The fact that Twitter has now become a reason to gather fascinates me.

Cheryl and I had the chance to travel to a gathering of of the cool Twitter kids in Detroit this weekend.  The EPIC Chevy Tweetup went off exactly as it was branded: EPICally.

It seems there are loads of things happening in Detroit these days.  That might contradict what you’ve heard (or not heard) on the news.  I think the recent groundswell around technology and innovation is a result of how tight-knit the social media community is up there.

And yet, we were welcomed from three-and-a-half hours away as a part of the crowd.  That’s just cool.

Folks like Charlie and Elena Wollberg made us feel so comfortable and filled us in on who Detroit is changing.  Becky Johns was the reason we heard about EPIC in the first place.  She was kind enough to introduce us to a whole crew of people.  And have you looked at my Twitter background recently?  Twilk is the work of Kyle Mulka, who’s also out of Detroit.  What was classic was watching Brandon Chesnutt and Christopher Barger rock many a tune during the live band karaoke portion of the night.  These dudes know how to win over crowds.

What Makes a Tweetup EPIC

It’s ironic that on the drive up to Michigan, I was reminded of “plur” while listening to Tony Hsieh read his book, Delivering Happiness.

You see, back in early days of college, I was one of the kids who caught the tail end of the rave scene.  My friends and I danced nights away deep in the underground of vacant warehouses and closed-down skating rinks.  The electronic sounds of DJs like Bad Boy Bill, Tiesto and even Paul Okenfold fed the parties with enough energy to light up a city.  At raves, plur was a code of ethics.  Peace.  Love.  Unity.  Respect.  Thanks to that mentality, everyone was welcome to participate and have a good time.  There were no cliques and no outcasts, but a room full of friends who shared a passion.

I can’t help but notice the the parallels of that code and the whole idea behind Tweetups.  What’s funny about going to a Tweetup is that by the time you say hello to someone you recognize, the handshake (or hug, in some cases) is already warm.  More often than not, you might introduce yourself to a person, only to have them light up and excitedly say: “It’s good to finally meet you in person!” or “I’m so glad you made it!”

I guess it’s a result of knowing that at a Tweetup, you have a room full of friends who all share a passion: connecting with people through conversation on Twitter.

Cheers to all of my new friends in Detroit!  Thanks for being good peoples!

(And as a bonus feature, here’s Cheryl rockin the suburbs… in Detroit.)

EPIC Chevy Detroit Tweetup – Cheryl Harrison Rocking the Suburbs from Nate Riggs on Vimeo.

Sometimes we feel trapped.  Stuck.  Motionless.  Sometimes we just need permission.

Guess what?  I have good news for you.

There.  Feel better?

Now what?

I’ve been thinking about these two things a lot recently:

1. Niche Communities – Humans now live online.  Lots of them.  But most humans are only interested in the content that speaks to their personal and professional interests.  We know that humans, whether they’re our customers or even fellow industry professionals, tend to engage more with conversations that focus on what’s important to them.
2. Curation – The act of stewarding a collection.  Today, content can be collected, organized and provided as a resource to any given audience.  When done right, humans come back and use the resource often because it adds value.

What’s interesting is that an example of some folks who are currently using these two concepts happens right down the hall from me, at Qwirk Columbus, on an almost weekly basis.

I want you to meet Mike Whaling.  Working in partnership with Lisa Trosien, these two have launched a conversation called Apartment Chat, an online discussion about the apartment industry that takes place on Twitter every Friday at 4 p.m. EST.

Mike can explain it better than I ever will, so here he is:  [The video is about 5 minutes long and full of good ideas.]

What’s your take on this idea?  What questions do you have for Mike?  He’ll be paying attention to the comments…

Do you remember what it was like after graduating college?  How did you feel as you prepared to jump head-first into the professional world?

What about on your last day of high school?  Were you scared?  Overwhelmed?  Excited?

I think most of us have spent some little time reliving those experiences – let alone dissecting our stories while learning and sharing our thoughts with others in the same boat.  We professionals are way too busy for that, right?

My friend, Tyler Durbin, disagrees, at least in terms of young professionals.

Tyler has built Generation Y Journey from the ground up, in hopes of providing a model for young people to use as a guide when making decisions during their high school and college careers, and as they explore their professional career.  It operates as a collaborative blog, pulling multiple guest contributors to submit content alongside Tyler’s own writings.

Who Should Use Collaborative Blogs?

The major advantage of using collaborative blogs is your ability to spread the workload of frequently posting new content across multiple contributors.

My take on the usefulness of collaborative blogs is that, from an execution standpoint, collaborative blogs make a ton of sense for solo entrepreneurs building communities around a niche topic.  It’s a powerful way to tap into a niche community and add value one member at a time, by offering your community a podium and audience where they can share their ideas.  As the blog owner, the social capital, interest and traffic that is generated also works in your favor.  Win-win.

For mid-sized and large businesses, collaborative blogs are almost essential to long-term success, especially in terms of keeping post frequency high.

Why is this?

1. All companies experience turnover.  If your business picks one or two or three bloggers to write content for your audience, what happens if they leave?  Does your company blog shut down?  How long will it take to find and train a replacement?
2. The majority of professionals working in mid-sized to large companies will agree that their time is scarce and precious.  That seems to be a universal truth in the working world.  Even with the best intentions, making the commitment of writing daily posts is often not even possible.  The result: blogging gets shifted to the back burner and, in the worst case, forgotten altogether.
3. Most mid-sized to large companies are reluctant to hire full-time bloggers.  It can even be seen as dangerous to do so, in that full-time bloggers with an already sizable reader base also come with a personal brand.  That could potentially present a detrimental conflict of interests.  For instance, what do you think will happen to Comcast now that Frank Eliason has landed at Citi?

Small businesses, however, are a bit of a different case.  For them, it can be tough to make collaborative blogs work because this style of blogging typically requires large teams of regular but infrequent contributors.  With a staff of 5-10 people who wear multiple hats (as is typically the case in small businesses), keeping up can be challenging, even with the right technology tools in place.

Now, I’m not saying your small business shouldn’t consider building a collaborative blog.  I simply want you to be aware of the challenges you are likely to face, in terms of generating fresh content from your team as time goes on and your blog matures.  As an alternative, small businesses might consider selecting one individual to blog, making it a part of their daily duties.  Having one dedicated resource is a simple solution to what could eventually turn into a complex problem.

It’s Not About You

In this portion of an interview with Tyler, he brings some of the other challenges he faces in managing Gen Y Journey. These are thoughtful comments from someone currently on the front lines. It’s a short clip.

There are two valuable lessons here:

1. When taking a collaborative blog approach, it’s critical to allow each contributor to maintain their own style and voice.  As an admin, editor or even a proofreader, this can be a necessary – and daily – struggle.  Take a step back from your own style and always keep in mind that it’s not about you.
2. Get to know your contributors.  Learn how they talk and write.  Know their voice.  Tyler uses gChat, Skype and other tools to do this.  If you are administering a collaborative blog from within your company, this will be a bit easier since your bloggers may sit in the office to your left (or right).  Make a point to have lunch discussions, or even schedule mastermind groups, for the entire blog team to attend.  Collaborative blogging also means being open to collaborative learning.

As a final note, I know Tyler is always looking for contributors to the Gen Y Journey blog.  I’m even in queue to write a post in the near future.  If this is something that interests you, and you have a story to share, contact Tyler here.

Have you started blogging yet?  What’s your biggest challenge?

]]> http://nateriggs.com/2010/08/03/collaborative-blogs/feed/ 1 http://nateriggs.com/2010/07/29/radio-facebook/ http://nateriggs.com/2010/07/29/radio-facebook/#comments Thu, 29 Jul 2010 20:09:59 +0000 nateriggs http://nateriggs.com/?p=3790

The convergence of radio and social media fascinates me.  

Radio, unlike television or print, seems to have significant gains to make by learning to work inside social media and tap into their passive listener base.  Think about it.  From the user end, radio is a very passive form of media.

For years, radio stations have focused dollars, time and loads of effort on producing live events.  From live concerts and happy hours to on-location contests and parties, radio stations use events to connect with their listener base in hopes of creating loyalty.

Fast-forward to now.  Social media has made it possible for events to happen on the web.

Do you see the connection?

Social Blitz

What the 99.7 The Blitz is doing on Facebook is impressive.

If you visit their fan page, you’ll notice that there is no customization.  No special tabs.  No custom applications.  In fact, you won’t even find one any of the free applications that are available in Facebook’s application directory installed.

It’s bare bones – and it’s working really well.

What The Blitz (specifically, their morning show with Blazer and Mo) does have is the power of mass media, a targeted niche audience and solid engagement from their Facebook page fan base.  Win!

Lessons from The Blitz

I love this case study.  It highlights a critically important aspect of social media strategy: social media is more about sharing the right content and having active human users, rather than shiny technology.

Here are some lessons that we can all learn from how the Blitz is using Facebook:

Be Your Audience
Blazer, Mo, and most of the DJs on the blitz, are the demographic that they target.  They are rock fanatics, with active social lives, who share a sense of humor with their audience.  Being “one of us” is important in trust building.  Trust leads to deeper relationships.  Deeper relationships lead to greater engagement and participation.  All of this leads to retention.  Retention is worth dollars.

Create Conversation On Air
Since guys like Blazer and Mo are, for the most part, members of the audience they target, they know how to engage on the front lines.  Look at this example:

What’s interesting is that this conversation does not exist in a vacuum.  Blazer, Mo and the rest of the morning show crew has entitled this contest Facebook: What’s Your Amazingly Smooth Pick Up Line? The contest is announced during each break with a call to action for listeners to visit the Facebook page and post their best pick-up line.  Pick-up lines that are submitted and read on air serve to create more content for the hosts to riff from.  It’s a great way to engage the audience in the comedy.

Play in Real Time
One of the other topics of discussion from this morning’s show is this picture of Mo:

If you grew up in the 80′s and 90′s, you’ll probably find Mo’s classic digs (and ‘do) a bit funny.  Most of the Blitz target audience can relate, and may even have a few similar candid shots of themselves buried in a shoebox deep within their own closets.

Now look in the comments:

In today’s radio stations, DJs sit behind computers.  Within an hour of launching this bit on the air, Mo joined the conversation (via Facebook) in real time, as it was happening.  While some marketers and PR folks might cringe at his comment, it’s absolutely appropriate for the audience and the nature of the conversation.  In social media, being “one of us” and communicating in real time is much more effective than worrying about your brand voice.  Humans don’t speak brand.

Live Stream Your Broadcast
Drive time is huge for morning talk radio.  But what about when your audience arrives in the office?  How do you keep them engaged?  In my opinion, live streaming your broadcast via the web is an innovation that all radio stations should be focused on implementing.

Again, radio is passive.  As I sit and comb through email in the mornings, I typically listen to music or talk radio.  Streaming makes that easier, and, as a listener, it’s also very easy for me to keep the Blitz Facebook Fan Page open in my browser allowing me to participate in the live conversations during the show.  In a sense, this is a new kind of live event that listeners can attend each morning, at precisely no cost to either party involved.  Big WIN!

Things the Blitz Might Want to Do Next

A few months back, I tried this with WNCI and Dave & Jimmy.  Unfortunately, they either weren’t listening or didn’t really care.  Bummer.

Dear Blazer and Mo, are you listening?  If so, mad props for doing some good work in social media.  Here are three basic suggestions of things you might try next:

1. Determine Fan Page conversion points – What do you want your fan base to do?  Sign up for events?  Register for email updates?  Subscribe to a station blog?  Whatever the goals are, make them clear on the page.  You can develop customized tabs based on what those goals are and work to drive your fans to take that action.
2. Add in some focused, custom tabs – You might try using PollDaddy to get the opinions of your listeners who play on the page.  Having the ability to poll your fans would tie in nicely with the whole “Your Rock Station” position you’ve taken.  Think of your Facebook page in terms of it being an ongoing town hall meeting.
3. More video – There are so many opportunities for using video on your page.  I would start by installing the YouTube application from Involver (a freebie) that would allow you to create a YouTube tab and pull in video content from your channel.  From a strategy perspective, I think it would be fun to come up with contests that get your fans and listeners to submit their own videos.  You’d probably (obviously) need to screen some of these before putting them up, but the idea follows the same train of thought as your pick-up line contest, but is much more interactive.  And just about everyone has a video camera on their mobile these days.
4. Bring streaming to the Facebook Page – This one might cost some bucks, but I’d love to see a custom application developed that would allow me to stream the Blitz, right from your Facebook Fan Page.  While they are few and far between in Columbus, Ohio, there are a handful of developers who know how to code in Facebook Markup Language (FBML).

What ideas do you have on how The Blitz, or radio stations in general, could use Facebook Fan Pages?

LinkedIn is still gaining momentum in the B2B world.

With over 70 million professionals holding profiles, it makes good business sense for companies to start looking at how to use LinkedIn as an everyday business solution.

I thought it was interesting that even Chris Brogan would check in on LinkedIn, if there was a location-based component.  His target audience of clients lives there and check-ins in that context might result in new opportunities.

It’s important that company leaders realize that it will take a coordinated and dedicated human effort over time to see any results from tapping in to LinkedIn.  Your company may even consider assigning a group of personnel to spend a portion of their time monitoring, researching and actively participating in the many groups and subgroups available.

If you’re ready to dedicate more time and effort, you can always build your own group and subgroups inside the network.  This is appealing because there is literally no cost involved, outside of time and energy.  But make no mistake, the amount of time and energy that goes into successfully facilitating a group is high.

Be prepared.

How To Build a Customer-Centric LinkedIn Group

One approach companies can use to leverage LinkedIn Groups is to focus on customer centricity.  These groups are essential hubs of conversation.  If executed wisely, facilitating the right conversations (that provide value to members) works to build deeper relationships with customers.  The end result is increased customer retention and a greater potential for referrals.

There are a few important things you need to consider before your pull the trigger:

• Who is your niche audience for the group?
• Does that specific group already exist?
• What type of conversation will help them do their job better?

Once you’ve answered those questions, begin mapping out the objectives of your conversation.  A good way to start is by solidifying what you want the members to take away from the conversation.  Work from the desired result and build backwards.

While you are working through this, also begin familiarize yourself with the recently updated LinkedIn Group features.  It’s a good idea to visit other groups and look at what they are having success with.  In most cases, you might even be able to connect with other group managers who can share experience and give you insider tips.

Case Study: Let’s Talk Blood Donor Recruitment

Incept is a conversational marketing firm that helps blood centers recruit and maintain blood donors to keep blood supplies on shelves.  They are a client of my firm, Social Business Strategies.

Blood donor recruiting has its challenges, and most of the blood donation groups on LinkedIn today offer a hub of conversations between professionals who donate blood.  While that’s great and folks from Incept do participate in those groups, they do little to help Incept’s customer base of blood center professionals.

In building out a new customer-centric group, where Incept can bring together blood center pros, our conversation goals are simple:

• Connect niche LinkedIn users who work in blood centers across the country and have a focus on donor recruitment
• Build a resource to uncover real issues that blood center personnel are facing today, and share “how to” knowledge to help the members solve problems
• Create opportunities for relationships between blood center personnel, industry providers and the team at Incept

LinkedIn Search Optimization

In setting up the group, we knew we wanted to rank highly in LinkedIn’s Group search results for phrases like blood donor recruitment, blood centers, and even donor recruiting.  Using correct keyword placement and density in the title, summary and description is helping to get the Group indexed highly by LinkedIn’s unique crawlers.

With that, one of the challenges we needed to overcome was to maintain Incept’s branding (developed by Next Level Thinking) while making sure that the most prominent keywords were placed towards the front of group titles.

To get there, NLT created a group logo that called out the “Let’s Talk” portion of the brand theme, placing “blood donor recruitment” towards the front of the Group title in LinkedIn.

The Incept brand tie-in was deliberately minimal, with only the type font and colors being used in the logo.  We made this decision to visually combat the potential perception that the group is sales-focused.  The critical factor is delivering on that promise by staying mindful of how Incept’s team participates.

How To Use Auto Response Messages in LinkedIn Groups

Meet Timothy Johnson.  He’s on the human business team at Incept, as the lead content engineer.

In this video, Tim discusses how he’s using some of the automated response messages in the LinkedIn Group to make it easier to respond to each person interested in joining the conversation.

(Side note: This video was shot and uploaded directly to YouTube from my Sprint EVO 4G.)

What else would you suggest, related to building a customer-centric LinkedIn Group?

If you have an Internet connection, you probably know what’s going on with the Old Spice Guy.  He’s everywhere.  And people are talking, laughing and sharing the videos at an incredible pace.  At the time of this post, Old Spice’s YouTube channel has recieved a total of 53,660,116 views, with a large majority happening in the last week.

It’s gone viral.  

It’s truly exciting to watch this unfold.  The campaign, created by marketing agency Wieden + Kennedy, and featuring actor and former pro football player Isaiah Mustafa, is one of the biggest creative breakthroughs since we saw the orginial iPhone shredded to bits on Blendtech’s Will It Blend.  

Read Write Web does a great job in this article of detailing how Wieden + Kennedy approached the project.  The agency deserves a cordial hat tip for taking risks and cutting a new path in online and viral marketing.  

Why It’s Brilliant

• Entertainment and the Weirdness Factor
  The content of these videos is just weird enough, but not creepy.  The writing pushes the envelope and really has nothing to do with the product, other than the occasional cameo shot.  It’s not selling anything.  The delivery of such absurd lines by Mustafa is reminiscent of the lists and t-shirts that float around emblazoned with popular Chuck Norris jokes.  The absurdity makes it highly entertaining, so I was hooked.  Much like a tweet, the brevity of the content makes it easy to consume.  I quickly got sucked down the rabbit hole and watched another video.  And another…
• Mass Media First
  Before any spread began via social media channels, Mustafa was syndicated on primetime television.  I first saw this video run sometime around 9:30 p.m. on Fox, during the American Idol spinoff, So You Think You Can Dance.  Why is that important?  Millions of viewers were introduced to the concept and Mustafa.  You should also note the difference in post-production and editing between this video and those regularly produced for social media distribution.
• Human Business Team
  For 48 hours, a team of 6 human beings manned the outposts and a production studio.  Listening stations were set up to respond to various tweets, status updates and conversations that were happening around the web about the campaign.  The @oldspice team, comprised of social media power users and technical specialists like producers, editors and even script writers used this information to tailor, produce and distribute over 200 entertaining videos of the spot.  Amazing.
• Getting Personal with Influencers
  Alyssa Milano and Perez Hilton probably don’t wear Old Spice, but they do have millions of followers on Twitter and other social networks.  Their sphere of influence and social graph makes them very attractive to B2C product companies, in terms of creating viral spread.  When influencers talk, their followers start talking too.  The critical success factor was how the Old Spice team reached out to the influencers, grabbing their attention with humor (and sometimes snarky comments) that started real conversations.
• Loosening the Reigns
  I have a new opinion of P&G and Old Spice, as they clearly did not take themselves too seriously.  To quote the RRW article: “Tait says that Old Spice’s parent company, Proctor & Gamble, exhibited incredible bravery in allowing his team to write marketing content in real time, with little to no supervision.  ’There is such great trust [between the companies],’ he said. ‘But we are being very responsible.  They have given us a set of guidelines and if we get close to the edges we contact them.”  I find that statement so refreshing.  So many times, companies continue to demand complete control over their message.  The problem is that complete control is no longer possible.  The world has changed, and cutting-edge agencies and consultants understand why.  We social media users know this because we are in the thick of it every day, working from the frontlines of YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, because that’s where all the cool kids (like us, of course) hang out.  “P&G had enough trust in their agency and the relationship to let them play.  Today, that’s a critical ingredient of success.” 
• Speed and Real Time
  D.M. Scott’s new book is going to talk about the idea and power of real time.  If it’s up to par with everything else he writes, it will absolutely change the game.  I’m willing to bet that this campaign has already inked it’s spot as a case study in the pages of David’s work.  What’s most amazing to me (and so creative) is how the Old Spice team broke the rules of Twitter by responding to tweets with video messages that were incredibly outside of the 140-character limit.  Essentially, leveraging Twitter’s real-time communication, while bending content rules allowed for Old Spice to maintain Mustafa’s campaign branding, as a spokesperson, in a much more engaging way than a simple-text tweet.  Truly a stroke of genius.
• Shifting the Brand Perception
  I think it relates to Mustafa’s delivery and the comical writing for the video responses, but personally, I’ll never look at Old Spice the same way again.  Brand is about what consumers attribute to a product, service, company or human being.  My perception of Old Spice had always been that it was the cologne that we gave my grandfather on Christmas morning.  Even the name Old Spice creates a disconnect in reaching younger audiences.  Now, however, I see Old Spice as a brand that has has a Gen Y sense of humor, participates in the places I visit, and has a young and hip former NFL spokesperson.  When I pass an Old Spice display in the store, I suddenly find myself stopping to look and explore.
• Mustafa’s Back Story & Humanization
  Unlike Nationwide’s fictitious and lackluster attempt at the World’s Greatest Spokesperson In The World, Isaiah Mustafa is a real human being.  He’s a former NFL football player and avid reader of comic books, who studied history at Arizona State University and has a daughter (who he addresses from a tweet in this video).  Why is this important to the campaign?  It provides fodder for publicity to keep the story going.  Today, everyone on the web is in awe as to how this Old Spice brand revamp was executed.  ReadRightWeb wrote the first article outlining how they truly executed.  There will surely be more articles on the matter, and the press will likely want to know more about who Mustafa is.  To a nationally syndicated reporter or talk radio host, Mustafa is beginning to look like a great interview.

What’s your take?  Did I miss anything?  Do you agree?  Disagree?

This Saturday, I’m going to limp my way through a 13.1 mile race for Lifeline of Ohio’s Dash for Donation.  Things have been busy for me lately and it seems that my training always falls to the bottom of the priority list during such times.

That’s okay.  This isn’t a race for a time.  It’s a race for something much more important: raising awareness about the importance of organ donation in Ohio (and any other state, for that matter). This is something that simply needs support.

I’ve never had to make the decision to give life, and frankly, I feel very fortunate.  I have, however, had the chance to hear the stories of people who’ve been faced with such a difficult and untimely decision.

One of those stories came from Kathy Harrington.  On Saturday, I’ll be running as a member of Team Lindsay to honor her, her family and the lives that Lindsay was able to save.

Closer Than I Thought

In helping to share these stories, I never thought one of them would come from a personal friend.

Most of you Columbus locals who read my blog will probably know Rocky VanBrimmer.  He’s a power social media user, a community activist and has had his hand in founding initiatives like the Central Ohio Network, the Connector podcast and a variety of other events, groups and businesses.  Simply put, Rocky is everywhere.

But, here’s something you may have not known about Rocky.

Rocky, for the record, you’re brave as hell and I thank you.  Shooting this video took some serious guts and was obviously not easy for you.  I appreciate that you are willing to share such a personal story with an unparalleled message.

Listen to Rocky’s Message

I want to make sure that we reiterate the main point Rocky is trying to teach all of us.

Whatever your choice is regarding organ and tissue donation, please make sure that your loved ones are absolutely clear on the choice you’ve made.  Should something happen to you, it will at the very least give them the piece of mind that they are making the best decision to respect your wishes.

Like Rocky mentioned, Lifeline of Ohio provides a variety of resources and facts on organ donation in Ohio, as well as detailed steps on the process to become an organ donor.

And if you want to run with me on Saturday to help raise awareness in the Dash for Donation, you can still register here.

(Just so you know in advance, there’s a contest at the end of this post.  If you want to play, please keep reading…)

Yesterday, I met with Sarah’s organization, LifeCare Alliance, to discuss how I might be able to help them get things going on a few projects.  Just so you know, LifeCare won’t be a paying client of mine.  They have a great mission, helping hordes of people in and around the Columbus community and, frankly, Sarah has already paid their bill in supporting me throughout the start-up months of Social Business Strategies.

It’s funny to me to admit this, but I found out during the meeting that I barely made eye contact with Sarah.  Rather, I focused on engaging with the people she brought to the table.  I stayed professional, but it was almost involuntary.  It was like some subliminal force kept my communication style in professional mode so, at all costs, I could avoid the perception of a potential conflict of interest.

What’s most interesting to me was the conversation Sarah and I had while preparing dinner that evening:

(Generally paraphrased)

Me:  So how do you think it went?  The meeting, that is.  Was it okay?

Sarah:  I thought it went well.  Everyone seemed to be open to the ideas.  But seriously, how come you don’t talk like that when we’re at home?

Me:  What do you mean?

Sarah:  You were so calm and collected!  You never interrupted anyone.  You listened really intently, and I could tell you were considering what everyone had to say.  Even your voice was more calm!

Me:  Really?  I was that much different?

Sarah:  I was starting to wonder what happened to my fiance?  If you’d been kidnapped and replaced or something.

Interpersonal Communication Style & Conflict

Our relationships and the level of closeness have a tendency to alter our style of communication.  What’s interesting is that this seems to be most prominent in nonverbal communication.  From our voice inflection to gestures to our facial expressions, the depth of the relationship and feeling of closeness changes the way we humans send messages.

Why?  The simple answer is conflict.

I was able to find this article by Todd Nelson, which summarizes research conducted by Ronald Adler, Lawrence Rosenfeld, and Russell Proctor (three Ph.D professors) who focus on interpersonal and organizational communication at separate universities.  Their work outlines four styles of communication that humans use when managing conflict in interpersonal relations with others.

My take is this: these styles would be present in shallow relationships.  Those might included office coworkers, causal friends, connections in your professional network or even a variety of relationships that are formed using social media.

• Nonintimate-Aggressive – In this style, humans dispute issues without dealing with one another on an emotional level.  It would seem that this is probably one of the most prevalent styles in customer-client relationships.
• Nonintimate-Nonaggressive – In this style, humans have a tendency to go silent and avoid issues rather than facing them head-on.  Intimacy and disagreement are typically avoided.

My take: these next styles are present in deeper relationships, such as with couples (like Sarah and I), close friends or maybe even long-time business partners.  Factors that may affect the depth of relationships seem to be time and frequency of communication – not that social media, as a communication channel, has an effect on both time and frequency.  I’ve written about how the onion of Social Penetration Theory applies in Social Media before.

• Intimate-Aggressive – This style combines aggression with intimacy that may seem upsetting to outsiders.  In terms of conflict communication, nothing is hidden and nothing is kept in check.  Humans communicating in this style feel conformable with a high level of openness.
• Intimate-Nonaggressive – The healthiest style, it involves intimacy and a low use of negative forms of expression, such as attacking or blaming.  When conflict arises, people are more careful with how they choose to express disagreement.

In conflict, being aware of your own communication style is critical to developing and maintaining relationships.  Whether it’s a meeting with a new client, your fiancé, your kids, a coworker or a close friend, conflict will always be present in relationships.

The Contest

Here’s an interesting exercise you can try, and I’d like to make this a sort of contest.  You with me?

• Pick any two of your current relationships – please use fake names to keep things private
• Think deeply about the last time you were in conflict and write down the communication style you felt was used
• Next, write down the outcome of the conversation
• Finally, write down three things you can do to modify the outcome of a future conversation with the same person
• Submit your findings in the comments here

From the submissions, I’ll pick two winners (based on how they would change their communication style).  The winners will be sent one of my favorite books on interpersonal communication, Crucial Conversations by Kerry Paterson.

What do you say?  Are you game?

In the past two days, I’ve been a part of two very powerful hugs.

The first was with a childhood friend when she and her husband came for a visit to Columbus and Community Fest.  At the end of a wonderful (and much needed) evening, one final hug goodbye reminded me of how and why we’ve stayed friends after all these years.  The second hug was with my mom.  Just before dinner one evening, I could tell by the expression on her face that some of the health issues she’s been facing recently were wearing on her spirits.  Without knowing what else to do, I hugged her.

Both of these hugs were real hugs – not simply the “pat on the back” type of hugs that we have all become so used to giving and receiving.  In that moment of real hug, a small chemical reaction occurs in the brain of each human involved.  The chemical emitted produces certain emotions and, with it, a sense of behavior.

Powerful Hugs

One of the most fascinating things I’ve read yet this year was a Fast Company story documenting the work of  Neuroeconomist Paul J. Zak, a professor at Claremont Graduate University.  Paul so believes in power of a hug that he makes a point to hug just about everyone he meets.  That behavior is one of the many things that has led to his Claremont campus nickname, Dr. Love.

Zak is responsible for popularizing the term “neuroeconomics,” an emerging field that combines economics with biology, neuroscience and psychology.

With an eloquent writing style and a good sense of storytelling, Fast Company’s contributing writer Adam Penenberg details his time working as one of Zak’s test subjects in three-part experiments.  Why is this important?  Dr. Zak has discovered, for the first time, that social networking triggers the release of the hormone Oxytocin, the chemical present in our brains that produces emotions of generosity and trust.

This is a video clip from the article, but I also suggest you go back and read it for yourself.  It’s truly amazing thinking and research to follow.

Future of Social Media

I believe that Zak is on to something bigger than we can fully see right now.

Decades ago, the media of the time (television, radio, and print) changed the way that we humans consumed information.  With that, the way we processed information also changed.  Our paradigms, our culture and maybe even our sense of societal norms shifted, as humans spent more and more time in front of the TV, or with the car stereo tuned to to their favorite station.  Over time, the business landscape, and how humans conducted business, changed too.

In the early 1980s, primitive computers and BOD modems started that shift yet again.  Humans started using more technology to communicate.  Communication led to the formation and maintenance of mass amounts of human relationships, developed across geographic and socioeconomic boundaries.

Is This Evolution?

Zak’s work, and maybe even others like Dan Zarella, always leave me with this one question on my mind:

As humans continue to evolve the interwebz, are the interwebz also evolving us as human beings?

What’s your take?