Derek Beere
July 22, 2010
1. Great post Suzi, I enjoyed reading it!

   It’s an interesting time for a lot of brands as they try to discover new ways to break through the clutter, how they can best reach and serve their audiences, and a lot of the time, how can they do all of this (and more) without big advertising budgets.

   I couldn’t help but think of a personal experience. I had the amazing opportunity of working with the Krispy Kreme brand when it was launched here in Connecticut. Talk about a true passion brand that relied on zero advertising and mostly on word of mouth and a public relations strategy to generate that excitement and chatter. To me, it’s always been the world of public relations that helps a brand truly connect with their audience and it seems like a lot of the presenters at this conference touched on a lot of tried-and-true PR tactics. For example, Maker’s Mark inviting bloggers to test product, Zappos and their amazing customer service, etc. All are brand touch points focused on positive experiences that ultimately inspire their audiences to do what they want most: talk about them!

   Good stuff! See you around,
   Derek

Suzi Craig
July 22, 2010
2. Really good point Derek — the missing link is PR. And I see the approach in PR these days is along the lines of the Brian Solis’ of the world: http://www.briansolis.com. If you haven’t read his book Engage, do it now. He was at this conference as well (I didn’t sit in on his session because I’ve heard him before).

   The new PR is not controlling the message, it’s connecting the dots to get the right people in your conversation, just like you said. We’re all trying to make something interesting happen — the trick is playing matchmaker and instigator to make it happen!

Rohit
July 22, 2010
3. Suzi,
   Thanks for this great recap and for offering your takeaways on the conference. I’ll be sharing your post in a tweet not only because I found it highly engaging to read, but because I love your choice to focus on quotes and key takeaways rather than trying to capture the conference verbatim. This is, in my humble opinion, the way to write a recap post. Thanks for a great read!

   R

Suzi Craig
July 22, 2010
4. Rohit –

   Thanks so much for your feedback. As much as I can, I try to bring the mojo of a real world experience to those who were unable to be there. It’s so hard to replicate an in-person experience through an online channel. I struggle with connecting the dots but am intent on bridging that gap as much as possible.

   I’m glad you found it interesting enough to share. You totally just made my day!

   Many thanks.

deko web tasarım
August 5, 2010
5. Thanks good topic ..

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Cheryl Rice
July 14, 2010
1. Great insights, Suzi! Sometimes it’s tough to figure out the best way to contribute to the conversation — but trying to force something to “go viral” is a recipe for failure. It’s better to just be honest and authentic, and to share what you know.

   I just watched the follow-up video of the guys who found the Double Rainbow Guy and interviewed him. I was so moved (okay, blubbering) over how much joy he has, with obviously so little “material” wealth. That is far from noise — it’s a great story!

Jonathan Tufano
July 15, 2010
2. Suzi,

   Great post.

   But what does it meeee-aaan?

   This is a fantastic example of the power of authenticity, in today’s world of hollow offers and false claims, authenticity rings true.

   People are desperate for it. They can’t get enough of it. It almost seems to good to be true, but it sure seems like the more real and true to themselves organizations (or people for that matter) are, the more successful they will be, and happier too…

   I’m starting to think that rainbow guy is onto something…

Peter Larson
July 18, 2010
3. Great article, Suzi. Good food for thought for 35+ curmudgeons like me.

   I agree with your spirit in making online conversations what we need them to be (meaningful). That spirit aligns with so much else that we see going on in the world around us; a growing collective realization that we have to find methods to change mechanisms that we once thought were unchangeable. Although the web is changing all the time, I think we still see it as this thing with its own inertia, and feel too small to make it what it needs to be.

   It’s a giant shift for those of the older generations to invest the time in this form of communication. Our good old business world is used to directly correlating action to result. Engagement in the correct online conversations can be more indirect and long-term.

   Sorting through the noise is daunting…we need to each use our own compass to not be overwhelmed, but to see where the meaningful thinking/conversations are and then to be willing to invest the time in them. This is particularly hard…There is so much out there!

Suzi Craig
July 19, 2010
4. Pete: You are spot on in calling it “this thing with its own inertia.”

   Not to overgeneralize but it does seem like the younger set owns the web because they see a purpose in that ownership, just like they see a purpose in getting a degree or buying an iPhone. In talking about feeling too small to make change, do we think the online world belongs to those who are already immersed in its language and culture? If that’s the case, are we battling more than the technology barrier, and also slipping into a Jets v. Sharks atmosphere?

   Or, is it simply that we cannot visualize tomorrow’s manifestation from today’s current potential? Yet, what it will be is 100% up to what we start doing today. Not just that other guy already on here. You, me and that guy.

   Like everything else that requires a new way of thinking, we need to step back and assess where we are so we can distance ourselves from current habits. Great — you’re on Twitter blasting away. But, as our Double Rainbow friend would say: what does it mean?

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Jenn
April 28, 2010
1. You have no idea how hard it was for me to resist stealing those Girl Scout cookies when they sat on your desk while you were gone for Spring Break. It was a pleasure working with you - good luck with all you do Corrie!

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Ed Kuryluk
March 30, 2010
1. Suzi, great post! I feel your joy and pain. Smile, this is all a good thing. And heading in the right direction. I don’t know what direction that is, but at some point in the future we are all going to look at this as “remember when?” CT Tweet Crawl is leaving a mark.

   Anyhow, I just got home from our second Infinite Mind Share. Our audience is strong, yet the common theme is “Fairfield County hasn’t embraced online networking”. The opportunity is ours. As I’ve told you before, Amy and I will carry the torch for Fairfield County (actually I’d be honored!). We have two events under our belts, the next one (April 27th) is nailed down, May is in the works, and june or july is being tossed around (beach, fireworks…hmmm!)

   Count us in as producers for the Fairfield County version of the CT Tweet Crawl!

Kathy Hokunson
March 31, 2010
2. Hey Suzi-
   We all appreciate your efforts and energy bringing this virtual group of friends together in such a huge way IRL. We are happy to rally and keep this great ball of energy moving forward.

   Rebecca and I are putting together the May event details and will let you know soon.

   Again big THANKS to you and Fathom.

Seshu
March 31, 2010
3. I concur with my friend Ed that this heading in the right direction. I would only add, though, that having one producer and a co-producer for each town would be wise. I would be happy to take on Avon/Simsbury. Looking for a partner who will join me in this wonderful adventure. TweetCrawls have been great for me and my business and this will be an opportunity for me to give back. Do let me know when and where the next Infinite Mindshare Meetup is going to be. I would love to lend a hand.

Cindy Panioto
March 31, 2010
4. Suzi, although I have yet to make one Crawl, I love the whole concept and apprciate your new direction to keep the movement growing! I’d love to help and wiling to co-produce in the Avon, Canton, Simbury area, Seshu. We have so many small businesses to spread the social media word to and I know we could have a great set of Crawls in the Farmington Valley.

Ed Kuryluk
March 31, 2010
5. @seshu The next Infinite Mind Share will be at Taco Loco in Black Rock (Bridgeport) on April 27th 6-8. They just won Best Margarita in Fairfield County from Fairfield County Weekly (and this is like the 4th time in a row). They have created a special Infinite Mind Share margarita for the evening! All are welcome. Join the Facebook page to keep up with our goings on.

   Best,
   Ed

Seshu
March 31, 2010
6. Cindy - Please contact me - fei8ht at gmail dot com. I look forward to meeting you!

   Ed - I’ll try and make the IMS meetup. With kids it’s a little tricky to get away for the evening. I’ll do my very best to be there.

Mike @2ndot
March 31, 2010
7. Hey Suzi

   You know me always up to the challenge, I’ll talk to Diana and see about doing one in Middletown, or if she’s too busy, I’ll plan one for Farmington a new restaurant just opened on the Farmington River, tight by George’s. They are supposed to be building a deck along the river so that would be a fun one.

   Thanks again for all your efforts, I would never of met so many great people if it wasn’t for you.

   Mike…

Ed Kuryluk
March 31, 2010
8. @seshu I hear you about the kid thing. Kept me from a couple of TweetCrawls too

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Suzi Craig
March 8, 2010
1. Seth Godin refers to the art we create in business as gifts: whether you are a sales rep at Nordstrom’s who works there for the love of knowing your favorite customers better than their spouse does or you are a CEO like Zappos’ Tony Hsieh who offers his new trainees $2,500 to leave on their last day of training, just to see how much they want to stay.

   Per Godin, and now me, art is a gift. And, by its definition, a gift is not given for reciprocation. A gift is given for the shear act of giving. What you get in return cannot be monetized.

Pete Larson
March 18, 2010
2. Art can serve many purposes (or none, but in that case is it still art?), but in my opinion one of its most powerful is the conveyance of an abstract idea or set of concepts not easily conveyed by any other means. A single painting, photograph, sculpture, building, can embody the essence of a society, a value system, a relationship of the part to the whole. It can deeply move us to embrace a new idea, better understand our place in the world, or help us to understand the boundaries we impose on ourselves. This is more elegant and powerful than any thick treatise.

   Art can be as permanent as the traditional examples above. It can also be transitional, changeable, temporary, uncontrolled, like the seasons. Medium may be constant, but manifestation fluid. In that case its effect is about our relationship to it; how it appears at a given point in time related to our individual or societal internal state. Here the right combination of timing, internal state, and manifestation of art creates powerful results.

   Then, Mood + Art = Change.

Brent Robertson
March 20, 2010
3. Interesting thinking Pete. What your driving on here is arts ability to create a new future, or multiple new futures depending on your perspective or state of being when you interact with it. As your perspective or state changes, so can it’s influence. This is a beautiful notion.

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Infochemist
February 3, 2010
1. To speak nothing of the tremendous opportunity for industry vertical development.

   We will see teachers far better able to manage class and curriculum based on new apps probably written by BlackBoard.

   Medical professionals will have a great tablet to improve care.

   But most of all, we can all now clearly visualize Captain Kirk acknowledging the Enterprise’s status on a tablet handed to him by a gorgeous and capable ensign.

   

Brent Robertson
February 3, 2010
2. Medical professionals and education are already taking a keen interest in these products. It might finally be the tipping point for the Electronic Medical Record.

Jeff Cotrupe: MarketPOWER, LLC
February 3, 2010
3. I’d say this tablet phenomenon may take on biblical proportions.

   Brent, appreciate the dialogue on Twitter, great piece here and attention-getting photo above.

Brent Robertson
February 4, 2010
4. Thanks Jeff, appreciate the feedback!

Joe
February 4, 2010
5. Nice photo. Where’d you get it.

Bruce Kaechele
February 4, 2010
6. Brent, I hear everything you’re saying and agree that the possibilities are exciting especially in ed and med but (not to be a downer) there is also a scary side to this.

   So far as I can tell, advances in this kind of technology have done nothing to simplify life - in fact, just the opposite is true. In your second paragraph you use the term “deeper entanglement”. This is a perfect description of any teenager’s (the next generation of professionals) daily existence. Have you seen them clutching their phones to their chest no matter where they go? Consuming media at a rate of 10.5 hours per every seven hours of media consumption time each day!? (Source: Jan 2010 Kaiser Family Foundation: http://www.kff.org/entmedia/mh012010pkg.cfm)

   Some studies suggest that they can handle this level of “entanglement” just fine and their brains are being quickly rewired to do so. Great (read sarcastically) they can accomplish tasks, maybe even memorize/study at the same time as they text and update and listen. (Other studies reveal less desirable side effects.) Is this good? Is this creating linchpins (http://surfthedeepend.net/2010/01/seth-godin-indispensable/) or robots?

   What about actual thinking? Actual alone with their thoughts time? Where they consider a subject uninterrupted for a significant length of time. Where they learn about and become comfortable with themselves as individuals - with a brain and an identity separate from their technology enabled network of distractions. When will they do the hard work needed to understand and love themselves for who they are? And, of course, it’s not just teens.

   My fear is that we are heading toward a world of mass psycho-interdependency where, because we are so connected, our inner individual selves get pushed farther and farther down and become indistinguishable from the group’s. Maybe we’re already there.

   **Interesting observation you make about Amazon renegotiating. Here’s a good write up by Bob Lefstez (@Lefstez) on the total impact of the as yet unreleased iPad: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2010/02/03/ipad-impact/

Suzi Craig
February 4, 2010
7. Forrester’s points are well taken on the coming “Splinternet” age and it seems as if the iPad is confirming that reality — the fact that AT&T is the only network available and Jobs’ decision to compete in markets where he could opt to partner (i.e., Amazon) is going to have impact beyond whether or not you are the owner of an Apple product. You really need to think about your choice from all angles.

   I think it’s AWESOME that our technology is amping up and we are on the verge of bringing life-changing technologies like augmented reality down to earth for us to actually put into play.

   Before we get to that vision, though, I’m curious to see how the bumpy ride plays out. I won’t buy an iPad right now because it won’t replace the other devices I already cling to and I’m not ready to add another device to my collection because, for me, I’m not an early adopter. I’m kind of a “pre-teen” adopter. I have to NEED that device in order to purchase it, not just want it to play with it.

   So, here’s my question: if we are in the Splinternet age where the web is creating monopolies and silos, are we also going to cause an even bigger gap with those who are not yet ready to make the leap to bigger technologies? I think there needs to be greater communication to the masses about why the tablets are revolutionary — for the reasons you all have been citing (medical, education, etc.).

   In other words, let’s take the technology out of geek land! Give everyone a reason to care so that when they decide to make a choice on technology it’s not just because it’s an Apple or Sony brand. If Daddy Warbucks is going to force us to choose, it’s up to us to push back and make that choice a real choice with as few comprises as possible. We can’t do that without all the information at our hands, so I charge you early adopters: talk about the iPad and augmented reality and all that cool stuff with people who you think may not care. I guarantee you it’s because they just don’t know why to care.

Brent Robertson
February 4, 2010
8. Bruce, interestingly enough, there have been a bunch of recent studies suggesting that the younger generations being able to multitask (or do multiple things that use the same part of the brain) are just false, actually quite the opposite. One notable, when observing the quality of written papers by MIT students, it was observed there was no connection between paragraphs, in other words, they would write a paragraph, go off and do something else and then return and write the next. Hmmmm

Are we losing ourselves in the race to be connected? « Ladder to the Attic
February 9, 2010
9. [...] an excerpt (full post here): So why all the buzz now? What has changed? And what does this onslaught of tablet PC’s [...]

Dwayne
May 22, 2010
10. I really want one of the new IPADs, but will probably wait. I would be one of the users however that wants to use it as a power user might. For example why not be able to perform graphic design tasks with it? It would be perfect for painterly types of works. With a larger model, web design and coding could be accomplished as the larger typepad wuld make typing easier.

ForceFactor
June 28, 2010
11. Well I do not typically comment on blogs but I discovered yours while I was doing a bit of job researching in Google today therefore i decided I would leave a simple note. I must admit that I’ve gotten a bit distracted going through and reading a few of your posts… I ought to probably be doing work. You have some good insights here, so I’ll add you to my personal Google Reader for the future. Cheers!

Brent Robertson
June 28, 2010
12. Thank you ForceFactor! We hope to keep distracting you with new posts soon.

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