Baby Boomers: trends and opportunities in social media for businesses, organizations and individuals' careers: Digital Wagon Train™

Businesses Share Social Media Case Studies At BlogHer Business '09

Just finished live blogging three cases studies for Blogher Business '09. My assignments were the case studies on  Allstate, Prego and Coach. My three key takeaways :

From Allstate - even in a highly regulated industry you can have great success supporting and encouraging customer conversations.

From Prego - Sponsoring a conversation about an issue that consumers care about - in this case, the economy - can help the brand even when the consumers are not specifically talking about their product.

From Coach - Consumers love the idea of creating a product for their favorite brands. And from Jamie Dicken of Brickfish one-out-of-four millennials believe they will be a celebrity one day.

This is cross-posted at FunnyBusiness

An Invitation To Talk Ethics & Etiquette

 

The Model T Ford did more than “spook the horses” when it debuted in 1908. Until then, we had one- horsepower horses for fast transportation and steam locomotives pulled people across long distances. New technology (The affordable car) arrived long before the infrastructure (roads, traffic laws) we needed to support it. 

Thanks to cell phones, text messages and social media, we’re pretty much in the same place today. Transformational technology is here and there are very few rules of the road to make using them easy on us and the people around us.

Digital Wagon Train invites you to join the discussion of ethics and etiquette vis-à-vis these new toys. Share pet peeves, hard-won lessons you’ve learned and common-sense experience with these technologies. Help develop the social norms we need to keep social media from “spooking the horses.”

 I’m happy to start:

• If you have to drive a car and talk on the phone (and you don’t), use a hands-free set and keep it short.
• Don’t read or send text / email messages while driving. Ever. Period.
• If you’re in a store checkout line, get off the phone, finish your purchase and move on.

 Add your favorites, offer alternatives and get in on the discussion of living with our new toys without annoying the people around us, killing them or being killed by them. 

Image Credit: Relationship Capital Institute

The cluetrain manifesto - 10 years after

I cannot believe that it has been 10 years since the Cluetrain Manifesto was published.Those who embraced it in 1999 knew that we were in for a super-wild roller coaster ride in the way humans connected. As they said:

"A powerful global conversation has begun.

Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter—and getting smarter faster than most companies."

Certainly an early indication of the immense impact social media has today. We are connected technologically, providing the individual tools and abilities that for the most part were unknown even in 1999.

Despite being written as a marketing tool, Cluetrain provides a guide for anyone either beginning or continuing their social media journey; whether it's for a multinational forprofit corporation, or a tiny nonprofit organization struggling to survive in the current economy. Social media brings us all into a collective conversation, and the Cluetrain Manifesto is a very valuable road map.

"Corporate firewalls have kept smart employees in and smart markets out. It's going to cause real pain to tear those walls down. But the result will be a new kind of conversation. And it will be the most exciting conversation business has ever engaged in."

The Manifesto's 95 Theses read like an operator's manual, clearly identifying and describing the rules of the conversation and how we best cooperate to make it happen.

I thanked Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls and David Weinberger in 1999, and I thank them again today. Their efforts and wisdom are most appreciated.

If you don't want to buy the book, read it here for free, compliments of the authors.

Why me?

When my friends at Digital Wagon Train, LLC invited me to join their project, I asked why?

Despite years of organizational experience and the certain knowledge that who you know is often more important than what you know, I'd been generally too busy to fool with social media networks like Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter. It was all I could do to get VISTA to work reliably and migrate from a Blackberry I loved to an iPhone I might love soon.

They challenged me to explore a couple of social media platforms for 60 days and get back to them and I accepted -- since the consulting business, like the economy, has slowed. What did I have to lose?

While I'm convinced that about 75% of what I can find on various social media platforms is best described as rampant incipient narcissism, the potential that these technologies offer non-profit and for-profit enterprise is breathtaking. That's assuming of course, you know why you're using them, what you want to have happen, whether or not you're serious about experiencing real growth and, if you have a guide or mentor that can smooth the learning curve. (in DWT parlance maybe the phrase is "guide you through the wilderness".)

Without becoming a geek (I do not allow Twitter to invade my iPhone), I have become a fan. In just a few months have secured new work, made new friends, re-connected with old friends and see fabulous potential for current and new clients. With some purposeful planning and a little hand-holding, any of us can grow our businesses, improve our services, reach new customers / clients / donors and do so quickly and inexpensively.

I guess my Digital Wagon Train friends will say that if I can learn it, anyone can and I suspect they're right. I know this, DWT can help even if you're just curious about what's out there and you can control what happens to your in-box, phone, business or non-profit.

It's Pikes Peak or Bust

If you are a baby boomer, or for that matter anyone who is not a digital native, you may be getting some very mixed messages about social media.

On the one hand you know that just about everyone other than yourself seems to be spending all of their free time, Tweeting, sending out questions on LinkedIn and reconnecting with the class of `72 on Facebook.

On the other hand, you’re being told directly and subtly that baby boomers and social media don’t mix. 

Last summer, I was listening to an executive of a Fortune 100 company talk about wikis, blogs and social media tools that the company was implementing worldwide. It was impressive. And then he said, “Of course, we’re not going to get the boomers involved in this. They’ve let us know they are not interested.”

Jonathan Freed, one of Digital Wagon Train’s founders, was sitting in a social media workshop when the presenter announced, “Whatever you do, don’t ever pay anyone to help you set up your LinkedIn or Facebook pages. It’s really easy.” Jonathan rolled his eyes, knowing that for the uninitiated, guidance is needed and boomers require guidance.

Not so long ago, Toby Bloomberg, our own Digital Marketing Diva, was doing a workshop for retailers. Many were baby boomers. The more she explained, the more overwhelmed they became. Clearly, taking smaller steps to get them onboard would reduce stress.

Baby Boomers are hearing that being part of social media is easy, but that’s not how it feels. For many, social media feels confusing, intimidating, a complete invasion of privacy and a huge waste of time.

Baby Boomer and Digital Wagon Train’s connection to the nonprofit world, David Zemel likes to say about his first impression of Twitter, “rampant incipient narcissism."

The result is a lot of confusion. On the one hand baby boomers are being told social media is for people who need to get a life. On the other hand,many of the Fortune 100 companies are actively implementing social media strategies both internally and externally.

What does that mean for baby boomers? It means despite all the negative impressions, people in power see something very worthwhile in understanding and using social media. It means unless you take the time to learn what they are learning you could end up being perceived as a dinosaur and that can be a career-ending perception.

We at Digital Wagon Train understand that trying to figure out social media  is like being in the Old West and getting a horse and a map to head out to Pikes Peak on your own. Maybe you’ll get there… maybe you won’t. Either way,the trip can be scary, dangerous and very lonely .

On the other hand you can join a wagon train with people who know the ropes and know how to get you connected, so it’s both easy for you and productive for your business and personal life.

DWT folks are experienced guides, boomers ourselves, who can show you the short cuts, teach you the new culture and help you thrive.

That’s what we do at Digital Wagon Train.