It’s Friday and everybody is grumbling about work–how much of it they have to do, how much they hate doing it, or how much they really need some so they can pay the bills. Even if you love the gig you’ve got now, chances are you’ve had one (or five) that have sucked. Hard.

Naturally, if you’ve had a job like that, you have also fantasized about quitting that job in some kind of fantastic way. No wonder the story about Steven Slater, the put-upon JetBlue employee who quit by calling a passenger a naughty name, grabbing a beer, and escaping down the emergency slide, became such a working-class hero tale. And of course, when one meme goes viral, dozens of copycats are bound to follow, which led to this heartwarming story: a pretty young girl, after being harassed by her evil boss, quits by writing snarky comments on a dry erase board, photographing them, and emailing them to the entire company.

The interwebs FLOCKED to this unknown Jenny’s banner. She was a hero. Until we realized that the story was FAKE. A hoax, put together by the same comedy website that did that story about Donald Trump and the $10,000 tip. Her name isn’t even Jenny! It’s Elyse!

Rats. No cute girls quitting spectacularly. No stickin’ it to The Man. Just a meme. Disappointing, but no big deal, right? Right.

Unless you’re in social media marketing. In which case, you are now going to have to try to convince the suits above you that there is no formula for a viral video. At least with the Old Spice commercials, they probably noticed that the people responsible put a LOT of work into it. But with “Jenny,” all they had was a whiteboard and a pretty girl! That’s gotta be cheap and easy, right? So go make us a viral video! Community manager Evan Hamilton explains why this is going to be a major pain in the ass for social media workers everywhere: it’s going to re-convince executives that there is a viral “button.”

Good luck proving to your clients and executives that the only way to get real buzz about your brand is to put in the real effort.

If “Web 2.0″ was the next iteration of the web, is “Enterprise 2.0″ the next iteration of business? There seems to be some evidence to support this as not only a viable theory but a hugely important one. Under its current trajectory social media is going to lower internal corporate barriers and walls. This is largely because Social media provides a window into the customer’s life. The shift poses a huge marketing opportunity that has been widely documented. In much of the chatter something (important) has been ignored, what social media means to product designers. The problem Apple encountered with the iphone 4 wasn’t found by the media, it was found on the Social Web. Look at the data this 1 user provides, highlights the problem, explains how to recreate the problem and even how to avoid it.

As a designer you would be able to see the issue, test it yourself and save time on the fix just by watching what 1 guy figured out. It appears Apple knew about the problem when the product was lunched but if they didn’t the Social web had some answers. This week I came across and interesting study (thanks to.. @MikeDemler for pointing it out and @SAEintl for creating it) about how engineers are using social media. I don’t know the confidence intervals of this study but it is a sample of 1,153 completed surveys, with a 12.6% completion rate so it should be fairly representative of the class. Drilling down into the data there are some very interesting trends amongst engineers when it comes to social media…

#1 61% of engineers are using social media

#2 Of that group 55% are using Social Media for business purposes (at least some of the time)

This group represents a mindset that generally would not fit the classic techno-graphic profile of heavy social media users. This can be seen in the classes derived from the study. Look closely at the youngest group in the study they are under 35.

This leads me to the question “how is social media being used by this group of respondents?”…

Again there is something else shocking in these numbers (kind of)… 11% are using social media to solve problems, 10% are using social media to find new suppliers, and 20% use it to get technical information. To this (likely growing) group social media is a resource that actually gets used to drive real results.

Social media is a tool for use far beyond promotional marketing. Demonstratively it is a tool that can be used in product design, understanding distribution issues, and price point analysis. Social Media when used correctly can provide substantive insights into why products aren’t selling, and what the public thinks about them.

Update

The official ages from the study are listed below

If “Web 2.0″ was the next iteration of the web, is “Enterprise 2.0″ the next iteration of business? There seems to be some evidence to support this as not only a viable theory but a hugely important one. Under its current trajectory social media is going to lower internal corporate barriers and walls. This is largely because Social media provides a window into the customer’s life. The shift poses a huge marketing opportunity that has been widely documented. In much of the chatter something (important) has been ignored, what social media means to product designers. The problem Apple encountered with the iphone 4 wasn’t found by the media, it was found on the Social Web. Look at the data this 1 user provides, highlights the problem, explains how to recreate the problem and even how to avoid it.

As a designer you would be able to see the issue, test it yourself and save time on the fix just by watching what 1 guy figured out. It appears Apple knew about the problem when the product was lunched but if they didn’t the Social web had some answers. This week I came across and interesting study (thanks to.. @MikeDemler for pointing it out and @SAEintl for creating it) about how engineers are using social media. I don’t know the confidence intervals of this study but it is a sample of 1,153 completed surveys, with a 12.6% completion rate so it should be fairly representative of the class. Drilling down into the data there are some very interesting trends amongst engineers when it comes to social media…

#1 61% of engineers are using social media

#2 Of that group 55% are using Social Media for business purposes (at least some of the time)

This group represents a mindset that generally would not fit the classic techno-graphic profile of heavy social media users. This can be seen in the classes dirved from the study. Look closely at the youngest group in the study they are under 35. This indicates a strong slant toward an older group of respondents.

The question that this leads me to is “how is social media being used by this group of respondents?”…

Again there is something else shocking in these numbers (kind of)… 11% are using social media to solve problems, 10% are using social media to find new suppliers, and 20% use it to get technical information. To this (likely growing) group social media is a resource that actually drives real results.

Social media is a tool for use far beyond promotional marketing. Demonstratively it is a tool that can be used in product design, understanding distribution issues, and price point analysis. Social Media when listened to correctly can provide substantive insights into why products aren’t selling, and what the public thinks about them. That is just 1 area of Social Media and it has nothing to do with promoting everything to do with marketing!

This week has been interesting in Social media.. I think it already deserves a bullet point blog (its only Wednesday!?!)…

#1 Old spice Started having their spokesman respond to tweets via Youtube its working

Just one 1 of the many Videos

Twitter followers as of 12:30pm PST

#2 Ben and Jerrys decided to kill E-mail marketing and step into Social Media instead. Don’t get me wrong I love Social Media but this seems a little extreme to me. Its almost as if they have decided to stop doing print ads for TV… maybe budget issues were a concern.

#3 Facebook is extending their open graph to the mobile world. It looks like facebook is going to get into the Geolocation war at some point.

#4 Studies show that teens have Facebook fatigue but the site still experienced the highest traffic ever… This probably means that Grandmas are joining the site at alarming rates… or it was just par for the course.

#5 Twitter has decided it is going to make even more money with @earlybird. It is now apparent that while Facebook may have the users Twitter seems to have the dollars!

Last week Microsoft pulled the plug on the Kin experiment, leaving 503 users worried about the future of their service. Yes you read that correctly Microsoft sold 503 units in just a little over a month, I think that works out to 1 Prime Time ad per unit sold. What I find interesting about the Kin is every metric of success indicated people were interested in the product. Kins Facebook Page had over 200,000 fans! The ads were edgy, creative,and many even commented saying how cool they were.
Kin went wrong in a very simple way, it made life (seem) complicated. When I first saw the Ads I couldn’t sleep, the concept was that scary. Do I really want a total mashup of my Facebook feed, Twitter feed, my E-mail and my RSS? That thought which still gives me nightmares was at least one contributing factor.

The KIN probably suffered a bit because of the Microsoft brand (which has less street cred than a grandma) and the ambiguous concept of the Kin Suite (whatever that was). In case you think this phone may have been a good idea, watch this product demo and tell me you still want it!

Before coming to Nostrum I worked for 3 years in the B2B sector as a buyer. When I started working there it was the height of Myspace,  most people thought a Facebook involved an actual book, YouTube was just starting to take off, and twitter was a word for birdwatchers. Even in those early social days my industry was already social. There were (are) industry forums, blogs, videos, and even Myspace pages that were in wide use  (albeit often subversive use). The challenge for many was getting around internal site blocking software to get to the information which was so badly needed. Everyone had tips and tricks to get around a system. You might say we had a subversive network of buyers.  This wasn’t the best system (obviously) but management didn’t see the value in having an open (”dangerous”) web. Management also didn’t see the value in using social media…  The statistics in the following video should not be shocking.  Think about that subversive group of buyers, 4 years later many of them are finally getting into the management ranks. They understand the tools and they understand the potential,  and now they have the power to make changes. It stands to reason that B2B will expand the lead over B2C in Social Media over the next 5 years. Lead in part by a subversive group of buyers…

Some Facts and Figures To Consider For B2B Social Media Marketing

1. 81 % of B2B companies have accounts on social media sites compared to 67% of B2C
2. 75% of B2B brands participate in Twitter versus 49% of B2C
3. 54% of Chief Information Officers ban the use of social networking sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter at the workplace
4. 93% of all business buyers believe all companies should be on social media platforms
5. 85% of  of those buyers should use social media to engage and interact with them
6. 9 out of 10 buyers say that when they are ready to buy, they will come looking for you
7. Eight out of Ten  IT decision makers said word of mouth is the most important source when making buying decisions
8. 37% of B2B buyers asked questions on social media sites when looking for suggestions
9. 93% of B2B buyers use a search engine such as Google to begin the buying process
10. 74% of C- Level executives say that the internet is a very valuable source of information
11. Six out of  Ten C-Suite executives conduct more than six online searches a day
12. Managers in information technology are the top ranked users of the Web for information gathering
13. 49% of B2B marketers do not measure return on investment
14. 90% of marketing deliverables not used by sales
15. Sales generate 53% of their own leads and the marketing department provides only 24%

Everybody knows this job market is one of the worst since the Great Depression. I’m not going to harp on about that…it’s freaking depressing. Everybody knows that the current generation of 20-somethings is full of existential angst, has a short attention span, and has no idea where it’s going. All the pundits are saying, “Kids today, blah blah blah, get off my lawn.” The kids themselves are freaking out over the fact that they’re having to live in their parents’ basements while they hunt for a job—any job—and try to pay off some of their student loans. Parents freak out over having to support their kids when they themselves are already stretching every dollar.

I know. I’m one of those kids. Moved home. Having to defer my student loans. Repeatedly. Biting my nails and arguing with my folks about money, jobs, and who does the dishes. And it sucks. It really sucks, not knowing what’s coming next. I’ve always hated uncertainty of any kind and it’s worse this time, because there’s no light at the end of the tunnel. No more “when I go back to school in the fall” or “when I graduate,” because I’m done with school. No more “when I save up some money” because that’s probably not going to happen. For a long time.

It’s really easy to get depressed about…well…everything. But I came across this article on an education blog the other day with a really thought-provoking title: “Dancing Towards Uncertainty.” The author, Josh Barkey, a teacher, describes a confused student:

“I think Brandon is confused because he is living in a confused world. Like most young people, Brandon is searching for a passion equal to the raging tornado of yearnings that perpetually spins inside him. Yet he knows that as a privileged member of a privileged class he is gifted with a lot of potential and wants some meaningful way to live it out, but what he sees with his razor-sharp mind is a collapsing house of cards…Brandon is left wondering why he has bothered to conquer the academic mountain in the first place. He wants his life to matter, and is told that the way to do that is only to keep on climbing.”

Barkey goes on to theorize that perhaps our current obsession with security, with success, with finding that perfect, meaningful, lucrative path as quickly as possible, is what is keeping us in the dark. Perhaps we are too focused on looking for one CERTAIN thing, and as a result, we are missing out on countless wonderful opportunities.

“I…am tired of the coldly constructed educational approach that demands a clear answer to every question. I believe that before growth can happen there has to be a period of doubt and uncertainty. Certainty kills innovation, and while I need a degree of certainty in the surgeon poking around in my brain or the pilot flying my airplane, I also hope that somewhere along the line they have learned how to be creative. When problems develop for which they have been provided no textbook answer, I need them to be able to step back, take a breath, and lose themselves in the dance of the moment.”

By insisting on certainty, we are killing innovation. If we could bring ourselves to calm down and explore the uncertainty for a while, perhaps we can discover something new. Penicillin was the result of moldy bread, and microwave ovens were the result of melted chocolate in a researcher’s pocket. After all, research has shown that the main distinguishing characteristic between lucky people and their less fortunate counterparts is being observant. Yep, just being able to spot an opportunity.

So maybe we should all just relax and enjoy the dance.

Oh E3 you used to be so cool, new vendors, actual news, fun stuff and everyone wanted to be there…now you are little more than a really fun press conference… or are you?

This year E3 has at least 1 feature from the Glory days back, actual buzz creating news. Even more Shocking  the news was generated because of innovation provided by the often listless Microsoft corporation.  Kinect (yet another word my spell check won’t recognize) will enable remote-less control of the the screen VIA movements.  I think we can all hear Nintendo in the background quietly cursing (listen carefully), imagine Wii without the frustration of non responsive controls… Want to know more… this video probably shows it best.

I was going to write a snarky post about this Onion article and how I’m totally sick of the tired old copy about how “it’s a new way to connect in meaningful ways! Content! Connect! Blah blah blah!” and how I would like one of these new social network upstarts that claim to be revolutionary and provide real-world results to do something that actually translates to the real world…

But then I saw this HILARIOUS book trailer for Meg Cabot’s new novel, Insatiable, and my snarky mood vanished! The trailer manages to describe the plot of the novel while making fun of itself and the genre of teen-hormone-fueled vampire fiction spawned by Stephenie Meyer and her (bloodcurdlingly awful) Twilight Saga. This trailer does two HUGELY AWESOME things for me:

1. It makes me want to read the book. And I haven’t read a Meg Cabot book in 10 years (sorry Meg, I burned out on Princess Diaries).

2. It makes me believe that publishing is not dead. People will want to read this book. They will buy it. Hardcover, paperback, Kindle, iPhone, iPad, Nook, and every other format you can think of. They will buy it. They will read it. And they will want sequels.

So what’s the problem? Why are you worried?

Because so few people are seeing them and even fewer books are using them. If publishers spent more time and energy creating deliciously exciting, funny, enticing things like this, and empowering their authors to do projects like Cabot’s crowd-sourced zombie-couture Fashionably Undead audiobook (co-written by the author and 50 of her Twitter followers, for BBC Audio), instead of having conference after conference bewailing the end of the industry as we know it, they’d be doing just fine. Readers would be excited and engaged, and above all, they’d KNOW about the fabulous books being written ALL THE TIME instead of drooling endlessly over Robert Pattinson fansites.

And now, for your viewing pleasure, some FANTASTIC transmedia projects, book trailers, and crowd-sourced book clubs:

It’s a Book! Trailer, explaining the difference between books in dead-tree vs. ebook form.

Neil Gaiman’s Instructions trailer, narrated by the author.

Meg Cabot’s magnificently insightful blog entry about her Insatiable trailer.

Meg Cabot’s celebratory online Dracula reading group, working up excitement for the new book, complete with prizes!

My personal favorite, the #1b1t discussion group, the first Twitter-wide book club, currently reading Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, started by Jeff Howe, the inventer of the term “crowdsourcing.”

Hear that, publishers? Quit sending your people to nonsense conferences and quit writing articles about how the industry is dying and DO SOMETHING TO SAVE IT.

Or get Zach Galifinakis to be in your book trailer.

I saw someone comment on this today and decided to check it out. Facebook is beta testing English (Pirate) as a language. Playing with it for just a few minuets I cannot help but laugh every so often when I see something funny. See what I am talking about for yourself enjoy!

Want to enjoy some of this fun… Scroll down to the bottom of your Facebook page, click on English (US). A dialogue box will prompt you with a list of languages. You are then just 2 clicks away from Facebook being fun again via Pirate!

The first one of these videos went viral in no time… this second version has some cool new stats. Check it out!

Today at the facebook conference F8 an attempt to take over the world went on display. Today it became crystal clear that Facebook doesn’t just want to dominate social they want to dominate the web!

It seems like Facebook wants a like on every web page… personally I cant help but wonder how the IRS will fair on that front.

Facebook wants to eliminate Google as a search tool. This probably indicates a consumer e-mail format in the near future.

Facebook announced a very interesting collaborative effort with Microsoft… Docs.com. This is a full  attack on Google docs. Offering real time collaboration and document sharing online, the age of the cloud is very close.

Facebook connect is gone… now you just sign in with Facebook, and this has been extended to much smaller sites.

The days of being a fan are over…now everyone just likes stuff. As a result I will have a hard time following celeb pages. I can see it now “Mike likes Kobe Bryant” awkward….

If you paid attention a few months ago Facebook signed a partnership with Paypal… which will likely make them a huge player in the e-commerce biz.

The current make up of the digital landscape feels like this

Facebook V Google ::Google V Apple :: Microsoft V Apple

Apple V Amazon :: Microsoft V Google :: Google V Yahoo

Microsoft V Yahoo :: Yahoo V Facebook

Making Twitter::

This could be World War 3 depending on where you stand!

1. Moms won’t be won over by push messages. Brands need to join the conversation.
2. Mom is looking for a relationship — a two-way dialogue that shows the brand is listening and responding.
3. Moms like transparency.
4. Moms don’t expect brands to be perfect, but they expect honesty.
5. Moms work best when you give them tools and knowledge and then turn them loose to customize and make them their own.
6. Moms like relevancy. Fill a need, answer questions, value her opinion, and then let her see action taken. And don’t forget to make buying fun.
7. Moms like you to get to the point. They’re busy, so be authentic, clear, and genuine. Otherwise, the response will be skepticism.
8. Moms love to be comfortable with decisions, and information is key to comfort. Make their homework easier.
9. Moms think pragmatically and emotionally. Brands need to cover both sides of the conversation.
10. Moms like stories. Social media is about communicating — telling a story — which is extremely different than selling.

Thanks to Avi Savar of imedia connection for providing this nugget…

I’m not sure it sells shoes, but this ad is really causing a lot of conversations… What do you think??

Yup its a real thing… an actual movement to have the Internet win a Nobel Peace Prize… I wonder where the prize money would go?

Im not going to mock this because there are great minds behind this push.  I also think they have a valid argument about the Internets accomplishments… I just don’t know if I am on board.

Here is the manifesto.

What do you think?

I wonder how many industries are like publishing… reading their customers backward. If you listen your customers might be telling you that your brand has got it all wrong. Not sure what I am talking about… watch this.

I’m going to repost something I put on my personal Tumblr…I’ve been trying experiments with my personal (not affiliated with Nostrum) blogs to see which I liked better, Tumblr or Wordpress or what, and here’s what I’ve come up with so far, for my needs as an individual blogger. For Nostrum and our purposes as a multi-writer blog, I definitely like our current system of a WordPress blog with all of us writing and a Twitter feed for the little spur-of-the-moment things. For individuals, however, I’m thinking Tumblr will come to play an increasingly useful role, although for the moment the point is kind of moot since so few of my friends are on the site!

Repost starts now:

“Okay, I’ve tried it. I’ve decided to stop linking my Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr feeds. It’s waaaay too crowded. What feels like a totally normal amount of communication on Twitter seems excessive (embarrassingly excessive) on Tumblr, and just AWFUL on Facebook. Some people may be all about the integration and the one-stop-shop publishing, but it seems to me to be completely redundant. Why would a reader go to 3-10 different platforms to read the same information? A little cross promotion to alert followers form different venues that one platform has been updated is one thing…the same thing all over is just lazy.

I guess this makes sense considering what I use each service for. Wordpress is for really long, drawn-out, detailed posts. Tumblr is for medium-sized notes. Facebook is for communicating ONLY with people I know in real life. Twitter is for stream of consciousness posting of things I find interesting, fan-girl worship of authors and comedians, and Etsy/craft madness. It comes as no surprise to me that Twitter is still the one I like best. Call it a symptom of modern ADD or whatever you like, but I like being able to catalog the things that strike my fancy at a particular moment. Honestly, I sometimes find it the most useful to go back and read what the hell I was thinking about this morning at 10am.”

In essence, what I’ve discovered (I always knew it intellectually but actually remembering NOT TO DO IT is a totally different thing) is that publishing the same content across every single one of your platforms is a BAD IDEA. Cross promotion is good and useful, but the same content on every site makes it pointless for a user/follower/friend to go to more than one platform, and therefore you’re likely to cause your readers to miss something when you DO post something new on one site and not the others. In other words, keep it fresh. Don’t be redundant.

I stumbled across a very interesting social media plan for the United States Air Force. It is a great guideline with clear action steps for any situation someone engaging in Social Media may find themselves in. Take a look!

Its a really brilliant plan from a resource one might not expect! I guess they are masters of strategy though, so maybe we should expect it.

Lesson: Don’t leave engagement up to chance!