Communication is about explicitness and concision. The most efficient communicators and communications say specifically what needs to be said in the least amount of expression possible. But both of these qualities are also those that most expose us to being ...Read More

Why ambiguity is so easy and so dangerous

Communication involves a message and a recipient. There are two parts to that equation, but usually we only recognize and focus on one. Every message has a right audience and a wrong audience. Changing the message is one way to ...Read More

Why its OK to tweet about what you had for breakfast

Maybe it's just a terminology thing, but community doesn't seem to adequately define many online social groupings, networks, and identities anymore. Are all the people who follow Barack Obama on Twitter really a community? What about the people who like ...Read More

What’s the next stage after community?

For the most part, the potential of social media is still wrapped up in the abstract. We talk about connectivity and community, and then go about our day-to-day social networking, content with the simple acknowledgment of this potential. But there ...Read More

How to grab social media by the balls

An investment in social media doesn't offer the same potential for immediate returns as traditional media does. There is no social media equivalent of buying a spot in a TV show for next week, or a placement in a newspaper ...Read More

Why it’s essential to invest in social media before you need it.

In the real world, the personal benefits of being close with someone increase almost linearly; that is, there are still increasing returns (happiness, stability, family etc) to a relationship even after a year, or two, or five. But in social ...Read More

Why it’s important to sleep around in social media networks.

We all could benefit from a mentor. But many of us don't take advantage of this key professional relationship because we perceive "mentoring" to be some formal process where an old industry veteran takes a young upstart under his wing ...Read More

How to find a business mentor in 30 seconds with social media

Friends are still friends, even if they are virtual. You can look for tips and techniques all day about how to get more friends and followers in social media, but chances are it's not the things you aren't doing, it's ...Read More

10 reasons you don’t have more friends in social media

Cavemen marketers would have done really well in social media. I am by no means an anthropologist, but I think that the level of trust that exists in today’s society is very similar to what it was tens of thousands ...Read More

Why cavemen would have been great at social media marketing

Corporate culture varies. In some environments every T must be crossed and every I must be dotted, both grammatically and bureaucratically. In itself, this is an important system to study, understand, and utilize. As a general philosophy, professionalism is a ...Read More

How acting unprofessionaly can be valuable for your career

In many ways social media is simply human social organization and interaction transplanted from the real to the virtual space. Social media consultants and experts rightly tell you to listen, engage, build communities, and display the same social desirables that ...Read More

The value of family-building in social media

People like to say that social media is a conversation. As a business, you are no longer simply broadcasting to your customers, you are communicating with them. A blog is certainly a business grown in the social media garden, but ...Read More

Keep your language simple.