Twitter Nights: The Ballad of the News Story Gone Wrong…

Remember Talladega Nights?  When Ricky Bobby used to say, “If you’re not first you’re last?  I’ve noticed that Social Media is starting to become the same way.  Especially with the evolution of Twitter.  There are now two stories that prove this more than ever…

The first one I remember like it was yesterday.  It was a nice summer day in Atlanta and I just got out of a meeting; I looked at Facebook and started seeing all these messages about Michael Jackson being admitted to the hospital.  Personal views aside for his behavior; the King of Pop is exactly that… The King of Pop!  Posts of thoughts and prayers the like are being posted left and right.  News Stations showing live feeds from outside the hospital, this is a major event.  Then something came out of left field that nobody ever saw coming…

TMZ’s website posted that Michael Jackson passed away.  Not CBS.  Not NBC.  Not ABC.  Not even CNN, Fox News, or even HLN.  TMZ!  The place known for telling you about everything Kardashian & Hilton.  Because of this, those who were on Twitter started posting and saying that Jackson has passed on.  Personally, I never thought TMZ or Twitter could ever be considered credible.  Then something happened about a few hours later than I never saw coming.  Admit it… You didn’t see this coming either.  Remember those other sources that I mentioned above?  They finally reported what TMZ did hours ago.  How does that happen???  More importantly…  Twitter in one day became a credible news source.

Now we move ahead to last night.  After coming home from a party while laying in bed reading through tweets I started to see stories about Joe Paterno passing away.  Once again, personal views aside, when a major figure passes, its news.  This time it’s all over Twitter that CBS broke this story first.  Then something weird started happening…  Joe’s son all of a sudden took to his Twitter Account and said his father has not passed away yet.   This is not the first time that there has been a mistake about somebody’s passing, however what I saw happen next I found really interesting.  A friend of mine along with a sports writer sent out a link to the Penn State paper where the managing editor apologized for posting a story without confirming it.  I’ve made jokes to my journalism friends about things they learn in Journalism 101, which I would have to think confirmation of sources is one.  This was a case the editor did not do that.  Next thing you know CBS has a choice to make…

Retract their story, or admit that they were just as guilty as the kid in Pennsylvania of not confirming their story.  After all now we know where their source came from.  Sure enough, once the damage was done, CBS had no other choice but to retract the story.  No Apology, however damage was done.  The fact that he did pass away earlier today, I’m willing to bet that CBS did not want to be the first one to report this story.

24 hours later and some lessons learned it’s interesting how damaging a few keystrokes can be.  Remember when you were first cautioned about putting something online cause it’s out there forever?  If the past week has taught us anything, it’s that this rule definitely applies to twitter as well.  Yes I say that looking at you too Rob Lowe & Jim Irsay.

In closing, just remember, even if you delete it… I quote Wu-Tang Clan when I say “C.R.E.A.M…. Cache Rules Every Thing Around Me…”

Tim Tebow and Barrack Obama both walk into a bar talking on their iPhone 5.

Ok… I know you’ll never hear about Tebow being in a bar but that’s not the point of the subject line.  With today being the start of 2012 (Happy New Year by the way) there are something to be said for the branding of all these entities.

Have you figured it out?

It’s HOPE!

Anything is possible with hope...

Denver Broncos fans rallied around the young quarterback and they started winning games.

Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign was built around the hope of changing the country.

As for the iPhone 5, if you didn’t hear the collective sigh at the last meeting Steve Jobs had when he announced the 4s, then I’d suggest you get your hearing check.

So here is my New Years wish for you.  I wish that you all are able to identify your brand in the New Year.  I also hope that your brand is not only able to inspire hope like these 3, but others around you as well.

All I Do Is Win!

I’m proud to say that I’ve been able to mentor a few people in their careers.  This is something that I’ve always taken seriously and have been honored when I have been asked to assist in any way.  Tuesday while working from home a friend and former colleague posted the following on Twitter…

“How do you compete?”

To which I responded without thinking twice about it…

“I don’t… To quote DJ Khaled… ‘All I Do Is Win”

To this he made a statement that he would pray for me which I chuckled about as well but I shared the following from Vince Lombardi.  I hate sharing this being a longtime Chicago Bears fan but this is something that I think anybody out in the business world needs to read/see/hear at somepoint in their life.  So with that I give you the following…

What It Takes To Be Number 1

“Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all the time thing. You don’t win once in a while; you don’t do things right once in a while; you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.

“There is no room for second place. There is only one place in my game, and that’s first place. I have finished second twice in my time at Green Bay, and I don’t ever want to finish second again. There is a second place bowl game, but it is a game for losers played by losers. It is and always has been an American zeal to be first in anything we do, and to win, and to win, and to win.

“Every time a football player goes to play his trade he’s got to play from the ground up — from the soles of his feet right up to his head. Every inch of him has to play. Some guys play with their heads. That’s O.K. You’ve got to be smart to be number one in any business. But more importantly, you’ve got to play with your heart, with every fiber of your body. If you’re lucky enough to find a guy with a lot of head and a lot of heart, he’s never going to come off the field second.

“Running a football team is no different than running any other kind of organization — an army, a political party or a business. The principles are the same. The object is to win — to beat the other guy. Maybe that sounds hard or cruel. I don’t think it is.

“It is a reality of life that men are competitive and the most competitive games draw the most competitive men. That’s why they are there — to compete. To know the rules and objectives when they get in the game. The object is to win fairly, squarely, by the rules — but to win.

“And in truth, I’ve never known a man worth his salt who in the long run, deep down in his heart, didn’t appreciate the grind, the discipline. There is something in good men that really yearns for discipline and the harsh reality of head to head combat.

“I don’t say these things because I believe in the “brute” nature of man or that men must be brutalized to be combative. I believe in God, and I believe in human decency. But I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle — victorious.”

- Vince Lombardi

1913 – 1970

Enjoy your day, and keep on winning!!!

Social Innovation… May we be known by the problems we solve.

This has been an extremely busy week between personal and professional items.  It must have been exciting if I’m posting twice in the same week.  The theme of this week has definitely been “Data” or “Information” if you will.

I had the opportunity to go to a conference today put on by the great folks at Plywood People.  The day was called

Invite to the Confrence from their Website

The topics of the day were to be presented by the following…

Social Branding – Simon Mainwairing
Dignity – Ester Havens
Social Movement – Scott Thomas
Influence – Kyle Korver (Unfortunately He was not there today)
Social Art – Laurie Stallings
Social Sustainability – Rashid Nuri
Technology – John Saddington
Social Creation – Ron Marks
Social Crowd Sourcing – Blake Canteberry

And the day was moderated by Jeff Shinabarger who is the founder of Plywood.

Truth be told, originally I was really only interested in attending to meet Kyle Korver.  Partly because I’m interested in how he funds his organization.  Also because I’m a NBA fan.  Outside of him and Simon Mainwairing, I haven’t heard of anybody else that spoke or presented today.  I’m happy to say I’ve never been so pleasantly surprised by each speaker’s message.  Simon shared a great video with us all which really set the tone for a great day…

Ester definitely gave me tips not only how to view things through my camera lens, but my personal lens.  Her work is definitely inspiring.

Blake and his organization is something else inspiring as well.  Don’t be surprised if you start to see me retweet his org at least once a day.  No matter how amazing it is to see prayers answered, it’s even more amazing when you can say “I helped!”

I could go on and on about how great everybody was.  I think the person who stole the show was Scott Thomas.  As his twitter handle states Scott has 10 Simple Design rules that are as follows…

1)  Start Simple
2)  Determine Objectives
3)  Stick to the basics
4)  Make the Design Process
5)  Look & Listen
6)  Throw limitations out the window
7)  Design and Build
8)  Collaborate
9)  Don’t ask clients what they want
10)  Follow your heart.

Great thing about these rules…  You can use them for your goals as well.  This is the designer who put together Obama’s Branding strategy for his 2008 Campaign.   Sorry for the Obama haters, but this guy not only knew what he was talking about, but knew how to design to capture younger voters and make them vote in the states he wanted.  Where did that all begin?  What’s the theme for the week?

DATA!!!

I would like to take this opportunity to thank my “Boss” Eric at the moment, for forwarding the information of today on to me, because if he didn’t, I probably would have never heard of this organization and its great underlying message today which was…

This sums it up!

Data… Not Money… Makes the World Go Round

Originally when I was going to do this blog post I was thinking about how it seems that every where I turned over the past few weeks that somebody was tweeting or posting on Facebook about bad service that they were receiving (Social Wrath anyone?).  Then something dawned on me last night when I was at an AiMA Email event.

A long time ago I remember my U.S. History teacher Mr. Gilfoyle said something that stuck with me and has shaped a lot of my political views when it comes to conflict and war.  He said

“All war or conflict one way or another, always comes back to Money”

Pretty interesting when you think about it.  Now back to last night.  The session was all about taking your email program from “Now to Wow” and there was something that kept coming up.  The biggest challenge everybody faces is the sharing of information.

Where am I going with this you ask?  Simple!  While most of us are in a war one way or another to either create revenue or support those who do generate revenue there are those of us who need to make sure we have all the information we need to support those people.

The exact same thing happens when we deal with Customer Service as well.  For every time it seems there is a bad experience with Customer Service there is probably a point where more information should have been shared and it wasn’t.  Now don’t get me wrong, there are some exceptions where I know you “Can’t fix Stupid” but there are times where we have step back from the whole “Time is Money” mentality and remember that “Sharing is Caring”

There is another side to this as well.  Originally when I was thinking about this post I was inspired after calling into support of my old employer.  The task that I needed was simple as I did it several times when I was an employee at the company but the rep (who I did know) said…

“Lin… Things have changed, security has changed”

Now I just spent the first half of this post talking about how we need to share

information, companies are not going to extreme lengths to protect it.  There have been times I have questioned how far should one go to protect information within certain sites, but then I asked this question as well…

Why are we giving out certain bits of information?

I do not know but I can tell you that the one thing that we need to be aware of is that information controls everything.

I don’t know how I can sum this up.  The only things I can offer is the following…

1)       “C.R.E.A.M.  Cash rules everything around me… Get the money… Dolla Dolla Bills y’all!” – Wu Tang Clan

Wu Tang Clan ain't nuttin to mess with

2)      “I want to know, what you’re thinking.  There are some things you can’t hide.  I want to know, what you’re feeling.   Tell me what’s on your mind”  -Information Society  (80s Style)

And finally…

3)       “One Love, One Heart Let’s get together and feel all right”  – Bob Marley

All song quotes aside, I know I might have jumped around on this post but if you take away anything, please take away this thought…

Next time you find yourself getting frustrated about something, just ask yourself… Do you have all the information you need?

10 Commandments of the Email Recipient

With Independence Day behind us, on Monday I had to help put together “Best Practices” for a presentation for our clients.  I asked a few people for help and got some great feedback and then I thought about something…

How come we never think about best practices for those that receive them?  So let’s have some fun…

10 Commandments of an Email Recipient

1)       Thou shall not ignore means to unsubscribe:  On any legit email ad you receive, somewhere in the email should be a means to opt out of receiving emails.  If you don’t find this link, most times if you respond to the email this can be enough.  Either way, if you don’t want to receive the email, you do not have to.

2)       Thou shall be aware of messages that are received via a real friend and via a Spam Bot:  Folks…  it is 2011.  You should know by to pay attention to what you are clicking on in an email.  Every now and then I have friends where we try to make each other laugh with subject lines, but I know that something is up when I’m receiving Rolex & Pill offers from them within a 30 minute period, something is not right.

3)      Thou shall not simply just forward a message without being aware of whom you are sending a particular message too:  This one actually stems from something I have noticed at every place I worked to date.  It’s one thing to forward to a friend.  I don’t discourage this practice working in Email Marketing.  I do discourage simply forwarding an email without paying attention to the entire message.  I strongly discourage this on messages regarding religion or messages that talk about people (Trust Me… If you check a whole message before you send it, it will work out for the best)

4)      Thou shall read the privacy policy before opting in:  Ok… I admit, I don’t even read them half the time.  I will simply just click “I accept the terms”  it’s ok… You can admit it too.  The issue with this is that when you accept to these terms there are a lot of times where companies can turn around and sell your information.  Here is a hint…  Facebook Apps, be careful which ones you give your information too.

5)      Thou shall not believe that there is only one way to view an email:  With use of smart phones on the rise, it is on the organization that is sending you an email to make sure that their email is mobile device friendly if you are receiving the email to that device first.  You should not have to be limited to viewing your email just on a computer anymore.

6)      Thou shall check their spam folder:  All the time?  No!  Once in a while?  Good Idea!  You never know what you are missing out on until it’s not there.  Right now Gmail, Yahoo, and even the Microsoft entities are coming up with “Smart Inboxes” that are noticing that you aren’t opening certain emails.  This of course is great until that one email that you miss.

7)      Thou shall understand that a Mass Email is the same as Spam:  I don’t know anybody who has not sent something like this in their life.  A majority of the time it is for a good cause.  “Please donate to support my cause” , “Please support my child in…”  There is nothing wrong with this.  However you should not be offended if people don’t respond back to say “Sure I’ll respond” or even if they are upset that you just broadcasted their email address to a bunch of people.  My tip for doing this, use the “BCC” to email everybody and in the “To” field put your personal email address.  This way you can definitely make sure people obey the next commandment…

8)      THOU SHALL NOT REPLY ALL TO A MASS EMAIL:  There is nothing wrong with Replying to all if the message is important to everybody on the email.  However when it comes to just making jokes or a response that needs only to go to one person, please choose the right reply option.  (And if this post ever gets in front of Mark Zuckerburg… Please fix this on Facebook messages, Thanks!)

I WANT YOU TO STOP REPLYING TO ALL

9)      Thou shall understand that Email Etiquette should also be used in Texting Etiquette:  It’s that simple.  There are going to be times where people can’t answer right away for whatever reason.  This does not always mean you’re being ignored, it just means you have to wait your turn to be answered.

10)   Thou shall not kill the messenger:  Please remember, most likely when you are receiving the emails that you may consider “Spam” there are people who put time and effort in to you receiving that message.  Just like you put time and effort into your job every day.  There is no need to be upset with those who are sharing their job with you.  It is the circle of life if you will.  You purchase/”opt in” for something,  you receive a message and advertisements, and then it begins all over again.  Or it goes back to commandment #1.

Everything I learned about finding a job I learned from… LeBron James???

Remember this from just over a year ago???

Most sports fans believe he got what he deserved after what could be considered the most epic form of grandstanding ever.  I want to ask you a couple of questions though…

First – If you have read any business book on how to get ahead, what do all those books say?

Second – What are you supposed to do in an interviewing process?

Third – Who are you more likely to believe in… Those who are confident in their abilities or those who just say “Eh… I’ll try”

Now I want to tell you a story.  A story I’m sure a lot of you can relate to…

So awhile back I actually got a job I was gunning for since I got out of college.  I didn’t get there without some sacrifices but none the less I finally got there.  In this position I realized that all eyes were on me.  How would I react to certain things, how could I assist my team make it to the next level.  I was happy in this role, but I knew I wanted more.  I came to the point where I had to ask myself…  Do I stay in this role with limited amount of upside, or do I venture out to see what else is out there.

While beginning to ponder this decision I got a “phone call” from a friend and they said “Hey, you should come join me with this organization.  The upside potential is endless”  Sure enough it wasn’t long before I “took my talents” to a different company.  There wasn’t a huge press conference about my “Decision” and there was not a lot of pomp and circumstance when I got to my new organization, but I knew I had to do what I was brought in to do.

Was my time at this next company successful?  Depends probably on who you ask.  Much like the above NBA star mentioned my decision to leave what I knew was going to be met with some questions as well as some who cheered me on joining a new team.  Why did I leave?  I wanted to do what was best for me and gave me the most opportunity .  My new boss liked that I came in confident in my abilities.  It was going to be on me to help bring my new team to the next level.

Now another question for you…  If it was ok for me to make the move that I did…  Why do we all hate LeBron James?  Remember those questions that I mentioned above?  Think about this…

First – All these books for success in business say you need to promote yourself.  Not just where you were, but for where you’re going to be and want to be.  There’s the decision and pep rally LBJ had when he went to Miami.

Second – An interviewing process is all about selling yourself.  Love him or hate him, I can’t find any GM that would not take LBJ if he said “I want to come to your organization.”  And if you can find one, please tell me who they would have playing instead of him.

Third – LBJ definitely does not lack confidence to say the least.  In fact this is the one reason where I would say anybody has the right to hate him.  Then again all he really did was say what he was confident that he could do for his new employer.

Now while I was definitely happy that the Dallas Mavericks won the NBA Championship, with all the talk LeBron did over the summer even up through the post game of Game 6 in the NBA finals, I could argue that LeBron did everything somebody who wants to be successful in the business world should do.  How he went about doing it I don’t agree with and he could probably use come coaching on, but he did everything that you should to move ahead.

So I’ll end this post with one final question.  If you have all the resources of LeBron… Do you blame him for doing what he did?