GREAT ADAPTATIONS

While the conversation around social media heats up, I want to be sure you know about Erica O’Grady. Read about her at her blog, Reinventing Erica, and look at what she’s been up to.

I met Erica at the San Francisco Social Media Camp, which was a total blast, by the way. When I get finished with the book, Web 55.0, and head out on the road, I hope to get into some of Erica’s playgrounds and see what we can cook up. Meanwhile, we’ll share some stories this Friday at dinner in North Beach. I’ll keep you posted! (That’s almost a pun, isn’t it?)

You keep me posted too. How is social media treating you? Confused? Exhilarated? Can’t get enough? What sites are you on? Go check out Social Media dot biz, it’s pretty special. And keep writing, everyone.

See you soon,

Suzanna

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I’m writing about my experiences at Social Media Camp, and all the gazillions of connections it triggered, over at the Examiner.

Here’s the link for the first article, “Inside the brain of social media, my brain and Erica O’Grady”

And here’s the second one, “Making connections with the business-builders in social media.”

There’s much more to come, as I can’t seem to process the information quickly enough before it mushrooms into another world of its own, which I then have to navigate.

I think it’s time for a brain break myself!

cheers

Suzanna

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Today’s blog is an addendum to my Examiner post. On Mondays, once or twice a month, I do a post called “Jack’s Times.” Jack is our new family member, born June 1st, 2008. I’m interested in how technology is bubbling up right now, and how our engagement in it will affect what Jack will be using in a few years.

You can see the post here: Web 55.0 Examiner.

In the post, I mentioned the transition from using landlines in our homes to other options, especially Skype. Here I’ll go into a little more detail about how that works.

Skype is a free program which allows you to make free VoIP (”Voice over Internet protocol”) calls worldwide between Skype subscribers. Even if none of your friends have a Skype account, you can still call anyone worldwide over regular landlines for a rate that is much lower than those charged by telephone companies.

Neat!

Skype has a bunch of other features that people are making great use of, including instant messaging, file transfer and video conferencing.

Here’s my own learning curve. I’m exploring how I will connect to my online world (you) while I travel. I’ll be writing from France, from Australia, and who knows where in between. My dream is to be able to do all my tasks, my writing, blogging, responding – all of it – by voice command. This is going to require some leaps out of my current devices, and even how I think about my communication. Are any of my readers using dictation software? Chime in about that.

And how about Skype or any other phone alternatives? Fill us in about your experiences in that department.

You can use the link below to check out Skype. Hurry up! I want to start doing teleconferences, and we’ll be using Skype so we can all talk together.

Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm

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I’m very curious about the ways women are adapting to changing times in terms of career aspirations, work life and family life. In the face of unaffordable transportation costs, for example, how are we innovating in order to thrive?

I’ve brought Shirley Chisholm back into the conversation because she represents, to me, a woman on a mission. I meet lots of women these days who have a mission, or they might call it a vision. They engage the dynamics of change.

The ones I’m talking about today (see resources below) are doing, I think, what Shirley did. Accepting the threat and embracing the opportunity, they draw juice right out of the confusion of large cultural change. Then they innovate around the lifestyle they want, creating a template so others can use their systems.

What comes out of all that innovating is a new paradigm. In this paradigm, women can be healthy moms and pursue their careers. This is an innovation that could not come through the visions of men. They did not have the need. But men who want to be with their children and continue their careers can benefit just the same from the visionary systems women create.

Here are some resources where you can learn more about the future:

The multi-faceted loss of women’s expertise is described in Hidden Brain Drain Task Force, a study co-authored by Sylvia Ann Hewlett. Read some of Hewlett’s writing on the Harvard Business blog, and let me know what you think about her perspective.

Flexperience Consulting is hosting a conference in San Francisco, June 24th. “Flexibility – the Future of Work” is the theme. I’ve emailed them to suggest that they make this four-hour conference available online. (My two-bits regarding flexibility and the future – use technology to reach more people, promote innovation, and foster connection. Please.) And take a look at their criteria and awards for women innovating here at their Flexperience Forum.

I’m deeply encouraged by the scope of challenges women take on. As we become more adept at online communication, this web we weave reaches into distant corners with promise and potential.

Here are some questions I’d like your input on:

• Do you feel your work life and family life are balanced?
• If you could make one change in your work routine, what would it be?
• Are you able to work from home part of the time? All of the time?
• Do you think your job is worth the time and fuel you spend getting there?
• Is there anything you’ve adapted in your life to feel more balanced?

Let me know.
Suzanna

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I’ve written a post over on my Examiner blog about welcoming the newest family member. Jack was born yesterday, and we’re all giggly with awe and the perspective a new baby brings. Check it out here:

Nothing virtual about Jack’s point of view.

I’ll be back tomorrow!

Have a fantastic Monday,

Suzanna

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The creators of Common Craft, Sachi LeFever and Lee LeFever, are brilliant at lighting up the game pieces of social technology. Using beautifully simple and short videos, they have already built an easy-access library of tutorials on aspects of online communication. Most worthy of mention is the fact that their material will work just as well for a 90-year-old as it will for anyone else. I consider them peers in the ongoing work of bridging generations.

Take a look at their video, “Blogs in Plain English.”

Yeah, I know, Lee talks a little fast. So watch it a couple of times if you need to. Let me point out, too, that as simple as these videos are, they are not oversimplified. Online communication is not really that complicated. The systems people are learning to use it can be daunting, but with a little mental elbow grease and some community support, we can all learn this stuff.

Speaking of community support, I’m going to model what online communication is good at, right now, just for you. I’d like to introduce a cloverleaf.

For good luck?
Okay, let’s back up. There’s a new term for you, most likely. A “cloverleaf” in online communication is where online and onground communities interact. To me, this is the best technology has to offer: mutual enhancement. It’s called a “cloverleaf” because, like the highway device, things move on and off the ramps and go in both directions. On a highway, a cloverleaf provides access to the community and the highway, and it is designed to do that seamlessly. In online communication, the cloverleaf occurs in many places.

The cloverleaf I am introducing is (drum roll!) the Bay Area Blog Society. TA DA!! Rev your virtual (gas free) engines!

The Bay Area Blog Society, or – you got it! – BABS, is now forming in the laptops and brains of a handful of local bloggers and blog-interested individuals. Most of us are in or near the San Francisco Bay area, but people like the LeFevers are so integral to the mission of BABS that I have invited them to be long distant BABS-es. We’ll probably have a lot of those, since it’s ridiculous to take a tool like the Internet and exclude appropriate players by virtue of their locale.

Still, part of the cloverleaf effect is that a regional association allows us to descend from our virtual crowsnests and show up in a room together. That’s a great thing. (Parties, relationships, conferences, that kind of juice.)

BABS in brief
BABS will support the development and responsible use of blogs, helping new bloggers along with local classes and e-material. Along with producing guides for people who are not yet comfortable with the Internet (and sharing ones that already exist), BABS will promote and support audio recording of useful blog material for the sight-impaired. This large demographic is pathetically under-served on the Internet. BABS will set out to solve that problem.

Read the early version of the BABS mission statement. Comments please!

See you soon,

Suzanna

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TO: Boomers and the People Who Love Them

RE: Web 55.0

The Top 3 Absolute Must-Haves to connect with Boomers online.

#1. Language aptitude.

#2. Proficiency with words.

#3. Exquisite grasp of grammar.

Boomers learned language when language mattered. It still matters to us. I take a lot of liberties in my blog writing, but I never forget who could be reading. Actually, that’s one of the problems Boomers have when they start the process of online communication. Educated Boomers tend to write academically.

Perfection, Darling

Let’s take a minute here at this fork in the road. On the right, we have the grassy path of writing as we’re accustomed. Ah, grammar. Isn’t it pretty? See how perfect these sentences are, their shapely form, their perfect spelling? Come, reader! We nancy-dance amongst the darling buds! Sorry, Boomer. You’re going to bore us all to smithereens. Let’s go left into the bog.

Hey, we’re talking here!

Blogs are a conversation. Repeat after me: Blogs are a conversation. Nothing screams “newbie” like a thousand-word four-paragraph full-text post with nary a bold letter. Understand, my sister brother, a blog is not an online venue for printed matter. The human eye cannot traverse a screen as it traverses a page. Cannot, does not. See the right hand, twitching upon the mouse.

Here lies a lesson in reciprocity.

Boomers, step up here, and shake hands with the rest of the online demographic. That’s nice. Now I want you Boomers to promise you will attempt to be conversational, and warm up your blogging prose with some grammatical hijacking. Phrase-pulling. Short and punchy, epithetical delights. That’s right, mix up those words! Swagger around in your grammar pajamars! Tease us with meaning.

In other words, learn a new language out of the one you’ve used all your life. For the love of Pete, have some fun with it.

It’s your turn, you underage laptoppers.

Your assignment’s a bit different. You may hate this, but I’m going to ask you to read. Books. That’s right, I said books. One at a time. Bare minimum, one full book every two months. Fast track to articulate, Boomer-friendly prose: A book a week. And the best sources for your growth in language capacity? Classics. You knew that, didn’t you?

One last assignment for both of you.

Boomers, your job is to post a reply below, listing your recommendation for a book that is guaranteed to benefit language skills. Not too long, please. Youthies, you are asked to suggest a blog that you think demonstrates first-rate readability. Hint: Try to find something that doesn’t flash.

Now play nice, everybody.

Suzanna Stinnett

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Reclaimed Materials Sculpture by Patrick Amiot

Sebastopol, California

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It’s the weirdest thing… the evolution of my inner response mechanisms to become an appropriate (successful, productive, effective) interface to my readers (potential, current and eventual readers.)

It’s the weirdest thing. Uncomfortable. Stomach-churning. Fear-inducing.

Moments occur when I think this can be so much easier - if I’m simply candid. “Just be yourself!” Um. Well. “Myself” is not necessarily the most comfortable thing in the world.

Why?

Because, quite frankly, I am not used to people being interested in “Myself.” Personality-wise, I lean more towards the “Oh, I don’t want to bother anyone,” and the “I’d hate to trouble you,” type of gal.

So I’m in “refreshingly candid” training. I’m going to ease into it a bit by telling you about the writers I am learning from and watching daily on their blogs.

Darren Rowse is really out there, working in a number of social media platforms, and doing good, solid content-rich blogging. He has a huge following. He’s a seasoned pro and financially successful with his online businesses. He’s also a theologist, a minister (or once-minister perhaps), a father of wee ones, and, to my assessment, rather private. I trust Darren 100%. (His website is www.problogger.com.)

Brian Clark is super-articulate, a professional writer with a writerly way that I gravitate towards, also likely rather private. Last week he told a very personal story about a head injury that got scary. In the story, we learn that he, too, has wee ones. I respect him, learn a great deal from him, and enjoy his posts. I remember when Brian posted a gag “goodbye” for April 1^st, I didn’t understand what was happening. I didn’t like it.

Although he came back the next day explaining, my sensory system had “regrouped” around the realization of the fragility and unpredictability of these relationships. I am slightly removed from him because of this.

Later, when he posted the personal-growth-through-near-tragedy article, I found myself wondering if there was a little bit of experimentation going on regarding how his readers respond to emotional content, and this distanced me further. Just a tiny little bit. (His website is www.copyblogger.com.)

NOTE: This is not a reflection on Brian. It reveals how I think and how my readers might also interpret me. I want to learn what grows trust in my own readers – and what might push them away, even a little.

Yaro Starak is my teacher. I know him better than the others, but more by osmosis than anything he specifically reveals. I notice how much more deeply I am engaged now that he has left home and is traveling and writing from his travels. The videos he has posted showing him in the locations he visits are powerful barrier-droppers.

Especially when his crazy hair is waving in the wind and he says “you should have seen some of the ladies’ hair.” I think Yaro is very, very good at being himself and presenting his life out in the open to his readers. I want to learn to do this. He has a beginning blog tutorial here.

Sonia Simone wrote a good piece about being naked, which is what it often feels like when you’re trying to build a community on your blog. Writing academically gets you absolutely nowhere. Tempting as it is, you can’t hide behind the words. You have to use the words to connect. That’s the whole point. Sonia, by the way, is easy for me to trust. It might be because she’s a woman, but probably more because she’s a very good writer and that in itself is a magnet to my sensibilities. She’s got her boat out there in the wide open sea of conversation, and I respect that. (Her website is www.remarcom.com.)

Maybe through these vignettes, I’ve shown you a little bit of who I am. These people encourage me to keep at it. I’m grateful for them. I’m grateful for you, too.

I’ve come up with my own term for the demographic I want as my web family. I call it “Web 55.0”, and that means all you characters born within ten years of 1955. So, readers, I have a question. Please take a moment to tell me something about you:

How do you experience online relationships? What magnetizes you? What kind of connection or community can you imagine having through online vehicles? Be as fanciful or pragmatic as you like, and tell me what you’re thinking.

Tenderly,

Suzanna

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A special blog for my fellow Examiners

Hey Exammers, I told George I’d write up this technique for increasing page views to your blogs.

This has to do with getting people to notice you because you noticed them. If you want to do reviews or interviews anyway, that’s great, this might give you some ideas on the connectivity side of the picture.

It may seem like what we’re all doing already, writing about things that are of current (and also enduring if possible) interest, drawing from the buzz that’s going around. The difference is in how you assess the value of someone else’s following, deciding if you can actually make a connection with them, and how you choose to spend your time as you noodle around with your writing and research. These posts may take extra time, but the return can be well worth it.

Pinball wizardry
Depending on your topic, you should be accumulating a short list of people who are active and known on the Internet, and related in some natural way to your topic. Figuring out who these people are is a function of your strategic blogging brain, which will develop over time as you think of the Internet or the Blogosphere as a kind of pinball-ricochet-connection opportunity. When we all get together I’d be happy to help you brainstorm about this.

I’ll start with an example. If you look at my Virtual Thursdays post, I have referred to author Wagner James Au, and 2nd Life creator Philip Rosedale, and I have linked to them. Here are two people I could naturally mention in this article, who each have their own (likely) huge following. When I link out to them, they get triggered in some way on their own system (although they may ignore this) and there is a chance they’ll link back or tell someone about this post. So eyeballs start heading over to what I wrote.

If you write more than one post, the exponential factor kicks in. To get the attention of someone with a huge readership, you’d want to make a real study of them, and write a few blogs. No one’s ego can resist this. Just make sure you are staying true to your readers, introducing them to something appropriate, and that you’re still interested in it yourself.

Some tweaks
There are several tweaks to optimize this. Linking to someone’s blog is probably more powerful than to their book’s website, or their wiki entry, which is what I have on Philip at the moment. Going to their blog and telling them that you have written about them is also a very good idea. Going to a yahoo group or forum that you find, where their groupies are hanging out, and posting a link to the article is another great tactic.

If you have your own blog, you should tell your readers there about the article and link to the Examiner. I haven’t done that yet either. The priority is to get the blog up and the links started. You can optimize them any time after that. In this case, with the 2nd Life spotlight, I am going to look around on the ‘net to see if I can find people who do cultural studies of the virtual world, and let them know I have written this article.

Lesser gods are more appreciative
Something to keep in mind is that it may be more powerful to link to people who are not extremely famous. Send them an email or post a comment on their blog, telling them you love their work or something you know they want to hear, and then give your link to your article. I’ve had high-level CEO types and visionary innovators both write charming thank you emails to me for just mentioning them in a post. People who are very active online, but not smashingly successful in every way – yet – will be warmly responsive to your attention. It is the Examiner, after all.

Recap

• Find other blogs with high visitor rates, which are highly relevant to your readers.
• Find other blogs with mid-range visitor rates too.
• Tailor your post to tell your readership about these people.
• To super-amp: Figure out how to get them in the room together, meaning, in the post together.
• Say something intriguing about how they relate or don’t relate.
• Link out to their blogs.
• Email them or post a comment to make sure they know you did this.
• Write on related forums announcing your article.
• Consider how to break the blog out into a series (if they’re really worth it.)
• Consider other writers online who would want to be recognized in this conversation, and see how you can engage them to comment, or write another blog about them.

Here’s an example of my thought process. I plan to do a longer, article-type post, about Manfred Clynes, a polymath, inventor and music demigod (he played for Einstein) whom I had the extreme privilege of hanging with last year. I don’t expect my readers to already know about him. But when I write the post, I will mention the main people who are still working with him, and I will interact with them to let them know. Manfred is busy and he’s old, and I don’t know if he will even see the article. It doesn’t matter. What I’m looking for are lots of connections to different groups who know this man’s work. It makes them feel valued and important, and they want their people to see it.

There is a natural way to do this. It can never be contrived, people know it instantly and it’s a total turnoff. Besides, it’s unnecessary. Just keep this tactic in mind as you read and write. The right stuff shows up.

The most successful bloggers are rabid about their topics and probably do this kind of reciprocal posting without even thinking about it. Eric Elkins is a good example. This is sales, you know, but it’s sales at its best. Real enthusiasm for the topic (product,) and a real desire to connect people (to one another!) through the topic, are reciprocated by return readership.

with pleasure

Suzanna

Apollo 13 Ground Crew Works it Out

What makes a great adaptation?

Adaptations involve imagination, innovation, creativity, and usually a bit of urgency. Do you know about Apollo 13? It was a mission to the moon that went wrong, and a tremendous drama of relationships, teamwork, and life. (Check out the movie, it’s inspiring.) The crew was facing death by asphyxiation unless the ground crew could quickly and effectively create an adaptation using what was available to the astronauts to remedy the breakdown in their oxygen supply.

It’s a fantastic scene with a whole posse of high-functioning brains working together under terrible pressure. They did it. They innovated, found the solution, and effectively articulated it for the astronauts who were already suffering from oxygen deprivation.

This is a super example of our capacity and potential. Now, most of us are not functioning anywhere near that level of brain use. On the contrary, we’re far below our own potential. Especially in the creativity and imagination department.

Daily routines have a deadening quality, simply because the brain makes no new connections for months on end. Stress takes its toll on brain function and motivation. Too much media is also likely to dampen our spirits. At the end of the day, we’re much more likely to turn to a spoon-fed hypnotic evening of entertainment than any activities which could actually make a difference in our lives.

Maybe what we need is a little encouragement. Here at Great Adaptations, I’m hosting Adapt-athons. And you’re invited!

There will be prizes - so don’t miss out! Find the criteria here, jumpstart your imagination, and discover how innovative you really are.

Subscribers will receive updates and email reminders for the Adapt-athon. Don’t wait! I’ll be looking for your links!