www.nickhodge.com

After what I would say has been an inter­est­ing week, I spent my hol­i­day on Thursday writ­ing the below notes. These notes were the base script for the #under­stil epis­ode broad­cast on Thursday night. Sadly, due to a com­bin­a­tion of Ustream.tv weird­ness and user error, the last half was not recor­ded. There­fore, please review the notes.

I use Google Docs to store the script so I can share with Dekrazee1 (the show’s Meta-Backchannel pro­du­cer) and poten­tial guests.

The bold­ing of text assists me in read­ing whilst on screen, and where the key points are. Usu­ally, I attempt to flow the words through a river of conversation.

Thanks to Stilgher­rian, Cameron Reilly, Bron­wen Clune, Mark New­ton, Leslie Nas­sar and Avril Hodge for the craft­ing of this show. Yes, I did mis-pronounce Anarcho-syd… whatever, and some other words too. I blame my coun­try school english.

A shout out to Jeff Sandquist, Frank Arrigo, Mike Sey­fang.

And a thanks to Mark Pesce for speak­ing inspiration.

Sorry there were no kit­tehs!

Responses  to the IRC Chat

• People com­men­ted I was “selling” or “shilling” Microsoft. Yes, and that is the point made later. There is no avoid­ing it for employ­ees involved in social media due to Maslowian pyr­amidical juxtapositioning.
• Apple vs Microsoft. If you read Cluetrain, it pre­dicts the doom of com­pan­ies that “don’t get it” (albeit it in the lat­ter points, which many people don’t read) I had framed this whole show on People Ori­ented Social Media; and in that con­text, why is Apple suc­cess­ful vs. Microsoft. It answer is no means simple. And really a them vs. us con­ver­sa­tion is not cor­rect. It is about products and per­cep­tions of Microsoft. The prob­lem is Microsoft’s to solve; and I am a small part of this long term change.

The (first part) of the Episode

1. [at 8:40pm] Red Cor­dial Cath­arsis
   1. This show is going to more per­sonal than the last show. This is all about me. And Social Media
      1. which launches me like a North Korean ICBM/Satellite into the same stra­to­sphere of @stilgherrian and @cameronreilly
   2. The ques­tion for Social Media: is this about my employer? when on social media, how much of your employer’s kool aid are you shilling?
   3. Red Cor­dial & Lem­on­ade.
      1. His­tory.
      2. Link to red cor­dial and “hyper­activ­ity” more by asso­ci­ation rather than spe­cific cause/effect
      3. Red Cor­dial hyper­con­nectiv­ity
   4. Cath­arsis; from the greek to cleanse/purify/clarify
   5. tonights show is “Red Cor­dial Catharsis”
   6. This tweet, 7^th April: Nick­Hodge: @gedulous when I was at Apple, we had to drink Kool Aid. At Microsoft, we drink Red Cor­dial. They have dif­fer­ent effects.
      1. ‘drink­ing the kool aide’ comes from the 1978 Jon­estown mas­sacre in Guyana where 918 people died drink­ing cyan­ide; valium; phen­er­gan mixed in with fla­vor aid. Jim Jones, cult leader; Jon­estown bene­vol­ent com­mun­ist com­munity. Apostolic Social­ism (@cameronreilly?). Blindly fol­low­ing an author­ity to the bit­ter end.
      2. This is *not* a pos­it­ive brand con­nec­tion for a Microsoft employee to make, even based on per­sonal experience.
      3. incor­rectly found and quoted; this and many other tweets, blog com­ments, flickr images, vod­casts and pod­casts cross the line. What line?
   7. “To a Social Media Prac­tioner” http://www.nickhodge.com/blog/archives/2960
      1. 1. That post may have been wrong. It is time to speak up
         2. what promp­ted this post?
         3. what did I mean: the professionalisation/businessification/amwayification of social media in mar­ket­ing and PR
         4. I didnt and dont want to become one of the Social Media for­mu­laic shysters
         5. I use it to con­nect to people. Friends, asso­ci­ates, fam­ily, work
   8. (quote from social media bible #1: Cluetrain Mani­festo. Mar­kets are Con­ver­sa­tions)
      1. The first of the 95 Theses: People http://www.cluetrain.com/
         1. Defin­ing con­ver­sa­tional mech­an­ism, imme­di­acy (vod, pod & twitter)
         2. Blog­ging: pub­lish­ing; vod+pod casting
         3. All have feed­back mech­an­isms, dif­fer­ent latencies
   9. I am very much a per­sonal brand-ist social media type
      1. People Ori­ented Social Media
      2. Not a tech­no­lo­gist, nor a #fister, nor viral sock puppet
      3. people, first and fore­most. see, feel and touch people. Respond­ing human face.
      4. I am a cluetrainer, with a healthy level of prag­mat­ism
      5. Com­pan­ies are centuries-old legal con­structs; to change this we must change deeps parts of our exist­ing sys­tem: bey­ond the scope of tonight’s show. Prag­mat­ism
      6. nickhodge.com first registered in Nov 2000, on the net since late 1996
         1. Per­sonal Brand­ing is the first and only para­chute for worker-droids. Was once called your “name” or “reputation”
      7. not @mpesce MSM (TV/radio) hog, spoke to 10,000’s people per year
   10. Cla­rify my pos­i­tion state­ment: Microsoft is a sur­pris­ingly great employer
       1. Many years ago, I never envis­aged work­ing for Microsoft.
       2. I made a con­sidered choice to work for Microsoft. I can see how I am a small cog of a big change.
       3. Per­spect­ive: being paid 50% of what I once earned as a sales-pointy-haired-manager-droid. I sold my soul more to be a sales droid than at Microsoft.
       4. inter­view loop: Frank Arrigo and Jeff San­quist (2005 Chan­nel 9, Robert Scoble’s boss, dealt with the fal­lout) “sold me on the new msft“
          1. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.04/wired40_microsoft.html?pg=1&topic=wired40_microsoft
       5. Really, really like to thank Mike Sey­fang @fang really put me on the Cluetrain road
          1. Home­work: Apple. Cluetrain or not? Are their products their only voice? My con­ten­tion is that they fail this test: yet are highly successful.
          2. vs. Microsoft, “high cluetrain IQ mark” since 2004, high share-of-voice; the mar­ket con­ten­tion not as suc­cess­ful. WTF?
       6. Built audi­ence of >750K touches per year.
       7. Did some pretty non-MSFT ran­dom things (eg: inter­view danah boyd)
       8. Twit­ter: now at nearly 2500 fol­low­ers.
       9. Com­par­ing to other organ­isa­tions, sur­pris­ing free/liberal
   11. Com­pli­ance with the Blog Smart Policy (and other com­pan­ies have sim­ilar)
       1. #1 – Be Smart
   12. For those of us in Person-orient Social Media Front, where is that line between an indi­vidual and their com­pany? Does there need to be the ques­tion. Is there any answer?
       1. “out of hours in per­sonal time” you would expect your employer not to sit on my shoulder when I vote, act on my per­sonal mor­als, how I live my left, the choices I make, where I live, products I buy, food I eat.
       2. Works is where I choose work. They choose to employ me for my skills and exper­i­ence. This is the basis of the employ­ment con­tract: my time, their money; and their rules on their time.
       3. Not everything MSFT does, nor has done do I neces­sar­ily under­stand nor agree with.
          1. Zune. sw/service good (in US) ; but as a strategy WTF?
          2. Xbox when los­ing money. WTF?
          3. Why did we func­tion­ally sta­bil­ize popfly.com?
          4. I con­tend that no employee would 100% agree with everything. It is impossible
          5. I like google search, email and reader. I like my Mac.
          6. Trans­par­ency and hon­est expect­a­tion expects me to call it as it is.
       4. How­ever, this is merely my per­spect­ive. I don’t know and see all. No one can. Not even a CEO.
       5. In the hir­ing pro­cess, you get “cul­tur­ally” assessed and screened by HR and hir­ing man­ager
          1. Usu­ally, will this per­son fit into team
          2. A pub­lic face, is also “can this per­son rep­res­ent my organ­isa­tion?”
          3. Aim is to obtain an employee who fits into the org.
       6. My con­tract says “9:00am to 5:30pm” … and com­pli­ance with the codes of con­duct, con­fid­en­ti­al­ity, eth­ics, busi­ness con­duct — and laws of AU and US.
          1. and con­tract says “other duties as assigned”
          2. pure 9–5 in social media doesn’t work
          3. even less so than plaus­ibly deni­able pro­ver­bial week­end bbq
          4. hav­ing two per­so­nas: work name and per­sonal name: doesn’t work. It smells of fakery
       7. “Pub­lic face” of MSFT in the social com­munity means any­thing I say, is there forever and can be quoted. mali­ciously
          1. Paid for: media inter­views, demos, present­a­tions, deal­ing with customers
       8. Bene­fit of “work­ing for yourself”
       9. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchosyndicalism
       10. Self-managed indi­vidual labour
       11. But, you are many times work­ing for a lar­ger entity. Their money, their rules.
   13. For me, today was a formal leave day. I sub­mit­ted the appro­pri­ate elec­tronic forms, memo + cov­er­sheet; had it signed off and everything is kosher.
       1. how would you know that?
       2. Am I now speak­ing on behalf of my employer or myself?
       3. why would you need to know that?
       4. did that stop me doing work, any­way? (ASP.NET MVC assist­ance twit­ter, 22 work emails)
          1. says more about me than any­thing
          2. i like to help people and I care about how people’s use msft’s products
          3. to a greater extent, I really worry about what people think of me
   14. As Social media “face” are you “on” 100%
       1. Before, this were CEOs and execs with long PR train­ing and a cadre of PR people
       2. Through MSM, care­fully craf­ted. Risk/reward for this representation.
       3. Com­pany SM types minor Inter­net Celebs
       4. The Social media paparazzi is here: Val­ley­wag, and others
       5. Quotes like above will come back to haunt you, like naked pic­tures on Facebook
       6. Even things after­hours that are legal.
       7. swear­ing? pro­fess­ing your dis­like of foot­ball? does this cross the line? do people have impres­sions of Microsoft? do they build up?
   15. Let’s revisit point 94 of the 95 theses:
       1. “To tra­di­tional cor­por­a­tions, net­worked con­ver­sa­tions may appear con­fused, may sound con­fus­ing.”
       2. My con­ten­tion is that “to the social com­munity, in a ‘the mar­ket is a con­ver­sa­tion’, the con­ver­sa­tions from a cor­por­ate may appear and sound con­fus­ing“
          1. comes from 100% on, expect­a­tion of trans­par­ency, hav­ing a human voice and being real.
       3. A cor­por­a­tion is not, nor ever, of one mind
          1. In the Borg’d-hive mind, there are many, con­flict­ing voices.
       4. The risk is that now the voices are amp­li­fied and radi­ated by @mpesce’s Hyper­con­nectiv­ity

1. [at 9:04] The People Ori­ented Social Media Con­tract
   1. Jux­ta­pos­i­tion: Maslow’s Hier­archy of Needs
      1. Abra­ham Maslow’s Hier­archy of Needs, Dunning-Kruger Effect (dumb people think they are smart) Godwin’s Law of Usenet, Dun­bar Number
      2. Simple Model to under­stand people’s phys­ical and emotional/mental needs
      3. The lower levels influ­ence the higher levels.
   2. Every­one who earns money is tain­ted by the source of the moo­lah.
      1. money feeds our fam­il­ies, gives us shelter
      2. as I have found, it doesnt define who we are.
   3. The sys­tem is fun­da­ment­ally dis­con­nec­ted
      1. The Social Com­munity expects real people, real voices, trans­par­ency, human voice, call­ing it as it is
      2. Orgs want people to be engaged in SM (some­times as it is cheaper, some­times as it is hip, some­times as it is sold to them, not neces­sar­ily because of cluetrain)
         1. fol­low­ing guidelines sim­ilar to msft’s
      3. All con­ver­sa­tions from an employee will be tain­ted by Maslow
         1. you can­not always say what you really think (unless you have balls as big as @leslie_nassar)
      4. Com­pan­ies have codes of con­duct
         1. To aid employees
         2. To pro­tect themselves
         3. com­pli­ance with the vari­ous laws, pro­tect other employees
      5. Indi­vidu­als are not per­mit­ted to be people, and are there­fore break­ing the cluetrain com­munity agree­ment
         1. koolaid effect
         2. 100% on
         3. employee needs to retain some form of employ­ment, per­sonal brand
         4. ‘the organ­isa­tion’ fight­ing the non-conformists
   4. Res­ult: we have an unre­solved con­flict. We are not of com­mon mind. There is no con­tract.
      1. The Cluetrain is largely cor­rect. Maybe more and more right as time goes on. who knows? It is a journey
   5. Employ­ees in Social Com­munit­ies: My argu­ment now is that there is no line. It has gone. If it did exist, it is dis­ap­pear­ing as fast as MSM
      1. There is an under­ly­ing web of con­nec­tion between the voices of an organisation
      2. The organ­isa­tion you work for shouldn’t but does own you. Social Com­munit­ies do not see a dif­fer­ence, either. I am not say­ing this is right — its sad real­ity.
      3. In the caco­phony of voices, there will be a theme of com­mon­al­ity (Maslow), not sin­gu­lar chior. Social Audi­ences will need to find the sig­nal in the noise. No one voice is the sig­nal. Don’t hold me out as your evid­ence that msft doesnt get this, likes that, says that google reader is the shiz. That is my opinion.
      4. True Social Con­ver­sa­tions involve you, the listener, to cla­rify. Check. Dis­be­lieve. Research. Use the hyper­con­nectiv­ity gif­ted by Ceil­ing Cat.
   6. Two case examples:
      1. @Leslie_Nassar exper­i­ence in a microsoft con­text? (ignore mini-microsoft )
         1. Biggest balls, cour­ageous. He will be OK. He’s a grown up.
         2. If I became a “FakeSteve­Ballmer” or “FakeSteve­Jobs” or “Fake­BillGates”, and dis’d com­pet­it­ors, fel­low employ­ees and management?
         3. whilst I might become a social media hero and front-page news, and may partly soften per­cep­tion people have of microsoft: it actu­ally doesnt com­ply with msft’s formal policy and codes of con­duct
            1. Expect to be coun­selled and prob­ably shaf­ted for did­ling expenses later on.
         4. a strange con­flu­ence: social media crowd LOL (me included) — but implic­a­tions are dire. We are deal­ing with big­ger issues
      2. @NewtonMark (Mark New­ton, Net­work Engin­eer, Inter­node)
         1. on Insight on SBS, clearly stated “not the state­ments of employer”
         2. but how much will the real Sen­ator Con­roy sep­ar­ate mark from inter­node. does it matter?
         3. Comes from cluetrain from @simon­hack­ett
         4. Kudos to Internode
   7. I have no magical clos­ing state­ment or argument.
   8. For me, the situ­ation is clear. I am 100% on. My voice is added to the greek chorus. I will con­tinue to be myself, my voice, my opin­ion.
      1. I am paid by MSFT to talk about its tech­no­logy. Please be aware that I sit on the sharp Maslowian Tri­angle. I will do my con­trac­ted job
      2. One day I will step over the cor­por­ate line, or an unfore­seen situ­ation will appear that may res­ult in a major FAIL.
         1. And When Red Cor­dial of hyper­con­nectiv­ity has over­taken the hyper­activ­ity, I will fall on not on my sword, but my keyboard.