Ezra's posterous - because i'm too lazy to think of something witty.

November 8, 2008

Being Social at 140 km/h

People constantly ask me about "social media" and what it can do for them, whether personally or business-wise.
I am lumping all parts of social media together, because I am way too lazy to separate them.

I want to give a non-conventional answer.

In a line: social media makes you think. And not in the way that you are assuming.

I mean, sure, the constant stream of information that any true denizen of social media intakes a day, including links, opposing and/or radical ideas, can give anyone pause for thought.

Permit me to explain:

I drove this past Thursday along the Jordan Valley (in order to get to the Rosh Pina Festival). The scenery was magnificent, the road was open (well mostly), and the music in the car amazing.

The entire time I was trying to think how I was able to describe the feeling to the world. I could have taken pictures on my N95 or used Kyte or Qik to live-stream video, but when you are driving over 140 km/h, you tend to want to concentrate on the road more than some gadget. Next time, I know to bring a camera-individual. Still, I witnessed beauty and serenity, and knew that I had to formulate some way of conveying it to the world. I tweeted (using TwitterFone) a few observations, because I needed to share it with someone else. In short, the drive was transformed, in my eyes, from only being a way to get to my destination to being an experience in itself.

Whenever I go anywhere or do anything, I am constantly thinking, "how would I describe this event?" or "what can I learn from what is happening to me right now?"

In the Pre-Social Media era, I would have called a single friend to inform him/her of what I was seeing. But I wasn't going to call random people about how a soldier was wearing more expensive sunglasses than I was.

Social Media is a constant branding process. Whenever you write something, on any medium, you have to be cognizant how that will reflect your "brand". So part of the thought process must always be, "what does this current situation reflect on me?" For instance, if you understand "my" brand at all (from reading posts, tweets, gawking at me on flickr, etc) you would know that I am quite a "sunglasses whore". Take that as you may. Therefore, an interaction that I had with an unlikely connoisseur of sunglasses required, for my personal branding, a tweet.

If you a company, you have a simple channel of getting the word out there on the small victories or changes, when you have no need to create a PR release, because honestly, in the old media world, no one cares. If you have friends or a following, it could matter to them.

Take boxee, for example. boxee is a new entertainment experience platform that I have been dreaming about for months, that apparently exists which combines and organizes your media, cross platform and cross computer. (I just met one of their guys at the Rosh Pina Festival and I installed the alpha version on my Mac [and also going to on my Linux box, but that really shouldn't interest you at all.])

boxee has a website, twitter, a FB fan page, and a blog, among other things. They are a decently social company. Their software even allows the user to be more social with his/her friends. They understand social. I will use the word social one more time, just to underscore how social the concept is. Social. There.

So boxee wrote a bloggery about the the white elephant in the room. It wasn't something that they could write a PR release about, or even write an SMR about. It was simply something that made me interact with the brand.

They wrote about why they developed their initial product for Mac and Linux operating systems, before the behemoth, Windows. The reasoning they gave employed both impeccable logic and graphic aids. The style of writing was extremely personal, and they even appended an additional video to the post, that gave me cause to smile and share it with someone else.

In my estimation, boxee took a few minutes to talk about the process and not only about the goal. They spoke about the journey and not only the destination.

When boxee is huge, no one will remember that they created the Mac/Linux version first. But the fact that they did - defines who they are.

There is a minor caveat here: If you have already arrived at the destination, you are unable to talk about the journey with the same gusto, simply because you have bigger things to talk about. Social media allows you to chronicle the zeal at the time that it happens. It makes you realize what exactly you are experiencing. It helps you clarify your feelings or thoughts.

I'm not sure if I made something clear. I had an amazing time at the Festival. I met amazing people and heard inspiring panels (kudos to @kfirpravda). I could have not written at all about the journey. I could have written a much longer post about things I learned from the conference. But the journey reminded me about life. (Queue "Aerosmith - Amazing" on your iTunes)

Bottom line: social media makes you think about yourself, your life, and your brand. About everything. Whether you are a person trying to enjoy every moment of your life and finding meaning in every instance, or a company to show that it exists between PR releases or advertising campaigns.

Enjoy the ride.

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November 4, 2008

Conversations & November 4th

Today's bloggery is admittedly slightly different. It's not about branding, advertising, or some application for a Twitter. But it is about conversation.

Thirteen years ago today, I learned what hate was. I learned, that according to some, if you don't agree with someone, the way to deal with it was not with words, but with bullets.

I was young, only 14, and my political alliances were still weak. But I remember the news, that Yitzhak Rabin was murdered by a countryman who disagreed with him. I was living in Pittsburgh, PA at the time, and the murder had very little effect on me. I flew to Israel, for the first time, a few months later, and heard Shimon Peres speak, in the place of Rabin. I still did not know what was lost. It was only 3 years later that I was standing in Rabin Square on the anniversary of his murder that I started understanding what happened. Then, on the anniversaries after I started graduate school in Israel. I spoke with my Israeli friends, and learned how it changed their lives. Ironically, religious friends who wanted to continue the conversation with the secular became secular.

With those few shots, the ability to converse was killed. They were the shots that defined a generation.

Today, the world is a-twitter. History will be made again on the 4th of November. I am hopeful that it will not be one lone voice making a decision to stop conversation, but the millions of voices together will fight to keep conversation alive.

In the end of the day, we all come from different places, different faiths, and different ideologies. Yitzhak Rabin stood for peace and trying to being together two nations living in one war-torn country. And he died because of it.

I am hoping that this election will bring the end to the concept of the Red states and the Blue states, and that the victor will attempt to recreate the United States of America.

Rabin's death taught me the importance of conversation.

Let's continue it.

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November 3, 2008

To Potential New Followers

Dear Potential New Follower,

Hi. Please take a minute to read some of my previous tweets. Go back a bit. Don't just follow me because my name is on some list. Read a couple of my posts on Posterous (ezra.posterous.com). Think a bit before you click on that follow button, "Is this the kind of guy that my mother would want me to follow?" For your assistance, I have conducted a poll of mothers, and 63% of them would rather their progeny NOT follow me. I do not take it personally. Do not worry.

Now, I am not one of those freaks who want to know if we can have a really long term relationship before we exchange pictures on whatever hookup site we are on. I just want you to know what you are getting yourself into. Some days I may tweet a lot. I may be a tad bit political (usually some liberal-ranting, peace-loving, kumbaya-singing rhetoric), or I may use a bit of foul language (I hope my mother isn't reading this). I will probably be making some witty, wry, sarcastic, or sardonic comment or remark about something or another.

If I follow you back, be rest assured that I will use the poorest of judgment in my replies, and only in case of death will have a modicum of seriousness.

People do generally like me as a person. I smile a lot :) But it is up to your sound judgment.

If you do decide to qwit me, I have one favor, one request: Please talk to me first, respond to something. Let me know what I said that crossed the line. I probably won't change a bit, but I like knowing. If it helps, I probably will judge you, but you should not take it personally. It's cathartic and will assist in the letting go. It's cheaper than throwing random household appliances against the wall, and is much easier to clean up.

I would rather you not follow me for a testing out time period. Again, I implore you, check me out a bit. My life is a mostly open book. See if you appreciate my abnormal sense of humor (humour, if you are not American). Save yourself time, pain and anguish.

Thank you.

ez

@ezrabutler

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November 3, 2008

Some views on Magpie, Advertising, & the 21st century Social Contract

We all see about 2,300,534 advertisements a day. I am fine with that. Advertising, as is clear to the eye, is not a four-letter word. It is a reality that helps the world go round. Getting money from people to advertise makes Ezra, for one, a very very happy boy.

That said, everything we do is advertising. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogs (to take four examples) are all about self-promotion.

As denizens in the world of Social Media, we accept the incessant stream of advertising. It's part of our 21st century social contract. We click on people's links, read their thoughts, watch their videos, comment on their pictures for two equal, yet completely different. rationales. One is that we secretly wish that by engaging in others lives and thoughts, they will engage in ours. The second is that we want to be entertained, educated, or live vicariously through others.

Being an avid fan of Don Draper, I mean, Mad Men, has reminded me of a purer time of advertising, when ads were embedded within programs, and people just accepted that all the beautiful people smoked a certain brand of cigarette. We all know that modern mainstream television advertising has led to the success of the TiVo and modern Internet banner ads has led to ad-blocking software.

New media advertising has to get more creative, and less evasive. Advertising must engage and entertain.

When we advertise ourselves, we inherently know that. We try not to put bad pictures online (or secretly untag ourselves from pictures that soon-to-be-ex-friends didn't have the decency not to put up). We have learned how to spice up our otherwise boring life in 140 character blurbs. We ask polls, give links, get people to take part in our lives. We get people to comment on our statuses, give a video-response to our clips. We are a brand, and we pimp that brand every single chance we get.

If we are successful, and we get more customers for our brand, it is self-affirming that our branding strategy is working.

That said, in its current form, I do not like Magpie.

Yes, as a commentator has recently said, if Britney Spears would say on twitter that she is drinking a Pepsi, it would be a great advertisement for Pepsi. But if Britney would affix a hashtag at the beginning of that tweet #advertisement, people's eyes would gloss over. However, even if I would tweet "Holy crap! I was just drinking a Pepsi & a beautiful swimsuit model started hitting on me! FTW!" People would click on that link, and start responding.

Sure, Pepsi may have paid me to say that. Or it may have really happened. (Considering that I don't drink soda [or pop, depending on your location], I'm going to wager on the former.) But the copy I wrote made you wonder, albeit for a nano-second. It would be more authentic if people would get paid for advertising things that they would actually be using, but still, if you are going to pay people to fill their stream with ads (which I am not against), let the ads add to the stream and not detract.

I have already witnessed a severe backlash that people are threatening to Qwit (yes, it became a verb) other users simply because of #magpie. Welcome to the extreme twitter version of TiVo, with the only people losing out are those who are trying to monetize their stream just a bit. We are all human, entering into a recession, and I cannot blame them for trying.

I would suggest to Magpie to change their methodology a bit:
1) Drop the #hashtag. It is quite annoying.
2) Act like a real ad agency and put a bit of thought into the wording. Sexy it up a bit. Hire copywriters! Using the word bling is a good attempt, but bling-bling? I'm not so sure. The technology is there - and can be put to good use.
I am, personally, blown away by Alltop, for instance. They have hundreds, if not thousands, of twitterers who have a staggered auto-tweet anytime a new alltop subdomain comes out. It is informative and educational, and I have never seen someone get angry at seeing those, on the contrary, people start talking about the new subdomain, and clicked on it.

As the aforementioned denizens in this world, we have to make sure that we are masters (or mistresses) of our own streams/domains. We have a responsibility to know exactly what we put out onto those channels. We have a responsibility to our followers that we will will educate or entertain them. We have a responsibility not to spam our people. That is our social contract.

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October 29, 2008

Advice to Businesses Entering Social Media (and some fun rules to follow)

Businesses have feelings too. Ok, maybe they don't have feelings, but they need friends. Traditionally, businesses call them "customers" instead of "friends". But we all know what we are talking about.

So how does a company make new friends? We can look at the elementary school model and see what worked back then.

If you were the new kid in school - how many friends would you make by going over to each and every kid and tapping them on their shoulder and screaming in their face "HELLO, I AM EZRA, WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE MY FRIEND." Quite honestly, even if you would say in lowercase, it wouldn't sound so much better. Like in Fight Club, the first rule about making new friends is never to use the word "friend". Friendship is organic and must grow naturally. Our protagonist, the new kid in the school, has to think strategically and creatively. He scopes out the "cool kids", and sees what they are interested in. (Full disclosure: I have no clue what the kids are into these days, so bear with me. [Note: That is the correct spelling for this usage, not "bare with me" which means something completely different.]) Let's assume that kids are into this new craze called "Pogs". The way the kid could get in to the "clique" is to have really cool "Pogs" and make sure that he sits in a place where the cool kids can see him. Or, if he has a little more guts (I know that I didn't), he could challenge the "Pog champion" at "Pogs", and win his respect. Once he is in with him, everyone else will fall into line.

Allow me to translate this into terminology that you geeks love: He has content. He coerces an influencer with content. The influencer telegraphs to the world that he is reading the content. Everyone else reads the content. And everyone then becomes @ezrabutler's friend. Whoops, wrong story. But you get the point. It's the oldest story in the book.

Now let's say that we are not talking about a little boy in a new school, friendless and scared out of his wits, but a store trying to retain clients. It could be a restaurant or a sunglasses store, it doesn't really matter. The store doesn't have anything shinier, necessarily, than any other store. (If you look at my bio on http://www.ezrabutler.com/about, you can see that I, naturally, like shiny things.)

The store could either act like someone actually told me on the phone today "It doesn't matter to me if you buy it or not", or store could act like it gave actually a damn. If the store treats the people who enter with respect, is authentic (whatever that means), and throws in some extra service or taste of something, the people will come back, because they feel good when they are in the store. When they do come back, the store should ask how they are, recall something from the previous visit, make them feel special.

This is the difference between transactional and relational shopping. One is extremely product driven, and the other is customer driven. One can be bought at any box store, and the other can be only found at your place of business.

The two things that I just described seem at odds with one another. In traditional brick & mortar establishments, we inherently know how to sell to people. They are standing right there in front of us. They came to us. They gave us a chance. We have to prove that we are cool enough for them to hang around with, tell their friends about, and to come back repeatedly.

However, a great man named Al Gore invented this amazing invention called the interwebs. [As a side note, one of his less successful creations was called Global Warming]. (Professor Theodore Fulton Stevens from the University of Alaska has described it as a series of tubes, in case you were wondering.) Sometimes when people travel on those magical tubes, they become different people, forgetting all that is right and good in the world. They forget that you would never go up to a random person in the street and curse him out simply because he is wearing a t-shirt for an opposing candidate in the upcoming elections. People forget how to act.

So do businesses.

I actually once had a meeting with a potential client who used the following sentence: "We can buy 1,000,000 email addresses for $1000 and just spam them." I almost died there on the spot. I remained cordial, finished the meeting, and sent him an email a few days later apologizing that I am not the man for the job.

A new business engaging in social media needs to be able to one hand be that little awkward chubby kid in glasses who may have had low self esteem because he stuttered, and on the other hand to be the gregarious bartender who remembers your name, your wife's name, and your girlfriend's name. And doesn't serve the wrong drink to either one.

So let me lay down a few basic ground rules for new companies, businesses, or just regular people joining SM:

(There are ten of them. Feel free to add in the comments. I'm not a deity. I don't command anything. Feel free to call them suggestions. If you don't follow them, I reserve the right to bring down my wrath and block you.)

DO write interesting content, and links (e.g. "about Pogs")

DO NOT follow masses of people on twitter when you first join.

DO publish your Twitter name off twitter, and encourage people to follow you

DO @ people, and respond RELEVANT responses to their tweets

DO NOT set up an auto-responder to thank everyone who follows you (unless your name is @TheOnion, and you have the most kick-ass auto-responder ever.)

DO make people WANT to follow you.

DO be a real person.

DO NOT just simply be an RSS feed of information (unless your information saves people money, and then please do, but don't follow me, I'll follow you)

DO give a damn about your customers - and if they have a problem - constantly run search.twitter.com, and know when people talk about you, for good or for the bad. And answer their issues, or thank their compliments.

DO NOT spam. Ever. And if you have to ask, it is probably spam.

(Oh, and try not to murder, covet, or commit adultery.)

The first part of Social Media is being social. That means interacting. Being part of a community. There are million other medias out there to choose from if you don't want to be part of one.

If you are not a business, take some time to friend one. I have written about it in the past, and I will write about it again in the future. It will pay off for you as well. Especially if it is a sushi place or organic cafe. (Full disclosure: I am currently writing this while sitting in my favorite organic cafe.)

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October 28, 2008

How to Strengthen Any Relationship (alt: Trying to Assuage My Jewish Guilt)

Some people say that blogs are dead. Others muse that God is dead. So I figured that no one would notice if I would use this blog as a mini-confessional.

I have to confess my transgressions. Please forgive me.

Let me explain: Relationships are, naturally, a "give and take". It is not healthy to be too much to one side of that equation. Helping someone out gives you a good feeling. Especially if you are the one to initiate the "help" request by offering yourself. The smile on the receiving side's face can brighten up even the gloomiest day.

But quite often, we only contact people when we need something. We don't mean to be bastards, it just comes out that way because we are busy with so many other things. Then we think about that person only when we are need him/her.

About a week ago, I did the unthinkable. I did the horrible. Were I not a Jew in a mini-confessional in a dead medium I would not admit this. I IMed a friend, and asked him to... retweet a recent bloggery of mine. I said, "Hi. Can you do me a favor?" His response, after I specified the favor, was "I knew that you were going to ask me that. How come you never just IM to say 'What up my brother?' and to see how I'm doing?".

I stopped short. My heart quickened for a minute. I realized that I had been using this guy for different things, without really giving back. In his eyes, I had become that guy. Then I thought of the individual who is a go-to person on my list for when I am trying to help out people in Washington DC. I can never repay him for all the help that he has given me, and he has never asked for a single thing in return. I thought about my friend who manages a sunglasses store, gives me great deals and saved my ass the day we met by lending me, a complete stranger, his cellphone battery so I could arrange the installation of the internet in my new apartment. I thought of the people who I, literally, begin many conversations with "Can you do me a favor?" - even when the favor may be to help out a third party.

From a karmic location, I am probably good in the last case, but you know what, from a personal relationship standpoint, I don't know.

So I'm at an impasse. What can a guy do?

The first thing I did was stopped by the sunglasses store that my friend manages last week, without him needing to really ask, helped him for two hours with removing and adhering stickers to every single pair of sunglasses in the place. They were throwing a massive sale starting the next day, and apparently needed some help.

After that, I started writing this list of things that could make sure that I stay in touch with people, especially when I need nothing. Just to maintain and strengthen our relationship.

Keep in Touch

The first thing to do is the most logical and simplest. Call, @, IM, DM, email random people, just to say hi, with no ulterior motives. Do not choose them because you know that you will need their help in a week or three. Choose them because they are people who have a relationship with you. Ask them how their life is. Do not sound needy. If you happen to be geographically compatible, invite them out for a drink, lunch, or whatnot. Invite them over for a dinner. Cook dinner. Try not to kill them with your cooking. Friends are relatively hard to come by.
If they are not located nearby or you have killed with your cooking, and cannot afford to go out to eat/drink with everyone you know, focus on commonalities. You both happen to love Better Than Ezra? Keep up on the BTE website, and see if there is any news going on with Kevin Griffin, or if anything new is in the pipeline. Then share that information with your friend. Talk about it. Use it as a springboard for conversation.
Alternately, you can do what a friend of mine did to me today, that put a huge smile on my face. She sent me a very personal FB message because she enjoyed reading my bloggeries so much. Let people know when you enjoy something they wrote/said/did. But don't make it automatic. Make it special each and every time.

If you need help at any point, you are not calling them out of the blue. Helping other people (and oompa loompas) make the world go 'round. But your relationship is not centered about the favors that are taking place.

Thank People
This was one of the things that happened last week that caused me to write this bloggery. @justcreative, a tweep from down-undah, posted a poll if people should thank other people for retweeting links. (For those who don't understand Twitter: you can post a link, and then someone else can repost that link using your name.) I was shocked to see that the percentages were almost equal, between people saying yes and people saying no. Trust me, I know the rationale: It's a really simple action to retweet something. I can also tell you that 99% of the people reading this bloggery or any of my other bloggeries will not retweet it. Not because it sucks, not because its not informative, because ... well, I guess that we are lazy. If you would know how appreciative I am for each person who retweets, I am sure that more people would do it. But we don't always think like that.
I posted a sort-of compromise onto the poll: Thank by DM. Don't clog up people's streams with you saying thank you to 500 people.

Disclosure: This next part is a website that I am affiliated with, and may sound like an advertisement
About a month and half ago, I was approached to join a team for a really cool website called "I Thank Thee". (www.iThankThee.com, or follow on twitter: @iThankThee) We are launching in the next month, and you can sign up to find out when. The whole concept of the site is to be a public place to show gratitude, and a resource to learn about showing gratitude. It is a great concept, but this is not the place to tell all about it. If you sign up for updates, you will be able to learn everything in time.
Advertisement Over

Show Appreciation/Follow Up
Yes. Buy presents for people. It doesn't have to be expensive. It could even be some sort of schwag. Try and personalize it. I received a really cool tag for my suitcase in the mail from @merubin, who was preaching to do something nice and unexpected for someone.
Send someone a bottle of wine, something made by one of your clients or that is native to your area. In short, show appreciation. Even if you become known as the guy who sends out cowboy hats to everyone as a thank you, people will know that you are appreciative, and therefore you sent something which is you. The money is worth the smile that will show up on their face.

Use what you have to help.
Helping forms connections. It gives you a good feeling. Just make sure that the whole relationship does not become about you helping out the other person. But as the song goes, we all get high with a little help from our friends. Even if you only introduce business contacts, or simply retweet their posts; do the things that could even take very little effort on your part, but can mean the world to them.
Especially in the time when we have all our contacts reading our every word, use that influence to find jobs, apartments, or other things for people. You never know what the simple finding of one of those things can do for someone. You really never know.

And one last thing: Don't be fake or insincere or use this as a tool, people have internal BS detectors.

Whatever you do, do from the heart.

My conscience is clear. I feel the absolution.

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October 27, 2008

Why I don't like Qwitter for myself

I have been taking the quite vocal outlook that Qwitter is evil, the devil incarnate, and Satan all rolled into one. I have blamed Qwitter for things from wrinkles to the US attacks yesterday in Syria. But my outlook cannot be explained in 140 characters.

Twitter is a relationship oriented universe.

We can employ positive and negative metrics to measure relationships. We could see how often people interact, or how often they retweet others. If we would sit behind a person as he/she is on twitter we can see what links they click on, and what they read.

Relationships are a lot more complex than that. For instance, I have a relationship with the music group "Staind". They produce music that expresses their emotions, I buy their albums, listen to them, and through empathy, strengthen my connection with them. They have never met me, heard of me, and probably never will.
We have, what I would refer to as, a "one to many relationship", they produce one piece of communication (i.e. the single "Believe"), and though it connect with thousands of people, if not tens of thousands.

We are also able to describe Staind as a brand. As a brand, it is important to know how many people are fans, adherents, casual users, or, yes, even haters. One public relations slipup, one offensive lyric, and they can lose a large client base, which can result in loss of money. They have to be able to keep their finger on the proverbial pulse.

In Twitter, there are many users who have "one to many relationships" as well. Many are veritable, or glorified, (sometimes) interactive RSS feeds. For them, numbers is everything. When they brag to their friends at night, they say, "I have 15404 followers". As was pointed out in a recent mashable article, many of those people have extremely high ratings in twitter grader or twinfluence.

From a branding standpoint, many of those people are straddling the line between a "Brand" and a "Personal Brand". [Explanation: We are all walking, talking, tweeting personal brands, but our monetization methods are not necessarily like @GaryVee or @1938Media. They straddle the line. And yes, I chose the two people who have openly said that they don't care about numbers.] Those people need to know. They are not interacting with every individual who receives their stream, but they hope that they are providing something of value to their community.

Just like notifications for new followers, Qwitter can provide them with important information. If they so desire, they can ascertain why certain people choose to follow them, and then subsequently unfollow. It can give them the whole picture. An extremely wholesale picture which treats every follower as a number, and nothing more.

But people who are aiming for one to one relationships, and hope that every single 'one to many communique' will spur some sort of conversation, have very little use for this metric. These people are wholly "personal brands". I will take myself as an example. I know, usually, why people follow me. Sometimes it's because of a bloggery, or because of being mentioned by someone else. Our relationship may start there, but who knows where it could reach.

Not every relationship goes there, and not everyone is interested in me the same way that I am. C'est la vie. I have seen that certain people, influential ones, have unfollowed me. I found out post facto, but I was not shocked. I knew that during that time period, my ratio of helpful tweets to garbage may have been low. In that same time period, I received many new followers, and have formed stronger relationships than I would have with the influential people.

I don't need Qwitter to tell me what to tweet. If I don't notice that you aren't following me, it must mean that I don't have anything to offer you, but you have something to offer me. I can still communicate with you via @ replies, and hope that you will give me another chance at a later point in time.

Personally, if you are going to unfollow because of political or religious beliefs, I would hope that you would have the courtesy to @ the person and be a man/woman about it. But sometimes, its not one tweet, its the general content of all your tweets. Not everyone is as interested in baby supplies as you are. It's not a bad thing, and you will probably be able to build a very strong niche community, but I, as a single guy, has no part of it.

Don't hate people because they don't follow you. Respect people like you would in life. And allow people to avoid uncomfortable confrontations if they so choose to opt out.

Bottom Line: If you are a brand or a brand-like personal brand, use Qwitter for pure metrics. If you are regular personal brand (i.e. regular person), Qwitter will cause wrinkles, and will detract from you being able to forge lasting relationships with people who actually want to have relationships with you. I would go with the relationships.

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October 26, 2008

How to get the Girl, and other things you really really want

I can be extremely dumb at times. Well, dumb is not the word, maybe oblivious. Especially in issues of divide between cultures.

Many times, unless someone points it out to them, a child may not know that he is different. I once had a boss who was completely blind in one eye, and did not know that he had no depth perception until he was 18 and entering the Army. He didn't know that most people are able to differentiate between distances. He subconsciously taught himself to use different things as distance markers, and he never felt the loss.

Tonight, I met a very interesting girl who is starting her Master's degree in German Literature. Besides being beautiful, she spoke English and German fluently, in addition to her native Hebrew. She had lived in England, Berlin, and the US at different points in her life. We were both at drinks in honor of the birthday of one of my closest friends.

Being the flirt... err.. networker I am, I asked her "So, who is your favorite German author?" She looked at me incredulously. Apparently, no one had ever asked her that question before. She informed me that in Israeli culture, no one gives a damn about the liberal arts academicians, besides other liberal arts academicians.

We spoke about Kafka, Goethe, Heine and some others. I recalled World Literature courses from my undergraduate studies and books that I had subsequently read. She explained to me the rationale why she didn't have one to call her favorite. The conversation continued on for an hour and a half, ignoring all our other friends. We conversed about everything under the sun, much of what I am not at liberty to repeat.

To explain, I quickly ascertained what she was interested in and passionate about, and asked her about it. I didn't have to feign interest, because I have a true interest in literature, albeit lacking in the Germanic school.

I have learned that people usually are able to talk about such topics with such zeal that even if one has never dealt in the specific topic or area before, he/she can listen and learn something new. By asking basic questions, you show interest in the other person, and the other person opens up in ways that you could not imagine.

Relationships are created by finding a common ground. Take that opening and run with it. Use something that you know something about, and let the other person teach you a bit more. Even if the real relationship takes a completely different path.

It doesn't matter if you are looking to buy widgets, get a date, or find a new job, people want to interact with people who they feel a connection with. And you can only find that connection if you can get far enough into a conversation to figure out what it is.

People like themselves, and talking about themselves. Ask them about themselves, not about their job.

A Shortcut / A Cheat:

Ask a question that pertains to them. (This is if you do not have the luxury of finding out the field that the other person is passionate about.)

Two examples: The truth is that I don't know what the other person felt in the first case, but I know what the second case led to.

When I was at Blogworld, I saw a rather beautiful woman sitting on a couch with her MacBook. I simply asked her why she didn't plug it in, and we started talking a bit. I learned what www.kirtsy.com is (digg for chicks), and it was a pleasant meeting. Subsequently, I ran into @gwenbell a few times over the following days, and we became friends.

I kinda cheated, by knowing that Mac owners are notorious for loving to talk about their Macs. But I asked an innocuous question, and people answer such queries.

The second example is that I was on a dating site that members, in addition to having a profile, could include 1 or more pictures of themselves. One person included a few pictures, but as was not alone in the pictures, took interesting measures in making the faces of the other people like PacMan. I initiated a conversation by simply mentioning that I thought it was funny that the individual usually hung out with Mr. and Mrs. PacMan. It sparked many long enjoyable conversations both on and offline.

Be original. Don't be afraid to ask.

What's the worst that can happen - the other person can curtly answer the question and walk away? Take your chances.

All you have to do is ask.

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October 25, 2008

How to Correctly ask a Question

My father always instilled in me, "Don't ever ask a question that you don't know the answer to already beforehand." It is his version of the Boy Scout motto, "Always be prepared." But more than that.

Do your research.

Know what the other person has to offer, what the expectations of the other person are, and what he/she has done in the past.

Know what you want, and what you are willing offer and bring to the table.

Just some food for thought.

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October 24, 2008

Two Types of People

A tweet I just saw made me realize something.

There are two types of people in this world. Those who drive down roads and those who pave their own paths.

I am guilty of being the first type of person - to an extent.

I'm talking about more than entrepreneurship. I'm talking about knowing the doors to knock on to achieve what you want in life, and knocking on them. Some may call it the "hustle". Some may call it "power networking". Others call it "common sense".

An classic example: You need a job: what do you do?

Do you
a) post on twitter - "looking for a job, if you hear of anything, let me know"?
b) send out a mass mail to your friends - "hey guys, i need a job - let me know if you know of anything"?
c) talk to people in the field personally - "if you know of anything in x, y, or z please let me know"?
d) ask the ceo of the company that you want to work for a meeting?
e) come up up with a prototype/business plan and start looking for angel investors?

The c-level and below are all more of what I am talking about. Sure, you can go with my mother's advice of "you never know", but if you know exactly what you want - why go the roundabout way?

This is not only good for finding jobs, this is also good for making connections to advance your current job with strategic partnerships, clients, etc. Certain things are good for group-thinking, i.e. how long can raw chicken last for, how do I format my windows mobile phone, does anyone know a good place to buy dentures?

But my experience shows that other things are better achieved one to one. It's hard work, but there is no road to where you need to go.

Please note: this is assuming that you are going the networking route and not the job-board route, and sending your CV (resume) to a million different companies. Personally, I have never had luck with that. But hey, I'm unemployable... (Note to future employers: I'm really not unemployable, kinda smart, creative and available right away...)

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