Blog de Armfield

Robert Scoble.  Man with a blog.  A man who knows this stuff. I had the pleasure of meeting him and boy did I learn a lot from him. 

Robert discussed how, for example on Twitter, you need to be a follower of “important” people, i.e. people who are credible on their sources, rather then just anyone. This will in turn lead to more important and credible people following what you do.  

 Also, in your blog, find a niche, and stick to it.  If you are really good at spotting fashion trends, stick to that instead of a little bit of this and that.  Robert, for example, is really up to date and an influencer in tech on his blog, Scobleizer. 

 He showed us Friendfeed.  It is a website that is set up like Twitter, however it draws all your updates from every site you are signed up for. i.e.  Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, your own blog and on and on.  When he showed us his page, it was a knowledge overload. Everything is in real time, so his screen was just flowing like a waterfall.

 I am excited to see what will come with his new Social Media project entitled Building43.  Which is a community for people fanatical about the Internet.

On Thursday April 30th I had the great honor of meeting Twitter Creator Jack Dorsey.  After  weeks of anticipation the day came.  John Paul and I were waiting at the corner of 19th and Holloway waiting to meet  @jack  to escort him to the room.  As were were waiting, I was paying attention to the people getting off the M-line.  There was the usual mix of people getting off the train.  Young adults with their backpacks and book, older folks heading towards the homes.  Then there was this one guy that came off, in a I think was a Tom Ford light grey suit and sunglasses.  I leaned to JP and said, “I think thats him.”  we both agreed so when we made his way across the street we said with in a bit of questioning tone “Jack?”   Sure enough it was him.  We introduced ourselves and proceeded down campus.    

We took him on the “grand” tour of the campus. Its not the grand but its a tour none the less.  We asked if he would like something to drink, he just wanted a water.  So we head to The Cesar Chavez Center, and into Snack-ademic.  We offered to buy the water for him, Crystal Geysers btw, but he said “No, this is nothing.” JP and I both kinda just looked at one another and laughed.  Must be nice.  

We continued around campus just listening to him talk.  His stories about being about being flown out to Spain, just to talk. Being part of a team selected by the US Govt. to go to Baghdad. How the people in Baghdad are receptive to change, but they still have the mentality that they are under a dictatorship. He also got the Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister, Barham Salih, to sign up for Twitter.  While speaking to a University President, he asked what they do to help students after they graduate, and the  President said that it was up to the government.  That is because during Hussain’s rule thats where people went to get a job, and they got a job.  Today it is different, the jobs don’t just happen.   Sounds a lot like here, with the difficulty in finding jobs just because you had a college degree.

He spoke about how he started school in Missouri, but then went to NYU, before it really was know for its arts.  Then he moved to Oakland, working on dispatch software before working on the initial design of Twitter, know at the time as Stat.us.  Also about the initial designs of the home page look.  It was all very interesting.  Also how he build an App for his Rim850, precursor to the Blackberry that he could “tweet”, that name wouldn’t come til later, to his friends. But being that he was the only one with the phone, they would just email him back from their desk, kinda defeating the purpose of wanting to know where everyone is on the go.  

So we walked all around the campus and finally ended at our desitnation of room 125, with all the eager students waiting to meet THE MAN.

All in all Jack was an awesome guy.  Very humble and kind of on the shy side.  But I am so glad that we had the chance to meet him just as his company is becoming THE thing on the internet.

Jack if you read this, THANK YOU!!!

The SFSU Xpress Paper also posted this Article about Jack’s visit.

First.

Tomorrow I am meeting with Robert Scoble of Scobleizer.  He is one of the top influential bloggers of the the land.  I will be meeting him for coffee before this presentation, then attending the presentation, followed by helping run a mini conference/luncheon with students.  

Second.

I am most proud and freaking stoked for  this one.  JP and I got Jack Dorsey, creator and former CEO, of Twitter, yes that Twitter,  to come and speak to the students.  I will hopefully be meeting him for coffee before hand too.  With any luck his conference/luncheon will go just as well as the previous one.  Honestly how cool is that.  To have a major CEO come and speak because you asked him too.  

Third.

I have several other projects that I do need to work on, but honestly those are not nearly as a high priority as these two meetings.(Sorry to those on the other projects)  These meetings could turn into potential jobs in social media. Which would be ideal, and in a field that I truly have passion for, unlike my current position in which I just like.

Social Media: 

Good for What? Building Your Personal Brand

Being new to the world of Social Media, I have found it harder than I thought to work on building my personal brand.  Social Media is all about attracting a company and/or someone to you.  You need to stand out from the clutter that is plentiful in the online world. 

Below are some ways I think are a good start to building your personal brand.

1. LinkedIN. 

If you’re not on here, you’re not serious about your personal brand.   It is a social network, however not in the way that Facebook is.  It is for professionals.  Basically it can be your digital resume of sorts. Recommendations about are written by others, un-editable by you. So get on Linkedin, and get networking.

2. Twitter.

Sign up if you haven’t and start tweeting everyday.  Keeping up with everyone you are following on Twitter can be a full time job.  However, if you don’t keep tweeting you will not be as noticed.  Keep your tweets, simple but informative.

3. Facebook.

Yes it is filled with Super-pokes, games, fan pages, but it can show more of your private life.  Have pictures that are meaningful, such as those with friends and family can be an asset, but those of your weekend drinking parties can be a counter-asset.

4. Blog. 

It is a good place to start.  You have an open forum to say what you think, and have others come and comment on it.  It is like open mike night, you say what you want and people will either respond positively or negatively, but either way they are talking about you.  There are many services to use.  Blogger, Tumblr, and, what I use, Wordpress are just a few.

5. Make Business Cards with All Your Info.

Just last night I attended a mixer and I am glad I had my business cards with me.  But I soon found that they were inadequate.  They did not contain my LinkedIN, Facebook, Twitter, or blog links on it.  You can get business cards cheap online.  Try 123print, they are cheap but good quality.

6. Personal Stories Needed.

You don’t always have to be selling yourself.  It is fine to talk about your daily happenings, as long they are not all you talk about.  People have a natural need to talk about themselves, so just let it out.  Buy try to keep the people interested in them too. 

7. Think and Focus.

Make sure that your page, whether it is your blog or other social network page, is something that you would want to visit too.  Make sure that your about section is informative but not boring.

8. Short and Sweet.

I find that if I am reading a post and you have to scroll more than once, it is too much to read.  Try to think of your post as elongated Twitter tweets.  These will let you keep people informed but they will not bore them. Also the quality of the post is much more important then the quantity or number of words in it. (I realize that this post is long, but I will try and keep the rest to a minimum.) 

9. Be vewwy, vewwy quiet…I’m hunting mewweself!

Keep track of yourself online.  Meaning, use various tracking sites that will show how many times your name has come up on sites, how many people have clicked your links, or visited your pages, etc.  It will help you find out how to better your personal brand awareness.  Meryl.net has a good list of sites that will help you track yourself.

I hope that these tips will help.   They are a compiled list of some of the things I wish I would have known when I started.  But nonetheless they are here now for your use.

So I think that I have finally found something that I’M truly interested in.  Social Media.   I have not been this excited about finding a possible job in the field before.  This mostly has to do to Shari Weiss’s  enthusiasm in it to, which has rubbed off.   

I am particular excited for the fact that JP, a classmate, and I were able to convince  Jack Dorsey  , the creator of Twitter, to come and speak in our PR class next week.  I can’t wait to pick his brain, well not so much, just looking to talking to him about the changes in Social Media.  Apparently this was a very big deal that caught the attention of the Dept. Chair of Marketing and the Dean of the College of Business.  I hope that this will open some opportunities in the future.