The Social Media Experiment

I “like” the fact that new potential acquaintances are popping up on Linkedin that are noteworthy yet long gone or quite fictional (literally).

Ernest Hemingway:

I have seen much in life, both beauty and tragedy.
Much can come from human spirit.
Community is vital yet difficult to cultivate.
Family is dear.
I have lived all over.
I love Paris.

Some of my works:

“Indian Camp” (1926)
The Sun Also Rises (1927)
A Farewell to Arms (1929)
“The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” (1935)
For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)
The Old Man and the Sea (1951)
True at First Light (1999)

Sherlock Holmes

Specialties

A brilliant London-based “consulting detective”, famous for astute logical reasoning, the ability to take almost any disguise, and use of forensic science skills to solve difficult cases.

While I have not connected with either of them yet, they may be my connection to a new job in writing or as a detective should the need arise.

While there are certainly some compelling presentations that have happened somewhere inside the Austin Convention Center, a lot of conference goers have expressed the lackluster level of information being conveyed at the presentations. Now the panel discussion titles have been fairly enticing and have acted as variable baited hooks to reel in interested parties, but once into the presentations, things seem to go awry. In some cases, wholesale walkouts of 25% of he audience have happened 15 minutes in.

Now I am sure people are thinking I am an ass because i can not adequately speak to all of the presentations of which some people have certainly worked their butts off to prepare for. I am also not a presenter myself, so being critical is easy if you are not being judged yourself. That being said, a presentation will obviously be more interesting to a individuals that have no idea of what to expect, an those who have familiarity with the content. Now that does leave thousands of happy organizational workers who will return home and declare “mission accomplished” and that they had learned a lot. Maybe they are now the new organization expert on the topic they listened to through a 60 minute presentation.

Something to enjoy?

Guy Kawasaki’s presentation was at least entertaining. He is truly a presenter who knows the who and why of communicating. The result? New fans will embrace his action items and then buy his book. Old fans will continue to follow him through his feeds and also buy his book.

As I sit through yet another presentation, I am hearing references to innovation, revision and actionable audiences. What I really want to hear is breakout thinking on how we can interact with our audiences through emerging platforms. Yes mobile, but where is this year’s foursquare and who will create excitement among a hungry audience looking for mediums to conquer.

Maybe SXSW will crown a platform/app, but my choice is more traditional in the form of the folks at “Tap This” who position the hottest women in body-hugging outfits with the fore-named service pointing down to their asses.

We can always “check in” at the “Tap This” girl but digitally speaking, my vote goes to the traditional application this year.

So you would expect something spectacular to come out of SXSW. So far, I have not seen it but maybe it is brewing on the laptop of what seems to be thousands of  startups that are hoping to get recognition here.  For me, the best part of SXSW has been checking in on foursquare. I know, just days ago I was commenting on the Mayor status quantum shift allowing users to seemingly take over a location without the protracted battle that it once required. But over the last 24 hours I have been religiously using the updated foursquare application to follow my friends around SXSW as they check in just about every 12 feet at one sponsored location after the other.

Where I had cooled off on check-ins back home, feeling that a trip to the Giant didn’t warrant my effort, SXSW has been my oyster. And if I ever get cool fingers, one of my several friends here don’t hesitate to check in as a reminder of where they are and what they are doing.

Sponsors and those who are on the fringe are also keeping Foursquare in their crosshairs. Nikon is having people check in based on clues to find Ashton Kutcher and those who figure it out get tickets to their visual event party with Vimeo.

In the end, The big winner will be whoever takes over as Mayor of Austin. In the meantime, thank you Unison for sending me down here, I will be sure to check in when I get back to Washington D.C.

(Photo of Steve Case by Russell Hirshon)

AOL celebrated 25 years this last year and what a journey. I remember installing America Online, choosing a local phone number to dial into and then hearing that familiar scramble of the audible “handshake” followed by the  connection that would allow me to leave my room and enter the infant internet. 14.4 kb per second seemed like a leap forward as I was able to view web pages at the blistering speed of one every 15-20 seconds. The big upgrade was 28.8 and then…wait for it…. 56.6 kbps. The time it took to download a single page of content seemed reasonable until you made the big upgrade to 56.6 KB per second. Should you happen to click a link, it was still a role of the dice as to how long the next page would load.

It was worth the wait.

Even with all of the issues of accessing content at sometimes painfully long load times, America Online introduced the masses to Internet access. Receiving a disk in the mail every 4 weeks may have been one of the largest and most successful mail marketing campaigns in history. The sometimes confusing and slightly more difficult steps of setting up internet access through a typical internet access provider of the time was no longer an issue.  I will be always be able to say, “I remember when” but for our kids on FiOS enjoying 25 MB upload and download speeds, it is but a piece of history easily ignored.

So I owe a big thanks to Jim Kimsey, who went to my high school, St. John’s College High and has given them a nice facilities upgrade and Steve Case. who has always been cordial in the several times we have met. Although AOL’s journey has changed and its focus is now on content, its legacy will live on for those of us who carelessly surf the web as if it was naturally programmed into their DNA. This DNA was actually  created by those two guys and the thousands of people that worked at AOL.

I may not be the first person to become Mayor of an unsavory place on foursquare but I may be the first to talk about it. More importantly, my intent is to discuss where this application will take us as popularity rises, crests and then potentially falls off as user interest jumps to the next application. For now, I am happy to check in at sometimes mundane places like the grocery store or make a statement by checking in at an embassy or other semi exclusive location. The bathroom at work seemed like a logical place to make a statement. How far will we go as application users to differentiate ourselves from everyone else. I actually think that my “Mayorship” will remain intact even if I don’t check in again.

When Dennis Crowley first conceived of foursquare, it was not a restaurant or bank that motivated him to create a location based incentive application. He was crossing a bridge in NY when he spotted some graffiti on the pavement worth stomping on as he jogged across. Thinking he should have been rewarded for his “tag” of the location, this may have been the basis for the development of foursquare. Of course having technology that supports geo-location tagging helps.

Other locations worth mentioning are ones that seem accessible only while driving. My wife checked in from the Bay Bridge last weekend. I was driving but for those who are alone and feel compelled to let others know they are on the 3+mile bridge, they may take their eyes off to log in. Hopefully it won’t take them off the bridge and into the water. A tip might be something like, “Great view of the water but be sure to stay in your lane.” Other locations are the GW Parkway or the Washington Beltway. I am not saying to ban highways or bridges but I hope that foursquare does not assist in killing some of my friends.

I love the way my friends have been tagging their homes. One of my friends marked his home as the “fortress of solitude,” but is it? I never get solitude at home, in fact just the opposite. My wife tagged our home “The Love Shack” but any married man knows this to be a false proposition. Some of my other friends name their home after themselves such as “Wilkins Manor” which seems appropriate. Our home is our castle. A lot of my friends just don’t check in at home. Maybe because it is so too personal. I check in at home but only because I feel like I am “on the clock” and checking in is my way of getting paid for the time I spend at home.

As we continue to add friends to our foursquare networks you can be sure to see some interesting locations pop-up. Will I be the last Mayor of a bathroom? It’s doubtful, but I promise never to raise taxes or restrict water access.

As for the bathroom, It’s been renamed something more appropriate so that clients don’t feel that this is our primary work area.