Chill out. Facebook is not The Borg.

It's interesting to follow the storm of debate around Facebook's proposed Terms of Service. To believe the reports, Facebook is the Borg ("Your content will be assimilated, your stuff is now ours. Resistance is futile.") But is this hysteria justified?

Some personal observations about this issue and Facebook in general:


- Facebook has now reverted to their previous version of the Terms of Service, which obviously was satisfactory for everyone who is complaining. But how many of them have read those original TOS? (Can you find them on your Facebook site?)

- Lawyers write contracts and agreements to primarily cover their client's backside (not necessarily to protect the client's clients). When was the last time you read the fine print of your cell phone contract, insurance contract, internet provider contract, blog provider, bank terms of service, etc... even the computer operating system you are using? I'm sure you will find plenty to gripe about!

- Something Facebook has done really well: they have opened this whole issue to a general discussion. (Facebook page: http://is.gd/jVZn ) Conversations build trust, and trust is the main currency of social networks. I wish more companies would do this.

- This shows how "closed" a social network Facebook is (and other platforms are). I read someone saying that "Facebook is the new AOL". Facebook is not the internet, it's a private playground and by stepping into it, you play by their rules.

- Facebook still has a bias towards partying college students (obvious when I set up events: no way to identify networking events or teleclasses or seminars, etc, but a dozen ways to describe a party!) So they have some growing up to do, in order to adapt to their new, older and more serious audience.

- All this said, I am a big proponent of Facebook. It is a great place to connect with people, exchange ideas, build a tribe. It is one of the most stable and popular social media platforms out there. If you are a solopreneur and not yet on Facebook and Twitter, I highly recommend that you jump in now!


Friend me on Facebook at http://profile.to/coachdavender
and on Twitter http://twitter.com/coachdavender

It's not the medium, it's the message

I have a new friend on Facebook, Kneale Mann.

When he sent me his Friend Request, I Googled him and found a very interesting article he wrote, here are two quotes that I liked:

"Microsoft Word does not make you Hemmingway. Whether it’s an ink dipped feather or a blackberry, if the message is of no interest to its recipient, the instrument is irrelevant."

and

Content, context and community are powerful forces we cannot ignore.[...] Are you creating an atmosphere that will satisfy people's inherent need to belong? [emphasis mine]

With all the hype about Facebook, Twitter, the Social Web, whether it's better to write or podcast or put videos on YouTube, to succeed you need to go back to the basics: is my message one that someone wants to hear?

I'm getting a bit tired of the Social Web stuff, especially with Twitter, because it is becoming one big echo chamber, where people are RT'ing each other (repeating tweets or messages) in a bid to climb higher on some popularity algorithm. And that's when I'm not being bombarded with tweetspam.

What I crave is to exchange smart ideas with smart people: that's the community I want to belong to.

Although Kneale doesn't speak specifically about Twitter [UPDATE: Now he does through his blog http://onemann.blogspot.com !], his message applies directly to what you and I are doing as passion-driven entrepreneurs: instead of getting lost in how things look, let's focus on what we are communicating through what we do.

Read the rest of Kneale's article here (via Humble Howard's blog http://www.humblehoward.com)
(ContentContextCommunity part 1) http://is.gd/fmUe
(ContentContextCommunity part 2) http://is.gd/fmUu

Thots from a twit

I am having a great time with Twitter (www.twitter.com/coachdavender). At first I was using it to report what I'm doing. Now I realize it is a powerful tool to condense a thought into 140 characters or less. Here are some of my original "thots" I have blogged on Twitter recently:

• Leadership: the alchemy of transforming goals into gold. Time is the crucible and passion the catalyst. What will u create today? 7:30 AM Nov 13th from web
  
  
• Thot: Effective communication is about shortening the distance between what I am thinking and what you think I am thinking. 12:17 PM Nov 12th from web
  
  
• Compromise = i'm unhappy and you're unhappy, a lose-lose deal. Instead, think win-win collaboration: i'm happy and you're happy! 11:07 AM Nov 5th from web
  
  
• Question rec'd: as knowledge worker, how to increase one's value? Create a tribe, educate it and lead it! Ideas are free.Using them ain't. 8:38 PM Nov 10th from web
  
  
• Thot: "Instead of defining success as the size of your empire, define it as the size of your impact." http://snipr.com/4y7u3 5:34 PM Nov 2nd from web
  
  
• Davender's definition of Positioning: "what people think of when they think about you, what people say when they talk about you". 9:38 PM Oct 31st from web
  
  
• Reminded a client today: Selling is influencing the other person to take a desired action, creating a win-win result. To sell is to lead. 4:40 PM Oct 30th from web
  
  
• W: "In history, we'll all be dead" NO! I prefer the Native-american perspective: what impact will what I do now have 7 generations hence? 9:30 AM Oct 28th from web
  
  
• @consultingpulse: Great consultants don't need to have the answers, just the right questions... 1:02 PM Oct 26th from web in reply to consultingpulse
  
  
• Today's lesson: Fear seduces. Fear excites. But fear consumes. Avoid other people's dramas. Remember your mission, vision and permission. 9:36 PM Oct 23rd from web
  
• To solve this mess, the world needs more creators and less speculators. Our core values need to shift from consumption to consciousness. 4:15 PM Oct 21st from web
  
  
• Note to meeting leaders: If you're done don't fill time with pointless talk. Nobody will complain if you finish early! 11:33 PM Oct 15th from web
  
• Too much information causes analysis-paralysis and fear. Unplug from the chatter, settle down, and listen to your soul... 5:33 PM Oct 15th from web
  
  
• "To an employee, getting paid is a right. To a solopreneur, it is a privilege." See my blog http://tinyurl.com/4p2mhb 5:28 PM Sep 20th from web

How much wisdom can you jam into 140 characters? Follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/coachdavender and let me know your Twitter handle too!

What if it happened here?

I generally avoid commenting about news and politics in this blog. However, an opinion piece by Patt Morrison in the Mar 8 LATimes.com caught my eye:

If L.A. were Baghdad
Imagine our reaction to suicide bombers killing 40 USC students and blowing up South Coast Plaza in the same month. (link to article)

The author describes eight incidents from the past month, transposed from Baghdad to Los Angeles. As I read the article, I caught my breath...

I realized how immunized I have become to the news. Talk of ten deaths here and forty deaths there becomes simply background noise between commercials. Because it is so far away, and I cannot imagine what it is like to live that situation, I can't really relate to it - I "know" it's a bad thing, but the descriptions don't "move" me.

Patt Morrison's article really affects me because it puts me in the middle of the experience - instead of simple facts, it draws pictures in my mind's eye that triggers real emotions: the essence of effective communication.

As a solopreneur, knowing how to communicate not just facts or reasons, but communicating to trigger emotion, is a crucial skill. Emotion is where decisions are first made, then we look for reasons or facts to justify the emotional decision. Successful entrepreneurs know how to trigger emotion, to tell a story: think of Steve Jobs of Apple (watch his keynote for Macworld 2007 here to see a master story-weaver at work).

Okay, that segue from Iraq to Apple was a stretch, but the core point of this post is about how the technique of transposing an otherwise invisible or distant situation into the here and now of everyday life is a powerful technique to tell your story and get people to take notice, and hopefully, take action.

How can you use a similar technique to communicate global warning, or degenerative disease, or corporate culture or another situation that's hard for the average person to perceive as tangible?

Going back to the original article, what if Baghdad's experience was transposed onto your city? How would it feel to you?

And, most of all, what would you do about it?

Direct link to article (registration might be required)
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-morrison8mar08,0,4802705.column