I’m starting a 10 week Biggest Loser competition tomorrow and it got me thinking about all of the other weight loss attempts I’ve made in my life. My first successful attempt was with Weight Watchers back somewhere around 2002/2003. Following their points system, I dropped about 35 lbs. Through the return of my old eating habits and some not-so-pleasant life experiences, it crept back on. I figured I’d try Herbal Magic next. This was 2004. I had some success there, but kept expecting their magical pills to do more of the work than I was willing to do at the time. Now, there’s no magic pills, there’s no points systems. There’s just me and my eating and exercise habits. Why? Because I know what to do. I just haven’t done it yet.

Stay with me, I do have a point. How many times have you gone to a conference or taken a course to find your world is blown away with all the brand new info and knowledge you’ve just gained? If it’s your first time seeing the material, probably a ton. If it’s a conference for the industry you’re employed in, I’m willing to bet you’re happy if you can even pick up 3 new takeaways. More often than not, we sit there thinking, “Yeah, yeah. I KNOW this stuff already.” Sure you know it. But have you applied it yet?

I know all of the steps I should be taking to fit into my old jeans again. You can sure bet I haven’t been doing them. How can you tell? Well… I’d be wearing my old jeans. But just because I “know” what I “should” be doing, doesn’t mean I’m knowledgeable in the subject. Again, how can you tell? I’m not wearing my old jeans. I haven’t put it to practice… yet.

Watch for people claiming any of the words I’ve listed above. Especially if you know nothing about whatever it is they’re trying to teach you or sell you on. There are plenty of folks out there who aren’t walking the talk, but are happy to be leaving with your moolah anyway. Ask what kind of results they’ve had. Long term results. You should be confident that whatever they will be teaching you is sustainable over the long-term. We all know how well fad diets work. Whether it’s a course on business or marketing (particularly social marketing), a new skill you’re trying to pick up, techniques to improve your performance (mind in gutter or not), do yourself a favour and do your due diligence. Question their savviness, competency, knowledge, well-versedness, polishing, credibility, expertise, proficiency, finesse and/or prowess. And, if it’s something you already “know,” don’t waste their time. Get your butt in gear, apply what you know first and then head back for help. Who knows? With all that practice, maybe you’ll be the one at the head of the class.

Today, armed with the last 4 digits of the bank account I’ve got hooked into Paypal, that’s exactly what I did. It was easy, painless, seamless and fast. The steps:

1. I phoned their customer support line. The automated voice was able to confirm who I was using the last 4 digits of my account number.

2. Once I was confirmed, it automatically (and instantly) sent me an email with a password reset link… and it actually worked!

3. I clicked on the link and the automated system gave me a 5 digit code to enter into the page I was on.

Paypal Password Reset

4. Once I clicked “continue,” I was brought to a page to reset my password and security questions.

5. Voila! All logged in and all under 5 minutes.

If you’re using an automated system in conjunction with your website, make it this easy and people will appreciate it almost as much as a talking to a person… almost.

Either way, password recovered, payment made and one happy Paypal customer served!

What made this worth blogging about? Well, for one it’s always nice to shout out companies when they’ve done something right, especially for an area they might not otherwise hear much about (like password reset processes and experiences) and I think it’s an example for the rest of us to strive for. There were no wait queues for the help desk. I didn’t have to press 1 to speak to an agent or try to explain my entire issue to three different people because I phoned the wrong department. They kept it simple, clean and fast. Thanks Paypal!

One day, I got around to cleaning out my inbox. I did one purge a couple of months back, unsubscribing from as many e-newsletters and regular mailouts that I could stand to do in one sitting. But when 300 unread emails still piled up over the course of a few weeks, it was clear more of them had to be on the chopping block. As I scrolled through the unread messages, a POF update came across my line of vision. “A-ha! I haven’t used that in years!” What the hell, I’ll go all in and delete my account altogether. Well, when I clicked on the link from the email to change my profile preferences, guess what I saw?

The message on my POF profile page

There’s nothing wrong with the top one. People pay attention to real people with real photos more so than those with no picture or fake photos, that one’s a no-brainer. My eyes fell on the second notice. Well how about that! Somewhere in the last 5 years, I’ve found myself a husband, managed to get myself hooked on any number of drugs and taken to poisoning myself with a cancer stick. Man, I’ve been busy! Had I logged in to update my POF profile, I could’ve avoided so many problems. And found a nice man to keep me out of trouble. What kind of guy did I marry anyway that would support such habits?

Like I said, I had no beef with POF before deleting my account. But after seeing that? I gleefully, yes gleefully pressed the delete button.

I can’t pinpoint exactly when it happened, but over the last few months I’ve found myself getting annoyed at the very behaviours I used to model… keeping my cell phone on the table while out for coffee with someone, live tweeting an event, checking for emails or texts or messages so periodically I couldn’t even keep track of the amount of times I would look at my iPhone in a day…

Back in November, I was out with a few of the Calgary yelpers at Craft. We had all pulled out our phones at one point or another, so I decided to impose a no phone rule for 30 minutes. If anyone so much as looked at their phones during that time, they had to buy us all dessert. Ten minutes in, guess who lost at her own game?

It’s not just our phones. It’s the fact that many of us find our self-worth at the mall, we make ourselves feel better by letting out a snarky comment instead of pointing that same finger right back at ourselves, or we find ways not to fix our own problems by dismissing them with a phrase like, “Oh, such a first world problem!” It may be a first world problem, but the fact that we then don’t follow-up with any action to correct it is a slippery slope.

It’s still way too early to tell what kind of impact this new wave of communication will have on us, we’re the ones experimenting with it. But I’ve taken my head out of the sand and I don’t think I want to stick it back in. I feel like it’s irresponsible of us to go forth with so much gusto without examining the impacts it has on our lives. Are we satisfied being friend collectors, having many surface relationships (which in turn are another great way to ensure we don’t ever have to dive too deep)? Or are we consciously finding the balance between these online connections and the deep, personal connections we ultimately need to find happiness and satisfaction in our lives? Some of us do the latter quite well. But the majority of us? Well, I think the existence of The Distracted Driving Law says it all.

It’s a tough line to walk, some people have chosen not to walk it at all and some have dived in head first not knowing when–or if–they’ll find the bottom. I’ve done a little bit of everything and I’ve landed on the following conclusion:

Online social tools rock, and there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to using them, but if you’re going to use them, and use them sustainably, you’ve got to know where your boundaries are.

It’s easy to bring your entire world with you. It comes along in your pocket, all of your friends are at your finger tips. Literally, even the ones sitting right across from you that you met for a drink and aren’t talking to because you’re engulfed in all the “action” online, or you’re busy trying to solidify your plans for later on tonight… right in front of the person you’re supposed to be spending time with now (sorry, that’s a rant for another blog post). At any rate, the lines between business and social are getting fuzzier, not more concrete. It’s up to each of us to define our own boundaries.

Self imposed boundaries on social networks. What do those even look like? Networks like Facebook, where you’re forced to differentiate between a brand/company and a person, make it easy. You’ve got your personal connections in one place and your business ones in another. But what about something like Twitter? Do you go ahead with one account? Two? More?? Should you even have a personal account?

It depends. Let’s try some scenarios, shall we?

Scenario 1: You could give a hoot suite about social networking for personal reasons, but you’re the lone communications/pr/marketing person in your office and the task has fallen upon you to figure out all of this Twitter business and bring the company into this century. What do you do?

You make one account. You put your name on it somewhere (like saying this account is managed by: XXXX), and you put your own flavour to what you share, but you do it in such a way that the content isn’t so unique that the young buck you want to hire so you can have your evenings and weekends back can step in without too much disruption to your feed.

Scenario 2: You’re the young buck that was just hired to take over a social media role. You’ve got your own account, but you know the value of having a personal touch and being seen as the name and face of any certain account/company. Do you give up your personal account in lieu of promoting the business one?

No. You do both… especially if you’re a young buck! Keep your own online presence. If you’re the manager and you intend on being where you’re at for the next decade or so, you can get away with managing just the biz account. But if you’re out there movin’ and shakin’, you’d best keep a pretty solid line going between business and pleasure, you don’t need to be Calgary’s Phone Dog.

Scenario 3: You’ve been tweeting on behalf of a company, everyone knows you as that… you’ve gone and fused your own brand with theirs. Uh-oh. You didn’t really intend for it to happen.. it just did. Now what?

Take a deep breath. You’ll be fine. Go start a personal account. Right now. Then you can send all the flirty DMs you want to that really cute geek you met at the last tweetup without worrying whether or not you’re being unprofessional.

Bottom line… act on your own Twitter feed how you would act out in public. If it’s questionable, by all means, take precautions to protect it, to have an anonymous account or make damn sure you’re not the one on the biz account (and that nobody knows where you work!) Act on your work Twitter feed the same way you would act in the office or while out talking to clients. If there’s something you’re not sure about, avoid the situation altogether. It’s not worth the hassle of being one of the first people to help figure out what laws should apply where.

Let me start out with a little run down of the day. I was on a team with Margot from The Costume Shoppe and her friend Karen. We met for a morning picker upper at Chiasso and then headed on over to Melrose to join the couple dozen people already stationed outside waiting for the doors to open and check-in to begin (not to mention the free breakfast sandwiches, yogurt and fruit Melrose had waiting to fuel us up). The hunt didn’t start until 11, but at 945 the doors opened wide and we rushed in to get our forms all filled in and wait for the much-anticipated hunt list.

We ride bareback on Team Silvester

At 11 on the nose, the list was handed out. There were over 200 items consisting of sponsored items recognizing the hunt sponsors, physical items (as in we had to bring these back with us), photograph items (send in a picture) and unique items (only one team could win each one!). Most teams were out the door lickety-split. Not us. We took our time and perused the entire list, sorting out what we wanted to find and splitting it up by neighbourhood or location. From there, we hopped in the car and off we went!

The hunt could take you from just a block or two from the start point all the way out to Elbow Falls. We concentrated on covering as many items as possible in as small an area as possible. This meant restraining ourselves to downtown, Inglewood and… where else but The Costume Shoppe!

I had no idea the day was going to go by so quickly! Part of that was thanks to my awesome teammates, I couldn’t have asked for two better ladies to spend the day with. We had a hoot and had a similar approach to the hunt! The other, well, there were just so many places to try to visit and items to get. We got a little creative with a couple of the clues, like having our team crawl underneath a truck bed instead of a real bed and finding a paper clip in place of a “trombone” (Hint: it’s the French word for paperclip). I was also introduced to a couple of places in the city I wouldn’t have known about otherwise, like this garage filled and decorated with bottle caps!

We didn't do it... I swear!

The day ended at 400pm back at Melrose to tally points, have some much-needed food and drink, listen to some tunes and await the winner of the grand prize of 4 iPads! Three recounts later, we had our winners. The Four Pink Ladies!

Check out the #t4e stream to read all the Twitter updates and photos from the day.

Congrats John S, Mike B, Mike and Ally S on a hunt well done. Can’t wait for next year!

As of July, 2010, Master Maq reported that there were 10,501 local Twitter users in Calgary. I’m not sure what the number is a year later (that was the last report I found on his blog). I’d be surprised if it had more than doubled. Even less than that amount of Twitter users are real information contributors. Many of you folks sit out there lurking, just waiting for the rest of us to entertain you. But that’s not to say you aren’t watching.

Awhile back, waaaaay back to November, 2010 (if you can remember that far) there was a panel at Third Tuesday about last year’s civic election. One of the panel members (forgive for not remembering his name) asked the audience members how many of them were on Twitter. Once those in the room with accounts raised their hands, he proceeded to call them (us) all weird. But it’s true. We are a weird bunch. Not weird like you’d expect to encounter at a sci-fi conference, but weird in the fact that we’re so plugged in, so hyper-engaged. It’s this characteristic that makes Twitter a hotbed of influencers. People who want to be in the know right now.

Last month, I sent a question out into the Twittersphere asking how many people shared information with their offline networks that they heard about through one of their social networks. Nearly everyone who responded (granted, this was only a dozen or so) said they shared information with offline friends frequently. All respondents I knew to also have relatively large offline networks. In other words, they are just as plugged into the “real world” as they are to the online one.

Have you ever heard of the 1/9/90 rule? The gist is that for every 1 person that posts content online, there are 9 people interacting with that post and 90 people watching and reading what’s going on. There’s no timeframe for those eyeballs mind you. So in a real-time environment like Twitter, we can’t count on followers alone for an exact measure of reach. In fact, we can’t count impressions at all, merely the potential reach. That number would be astronomically large, so even predicting a reach of 10% of that number is impressive. If you’re repeating the message, well, compounded tweets will make it around eventually. And remember, it’s not a passive medium, like reading a newspaper or magazine. It’s an active one where people are having dialogues and conversing about everything from where they’re going for lunch to local and international themes and events.

I’ve said many times before that Twitter is the most valuable social networking tool I’ve found to date. For those of you who balk at its use (whether for B2C or B2B business use, promotional or personal), it’s a sure tell you don’t understand the medium, nor do you seem to want to. On this point, please accept my condolences on all of your missed opportunities. We shall continue to reap the benefits of our active little circle without you. But for any of you still curious about what the Twittersphere may hold for you, jump on in! The water’s fine.

There was a quick article on CBC’s website about how many neighbourhoods are turning away the food trucks, and yet, the end of the article says Marda Loop’s considering allowing the trucks to visit twice a week. Who’s thinking synergistically here? The answer’s pretty obvious.

I get that restaurants might feel threatened by this new mobile food revolution. But, everything’s going mobile these days… so why the Debbie Downer ‘tude on something many city folk are excited to finally see hit Calgary? Learn from the social media craze folks. Mobile, whether app or food, isn’t going anywhere. I see an opportunity here for some lucky business. A lucky business who’s got private property, and wants to be the official parking spot for food trucks in their neighbourhood.

I walked into Barbecues Galore for the first time when I was heading in hunt of Jojo’s truck parked in the lot of their NE store. Sure, you might lose a couple of customers to a quick food truck lunch, but how many more will discover you as they’re following their favourite meal on wheels around town?

It’s an analogy that Vince Fowler from Action Coach relayed to me during a coffee and social media chat. And it’s one that’s stuck with me as I’ve been explaining online word-of-mouth to those I meet along the way. People are smart. They can sniff out a plant faster than you can say information super-highway. And now, more than ever, it’s so blatantly obvious when it’s being done. A business attempting to sway opinions in any kind of black hat approaches might as well strap on a cone-shaped hat with D-U-N-C-E written across the top. You’re filling the pipe with processed food and expecting luscious and miraculous growth, when really, you’ve just got a lot of shit coming out the other end.

Social media’s not going anywhere. That’s a fact the rest of us accepted long ago. Those of you basking in social media success, good for you! Keep doing what you’re doing. For the rest of us, here are a few tips I think might help make the transition into this new land of real world transparency a little easier on you:

1. Quit trying to buy our love and just be loveable. This means being the best you can be at what you do from start to finish.
2. Take note, not offense. Learn from the feedback you receive, whether online or offline. Use both positive and negative comments to improve weak spots, or make strong spots sparkle even brighter.
3. Take any outlying comments with a grain of salt, both positive and negative. Just because one person may think you’re the cats meow doesn’t mean the rest of us do. Certainly, be proud of pleasing a person or customer that much, but use it as an example on how to make every person purr that contentedly. Don’t stop until you’re rolling in praise. Same goes for any feedback you may not want to hear. It’s also a grain of salt. One outlying comment or two is not the end of the world. It’s when you keep on receiving it that it becomes your signal that there’s something more than just a grumple-puss behind it.
4. Know when to cut your losses. You cannot please 100% of the people 100% of the time. There are just way too many of them and only one of you. Do your best to right any wrongs. Once you feel you’ve done all you can, shrug it off and continue on. Remember that organic process? The rest will come. If you’re focusing on excellence in your industry, all you need is some time.
5. Recognize what you have influence over, and what you don’t. The minute a person walks through the door of your business, or meets you on the street, you have influence over their experience of you. Once they’ve walked out of your life, it’s all over. Do everything you can to ensure every aspect of their interactions with you are the best you can muster given the current situation. The rest isn’t up to you.

Learning to roll with the punches and incorporate feedback, both positive and negative, is the most important first step in this space. You may have heard the term “listening” before. It means “to pay attention.” So sit up straight, turn and face the people who are trying to tell you something. And just listen. From there, your next step should become a little more clear.

“95% of your tweets should be about product or promotion.”

To which I respond:

“Would you rather be an interesting person someone met at the party? Or the annoying announcer nobody wants to listen to?”

Social media isn’t hard people. Quit trying so hard to make it hard. Be yourself. The organic (and way more lucrative) opportunities for your product or promotion will come. Just quit trying so goddamned hard. Or if you must, put that energy into being the life of the party instead.