A Quick Note To You
The post below will be the first in a series I'll be writing in the coming weeks to directly address a group of great folks I find myself touching more and more. I've met many of you in recent presentations and meetings. And, moving forward, I know I will have met more of you in upcoming presentations and meetings.
What I plan to do is treat this series as a sort of post-meeting dialog.
Invariably, after each presentation I find myself kicking myself in the a$$ for having failed to make a point I intended to make, or failing to discuss something in the detail I wanted, or something else. There's always something. Some of you who conduct workshops and presentations probably know what I mean.
Anyway, let's see how this goes. What I see coming out of this is a venue for me to hit those points I wanted to hit during a meeting but didn't, wanted to answer but couldn't, or to address folks who thought to ask a question during the presentation but decided they shouldn't.
And, lest you get the wrong impression. I don't see this to be a "Dear Abby" column, or "Ask Mr. Social Media." By no means do I think I'm either of those. While I have played in this space a while and feel I can at least share my experiences, the fact is, I'm still learning myself. Everyday I learn something new from others who've either been doing this social media stuff a lot longer than I have, more effectively than I do or who is maybe new to the 'sphere but just happens to ask a question in a way that challenges conventional wisdom.
Anyway, I hope you'll subscribe and check back regularly. As always, I'd like to thank you for stopping by, reading and sharing your thoughts.
~Mel Aclaro
About That Discussion We Had On "Where To Begin"
I'm writing this post with a particular audience in mind. Specifically, those with whom I've had the pleasure of speaking in the past couple of months at any time about getting started with social media. Many of you know from some of my presentations that I usually like to start with an acknowledgement--and assurance--that, if you're feeling a little overwhelmed about just where in the whole social media stream it would be right for you to start wading in, just know that you're not alone.
The fact is, it is a dynamic and complex landscape. if I were to point to one thing that could probably be labeled a constant in the social sphere, it would have to be the idea of change itself as one of those constants.
As I've done before, I love sharing Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod's video, "Did You Know."
One of the key messages that strikes me is the notion that we are today surrounded by accelerating, dynamic and continuous growth. Panels in the video pitching banners like we are currently preparing students for jobs that don't yet exist... using technologies that haven't been invented... in order to solve problems we don't even know are problems yet..., sort of reinforces the rapid pace of change and our limited resources that allow us to keep up.
In other panels, the video highlights the number of years it took to reach a market of 50 million for various media:
- Radio: 38 years;
- Television: 13 years;
- Internet: 4 years;
- iPod: 3 years;
- Facebook: 2 years.
I don't know about you but that, to me, is an exclamation point on the challenges we all face in keeping pace with accelerated growth.
It's not surprising, then, that many folks with whom I talk about this topic expresses a sense of...I don't know...overwhelm(?) (frustration? resignation?) when we talk about the many platforms from which we have to decide about whether or not it's worth making the effort to stake our claim to online real estate.
And, if it weren't enough to have pundits like me adding to your pressure by touting the value of setting up personal online outposts, then there are illustrations like the one by Brian Solis and Jesse Thomas below that elegantly shows the complexity of the stream into which many of us hope to wade.
In the image above (click it to see it better), Solis and Thomas spice the panorama by succinctly illustrating a spectrum of platforms associated with numerous types of online conversations.
These conversations range from blogs, micromedia, lifestreams, social networks, video, events, music, photos and much more. Though Solis' and Thomas' illustration might, at first blush, suggest a comprehensive inventory of what's out there, they would probably tell you it isn't. With change as that constant I mentioned, you can be assured these platforms will continue to change-up the mix in the landscape.
So, where to begin?
Curiously, my sense about where to begin doesn't always start with recommendations about platforms. Though, I eventually get there, the tools involved with my first suggestions are actually very low tech. Not much more than paper and pencil.
In the next of this series, I'll hit on the value of having a purpose statement and why that helps when we're deciding which social media/social networking platform to invest our scarce time and resources.
