Today DK and myself are back up in Leeds working with the Breeze team and friends to show them some great online platforms and services. With this knowledge we hope to illustrate, inspire and motivate people into doing funky things with their projects and begin telling some great stories.

We arrived yesterday and had a meeting in the afternoon with Rosie, who is the development and communications officer for Breeze Leeds, investigating their current web presence, so we know what is and isn’t possible for them prior to delivering the training.

Brilliant, brilliant day. Came away with lots to think about and lots of new things to apply. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Rosie Wilks, Development and Communications Officer, Breeze Leeds

Read about what happened on our previous visit to Breeze Leeds.

MediaSnackers Training

Second chances.

(GBR/WORLD) HabitatUK are back.

A few months ago they did some major twitter-boo-boos (yes that’s technical-speak) for using the hashtags in evil ways to get traffic (you can check the Guardian and Sky News coverage if you missed it)—they quickly apologised.

And now their back.

With a little help from ShinyRed (who I hope are just guiding and not ghost-tweeting).

Here’s my tweet relating to their question on what they should be using Twitter for:

Another words : who are you? Be human (brands can’t tweet, people do), so introduce who you are. Have fun. And good luck.

Relates posts : Social Media How-to For New Employees, Beginners Guide To Social Meddling and Finding Customers/Clients/Audiences Is Easy

Another video of me.

(NZL/WORLD) Featured over on the Ulearn 09 Conference blog:

NEWS : I'll also be in Hong Kong from 30th October to 3rd November.

Related post : DK In NZ

Break the rules to inspire change

(WORLD) With the word ‘recession’ still rattling around in our consciousness, people in our friendsphere’s will be shifting roles and enjoying new positions. This allows these new starters a great opportunity to set a template for how they work best and shake things up in a stale office.

Start using social media tools, apps and spaces from day one, which will inspire and include your new colleagues. The plan is to influence office procedure and communication dynamics so your new workmates enjoy the refreshing way of working together and score you some big brownie points in the process.

Here’s some ideas to get you started, and are things I began doing in one of my old jobs:

1: Stay connected: Twitter from your phone: coffee breaks, cigarette/fresh air breaks, toilet breaks, lunch breaks, dull meetings. If anyone asks, you’re making notes, not texting!

2: Introduce your skills into your new role, whether the job requires it or not, it shows you’re diverse and valuable to other areas of the company, no matter which department you work in.

3: Get in early/leave late: use company time for your own benefit. If anyone asks, tell them you’re researching a project, or something.

4: Research: Set up a delicious acc. and store all your valuable research finds and those dumb links people send you in emails, under a company account name that is private or known only to you.

5: Organise: Create a Bubbl.us of office seating plans, flow diagrams, org charts, ‘who’s next to be fired’ lists etc.

6: Offer to take notes in a meeting and blog away happily, whilst your phones’ voice recorder captures all as a ‘backup’ (remember to pause when the conversation dies down). Convert the audio to qwerty later, telling people, your Word Doc didn’t save correctly, so its a good job you had an audio copy.

7: Track it: Most social spaces now have RSS feeds available, so set them up in to your newsreader, including any twitter searches. Saves you having to show and hide various websites on your screen, when you should be doing something tedious.

8: Force change: create essential documents in spaces that others will have to sign up to view Eg: gmail Docs. In case of resistance, gDocs also allow people to view without requiring a sign up.

9: Document everything: Start a private blog, document your work flow, run the RSS link through free my feed and give your boss the new feed link— to keep track of things. If they don’t know anything about RSS send them a Commoncraft video and insist they ‘get with the programme’.

10: Play dumb, act smart: Upload all non-essential PDFs and dull PPT files you’ll never use to a Slideshare acc and mark everything as private. You can then delete everything off your computer, including emails, safe in the knowledge that you can tell people you don’t have those ‘essential’ files—whilst all the while knowing you have access to them in case of emergencies.

11: Visualise: Create Wordles regularly and add to the top of dull documents. Tell people its a way for visual learners and busy people to consume vast amounts of knowledge without the need to read the entire document.

If questioned about ‘changing back to the old way’… inform your boss that these are standard communication tools used by their rival competitors and by introducing these techniques you’re subconsciously increasing the skillset for the workforce.

Finally…

12: Big yourself up: Set up a Yammer acc. or an Ididwork to document and tag all social media mentions and activity you have introduced since starting work in the company and refer back to for personal development / KPI meetings. Ididwork generates a handy graph to display all your tag topics. On the basis of this information, recommend you be awarded with a 5-8% payrise, whilst sliding your bank and sort-code details across the table to HR.

What have I missed? How do you use social media whilst at work? Leave me a comment below.

(This has been a ‘Lighten-up’ production, on behalf of ‘tongue-wedged-firmly-in-cheek’ blogposts)

Also see: Beginners Guide to Social Meddling

Our first book.

(WORLD) We gave you a little taste last month and thought it time to fully serve up the news and get it out there:

Zen And The Heart Of Social Media is a book which offers clear and awakening insights into online techniques, habits and practices.

Presented as a collection of mantras / statements / principles / standards which have evolved through our experience of working with a cross-sector group of clients and which have their roots in a decade of online activity plus roles in public & private sector.

This is our way of doing this stuff.

As a hat-tip to Getting Real by 37signals.com, we're making Zen And The Heart Of Social Media available to read online for free, then charging for the book (and other stuff).

We're busy proofing the first draft plus working on the website design and ecommerce solution.

Launch date yet to be confirmed although you will be able to pre-order early October (make sure you're signed up to our digest for exclusive early-bird offers) plus there'll be some interesting ways to get a copy for free as well.

"What’s new?" is an interesting and broadening eternal question, but one which, if pursued exclusively, results only in an endless parade of trivia and fashion, the silt of tomorrow.

I would like, instead, to be concerned with the question "what is best?", a question which cuts deeply rather than broadly, a question whose answers tend to move the silt downstream.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, pg 98

On Twitter please hashtag all things ‘Zen And The Heart Of Social Media’ with #zathosm