Julien Smith, Trust Agents

Before learning about his project of co-authoring Trust Agents, I didn't know much about Julien's work. Now I'm in over my head - and it feels right to write that. There's a lot of good enough thinking going around these days, I like how Julien challenges us to make decisions - the opposite of marketing fluff is, after all, a decision.

Do you stand for something?

After I published my interview with Chris Brogan, a couple of people asked me why I was giving him yet more press. In case you haven't noticed yet, I like to have conversations with people who stand up and stand out.

Call it what you will, changing the game, blazing a new trail, I call it putting the action behind the talk. If you're one of those people, I notice without you pitching me. I still spend most of my time listening and observing online.

That's why I wanted to spend a few minutes with Julien and share his thoughts with you.

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First of all, your blog CSS is one of the cleanest I've seen. I know, mighty geeky of me to notice. It's a recent redesign, or at least I noticed it recently. I like to lay claim to good taste in design - the whole made in Italy thing, you know. So kudos for that. The simplicity of it does encapsulate well what I've read so far. Until Trust Agents, I confess I didn't know much about you or your work. Can you tell us a little bit about how you got involved with online communities?

Julien: I got into online communities around the age of 15. I remember getting my first computer, a 286, and by reading some books from the library I learned that it had a modem. From there I connected to some BBS's (local message boards) and met some people. Those were my first steps into making connections online.

I also ran flashmobs in the early 2000's. We built communities of people who were connected anonymously to each other by email, created missions, and got them together to perform them. We had a lot of fun doing that and got some press for it, which was nice.

Basically I've been involved with various forms of online communication for over half my life. It's as natural to me as in-person interactions are. Oh, and the design of my blog was set up by a team in Montreal that I have a ton of respect for called Stresslimitdesign.

When I wrote you and Chris about receiving the book, I said: "It's the kind of book I *wish* I had written," [see note] and meant it. Our exchanges while I was reading and when I was done - a page turner, loved the ending - gave me the opportunity to connect with you for the first time. You wrote recently about reliability. Is that in your view one of the core tenets of being a trust agent? What are some of the ways one can demonstrate that with digital body language?

Julien: Yes, and I picked that up from two highly respected people in my life: David Maister and Mitch Joel. The former wrote The Trusted Advisor, which taught me about how reliability is one of the most important aspects of trust, while Mitch taught me that reliability is key to any successful blog or other social media project. It took me a while to learn that.

Reliability is also *consistency* and that's what I would attempt to show with what you call "digital body language" more than anything. No matter how professional your words, you a need professional design, domain name, and lots of good references from other websites to support your professionalism. All these things that are well-known sales techniques are also good signals of trust.

What are the ideas and people that influenced you? Why?

Julien: That's a really broad question. My favourite book is Man's Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl. My favourite bloggers are Aaron Wall and Jason Kottke.

My favourite movie is... I dunno, maybe Fight Club? That's all I can think of right now. :)

It's a known fact - or at least many of us believe it is - we each have at least one book in us. What made you want to to get yours out in the open?

Julien: (a) I don't believe in people telling me that I can't. I've stopped thinking that the people who've done something are somehow better than me, so I figured "why not?"

(b) Once you get to the other side of any gate, you realize that everything is "not a big deal." So I've started taking this attitude *before* I actually cross the gate (book publishing, in this case) and thinking, "if all these people can do this, I can too."

Who do you consider part of your team? If you were to share a word of advice with them, what would it be?

Julien: Chris and the people from the Media Hacks podcast are all part of my team. We've been there since the beginning of the social web movement and we've always helped each other out and stuck with each other. Like we say in the book, building a network like this, a small powerful one, will help you tremendously. Go find yourself one too. :)

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What about you? What's your philosophy? How do you contribute? Are you in over your head?

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[Note] As I talk to people in customer care, operations, engineering and other functions in organizations, I hear that learning to communicate and collaborate more effectively is becoming more of a priority. What seems obvious to many of us, is getting more attention inside companies. That is good. These people don't generally read the blogs we read. A "souvenir" in the form of a book written simply, is a better primer. You know that simple is hard to do. Hence my comment to Julien.

Comments

[Deni Kasrel]

1) Any guy who cites Man's Search For Meaning as a favorite book is a pretty deep/thoughtful person.

2)Both your notion of and Julien's comments on digital body language are enlightening. Being reliable, consistent, professional are surely all necessary elements for building trust (along with honesty/transparency).

3)Valeria, thanks for the interview. I too think Chris deserves notice, but so does Julien.

[Brian Driggs]

Forgoing any finger pointing over Fight Club rules - what you do and do not talk about - I found this post a friendly reminder on two fronts:

1. It's not a big deal. It might feel like a big deal because I've never done anything like this before, or because I don't, personally, know anyone doing the same thing right now, but I'm doing what I feel is right. Since when is doing the right thing a big deal? It shouldn't be.

2. Consistency. This is something I struggle with on a daily basis. Being consistent - in tone, message, and posting - reinforces feelings of trust. The blog you read today will still be here tomorrow and the content will be just as relevant. That said, I need to work on scheduling writing time a couple times a week or more.

And it's good to hear that more organizations are looking to focus on collaboration tools. Let's hope it's not just lipservice!

[Michael Zipursky]

This is currently my late night read. Appreciate the interview and Julien sharing more of what's 'in/on his mind'.

The not a big deal philosophy is extremely powerful. Great stuff.

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Deni - I'm so glad you had the chance to get to know Julien through his ideas. Man's Search for Meaning is one of the best books of all times, so clear and human.

@Brian - thought you would respond to that. It isn't a big deal at all. Also, we're all heroes in some circles (for many of us, it's our family) and unknown in others. That is fine. I'm a marathon runner, so consistency is familiar. Unless I pace myself, I burn out (I'm not very fast). Time management can be an issue, admittedly.

@Michael - I've been impressed with him at each exchange. In a way, the book was the way for me to get to know Julien.

[Taylor Davidson]

I'll second Deni, I loved the concept of "digital body language". Thinking of consistency of action, thought, tone, topics and attitude as a digital body language is a very human way to think about one's "content strategy"; would you agree, Valeria?

[Colleen Wainwright]

It's funny--I met Julien Smith in person on the very same day I met Chris, back at BWE 2006, when it was still going by its old name and still in crazy Ontario, CA. Chris introduced us, in fact, before we snuck off to chat for a bit.

I was *completely* intimidated by Julien b/c he looked so cool. I'm sure he was perfectly nice; he just looked too cool for me, so I missed the opportunity to connect then, and probably subsequently, because of the exact faulty thinking he calls out in this interview.

Well, I'm making up for lost time, I'll tell you what! Love his blog, love his outlook, and I've got an instant armload of fantastic books to read since I've discovered he's one of my Perfect Filters.

Thanks for another outstanding interview, Valeria. I just love the people you collect here on your site--must be that Italian thing!