The Facebook Problem.

With Facebook’s new “Star” program, you can effectively rid yourself of everyone you friended before you knew what you were doing in social media, by promoting the activity of those whose relationships you actually value. <—- The problem with a social network designed to encourage people to share as much as possible with as many as possible, is that people eventually realize they’re not exactly sure why they’re doing that.

Our decisions leave both a wake behind us and a wake into our future. Choose wisely. #inspire #learnshare

How do you monetize a billion personal narratives? $FB

Social is fickle. It’s too soon to queue the “Debbie Downer” music on $FB, but we may ultimately learn that platform traffic alone is not enough, even with the whole world there. 

The question is, How do you monetize a billion personal narratives?

“Likes” & comments are social currency, sure. But are they actually worth anything? Reward influencers? Sure, YouTube partner program. But monetizing content when the content is a status update? 

Legend gone.

One of my earliest influences in hip hop. A true game-changer. Helped define the entire genre. 

Are You Claiming Your “Restorative Niche?”

This morning I attended Dan Pink’s popular online Office Hours with guest Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a Wold That Can’t Stop Talking (currently #5 on Amazon’s best seller list, and rising).  Pink’s web show consists of a conference line to dial-in to with questions, and a very active Tweet chat where he fields questions to spur discussion - it’s a great hybrid model.

In addition to her new book, Susan Cain recently wrote a fascinated piece in the New York Times - The Rise of the New Groupthink - where she cites research that “people are more creative when they enjoy privacy and freedom from interruption. And the most spectacularly creative people in many fields are often introverted.” The premise is simple: we do our best, most creative thinking alone… and yet ” The New Groupthink has overtaken our workplaces, our schools and our religious institutions.” Whether you think you do your best thinking alone or with others is up to you. I see tremendous value in having deafening quiet, alone time, that’s balanced with stimulating discussions and brainstorms with others. And I tend to prefer to switch between those two modes often many times in a single workday. But do introverts have an advantage? Are they more creative? Are we spending too much time collaborating these days?

So a few key highlights from the discussion today and some questions you’re welcome to answer in the comments or take away to consider (on your own ;):

Managers:  half of your employees are introverts. What can you do to ensure introverts, your “quiet geniuses,” are being heard? Cain recommends:

• Have your employees prepare their thoughts in advance of a meeting, then you share their highlights to prime discussions/collaboration.
• Find ways to get your introverts thinking outside of the “meeting” mechanism altogether, whether through 1:1s or other, more informal venues.

Employees: If you’re an introvert - my question, which Cain answered - What can you do to get noticed more at work? She recommends:

• Make sure you’re calling 1:1s with your manager regularly enough to share your progress/challenges.
• Take on a “writing” role in your team/org either through marketing/communications from your team, or an internal blog - apparently social media is a very comfortable medium for introverts.
• In meetings, if you don’t speak much, “ask thoughtful questions” to guide discussion, you can be “quiet but strong.’

In the end Google & search wins over Facebook & social.

Social activity streams will continue to be aggregated and embedded as a dynamic, but background layer in search results and other content hubs. We’ll always want to limit our connections to others as a personal privacy choice, but our desire to learn is limitless. The utility of search is permanent.

Which do you think wins in the end, search or social?

Just realized that I’ve been having a conversation with myself in my head for the last 30 years

Fortunately it keeps getting better and better.

A beautiful thing about the morning is how slow it begins.

learnshare #inspiration

At the edge of abstraction we find our best thinking. #learnshare