Archive for September, 2009

Online Friends Versus “Move Your Couch” Friends

Monday, September 28th, 2009

In “Trust Agents,” Chris Brogan and Julien Smith write about how online friends aren’t equal to “move your couch” friends.

I totally understand where they are coming from. I have more than 1,700 people following me on Twitter, but I don’t know much about most of them. God knows I wouldn’t ask them to help me move my couch, but I have leveraged many of my online friendships into deeper, more meaningful and valuable trust relationships by attending a lot of events and building social capital and goodwill with folks.

How do I know?

I sent the following tweet today in an attempt to cash in on some of my hard-earned social capital:

I sent this tweet to see if I had any Move-Your-Couch friends among my Twitter followers. The results surprised me.

Within a few minutes, I got four responses — all from people who I didn’t previously think of as “move your couch” friends. The main BlogWorld account even retweeted my plea for help.

Now I know that watching over @ReeseTheDog is a lot cuter and more fun than moving a huge-ass couch up and down flights of stairs in my apartment building, but I still think this is significant.

It’s not that your online friends can’t turn into “move your couch” friends, it’s just that you have to work hard to build up the social capital to do that. In my opinion, the best way to do that is to just be helpful all the time. Be a connector. Be a solver. Be a door opener for people. And don’t do it with the expectation of any kind of favor repayment.

If you do all these things, you’re a Trust Agent in my book. See you all at BlogWorld!

Tags: , ,
Posted in Books | 2 Comments »

Kicking Ass and Taking Names in Foursquare

Sunday, September 27th, 2009
As of 10:30 a.m. Sunday morning, I was winning in my Foursquare battle against my work friend Jen P. (Photo by foleymo)

As of 10:30 a.m. Sunday morning, I was winning in my Foursquare battle against my work friend Jen P. (Photo by foleymo)

I started playing Foursquare on my iPhone almost two weeks ago and I’m totally addicted.

If you’re not familiar with Foursquare, it’s a Web and mobile app that turns real life into poin-accumulating game. Players are rewarded for being adventurous and outgoing in real life.

Here’s how it works:

When you go out to a favorite restaurant, attraction or venue, check in online or with a mobile app.

Foursquare will award points based on your check-ins — five points for adding a new venue, five points for checking in at a new place, one point for checking in where you have been before.

There are also other goals. You can become “mayor” of a venue by being the person who has checked in there the most over the last two months. You also can collect badges by accomplishing certain tasks. It’s also a good way to keep tabs on what your friends are up to. For example, when a friend of mine checks into a bar down the block from me I can easily drop in on them or text them to set up plans for later.

After explaining Foursquare to my friends and asking them to join, I usually get one of two responses — “Sounds like fun. How do I join?” or “What do the points get me? Nothing? Why would I want to do that?”

Their answer tells me a lot about them. If they are for it, I assume they are the kind of people who grew up accumulating points in Pac-Man, for no other reason than to have fun. If they are looking for the real-world personal payoff for this online game, I can gather that they are solidly grounded in the real world and don’t like to feel like they’re wasting their time.

Anyway, I think it’s fun. And I’m determined to beat Jen P. in this week’s game (it ends at midnight).

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Apps | 2 Comments »

How I’m (Not) Attending WordCamp Seattle

Saturday, September 26th, 2009
Sitting in my apartment about a block away from the Adobe Conference Center, this is how I attended WordCamp Seattle without actually being there in person. (Photo by foleymo)

Sitting in my apartment about a block away from the Adobe Conference Center, this is how I attended WordCamp Seattle without actually being there in person. (Photo by foleymo)

Of course I miss out on all the cool networking conversations that are going on in the hallways between sessions, but it’s pretty cool that I can follow a lot of what’s going on there and still be close enough to hit up all the event-related parties.

I followed Jeff Pulver’s first 140 Characters Twitter conference in a similar way. I followed it as closely as I could on Twitter in real time, but I had to wait a couple weeks before I could actually watch the conference videos.

The unconference is the best thing to happen to learning junkies like me. I want more!

Tags: , ,
Posted in Conferences | 1 Comment »

Bellevue Tweetup 6.0 Fills the Seastar Bar Area

Saturday, September 26th, 2009
Jean-Luc David and Steve Matsumoto hosted their sixth Bellevue tweetup at Seastar on Sept. 23. (Photo by foleymo)

Jean-Luc David and Steve Matsumoto hosted their sixth Bellevue tweetup at Seastar on Sept. 23. (Photo by foleymo)

It was really easy for me to make it to Bellevue Tweetup 6.0, because it was in the same building as my office — Civica Office Commons. The tweetup took place in the building’s first-floor seafood restaurant bar area.

I wasn’t at any of the previous five Bellevue tweetups, so I didn’t know quite what to expect. The twitvite had only the name and bio of Steve Matsumoto, and I had no idea who he was. But a list of some of my favorite Seattle-area Twitter people were on the RSVP list and I had seen a few tweets earlier in the day. I knew it would be worth at least a quick drop in over a beer.

Like most tech/comm/media networking events I’ve attended this year, I got totally sucked in by all the great personalities and conversations.

I met Steve and had a quick conversation with Jean-Luc David (who I met at Gnomedex last month). Jodi Church was there and she brought her mom, Darla. I also chatted up some other tweetup regulars — Joe, Sean, Colleen, Pam, Liana, Tim and some others I’m forgetting at the moment.

Dave Manningsmith and I got into a deep philosophical conversation/debate on whether optimists are diluting themselves by ignoring the reality of the world. (I bet you can guess what my view is.)

I also met a couple of other cool people for the first time: Yumiko Sikora and Cathy Lalley.

Yumiko is a marketing manager with Quantum Fusion and she tweets in both English and Japanese. We talked about how people build community around language and how it’s no different online.

Cathy is the neighborhood marketing manager of the Bellevue Seastar and a few sister eateries. I blabbed to her about my grand scheme to help tiny neighborhood ma and pa food joints with their social media presence (perhaps a future blog post). We also had a quick discussion about the difference between nationalism and patriotism. (You didn’t expect me to go a whole night without talking politics, did you?)

All in all, it was a pretty good tweetup. I’ll be on the lookout for the next one Steve and Jean-Luc put together.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Networking Events | No Comments »

Empty Canvas: Starting a New Blogging Strategy

Sunday, September 20th, 2009
Starting over with an empty canvas

Starting over with an empty canvas. (Photo by pmo)

As far as this blog goes, I’ve been sitting on the sidelines for quite a while. I’ve been toying and tinkering with ideas a little too long and I haven’t posted any meaningful content for more than a year.

I kept telling myself that I needed to keep watching, learning and stealing from the best bloggers. I kept telling myself that I needed a water-tight strategy and execution plan before putting my content out into the world.

Well, I was wrong. I just needed a half-baked strategy and a fearless, flexible attitude toward the blog. I need to participate in the blogging community more, which means more reading and commenting on other blogs.

And most of all, I need to crank out good content on a regular basis.

The conclusion I’ve come to is that if I try to plan everything so perfectly, I’ll always be in planning mode and never in execution mode. Now I’m teaching myself to live in a perpetual mode of half-planning and half-execution.

Hopefully it doesn’t come across as totally half-assed.

Here’s the “plan” so far:

I’ve set up several platforms for posting content about topics that matter most to me: media, technology, communications, politics, hyper-local news from my neighborhood, restaurant reviews and work stuff. Here’s the breakdown:

Of course, I reserve the right to alter or abolish this strategy at any time for any reason. Use as directed. Results may vary.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Blogging | 2 Comments »