SXSW12 Panel Picker Voting is open now – please help us out with a vote and a comment for “What Social Media Managers need to know but don’t“ – thanks!

After our very successful session “Outsourcing Social Media Professionally Without Selling Your Soul” in this years SXSW, it seemed only logical to submit a similar yet enhanced proposal for next year (judging by the amount of people showing up after three nights of party, on Monday morning, 9:30 am after Daylight Saving Time and the interaction we got from the attendees – I call that very successful).

Kate Buck and I want to pick up the feedback and questions we got to make another session for SXSW 2012.  As always, the sessions have to go through the advisory board and all, but a huge part of SXSW is the so called panel picker: You as the possible attendee vote on the sessions you want to see. If you could spend a moment glancing through this and give feedback to make it more appealing, I would very much appreciate it. :)

Image by Mike Rohde

Going through the Google plus list of circles I find myself asking one question over and over again and I believe others ask this too:

Do I recognize your name?
Do I recognize your photo?
Who are you again?

Are you ‘recognizable’ enough to be added to circles, now that we become more and more connected?  Yes, normal people only have a handful of friends and this question is not relevant to them. But I bet in the very soon future that number will grow, even for those ‘normal’ people.  Our attention span may be able to manage Dunbar’s number of connections, but we have moved far beyond this with social networking – we stay in touch with people much longer than we did previously and connect deeper with strangers. That was not really planned by nature when it designed our memory banks.

Add to this that brands and companies are getting into the mix, people go explore their hobbies and interests and next you know they add 100 “friends” to have a better chance at social games.  They will figure out that having more choice is not a bad thing. Which is when the question comes up again:

Are you satisfied just to be part of the crowd and watch others perform or is it relevant to you to be ‘more’  - whatever that implies, being the rockstar, the artist who wants to show off his work, the collector, the curator, the what else …? 

This was sparked through a conversation with a friend who I wish would ‘publish’ more. I’d like to read what he has to say. But as much as he might have to offer, for him to move beyond the “my friends will read me” sphere, it has to be  ’better. faster. stronger.’ (sorry just in my head phones).  Interesting people are just a click away.

Being part of the audience is neither a bad thing nor that everybody aspires to be ‘more’. Seems like we need new terms and ideas about this. Who are we? What do we want to become and how much of our souls are we willing to sell?

The old model of “I rockstar. You audience” cannot work. I think we need to adapt from situation to situation and technology should help manage this. We have so many data points to enter into the system but as long as the only choice we have is putting people in circle for sending and reading …

That is not enough. The machines should be more clever by now.
Can somebody please start working on that? Thanks.

Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, known for TheNextWeb.com, TwitterCounter.com, has started a site name SocialStatistics.com where top users on Google plus are listed.

I – and most people in the industry I know of – see such a list and add themselves right away. It is like basic promotion / marketing etc., you don’t even think about it. We don’t care about where we are on the list – we do, but only to a certain degree – and use it more for the data point. There will always be people who cry “but it is not a popularity contest” and they are right. But that is not what I am talking about.

Boris has added an interesting sidebar:

This lead me to ping my circles with a call to action “girls add yourself“. It does not surprise me that the number is that low. And I bet if I go through my list of contacts, I can tell you exactly who would register for this site and which would complain at a later time that they are not included.

The 10% are not a real number, I expect there to be roughly 30% females at least in my circles and there is an unusual amount of 2nd and 3rd wave people in my circles with the usual suspects still missing. I attribute that to Google’s current invite setup.

Nonetheless, the people I find on Boris top list are 100% the usual suspects. Currently the service tracks nearly 12K users and you can bet, that these are the usual suspects as well. And they reap the benefits of things like this (you can click through to the site to see the articles linked):

(btw: Reading the last sentence you should realize why I encourage you to click on that link instead of linking the articles right here. You should also understand why I write half of the article about that blog list below but still use Google plus in the title.)

In a totally different circumstance I came across the domain http://www.blogsbywomen.org and was not surprised to find the numbers below. On a total of 3.025 blogs submitted only 2,5% can be generously considered to be tech [Games (16), Technology (33), Science (9), Internet & Computers (19)].

It is by no means a complete list and they do take a submission fee of $5 now for the work, but that is not the point. If you look at the number of women interested right now in Google plus and the list below, you do have an impression on why women always seem to be late adopter. If tech / entrepreneurship etc. would be a person, the answer would be “They are just not that into you.”

Part of why there are so few women in tech is not that there are so few women in tech. There are so few women in tech visible. Because they do not participate in the the ‘dick contests’ the guys are throwing and frown on this. They don’t like to compare themselves and stay away from it.

That is absolutely fine if you are that way. But then stop complaining to others when they understand how the game is played.  If you want to be in the picture, stop being a cheerleader on the sideline and start playing in the game.

Now go over and add yourself to Boris list. :)

The Positive Glass Pearl Principle (TPGPP) works because you can easily offer something to your target group which they desire / want / need. This something does not cost you retail but internal costs or you have connections the others don’t, and so on. To understand the full meaning, we need to look at the negative version of the principle.

The Negative Glass Pearl Principle

Photo by mollycakes

The principle is mostly known in stories around people in the new world giving away their riches like gold for something shiny without value to the giver. If the first group would understand the real value of their goods, they would not trade it for trinkets. Surprisingly enough, though people know about this from their history class, they do not understand the same thing happens online.

I first used this metaphor when writing an article about Qype, the German Yelp, where they ask the user to fill in rich information for peanuts and in return get Gold. The answer from them was like most services do in this case “but you get the recognition and we always show your information with it, so it is attributed!!” Which already back then was bogus, because it would appear on Google as “review from Qype” and not review from Nicole on Qype. I am fine with that at the core, because the benefit I want is not recognition but a usable database to help make my life easier. But please don’t treat me as stupid.

Customers / users are getting more acquainted with the idea of the worth of what they are providing, thus making it harder for companies to ripe the benefits without rewards. Good companies do reward the users adequate if they want to stay in business, bad companies are in danger to get flack for doing so.

The Positive Glass Pearl Principle

The better application of the principle is something I use with clients constantly. As they are looking to tap into the riches of their customers being online, they run into the problem of how to reward them properly for doing what my clients want them to do. By old experience, they believe “reward” to be expensive.

For example they want users to become (and stay) a fan on a Facebook page, participate in a contest to answer a question of the client, or much simpler than that: retweet or like something which clearly is using me, the customer, as a influencer to my friends without paying me for doing your advertisement. This equation does not work and even if you give away an iPhone or an ipad, it will only get you freeloaders and not what you really want and need in the long run.

When they look at what to do in social media an alike, I always ask them: What is a glass pearl to you but is gold to the other side? Very often they have something, without realizing it, to which the other side has only limited access to and thus is willing to do something for it.

Just a few examples, mainly from working with clients:

• One customer had a niche TV channel they partnered with – to organize a kind of show where contestants could be on TV for 15 minutes would have been very easy for them (glass pearl) but for the other side difficult to achieve yet highly desirable (gold).
• Second example would be a media organization with good ties to celebs. For them to organize a meeting with such a celeb or just a meet and greet is not totally easy, yet easy enough. Imagine your target group is teenage girls and you have backstage passes to Justin Bieber.
• Another customer rents apartments for students which are highly sought after. In brainstorming we came up with the idea of having ‘gold’ as ‘get a jump start in the application process’ or just ‘free rent for a month’.
• I have suggested to clients to think a bit broader.  For example, tickets to certain conferences are in high demand. At Blogger most visitors have a hard time funding the trip because they are no businesses, so offering the expenses paid / the ticket / the nice hotel is something desirable
• Help out with your professional infrastructure: Events like Barcamps need rooms and it helps to have food prepared. If your company has a professional kitchen, it is easy to run that on a weekend but hard for organizers to get running for just one event.

If you look closely at it, it costs near to nothing for the company or organization but is highly desirable for the other side. In creating these glass pearls, they also allow their customer to feel good about helping you. They understand it is a glass pearl to you and understand the value of gold, but still want it and everybody is happy.

Do you have other examples where this principle could work? Please share them!

I went through the list of participants for Leweb 2010 as available by the 3rd of December and sifted through them to find all the twitter accounts, which are nearly completly in English. Accounts with no tweets or protected accounts are not listed in here. For practical reasons I went for the categories of Europe, North America and Rest of the world.

In total I found 456 entries for  this list, 291 from Europe and 165 from the rest of the world. The english speaking countries of course have a huge chunk of this, but that is why I did it by country. ;) No, it is not perfect but a good start for your getting in touch with Europe. See at the bottom for information about adding / removing people.

And thanks to  Meral Akin-Hecke you can now quickly browse through the list on twitter! Just follow the link to http://twitter.com/kigo/leweb-tweets-english/members and see which Tweeps you are not yet following!

Europe

Austria (4)

• Albert Ortig – @roomle_com – Roomle.com
• Christian Bartosik – @zebramusik – Casinos Austria AG
• Philipp Gamper – @philipp_gamper – Swarovski
• Tamás Locher – @tamaslocher – Garmz

Belgium (10)

• Aude Helleputte – @Keystone – BE
• Carmelo Zaccone – @carmelo – AWT.BE
• Danny Devriendt – @dannydevriendt – Porter Novelli
• Hans De Keulenaer – @hdkeulenaer – European Copper Institute
• Jonas Marien – @jonasmarien – King Foo
• Lars Bredsten – @lbredsten – Inter IKEA Systems S.A.
• Marta Majewska – @princess_misia – Porter Novelli
• Peter Vander Auwera – @petervan – Swift
• Quentin Nickmans – @quentinnickmans – Quinvest
• Robin Wauters – @robinwauters – TechCrunch

Switzerland (18)

• Alexis Dufresne – @faveeo – Inovae
• Christine Perey – @shopalive – ShopAlive SA
• Cyril Lamblard – @cyrillamblard – Nespresso
• deborah kornfilt – @deborahkornfilt – TED
• Denis Harscoat – @harscoat – Quantter
• Elâ Borschberg – @solarimpulse – Solar Impulse
• Farrukh Moriani – @moriani – CorporateWatch Pakistan
• Francois Bochatay – @fbochatay – sobees
• Franz Hoffman – @fontself – Fontself
• Jonas Vonlanthen – @jvonlanthen – Liip
• Marcus Anzengruber – @marcusanz – Campanja
• Nicole Cunningham Zaghia – @cncx – Www.Nicolecunningham.Ch
• Ozgur Aksakal – @oaksakal – odaktech
• Rahaf Harfoush – @rahafharfoush – World Economic Forum
• René Maeder – @renemaeder – Scout24 Schweiz AG
• Sebastien Flury – @SebastienFlury – Creapole SA
• Stéphane Doutriaux – @sdoutriaux – Poken
• William BONUTTO – @williambonutto – Nespresso

Czechoslovakia (1)

• Dragan Varagic – @draganvaragic – P2 Internet

Czech Republic (6)

• Cedric Maloux – @cedricmaloux – Geewa
• Daniel Taylor – @dobrodruh – CloudSource
• Jan Rezab – @janrezab – Facebakers
• Ondrej Bartos – @obartos – Credo Ventures
• Pavel Curda – @pavelcurda – Lupa.cz
• Zdenek Cendra – @bijk_com – Bijk.com

Germany (26)

• Andreas Bodczek – @sponsorpay – SponsorPay
• Anna Hogrebe – @whatser – Sogeo
• Anne Pascual – @AnnePascual – IDEO
• Anton Bollen – @antonbollen – Techsmith
• Barbara Hueppe – @bhueppe – Mozilla
• Benjamin Rohé – @benjaminr – make a startup . com
• Bjoern Taubert – @7grad – Intel Gmbh
• Christian Richter – @computerrock – Computerrock.Net
• Harald Mueller – @momogermany – MobileMonday
• Henning Lange – @henninglange – Adcloud Gmbh
• Jan Borgstädt – @bdmifund – Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments
• Kai Bolik – @kaibolik – Gameduell
• Kerstin Monzel – @develop4appupeu – Intel Gmbh
• Kjell Fischer – @KjellFischer – apprupt
• Marc Strigel – @paynovation – Paypal
• Marco Kaiser – @marco – Seesmic
• Marcus Hauer – @mhauer – IDEO
• Martin Meyer-Gossner – @thestrategyweb – IDG Global Solutions – The Strategy Web
• Muhammad Naseem – @AliShaheen – Coeus Solutions GmbH
• Nicole Simon – @nicolesimon – Cruel To Be Kind
• Ralf Rottmann – @24z – GrandCentrix GmbH
• Rupert Schaefer – @rupertrup – Result
• Ryan Jones – @RyanMacJones – Procter & Gamble
• Sarik Weber – @Sarik – Hanse Ventures Bsj Gmbh
• Stefan Englet – @held_der_nation – Intel
• Stefan Tirtey – @toetoe – Dought Hanson Technology

Denmark (6)

• Alex Farcet – @bootcampdk – Startupbootcamp
• Anders Ibsen – @champ101 – Andco Boost
• Arne Winther – @arnewinther – Ge.Tt
• Jacob Aqraou – @Aqraou – eBay Classifieds Group
• Nicolas Charbonnier – @Charbax – ARMdevices.net
• Tobias Baunbæk – @gettsharing – Ge.tt

Spain (5)

• Adrian Hilti – @busuu – busuu.com
• FRAN CARDELLS – @fcardells – HEC Paris
• Guillaume Balas – @guillaumebalas – 3scale
• Lizzie Hancock – @L1ZZ1E – Research In Motion
• Steven Willmott – @njyx – 3scale

Finland (8)

• Andrea Vascellari – @vascellari – itive.net
• Anna Bessonova – @BessonovaAnna – ArcticStartup
• Arabella David – @darabella – Nokia
• Charlotta Liukas – @charlottaliukas – Aalto Entrepreneurship Society
• Hasse Eriksson – @Hasse_Eriksson – Mediacity, Åbo Akademi
• Lari Haataja – @lhaataja – Aalto Entrepreneurship Society
• Marko Ahtisaari – @moia – Nokia
• Mikko Kuusi – @mikikuusi – Aalto Entrepreneurship Society

France (55)

• Alain Caffi – @ventech_vc – Ventech
• Alex Toulemonde – @alextoul – The Hockey Community
• Alexandre Saint Martin – @nelkosan – Allmyapps
• Alexis Bonte – @alexisbonte – eRepublik
• Antoine de Possesse – @adepossesse – Orange
• Antoine Menet – @amenet – Redcats
• Aurore Labed – @Yakaz – Yakaz
• Baptiste Houlbrèque – @BaptisteH – Student
• Benjamin Laugel – @SN_studio – Soleil Noir
• Benoit Cazenave – @benoitcazenave – Efs
• Benoit Martin – @popcarte – Popcarte
• Bruno Leveque – @Bruno42 – Prestashop Sa
• Cedric Ingrand – @cedric – LCI/TF1
• Chipper Boulas – @chipper_b – Boulas Ventures
• Cyril Renaud – @cyrilrenaud – The American Business School, Paris
• Dan Serfaty – @dserfaty – Viadeo
• Denis Brulé – @dfbrule – Moodstocks
• Emmanuel Léonard – @campusgroups – CampusGroups.com
• Francois Le Palec – @flepalec – Self Employed
• Francois Tison – @360CP – 360 Capital Partners
• Frédéric de Villamil – @fdevillamil – t37.net
• Frederic Gaillard – @fgail – Axance
• Guillaume BELFIORE – @GuillaumeB – Clubic.com | M6 Web
• Guillaume Decugis – @gdecugis – Goojet
• Helen Massy-Beresford – @hmassyberesford – Reuters
• Isabelle Modry – @GreenIvory_en – GreenIvory
• Jean-Christophe Capelli – @JCCapelli – FriendsClear
• Jennifer Schenker – @jennschenker – Informilo
• Jerome Derozard – @cybronics – Cybronics
• Jonathan Koskas – @JonKoskas – Minics.com (2K Electronics SAS)
• Julia Pshenichnaya – @yuliya_ps – Insead
• Julien Bertheas – @jbertheas – Accenture
• Julien Lequertier – @jlequertier – Simplethic
• Khalid Arif – @khalidarif – Netvibes
• Lao Watson-Smith – @laowsmith – SARL Azure Online
• Laubie Raphaelle – @raphaellelaubie – Pagesmed
• Laurent Feral-Pierssens – @lfp – Silentale
• Laurent FLOURET – @lflouret – sanofi-aventis
• Laurent Haug – @laurenthaug – Lift
• Ludovic Galabru – @ludovic – Scrumers
• Mairi McCallum – @mairimack – Miyowa
• Marc Brandsma – @tedesign – Chausson Finance
• Mathias Herberts – @herberts – Crédit Mutuel Arkéa
• Minter Dial – @mdial – The Myndset Company
• morgan hermand – @morgan_hw – VisitorsCafe
• Olivier Cahane – @oliviercahane – Ocp Finance
• Paul Rouget – @paulrouget – Mozilla
• Romain Lacombe – @rlacombe – MEEDDM
• Samuel Goujon – @samuelgoujon – Ubs
• Stéphane Le Viet – @work4labs – Work4 Labs
• Stijn Jacobs – @stijnjacobs – Sportlabgroup
• Sylvie Krstulovic – @krustul – Sofrecom
• Tamara Corasaniti – @tamarandom – Capgemini
• Tariq KRIM – @tariqkrim – Jolicloud
• Thibaut Courouble – @tibc – Nixint

Greece (4)

• Antonios Fiorakis – @afiorakis – Biggerbrand.Com / Triptych
• Dimitris Zotos – @dimitriszotos – Mozaik
• Nikos Anagnostou – @nikan – Scicada
• Vasileios Vryniotis – @webseoanalytics – WebSEOAnalytics.com

Ireland (17)

• Aiden Callaly – @acallaly – Mxsweep
• Colm Lyon – @realexpayments – Realex Payments
• Conor O’Neill – @conoro – Loudervoice
• Daire Hickey – @hidaire – Founders
• Ed Grant – @MXSweepCEO – MXSweep
• Fergus Burns – @feedhenry – FeedHenry
• Ian Rice – @ricei – Cauwill Technologies
• John Peavoy – @johnpeavoy – www.web2ireland.org
• Niall Dawson – @workydev – Worky.Com
• Paddy Cosgrave – @paddycosgrave – Founders
• Peter Coppinger – @petercoppinger – Teamwork Project Manager
• Philip Meagher – @gruupylove – Gruupy.Com
• Ray Nolan – @workyworks – Worky.com
• Ray Walsh – @rwalsh – Enterprise Ireland
• Rob Martin – @rob11n – Miximo
• Ronan Skehill – @skehillr – Cauwill Technologies
• Sam Kidd – @samkidd – Teamworkpm

Israel (4)

• Ayelet Noff – @blonde20 – Blonde 2.0
• Gilli Cegla – @gillic – Novawind Ltd.
• Guy Ronen – @gronen – Tippers
• Sol Tzvi – @soltzvi – Genieo

Italy (5)

• Christian Racca – @pendolare – Politecnico Di Torino
• Fabio Bronzini – @spockwap – INFOMEDIA Edizioni Coop. – Italy
• Gianfranco Chicco – @ConfBasics – Conference Basics
• Marco Palladino – @thefosk – Mashape, Inc.
• Stefano Bernardi – @stefanobernardi – dPixel Venture Capital

Netherlands (8)

• Ammy Vogtlander – @ammy – Elsevier
• Jonathan Marks – @jonathanmarks – NPOX – Critical Distance
• Khuram Hussain – @khuramhussain – Inbox2
• Lisanne Keir – @lisannevos – KGS
• Michiel Verberg – @michielverberg – Sogeo
• Monique Van Dusseldorp – @dusseldorp – Van Dusseldorp
• Roland Rott – @rolandrott – Exact
• Waseem Sadiq – @waseemsadiq – Inbox2

Norway (6)

• Henrik Jørgensen – @HENRIKJORGENSEN – Mindshare Norway
• Mona Hovland Jakobsen – @monsen64 – Telenor Gbdr
• Oystein Wika – @oystein_wika – Norwegian Center For Learning Resources
• Oyvind Solstad – @oyvind – Carat
• Tom Christian Gotschalksen – @tcg1301 – Telenor Group
• Tor Grønsund – @tor – EasyPeasy

Poland (2)

• Chris Kwacz – @Absence2K – Allegro Goup
• Krzysztof “Chris” Kowalczyk – @kkowalcz – UBIK Business Consulting / HardGamma Ventures

Romania (3)

• Cosmin Negrescu – @seomonitor – SEO monitor
• Mihai Cosmin Rotaru – @mihairotaru – Squeeqly
• Raluca Georgescu – @ralucageorgescu – Wembrio

Russian Federation (1)

• Danil Kozyatnikov – @Danilka – aksilon

Sweden (10)

• Annika Lidne – @annika – Disruptive Media
• Erik Wachtmeister – @erikww – Best of all Worlds AB
• Frederic Laziou – @fredericlaziou – Opera Capital Partners
• Frida Roberts – @fridaroberts – Swedish Institute
• Johan Englund – @englundfamily – Industrifonden (Swedish Industrial Fund)
• Mattias Swenson – @mattiasswenson – Swedish Startups
• Mattias Tyrberg – @Tyrberg – Saplo
• Niclas Reimertz – @niclasreimertz – eviware
• Pär Jörgen Pärson – @pjparson – Northzone Ventures
• Per Karlberg – @perkarlberg – Rege League

Slovenia (3)

• Miha Stanovnik – @mstanovnik – Sportifiq
• Roq Xever – @rxever – Sportifiq
• Sayanee Basu – @sweska – Challenge Future

Slovakia (1)

• Szabolcs Gáborjáni-Szabó – @szgaborjani – Slovak Telekom

United Kingdom (88)

• Aaron Franco – @ngrinderjp – Startup Digest
• Adam Baker – @adambaker74 – Blottr.Com
• Adam Bird – @adambird – Esendex
• Adam Tinworth – @adders – One Man & His Blog
• Aléna Dundas – @alenadundas – Techcrunch Eu
• Amy O’Connor – @entropay – Ixaris Systems Ltd.
• Andrew Brackin – @AndrewBrackin – Reward.io
• Andrew Pearce – @asapearce – Ommven Limited
• Andrew Spooner – @andspo – Microsoft
• Azeem Azhar – @azeem – PeerIndex
• Ben Rooney – @benjrooney – The Wall Street Journal, Europe
• Benjamin Wallace – @BangWallace – Google
• Bindi Karia – @bindik – Microsoft UK
• Brent Hoberman – @brenthoberman – Mydeco
• Cate Sevilla – @cupcate – BitchBuzz.com
• Chris Alexander – @chris_alexander – Kodhus
• Christian Hernandez – @christianhern – Facebook
• Claire Lee – @Claire0h – Microsoft Corporation
• Colette Ballou – @coletteballou – Ballou Pr
• Daniel Lewington – @schlemmsy – Apsmart
• David Meinertz – @thedave7 – DrThom
• Dean Fankhauser – @dean – Nuji
• Dean Whitbread – @deekdeekster – Small Pictures
• Dharmash Mistry – @dharmash – Balderton Capital
• Fabio Zammit – @fzammit – Fabio Zammit Ltd
• Fred Lardieg – @fredlardieg – Vodafone Ventures
• Gabriel Ortiz – @nothingGrinder – The Startup Digest
• Gregory Carter – @gregorycarter – Betfair
• Hermione Way – @hermioneway – Techfluff.Tv
• Iain Buchanan – @ibwan – BitchBuzz
• Jamie Riddell – @jamieriddell – Jamieirddell
• Jane Treadwell-Hoye – @JaneTHoye – LexisNexis
• jon bradford – @jd – springboard
• JP Rangaswami – @jobsworth – BT
• Julien Petit – @cabmehome – CabMeHome
• Julien Reynolds – @JPRDragon – Baillie Gifford & Co.
• Katy Turner – @KatyT – Eden Ventures UK Ltd
• Khash Sajadi – @khash – Sentimnt
• Laurent Duchateau – @lmduchateau – Bluemetis Ltd
• Lee Arthur – @leearthuruk – Dow Joness
• Lloyd Davis – @lloyddavis – Centre for Creative Collaboration
• Luke Murphy – @lurkmoophy – 33 Digital
• Marc Barrot – @marcbarrot – Evectors
• Marcell Kiss-Toth – @marcellk – /
• Mat Clayton – @matclayton – Mixcloud
• Max Polyakov – @maxpolyakov – Easydate plc
• Max Robbins – @maxrobbins – Aicache
• Mel Kirk – @melkirk – Randommel
• Mel Young – @melyoung53 – Homeless World Cup
• Michel Cassius – @mcassius – Gekko
• Mike Butcher – @mikebutcher – TechCrunch
• Milo Yiannopoulos – @Nero – Telegraph.co.uk
• Monty Munford – @montymunford – The Daily Telegraph/TechCrunch
• Nancy Williams – @tigertwo – Tiger Two Ltd
• Neil Mcintosh – @nmcintosh – The Wall Street Journal Online
• Neil Stanley – @natter_com – Natter Ltd
• Nic Brisbourne – @brisbourne – DFJ Esprit
• Nick Halstead – @nickhalstead – Mediasift Ltd
• Nicolas Brusson – @nbrusson – Amadeus Capital Partners
• Olivier Grenier – @oli170 – Orange / France Telecom
• Patrick Johnston – @patjohnston – Student
• Peter Crosby – @petercrosby – Viadeo
• Philipp Moehring – @pmoehring – Seedcamp
• Rachel Clarke – @rachelclarke – Momentum
• Richard Alberg – @richardalberg – MyWorkSearch Ltd
• Richard George – @richardageorge – Linkedin
• Richard Titus – @rxdxt – Octavian Ventures
• Roberto Bonanzinga – @bonanzinga – Balderton Capital
• Robyn Scott – @robynscott – OneLeap
• Sanyu Kiruluta – @blackberrydev – Blackberry
• Sergei Golubev – @sgolubev – UX Devigner Ltd
• Simon Cross – @sicross – Facebook
• Simon Grice – @simongrice – ideas.org
• Simon Summerscales – @Summerscales – Famille Summerbelle Ltd
• Sitar Teli – @sitar – Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures
• Stephanie Bouchet – @rougefrog – Rougefrog
• Stephen O’Reilly – @steoreilly – Mobile Roadie
• Stevan Litobac – @stevanl – Sl
• Stuart Dredge – @stuartdredge – Mobile Entertainment
• Suhail Uddin – @ixaris – Ixaris Systems Ltd
• Thai Tran – @thait – T-Squared Labs
• Tina Yang – @tinayang – Nokia
• Tony Joseph – @tonyj100 – Dow Jones
• Vanessa Mcdonald – @vanessamcd – Ballou Pr
• Vincent Camara – @VincentC – Intruders Productions
• Vincent Thome – @thomevincent – Nuji
• Wendy Tan-White – @wendytanwhite – Moonfruit
• Yoel Flohr – @Yoel – Shine Group

North America

Canada (14)

• Alistair Croll – @acroll – Bitcurrent
• Diane Bourque – @dianebourque – Web Specialist
• Garnaud Emmanuelle – @idead – IdeAd
• Jake Levant – @fring – Fring
• John Stokes – @iamjohnstokes – Real Ventures
• Kevin Morris – @kmorr – Kevin Morris
• Peter Diedrich – @PeterNeediumHQ – Praized Media Inc.
• Philippe Fekete – @pfek – Qc média
• Philippe Martin – @PhilippeMartin – La Fabrique de Blogs
• Philippe Moreau – @philmoreau – Qc média
• Ralph Baddour – @myBADmusic – Jamba
• Shaun Walker – @sbwalker – Dotnetnuke Corporation
• Sylvain Carle – @afrognthevalley – Praized Media
• Tara Hunt – @missrogue – Shwowp, Inc.

United States (139)

• Alex De Carvalho – @alexdc – University Of Miami
• Alex Pachikov – @alexpach – Evernote
• Alexia Tsotsis – @alexia – Techcrunch
• Alfonso Olvera – @FonzOlvera – University Of Houston
• Amy Sorokas – @asorokas – Microsoft
• Andrew Sinkov – @sinkov – Evernote
• Angela Zaeh – @angelazaeh – Facebook
• Aurelia Ammour – @aureliaammour – IVENTURES CONSULTING
• Bernard Desarnauts – @bdesarnauts – Glam Media
• Betsy Weber – @betsyweber – Techsmith
• Bill Sanders – @technacea – Roebling Strauss, Inc.
• Brad Berens – @bradberens – dmg :: events
• Brian Hoskins – @bthoskins – Microsoft
• Brian Solis – @briansolis – Digital Analyst, Sociologist and Futurist
• Chris Chiappone – @chiappone – Isidorey
• Christine Tsai – @christine_tsai – 500 Startups
• Christophe Daligault – @dalijet – Fotopedia
• Clint Nelsen – @clintnelsen – Startup Weekned
• Dan Caffee – @dancaffee – Neutron Interactive
• Daryll McDade – @daryllmc – THE Microsoft Corporation
• Dave Mcclure – @davemcclure – Startup Investor
• Dave Morin – @Path – US
• David Grunwald – @David – GTS
• David Hornik – @davidhornik – August Capital
• David Soloff – @metamx – Metamarkets
• Denise Hulce – @dmhulce – SendGrid
• Dennis Crowley – @dens – Foursquare
• Dmitry Stavisky – @dstavisky – Evernote
• Edwin Lap – @webdesignmyths – MERCL
• Epirot Ludvik Nekaj – @LAdvertising – Ludvik + Partners
• Eric Felland – @efelland – Northwestern University
• Eric Ly – @ericly – Presdo Inc.
• Eric Schwartzman – @ontherecord – On the Record…Online
• Eric Schwartzman – @ericschwartzman – On the Record…Online
• Erin Berard – @ekberard – Ventoux Consultants
• Faith Merino – @faithmerino – Vator.tv
• Freddy Mini – @freddymini – Netvibes
• Frederic Lardinois – @FredericL – ReadWriteWeb
• Gabe Rivera – @gaberivera – Techmeme
• Gary Vaynerchuck – @garyvee – Wine Library TV
• Gavin Warrener – @gavinw – Microsoft
• Greg Biggers – @bigs – Genomera
• Houda Berrada – @IMFNews – International Monetary Fund
• Howard Lindzon – @HOWARDLINDZON – Stocktwits.com & Social Leverage
• Idarose Sylvester – @idarose – Silicon Valley Link
• Irene Koehler – @IreneKoehler – Almost Savvy
• Isaac Saldana – @isaldana – SendGrid
• Jack D. Hidary – @jackhidary – SmartTransportation.org
• Jacob Mullins – @jacob – Microsoft BizSpark
• James Nichols – @CATALYSTAJIM – Dmg:Events
• James Siminoff – @jamiesiminoff – Phonetag
• Jared Goralnick – @technotheory – Awayfind.Com
• Jason Gegere – @gegere – Htmlgraphic
• Jason Goldman – @goldman – Twitter
• Jason Jacobs – @jjacobs22 – RunKeeper
• Jason Rosenthal – @jasonprosenthal – Ning
• Jeff Clavier – @jeffclavier – SoftTech VC
• Jeff Hansen – @jeffhan – Microsoft
• Jeff Israely – @jeffisraely – Time/Worldcrunch
• Jeremiah Owyang – @jowyang – Altimeter Group
• Jeremy Le Van – @jeremylv – Seesmic, Inc.
• Jessica Verrilli – @jess – Twitter
• John Ham – @johnham – Ustream
• Joseph Essas – @jessas – eHarmony
• Joy De Vera – @jdevera – International Monetary Fund
• Julia Lam – @JuliaLam – Facebook
• Karen Daitch – @Daitchy – K-Squared
• Kevin Rose – @KEVINROSE – Digg
• Kris Tuttle – @heuristocrat – Research 2.0 / GigaOM
• Leo Laporte – @LEOLAPORTE – Speaker & Broadcaster
• Loic Le Meur – @loic – Seesmic
• Ludovic Ulrich – @ludoulrich – Microsoft – BizSpark
• Luke Newman – @LukeNewman2 – Microsoft
• Lynn Fox – @foxycar – Ustream
• Lynn Le – @lynnleonthego – University of Portland
• Madlen Nicolaus – @madleeeen – Kodak
• Marc Maniez – @marcmaniez – Twitter
• Marissa Mayer – @marissamayer – Google
• Mathieu Nouzareth – @mnouz – FreshPlanet
• Matt Mullenweg – @PHOTOMATT – Automattic WordPress.com
• Melissa Middleton – @RueJNSQ – JeNeSeQua
• Mg Siegler – @parislemon – Techcrunch
• Michael Arrington – @ARRINGTON – TechCrunch
• Michael Schneider – @msfd – Mobile Roadie
• Mikael Hed – @RovioMobile – Rovio
• Mike Germano – @mikegermano – Carrot Creative
• Mike Jones – @mjones – MySpace
• Mike Maney – @the_spinmd – Alcatel-Lucent
• Mike Sigal – @msigal – Guidewire Group
• Mindy Hull – @mmhull – Mercury Global Partners
• Mitchell Baker – @mitchellbaker – Mozilla Foundation
• Morgan Denis – @morgandenis – LeWeb
• Moti kahana – @rent2buy – rent2buy
• Nasser Batley – @nbatley – Batley Capital
• Nicolas Occhiminuti – @twittmewellnic – UCLA Anderson
• Nicole Stutzman – @nikkistutz – Dallas Museum of Art
• Nikesh Arora – @nikesharora – Google
• Oliver Starr – @OWStarr – Pearltrees
• Oren Michels – @orenmichels – Mashery
• Osama Bedier – @obedier – Paypal
• Pascal Lorne – @pascallorne – Miyowa
• Patrick Chanezon – @chanezon – Google
• Paul Papadimitriou – @papadimitriou – Constellation Research
• Paul Sterling – @paulsterling – Umbraco
• Pete Cashmore – @mashable – Mashable
• Peter Biddle – @PNBlive – Intel Corporation
• Phil Libin – @plibin – Evernote
• R. Josh Quarles – @nosilver – Green Robe Industries
• Raluca Musaloiu-Elefteri – @ralucam – Meraki, Inc.
• Razmig Hovaghimian – @viikii – ViKi
• Renee Blodgett – @magicsauce – We Blog the World & Magic Sauce Media
• Robby Ingebretsen – @ingebretsen – Pixel Lab
• Robert Laing – @robert_laing – myGengo
• Robert Scoble – @scobleizer – American Blogger, Technical Evangelist and Author
• Ryan Block – @ryan – Emeritus gdgt & Engadget
• Salim Ismail – @salimismail – Singularity University
• Sarah Lane – @sarahlane – Twit.Tv
• Sean Garrett – @sg – Twitter
• Seth Stolbun – @sethstolbun – SL Stolbun
• Slave Jovanovski – @slavejovanovski – Google Inc
• Stephane Delbecque – @sdelbecque – Footbalistic.com
• Steve Apfelberg – @sapfelbe – Yammer
• Steven Comfort – @stevenc – Fwix
• Susan Kang Nam – @pinkolivefamily – Pink Olive Inc.
• Tanguy Peers – @tanguypeers – eBay Inc
• Ted Forbes – @tedforbes – Tedforbes.Com
• Terrence Danial – @terryontech – JobSquared.com
• Thomas Robbins – @trobbins – Kentico Software
• Toni Schneider – @tonidotorg – Automattic, WordPress.com
• Tony Conrad – @tonysphere – True Ventures
• Travis Kalanick – @konatbone – Entrepreneur and Investor
• Trevor Cornwell – @trevorcornwell – appbackr
• Veronica Belmont – @veronica – Tekzilla
• Vitaliy Rizhkov – @ryjkoff – Idooble Inc.
• Vivian Norris – @vigilantevnm – Huffington Post & Vigilante VNM Productions
• Vivienne Walt – @vivwalt – TIME Magazine
• YACINE BAROUDI – @FASTAKE – FASTAKE
• Ym Ousley – @Signature9 – Signature9
• Zachary Bogue – @zackbogue – Founders Den

Rest of the World

Australia (2)

• Kate Carruthers – @kcarruthers – Digbiz
• Matt Barrie – @freelancer – Freelancer.com

Brazil (1)

• Paulo Henrique Campos Filho – @phcf – Stefanini IT Solutions

China P.Rep. (2)

• Benjamin Joffe – @benjaminjoffe – +8* | Plus Eight Star
• Thomas Crampton – @thomascrampton – 360 Digital Influence

Jordan (2)

• Nina Mufleh – @ninamufleh – Modern Media, LTD
• Zafer Younis – @zaferyounis – Modern Media, LTD

Japan (1)

• Steven Nagata – @stevenagata – Longfeld Consulting Services

Fr. Polynesia (1)

• Terupe Salmon – @TerupeSalmon – Startup

Singapore (3)

• Chinmay Pendharkar – @ntt – Tech65.org
• Erwan Mace – @bitsmedia – Bitsmedia Pte Ltd
• Johan Stael Von Holstein – @Johanstael – MyCube

If I missed somebody who is also attending Leweb 2010, please add yourself to the comments but note that you should only add yourself if you do tweet nearly completly in English. Also the other way around – if somebody is in here who does not belong, please note as well, so I can take them out. Please note that while in Paris I will not be able to edit this list.

Just because there are millions of nephews putting together web sites by clicking in Frontpage does not mean that there are no real web developers. And just because there are millions who use Word merely as a better typewriter or Excel like a better calculator does not mean that others can’t do great stuff.

It is an insult not only to the people doing social media in the right way for their customer, but also to all the buyers out there: because obviously they are too stupid to figure out on their own which specialist will work best for their needs and requirements.

“Social Media Something” is what customers are looking for
Believe it or not, “Social Media Something” is actually what works for the normal people (you know, the ones with the budgets). They want even more specific things, and I am waiting for it to come up in the “so called social media specialist” postings: “and there are even people who call themselves (insert your favourite play toy here) experts!”.

Customers are not searching for “basic training in how to use a computer and a browser”. Yet every day I see people typing in URLS by hand instead of using bookmarks. Customers are not looking for “basic training on how to use email” yet every day we can see solutions on “how to go email free and get work done”. It is stuff like this what the customers should pay for to learn to do it properly, because it will help them in the long run. But that is not what the customers are asking or paying for.

They are only paying “for that Internet thing” or nowadays “for that [Twitter|Facebook] thing”. People who make a living out of this can either stand in the corner with offerings which are “healthy” for the customer – or understand that this is not working and use the language the client understands. And then work from there.

An Expert will fix everything – not
Some customer actually have a clear vision of what they want to achieve, what their resources are, what their possibilities are, etc. Most don’t. From my point of view it is the responsibility of every consultant to assess what the clients wants / haves / needs are and then decide if he or she is the right fit for this customer, this industry and or this project.

It includes knowing what not to give to the customer. Often customers are attracted by on one shiny thing (which 2009 was Twitter, take your pick in the other years from whatever is hyped). They want “a Twitter” but would be far better of by a newsletter or even something offline.

There are of course the people taking advantage of the miserable state of customers – but that is no excuse to blame it all just on one side. There are two parties in each deal.

For standards you need metrics
Speaking of miserable state, I found the slides by Marshall Sponder very enlightening on the topic.

So as long as we have no reliable metrics and meta data, we will stay in the wild wild west of social media. But he, what about those called for industry standards? Okay, how about you tell me the “industry standards for online marketing”. And then show me the “certified trainings and associations”.

So next time you see somebody complaining about the “so called experts” do me a favour: if you are knowledgable just make sure that your customers and friends know what to look for when they hire a freelancer or any company to do stuff for them – and not just when it is about social media.

Also worth reading (including the comments):
Thanks, but no thanks: Enough with the nonsense already.

But it worked awesome for the coaching industry!
I’d like to add the comment I left on Mashable’s posting about fresh ‘numbers of so called experts’ where the argument of the industry standards with comparison to the coaching industry came up:

So just because someone has a certificate makes them a good coach? And having learnt something at some day in their live to pass the exams (even if they include assignments over time) makes them better than somebody in another industry because there is no ‘association’?

I have been training people on how to use computers for two decades, how to use the Internet for biz for 11 years and nowadays that is mostly social media stuff. But I do not have any ‘certification’ – which obviously means that I have no clue what I am doing nor am I capable of helping clients, because I call myself social media specialist.

The industry standards exist, and although Return on Investment is not what it is for many other areas, it exists. But it requires a lot of knowledge from the buyer which very often is not given. I hesitantly do say I am a social media specialist, but mostly for the reason that the buyers want this kind of description to differentiate with other areas of Internet related services.

“Oh you do that Facebook stuff. And I need a Twitter!” is basically the knowledge of many – and having that, many of the not so skilled social media people are way ahead of those customers. Let’s imagine there is an exam on how to become ‘social media qualified’. Even with certification (how many coaches world wide are there again? How many of those work successfully without having ever seen a ‘certification’?) it does not guarantee success.

Put it differently: “I know way more about this stuff than you do and can explain it to you in a way that you will understand, work with you on your objectives, strategies and execution and make sure that you do not screw up on the way (assuming that you actually will listen and do what I tell you)” just does not fit in 160 characters of self description on a twitter bio …

My presentation at Blogworld Expo 2009 was titled “10 Ways to Grow Your Audience” and was basically an enhanced version of my 2008 presentation “10 Ways To Build Your Readership“.

The big trend in 2009: Everybody
One of the big trends for me in 2009 was, how much ‘normal’ people started to adapt this stuff I have been doing for decades now. And suddenly how I am not any more the weird one, but everyone does it. The biggest thing for me was, while in Vegas, to ask everybody if they knew about twitter. And nearly all of them did – waiters, cab drivers, etc. I did not have to start with “there is this thing called the internet” but could start asking “what is your twitter name”. There is a change coming and I am curious how it will unfold in 2010.

I preface the slides with this notion of everybody, because it explains the way I have put them together: usable for beginners but also helpful to a little bit more experienced audience. You may note that I tend to put a lot of text into my slides and the reason for that is simple – I like people to be able to work with those slides later.

This years slides had a very simple call to action: “Think”. Think like your audience, think like how the tools you want to benefit from are build and used by others and think out of the box:

You should:

• think Audience
• think professional media
• work like a professional
• think workflow and procedures
• think Stumble Upon
• think twitter
• think offline
• think Newsletter
• think Facebook
• Stop thinking A-Listers
• Pay it forward

Thinks you cannot buy with money:

When I do presentations like this, my main goal is to make people understand and help them to use these tools. Therefor it is my biggest reward when people do come up to me afterwards and tell me, if it has helped them or not. And to my delight, one participant came up to me telling me how she attended my seminar last year and brought a friend because of it – and liked this year’s presentation as well. ;))

Love someone:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiInBOVHpO8

Soothe Your Pain
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F6EoMdn95E

The last one is not purely him, but still very nice.
Flow
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhBoR_tgXCI

Now can I please just have a way to buy the album w/o a real CD? I would only rip it anyhow to my computer and throw the CD away. :)

Note: For a vanity URL, you now only need 25 fans. Please note that all entries into the database with more than 25 fans will be removed.

Starting today, you can have a vanity Facebook URL for your Facebook Fan page. At least that was the idea when I went to bed yesterday – only to find out this morning, that you actually need 100 25 fans to do that.

Many pages have enough fans, but others don’t. Instead of trying to ‘suggest’ them to your friends I thought it might be easier to start a small “help a friend” project. Goal: Get over 100 25 fans to be able to claim your username.

How to add your own pages

Adding yourself is simple. Use this form and enter your information. After some minutes, this list will automatically display your entry. Be fair and not only add yourself but follow others as well. ;)

As noted on the form, the listing here will be at my discretion, anything looking suspicious or too spammy will be removed by me.

How to help others

Go take a look at the facebook fan pages listed at the bottom of this entry and choose the ones you find good and add yourself as a fan. Once the goal of 100 25 is reached, the owner should be able to claim the username and you can remove yourself again.

In search of enough fans …

Moved Permanently

The document has moved here.

We’re really excited about this integration. We think it’s going to be really good for our business and really good for Facebook’s business. More importantly, it’s going to be great for users.

I also got excited reading the news, because one of the biggest problems is to keep the data synced. Xing (german version of Linkedin) for example is *the* way of having updated contact information for all your contacts. But as not everybody is on Xing – or for a matter of fact on Linkedin.  Plaxo is great for managing the contact data in one place and even sync that to the computer.

Plaxo came in handy here and have some additional nice offerings like deduping of contact data and ecards. I happily paid the 50 bucks for a premium account for a company that helps me manage the addresss data of my contacts. As such a connection of Facebook and Plaxo would be great to gather additionally the information currently just hold in Facebook into Plaxo. You know, like phone numbers, web address, normal adress etc. Like the real data I sign up with Plaxo in the first place?

But reading the announcement I get the impression that the only focus was not put on what I do pay Plaxo for as a premium member, which is being the place for me to have my contact information collected and synced. But on “hey great, another system you can put your status update into”. I am sorry, but Plaxo is not my destination to have status update, it is the place where I also feed the information into.  I don’t diminish the fact that this was a lot of work and surely something great.  But that was just the first step, ground work, I understand.

As a second step it is promised that I can sign into plaxo via Facebook connect. Which I assume is great for a website I do not even get the login box on the front page. Dear Plaxo, can you please tell me when you will be restructuring your premium accounts to reflect the fact that obviously the direction where the money is allocated is not going in the direction you promise to?

I understand that this feature will probably bring in a lot of new users to Plaxo. But they too will not be looking for having yet another place to share status updates. But for a service which helps them to do a task better. You know, like for example contact management.

For 50 bucks I can happily pay a site like Batchbook to sync my data with Gmail contacts for 5 months of the year. I still have to pay for the rest of that, but at least that company is working on being a tool for managing my address data and not on being the next status update tool.

Like for example: Allow me to structure the contact data into separate kategories, tag them and search them. As I said, full sync with Gmail, sync with a mailing list tool like Mailchimp for mailings to people.  It does not yet sync with Outlook but after Gmail doing syncs with my mobile phone, I do not need that any more.

My status update for today on plaxo? Thanks for sharing the news, but this is the reason to cancel my premium member account. I am going to use the feature till the end of my premium time in two months, and after that I will pay the money to a service which actually develops features in the direction I am paying them for.