Yesterday, on January 19th, the famous co-author of Trust Agents, Julien Smith, delivered a presentation at Ceili's Irish Pub in downtown Vancouver. This talk is part of a series of talks organized by Third Tuesday Vancouver, a meetup group that holds free monthly meetup for the Vancouver area. Here is a summary of the talk based on my own personal notes. If you were there and you feel I misinterpreted a few things or missed something important, feel free to use the comment section below.
"Hype dies, but channels stay forever and controlling your future means controlling your channels." Smith started by using radio as an example of a channel that is still around even though it has evolved for so many years, and his point was that some people control radio and you're not one of them. Obviously Social Media offers a new channel and it is an opportunity you should take. The old channels are failing and trying to get your attention by pushing things at you. For this very reason, Smith claims (and contradicts himself) that we need to replace the old channels by new ones that are more adapted to our needs.
Then Smith went on to my favorite part and talk about walls and how Social Media is changing the way we interact with each other. He used bars as an example. Let's say you're in a bar, would you go and talk to a complete stranger about some random topics? No, not really, we just don't do that. However, Social Media does change things and it's ok to connect and engage a discussion with a complete strangers about some random topics on Twitter for instance. Social Media allows us to connect much more easily than ever before and encourages us to share and discuss much more freely.
Even though walls are not as present on Online Social Networks, they still exist and Smith identified at least 5 different ways to get rid of them and engage in productive conversations.
1) Do Stupid Things
Stupid things bring down the walls and help us connect. Smith gave the example of @shitmydadsays on twitter which is exactly what the name claims to be. This account has over 1 million followers and Julien explains this by the fact that people love stupid things because it makes starting a conversation easier. He then showed a dog in a guy's sweater with its head popping out by a sleeve. Some laughters followed and then he waited a couple more seconds, which seemed a bit awkward, but then Smith said that the picture is usually what he hears the most about after he's given a talk. Why? Because it's stupid and it brings down the wall between him and the people in the audience.
2) Be the Church of Your Tribe
You must facilitate the exchange of social capital and be the centre around who people gather. A church is this place where everybody gathers and have you ever noticed how easy it becomes to talk to strangers in a church? Now you want to create exactly this kind of environment on your Social Media channels because it will obviously bring down the walls, once again, and therefore get a conversation started.
3) Speak Insider Languages
Smith looked at the audience and said we should use insider languages, like 26.2. The audience didn't react much as most of us, me included, had no idea what 26.2 what suppose to represent. It turns out that 26.2 is the number of miles a marathon has. Using this jargon or insider language helps create link between two strangers as they can identify each other as having similar interests.
4) Be a Human Artist
I'm not sure about that one to be honest, I had to go to the washroom and I think I missed important clarifications about this one! But from what I remember Smith meant to craft your relationships with people. You need to work on your network all the time and not your facebook network, you real network with real people.
5) Break the Patterns
How many times do you go to a conference or an event in general and you ask: "So what do you do?". This is totally predictable and you'll almost certainly turn down the other person who will most likely go into a nervous reaction. We all know that depending on what we'll answer, the person asking the question will either idolize us, or ignore us. Also, some people have very unique jobs and describing it is not that easy at all. Lastly, the person asking the question is almost certainly doing so with the hope you'll ask back so they can show off a little. Break the pattern and do, act and ask questions that people don't expect at all. It'll make you more interesting and people will be more open.
Touch the Burner
"Take the risks and do something that nobody was doing before, and nobody had done before." Smith encouraged people to take risk and try new things because according to him, "when you stop touching the burner, your world stops getting bigger."
Be a Leader
Smith encouraged us to be the lead goose. The lead goose is the one in front in the "V" formation the birds use to fly. By flying the first, the lead goose has to work harder and make the way for the birds behind who benefit from a reduced drag force. Smith mentioned a book he read called Connected and according to the book, your mood and what you do impact people 3 degrees away from you. The rationale being that you impact someone who impacts someone else who impacts someone else. Based on that assumption, if you're a lead goose and you break patterns, you make it easy for people 3 degrees away from you to break patterns as well.
Finally, Smith ended his talk by saying: "We will never need more advertising, we need more communities." An end that is consistent with the book (Trust Agents) he co-wrote with Chris Brogan.
Want to know more?
[update]
Many thanks to Justin Carlson who recorded Julien's talk last Tuesday. Make sure you have a look at Justin's blog, this guy is talented and knows how to use a camcorder.
Copyright Justin Carlson from Carlson Media
[/update]
You can see the liveblog at: http://hummingbird604.com/2010/01/19/julien-smith-at-third-tuesday-vancouver-liveblog/
Twitter hashtag: #3TYVR
Few people present at the event: @monicahamburg, @NetChick, @mattbaril @jeremylim @lindanaiman @wildfirejane @bluefinch604 @CathyBrowne, @OnlineStrategy, @adamkambeitz, @Clippernolan, @jason_baker, @JuanHerr, @jonjennings, @johnbiehler, @renocoach, @chriswalts, @lacouvee, @HudsonHomeTeam, @ByzHubOwen, @chrisgoward
common people with normal problems and they expect you to find a solution. It's your role as a leader to come up with solutions. Also, by giving your product away for free you'll either alienate your customer base in a near future or go bankrupt. Not many people would agree to pay for a product or service they had for free not so long ago. The company faces two choices: stay free and have no revenue or start charging and lose the majority of the community it had built. Either way a lot of resources are wasted which is always bad for the society at large and the business.
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