In 1999, the Cluetrain Manifesto was ahead of its time and in a lot of respects it remains there. Like so much of the book, one passage that is even more relevant today...
“We are not seats or eyeballs or end users or consumers.
We are human beings and our reach exceeds your grasp. Deal with it.”
They Are The Future. We Must Deal With It.
Kneale Mann
visual credit: phdworldwide
January 27, 2012
January 24, 2012
Is it Business or a Hobby?
In the last four or five years, I have met more entrepreneurs than the previous two decades. Some is through my work and some is the time spent on the social web.
We can get intoxicated by the numbers and paralyzed by the activity. Many have confided that they have spent a lot of time trying to build their online presence yet business isn’t where it needs to be and it’s time to get serious. Building business takes time and hard work. Building a strong online presence for your business can seem like an endless climb.
Collaboration: Working together to achieve a goal, a process where two or more people work together to realize shared goals.
I was speaking with a colleague recently about how to do a better job articulating offers and reaching prospective clients. She said, "It’s time to sell the hobby farm”. Of course it wasn't a shot at farming, which is an essential part of our survival but rather a metaphor that relates to figuring out how much time we are spending building a business versus how much we spend messing about and calling it business. Think of the wasted meetings and busy work compared to time spent actually growing your people and the company.
It would be easy to say this is only a concern of small business owners but this type of mentality can infiltrate leadership within all sizes of enterprise. Large organizations can fall victim of the activity verses progress conundrum. We can stay busy or we can help each other inside our organizations and across industries and the social web.
Let's Connect Not Collect
Kneale Mann
image credit: lego
Collaboration: Working together to achieve a goal, a process where two or more people work together to realize shared goals.
I was speaking with a colleague recently about how to do a better job articulating offers and reaching prospective clients. She said, "It’s time to sell the hobby farm”. Of course it wasn't a shot at farming, which is an essential part of our survival but rather a metaphor that relates to figuring out how much time we are spending building a business versus how much we spend messing about and calling it business. Think of the wasted meetings and busy work compared to time spent actually growing your people and the company.
It would be easy to say this is only a concern of small business owners but this type of mentality can infiltrate leadership within all sizes of enterprise. Large organizations can fall victim of the activity verses progress conundrum. We can stay busy or we can help each other inside our organizations and across industries and the social web.
Let's Connect Not Collect
Kneale Mann
image credit: lego
January 21, 2012
Clay Shirky says SOPA and PIPA are Bad
Millions have been vocal online lately about two pieces of legislation in Congress in the United States. One is SOPA - the Stop Online Piracy Act and the other is PIPA - the Protect Intellectal Property Act
Mainstream media have been trying to figure out a way to stop us from sharing (and in some people’s minds, stealing) content for years. This has taken the Napster issue to a level no one ever imagined. If you create content, I think you should be compensated. But it's not as simple as to label us thieves with a sweeping piece of legislation.
Mega sites like Wikipedia and Google created online petitions against SOPA and PIPA and millions signed them. At the moment, the U.S. Congress has chosen to put these decisions on hold. But this is clearly not the end. And it won't remain on American soil so this affects everyone, even those of us who live elsewhere.
Clay Shirky discusses SOPA and PIPA in this TED Talk
Kneale Mann
visual credit: TED | Clay Shirky
Mainstream media have been trying to figure out a way to stop us from sharing (and in some people’s minds, stealing) content for years. This has taken the Napster issue to a level no one ever imagined. If you create content, I think you should be compensated. But it's not as simple as to label us thieves with a sweeping piece of legislation.
Mega sites like Wikipedia and Google created online petitions against SOPA and PIPA and millions signed them. At the moment, the U.S. Congress has chosen to put these decisions on hold. But this is clearly not the end. And it won't remain on American soil so this affects everyone, even those of us who live elsewhere.
Clay Shirky discusses SOPA and PIPA in this TED Talk
Kneale Mann
visual credit: TED | Clay Shirky
