Anyhoo. history aside, I was struck the other day at a MHSMC meeting that social media is the new ‘internet’. Mainly this relates to my love of all things Cluetrain Manifesto. One of the  of the primary things I took away from Cluetrain in my first reading as a lowly Software developer at a mortgage company where marketing outnumbered IT (as well as my many subsequent readings), was that it’s important, and beneficial for enterprises to let their people be people. Lower the walls, don’t raise them. I thought we were making progress here.

It seems that social media is moving away from that if MHSMC is any indicator. The presentation this month was on Corporate use of Social Media.

One of the panelists, I don’t remember whom I’m afraid, made an example of what to her (and many in the audience it appeared) was a social media gaff. A call center employee somewhere in a state most of us don’t care about commented on a blog post. The post was critical of the complany and this person came to the defense saying not much more than ‘we’re working hard for you in Toledo Ohio’ (I don’t recall the city honestly).

I was in the back row cheering on Timmy from call center X in Toledo. I mean how lucky is that company that an employee at that level stood up for his employer with nothing more than “We’re working hard.” To the best of my recall the panelist didn’t say Timmy made promises or claims, or anything that could in any way be said to hurt his employer, just that he and his fellow employees were working hard. How awesome is that, every company should have passionate people speaking plainly without motive, on their behalf.

The panelists went on to relate similar stories, and reinforce that not just anyone could use twitter. That some people weren’t on the company twitter account, and wouldn’t be. That specific people followed specific guidelines in order to be the ‘voice of the company’. That without rules and regulations on what is and isn’t ok, social media was some sort of no man’s land of ROUSs.

I sat in the back row thinking, “wow, it’s like 1998 again”. Companies are back to being afraid of the internet, this time social media, and rather than embrace it, they’re locking it down, restricting who can say what, how.

it was sobering to see that as much as things change, some things stay the same. I wish I had had time to process what I was seeing then, I might have asked if anyone in that room had ever heard of or read the Cluetrain Manifesto. I wish I still had a box of them I’d bring them to the next meeting.

But for lists there’s a bigger reason, and Chris Brogan hits the nail on the head, They’re exclusionary. They’re the new “hottest kid in school” list posted in the locker bay. Those on it feel more self important, and those not on it, feel like less than people, and in the end, they’re completely meaningless and 100% arbitrary.

There’s few things I hate more than internet popularity contests.

Lists aren’t opt in or opt out, they’re not merit based, or anything like that. They’re lists of people that some one else thinks are worth listing. You must ask to be on the list, you must be “approved”, and if the list maker decides you’re not worthy, that’s that.

Lists are are for clique making. “Hey I’m on 30 lists” as if that somehow indicates importance. I see the number of lists a person is on, being the new “follower count”, a metric few care about, and most deride as a sign of being some sort of twitter spammer, or twitter whore.

Will it become the same bad juju if you’re on 50 lists, and have made none?

Of all the things twitter could of released, it’s sad they chose lists. They’ve already got their “most influential user” list or whatever. I’d rather see twitter add more useful features than popularity contests. To name a few. Polls, photo/video/audio (sorry third parties), maybe a suggestion system like Netflix? “You should look at these guys, because they’re similar to this guy that you follow.” That’d be WAY more valuable than “Here’s my bestest friends, who are cooler than you, but you should follow” list, by someone whom I’m not sure I care about their opinion on such things.

Sorry list makers, and list whores. I won’t be making lists, nor will I care if I’m on yours. There’s more important things out there.

Yup, damn straight, National. Comic. Sans. Day.

Why? Because we really do take ourselves too seriously. Just look at this google search. Sure we all have our ‘thing’ but something in those results tells me, that there’s a lot of us that take fonts too seriously. Feel free to try and explain why font face is the single most important thing in marketing and delivers a message without actually saying anything etc, etc, Sorry it’s marketing claptrap, but you’re welcome to try and enlighten me.

Solution? As with any situation where people are taking something too seriously, we’ll go extreme opposite, and just bask in it, and enjoy making fun of ourselves. It’s simple enough to do, simply replace your style sheet font references to all Comic Sans.

It’s one day, and meant to be a fun poke at our selves and take a day off of obsessing over the existance of Comic Sans as a font. Hate it, love it, couldn’t care less about it, on October 1 let’s all enjoy a day of Comic Sans, just a day, it’s not gonna kill ya.

Spread the word! Leave a comment with your blog address so I can make sure to check your site out and enjoy a day not caring if there’s a serif or not.

For the most up to date info, make sure you follow the Ignite Denver blog, that’s where speaker and sponsor announcements are made, etc.

We’re looking for help! Ignite Denver is looking to grow from a 2 people operation, to a committee run deal! We need more awesomeness to grow Ignite Denver!

Denver, raise your hands! Get involved!

I figured I’d wait it out until the fad wore off. That is until I went to WWDC. I imagine it was much the same at SXSW, the right mix of people to initiate a chain reaction. We were out at one of the too many competing parties, every one had it. I figured I’d join in.

I racked up some serious points and badges thanks to the nightlife of WWDC, and as you can see, I’m still mayor of the Intercontinental… guess they don’t get many developer/social media types.

Then I came home, where I work out of my home office… my Four Square awesomeness quickly declined except at my gym and my house (Yeah cheating, but screw you, cubie, going to lunch every day, blah blah) where I reign supreme.

What really keeps me interested in Four Square, and even brightkite is the awesome outside the phone potential. I want my starbucks to give the mayor a free coffee (Frapaccino please). I want my neighborhood bar (where Dave and I are in a cold war for mayorship) half off drinks, or a free drink, something.In the brighkite world, I want to check in and see that where I am is running a Brightkite special, or maybe not where I am, but the place next door.

Where FS excels is that it identifies the losers (cough) people who frequent a place. Rewards them for doing so with points and meaningless badges, that can’t even be printed out! What if they got a burger instead!

This techcrunch article is exactly what I’m talking about. Ideally Brightkite will get there first, sorry FS, I gotta go with the home team. I definitely think whoever can start cementing these relationships first, will be hard to unseat, and FS already has a model. There’s no need to discount to all users, though that’s awesome, just give the mayor something great! Everyone will see, and want to be mayor, and guess how you do that? Be the one to visit a place the most. Win Win.

We’re going to have some seats setup in the front area nearest the screen for folks who just want to sit and watch. Behind the screen will be tables and such for the folks that want to chit chat through the entire event (there’s always a few, and usually they’re also the “this isn’t Ignite Boulder” complainers). The audio is piped through the rooms speakers, so there shouldn’t be an “I can’t hear” problems.

I’m torn on weather to have a brightkite wall. thinking I’ll set it up before we start the presos and during the break, but will learn from Refresh and not have the wall up during presos, LOL. Not a good idea.

• Booze on the Brain! (or the neuropharmacology of alcohol)
• Does This Make My Ass Look Fat?
• Ignite the entrepreneur within: 50 Interviews
• History of Rome (For those have have been to Ignite Denver 1 and 2, RJ promises he will not have family trouble and scheduling conflicts! He swore it on the flying Spaghetti Monster.)
• Trinkets and Nuggets about the Modern Japan
• The Similarities Between Emperor Palpatine & Our History
• Leveraging the Internet To Land a Book Deal
• Pie and the contemporary psyche
• Mucking Out Your Inbox: How to Be More Productive with Email
• Toys for relieving stress in the office
• Slammed Doors and Phones: Or the Saga of a Young Organizer
• How a Video becomes Public Access TV in a Web2.0 World

There’s a few tickets left, and if we sell out I’ll have to actually have some one man the door and check names, and do the whole waiting list thing. Make sure you RSVP, we’re gonna have a good time. Ignite is an excellent time to meet people you might not otherwise meet in your regular circles, which is reat because it opens so many more doors and opportunities.

Coathangr is a cool new(ish) social networking site, just for those of us who take more than 10 minutes to get dressed (Which isn’t me, but they still let me join).

It’s in public beta, so feel free to sign up and answer the question, “What are you wearing?”

Oh and if you sign up and post a pic in an update, you can win a Slanket!

So from what I’ve gleened, 3 investors got some 30 odd people from the Rocky, and started this onine paper, hoping to get 50,000 subscribers at $5 a piece.

First they started with a press conference, no idea why it warranted that, but you know, whatever.

So basically learningnothing from the old and flawed model of a print newspaper (hordes of reporters and editors), the INDT team chose to try and force that same model into a web site. MMM Uh guys, it’s 2009, no matter how to try to fight the future. Print news is dying because it’s not adapting and learning. You clearly haven’t adapted or learned.

30 people? 30?  I know several web startups that operate with 2 people, and do more. 30 people? Look, I’m as sad as the next guy that the Rocky folks are collecting unemployment, but that’s no reason to prop them up with false hopes. Go find new jobs elsewhere guys! Probably in other industries! Reporting isn’t dead. Print papers are. GO report somewhere online, start a blog on your own, you’d probly get more than 3000 readers.

I’m a big fan of relying on your community to help you, because I believe that if you’re worth helping, people will help you.

“I’m not disappointed,” Preblud insists. “It’s been an amazing ride for the last five weeks, and I think we’ve learned a great deal. Although we didn’t meet our subscription goal, our other online metrics are phenomenal.” He adds that “the heroes in all this are the journalists, and I still have a commitment to journalism. We all do — and this is like any business model. There’s always challenges, and you don’t always know all the answers up front. But we believe professional journalism is a crucial component of not only a community but a democracy, and we’re going to continue to move forward in support of that” — as long as the “business model works. And it works in the immediate term.”

I can only assume the investors and 30 plus “professional journalists” (read out of touch with modern trends, human beings) thought that people would flood the site with subscriptions simply because. Sure Iwantmyrocky was created, why not. Sentiment is cheap, and easy to express. But seeing as how The Rocky closed because no one subscribed, it seems a bit retarded to think sentiment for the old Rocky would make people subscribe to the INDT.

All I can say, is that the INDT failure isn’t even remotely surprising. A complete lack of social media effort, or even reaching out to the community, fail and fail. Sorry Rocky folks, you’re ivory tower of “Professional Journalism” is crumbling around you, and paper mache ain’t gonna patch it.

Then RJ twittered this article

The one piece that really hit home and kinda (in my head) screamed disingenuous, was Scott Monty saying

“As far as mechanical difficulties, let’s let common sense prevail,” he said. “If you were driving one of our cars as part of this program, wouldn’t you call for assistance first, rather than writing a blog post?”

Uh so you hope social media will move Fiestas but hope that people won’t use it when their Fiesta breaks down? It’s 2009 Scott, you as well as anyone should realize that 1. many people will twitter before calling for assistance, and 2. As soon as they’re done with the call for assistance, and waiting for a tow, they’ll use their iPhone to blog from the drivers seat, about their broke down Fiesta.

It just kinda hit me that, as progressive as Ford seems to be, they’re still a big company hoping that “common sense” prevails when it’s time to say something bad about their product. Hoping that the “agents” (People who’ve been given free Fiesta’s (a 47.99 value)) will not bite the hand that feeds them, so to speak.

“We’ve done a lot of war gaming and we’re prepared for a number of scenarios,” Monty told Wired.com. “Again, we’re looking for their feedback and input on the vehicle — they’re testing the vehicle as much as they’re building buzz about it, and we want to know how to make it the best possible car.”

To paraphrase, “We want their feedback publicly via youTube, Facebook and Twitter about how much they love their cars, but if they have problems, we hope they’ll call us for assistance rather than blog about it.”

Mad props to Scott and Ford for the effort, but in my mind still a ways off of being a really truly, first class citizen in social media. But hey, they’re doing it so they’ll get there before Chrysler, and that is worth something. What exactly, I’m not sure.

I just finished Ignite Denver a week ago (3/11), and it was a huge success, better than the first for sure (organization wise! Sessions have kicked ass each time). It kinda sucks that people compare it to Ignite Boulder. Well duh, of course it’s not. I don’t have a huge startup community and those types of connections to donate swag and buy beer. I wish I did, and my goal for Ignite Denver 3 is to get some sponsor action, but it sucks that people are so lame they compare at all. Go to Boulder if you’re so in love with it, and don’t waste my time, hater.

I’ve found that, I have a pretty limited social media whick. The night after Ignite there was a tweetup, and I just wasn’t feeling it, not in the slightest. I don’t know what it was, i just wasn’t feeling as social as I was the night before, or at the previous tweetups.

I can’t wait for the next tweetup, since I’ll have a fully charged social-ness tank :)

This coming week, what’s up? Oh a little thing called the West by MidWest (WXMW)

Dave Wiskus and I are throwing a little get together for those who were too cool to go to SXSW (and even those who weren’t and have come back). It’s gonna be a fun time! I’ll have my Flip cam and iPhone to document the party! Since I was too wrapped up in Ignite to get more than a pic per presenter. :(

Oh and 360|Flex’s website is back and better than ever (as a Wordpress blog). Tom and I have changed hosting providers for all the 360Conferences sites.

I’ll also be moving Nicole’s sites from CFDynamics, since not only did they move our sites again with out notice, thereby fucking up nicole’s blog, but have been completely unhelpful. Oh and whatever hole let hackers into our company sites, also let them into my personal sites. I’d be surprised if every site on the box nicole’s blog and lazybear are on weren’t hacked too. I really think CFDynamics not only dropped the ball, but then seems to have ignored the problem.