August 22, 2009
It was around 2005 when I first started getting into this new age of social media. I found podcasts first. I liked the podcast hosts and wanted to get to know them further. I found them through their online forums that they’d talked about on their shows and then the initial group of us all discovered Twitter in 2006. This was a time where everything was fresh, new and exciting. The possibilities were endless for social media and what it could leverage for each of us! I made some amazing friends. We shared our lives, our thoughts and stances on all different subjects.
That was 2006 and this is now 2009, where much has changed. I still see people giving of themselves, though not nearly as much. What I see more of is people promoting whatever it is that they’re into: their jobs, their new money-making scheme, but even more-so I see links. They’re everywhere and I have to tell you, I’m tired of it.
I miss the days where the value that you brought to the table was shown openly in the social network. Someone would make a statement and everyone cheered or responded right there. I didn’t have to see your “call to action”, click the link and then read it on your blog. The value was clearly right there. Instead, so much of what’s out there feels like email: spam. I realize that junk mail fills the mailboxes outside of our homes and spam fills our email inboxes. I really don’t enjoy seeing so much of it in my communication stream.
One example of value are the small business tips I post on my Twitter account Monday – Friday. I decide what I want to write about (sometimes with a little help from my friends), figure out how in the heck I’m going to condense it into 130 characters (10 of the 140 characters are consumed by the hash tag and what number tip it is for the day) and then just post the tips to Twitter. I don’t require anyone to go to my blog or my company’s blog to consume the data. I give easy and actionable advice that you can take right from that message and use for your business. That’s the value I try to bring to the table.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking you having a blog or the promotion of it. Obviously, I have one myself and I know that not everything can be said in 140 characters or less. My point is that I don’t feel social networks should be used solely as a way to promote a person, a product or a brand. If you’re going to be on a social network then you should be there adding to the the value and not the noise. Bring something to the table that I can actually use, something that will mean something to me. That right there is what proves you’re valuable and as a result promotes your brand, product or service that you’ve associated yourself to.
You’re right, it’s not traditional media but what about this medium is traditional? We’re here to reach out to consumers, business owners and each other in ways that haven’t been explored. So why should we continue to do it in the same way that’s always been done? Let’s break free of the traditional mold and get back to actually communicating!
Let’s make Twitter and all of social media become a culmination of solid thought, communication and value. When it comes down to it, isn’t that what we want when we’re being social in social media?
What do you want social media to be?
Posted in Random Thought, Social Media 
4 Comments »
October 28, 2008
This past month has been full of changes for me. Thankfully they’ve all been positive. I have a new job and as a result, it’s helped me create a new way to how I function in my social networks.
The New Career Opportunity
At the beginning of October I officially moved from self-employed to being employed by a small business: America’s Best Companies (ABC). We are basically a national-level small business association. This is a company that educates, offers advice and helps to make life overall easier on the small business owner. One of the main ways they do this is by offering discounts (the kind that actually help you!) from companies like Staples, UPS, insurance, utilities and even health care. There are blogs, a weekly newsletter, search engine submission and even a bi-monthly magazine. The magazine is absolutely amazing if I do say so.
As with any small business association, there’s a membership involved to receive these discounts and additional benefits. ABC offers so much more in comparison to many city and town based associations and chambers of commerce and for far less money. I think that’s the key here, the cost is low and the give is big.
We recently opened it up and now offer free basic memberships! I think that’s way cool because it allows people free access to our eWeekly newsletter (I get to write a bit for that too), a free business profile and automatic search engine inclusion. You even get a free issue of our magazine.
After the free basic membership, there are two other levels. One brings you an amped up premium profile, those fabulous discounts I mentioned before, online advertising, advice, information, news, full subscription to America’s Best Magazine and a boatload of marketing material. The other offers all of that, plus your own customized website.
What made me want to work for this company, aside from them wanting me to work there, was their real desire to help small business in the United States. The philosophy isn’t to kick the super-I-sell-everything-stores to the side, but to find a way for the small business owner to be able to thrive right along side them! The goal is that once we get enough members, well have the power of numbers on our side and can make it to Washington to become the voice of small business and lobby for some rights. It’s that integrity and that value that hooked me. They want to help and they can.
What do I do?
Now I’ve told you what the company does and what they offer, but what do I do for them? I help to make them look good. I get to do a little bit of everything that I’m good at. I design a little, I code a little, I talk a little and I interact all around. I work on interface and new media and I love what I do.
The interesting thing with this transition is that I’ve changed how I play in the social media space. Since I used to work from home, for myself, I always had a hard time separating personal and business. Business for me was personal. I had a personal Twitter account and a business account. The sad thing is, I neglected my business account and never paid the proper attention to the people who wanted to follow me there. I’ve done away with that account and have followed all of the people who followed me there on the account that I now interact on during the day: @kFenolio. I am still maintaining my personal Twitter account privately. I certainly don’t need more than two Twitter accounts.
So if you’re on Twitter, follow me there. I generally interact and talk throughout my day. I share interesting small business finds or internet marketing related things. I also write a bit and share my own advice.
So I leave you with a couple requests, if you would, I’d love if you’d follow me on Twitter or share with others what my company can do for them. Now I need to know what I can do for you. How can I help you?
Posted in Random Thought No Comments »
August 12, 2008
On Monday, August 4, 2008 a tornado touched down in Griffith, Indiana just two blocks from where I currently live in Highland, Indiana. I started Plurking and Tweeting (on my personal accounts) as soon as I saw the National Weather Service alert that the tornado would be to me within five minutes; of course that was after I got my family safe. Here’s my Twitter time line and what the folks who follow me there got to see from when it began through to the next morning:
08:21 PM August 04, 2008 from Ping.fm
So [name] sent [their] tornado to me. In the basement now.
08:25 PM August 04, 2008 from Ping.fm
OMG neon blue sky.. Neon green.. Sirens!
08:30 PM August 04, 2008 from Ping.fm
The sound is terrifying! We’re in the crawl space.
08:37 PM August 04, 2008 from txt
House is moving and creaking. Jacob is freaking out. No power obviously. Cramped in here.
08:52 PM August 04, 2008 from txt
Outside with my father because he’s freaking INSANE! It’s a mess out here. Emergency vehicles all over.
09:15 PM August 04, 2008 from Ping.fm
The tornado ran along the next block. Lightening struck, we lost a ton of electronics. Things are smoking…
09:22 PM August 04, 2008 from Ping.fm
Houses are gone…
09:26 PM August 04, 2008 from txt
Turning off my updates from u people.. Phone juice running low.. No way to power phone for now. Will keep updating.
11:41 PM August 04, 2008 from Ping.fm
It’s around midnight and the people out walking the streets to see th damage reminds me of a parade.
08:03 AM August 05, 2008 from Ping.fm
http://ping.fm/p/ogle4 – Never seen anything like this.. Looks like a hurricane came thru & mangled all the towns around here. It’s hard to find words for this…
08:14 AM August 05, 2008 from Ping.fm
We have power back. A lot of things are fried. AC is dead. DSL dead. Headed out now to buy new surge protectors.
09:09 AM August 05, 2008 from Ping.fm
The storage unit I put all my apartment and life in is demolished. I’m balling my eyes out. WHY AGAIN?!
10:55 AM August 05, 2008 from Ping.fm
Aaaand to top it all off: my computer is fried despite the surge protector.
As soon as I said that a tornado was on the way, a flood of reply messages started coming in. People expressed concern for our safety, asked if we were ok and extended prayers. The responses coming to me on Twitter via text message were comforting to me while my family and I huddled together in the crawl space of the house. I may have been alone in taking care of my family, but my social media family was with me in spirit. I was amazed at the compassion and immediate response from the people that I’ve simply formed relationships with online.
In the time line above, you read that I found out that I’d lost my storage unit (again) to the tornado. I’ll elaborate on the again part of that statement. Two years ago in September I was living in a basement apartment that was flooded so bad that they had to gut the building to its foundation. My son and I lost our home and everything but my dining room table, my computer and a duffel bag of clothing.
Just a few months ago I had moved in with my parents while I began my search for a full time job (didn’t want to sign another year-long lease since I planned on moving) and also to help out since my father and grandmother need daily assistance. I took everything from my home and placed it into storage with the exception of my clothing and my computer.
The tornado touched down two blocks from me, made it’s way across the the parking lot of a Kmart, took out a strip mall, demolished the residential neighborhood behind it, went straight through my storage building and then down through another neighborhood.
My storage area was an afterthought and I’d only stumbled upon it the next day because I was on the way to pick up new surge protectors for the house. I saw just the edge of the warehouses and they looked as though they’d gone through a shredder. I broke down into tears immediately. I am still questioning how two different natural disasters can affect one person in two years.
My social media friends extended their thoughts, love and prayers immediately yet again. I received phone calls, emails, text messages and word through friends concerned about me. They wanted me to know I wasn’t alone, that I was cared for and that they would help in any way they could. Just having their words was a huge help.
I have my friend Jim of With a Voice Like This to thank for his support and help in the clean-up, but also my family from Reunion Church. As soon as Pastor Chuck found out about this, he sent word out via email to the church community. People started calling immediately offering to come and help, which many did. Also a result of the Reunion family, I even received a text message of support from someone in New York that I didn’t know. The physical was covered.
The social media friends certainly couldn’t be there physically to help me sort through what was and wasn’t salvageable (china cabinet, kitchen items, sentimental things in Rubbermaid totes were saved; lost all furniture and beds), but they found their own way to help out. Friday evening my friend Andrea of Geek is Chic sent me a text message saying that she had a question for me and asked that I call her. She was bubbling with excitement while she told me that she had organized a group of people who had together pooled over $400 to put towards helping us get back on our feet. Of course, I began crying again. This time it wasn’t in sadness but because I had such amazing and wonderful people who cared so very much.
Thank you to Mark Tafoya, Rachel, Krissy, Alison L, Flick, Amy Osborn, Winnie, Bleu, Cliff and Stephanie Ravenscraft, Kim Thompson and FrancR for your generosity and your compassion. I love you people. Thank you so much.
–
New and social media is here to stay. I talk about it all the time, but this example here is something that shows how strongly it can take hold of you, how it can truly affect lives. I’m a testament to that. Social Media is helping me start fresh. I’m one person. Now think for a moment, on a bigger scale, how social media could affect the world. What are you doing to be a part of it?
Additional Media re: Tornado
- Here’s a YouTube video that I shot of a neighborhood along Arbogast.
- This is another YouTube video that someone else put together. At around 4 minutes into this one, there’s actually additional footage beyond just sights and sounds from the storm. You may want to skip ahead.
- Photos of the destruction
Posted in Podcast, Random Thought, Social Media 5 Comments »
July 29, 2008
I’ve been engaged in Social Media and the internet since before it received its title. In the early 90s I began by teaching myself how to code HTML using Notepad and created my own graphics using MS Paint. I created websites that defined who I was and was among the first to display my contact information publicly.
Shortly after that I started working in an online gaming community that was in it’s infancy. This was a time where internet communities hadn’t yet figured out how to identify themselves. By 1997 I attended my first community meet-up where people from all over the USA met in person for the first time. Here I am today, just over a week out of a meet-up that I personally organized and ran for a podcast that I created in May of 2007.
I have formal training in graphic design and multimedia: an associates degree. That training has further encouraged me to display my communications in an attractive way; a nice, net package if you will. This is far beyond what many designers and/or social media artists are capable of. It’s this vast array of capabilities that make what I can do so very marketable.
I know what it is to communicate and create meaningful relationships that last. I know how to market myself, a business or a brand with a communication strategy that involves the written word, spoken word or graphic appeal. Relationship building, brand building, marketing: it’s all the same. We’re just learning new and innovative ways to make it more efficient.
I wonder how the rest of you came to be social on the internet and what you made of it if anything. Care to share?
Posted in Design Related, Experience, Podcast, Social Media No Comments »
July 28, 2008
It is no secret that I am looking for a job right now. One of the most frequently asked questions I’ve received since I’ve started looking again is, “Why do you want to stop doing the self-employment bit to get back out into the corporate world?” My answer to that is pretty simple. My work has taken over my life. I need a healthier balance between personal and business. I often find that I have so much to do that I’m unable to find the time to update many of my blogs or social networks. If you’ve paid any attention to the dates on this blog, you’ll see that I’ve neglected it as well.
Why did I choose to pursue self-employment in the first place? Many of my reasons are personal and for those, my plan worked out fantastically for a time. The other natural desire of self-employment is to be your own boss. That was great too, but the reality is that you’re never your own boss if you have clients. Each job comes with its own job description and someone on the other end who will approve your work; I’d call that a boss. Bosses are good for all of us because they give you goals and something to strive for, even if sometimes they are a bit warped. Let’s face it though, who isn’t? I’ll wait for comments from the peanut gallery on that one.
Aside from the reasons I’ve already mentioned, self employment is lonely. Sure a lot of what I do is in new and social media so I get a lot of opportunity to talk to people every day. The difference with that is my interaction is on a computer, not always verbal and usually not in person. I’ve found that I really miss the personal interaction with others, even if it’s just a few people a day. Who would have thought working alone would be lonely? Bring on the office politics I say!
Seriously though, it’s just time for me to get back out into the world and take on someone else’s new and social media desires or their requests of graphical goodness. I’m good at marketing for others and making it look fantastic. Let me work someone else’s projects so that maybe I can get back to my new and social medias being just for fun. Don’t get me wrong, I still have fun in what I do. It’s all the requirements of what I’ve taken on that have eaten away my desire to continue the personal consulting full time. I’ll continue to do some freelance consulting, of course. When I work for someone else, their priorities will come before those of my own, as I feel that it should be.
Posted in Announcement, Design Related, New Concepts, Random Thought, Social Media 1 Comment »
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