A Little Twitter Snobbery, or Common Sense?

I say this all the time, but I love Twitter.  It's still my favorite social network.  To me, it has a very high signal to noise ratio, is FAST, and fun.  It allows me to link and include content with ease, and is available at my desk or from my mobile devices with ease.  I can sculpt the contents of my feed, and also create lists on certain subjects.  I can watch a Tweetdeck screen and monitor a dozen feeds at the same time and conversate like no one's business.  I love it.

I Tweeted a few weeks ago and mentioned some words to avoid at all costs in your Twitter bio.  I feel like most people want to be taken seriously in Twitter, but then write their bio in such a way that it screams "Amateur", "Marketer/Spammer", or "Trying too hard".  Sure, we all want to be clever in 160 characters to describe ourselves.  But I must admit, the following words generally turn me off and don't motivate me to click the follow button:

• Guru

  

• Ninja
• Rockstar
• Jedi
• Expert
• Wizard
• Master
• Sensei
• Social Media Anything

It's tough to describe yourself in 160 characters, but here are a few things that I've found I like to see in profiles: 

• Something unique.  One of my favorite Twitterites (aka @kikilitalien) has "I drink red wine and eat red meat" in her profile.  That's genius.  Original, funny, and assertive all wrapped up into one sentance.
• Be true to yourself.  You're most likely not a sensei, unless you teach martial arts.  What do you REALLY do?  Describe that.  Are you a carpenter?  Say you're a carpenter, not a "Wood Wizard" or a "Jointery Jedi"
• Give up some professional and some personal.  I follow interesting pros, and I follow interesting peeps.  I love to see a mix of that in a profile so I get a picture of the person behind the profile.
• Pictures help.  If I see an egg or o_O as your image, it screams "Noob!!!".  I doubt that feed will be full of interesting things for me.  Sure, it has potential, but unless you start engaging with me I probably won't follow back until I get an understanding of the flavor of your feed.

If you're not on Twitter, you're probably saying "What???".  All I can say is "What are you waiting for, get on it!".  It's a treasure trove of information and relationships waiting to be formed.  Go to Twitter and set up an account now!

And a note to all of my followers - Thanks so much for finding my feed interesting enough to follow.  Please hit me up and let's chat.

What do you think?  Do you have a few profile turn ons or turn offs?  Leave a comment and let me know what other bad buzzwords you've seen, or other genius profile additions.  

Until next time - Garry.  I mean - @DarthGarry

Rocking the Mobile BusinessStyle

As many of you know, Tom and I jump started Red Argyle over a month ago.  It was almost one of those Frankenstein moments - "IT'S ALIIIIVVVVVEEEEEEE".  I don't want to discount the level of difficulty involved in starting a company, but we have noticed a few things that seemed easy that would have been impossible a few years ago.

I started writing this blog at Tom's home office, did some more copy writing at a coffee shop in Buffalo using a cellular MiFi card, and am finishing writing it back at Tom's house.  Many have been saying that mobile is the future, and it's quite exciting to see this happening in my own life, to basically be living the mobile lifestyle.

Tom and I are spending the week traveling around Western, NY, meeting with clients and during downtime setting up shop in different coffee shops.  What is surprising is that with a little bit of discipline, we find ourselves just as productive no matter where we are.

With location being taken out of the equation, we are now able to provide service wherever we are.  Business travel no longer takes us effectively "Offline", but instead we can stay connected and on top of our business wherever we are.

I suppose one question is enablement - what allows us to do this?  A few thoughts on how we're pulling this off:

• A Mindset - We no longer have the link between getting work done and being in the office.  We're always ready, willing, and able to be productive, to shut out distractions and dive into some work.
• Technology enablers - We love Apple products, particularly our MacBooks and iPhones.  Fanboydom aside, The MacBook pro is a tiny, lightweight powerhouse that can go 4-6 hours on a battery charge.  They also play nice with wireless networks and give us less headaches.
• MiFi - It's necessary to bring your own internet.  While we like to use free access when we can, it's not always there.  With a MiFi in our pocket, the whole internet is literally at our fingertips no matter where we are.
• Organizational Infrastructure - Every one of our tools is cloud based.  Salesforce.com, Dropbox, Harvest, Basecamp, Skype.  Can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection, and from our phones as well.  Any paper files have been scanned and posted to the cloud.
• Telephony - Between Skype, Google Voice, GotoMeeting and our Cellular Phones, we are never out of reach.  We can conference, video chat, and make phone calls with ease.

All of these tools gives us the ability to be flexible.  It helps us maintain a better lifestyle for ourselves (being more efficient means less nights and weekends).  It is perceived as a huge benefit for our staff, who love being set free to work wherever they choose.  And, it helps us be faster, and do better work for our customers, and maintain better communication.

What do you think?  Is your organization setup to allow living mobile for yourself and your staff?  Any tips and tricks to share that you like to employ to get the most out of mobile computing?

Thanks!  -Garry

Save the Date - Cloudforce, NYC 10/25

I have not seen anything official come through from Salesforce.com yet, but they are hosting a Cloudforce event in New York City on October 25.  I would wager the marketing/registration will go live in the next week or two.  Due to the increase attendance, Salesforce rented Madison Square Garden!

Not sure of the specific details, but it will include an updated "Welcome to the Social Enterprise" keynote, a trade show and a few sessions.  

Who should attend?

• Current Salesforce Customers
• People Interested in Salesforce
• People interested in Cloud Technology
• Awesome People
• My Mom.  I'm not kidding, I'm trying to get her to come down.

We'll post an update once Salesforce posts some details.

-Garry

Red Argyle Road Show!

Tom and I are doing a tour of Western New York next week and invite everyone to stop in for a visit at a few impromptu Salesforce.com coffee meetups!

What are we going to do here - Relax, enjoy some coffee, and discuss challenges.  Salesforce, web design, strategy, and social media are all fair game.  Event is free (well, maybe the cost of a cup of coffee), and all know-how is free as well.

We'll be in Buffalo on Tuesday, September 13 2-5 at Spot Coffee on Delaware (map).

We'll be in Rochester on Thursday, September 15 2-5 at Boulder Coffee on Park Ave (map).

Hope to see you there!

Blackout and the Social Profile

I don't know if anyone was following the San Diego Blackout story yesterday.  From my perspective here in the east, not much information graced the news.  However, I follow someone on Twitter that posted about it.  Curious, I searched on the hashtag and was inundated with news about the blackout!  I learned a few things about this, both from a professional perspective and a personal one:

Professional thoughts:

• Twitter is no joke.  I've been evangalizing Twitter for three years, but things like this prove its value to me.  I even saw people tweeting things like "No news, no power, but getting info through Twitter".
• When infrastructure failed, people turned to Social Media for information.  People were saying things like "My radio does not work, my TV does not work, but I am getting info from my phone".
• Social is not the future, it is happening already.  In a way, even in my vouyerestic viewing of the #SDBlackout hashtag, I felt like I was a part of this happening.
• Salesforce had no disruptions in service.  1.4 million without power, but Salesforce users could still access the service from their mobile devices.  Go cloud!
• I saw emergency plans being enacted by organizations.  Police and municipalities were tweeting updates, live tweeting press conferences, and spreading news.  From what I read this morning, there were no deaths attributed to the blackout, so something worked.  On the other hand...

Personal Thoughts:

• Have a personal emergency plan!  Saw frustrated people saying they could not get a hold of their family and they didn't know what to do.  People with no food/water.  Luckily, the situation is resolved now, but imagine if it had lasted longer?  It is important to have a personal disaster/emergency plan, as well as one for your family.
• Many Tweets about people talking to their neighbors for the first time.  This was surprising, and sad.  It's sad that we need something like a blackout to instill a feeling of true community.  Sure, there is the social media community, but does it exist at the expense of our neighborhoods?
• I saw *gasp* tweets about people reading books and playing board games!  An abomination?  Or a reminder that sometimes, we need to unplug and enjoy the pleasures of the physical world.

In conclusion

I learned a lot from this small exercise.  Twitter is a great tool and a way to explore the world and be a part of news events.  I reached out to a few people that were involved and received rapid responses.  How great is that?  It truly democratizes everyone, and also allows everyone to help each other in surprising ways.

It also makes me think about how Salesforce.com is leveraging the "Social Profile" to allow users to get a better view of their customers/members.  If I were using my social profile enabled CRM yesterday and had customers that were affected, I could have made it an opportunity for my company.  I could also have helped share news through my socially enabled CRM and become a trusted source of information for my customers.  I'm sure there are many other use cases just waiting to be discovered. Do you know what your customers are going through?  Do you have the tools to respond?