Archisand sculpts the Intel logo at BlogHer '11

Its been a long hot (hottest on record in Austin) summer and its nowhere close to over.

But it has been rich in experiences and inspiration.  The launch of Google+?  The fundamental change in the way we experience earthquakes and hurricanes due to social media?  Interesting enough to get me to follow @irene, but definitely not over the inspiration bar.

This summer, I have had a number of seemingly chance encounters with what I have come to know as “sandsculpting”.  It began when my best friend took her sand work on our annual beach trip just a bit more seriously this year – constructing the “Sand Turtle” still discussed by my 4 year old.  But I don’t think I consciously knew that sandsculpting a professional pursuit until it was out in force at BlogHer’11 (see above).

But it was not the beauty of the creations, but the reasons for pursuing sandsculpting that inspired me to find a renewed love of my own work.  In addition to doing their thing at BlogHer, Archisand had recently built a huge display of scenes from Sydney Harbor at the US Open of Surfing earlier in the week (Video Here).  A colleague who had spoken to them there told me their unofficial story. They were a group of talented architects who got burnt out on what they were using their talents on at work and started making extreme sand castles to blow off steam and flex their creativity.  Eventually some of them were able to turn it into a fiscally responsible pursuit.

This got me thinking about the limiting mindset that much of solid social strategy is “block and tackle”.  The relentless pursuit of relationship and connection can be tedious and exhausting – if we let it.  But good strategy doesn’t have to be “eating your wheaties” alone.  While the basics must be done, it is doing them beautifully that will inspire yourself and those around you.  I have found new inspiration in big, creative sandcastles of ideas (built on the firm base of solid strategy) and insodoing have reawakened my love of my own profession.

If your social strategy has been in motion for a year or more without a second opinion or a new shot of creativity, use your knowledge the weekend eyes of an architect to sandsculpt it into something new that re-inspires you and will be more likely to inspire your customers.

Co-Creation – 5 minutes after the theater doors opened, the stage was covered with cards, letters and notes with heartfelt requests of favorites, standards and covers for Bruce & the band.  He read some of the notes on stage and, while he jokingly responded to someone yelling an arcane request “we’ll play what we like”, he definitely made a point of letting the audience shape the show.  The fact that every show is different drives nerds like me to research setlists and hit multiple tourstops.

Transparency – There is no rockstar or even jazz virtuoso posturing.  Bruce chose to play the highly-requested Harbor Lights solo and explained that it was because the band hadn’t played it fully orchestrated in so long that they would be rusty.  He also apologized in advance for 1 tune that wasn’t good in sound check, but they needed to get used to playing it live (still sounded great).  And for the first time I’ve ever heard, he ended the show saying “I know times are tight and I really appreciate you all coming out”.

Surprises, Mashups, Inside Jokes - Bruce performed a live debut, played the dulcimer (which I had never seen him do), and pulled off a couple of song mashups that were headscratchers even for me.  The encore was technically 1 song – Mandolin Rain – but jammed through pieces of the lesser known Shadow Hand, Halcyon Days and the Dead song Black Muddy River for those hardcore fans hanging on every note.  Another little fun shoutout was a Sopranos nod with “Got Yourself a Gun” during an earlier tune.  Newcomers may not even notice, but there is an element of discovery makes repeat customers feel lke insiders.

Remember Your Roots – 10 – 15 years ago, Bruce regularly also had a live feature where he invited women on stage to dance to Rainbow’s Cadillac.  I even found a video of this happening at his show on millenium eve – memorable because the weight of the women broke the revolving stage (and yes, I was there).  Listen for the chorus of “Women are Smarter” in the song.   I hadn’t seen him do it in a while, and as the picture at the head of this post shows, he brought it back because “they finally got the stank back on it”.  That’s Bruce on top of the piano playing the accordian.   Another example of honoring roots is Bruce always playing The Way It Is, End of The Innocence, and Mandolin Rain.  This is that moment of recall for those who may be less familiar with his work and a chance for him to really push the envelope on how he twists and turns 20+ year old tunes.

Give it Away Now – If you love something set it free.  Bruce’s new record company has just put up a complete livestream of his new album – 5 weeks before release.  Will it stop me from buying the real thing?  Far from it.  It gets me excited now and has me making more concert plans.

All of the above principles give me a real, multidimensional story to tell about Bruce.  Are you feeding your customers’ hunger for conversational capital?

In the last 48 hours, there have been some mainstream media articles pointing fingers at Twitter, where #swineflu has been the #1 or #1 trend for the last 3 days, as the culprit of spreading hysteria and bad information.  While I’m not particularly interested in long tail analysis on swine flu OR in taking medical advice from my Tweeps, social media can be a quick and powerful way to amplify some very credible sources of health information.  Looking at Twitter as a detriment is pointless when it can have power to spread correct information.  The CDC has embraced the tool and the 3 month old @cdcemergency handle is up to almost 40k followers who want to get their health information from the horse’s mouth, but on a platform that they already embrace.

Ogilvy in Asia has additionally put together a very helpful aggregation of up-to-the-minute credible sources of health information on the Swine Flu.  If you are wondering about something you have seen on facebook, the news, heard from a friend, etc, this is a great resource to check that information against the CDC and WHO.

Another source for interesting analysis from the science side can be found over at ScienceBlogs.com which has put together a great collection of perspectives on the issue from a peer-reviewed, science-based, hysteria-free perspective.  And with that, I’m off to wash my hands for the 5th time today.

Recently, I had the distinct pleasure of hearing Jeffrey Eugenides speak about the writing of his Pulitzer winning novel Middlesex.

As Prof. Eugenides was talking about the NINE YEAR experience of researching, writing and rewriting, it struck me that his craft is in some ways the ultimate MACROmedia – the antithesis of trying to distill your thoughts into 140 characters and belching them out in real time.  There were, however, a number of nuggets of wisdom that he shared as a novelist to which a social media content creator can relate:

1) Eugenides shared that the most hated comment he receives after introducing himself is “I always wanted to be a novelist – I just never had the time” – implying that pretty much anyone could write a Pulitzer Prize winning novel given enough “time off”.  On the social media front, we often hear “How do you find time for that crazy stuff?  I’m too busy!”  Social media can indeed save you time used correctly and allows you to maintain more and different types of relationships at once.  It does not replace the in person networking that most businesspeople consider to be part of their careers, but it can greatly enhance it.  In short, you make time for the things you deem important and once you do, you’ll be surprised how efficient you get.  (Check out Ian Sohn’s great piece on making time for social media here).

2) “You can’t do too much research, but you can put too much in your book.” This is a helpful guiding principle to anyone who gives presentations on a regular basis.  The point of a presentation is never to download the complete exhaustive sum total of your knowledge on a subject – it is to include only what is relevant to your audience in a way that is compelling and will make an impression on them.

3) Individual identity trumps gender.  “I” is more important than “he” or “she”. This is a takeaway specifically from Eugenides’ struggle with the challenge of writing from the perspective of an intersex narrator, but I found it to be an applicable concept to my life.  Social media and the ways it allows us to express ourselves – in words, images, avatars, and connections enables self definition and expression that breaks the old business rules.  Social media can help us defy the paths that used to be set by education, company, old boy networks, etc.  Social media + the economic flat spin should make this even more true – the time is now to craft your own social media “I”.

There are some other interesting nuggets in the Ben/Jackie interplay in that video that piqued my interest.

Does a book indicate authority?: When Perez Hilton comes up, they reconsider whether or not he may be an “Authority” when the fact that he has a new book up gets mentioned.  Initially I chuckled at the idea of having a book giving you street cred in the church’s eyes, but then I reconsidered.  Writing a book usually indicates that the author has done a huge amount of research into a particular topic and (often) has some personal experience or connection to the topic that gives them further credibility.

Are authority and influence the same thing?: Jackie asks this as “Are the things that you say retweeted?” Ben by positing that “You are an authority if you have people who take your word and take action”.  I think both of these are less about authority and more about influence.   From the wikipedia entry on this authority: “What distinguishes authority, from coercion, force and power on the one hand and leadership, persuasion and influence on the other hand, is legitimacy.”  I do think that its possible for an authority to not have a large group of people listening to them.  Similarly many people can take action on what Britney Spears telegraphs, but I’m not sure this makes her an authority at anything other than influence.

Have online celebrities convinced themselves they are real celebrities? Ben and Jackie included some fun Twitterati mentions of folks that I really enjoy who really are caught up in their follower count.  Stay tuned for G4′s “Twitterati: Where are they now” series in 2014.

Thanks to Ben & Jackie for the inspiration this morning!

1) CHECK RSS TWICE A DAY.  Not 100x/ day, not 0x/ day.   I have a tendency to either get totally engrossed in other work and forget about the outside world, or to obsessively look for each incoming update.   Moderation in all things.

2) TWEET MEANINGFULLY.  This is hard.  While I believe slice-of-life entries are a great enhancement to your Twitter profile, it is important to keep the “signal to noise ratio” (in the words of Jeremy Epstein) high.  These last two weeks off have been primarily noise – beautiful noise, but noise nonetheless – but 2009 is going to be all about signal!

3) ENJOY CONNECTIONS; NOT COMMERCE.  Pre-Christmas browsing started me down the road to acquisition obsession.  Every luxury e-tailer having unheard of sales was more fuel on the fire.  It’s over. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twit2Fit, and SWOM provide shared value for me and my network and are about connections, not commercialism.

4) NO CASUAL GAMES.  These are the online equivalent of the junk food french fries that I vowed to kick in 2008 (and 2007, 2006, etc).  My current poison, having graduated from Bejeweled, is a little something that I like to call Big Money. (Warning: Click link at your own time-sucking risk).  Similar to Wesleyan Tetris that came within a hair of preventing me from completing my Junior year independent study in college, I need to go cold turkey.

5) MAKE BLOGGING A ROUTINE PRIORITY.  I am fairly regimented and take great joy in going to the the gym.  Because of that, I make time for it.  I plan to do the same for blogging in 2009.

6) REFOCUS. I also plan to return to the core purpose of this blog – highlighting the great work of specific brands in connecting with their customers.  This is the true meaning of “Marketing Environmentalism” and will be particularly important in these tough economic times.

My biggest offline resolution of 2009 is to have more fun.  I believe that trying to cut some of my “junk” online time – focusing on strengthening my knowlege, skills, and interpersonal connections – will help create the time to do what’s important offline: going to the playground with my son, to a restaurant with my husband, or outside to enjoy friends and DC.

In a nutshell, the site allows you to “search for, compare, and share recipes” from popular recipe clearinghouse sites.  The comparison is unique.  It is a side by side look – allowing you to compare amounts and varieties by type of ingredient – like you would comparison shop for appliances or cars.

So…what audience is going to find this feature the most valuable?  As a non-foodie, it is very easy for me to see the value beyond folks who spend hours trying to make sure they are optimizing their pumpkin pie recipes (in all honesty, I actually HAVE gone through this process to find the ultimate macaroni & cheese recipe and it was pretty painful without this tool).   What about people trying to lose weight and find lighter versions of their favorites?  Or heads of household who are cooking for families with food allergies who need to make substitutes?

What would your advice be to the founders of RecipeComparison.com on how to get the word out about the site and its unique features (others include being able to keep a record of searches cross-recipe sites)?  Where would you start?

On Wednesday, I’ll post the advice that I gave to the founders, but in the meantime, I know they would appreciate collecting ALL the best practices and suggestions they can.  Bring it on!

Evidently I am not alone.  Maybe it was seeing poor ancient Tom Brokaw attempting to wring value from the final presidential debate, maybe it was running into Tim’s son Luke on the streets of my neighborhood, but I started poking around to see if there are others who feel the same.  Tim left us almost 4 months ago now, but the loss to the nation seems heightened because of this nasty election +economy one-two punch.

If you feel the same, check out the official MySpace tribute page featuring a greeting from Luke or 1 of the 187 tribute groups on Facebook.  There have been a few new comments on these tributes in these last 48 hours since the debate.  But for an immediate pulse on the emotion of the country, there’s nothing like Twitter.

The image above is just a snippet of the interesting Tim related tweets from the last few hours – you can check out the most up to date Russert tweets here – Maybe this is yet an additional use for Twitter – a tool to host a collective, primal scream for what we lost on June 13, 2008.

RIP.  Elections and Sunday mornings will never be the same.

I’m sorry – what?  “WHERE ARE THE LOCATIONS BRUCE IS PLAYING AT?”  Did the webmaster need to go this far out of his way to ruin the construction of this sentence?  How about the simple “Where is Bruce playing?” There’s no need to bring locations into this and certainly no need to abuse a perfectly good “at” by forcing it to dangle at the end of the question.

But, does it matter?  Does your brand suffer for using incorrect or inappropriate language to communicate with your core audience?

While I was mildly perturbed about the situation, I decided to reach out to a true grammar authority – Jennifer Goff, formerly “Grammar Police” at Brains on Fire – and ask her if she thinks good grammar matters.  In fitting style, she put it better than I ever could:

How you say something can be as powerful as what you say. Good grammar/spelling/language,

however you want to look at it, it’s the lowest common denominator of communication. And when I come across a person or a company or a brand that hasn’t taken that minimal time to just proofread, it makes me wonder what other details they’ll miss in my relationship.

gonna be some changes, changes made
can’t keep on doing what i’ve been doing these days
look in the mirror I see a clown’s face
gotta take it off, gotta get myself straight

• Some of the earliest examples of social media promoted the collective good – user reviews on restaurants or local businesses benefit the whole because when there is good food, we all win.
• And then there’s altruism/karma. If I waste $20 on a bad movie or discover a great book, chances are I may write a brief review just to let you know. It doesn’t really benefit me immediately, but I benefit from the reviews of others so its a positive cycle. Like blogging, this also appeals to ego.
• And then, of course, the fuzzy satisfaction of our ever-increasing digital interconnections. We Link, we Friend, we Match, we validate each other’s existence on the interweb by remarking on each other’s photos and vying for spots on blogrolls and in RSS feeds.

So where does the gnarly world of real estate fall in this spectrum? In most transactions, there is a winner and a loser. Can that dynamic thrive in social media? Trulia certainly doesn’t answer the call – it is little more than another online listing service with some Y!answers tacked on. And the dozens of MLS listing sites are just push marketing.

Enter FranklyMLS, claiming to be “The First Wiki MLS“. The wiki is built up by buyer’s agents – not the agents marketing the homes. In addition to the listing info, these agents add their own photos and important factual data that would be strategically missing from a seller’s MLS listing such as homes backing up to busy streets, being located under an overpass, having bizarre neighbors, etc. It is by no means an elegant UI, but the wiki contains meaty data and its sorting an searching features are tight. The FranklyMLS wiki saves the other buyer’s agents a lot of time and creates a great resource for those of us trying to wrap our arms around the concept of commuting 40 minutes to get to a house priced at $500 per square foot. In a recession.

Frank’s schtick “Don’t Buy! Ask Why!” is that listing agents can’t be trusted and you deserve to work with someone who will tell you the truth. The wiki extends the seller vs. buyer divide, but unites buyers and their representatives to share data as they search for deals that meet their needs. So while there isn’t a current solution for all parties to hug it out in social media, Frank has taken a big step for frightened buyers like me and I appreciate it. Now will someone give this great idea a cosmetic facelift?