Social Honeycomb

Let’s Say No To Cankles Together

This July, with Gold’s Gym, together we can say no to cankles.  Like these.

Via Sarah Jio at Glamour’s Vitamin G.

Let’s Say Howdy at SXSW

I can’t believe March is already here.  This means that SXSW Interactive is finally right around the corner! w00t.

Are you going? I’m hoping I can meet a lot of new friends and influencers while I’m there, and connect with others I haven’t seen in a while.  I’ve never been to SXSW before, so I’m super excited to see some great sessions and hang with the coolest geeks around, including, of course, the Verdino party machine.

So if you’re going to be there, let’s say hello, tweet, high-five, clink drinks, chat about our work, take some “tiger” pics, practice our Texas accents, whatever.

Thanks again to Mashable for the Interactive pass. Can’t wait to see everyone there!

Are You a Chicken?

I definitely identify with the feeling of running around like a chicken with its head cut off.  I think a lot of us do, and Greg mused about it in a post today. We all need a little nudge to remember to take a deep breath sometimes, so I’m reposting.  Enjoy.

You can find Greg’s original post here, along with tons more brilliance and chicken pictures, on his marketing blog.

Hey chicken, where’s your head?

No doubt, you’re familiar with the phrase “running around like a chicken with its head cut off.” In fact, if you work in media, marketing, advertising, PR or (let’s face facts) just about any industry at all you’re more than just familiar with the phrase – you might be a living embodiment of it.

For the past few years, we ran around trying to get ahead of the proverbial topple of “old marketing” and get up to speed on all of the new media goodies we now had at our disposal — from web video to social media, and everything in between.  Sadly, for many this amounted to little more than a series of pointless sprints across the shifting sands of early adoption.  We’d read an article about some hot new Web 2.0 tactic or catch wind that a key competitor was trying something “innovative,” and we were off and running.  But rarely did we look where we were going, or even look around to figure out where we were starting out.  I can’t even count the number of times I ranted (on this blog) or advised clients to slow down and take a more measured, more strategic approach to new marketing — not to the detriment of progress, but for the betterment of the business.

And now we’ve got the current round of economic woes to deal with as well. They’re certainly cause for concern.  Budgets are being slashed, people are losing their jobs, entire companies are going out of business.  Scary times.   Client-side marketers are scrambling to cut-cut-cut-cut-cut.  All of those experimental tactics that they couldn’t wait to try before the recession are now being left on the cutting room floor.  If you’re an agency-side marketer (whether traditional, digital, social or PR) you’re probably so afraid of being slashed along with those cutting-floor-things that you’re killing yourself to over-service your clients for less money than they paid you last year.

I get it… Times are tough, and we all need to do what we need to do in order to survive.

But here’s the sad truth about chickens with their heads cut off — they can run around all they want; they’re still gonna die.

The good news is that you’re (probably) smarter than a chicken.  If you’re really smart (and the company you work for is smart too), you probably already had a hard times plan in place long before the economy took a downward turn.  You exercised a bit of foresight and managed to keep your neck away from the blade — maybe you had a few feathers plucked but at least you still have your head.

Now might be a good time to use it. Stop running around in a state of panic.  There is plenty of chaos already (in the world, in your industry, probably in your company as well) — nobody needs you to create more chaos.  But others can probably use your help in creating order.

Try this:

• Take a deep breath.
• Think about what needs to get done.
• Come up with a reasonable plan to do it.
• And then do it… and do it well.

As I read those four sentences, they seem laughably simple.  But is there really any other way?  Has there really ever been any other way?

OK – end of rant… :-)

Car of the Future, or Car We’ve Already Had?

Via Popgadget, via Engadget:

The Chrysler GEM Peapod might be the car of the future, or it could be just the grown-up version of the coolest toddler toy evah. They look like they’re about the same size, anyway…

You be the judge:

Chrysler

Little Tikes

Mapping the Traits of the States

Today I checked out a really cool WSJ article, “The United States of Mind” about differences in personalities by state and region across the country.

In my opinion, there were some really surprising findings about the various traits of people in the United States.

• As for high-anxiety states, that group includes not just Type A New York and New Jersey, but also states stressed by poverty, such as West Virginia and Mississippi. As a group, these neurotic states tend to have higher rates of heart disease and lower life expectancy.
• The flinty pragmatists of New England? They’re not as dutiful as they may seem, ranking at the bottom of the “conscientious” scale.
• High scores for openness to new ideas strongly correlates to liberal social values and Democratic voting habits. But three of the top ten “open” states — Nevada, Colorado and Virginia — traditionally vote Republican in presidential politics.

The article aptly mentions the “chicken-and-egg” idea here, too. Are these traits developing due to existing cultural and social factors, or are like-minded people drawn to each other and create culture based on the traits they already share?

Fascinating stuff.

The article also features an interactive map that ranks each state based on Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism and Openness.

If we look at Neuroticism, it’s almost shocking to see that West Virginia beats out all the other states, including New York, which comes in at No. 3, just after Rhode Island. However, when it comes to Agreeableness, I’m not surprised that almost all the New England states are pretty far down the list.

What do you think? Does your state’s personality surprise you?

[Hat tip Sandy]

State of the Blogosphere 2008: One Girl’s Impressions

Some of us have been wondering what the hepcat Technorati has been doing lately, and it seems they’ve been working on the State of the Blogosphere 2008 report, the first installment of which actually imparts some very interesting tidbits.  Here’s what jumped out at me:

Blurry Lines

I really like the section of the report about the lines blurring between blogs and mainstream media. By now, unless you’ve been hibernating while living in a cave that’s under a rock, you know that blogs are viable media outlets and sources of information, entertainment and inspiration, and contribute greatly to the colorful media landscape we get to enjoy today.

As a young PR pro, I am sometimes baffled to hear of clients who so sharply draw a line between traditional and new media outlets, and want their dollars to pay for only one or the other. The reality is that there is no one or the other anymore. It’s becoming harder and harder to justify separating the two into distinct categories, which is brought to light by Technorati, “Larger blogs are taking on more characteristics of mainstream sites and mainstream sites are incorporating styles and formats from the Blogosphere. In fact, 95% of the top 100 US newspapers have reporter blogs.” Let’s face it: mainstream is one ingredient and blogs are another–they mix well and all belong in the same online alphabet soup.

Yes, People Are Talking About Brands

It’s been said a googolplex times. People. Are. Already. Talking. About. Your. Brand. The blogosphere gives you so many opportunities to jump in and talk with people who are already discussing your brand, your company, your product, your whatever. And they have been for some time now, in lots of places and in lots of ways. The ‘sphere just makes it easier for you to dive in and participate, too. I think the report captures it: “Whether or not a brand has launched a social media strategy, more likely than not, it’s already present in the Blogosphere. Four in five bloggers post brand or product reviews, with 37% posting them frequently. 90% of bloggers say they post about the brands, music, movies and books that they love (or hate).”

And with 1.5 million blog entries posted in the last 7 days, on some of the 133 million blog records indexed on Technorati since 2002, that’s a lot of brand-centered conversation you might be missing. Don’t miss out.

Girls Against the Boys

For some unknown and slightly annoying reason, I’m always interested in gender and the behavioral factors that divide and unite the sexes. The State of the Blogosphere report shows a table with a gender-focused data breakdown which I think is pretty neat. I find it extremely interesting that only 9 percent of female and 15 percent of male bloggers surveyed were between the ages of 18-24. I had no idea I was in such a tiny minority of the age slice of the blogging population. I think people often think that blogging, Web 2.0 and all those crazy social networks are dominated young people, and that the 18-24 crowd is at the forefront of these sociotechnological trends. (And yes, that’s really a word.) It’s clearly a very misguided and skewed perception.

Have you checked the report out? Looks like there’s more to come, so I’m interested to see what else T’rati has to say. Did anything surprise you?

Photo: “Blurry Lights” by gregverdino (but really taken by me!)

Little Known Fact: Sarah Palin Won Project Runway

Twitter has been abuzz with “Little Known Facts” about McCain’s running mate Sarah Palin.  I’ve been cracking up all night, and wanted to share my proudest achievement of the week:

Amanda Gravel is not Amanda Chapel

I just want to take a minute to clarify something that I only recently came to discover.  Some people have been confusing me–Amanda GRAVEL–with Amanda CHAPEL.  I really don’t know much about what’s going on behind the Strumpette panties Twitter avatar, but that definitely isn’t me.  I’m a real person, as many will attest.  Just figured I’d mention that in case there was still any confusion.

Wordle is Sort of Fun

My friend Juliana showed me Wordle the other day and I’ve sort of enjoyed playing around with it. I say “sort of” because it doesn’t exactly work the way I want.

With Wordle, you enter a URL (for your blog or your del.icio.us page or whatever) and it produces a word cloud that you can tweak. You can choose from a bunch of fonts, colors and layouts, making it fun to play with as you match your cloud to your mood or style. However, you can’t input different pages of a site or specific posts on your blog (or at least I can’t). It only chooses words from the most recent couple of posts on your home page, regardless of whether you enter a specific page or not.

This is annoying for me because sometimes I blog about things that are sort of random. (OK, I pretty much always do…) When I first tried Wordle, all my words had to do with my recent post about honey bees and ice cream, so I felt my Wordle cloud wasn’t all that representative of my blog or myself. And I like customized Web 2.0 toys to represent mah style, yo. Don’t you?

Anyway, here’s my current Wordle cloud anyway. Sort of fun, sort of whatever. Try it out.

You Know What? My Blog Isn’t a Conversation.

I’ve read a few interesting posts about this concept recently, and I want to give my two cents. My two cents being that my blog (not all blogs necessarily) just isn’t a conversation.

Here’s how it came out after marinating in my brain: a conversation isn’t me saying something and then people lining up to give me a response. And it’s not a kissing booth. A conversation is a real-time (or close to it) dialogue where information, ideas, views and opinions are shared back and forth. To me, that’s what a conversation is.

Online, conversations are happening on Twitter, FriendFeed, Seesmic, Google Talk, ooVoo (maybe even Plurk?)–the conversation is where people can speak and respond the way we do in real life. In snippets, with others chiming in and a mutual sense of engagement on both sides.

On my blog, you can leave a comment (I always appreciate your feedback), and I might respond to it, but that isn’t a conversation. That’s not how people talk to each other in real life. In a true conversation in real life, you don’t give your big spiel and then step aside so others can give their big spiel back. That’s not a conversation. That’s an announcement. At best it’s pseudo-conversation.

Don’t get me wrong, I think blogging is a valuable form of communication that allows for a sharing of ideas has fundamentally changed (for the better) the way we create and consume media content. I just don’t think it’s a conversation. For me, my blog is more like a bulletin of announcements that encourage responses. There’s a definite two-way flow of information and ideas here, but it’s a different type of communication that I consider separate from the concept of “conversation.”

What do you think? Is your blog a conversation?