Jessie X

I want to know more people like him. He makes me feel sane for my fierce feelings about Columbia’s dullness and my desire for this place to live into its initial mission of being a model American city … for the times. Who is he? He’s Chris Bachmann, and if you’re local to Columbia and have yet to read his blog or his latest post on “A Vision for Columbia, part 1,” I invite you to do so.

I met Chris at The ‘Bucks … aka Laptop Alley. He’s often there, and he’s integrated in with the geeks, the thinkers, the social crowd there. If you like the way he thinks, know that Chris can also be found on Twitter, in Socializr.com and, work schedule permitting, at some of the Hoco BlogTale parties.

A toy. Something fun. Possibly useful. Introducing Wordle, posted here by Kenneth Yeung, a local guy in Jessup, Md. I like it.

I’m so drawn to the tech and social media scene. It’s just my kind of people … and my generation. Thursday night I went down to Twin Tech in DC, a combo party of the DC Social Media crew and the Northern Virginia Technology Council. Here is a link to one of the online articles covering the event. (My pic and mini write-up is waaaay down at the end.) And, yes, it really is true: My love of social media all started with a hula hoop.

It was great to see some of the Hoco Peeps there, too. Technosailor, Bob Blonchek and Steve Fischer, were a few I spotted. I’m sure there were others. I carpooled down with my friends Annethologie and Spiral Eyes.

I just got the Sunday edition of the Baltimore Examiner. And I like it very much. I like the effort, the redesign, the sorta-freshness of it all. That’s the stroke before the strike. Now, I’m going to rant about word choice and the responsibility that journalists have for presenting information accurately.

See, reading the paper, my eyes were drawn to a tidbit about the Howard County Library: markedly, my favorite public institution since the age of seven when my family first moved to HoCo. Quoth the paper, p. 43, “slightly more than 2 million people visited Howard County’s six facilities.”

Two million PEOPLE ?

Why? Why say this? Why write this? It’s obviously not accurate. There could well be two million visits to the library. That’s credible. But to claim that 2 million people visited is clearly impossible. The county has about 270,000 residents, so let’s get real here.

My fussiness has to do with credibility. If the Examiner can’t be bothered to catch and correct something so blatantly inaccurate, where else are they going to make similar mistakes? In articles about the economy, wars, election results? Your job, dear journalists, includes being wordsmiths. “Your type” clamors for the opportunity to reach the public with your well-crafted words. Well, craft them. Please. I want to have a better relationship (trust, confidence, credibility) with your institution, but I need you to do your job. Seriously.

Here’s a say-it-like-it-is video about the missed opportunities companies are making vis-a-vis social media / Web 2.0 activities. It’s a quick and easy message about getting real with customers. Thanks to Mary Kate for sending it on over.

An ad showing up on my Facebook page led with this headline: 44 year old female? The link then took me to all these fabulous products being promoted, products such as Kleenex, Welch’s fruit snacks and Tylenol. Oh my.

Really. Am I supposed to be impressed? Am I supposed to be just fascinated that an ad that is “magically” targeted to me just happened to land in front of me? Am I supposed to be so dull of mind not to think anything except, “Wow. These are just the products for a 44 year-old female. Welch’s fruit snacks. Definitely! When I was 43, I wasn’t so sure about the Welch’s fruit snacks, but now that I’m 44 — and female, mind you — I’m really giving them some thought.”

Well, I don’t know about all you other 44 year-old females, but I was more curious about Facebook’s campaign to offer advertising that’s tying in with their users’ profile info. Personally, I’m all for it: targeted advertising, that is. I just found this particular ad so, um, less-than-brilliant.

Gosh. Maybe I’m just in a bad mood. Maybe being 44 is wearing on me. Maybe some Welch’s fruit snacks are just what I need. Thanks, Facebook. Thanks, Smart Advertiser. You’ve really helped me navigate the difficult waters of Life.

And I missed him. Love-struck as I am by the music he makes and how much I am called to dance to it, me brudder and me sister were in town from far, far away. And they trump just about anything else. In case you have yet to feel the love of the internationally ranked #1 DJ …

(I can’t find a good link to the event. To track him in DC, follow Ibiza Night Club, Love, etc.)

Is it a lone prankster? A disgruntled group of grumps? A Freedom Movement, here in our li’l patch of historically preserved suburbs?

I’m talking here of the micro-vandalism witnessed on my mother’s car. Well, to be more accurate, the vandalism perpetrated on her magnetic Choose Civility bumper sticker, which happens to be on her car. I got blamed for this act, which I took in good spirit. See, someone has produced a syllabic switch-out; they’ve created mini-stickers to slap on and over the forest green “Choose Civility in Howard County” bumper stickers. My mother’s sticker now says “Choose Senility.”

What do you think? Is this a mild-mannered petty vandal? A no-two-ways-about-it criminal who wrongfully has damaged personal property? Have you seen evidence that this is a multi-messaged campaign with a barrage of new stickers popping up? Speak up, dear citizens. Speak up.

I had a great time at the OM Disco Night party, this past Saturday. For all that the ’70s didn’t produce, at least the decade gave us disco! I find the music so danceable! Plus, as being dressed thematically for the night’s event was encouraged, I found it easy to be playful and dance happy.

Here’s Meg, Mary Kate’s sister, and the third prize winner in the fashion contest.

And, yes, that’s JessieX on the far left of the pic and local blogger Heather to my left. The only thing I regret about the night is that I didn’t get a close up photo of my shoes. My front strap was covered in small squares of mirrors; the shoes literally cast moving flickers of light on my legs as I moved. Disco Rules!!!! Here we are learning The Hustle from the good people at Arthur Murray Dance Studio in Columbia.

Other local bloggers spotted: Dave of Hedgehog Report (thanks for the beer); Anne of Annethologie; and Ilana of Yaks and Snaks.

For those wondering what is this thing called Twitter.

Twitter, at least for now, is my A#1 favorite social tool. Love it, love it, love it.

For the local folk, if you’re looking for a sweet spot to hang out, the Starbucks at the Route 175 and Route 1 crossing has a fabulous space design. The café offers comfy chairs and some nice spaces for a small group gathering. I was just over in that area doing some errands and popped in. I must say I was surprised at how welcoming and stylish the place was.

LOL Cats.

A colleague sent me a question about how to use Flickr in support of his client’s marketing goals. Removing some of the details, here is the question:

She is trying to start up a group in Flickr that is focused on “ABC.”  I think she wants to start a photo journal and eventually publish it. She wants my help to drive traffic to the site and build participation. That’s about all I know. I will be able to fill in blanks later after our conversation. Hope this helps. I appreciate any insight you can provide regarding the inner workings of flickr.

Here’s my response to him. First, I’m not an expert on this subject. Second, this is a long post. Ready? OK, so I’m fudging a bit on my answers, but I’m close enough to get some key points across. See, Flickr, is a classic social media site. It includes –

• user profiles for people who post pictures or comments,
• commenting capabilities,
• tagging of content,
• “friend” features and
• group functions.

And it takes work to make it work. In other words, just like any other social media site, it requires purpose, vision, nurturing of relationships, admin, moderation and ongoing and ongoing attention. That said, it can be a wonderful tool to use for accomplishing multiple goals for an individual, business, group or “cause.”

Just some of the things to think about before starting a Flickr group (and this is from my own limited experience with it) –

• There’s the thinking and decisions about tagging photos and creating, if desired, unique tags.
• There’s figuring out admin functions.
• There are group rules and Terms of Service to consider.
• There’s moderation of content, and perhaps comments, tagging accuracy and photo titling.
• There’s inviting in and nurturing relationships of members.
• There’s spam.

And perhaps the biggest of all, there’s inertia. Having a purpose, value and mission behind something doesn’t seem to be enough to get the ball moving anymore. At least not through my eyes. So getting a community of people to participate in a Flickr group — by joining, commenting on photos, adding their own photos, et cetera — can be a challenge.

Probably the easiest route to a robust Flickr group is to have any existing group that has personal and meaningful relationships and then to layer in Flickr as an additional means of connection and expression inside the group. But that’s just a guess.

I actually do have two good friends (Strobist and Ozoni11), both local, who have extremely successful Flickr groups. They both happen to be world-class photographers, so they created a social network inside of a tool (Flickr) where their community members already play.

I have another good friend (Mary Kate Murray, of Oakland Mills), also local, who uses Flickr to support the many cool community activities she does. She actively layers Flickr in along with Socializr, Facebook, blog comments, Twitter and other online media. So Flickr is one component of her tool kit for creating and strengthening community. She *works* it. Each picture gets a comment, and on occasion, a hyper-link.

Your client wants you to help drive traffic to her Flickr group, and I’m certain you can do that. What does she want to happen when people get to her Flickr pictures?

• Comment?
• Join her group?
• Upload photos?
• Repurpose and share them elsewhere? (Creative Commons License needs to be set accordingly)
• Brand herself?
• Sell photos?
• Have people link to another site?

In recommending Flickr as a tool for a client, I think it would be helpful to know how comfortable your client is with Web 2.0 technologies and culture. Sometimes seemingly simple stuff can be a huge hurdle to the uninitiated.

• Is she comfortable uploading files and using light HTML?
• Does she understand Web 2.0 and the concept of tagging?
• Has she created an online profile before?

Social media is not a build-it-and-they-will-come world anymore. Your clients idea sounds relatively sound on the surface. As you know, there’s lots involved in making a site successful once people arrive at it. And much of that success has to do with how the site was set up and what you want people to do when they finally do arrive at it. In social media, it also includes a fair amount of admin and content management and the no-two-ways-about-it time-consuming task of creating, developing and nurturing relationships.

Probably the best thing for you, right now, is to

• Create a Flickr account yourself and join at least one group.
• Post and tag some photos.
• Comment on some photos and explore how commenting is used inside of groups.
• Create a small group.
• And play around.

That’s my two yuan on a Friday afternoon.

Sears will not let itself be trashed in a junkyard like some old heap of used appliances. No, no, no. The company has an entirely new, and I’d add, fascinating rebranding and marketing campaign going on. Look for lots of splash about The American Mall. It’s an 87-minute movie (care of The High School Musical folks) with scenes

“shot in a Utah Sears store. Characters wear Sears clothes, which shoppers can purchase. And the characters will appear in Sears advertisements and circulars. Meanwhile, Sears will sell the DVD and sountrack in stores while promoting the film and getting commerical time when the movie airs on MTV on Aug. 11.” And they’ll be “adding a line of street clothes and accessories designed by hip-hop artist LL Cool J.”

Dang. That’s a lot of layered branding, marketing, PR … the works! I am all for this kind of creative work. Really. I am.

Here’s where I think The American Mall misses the mark:

Sears is an old brand. Right? Old! Millennials (born 1982-2002ish) are a generation that aligns behind large, established brands. Their hero is The Common Man. They orient, as a group, toward convention, conformity and hierarchical status where everyone is included in their peer culture, but some are clearly higher and some clearly lower than others.

As consumers, this translates to the fact that some of them will own Coach bags; some will get their purse at Target, but they all *look alike.* See? No one is left out of their peer culture and the right to belong. It’s critical to their generational mindset that all are included in the styles, norms and fashions. And it’s totally OK that someone paid $300 for a purse and someone else paid $14. The main goal is that they look similar!

So, Sears is brilliantly positioned to bring style and options to “the more budget conscious” Millennial consumer. And that’s why I went exploring on their site. Unfortunately, what I found struck me as rather  last-wave GenX. It’s a bit too edgy, methinks, to have mass appeal to Millennials. One of the things Millennials have to deal with (and rebel against in their own right), is the deluge of extreme (GenX) and narcissistic (Boomer) media older adults create for them to consume.

I could be dead wrong. I’ve only watched a few vid clips and scanned a handful of character profiles. This campaign could be an absolute hit. I just get the sense that there would be broader appeal, especially by the mid- and younger Millennials, if the characters wore bright colors, looked wholesome and did collegial, good-deed activities together.

Millennials have their own culture in their own right. Like any other generation, it’s best to work *with* natural energies and motivations, rather than to foist foreign culture on a group and then blame the campaign’s lackluster results on something such as “the economy.”

That’s my two yuan.

Last night at the Baltimore contra dance, I noticed two young teens dancing as a couple. At first I just assumed they were brother and sister, as they looked comfortable together. Then, while dancing in a set with them, I witnessed something that quickly corrected my perception: The young man, at the most opportune moment, took his partner’s hand and gave it a gentle kiss … all while executing the dance move fluidly. The young girl, in the most classic and feminine of gestures, lowered her eyes, tilted her head slightly downward and smiled demurely in receipt of his gift.

It was soooo sweet to witness and enjoy that small moment between them.

Not too long ago, I had a slew of blogs. Blogs for this and blogs for that. I still have more than your average American, and by a long shot, but I’ve changed my tact with blogging of late. Yes, I still use blogging for content management, as I never mastered (and don’t plan on it now) the art of website design and coding. But more importantly, I started blogging LESS for my audience and more for me.

Oh, I can hear them now.

Blasphemer.

Heathen.

Stone her.

Hang her.

How dare she ….!

Well, it’s true. I blog for me. I blog because it helps me think. It helps me store information. It helps me figure out what’s important and what’s not, to me and just me. It helps me put my current thinking around content, categorize and tag it and put it in a place where I can most easily find the info: in my own blog.

And, because I learn from others and am interested in knowledge that moves from person-to-person, I put this information in a public blog, visible to anyone with an internet connection.

So, had you asked me — say six months ago — what the purpose of my blog is? I’d have said some high-falutin (and totally appropriate) answer about content, community, conversation and such. Ask me today? I’d say it’s for my own benefit. And blessings to all who benefit from it — and contribute to it — as well.

Edgy video. Great message. Thanks @csuspect.

It’s taken me forever and a day to read The Fourth Turning, the generational theory book that’ll make even the mediocre among us seem like a genius, but I’m almost there. This bit just astounded me so much that I had to turn the computer back on and blog.

We all got the picture that the Democrats and Republicans have just been so out of whack for 20 years. Right? Dems are all about old consumption promises (no sacrifice required, entitlements for every victim) with no plan or capacity to make it through the winter. Republicans pursue an endless quest for more individualism that they’ll starve and shut down an agency to make a point. That’s all fine for the era of the last 20 years: Boom-bust-boom.

But in a Crisis Era, as articulated in generational theory (and right about now), the style of leadership that reigns supreme for a generation is the one that combines enough public sacrifice to infuse team spirit in a new generation (Millennials) plus enough public authority in government to infuse civic spirit.

From what I’m reading, the push-pull, 50-50 voter quagmire that’s been going on for the last decade or so will suddenly become undesirable (and unelectable). Leaders — local and national — who can quickly and persuasively create a new paradigm combining the concepts of personal sacrifice plus public authority will reign. And not just for a term, but for a generation. (This info is from pp 311-312 of The Fourth Turning).

Segueing not so gracefully into one of my rants: Yo, politicians: Cut it out now with all these save the homeowners from foreclosure programs. As I see it, the “personal sacrifice” is for people to live within their means. The “public authority” is to help them do that … not to burden taxpayers with another person’s unsustainable mortgage. Public authority and services could be used to help people transition to more affordable homes and lifestyles, even if that means helping them find a place in semi-rural Pennsylvania, or a row house in the not-sexy part of Baltimore, where they can afford to live and raise a family.

A call to personal sacrifice plus public authority is the flavor of the next 15-20 years. At least that’s how I read the generational theory info.

This sales technique is not up everyone’s alley. Nor everyone’s style. But this housing certainly isn’t what most folk go looking for. It’s called cohousing, and curiosity got the better of me, so I clicked on a Google ad inside Gmail. Check this out! This property has mini profiles of current residents in the neighborhood where homes are for sale. Different. Interesting. Thought I’d just pass it along in case you might find it interesting, too.

There’s JessieX, and then there’s Essie Ecks. Essie Ecks, which when read out loud, sounds a heckuva lot like JessieX, is the name of one of the team players in the Mobtown Mods. Never heard of them? They’re the “Agents of Mayhem” and one of the teams in Charm City Roller Girls League. I just came back from my first bout and have to say I like it quite a bit. The audience seats were hard. But I guess that’s nothing compared to being down there on the floor with the Agents of Mayhem.

Oh, my goodness. I just read this player’s name aloud and heard something really different this time: S. E. X. Lord, have mercy!