The Year of Living Dangerously

This week Conversation Agent celebrated one year. It's a baby step, yet I feel so wise already. In a way I said to myself -- there's no trying, there's doing and not doing. My Mediterranean skin has thickened further, although I had no time to get a sun tan.

I titled this post The Year of Living Dangerously after the famous movie by Peter Weir. An all time favorite especially for the performances of Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver. There was definitely much less drama with starting a blog than there was in the movie story plot. Yet, this is vivere pericoloso all the same.

As we read on posts by fellow bloggers this last week Quechup has been posing as a legit social network when it is not. Well, there is another site that will let anyone create a profile on you. I will not link it here as they already violated privacy and thus trust. It's called Peek You.

They pose as a social network, yet your profile may have been scraped by someone paid to snoop on you and enter your data there. Why ? I can only begin to imagine. Clearly, they are not concerned about violating privacy or asking permission.

This is the dark side, the one you do not join freely, and are forced to police -- it should be discouraged with all means. They even encourage the vigilante stance "Create a watch list so you can closely follow changes to your favorite profiles." I encourage the folks there to rethink their model or they should be shut down. Even the name suggests spying on.

The key consideration that crosses the minds of companies when thinking about starting a blog is that there is a large degree of uncertainty. Opening up to comments is just one consideration. Rewarding effort has never been a key tenet of our relationship with companies and brands -- it's either great or terrible. How many "in betweens" can you think of?

Another challenge is coming up with fresh content -- that is not mere promotional material -- regularly. If you worked in a marketing or public affairs department on the client side, you will know that the resources are fewer, the budgets are stretched further every day, and the need to follow approval protocols (especially in highly regulated industries) will hamper the best intentions.

My aim in starting a blog was much simpler, and easier to implement -- I wanted to learn from peers and about new media (doing for me is best), share what I know (oodles of factoids and information in two languages) and continue connecting professionals with like minded business people and ideas.

The tool was just the beginning, what fascinated me and allowed me to leap forward in many ways have been the dynamics. As Gibson in the movie, I have often meditated on how "all is clouded by desire" -- as humans we strive to be more and do more all the time. My desire to express was greatly augmented by years spent serving children who may not have a chance to run one day, or to sing at the top of their lungs. It is to their gifts to me that I return time and over again. And of course to the great Italian traditions of being expansive in the conversation.

By far, the best part of publishing has been meeting my readers. I admit it, I have talked about many topics of interest to attract a variety of you -- diversity enriches conversations and accelerates greatly the birth of ideas. For my blogiversary, I would like to turn the mike to you:

• What ideas have you been able to execute after building momentum and sharing thoughts on your blogs?
• If you could meet any blogger in the flesh, who would you meet?

Why not do both? Remember, there's no trying -- there's doing and not doing. Join the conversation here and bring yourself and lots of ideas at the 2008 Blogger Social in NYC, April 4-6. More details here.

Comments

[Mack Collier]

Congrats on Year One, Valeria, and thanks for all the wonderful conversations YOU have started!

[Doug Meacham]

Hi Valeria, Thanks for the heads up on Peek You. I checked it out and I'm there along with a link to my dormant MySpace profile. Not unlike Spock, which apparently went through public records to populate with millions of people before they launched.

Doug

[Drew McLellan]

Valeria,

Happy Blogiversary! In a mere 365 days you have added a great deal to the conversations, both here and on other blogs.

Looking forward to seeing where you take us in year #2!

Drew

[Anne Libby]

Valeria, Buon Compleanno!

Late last month (over my blog's 1st birthday week -- not that I believe in coincidence) my heart sank after viewing a site/blog that had sent me a lot of traffic. It felt like a potential financial scam -- and many good blogs were being used as content.

I couldn't get enough data to feel that I could "out" them by name -- it isn't so clear. I did make a cautionary post, and will scout around more about this.

So some first birthday wisdom, for me, is a new sense of caution about online entities that might not be what they seem.

I would love to hear your recommendations -- or those of others in on the conversation here -- about how to check these things out.

[Valeria Maltoni]

Mack -- thank you for being such a good steward of this community.

Doug -- those sites are spooky and should not be allowed to operate in such a transparent environment such as social media.

Drew -- without your adding me to the Z-List it might have taken ages to meet all the great bloggers I have met during this past year. Thank you for reading!

Anne -- as usual when there are tools to make it easier to connect, there are some who choose to use them selfishly. Jonathan Bailey at The Blog Herald has a great series of posts on content piracy and how to out the folks who take advantage of others in the way you describe.

[NW Guy]

Valeria,

Congratulations on the anniversary! Your conversations are informative and great to learn from. Being able to come up with such great conversations can't be easy (and is why I'm a reader not a blogger).

Too many great bloggers to request a meeting with just one; how about just best wishes to Kathy Sierra and hoping that she blogs again? Her site was a wealth of information to keep designs on track!

Thanks again; here's to another great year.

[Valeria Maltoni]

Thank you, Bruce. Maybe that's why we're having a social in NYC, so we can have a many to many meeting. Maybe people are still reading Kathy's archives, she has so much there!

I'll raise my glass of red wine with you -- to another year ;-)

[C.B. Whittemore]

Valeria, a belated congratulations on your blog-bday! Thank you for creating such wonderful conversation, and I'm already enjoying your 2nd year. Definitely see you at the Blogger Social, and I hope before then, too!