Thursday, March 4, 2010
How do you spark real conversations?
What I found weird was the videos in between of TED speakers. While they were thought provoking, I couldn't understand why they were shown. We just assumed it was to make up for the lack of live speakers. I mean, couldn't we just sat at home and watch the videos? Plus the audio wasn't calibrated properly (my biggest pet peeve) and the visual wasn't at the right resolution.
I enjoyed Atul's talk on the BBS systems, and the old ways of communicating online. A lot of people disagreed on his statement about folks not having meaningful conversations anymore. He asked the question on how we can teach the next generation to have conversations. Of course there was a strong reaction from the audience (which was great since that was the only time people became alive). I wished there was an interactive session that followed the talk but it didn't. Plus Jeanne and I had to run to a different meeting after tea time.
While Atul was speaking, I started thinking about the next generation of social media consumers. About how I started using the Internet. I was part of the first generation of social media consumers. I still remembered when Bolt.com was marketing to "the youth" at a youth conference in Washington, D.C. This was when TakingITGlobal went online and folks were talking about connecting to those who are separated for three degrees -- this was before the dotcom bust back in 1999. Did we use social media back then to have real conversations? We certainly did.
Student activists used platforms like Friendster to connect with activists across the nation. Fast forward to the Facebook era, there is a lot more noise but I follow young people like Will and Shonali. Yes, there's a lot of teenage banter but there's also a lot of meaningful conversation. We've talked about renewable energy, religion, culture and dealing with being outsiders more so on these young people's walls than other adults.
Will is 16, a fantastic writer (his blog here) and an excellent conversationalist. He comes up with topics that some adults can't even fathom. He knows more of literature, culture, and subculture more so than a lot of people in their twenties. He has no problems hanging out with us at "adult functions", which I wouldn't even invite some folks I know. Shonali is just a remarkable young woman who is not afraid to make her point and engages people. Her wall comments go on and on with real, meaningful conversation.
Why am I telling you all this? Well, one of Atul's questions at TEDx was on how to get young people to have real conversations. The answer is simple -- engage with them. Engage in real conversations with young people. Give them books and other materials to read. Ask them questions. Listen to what they have to say. Listening to young people and validating them as young adults not just empowers them but gives them reasons to go out and engage in more real conversations. They question their friends, and influence other young thought leaders.
I was lucky enough to have parents who gave me protocols to read. Knowing what ICJ is and how it functions in my pre-teen years was awesome. Experiencing first hand, the notes from the Earth Summit in Rio influenced me a great deal, too. You don't need to have diplomats for parents to have these conversations. We can always talk about the price of oil, society's dependency on it, war and terrorism that happens in our own back yards, racism etc. These are things that will effect future generations, too, not just us.
Another big factor to all this is travel. Both Will and Shonali are third culture kids. They've traveled enough to know that this world is not homogeneous. That it is not one dimensional, that our generation is leaving them a lot of problems and challenges for them to solve and deal with. We need to engage and talk about these problems so that they can be better leaders and citizens of the world when they grow up. Already I hear things like, "You guys are leaving us a shitty planet and we're going to have to solve this stuff," they're right in a sense but they don't have to grow up totally unprepared.
How do you have real conversations with young people?
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Facebook Invades Orkut the Google Run Social Network
The Google run social network, Orkut is by far the most popular social network in India. It's where high school and college students, and young professionals hang out. According to Alexa Orkut is #4 top most visited site from India with Facebook at #5 trailing closely behind. Facebook gaining promenence in India is very recent. A lot of people did not want to get on Facebook, and there are still some who are not on Facebook. All this can change with the Orkut connect via Facebook.
I logged into my Facebook account to find that I can connect to my Orkut friends on Facebook with three easy steps. Here are the steps:
There was a big message on top of my profile to connect with friends from Orkut and it seemed easy enough when I clicked on the link for the steps. The tools to connect to Orkut friends from Facebook has been there for a long time, like through the Friend Finder API as seen on the Lapnol blog. Now those friends who are in Orkut will also be a part of your Facebook as well, you just have to click!
It's only a matter of time before more Orkut users switch to Facebook. I'm pretty sure Facebook can take over the #4 seat from Orkut once more people from India use and get more of their friends to join and stay on Facebook. What's ironic though is it's a Facebook API that runs on Orkut site and matches those users on Facebook and connect friends together.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Blog Management: Managing Comments Pt. 2
Comment management tools help you save time and weed out spam comments and spam trackbacks. Some tools also help you promote your blog across multiple sites like Twitter, Facebook, etc. They help you verify the identity of the person who comments by having them log in through OpenID or Google. If you don't already have comment management system on your blog and you're thinking of installing one, you should keep the following in mind when you're choosing a system.
1. Make sure you're familiar with the system because you're going to be the one handling it, unless a site admin does it for you.
2. See if the company you're going for is going to be there for a while and not shutdown shop a couple of months down the line.
3. If you're satisfied with the system that comes with the blogging platform you have, you don't really have to change. Just because everyone is doing it doesn't mean you have to do it, too.
Having said all that, if you want to still put them in your blog, here are the five tools that will help you manage your conversations. First thing I did was to check them against each other so that I know how popular they are. Here's a snap shot of what the figures say:
I encourage you to check their sites and play around before you change your blog. Don't forget to back up your blog before you change things!
1. Disqus
I use Disqus to manage comments on this blog. According to Compete.com it's the most popular tool compared to the other four. It had a steady incline in traffic and seems to be doing very well. It works on most blogging platforms and it didn't take a lot of tech skills to get it installed on this blog. I like the fact that you can integrate a lot of services like Facebook Connect, OpenID etc. It gives my users a lot of options as to where they want to login or not and comment.
2. JS Kit
I found JS Kit through Jeanne's blog actually. It had a lot of visitors a couple of months back but it seems the traffic has decreased. Just like Disqus, you can login using your OpenID, or Twitter account to comment. It's tied up with one of the biggest blogger networks: Blog Catalog - which can explain why it's so popular.
3. BackType
I was really surprised that BackType isn't doing so well. I heard about it from Robert Scoble. I think the reason they're not getting a lot of visitors is because they're not compatible with platforms like Blogspot. I think BackType's developers are working on it though. Blogspot users tend to be folks who have been blogging for a long time, and those who focus on content rather than the bells and whistles of coding.
4. IntenseDebate
I've seen IntenseDebate here and there but mostly on Wordpress blogs. Besides the usual features of a good comment management tool, the have a neat little voting system so that the best comments are moved to the top. I thought that was interesting. Who wants to read 20 comments if you can just read the top best ones right?
5. coComment
I used to use coComment when I had to track a lot of blogs/personalities. It was the only management tool that I used then. Frankly, I'm surprised and disappointed that they're traffic isn't anywhere near Disqus -- but that can change depending on what kind of services that they're incorporating in the future.
Photo by: massdistraction
Tools for Your Blog: Managing Comments Pt. 1
Comments and conversations are the building blocks of social media. They happen on any site you logon. They happen on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn. They used to happen as IRC, forums, MySpace comments, and blog comments. It's the way people interact, share stories, have flame wars, introduce themselves, meet new people -- and generate ideas. Conversations also build community, reputations, brands, and spread awareness of whatever that you're doing or promoting.
Comments are an integral part of any blog no matter where the conversation happens. Most of the conversation on this blog happens on Facebook and Twitter. No matter where your conversation ends up happening, the starting point is always your blog.
If you're thinking of starting off in building a community around your blog, here are 8 Steps to Growing Your Blog Community one Person at a Time by Ben Yoskovitz. It's an old post written even before MyBlogLog was bought by Yahoo. But the principles still hold true and you can apply them for Facebook, or Google. Fast forward to the Twitter age -- we still need conversations despite having them in 140 characters or less at a time. So how do we plug into the stream of conscious with all these sites and all these conversations happening at the same time? What if we don't have time to manage an influx of spam comments? Simple: get a comment management tool.
I was going to write just one post on this but there's a lot of topics to explore. Next up is, which blog comment management tool you should be using. Stay tuned.
Photo: Scott Beale / Laughing Squid
Friday, December 19, 2008
How to Get a Job Without Looking For It
News of the current unemployment rates in the US and job losses saddens me. Even in India the papers are saying that there's a slow down in hiring. As I look back at 2008, I realize that this is probably the tenth year of my working life, albeit three years in the middle, when I took a hiatus. I came to India, got myself a degree, and learned new skills. I worked on freelance projects and tested the waters of corporate India. All this time, I've never looked for a job. Not even for the freelance gigs. I did it because I had a great network of friends, colleagues, and a caravan of characters.
When I think about my luck at getting phone calls of jobs and projects from folks, I realized that it can't be just luck and friends. There has to be something more. And I'm not even including the HR consultants who call on this list because my resume is not registered with any job sites. However, I am on LinkedIn and Twitter -- which I suggest you get on too if you're not already there.
I'd like to share the 6 key things that I do that gets me offers for jobs without looking:
1. Don't be comfortable
I'm a person who is never really settled. I was born a nomad and that I will always be. Usually I'm not comfortable with doing just one thing. My "monkey" brain often wanders off. That's how I get great ideas, and keep myself creative and innovative. I'm always in search of "the next level." In order for you to grow as an individual and a professional. Ask yourself: "What's MY next level?" Be brutally honest with the answer. You might even have to change yourself, re-learn things, or pick up new skills. It's natural to be scared of change, but it's OK. And you're not alone in being scared of change here's a study on why change is so hard.
2. Know your shitz
When I started out in film, I only had the creative brain to write stories. I had no idea about filmmaking. When I became managing editor of a print magazine, I had no idea how to run a magazine. When I took over my current position, I had no clue about email marketing. (Catching my drift?)
For filmmaking, I was selected to be in a summer intensive course. We were taught about everything from the process of filmmaking to film theory. Then we shot the film. For being a managing editor, I read a lot of books, on writing, and on running a magazine. My boss was gracious enough to teach me Quark Express and give me pointers on how the printing press worked when he was free. I had to research all the stuff about what makes email marketing work. I'm so grateful that sites like ClickZ, MediaPost, and iMediaConnection exist. I would be lost without them.
My then boss gave me a general direction to work with the creative. We had great brain storming sessions on content, but that wasn't going to give me clicks. I had targets to meet, and fast. I evaluated the creative, hand coded and changed the back end HTML structure. (I was told not to touch it ^_^) Oh, and I threw away the software I was supposed to be working with. But yes, the targets were met and we set new ones. All my bosses were happy. I get to keep my job and I'm happy.
Go back to your paper: what will it take to achieve your goals? Do you need to train yourself more? Remember even doctors who are professionally trained need to keep up with the latest medical journals. Again, do you need to change something that you've always done? Just because it's always done that way doesn't mean you can't improve the process for better results. Know what you have to change, experiment, wait for results. Repeat.
3. Give advice or ideas freely
If you know it, act like it. You won't believe how many times people walk up to me and ask me for directions on random streets and bookstores. In fact, just this morning a family walked up to the most foreign looking person, me, and asked me if they were in the right metro station.
Once you get on Twitter, or any forums, groups you hang out you'll see topics and questions. When someone asks a question, respond to it if you have the answer. Chances are, he or she is not the only one who have the question in mind. For LinkedIn go to the Answer section. If you're going to be active I suggest you get the feed of your field of expertise on your feed reader
This is also how I get more people networking with me or following me. When you sound like an expert on something, you ARE an expert. You don't need to prove that with paper certificates and rubber stamps (which are very very very important in India and Myanmar.)
Word of warning: people should not be using you as a walking Google or Wikipedia (they call me "yu-kipedia" here.) There's a limit. That's when you politely say, "Type so and so on Google." or wear a tee shirt that says, "Just Google It" (no, I haven't done that! But if you want it you can get it here.)
4. Network like a diplomat, not a headless chicken.
Whatever I learned about networking today, I learned from my career diplomat parents. The diplomatic community in any city is always close knit. They know who the people are to network with, what country they represent, and what they do officially. Remembering this is very important, it determines precedence, protocol, and how you act with the person. My parents stayed connected with both people from their own country and other countries.
Here's how to apply that to the Internet: Go to Twitter Search and type in your industry, field or profession check out people's profile. Follow @MrTweet and get your report on who to follow. Decide whether it'll be good for you to follow or not and follow them.
Do the same on LinkedIn but remember it's a more professional space than Twitter. Best way to do it on LinkedIn is to look at the Answer section and add the people who have interesting answers to the questions. Of course this space is best for people whom you've actually met at trade shows, conferences, conventions etc.
Don't add people like a headless chicken, adding or following everyone you see. Leave that to the teenagers (or now not so "teen" folks) on MySpace. The number of followers or friends will just be a useless number if you can't harness the power of your network. Besides, twitter will kick you out if you're following insane amount of people, have very little updates and almost no followers. Chances are tweeple will see that you're a bot and block you.
5. Never burn bridges
This goes hand-in-hand with networking like a diplomat. You know what happens when diplomats stop talking? War. One of my mentors wrote that we should know people in high places as well as in low places. But that's very vertical or linear. Life's not like that anymore -- today's mail room clerk (do they still have them?) can be tomorrow's CEO of a fortune 500 company. Just because someone is your staff, colleague, or someone who is not related to your current job process doesn't mean they would not be at a place of influence -- chances are, they already have a sphere of influence.
People are more networked and well connected today than before. Your future employers will ask about you to their friends, clients, people they've worked with either formally or even informally in conversation. Your future colleagues will always ask to the people who have worked with you, "How is she to work with?" "What is he like?" This happens a lot in India, not just for an expat like me but people generally talk about people. (Of course, you get a special spotlight when you're an expat.) Your friend or classmate can become a client. The decision your future employer makes between you and the guy or gal next to you can be that one reference. (Yes, I've faced both scenarios.)
Now once you burn a bridge, their friends, friends of friends, connections, potential clients, potential job offers are gone too.
6. Keep in touch, be visible, and put yourself "out there" (for the right reasons)
I started carrying business cards in high school. I was a cocky school president who tried to pick fights with Rudy Crew, the Chancellor of NYC Board of Education. I advocated for the alternative school system, I was part of that system. Now, I've stopped carrying business cards. I tell people I meet to just google me. I'm narcissistic enough to get a kick out of it, but I'm saving trees.
Ask yourself: Can people google me? What will they find if they do? If you don't like what you see, you better bury that stuff with the good stuff you want them to find. A quick way to do this is to sign up for all the major professional social networks like LinkedIn, Plaxo, Naymz, Xing, join a niche social network of your industry on Ning, Facebook (though it's more 'social'.) Make sure your name is in the URL like: http://linkedin.com/in/yuyudin. Remember, your name IS your brand. Protect it with your life. Manage your reputation online and offline. The next thing to do is to have a blog with your name on it. But you need to update that on a regular basis. Talk about the subjects that you know. Read this article for personal brand. Read this one on your online reputation management.
Thanks for reading this until the end (it came out longer than I thought) ^_^ Click here to get connected with me on LinkedIn or click here to follow my crazy thought process on Twitter. Thanks CC for the proof read!
Photo by: khalilshah
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Social Media: Bridging Conversations
Ok, I was going to leave this as a comment on Jeff Pulver's blog post but it became really long as I was writing it so I'm doing it as a post. This is a 'response' post to his "Sometimes We Need to Do Things Alone" post.
When I had to venture into social network marketing I felt alone. Not that I didn't know what it was, I wasn't in charge before. The vision wasn't mine. This time around, I wanted to implement a social media strategy, something that is going to work across all platforms that one person can do -- I didn't have a team either. There was just me and my targets. I did blogs before, there were mentors like Brain Clark who writes Copyblogger and Darren Rowse who writes on ProBlogger. Then I had to get into email/newsletter marketing, where there were a lot of articles to read and a mentor in the office. Then, the person left and when I had to go into social media marketing I felt lost even though I was on the scene since it all started with (the now defunct) Bolt and Friendster.
I had to come up with my own experiments and see what worked and what didn't. I had to come up with ways to measure the experiments. I felt like I was doing a science fair project which excited me but I also felt like a train that kept going without the tracks. Then I read Michael Leis's blog post on the future of social media -- something that I was already doing for a year or so now. I really didn't have a word for it except, "guerilla marketing". He called it "screenwriting". His post hit home so close that I had to connect with him on Twitter immediately! I asked him how many people he thinks that does this sort of marketing. His reply was, none. I was surprised of course. We "Direct Messaged" back and forth until the point when he asked me, "It's all experimenting. No?"
The light bulb in my head went off: "AHA!" It was when I realized I was actually at the edge, at the forefront like the rest of the social media gurus and marketers out there. It's hard to realize that when you're geographically isolated, all the way in India. Most people I talk to don't know what Twitter is or don't care. Some can't migrate to Facebook from Orkut, the social network run by Google. I got my bearings right after our brief DMing and the picture became clear: the Internet has an ever expanding edge, today it's social networks, tomorrow it might be evolving into something else -- "a mash" if you will. That drive for evolution I feel is the adrenaline that keeps the cogs in all of us turning. That's what glues me to the Internet and my computers everyday. That's why I can still be sitting in India and talk about the same stuff, the same popular subjects out west like the election, economy, environment, etc.
I wasn't able to do this when I moved from New York half way round the world to Calcutta almost six years ago. Life sucked then, movies would not be here for months after they released in New York. I hated it. I spent my formative years in New York, I loved being "in-the-know", I hung out in the Village, I did artsy-trendy stuff. I made films, assisted on documentaries, spoke at conferences and screenings, listened to spoken word and underground music...
All of a sudden, when I landed in India, I found myself not being able to join in on conversations with my friends -- I felt left out and really isolated. On top of that, we had dial up -- the "Internet" was still making its way through terrible phone lines of Calcutta. This city was KNOWN for its bad phone lines!
A lot of things have changed since then. I don't feel so isolated now. In fact, I think Twitter makes us all on one page, albeit, I'm a couple of hours ahead. ^_^! But thanks to the boom in social networks and social media, I'm back in touch with friends even from high school. Some of them are diplomat brats like me who are scattered across the world. Most of them are still in New York. Some of them are professors. My algebra teacher is a professor at Harvard (how cool is that!)
It seems like I'm the only one who made it out to India, but I'm not complaining anymore, I realized that I'm not missing the action. In fact, the action might be here in the coming months and years. So I got the front row seats. I just happened to be lucky that it's part of my job to be on Facebook, MySpace, Orkut, Bebo, Twitter, et cetera... of course it's also a good excuse to keep in touch with friends. As someone who grew up in the 80s, someone who loves making connections, and most importantly, as a writer, I don't think I'd rather do anything else right now... except for a project I'm working on for Myanmar or Burma (I don't belong to either camp) but that's another story for another day.
