Today, when someone mentions a social media job, it’s almost always a marketing job. This is all wrong. Social media pertains to every industry. Not just marketing. And I’m tired of it being bastardized by coat-riders.

I was using social media in 2000 on forums. It’s how I learned my art. Or the beginnings of it. I started blogging in 2003 long before Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

When panelists say, “I’d look at LinkedIn” or, “I’d look at Facebook” when asked what source they would look to if they could only choose one in the hiring process… I want to smack my face!

Why are you going to rely on user-generated content to validate an employee. Ask Yahoo! And their board how that worked out for them.

I can say anything I want. CS degree from University of Maryland (Go Terps!) and 6 years of experience using social media (true, I was a Twitter early adopter and a Facebook member in 2006 when they opened up their walled garden to non-college students). It doesn’t make it true!

But I’m not the guy they want. They want someone with digital marketing experience.

So why the fuck are they looking at FB or LI??

I mean, the bar is set low, right?

I’ve got 10kish followers on Twitter. I must be important. Maybe not as important as, say, @katyperry, but I must be an awesome communicator…

Hahah. Do you see the bullshit I tweet? And my follower count keeps going up! And people still want to hire me for their bullshit marketing jobs!

Common sense… Checked out.

Ronald Reagan said, “Trust yet verify”. Clearly Yahoo! didn’t do that.

And here’s the crux. You’re trusting marketers looking for a job to paint an accurate picture of themselves on social networks that are infested with self-aggrandizing?

“Oh I know the CEO of Startupr… The instagram of photo sharing”.

O RLY? Do tell!

Fuck that noise.

There’s a reason the FBI, CIA and NSA do extensive background checks and polygraphs. And the polys have to be re-upped. Every 5 years. Do we still trust him? Can we verify? Has he cheated on his wife and is he susceptible to blackmail? Same with credit checks. If he needs money, what will he do with our secrets?

(I’d fail)

So stop blowing smoke and hand-jobbing people. That communication intern may be cheap but he’s got 6 months experience and has no LinkedIn quality.

Look at GitHub. That’s social media. Oh but damn… It’s not marketing. Yeah but the code is public and you can bet on ACTUAL data rather that user-generated data.

By the way… I graduated from Stanford.

Honey Badger don't care! (Photo used under Creative Commons. Taken by Bruce McAdam)

It’s been awhile since I ranted. Like really ranted. I’m about to change that.

<rant>

It’s no secret that social media marketing has turned largely douchey. Self-important blowhards show up at SXSW, Blog World Expo and many other industry events every year with the sole purpose of being socialites and schmoozing with their peers and getting into the hottest parties. I’ve done it. We’ve all done it.

But there’s no authenticity in any of it. We call those self-labelled social media gurus as social media douchebags for a reason. It’s because no one (with rare exception) is actually doing real marketing. They are doing friend-mongering. If they can get their clients Facebook likes and Twitter followers then they are being successful. But largely, all they are doing is going to their network of peers who are doing the same goddamn thing and getting them to “Like” their clients Facebook page.

How is this genuine? How is this legitimate? Do I really like Ford because Scott Monty is the head of social media for Ford? Well, I might… and I do like Scott… and I haven’t actually interacted with Scott in a long time so this actually has nothing to do with him.

I added someone who I met in a non-professional setting in Chicago last week to Facebook. I joked with her that it’s surprising we weren’t already friends because we had 41 friends in common.

Why is social media all about clustering together? By all means, we see mutual respect among journalists, but I bet Paul Krugman isn’t tweeting Thomas Friedman asking for a retweet simply to get exposure to his economic op-eds. He doesn’t have to. His work speaks for itself and amplifies itself.

If we dig deep on the social media marketing industry, the discovery under the surface is mind-numbing. I’m about to blow your mind. Social Media people have no clout (or Klout, if you want to play on that metaphor). If they did, their work would self-amplify. They wouldn’t need to look like industry hookers trying to make money with the only assets available to them. They would just… be. And they would be successful. And they wouldn’t have to prove to their clients that they can get the job done. They wouldn’t need to add milestones like “Acquire 1000 Likes on the company Facebook page” or “Build up to 5000 followers on Twitter using mutual retweet tactics” to proposals. Their reputation would precede them. They wouldn’t need to write a book to falsely inflate their value. They would have reputation.

Take Dean McBeth, who I also met last week. Dean works for a small boutique agency in New York. I had never heard of Dean personally, but then he informed me that his claim to fame was architecting the now-legendary Old Spice ads. Ok, your reputation precedes you, then, Dean. Thanks for not asking me to let my network of people know to Like your agency on Facebook.

Look, I understand that there are people like Dean doing great work. For every Dean, however, there are 5 people doing shitty work, relying way to heavily on nerd cred and too little on reputation and results.

People earn their reputations through hard work, perseverence, and time. Yes, that involves networking and schmoozing. But there is no credibility lent to your client by getting a bunch of your friends to “do you a solid” and help you get your work done. If you need 1000 Likes on Facebook, don’t ask me to help unless it’s something that I genuinely like. I’m not going to follow you because you follow me on Twitter. I don’t care about your client… you do. Do good work and let it self-amplify. Otherwise it’s all smoke and mirrors.

</rant>

Update: If you still feel like you need to get a handjob, here’s a list of Social Media conferences where you can meet people, follow them on Twitter for the purpose of using your network for the benefit of your client later down the road.

So basically, I haven’t had a lot of time to myself. So I took time. In the past few months, I’ve taken some large consulting contracts, but mostly, I’ve spent time travelling to Maryland, Seattle, Chicago – all for pleasure, nothing for work. I’ve spent time trying to weigh my priorities and wants. I’ve tossed around starting up a new company or doing something different.

At the end of the day, now that it’s 2012, I know what I want to do. It’s a bit unusual, but I think it’s important and can really revolutionize a boutique agency. I’m not comfortable doing social media work. I’m too honest and raw in my own online presence and many companies and clients may not be comfortable with my level of authenticity.

I also don’t want to do what is common among agencies – sweatshop site development. Hey, no offense. That’s what it is. Take on 30 new clients, promise them websites that are the brainchilds of the agency marketing “expertise” and ask the developers to crank them out with little to no strategic or creative input.

That might work for some developers, but I’m not a normal developer. I’m a highly established WordPress professional that has commanded 5 figure consulting deals, written a 700+ page book on the subject and have built some of the most complex WordPress solutions I’ve ever seen (Humble brag! Also proprietary, but can provide in person demos). I’m not a good fit for sweatshop site generation.

You know what agencies need that no one is doing because no one has taken the time to think outside the box? A skunkworks division. What agencies need to differentiate themselves from the thousands of other agencies they are competing with is a person or small group of people with autonomy and who are focused soley on creating disruptive technologies that no one else is doing. Try things. Fail at some, succeed at others. Test market demand. Offer exclusive access to stuff that no other agency has. Innovate, innovate, innovate.

That’s what I want to do. And someone sees the sense in that. And someone realizes that that is worth thinking outside the box for. Someone is willing to invest in that competitive advantage. Someone gets it. It’ll take money. It’ll take risk. It’ll take balls of steel. Or you can be normal. Who wants to be normal?

So as we enter 2012, I am open to conversations around this or other creative outlets you might want to explore if you want a competitive advantage. Email me at aaron@technosailor.com.

Back in those days, there was a small enough pool of users that, hey, if someone followed you, you followed them back. It was just that simple. Many of us set up scripts that would automatically follow anyone who followed us. It was karma. It was social. It was how the changing face of the Internet made “us” better than “them”.

As all things go, however, Twitter began to jump the shark. People started using Twitter to push their products and agendas instead of simply communicating. We were like the proverbial frog in the boiling pot of water, many of us not realizing until it was too late, that the reciprocity approach simply wasn’t scaleable. We concocted formulas to rationalize our efforts. We chose not to follow people who had an unbalanced follower to following ratio. We called them spammers. We labeled them as people unable to engage in conversation. We rationalized our own existence on Twitter, all the while boiling ourselves in hot water to the point that our worlds were nothing but noise, and our effectiveness as professionals became nil.

Around the time I had 2000 followers (also roughly 2000 people following), I stopped following everyone back. This was almost two years ago. Organically, I grew to 8500+ people following me in return simply because I was interesting and people wanted to follow interesting people. The concept of equivalency was tossed out the window by most people while the “influencers” kept talking up the idea of equivalency. I only followed people I had actually met.

Still, the noise became too much. There was no real way to come back from the brink. I had long ago reached the point where tweets in a tweetstream were at full force. I called it Twitter Terminal Velocity – the point where a tweetstream could not perceptibly travel any faster. And the content was not relevant to my personal or professional life.

Good people. Irrelevant content. Too much noise. This was the problem.

About two weeks ago, I made a drastic move that has improved my life in immesaurable ways. I culled the people I was following from 2800 down to 492 (that number has organically grown since). I had a number of criteria for who I kept – people in Austin (gotta keep my new city close, right?), people in tech (not tech news, not social media… tech!), people in the WordPress community, and real friends.

These are the people that matter to me on a daily basis. They make my life worth it on a personal and professional level. I see all their tweets now.

This is not to offend anyone that got cut. If you talk to me (via a mention), I still see those tweets and most of the time I will engage. I also have keyword searches so relevant conversation surrounding topics of interest are also seen, whether they are directed to me or not. However, in my day to day content consumption, I have made my Twitter experience a much more pure experience.

Today, I find myself more engaged with the people I care about. It’s not about me and my existence and importance. It’s about the people I care about engaging in my world and me in theirs. For instance, I would have never been able to encourage a friend about her father’s deployment to Afghanistan if I had 2800 people I was following. It doesn’t scale. It’s not personal. It’s not real relationships.

In closing, let me give on zing to the social media marketers and networkers. Relationships aren’t about what you do or if your customers care. Relationships aren’t about ROI. Sometimes in relationships, you get nothing in return. But real relationships actually make a difference to ROI and customer care. Just don’t mistake the two for the same thing. They are very far from the same thing.

A market correction is an economic term describes a natural occurrence when a certain market sector becomes “over sold” or hyperinflated, or when a sector becomes irrelevant to the market and is put out of its misery, or re-capitalized. It is a “coming to center” that occurs naturally when there is an imbalance in the system.

We’ve seen macro-economic market corrections in the form of the housing and financial market implosion last year or the dot-com bust of the late 90s. Last year, around this time, the stock market gave up half of its value in a correction that wreaked havoc in every market sector. Even the startup market based largely in Silicon Valley felt the effects as leading venture capital firms started informing portfolio companies of looming doomsday scenarios.

Right now, I’m seeing another kind of market imbalance looming larger as a bubble seeking market correction and that is in the area of payola. Bloggers and social media people, anchored largely, but not at all exclusively, by the mommy-blogger sector, have taken and accepted “bribes” (let’s face it, that’s what these things are) from corporate America to provide coverage of their products. These things come in the form of reviews and can include anything from household cleaning supplies to all expense paid trips to New York, Los Angeles… even London.

There seems to be no limit on what corporations will do because they feel they have to win the favor of a small, but vocal minority group. So corporations, thinking this is the way to do business in the new world, and not understanding that the same principles that have always guided their PR efforts should apply to bloggers as well, willingly open their pocket books to garner that good will.

In a vacuum, the idea that the world has changed due to blogs and social media and thus the way to do business has changed too, makes some sense. But because nature abhors a vacuum, we must look at the economic principles that will force a market correction and will assist corporations back to center for the better of the entire market.

This will not go on because at some point, companies will have to realize the ROI involved in “buying off” bloggers and how they represent themselves and the companies they get paid off by, are not worth the dollar drain that will come from it. Bubble burst.

When this happens, and it will happen soon, the ship will return to center. This does not mean bloggers won’t get to do reviews, but the reviews will not be because of payola, but legitimate business-minded ethics guidelines that have roots in traditional journalism.

The New York Times spells out their guidelines on review material:

76. Staff members who borrow equipment, vehicles or other goods for evaluation or review must return them as soon as possible. Similarly, items borrowed to be photographed, such as fashion apparel or home furnishings, should be returned promptly.

77. Automobile reviewers should carry out their testing expeditiously and return the vehicle promptly. Any period longer than two or three days must be approved by a responsible newsroom manager. A reasonable amount of personal use is permissible if that use contributes to the review.

78. Staff members may keep for their own collections ““ but may not sell or copy “” books, recordings, tapes, compact discs and computer programs sent to them for review. Such submissions are considered press releases. But no one may request extra copies of review materials for personal use. Local management may impose a ceiling on the value of review copies that journalists may retain. If not retained by the reviewer, recorded or digital media, such as tapes or disks, must be destroyed or returned to the provider; they may not be given away or left where they could be carried off for illicit copying.

79. Photographers, camera operators, picture editors, film editors, art directors, lab personnel and technology editors and reporters may not accept gifts of equipment, programs or materials from manufacturers or vendors. They may not endorse equipment, programs or materials, or offer advice on product design. (This guideline is not meant to restrict our technical staff from working with vendors to improve our systems or equipment.)

Of course, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has already weighed in on this stuff (a bit late, but hey, they are now getting involved) updating their disclosure requirements to include bloggers with “material relationships” with any company. Clearly, the beginning of a market correction.

Where the whole bubble gets bizarre is in the strong arming practices of bloggers who believe that they have authority and leverage to for a company to provide freebies for them (believe me, it happens). Somehow, some bloggers believe that by threatening a company, they can get what they want because they are a blogger or personal brand. Let me make it real simple…. that’s illegal. It’s extortion. If the companies don’t stop buying your crap first, you could end up in jail. Just saying.

Takeaways on this idea are this: Companies face a new world of online public relations and community management and they have, so far, played the game that puts bloggers completely in the drivers seat. At some point, the game is going to change and I think that time is very soon. When the game changes and the market corrects, the bloggers who are in the business for free stuff are going to end up on the outside looking in as the market correction takes business back to business, centers, and all industries involved grow up. At that time, the quality of journalism will increase and the effectiveness of blogger-company partnerships will also increase and mature.

Until then, start the clock ticking. The bubble is about to pop.

The problem is that personal branding tends to be self serving. The people who you can identify as “personal brands” also tend to be the same people that require the love and attention of others. Even if they don’t recognize that fact, the heart and soul of the problem is a need to be needed. In psychology, that’s an illness called codependency. In social media, we call it personal branding.

See the problem?

Single women generally will tell you that the guys they are attracted to are the ones who are confident. They don’t like cockiness. It’s a turn off. Confidence, however, is a turn on.

When an individual has a codependency syndrome, they tend to be cocky. It’s an unhealthy adoration of themselves and what they do. However, people like Shashi Bellamkonda of Network Solutions carry themselve in a much more confident way. Something that immensely benefits his employer.

Don’t be cocky. Be confident. Understand your strengths, weaknesses and roles but avoid the pedestal that is sexy for just about every human to want to be on.

Food for thought

Today, I figure I’ll offer some ideas that can move the conversation forward in some kind of constructive way. Wired’s Noah Shachtman covered a white paper released from the National Defense University that approaches Government 2.0 from the perspective of information sharing. While that is indeed a portion of the solution to the greater problem, the military in particular, probably needs to look at broader solutions (and more specific, less 50,000 foot view), as a more effective technology complement to their Mission.

For instance, while simple communication across the various branches of the service is useful for any enterprise, it would pay to address the core war-fighting mission of the military. For instance, a less than 50,000 foot view that suggests “information sharing”, might propose use of mobile devices that utilize GPS information for tactical war-theatre decision making.

Real-time use of video and photography immediately makes data available to analysts requiring split second decisions (such as the split second decision making by the Navy Captain responsible for ordering the sniper takedown of the Somali pirates this weekend).

It is not useful to simply put out generic information about “information sharing” and suggest blogs, wikis and the like are the solution to the problem. While I understand whitepapers are intended to provide a skeletal framework for further action, it is condescending to organizations who already value and understand the need for “information sharing”. What they are looking for is the “hows” and “whats” to achieve their mission.

As stated in previous articles, this is where the “experts” should be focusing. Realistically, those activities will be classified and not published for public consumption. That’s probably the way it should be. The real experts are working internally, inside their organizations, with their constituency – not in the public forum where context and value are lost.

This goes for anyone on the internet. With the social web, it is easy for people to feel like they actually know us. They see us as marketers, branders, celebrities. They see us as subject matter experts and they want our time. Clearly, this was on display at SXSW this past weekend where a simple jaunt to lunch that normally take about 5 mins, would take 20-30 mins because of casual conversation assaults in the hallways.

PHoto by: Jim Storer

Is this a problem? Directly, no. We go to these events to meet people and people are our lifeblood. Without people, we are no one and we have no credibility. Our credibility is wrapped up in our communities, readers, viewers, listeners and those who are influenced by our work. However, the cult of personality as a whole, is a larger problem.

When Mike Arrington was in Europe earlier this year, someone who felt like they knew him (in a negative way) assaulted him with spit to the face. When Kathy Sierra had vicious threats directed at her, she disappeared out of the public eye for some time. Jeremiah Owyang also recently disappeared for different reasons.

We are not wired to be the center of attention. In some sick and twisted way, we love every second of it. Our egos are stroked when adoring fans adore, but we are doused with harsh reality when that attention turns a different direction.

In the past few days, I’ve given a lot of thought to “going dark” – that is, disappearing from public view for a period of time. I still may do that, simply because, my own “celebrity” is beginning to hinder me. As those of us who enjoy immense attention grow into those roles, inevitably we begin to resent it. We hate it. We want to be “normal” whatever “normal” means. We want our lives back.

But at what cost?

In some ways, going dark can be therapeutic. It allows us time to re-examine our priorities, understand our motives and, in general, do soul searching. If done right, we come out the other side with a fresh perspective on life and our livelihoods.

In a negative sense, going dark can have tremendous effect on our social equity. In a “what have you done for me lately” industry, disappearing for some time can completely remove a person and their ability to influence. In some cases, our businesses and careers depend on our presence in the social space.

I don’t have the answers, as I have not “gone dark” at any point. If I do, I’m sure I’ll find my experience will teach me something about the process. It strikes me that a successful sabbatical requires some kind of balance so as not to lose social equity, yet still take enough time to recharge and re-energize.

What is relevant is value. Actual value versus “perceived” value.

Late last night, around 2am, I was plugging away on a client project. Blinded by blurry eyes caused by hours of intense concentration, and creeping exhaustion, I switched over to check on an email that had just rolled in. It was from an editor at a well known financial publication. He was working on a story that asked the question, “What would I do if I lost my job today?” and he was soliciting feedback on a portion of the article dedicated to Twitter.

The portion of the article I read was very good, except that it missed something. It missed, what I call, the “secret sauce”. It described how Twitter worked, how to get followers and made the connection between number of followers and the ability to get a job.

My response to him was that he needed to include the secret sauce in the ingredients. Clearly, the secret sauce wouldn’t be secret if I told the world, so instead, I’ll share it with you as long as you only tell someone else if you find value in it. ;-)

The secret sauce is this: Be valuable.

Recently, as the economy has soured even more, and layoffs continue to happen around us, many people who have benefited from great jobs have found themselves looking for work. Folks who have cultivated massive numbers of followers on Twitter are on the street looking for work and finding it hard to drum up anything. They’ve discovered that despite their social media popularity, they are not necessarily valuable to employers.

Employers are looking for the people that stand up above the crowd. They stick out, not obnoxiously so, but in a smart and efficient way. They are not looking for marketers or personal brand evangelists. They are not looking for celebrities. Indeed, these people might cost them too much anyway.

They are looking for the people who don’t just talk about Health 2.0, for instance, but who clearly demonstrate through their own conversations, writings and actions, that they are valuable!

Marks of value are demonstrated when someone shares their knowledge with someone else who is asking questions. Value can be shown in the ongoing conversation around a topic (It is obvious when someone is simply repeating talking points, and when they know their field). Value is on display in quiet genius, not simply frequency (or loudness) of messages. Someone is clearly valuable when the content they are discussing, respectfully (as a key identifier), is put into action through their careers, thought leadership and social interaction.

Clearly, value is not simply being a subject matter expert, but it is also in the conversational and socially interactive approach that the person assumes. Identifying a valuable person is much easier when they are in their own element and not looking for work or otherwise performing. How they behave among their peers and the respect and authority bestowed on him by his peers is a clear indicator of value, not in a celebrity way, but in an influencer kind of way.

The principles behind the secret sauce on Twitter are the same principles that apply in real life. When former HP CEO Carly Fiorina was forced to resign, the HP Board didn’t put out a job requisition for a new CEO. They identified Mark Hurd, the then CEO of NCR who demonstrated amazing ability in turning NCR around, as the guy they wanted to run Hewlett Packard. It wasn’t because Mark had the right salary requirements, or was out there cultivating his brand on NCRs dollar. In fact, it was exactly the opposite. He was demonstrating his value to NCR so HP went after him.

Value is one of those things that is subjective and hard to achieve. But understanding of the community, the social aspects of people and cultivating a subject matter expertise does begin a person down the road to being valuable. Certainly, there is more that can be said, but probably enough to chew on for now. :)

Tangentially, but still related, the web technology space has clearly been usurped by marketing and communications. When folks refer to a “tech community”, what they really are referring to is the social web community which is now dominated less by actual technology folks and increasingly, and somewhat disturbingly, by marcom folks.

Not that there is anything wrong with that. It’s just not “tech”. It’s community. It’s marketing. It’s public affairs. It’s public relations. It’s brand. It’s reputation management. It’s rarely tech.

And so, the conundrum. What Washington outsiders suggest is “Government 2.0″ is really a marketing campaign. Is that really beneficial? Or even new?

Peter Corbett wrote a great post here the other day suggesting that governmental change and “Web 2.0″ adoption, to paraphrase, can be delivered by building appropriate technology and applications to meet the needs of the government.

Think about this… How can we have Government 2.0, when the government consists of so many divergent niches, industries and missions? On the federal level, there is Congress, Labor, Commerce, Defense, Intelligence, Health, International Development, and the list goes on. On the state and local level, there are Motor Vehicles, taxation agencies, police departments, fire departments, schools. That only constitutes government proper and says nothing for government related organizations like political action committees, lobby groups, NGOs and grassroots political organizations. Again, that’s only in the federal sector.

You can’t apply one solution to the entire government. Understanding of the missional nature of sectors of the government is critical. We should be talking about Commerce 2.0 or Intelligence 2.0, not Government 2.0. And we should certainly not be applying a one size fits all solution that works effectively in the private sector to the public sector without understanding that mission.

Our taxpayer dollars are the sole funding sources for most of these government groups. In a time when taxpayer money is being printed to fund things that can only be funded by taxpayer dollars, the last thing we want is those dollars going to ineffective solutions that don’t extend the mission of the agency, simply to say, for instance, that the Department of Labor is on Twitter.

Why?

Does it fit their mission? Is it effective in protecting the taxpayer interests and extending the mission of Labor?

The Department of Labor fosters and promotes the welfare of the job seekers, wage earners, and retirees of the United States by improving their working conditions, advancing their opportunities for profitable employment, protecting their retirement and health care benefits, helping employers find workers, strengthening free collective bargaining, and tracking changes in employment, prices, and other national economic measurements. In carrying out this mission, the Department administers a variety of Federal labor laws including those that guarantee workers’ rights to safe and healthful working conditions; a minimum hourly wage and overtime pay; freedom from employment discrimination; unemployment insurance; and other income support.

This is an example, of course. I don’t mean to single out the fine public servants over at Labor and, in fact, I cannot speak to anything they are doing with the social web.

Folks, listen up. People have to take a step back and stop trying to apply the same stuff that works out here to what is going on in there. It might work. But then, it might not. Understanding those core missional requirements can help the real experts bring real solutions to the table.

In fact, in many cases, building technology that doesn’t already exist to meet the misssional requirements of agencies that we may never see is not sexy in an era of web celebrity and achievement. In fact, people may never see some of the technology that comes to bear because they simply think that common social networks or blogs are the solution.

If you want to be in this space, you need to protect taxpayer dollars by bringing appropriate solutions to the table, whether public, well known services (if they meet the need) or building apps that make sense to the mission and may never be used outside of that organization.

These are the keys.

Added: Geoff Livingston spoke to the National Park Service and made my point for me. Clearly, he understands the mission and scope of the NPS and is encouraging the proper modes of social media that are compatible to their mission.

In this process, I have interviewed with agencies, political action comittees, social cause organization, activist groups, development shops and even the occasional PR firm. However, by and large, most of these organizations are connected to the Washington government machine in some way.

A question that comes up frequently in interviews, specifically because I have a unique position as “power player” in the web space, is “What is out there that is new that we can use?”

This question has been answered in a variety of ways, being refined for each organization and group. Different folks, different strokes, different spokes.

As an early adopter of most new web technologies, I recognize this question. It is a question that generally stems from the desire to “be relevant” but often doesn’t consider the mission and constituency. So, in an admittedly generic and assumptive way, I’ll answer this question, and leave you scratching your head as to why I get hired for my social media strategery… There is nothing new out there that you can use.

Nothing. Absolutely Zero.

The principles of communication are really simple and have remained consistent over 10,000 years of recorded history… Talk to people the way you would want to be talked to. Give people information the way they want to consume information. If that’s a YouTube video, make a YouTube video (Bonus points if you can articulate a surefire way to make a viral YouTube video! ;-) ). If you have a thousand attorneys on a email newsletter, then communicate with compelling email newsletters (and talk to my buddy, Greg Cangialosi, over at Blue Sky Factory about their solutions). If your constituency wants a “pull” aggregator of interesting related content, give them a Delicious feed. If you are dealing with foreign wars, try to communicate with photography. If you’re dealing with climate change, work with a Google Maps mashup (build one!) showing the effect of rising sea levels and deforestation.

In other words, communications principles always remain the same: communicate with people on their level with respect. The execution of such principles varies according to organization.

Putting aside the “best tool” question, the real question becomes: How will you use the tools available to execute on mission, not simply be sexy?

Answers?

This weekend, I spent a lot of time thinking about our government and the great democracy we live in. We have a new President who is going to save the planet from our greedy selves. He single handedly will stem all sorts of ungodliness in this world with his efficient, Messiah instincts. Obama is my hero, and if he isn’t yours, you should die a bloody death for your unpatriotism.

Already, he has promised that the technology created by an innovative private sector will be a key cornerstone of his administration. Social Media rocks and the Messiah plans to use us, his willing servants, to make change come to pass.

Our next challenge is proving our worth. Rohit Bhargava, of Ogilvy, has a great post today where he implores us to pray to the Messiah that we might be found worthy of his benevolence and servitude in helping.

There are so many areas of the government that require change that we can bring, if they will listen. For instance, we should suggest that all military and paramilitary operations be run through the Digg machine. There is no group better for vetting the enemies of the state, than the Digg crowd who, without filter, dictates to all who may listen exactly what should be targetted. For instance, Digg correctly identifies WordPress, Microsoft and Christians as “Great Satans”. Clearly, we must listen.

If we want to engage in GOA, as Rohit calls it, we should crowdsource White House photography. Clearly, hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money does not need to be spent on a staff photographer when Flickr exists.

And Twitter? @BarackObama is already the most followed man on Twitter. All we need to do, as social media gurus, is ensure that he is tweeting out links to his latest initiatives.

Put the TARP 2 stimulus package on WikiPedia to ensure that the citizens have an adequate chance to offer their own markup and amendments. Representative democracy in action!

I think Rohit is spot on. The more we make government understand social media, the more the power will rest on us. I’m waiting for August Capital to fund a startup that will bring “the keys” and “the suitcase” to us. No one should dictate how nuclear weapons are used or who they should be used on.

This is a parody.

Many times it works out. Effective consultants have built their business on less than reliable third party access. However, there is an inherent risk that your way of life can change without any influence from you.

While Pownce has announced they are closing their doors (And we don’t really believe anyone outside of the Pownce four-some have built any kind of living around the microblogging service), I wonder what it would do to businesses built on the premise of Pownce availability?

The same goes for Twitter, where people have made an entire consultation around the use of Twitter. But what happens when Twitter goes away (and Twitter will go away at some point, undeniably without consultation with these consultants building their business on its existence)?

What happens when you as a consultant are hired to provide surefire, highly effective social media routines that will have a 95% possibility for 3-6 month positive effect on the growth and you recommend Twitter? And Twitter becomes 80% unreliable for an entire month, as it did in June and July?

What happens in a dying economy when companies want real returns and all you can give them is conversations with potential clients, and you have no solid way to convert those conversations into real customers?

Food for thought…

My life has been a very diverse life. From my Christian upbringing in the home of a pastor, to my far-flung career of travel, social media and web technology. It’s filled with details that largely escape people who are not, well, me.

The Early Years

I was born on September 6, 1976 to Tom Brazell and Judy Brazell. I am the oldest of three kids. My sister, Corrine and brother, Tim.

My dad was a pastor from a pentecostal background and at the ripe old age of eight, I found myself in Zaïre (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) where I spent 4 years growing up with guys like James Dodzweit and Jamie Butler.

High School

I was somewhat of a social outcast in my high school years and most of the people that remember me from high school, in Annapolis, MD, don’t necessarily remember me positively. That said, Facebook has done a tremendous job of reconnecting me with some of that past and positive relationships are being built after 15 years.

Guys like Eric Funderburk I remember fondly. Eric wrote in my senior yearbook, “Time is our friend, just like fire”. I don’t know if he knew the wisdom of that statement at the time, but I’d venture he realizes that truth today.

Mrs. Wolfe was my English teacher, and would probably be proud of my work here if she knew it existed. :)

I had a crush on several girls in high school, as well. Girls like Heather, Stephanie, and even Rachel (who was always more of a sister anyway) were in this mix, as those high school things go. Only one of them, Stephanie, I am really keeping in contact with in a so non-crushy way (she’s married and I’m recovering).

Collegish

Most people don’t believe me when I tell them I didn’t go to college. I actually did go to a year of community college right out of high school and got bored. Years later, I’d return to get some credit but got bored because I could teach every one of the classes I was taking. However, I also did go to Elim Bible Institute with the intention of following in my dad’s footprints and becoming a minister. Didn’t happen and I don’t regret that.

While I was at Elim, I made a number of other friends and emerged from my socially awkward state that I lived in in high school. Among the friends, was my very close friend who I’d really love to be in contact with more, Fred Englehardt. Today, Fred works in the Albany City Schools. Eric Mellert is too conservative for my liking (we sparred a few times about Barack Obama on Facebook), is a super good guy and is living in Florida with his beautiful wife Shannon. Jennifer is apparently my neighbor in Alexandria, and we have yet to reconnect.

New York City

After a year at Elim, I headed to the Big Apple and worked with a non-profit dealing with the homeless in New York City. Among the relationships I built there was with my dear friend Dave Rowe (Papi!) who is now living in Hartford, CT and we still keep in touch occasionally. I’ll probably get an email from him after this post goes up because he lurks. :)

Modern Life

After NYC, I moved back to Maryland where, in time, I met Nicole who I would eventually marry. That would last eight years. During this time, I entered the web space while working at Northrop Grumman with guys like Zak, Sean and Anthony. I’d then move on to b5media and reunite with long time friend and web-head Jeremy Wright. Along the way, I’d make other friends like Christina Jones, Chad Randall.

In a parallel universe, I worked in the WordPress world where I met guys like Chris Pearson, Jeffro, and Matt Mullenweg. Some crossover existed between WordPress and b5media. For instance, I worked directly with Brian Layman and Mark Jaquith and maintain solid relationships with each of them to date.

Eventually, I would leave b5media and become an independent. I work closely with Micah and the entire Lijit team as my primary, full time client.

I can’t even begin to mention all the people I’ve met along the way. Likewise, I can’t mention every relationship that has started in real life and somehow made it into online life.

What I will say is this stuff is a game changer. It bridges the gap between those in real life, and those online and having that benefit changes the way everything is done. Now, more than ever before, it’s possible to do business, find business partners, find love, rebuild old relationships and extend personal brand. Now, more than ever before, everything is possible.

* Photo by Jared Goralnick

Let me explain. There were over 120 million votes cast (a conservative number at that!) in yesterdays election. That is almost all of the eligible voting population, or approximately an 85% turnout rate. Obama raised nearly $900M for his campaign and spent nearly $860M of that.

What happened over the past 2 years has been simply extraordinary. McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act was passed in 2002 to much fanfare by placing strict regulations on “hard” and “soft” money. Hard money was money contributed directly to a candidate while soft money was defined as money contributed to a party for discretionary allocation. Usually, soft money was tied up in “issue based” advertising that benefitted a candidate indirectly.

McCain-Feingold imposed limits on how much money could be contributed to a campaign by special interests. This placed the “money support” mandate in the hands of individuals. Obama capitalized on this by extensive use of grassroots campaigning. Jay Voorhees calls it an Open Source Presidency.

Through the use of Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and text messaging, he locked in the Gen X and Millenial votes and raised more money with grassroots efforts (“Donate $5, please”) than any other campaign in history.

Social media friends here in DC went to Florida, Virginia and Colorado to ensure that the vote was turned out for Obama.

Special interest had little role in this election. Passionate people rallied and inspired, contributing frequently in small amounts, powered this victory.

Meanwhile, the McCain campaign tried to run a traditional campaign subject to the rules that the candidate himself authored in 2002.

Victory will always go to the individual who is able to adapt to changes in the landscape and Obama clearly did that better than McCain.

We think of companies like Dell and JetBlue as examples of companies that “get it”. Even this weekend at WordCamp where I hammered the ideas of Marketing, Message and Brand, these companies came up as examples of companies engaging in the social space, including blogs.

But these broad examples are still the exception to the rules. Most companies still don’t realize that they need to be in the space, engaging with not only customers but possible customers.

I met one gentleman this weekend who owns a construction business but is an English major. He decided he would start writing DIY and home improvement stories in the form of a blog and is making big waves.

I’d say most home improvement companies don’t blog. They probably aren’t on Facebook. Probably not tweeting on Twitter.

There’s a company here in the Baltimore area that has a radio spot. In the radio spot, the owner says he personally goes to every job site every day until a job is done. When that’s the way most companies operate, it’s easy to think there is no time for social media.

Here’s the secret sauce, though, that many are missing. Your customers are behind the walls of social networks and on blogs talking about you somewhere. Trust me. You can’t afford not to be part of the conversation, and there’s no legitimate excuse not to participate.

With the economy the way it is, it is truly a cheap way to market, do public affairs and drum up business. Why wouldn’t you do it?

I plan to have Congressman John Culberson, who was at the center of the House controversy, on the Aaron Brazell Show in weeks to come to discuss the changes and progress being made in the House, it’s important to note that the Senate actually has taken the first step to modernize and unshackle legislators hands.

Andrew Noyes writes Wednesday in Congress Daily about the changes (subscription only):

As part of the change, Rules Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein and ranking member Robert Bennett included some exceptions. A member, committee or office may separately maintain Web sites or post material on third-party platforms as long as they abide by guidelines.

The Rules Committee plans to offer a “non exhaustive list” of approved third-party sites. Those sites must agree to disclose when content is maintained by a Senate office and is banned from adding commercial or political material or links to an office-maintained page.

The rules also go on to outline rules for the third party websites, prohibiting data collection of personally identifiable information about users.

All in all, common sense approaches to web/government crossover and it’s nice to see that the Senate rules never become a political football like the House rules did. The House is trying to mirror these rule changes on their side.

Knowing I was coming to Vegas, I quickly set up a meeting with Brandie, the beautiful young woman behind LuxorLV. (Note: She is not the stripper displayed in LuxorLV avatars, so please don’t spam her looking to get some action, thanks!) She is literally rocking the tweetstream and getting a very positive reception in the space, something that is hard to do.

She related a story to me of how one twitterer early on intentionally tried to get under her skin, by antagonizingly asking to stay “under the spinx’s ass”.

Many marketing types coming from a traditional background might handle such “negative customer reaction” in a much different way. Brandie’s philosophy is that everyone deserves a response, though she admits that it was tricky to try to figure out quite the best way to respond.

Brandie has a very personal interaction on Twitter, which is a marked difference between other casino/hotels that are also engaging in a much more traditional “push marketing” sort of way. Though she shrugged it off as “everyone trying to figure out the best way to use the medium”, she concedes that she is younger than most and uses text messaging religiously already. “I already text message 10,000 times a day with my friends,” she claims in a somewhat exaggerated way. “It’s how I communicate with my friends”.

Luxor Hotel is owned by the MGM Mirage company who owns, according to Brandie, 60% of the resorts on Las Vegas’ Strip. The company as a whole is very interested in engaging customers in the social space but, as with most companies of size who are in exploration mode, like to test things out on small scales first. Therefore, Luxor often leads the rest of the company by engaging in new marketing techniques. So far, they have not necessarily noticed an improvement in business, but they certainly are garnering good will wherever they go.

Luxor is engaging on more than just Twitter as well. Their Social Media page lists YouTube, MySpace, FriendFeed and Facebook as well. Not listed is their Brightkite presence.

As usual, I love to see the intersection of social media and real life, and Luxor’s efforts are very genuine. Their returns are coming. If you’re coming to Vegas, book with the Luxor and support the social media community.

Silliness, of course, and I’ve talked about it before.

Putting aside the cliché friends bit, social media has definitely altered the way humanity interacts with each other and it’s not at all a bad thing. Cultural divides are falling, business relationships are being built. Heck, people are even getting married because of Twitter.

I can’t help but think that there is somewhat of an ebb and flow that takes place and we are on a retreating slope. At the very core of our human existence, we want relationships. While the inundation of networking opportunities, associates or “friends” is satisfying in its own right, it challenges the ability for humans to have their most basic relational instinct satisfied.

The other night on The Aaron Brazell Show, I cornered guest Jim Long (a minor demigod on Twitter) about who his favorite people on Twitter were. I knew I sent him a curve ball and expected him to dance out by making a diplomatic statement like, “Everyone is my favorite” or “I don’t have one”. Instead, he noted that as the quantity of friends go up, it becomes increasingly difficult to “see” the people he loved to see.

In essence, he was stating that, though Twitter satisifed a communications need and a desire to be connected, the ability to “relate” was getting more lost.

On another episode of the Aaron Brazell Show, my friend Jessie Newburn talked about the ebb and flow of generations and how the 4-part cycle of generations demonstrated and ebb and flow of how things were done. In Generation X,  loosely disconnected from previous generations and went their own way, but that the Millennial (often incorrectly called Generation Y) generation has a tendency to regroup.

Sort of like social media. The influx of friends, the followers, the contacts, the blogs, the feeds, the networking opportunities, the parties, the conversations…. all relatively empty from a human instinct perspective. For my part, I’ve spent less time engaged in all these things and more time in one on one relationships. I haven’t read my Google Reader in over a month. I get on twitter and Friendfeed in small spurts. I don’t go to DC for as many social events as I used to.

However, my Twitter direct message box is full. My IM is going all day. My phone book is full.

It’s all about being personal?

C-SPAN is offering a social media hub for both conventions with featured tools being video giant YouTube, which will be present at the Big Tent in Denver (see Google) as well as in St. Paul the week later. Also a featured partner is Qik, the live streaming video social service. Twitter is aggregating #DNC08 and #RNC08 tagged streams direct to the website as well.

C-SPAN is not affiliated with either party and the effort is to provide a grass-roots level into the conversation surrounding the conventions from interested parties in person (on site) and remote. I was asked to participate in video and twitter coverage, and I may, but it is not my niche. You’ll more likely see any real coverage over at my personal blog.

A personal shout out to my friend Leslie Bradshaw (and an amazing Latin linguist, I’ve discovered this week) for working with C-SPAN in this effort.

As a disclaimer, I am a non-partisan Barack Obama supporter so, while I’m most interested in the Denver coverage, I’ll be watching the St. Paul coverage as well.

Regardless, the league will be fun and I’ll update everyone on how things are going, along with standings, etc. The reason why this is interesting is that we are all playing for charity, where the winner has all the proceeds donated to the charity of their choice.

For my part, I’m dishing out an ass kicking on behalf of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation based in Annapolis.

Charities represented:

• Mallory Dash – National Partnership for Women and Families
• Chris Lucas – Nothing but Nets
• Meg Fowler – Jane Doe, Inc.
• Micah Baldwin – Donors Choose
• Adam Ostrow – The National Alliance for Autism Research
• Leslie Poston – Jane Doe, Inc.
• Michael Davis – Cancer for College
• Jonathan Joseph – American Cancer Society
• Jeff Smith – Boy Scouts of America
• Me – Chesapeake Bay Foundation

I’m still sorting out other players and their charities and will update accordingly.

The draft is tonight. Contestants, who wants to livestream the draft screen over ustream?

Update: The draft is over and I like my team:

• Tom Brady (QB-NE)
• Vince Young (QB-Ten)
• Braylon Edwards (WR-Cle)
• Roy Wiliams (WR-Det)
• Deion Branch (WR-Sea)
• Joey Galloway (WR-TB)
• Amani Toomer (WR-NYG)
• Willis McGahee (RB-Bal)
• Thomas Jones (RB-NYJ)
• Travis Henry (RB-Den)
• Jason Witten (TE-Dal)
• Bubba Franks (TE-NYJ)
• Adam Vinatieri (K-Ind)
• David Akers (K-Phi)
• Dallas (DEF)

When the waitress brought out a Spanish omelette, he was confused. Turns out, the waitress assumed he was going to order a Spanish omelette after he asked her, so when he ordered the Spinach omelette instead, it didn’t register in her mind.

Yesterday, I took the family for a Sunday afternoon dinner where my four year old boy bided his time by coloring on the placemat. His drawing is below.

I looked at his drawings and asked what they were. He told me about a dinosaur, a rocket ship and a yellow jacket (which is apparently different than a bee!). I noticed that his drawing of a bee had a very long stinger (can you spot the bee in the picture?). I thought about how small the stinger on a bee actually is, but how the perception of that small but potentially deadly apparatus can be – especially in the mind of a little guy.

Kids like to exaggerate everything, and you can tell in their crayon drawn pictures. Daddy is bigger than a house. Dinosaurs have massive teeth bigger than their face. Bees Yellowjackets have stingers longer than their bodies.

Funny how perceptions of reality are often different than reality itself.

As bloggers, we tend to make a bigger deal out of things than we have to. Funny how perceptions are like that. Funny how my perception of a bee is much different than the perception of my little boy.

Chances are, if you breathe and have a pulse, that things seem wrong somewhere. Mortgages are hard to pay. Gas prices are nuts. The A-list exists. Seesmic arguments. Blog arguments. Do I own my comments or not? Copyright, trademark, content scrapers. Conservatives. Liberals. Presidential Candidates. Videos on the web. iPhones and priorities. Blackberries and productivity.

Get some perspective folks. I’m just saying.

It was a fascinating discussion, and borderline offensive at times, as discussions revolved around Congress and Social Media, which I covered here last week, racism on the internet and the iPhone 3G, which Hodson found offensive. :-)

To be clear, because I heard loudly and clearly from many listeners, politics is a sensitive area. Everyone thinks they are right and people typically prefer arguing than dialogue. I prefer dialogue and tried to maintain some semblance of give and take. For my part, I remain independant with both conservative and progressive views on various issues. I don’t mind arguing and debating or even people telling others that they are completely wrong. The line that I draw is one of respect and when the respect line is crossed, that’s where I have issues. Despite the sensitive nature of some of our discussions, I don’t believe the respect line was crossed and I support the right of all the panelists to express their opinions, even if it offends some.

While this was the first episode of the Aaron Brazell Show (successor of the failed video show Technosailor TV), it won’t be the last. Next week, Glen Stansberry and Jared Goralnick join to discuss productivity and Freshbooks is giving away a one year subscription to it’s Shuttlebus package.

You can listen to Episode 1 or Subscribe in iTunes.

Not only was this interview important for me personally (it’s NPR during the morning drivetime commute) but it’s very important for the issue at hand (it’s NPR during the morning drivetime commute!). Going on NPR this morning broke the story outside of the blogosphere and catapulted it into the attention of millions of Americans, many of whom use social communications tools everyday.

Thanks Laura and the BPP crew for the call.

Note: this is a rough recording off my computer while the show streamed. Will update with the “clean” copy from NPR after the archive copy goes up.
Listen Now.

Update: The NPR archive is up. Go listen to a better quality here.

It’s reprehensible that in 2008, a government for the people and by the people should take this heavy handed approach to “rules” surrounding the use of social communications tools. Yesterday (July 8), Scott Rasmussen released a poll demonstrating that Congress has a 9% approval rating for the first time in history. When you avoid the people you are elected to serve and cutoff the communication channels those constituencies use, it’s not really a surprise. If the House rules are outdated, then the House, in their effort to be transparent, has the ability to quickly change the rules that apply, much as they have demonstrated the ability to do with many other “important” pieces of legislation.

Again, I clarify that this is a non-partisan position and affects both sides of the aisle. The position being bandied by some “gated community” types on Capitol Hill is irresponsible and tone-deaf and if the House wants to remain relevant in the eyes of voters, these “existing rules” must change. Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) is allegedly proposing similar clamp downs in the Senate.

The creeping lunacy in Washington continues. My favorite Congressmen, John Culberson (R-TX) and Tim Ryan (D-OH), are under fire for the use of social media tools such as Twitter and Qik. They are not specifically named in this document, but it is widely understood that these two congressmen, one a Democrat and one a Republican, are actively circumventing traditional bureaucratic communication lines and talking directly to the American people.

In some cases, these guys are talking to their own constituency, and other times they are talking to people like me who are not in their districts. Between live streaming video and Twitter, these guys “get” that the government is by the people and for the people.

Here is the letter sent to the Democratic House majority leadership to silence this nonsense.

Ridiculous.

Rep. Culberson is indicating, via Twitter, that disclaimers have to be attached to tweets and that, without a doubt, those disclaimers WILL be greater than 140 characters. Lunacy.

Added: I usually turn trackbacks off but I’m going to turn them on for this post.

Added 2: Techdirt makes a good point. The wording of the letter does seem to indicate that Rep. Capuano is actually trying to get the existing House rules loosened to allow for this activity.

Added 3: The GOP Response to the above letter.

We’ll keep you updated as more information becomes available.

Added 4 (Wed July 9, 12:17pm): Erin, in comments, suggests everyone is going a little nuts and that there isn’t real journalism happening here. Here’s a few pieces from those in the political space that were written this morning.

• Outside the Beltway – James points out that Diane Feinstein is pushing a proposal in the Senate to make the Senate Rules Committee clamp down on similar activity on the Senate side.
• In the Washington Internet Daily, an off-web mainstream press publication (WTF?!), Rep Capuano is quoted saying, “[The Republicans] would rather operate without rules and open the House to commercialism, [and his proposal] allows the American public to have full access to information from Members while ensuring that taxpayer dollars do not support commercial or political advertising on the web.”
• Zen Pundit finally realizes what I’ve been arguing. This is not a partisan thing but “on the technological merits alone this may be the goddamn dumbest thing I’ve heard of regarding the internet coming out of Congress in a long, long, time.”
• Erin, who commented above, basically points out at BlogHer, that Culberson is playing politics and has stirred everyone up using Twitter. While I agree that this is a political play, plain and simple, my coverage of this entire story is not about politics but about policy. If the existing rules are antiquated, as the second letter above notes and everyone seems to agree on that point, change the rules now. This is 2008 and it is completely unacceptable to stick with rules that limit the participation in social media by Congressmen and women. I accept the need to avoid the appearance of commercialism, thus the “House channel” on YouTube, but I cannot accept this limitation on our elected Representatives, should they choose to talk to their constituency this way.
• CongressDaily reporter Andrew Noyes wrote, “A Brady spokesman said his boss has been ‘kept up to speed’ on both proposals and ‘is supportive of anything that can be done to clarify rules that provide more options for members.’” (subscription only)

Added 5 (July 9, 10:17pm)
Rep. Capuano sent this letter (unconfirmed). I need this on House letterhead, Source! which is now on his website. If this is legitimate, I’m happy to put this to bed. On the House side. But will continue to monitor how this issue is proceeding.

We are also trying to confirm Sen. Diane Feinstein’s alleged move to implement tighter controls in the Senate and will keep you updated.

Andrew Feinberg had a Qik (quick, get it?) interview with Rep. John Culberson who seems to have cooled down a little.

Washington Internet Daily who has some crazy copyright ideas that prevented us from releasing stories broke most of this news around 6pm yesterday.

Also, there is an experimental “Twitter petition” happening via letourcongresstweet.org. Participate!

Added 6 (Wed, July 9 11:55pm EDT):

An early copy of an article to be published in tomorrow’s Washington Internet Daily. Featuring me. And quotes from Culberson.

Update 7 (Thu, July 10 6:11am): Waiting on a yet-to-be-confirmed 6am call from NPR.

Whenever a subject of a story replies in the comments on this blog or, say, FriendFeed, I try to update the post with the comment. Rep. Culberson responded in comments so I add those here. Note, that I will do the same thing for Rep. Capubano, or Sen. Feinstein.

Aaron

You have done a great job of presenting both sides of this debate and giving readers source documents. Let me add what I learned today on the House floor.

I spoke to Cong. Mike Capuano,Chairman of House Franking, who is a good person and a friend. He confirmed that my analysis of where this rule change is going is correct. Today they are focused on YouTube and video posts – Twitter and blogs and social media are next.

Under this new proposed rule (which he said is fluid) Congressmen could only post video that complied with House rules (subject to review and editing by House Franking Committee)on websites that complied with House rules if the video contained a disclaimer that it was an official communication from a federal official for official purposes. He said that YouTube has already agreed to prepare a “œsanitized” (my word) special website just for members of Congress to post videos. The special page can have no ads and no political content and must be reviewed and approved by the Franking Committee.

He confirmed that websites like yours, Aaron, are next.

Since I am typing this in my official capacity for official purposes on a non approved website I am already in violation of existing House rules which would require me to submite each word of this post to House Franking Committee for editing and approval.

When Chairman Capuano says the change they are proposing will make it easier for us to post – that is true – if we don’t mind having all our posts edited and approved by Franking Comm, and if we don’t mind being limited to posting only on preapproved websites and if we don’t mind the mile long federal disclaimer on every post.

If they adopt this rule, the only way I could ever post again on Technosailor is if I complied with their rule and edits and if YOU agreed not to comment ever again on politics or campaigns or make any recommendations of any kind on politics. Your website would have to be completely free of politics, elections and any commercial content or ads. Plus you would have to submit to regular reviews and edits by House Franking Committee or lose your preapproved status for Congressional posts.

Twitter and every other social media source would have to submit to the same requirements or they will be off limits to Members of Congress.

Mike Capuano is a decent guy, and we need to encourage him to do the right thing here with lots of positive reinforcement.

I recommended to him that he and the committee simply leave the internet and social media alone – that he might as well try to regulate the wind.

We are elected by because we have demonstrated good judgment and common sense in the eyes of our constituents. Why not trust us to use social media appropriately in our official capacity using federal computers Blackberries, Nokia 95 phones etc for official business, and if we stray and make campaign pitches or seek personal financial gain, nail us for violating the law.

But leave the www alone. Otherwise this Congress will be remembered (in part) for its futile effort to regulate the wind in much the same way the Viking King Canute is still remembered for thinking he was so powerful he could order the ocean tide to stop.

Thanks

Keep up the pressure

Sunlight is the best disinfectant and Congress needs a lot of it

John Culberson

The Shelbinator is the voice of a growing number of people who are seeing through what is becoming a charade noting that the rules already exist. Not that they are good rules but rules are made to obey. As a sidenote, the more I follow the story, the more I’m inclined to agree. The military, for instance, doesn’t get the benefit of choosing which parts of the Uniform Code of Military Justice it adheres to. Employees of companies don’t get the “benefit” of sexually harassing another employee, despite having free speech. My opinion is that the rule needs to be changed and that is the current focus of my fight and the one that, I believe, Rep. Culberson should be focusing on.

Congressman, instead of being a rebel or vigilante, I suggest you summon allies to fight the Rules, but live within them until such change is made. The only outcome I see from going outside the rules right now is your censuring.

Venture Beat completely fails to acknowledge this coverage here. Interesting, especially, because I’ve been prominently linked from all over, including Mashable whom Eric Eldon cited. Venture Beat also links to the Capuano letter on Scribd. Why not this post, where he would have had to have found it (Can’t believe he happened to be surfing Scribd and just came across it)?

Added 8 (7:39am) – NPR interview on BPP. Polished recording when it becomes avaialble. This was a quick grab. Listen now.

Added 9 (4:02pm) – This document was passed to me. Again, since it’s not on official House Letterhead, I cannot confirm the authenticity but it is in line with what I’ve been hearing.

Added 10 (July 11 12:02a)
This will probably be my last update unless something new comes up. Thank you all for following this very important story. Thanks also to Andrew Feinberg from Washington Internet Daily. He does not get enough credit for being a solid reporter and he should. Through all of this, Andrew has been in touch with me and has provided quite a bit of backstory and information that he personally dug up himself. The unfortunate matter is, the publication he writes for is silly enough to call itself Washington Internet Daily and doesn’t bother to put together any kind of coherent web presence, thus missing the opportunities that I was afforded yesterday on NPR.

This, from tomorrows WID, shows that the Senate seems to be taking a much saner approach than the House is:

Some senators worry about outside sites using data mining technology to
track viewers of official videos hosted off the senate.gov domain, Gantman
said. The committee kept a ban on data-mining the official domain because
YouTube has agreed to not track or log such data, he explained. Unlike the
heated back-and-forth dominating the House debate, Feinstein and Bennett are
working toward what they expect to be a unanimous agreement
among committee members, Gantman said.

Eric Eldon, over at Venturebeat (who has since linked this coverage – thanks!) made a level headed assesment of this whole matter which, after running this story for three days now, I fully agree with:

I think Capuano just doesn’t understand all of this new stuff and it shows. I don’t think he’s trying to censor Twitter. He explicitly said he’s not aiming to do that, although his poorly-phrased letter could lead one to think that.

Basically, I think everyone wants the same thing and I’m afraid that Culberson, Capuano … are too partisan.

Interestingly, the mainstream media has jumped all over this after several days of grassroots effort. Of course, I was on NPR yesterday morning and Scott Stead, over at CNN grabbed this coverage from the CNN situation room with Wolf Blitzer today.

This will be the last update, barring something new. However, the angst over this has gone far enough and I’m choosing to believe that, no one is going to act irrationally surrounding these rules. At the end of the day, Republicans and Democrats alike want one thing – more power for themselves. A deal will be brokered one way or another and we’ll cover it when it happens, no matter which way the the hammer falls.

Remember. Last Friday we celebrated 232 years in this country. We’ve survived without our Congresspeople using YouTube and Twitter. We can survive a little longer.

Over and out.

The thing about my “beat”, as they’d call it in the newspaper business, is that I’m not really all that interested in “the news”. I’m not trying to cover all the stories, nor am I trying to cover most of them. I’m not trying to “break” anything or peddle products. I want to understand how social software affects my life. And yours.

Text comments will be deleted in this thread as I want video comments. ;) Click on the Sessmic Video comments link below. If you don’t already have one, grab a free account over at Seesmic.com.

This is what I want to know. How has social software benefited you? This is open ended and I want you to define what I mean by this. Some example questions might be:

1. How you got a job using LinkedIn
2. How you found an old crush on Facebook
3. How blogging helped you gain support for a good cause
4. How you used Flickr to communicate to your family on the other side of the world
5. How you used Brightkite to track your migration habits
6. How Twitter made the World Series special for you
7. How you had a brilliant entrepreneurial idea from a discussion on FriendFeed
8. How you used VC portfolio companies to attract the attention of a VC and get funded
9. How you made a career by offering advice on a blog

These are easy examples. I want you to offer your own insight on how, sometime, somewhere, social tools have enhanced your life. Tell us your story on video. If you don’t, I’ll look like a complete idiot for this format – but I’m okay with that. :)

I have never met Brian. I hope to some day and chances are good since he’s in stable condition and expected to make a full recovery.

Brian is part of the political blogosphere that those of us covering technology rarely get to see because worlds don’t overlap. However, they should. If there’s anything the recent trip to Washington D.C. by Robert Scoble shows, it’s that our world in tech is very much affected by the policies established by the government. Political bloggers fill that niche and we should be paying attention to them, especially now during the political season.

Tragedy is never welcome. It was only 7 months ago today that my friend and fellow blogger, Marc Orchant, passed away suddenly in his home office. That rocked the entire tech space, as it should have. This hits closer to home, for me, because it’s in Washington, and more specifically Adams Morgan where I spend a good deal of time.

Folks, we cannot live in fear. District officials will point to this and other acts of violence and rattle the cages of people, just like the Bush Administration has done concerning terrorism. We cannot live in fear. We cannot let this control our lives.

Brian, I am praying for a speedy recovery. I’ll be paying closer attention to you and your writing, and I expect you’ll have a great many things to say about this. I’m glad you’re okay. Get better.

Photo Credit: myglesias

@technosailor Come and visit me! Just ask for HMI on SDO. They all know me – I am the cutest instrument on SDO plus I am the one tweeting!

The war of cuteness is on at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center where the team is working on a variety of space projects including the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and the Hubble servicing mission.

I had a chance to visit NASA yesterday for a very intimate tour of the projects they are working on and to discuss, among other things, future missions NASA plans to embark on.

This, of course, a tertiary result of my post the other day where I noted that NASA was engaging more and more in social media. As I noted in that post, this stuff is like being a kid again.

My tourguide, Steph Stockman, is playing an integral part in the development of LRO which will be launched later this year. LROs mission is to go into low polar orbit around the moon for at least a year and gather intel about the surface of the moon in preparation for a return to the moon somewhere in the 2017 timeframe.

A fascinating tidbit I learned about LRO is that there will be a laser-sight, of sorts, that will essentially focus on a fixed point in space (satellite?), or at least a known point in space. This will provide a reading that will allow LRO to stay in orbit over the moon. We currently don’t know entirely what the surface of the moon looks like, so where typical orbiters might be able to use the surface of, say, the earth as known quantity, NASA will have no such luck with the moon.

Also of interest is that the dark side of the moon is registering significant amounts of Hydrogen which indicates a potential for water. At this point, we don’t know and the LRO is expected to provide some of that data.

Later in the day, we explored the concept of a manned mission to Mars. Steph thinks that might not be for 50 years as certain scientific problems have yet to be solved. Specifically, once a human body spends sustained amounts of time outside of the earth’s magnetic field, what happens? To provide perspective, the moon is on the outer fringes of the earth’s magnetic field and dips in and out at different points in its orbit. As a result, most, if not all, of manned space flight has occurred within the magnetic field and no one really knows what it would be like outside.

To explore this problem, Goddard has a anti-magnetic sphere (pictured below as a scale model) where the earth’s gravity is counteracted by an equivalent polarization allowing for an anti-magnetic zone for testing. One wonders how this affects the iron in a human’s blood stream.

Another problem with a manned mission to Mars is that the planets move at different speeds through orbit, and such a mission with future technology would probably take two years to complete. A mission would have to be launched at such a point that allows the most efficient route to and from Mars. People much smarter than me, scary folks with pencils, will have to figure out that math.

Thanks, Steph, for the tour. Can’t wait to see the LRO launch. :) Click on the montage below for the full photoset from this tour.

To pop this proverbial bubble, the idea was presented that a community-driven show should be created where “panel members” would include an equal cross-section of the community, regardless of sex or race.At one point, a panel was suggested that I noted were all “talkers” and not “doers”.

Photo Credit foolfillment. Used under Creative Commons

Naturally, some took offense to this characterization, but my question is why? There is an equal need for both and is non-hierachal. In fact, it may be too simplistic of a thought considering the diversity that exists across sectors, bloggers and industries.

I think it’s important to establish a premise for talkers and doers. What are they, why do they exist and what do they contribute to the ecosystem?

Talkers

Talkers are visionaries, by and large. Not always. Sometimes they are just pundits. They are the idea people, often challenging the status quo and causing people to think based on data, research and innovative thinking. They share their ideas readily and often bring a different level of communication to the fray.

Talkers are often CEOs, PR, Marketing, or members of management teams and they frequent the conference speaking circuit.

Doers

Doers are often mistaken for developers. Though developers generally fall into the category of “doer”, the definition is far wider than just physical “doers”. Doers are usually the ones that have ideas and instead of talking about them, they gather the resources (financial and human) and set about putting plans into actions.

Entrepreneurs are often doers. They are the ones with the ideas that have the guts or experience to run with them. Though they may sometimes be talkers too (small business CEOs for instance), their bread and butter is in the action. Smart doers listen to talkers ideas and filter them for actionable items that make sense for the ecosystem.

These are my definitions. They may be simplistic, but I think they provide a great framework for this conversation.

I think there is a symbiotic relationship between doers and talkers. One cannot exist without the other and gets its lifeblood from the other.

For instance, Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester is largely a talker. Though he comes from Hitachi where he was largely a doer, by his own admission he’s more of a talker now.

I think there’s a negative connotation to talkers. That they are just windbags excelling in the art of punditry. But talkers bring ideas to the table that often shape the course of what is going on in the ecosystem. Talkers need doers who will take their ideas and run with them.

Doers, of whom I would classify Dave Troy of Twittervision have ideas but instead chooses to innovate on ideas and create new things. In this case, David (whom in disclosure, I realized a few weeks ago I interviewed with back in the 2002-2003 timeframe when he was the CEO of Toad) has taken ideas surrounding Twitter and made a visualization for them. He also recognized that there was a need for something like SocialDevCamp East and created it (with help).

Others like Jason Calacanis straddle the line between talkers and doers by challenging the status quo of spammy search engines and proposing a concept of human-powered search and running with it. People who can straddle the gap, place themselves in the most valuable position of seeing the cloud, recognizing it’s potential and doing something about it (pardon the reference).