Social Media is a form of currency.  It’s a Social Currency.  It works based on the exchange of information, in exchange for your attention.  If I give you my ears, I let you tell me something, and equally, I will only listen to you, if I value your contribution.

For the longest time ever (perhaps as early as 2004) I’ve been actively using and advocating social media as a tool, or mechanism to build ever stronger relationships with the people you know and trust, as well as start screening across the many people who you know, to discover potential business relationships, potential customers, friends, and peers.

Pretty quickly the online space is starting to fill up, and it becomes increasingly difficult to start finding “real” value in exchanging meaningless messages in the ether we know as the Internet.  Slowly, for me, I’ve been starting to wonder just what does it matter, or how useful is it to just “talk” with, or exchange messages with completely random people who I hardly know?

In actual fact, it doesn’t.  It doesn’t matter one bit.  And then it hit me.  “Social Media”, unlike traditional online presences are not about hiding behind an anonymous identity.  Instead it’s about amplifying the presence we have in real life.  It’s all about being more of who you really are.  Which means that if in real life, you’re generally anti-social, or prefer to be introverted, and keep yourself to yourself, the moment you start to use Social Media, that doesn’t somehow magically change.  It doesn’t suddenly make you a public extrovert.  It does however allow you to stay more visibly connected to the people who you know, and meet, and want to engage with.

Since using Social Media, I’ve come to find many interesting and wonderful people, who I definitely would never have met in person, in real life, in the same way.  Common interests, mutual recognition of other colleagues in the same field as me, and also just generally people who I work with are all visible and present on the Social Web.  The difference is, that on the social web, what I say can be picked up, and can be left unnoticed.  There isn’t any necessity for everyone in all of my communities online to read every word that I post, blog, tweet, email, or communicate online.

There is however, something in having people’s attention online.  That I give mine, and in exchange receive other people’s attention in return is already starting to bring up questions of quality over quantity.  Given that the number of hours in a day are finite, that there’s only so many people I can reply to, and that there’s only so much I can do, until my primary motivations of income, survival, and relaxation/chilling kick in.  So far, I’ve been “playing” on this merry-go-round of Social Media, joining upto new services, and new sites, that are popping up, a dime a dozen.  But now, I’m starting to get “saturated”.  Saturated with noise, with media, with messages, with adverts, and with stuff that I don’t want to have to deal with.  I have to manually filter through all of this noise, before I get to the stuff that matters to me.

This has a cost associated with it.  It’s my time, it’s my energy, it’s my effort.  I don’t want to sound harsh, uncaring, or ungiving, but I only have so much time and attention to give. The same is true for everyone else.  Sooner or later, when you hit rock bottom on that bank account, you feel depleted, and drained, and you step back from it all.

Don’t worry if you don’t understand what I’m talking about just yet.  You could still be in the “oohh, shiny new toy” phase when it comes to Social Media.  Which is great! Enjoy it while you can.  It’s just sooner or later, it get’s old.  Sooner or later, you hit a low, or a bottom, or your account runs out.  This account, this balance, is the Social Currency I’m talking about.  It’s what happens when you give, give give, and get nothing back in return.

It’s a part of learning and growing… You stretch beyond your limits, you go as far as you can, you look everywhere with an enthusiastic, zestful gaze.  And then, one day, it hits you.  Or slowly, it starts to dawn on you, that as much fun as it is to just give, give give, and as much as you enjoy just “hanging out” online, with all these thousands or hundreds of cool friends, you actually have a life to live.  You actually have “real work” that you want to get done.  You have dreams, you have aspirations.  Things you actually want to accomplish.  And when that moment comes, suddenly you start questioning the real value of Social Media.  What have you been building up? What have you been putting all this time, and energy into?

Is it really all just a popularity contest where it only matters how many people are following you on twitter? Is it all about just blogging, and getting hundreds of comments?  Or is it really about regular people just talking with regular people?

Sooner or later, once the realisation kicks in, that relationships as great as they are, don’t put food on the table, keep a roof over your head, or keep you warm, and clothed, you may start to look at it all very differently.  I could be wrong.  It could be that Social Media is a great way to escape the world that provides you with your sustenance, and lets you look onto the world that you would love to work in, if you had the means to support yourself, or a job taht paid enough.  But for me, that’s not the case.

Looking at “social media”, and making sense of what it really is, and what it really means to me, has really been put into perspective recently.  I’ve realised that I’ve actually put a lot of time energy, and attention into my online social network.  I’ve built up my social capital.  I’ve earnt currency and favour with many people on line.  Some I’ve had the pleasure of meeting with in person too.  Not everyone is necessarily the type of person I would want as my best friend.  But then that never was or is the point.  I’ve built up this pool, this reservoir of a network or community, and occasionally, I can tap that with some of the social capital that I’ve built up in that community.  For those times when I feel a bit low, or just need some moral support, I can find friends to confide in, or peers, to encourage me on.  It’s a tight knit community, in my mind, in that I feel tight with many of them, and hope they feel the same with me.

Now, that social capital that’s been built up is a bit of a nebulous, unclear currency.  Something that doesn’t have a clear boundary, or delimitation at present.  Typically, you can tell your generating value, and contributing more into your online community when you start to draw more attention, and people into the conversation.  Likewise, the reverse is true too.  When people start dropping away, or stop following, or unfriend you, more often, than not, then you are clearly milking your Social Capital more than you’re contributing into that pool.

It seems I’m actually a bit slow with my thinking and ideas, since there’s already people out there who had understood this social capital as something of value, before I had gotten to it.  Eiso Kant (@eisokant), and Mac Taylor (@macwind) had already figured this out, and put into motion the beginnings of a tool or mechanism to help capture, and measure this inherent social capital that exists in our communities.  Their project Twollars, is a “gratitude currency”, that helps to start capturing some of the gratitude and thanks that people feel towards someone in their community.  At present the system works only on Twitter, and all you do is send out a tweet, using certain words, in a certain order, and the Twollars platform picks up your message, and adjusts the balances of your and your recipients twitter account accordingly.  Try it out say “Give x twollars @USERNAME [give reason]” where X is the number of twollars you want to give, and USERNAME is the twitter ID of the person you want to give twollars to.  By default, everyone starts out with a balance of 50 Twollars, and there’s no need to register to start using the service, since it is listening to the twittersphere stream of conversation all the time.

The idea behind twollars is that when someone is grateful, or want to show their appreciation to someone else, they can show that appreciation by giving twollars.  Then, companies can sponsor a charity, who can then receive twollars as donations, from people, and the sponsoring company would then buy the twollars, and give the charity $1 for each twollar they buy from them.  The idea being that then companies can gain some kudos in the community by making a positive contribution to the charity, and gain access to some of the social capital within the online sphere.

Of course how those companies then use twollars, and give them out to people will affect any real success they have with their social media campaigns.

It’s interesting, given that this week is the Charity SmackDown, where celebrities are competing to get as much money raised using social media tools as possible.  It’ll be interesting to see the fallout, and where the social capital that these celebs have built up, will land.  I’m gonna hazard a guess, and say that most of these celebs have all established such a strong bank account of social capital and goodwill with their communities, that they’ll have no trouble getting people to fork out, and participate, and contribute in the causes.  If anything, their requests, and appeals to their communities will build an even stronger bond, and make them even more liked, and loved by the people already following them.   It’s times like these that everyone’s social capital becomes a positive asset in it’s own right.  Of course, if someone with hardly any community were trying to accomplish something as simliar, it’s still entirely possible.  Look at Amanda Rose (@amanda), organiser of the Twestival fundraising event that happened globally.  Whilst her personal following isn’t more than a few thousand followers, her social capital and the social capital that was built up around Twestival made a readily available pool to tap into, and build upon.  This pool of social capital allowed the Twestival team to generate a tremendous amount of potential social good, with all the money that was raised (at least $250k) from just a single night of events, happening around the globe, on the same day..

I think Twollars is an excellent way of starting to calibrate some of the social capital that we take for granted, and never really appreciate, and will help us, in days to come help put some baby training wheels on brands and big business, as they start to tip toe their way through the minefield of social media faux pas, and start using their own money to buy some social capital to start building some of that trust for themselves.

Obviously translating this social capital into a currency, like Twollars, isn’t going to remove the need to learn the basics of Social Media etiquette, and it certainly isn’t going to be a substitute for real relationships.  But now that there’s a way to measure and give away Social Capital on Twitter, perhaps now people will start accounting for their time in terms of real value that gets generated for them, or that they contribute back, rather than engaging in mind numbing conversations, just for the sake of talking.  Only time will tell, I guess.

Disclaimer: I am currently being paid by Twollars to help them raise awareness around the Twollars concept, and whilst these ideas, and thoughts are my own, I do want to declare that I am being paid to write this content.  That being said, I do firmly believe in what I’ve written, and were the Twollars guys just good friends, I would probably still write something very similar to what’s been written here.  The thoughts insights, and ideas, shared here are all my own, with the exception of the concept and implementation of Twollars, which remains the product of Eiso Kant, and Mac Taylor, the founders of Twollars.  I have also drawn upon my experiences of my Twitter community online, without which these insights and thoughts through reflection would not have been possible.

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I don’t normally pay much attention to emails, and chains that I get sent..  Often, they’re just a waste of time, and occasionally there’s something in them, that make me stop and think about some of the choices I’ve made in my life.

I don’t know why, and I normally would never do this, but I read this, and felt like sharing it, with the readers of this blog.

Yes, it is a “chain” email that is probably doing the rounds.  And yes, there probably are a very select group of people, who I’m going to finger out, and send this email to, but for once I thought I’ll share it on my blog.  Just because it feels so “right” for me, where I am in my life ;)  Sometimes it’s good to look at things from different perspectives…

Choose Your Attitude

Michael is the kind of guy you love to hate. He is always in a good mood and always has something positive to say: When someone would ask him how he was doing, He would reply, “If I were any better, I would be twins!”

He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, Michael was there telling the employee how they could look on the positive side of the situation. Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to Michael and asked him, “I don’t get it! You can’t be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?”

Michael replied, “Each morning I wake up and say to myself, ‘You have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood.’ I choose to be in a good mood. Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life.

“Yeah, right, it’s not that easy,” I protested. “Yes, it is,” Michael, said. “Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people affect your mood. Your bottom line: “It’s your choice how you live life.” I reflected on what Michael said.

Soon after, I left the company to start my own business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it.

Several years later, I heard that Michael was involved in a serious accident, falling some 60 feet from a communications tower. After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Michael was released from the hospital with rods placed in his back.

I saw Michael about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied. “If I were any better, I’d be twins. Wanna see my scars?” I declined to see his wounds, but I did ask him what had gone through his mind as the accident took place.

“The first thing that went through my mind was the well being of my soon to be born daughter,” Michael replied. “Then, as I lay on the ground, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or I could choose to die. I chose to live.” “Weren’t you scared? Did you lose consciousness?” I asked.

Michael continued, “…the paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the ER and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read, ‘he’s a dead man.’ I knew I needed to take action.”

“What did you do?” I asked.

“Well, there was a big burly nurse shouting questions at me,” said Michael. “She asked if I was allergic to anything. ‘Yes,’ I replied. The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled…

“Gravity.”

Over their laughter, I told them, “I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.”

Michael lived, thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully. Attitude, after all, is everything.

“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. After all, today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.”

You have two choices now:

1. Delete this.

2. Forward it to the people you care about.

I hope you will choose #2. I did.

ENJOY LIFE – IT’S THE ONLY ONE YOU GET !!!

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Tuesday evening, 27th of January, 2009, at the London Geek Dinners, in Hummus Bros in Covent Garden, a bunch of techies and geeks gathered, waiting expectantly to hear some inspiring words of wisdom, and learn from Jeff Pulver, headlined as “Technology Anthropologist; Entrepreneur; Early-Stage Seed Investor; speaker, Living in Social Media”..

Arriving at Hummus Bros a little after 7pm, I was glad to find that I had arrived earlier than the guest speaker.  Digging into a warm apple juice with cinnamon, some tabouleh, and some hummus and avocado, gave me a chance to catch up with some familiar faces, and enjoy a satisfying dinner, before Jeff’s arrival.  Apparently, he was coming, straight from the airport, and arrived a short while after I finished ;) Nice timing indeed!

After Jeff got a chance to get settled, and have some dinner, he gave us a short 20 minute speech, sharing some interesting insights, and giving us some of his thoughts around Social Media.

He related some of his childhood stories, of being a Ham radio operator, as a child, and how his persona as a shy child at school was a completely different identity to the person that he could be on the radio.  The two worlds, allowed him to experience being “himself” – without people being able to go on anything more than his voice, and what he talked about.  That liberating freedom, to hide behind the technology, back when Ham Radio’s were mainstream, hasn’t really changed too much, to this day.  That ability to be yourself, with technology dealing with the job of masking the real you, has really become something of an everyday reality.  In fact, so much so, that I remember turning up to an event, where I was sat right behind someone, who I had befriended virtually, but until that moment, didn’t even know who she was ;)  It’s crazy that you can hide yourself, so well, behind the technology, and if you’re just a little afraid, you don’t have to worry about being yourself, until you’re hidden.  Then you magically discover the courage to be yourself.  Scary, yet empowering at the same time :)

Jeff related a story of his high school reunion, which he attended, and went equipped with a video camera, to ask people what they remembered of him, and the first three folks he asked couldn’t even remember who he was, and then the fourth person he asked remembered him, saying something like – ah yes, you’re the one with a cool dad!  Jeff’s take, on that, after reviewing the videotape, after the reunion, was to remember, that it’s not about how you remember yourself to be, but about how others remembered you to be.  An interesting point, I think, we can often forget about.  When creating an impression, it’s not about what you do, or say, it’s about how the other perceives what you’ve said or done..

My final take, from Jeff Pulver’s talk that evening, was about how he would never want to have, on his public facebook identity, pictures of his children.  He discussed the way in which there were clear segments of groups of people, and the ways he related, and connected to them, meant that to different groups of people he wanted to share different things, or disclose different bits of information.  That challenge alone is enough to realise the shortcomings of our current tools of communication..  This point, was, more saliently touching upon an idea that I’ve been playing with for a few years now, and been refining, and synthesizing, through my own needs.. Having the ability to segment, and selectively email groups of people has been in my list of targets to accomplish for a long time now..

Imagine that you have personal pictures that you want to share with your family, pictures of your work colleagues, you want to share with your work friends, and pictures of you out on the town, with friends, that you want to share with just that group of friends.. Right now – there’s no easy or simple solution to that dilemma.. but rest assured, I’m working on it ;) – If you want to talk more about that challenge, hear about some of the innovative solutions that have been thought of already, or help develop the next generation of information filtering and distribution, then get in touch, or comment below, and let’s get the conversation rolling ;)

Jeff, ended by sharing his take on the future… He saw the future as being even more converged, even more connected, even more interconnectedness across our world… He also talked about how technology is making the world smaller, and mentioned a bit about how the ability to stay connected, to have an ambient awareness of everything your friends have been upto.  He described how his childrens generation stayed connected with their friends, even through the school holidays, and that they each know what the others have been upto, thanks to facebook, myspace, and similar platforms..

Imagine who you might still be friends with, or connected with now, if you’d had these tools at your disposal when you were younger??  Our children are growing up in the world, where it’s normal to have travelled to another country, have friends around the world, and stay connected through technology.

Food for thought eh?? Or Fodder for your dreams!!  Night all!

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So, I started 2009 taking a few days away from the computer, the internet, and taking some time for myself, to just start thinking about what the coming year has in store?  It’s not often, in our always, on, always connected world, that we can find the time to just step back, and think, and reflect, without having a hundred and one thoughts at the back of our minds, of all the things we need to do, or people we have to respond to, and so it was good to be able to just switch off, step back, and unplug, knowing that it would just be the jovial, merry partying, and festival spirit being carried by the internet across the world, at this time of year.

Traditionally, the Winter, is associated with retreating inwards and being introspective.  To people who manage to notice the seasons, and the changes in pace of life, and the change in nature, Winter is traditionally a time of hibernation, and deep slumber, a time when we look inwards, and re-focus our dreams, and aspirations.  It’s a time that naturally lends itself to staying indoors, and having some quiet time, given that it’s so cold out, and it’s nice to be snug indoors.

Personally I like to enter the New Year, with a clear purpose, and sense of what my priorities are for the coming year, as well as clearing the slate from the previous year, and letting go of what’s not been working so well, and coming to terms with those failures too.

So 2008 was a “huge” year, for me, in so many many ways.  I’ve grown tremendously in the last year – personally experiencing and living through an entire roller coaster of emotions at times.   I’ve had some incredible highs, and some unfortunate lows.  Some of those low’s unfortunately, are still on a downturn, and until I get some closure on them, they’ll possibly continue to keep going downhill..  There’s not too much I can say about the low’s just yet, not until some things become clearer, and I know exactly what’s happening.  But the highs, equally, have been a real joy and pleasure to experience, and perhaps everything in nature finds it’s way of balancing things out – making sure we never get too high, or too low, before we get to experience the opposite.  I will gladly reveal all, as they say, when the time is right, for now, suffice it to say, it’s been a very very tough time for me personally and as a consequence, professionally.

I started 2008, with a very clear aim and purpose – “to restore my health”.

I wanted to become physically fit, wanted to restore my body to a health and vitality which I posessed perhaps 10 years ago now, and I wanted to overcome a physical condition that I’ve been fighting for over 5 years now.  No, I’m not talking about my obesity, which is also a challenge, but I’m talking about my Lymphatic condition..

Since 2003, during my stay in South Korea as an English Teacher, I went and got ill, with a condition, that has meant that I’ve had to spend the last five years, experiencing a series of recurring fevers, pains in my leg, and an abnormal amount of swelling in my left leg, which has made it challenging at times, to even find a pair of trousers I could wear, without my leg becoming completely swollen, and painful.

In the past 5 years, I’ve worked with traditional allopathic doctors, I’ve worked with healers from Mexico, with shamans from Peru, with acupuncturists, with homeopaths, and ayervedic physicians – but it seems that no-one was able to concretely deal with my illness, or I was unable to follow through with any medications, and courses of action that I was prescribed, given how much I’ve been travelling over the last 5 years.

End of 2007, I made the conscious choice to stay fixed in London, to not go gallivanting round the globe, and to do everything I could to get my leg healed, and get back into shape…  I continue on this journey, to this day, having now decided to go at this, from every possible angle I can.. I’m religiously following the advice of my allopathic doctor, and will be consulting with some of the other doctors and healers I’ve worked with before, to attack this ill health on all fronts.  But perhaps, my health is going to resolve itself in it’s own time, and I need to choose something more appropriate to focus on now??  I realised that perhaps part of the challenge is in not having something to get healthy for, I wouldn’t be as motivated.  Perhaps just being healthy wasn’t enough of a motivation, or didn’t support me enough in my goals?

Of course, I have other goals too – but they all took a back seat last year, whilst I put all of my time, attention and energy into getting healthy.   Result? I’m healthier now than I was this time last year.  (I’ve definitely lost more weight, and the swelling in my leg has reduced).  But I’m not there yet.. I’ve not reached the goal or target that I aspired to hit.  And to be completely honest, heading into 2009, with the same overriding focus, or theme just doesn’t appeal to me anymore..

The mission to get healthy, and recover completely is still there – but I don’t feel like 2009 feels like a year I need to devote to my health and wellbeing in the same way.  I’ve learnt heaps, in the last year, and if I just continue applying what I’ve learnt, I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that I will eventually come out of this stronger, fitter, healthier, and more alive than I’ve ever been.  So if my primary focus for 2009 isn’t going to be my health anymore what is it going to be??  For the longest time, I just couldn’t understand which to choose..

I had my pick, narrowed down, to:
1) Personal Development – I could focus on learning new skills, learning new languages, studying something, etc..
2) Personal Relationships – Investing the time and attention this year, in getting closer with family, with friends, with colleagues, and with acquaintances.  Building my network deeper, and wider, and connecting with ever more people.
3) Get a career – Choose a career – and get laser focussed with it.  I’ve been drifting between projects and ideas, and volunteering, and helping people out for a number of years now, but I haven’t had that singularity of focus, on a single vision, or a single career path, that’s yielded the results I aimed for.  When I discovered recently that a friend of mine, who graduated in the same year as I did – is now a Vice President of the company he’s been working with.. I wonder where I would be today, had I just committed, and focussed on one thing already??  Conversely, if it weren’t for the variety and breadth of exposure I’ve had in life, I probably wouldn’t be the well travelled, well rounded, and lateral thinker that I am.  So there were pros and cons to my lifestyle choices.

Ironically, I’m drawn to getting a career.  I know – most people, seeing me living my life, travelling at a moments notice, the world at my fingertips, think that I have such a “great” life, and why would I ever want to give it up?? Well, I guess I’ve done all the travelling, seeing the world, and having adventures that I want to have for now.  Yes, the thought of living on a desert island, and enjoying warm weather, and a great laid back lifestyle is all good and all – but knowing that I could at any moment get myself a job as an English Teacher in Thailand, and be “living that life”, is just not appealing anymore.  I’ve been there, done that, got the T-Shirt, and bored of it already.

With that in mind, I’m making 2009, the year that I focus on my career, and my professional development, through working, and having a job.  It’s pretty easy to do the whole job thing, but for me, the real challenge is going to be in becoming the very best in my field.  I’ve often wanted the “regularity” that comes with having a nine to five, your life takes on a basic routine, and rhythm, that allows you a certain amount of freedom and flexibility that comes with the structure that a regular working day brings.  I’ve done many of those “exercises” where you imagine what you would do, if you had all the money in the world, and whilst in the past I might have dreamt of great worldly ambitions, and lofty goals, in truth, I don’t really want any of those things.  What I want is to “work”.  That kind of work that at the end of the day, you look back on it, and get a sense of satisfaction, knowing that you’ve done a days productive work.  It’s that feeling you get, after accomplishing something, knowing that you’ve completed something substantial, and completed something productive.

I haven’t yet, learnt to “monetise” my work, and my contributions, and perhaps it’s  a reflection of the fact that whilst my contributions are useful and of value, I still have some things to learn about business, and money.  My recent reading of The Richest Man in Babylon, has made me realise just how much I love and appreciate work, and how there’s some basic fundamental principles, of wealth, and abundance that I’ve been missing out on.  The most basic being – that if you don’t love your work, then you won’t be able to get really really good at something, and then be able to command a greater salary for being ever more proficient in your field, or area of expertise.

So, 2009, I’m going to focus all my energies on becoming excellent at faciliting online community.  Managing an online Community is challenging at the best of times, but comes easily and effortlessly to people who have mastered those skills, and know how to support their colleagues or constituents in generating content, and deriving value.  So with that in mind, this year, I’ll be focussing my time, attention,  and skills to both engaging more deeply online, and also to learning and developing the skillset, or toolset that’s required to be successful in facilitating online community :)  I look forward to seeing how accomplished I become in this field, by the end of 2009.  Wish me luck!!

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I’m an avid enthusiast of Twitter. I frequently tweet a few updates throughout the day, and often will reply to people’s tweets a few times each day too. Nothing extravagant. I’m not tweeting a hundred times a day, or anything ridiculous like that (at least not yet!). Without a bit of Twittering, I would feel a whole lot more disconnected, and really wouldn’t know what’s happening in the world around me, especially with my Twitterverse of Tweeple (Translations: Twitterverse=Twitter + Universe= All people I know on Twitter and Tweeple=Twitter + People= People who use Twitter!)

Now since using Twitter, and seeing how much time I spend on it, I’ve started spending less and less time on Facebook. So not wanting to be completely ignored by all my Facebook friends, I decided to link my Twitter Updates, to my Facebook Status Updates. At least that way people can see what I’m upto, and occasionally comment on thing I’m doing, or get a flavour of my life. The only problem is, most people on Facebook don’t really use the “Status Update” feature. Which means that my status updates, could potentially end up flooding other peoples Facebook Updates Stream.. Terrible I know! After all, who wants to know everything about you, all the time, on Facebook?? Yeah, not quite the same as Twitter..

So, if you, as a Facebook user, choose not to use Twitter as much, and really don’t want to see all your Twitter friends in Facebook pollute your news and updates stream, then here’s a solution for you.

Log into Facebook, and go to your feed preferences page : http://www.facebook.com/feed_prefs.php

Below the Volume Mixer type controls you’ll see the “Less About These Friends” box. Start putting your friends who use twitter too much, into this box.. That way, you’ll only see updates from your twitter friends, if nothing else is available.

Of course, if none of your other friends are doing anything, then it may still fill up with just twitter updates from your twitter friends, but hopefully that’s not the case :) Alternatively, just “de-friend” that person on Facebook, and join up twitter, to stay in touch with them :)

Hope this suggestion gets to the heart of your Twitter woes, you Facebook only users :) and if not, feel free to comment your feedback below this article, and I’ll see if I can find a better solution for you all!

Ok, back to Twittering I go!!

P.S. = Twitter hating Facebook users – feel free to share this article judiciously amongst all your fan clubs on facebook, it may help calm some of the Twitter Haters!

twitter, facebook, integration, status updates, facebook user twitter hater

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I Don’t Mean to be Rude, But…

The perfect title, for the biography of Simon Cowell.. I don’t know if it was the title, or the fact that I knew of Simon Cowell from TV, but didn’t know who he really was that got me to pick up a copy of the book at my local library, but whatever it was, all I can say is that I’m glad I did :)

It had been a long time since I’d read something that wasn’t directly related to me trying to be more successful, or some Personal Development Book, or Self-Improvement Book.  I’d worn myself down, with reading so much material designed to help me, or inspire me, and hadn’t just picked up a book and read it, to just enjoy the story, to read for pleasure.

In fact, after reading so much that just seemed to fill my intellect, I was getting fatigued by it all, and had forgotten how fun it can be to read something that engages you, and draws you in..

So let me pause for a moment, before I start commenting too much on this book, and give you some background to how I had come to my knowledge of Simon Cowell in the first place. (Given that I’m fairly ignorant on most things musical, or of mainstream pop culture).

So, let me take you back to November of 2007.  I was in Johannesburg, in South Africa, and a friend shared with me a video of Paul Potts, singing his winning performance on YouTube, which was apparently being viewed by people all over the world.  Watching that video gave me goosebumps. It was inspiring to watch him perform :)

Listening to Paul Potts sing, and seeing him win Britains Got Talent, on YouTube was the first I’d ever heard of Britains Got Talent.  I’d been out of the country at the time of the finals in 2007, and whilst I’d seen Pop Idol, and X Factor, advertised, in the UK, all the time, I had kinda just ignored it for the longest time ever.  It just wasn’t my thing, and I really wasn’t all that interested in wannabe pop stars.

Then, in 2008, when Britain’s Got Talent started up again, I keenly started following it, and started to quite enjoy it.  Admittedly, I didn’t know who Amanda Holden, Piers Morgan, or Simon Cowell were, but figured that they must be some big names in the music business.

After watching Britains Got Talent, for the whole series, I got a real insight into the “character” of Simon Cowell, or at least I thought so.. He seemed to be supportive, and generally a quite nice person, though at times he was quite harsh, or direct, and I thought he could be a touch more tactful, or diplomatic.  I’m sure I must have seen him on some other program, perhaps on X Factor, though having not watched the finals of any other series, I’m guessing it was Britains Got Talent.

So now I knew of Simon Cowell (I mean one season of Britains Got Talent, is really enough to get a feel for his character, I reckon!), I didn’t think too much of him.. Figured he must have made his money, somehow, somewhere, but didn’t really know what he did, or where he did it, or with who.

So I happen to be poking around my local library, curious to see if there might be some vaguely useful or interesting books to peruse…

As it turns out, this book caught my eye, and once I started reading it, I didn’t want to put it down.

It was interesting to read about how, at a very young age, Simon had an ear for good music, and didn’t have any qualms over condemning bad music, even when he was a youngster.  As you read the book, you really start to appreciate how Simon has always gone with his instincts.  That he didn’t survive in the armed forces, and deliberately sabotaged interviews arranged by his successful father, because it wasn’t what he wanted to do.  It’s not that he was lazy, or arrogant, he just knew very clearly what he wanted, and also what he didn’t want.  A trait that appears to have served him well later in life.

In stark contrast to having interviews for well paid jobs handed to him on a platter, and rejecting it, Simon Cowell was happy doing the most menial job, of working as a mail boy, in a Music Company, simply because it brought him a little closer to his goal.

Repeatedly, throughout the book, you get to experience, and see first hand how committed, and motivated Cowell was with regards to his career.  But only when it was aligned with his real and true interests.  It’s almost like he couldn’t help himself.  I know that feeling well.. It’s been described quite vividly, and in full detail, at a few events I attended a few weeks ago.  Both Chain Reaction 08, Day 1, and The Fresh Business Thinking’s Entrepreneurs in Business event re-iterated over and over, this hunger.  As an entrepreneur, you need to have that fire, that passion.. You need to have that hunger for what you want, and be willing to do whatever it takes to get there.

I recognise that willingness of Cowells to be happy being just a mailboy in a record company, because he knew that in time, he would be able to move up the ranks, within the company.. I guess back when I was younger and wanted to be successful, I had that same mindset.  Having read enough books that expounded the virtues of being great at what you do, whether you be a cleaner, or an executive, I used to have romantic notions of starting at the bottom of some firm, and slowly working my way upto the top.. I guess where I failed in that, like Cowell, when I stopped seeing any progress possible, I tried to pro-actively change things, and got into trouble because of it.

Perhaps I identify a little too closely with Cowell’s supposedly arrogant know-it-all type attitude at times.. but I guess everyone has their strengths, and when you’re not able to properly apply the skills you have, sometimes, the undiplomatic manner of others can draw out a harsh response, or a sharp comment.

One of the things that really changed for me, in reading Cowell’s book, was this perception of Entrepreneurs, and Pop Stars.  In the past, I imagined that they were very different in so many ways, but in truth, the same basic truths apply to successful entrepreneurs as they do to Artists that succeed.

For one, as a pop star, you have to know that everyone is going to tell you you’re not going to succeed.  It’s inevitable.  Of course you’ll have your fans, and supporters, but in general, it’s actually just that inner desire, that inner knowing inside, that won’t let you rest until you make it, that will drive you to do everything it takes to become a success.. By the same token, for an entrepreneur to succeed you have to have the inner drive and determination to succeed.. You have to keep on going, knowing internally that you have what it takes, and even if you have to declare bankruptcy along the way, sometimes even more than once, you know that sooner or later you will get there, and you will reach that goal..

Equally, as a Pop Star, or celebrity, you have to be constantly learning, training, practicing, doing what you do, in order get really good at it.  You have to practice singing, dancing, and performing all the time, and it can be argued that the ones that practice the most, and rehearse the most eventually become the best..

Likewise in business, and professional careers even, when you’re convinced you’re going to succeed, and you keep on trying, over and over again, as long as you’re learning from your mistakes, and have some guidance and support, you’ll end up succeeding.  Some people will eventually “plateau”, in their professional careers, as entrepreneurs, or as pop stars.  That plateau is usually more to do with their fire having been put out, of their appetite, and hunger being satiated.  It’s inevitable, that eventually people’s priorities will change, or they’ll accomplish so much in terms of physical and material success, that they get everything they could have ever wished for.. Some people just “burn out”.  Usually, that means either they didn’t want it badly enough, or that they were not following their true passion, or their true desires.

In every way, the entrepreneur, and pop star, are so alike, and have so much in common, one with the other.  It’s almost uncanny how hard work, an internally burning intuition and a gut instinct of what will or won’t work are all collectively key to succeeding in both endeavours.  To succeed in either, you have to sell your work, or skills to many others, and success in providing value to others, leads to monetary value back to you.

As well as others being able to appreciate the value you’ve created, you also have to have the steely determination to keep on going, the mental endurance to keep trying, the physical support to make sure you don’t end up out of house and home, and the inner knowing and conviction that you’re going to succeed.  Even with all of these things, you still won’t get anywhere until you can start to fan the flames of desire within, that is the all important, burning wanting desire, and longing, without which, you just won’t be compelled to take the kind of action that will lead you to succeed.

At least that’s how far I’ve understood the process to work.  As for me.. where am I on this journey?? Well, as an entrepreneur, I know I’m going to succeed.. It’s inevitable, and I know one day I will get there.. Partly because what I envisage is something that is too complicated for most people to understand the intricacies of.  Hopefully, it’ll be simple enough to use, just complicated on the back end, to make it all work properly, and create tons of value.  However, when it comes to the burning fire, the desire, the passion.. That’s where I lack a great deal of the “drive” to succeed.  Ironically it comes to life as soon as I share my work with others, as soon as I start talking about it, as soon as I start writing about it even.. (am noticing myself starting to get more excited and enthusiastic about my project the more I mention it:).  But how to sustain that, without any external stimulus??

Is it even possible? I don’t know, is the real answer.. Perhaps, it’s not? Perhaps true success is actually a measure of how well you can work with others, to turn your dreams into reality? I’ll let you know once I come out the other side of the tunnel.  For now, I’m full steam ahead, and fortuantely, have found a few great people to help me stay enthused, engaged, and excited with what I’m doing.. Now, I just need to execute in the way I work best.. and find people to do those things that I’m not so good at.

After all success is truly defined not by what you accomplish, but by making sure that the right people are around you, so that your shortcomings never hold you back..  On that note, I just want to say a huge thank you to Simon Cowell for sharing so intimately his life’s story, and I look forward to meeting him one of these days, once I too become a success in my calling as an Entrepreneur.

If you want to learn just what it takes to succeed, be it as an entrepreneur, as a professional, or even as a celebrity, I cannot recommend reading Simon Cowell’s biography enough.  It’s a great reminder, of how difficult times are usually a part of success, and I think its really well written, and easy to read.  I suggest you pick up a copy, or at the very least add it to your reading list today.

simon cowell, autobiography, book review

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Heading home on the tube last week, looking over someone’s shoulder, I briefly caught a glimpse of an Evening Standard article talking about Twitter, and it possibly replacing Facebook.  It then went on to describe the authors failed experience of trying to use Twitter, and his rejection of it because he couldn’t get it to work.

It reminds me of my experience of when I first heard about Twitter, and what happened, when I first decided to take a look.  My first response was, I’m not going to tell everyone about my personal life, and chose then and there not to use twitter, and that it was for other people.. Heck, I didn’t even update my Facebook Status updates, why would I use a tool where I would just be updating my status all day?? It really didn’t make any sense, and I saw no reason to even begin to engage with this foolishness..

How little did I know..

Many months later, I happened to attend one of London’s Geek Dinners, where Moo were presenting, and happened to end the night, standing in a conversation with a group of people that were all friends. They shared their experiences of meeting people they had been in conversation with, over twitter, and the whole experience of having online friends, who they started to meet in real life.  It made me reminiscence of my youth, when watching TV, I would imagine what it would be like being a “geek” and having friends who knew me by my handle (my online nickname), and here I was meeting people in real life, who lived that dual personality.

So, spurred on by the thought of being able to at last have my online persona (of magitam) come to life, and knowing that there were people who I now knew, who I could connect with through Twitter, and start to stay connected with them, I started to use Twitter.. ..

That evening I left that event, with the contact details of those few friends I’d made, inspired by the conversation, and the idea of meeting people in person, who you already knew online.

Fast forward, 6 months, and I’m a firm advocate of Twitter… Not only do I believe it to be of great use, I think it’s invaluable, in sharing thoughts, disseminating information, and also to just gain a “loose” awareness of what friends, family, colleagues, associates, and your general twitter community are upto.

Whilst it might seem trivial to fill twitter with what you ate, or what you did, it’s strangely satisfying to be able to share what you’re doing with people who know you.  Equally it starts to become the start of “conversations” that allow you to find others that share similar ideas.. It lets you reach out and connect to more people.

Most importantly, it gives you an extension of the “Office Water Cooler”.  The informal conversations that happen spontaneously in passing.. Those chance encounters where you can never foretell or predict what might be said, or what choice piece of information might be communicated!  It’s these “choice” encounters that make for really interesting, unplanned, unexpected, but potential synchronicities for me that make it all the more worthwhile.

Aside from the water cooler effect, Twitter also has become a solid bit of support, and community for me.. As much as it would be great to have a diverse, and varied group of friends, who had similar interests, and were a mixed and varied group, sometimes I just don’t have the physical time to spend with people interested in each of those different areas.  It’s now possible to have many of those interactions in my virtual world, which helps re-inforce my interests, and means that me in person conversations are already a step further along, than they would be otherwise..  It’s great to be able to know about what folks are upto, and be able to stay current, interested and engaged with many people, without having to be always calling them and asking them!

So now turning the tabkes for a second onto you the reader, I’d like to ask you to answer the following question: – Why do you use twitter?  What do you get out of it?

If you don’t yet use twitter, then why don’t you use twitter?

Do share your thoughts, and insights in the comments below, or write your own blog post about why you use twitter, and be sure to trackback to here, so I know about it :)

twitter, why twitter, community, twitterverse

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Today (Monday 17th November 2008) marked the inauguration of Chain Reaction 08, a two day conference in London which “will bring together social leaders, community activists, policy makers, business leaders, young people and people like you from around the globe to share learning and to generate new ideas for social change, locally, nationally and globally.”

Today also marches the launch of Global Entrepreneurship Week “the first worldwide celebration of enterprise, which aims to unleash young people’s enterprising ideas and address some of society’s biggest issues, from poverty reduction through to climate change.”

As the day ends in London, and all the delegates wind down, and finish up for the day, later, half way across the other side of the world, in San Francisco, there is another conversation about to begin, at The Global Summit where the question will be asked – “What will it take to build a sustainable future?”.  The Global Summit(TM) a world-wide partnership for a sustainable future, is laying the foundation for annual Summits across the globe. The Global Summit(TM) begins with a two-day symposium and culturally rich welcome reception. Outcomes include guiding principals for a sustainable world across six key social and economic sectors, a blue print for the world’s first global citizen voter platform and an online collaboration system that maximizes our collective impact. Learn more about this event by either reading this press release, or by visiting the website of the Empowerment works – the organisation responsible for putting on the event.

It seems like this week could truly mark the beginning of a significant changing tide in the world we live in today.. I’ll be personally attending Chain Reaction 08, where I’ll be socially reporting on the event, via twitter, and blogging, as best I can.  At the same time two dear friends, fellow facilitators of the Awakening the Dreamer Symposium, and former colleagues from The Pachamama Alliance where I volunteered for 9 months will be attending The Global Summit in San Francisco.  We’re planning to organise a conference call, after both events, to find out about each others experiences of what was shared, and to find out threads between the two events, that we might be able to start weaving together, between the two gatherings, half a world away from each other..

I don’t know about how much virtual engagement will occur at The Global Summit, but we’ll have plenty of resources to engage people online, coming out of the conference, so please do connect into the conversations in whatever way you feel would work best!!

Whilst clarifiying a few details for The Global Summit, I’ve discovered a few more relevant happenings this week..

This week the following related events are also happening, or did already happen:

Governor’s Global Climate Summit, Nov 18th and 19th, 2008, in Beverly Hills, California,
convened by Governor Schwarzenegger

The G-20 Global Economic Summit, on Nov 15th and 16th, 2008, in DC, organised by President Bush.
You can also read the Full G-20 Declaration.

The first pan-European Town Meeting on Climate Change, 15th Nov, 2008, simultaneously in Florence, (Italy), Cornellà de Llobregat (Barcelona, Spain) and Poitiers (France), in the context of the IDEAL-EU project, one of the ongoing Preparatory Actions on eParticipation funded by the European Commission.

So it’ll be interesting to see with all this flurry of activity, what long term sustainable social change could come out of these programs? and what actually ends up coming out of all these meetings…

If you’d like to engage with Chain Reaction 08 – we’re deliberately including an online social element to the community interactions, and so would like to extend the invitation to everyone to join in, participate, and collaborate.

You can start by tagging everything you generate with the official tag of chainreaction08 – so everytime you blog, tweet, post a photo on flickr, or just generally include anything that you would like to include in the conversation, be sure to include that tag (except if you’re replying to something that’s been said in twitter, in which case the fact you’re replying will mean that the earlier part of the conversation, as well as your response will appear in the results :)  This applies to all people who are at the event, and watching from their homes too :)

On twitter, to search for a keyword, you can use http://search.twitter.com and put in the keyword terms for Chain Reaction 08.

A comprehensive query, that includes all related variations can be found by visiting http://tinyurl.com/5pu375 – this will provide you with a complete list of all posts on twitter relating to the London Chain Reaction 08 event. (The RSS Feed for this query can be found here).

For photos, everyone’s been asked to post them on flickr, and to use the keyword tag of chainreaction08 to make sure that they are visible to everyone who is looking for images from the event.  If you’d like to see the latest photos that have been uploaded, just visit here.  If you happen to attend the Chain Reaction 08 event, and have pictures that you’d like to share with the other participants, then I’d like to invite you to create your very own free flickr account, and post the photos you’ve taken during the course of the two days onto flickr, making sure that you tag all your photos with “chainreaction08” (without the quotes, of course!)

You can also find relevant blog posts, that will help weave a connection between the participants of Chain Reaction 08.  Again, if you want to have your blog appear to other people, make sure that when you post your blog, you include the tag chainreaction08, so that other people can find it, when they are looking for related content..

Fortunately, Google has integrated it’s video search into a single interface, that comes from multiple sources, so you can also find all videos from the event, that are shared on youtube and google video using the chainreaction08 tag.

There is also content being video’d and streamed directly online, throughout the event courtesy of David Wilcox, and Qik…

Then, most importantly, we also have an active online community at http://chain-reaction.crowdvine.com/ so if you don’t happen to have been able to join the event, live, or want to join in from a distance, the online community will undoubtedly be a rich resource, that connects people together long after chain reaction 08 is over, and perhaps by chain reaction 09, there’ll be an international dimension occurring simultaneously at the same time.

If I happen to have missed any resources, please add them into the comments section below, and I’ll be sure to update this page, to properly reflect all the resources, and references relating to ChainReaction08, so that everyone can benefit from knowing where to find everything related and relevant to a matter dear to our hearts.

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I’m an avid reader of Steve Pavlina’s Blog, and an entry I was reading today, got me thinking.. I just had to post a response.

Steve Pavlina, for those of you who’ve never heard of him, is a Personal Development Innovater, who through his blog, and website is sharing his experiences with the world, with regards to his own personal growth and development.  He often experiments publicly, and shares the results in a very live, and timely manner.  At times, it’s almost as if you’re going through the trials with him, and living through the daily experiences that he shares.  His thoughts and insights are certainly truly eye opening, and I’m reminded whenever I read his blog, of just some of the wonderful qualities, that I pray one day I might posess.

He recently shared an interesting take on health.  Admittedly, it’s not the first time that I’ve heard the analogy.  In fact, my own personal inspiration towards living a healthy and active lifestyle is Jason “The Juicemaster” Vale, author of Slim 4 Life, and a man to who I owe a deep debt of gratitude, for introducing me to the juicing way of life.. Cheers Jason!

So as I was reading this blog entry, that talks about the cells detoxing, and about how diet can affect our thinking and our ability to experience peak mental and emotional states, and I wonder how consciously do I choose the food that I eat?? Do I sometimes choose to deliberately supress elevated states of heightened awareness, and deeper emotions??  I know at times I’m drawn to eating meat, partly because it makes me feel heavier, and denser, and less aware, and less conscious.  It has a numbing effect, perhaps a bit like alcohol might, for people who drink alcohol to drown their sorrows.

At other times, I’ll be drawn to carbohydrates, like breads, and rice, to give me a “heavy” filled feeling inside.  It’s almost as if it’s not enough to eat and be fed, I need to feel “full”.  But that “fullness” is sometimes something that isn’t necessarily a very empowering state.  I know that at times I’ll experience a craving, ravenous hunger, which will make me just want to continue eating, and then eventually, once I’m satisfied, I’ll have to just stop for a while and let my body digest.  Jason, talks about it as your body going comatose, whilst it deals with this influx of food, which if the body doesn’t shut down every other system, and deal with, you would end up dying.. An example being the typical Christmas post-lunch snooze, which is more a coma induced recovery period, where the body is frantically trying to process all this freshly eaten food, before it shuts the body down completely.

It might seem an intense, or extreme view to take, but having self-induced these over indulgent meals, where the body just doesn’t seem to be able to cope with the sheer quantity of food that I’m consuming, it naturally puts me in a spot, where I end up just slowing down, resting for a while, to let my body digest, and get back into being alive again a short while later.

Paradoxically, I’ve found that I can always get a comfortable “full” feeling, and not feel like I’m about to shut down completely, whenever I make sure I have lots of wholesome, fresh, raw fruits or veggies as a part of my meal (either as juice, or typically as salads).  Whenever I eat like this, then I end a meal feeling filled, but not on the verge of having to shut down, and I continue with my life.  Interestingly, my emotional and mental states seem to almost feed on these cravings, and the mood swings seem to play a key part in the emotional attachment to eating.

What I have found particularly interesting, is that when I’m working on something meaningless, and empty, the feeling inside is the same, and the desire to eat more occurs.  I used that partly to my advantage with my previous employer, where I would stock up on snacks of fruit, knowing that I would want to snack away whilst working, because of how unengaging the work was.  Equally I knew that by snacking on fruit, at least I would be positively contributing to my health, instead of allowing it to continue to deteriorate.

Conversely, whenever I complete something that’s really meaningfull, or feels like it’s a real accomplishment, I feel that same fullness inside, that I would sometimes experience with food.  The biggest difference being that when I eat something and feel full, I know I’ve been fed, on a very physical level.  When I write something, or complete some piece of work, and it’s “done”, I’m apparently still fed, since the sense of accomplishment, in writing or completing something mirrors that sense of being filled.  The difference is, that when I’m engaged with something that consumes me, all thoughts of food, and hunger become secondary, and I no longer engage with food on the same terms.  It’s almost like food becomes a distraction to my work, and I genuinely am not interested in eating anything, until I finish what I’m in the middle of doing.

Interestingly, I completed fasting for a whole month, during the Muslim month of Ramadan recently, and during Ramadan, as an observant Muslim, you don’t eat between sunrise and sunset.  What I found was that in the first few days, whilst I might notice the fasting and the hunger closer to the end of the day, by the end of the month, my body was completely adjusted to the new eating patterns, and didn’t even twinge a little, when seeing others eating food, or when the typical lunch time came around.

Now, a few months on, I’m starting to wonder.. is it because I know that I’m not going to eat, that perhaps I kept myself engaged in activities, that were sufficiently engaging, that I didn’t feel hungry??

Is hunger really a physical hunger anymore?? With the amount of processed foods we eat these days, and with a real availability of food whenever, and wherever we want it, do we really know when our bodies are truly hungry anymore??  Is part of our conditioned “hunger” response to do with some of the suggested artificial sugar highs, some of the false hungers caused by eating too much refined sugar, or white refined carbs??  What would we naturally feel hungry for, if we didn’t have chemicals, and mental conditioning to influence our natural hunger patterns?

I’m sure in time I might get to the bottom of these questions myself.  For now, I’m just going to observe Steve Pavlina’s experiment living on nothing but raw juice for 92 days, and pay more attention to the food I’m eating, and the emotional highs and low’s I’m going through.

Though it really does make me wonder.. are we as a planet, plagued by diseases like obesity, because we’re so caught up in the physical world, and have so conditioned our bodies to respond to food, as a satiating source of hunger, that we mask up and hide the true hungers of our minds need to be expressive? Of our emotions needs to be felt? and of our individual, personal need to contribute in a valuable and meaningful way??  Share your thoughts and insights in the comments below..

Now that I’ve fed my soul, time to go nourish my body, with some food ;)

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In the UK there’s a thriving group of non-profit techies, (also known as Circuit Riders) who stay connected through a mailing list, that regularly keeps everyone engaged with helping each other, and supporting each other, through those trying times when you need someone to call upon, as well as those not so trying times, when you just want to let people know what’s happening, or sound out ideas.  That’s great for the virtual contact, but I’d always felt that there was something lacking in the face to face meetings and events that could also occur, and that I’d experienced during my time as a Non Profit Volunteer Techie in San Francisco during 2006 and 2007.

Working with a model that seems to work well, of meeting on the first tuesday of each month, Amy began the first of London’s Net Tuesdays this week, and by all accounts it was a roaring success!!  You can read a nice detailed account of the event at Amy’s Blog. I don’t think it would be fair to even begin to try and give a better summary than Amy’s already done.  Clearly a seasoned blogger, with a great writing style, she’s done an excellent job of reporting the output from our Bloggers Discussion Panel, which involved Type Pad, Moveable Type, Wordpress and Community Server being represented. One of the members of the Panel, Miko who wore the slightly more technical hat for TypePad, as well as representing Community Server, has written up an excellent summary of the key blogging platforms, and a great summary of some of the differences between them.  I thoroughly recommend if you’re starting out to read her summary, and use those to help inform your decisions about which blogging platform to use.

We then ended the panel, having answered some great questions about the features and functionality of the tools, and then started to come up with a list of considerations to take into account, before getting started.  The blogging “strategies and approaches” part of the conversation was designed to verse people a little in the thinking that goes into making a successful blog, and after brainstorming from the room, we crowdsourced the following 5 key points, of :

1. Setting Goals
2. Write with Passion and Knowledge
3. Practice writing blog posts for a few months
4. Use your community to come and comment
5. Integrate your blog with everything you do

The premise behind this conversation was that in order to be successful with your blogging, there’s some key pre-requisites that are needed.  Especially if you want your blog to be engaging and participative.  With that in mind, Miko shared her own take on starting blogging, and what you should do, to prepare to succeed.

Some Of My Own Thoughts on Blogging

I’m certainly in agreement that blogging doesn’t just happen, on it’s own, in isolation from the world.  I think often people look at a blog, and think “I can do that”. They might even assume that just by installing or getting a blog set up, that they too can start to reap the engagement and conversation that occurs in the blogosphere.  Unfortunately, it really isn’t all as simple as that.

Speaking, from my own experiences, and I wrote my first blog post in 2004, I can say with all certainty, that blogging for me has been something that evolves over time. I’ve undoubtedly been learning a lot about the medium of blogging along the way too, and that journey educates and inspires me to continue to always try out new things, and then some.I first started my blog, as an experiment, using Blogger.com, and started out thinking of it as a place to capture my thoughts and interesting things that I would come across on the internet.  You can even see at Blogger.com my original blogs, as they were until I left them, and integrated them all into my current Blog, which is now a self-hosted installation of WordPress, and where you might be reading this from.

Back when I first started blogging, I decided on some key areas of interest for me in my life, and thought I would use a blog to collect interesting websites that I found and bits of information that I thought were useful.  I considered my blog to be a place to store my thoughts, and as a record of my travels through the internet. I even started a few different blogs, because I thought that other people might be interested if I started collecting enough interesting websites, relating to a specific theme, or idea, or topic, and that in time, people would start finding my blog and commenting on it, and leaving their thoughts and ideas, if I were to capture the “best of” along the way.

You must remember that this is back in those days when del.icio.us and other social bookmarking websites hadn’t yet come out, and I was itching for a way to start collecting my bookmarks online, so I wouldn’t always have to use the same computer, but would always have access to the cool links that I found along my travels.  I also wanted to be able to share with friends, and family some of the cool stuff I would find online, and thought that naturally in time, a blog would be the perfect solution.

And to an extent, it did work, for a few months, and it certainly warmed me to the idea of blogging, but it didn’t really take off, in a big way. I still didn’t quite understand, back then of what I might be able to use the blogging for, and I definitely didn’t maintain the discipline of keeping my blog updated with all the interesting and wonderful things I discovered along the way.

I think back then, part of the challenge for me was that everytime I wanted to post something I would have to log into the blogging platform, and then create the entry, and couldn’t just use a plugin, or bookmarklet script or external blogging client to write to my blog.  Now after experimenting with a number of great tools, I’ve decided that I’m in love with ScribeFire, a plugin for Firefox, and since using it I’ve also started blogging a whole lot more too.  But I digress..So after a considerably non-productive use of blogging, with little real interest in keeping it alive for the sake of keeping it alive, and with this terrible feeling that no-one in the world was interested in what I was writing about, or posting about, I laid my blogging to rest.  Not consciously, but I just didn’t feel the need, or a desire to write about stuff as much.  I wasn’t feeling particularly inspired, or excited, and I guess I was going through my own challenges in life, understanding what I wanted to do, and how I wanted to engage with the world.

Then in the summer of 2005, I ended up travelling to Peru, in South America, and all of a sudden, I had something that I wanted to share with all my friends and family back home.  After a few attempts at writing out long emails, with details of what was happening, in response to people’s emails, I realised that most of the time I was writing pretty much the same set of details in response to people, and spending quite a bit of time repeating the same stories over and over to people, on a one to one basis.  Spurred on with the knowledge and experience of using Blogger.com, quite successfully in the past, I decided I would use that wonderful medium of “blogging”, to write about my travels.  Suffice it to say, it didn’t take long before I took great pleasure in sitting in internet cafes, writing up my notes of the day.  I even became really diligent in writing in my pocket diary, a summary of the days events, so that my time in the internet cafe would be spent just writing up what I’d already thought about and reflected upon, at the end of each day.  I thought that sharing my travels, and experience in that intimate manner would be a great way to keep everyone updated on what I was upto, and how my travels were going, and it meant that I wouldn’t have to write the same email to everyone that kept asking me how things are going, and what I had been upto.

It also started to fuel my desire to write, since I knew I had a captive audience.  I’d received so much support and encouragement from people as I’d left London, that I figured most of those people would probably enjoy reading about my travels, and my adventures.  I later discovered that my cousin had also been sharing my blog out to his fellow co-workers at work, and even though I never received much email, or saw any visibility of how many people visited my blog, and hardly anyone ever commented on it, I felt like it was being read, and I kept it updated, just so if nothing else, at least my family and friends would know how I was doing, and that I was ok.

Of course, once I left Peru, and returned to London, the blogging on that trip to Peru didn’t seem like a natural thing to continue, since I was back home, and things in London just didn’t seem as noteworthy, or as interesting and different as they did out there.  My only regret with my blogging back then, was that I didn’t take a digital camera with me, and take photos… Some of my travels were just so scenic and beautiful, and some of the people I met such loving souls, that I wish I had captured them all on camera.. But instead I got the joys of having fond memories that I shall keep with me instead :)

Again, the blogging had seemed like a great idea, it had become really useful, and productive for me, when I needed it to communicate, and now that I was done with that trip, it didn’t seem like I had anything left to write, and so I just let it fizzle away.  Back then, I didn’t really have any comments on my posts, and I didn’t really understand, if I had emailed all these people that knew me, why didn’t anyone comment on anything I wrote??  And so, by not having much engagement from the audience, I ended up leaving it as a record of my travels, and nothing more.

Uncovering Your Voice

I guess all along, the biggest challenge I had, when writing for my blog, was to get clear in my mind who I was writing for, and what it was that I wanted to communicate.  I would have moments of sharp clarity, and specific things that I thought were noteworthy, and then the enthusiasm would wear off, reality would set in, and I would come to the conclusion that actually I didn’t have anything significant or noteworthy to share with the world. (At least nothing that seemed to get the whole world clamouring at my doorstep, and wanting to comment on).

I’d finally understood, that blogging is a very personal choice, and that if I chose to publicly share myself, I would always be able to do it on my terms, and didn’t have anyone to answer to but myself.  I think partly because back then I didn’t have a clear audience in mind, I used the blogging as a way of tracking my own thoughts, and adventures out into the world of the internet, but never leaving that comfort zone of writing into an empty vaccum where no-one seemed to be listening.

Now, almost four years on, a lot has changed.  My understanding of the internet, and it’s role in my life for one.  My ability to engage and connect with people for another.  And also how I’m using the internet, and what I’m seeing myself using it for are all changing too.  I think part of the online social networking phenomenon of seeing your network online, in platforms like facebook and linked in means that you slowly start to see your “community”.  Wheras in the past, the most visibility you would get is the emails you got and sent, and the IM chats.  The online social networks that have come into existence now, are slowly starting to make us all acutely aware of the fact that we now have “captive audiences”.  Be it we might use those captive audiences to chase, as werewolves, or to write on each others walls, but innately , we have people we are engaging with, and who are engaging back with us.

This is where blogging comes into play, and starts to become useful.

Whilst you can certainly send an email out to everyone you know, using bulk emailing platforms, once that email is sent, it’s gone.  There’s no permanency to that message or conversation.  It disappears into the ether, and you can only track the results, and await the response from people to know what people felt or experienced.  Whilst it makes it possible to communicate intimately, and personally, it detracts from the public presence that could be enriched by sharing the contents of those emails in public.  Especially if it’s non-sensitive information that goes towards establishing your brand, your credibility, your cause, your needs, or your experiences with others.  What people can’t see about you, people can’t know about you, and whilst email newsletters are great in principle, in practice, there needs to be something being added or updated to the blog, or the news section of your own website too, so that those people who don’t currently subscribe to the newsletter could also have the choice, based on the content.

Nowadays, I’ve come to understand a little more clearly my audiences, and my different voices when blogging.  I can’t say I understand or know them all clearly, but I do know that I have a number of different threads or streams of ideas flowing through this one blog.  I have very distinct and different communities of people that I’m communicating with through this blog.  (Albeit, those communities may only exist in my mind for now, but they are very real nonetheless).

I can see, as I re-read my own blog, and see the train of thought, and threads of conversation that I’m weaving together, that I have some very distinct and seperate groups of people that I’m talking to, or in conversation with.  And I think more importantly, I’m starting to understand how powerfully, I can start to engage in the conversation on the internet, through the blogosphere.

It never truly dawned on me, until the Net Tuesday event we had in London, but commenting on other people’s blogs has really started to make me realise and appreciate how important it is to give before you receive.  If I want people to comment on my blog posts, I have to go out there and comment on other people’s blog posts first.

If I want my blog to become successful, I have to make it more focussed, and targetted.  This is something I’ll write about properly another time, but for now, suffice it to say, that the internet is a big place, and the more targetted and focussed your writing is, the easier it will be for you to become an authority in a particular niche.  What that translates to, is that everytime someone googles something vaguely related to your topic or area of expertise, you’ll come up at the very top.  As long as you know what it is you’re passionate about, and what you genuinely know about, then chances are that you’ll eventually be able to become an established authority in that niche.  Until you get that focussed, your own thinking and writing will suffer, as well as the community engagement, and participation to your blog, your website, and your cause, or field of expertise.

Conversely, the more focussed, and targetted you are in everything that you do, the more you start to add real value for others.  You become capable of voicing the unvoiced, on clarifying assmumptions, on becoming an authoritative voice, and opinion.  You also become capable of synthesising and expanding upon the ideas and thoughts of other people, and actually further the conversation in the blogosphere.

But first, you must know who it is that you will be writing for?

Then what is it that you’re going to write that this audience is going to want to know about?

Once you can answer the above two questions, clearly, and you have people regularly asking you for, or your regularly telling people the same bits of information, then, and only then, will you be able to uncover your blogging voice, and start to contribute in a meaningful manner through your blog.  Until then, you’ll be finding your feet, through the possibilities of what you might be able to voice, and who you might be able to express your thoughts to.  That’s not a bad thing either, because until you start trying, you’ll never figure out your space, and most definitely not find the flow of your blogging voice.

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