Asset of The Future | A Sales Guy

Why People Don’t Get Social Networking

I was talking with someone the other day about Twitter and the importance of building a social presence. Their response was, they see how it is important for some people, but for his line of work, it won’t work, especially Twitter. He had an array of reasons why Twitter, Blogging and Social Networking can’t help him. His business is too specialized he said. It’s not going to get him any more business than he already has.

He’s probably right. But thats not enough of a reason not to build an online presence. It could get him a new job in the future, it could create a relationship he may need to close a deal someday, it could get him information he needed that he DIDN’T know existed. It could do a lot of things he is unaware of today, that could help him in the future. He is not alone. His thinking is like that of most people I talk to who aren’t actively building and online presence. It’s too linear.

The problem isn’t him but humanity. We are purpose driven.

Since the cave man days our actions have been purpose driven. If you wanted something from the guy across the cave you got up and took it from him. If you were hungry you went out and killed some food. Over the years we became more civilized, but we were still purpose driven. If you wanted to talk to someone you sent a letter. If you wanted a job, you applied for it. Then the phone and T.V. came along. Still driven by purpose, you knew who you were calling and why and we knew what we were going to watch on TV and when. Communication has rarely, if ever, been done without a direct purpose. Everything was linear. We played in the known.

Social media and social networks play in the unknown. They aren’t linear. They aren’t purpose driven. When we tweet something, we don’t know who we are tweeting or if someone is even their to receive it. When we blog, we don’t know who is going to read it, or who is going to comment. We don’t know if people will like it or hate it. We put our stuff on LinkedIn not knowing who if anyone is going to find it. Social media is anything but purpose driven. It’s this reason most people don’t get social media. They are thinking from the linear brain we’ve all been indoctrinated with. If doing X doesn’t get me Y right now, I don’t have time.

Social media and social networking don’t work in a linear fashion. They operate in a broader, less confined manner. Users have to be OK not knowing, not getting what they want right away and able to handle getting what they didn’t expect. Social media and social networking give life to the phrase; we dont know what we don’t know.

Many people see it as a waste of time. To the linear mind it is. It’s not like a phone call or and email. It’s not like getting up and walking across the cave and getting what you want. What it does do, quite often is give you what you didn’t know you wanted and many times that’s far more valuable.

It’s easy to focus on getting what you want and thinking in a linear fashion. It’s measurable. It also requires you block everything out. Social media and social networking are different, they get you what you didn’t know you wanted and that’s a big deal.

Social networking and social media expand your world. They make you more accessible, they provide more information, they extend your influence. If those aren’t reason enough to “get” social media it must not be linear enough.

Social media and social networking have a place, it’s just going to take time to change 10,000 years of thinking. It’s time to get out of the cave.

The One Way to Fail in Social Media (theantisocialmedia.com)
Are You Using Social Media As Social Proof? (socialmediabiz.com)
What the Hell is Your Favorite Social Network (theantisocialmedia.com)
Older Adults and Social Media (tjwalker.com)

August 27, 2010 | Filed under: Asset of The Future,Web 2.0/Social Networking | View Comments |

The Blog Connection

I have over 50 blogs in my reader. I like them all. I read at least one post from all of them every week. All of them offer something I find compelling and interesting. Despite how good the content is and even the blog subjects, there are a few blogs I call favorites. These blogs are the first blogs I read everyday. I’ve put them in a “favorites” folder. I always open my favorites folder first. Within my favorites folder, there is an order in which I read them. I have a favorites of my favorites. I almost never miss a post from these blogs. I don’t read every post from all the other blogs in my reader, despite the fact that I do like them all. They are good blogs.

So, why? Why is that we read some blogs religiously and others sporadically.

Conventional wisdom will say it’s the content. It’s the subject matter. It’s the writing style. I agree, but I think it’s more than that. I think it’s a connection.

Blogs are personal. More so than a newspaper article. There is no editor white washing any personality from the story. Blogs are extensions of the authors personality. This personal element of blogging allows people to create a connection to the blog itself. It’s this connection that draws us to one blog over another despite content or subject matter.

I definitely have a connection to my favorite blogs. In some cases, the connection was created through the comments overtime. Other times it’s the authors perspective and attitude. Sometimes it is a combination. What I do know is the blogs I favorite have a personality to them that resonates with me. Like friends, it’s the personalities that draw me to them and determine how much time I want to spend with them.

I was flattered when a former employee told me that he reads my blog everyday. I have other friends and former employees who read this blog sporadically and I know I have friends and former employees who dont’ read this blog at all. It takes more than just a personal relationship to create a blog connection.

How do you create a connection with readers? You can’t.

Trying to create a connection with your readers is like trying to get the kids at the popular lunch table to like you. Either they will or they won’t. All you can do is be yourself. We’ve been trained to avoid controversy, not to offend, and not to be provocative in a public setting. Blogging is for sure a public setting. This approach does nothing to connect with readers. I constantly remind myself of this when I post. I post through my personality. I post with the conviction that this is my blog and therefore an extension of me. Some will connect with A Sales Guy and read it everyday, others will like it and read it when they remember, they rest will just come and go. I’m OK with this, because it’s exactly how I read others blogs.

What is it about one blog vs another? Why do you find yourself reading some blogs everyday, while only reading others a few days a week?

Is it a connection thing for you too?

7 Things to do From the First Day of Blogging. (shoutmeloud.com)
An Introduction to Blogging (globalthoughtz.com)
Don’t Worry if Your Blog Sucks – Here are 3 Tips to a Better Blog (howtospoter.com)

June 30, 2010 | Filed under: Asset of The Future,Web 2.0/Social Networking | View Comments |

Why Google Shouldn’t Copy Facebook – Google Me #Fail

Michael Arrington TechCrunch founder, has a post up today where he suggests that Google needs to copy Facebook, or clone it to be exact.

They need to raise the white flag and just copy Facebook right down to the details. Otherwise the war is over before Google even got to the battlefield. -Michael Arrington

Arrington’s argument is Facebook is making inroads on Googles self serve ad business and if Google wants to compete they need to play Facebook’s game better than Facebook. Arrington suggests it’s not improbable by 2015 Facebook and Google could be running neck and neck. I’m not sure I agree or disagree with Arrington’s 2015 prognostication, but what I am pretty sure is, Google’s not going to stem any Facebook tide by cloning them.

The reason Arrington’s plan won’t work is because of the simple rule of sales — there needs to be user value. There is no value to users in cloning Facebook.

Google needs a horse in the social networking race to be able to defend itself against Facebook over the long run. And the only way they’re going to be able to compete effectively is to just clone the darn thing.

The value in social networks IS the network. It won’t matter how many new features or bells and whistles Google can add on top of the “clone”. They won’t make a lick of difference without the network.

Yes, Facebook blew up in a crowded social networking space. They took MySpace out of the game. The difference between then and now is that social media was in the growth stage of the product or business life-cycle. Millions and millions of people were still deciding if social networking was for them. They were the late majority. This late majority were our Mom’s, Dad’s, Grandparents, business professionals etc. Feeling Myspace was too juvenile this late majority chose Facebook. Facebook took social networking mainstream.

Social networking has now entered the mature stage. Only late, late majority and the laggards remain. This means that Google has to convince Facebook users to switch and that ain’t gonna happen for a clone with a few extra features. The value is the network. No network, no value. There will need to be a seminal event or trigger to drive the switch.

The main value in Facebook is everyone expects everyone they know or once knew to be on the site. Switching to a site where this doesn’t exist and then wait for their friends to show up is going to take a lot more than clone with improved privacy settings and an easy export tool.

Arrington is thinking like a technologist. Clone and offer a few cool new features and functions and it will sell. Unfortunately, like almost every other sale, features and functions don’t sell, value does. In this case the value is the network and Google can’t control that.

The other challenge Arrington misses, is users are more than engaged, they are INVESTED. They have invested time and in some cases money in followers, pages, applications, games and more. Users will not just simply walk away from that level of investment and start over for a clone.

I think Google needs to think like a start-up and innovate. Don’t clone, but get ahead of Facebook. There is always a next something. There was Friendster, then there was Myspace, then there was Facebook, then there was Twitter, then there was Foursquare, what’s next? That is what Google should be focused on. Not trying to be Facebook. That is so 2007.

Google — build a new network, don’t try to steal someone else’s. It’s much easier.

Google Me, Facebook Competitor, Confirmed By Former Facebook CTO (huffingtonpost.com)
What Google Me Needs To Succeed (regulargeek.com)
Former Facebook Executive Adam D’Angelo Confirms New Google Social Networking Effort (insidefacebook.com)

June 29, 2010 | Filed under: Asset of The Future,Technology and Products,Web 2.0/Social Networking | View Comments |

I Bought my Daughters Names

I didn’t actually buy their names, but I did buy their URL’s. I got them from Go Daddy. I bought my first two daughters last year and my new daughters this past week. I bought them for 10 years. That was the longest I could tie them down. It cost about 100 bucks for each name. Not too bad in the scheme of things. I think literally owning our names will be quite valuable soon. As identities online become more and more pervasive, owning the URL to our name will be an important element in managing our online presence.

I’ve talked about it before. The most valuable asset we will have in the future will be our online presence. It will act as an enabler to much of our life including; the schools we go to, the jobs we get, the person we marry and more.

There are a lot of things parents are responsible for with kids; education, values, safety, etc. I’m adding one more to the list and it’s buying their names, literally.

June 22, 2010 | Filed under: Asset of The Future | View Comments |

Union Square Ventures Proving-Online Presence IS the Asset of the Future

Twitter and Foursquare investor Union Square Ventures is hiring two associates and by doing so are proving the point that an online presence is the most valuable asset we can own. I’ve been making this point a lot over the last year. Our online presence will become the most valuable asset we own, even more valuable than our home.

To find candidates USV blogged about the openings on their website and Fred Wilson a partner in the firm posted about them on his blog. No recruiter, no Monster.com postings, no 3rd party sourcing. Just two blog posts. USV and Fred have built a huge following. They already had an audience.

I have no visibility into how many applications were submitted, but if the number of comments is any indication, it’s over 100.

What really makes this interesting is that USV asked candidates for just 3 things: a link to their LinkedIn profile, a way to be contacted and a cover letter. They asked the cover letter contain nothing more than links to the candidates online presence. That’s it. No resume required.

USV is using online presence as the key criteria to identify the ideal candidates for their next associates. I love this idea. It’s a heck of a filter. Anyone who hasn’t taken the time to build their online presence is automatically filtered out. No need to reply. Harsh, but it’s where things are going.

What I like about this approach is it focuses on what what the candidates do, not what they say. It’s hard to B.S. your way around an empty Twitter and Facebook profile. You can’t “hide” the fact that you don’t have a blog or haven’t posted in 6 months. By focusing on applicants online presence, USV will have amazing insight into how candidates, think, write, interact, engage, and collaborate. An online presence is a living resume that doesn’t lie.

I think USV is going about this the right way. You can learn a lot about someone by following, reading and engaging with their online presence. An online presence isn’t a polished document with an agenda like a resume and that is exactly the problem with resumes. They hide as much as they share. Watching and engaging with someones online presence is the closest thing to be a fly on the wall. You get to see the real person.

If you don’t have an online presence, you’re not going to a job with one of the most prestigious venture capital firms in the country and that is too bad, because you could be a wonderful fit for them. If you are one of the lucky ones who is hired, your online presence catapulted you into the exciting and lucrative world of venture capital and that is worth something.

How much is an online presence worth? In this case it’s worth 2 years at Union Square Ventures; investors in Twitter, FourSquare, Disqus and more of the Internets hottest properties. That’s worth a lot.

USV will not be the last company to hire this way. More and more companies will use an online presence in their hiring decisions.

An online presence will be the most valuable asset you will own. Start investing!

April 13, 2010 | Filed under: Asset of The Future,Hiring/Firing,Web 2.0/Social Networking | View Comments |

Asset of the Future-Craig Newmark Style

CraigsList founder, Craig Newmark, has a great post up today called Trust and Reputation Systems: Redistributing power and influence.

It’s a great post re-affirming what I’ve been saying on this blog for over a year. I’ve dedicated a page to it. It’s that important. Our online presence will be THE asset of the future.

His quote on the influence of social networking tools is powerful:

People use social networking tools to figure out who they can trust and rely on for decision making. By the end of this decade, power and influence will shift largely to those people with the best reputations and trust networks, from people with money and nominal power. That is, peer networks will confer legitimacy on people emerging from the grassroots.

Our networks are moving online. Our weak-tie networks are expanding. The tools to measure and quantify our networks are readily available. Trust, power, and influence will be at the core of these networks and those with the best networks will be the winners.

Soon it won’t be OK NOT to have a strong online presence. It will be too difficult to compete.

Craig is spot on when he says:

This shift is already happening, gradually creating a new power and influence equilibrium with new checks and balances. It will seem dramatic when its tipping point occurs, even though we’re living through it now.

He’s right!

It will be even more dramatic for those who wait for the tipping point.

Start investing in your online presence and brand NOW! Like any good investment, it’s best to invest early as it takes time grow and have the best returns when you get in in the beginning.

April 7, 2010 | Filed under: Asset of The Future,Enterprise 2.0,Web 2.0/Social Networking | View Comments |

Learning to Share

Sharing takes effort. I’m not talking the about the type of sharing we were taught as kids in kindergarten, but the new sharing we do online. I’m starting to notice those with the strongest online presence are good sharers.

Sharing on sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or on your companies microblogging site like Yammer or Socialcast is different. It’s not an action we were brought up with.

Traditionally, sharing meant sharing”BIG” things; births, deaths, graduations, weddings, etc. We knew to share the big events, the momentous occasions. We shared mostly the big stuff because sharing was so hard. It was too cumbersome to share the small stuff. Sharing meant multiple phone calls, or a mini-letter campaign. Sharing with lots of people was difficult and time consuming. So we did it mostly for the big stuff.

We did share the little stuff, but only with a small group of people, our mom’s and closest friends, and family. We did one person at at time, by phone, or occasionally by letter.

Things are changing. Sharing the little stuff is a lot easier now. It’s a quick Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn status update from your phone or your computer. It takes 5 minutes, yet 10′s, 100′s or even 1000′s of friends and family can experience it. Sharing is different today.

Our sharing habits have been shaped over generations around the “BIG” stuff and social media requires the little stuff. Most of us don’t know how to share the little stuff. It’s uncomfortable. It’s foreign. It doesn’t seem to matter when compared to the big stuff, yet it does. In many ways, it matters more.

Sharing the little stuff builds relationships overtime. The little stuff is more intimate. It’s more personable. The little stuff is much better at creating what is most important; relationships, groups with common interests and connections.

Learning to share today takes effort. It requires we are more conscience of our thoughts. What we once saw as a fleeting observation, is now a potential idea, or thought that can be captured and shared. Learning to do this takes work. Learning how to capture our fleeting thoughts and perceptions and remember to share them is not easy.

Social media is changing how we engage. It’s challenging traditional notions of sharing. It’s asking us to share the little stuff, not just the “BIG” stuff.

We are going to need to learn to share. We need to share the little stuff, not just the big stuff. We need to be more present with our thoughts and observations. It will be critical. Our networks are moving online. They are getting bigger. They are playing a bigger role in our success, at work, at home, in our finances and more.

Sharing is going to be at the core of the asset of the future: our online presence. Sharing just the “BIG” the stuff isn’t going to cut it.

April 5, 2010 | Filed under: Asset of The Future,Enterprise 2.0,Personal Development,Web 2.0/Social Networking | View Comments |

Venture Capital and Human Capital Investment

The other day Fred Wilson announced on his blog that Union Square Venture’s junior analyst, Andrew Parking was leaving.

Fred and his partners aren’t shy about their vision for USV;

Ever since we started Union Square Ventures almost seven years ago, we’ve envisioned it as a partner driven firm where the partners do most of the work. We don’t have a career path for young people, and we emphasize that with a two year and out analyst program.

I talked with Fred about this the other day. I asked him how they were going to replace Andrew and he said he wasn’t sure.

This got me thinking.

I suggested to Fred that they do replace him in the same way they found him, that USV should take on a newbie, someone non-traditional.

If you read Andrews post about his experience at USV and Fred’s you’ll see that the experience had a big impact on both parties. But particularly on Andrew.

I really like this concept of putting non-traditional candidates with experienced professionals. I think more companies would benefit from this practice.

I shared with Fred what I thought:

You have the ability to introduce your craft to talented people who may normally never be introduced to venture capital. Charlie, Andrew, or some unidentified person you mentor in the future, could be the person to fundamentally change the world of VC and/or find an investment others didn’t see that makes a huge impact on business or society.

I think there are two sides to this coin, the business, data driven side; the side that asks, do we NEED a junior investment professional? Then there is the other side that asks; do we want to influence the future of venture capital by mentoring and introducing talented people to it?

Fred agreed with me, but also shared his thoughts on the challenges with executing on this idea.

I thought it was an interesting perspective based on the outcome of Andrews time at USV.

I think there is tremendous opportunity for people and companies to invest in non-traditional talent.

Finding people today is very linear. We build job descriptions with very rigid qualifications and required experience. Talented people become pigeon holed into specific roles with little opportunity to change direction. This does little to help anyone.

I’d love to see large organizations, VC firms, and other professions create programs that invite non-traditional candidates into their organization.

Bringing in non-traditional talent creates fresh ideas. The people want to be there because they are making a change. They work harder and in many cases take a pay cut. Creating opportunities to find fresh, talented, exceptional people who know little or nothing about your business is the ultimate in capital investment.

If done right, it could generate huge returns, for both parties. If Fred looks to replace Andrew the same way he found him, something tells me there will be a lot of applicants, and justifiable so.

What do you think? Should companies do more to attract and recruit non-traditional talent? Is it smart or risky?

March 31, 2010 | Filed under: Asset of The Future,Career Development,What I Think! | View Comments |

The Future of Personal Online Branding

What do you use to promote YOU to potential employers? Could you compete with Gonglue Jiang and this?

Everything we do will flow through our online networks. Our ability to gain “reach” via our online content, and interactions will be the difference between success and failure. One of the key components of this is creating compelling content that makes people want to share it.

Stowe Boyd blogged about one of Gonglue’s innovation’s, which is now getting tons tweets, which in turn is driving tons of traffic to his page, which in turn is getting him lots of exposure.

Does your resume do that for you?

Gonglue Jiang has one of the best example of this I’ve seen yet. Imagine being a tech recruiter and landing on his page. It almost becomes a no brainer.

If your still relying on your resume to promote yourself, you are clinging to a dying process.

We all need to ask ourselves. How are we promoting the business of “US?” Is it compelling?

It needs to be. It’s going to be the biggest asset you own. It’s going to be the asset of the future.

Side note: I can’t think of a more compelling reason to learn to code.