We have been progressively evolving as an online generation, a far cry from the Flintstones in the Stone Age! Just looking back at our contemporary historical periods since the past few decades, we have made major strides through the years.

We’ve evolved from the Machine Age dealing with gigantic mass production machinery to the Information Age which has been about digitizing our economy, dispelling volumes of information using technology. This era also brought the onset of computers – a game changer in the way modern society started communicating. The rapid evolution of computers and the web in our daily life meant dissolving boundaries. It meant faster and more real-time communication, international knowledge exchange and learning, exploring and tapping into personalized needs, changing how we do business via e-commerce.

The Information Age gave birth to a digitized world mimicking and surpassing all that transpires through our physical interactions. What we see, hear, learn, who we befriend, share with, communicate and collaborate with have been made available electronically.

You can like, dislike, comment, poke, vote, buy, sell, promote, recommend..and much more digitally! This led to the metamorphosis of our Social Age. An era that has humanized technology focusing on the many forms of societal interactions and amplifying our inherent need to communicate, express, show and tell.

You can now make a new friend on Facebook, date online via Match.com, look for a job on Monster, connect with a business associate on LinkedIn, buy your latest book on Amazon, share your vacation pictures on Flickr, tweet about what you ate for lunch on Twitter, look up your ancestors on Ancestry.com or even publish your life history on Blogger.

The World Wide Web has made us a closely knit modern society leaving behind a huge digital footprint of our lives. So while my generation might still make a trip to the Smithsonian museum to look at the first species of dinosaurs, there’s no telling where the future generations might look to learn about us a species!

Standing on the bridge of Big Dinosaurs to Big Data the future landscape appears infinite! There’s no telling what this new era will bring with it, and the potential implications of Big Data for our future?

 So what archaeological finds do you think your great, great great grandchildren will find, while digging for your information? What’s your prediction?!

Photos by JD Hancock and algogenius

Just like the Matrix our virtual online world is growing in leaps and bounds given the instant access and power to connect with millions with the click of a button. New age gadgets, smart phones and digital apps have enabled us to become digital journalists and evangelists in our own right. But just like Uncle Ben would constantly remind Peter Parker, Spider Man’s alter ego, this is a constant reminder to us too that “with great power comes great responsibility”.

Whether you are in-focus in front of the camera or behind the lens using your smart phones, it’s important to watch how you portray yourself in front of others. With our increasing participation as an invited speaker or as an active audience member we ‘all’ have a role to play particularly while attending corporate events and conferences. Here are some quick and easy dos and don’ts to keep in mind.

Don’t let your Surrogates get larger and overtake you. (I’ve hyperlinked to the movie wiki incase you’re now curious about this movie.) But getting back to the point, keep the decorum and maintain your tweeting etiquette especially while live tweeting at events. Be your own PR proponent and try not to get yourself in the foot-in-the -mouth predicament.

Easy tip – Unlike Vegas, what’s stated on Facebook or LinkedIn travels all over the digital world and back! So keep it professional, friendly and informative.

People do judge a book by its cover – Let’s face it, we live in a multi-tasking era with “time” being a precious commodity than ever before. So why waste time in creating your first impression that would detract away from ‘who you are’ as a person. Make it easy on others and dress appropriately keeping your end goal in mind.

Easy tip – While attending formal events, don’t dress per your mood or climate, dress per the occasion. Leave your guests with a positive lasting impression vs. a haunting impression!

Don’t ever lose track of the limelight – Yes, when it comes to participating at corporate events, you do have a role to play. You are a brand ambassador for your company no matter what your job title states. A lot of factors contribute towards how a company’s brand image is created. Their ‘people’ play one of the largest roles as it has a direct correlation to a good customer experience.

So project yourself in the best possible light, both literally and more importantly figuratively. You never know when you are being watched and by whom, especially when most of the events these days are being livestreamed and posted on YouTube.

Easy tip – Stay away from inside jokes and gossip instead stay cheerful and project a positive image.

Stay mindful of these easy tips and you’d be a superstar at any given event! Can you think of any others to add to this list? Let’s hear from you!

Photo by Hamed Saber

Live tweeting offers a great way to stay plugged in to the key happenings around an event both for attendees and for those unable to attend the event physically. Typically, when it comes to large events it’s nearly impossible to hit all the places when there are concurrent presentations or workshops happening at different places. You have to pick and choose and prioritize one over the other. Here’s where live tweeting serves as a great online collaborative platform to catch a glimpse of what is happening on the other side of the hall.

So why would you want to live tweet? Well, your reasons may be multifold but the consequent benefits all drive back to relationship building. Twitter is a wonderful new age tool to create, nurture and build on those relationships. Through live tweeting you may gain new like-minded followers and establish new relationships with them at the conference. It can be your initial step to building on your network and forming new contacts at such events. It further allows for an opportunity of collective learning from each other and strengthening your online identity and reputation.

Live tweeting is very similar to sending a typical tweet that involves sharing timely updates on the twitter stream during an ongoing event, workshop or keynote to reach and engage with a broader audience. Different people follow different tweet styles. Some people like to tweet every event status such as – “Joe speaker just entered the stage.” Others may choose to describe the mood in the room: “Joe speaker addresses a room full of excited attendees cheering him on.” Then there are others that tweet direct quotes from the speakers versus the ones that like to opine or tweet out their own two cents about the speaker and the event. The visual learners may choose to capture moments by uploading and tweeting photos on the fly. While there is no ‘one-tweet-fits-all’ formula, I offer some collective advice to help maximize your twitter experience at large events. Listed in no particular order:

1. Use the official Hashtag: Many events these days promote an official hashtag for the entire conference or even individual breakout sessions. While this might sound like an obvious one, using the hashtag in your tweets helps streamline all connected conversations on that topic making content easily searchable by the users. Here’s an example: Insightful presentation by Joe speaker on the future of Business Analytics #abaws.

2. Reference who you are quoting: If you are quoting or referring someone who you know has a twitter handle make sure you use it by adding the @ followed by their twitter name. For example: @Joespeaker: what’s new with the cloud computing world? It allows for them to engage and participate further in those ongoing conversations.

3. Make it interesting, relevant and resourceful: Just like engaging in any cocktail party, try to ensure that when you speak/ tweet you have something witty, useful or insightful to add to those conversations. Aim to add value when participating. Don’t tweet for the sake of RT’s (retweets). If people find it interesting they will pick it up and spread it on, but that should not be your motivating factor.

4. Listen and engage: Twitter etiquette is very comparable to our physical standards. We try not to interrupt someone when they are talking. No profane language to express our displeasure, or yelling over another person while they are trying to make their point. Why should we behave any differently when it comes to our virtual chats?!

5. Make it conversational: Treat Twitter as a social exchange platform versus a one way channel to push your content. Look out for responses. If people react to your tweets or ask you a question acknowledge it immediately and make it a priority to respond to them. It’s all about creating a dialogue with your audience rather than making it a one-sided broadcast.

6. Lastly but most importantly, be your genuine self: People will naturally gravitate to you online if you show them your natural self. Don’t try to project a side of you that you are not in real life. If you like humor, or are the pensive kinds let that side of you reflect online. Let your tweets be a reflection of who you are in real life, that will make these conversations that much more fun and engaging!

Can you think of other tips or tricks to add to this list? Feel free to respond with your comments.

Until then, happy tweeting!

Related posts –
7 Tips to Live Tweet an Event Effectively
Tips For “Live Tweeting” An Event
How to Live Tweet an Event

Photo by: wissam_ali

With the omnipresence of social media, it also brings to the forefront the critical issue of transparency. Everything is shared, liked, voted, and forwarded these days! Pictures of your wedding, video journal of your Europe trip last week, footage of your baby’s first steps, declaration of your new job and title, an aerial view of your new house and your neighborhood..the list goes on!

The point I’m trying to make is, we are living in a day and age where our entire profile and lifestyle is available with the click of a button; a Google search or a Bing away. Far flung from the days where you needed a social security number to get detailed information about a person :)!

Today, you have multiple avenues to get to know a person without even meeting him or her physically. The virtual world is packed with all kinds of data and information. It’s easy to learn about a person’s likes/ dislikes, who are his friends? Where does she live? What did he eat last night? What are their holiday plans this Christmas? What are their kids’ names? What are his New Year goals?

As a global community I believe these social media tools have made our world smaller making our connections tighter. If you think about it, we are all connected to each other with perhaps six degrees of separation. However, on the flip side it comes with the threat of great misuse of personal information and photos. We all need to be responsible and draw our own lines when it comes to the question of how much is too much? Are we overindulging with perhaps sharing way too much of our lives online? What about those who like to share every aspect of their daily lives online with others? Tweeting or perhaps wall posting about when I woke up, what appointments I have for the day, how did my meeting go with that client, what do I feel like eating for lunch, where do I plan to meet my friends over dinner. Do you think we are revealing too much of our selves without deliberating on what the implications of that might be?

As much as we enjoy the privileges of these modern tools we all need to be responsible about the usage and exercise caution and more importantly use common sense! Adjust your privacy settings on each of these platforms. Do you want your personal information and photos to be visible to everybody or would you rather give access to only your friends? In the same token, each one of us need to use good judgment when it comes to revealing and sharing parts of our private life online. Agreed, this is not a foolproof method to protect your online identity but at least you are not opening the door wide to welcome complete strangers into your house. You are using some discretion and caution.

Another important point I would like you to think about is the image you project on the different social platforms.  Just the way you’d intend to ‘position’ a product or a service based on your target audience shouldn’t a similar principle apply to your ‘social audience’? Whether you are on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr or YouTube identify and recognize the purpose of that medium and segregate accordingly. As authentic and genuine you need to be across these platforms, make it a point to chalk out a line between these tools as they are meant to serve different purposes.

Remember you are the ‘same person’ but there is a subtle difference in the way you’d interact with your family, friends, co-workers, vendors, future employers or neighbors. Each of these circles may get to see a subtle shade of you, so why not use the same principle when it comes to interacting with the same folks online through these different social mediums! Wouldn’t you think?

Photos by fisserman and tanakawho

I tried to analyze this using Everett Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations Theory. According to Rogers, the diffusion of innovation occurs when the adoption of an idea, practice, or object spreads by communication through a social system. Adoption is similar to diffusion just that it involves the psychological processes an individual goes through, during the decision-making process. Rogers defines several intrinsic characteristics of innovations that influence an individual’s decision to adopt or reject an innovation. This can be compared to give us an insight as to how we are currently adopting the social media.

Similar to adolescent peer pressure do you think as individuals, we feel internally pressurized to join such social media groups? The need to be seen on networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Myspace, Orkut, Hi5; choosing from a vast pool of such social media sites. What propels your decision-making process? Is it the fear or insecurity of being left behind? Is it the need to be included as part of the inner clique being able to comment and ‘like’ the Halloween costume photos shared by your friends last night? As an organization, are you concerned about catching up with your competitors doing the social media thing? Or on the flip side is it about wanting to prove yourself and your organization as an early adopter, and be seen as a thought leader amongst your peers. In both cases, there lies an intrinsic need or desire to prove to yourself or others.

Likewise, on the other side of the bank, for those of you staying abreast of the latest trends and updates in social media, managing anywhere from 5 to 11 social handles, how do ‘you’ perceive a laggard? This is an individual who is probably still stuck with his or her hotmail id and has no clue about YouTube, Facebook or what is a tweet? What opinions do you form about this person? Do they automatically get bracketed into your grandparents’ times?

The rate at which we adopt these innovations over time corresponds with some of the intrinsic characteristics of innovations that influence an individual’s decision to adopt or reject an innovation. Relative advantage – relates with, is it better than what we had before? How improved is it from what we had? Leading to the question, does social media help us communicate and network more efficiently in real time? If your answer is yes, you’ve crossed this hurdle.

Compatibility is the second characteristic – questioning whether it is compatible with ones values, beliefs, prior ideas, etc? How easily can it be assimilated into an individual’s current life? If it’s a far stretch and if that person does not see the value of sharing his or her personal photos on FB or giving status updates of his/her current location via the Smartphone, the person is less likely to get on a social platform like Facebook for instance. Complexity is the third and a significant factor in influencing – Is it simple and easy to use?  Simplicity speeds adoption. The easier the app. the higher the likelihood for a person to download it sooner and use it to keep up with his or her social profiles.

Observability is the fourth factor – That corresponds with the extent to which an innovation is visible to others? Can you see it in action? The more people see the effects of the innovation, the higher the chance of it creating a ripple effect with people creating either more positive or negative reactions about it. Food for thought, when it comes to how a YouTube video becomes a viral video creating either positive or negative reactions around it.

Last but not the least, Trialability determines how can we try it before we buy into it?  How much commitment do we have to make in order to use?  How much risk (monetary or emotional) is involved in the adoption? If the answer to these questions is positive, the more conducive it is to be adopted. Creating profiles in almost all of the current social platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Orkut etc. is free and quite simple to use. You can choose to abandon these profiles (without any monetary loss) if at any point you find it too difficult to maintain and manage or just fizzle out.

In light of these factors, what do you think motivates or inspires you to join the bandwagon? Where in the adoption cycle do you stand, for the rest of you?

Photos by Chris Radcliff and Plakboek

With the advent of social media, there has been a lot of chatter about its usefulness as well as many raised eyebrows regarding its benefits. A lot of people are still left wondering, how and why social media is even important and relevant to what they do. Most people who are skeptical about joining the bandwagon want to first know what the ROI will be for investing their time in social media. Is it even worth the time or is it better left to the teenyboppers who pride themselves on updating their social status by the minute!?

I believe social media has something to offer everybody; it depends on how and to what extent you use it. It’s not a one-size-fits-all glove, but really depends on what you make of it and how willing you are to venture into it in the first place.

My personal ROI for investing in social media over the past several months has been very apparent. The most apparent return is that it has led me to a contract job opportunity at SAS. Here’s how social media helped me achieve that.

My initial escapades with social media started at a curiosity level, while I experimented with it on a trial and error basis. The truth is, I’m still exploring, as I still do not know or totally understand the full impact of these social media platforms. I started with what made me comfortable: I created a LinkedIn profile and filled out my background and skill sets. I also made it a point to upload a professional photo. I figured people register things better when they associate a visual against any data. I started building connections and strengthened my network online. This took a considerable amount of time, as I’d spend hours trying to research people and companies I admired and wanted to connect with.

I made it a point to customize my LinkedIn invite, which typically included a very short introduction, what I have in common with the contact, and why I would like to connect with them. I think it was this approach that gave me a better response rate in building new connections. I always tried to keep my end goal in mind, in this case it was building a stronger and richer network of people that I could emulate and learn from in my field of interest.

Twitter gave me the opportunity to follow these people, read what they tweeted about and even engage in those conversations with no strings attached! Twitter, like most social sites is merely a tool created for us to use at our own discretion. Garbage in is garbage out! If you wish to have fruitful and productive conversations, the onus lies on you to follow the right people you’d like to have real and interesting conversations with. Tune out the mindless chatter by creating lists of people you’d like to follow and focus on those.

Beware, though: What may have started as a 10-minute activity can easily turn into a couple of hours online spent toggling between a dozen or more tabs open on your monitor. So always keep track of time and make a hard stop using a timer (if need be) so you don’t go overboard with it. Time management is key here. Brief focused bursts of engagement online on a daily basis helps keep your profile active onscreen.

I tried to mix the old with the new methods of networking. While these tech-savvy social platforms helped give me the initial leverage to connect, I followed through with the old-fashioned way of meeting and greeting over coffee or with an informational meeting. This always helped make the interactions more human aside from our virtual connections. I’m grateful for these opportunities that social media platforms created for me allowing me to make new connections, while preserving old ones, and strengthening my online brand presence through each of these platforms.

While your goals may vary ranging from brand awareness, networking, relationship building, or strengthening customer connections, all it takes is an open mindset, adventurous spirit and the willingness to invest a small portion of your day on these sites, and the ROI can be huge in the long run.

What has been your experience using social media, how has it helped you?

Photo by Keith Burtis

Merriam Webster defines lifespan as – the average length of life of a kind of organism or of a material object especially in a particular environment or under specified circumstances. That implies it could be the amount and duration of time any data or information lives and is considered new, recent or relevant at that point in time.

Come to think of it, it’s incredible to see how the lifespans of what we consume as information these days is constantly changing and evolving with our times.

Here’s some food for thought-

The mediums of disseminating information have evolved through the times and how we consume and preserve this data has concurrently changed with it. Originally, our primary source of information came from books. We depended on those hardcopy books to refer about all things under the sun and they monopolized our attention lingering on as a living document for several years. They had the longest lifespan and served as our single most relevant source of gathering data and assimilating information. With changing times, our sources for gathering information diversified, creating myriad absorption avenues and each constantly competing for our attention.

Consequently, what we consider as hot, current or relevant information keeps condensing and their lifespan shrinking. We tend to absorb information from one source and swiftly move onto the next source that wins our attention. The technological advances have been instrumental in defining how and for how long a document lives and is considered relevant by its audience.

For better or for worse, we are living in an age that’s constantly engulfed by competing information. The constant stream of data never sleeps! Turn on your Twitter handle or browse your Facebook Wall at 2am, the stream of information flows ceaselessly. When you dip your feet in the Twitter stream at 2am, you automatically start participating in what is considered hot and current at that point in time. Interestingly, what is considered relevant now becomes passé fours hours later. You have now moved onto the next new thing!

What does that tell you about how we consume information in this day and age? Is it this information overload that is causing their lifespans to shrink? Has our attention span decreased or have we become more impatient wanting to move onto the ‘next thing’ as a result?

What do you think, what are your viewpoints?

Photos by Steve Bailey and Andreas Lunde

We have come a long way from that definition and social media has played a catalytic role in this process. Every morning I wake up to ‘Morning Express’ with Robin Meade on CNN’s HLN (Headline News). Apart from getting my daily dose of news, what interested me was their tagline “We give you the news. You give us your views”. I realized that the power of agenda setting has shifted gears. Social media had permeated its way into the broadcasting industry revolutionizing how news is created and disseminated today. They too are adopting the new social media strategy of listening and engaging versus the old fashioned dogmatic methods of push strategy when it comes to news and information.

News channels today are opening the doors to their audience asking them for their opinions. They share the worldly happenings with their public and welcome them to give their feedback regarding it. They are interested in knowing what the people think and have to say regarding the events of the day and encourage them to reach out using the social media channels. These days we can, not only pick up the phone to call the news stations but have myriad resources at our disposal to communicate back. We can choose to email back, tweet about our thoughts (on Twitter), leave our comments on their Facebook fan page, blog about it or even publish a YouTube video sharing our opinions. This then becomes a reciprocal process of action and reaction based on live and instant conversations. We as an audience today get to choose and decide what is newsworthy and play an active role in that process.

So what does that mean? How does that affect us? It affects us at a very fundamental level. It allows the layman to have a voice and more importantly be heard. It gives us the opportunity to get involved and be engaged in the news making process. With the ability to participate in these conversations through these social media sites, the viewers start taking deeper interest, become more socially aware and become active gatekeepers in their community. Look around, current instances of any breaking news many a times are foremost gathered by a witness who just happens to be there. Be it the initial images of a tropical storm, live relay of a plane accident or a humorous celebrity faux-pas moment, is first witnessed by a viewer who captures it on his camera phone and streams it on YouTube or iReport on CNN.com. Soon enough it is picked up by several news channels making it a newsflash breaking news. Content is no longer the fiefdom of the powerful few but is becoming more egalitarian. And its people like you and me who get a voice and hold the reins to what we define as news today!

Photos by ABC Archives and Kino-eye

However, the same power if used carelessly can cause more damage than you can imagine! I was compelled to write this post after watching the news today on how social media played a role in the tragic demise of Tyler Clementi, a young freshman at Rutgers University. The 18-year old accomplished violinist, tragically committed suicide after learning that that his college roommate had surreptitiously video recorded him during his private moment and broadcast it live without his consent. The otherwise considered shy and distinguished musician’s last words were left on his Facebook page “Jumping off the gw bridge sorry.” Unfortunately, nobody could save this young man’s life in time.

This may be one such tragic case that surfaced online, but it comes as a huge warning and wake-up sign for all social media users. This is a glaring example of invasion of privacy and taking social media to the other extreme. We all at some point in time may have video recorded some incident perhaps at a party, and shared it jokingly with our friends. We may not necessarily think twice or make much of that supposedly funny incident except to share a few laughs while forwarding it to others. However, as a society, we need to be more conscious and bear some social media responsibility!

In this digital age with ready access to technology and the ability to disperse information instantaneously, has blurred the line of privacy converting most things into an entertainment value. Lesson to be learnt is that we don’t become puppets in the hands of technology! Hiding behind an ‘avatar’ does not give us the permission to act irresponsibly. We need to constantly remind ourselves that there is an actual person just like you sitting behind that computer that deserves the same respect as you.  Be it sending out a tweet on Twitter, updating your Facebook status, uploading and sharing photos on Flickr or forwarding a YouTube video to others, we all need to exercise proper judgment. It is important that we recognize the repercussions of our actions versus falling victims to our own making.

If everybody does their bit and acts responsibly using good judgment, social media’s positive impacts can be that much more amplified.

Photo by AJ Baxter

Key is to push your blog, but not all the way to annoyance.
It’s like walking a tight rope; you want to introduce your new blog gracefully with others but not yell and scream from the rooftop to get attention. Nobody likes a pushy salesman forcefully selling you his product without your consent.

Piecemeal it based on your comfort level.
Share your blog initially (via email) with your inner circle of peeps you feel most comfortable with, and can trust. Your family and close friends! Then, as you get more comfortable extend it to others – your community, colleagues, boss, sports buddies etc. and your circle expands.

Tweet about it on Twitter. But don’t get into the copy-paste mode!
Share your new post initially by tweeting about it. Keyword being ‘once’. Don’t sneak in your post by re-tweeting it in regular intervals thinking people won’t notice! Newsflash, people do! Imagine this noxious guy at the party yakking about himself non-stop the entire time. Yeahh! You don’t want to be that guy. If your blog is worth its mettle, people will carry it out for you by RT’ing it. Remember to thank them promptly when they do!

Think bigger and leverage your LinkedIn.
You can promote and advertise your blog by updating the ‘post an update’ feature under the ‘edit your profile’ section. You can take it a step further by downloading the ‘Wordpress’ application and synching it your profile page. That way, it will show regular updates of your blog on your LinkedIn page. This is especially useful if you are using WordPress for your blog. This enhances your visibility with your larger professional network of colleagues, senior management and even potential recruiters.

Are you in for the long haul? Then, its time to create a Facebook fan page.
Create a separate Facebook page for your blog under the brand, product or organization category. Customize the tabs and ensure that your profile and description is similar to what you have on your blog, including your blog title, logo and profile picture. This helps in creating a continued brand experience when people move from your blog to your Facebook page. Use this page wisely to optimize your blog goals. Bear in mind, this is one more thing to create and manage regularly. So get into it only after you think you are ready for it.

Let your work speak louder than you!
Remember, content is still king! If your writing isn’t authentic or appealing, people will roll their eyes and interest will fizzle out no matter how hard you try to promote it. So focus on the quality of your work and readers will come back.

Recognize that your blog at some level is an extension of you.
So be socially responsible and conscious of what you put out there. Portray your blog in the same light as you’d like to be portrayed and perceived in person.

Don’t be afraid to give link-backs if you are contributing to a particular topic.
Always try to give shout-outs and track-back to the pundits out there. Don’t be a narcissist! It’s a reflection that you are not living in your own kingdom, but making an attempt to read your fellow bloggers’ works. This will help in giving your work latitude making your content richer and multi-dimensional.

Most important, and crucial…Patience! Patience! Patience! (Have patience!)
Yeah! Doesn’t it have the same ring as location, location location?! Basically, building your profile through your blog takes time. It’s certainly not a viral or overnight process. In this day and age where we are inundated with never-before-seen information, people click and choose their time online. Respect that it is people’s personal time, so don’t try to encroach it forcefully. Politely welcome them to your blog, and let your work speak for itself!

Check out Chris Brogan of New Marketing Labs and Andrea Bartz and Brenna Ehrlich from Netiquette, CNN who offer further tips on promoting yourself online.

What lessons did you learn about promoting your blog?

Photo by Mr Ush