This social media marketing thing is starting to give me the willies

Lately I've attended a number of events focused on social media marketing. Is it just me, or is the whole idea of using social media as a marketing tool a bit of a creepy concept? Don't get me wrong, I understand that companies and organizations are monitoring the content I post online to try and figure out ways to tempt me into buying into their products and services, but I'd like to think the scope of the online discussion is beyond the strategies of professional marketing companies. Are they misguided in their belief that the mindset of the collective voice of Internet users could possibly be swayed by carefully crafted social media policies, or am I just deluding myself?

At a social media workshop I attended recently, participants were asked to raise their hands if they 'hated Facebook'. Half the people in the room, most of whom were past the youth demographic in age, raised their hands. In contrast, I did some usability testing with two groups of high school students this week and when I asked the question, 'Do you have any favourite sites?', all of the students, with the exception of one, mentioned Facebook. I can't locate any articles on the nature of this apparent divergence of opinions. I do know that the fastest growing demographic on Facebook lately appears to be the 35+ age group. Okay so the 35+ age group is using it and hating it? What gives? Could it possibly be that professionals just haven't figured out the big picture on social media yet? Enter the topic of 'policy development': we'll make the rules and teach people to follow them.

Social Media Club International, an organization comprised of members of the Social Media Community is currently promoting participation in an online discussion on the topic, "How do we educate the younger generation to prepare for the modern workforce?" Yikes! Here's my two bits, I'd keep this discussion behind closed doors and do my best to make sure no one finds out your contemplating such a creepy undertaking.

What I find most disturbing is that the topic of 'developing trust' is frequently finding it's way into the discussion of establishing corporate social media policies and practices. Yes, trust is what it's all about. From my experience, trust is why I prefer my interactions on Facebook to the more open discussion on Twitter. My friends on Facebook are people I know, people who respond to the content I post, in a meaningful way. And yes, I can tell the difference. I think...

Okay, so it's possible I'm the deluded one, but when it comes to social media and the vast expanse of the semantic web I prefer to think that theorists like Michael Wesch have a better grasp on what's happening out there: the world wide web is us, that everyone has the ability to organize content on the web, and that we also have the ability to look beyond the tool and think critically about how this tool affects our relationships and who we are.

Just my thoughts of course. Admittedly I don't have all the answers, at least not on my own...

Things I learned at Convergence 09

I hadn't intended to attend Convergence 09. I found out about it the day before Convergence 09 took place when I read an email from a colleague about the event, described on Cossette West's site as, "A Forum for Digital Marketing Thought Leadership". When it comes to professional development, my pursuits have mainly leaned towards digital art and emerging technologies (admittedly not a great fit considering my work profile, but it suits my personal interests which is the best I've got to go on these days). Amidst the workshops and conferences I've attended in the past, marketing is rarely at the forefront of topics of discussion. However, what grabbed my attention when I first came across the Cossette West site was the next bit of text I encountered on the main page: "Featuring Keynote Speaker, David Plouffe, Obama's Unsung Hero Campaign Manager, Obama for America". Well, why didnt' you say so?!

David Plouffe's keynote address was an inspiration. I have just about zero experience with political science so I'm going to refrain from commenting on why he's so great. As a believer in Tim Berners-Lee's vision of the semantic web, I will say this though, Plouffe's presentation reaffirmed my belief that the web holds the potential to place the power of mass media in the hands of the people. Finally!

However...

My first experience with live blogging:
Convergence 09 keynote address by David Plouffe, Campaign Manager, Obama for America

1. Identify a noteworthy point in the presentation
2. Quickly decide on how to best sum up the point, injecting personal commentary and wit if possible in 140 characters or less. Leave room to add related hashtag(s), reference speaker (use Twitter address if available), and links (shorten any relevant web addresses using a URL shortener - I use bit.ly)
3. Review what you've written to ensure it makes sense and edit where necessary
   
4. While focusing on completing steps 2 & 3, keep an ear out for the next appropriately blog-able item
5. Check your post to make sure it's accurate, appropriate, unoffensive and grammatically correct (though I've observed that this step is widely accepted to be optional)
   
6. Half way through completing step 5 realize speaker is in the midst of making his next profound point, way more interesting than the one you're currently working on
7. Quickly decide on how to sum up next point in 140 characters or less (forgo the personal commentary and wit this time around)
8. Make the somewhat foolhardy decision to bookmark the site the speaker mentioned - because you're a nerd you've already logged into Delicious anyway
9. Press the update button to post your last half-reviewed tweet
   
10. Realize the speaker has moved onto making another profound point
    
11. Press the update button to post your last tweet without reviewing it first, realize you've forgotten to add the hashtag(s) and/or refer to the speaker and/or include a shortened link to the site he mentioned
    
12. Peer into your clutter of your mind to try and do your best to accurately recall the last point the speaker made
13. Experience difficulty editing the point down to 140 characters. With some struggle, manage to whittle your post down to a cryptic, choppy faux-sentence that still leaves you with a character count of -3. Remove punctuation
14. Realize you've haven't left any room to include the hashtag(s), URL or reference the speaker
    
15. Glance at the clock and realize you're only a little more than 10 minutes into the presentation with over an hour left to go

As these things go, I did refine my technique as I went along. For starters, I resorted to typing and formatting my tweets in TextEdit before pasting them into Twitter. I quickly let go of the idea that I would be able to blog presentations in their entirety. As the day worn on, after the haze of information overload began to set in, I also noticed that focusing in on elements that related closely to the topics I knew best (however disjointed from the actual focus of the topic being presented) resulted in more meaningful commentary on my behalf. Where this point is concerned, this meant that many of my latter posts focus on the loosely related topics of music and techno-pop culture.

So, what did I get out of my experience at Convergence 09? A reaffirmation of my belief that the web holds the potential to place the power of mass media in the hands of the people, people like you and me who now have the ability to participate in real time discussions (so widespread that they start trending on Twitter - woohoo!) that contain content that is potentially inaccurate, incomplete, gramatically incorrect and littered with personal bias. Of course the idea is that our combined comments will provide an accurate depiction of the facts.

View the results of my first experience with live blogging on Twitter

View the complete #cvg09 discussion

Fishing weekend at Cultus Lake Provincial Park, Fraser Valley, BC

This past weekend we made a last minute decision to head to the mainland and go fishing with Mike. That meant rising at the ungodly hour of 5:30am on a Saturday morning to catch the 7am ferry from Swartz Bay to Tsawwassen. We consoled ourselves with the knowledge that we would have the opportunity to catch a nap on the hour and a half long ferry ride over to the mainland. As Mike had offered to pick us up at the ferry dock we parked our car on the Vancouver Island side and paid the walk on fare which amounted to about $27 for the two of us.

As none of us had any concrete plans or agendas (other than to catch some fish), we headed out on the highway from Tsawwassen with no specific destination in mind. Mike had a vague idea that we should try Chilliwack (in the Fraser Valley, about an hour's drive from Vancouver), so with a little help from Mike's GPS and my iPhone we eventually found ourselves at Fred's Custom Tackle and Barbershop in Vedder, BC. Fred's advice was for us to head a few minutes down the road to Cultus Lake Provincial Park which, he explained, had a terrific campground, warm showers and, of course, great fishing. He then proceded to load us up with all the appropriate lures we would need, including 'flying ants' that he had noticed had just begun to appear in the area a few days before.

So it was that we ended up at the Delta Grove campground in Cultus Lake Provincial Park which is a beautiful family-friendly recreation area with large, pretty campsites (though they don't offer much in the way of privacy), set on the shore of the largerst warm, freshwater lake in the Fraser Valley. The shoreline near the campsite is a pebble beach and the water is crystal clear. After a few quick spins around the first-come-first-served campground, we selected campsite #23, situated right on the lake and close to the bathrooms and showers (campsite cost, $24/night).

Making quick business of unpacking the truck and setting up the tents we headed straight to the beach with our new lures and started casting away. After showing us the ropes, Mike headed back to the campground to fetch us some refreshments and Baasje left to give him a hand...and a few minutes after they left I caught my first fish! I yelled to Mike for help and reeled my catch into shore unguided. In the long moments it took Mike to respond, I watched the poor fish miserably flopping around on the beach with the hook in it's mouth. Admittedly, when it finally managed to work the hook free I experienced a strange combination of disappointment and relief. Mike ran up with the net just as it disappeared into the middle of the lake. Of course, the recurring joke all weekend long was that I had caught a pretend fish that had sadly 'disappeared' before anyone else could see it. Yes. Ha, ha.

It began to rain in the evening and our campsite was taken over by a group of very friendly twenty year olds who'd unfortunately forgotten to bring rope to hang their own tarp. One of the girls was a traveller who'd recently been accepted to Emily Carr and the others where all very nice, but with all of us crammed under our little 6' x 8' tarp, I'm afraid none of us stayed very dry or warm. The three of us eventually abandoned our tarp to the upsurpers and retreated to the campfire area. Note to self, if twenty year old girls ask you for rope to hang a tarp in a campground, do whatever you have to do to get it for them - or be prepared to tell them to hit the road when it starts to rain.

After the girls left, the wind picked up and did a crazy number on our tents. Our own tent (with quite a bit of our stuff inside) was blown halfway down to the beach, and the six person goliath tent that Mike had brought along turned into a giant windsock that ballooned upwards towards the tree branches. At the same time the wind picked up, it also began to pour rain and the tarp became a useless, flopping and annoyingly noisy sail. It was one of those moments in life where everything is going so horribly wrong it feels like you're living in a gong show. With a bit of a struggle we managed to get the tents back in place and we snuggled down into our warm and thankfully dry, sleeping bags for a good night's sleep. An unexpected bonus to the ordeal was Mike's discovery of a fish attached to one of the fishing rods' tangled lines down at the beach.



Sunday was a lazy day that started with a big breakfast of fresh fish cooked over the campfire, eggs, bacon and toast. Breakfast was followed by an hour or so of fishing before getting down to business with the cleaning and packing up. To get the most out of our Cultus Lake epxerience, we decided to check out the short two hour hike up to the 'Teapot Hill' lookout. This, perhaps, wasn't the most exciting hike I've ever been on, but the trees were lovely. We left Cultus Lake around 3pm in the afternoon, grabbed a late lunch at the Husky in Chilliwack and headed back to the Tsawwassen ferry dock just in time to miss the 5pm ferry. Oh well, the ferries are on the summer schedule now, so thery're running every hour. It wasnt' too much of a stretch to wait the extra half hour for that long hot shower and some take out Chinese.