Conversation Agent

Ten Ideas for Conversation

Social media is, well, social. Interaction is part of the experience and expectation. If this is your first blog or foray into the scene, you are probably going to be doing a lot more of the work than those individuals or companies that have an established presence. And by presence I mean "voice" - what they bring to the table as evaluated and valued by the people they interact with.

Is conversational marketing just the engagement of social media by a corporation to promote their product and brand? Many seem to think so. Even when your tone of voice is lower than a shout, there is a lot more to the conversation than just promotion. In fact, I can think of at least ten ideas. 

1. It's about how what we say and do connects with the person in the room with us. We are not nearly as clever and interesting as we'd like to think. Most behaviors and ideas spread through populations because of what the members of the populations do or think or say in response to each other. Mark Earls thinks this is what Cluetrain meant when they talked about markets being conversations.
2. It's an ongoing experience, you are never done. And you are probably judged just on the last interaction, although there is significant capital you can count on when you invest in having the interaction in the first place. We are all moving very fast these days. At times our paths cross just like ships in the night.
3. It's still wise to know what you're about and the value(s) you bring. In marketing we talk about value propositions all the time. These are the benefits you bring to the table, as seen by your customers. Rick Becker talks about a bell curve between company-speak and customer-speak. The truth, and value, is often somewhere in between, where the conversation takes place.
4. It's the expectation that something will happen instantly that changes dynamics. The truth is that nothing may happen for a long time, before something happens. On the other hand, there are many things happening behind the scenes. Thinking is shifting, even your posture is, as you experiment with formats and rhythm.
5. It's a way to stimulate your innovative juices. Think about it. How often do you get stuck in one way of looking at an issue, one use for a product, or service. When you put the idea out there, all of a sudden, new possibilities materialize. You may even gain enough momentum to refine your new use. Seth Godin writes: pushing an idea through the dip of acceptance is far more valuable than inventing something that's never existed... and then walking away from it.
6. It's more than talk, it's the action that follows. I would not want to give you the impression that conversation means just talk, although talk can change our lives. Jake McKee posts about an apology by Southwest Airlines. The tone is in their signature style, the action follows the words.
7. It's how allowing yourself to be out there enriches what you do in here (your business). In fact, by being immersed in the conversation, you may forget what you thought you knew, and get to see things from a new angle. Roger von Oech writes about how we should practice forgetting to have insights.
8. It's not a distraction, it's an investment. Many do not see it that way because it seems like an unnecessary drain of resources and time. You make an investment in learning from others while staying centered in what you're about.
9. It's a reason to move faster from creativity, to creation. Stephen Denny said it best - it's not about delivering interesting stuff against pre-established deadlines. It's about becoming the producer of original content that adds value to the conversation. If you have been using social media, you know what we are talking about. In the rare instances in which you are in an advanced marketing strategy role, you may know what this means, what it feels like. It's about packaging an idea in a truly compelling fashion and selling it so that people want to buy your service, or product.
   
10. It's the surest path to grow your business. Co-creation has been around for a little while. It is only now that we are beginning to see some headway on results. Mick Stravellin talks about how co-creation is the way forward. It is like opening the big ivory tower big companies seem to live in. Conversation may allow you to take your business to where growth is next.

There is so much more to conversation than just promotion. Conversation is how ongoing value(s) instantly stimulate action allowing investment to grow. It starts with you.

Do This Social Media Thing, Now!

This is a follow up from my post of yesterday. No doubt, some companies will join the conversation their way. Thank you Geek and Poke, for providing some food for thought. Encouraging indeed!

The Cluetrain Manifesto Conversation

You’re either participating or you’re not, writes Micheal Walsh at Lingolook. There's no in between. It would be like being half pregnant, or half baked - the first one improbable, the second indigestible.

Why should you care?

Your payoff is that, whether you like it or not, chances are your customers (and increasingly employees) are talking about you online.

If your customers are not talking about you... well, that's a worse scenario to contemplate, isn't it?

These are not necessarily negative conversations, mind you. They well could be constructive discussions filled with chances to learn about your customers and what you need to do to make them happy. Happy people buy more and tell their friends. It's your prerogative whether to join the conversation or not.

The best outcome is that those who are talking about you are spreading the word on your business - Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell called them Citizen Marketers. The worst case scenario is that those customers who talked about you even once stopped doing so, they did not think you cared about what they were saying, so they stopped caring about you and your business - you become invisible to them (and increasingly their friends).

This kind of conversation is a commitment, not a savings account for your marketing spend. When I speak about social media, the tools and dynamics, I often say that they are the container, the context in which you get to:

• engage
• educate
  
• entertain

The fourth "E" is emotion, the human quality that is memorable because it touches us. While blogs and other social media seem (and often are) extemporaneous, they do allow you to show the personality of your business. Your personality is still what differentiates you from your competitors - and, after years of industrial age treatment, what makes you likeable. Before you develop a relationship with your customers, you thus have the chance to:

• encourage participation (yours and theirs) with engagement
• show your passion with education
• ask for permission through entertainment

Those are as solid as the classic four P's of marketing - product, place, price, promotion. If The Cluetrain Manifesto is still news after 10 years from its publication, the conversation that ensued has evolved. My good friends RichardatDELL and Michael Walsh provided their take on a meme that celebrates its anniversary. Here is mine.

1. What does The Cluetrain Manifesto mean to you? How has the book and theses influenced or not influenced you?

I'd like to extend and build upon what Micheal says:

As the Cluetrain makes painfully clear, marketing departments were introduced to bridge the gap between mass products and mass markets and in doing so, wiped out conversations between producers and their customers and replaced them with alienation and mystery.

Recently I had the opportunity to discuss what social media means with Lori di Magno and her husband Tom. I started by talking about the bazaars and markets of old, where people who sold items on display talked with people who were there to find a treasure they could make theirs. Stop for a moment and think about it: is this how you buy? Chances are it is, even in a B2B scenario.

Companies, especially large ones, are still very much in the industrial age. Hierarchies and silos are preventing the people on the inside from being close to the customer. Mass production requiring mass marketing have in many cases killed the personality and voice of the business.

The manifesto is a wake up call to go back to listening, talking with, being human, and learning.

Like Richard, I want to be part of the business that gets it as judged by customers. Has the Cluetrain influenced me in that direction? My personal brand promise for Conversation Agent is to connect ideas and people. Do I get it? I am learning to listen every day.

2. Which companies have best implemented The Cluetrain Manifesto in your opinion and how were they effective?

Companies are just entities, empty vessels (and for some still bastions of power) without people inside them. Some individuals inside organizations get it - they treat others with the respect, and the equanimity that leaders and good managers have.

Here I celebrate RichardatDELL, and his colleagues Lionel Menchaca who just added this blog to Direct2Dell's blogroll (a company open to the outside does that) and JohnatDELL who are participating to the conversation and contributing their energy to moving it forward. Have they been effective? If you're reading this, you are online. What do you think? Have you come across them? Chances are you have, and your experience was good.

I do not know enough about what other companies are doing to implement the principles of the Cluetrain. But here's some homework from the manifesto. Businesses can begin:

"by searching out people with the organization who understand what's going on. In Almost every case, they're there. Make friends with them. Make friends with the marketplace again. Start listening. Find your voice. Then start talking as if your life depended on it. It does... There may not be 12 or five or 20 things that you can do, but there are 10,000 possibilities. The trick is you have to figure out what they are. They have to come from you. They have to be your words, your moves, your authentic voice.

The Web got built by people who chose to build it. The lesson is: don't wait for someone to show you how. Learn from your spontaneous mistakes, not from safe prescriptions and cautiously analyzed procedures. Don't try to keep people from going wrong by repeating the mantra of how to get it right. Getting it right isn't enough anymore. There's no invention in it. There is no voice."

This is where small businesses and entrepreneurs have a tremendous advantage: they can choose to get it and implement quickly. There are less layers, there's less history and attachment to what worked in small businesses.

3. In thesis 57, The Cluetrain Manifesto states, “smart companies will get out of the way and help the inevitable to happen sooner.” In light of that thesis, is encouraging employees to use social media and blogging a good idea? Is it really effective, when an employee is encouraged but not directed?

Recently I had a painful exchange with an employee who blogs on behalf of her company. This is a large, global company. The exchange was about a misunderstanding on a post, her version of a resolution was quite drastic - delete all comments and references. When I probed as to why, she responded: "I'm just an employee, I'm not at liberty to discuss this stuff here."

Is this the result of encouragement or direction? Can we please all use common sense? I work inside an organization, there is no need to change who you are for it, I can assure you.

4. How can a company encourage employees to use social media, and empower them to answer customer questions and learn from customers?

By walking the talk, just like with everything else an organization does.

Guess what? Your business has policies in place for about everything it does, and processes for many of those things. People watch what those high up in the organization do, where and how they spend their time. If they do what they say they do or what they say you should do, then you follow the example and feel confident someone is noticing (that's all empowerment is, really).

If they don't, there is no amount of programs you can throw at the employee base. They will know they are walking a very fine line, with no mistakes allowed at all, and that will be enough to hold back and to take their lessons and talents elsewhere at the first opportunity. Social media tools are so new, by and large they are uncharted territory. But they give us the chance to bridge back to being in touch with the reason why we are in business: to serve customers.

When we learn from customers, we have the chance to improve, make the business work better and as a result, sell more. Respect, trust, and loyalty are the greatest assets a company has.

5. Do all employees want to talk with customers? If not what percentage want to internetwork and converse?

It takes practice to want to talk with customers. Especially in those organizations that put the fear of the gods in you about making mistakes and needing to follow rules and regulations to the letter. Before you do the talking, before you roll out shiny new blogs, before you get all excited about pushing messages through a new, SEO-friendly tool, ask yourself one question: are you listening?

Are you listening to each other internally? Are you listening to the people on the front lines who are in contact with customers? Start there. Start listening to what they are saying - they represent your customers. The more eagerly you listen to them, the more they will be putting energy into listening to customers.
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Who can enrich this conversation? I would like to listen to Jason Fall's take, what Tim Brunelle would tell MCAD students, Scott Monty's unique point of view, what would Tangerine Toad say, and Connie Bensen's advice on these five questions.

[image by Hugh MacLeod. I often talk about Stormhoek as a case of a business that gets it]

Citizen Journalists and Responsibility

"Having a platform means that you have some responsibilities, and responsibilities are the opposite of rights." [Michael Tomasky, Editor, Guardian America]

Jeff Jarvis and Michael Tomansky recently debated whether the Internet's new breed of citizen journalists should have the responsibilities of journalists or the rights of citizens. [hat tip to Robin Hamman] Jay Rosen himself participates to the conversation. I think this kind of debate is good to have to promote awareness of the issues and potential conflicts of interest we may bump into.

More and more we find our roles overlap - blogger, employee, stockholder, customer, etc. Do the rules of engagement overlap? Where do we stand on ethics and responsibility? My hunch is that at this stage it is a personal question we ask ourselves. Certainly there are always consequences to how we answer it. Let's start with a definition of citizen journalist. Directly from Wikipedia:

Citizen journalism, also known as public or participatory journalism, is the act of citizens "playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information," according to the seminal report We Media: How Audiences are Shaping the Future of News and Information, by Shayne Bowman and Chris Willis. They say, "The intent of this participation is to provide independent, reliable, accurate, wide-ranging and relevant information that a democracy requires."

Does citizen journalist equal blogger? In some instances it might. We call people who help spread the word on companies and their products Citizen Marketers and we call people who help disseminate and discuss the news Citizen Journalists. In both cases, people are the message. Here's what happens when we are the message, though - it is up to you to figure out where your responsibility falls.

As Andrew Tyndall says in the comments to Jarvis' post:

In an instance when one is invited to listen to something that is private and is told that it is so, surely one is bound not to repeat it, however newsworthy it might happen to be, and being a journalist — or calling oneself a journalist — is no license to violate that understanding and make such speech public.

That point does not fall under “rules for bloggers.” It falls under rules for human beings.

Agree/disagree? Why?

 

Don't Forget

That relationships are harder to build than they are to destroy.

That connections are forged over time.

That choosing to be kind over being right takes you one step closer to making a friend.

That sometimes what is good for your customer may be (temporarily) painful to do, and you should do it anyway.

That "checking the box" is not a strategy, nor it is a pain reliever.

That slowing down can make you go faster.

That lending a ear to someone who needs to be heard is (sometimes) better than trying to find an answer for them. They will find their own.

That you already have many of your answers, they just need to be discovered.

That letting go is often harder than you thought, and better in the long run.

That your talents are a gift and they should be unwrapped and used.

[image by code poet]

What is Louder Than a Shout?

Like many bloggers, I receive a fair number of pitches each week. They range from well-reasoned, clearly personalized emails to the comically awful (Hint of the Day: the subject header of something you'd like to get read should not be "blogger Pitch").

The other day, through a blogger friend of mine, I received a come-on that was clearly transmitted by a new web-based service for marketers interested in using social media. I clicked back to the service and read their presentation.

There were some interesting tools. This service is targeted primarily to corporate marketers who feel pressed to produce ROI metrics. Many of the site's features contained some impressive ways to track the way people interact with the RSS feeds, emails, and multimedia enclosures managed by the program.

But the site consistently referred to social media interactions in a way which really caught my attention. It termed all these various communications as "shouts." This is exactly wrong. Social media is about a lot of things, but not shouting at your customers. And that's exactly what you're doing when you force information down the pipeline without making yourself available for a real conversation with its recipient.

Social media isn't a broadcast. It's a whisper. That's right: a whisper. Social media is simply a way to get next to your customer and speak only with them. Whispering is intimate. It's done up close. And it's closely related to listening.

The candles are lit. The lights are low. Social media has set the table, and your conversation partner is waiting to hear what you have to say. There's no need to shout. They're listening, and expect you to do the same.

Bill(board) Talks Back - Ad Designed to Have a Conversation

We've been talking about connections this week. Connections are at the heart of new media, and they are what makes the world go 'round.

When you've got personality, laughter can bridge the short distance between people. Being playful makes us feel like we belong together. Defenses down, curiosity up, we forget what keeps us apart.

Connections from a billboard? Now that is something you don't come across every day - unless you live in Vegas or near Times Square. Meet Nathan Phillips, who was the CountsMedia world's largest fully live totally interactive video billboard in Las Vegas.

Last October, Bill (Nathan) talked with Bob Garfield about improvisation and using his skills as an actor to entertain and, in so doing, market. It looks like Nathan has taken his one man Bill(board) act in Time Square, NY this year.

In the world of marketing as context building, a world that, with the rise of the semantic Web, is becoming more important for marketers to understand and live in, if you want to be a leading brand, you lead. Which means that par for the course becomes the ability to improvise based on context and the information available.   

Remember that Drew Carey show "whose line is it anyway?" Drew and gang were given ideas from the audience. The actors focus on the ideas, and then use their skill to build on them in unusual and (still) practical ways to tell a story. That is improvisation. As defined on Wikipedia:

Improvisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or new ways to act.

What are the characteristics of improvisation transferable to marketing?

• having a conversation, in the moment, with your audience
• building upon the response and feedback your public gives you
• developing rapport with those who are willing to be entertained

Those are all sound characteristics of conversational marketing. Want to make this fun? Let's do some improv comments here.

[hat tip to Anne Libby]

Connections: Earth Day 2008

Earth Day is a very important day globally. The number of individuals participating in the celebration is estimated at 500 Million from 175 countries, this year.

Saturday, I participated in the Clean Air Council Run, a 5k race on the backdrop of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, right by the Schuylkill river. This was my second year, and judging from the crowd, the run is growing in popularity. 

That is good. It's good that we have a date with our planet. Better yet, it's good when we make that date every day. I know many of you - of us - do. More car share, more office share, greater like-mindedness. We are connected in more than one way.

[image from New World Biomass Conference]

An Anniversary

Today is a special day for me. Today celebrates my twentieth (20th) anniversary in the US. I still remember it like it was yesterday. No, I did not come off the boat on Ellis Island, which I had the pleasure of seeing again with an intimate group of friends at Blogger Social - exactly twenty years after I saw it with a most special person, my mother. I got off an Alitalia flight. In my mind, I was down on my knees and kissing the earth I was standing on all the same.

Opportunity does not come knocking in a literal sense. You go find it. I found it here. In another language, in another culture, in another country. With me, I brought dreams, experience/education, ideas, what sits between the few inches that separate my ears, and that other piece, the one that sits slightly to the left inside my rib cage. To make those work, I rolled my sleeves way up and used my arms to do and to welcome new friends.

I've said it all along. It's nice to repeat it here. Thank you all. You know who you are. Those who have made it possible. Arms extended from Italy to Philadelphia and anywhere in between. When you see life as a journey, it all counts. It does.

A Launch

The official launch date for EcoTech Daily is today, and the site is already famous. It was quoted by Shel Israel last week, after discovering the site from the review of an interview Shel did with GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz. EcoTech is the brainchild of my good friend Chris Baskind. We had a conversation here about an earlier project of his, Lighter Footstep, last year.

I reached out to Chris to get the scoop behind his new effort, which seems to bridge green tech and green business. Here's what he said:

Here we are, several years into what some are calling the Green Revolution, and we're still finding our way. But one of the really neat things that is happening is the nexus of clean technology and business, which is where EcoTech Daily will live. What I find particularly exciting about this area is that it has become non-political: it's all about what works, common interests, and finding new solutions to old problems. There's probably a wider lesson to be learned in all this.

A Connection

Well, more than one so far. I was reading about Ning's Infinite Ambition on Fast Company and suddenly realized that the Earth Day Network is built on Ning. It isn't just a site where users can build their own social networks -- Ning is a model of how to create a perpetual growth machine, says the article. If I recall correctly, the daughter of my good friend Roger von Oech, Athena, works at Ning.

The sidebar in the article talks about Virtuous Circles. Each white dot is a member, the starburst shows that member's invitations, the clusters represent the viral chain. This is a representation of connections. It is estimated that by New Year's Eve 2010, Ning will host 4 Million social networks serving up billions of page views daily.

It has not escaped my notice that Ning cofounder and CEO, Gina Bianchini, has a very Italian name.

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Connections make the world go 'round. It's because when something touches us closely, we pay attention to it, we see it, we take the time. Can connections save the earth?

Personality Not Included: Go Get Yours!

This is one of those books that works almost like a blog post. It's cross-referenced and you can skip to the parts you are interested in, because everything is organized so you can pull content. We will see more books come off the press with formats that borrow from social media - and not a moment too soon!

I have it from reliable sources, that although personality is not included, you can go and get yours. Rohit Bhargava was among the group at Blogger Social 2008 a couple of weeks back, and I've had the distinct pleasure of picking his brain on book writing and how he's launching his new book with a full social media conversation.

Social Media Launch

He's not the first one to do it. Joe Jaffe, the missing link at the social, walked the talk with Join the Conversation. Dan Pink is doing well with his Johnny Bunko. There are many others. 

Rohit took the conversation to the next level with his launch - building up to it by offering an interview series, which he followed up with participation from readers in the form of voting for the top 12 interviews, and the announcement of the winner for the top prize - all for a total of 55 blogger interviews, 678 votes just for the top 5 picks, 19 comments, and 118 blog reactions. For starters.

The exclusive download was just the tip of the iceberg. During Blogger Social he bought breakfast for a chat with bloggers (yes, I also got a signed copy of the book, and I read this first although I had a pile of books from Amazon on my desk). Rohit created a site dedicated to the book, and this past week he announced the personality project - 100 visionary minds, 1 question: why does personality matter?

Inside Scoop

I asked Rohit about the chickens on the cover, I really like them! His response was: they stood out. And that they did. I like the one jumping with the colored crest so much, that I think there might be an opportunity for a wise marketer to produce the thing (unless it already exists) and give it away with the t-shirt that spells out: PNI.

I'm sure you're all asking yourselves what are we ever going to do with yet another book about marketing. So did Rohit. To answer that question, here's what he did. He set aside a cool $1k - you got that correct, yes - and went to his favorite bookstore where he proceeded to buy all of the books that would compete for our share of mind. Whenever in doubt about standing out in usefulness, he would refer back to the pile. I like that thinking.

Plot that Thickens

Why don't companies sound more human? That's a great question. A business lacks personality because it has made a deliberate choice to hide it. It makes perfect sense - scale used to mean credibility,  consistency was key, not so intuitively given where we are today, layers inspired consumer trust. The communication took place through ads anyway. There is more, though. Companies lose personality because:

1. Being ordinary still means being profitable
2. Focusing on policies vs. logic remains core
3. Silencing employees = managing risk

Well, things have changed, and those companies that wish to stay in business, need to go get a personality. Mind you, in Hugh's cartoons (yes, they grace the pages of the book), personality can't save crap. If your product needs help, that's where you start, in earnest please. It's a page turner, any page you are focused on at work.

Making Personality

Is like making coffee, espresso preferably. You need good beans ground just right, and you need a filter that works well. The personality-making filter will output fine results. As your raw material, what you have to work with, percolates, it goes through three distinct and complementary qualities:

1. Uniqueness
2. Authenticity
3. Talkability

I liked what Rohit suggests for authenticity. Beyond creating a credible heritage, he talks about demonstrating passion and belief, fostering individuals vs. people (words matter), and having a motive beyond profit (I am especially keen on this point). You have something unique and different, you come through as genuine, and you give them something to talk about. What's next?

Getting Personality

Blogs are fine examples of having personalities. We talk like real people here. Meet a blogger in the flesh, and you will continue the conversation started at their blog. They sound just like they write - even I do (oh, boy).

Every day I get loads of sales calls at work. Guess what? I absolutely d e t e s t those coming from people who pretend to be giving me something and are very coy about the fact that they are in fact trying to sell me something. Admit it, admit you are marketing to me and let's have a frank conversation on value, for me, real value. Now, that would work.

Do you take yourself too seriously? Time to show you have a sense of humor. Laughter is the shortest distance between two people. This might be a business book, in life you have a book of business - and that is made of your relationships. Gone are the times when you could go solo and be a star without the help of anyone else. Today you need others to succeed. Companies need customers.

The Unthinkable

I was enjoying the book's theories a lot, and then Rohit went ahead and did something unthinkable. He added an "how to" section. Imagine that! You don't have to. You can dive right in when you acquire your copy, skipping the whole first section.

Now let's stop talking to people (ahem, individuals) the way advertising does. Remember that business is but a term to describe humans engaged in an experience they pay to have. Avoid condescension, share the credit often, and be open to participation.

The dynamics of marketing have changed. Individuals now have the power to create content, not just consume it. How are you using the personality behind your brand to build a relationship with your customers?

[Click here to download and excerpt or to buy the book.]

New Media is About Linking

Links are connections. If I had to explain new media to someone who is not familiar with it, I would say that new media is about linking. Writing online is much easier than producing an article for a magazine, or for a newspaper.

The production piece is fairly easy. If you self publish, you write a post, spell check it, check your thought process, then hit publish, and there you are. New media includes many other tools, of course. The concept still applies.

The whole online media model is not about polish and presentation, although they both matter. It's about connections.

Content

Linking is easier seen at work in the content. Even when we write original posts - yes, main stream media, too - we tend to link to sources and resources. I cannot tell you how weird it is to read a book written today, where the author includes links to sites and, more frequently, blog posts, and I cannot click on the link. OK, maybe with the Kindle you can.

In the content, links provide depth, support, resources, poetic licenses with digressions that do not quite fit the piece but matter, and much more. After all, we call it "link love." In new media, what goes around, comes around. Ben Fry created an Infographic for The New Yorker last year, Linkology, where he showed the top-linked-50 blogs on Technorati. Links are a way to visualize connections, where incremental thinking takes place.

Conversation

Participation is what makes new media tick. Through comments, trackbacks, and increasingly sharing in other places, what is published online has a good chance of getting discussed, repurposed, built upon, quoted, referred to, in other words, linked.

The conversation happens at its own pace. It may tip right away on Digg or through Stumble, or it may take months to bubble up when say BusinessWeek or an authoritative blogger like Marc Andreessen links to your post. When you comment on the posts written by others, you leave a link that will take the participants in that conversation back to your blog.

Community

What content and participation result in, the outcome of all this linking, is connections with people, community. In a way, online lists represent communities. That is probably the primal reason why we all want to be included on lists like AdAge|Power150, The Viral Garden's Top 25 Marketing|Social Blogs, The Junta 42 Content.Marketing.Search. blogs, the S.O.B. Hall of Fame blogs, Chris Brogan's Rockstars, and more. I have been thinking about launching a new list, I confess (shhh, don't tell anyone).

We start our conversations and linking online to continue with face-to-face gatherings and connection making. This builds community more than professional associations ever did. It's the link-minded, oops, like-minded nature of how we linked up that facilitates how those relationships start and develop.

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Think that linking is about soft stuff? How about the ability to track virtually everything online? With advanced social search functions we will be able to take linking - and connecting - to a whole new level.  There is a future of we media, it is bound to be quite different from the present. It will be linked to it.

Seth talked about Linkbait - this is what people do. What happens has unintended consequences: connections of ideas and people. That's where the business piece comes in.

[with Sean from Canada, Luc from Belgium, and Steve from New Jersey. Top, group photo from Blogger Social 2008]