A couple weeks ago I read this note at Reddit about a guy who emailed Pandora and got a shirt. I love Pandora and I wanted a Pandora shirt, so I decided to give it a shot. So not expecting much, here’s what I wrote:

Hello,

I just wanted to tell you all that Pandora is awesome. I’ve been premium subscriber for a few years now. I listen to my stations every day. I tell everyone (who hasn’t heard about you) that they should not just listen but join to keep it alive, and overall, I’m one satisfied customer. I’ve been exposed to so many great artists and I have Pandora running when I work, at home, on my iPod about 18 hours a day, always listening.

With all of that said, I know that you sent another fan a shirt, and if you can spare a XXL for a brawny lad like myself, I’d like to promote you by sporting your dry goods!

Thanks and keep up the great, great work!

Matt

In short, look what arrived from Pandora, in the mail today, personally signed by the founder, Tim Westergren:

Let me also add, they even included a 2XL for this brawny lad. It’s just that kind of attention to detail that has made Pandora my #1 site and why they just might have gotten themselves a lifetime subscriber. While I would love to see them include more indie artists, as they did early on, there’s still nobody like them. They’ve changed the way I enjoy music and are what it means to be constantly striving to be better.

That’s why I heart Pandora!

That’s what happened to one of my email addresses today, or maybe it was yesterday. I don’t know, but I do know that it’s a drag and it’s forced me to do a little personal brand damage control. I think that the account was hacked and then after harvesting my address book to sell ‘sex services’ or something my account was used as a spoof address.

It’s kind of funny in a way, because I contacted the provider and, of course, heard nothing. Having witnessed these before I knew that it was something that in all likelihood, it would just have to run its course, and I posted a message to that end to folks in my address book as well as setting an auto-response. But as a Web services person we spend so much time and trouble trying to get the best possible security, and of course this hack could have been much worse, right now it’s just irritating more than anything else, not really harmful, but it definitely had me going through those ‘what-if’ scenarios, you know those worst cases that disaster recovery and internet security sales people use to prey on our worst fears and then sell us something to allay them, yeah, those…

Seriously, though, what if…? And I’m going to take a moment and get into the mind of a middle of the road technophobe… what if credit card info was exposed, or like with Facebook, a whole persona and dossier about you, probably better than the CIA could create was published, or personal, digitized documents, or PHI (personal health information). Thankfully, none of this was, but for about five seconds, I thought, ‘damn, we’re putting all this out there…?’

Now, I’ve been an online, digital citizen for almost two decades. I wouldn’t call myself an early adopter, but early on the Web just made sense to me. With any case where the unknown is contemplated there’s either much to be feared or much to be hopeful about. I guess I’m hopeful. Sure, this incident made me stop and think, but it didn’t scare me, or make me think that I should stop, but instead it made me think about being more careful with what’s out there, or putting all of it out there, hidden in plain view, if you will…

Whichever way one goes is personal and based on their worldview and beliefs. Of course, I don’t want to be hacked or exploited, but the convenience is great. I think many people feel this way, and I think that in time, between mobile computing devices and other electronic tools, it’s all going to be out there, all the time, and what will matter is how well organizations help their customers bounce back from these types of incidents, but that’s another thought-line for another day.

I’m filing this under lessons learned.

When developing anything for the Web or from any IT perspective, there are two things that need to be considered:

1.) It’s very challenging to develop a digital process where there’s no human process.

It’s not that creating a digital process can’t be done, it’s just that it has to be pursued. When you start developing a Web or IT endeavor it’s all about the process that you’re trying to digitize. So having process map is crucial to developing the workflow for a given Web or IT project.

2.) Sometimes a Web or IT project can’t replace real human contact

Some processes, many processes have the luxury of being able to be replaced by computers. However, there are some that no Web site or computer can replaced. In my business, it’s a beautiful idea to streamline or refine work processes, and it’s a work that I love and look very forward to doing, but sometimes there’s no replacement for human contact. Sometimes, creating a digital process where a human one is needed can hurt the process.

What I’ve learned is that you really have to evaluate the projects, analyze them, and sometimes the best thing to do is avoid digitizing a process, allowing the human process to stand.

As an entrepreneur, small business person, or artist/musician looking to get themselves or their business more exposure, there’s no single tool greater than YouTube. I’m sure that you’re already familiar with YouTube for funny and silly videos, as well as other things, you’ve seen here or there, but the hidden benefit to YouTube is making your own video, and using it to bring a greater awareness to your work or business.

For instance, let’s say you own a dry cleaners. You might think that nobody could have any possible interest in the business of a dry cleaners on YouTube; you’d be wrong. The Web is filled with just this kind of stuff, these minor curiosities that folks would love to spend a few minutes watching while they’re eating their lunch.

Take this video, for example, with almost 76,000 views… what if you made this video, and promoted your company simply by including a small logo in the bottom corner, or having the people in the video wear shirts with your logo, boo-yaa! I guarantee business would increase:

Then there’s this one, which, Paula Berg from Southwest Airlines talked about at the Digital PR Next Summit I recently attended, and it made me laugh out loud. This is a video of a jet engine being washed, basically, three minutes of water being blown through a jet engine, almost 97,000 views:

Anyway, I think you get the point. YouTube can bring great awareness to your work whether you’re an entrepreneur, small business owner, artist or musician. Surf around YouTube, and look at folks in your business are using it. You’ll be amazed at what you’ll find.

For this week’s Social Media Take Away I’m featuring a post that I read last week in The Future Buzz blog, 50 Blogging Lessons To Know If You’re Starting Today. Adam Singer has a great blog going over there, one that I’ve been reading for nearly a year.

I’ve been doing this blog on here for less than a year, and to read some of the points on here that Adam makes is great for not just myself, but for anyone looking to start a blog, or looking to integrate blogs into their work or communications plans.

For entrepreneur’s, small business owners, and self-starters of any kind I would say that you should get started using social media. In fact, this should have been the first post in the Social Media Take Away series, but hey I’m improvising and making things up as I go here…

What is social media?

Social media is any web tools that allows groups to generate content and engage in peer-to-peer conversations and exchange of content (examples are YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc…)

Social media is particularly valuable for entrepreneur’s, small business owners, and self-starters in-general, I’m thinking artists – painters, musicians and the like, because it gives them low cost, high value, far reaching exposure for whatever they’re doing. As I write more about the social media value, I’ll cover some of these. For starters, I would say see this post on Twitter or items tagged with social media on this blog. Though, I’ll be covering stuff more in-depth, and high level, alike as I develop this feature of the blog.

Update: It’s been two years since I wrote this post and with Twitter, the hype has increased, but it’s value is still very much in question. I continue to watch what they’re doing, but I’ve since deleted my Twitter account because the signal:noise ratio is very low and that only contributes to what it offers in the way of value. For me, it doesn’t offer much value, but I’m eagerly awaiting a change on this front, though, it’s unlikely one will come.

I talk to a lot of people about Twitter. I was a serious non-believer in Twitter, for a long time. I registered an account not long after they opened up shop, and I just didn’t get it. I mean, I got it, but the idea of micro-blogging, and “What are you doing now?” seemed to be creepy and narcissistic, actually I still feel that way, but I have found value in it.

It’s not that I care so much about what somebody just ate for breakfast, or that they’re stuck in traffic, or “so excited for the weekend!” which may have some value among groups of Twitter users, but next to none for the general Twitter pool. However, it’s the quick blurbs of information with links to articles I’m interested in, interviews, and other information that has really pulled me into being a user.

The take away: If you’re looking for articles, information, breaking news and the like, I would say that Twitter has dp,r value. I would also say that if you tweet about your work, your interests, etc… and it caters to the sort of PR and tech folks that are on Twitter then they might get the message, and you might be able to build interest in what you’re doing locally; eventually making real-world, physical contacts.

As I was cruising through my Google Reader today I had a realization — Don’t provide an RSS feed to your content, if you’re only going to provide a teaser title, sans the actual content, that links to your Web site. Yes, it’s true, you can get better measurements, and better ad hits if people visit your site, but if that’s the motivator, might I recommend FeedBurner (for measuring feed stats) and RSS feed ads to monetize the feed.

Otherwise, content providers just create another irritating step that I’ll breeze past nearly every time if only out of spite. The site in question is that of a large PR organization that I’ve talked about on here before, but try as they might they just don’t seem to get the digital perspective. I know they’re old school, and they’d like to folks to go to their site, and probably even read their newsletter, too… which may even be available via a SASE on printed paper and you might even get it in 6-8 weeks, come on… this is the Web, and the point is to spread your ideas, your perspective, and your voice out there, not lock it down behind another cumbersome layer of linkbait just to lock folks into your site. This is so very old school print media and Web 0.5 at best…

So the new rule for RSS Feeds is this: include the content in the feed, even if only a few paragraphs, or don’t bother offering an RSS feed, at all, as you’ll just make the people who want to read your content irritated. After all an irritated reader won’t be a reader of any kind for very long.

This post was one that was originally posted here, but kind of got lost in the mix, and I wanted to repost it for two reasons. First, this is a great example of using the Web to create and be creative. I was surfing Flickr, a free picture sharing site, and I found this great series by Indy Kethdy, he had them marked with a Creative Commons license, so I downloaded them, created a video, and then composed a soundtrack to the photostream. Then I posted the video on YouTube to share. This sort of the full-circle of open sharing, social media and creativity on the Web. My second reason is less profound, I know the site has some new readers, and I thought that they might enjoy checking out this video montage. Enjoy.

Indy Kethdy Video Montage with Matt Borghi Soundtrack

Surfing Flickr, as I so often do, I find images that inspire me. Last Friday night, though, I found the fantastic work of Indy Kethdy. I spent hours, and hours pouring over his pictures of Lake Michigan from around Wisconsin. I started to hear music in my ears, and imagined putting these images to sound. I was in luck, because Indy had set his pictures with a Creative Commons license that allowed me to make a video of his photos, put them to music, and then post it here for you to view. I highly recommend visiting Indy’s Flickr page – http://www.flickr.com/people/indykethdy/ and getting a taste of his excellent artistry first-hand. First, though, check out the video homage and the music that I created from the inspiration of his gorgeous still images:

Came across an interesting article here about a local Michigan company, Oneupweb from Traverse City, traveling around the state in a motor home offering up free advice on digital strategy, SEO and online marketing in general.

My initial reaction to this article was two-fold: First, what a great idea and second, this such an excellent example of a socially responsible Michigan firm doing their part to try and help those struggling in the Michigan economy.

However, what Oneupweb teaches here isn’t just about helping Michigan, but really it’s about outreach and social responsibility. As I said in my post here, the Web has always been social and it’s always been about sharing with others. It’s one thing to to do this only in the digital domain of the Web, from the comfort of one’s office or living room, such as I’m doing now, but it’s something else entirely to take this sharing and exchange on the road to meet the man on the street where he lives. Very inspiring.