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Month: October 2009

2nd secret of social media. Find more lucrative niches

Published October 28, 2009 by Jo Jordan

Think change in your market, not growth

The 1st opportunity that marketers have kept to themselves is that we can change with our markets.  Markets flex and morph quite naturally.  If we are fixed on growth, or grabbing market share, we are sadly missing the point.  Our reports need to be about change.  How is our market changing?[!]  When we closely in touch with the heaving, sighing, pulsating, shape-changing nature of the market, then we are in the game!

The 2nd opportunity marketers don’t tell us about is that we can move up the value chain. We can expand the margin in each hit.

Noobes and margins

Now I know that when we are new in business, we are obsessed with getting any hits, making any margin!

Please don’t be distracted though. Psychology comes into play here.  Getting started is fundamentally linked to getting finished!  If there is one thing that psychologists know, it is that when we know what we want, we ‘go like a train’. If we are not ‘going like a train’, if we are procrastinating, we don’t know what we want.  It is really that simple.

And how do we know what we want?  By getting out there and trying out the choices. We humans think better when real experience is in the mix. We don’t get anywhere when we are going against the flow or when we are telling people that we want one thing one day and another thing the next day. We confuse them and ourselves.   So we get out there, to learn how the world works, and to be clear about the parts we want to be part of.

That’s why noobes are no different (except psychologically) from people who have been in the game a while. We are constantly learning the market and figuring out what part we want to ‘play in’.

Low cost or high differentiation

Business strategists will tell us one of the first things we must think about is whether we are going to “buy them cheap and stack them high” or “do something very special for a few people and charge a lot”.

Obviously, in real life, there are permutations on the theme. The point is to be clear in our own minds what we are doing and experiment wisely so that we get clearer and clearer as we take small steps to get experience.  When we are unclear, we muddy our offering and our customers are unclear what they are buying and unsurprisingly, don’t buy!

Use social media to figure out whether to be low cost or high value

Now social media, doing business in virtual space or via the cloud, gives us opportunity for experimenting safely in the ways we can’t in real life.

We get window shoppers in the real world.  In the virtual world, we get a lot more. If we are wide awake, we might notice slightly different people arriving to have a peek.

Real life is so constricting

Let’s take an example.  Let’s imagine that a granny comes and peeks in our teenage store. In the real world, we have limited choices. We can’t run down the street and talk to her – who will mind the shop? We can’t drop what we are doing to entertain her – we have other customers. We can’t change the entire shop’s display to answer her questions.  We have teenage customers who come to do teenage things.  The real world has constraints – real constraints.

In the virtual world, it is dead simple to add another room!

But in the virtual world, we can add another “room” quite easily. Granny can look around our teenage store and we can lay out another page that allows grannies to talk to other grannies about their concerns. We don’t have to shut them out or exclude them. We also don’t have to demand that they pretend to be teenagers with teenage concerns. Any social media site like Facebook, Ning, etc. allows them (and us) to set up new pages, new groups and new activities.

We can also ‘run down the street’ after some who just peeked and didn’t stay. Google Alerts give us some idea of where they go. We can go and look and ask them, or people like them, what they are looking for. Herein lies the possibilities. Our peekers may be shy but we can get them to open up!

Stay clear by keeping your ‘virtual bundles’ clear

How does this relate to being clear, you might ask?  Teenagers and grannies? Aren’t we getting mixed up. Quite possibly. We can mix up anything.

I want you to remember that we didn’t begin by being all things to all people. Grannies arrived in the normal way that markets morph as their that underlying social networks twist and turn, shrink and replenish.

Our teenage store brings grannies to see.  People explore the world more readily online where they can window shop discreetly. Rather than shutting out unexpected visitors, we can draw them in.  In the virtual world, we can do that without watering down our offering to our primary market. Virtual real estate is very cheap compared to real shops rentals!

Some virtual bundles will allow you much better margins per hit

To continue the example- I have no idea what grannies will spend in your new store, or spend in the next door store buying gifts for their grandchildren, but you get the idea.

Your business will morph naturally with the morphing of the market – if you decide to dance in step with it.  If you try to make the market dance in step with you, you’ll get nowhere very fast.

Social media allows business opportunities to find you .  .  . if you want to be found

My message is this, by looking out for change you may find opportunities to increase the margin per hit.

It is a big mistake just to look at your numbers. At the end of each evening, also ask yourself how you were surprised. What was unexpected?

Are opportunities arriving at your site that you aren’t seeing because you have developed the tunnel vision (of greed)?

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1st secret that social media marketers have been keeping to themselves

Published October 27, 2009 by Jo Jordan

Welcome to the first of the secrets social media marketers don’t tell you. Your job is not to get bigger. Your job is to change your market entirely!  Read on, and tell me if you agree that social media marketers have been oddly silent in this regard!

Conventional marketing requires massive numbers

The industrial age works on size. To make things cheap, we must make a lot. To make a profit from things that are cheap, we must sell a lot.

Competition is fierce. Look-a-likes are everywhere and the consumer is dazzled by choice and confused by the advertising that is in their face where ever they look.

It’s a vicious circle. To be noticed, we must get out there and compete with other advertising. So we add some more. And the competition is ramped up.

In the end, consumers learn to blank out and pay no attention to us.

Marketers are smart; they look for qualified customers

Marketers are on to this problem and they try to find ‘qualified customers’. They try to pay attention to people who have self-selected in some way.  So they sell us a loyalty card and once they have our email address, they bombard us with emails for ever after.

Google gives us free email. Then they serve adverts to match the content of our messages.

Both Google and Marketers are very numbers oriented and they very clinically track the number of ads we click and the emails we open (did you know that?). Google is happy with a 0.5% click through rate (CTR). They are happy if 1 out of 200 partially qualified customers responds to an ad and clicks on it.

It seems we open 2 to 3% of marketing ad that are sent to us. The rest are deleted unopened.

Social media marketers are even smarter; they know we listen to our friends

Social media works on a simple principle. We are more likely to open an email sent by friend than by a  company. Our open rate might even go up to 10%! (Do you leave 90% of email from friends unopened? It seems people do.)

Even with this ‘unopen’ rate, the increase from 0.5% to 2% to 10% is large enough to make the social media effect, or echo chamber effect, very interesting to marketers.

Why these tactics aren’t the whole story

These three tactics

  • Do more. Get more
  • Talk to people who are interested. They buy more
  • Get people to bring their friends. Half the selling is done by a friend’s recommendations

are good, but not enough. This is why.

We have worked hard to get more people. We carefully talk only to people already interested in us.  And they bring their friends.  I am all for focus and specialization but our market is getting smaller and smaller.

And it will continue to get smaller. Our personal networks and habits are changing continually. Slowly, but continually. We shed friends and gain friends the way we shed our skins. Slowly, but surely.

Social media marketers are oddly quiet about the way we replenish and refresh our networks.  This is where I think we should pay more attention.

An example from classical marketing

Coca-cola, the masters of classical marketing don’t change their product from decade to decade (lest its consumers revolt as they once did).  Nonetheless, they continually renew their relationship with the market.

Long before we we gave Gen Y a name, Coca-cola had worked out their character and formulated their market response.

They also continually look for new channels. I remember the day they put a cool box onto the mini-buses that work the streets of Johannesburg. Coca-cola have people whose sole job is to find new channels. That’s what social media should be doing!

What we learn from classical marketing that social media marketers have kept quiet

Yes, it is cool to expand our current customer base. Yes, it is cool to strengthen our market with connections between customers. Yes, it is cool to listen to what our customers are saying and to give them what they want.

It is also smart to add change to constancy. We should also ask whom of our visitors are new – not only in name but in character and need. We should challenge our social media analysts to come up with something like a new channel – something refreshingly surprising about the market.

  • What do we understand that we never understood before?
  • Who has come window shopping who never came before?

Social media marketers have been holding out on us. Our job is not only to get more customers – tough as that might be.  Our job is to map the changing landscape. I haven’t seen any metrics yet that report change.  That’s where the value is.

Next of the three secrets tomorrow!

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3 opportunities that social media marketers don’t talk about

Published October 27, 2009 by Jo Jordan

We don’t want them to wear out the carpets

There is an old saying in business: we don’t want them to wear out the carpets.  We want inquiries, but only from people who actually buy something.  Here endeth the lesson on selling. We will sell far more to people who are genuinely interested and who have a means to pay.

Social media shock: we need to supply carpet for 200x our customers

And there beginneth the lesson on social media.  Social media specialists, beginning with Google Alerts, concentrate our attention on the numbers.

  • How many people did we reach? (Hits)
  • Did they pay attention? (Time on the site)
  • Did we invoke curiosity? (Did they explore the site?)
  • Did we get them to take an action that shows interest & intent? (A goal in Google Alerts-speak)

Getting hits is hard and getting people to stay and explore is hard.

Conversion – taking the first step to a sale is even harder.  It is shocking the first time we realize that 0.5% of people click on an advert.  That is 1 out of 200 of people wearing out your digital carpets are actually looking for something to buy.  And those 1 out of 200 don’t necessarily buy anything.

Maybe we need carpets for 1000x our customers!

Social media is advanced window shopping

Social media is advanced window shopping.  Surf.  It says it all.  It’s like going to the mall with no money and no credit card. Well, people do.  I don’t understand.  I assume they have nothing else to do.  Or maybe they have cunningly cut costs on the gym by doing their surfing on foot.

But to my point:  marketers have brought their finely-tuned focus to the web.  It’s great to have Google Alerts, to drive up our hits and get people to read and explore our content. It’s real cool when someone transforms from lurker to commentator and contacts you.  It’s rip-roaring-fantastic when they suggest some collaborative action.

Thank you marketers.   Because carpets are  expensive we must try to get the people on them to buy something!

This is all a bit industrial age, isn’t it?

What marketers don’t seem to talk about is this:  if the same people come day after day, and the same people look (very nice, welcome!), our business will never grow.

We can get more hits, and in theory as we move from 200 to 400, we should go from 1 enquiry per day to 2. Fine.   Good prediction. Throw in some natural variability and some days we get none and others more than 2.

We can confirm all of this with some elementary high school statistics.

The point is that the underlying dynamics stay the same.  Getting bigger to get richer is the thinking of the industrial age.

What marketers don’t tell us

Social media gives us three new opportunities.

1.  Reach different people. Completely change the market.

2.  Move up the value chain.  Get a higher margin per hit.

3.  Cut out the cost of replacing the carpets.

Come back tomorrow if you want more.  See you then!  The Welcome mat is out.  I’ve still got carpets!  At least for a while!

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4 “get your head arounds” of the new science of psychology

Published October 26, 2009 by Jo Jordan

Today, a very useful though long blog post on the new science of psychology popped up on my Google Alerts.  Blogspot was acting slow, so here are my comments.

#1 Formal differences between classical science and new science

For 20 or so key terms describing the difference between old fashioned methods & stats in psychology and new methods that are consistent with new forms of management

#2  Phase states illustrated with examples from psychotherapy and neuroscience

New science doesn’t look for incremental improvements, it looks for the sudden change of state – a bud bursts into bloom, an egg hatches, a baby is born.

#3  Procrastination is acknowledgment of pending self-re-organization

Going from wish to intent, from planning to procrastination – crossing the Rubicon – is a matter of “bearing the unbearable”.  We resist – we apply negative feedback – out of fear of who we will become – or a prolonged goodbye.

We are unwilling to be successful because we cannot “bear the unbearable”.

#4  The supportive psychologist is an active player in the change process

Psychologists aren’t ‘objective’.  We have to be sufficiently bold to be part of the change process and for the change process to change them too.  That is the essential ingredient of empathy.

Leaders require the some capacity but provide the empathy in the hurly-burly of life.  We work in more protected settings and with a promise to put the interests of our client above our own.  A leader puts the interests of the group above his or her own and includes our individual interests in so far as they strengthen the group.

A good article but blogspot, fail.

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Lose weight by weighing less: bad taunt, good science!

Published October 26, 2009 by Jo Jordan

Lose weight by weighing less

So said The Atlantic in a side-swipe at Gary Hamel, the management professor.  They meant to damn him  They meant to say he was being tautological – or in plain language – saying black is black.  Unknowingly, they were being profound!  What they don’t realize is that management theory has moved on.  Like modern psychology, it has expanded its horizons.  The mathematical models we use have changed and to say we lose weight by weighing less is sound modelling.

Cause-and-effect was our first question

One hundred years ago, we were captivated by questions of cause-and-effect.  What causes overweight, we might ask. And we came up with models that said the more food went in the more fat on our body.    Food is is food.   Fat is fat.  They are different and one causes the other.

And so it went on.  We said intelligence led to success in later life.  We said that eating well led to intelligence.  On and on.

Actually few of these factors are independent of each other.  Fat is transformed from food.  And intelligence is a make-believable variable that exists only because it is associated with success.

Now we ask how a phenomenon changes over time

That said, we aren’t that interested in these models any more or the general question of what causes what.

These days we are more interested in recursive models.  Lose weight by weighing less is exactly what interests me.  Today I might way 60 kg.  Tomorrow I may weigh 59.9 kg or 60.1 kg.  What is the natural fluctuation in my weight and what leads to the weight getting greater (or less) and then reversing direction.

We know weight is caused by what goes in and what goes out.  And both of those are dependent on each other.  I will eat more more I have skipped meals and I will exercise less when I’ve had too much or too little to eat.    We are interested in all the relevant factors change in time and how they interact with each other in a highly fluctuating yet essentially self-correcting and stable system.

What doesn’t change may well be sick

Illness comes from lack of fluctuation. We should worry about utterly static weight and a completely constant appetite.

How do we shift systems?

Anyone who has tried to shift their typical weight, for vanity or to please their doctor, knows that it is quite hard to do.  There seems to be homeostatic levels which remain fairly constant given any set of circumstances.  Complexity theorists know that systems are self-replicating.  They also know the “shape” of the system matters.    We expect a system to fluctuate a lot but like our weight, in a general range.  When we get no fluctuation, or when our weight rockets or plummets, then we are ill!

Shifting entire systems requires a different form of thinking.  More on that another day.

For now, yes – we can lose weight by weighing less.  It is a weak system of change to look at the scales each day.  But it will work.  Just weigh less every day and you will lose weight.  Perfect mathematical model. Perfect science.

Sorry The Atlantic.  Misguided taunt.  Another one of these areas where the world has changed a lot in the last five years.  Now we do recursive models not cause-and-effect models.

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MyersBriggs *SF* vs *NT*

Published October 25, 2009 by Jo Jordan

The great distinction between the *SF* and the *NT* of the our world!

Overheard in a “period” novel on BBC Radio 4 from one sister to another who is more of a blue stocking:  Things remain the same even when we think them out!  And so we hear the great distinction between the *SF* and the *NT* of the world!

*SF*

.  .  .  say the facts don’t change when we understand how they come about.

*NT*

.  .  . say we will generate opportunities when we understand how the facts came to be.

And herein lies the paradox and limits of psychology

If I had to bet on who was an “optimist”, I would bet on the *SF*.  They are are usually more worldly and easier to get along with.

Yet the *NT* are more likely to be the innovators of the world and what is innovation if not optimism – faith in human nature for a start!

As a good *NT*, I agree with Kurt Lewin that there is nothing so practical as a good theory.  The explanatory power of old fashioned psychology has well-been reached.  We really should encourage psychology students to study literature too and celebrate and enjoy paradox!

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A currency of visions not a currency of force.Thank *** we live in the 21st century!

Published October 25, 2009 by Jo Jordan

Masculine cultures are not about ‘guys’ – they are about force

Yesterday, I heard two female politicians bickering on BBC Radio 4 – talking over each other as the male moderator said amiably. A tedious, wearisome listen.

This ‘spectacle’ (what is the auditory equivalent?) neatly illustrates the point that masculine cultures are not to do with ‘guys’.  Masculine cultures are to do with the currency of force.

Britain’s masculine culture

Britain has long had a masculine culture.  Though smooth and very often, very witty, British culture is not so much controlled as controlling. When it is relaxed and funny, as it often is on BBC Radio 4, it is also complacent.   The funny people live in the certain knowledge that their status in the world is not being challenged, let alone threatened.

Watch how they react if they have to account for themselves! That is the test of a culture.  How do we respond to the huge variety of visions in the world – and our need to fit our visions into the visions of others?  What do we do when people long-ignored want room to pursue their visions?

Sadly, we often move to defend “our right” to live as a law unto ourselves.  We often demand that the newly-enfranchised make room for us, even though we have never made room for them, and certainly don’t intend to start now.

Britain’s masculine culture in the literature and film

The masculine culture of Britain is an old story and is often told in literature and film.   For utter complacency, read P.G. Woodehouse and the relationship between Bertie and his butler Jeeves.  For the ongoing struggle, read Rumpole stories and his manouvering around institutionalized class in the legal system.

And for an alternative to a ‘masculine culture’, find yourself a copy of Goodbye Mr Chips -the old musical or the modern version with Martin Clues – both are great.  Settle down for a charming 1.5 hours and the better possibilities a feminine culture.

I am so glad to be living in the 21st century!

What a relief!   Not least for guys who must be heartily sick of the pushing-and-shoving they have been required to endure.

In the 21st century, our currency will be less of force and more of visions.

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Help your fellow noobe – or shush up. Some of us see right through you!

Published October 24, 2009 by Jo Jordan

Yesterday, I was looking at my Alexa Rankings and was pleased, as ever, that people spend time on my blog.  My style of writing is on the heavy-side; so that is pleasing. I am not frightening people off all together!

Noobes!  Find a richer set of questions than whether the big, cool kids like you

Alexa Rankings have also taught me an important lesson about being a noobe generally.  We have to find a rich mix of questions to guide our adaptation in a new place.

The general question, “How am I getting on?” won’t help us at all.  It only draws us into a cul-de-sac of a pecking order.  Do the big, cool kids like me?

It’s a funny thing. The big, cool kids will never like a noobe. But they have a good thing going making you think you should be liked by them.  This is how it works.

Noobe Fail #1

Big, cool kids stop being big and cool when they hang out with noobes.  So they will never hang out with noobes.  Big, cool kids are going to ignore me anyway.  Their reputations depend on that

Noobe Fail #2

The other noobes probably don’t get point #1 and they think I am cool if they think the big, cool kids like me.  That tempts me to pretend that the big, cool kids like me. Instant path to fame and glory? Or a total waste of time?

Noobe Fail #3

If this is how the world works, why do we care?  Can we all be fooled so easily? Surely, everyone can’t be wrong.

The sociologists have a big word to described what is going on : hegemony.  Hegemony is when the big, cool kids have persuaded us

  • they are big and cool
  • we can’t define something else or some one else as big and cool
  • we all go along with it

AND we don’t benefit, even though we go along with it.

Hegemony.  Genius.  You believe you are right and I am wrong.  And you persuade me of that too!

Yup, we can be fooled. The world works like that.

Noobe Fail #4

The difficulty with challenging the hegemony is that we take on a lot of people.  We are going to cut in to the ‘bigness and coolness’ of  the big, cool kids.  And they are going to sort us out!

It is a bit like telling the Emperor he has no clothes on. The only person who will shout that out is a three year old boy. Anyone older is wiser – not because the Emperor will get mad. He is only one person after all. We don’t say anything because the mob will get mad. They will look pretty foolish too and they aren’t going to like it.

That is how the whole system works. The big, cool kids, the emperor’s with no clothes, don’t have to do their own dirty work.  They will have many willing helpers who will get suckered into it.  Yet, the noobes who beat us up won’t gain any respect from the big, cool kids – far from it.  They’ll be seen as suckers.  But there will always be plenty of volunteers hoping for a quick ascent up the pecking order.

Another term sociologists use to describe this system is “masculine culture“.  Now we all know girls and women who play this game much better than guys.  It is not a guy thing. It’s a label. When the culture is all pecking order, when the Emperor has no clothes and no one is going to say anything, we say it is a masculine culture. It is just like teenage playgrounds that have nothing going for them except the pecking order.

So how do we break out of senseless pecking orders?

#1 Solution One.  Go along with it, if it is worth it.

Join up to playground which has such attractive toys that you can be bothered with the pecking order antics.  Most of us feel that way about good schools, good universities and good workplaces.

But choose wisely.  Don’t forget the pecking order game is a con trick.  Don’t join a queue just because it is there.  Ask people in the queue how long they have been there and what they have got out of it!

# Solution Two.  Go round it.

Spend more time learning the rules that lead to gain than worrying whether you are in with the big, cool kids.  They’ve done a fine job persuading you that they control the goodies.  The truth is they have done a find job persuading you . . .  the rest of the sentence is in our imagination.

But you will have to control your panic.  We are scared of being excluded or beaten up.  Rightly so.  That’s how pecking orders are maintained.  Fear.  Justified fear of getting beaten up. It’s your job to learn how can you get around the fear.

Learn the rules by asking richer questions

In the blogging world, the rich information of Alexa Rankings helps us learn what the rules really are. I am not as big as the A-listers who have been around much longer. But people spend 5x times a much time on my site and my bounce rate is 1/3 of theirs. I have points of leverage that go beyond begging them for attention.

But where can we find rich information in other worlds?

I thought I would test myself by writing down the rules of networking.

Networking

Let’s imagine ourselves at a networking event and let’s compare the typical networking tactics, which I can The Fail Method, with tactics that acknowledge the power dynamics between the ‘big, cool kids’ and the ‘noobes’, which I’ll call The Tortoise Method.

The Fail Method:  Most people at the networking event are judging us by whether we can lead them to the ‘big, cool kids’.  The big cool kids aren’t going to speak to them anyway; but they are convinced there is some magic to it.  So what do they do?

#1 Stand with a bunch of cool looking people

Fail:  No one is going anywhere!  Yep, it looks momentarily as it this group has cracked the code.  But hang on.  The same guys have been talking together for a good half-an-hour.  They are just too scared to talk to anyone else.

#2  Have a great looking card and a great elevator speech that is recited no matter what

Fail:  I am going to ask you whether you know someone who can help me and what are you going to say or do?   I am going to find you out in 5 seconds.

#3  Tell everyone how successful you have been

Fail:  How come you are in the noobe corner?  If you were successful, you would be in the successful corner.  You’ve no more idea of what is going on than I have!

#4  Tick off your successes loudly

Fail:  Some of the people listening have done some of the things you mention and know how they work.  They ‘suss’ your inexperience in a flash and tell others.  Try some genuine conversation.  They they might give you the answers you desperately need!

The Tortoise Method of networking

The Tortoise Method:  I’ll call this the tortoise method because the tortoise really does win the race.  Yes, the hares look down on the tortoise, initially, but that is a good thing.  Because if they realized the tortoise would win, they would get a bit mean and nasty.

#1  When someone is snooty or domineering with their elevator speech  or other bragging, cool.  Find out what they know.

Once you have your bearings, you can loop back and include them on your team in roles they can perform.  But can they perform any at all? The trouble is all the noobes are swanking about hoping to be taken for a ‘big, cool’ kid.  The only thing to do is to be kind and notice they don’t really understand power dynamics.

That is the thing to notice. Those who swank and swagger are going to need management.  A lot of of it.  They don’t have skills and they don’t have smarts.

#2  Figure out the essentials of being a noobe.

The things we need to know right now are rather basic. Where are the ‘loos’?  Where is the food?  What is everyone’s name?  Who are the bullies to be circumvented?   What are the rules and which much be followed and which can be ignored?  What are the signals (bells, notices, etc) that mean something?  What are the hacks?

Make a list of the essential questions. Ask them. When someone can answer them, say thank you, trade some information you have, and remember them as a person whose feet are on the ground.  They are your future team-mates.

#3  Listen to the stories that non-noobes tell

The stories are probably about pecking order – take that for granted.  The stories might not even  be untrue. That’s doesn’t matter. What matters is who are they trying to impress and how they understand (or misunderstand the rules).

By the way: Maybe you are only meeting noobes. Open our eyes.  Listen to bartender, the room cleaner, the door man.  Stop looking past people who aren’t the ‘big cool’ kids! Listen up to the people who have something to offer.  Swagger is only intended to defraud.

#4  Who is really successful in the system?

They probably won’t talk to you, but watch them closely. How do they spend their time?  And are they telling?

In pecking order systems, successful people often do their work behind closed doors.

  • First, they don’t want to say who helped them.
  • Second, they don’t want to admit who didn’t help them.
  • Third, they don’t want to admit in public that working hard is more important than the people who are throwing their weight around.
  • Fourth, many would rather tell you to do the wrong thing so they don’t have too much competition.

Paranoid – am I?  We just joined a system based on pecking order.  There is no generosity here -this is peck or get pecked!

Watch closely and take any opportunity to get behind the closed doors to see what is happening. Fetch the coffee. Become a “gopher”. Do the printing and photocopying. Keep your eyes and ears open, and your mouth shut. Firmly shut.  ‘

#5 Don’t ask people to introduce you to the ‘big cool kids”

In asking for that favor, you show you don’t understand anything at all! Don’t follow the big, cool kids around. You perpetuate the system. You learn nothing. AND YOU SHOW EVERYONE THAT YOU DON’T GET IT!

Do your own thing, with other noobes. I am not contradicting #4. You help a big cool kid, if and only if, you get behind close doors – if you see him in his underpants so to speak. If you get to see how things really work. If you get to see the action not the polished, spun version of the action. Otherwise, don’t follow them. Stop being such a burke! Do your own thing.

Does The Tortoise method work?

Well, not fast. But you weren’t going any where very fast anyway. That was just in your imagination! You were going along with the con job. Remember, what is too good to be true, is too good to be true.

The tortoise is a wise animal. They look dumb but

  • They know which race they are running, where it ends, and whether they want the prize
  • They know the route
  • They know what to look for along the route
  • They put one foot ahead of the other, quite calmly
  • They ignore the hares hopping along (and sleeping along the way).

Of course, if you are hare by nature, then this story is not for you! If you like the rough-and-tumble of the pecking order, go for it.

But get out of the noobe corner. Showing off to noobes is taking you nowhere.  If you stay, help your fellow noobe with something concrete. Or shush up. Some of us see right through you!

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Noobe? To break away from crude pecking orders, get rich information

Published October 24, 2009 by Jo Jordan

It is such a pain being a ‘noobe’ – any place, any where

We are dazzled, momentarily, when we arrive.  Woot!  We are here.  We start to build relationships; we start to climb our way up the pecking order; and reality sets in.   We are jostled by every one we pass, and we shove back or skip past, depending on our taste for conflict or the weapons at our disposal.

The rank structure of the bloggersphere

In the blogging world, the first disillusionment of the noobe blogger comes when we understand that there are already kids in charge of the block.  They are called the “A list” bloggers.  By dint of being around longer, A-list bloggers command the playground.  One word from them and we are made!

We cluster around the A-listers hoping to be mistaken for the in-crowd.  We tweet them, @ClayShirky for example, hoping that our friends think we actually know them.

And the A-listers ignore us, just as the cool kids ignored us all those years ago at school.  Oddly, the more we fawn, the easier it is for them to ignore us.  You’d think we might have learned something from school.

The long road to a stronger blog ranking

In the blogging world, longevity really matters.  A stopped stone gathers moss, readership and Google page rank.  Life in the blogosphere is as simple as that.

We newcomers have a long journey from 4 page hits to 40 to 400 to 4000, from the very occasional comment to comments daily, from occasional readers to regular readers.

On the journey, we worry.  Is my writing too light? Is it too heavy?  Should I be more provocative or less?  Should I used better keywords, or not?

Rich information from Alexa Rankings

I use Alexa Rankings every few weeks to give me a sense of how I am doing.  And then I do a comparison with the big old established sites!

Pointers from Alexa Rankings

I can stop worrying that my writing is too inaccessible.  People spend more than 10 minutes on my site.  Not an easy read – sure – but people are reading.

My bounce rate is a lowish 30%.  Many A-listers have bounce rates of 70%.

And my visitors look at an average of 8 pages.  That’s very high.   (Thank you!).

Moreover, as these are averages, the people who stay are staying for a long time.  (A double thank you!)

Rich information helps us understand our role in our new playground

These figures are much better than most A-listers.  That gives me heart that I am doing something right.  I wish I had more comments though!  It would be nice to be able to shape the blog around topics and styles that you find interesting.

But I thank you anyway!   More people are coming and my site continues to climb the rankings at home and abroad.  Alexa kindly gives me the details and I can track my progress against my goals, which includes getting progressively more traffic from the UK

I also get some idea of what to improve.  I don’t get a lot of traffic from search, for example. I could obviously do a bit of SEO!

If you are a ‘noobe’,  Alexa Rankings are a good monthly stop.  The rich information provides the perspective every noobe needs to understand the rules and to break away from the crude rankings and pecking orders that rule all playgrounds!

Break the tyranny of the pecking order

Whenever we are new, somewhere in some place, we need to look for the equivalent of Alexa Rankings to escape the tyranny of crude pecking orders.  Look! Find!  Ask a richer set of questions  than whether the A-listers know us.

Get oriented!  Sanity for we noobes!

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The not-so Artful Dodgers! Networking in post-Thatcher Britain

Published October 23, 2009 by Jo Jordan

Jack Wild as the Artful Dodger in Oliver!, the...
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In brisk, post-Thatcher Britain, we go to a lot of networking gigs

Post-Thatcher Britain, you may know, is an elbows-out sort-of-place.  Everyone is touting their wares like a scene out Dickensian Britain.  Do you remember the song “Who will buy?” from Oliver.  Well, it is like that. Except, people don’t sing so well.

Wannabe Artful Dodgers

There are wannabe Artful Dodgers at every gig.  They are not up to making-off with your wallet and silk handkerchief.  But you can see that is why they joined such a convenient crowd!

Fagin will be unhappy

When they get home, they will be in trouble with Fagin, their conscience, who asks them the wrong questions.

  • How many business cards did you give out?
  • How many business cards did you collect?
  • How much free food and drink did you score?
  • Did you find someone to give you some work?

They need to get a better conscience and a better Fagin to ask them these questions:

#1  Did they promise at least 5 favors to at least 5 different people?

If there weren’t at least 5 people at the gig who needed something they could do with their littte finger, they are sooo at the wrong gig, or soooo under-qualified to eat and drink with those people

If they were the Artful Dodger, they would pick a neighborhood better suited to their skills, or start to behave like the people in the neighborhood they’d chosen.

Or, they were so obsessed with themselves, they found out nothing about the other people there.

If they were the Artful Dodger, they would start to watch the crowd while Oliver stood in the shadows, singing mournful songs!

#2  Did 5 different people offer them 5 different favors?

Hmm, did they look at a lot of gift-horses in the mouth?  Maybe they talk too much and not give the other person even a few seconds to chip in and some assistance?

Oliver got help from all over because he was cute and un-pushy.  The Artful Dodger was admired but never got help from  anyone.

Had he washed his face, people may have helped him.  But then he wouldn’t be the Artful Dodger!

I suppose we really have to decide whether we want to work sooo hard or whether want to let luck find us!

#3  Did the person they help, or the person who took their card, write to say thank you?

Did they just hand out their cards like a free newspaper and walk away?  Or did they stay with the conversation to the point that they could offer to do something specific for the other person? Or ask them to do something specific and useful? Did they take the conversation through the stages of forming, storming, norming to performing?  Or. did they jump from forming to adjourning?

The Artful Dodger knew the endpoint – to hand his pickings over to Fagin.  But he didn’t jump there in one fell swoop. He watched, he followed, he ducked, he dived.  He fell into the other person’s rhythm.  Then he cleanly picked the other pocket and moved the contents smoothly to his own!

#4  Did they write to thank people who gave them their card?

Did they have anything at all to say to the people with whom they spent an evening?  Did they waste more time by sending an automated message when they got home?  Or did they talk to people in sufficient depth to remember them and be remembered?  Does their note reflect something they ‘did’ together?

The Artful Dodger would remember the people he met -more clearly than they would remember him.  He would know exactly how many pockets in each person’s suit, and exactly what is in them!

Which is your next networking event?

Maybe I will see you there!  I hope I remember you and you me!

I wonder what we have in common and what we could do for in each other, right there, in the few moments we share together!

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