Growing up on a farm, as I did, provides a freedom that never leaves you. My parents lived on and immersed directly in their work: the farm. It surrounded them, day in day out. I am sure I absorbed this environment in a way where I expect little to no separation between work and my personal life. From this stems workaholism and dedication. A deep protestant work ethic.

There are significant downsides to total work immersion. Especially in this new world of always-on social media. You tweet a response to a work related question at 11.32pm, and follow up with a tirade against an airline cancelling your flight. The seamless melding of what is work and what is your life is one of the beauties of social media. We are all connected.

Yesterday, one of the downsides firmly bit me on the bum. One of my personal opinions; a flippant tweet has caused an ongoing kerfuffle at Microsoft. This is not the first time I have come unstuck on the social media frontier; and sadly I am not alone. Nor am I the last to be bitten. There are many bums with bite marks.

Until now, I have resisted the urge to have separate twitter identities. To me, creating and using different identities is the antithesis of social media. To be frank, I wish that I could be one identity on twitter.; but there are forces in the wider world does not accept the separation of personal identity and an employer’s identity. As I found in recent events, there is always the risk that someone will take an utterance out of context, and use this as a cudgel in pitiful internal office politics. Or, as others have found, fodder for gossip.

The cleaving of identities is a topic upon which I have struggled throughout my Microsoft career. Being true to myself, whilst attempting to comply with the weight of an employer’s expectations.

As stated yesterday, I have created a new twitter identity @RealNickHodge which is a private, for people only account. Each follower is vetted. I am being careful not to let in bots and sensationalist journalists. I am also wary of “brand name” twitter identities. I follow real people; people who are smart enough to realise my opinions are mine, and mine alone.

My old twitter account is now clearly identified @NickHodgeMSFT, with a profile stating my position and employer. As at the time of posting this blog entry, it has 4803 followers. I do not imagine the follower count will increase dramatically. Thankfully, formal Microsoft accounts such as @MSAU are doing an outstanding job of presenting a formal social face of the organisation.

Within 24 hours of creating the new account, I have about 200 real followers, less noise and I trust more freedom to be real. Or at least the freedom from guilt in speaking as me, being who I am.

Considering my twitter persona has been cheeky and somewhat iconoclastic, even to my present employer; and the content of 90% of my tweets are not related to work — I find it surprising to gather so many pieces of moss.

5000 followers does put the @NickHodge account into the top 20% of Australian twitterers. Being an open (not locked) account, this puts my utterances on twitter into the funnel for social media monitoring engines. Their systems will determine my follower count (and retweet count, and other metrics) puts me into a “must watch” list.

I base this assessment on my work use of social media monitoring engines. Keywords, key people. Associated, and you are prime bait for engines to watch filter and report to their corporate stakeholders.

Some people crave this attention. In fact, it is their life blood. I am perfectly fine with their need for followers, readers, fans if you will. But this is not for me. The direct association between my employer and what I say and think is not direct. At best, it is loosely coupled.

There is no quick mechanism to completely delete all your followers, and who you are following in twitter. As an immediate solution, I have suspended posting from the @NickHodge account and created @RealNickHodge. I am being strict as to whom I follow; the account is locked.

For me, it is back to feeling free to comment without the fear of causing collateral damage.

I hope you found this useful.

Only the paranoid survive. Even the paranoid have enemies. And the list of paranoid quotes goes on.

Within the last 18 hours, I’ve had two experiences with twitter that are worth sharing. If only for twitter bragging rights.

Firstly, whilst ABC1’s Media Watch was shown last night – what I considered a long “advertorial” piece about tablet devices and their impending saviour status for newsprint. I tweeted:

Someone should #mediawatch#mediawatch for 15 minutes of “Apple iPad” advertisement. NOT F***KING HAPPY MARK SCOTT

Within an hour, the host of Media Watch, Jonathan Holmes, responded:

@NickHodge ah! U work for Microsoft! Wondered why u were SO upset!

Oops, sprung. Well almost. My twitter bio is clear about my employer. As I had already responded to the iPad shills, I responded similarly to Jonathan. The ABC must be above spruiking products; it is a part of their editorial policy. I will admit that my tweet is tainted with the perspective of my present employer: for sure; no-one is truly independent from their source of income. But I do expect all commercial organisations: including Microsoft, to be treated equally in terms of publicity on our ABC.

A thankyou, Jonathan, for being concerned about your show and looking at “the stream of conversation.” This shows you care.

Second incident. Only a few hours later, in response to Tony Abbott appearing on ABC TV’s Q and A: a promising TV show that has fallen below my expectations. Tony, in response to a questions on Catholisism mentioned that another leader, Kristina Keneally – the NSW Premier, being not so harangued about her faith. My tweet:

ooh, @KKeneally is at least a serious Catholic as @TonyAbbottMHR ..#opusdei !!!

Very early this morning, 5:47am Sydney time, the Premier responded:

@NickHodge hi Nick this is an old and false rumour. I’ve never been a member of opus dei. My area of interest is feminist theology. Cheers

Oops, sprung again. My response to her was a public, hopefully graceful mea culpa. I doubt that I would vote ALP in the next State election – but that fact that Ms Keneally took time out to respond to mine – and other questions on twitter shows a level of care. And she spelt rumours correctly.

So, two famous people responded to my rather cheeky, specious and snarky tweets. In both cases, apart from the individual tweets these people do not know me. Nor the somewhat satirical/childish nature of my tweets.

In the context of “social media” for organisations – can personally responding to individual tweets like mine scale? Whilst NSW has 6 million residents, only 4000 follow her on twitter. If twitter goes mainstream like Facebook, one could expect a Premier of NSW to have up to 2 million followers (30% of Australians are on Facebook) . No one, magical person can respond to them all.

Here at Microsoft in Australia, a few product groups have been experimenting with social media monitoring tools. Watching the conversations, and responding where appropriate in a formal way. This also involves an escalation process for response to queries that include PR, Customer Service and Evangelism. I know of other organisations doing similar for their products and services – Internode, for instance.

So, be careful out there. You are being watched. And if your comment is not satirical, hopefully responded to. Personally.

Twitter

Average Tweets per day: 100
Average size of each tweet: 100
Total Words: 10,000
Estimated Percentage valuable (ie: valuable content): 10%
Words of Value = 1,000

Blogging

Average Tweets per day: 100
Average size of each tweet: 100
Total Words: 2,765
Estimated Percentage valuable (ie: valuable content): 90%
Words of Value = 2,488

So, the question remains: are the conversations on twitter worth 2.5 times the publishing via blogs?

My particular job is unique; not all organisations invest in weird people who name themselves a Professional Geek and describe themselves as Iconoclastic and Mercurial. As a daily part of my job,  I becone a lightening rod in a small community for a large and historically faceless brand. At one end of the daily continuum there is kudos/whipping for everything that brand does; and the other I attempt to be whatever “me” is at this moment.

This is somewhat OK for me, but sometimes risky for the brand when I fly off the handle. As as wise man at Microsoft counselled me earlier this week, we are all human. Social media will mirror this humanity. Whilst fraught with misinterpreation, it is better than bland corporate-speak, any day.

Living the organisation you work for is a legacy of my on-farm upbringing. You live in the work environment. There is no escaping large or small jobs. That, or I have a form Institutional Stockholm Syndrome. Ultimately, I am doing what I am paid to do.

So how do individuals represent the organisation, service or product they work for when there are multiple individuals in the team where the individuals see themselves distinct from the organisation? There are valid reasons why a solution needs to be sought.

Lower latency conversational mediums such as twitter, there is no time to review a tweet by a group before tweeting on behalf of the said group. By the time the group has agreed, the conversation has moved on. l’esprit de l’escalier en twitter.

Enter The Multiple User Twitter Conundrum. I’ve seen a recent innovation on twitter which I support. It is a good compromise between my idealism, and the hard-nose marketing oriented “brand is everything” divide.

Let’s review the Microsoft Bing team’s Twitter Profile page. It shows the five people who twitter on that account/address, with a name and caret (^xx) underneath the pictures of the humans. xx represent the initials of each individual. Tweets such as “SteveB at D (video incl. Bing at AllThingsD) http://twurl.nl/zorfia ^betsy” indicates Betsy, or ^BA tweeted this nugget. I now can identify a human behind that tweet, that conversation from the group twitter account.  This caret-xx only takes three precious characters out of 140.

As a further step to my idealistic people conversational mode of social media, it would be cooll if each individual should put their personal twitter id on this profile page. Or email address: ideally some mechanism to double check the identity of the person to stop twitter spam-bot miscreants.

Maybe in the future all we will just have twitter ids. They will become more valuable than ego URLs.

But then again, I am possible stepping back up to that very small platform of a soapbox.

The Opera. Stages filled with ladies singing in a gruff germanic or romantic language, and men prancing around in colourful soldierly uniform. Stories so simple yet obscured by language; thankfully the Playbill™ details the plot. Plots of love lost and family betrayal, have remained unchanged in some instances for centuries. The audience silent in the stalls, listens and applauds at the appropriate places. It is all scripted and follows a well worn path.

Strong scripts, strident soaring songs and standardised characters are repeated year after year to an audience that dresses up to show off their cultural status. Baby boomers, once the bastions of cultural iconoclasm, now flock to the safety of the opera. The safety of the known story provides succour in a troubling and confused world.

The Opera is an appropriate mirror of a slowly declining, old power structure: standardised stories with a strong cultural understanding of expectations. There are few surprises, and the actors faithfully represent the characters as written. To stray from the culture will result in review rebuke, and potentially financial ruin. The utterances are known, and everything fits into the story.

In the modern, hyperconnected world where everyone wants to write their own scripts; to merely ape an old opera is stale. It no longer resonates, nor does it excite. The worn path may provide temporary comfort: but does not provide long term sustenance.

At the opera, the generously-proportioned female singer has begun her last stanza.

The Circus. I remember the circus arriving in our small country town. I, and the hoard of kids and teachers tramped down to the town’s football oval to oggle. The animals we eyed were from a distant continent. Lions, Tigers, Bears and Elephants. It was like a zoo, but the animals were smellier and close. Eating and stomping close.

Traditional circuses such as these are now rare. Circuses with the animal menagerie are rarer, as they have been hounded out of our towns by animal liberationists. A tradition, as cultural as steeplechasing, has vanished into the mist. The animals are happier.

Modern circuses are about people. The animals have been sequestered and retired to zoos and forests. Circuses such as Quebec’s Circ du Soleil give a medieval commedia dell’arte a modern flavour wrapped in a bright coat of 21st century globalised commercialism. Completely comprised of people, franchised to a culturally flattened world; therefore standardised to highlight human performance. These circuses are for people, about people and make a point of breaking the third wall to stretch the entertainment.

In more traditional circuses, clowns would regularly break the third wall. Throw faux water, in the shape of confetti, into a faux surprised audience. The circus entertains, as the sad clown provides a reflection on our mixed up, complex lives.

This forest we are navigating through: Social Media, is like a circus. It is a human centric institution, wrapped in new technology zeal with a hoard of clowns, mummers, so-called ring leaders and high-wire acts all screaming for your attention, laughs and money. Difficult to ignore when they are in town; and they can be smelly at the approach. Bright Lights! Shows! High wire acts with stars having incongruous names. Social Media has it all.

A true circus extends out from the focus on the tent and the highwire of show night. The canvas riggers and animal trainers transform into the spruikers of side-show alley. Crafty games of shooting, prowess of strength and precision take a fool from their money. Fairy floss, candy apples and fortune tellers return a future of rotten teeth and rotted minds.

In a similar way, Social media has a plethora of spruikers. The games they advertise remove you are after your gold. Some of these games have a large pay off; sadly many don’t.

To really enjoy the circus, you must experience the whole show, not merely snack on the fairy floss and candy apples.

Social networking is more than the latest crazes of Twitter and Facebook. In fact, it predates blogs. And the WWW, even if you could hand-code HTML. Even before the internet escaped from the university cage and it’s trainers, there have existed “social medias”. Email, Bulletin board systems, Talk-back radio. Small newspapers and magazines; telegraph wirings and Morse code; pamphlet and book publishing. All add to the social discourse. In fact, since the democratisation of communication that began with the printing press: where thoughts in the form of words could be etched and produced enmasse; a social discourse has existed.

What is different is the connectivity we all enjoy. We all are a few steps away from the humanity that encompasses the planet. At once in one large, multi-cultural circus. No one mono-culture can exist. Generalizations break down as individuals assert their individual characteristics, subverting the propensity for traditional hierarchies to classify, box and bucket.

The impact of this individual yet share instant experience is being being felt now across businesses and governments. Unrelenting forces for change are singing strident tunes from the opera, whilst the circus clowns laugh in mock humour at the futility on the grave of the generously-proportioned female vocalist.

Now how can I figure this equation, if multiplication’s the rule /
You keep subtracting me from you, and it just doesn’t add up at all

It should be further noted that there is always a Finn song for every occasion. Thanks @mediamum!

In the instance of Off My Soapbox of Self Righteousness, relates to battles and discussions that rage daily. Like all family dirty laundry, the exact nature will remain confidential.

But on a larger scale, it is my opinion that social media (whatever that is) is being misunderstood; or worse, mis-used by various less Cluetrained people. My fear is that the forces of oldskool will water down the potential for massive change that is blossoming. There are skirmishes being fought daily. The wider community does not see nor hear of these.

Sadly, those on the internal firing line are also copping friendly fire. Just sayin’

The strangeness is made more fictional when I have an internal voice that is shouting, not whispering, you’re also doing it wrong. There is a high-wire act going on in my head, and the fingers of sanity may be slowly letting go.

Enter: video viral marketing. Copy an idea, write a short script, film with actors. Pop onto Youtube, initiate the viral campaign.

The only difference from traditional TV advertising is the cost. Production outlay, and that is about it. ROI: easy: saving hundreds of thousands of dollars on TV (and potentially radio) advertising. In the case of xxxMan (not going to provide too much juice), nearly 45000 views I would consider as epic fail.

On the face of it, if you present this advertisement as a bit of fun; make it slightly obvious it’s not real. Cool.

But this is not social media. Or positive in a sharing culture. There is no people to people connection between the company and it’s customers. Sure, it may generate both positive and negative comments in YouTube and the internet. The agency may respond and behalf of the customer. This is not social media nor a sharing culture.

People trust and like to speak to people. Put the best people in your organisation up front, and support them.

Viral is not Social, it is just a Virus.

Oh, by the way: Laurel is right on this matter.

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, 7th 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.

Background

Over the weekend, Channel 10’s Rove attempted to fist twitter, bringing in at least 1000 new Australian twitter users. A plethora of ABC celebreties are following Mark Pesce’s lead and are joining twitter. There are 5 million Australians on Facebook. Politicians have realised the shift of power towards, and reach of the internet. There is no going back.

Over the last 2 years, and more-so with the departure of Frank Arrigo from Australia, invitations to speak at ‘social media’ conferences landed on me. Internal Microsoft teams came asking about social media asked for my advice.

None of these are a formal, measured part of my job. Sure, using the technology and being a social media practitioner will still important: but being a Social media expert is not.

So, with a little regret, from today I hand over the reigns of social media expertise and public representation to others at Microsoft.

Just off the phone to the Publicis. There are two issues here: one is the broken configuration of @pm.ad as the reply-to email address. A misconfiguration error.

Thanks to Publicis for reaching out and being honest; and starting to resolve the issue.

From earlier today:

1. Potential source of the “follow”: I mention metamucil on twitter. No occurrences of this word on my blog until this particular posting. and others such have found the same issue with unsolicited email from the same sender, with similar contents.
2. Up until this point, I have been a happy and regular user of said fibre supplement brand below. Note that this brand is owned by Proctor and Gamble. I am not going to link out to said product.
3. The person that received this email is mentioned 5 times on my web site, and there is at least one link from my site to theirs (note: I have “xx”’d the name out below)
4. The owner and publisher of this web site, Nick Hodge, in no way, explicitly nor implicitly gave permission for any brand: including Microsoft, to use to my blog as “trusted reference sell” nor source of email addresses. Reading Microsoft’s policy on Online Privacy, I am pretty sure that doing this style of “email harvest and reference social marketing” is highly wrong, and contravention of this policy is a serious offence.
5. “Unsolicited email” is spam. Plain and simple.
6. The content on my site is (cc) Attribution-Non-commerical Share-Australia 2.1, as per the link at the bottom of each page. I consider this spamming is a breach of my Terms and Conditions.
7. Subsequently, I am very unhappy with Publicis Mojo. You do not get social media, you are a spammer. Of the worst kind.
8. I am recommending the receiver of this email report both Proctor and Gamble, and Publicis Mojo as a Spammer as per the Spam Act (2003) and amendments
9. It seems that the domain name “pm.ad” might exist, however further research by an white-hat security expert:
   • *.ad is a top-level domain owned by Andorra, the country
   • pm.ad would be a logical place for ‘publicismojo an advertising agency’ to register; or may be used for internal sites
   • if you send email to ‘postie@publicismojo.com.au’ the bounce back is from the same mail.publicismojo.com.au IP address as in the below spam example: 134.159.132.130
   • 130.159.132.130 is Publicis Mojo in Australia (as per apnic)
   • robtex has some interesting details on this domain range

From: Blog Seeding <BloggerRelations@pm.ad>
Date: 2008/12/9
Subject: For xx
To: xx@xx.xx.au

Hi xx,

Sorry for the unsolicited email.

I was reading your blog and noticed you're particularly influential in the blogosphere.
I even saw your blog reposted on NickHodge.com.

I'm working on behalf of Metamucil on their new Fibresure product and
I was wondering if you would be receptive to us sending you a xmas gift pack?
No obligations, of course!  

Look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,

Publicis Mojo

From Glenn Derene, wiring at Popular Mechanics in “How Social Networking Could Kill Web Search as We Know It”

… with the rise of social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Second Life, LinkedIn and even Google’s own Orkut, the next generation of Web users may find what they want by using their social network rather than a search algorithm. After all, the people in your online social network should know you better than a mathematical equation, right?

I find this article resonates. The concept that a mathematical formula can replace the collective knowledge of trusted friends always seems weird, and the absolute innocent dorkiness that “algorithms solve all problems” as naive.

Being able to ask your twitter-hive mind friends a question, say about WordPress themes (see: http://www.nickhodge.com/blog/archives/2508) and receive an intelligent set of answers is way more powerful than blind search engine bingo.

The power of the internet comes from its ability to very cheaply connect like minded people into loosely coupled communities unbounded by space and time.

As at posting, the bidding is at US$510.00

I am not sure how this ID is valued, and it seems strange that it has value when decoupled from the person selling the name.

Unless you are another Andrew Varon Baron, or are a competitor to RocketBoom — and in either case Andrew should really just twitter-squatter on his identity.

One never knows where twitter IDs are going to be useful in the future.

Interesting, if unintelligent, stunt.

(edits thanks to @bck)

My statement on twitter ‘one day, on the BBC: “reports from twitter are stating an earthquake…” one day’

Stated Mark Paterson on ABC AM this morning, the secretary of the Department of Innovation, Industry Science and Research:

“The essence of the message was that the Government wanted to ensure a degree of consistency in message on key messages and therefore wanted to clear key messages through the Prime Minister’s office.”

Shades of Yes, Minister in the above. What a giggle.

Just blog it, agencies. Bypass the Bureaucracy, Subvert the Hierarchy Comrades!

Scoble is leaving PodTech. Doing something else from mid-January 2008.

In his post he talked about live streaming/twittering and the conversation that results from immediate connectivity to an audience.

From Scoble’s post:

Another thing that opened my eyes? The Google Open Social press conference where I had the only video, thanks to Kyte.tv and my cell phone (they had asked for me to leave my professional camera in the car — funny that’s a story I’ve heard several times, including on the panel discussion yesterday where Jeff Pulver showed off video he shot on a small pocket camera of the recent Led Zepplin concert. He told the audience that Led Zepplin wants to buy his photos and videos because they were better than the professional ones).

Blogs, Video-Blogs, Podcasts emulate the old media. Push out. Wait for comments (aka letters to the editor). The immediacy is missing. There is too much latency between thought to feedback

Immersive Conversations.

Live-streaming/Live-twittering/Live-full immersion-SecondLife/Live un-meetings of the ilk as discussed on EEL recently is the next step. The technology is here permitting low-cost, high-bandwidth immediate two-way sessions.

In conversations with Cameron Reilly, this is exactly where his mind has been for some months.

The move is on.

OK, aliens are invading my twitter feed

Or, after reaching 5000 tweets ranging in topics from Eurovision’07 to Neil Finn Revival Meetings, my postings are swallowed by the great twitter engine. Does Ms Gale have a restraining order out on me? More likely Paul Foster’s mobile phone cost centre owner in the UK.

Maybe it’s the lolcat speak that confuses some, forcing them to reach out to the Urban Dictionary for translation.

Is it the weird 3rd circle of hell that is Ruby on Rail’s ActiveRecord outer and inner joins with time’d out queries so as to unburden the backend? Or are telcos putting limits on the twitter +44 mobile SMS gateway in Australia?

Who knows. It’s the Bermuda Triangle of Twitter. Conspiracy Theories abound.

(Thanks to @cait for the inspiration on this post)

What is the Web 2.0 World Saying about you, now?

I strongly recommend any Marketing/PR person just starting out to download and install Particls: http://particls.com/. You can use Particls to watch the internet for you. Enter the phrases and words that are your products and brands, and watch the conversation that ensues.

It is wise to start your online journey by engaging the existing conversations and existing communities, rather than attempting to start your own lonely blog and talk to noone.

Social Networking use by Marketing/PR

Social network using MySpace/Facebook/MSN Live/Linkedin/Bebo etc etc etc is a perfect mechanism for creating a community; and more importantly: staying connected.

Note that people are largely engaged in these communities for personal social reasons, not to have a product shoved down their throat. The rule of authentic voice applies.

SecondLife use by Marketing/PR:

Know who and where of your audience. Despite heavy hype in the traditional media, the number of people logged in to SecondLife always seems low. (25000 to 40000)

There is something enticing about a completely immersive 3D world, where in a dream-like state you can fly anywhere and build anything. It demos well, and the allure of “instant millions” attracted a certain “type” of initial user.

The web was like this in 1994/5. Not much out there, much hype and a limited few had the hardware and ‘bandwidth’ to participate. I would highly recommend doing deep research prior to significant investment.

Fully immersive worlds such as World-of-Warcraft (note: you probably cannot market here) are very successful; and the future of end-user generated immersive worlds is large.

Twitter use by Marketing/PR:

http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/2007/08/23/gday-world-281-melbourne-twitter-lunch/

@Froosh expressed it best: Twitter is micro-blogging: thoughts in 140 characters. It is also more instant. What is happening now.  An organisation’s existing blog strategy should also cover Twitter.

Running 2 bots (http://twitter.com/NeilFinn and http://twitter.com/Elv15) and an event alias (http://twitter.com/auremix07) my assessment is that Twitterers are looking for real people, not chat bots at the other end of the line. Twitterspam such as “go visit this link” and the like causes mass unsubscribes. “Our product x is now shipping” the same.

What the Twitter-verse is looking for is the instant human reaction and feeling from events that precedes the formal cycle.

So, just Twittering to get a “message through” or hype a product/event does not work. What is needed is an authentic, honest voice of a real person. It is part of your Word-of-mouth, viral strategy.

In a Write/ReWrite/Read Web, People matter. Not Messages