How Social is everywhere and nowhere

Everything is social nowadays.

You can have anything as long as it is preceded by the word social, it’s trendy.

here are only some of the most used examples:

  • social media of course is the most known but the question is not what, a bit more how, and certainly who:
    • what: the platform doesn’t matter, the tools are nothing, constantly changing
    • how is more important (do you use it to genuinely engage with others on a social level?)
    • who do you connect with is the key, and the most difficult to measure or automate… but they are ways… (who do you connect with in your social media?)
  • social commerce: one of the best company in social commerce is BazaarVoice. I recommend you visit their website and look at what they’re doing. That’s great and genius. (let me know your thoughts about them in the comment
  • social networking: business networking has become social business networking and those who are only doing business are also going social, because that’s working much better, even if they still don’t call it social…
  • social profits is achieved through
  • social entrepreneurship: an approach that financially sustains and fortifies the individuals 
  • Social economy refers to a third sector in economies between the private sector and business or, the public sector and government. It includes organisations such as cooperatives, non-governmental organisations and charities.(Wikipedia) Here an article on how non-profits are using social media to get results
  • what other social xxx do you know? comment about it

As we can see everywhere, social is THE word, and yet, for some reasons, it seems that most of the organizations and people are paying all attention to the other word that follows.

The thing is that it’s not easy to see and even more difficult to measure the impact of any social activity. It seems a waste of time and especially engaging means emotions and most of the people can’t manage their emotions, simply because they’ve never been taught, plus there is this myth of professionalism doesn’t mix with emotions.

So the question is: how will you genuinely become more social and less media and reach your professional goals this way?

we can look at some great examples from great companies like Starbucks or Dell, and see how we could use the same tactics and strategies for our small business, that will be one of my next post.

Let me know in the comments below your experience and thoughts about social xxx (whatever it is)  in today’s business

Step by step: keep building your project

Today, I got reminded by the great Chris Guillebeau about the step by step building.

He wrote in one of his program I am a member of:

"writing is an honorable thing, nomatter how small your audience is."
When you set out to build a small business, it’s easy to get
distracted by all kinds of things that are irrelevant to what
you’re actually trying to accomplish. You have to overcome this!
Always be building. Always be initiating (not just responding). If
you can’t build something big, build something small.”

That couldn’t come in a more timely manner: I decided to write immediately here about that.

I haven’t written yesterday for some reasons, good or bad. But I didn’t keep my word to myself to write every day at least once a day on this blog.

And even worse than that, I didn’t keep my promise to start this new serie of experiment each morning: so now it’s promised and written in the rock: I am starting on Monday morning.

Chris finished his email in writing this simple question: “What’s the next initiation step in your business? How can you

keep moving forward, step by step?”

For me the next step is sriting this post.

And for you? common, go and do it NOW!

No matter what, it is very honorable to build what you are building now.

Ping: social media from Apple and customer service

Today, Apple, in its last version of iTunes added a social layer.

When I read that this morning, I first was very happy. Finally they open their main app to social media with Ping, a new social media platform inside iTunes.

Than I read the blog post from Chris Brogan: Why Ping is a stepping stone to social commerce

And then I realized the sad reality: no, it’s not to be really open, it’s just to allow customers to share what music they like so they buy even more in the iTunes store.

Not only it’s not so much to connect to each other than to increase sales in the iTunes store.

10 years ago, Amazon created the affiliate system and till then, they reward anyone who bring them someone who buy something from them. Not a lot, but something like $1.50. When you recommend any music to a friend or connection in Ping, and this friend buy something in the iTunes store, you don’t receive any reward, not a single dime.

From my point of view that is stupid and not showing a real openness, what we would expect from a social network. More than that, when you know how easy it is to find music without paying, why would I recommend anyone to buy in iTunes store.

I love Apple and their products but there are 2 things that I don’t like in Apple:

  • proprietary format: I discovered that the sim card in the iPhone is not the same size as all the other sim cards, thank you to make it easy to change from the iPhone to any other mobile phone…
  • customer service is not taking care of the customer: one of my friend needed to send his macbook pro to Apple to repair it, and it would last at least 2 weeks: even with the applecare he was not entitled to a laptop during the time his own is fixed by Apple services. He kept his computer and went to look for another solution, and next time he won’t take the applecare plan, and maybe he won’t buy his next computer from Apple.

At the moment, we don’t know if Apple will add some affiliate program to Ping, but why would they do that when they never did that in the iTunes Store?

What is your opinion about the attitude of Apple ? Are you satisfied with it? Why it doesn’t change the rush of people to buy their new product even before it has launched?

Steve Jobs and his presentations are the reasons of this beaaviour, it will the subject of one of the next post here soon.

Let your comments below and share it please.

The morning exploration experiment project: when crazy ideas excite me

Last night, I could not sleep. A crazy idea came to my mind. A crazy idea that excite me so much. Here it is:

From tomorrow I will get up one hour earlier to :

  1. Take my shower
  2. Get out and walk for 30 min. exploring the surroundings in a different direction each day. One rule: not to come back on my steps.
  3. Take the video camera and film whatever I encounter that can make the beginning of a story. It’s amazing how I can easily get inspired.
  4. Come back home and write for 20-30 min. from the one thing that got me inspired. One rule: make a story that bring wisdom to business/happiness balance.
  5. Publish the video and the writing here on my blog. (This post doesn’t count for the one daily I committed recently, so there will be another in the afternoon)
  6. Finally enjoy an excellent breakfast and get ready to start working with joy.

I want to do that for one month at least and then see how it did go.

This project is called mXXp: morning Xploration Xperiment project for the moment.

Let me know your thoughts in the comment here below, and tomorrow morning the first post of the mXXp will be on this blog.

How quantity is better than quality to make you a better writer?

We are at the end of August, tomorrow September is here and the come back to school /work and full activities.
Today is a very quiet day here in the UK, due to Bank Holiday ( when the banks are closed, almost nobody is working – as if we need banks to be able to work )

What are you doing on such days, like the Sunday just before going back to work?

what will you ship in September?

Maybe like me you need to prepare something new for the launch of a new product or service, or something else for an important project to be ready when you go back to work.

I am currently working on many things to get them ready on time, which is early September.

it reminds me of a great personal discovery some years ago: each month of November is organized a novell contest by Nanowrimo ( National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.)

The principle seemed very stupid to me at first sight.

I don’t know why I decided to paricipate despite the fact I found it totally stupid, and I was glad I did: I discovered one of the most important lesson of my life:

As I can’t make everything perfect, I will deliver and improve it along the way, as the most important is not perfection, but shipping – one of the most important lesson I learned from the very inspiring Seth Godin (fear of shipping, quitting the lizard brain)

That’s the beauty and the great advantage of internet publishing, you can always change what you have already done.

Hold on, It’s possible this way to never get things stable, if you spend all your time editing what you have already done.

  • Like this post is not perfrect at all, but as I will write every day I will perfect ( or at least improve ) it along the way and over time.
  • LIke the design of this new blog, it’s far from what I want and like, but it’s there, and as soon as possible I will improve it.
  • Like the new website I will launch for my new social media services, it’s not perfect and it is like that, again it will be improved as it grows.
  • For Google to see my new bog, it’s more important that I start publishing something, so do you: go and say something, no matter what, over time it will become better and better if you adopt the discipline to write regularly, every day is the ideal.
  • What will you ship or deliver for the new start of September? Will it be perfect, or almost ? ( come on don’t be too humble )

Bloggers? Buy the scorecard for bloggers before the price triples

Copywriting will have no secrets for you: buy this book

I was writing another posts but I had to postpone the publication of this one to talk to you about this news and urge you to buy this book before the price triples on Sept. 1st.

This book is from one of the best of the best bloggers : Darren Rowse from Problogger and this book for only $9.97 is a no-brainer.

You will learn :

  • How to get more readers to your blog?
  • How to become more authoritative in your niche?
  • How to make your blog profitable?

plus you get a free Q&A session with the authors.

have a look here and buy it now, you won’t regret it

Click here to get it now before the price triples

Happiness and passions

Today, I start this new blog that will evolve with my new adventures in Happiness, Success, Biodanza, and my new passion: Theta Healing.

More about all that from tomorrow.

In this first week of launch, the blog is in Beta, and I will dress it up all along the way during this first week.

Official launch : 1st September

Just one question for you:

Does what you are passionate about make you happy?