The Power of Face-to-Face

Today officially launched the holiday gathering hoopla that is December. I went to the first of, I'm sure, many get-togethers with friends and family over lunch.

Today's group are some of my oldest friends outside of school friends. In 2002 I saw an ad in the TV Guide (I know, right? How archaic! A print magazine about television?) for an event in Toronto called Toronto Trek. Besides advertising itself as a science fiction convention, they were also advertising that the actress Amber Benson would be there. At the time Buffy the Vampire Slayer was my favourite television show and the idea of meeting one of the actors in the show was pretty fantastic. Plus all the other geeky things I love would be represented at the event.

What I'm Reading - Owner Magazine

Just yesterday I wrote about how important it is to maintain a balance between selling yourself or your business and talking with others on social media.

Today, I read this slightly cheeky, but frighteningly familiar blog post, by Chris Brogan "You Can't Talk About Yourself Enough, Apparently". In the post Chris shares the fact that a large number of his audience have no idea what he does. To be fair, he does a lot of things, he blogs, he teaches online workshops, he is a published author (Amazon affiliate link), he is a podcaster, he is the co-founder of the unconference, PodCamp Boston. But the thing he is doing now, which he is surprised so many people don't know about is, is that he is publishing an digital magazine called Owner Magazine.

I follow Owner Magazine in two ways, through the RSS feed which sends every new article to a website which collects them for me, and through an email newsletter which gets sent to me with new articles.

Starting a Twitter Account, Step One

Okay, so it might not be the first step since you need to register an account, choose a username, upload a profile picture and header photo, write a bio, add a website and change your background photo.

Those are the basics. Search "How to start a Twitter account" and you will get pages and pages and pages of these steps.

But the most important step is the next one. It is the step I make every client take and I insist on it. If they don't do it there is no reason to keep working with me, and no reason to have a Twitter account.

What I'm Reading - @GaryVee

It's Friday again, which means I start moving into relax mode. I've been working hard for the last few months to make more of an effort to enjoy the weekend instead of just using Saturdays and Sundays as catch-up on work days.

So I do more reading, cooking, watching of movies and shows and spending time with this guy when I can on the weekends.

As always I have both non-fiction and fiction books on the go, one non-fiction which counts as "business" and one which is for fun.

This week I've been reading my very first Gary Vaynerchuk book Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy, Social World (Amazon affiliate link).

While I've certainly known about GaryVee for a few years now I neither follow him on any social media, watch his videos - Wine Library TV or have read any of his previous books. I have friends who almost consider Crush It!: Why Now Is The Time To Cash In On Your Passion (affiliate link) to be a lifestlye book rather than a business book.

I have nothing against GaryVee and I very much agree with what he says. It's just that for me I've never found his delivery style enjoyable. If you don't know GaryVee than go check out a video right now. He is very big. I appreciate that, he's very passionate and gets other people fired up as well. I have nothing against this style of deliver either, in fact one of my favourite people, Scott Stratten, would be described the exact same way.

Maybe I only have enough room for one loud mouth in my circle. Either way, I've never felt a strong need to read either Crush It! or The Thank You Economy (affiliate link). However, Gary's new book #JJJRH, I've decided to read.

This book is very much more hands-on, crunchy even. Gary is talking about how to effectively grab a social media fan and turn them into a consumer. He's doing it, chapter by chapter, and network by network, with actual posts from brands and breaking down what works and what doesn't.

This is way more helpful than a blanket statement of "Be more human". The reality is, some people really aren't good communicators and what seems like common sense to someone who is good at it is not to someone who doesn't have the skill set to write a post or take a picture. And I'm sure we all know people who say the wrong thing in every social situation.

"Be more human" and "Engage more" are very wishy washy statements.

I've talked about creating a podcast that is more based on what I do and part of the plan was to breakdown good and great marketing and explain what works about it. Give people some tangible advice. It's definitely needed, and more helpful.

I definitely recommend Jab Jab Jab Jab Right Hook to any person, business or organization using online media to spread the message about what they do.

Did Twitter create a Frost Quake?

I spent the bulk of today with friends celebrating the marriage of our friends Shane and Robin. I came to know Shane because he is the host of an online game review webseries. Him and my man Nick often work together on videos.

Those of us at our table (the rowdy table) would be most commonly referred to as "Creatives". We were a table of animators, videographers, writers and such. So naturally the conversation turned to movies.

What began as a discussion of the positives and negatives of recent B movie Sharknado quickly turned into the script writing of the best B movie a bunch of people at a wedding can come up with. Needless to say, it's involving sharks. I won't give it away because hopefully you will see it one day as one of the Syfy Originals.

Which is how I come around to some weather events that have taken the twitter world by storm and sound like the titles of their own B movies - Frost Quake! Polar Vortex!

First there was Sharknado. Then there was Robocroc. And now, there's FROST QUAKE!!!! http://t.co/0tHhMoGlfo #frostquake
— Cate Sevilla (@CateSevilla) January 3, 2014

Many of us have lived in Canada for decades and never heard of these terms which are describing weather we've not often had a chance to experience, or at least those of us who live closer to the US border.

Despite our confusion, and BS metres sending up flares, these are not new or made up events. What's new is the immediate communication tool we all use to validate ourselves. Think back a few years to before Twitter and Facebook. Did you ever have an experience where you thought you might have felt an earthquake, or heard weird sounds, heck for the conspiracy theorists, even seen strange lights at night. Who did you tell? Did you wake your neighbours and ask them if they too felt, heard or saw the same thing you did? Did you maybe turn on the radio or the television to see if they were reporting strange events? Did you ever actually take a moment and call the media yourself to report something?

I'm betting the answer to most, if not all of those questions, is no. The most you might have done is mention it at the next neighbourhood potluck asking if anyone else noticed something. Or more likely, you just convinced yourself it was nothing, you didn't even notice it. Life went on after the sound or lights or shake just like it did before so who cares what happened? You've probably forgotten.

But not now! Now we have an immediate validation engine in social media. Every experience whether banal or extraordinary is shared with our friends and followers. As gregarious human beings we like to know that we are not alone in the world, so when the power goes out we take to Twitter to ask if anyone else's power is out.

Sure, there are the 1% of us who take to Twitter to inform the hydro company or the city that something is amiss, but I know when I post about something weird it's to validate that my experience was not in my head, that I am not the only person in this position.

So twice this winter season in Southern Ontario we have had extreme cold coming just after mild temperatures which has caused groundwater to freeze at a quicker rate than usual. Water expands as it freezes, so the quick freezing puts a lot of pressure on the ground and makes very loud noise, which us regular folk have been hearing. Off to Twitter to make sure everyone else heard it too. And now you have thousands of people talking about something only meteorologists usually discuss.

Frost Quakes, Polar Vortex, even false death rumours are not new things, they are just more quickly spread through social media.

Tip - don't immediately believe things to be false or true when you hear about them on social media; take a few moments to look into it before you deny or share.

Guelph is my favourite city

Okay, to be fair, I've never really lived anywhere but Guelph, so I can't say without bias that Guelph is the best, but I can say that Guelph has a very awesome community online.

I can also say that Guelph has a very accessible group of leaders who respect each other and the people they represent. I don't know how many other cities have business leaders, city staff,  councillors, police chiefs and neighbourhoods groups having such open conversations on Twitter and doing such a great job of being neighbourly.

Today, I was tickled to see this exchange between the director of the Downtown Guelph Business Association, Marty Williams and a city councillor, Cam Guthrie happen on Twitter.

I love that what could have turned into an ugly and awkward flame war instead became two guys having lunch at a local business and sharing a few laughs.

Twitter is a great way to get your message across, but it's also a great way to build respectful and meaningful relationships offline.

Don't get caught in a back and forth on Twitter. Listen to people, share your concerns and if it needs a larger discussion, do it offline, in person where communication has so much more to it that 140 characters.