Balls: Part II How To Use Them

I, like thousands of others, got taken in. Yes, it does happen. The people behind TheChive.com, who have come up with other hoaxes, landed this one with the hope of going viral once again. Congratulations, guys: you got more people to regurgitate your make-believe story (*applause*).

Before you start giving them props and kudos for successfully spinning a tale about "Jenny", the disgruntled employee who quit her job using a series of 31 dry-erase board photo messages, you might want to consider another angle. In a way, I'd like to thank theChive.com guys not so much for their prank, but what their prank highlights: Social Media and Internet journalism is rife with regurgitated, over-spun stories instead of innovative, action-oriented content that inspires, improves the quality of life, or fills a need that makes a difference. 

If we really have the balls, as I wrote about in my previous post "Balls: Not Only On the Guys", we would be action-oriented. We would be more like the people who are about to take the stages of the numerous Seattle Geek Week activities August 13 - 22, such as Austin Heap's work to help Iranian dissidents, or Johnny Diggz' Geeks Without Borders. 

The Jenny story gave us some kicks and giggles. But if I wanted to be entertained, there is enough noise and  Internet drivel available out there (and I've probably supplied a drop or two of that myself) on Youtube and Facebook from which to select for a good laugh. If I wanted to be emotionally manipulated for someone else's pleasure, I could find someone to re-enact a form of relational sadism upon me until my dying days (or just watch "The Notebook").

It was pointed out to me that perhaps the "Jenny" story served another purpose. Maybe the offshoot is that it inspires other people who hate their jobs to actually do something like "Jenny" did. I thought long and hard about it (about five seconds). Nah. I am not ready to assign that kind of credit for inspiration to change, when these guys knew they'd have to call it a hoax in less than 24 hours. True inspiration doesn't come from single acts of random people, but from consistent leadership that flows from character. I would rather applaud the people who will be coming to the Gnomedex stage August 19 - 21. There's no hoax involved. They are the real deal, and I am proud to be involved in curating the content that will be on the stage for this conference. 

Maybe as our own little prank, those of us who got taken in by the "Jenny" story should invoice the Chive guys with the estimated cost of our wasted time. I'm sure the Jay Leno show and the Today Show might have some hefty bills. Let's see now: I charge $110- $175/hr for coaching. I took thirty minutes to respond to other people on FB and Twitter about the story, and ten minutes to review the hoax when it was revealed. I spent another five minutes responding to Twitter retweets, and fifteen minutes writing this blog post. 

I'll be fair. The invoice for my time looks like about $110 sixty minutes, but I got an idea that's worth a million bucks to me out of the experience. That idea is this: keep doing original actions, and keep writing original content. Keep dancing original choreography, and keep performing original music. So, we'll call it even. 

Thanks guys. By negative example, I figured out exactly who I don't want to be. 

Newbies and n00bs: SSDD

TSSTechangel shared an acronym with me today on my Ustream.tv chatroom (Hips for Hire):

SSDD = Same Sh!t, Different Day.

I suppose the same thing could be said about experts and gurus claiming to be Social Media experts. When Scott Berkun delivered his presentation to SMCSea (Social Media Club Seattle) last week, "How to Call B.S. on a Social Media Guru", the audience murmured with agreement that so-called experts in this new field need to substantiate their claims and do not need to be received as experts just because they have a book or a program to sell. No one, however, mentioned that because Social Media is so new, maybe we ought to stop looking for gurus and just learn as much as we can collectively.

Oh but wait: that would make all of us in the room a bunch of newbies and n00bs. Is this possible? Therefore, SSDD.

For the past eight months, I've been calling myself "the n00b of Social Media". Two weeks after having launched a new company idea, HipsForHire.com, and armed with a Twitter account and a blog, I attended BlogWorld 2009 in Las Vegas. Seated across from me during a radio interview was Chris Pirillo, and across from him was the most "newbie" person in the room: me. I figured "n00b" was a better description than "village idiot".

Eight months later, I'm told that essentially everyone who uses Social Media is a newbie. We don't know what we're doing. Even Mark Zuckerberg in his most recent admissions has shared that Facebook has made mistakes. We simply don't know what the impact of our actions are in this sensitive new media climate.

Why then are so many people quick to name themselves as Social Media master consultants and experts? Why aren't they taking Berkun's advice by allowing others to label a person as an expert? Since October 2009, I'm managed to attend four Social Media Events: Blogworld 2009, LeWeb 2009, SXSW 2010, ReThinkHawaii 2010. By August, I'll have attended my first Gnomedex, and I'll be rounding the corner into the final days of the first n00b year. And I'll still be calling myself a n00b.

If anything I'm learning in my journey of immersion into the world of Social Media, it is that we only end up learning how much we don't know. Albert Einstein got it right, "If we knew what we were doing, we wouldn't call it Research."

I'm a n00b, and likely I'll stay a n00b for years to come. I'm still researching, still learning, still growing. Every day I'm exposed to some new tool, some little trick, a different way of organizing and disseminating products, services, or ideas. This Social Media universe is big. . I'll let some other person call himself an expert. With title comes responsibility. Then again, if you never make any mistakes, you probably weren't working on anything of importance.

Interview with DJ Chuang

A friend of mine has been using social media tools and the Internet ("new media" was what it was called before) for years. Dj Chuang (djchuang.com) is a web guy, engineer, ePastor, and geek in his own right. He decided to interview me about my immersion into Social Media as a non-geek, non-industry person -- otherwise known as a "n00b".

Check out the video interview (and sorry for the verbosity, I got really excited about sharing my story!) about how I got into using Social Media for my businesses and my newest direction for Video Nurse.



What do you think? Does Video Nurse have a place in all the voices and talking heads out there?