Our creations sometimes aren't the easiest solutions.

Background: The cat successfully caught and killed a mouse early Friday morning. (This is the first year we’ve had any mice issues… cat only has back claws.) So my wife had me get mouse traps the next day – to set out this weekend to catch any other mice who come inside the house. We have a couple traps – but none set out when this morning’s events happen.

So I make a quick decision. We put the cat in room upstairs with the litter box and food, and my wife and I set the mousetraps downstairs. We run out to shovel snow and run a few errands. We return home. No mouse caught, and the cat seems pretty content in the comfy chair in the upstairs room.

This got me thinking: Can I and all of the gadgets I love do better than the cat? Can I build a better mousetrap? This reminded me of an essay I read in The Cluetrain Manifesto.

How Lego Caught the Cluetrain (links to a video presentation that covers the same topic as his essay) by Jake McKee tells the story of how the Lego Company entered the world of social networking as part of its communication outreach. Lego had been aware of AFOLs (adult fan of Legos) but only marketed to children. The company slowly began to embrace AFOLs who had built websites, message boards, forums, e-mail groups, photo sites, and virtual stores to buy and sell pieces. Lego joined the conversation on the existing websites and developed new programs that made it easier for AFOLs to create their own designs and purchase the needed blocks to build those creations.

One paragraph in particular stood out. It highlights something that Jake says Lego did not do – something Lego did well.

“The mistake many companies make when they first engage a community is to rush in and try to replace unofficial efforts with official efforts. Even if such a move is well intentioned, it’s as if the company is saying, ‘Your efforts are sub par. Let us professionals step in and show you how it’s done.’ Not a very good way to start off the relationship.”

Lego included and built off the work that the fan community had already established. Lego joined the community. Its customers welcomed it, and they didn’t try to replace the work that was already done. The lesson is important for any company that connects with customers online – whether through a simple website or on a series of online communities. Don’t work to create an “official” and “artificial” community; go to where the customers are. You can add a legitimate voice to the conversation, but don’t hijack what’s already been built. Look for ways to complement what your customers, users, and constituents are doing.

Sometimes you can’t build a better network, and you waste resources and annoy everyone involved. That’s what my cat taught me about mousetraps today.

Thanks for picture: Picture is Creative Commons licensed from Joming Lau through Flickr.

This focuses on the second point. I’ll follow up on the loose ties in a later post.

Hashtags bring some order to the large number of posts in the Twitterverse. Remember, my simplified view of Twitter is a giant chatroom where you are trying to get your message through the din. Your task is to figure out who you want to get and receive direct messages from. Hashtags help you sort through that noise if you’re interested in a specific topic. It lets you see a sign in the chatroom that your topic is being discussed in a certain corner, and you can go to that corner to hear everyone else espouse their thoughts on your topic.

Say that you’re interested in the annual Comic-Con show. #comiccon lets you track what other folks are saying about the show. You see where other people are spending their time at the show. It makes it easier to meet more people in real life who share your interests – which spreads your network and influence. And your more powerful network is much better than a few new followers.

That means the real world component of hashtags is important. If #you write sentences just to #include #metadata, you help #computers – not #people. Tags should be rare and should be unobtrusive. Take a look at Dave Coustan’s post. I’m not sure that I’d unfollow, but I like his comparisson to the NPR piece. They shouldn’t interfere with your ability to read the post.

Help sort – but don’t go overboard. Take a look at the directory on hashtags.org to see how out-of-control it can get. Hashtags remain an advantage for Twitter only as long as they don’t get in the way of the conversation AND they build loose ties.

It has to do with knowing your audience. There’s a big difference between the audiences of Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and LinkedIn. You wouldn’t write a press release when you want a billboard. And you wouldn’t produce a short video if you want the local newspaper at your press conference.

Share the book that you’re reading on goodreads and the news you’re reading on Digg. It’s the basics: Pick the right medium to send your message to the target audience – so identify your target audience.

That means that your profile – or your profiles on different networks – each talk to a different tribe. You might meet people on Twitter but reconnect with old friends on Facebook while networking on LinkedIn. Build a separate audience on each profile or at least understand what your connections want when they connect with you on different networks. Don’t send direct mail when a phone call will do. And don’t treat each network as a chamber for your same words to echo around in. Find a way to make each profile useful and unique or save your time and just use one spot.

One of my friends posted advice handed out on The Today Show during the weekend: “Build something meaningful and choose friends wisely.” It’s a good thing to keep in mind – focus on your audience. Do it online and offline. That way you’ll encourage your tribe to listen to its chief – you.

Twitter is getting a lot of buzz, but there are also recent reports indicating that it isn’t getting return users. That’s led some to suggest that Twitter’s future is limited.

I smile when I see people who believe Twitter will magically generate a community – a real community with meaningful conversation, stave off newspapers dying of attrition, or let a politician to show his or her real side to his or her constituents. Twitter: the magic pill that solves all of your problems.

Here’s the problem: People are looking at Twitter as a tool unto itself. Twitter’s usefulness is being driven by a number of extensions, widgets, websites, and other programs that make the system easier to use. Twitter The Website simply won’t be useful to tens of millions of people. Even augmented by all of these utilities, Twitter will struggle to be useful once its fad phase is over.

It’s simply a chat room without walls. You select who you want to private message. You sort through the noise to hear them back. Following is just how you select who you’re exchanging private messages with. Except that you don’t private message. You write an endless stream of thoughts that are posted to the world to see and hope that people find you interesting enough to subscribe to your brain’s witty thoughts or to the articles that you promote. (If not, you’re talking to yourself.)

Sure, I use Twitter. You can see the recent updates in the Lifestream on the side of the front page. If you peruse my whole history of tweets, you’ll see a lot of junk in there. Some of it is idle chatter and noise simply because I hadn’t posted in a few hours. (How sad is that?) The truth is I’m continuing to play with Twitter the same way I’m playing with accounts on Flickr, Goodreads, and Digg. Each network specializes in something – they each have their own niche. And none will be the single solution. You’ve got to learn to drive each one.

These sites work best when you break down the illusion that you do everything on one network. In my job, I’ve seen our success where we’ve broken down the imaginary walls that divide social networks into individual rooms. Otherwise you’re trapped in a room where there may be nobody to listen.

It’s frustrating to build a room – or a profile – that you spend a lot of time developing, but that can’t a solution. Don’t look for a lasting audience on a site with so many people who don’t come back.

But is it really best to run from Room to Room – or network to network – in an attempt to stay current with what’s cool? Isn’t it better to take advantage of the unique capabilities of each network and make that part of your strategy? (Note: a “Facebook Strategy” is more than “we should do that” just as a “Twitter Strategy” is more than “OMG can I Twitter all day!”)

Isn’t it better to use the real-time broadcast capability of Twitter, the scale of Facebook, and the embedding capability (and brand name) of YouTube when communicating? Only by breaking down the walls of these networks, can we use their full capability to communicate as widely as possible. Think of the sites as real world infrastructure sites. You’re taking on big infrastructure upkeep costs if you don’t want to be seen as an absentee landlord.

MySpace will continue to hold avid users, but will it be worth your time and effort to dedicate the resources needed to have a vibrant presence in that network? (Would you remain in Friendster if you had joined it in 2002?) Shutting down – or significantly scaling back – in these networks can alienate dedicated users. Don’t tell me that it’s expected to lose some people, and that you’re OK with it. You joined these networks to chase these people – you’re not OK with getting them angry at you.

Whatever you build or whatever you join isn’t a magic bullet. They offer something – even if it’s a unique way to connect to your audience. Figure out what that unique strength is, and incorporate your strategy around that. Jump on the new opportunities quickly, but know that you’re leaping at the capability and not the shiny toy.

Shiny toys are tossed aside when the next cool thing comes along. And in such a rapid environment, the next cool thing will be out before you build a big following in the old thing. Watch the Did You Know video as a reminder of the speed of change. (Then, think about how much that video reminds you of Sprint’s new What’s Happening commercials.

Now, think about how both videos reflect on individuals and what you’re doing right now. That’s kind of what Twitter’s about. What are you doing to use the things happening now in your communications?

I think social networking is a wonderful and entertaining tool to get in closer contact with people. I’ve personally learned about so many people who now have children, homes, and spouses that I wouldn’t have known about before – people who I had lost touch with years ago. I’m really happy for them, and it’s great to get that chance to catch up with people who had inadvertently fallen from my list of colleagues.

Just as I can get more done with a word processor than hand writing everything, I expect programs can help me know a bit more about a larger number of people. But I don’t think I’ll truly know hundreds of people – I think I’ll have trivia about most of their lives.

The larger point behind that entry is that social networking is an interest for some people in the same way that I have a passionate interest in genealogy. Some folks will be really connected and plugged in to the newest sites. They’ll move on when too many other people join the site and it loses its hipness. And if they’re not coming back, were they truly engaged with – and listening to – your message? Or were you just playing in the right medium for a few months?

It’s a question for a communications professional who believes social networking is The Solution. It might only be one tool to get one segment of people. It’s a service – not a strategy.

This isn’t something that I want to say too loudly. A large component of my job entails going on social networking sites and blogging platforms to update information and exchange messages with people. Almost impossible not to have some version of a social networking strategy today.

I remember geocities, tripod, and angelfire. When’s the last time you visited one of those sites? (Millennials: Do you even know what they are?)

Somebody new started following me on Twitter yesterday. I took a few moments today to check out the guy to see whether I wanted to follow him. As I write this, he’s following 47,947 people. He has 48,302 followers. Made it easy to decide. I’m not following him. Nothing important will come from him. And he doesn’t really care what his nearly 48,000 people are saying to him. He’s in a room full of people and nobody’s listening.

LinkedIn had to limit connections to 30,000 users earlier this year. Which, obviously, cramped the style of the people who really actually network with 30,001 people.

Count me as a skeptic of the more is better idea. I think meaningful online conversations and relationships have a limit. At some point, information overload is simply human nature.

50,000 followers is nothing if they aren’t listening. And if they aren’t listening, they’re able to walk away from the network – and your messages.

I’m approaching a period at work where we’ll be able to tear apart and remake what we’re doing online with our social network programs. And as I’m scratching out my thoughts before the planning sessions, I’m thinking about being effective – about the difference between being busy and being productive. I want the people who friend and follow us to think about us.

There’s a lot of clutter out there. Until we get past the more-is-better phase and look-how-important-I-am mentality, social networking will remain a fad rather than part of the answer.

Thanks to M. Keefe on Flickr for the photo.

I work at a place that’s pushing itself into many of these networks. I’ve helped to shepherd and create our own little area with the idea of being part of the conversation, and I’ve been approached with questions about how other offices can do what we do. I – and a few other folks (who get it) in other departments – spend time checking in on unofficial pages just to monitor. But there’s no institutionally organized (or if there is, there’s no lead dog).

There’s too high a cost to not be a part of these conversations – to not standing in these rooms. We’re trying to figure out who grabbed some of the branded real estate and created some of the initial pages and profiles. In a way, this really forces us to be part of the conversation – to be respectful of the community norm of not being over the top in our promotion.

Rachel wrote about the merit of becoming the go-to office for other departments interested in creating profiles on the various networks. The larger gain is in creating the dominant profile. Some of our profiles that weren’t the first created on a site are lost beneath the initial profiles. This hasn’t been a problem, and we continue to watch for any issues. But we’re faced with creating a series of profiles that tie together under one theme – something that takes time and the focus of a handful of people in disparate offices.

One of the overstated new rules is the need to give up control. Don’t think you’ll pull everyone under your page. But do be as friendly and as helpful as possible – a good community member – to get others to look for leadership. You can run as lead dog, but you can’t rein in others unless the executives decree it. That’s the easiest way to get someone to set up a spoof page – one that you can’t control and one likely to draw lots of attention.

Stay dominant by being open to others and making it easy for everyone to contribute to your work and profile.

Mr. Peanut and I in healthier times

I’ve been off work for the past few days taking care of a sick cat. Great that I have a week of vacation for this. The cat recently had surgery to repair/reconfigure the surgical procedure he had done in August. The cat is leading the family in surgical procedures in the past year…

So from my spot on the kitchen floor, I’ve spent a lot of time working on the spring newsletter for the Lackawanna Historical Society and getting some grad school work done.

I’ve also been working on a series of posts about social networking – something that I get to do at work each day. I’ve used my time off work thinking about a few social network questions that I posed to myself about a month ago:

• what’s hype and what’s real?
• what’s here to stay and what’s a fad?
• where should we put our online efforts?
• what’s talked up just so people can waste their time on it?

Of course, I’ve found some time to spend on the popular networks as well. One of the best things about Facebook and Twitter is all of the favorite quotes everyone will post. Best one I’ve seen this week?

“Everyone wants to change the world. No one thinks of changing themselves.”
-Henri Nouen