Mediocrity is for losers

At the start of all my seminars I play one of the Shift Happens videos. The people I talk to are usually the Eternal September crowd, so it’s important that I first illustrate the importance of having the correct mindset, a mindset which accepts change and progress. Only thereafter can I gradually ease them into the world of Social Media.

The mind has incredible power. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven.” If we take just a little effort to change how we think about things, new dimensions open up for us.

The Internet is huge, would you agree with me? I think you would. I was at the Coral International Hotel a few days ago (my second visit, and I highly recommend it) and I picked up a copy of an international newspaper there. An article by Arno Maierbrugger mentioned that, “By the end of last year, a total of 192 million domain names had been registered by internet users throughout the world, according to data by internet infrastructure provider VeriSign.”

I’d say the number is much higher than that though. Many websites use sub-domains – like photos.jayz.co.za, which do not need to be registered. Also, WordPress.com and other companies provide countless millions of sub-domains to their members.

So how do you stand out in such a mass of content. The key is to be different. The key is to be unique. And the funny thing is that we are all already unique. But due to society, peer pressure, and what is known as “group think” – many of us try to conform to be like everybody else. We discard our individuality for acceptance. And in doing so, we lose our unique essence.

I try my best to be myself all the time. I’m a teacher, so I try to teach. Many Social Media blogs rush to get out the latest Social Media news of the day. I don’t do that. For all the best news, go to Mashable.com – Pete Cashmore has done a fantastic job growing that website into the best online resource in this space. My blog is about ideas. Insights. And it’s specifically geared at the lay person. This is not a blog for geeks, although many may label me as a geek. It was refreshing to get a message on Twitter recently from Jo Duxbury who said to me, “It was so refreshing to see blog posts that are intelligent and original.” I don’t mention that to impress you, but I want to impress upon you the importance of being yourself.

Will Smith, in this video, says, “Being realistic is the most commonly travelled road to mediocrity.” Once we set ordinary goals, we just become ordinary. Why not set huge and unrealistic goals? I saw something interesting on Twitter today, which said: “Don’t tell me that the sky is the limit when there are footprints on the moon.” I like that sort of thinking.

Seth Godin is, in my opinion (and the opinion of some millions), a marketing genius. I have (only) 3 of his books, and I highly recommend getting any of them. At the last talk I did, I told the audience that if they go to a book store and see any book by Seth Godin, they should grab it and buy it – without hesitation. Yes, he’s that good. Seth is Seth. He speaks his mind, and he is very intuitive. I like that.

I found this interesting video of him, it’s titled “The Mindset of a Winner” – and I think it’s valuable that’s why I’m sharing it with you. I’m sure that after watching this video you will sit back – at least for a minute – and think about what you’re doing in your business. Please share your thoughts in the comments below. Thanks.

Photo credit: thost

DIY in Social Media will lead to RIP

Facebook is free. Twitter is free. YouTube is free. With all these free tools, many businesses try to go the DIY route when implementing a Social Media strategy. I think this is a huge mistake. Although the Social Media tools are free, knowing how to use them takes intuition, practice, experience, and a broad knowledge of Web 2.0 and Social Media. What’s intrigues me most are the nuances in Social Media. Every platform is different. For example, frequent posts on Twitter are good, they’re not so good on Facebook, and a terrible thing on LinkedIn. I’m over-simplifying (again), but these platforms are all different. We all (including myself) have treated them as equal, and dual and triple posted to them, but that doesn’t work.

As more people try to DIY with Social Media, they’re going to realise that they need to “call in the experts” as it were. Today, Khalil Aleker posted this question to me on Facebook:

The main challenge for many Facebook users who want to create “fan” or business pages is that you have to have a personal profile in order to start a fan page, and the two are linked. As a result, business owners regularly receive “friend” requests from people who actually intended to become a “fan” of their business page. Any advice?

Yes, you do need a personal Facebook profile to create a Fan page, but thereafter the Fan page is independent. Furthermore, you can assign other people as Admins to the Fan Page. Members of the Fan page never need to know who manages the page – and several people can manage at once. This is sometimes essential, especially in a growing organisation.

So if you want to grow your Fan page, you simply market and promote it, and not your personal profile. A few months ago Facebook launched vanity URLs (they were first only allowed on Fan pages, but now they’re allowed on personal profiles as well), so place that vanity URL wherever you can – posters, email signatures, etc. Ours is facebook.com/jayzcoza – pretty neat and simple to remember.

With a Fan page also comes the skill of motivating interaction and participation, monitoring Facebook Insights, etc. To me, a Fan page is a company’s mini website within Facebook. And you have to take full advantage of that. Also, it’s not a personal profile, so personal family photos, etc are a big no-no!

It’s possible to create an event within your personal profile. But if it’s a company event and you have a Fan page, then you should create the event within the Fan page. It’s easy to miss this nuance. This way, the event will stay within the Fan page, even after the event date. It’s an automated archive of all your company events – and that is valuable for your reputation history.

My point of this post is to show that DIY does not work with Social Media. People like myself who are specialists in this area know that it takes a daily effort of analysis and research to get it right in Social Media. And things are ever-changing in the online world, so for the lay person to keep up is difficult, and sometimes even impossible.

Khalil, I hope this answers your question.

The City of Los Angeles uses Google Apps

I mentioned LA’s move to Google Apps briefly in yesterday’s post, but I think I need to share some more detail. If a small business or even a large business moves to Cloud Computing it’s a big thing – but when an entire City does, then I think we should take note.

In October 2009 the City of Los Angeles moved it’s 34, 000 employees to Google Apps, replacing its Novell GroupWise system. The move has costed around $7.25 million, but Los Angeles officials believe that it will save millions of dollars in software licensing, maintenance, and storage costs while improving security.

Patrick Thibodeau reported in a Computerworld article:

Los Angeles spent months negotiating a contract with Google that includes a provision providing the city with unlimited damages if its nondisclosure agreement (NDA) is breached by Google, said Kevin Crawford, the assistant general manager of IT for Los Angeles and the person who is managing the transition…Los Angeles data will be administered from inside LA’s firewall by city staffers through an administrative console built by Google, said Crawford. “We have control of our portion of the data….”We’re going to have a more secure system then we have today,” said Crawford, noting that Google personnel does more work on security “than we could ever afford to do.”

The same article reveals an interesting decision about Microsoft Office:

Los Angeles isn’t forcing employees to abandon Microsoft Office, since it already owns licenses for it. But the city won’t be buying new Office licenses for the next 12 months, and then will assess with various departments about whether they still need it, said Crawford. “Our best guess is that for somewhere between 60% and 80% of the staff, Google apps will meet all of their office productivity needs,” he said.

Los Angeles is the second largest city in the US, but not the first to adopt Google Apps. It has been preceded by Washington DC and Orlando, FL.

Randi Levin, Chief Technology Officer, City of Los Angeles:

Google Apps will also help conserve resources in the city’s Information & Technology Agency (ITA), which is responsible for researching, testing & implementing new technologies in ways that make Los Angeles a better place to live, work and play. Because the email and other applications are hosted and maintained by Google, ITA employees who previously were responsible for maintaining our email system can be freed up to work on projects that are central to making the city run.

That’s the beauty of Google Apps. It means all your staff do not need to worry about email and related applications. That’s Google’s problem now. What about the savings…

By ITA estimates, Google Apps will save the city of Los Angeles millions of dollars by allowing us to shift resources currently dedicated to email to other purposes. For example, moving to Google will free up nearly 100 servers that were used for our existing email system, which will lower our electricity bills by almost $750,000 over five years. In short, this decision helps us to get the most out of the city’s IT budget.

This is phenomenal! Many companies don’t realise that Google Apps brings savings on items like servers (and remember these have huge maintenance costs too), as well as electricity.

This installation, across 34 city departments, was scheduled over a few months. Now keep in mind that the installation does not consist of any physical hardware. This is Cloud Computing. What takes time is adding users, creating groups, providing training, transferring data, and that sort of thing. A change to a City cannot happen in one day, even if the new infrastructure resides totally on the Internet.

Kevin Crawford, Assistant General Manager, Information Technology Agency, City of Los Angeles:

Google Apps is going to provide us capabilities mostly in the collaboration, disaster recovery, and archiving that we don’t currently have today…The product is going to make it easier for people to work together….Somebody’s on vacation, somebody’s on a business trip somewhere, they can sign into their Google system just as they can from their desk in their office.

The important points of collaboration and mobility are pointed out here. Google Apps makes this all so easy.

What does Randi say about email?

Email is vital to the inner workings of the city. There was a general dissatisfaction with our current email system. It can’t work on certain devices, people’s frustrations with the size of the mailboxes have really reached a peak. I didn’t want something that was going to require hours and hours of training. I wanted something that was going to be easy for them to use, intuitive, and something they can have when they’re at their desk, and when they’re out in their car, or when they’re out in the field.

And the big ROI question? And productivity?

Our ROI could be upwards to about $20 million, which includes increased productivity… With the Google solution, because of the way the whole system is architected, the availability of the system is increased. We’ll have more security, our data’s going to be much safer with the new system… For example they could do video chat and do their meetings that way as opposed to people driving into City Hall every day for a meeting… We’re going to see huge productivity savings, particularly when we train the organisation on how to use shared documents.

What makes things even more interesting, is that just last week Google launched the Google Apps Marketplace. I blogged about it here.

Does Google Apps implementation have to cost $7.25 million? Of course not. LA has 34, 000 employees. It’s likely your company is not that big.

Do you want to simply your communication, documentation, and collaboration processes? Do you want to eliminate server hardware and application software costs? Do you want to eliminate in-house and contracted IT support costs? Then Google Apps is for you. If you’re interested, contact us, we’ll get your hooked up.

For now, why don’t you watch this video of the City of Los Angeles’ move to Google Apps…

Do less, outsource everything else

Ownership is so last century. It’s time to liberate ourselves and enjoy what technology affords us. In my opinion, we have two advantages which we should really be making use of.

Firstly, we have the opportunity to be specialists. The time is over for generalists. We no longer want to deal with one company that does everything – because we know that each avenue of expertise is so deep and advanced, that a generalist company can only scratch the surface of each of these avenues. Specialists can go to the depths. We want people who eat, sleep, and talk their expertise. Industries and businesses are evolving at such a rapid rate, that a generalist is no longer a valuable asset. And being specialists, we should be doing less. Being an effective specialist means doing less. It means being focused. It means choosing when and how we want to work. It means choosing the type of clients we want to work for. It means redefining success.

Seth Godin says in Small is the new big that, “Maybe you need to be a lot pickier about what you do and for whom you do it.” He continues by sharing the following…

Dan, a real-estate developer I met recently, told me that he does one new investment a year. It’s not unusual for his competition to do ten or a hundred deals in the same period of time. What Dan told me, though, really resonated: “In any given year, we look at a thousand deals. One hundred of them are pretty good. One is great.” By only doing the great deals, Dan is able to make far more money than he would if he did them all. He can cherry-pick because his goal isn’t volume.

Secondly, we should outsource everything that is not core to our business. It is common place today for companies to have employees stationed around the globe, working remotely. It’s even more common place to use individuals and companies to do secondary tasks. Once we set ourselves free and relinquish control, we have the opportunity to engross ourselves in what our mission is. Tim Ferris is a master at this. You should pick up his book The 4-Hour Work Week wherein he expounds on ideas to liberate ourselves from limited and ancient thinking patterns.

Even the City of Los Angeles, California has outsourced it’s email and communication infrastructure to Google. In October 2009, the city replaced its Novell GroupWise system with Google Apps. The city estimated the move at around $7.25 million, but Los Angeles officials believe the move will save millions in software licensing, maintenance, and storage costs while improving security. Email (as well as other communication items) are now outsourced to Google. This is phenomenal.

Randi Levin, Chief Technology Officer, City of Los Angeles:

City employees fulfill a range of important functions – from policing our streets to supplying water and power to city residents and businesses, and from operating our libraries to designing and building wastewater treatment plants and other public facilities. We want to provide all these employees with modern tools that help them do their jobs.

Outsourcing is something that we as entrepreneurs really need to get our heads around. And quickly. Inside of our businesses, we also need to learn to delegate more. Outsourcing is a type of delegation, but it technically refers to delegating to external resources. Warren Buffet: “We delegate almost to the point of abdication.”

Tim Ferris goes a step further though. He says, “Eliminate before you delegate.”

He explains…

Never automate something that can be eliminated, and never delegate something that can be automated or streamlined. Otherwise, you waste someone else’s time instead of your own, which now wastes your hard-earned cash.

This is a subject that I’m passionate about, so I plan to write much more on it over the coming weeks…

Photo credit: cliche

Reuters gets constrictive

News giant Reuters has released a Social Media Policy and has even made it available online – you can read it here. Reuters is instructing it’s journalists on how to manage Social Media interactions. There’s a part of me that has empathy for them. The Social Media landscape can be scary for corporations which have had dominance for many years. I understand that. That’s the reason that “Small is the new big” as the title of Seth Godin’s book suggests.

For the most part I think the policy is fine, but what I think is going to hurt Reuters in the long term is the seemingly tight-fisted stance and mindset that the powers that be have developed regarding Social Media. My concern is that which is in between the lines of their policy, not that which is on the lines of it. Things have changed, and embracing Social Media with more openness would be much more in their interest.

The policy says, “… we also need to make sure that you are fully aware of the risks — especially those that threaten our hard-earned reputation for independence and freedom from bias or our brand.” A clear indication of trying to hang onto the (controlled) past.

The first item I strongly disagree with is that journalists are not allowed to break news on Twitter. This is a huge mistake. News is breaking on Twitter anyway, from citizen journalists, from the general populous, and yes – even from the major news brands. There is absolutely no way of currently escaping this.

The second is this: “Wikipedia, the online “people’s encyclopedia”, can be a good starting point for research, but it should not be used as an attributable source. Do not quote from it or copy from it.” Wikipedia is not just a dump of unverified content. Reuters management should watch this very enlightening TED video: Jimmy Wales on the birth of Wikipedia.

I agree with this article on Mashable where it states that “…The policy as a whole is a fascinating read and exposes that Reuters, as a media organization, is torn between encouraging employees to use social media and the realization that the online behaviors of their staff put them at risk…” Reuters is taking an opposing stance to BBC and Sky News who are strongly supporting the Social Media trend.

It’ll be interesting to see how this unfolds in the near future. What do you think?

Photo credit: wakingtiger

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