Paying the Price

Fortune and success in life rarely falls into our laps. Somewhere along the line, a price is paid.

A four-year stint at college. Long hours at work. A divorce because you’re never home. Failing health because you never leave your desk. Kids that grow up not really knowing you.

Many wonder at the wealth and fame that many people seem to attain without effort - but somewhere, someone had to make sacrifices and trade offs to make it all happen. Nothing ever happens solely on account of luck - unless you happen to hit the lottery. Like I said - fortune rarely falls into our laps.

My wife and I were talking last night about choices friends and family had made, how many choices were made because they were the easy choice, and how the consequences of those choices had led them to lives that they probably didn’t envision for themselves only a short while back. Evidently, the prices being exacted wasn’t worth what they were willing to do to achieve their goals - so they settled.

Or maybe it only seems like they settled from my viewpoint. This post really isn’t supposed to be about my bias in this regard. I simply mean that for every great success or achievement, an exacting cost will be required - and at some point, everyone has to make the decision on what price they are willing to pay to achieve their goals in life.

I’ve been on enough “death march” software development projects over the course of my career to understand that sometimes the price we pay is like casting pearls before swine.

I have seen colleagues work themselves to death, have seen them grow apart from their kids, and watched as their marriages and relationships crumbled away because of the time spent pursuing the product that has to be shipped by a certain date. I still have many friends who leave home Sunday night and return Thursday evening, each and every week, in order to live in a beautiful gated community.

Much has been written about how Gen Y no longer sees the need for such sacrifices in order to attain success, or to be considered successful. However, reading the preliminary reviews of Sarah Lacy’s upcoming book “Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good” seems to belie this notion, because the successful peiple she has interviewed all have one thing in common - they work their ass off.

I think Baby Boomers sometimes get way too much credit for being Type A overachievers, because I sure have known a lot of boomers in my time that more resembled Wally than Dilbert. I’ve also worked with Gen Xers and Gen Ys that were very hard workers as well. We are deluding ourselves if we try to pigeonhole the workforce and their willingness to sacrifice solely on age - though it is a determining factor.

What we as collaborators and employers have to do is identify what goals our co-workers and employees wish to accomplish and set about ways that make sure that the prices that are being exacted of their success and promotion coincide with what they are willing to invest. If these two diverge, then congratulations - you’ve just qualified your candidate pool.

One of my favorite books - but not the movie - is “Interview with the Vampire.” Lestat, the main character, is an immortal who periodically retreats from the world to re-emerge to find himself absolutely disconnected from the age, the customs, and spirit of the times. He envies his fellow vampire and friend, Louis, who seemingly flows within whatever period he finds himself in, at one with the world in which he finds himself.

As someone who is about mid way through my professional life, I can recognize how the times and acceptable business practices have changed dramatically since I entered the work force.

I recognize that those “of a certain age” don’t use a computer or email and don’t care; that those of another age use email but are oblivious to texting and SMS; and still others than never use email, don’t watch TV or listen to radio, and eat at the dinner table with their heads down and thumbs flying furiously.

In many ways, professionally, we are like frogs in a pot of water that is slowly being heated to a boil. We don’t realize that the world about us is changing, maybe not for the better for us, until it is too late to do anything about it.

For me, the daily struggle is staying relevant and productive in a world that values success but downplays what it takes to achieve that success. Some days I win - some days, not so much.

What price do you pay, and is it worth it?

Is It Really A Conversation If All You Do is Talk?

I’ve recently set about cleaning up some of the social networks and contacts that have stuck to me through accretion over the past couple of years.

My impetus for doing so has really been two fold:

1. I am no longer actively participating in a network, the network and I are no longer providing any benefit to one another, or one of us is an unequal partner in the conversation, and
2. Dialog is not taking place and I am expected to be a passive customer or consumer.

Pertaining to number (1) above, I could happily go along and reap the rewards of whatever Google Juice is to be reaped by being connected to any given network.

In fairness, by my reckoning, my participation in a given network or community is a tacit approval or endorsement of that community. If I am not actively engaged on a regular basis, and that community becomes something contrary to my beliefs and values, my online rep suffers through the association.

Conversely, by not removing myself from those forums where I am nominally a member, but not really a participant, I am still rewarding those sites, even in the very smallest infinitesimal way, with whatever little influence I might have over swaying anyone. Better to simply part ways as friends and call it a draw.

As far as number (2) above goes, I have found myself connected to and / or “friended” to several people (as many of you may have) that are either simply takers (use your own definition) or simply talkers (guilty as charged in some cases).

After a while of finding myself blowing past their posts or finding myself diametrically opposed to whatever agenda they are pushing I began to ask myself - “why I am doing this? “

For the influence? Exposure? Because all the cool kids are doing it?

Please don’t misunderstand. I don’t look at Social Networking as some zero-sum, favor bank undertaking (see Thomas Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities). All people are definitely not created equal and there will never be complete reciprocity across the web within our virtual networks.

But there should at least be the mere appearance of a conversation or interaction occurring. If YOU are doing all the talking (or worse, if I am doing all the talking) and no discourse takes place at some regular interval, then what’s the point? You’re not gonna buy what I’m selling and I sure ain’t gonna transact with you (primarily because I’ll never get your attention long enough to say “how can we help each other?”).

I’ve made a deal with myself that I’m gonna try and be straight up and cut down on much of the social media noise that frankly is stealing away moments of my life with nothing tangible being returned.

Not looking to monetize every waking moment; not trying to make money in my sleep; but I am looking to learn, grow, and expand my knowledge every day beyond what I knew yesterday - and hopefully be able to do tomorrow what I am incapable of doing today.

To that end, I’m working on being a conversationalist and not simply another babbling voice among the multitude.

Just hoping that it’s not a soliloquy I’m conducting.

“Traditional” Meat-Space Networking Models and the “New World”

If you stick around long enough, you wind up being a “joiner.”

You know - you join the Rotary Club, the Kiwanis, the Lions Club, the local Football Boosters, become a Brownie Leader, a Den Mom, a Pack leader, a Baseball Coach, a member of the local Chamber of Commerce.

Some things you join by dint of merely “being.” Your family, for example - the “ur” social network.

Other groups you join because you want something: better access to potential clients, being around people who are like minded, hopping on the proverbial band wagon of a popular sports team (you Detroit Red Wings fans - I’m talkin’ to you).

In all “traditional” groups in the meat-space (the “real” world) you are encouraged or incentivized to participate through a series of rewards and punishments: the perfect attendance certificate at the end of a course, the fines incurred if you miss too many civic club meetings, the five bucks you owe to the Sargent-At-Arms if you don’t wear your group pin.

It seems to me that a significant component missing in most existing Social Networks (the “new” world as it were) is the idea of concrete rewards and punishment for participating (or NOT participating).

When I find myself speaking with a social media neophyte or outsider, I can almost see the words “what’s in it for me” rolling up in their eyeballs. Sure - wasting time on Facebook and Twitter can be fun - but what GOOD is it to me from a business standpoint? Not everyone is a blogger or an affiliate marketer or a knowledge worker.

In short, what is the payoff for participating in social networks, and as a corollary, what are the consequences of NOT participating?

For so much lip service paid online to “engagement”, I find in practice that very little actual engagement ever occurs online. I don’t consider trading quippy barbs with online “friends” as being engaging, though it is very pleasant to do so - at least for me.

What I’m talking about is developing those relationships online that turn into ENGAGEMENTS - the virtual equivalent of the friend who will help you move for a six -pack of beer and a pizza, the friend who will take you to the airport on their day off, or take you to task when you’ve made an ass of yourself, at the risk of losing financially. THAT kind of engagement.

As I see it, as a group, members of online communities need to translate thought and words into action: ask for the order, commit to perform, get out of your chair and DO.

It is my belief that until online social networking can provably demonstrate concrete benefits for participation that in the long run they will fail.

As a practical experiment today, go out and find someone who is not actively online and try to convince them of the benefits of joining an online community - in a way that translates into more business for them and in a way that convinces them that by doing so it is a force multiplier and not a time waster.

Would love to hear how this goes.

Ideas In The Air

I just finished an excellent piece in a recent New Yorker, In The Air.

The basic observation of the article is that our conception of genius is that it is extremely rare and that innovation is resistant to being mass produced, while the evidence to be found in the real world actually supports the notion that most innovation happens in multiples and is not dependent on individual genius. In short, the telephone, calculus, logarithms, etc… all of these would have been more or less invented “right on time” had the person we now attribute as being the “inventor” or “discoverer” of these technologies and concepts never been born, because the climate and zeitgeist was “prepped” for these concepts to be birthed.

I’ll let the article speak for itself.

It provides great food for thought, especially when viewing current technology trends. As humans, we tend to simplify history and technological advancement as having a singular, manifest destiny like march from least evolved to state of the art - when in fact, history and technology are actually messy incremental affairs.  I’ll try to provide a link to a book I read as a graduate student called The Whig Interpretation of History in a later edit of this post that describes just this phenomena in historiography.

Whether we are considered “visionary” or “genius” depends as much on luck, who is first to the patent office or can act as a “first mover” than on intellectual prowess - at least with regard to scientific genius, not necessarily creative genius which will always singularly belong to the artist, musician, or creator.

Happy Mother’s Day

Hope everyone is having a Happy Mother’s Day, either in person or via a phone call with their Mom.

If you weren’t able to spend time today with your mother, I hope today was one of happy thoughts and memories.
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Transparency and Authenticity - They Aren’t The Same Thing

Every now and then, days seem to take on certain “themes” for me. Like a song stuck in your head, sometimes these themes show up in serendipitous repetition throughout the course of the day, and sometimes they simply annoy the hell out of you until something else comes along to replace it.

Anyway, today’s theme for me seems to be authenticity, and tangentially, transparency.

Brian Solis wrote a post today on Making Mistakes and Amends in Blogger and Media Relations. In it, he gives a pretty decent stab at defining transparency as (paraphrasing) sharing the good AND the bad, warts and all. He also touches upon how difficult it is to try and be a good social networking citizen with regard to qualifying what constitutes proper etiquette in unsolicited communications with contacts and the consequences when you get it wrong.

While I agree in part with Brian’s definition of transparency, the definition really (to me) needs to be broader to encompass the idea of full disclosure as to your intent, and what you stand to gain or lose.

What do I mean?

Let’s say I write a blog post, setting up straw men arguments about why product x and y are inferior but product z is far superior. If I had a vested economic interest in product z (ownership or authorship) and did not disclose that fact, then at the very least I’m certainly not being transparent and indeed am being dishonest.

I see this happen all the time on blogs, when I know the writer has an interest in promoting a book, a point of view, or a product, and yet they choose not to disclose these relationships.

I’ve even called a few on this fact, publicly and privately.

We often confuse being transparency with authenticity, because the act of being transparent is supposed to promote our credibility and trustworthiness - our authenticity.

That’s not always the case. We can spend a great deal of time building our online reputations and credibility, only to have our edifices come crashing about our shoulders through lack of attention or simple oversight. it doesn’t mean that we’re any less authentic, or that we aren’t trying to be true to our selves and the audiences that we are trying to reach - it simply means that we are people and that we from time to time make mistakes or pay less attention than we need to.

We pay a price navigating social media networks when we show ourselves not to be authentic, or when we are shown to systematically hide where our vested interests are while pretending to be honest brokers. That price is in lost face, in lost reputation, and in lost opportunities.

Sometimes we pay that price through not fully understanding “the lay of the land” or the mores of the networks we ply, or because our assumptions of what is acceptable are at odds with the majority of the people we wish to influence. Again, this doesn’t make us any less authentic in our intent, but our perceived authenticity can certainly be dropped by several degrees of magnitude.

One last personal recap of something that happened to me recently.

I was on Twitter and had accidentally indicated that I wanted Rodney Rumford’s tweets (http://twitter.com/rumford) to be sent to my phone. As many of you know, Rodney is a popular guy and my phone was inundated with a lot of traffic that I really didn’t need or want to see. So, I tried to turn these notifications off.

Instead of checking for the right command to do this using SMS, I instead relied on my faulty memory and typed “unfollow rumford”, reasoning that since “follow rumford” got me into this mess, “unfollow rumford” would get me out of it.

BIG mistake.

I immediately got a message from Rodney via twitter asking why was I telling everyone to unfollow him.

WHAT?!?

Shit. Shit. Shit. NOT what I wanted to do. I immediately apologized and set about trying to put things right by publicly acknowledging my mistake (and now feeling pretty much like the new media douchebag I was hoping NOT to become) and of course apologizing to Rodney directly (who was more than cool about it).

For those interested, I should have typed “LEAVE RUMFORD.” Word of advice - check the documentation before being a command line cowboy ;-).

Still, I had just put something out there in the wild that was damaging to someone who is a high influencer, and to whom I attribute a great deal of respect with regard to all things social media related. Not through malice, but by careless inattention to detail. It could have happened to anybody.

I tried to be as transparent as possible in my mea culpas, and tried to act as quickly as I could to disclose my stupidity in order to keep my (and more importantly, Rodney’s) authenticity intact. I think I was reasonably successful - at least Rodney still answers my email ;-).

In the greater view, this was a small bump in the road.

But it is illustrative how much we can damage our online reputations and authenticity from lack of understanding fully the tools at our disposal or by not always being intentional in our online interactions.

Our prior transparency in how we have built our reputations to begin with, and how transparent we are when we have to apologize or attempt conflict resolution on the social networks we traverse when problems arise, will dictate how much authenticity we’ll retain long term with the people we influence and those we wish to.

More Clarity, Less Artifical Buzzwords

Quick blurb concerning an effort being made by some friends trying to coin a new word for business solutions in social media.

I understand the desire to do such a thing (think AJAX vs. XMLHTTPRequest, for example), but it usually comes off sounding lame rather than adding clarity to the discussion.

If anything, social media needs more clarity and less buzzwords or artificially contrived terms.

When your target audience are edge case adopters trying to get broader acceptance in the larger business community, why introduce another term that nobody understands into the conversation?

We need clarity. Just use real words, in the right context, and your point will come across a thousand times stronger than something that sounds like it was put together in a focus group.

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Cheap Gas Redux

Rodney Rumford was kind enough to review my Cheap Gas!Facebook application here at FaceReviews.

As always, Rodney, many thanks.

Cheap Gas! New Facebook Application

Shameless self promo.

I released a new Facebook application into the wild this morning: Cheap Gas!

Based upon your current location’s Zip Code, the application will show gasoline prices near you, and indicate by grade which price is cheapest. Click on the name of the station to get a Google map to the location.

Will probably be a few days before it is in the FB App Directory (and even longer until searchable).

Even so, worth a peek. Would love any feedback.

Has Social Media Censored You?

Social Media - Sites, Blogging, Tweets, User Content - can be exhilaratingly liberating.

It can also be stifling.

What happens when your boss is your Facebook friend? What happens when your customers follow your tweets? You probably think twice (or should) about posting those Burning Man pics when you know the same people who pay (or could pay) the rent are also viewing your online personna(s) with more than a little interest.

I find that my online representations of David J. Hinson are very much affected by who I think will be reading what I write.

That’s not to say that by and large I don’t speak my mind, or that the words I put on on Twitter, Facebook, this blog, etc. don’t represent what I really think.

But I try to carefully weigh my words before committing them to the ether, because the penalty for not doing so is inordinately steep. Once you’re out there, your are OUT THERE. Forever. Ask anyone who has been You Tubed.

There are so many times that I felt that I had been wronged, that I had been annoyed by something, that I had been about to burst with excitement / pride about something - and wanted to blog or twit it - and had the good sense to stop and do something else. Sometimes, less is a hell of lot more, if you catch my drift.

Social Media, as I have written before, is a tremendous force multiplier for good and ill. With this awareness, I realize that even with the best of my intentions and sometimes contrary to what I want to share and project, I know that my online self will never be 100% “me.”

And that’s more than OK with me.

I’m just coming to realize how much having more avenues of expression at my disposal has actually curtailed the amount of expression I feel comfortable sharing, either for fear of loss of self or fear of doing something stupid to jeopardize future earnings.