The word "friend" has evolved significantly in our newly connected, social media-oriented world and I think its overuse may be diluting its real meaning.  It has now become a verb and by "friending" someone on Facebook (for example) and you are now BFFs.  Hardly…

I have been thinking about friendships off and on for a while and a couple things happened during our trip to Sun Valley that pushed my thinking further…and one did actually involve Facebook.

New Friend

Thank you Blake Slater.  Blake and his family stopped shortly after we discovered we had a flat tire as we headed out of Seattle on I-90.  Car packed tight, two kids, a dog, and enough gear to last us two months for our one week vacation and there we sat just outside Cle Elum, WA.  As I got my bearings and began to think through getting the tire changed, Blake stopped to help….he even had his own equipment and his wife was timing him.

As the story unfolded, we learned that they had had two flat tires a long time ago on their car at night and no one stopped to help them.  From that point on, they always stopped to help someone in need.

Blake didn't want anything other than to help and I have to admit that I was a bit in awe of his generosity and genuineness (although I think I may have ruined the record time attempt as I tried to get the spare out).  When we were done, he gave me his card which revealed that he is a Detective Sergeant with the Nampa, ID (just outside Boise) Police Department.  Thank you again Blake.  We can all learn from your example.

Old Friend

This is where Facebook comes into the story.  I have reconnected with many I had lost touch with through Facebook which includes lots of folks I went to high school with back in Georgia.  One such person was Todd.  He was a couple years younger but we played soccer together and managed to drag him with us on various adventures including a few concerts in Atlanta.  We found each other on Facebook and I found out that he is living just outside Boise, ID.  As we were planning a trip to Sun Valley, I pinged him to see if we might connect as we passed through.  Turned out that he was headed there as well with his family and on a beautiful sunny afternoon two people who hadn't seen in each other in 20 years reconnected in front of the ice cream stand across the street from Atkinsons' Market.

Friendships are about more than profile pictures and status updates.  These new technologies help us connect and reconnect in ways we never thought possible but be sure to find the time to connect in person and remind yourself to do selfless things every once in a while.

For years this has been one of the headaches around email – using 'reply to all' to pummel bystanders' inboxes with fyi, cya, and increasingly irrelevant banter as conversations play out.  I chose it as the name of this blog for that reason.  A blog, to me, is a reply to anyone and everyone who cares to read it so I thought it fit. 

Now that Twitter is all the rage and more folks are using it, I am witnessing the evolution of the accidental reply to all.  It comes in the form of the accidental exclusion of the "d" in front of a Twitter handle or  selecting the wrong button in one of any number of Twitter readers (like Tweetdeck).  A message intended for one person is instead broadcast to the entire Twitter universe.

Twitter is an open forum and direct messages should not be assumed to be private.  I'm not being paranoid, I'm just being practical.  Got something sensitive to say?  Send an email or, better yet, pick up the phone and use your voice.  A bit more effort, but certainly more personal.

The answer is pretty surprising from this nicely done post by Ryan Healy of Brazen Careerist on his Employee Evolution blog. 

Here are some great data points from Ryan:

Twitter
The majority of Twitter users worldwide are 35 or older. Young adults 18-24 only make up 10.6% of the Twitter population in the US and are less likely than the average user to tweet. 45-54 year olds are actually 36 percent more likely than average to visit Twitter. (via Comscore) 

LinkedIn
The average age of a LinkedIn user is 40-years old. (via Techcrunch)

Facebook
The 35 to 54 Year old demographic grew at a rate of 276% over the last six months and the 55+ demographic grew more than 194% over the same time period, while 18-24 year olds only grew 20%.  (via iStrategyLabs)

Consumer Technology
A recent Accenture survey concluded that Baby boomers, defined in Accenture’s survey as those 45 years old or older, are embracing popular consumer technology applications nearly 20 times faster than younger generations. (via Accenture)

These are not just the toys of Gen Y.  Rather, they are being broadly adopted by Gen X and even Boomers in greater and greater numbers.  LinkedIn was once thought silly but now is a pretty mainstream business tool for recruiters, sales types, and super networkers.  Facebook didn't make a lot of sense for me (as my post on 8/29/2007 explains) until it gained critical mass from a population relevant to me. I now have connected/re-connected from folks across all stages of my life from grade school to college and beyond.

Most intriguing about the stats above to me is that the often debated role of all this in the enterprise (enterprise 2.0, etc.) is taking shape before our eyes.  The users of this stuff are (on the whole) adults with jobs who are gaining comfort using new technologies and are adopting them to both their personal and professional lives.

I overheard a conversation a couple weeks ago between two older gentlemen as they were trying to get their laptops to connect to the available wi-fi.  I had just provided a bit of tech support to them so don't feel too bad about sharing part of their conversation.

They were discussing computers and all the other gadgets that dominate our lives these days and one made the point that, when he was in school, learning to type was viewed as a clerical and non-essential skill and that during his career he always had somebody to type for him.  He went on to point out that it is a bit ironic that we all seem to sit in front of keyboards and type away these days….and that he was glad he had learned to type along the way.

I took a typing class at some point that taught me basic finger positions and commands but have met lots of folks over the years that have just figured it out on their own.  In fact, one of the smartest developers I know types at blinding speed with only his index fingers.

It seemed a bit ironic to me that something that was once viewed as a clerical skill is now the primary gateway to our on-line world and an assumed competency.

Or this blog, or Twitter, or an email I send, or, or?

One thing about all of the new forms of communication, publishing, and sharing available to anyone at pretty much any time is that there is a need for a new consciousness about what you share and how.  This is a pretty tall order regardless of age because what may have seemed appropriate at one moment in time may be less so at another.  As it has become easier and easier to share status or text quick thoughts, there needs to be an equal increase in consciousness about what is shared as some things are best kept to yourself.  The trick is to know what they are.

The concept of the personal brand is an important one.  Through our electronic sharing, we are promoting and positioning ourselves to our friends, our contacts, even the world.  Like all products, you highlight the positives and (mostly) avoid the negatives.  Regardless of whether you have ever thought about it in this way or not, I would recommend a bit of a filter between your brain and your keyboard.  Not everything that crosses your mind needs to be (or should be) shared.  This doesn't mean you shouldn't be authentic but you should think about what you are making part of the permanent electronic narrative about yourself.

Blogging drives this awareness in me and I attempt to share all I can but I don't share everything.  My litmus test for a post or a status update is to fast forward to a time when my daughters are old enough to read and care what I had to say (not the same age, I suppose) and think about their reaction.  This blog serves as a journal of sorts that documents my (ad)ventures, thoughts, and musings and I am excited about having it for them.  I am still learning and understanding my parent's life stories and I have known them for a very long time so hopefully this will be a bit of a primer for my girls.

As Seth Godin points out, Google never forgets.  Indeed, Google never forgets… 

I thought we were all taught this growing up. Part of good manners or at the very least part of being tactful. Apparently, not everyone and the plethora of new tools to share what you are thinking (ie, status updates) makes this even more visible. Tools that allow you to broadcast (blogs, Twitter, etc.) must be used consciously meaning you need to think about what you share and be aware when you may step on toes. It is your prerogative to do so but understand the world could be listening.

Take the story of James Andrews of Ketchum as an example (thanks to my brother Greg for forwarding this along). Ketchum is a pretty substantial PR firm and one I have worked with in the past. James was headed to FedEx to do a presentation on social media and decided to share his thoughts about Memphis via Twitter when he landed.

"True confession but I’m in one of those towns where I scratch my head and say, ‘I would die if I had to live here."


Turns out he was already being followed by someone at FedEx and they shared this observation among the executive ranks there kicking off a bit of a firestorm.
The irony is overflowing here including the fact that he is an executive at a public relations firm and that he was there to share his expertise on social media.

If you don't have something nice to say…

This question has been hashed to death over the past many years including who, how, how often, why, etc. and I definitely have my opinions on the matter illustrated by my own efforts.

Regardless of where you come down on this question, I suggest checking out the new WhiteHouse.gov and the Obama administration's blog featured prominently on the home page.  Here's the WSJ's take on it.

Let's hope it is not just a posting board for talking points and press releases and truly an opportunity for dialogue.  The absence of comments makes me wonder how effective this will really be and I'd hate to see it go the way of misguided corporate blogging efforts.

That said, I'm excited that it's part of the plan and hope we see the execution live up to the potential.  I have the same high expectations (see previous post) about the President on Twitter (for real) – http://twitter.com/TheWhiteHouse

I always enjoy the research from the Pew Internet & American Life Project.  They are out with their latest survey about the trends that will shape the future – The Future of the Internet III.  It is lengthy (138 pages) but full of interesting things including pointing out a handful of trends/predictions as we march towards 2020.  Here's a few highlights:

• The mobile device will be the primary connection tool to the Internet
• How we interact with the internet will continue to evolve with broader acceptance and use of both voice & touch interfaces
• Transparency of both people and organizations will increase as the amount of information and people able to access it increases
• The lines between personal and work time and physical and virtual reality will continue to blur and the implications of constant connectivity and its impact on social relations will be "mixed"

I tried and failed three times before I began to understand the value of Twitter.  It is not solely to tell the world about the big chili dog you just ate or your mood although that certainly comes with it.  It is, with significant constraints in the form of 140 characters, a way to update various audiences about interesting things.

"Interesting things" are in the eye of the beholder but when I figured out I could use Twitter to provide not only a real-time update to this blog (see "Breaking" on the left panel) but use it to drive both blog and status updates to other applications (like Facebook) via either text message or web form that the light bulb began to go off. 

Also, Twitter's social features require minimal effort.  You can follow who you want, they can block you afterward but not deny you (there is an optional "accept" follow capability for those that want a bit of control) , you can see who others follow and they can see who you follow, you can direct message (an increasingly difficult message stream to manage) but can't forward, cc, or otherwise turn it into email.

Twitter gets grief from many directions about a business model and it is the right question to be asking.  The point to take away, however, is that roughly 3MM people have signed up for Twitter (via Wikipedia) with some subset actually being active users and building dependency on it.  It is a  way to directly engage with people all over the world in a forum different than a social site or as formal as email.  From a marketing point of view, it is an essential place to have a presence both to promote your news and products but to immediately respond to both negative and positive comments about your brand.  Both Dell and Comcast "get" this point and have a presence on Twitter with Dell claiming upwards of $1MM in revenue directly attributable to its Twitter presence and distribution of sales alerts.

It also forces a whole new level of focusing on saying things with brevity.  140 characters is not a lot of room to pontificate but the ability to embed hyperlinks via tinyurl.com provides even more flexibility.

How popular is Twitter?  Here's an article from the WSJ on it and here is one laying out enterprise use cases. Also, Guy Kawasaki weighs in on the marketing benefits of Twitter many of which I completely agree with.  Even members of the US Congress are using Twitter in an effort to drive transparency and direct communication.

No doubt, I am still learning and expanding my understanding.  I am tinkering with TwitterFox (a Firefox browser plug-in), Tweetdeck (a client application), and the various ways to search and tag Twitter content.  More to come…