Day 138: Breakfast with Jeff Pulver (and friends)

Last Thursday, I attended “Breakfast with Jeff Pulver (and friends)”. Jeff  is best known as the co-founder of VoIP provider Vonage. He classifies himself as a Technology Anthropologist and now spends part of his time organizing breakfasts in different cities as a way to bring together people who may have connected online but have never met face-to-face.

To begin, Jeff spoke a little about what he’s currently observing in the world of online communications. To him, it is painfully evident that the way in which we interact with others has changed. People are communicating because of online availability rather than by the arbitray presence of a telephone.

Jeff made a point I found particularly interesting:

There is now an entire generation growing up digitally who – because it’s so easy to communicate online – won’t have the opportunity to develop people skills the way individuals did before the Internet and will, consequently,  find it challenging to communicate in person.

(Does this mean that the same way there was a shortage of Internet-savvy individuals during the tech boom, there will be, at some point, a shortage of proficiently personable people?)

Next, Jeff had each of us go around the room and introduce who were were and a tagline to describe ourselves (my tagline was, of course, was “stumbling my way through life in our nation’s capital”). Then, we were let loose to network our hearts away. We were each given a blank name tag and small sticky squares. The small squares were so we could “tag” others based on the information they gave us during the conversation we were to have.

The whole thing (the name tag with our name and tagline and the name tag left open for others’ comments) is referred to by Jeff as a “Personal Social Networking Toolkit”. He came up with the idea as a way to help each of us define who were are, start a conversation with others, and get feedback on how we’re being understood.

For example:

- My tagline was a shortened version of the tagline I use here on this blog – “A twentysomething Social Media professional stumbling her way through life in our nation’s capital”. This is how I define myself.

- I mentioned in my introduction to the room that I use this tagline because I recently relocated to DC and am doing my best to catalog my time here. This later helped start a conversation with others as they asked me where I moved from, how long I had been in DC, etc.

- Some of the tags I received on my badge: “Gets news 1st @ Twitter”, “friendly”, “intellectual”, “i am content” (a double entendre – being happy and providing information), “social medium” (ie a provider of social media). These are the thing that people take away from meeting me. (Not a bad list in my opinion – that is EXACTLY what I would hope to project at a professional social media networking event.)

I really consider the event a huge success – I was indeed able to meet those I had already connected with online, get to know other DC Social Media influentials, and have an opportunity to think about the role of social media in personal relationships (post to come on that particular subject).

Pictures from the event can be found here.

Definitive Social Media Aspect of 2008?

On his blog, Tom Raftery contemplates what Social Media will be defined by as we look back at 2008…

According to him, in 2004 we had blogs, 2005 brought audio podcasts, followed by video podcasts in 2006, and finally, 2007 was the year of microblogging.

He asks: “We are in November now of 2008 and I still don’t see any big transformative Social Media technology which has occurred this year. Has it stalled? What am I missing?”

This got me thinking… and I have two very different answers:

1. I disagree that 2007 was the year of microblogging. I would counter that 2007 was the year of the social network, with Facebook opening its doors to the general public in late 2006, and the continual growth of other sites like MySpace and LinkedIn.

That being said, I think 2008 could be the year of microblogging. It seems that everyone and their brother (and their brother’s business) has become a Twitter member, and the role of the site in the recent tragic Mumbai terrorist attack highlighted the platform’s reach and influence. And when Facebook comes knocking, to the tune of $500 million, and YOU TURN IT DOWN, you know you’re doing something right

2. Okay, so I know that I just told you that Twitter was the IT thing this past year, but there’s the thing, I don’t think it’s hit its peak yet… All though it has become a central part of my world, and probably yours, it still hasn’t been fully embraced by the public as a whole.

Given that, I really think that apps will be social media’s legacy in 2008. Seriously.

Think about it: Apple unveiled its app store for its iPhone, Facebook has been inundated with its app add-ons, and even LinkedIn has jumped on the bandwagon.

Companies realized that doing things the closed-off, aloof way is just sooo 2007. Instead, 2008 brought a spirit of openness and partnership… or at least the realization that it might be worth it to disclose some proprietary knowledge so that developers, both amateur and professional, can learn your product, become an evangelist, and help your site extend its capabilities — for free! Pure genius.

So there you have it. That’s my take.

Now it’s your turn: What do you believe to be the definitive social media aspect of 2008?

The Social Media Way Of Life

Last Night, I attended what I hope will be the first of many Social Media Club – DC meetings held at the National Press Club.

The topic was on social search and there were a lot of really interesting points that were made. I’ve forgotten the majority, but some that have stuck with me include:

• Is there any value in organizing and archiving old social networking actions?
• Are mobile communities the next step in this media revolution?
• What are the ways social networking sites are trying to create revenue?
• Why isn’t Google more involved in this social media space?

There were a few things that distinguished this club meeting from others:

First, cell phones and laptops were everywhere with people typing away. By cell phones I mean iPhones because you aren’t cool in the social media world if you don’t have one. (I own one so I’m allowed to mock.) BlackBerrys will do as well. The amazing thing was that no one was offended by the attention given to these electronic devices rather than the presenters. In fact, it was almost encouraged.

That’s because everyone who was typing away was most likely providing commentary on the live discussion by posting to their twitter accounts. It was almost like there were two interconnected conversations taking place concurrently but separately. The second, the one on twitter, was, of course, a result of the in-person discussion and the twitter comments were mentioned a few times in the live discussion, but again, for the most part, they were taking place independently and simultaneously.

Also, people were referring to others not by there real names but by their twitter pseudonyms which sounds really awkward but wasn’t. If you think about it, attendees probably interact with each other primarily online and are used to identifying each other by their twitter user names.

Lastly, everyone was so social it was almost overpowering. This, of course, makes perfect sense. The whole basis of social media is the connections you make with others. Those who are best at making those connections can take full advantage of this new phenomenon and are most likely to be its biggest proponents.

If you were at the SMC-DC meeting last night, were my impressions correct? Are there other nuances I missed?

If you have no idea what any of this means, what clubs are you a part of that have their own special traditions? Does what I’ve described sound completely crazy?