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Great video on Inbound Marketing from the gang at HubSpot.  Gets right to the heart on the use of technology and social media to build your business.  Kudo’s to  Rebecca Corliss of HubSpot for the great work they do.

Today one of our Governors was arrested.  One of the allegations was trying to sell the Senate seat of president-elect Obama for personal gain.  When I first heard the news this morning I was at first amazed and then a bit saddened for all the people that put their trust in this man, supported him, voted for him and got him elected Governor.

In their e-book “Trust Economies: Investigation into the New ROI of the Web“, the authors Chris Brogan and Julien Smith talk about how valuable the relationships we build are and how we need to vigorously protect these relationships (If you have not read this e-book, I would suggest you do.)  This is especially true about our web relationships.  But how easy are they to break?  In a virtual world where people seldom meet in real life, is that even possible.  Yes, it is.

At a recent conference I spoke about how important it is as a New Media Producer (which in today’s world can mean blogger, podcaster, videocaster, micro-blogger and more) to build relationships on-line and to be a part of a like minded community.  David Meerman Scott, author of “The New Rules of Marketing and PR” warns that it is easy to fall in love with you and your work on-line and even easier to fall out of love with you on-line.  The key thing that Brogan & Smith and Scott are trying to point out is the importance of trust.

It seems trust is hard to come by these days.  We are all a bit suspicious, cynical and wary.  We are often slow to “buy in” to new idea, plans and ways of doing things.  And on days like today, we tend to be a little less trustful than before.  But having said that, if we trust you, we almost rush to buy in.  So what are the building blocks of building trust and being someone that can be trusted?

Remember, mutual trust is a shared belief that you can depend on each other to achieve a common purpose. So how do you create mutual trust?  A trust that is sustainable?

• Tell the truth.  Be someone who’s word can be trusted.
• You cannot build mutual trust is you cannot listen.  A conversation is a relationship.
• Share the credit and when in doubt, share the credit.
• You cannot build mutual trust if you do not participate in the community.  Provide real value with your participation.
• Ask for feedback, be willing to be wrong.
• You cannot build mutual trust overnight.  Being trusted takes time to build, seconds to break.
• When you say you will do something, do it.
• You cannot build mutual trust without empathy.  Understanding others builds the bonds of trust.
• Be transparent, let people get to know you.
• Building trust takes personal time.  Nothing replaces the time you spend one on one with someone.
• Building trust takes ethics.  Doing the right thing even when it is not popular.

Building trust and being trusted takes time, effort and commitment.  It is easy to say one thing yet do another.  It is easy to take shortcuts.  It is easy to use others for your personal gain.  But in the end, it is really a short sighted approach or as an old boss of mine used to say, “you are dead but just have not fallen over yet.”

On a day when one of our own Governors is arrested and a lengthy criminal complaint filed against him, isn’t this a perfect time to reflect on trust and ethics?

My plane landed in Dallas last night and just as I have done a hundred times, I reached for my phone to see what I missed during my flight. I opened my email to find the following;

Yes, Pownce…one of the original “micro-blog, what I am doing, file sharing” sites was shutting down.  Now, in all fairness to Pownce, the company was acquired by Six Apart (annoucement on Six Apart blog here) and I am sure this is an acquisition of talent and ideas as much as anything.  The rock stars at Pownce; Leah Culver,  Mike Malone and Ariel Waldman have all moved over to Six Apart and along with them, their extraordinary talent and ideas.  I am sure Six Apart is a much better company because of it.

I was an early user of Pownce (back when you had to get an invite to join) and I did so enthusiastically.  I found many friends and colleagues already there and loved how you could attach media to your post to enable easy views or downloads.  Pownce did not have some of the limitations of Twitter and was a useful way to get your message out, let people know what you were up to and to follow those you knew.  Now, it is gone.

It makes me wonder if this is the first of many “fallouts” by companies providing great social networking tools.  Right now the big kids on the block (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and more) seem to continue to grow not only in size, but services (sometimes third party mind you).  But it seems, allot of companies are doing basically “the same thing.”  Is Jaiku really that much different than Twitter?  The examples are endless.  Are we beginning to see the large squeeze out the small, the “first to the space” to squeeze out the later in not only terms of usage but funding dollars.

It seems the economic times have reached right into the world of social media and the first ones to take the hit are the start-ups that bring us the coolest new widgets and gadgets.  Many will go the way of Pownce and find someone with the dollars to help the dream continue or just…go away.  With venture capital money going out extremely selectively many of these start-ups will be gobbled up by those with the new currency of acquisition, stocks.  Having said that, almost all the past ‘high tech high flyers’ are trading no where near where they were this time last year,  so stock deals will also be selective.  Maybe again, if these start-ups are lucky, they can find a company with some dollars willing to trade talent and ideas for debt.

Tough times reach everywhere.  Everything is linked to everything else somehow, someway.  Social media is no exception.  As much as I loved and will miss Pownce, I believe the acquisition of Pownce is the start of a trend where many social media companies do the same.  Hopefully they will have the talent of a Pownce and be an acquisition candidate and not just fade away.

So Goodbye Pownce you will be missed.  And with that, I make my final post to a great idea and a great website.

A new service is creating allot of buzz in the Twitter world.  The service is called Magpie and the purpose of the service is inject ads into your “tweet stream” that in turn, go into the stream of your followers.  The hope of the service for the advertiser is to target your audience based on your posts and keywords and to send ads to those in your community that best match.  You can get all the details on how this works at http://be-a-magpie.com/how-it-works .  Take a look at the following pic to get an idea what this would look like in the Twitter stream.

#1 shows how Magpie randomly inserts ads promoting the service into your stream, and #2 shows what an actual ad looks like.  This pic was screenshot from someone I follow and as you can see, the self promotion and the actual ad occured only two “tweets” apart.

The idea of monetizing your work and leveraging your social network is not new, but this new service raises some interesting points of conversation and discussion;

• Is monetizing your followers, a violation of the community aspect of Twitter?
• Will followers be “turned off” by ad inserts? Will they care?
• Can real money be made using this type of service?
• Will use of this type of service cause followers to “unfollow”?

Twitter is the clearly the “micro-blog” of choice at this time.  It may not have the features of other services available but its has simplicity, elegance and a myriad of tools to make it work on phones and other devices.  Twitter is everything from a business communication outlet, a personal update space, a promotional tool, an instant news resource to a discovery of new things platform.  It is also a community where people converse, have bursts of dialog and share information.  So will a service such as Magpie cause an interruption of the conversation?  It seems the so far, the tweet stream is saying it will.

So lets say you are willing to risk followers in order to make some money on your Twitter stream.  What kind of money can you make?  According to Magpie, this is what my Twitter stream could be worth.

According to the site, I could collect up to 330.66 Euros per month (Euros x .7699 <current spot trade USD> = $254.58USD).  So my potential earnings on Magpie would be about $250 a month.  So the question now becomes; Is it worth it?

There are allot of reasons in today’s economy to try to make some money.  Many are out of work, many have taken pay cuts or benefit cost increases.  Others just need more money to pay the bills.  If that is the reason you choose an ad insertion service such as Magpie for your Twitter stream, then more power to you.  I cannot blame anyone for doing what it takes to put food on the table.  But for those who are not in that situation, consider carefully the possible effects, long and short term of using any ad insertion service into your social network before you do so.

In my case, Magpie just does not seem right for me.  The value of my followers is too precious to risk and the pressing need to generate the income is not there.  I would be anxious to hear what some of you have to say regarding this service and others like it and how it works or does not work for you?

I know you “tweet” but do you “magpie?”

Many of you probably read the title of this post and thought this would be some diatribe about discipline or punishment.  Nope.  A few days ago, something amazing happened.  Joining the ranks of Mr. Potato Head, Monopoly, Silly Putty, Barbie, and the Atari 2600 in the National Toy Hall of Fame was the unassuming stick.  That’s right, the stick.

The stick might be the perfect toy come to think of it.  It is cheap.  Always available.  Easy to use.  Does not need instructions not assembly.  The stick, can be anything we want it to be.

So the answer is the stick.

Before you swear off this site and vow to never return, let me explain some lessons we can learn from the lowly stick.

1. The stick is simple.  We all want to complicate things.  We want more features, more data, more input, more analysis, more…more…more.  The stick is simple.  It is just a stick.  One of the first lessons I learned from an early mentor was K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid).  And lucky for me, he believed it.  “Simple processes are easy to do, complicated processes are not”…he would preach.  “Make it easy to do a good job.”  “People quickly understand what is simple, so keep it simple.”  “Only make it as hard as it has to be, then look for ways to simplify.”  I can almost hear his voice ringing in my head years later.  The stick teaches us that simple is good.
2. The stick is inclusive.  In a world of all shapes and sizes, colors, races and ages, diversity is critical to the success of an organization.  The stick is inclusive.  No one is left out.  No one is left behind.  We have all played with a stick at some point and if you wanted to go play with one right now, you probably could.  Even animals play with sticks.  Dogs love sticks.  In a world filled with differences, the stick teaches us to be inclusive.
3. The stick can be anything we want it to be.  A sword, a cane, a bat…anything.  The stick teaches us to think, to be creative.  To make something out of nothing.  To use our mind to create matter.  The stick shows us all that with a little imagination, we can take great journeys with just…a stick.
4. The stick shows us that design matters.  In order for something to be simple, you have to design it to be simple.  For something to be functional, it has to be designed that way.  So from now on, every time I experience a door handle in an inconvenient place, or telephone hard to hear, or shoes that hurt to walk in, I will think of the stick.  Simple, elegant, functional and flexible in its design.
5. The stick has been around for awhile and yet after a long, long time of being the toy of generation after generation it finally received its due recognition.  And thus, the stick teaches us about persistence, sticking to it and never giving up.  Allot of people create success simply by being determined.  The stick teaches us to “stick it out.”
6. The stick teaches us to have fun.  Pick one up, make it your fishing pole or your scepter or the bat that hits the winning home run.  The stick teaches us to imagine and play, to dream, to go on journeys far away.  The stick shows us that what we do can be fun, whether it is life, work or play.
7. There is a good chance if you are walking through the park with someone and you pick up a stick and begin to play with it, they will do it also.  How many sword fights did you have as a kids with sticks?  How many rounds of “hit the rock?”  The stick teaches us to be interactive, to be social, to use the tools we have to connect and begin to have conversation, dialog, fun.  The stick may have been the first ever “high touch, low tech” social networking tool.

The lowly stick deserves their entry into the National Toy Hall of Fame, as it teaches us more about life than most of the other toys it now resides with in Rochester, NY.  I guess I still hear the words of my early mentor ringing in my ears.  His desire to keep things simple, design things to work with ease and his persistence to achieve that outcome.  In addition my own head rings with the thoughts of inclusion, creativity, imagination, fun and play (the ultimate social event) the stick has brought to my life.

So when things do not seem right…simplify, work on design, include others in the challenge, get creative and have fun overcoming the obstacle.  Isn’t that what the stick would do?

I have been following a unique tool provided by HubSpot called Twitter Grader.  If you are on Twitter and have some interest as to how HubSpot’s formula grades you on Twitter it is a fun tool to check out.  I first went to Twitter Grader about six weeks ago and was facinated by the way this company measured Twitter effectiveness.  For some reason, my grade was a bit higher.

It seems my most recent score went down (don’t worry, I am over it.)  But does a good score really mean anything?  Does a good score make you a New Media Superstar, A-List Blogger, or Social Media Personality?  Absolutely not.  All a good score means is you are effective in using Twitter as a communication tool.  HubSpot says the following are factors:

I have the privilege of being asked to speak at the first ever Thin Air Summit in Denver, Colorado.  The summit is a New Media Conference, the first of its kind in the Denver. It’s a place where New Media professionals gather for learning, interaction and collaboration.   My part of the program, is a conversation about “Finding Your Voice” or in other words, the evolution and change of your New Media projects over time.  If you are in the Denver area on November 7, 8 and 9th come by and check out the Thin Air Summit and while there, swing by and say hi! 

Click here to go to the Thin Air Summit site.

Click here to go right to Registration for the Thin Air Summit.