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.

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Some of my regular readers may have noticed that the site has been changing over the last month or so. This really started with the merging of the Digital Imperative blog and my music/design site. I wanted to bring my career workinline with my creative and artistic work here at mattborghi .com. Since then I’ve been reading some of your comments, emails and past posts (of which this is post #90) and thinking about the editorial direction and content overall of The Digital Imperative. This week it became clear to me that while I might talk about Google, Twitter or Yahoo, or Web and Digital Strategy or communications, as well as posting videos or Mp3s of recent work at the core of my message is that of entrepreneurship. Whether you’re a corporate entrepreneur working inside the walls of a Fortune 500 company, the small business owner who’s reach is much more local than global or a Do-It-Yourself artist trying to gain a broader audience for your work — Entrepreneurship is an attitude.

It took me talking to a trusted colleague this week for that to become clear to me. We spent a good amount of time talking about what it means to be a small business and a small business owner. Entrepreneurship encompasses a series of soft skills, including ambition, persistence, organization, attitude and most importantly a belief in one’s self, but there are many other words that describe what an entrepreneur or entrepreneurship is.

I plan to spend more time talking about entrepreneurship and what it means to be an entrepreneur. Keeping in mind that my definition of an entrepreneur is looser than most. I define an entrepreneur as someone who works to put something together and is willing to take the risk for it.  This goes together with the newly-crafted editorial statement that I crafted for this site: The best investment you can make is in yourself.

So that’s the plan, and the direction I plan on taking with things. I’ll still be talking about social media, Web strategy, communications and the like because of course it’s absolutely the entrepreneurial spirit that drives one to undertake these things, especially as best practices are being written as we go. As always, I welcome your feedback, and look forward to the continued conversation.

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A lot is being said about “free” these days, especially with the release of Chris Anderson’s book on the subject, but ever since I came online I’ve been interested in the economics of free, whether it was freeware, free music, or free information.

Story: I ran a series of free Mp3 downloads back in 2003 at mattborghi.com, and those downloads brought in more hits to my Web site than being featured on the nationally-syndicated space music program, Hearts of Space. To be fair, the program didn’t feature my music, exclusively, and no link was included to my site, but I thought that it would at least have generated some inquiries, and it did. However, I didn’t see nearly the response that I thought I would from that exposure compared to the interest generated by the free monthly download series.

It’s with that experience in mind that I released a variety of my long-form ambient music tracks to be freely available (some of which are from that monthly download series). Here’s the official announcement from my homepage at mattborghi.com:

Freely available Mp3s of long-form ambient works

I have freely released several hours worth of my long form works in mp3 form here, approximately a dozen tracks. Most of these tracks haven’t been available in quite a long time. Some go back as far as ten years and my early Mp3.com page, some were out-takes from records, and the 2003 series was a monthly download series that I did throughout 2003 during a particularly prolific period. I hope to add other long form works over started adding these tracks.

My reasons for doing this are two-fold. First, these tracks haven’t been available in a long time, and to me it makes more sense to put them out into the universe, where people can enjoy them, than let them take up space on my hard drive .

The second reason has to do with my how I measure the success of social media. Social media metrics and measurements are something that many folks talk about, and ponder but I think that good social media metrics aren’t in hit rankings or page views, but rather in how many people you are getting your ideas out to. The more people that download you free ambient music tracks, watch your videos, read your blog, etc… and comment on, think about, bring up in discussion, include in status updates or generally take an interest in your ideas is the best way to measure the success of social media.

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There’s a lot of talk about social media and the role that companies can and/or should play in social media; but the one thing that I’ve learned is that there’s almost no place for social media in the closed organization. Companies that aren’t transparent and are secretive don’t have much of a chance with social media because social media really requires you to put it all out there, and open yourself to public scrutiny. With that said, it’s important to note that if you’re a closed company then your employees and customers are probably already out there in the social media sphere talking about you.

This is where I qualify the first sentence where I talk about there being “almost no place for social media in the closed organization”‘; there’s always plenty of room for “reputation management” or as it was called in the bygone days of yesteryear damage control. However, this part is also likely lost on the closed organization, because they believe that keeping their head down and going with the flow is the best approach, and sometimes it is, a little passive for my taste, but I could see how some might view it as effective, at least from the perspective of ‘if you ignore something it will go away’.

However, I would submit that in the age of social media, or the Web, in general, an organization that tries to live under those old rules is really just signing their own death certificate. It may not happen right away, but like so many great companies that have crumbled, it will happen slowly, until all falls apart, and everyone stands around in the aftermath scratching their heads and asking how this could happen. Yes, it’s a leap from not using social media to an organization’s foundation crumbling, but it becomes less of a leap when the organization has closed up so tightly that they’ve turned their back on their customers.

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This press release that the IABC – International Association of Business Communications issued yesterday is very interesting to me. It’s titled: Two Out of Three Communication Professionals Don’t Think Twitter’s Popularity Will Last…

To be sure, this is a bold statement, not because I’m a super Twitter user, though I did crack 100 followers yesterday (not much in the scope of @Oprah or @APlusK (Ashton Kutcher)), but because this statement positions itself to be some kind of pronouncement about Twitter as a communication tool. Twitter, or any other Web/electronic communications vehicle is temporal at best, and subject to the natural evolution that has affected communication methods since the dawn of the Web.

With the Web communication approaches are always changing – Usenet, BBS Systems, and Listservs were improved upon by OneList, eGroups and later Yahoo, Google Groups and AOL Instant Messenger. Yahoo and Alta Vista informed Google, which Google improved on. AOL Instant Messenger laid the ground work for ICQ, and Facebook, or semantically different, but no different really, Twitter and micro-blogging. Live Journal laid the groundwork for blogging and MySpace which laid the ground work for Facebook, and Facebook was informed by Twitter when they integrated a Twitter-esque piece into Facebook, which actually was more reminiscent of AOL Instant Messenger status messages… Anyway, you get the point.

Facebook, if they’re still around in ten years, will be radically different. Twitter, if they’re still around in ten years, will be radically different. This is the evolution of sharing ideas, information and our lives in our community, while the definition of community, and what it means to communicate with that community, continues to change.

The bone that I really have to pick with IABC’s press release is their choice of wording in the title. Many communicators don’t get Twitter especially in the context of business. So in some ways this title, from a leading communications organization creates the appearance that they’ve washed their hands of the value that Twitter could add to communications, and the subtext is that communicators should, too… Maybe that’s unintentional, but from my perspective that’s how it comes off.

I’m assuming that IABC considers themselves to be experts in communications, as it is they’re business and issuing this press release could support this theory to some, but truly, if they were they would understand the history and context of not just Twitter but the history of communicating on the Web in general and fold some of that history, if only a couple paragraphs, into the release. They didn’t, though…

Twitter is a tool, and tools become outmoded and improved upon. Anybody trying to harness the power of these tools needs to recognize their temporal nature. Neither Twitter nor Facebook are here to stay in their current form; if they stayed in their current form they wouldn’t exist at all in ten years… MySpace stuck to their “current form” for too long and they’re foundering because of it, replaced by Facebook; same with Yahoo! who were improved upon so long ago by Google that they’ve become the de facto cautionary tale of why you have to change (Read: evolve) or die.

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Seth Godin’s blog is one of the few “personality” blogs I read, and he frequently provides some interesting food for thought; today he had one such post called “Magicians, sausage makers and transparency“. He opens the article positing the question: “Does everything have to become completely transparent?” As a way of countering the corporate transparency buzz of late. He then goes on to ask whether Apple should be transparent about their designs, or if Star Trek should release the script of their next sequel. He then contemplates the art of the magician with transparency and marketing as “story” where a little magic rather than reality (my interpretation) can’t hurt. Then he sums up with a point about playing poker with your cards face up won’t ever allow you to win. Truly good points, and these are good questions. The post certainly begs the question: what are the parameters of openness/transparency?

As I started to answer this question on my blog, I realized that I didn’t know the answer myself. I found myself trying to understand my core belief of why openness/transparency is a good thing. I pulled out my copy of the Tao Te Ching, also read a little Confucius, evaluated the concepts of Capitalism, and the free market economy, as well as the egalitarian philosophy in conjunction with the meritocracy, and I found myself scratching my head without a clear answer.

I’ve always believed that the truth would set you free, and a credo of my own is that if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to hide from; these are core beliefs, and so in spite of the vogue period that the concept of transparency is in, I’ve always believed that being open and transparent is just the right way to do things. Therefore, I generally believe that being open and transparent is the right thing to do for a company, a politician, a celebrity or anyone.

That doesn’t mean that you should divulge business plans, design sketches, research knowledge or anything deemed private/personal by the law, but that still leaves many wide open spaces where an organization, or individual can be open and transparent. So when asking the question of whether everything has to be transparent, I would say, no everything doesn’t have to be transparent, but nothings black and white…

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Last week Jeremiah Owyang posted a great article talking about free WiFi in hotels, and frankly, I couldn’t agree with him more. Another dimension to this is the car dealer. I’ve been looking at buying a new car for a few months now, and I finally reached that point where I needed to go to the car dealer and start putting together the deal. I had all of my materials set up on my on mobile data center (read: my iBook) and stashed in my bag. I decided that I would have everything set up for reference, CARFAX, Consumer Reports, Loan approvals, Interest rates calculators, etc… I assumed that no car dealer would have free WiFi, thus empowering the customer to have the same resources that they had, on the ready. I was wrong.

As the discussions started, and then the negotiations became heated, I decided it was time to unsheath the mobile data center. I set up on my lap and started citing my numbers and references. The car dealer wasn’t prepared for the prepared customer, so I got a straight deal, as outlined in my Consumer Reports info, which would have been more like me paying sticker had I not been prepared, which is horribly inflated.

Anyway, this is less about my good deal and what it took to get there, and more about how advantageous the Web can be for the customer in historically closed  situations. With ubiquitous and free WiFi (which, slowly but surely, is on its way) and the cheaper netbooks that are hitting the market, all customers can be empowered, thus having the same tools as the folks trying to sell them.

The way business is being done is changing. The old era of pressure, emotional purchases, and psychological games to close the deal is coming to a close (Gelber’s written an interesting book on this dimension here, Horse Trading In the Age of Cars). Where the Web leveled the playing field for communications, it’s also creating an environment of open information to educate consumers… What will open access to information mean for you and your business?

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I came across a good article in yesterday’s New York Times called Blogs Falling in an Empty Forest by Douglas Quenqua. This article definitely touches on the other side of the blog coin, and that’s the number of blogs that go the way of the ghost ship. The ghost ship is a term that I first came across here, that could be defined as a site  that had been abandoned by their authors or Web masters, and left suspended in time. The article talks about how the price of admission is so low to become a blogger, that many try, but give up, because of either time, dedication, or the absence of other perceived rewards for doing the work.

This article presents a perspective that I’ve come up against personally and professionally, and it’s often the reality just beyond the hype. Blogs take a lot of work and dedication. I’ve started a half-dozen blogs, only to get bored, and have them turn into ghost ships, myself. In fact, I’ve had the idea for this blog for three or more years, but I knew I wasn’t ready so I waited. I’ve had clients, numerous clients, who’ve wanted blogs, and I inform them about what’s involved with doing a blog and getting it out there, but after a while, the inspiration dries up or the sense of urgency that created the blog dissipates — ghost ship.

I don’t think that this is a reflection of the medium. The blog is a very powerful thing. Not everyone is going to be a Seth Godin, or Michael Arrington. However, that shouldn’t deter anyone from giving it a shot. The beautiful thing about the Web is that we have this tool for communicating to everyone that’s open to everyone; that’s a profund reality! With the openess, though, there will be some (Read: many) who get involved and can’t keep it going. That’s Ok, give it a shot. The next hot blog could be anecdotes from a rural plumber who always wanted to be a writer and shares stories of his life’s experiences, or the rants of house wife driven insane by ordinary madness, and uses the blog as a way to vent, and tell amusing stories.

Therefore, a few tips for a successful blog (whether professional or personal) might be:

1. Express yourself.
2. Do it because you want to do it, not as a means to an end (i.e. a book deal, praise, because everyone else is, etc…)
3. Be genuine; people will see disengenuousness a mile away and never come back…
4. Do these things, do them fully, and don’t put a time line on it… the universe and the Web works on its own time. If you’re doing items #1-3, then just doing those will be enough, allowing for item #4 to unfold on it’s own…

Hopefully, these tips will help you avoid the ghost ship, and give you a better idea of what’s involved with a blog before you get started.

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Read an interesting survey today that kind of confirmed some of my suspicions, at least preliminarily. You can read it here. The gist of the survey is that people are using social networking to chat with and build networks of friends and colleagues, but not buy stuff. That makes sense to me. I’ve always thought that the social media piece, as it pertained to growing business or selling products, seemed kind of questionable, at least and unproven at best.

I come to this opinion first and foremost as a user. I like to get my hands on stuff that I hear my friends talking about, and that has influenced a lot of purchases over the years, but there’s a higher likelihood that I’ll read about something, hear a review on NPR, or just generally pick up something that I heard about through word-of-mouth. I’d love to get other folks opinions on this, as the monetization of these services and the possibility of growing business through social media is getting a lot of press these days.

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Collaboration can be very difficult, if not impossible, if a group isn’t working towards the same plan or goal.

A group or team can attempt to move forward without a plan or a clear set of goals, but the outcome, if any, isn’t likely to be very good or successful.

Being a native Detroiter, and thinking about collaboration during the National Hockey League playoff season brings the Red Wings to mind. The Red Wings are an extremely successful team that have seen exceptional success in the last decade or so. There are many reasons this is the case, great teams, great scouting, great coaching, great front-office leadership, great owners… But at the core the success is the outcome of an organization that’s united in a common plan and working towards common goals. This isn’t just any kind of collaboration, though, this is a form of collaboration that every group or team should aspire to, a finely-tuned, tried and true collaborative process developed over time.

Every group or team is different complete with conflicting personalities, ideas and motivations. However, if there is a plan or goal to focus on successful collaboration will occur much easier than if there isn’t one. The plan or goal will allow people to move past conflicts and differences towards a successful end. This is something that I’ve found as the key to successful collaboration.

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