How do you explain the calm and cooperation that was everywhere in evidence during the wind up to the Hawaii tsunami alert? Social media has earned a spot alongside our government planners and traditional news media. The user-generated messages supported both of those organizations on a second by second basis.

If you think about the mechanics of panic, it largely stems from a lack of information and and abundance of misinformation. When we leave things to people’s imaginations, it tends to bring unfettered “awfulizing” and a survival-based focus on worst case scenarios. Here are several use cases from the past 12 hours here in Hawaii where the free flow of information both locally and globally served to keep both panic and perhaps a tsunami at bay.

Distributed Reporting:

Extended Family:

Across Time Zones:

Instant Publishing:

Hashtag Aggregation:

Truth in Reporting:

Shared Warnings:

Uplift and Closure:

UPDATE:

Aloha,

I participated in a panel on social media for nonprofits today, hosted by the Hawaii Community Foundation. It was held at the beautiful Hawaii Convention Center, and I was joined by colleagues Christine Lu, Chris Noble, and Olin Lagon. Local newscaster Dan Cooke was our social media-savvy moderator.

We made a last minute decision to live-stream the presentations, which were held in the morning and afternoon sessions. This may sound crazy, but I can feel a palpable energy boost in the room when I am live-streaming. The attention of the extended audience “out there” on the internet, does come into the room! We had close to 50 people, from as far away as Detroit, Michigan, and many from the neighbor islands, including @EastHawaiiArts who could not make it in person.

I was really impressed with the quality of questions and the passion that lit up in so many people’s eyes! In the brief conversations I had with folks afterwards, the ideas they had already generated were amazing! We talked about organizing some training to help people set up their accounts and learn how to start telling their powerful stories. If you are interested, please join the mailing list at our training site, KnowHow Cafe, so you will receive notifications about upcoming events! (Use coupon “rox” so we know how you found us please! And everyone who signs up receives a Free eBook on creating your online identity.)

I am using yet another social network, SlideShare, to post the slides from my overview segment, and added the audio sound track – as captured by the live video stream!

View the slides and audio on SlideShare. (13:26)
Watch the entire sessions recorded from the live stream at uStream.tv.

UPDATE: Here is some coverage of this event.
Wayne Yohioka of Hawaii Public Radio with highlights of our session.
Olin posted his video and blog at KanuHawaii.org. While there, please join and add your actions of support to the community.

Mahalos to Kaimana Pine and Neenz Faleafine who helped keep the conversation alive in the live stream chat room yesterday.

I was invited to speak last week at the Sales and Marketing Executives meeting here in Honolulu, which featured Governor Linda Lingle as the keynote speaker. The topic was “Using Social Media to Differentiate.” I have posted my presentation file at Slideshare and also uploaded the five video episode snips I created to represent a few of the many case studies in the talk.

You can view the slide show here.
You can download a PDF of the slides here.

David Jones v Microchip

Watch the original video from David Jones.
Watch the original video from Microchip.

Blendtec Listens to & Surprises Customers

Watch the original video.

Johnson & Johnson Shares Even the Bad News

Watch the original video.

Gary Vaynerchuk Says Stop Waiting

Watch the original video.

The US Navy’s Social Media Policy

Watch the original video.

Video Case Studies: Links to downloadable files
David Jones v Microchip
Blendtec Listens to and Surprises Customers
Johnson & Johnson Shares Even the Bad News
Gary Vaynerchuk Says Stop Waiting
US Navy’s Social Media Policy

I am speaking tomorrow on The Tools of Change Panel at Envision Hawaii 2009. It has me thinking about what changes are happening right before our very eyes and how we can proactively embrace them to move this party forward with more intention.

Barriers and Gate-Keepers Are Being Removed
One of the most exciting accomplishments for me professionally occurred 5 years ago when one of my clients had her blog added to Tom Peter’s blogroll. Mary Schmidt was a marketing consultant who had a common name in a crowded profession, along with the usual limited budget of a solo-preneur. She was also a risk-taker though and pursued the blog strategy we created for her with religious fervor! (Update: I forgot to mention this. Search for “Mary Schmidt” on Google – and see the results of all-organic SEO.)

She found the thought leader in her profession: Tom Peters – a well-respected, highly paid speaker and consultant who already had a blog himself. (That’s part of being a thought leader in this decade.) Due to the simplicity of being able to comment on his blog, she was able to have a barrier-free conversation with Tom.

That would have been impossible in the old days of “find his office, call in, encounter one or more levels of personal assistants whose job is to screen out callers, get frustrated, and probably fail” unless you were wanting to book him or quote him.

To me, this is a profound shift in the spiritual balance of power among humans. When she told me she had earned a place of respect due to her contributions to the conversation on Tom Peters’ blog, I literally felt the rumble of thousands of years of hierarchy crumbling. The gate-keepers are no longer essential and the ability to connect with each other across virtually every barrier – geographic, economic, social status, etc – is now unlimited. The White House has a blog and a Flickr account – we can comment directly.

Everyone Is a Publisher and a Therapist
The invention of the printing press changed the power structures of the time dramatically. We are seeing another round of that, as information continues to provide access to power. Yet as I realized in a talk I gave earlier this week to the Hawaii Insurance Advisory Board, information is also a tonic. People who share, literally are saving lives via chat rooms and Twitter, as well as providing a steady stream of inspiration.

This seemingly built-in desire to share how-to videos on YouTube and share links of useful information on Twitter and share honestly via Facebook when someone is having a bad day is changing how we think about ourselves and about each other. It is changing how we value things – and pricing becoming a smaller part of the equation in many instances.

It is also confusing us temporarily, as our financial systems are so out-dated. What is that tip you shared really worth to me? I could count hours of time it saved me, or pleasure that I reaped, or even products I created and then resold. Of course each metric will produce a different price. Then I must decide to decide, what it is worth, for me, for now.

Is Psychology Starting to Catch Up with Technology?
I have thought for a long time that we as a species seem to advance much more quickly in virtually every arena except human behavior. The most modern artists and programmers still fall prey to school room urges and antics of competition, of malicious behavior, or under-handed practices in personal and business relationships.

Yet on the social web, these behaviors are more transparent. And they are certainly more commented on! We are each faced with a choice every day: do I follow a herd and jump on the bandwagon of criticism or do I seek out alternate points of view? Do I cut someone some slack as I would have them do unto me or do I cast them aside permanently? Do I move my consciousness forward and not sweat the small stuff or do I pour gas on the flames?

I see people reaching across the aisle daily. I see people being willing to respect different points of view. I see people who seek out their opposites because mechanically speaking, that makes for a stronger platform. I see bloggers talking about art, I see spiritual teachers using tech, I see everyone creating in their own ways opportunities to each beyond our known worlds. Leaving aspects of our families or tribes to explore new frontiers.

To me, this is the real value of social media today: it is letting us share our worlds with each other that we may each become not just smarter, but also kinder and more collaborative when that is what is required. I think of myself these days as consciousness coach as much as anything else. Now that we can all be connected, what really is the point of our connectedness and conversation? That’s the juice that interests me! What interests you and how does the social web support you in that?

Aloha,

Even though we have these amazing, 24/7 ubiquitous connections taking place on the social web, IRL (in real life) conferences are still booming. I think that many of us still long for those face to face connections, even more so now that our networks have blown way past the indications of Dunbar’s number. He he.

This is an opinion piece about things I see happening in the social media space, in short Twitter-sized sound bytes. I am imposing that limit on myself as I am short on time today.

With #podcamphawaii & #socialmediaclub we have open tents, everybody’s welcome. (My preference) Attendance is great. Experiences are powerful. Learning is all over the map.

Other events, when “who is welcome” is changing weekly, when “must request an invite” is the rule? Not so cool. (Especially when no reply is then sent.) Ticket sales are s-l-o-w. Is there a connection?

If you want a private event, by all means have at it. You better have a killer list though and enough personal energy to draw in attendees. The Lobby understands this.

I don’t recommend teasing the public to try to get your buzz on when signups to your private event are not happening. Just open it up and the people will come!

When people are vying for attention and excluding peers, IMO that is so #highschool and #oldschool. We’re due for a major shift in thinking in this arena IMO.

Perfectly reasonable people disagree. That is the good news. When it’s your event, you can do what you want.

I hope these points help you figure out which strategy is more fun and less stress for planning your next event!

Aloha,

Here is a brief late night interview with Public Affairs Officer Jason Salata (who manages the @USS_Nimitz twitter account) talking about how the U.S. Navy has jumped into social media in the past several months. Shane and I filmed this while on board the USS Nimitz, over “Mid Rats” aka midnight rations. The scrambled egg sandwiches were ono-licious!

You can see more videos of our embark at BeachWalks.tv.
Read Melissa Chang’s 5 part series on the Honolulu Advertiser.
Check out our photos on Flickr.
You can download the movie here.

We have the antidote to yesterday’s post on how to learn what you don’t know!
We are launching a new business that is all about training. We’ve helped out clients be incredibly successful on the web over the past 14 years, and we want to share this knowledge with others. We also want to do it for a lower price than our private hourly rates and we want to be able to reach many more people.

Because our phone keeps ringing (and that takes us away from actually building the site!) we are holding some live classes here in Honolulu in the interim.  Please join our mailing list to stay informed of updates and go check out the three classes we are offering in July 2009 for your education and business benefit!

Please use promo code “bfs” and receive a free eBook on Online Identity when you join the list. It’s the first place to start when getting active on the social web. Or as The Week would say, “Boring but Important.”

We can also bring private, targeted classes to your office or association too.

A Reason to Visit Hawaii?
Maybe this would be a good time and reason to book a trip to Hawaii. Airfares and hotel rates are down; I would be happy to connect you with my many tourism colleagues who would be delighted to personally assist you. Here are just a few:

Hawaii-Aloha.com - Ask for Bruce Fisher; or on Twitter
Starwood Hawaii - Ask for Candice Krauto; or on Twitter
Hawaiian Airlines – Follow them on Twitter too
Hilton Waikiki Prince Kuhio

The Hawaii Restaurant Association is holding a 90-minute seminar today (at 9 am and repeated at 2 pm) on “Social Networks: What it’s all about” to help its members and other businesses here in Honolulu understand about Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks. I will be speaking, along with Mark Johnson of logicspin and menumill. I’d like to give a shout out to Alan Hoki and Chrissy Mitchell of the Hawaii Restaurant Association for pulling this seminar together so quickly and to Morton’s Steakhouse for hosting us all.

I’ll also be moderating a panel of four local restauranteurs who have started using the social web:
Ed Morita: @nctrnlbst, Longhi’s, www.bakershours.com; you can also watch a short video here as Ed explains how he uses Twitter and Flickr to attract customers
Sean Priester: @TopofWaikiki and @pacificsoul, Top of Waikiki
Bill Tobin: @tikisgrill, Tiki’s Grill
Monica Toguchi: @HighwayInn, Highway Inn Restaurant and Catering

Mark (mostly!) and I put together these links for the attendees and all of you readers to be able to explore more. Pull up a chair – there’s a real reading list here.

REPUTATION MANAGEMENT:
Real Time Search – Social Mention
Track what people are saying about you, your company, a new product, or any topic across the web’s social media landscape in real-time. Social Mention monitors 80+ social media properties directly including: Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, YouTube, Digg, Google etc.

Find, Follow and Share Comments — BackType
Unlike Google alerts, it tracks blog comments.

New Media Chatter: People Are Talking…Are You Listening?
List of tools and strategy to monitor your brand/company online

OTHER TOOLS:
Social Media Club – Hawaii Chapter – free monthly meetings to learn about and share best practices in social media

KnowHow Cafe – Online and live seminars on using the social web; get a free eBook on “Online Identity” by joining the email list. Essential information before you start signing up for various social networks.

Lots of links here for social web restaurant review sites.

Check here to see if your desired screen name is available on several web sites at once.

Facebook Toolbox 101 with additional supporting links.

Google’s Local Business Center

A Social Media Glossary » The Buzz Bin – Common terms in social media

Sarah Austin’s True Beginner’s Guide to Getting the Most Out of Twitter – Free ebook PDF

ESPECIALLY FOR RESTAURANTS:
Choosing from the Social Media Menu for Restaurants – Branching Out: The Maples DMG Blog –

Social Media for Restaurants – Social Media Explorer; Good list of tools/resources for restaurants starting in social media

Many thanks to the Pacific Business News and the Star Bulletin for covering the recent So Much More Hawaii fam tour with mainland bloggers. I started this writing as a comment on PBN, but I have a rule that when my comments exceed two paragraphs, I move the conversation over to my blog for clarity and for support. (Plus, the Star Bulletin did not allow comments on Ms. Schaefer’s article and PBN does not allow links in their comments – both of which limit the conversation and tend to make me a little grumpy.) As I understand it, this blogger trip is not the first time Hawaii tourism has paid for blogger fam trips – though it is the first official blogger tour and significant campaign of which I am aware. Paying people to come here and write about us has its own issues that I addressed here and here.

Measuring Social Media Campaigns
I agree with Derek (a commenter on PBN) on the point that internet-based marketing campaigns can be far more measurable (and accurate and targeted) than traditional print, radio, and tv-based initiatives. He was responding to this item in the PBN article:

It is difficult to measure the effectiveness of online marketing, but Lu said it may be beyond calculation.

A lot can be measured ex post facto but some of the more critical elements require set-up in advance, not least of which is doing some baseline measurements “in the space” to compare pre and post data. The better social web monitoring services also cost real money, in addition to the time it takes to set them up.

The Hidden Costs of Social Media Campaigns
I am really proud of Christine’s persistence and the state’s willingness to dip their toes in the water. The additional collaborators (hotels, Hawaiian Airlines, Avis & the bloggers) all gave from their pockets to support Hawaii tourism – of which they are a vital part. This was a low-risk venture and hopefully a terrific learning opportunity for people new to social web marketing. This model may not be replicable or scalable though. My concern is that since it was done on the fly (and on the cheap), it may be hard to truly get a sense of what is possible on the social web.

Nonetheless we produced Podcamp Hawaii last year on the fly and on the cheap with outstanding results! (It’s how Christine Lu came to meet Nathan Kam who represents HVCB and David Uchiyama of HTA.) We had over 400 live attendees, thousands more who joined us via live video stream from around the world, and our “tag” – the short label referring to our event (#pch08) – was the #1 trending topic on Twitter for a day (in the world!) and #2 on Flickr (in the world!). We made a huge dent and had people all around the world dreaming about being in Hawaii. We had the support of HVCB, the HCC and many other local businesses. We gave them each a custom landing page on our site – a place to talk directly to our audience – and hundreds of additional blog posts, twitter messages, videos, live stream banner ads, etc.

There is no Podcamp Hawaii 2009 though – despite the hugely positive response. It’s a lot of work for a group of volunteers. I personally logged over 200 hours of my time producing the event – 100% volunteer for this community service. The tools are often free, but the time commitment is substantial with social media.

It is an age old dilemma – people want to try “new” things with very little investment. If it’s successful, it is part luck and part skill. If it’s not, pessimists think they prevail when in fact not enough was invested to make a dent. Remember, blogging has been around for 10 years now; CNN uses the same software Christine used to build the blog; etc. In reality, these are not “new” technologies.

We Are Beginning to Understand the Value of Online Networks
The Harvard Business Review has been covering the social web for years now. I tripped across this article from 2001 (!) today, pointing out the exponential value that is accrued within self-organizing, peer-to-peer online networks. Author David Reed, who called them “GFN’s” for group-forming networks, actually began his research in 1997 and states:

I’ve been studying GFNs for the last four years and have come to realize that they require a whole new way of measuring network value. Indeed, I think companies that can capitalize on the power of GFNs will gain the strongest competitive advantages that the Internet has to offer.

Caveat: I know Christine Lu and several of the bloggers personally and have been trying to persuade various tourism entities to learn more about the social web, Here’s just one recent example. The interactive web is not easy to understand from the outside, just like most foreign cultures. In this “place” there are people issues as well as software and technology issues, thus making “understanding” a daunting task to be sure. OTOH (on the other hand) it is a very open, embracing environment though and “newbies” are always welcome!

Want to Learn More?
Our local chapter of the global Social Media Club meets once a month and our meetings are free, open to anyone, and feature informative speakers and excellent networking. Our next event is Friday, June 12th at the ING DIRECT Cafe in Waikiki. Come join us, and learn why the Club’s tagline is, “If you get it, share it.” This month’s topic is “Online Reputation Management.”

Shane and I are also launching KnowHow Café – a place to learn more about the social web, online productivity, audio and video podcasting, blogging, Twitter, and more. Join our email list to be notified of upcoming online and live, in-person classes. Use the promo code “bfs” to help us know where you heard about us. We are mid-way through a six week course called “Getting Started on the Social Web.” I’ll be posting more about that in the coming week, time permitting! Once again, time is a critical resource on the social web.

With Aloha,

I am speaking on a Social Web Panel at the YWCA this week on Tuesday, May 5th, along with Laurel Boylen of chi.mp and Kelly Mitchell of Prudential. Here is a little blurb I wrote for their newsletter as supporting inspiration.

The talk is for members only; maybe this is a good time to join?

I just did!

The social web is all about connecting with others and having conversations. The foundational question that is continuously asked in the background of peoples minds is, “Who are you?” This is answered in everything you do online. Every email you send, every screen name you create, every network you join, and the people with whom you connect, all add to the collective definition of who you are as perceived by others.

UPDATE June 30, 2009: The YWCA has posted photos here from the event.

The internet is also an archive, and there are sites (such as www.archive.org) that are capturing copies of nearly every web page. So even if you remove a page that was the “old you” it’s probably still out there. The bad news to some is that those old hair styles you wore can still be found, but the bigger good news IMO (in my opinion) is that you can let go of trying to be perfect every single day. The aspects of humanity that make us most lovable and most real, are our slips as much as our achievements.

Whether you are communicating for a company where you work or only on your own web sites, you are showing the world who you are, how you think, and what you stand for. That is enormously helpful to others in deciding whether they want to move closer or walk on by.

This is incredibly liberating!

You no longer have to bland yourself down to be palatable to “everyone.” You can be YOU and that actually makes it easier for people to find you who want someone just like you.

Aloha,

Related Post:
Finding Your New Media Voice