DISQUS

Jesse Stay · 1 year ago

Very well put, Louis. In reality though, technology does solve problems that people could not solve themselves. Most people don't realize that though, which is why your approach is important. Milk before the meat, and sometimes they don't even need to understand the technology to know how a service can be useful.

drewolanoff · 1 year ago

I saw a tweet from someone who brought up biz models. Guess what, building something the masses can adopt, understand, use, and enjoy is a business model.

It's not easy, that's why it doesn't happen often. People like myself, you, Robert Scoble, and those who can really dig in and spend time with folks to explain why technology is important to THEM and not why we geek out over it is what we need to bridge this divide.

We're almost there. There are great apps and great things out there that the regular Mom and Pop would love to use, but we're falling short of explaining to them why THEY would love to use it and just fill their head about US US US.

briantroy · 1 year ago

Favorite blog post of the day.
You are either focused on solving a problem with technology or you are creating problems. I only care about two things:
1) Solving problems that are valuable to solve
2) Solving those problems in a way that makes it EASY for the user
Everything else is noise (very, very interesting noise - but noise none the less).

Rishabh Mishra (possible248) · 1 year ago

Wait, it *isn't* about the technology?

Aw man...

daveevans · 1 year ago

I spend much of my days translating what the so-called social media experts are spouting into something resembling what a C-level executive can digest, and make short-term decisions about.

It's like reprogramming someone rescued from a cult.

It's scary how everyone can be a social media expert. Most have never taken a course in general marketing but I digress.

Blogs, twitter and Facebook are not for every company out there. There is scant proof that these social tools increase revenue, most are limited to monitoring how people are slagging your company online or tweeting semi-relevant information.

Geeks starting sites may have reduced the amount of capital required to launch a new effort, but have done little to make today's myriad acronyms, theories and stuff like social graphs any more palatable to consumers.

Louis Gray · 1 year ago

Dave, I absolutely agree with you in regards to taking tech-speak and
trying to convert it into business. There's no question that as eager
as we are to adopt new tools, the enterprise and B2B especially are
eager to keep the status quo which is better understood.

I do not believe in the role of the social media expert, unless it is
a part-time consultant who can help educate Marketing, PR and customer
service to integrate these tools into their arsenal.

ROI is hard to nail down for most things Marketing, when it comes to
branding, awareness, engagement, etc. and some aspects of social media
are no different.

.LAG · 1 year ago

i think the reality is we're still in the early adopter stage of social media. even today, i meet people who are just "discovering" blogs for themselves. i published my first blog post back in the olden days of 1999. we still have a long way to go before Mom can use this stuff without our assistance. early adopters are mostly interested in the technology and the novelty. imho, the reason why it's been so hard to make these technologies accessible to late-adopters and laggards is because the technology is still not yet mature enough to solve the average problems of average people. it's moving in the right direction, but there's a lot more work to be done to make all of this simple enough for non-engineers to see value in the stuff.

Chris Brogan · 1 year ago

Man, I so regret that being out there like that about Jesse. Jesse, if you're reading this thread, brother, I don't really mean it. You're a good guy.

(Said without Jesse as the target, it's a really funny tweet.)

Louis Gray · 1 year ago

Chris, the fact you said it and it was captured makes it more fun.
Jesse knows he was the butt of a great comment, and his self-esteem
remains intact. :-)

william · 1 year ago

Loius
Great Post !!!!
I think that your points about addressing the needs of regular "main street" users in language that we understand.

aden_76 · 1 year ago

A great post. I am trying to learn this skill at the moment but converting tools and technologies into stories that resonate with non-geeks takes time, effort and some creative thinking. I have been taking a look at 'the back of the napkin' to try and help with my story telling/selling and of course the commoncraft videos. I would love to hear some more plain English descriptions of popular tools and concepts like the ones above for Twitter and Friendfeed.

Jeff Tippett · 1 year ago

Bravo! While it's extremely understandable to be excited about all the cool play toys (tools) that are available--SM at its best is exactly what you described: connections, sharing and community. When a person/group combines a strategic plan (based on established goals), a well-defined message, delivered in the form that their audience can use along with a desire to add value to the participants within community--that person/group has a winning combination. Thanks for reminding us all that it's not about the tech--it's about people.

Cory Hendrickson · 1 year ago

amen. We certainly don't do ourselves any favors when we start talking technology. Nobody wants technology, they just want solutions. I've been able to make the best progress when we talk challenges and solutions. Though, clients are not helping themselves when they can't articulate their objectives. This is becoming more common. Have we trained them to talk technology (they don't understand) or are they feeling the pressure to innovate and see technology as they way out?

It's really a simple game so long as we don't complicate it with details. Really, there's no need to sell Twitter. We need to sell reach. Fragmentation has hurt mass media but helped digital media. The technology does nothing but provide reach.

CraigK · 1 year ago

Agree Louis. Most people can get frustrated easily when talking to people who are not familiar with the industry and tools. The way I may get frustrated speaking with friends or parents is probably the way you may feel if we spoke, since you knowledge goes way beyond mind. Overall it just takes patience and the enjoyment of helping and teaching someone else about something new.

Craig
www.budgetpulse.com

Jen · 1 year ago

I attended the panel you mentioned above - I found it informative, but maybe not as in depth as I would have liked it. Then again, I don't think it was completely for 'me' - I follow a lot of blogs and twitter conversations etc.. re: social media tools and uses. I'm actually the one educating my coworkers about the mess of options out there, how to use them, who is talking about what - etc. However, if one of them had attended, I fear they would have been slightly lost.

One of the key components I find useful is not just explaining the results of using sites like Twitter and FriendFeed (etc) is getting them to use them or at least spend more than a fleeting moment on them. It's a battle I've been fighting for awhile. Everyone wants to be knowledgeable on the subject, but in the case of the smaller agency I work for, everyone needs to have some level of participation.

steveballmer · 1 year ago

.... It's about loyalty, loyalty to Microsoft!

GeekLad · 1 year ago

I would say that (initially at least), microblogs have more similarities with a blog than they do a logged text chat. When you first start up a blog (as I did recently), there is not a whole lot of two-way communication. The same goes for microblogging as well. When you first sign up for an account on Twitter or FriendFeed, you may not have any friends (especially "corporate types" that try to use technology just for the sake of doing so). Like anything, it takes time and effort to earn a good reputation and develop a true following.

Jim McCusker · 1 year ago

Louis, the 'flaw' with Twitter, FriendFeed and the like to PR people is that the services do not allow companies to target the users directly. Instead, users hand-pick the content they want access to which is counter to the traditional marketing approaches which leverage captive audiences and allow them to throw in their pitches and introduce audiences to new products.

To me, the real question for Twitter/FriendFeed is how they plan to serve the needs of businesses who want access to the audience they have captured. It's a complicated problem since the audience's motivation is to filter only on the content they know about and want to see while the PR companies want to introduce their products/ideas to new audiences. They seem to be at odds with each other.