Build a world in 7 days? 'Social Statistics' does it overnight

According to a recent e-newsletter from Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, a new website to track Google+ statistics was built on a Sunday and launched on a Monday. At the end of the week, the site, Social Statistics.com, boasted 300,000 unique visitors which produced 1,000,000 pageviews.

Success was measured in the fact that the servers didn't go down.

Kind of beats God's stats. It took him a week to build his world and he only had two unique visitors at the end of his seven days.

If nothing else, that should illustrate how fast our current world is moving.

I sat in on a recent planning session where a dedicated, enthusiastic co-worker pitched the idea of bringing in 50-100 community members to assist in researching a new release. My neck snapped back. That would work if we were NBC and launching a program that might require an investment of a cool million. But we're talking about a small start-up partnering with local talent willing to trade resources to create relevant, useful content. Our partner brings in the expertise and resources. We deliver it packaged in high-concept videos.

Win for us. Win for the talent. Win for the community.

Why wouldn't it work?

The people who sat around that table were as smart as any 50-100 random folks plucked from the street.

Aren't you?

For a company our size, the idea of making a big investment in research only makes sense in a pre-internet world. But we live in the world where you can talk about it, fine-tune your idea, dig in and produce something cool, throw it up and let the audience vote with their pageviews and social media broadcasts.

If the idea bombs, don't throw more resources at it. Learn a lesson. Throw something else up.

If it really bombs. Reformat. Change your 'wavy-buzzy' name. Try again.

Isn't that what we learned from Google?

Are we creating a bridge or a fiasco?

"This is not a bridge project," began the Bridging the Gaps event. "This is a light rail project with some other things thrown in for political cover."

Saturday, the first sunny day of the season, an eager, albeit light, audience ambled into the auditorium at LifePoint Church. When attendees settled into their seats, the event launched with a non-edited approach to bridges, tolls, politicians, government entities and vendors.

Tri-Met was held up to scrutiny using Tom Sawyer-esque comparisons. Their participation was described as an enterprising boy chomping on a crunchy apple, while everyone else paints the fence, i.e., Tri-Met intends to pay for nothing on this project, including pieces planned for the their side of the border. Yes, Washington State's responsibility includes funding the connecting pieces inside Oregon. The project's funding was described as 'novel.'

Light rail received a bashing. Tom Hann, from We The People, noted, "As long as rail is part of it, it is never going to be a cost effective alternative." He raised up other options: update and repair the I-5 bridge, consider third, fourth and even fifth bridges. Additional river crossing points were pointed to as making sense for the long term. "They incorporate redundancy into a system" that will need more than two options when earthquakes occur.

Tolls were uncharacteristically embraced. "Everywhere else in the economy user fees--pay as you go--is the way the economy works." Speakers also were quick to note, that tolls only makes sense, and are only beneficial to consumers, when consumers have choices.

The audience clapped at the video “CRC: Project cost comparison,” featuring third bridge proponent David Madore. Madore's final video question, "Is the CRC Project sky high or what?" elicited audience chuckles.

Madore's second visual, a virtual rendering of a proposed 192nd Avenue Bridge, gave him the opportunity to dispel the anti-bridge label that the media has pegged him with. “I am for a 192nd Ave Bridge," he stated. He encouraged the audience to take action. "The solution is for us to get engaged. We cannot leave it to those who want to come in and only sell services. We are the customers. We need to participate in the solution." His solution proposed that private industry be tapped to build bridges, saying they build "much more effectively than government."

Joe Cortright, known for the Cortright report, talked about the cost of the project. "Closer to $10 Billion," and not the $3.8 to $3.9 Billion that’s been widely discussed. "The initial price, $3.9 Billion, is only realistic if you could presumably walk in and buy the bridge, or pay for it outright." His PowerPoint showed the CRC project is predicated on very large borrowing, on tolls, surcharges, fees to operate light rail, and the cost to correct critical choke points inside Oregon, such as those at the Rose Quarter.

A project that involves extreme complexity and must pass through the political hands of eight government agencies was boiled down to its simplest terms during an animated feature (embedded above). Children's voices combined with flying seagulls gave a birds eye view of the Columbia River and the two current bridges. The description of the light rail train traveling no faster than the cars stuck in track erupted in chuckles and claps from the audience.

While a sunny day burst with warmth and frenzied activity outside, a half dozen more speakers and one country singer engaged the group that sat in the dark auditorium. The not to be missed moment, was the numbers person. The longest spontaneous applause and loudest hoots came during the forensic auditor's presentation.

When was the last time an accountant made you want to stand up and clap?

Video of the event will be available mid-week on couv.com.

Editors Note: The author is employed at couv.com, a corporation owned by David Madore.

---

The business of family

It's England, it's 1590, and it's a boy.

He grew. He grew discontent.

He left England in 1630 to come to Plymouth, Massachusetts and became known as Deacon John Doane. From this man a family tree dug its roots deep into the soil of New England and then dispersed throughout America.

Today, The Doane Family Association of Amercia, Inc. celebrates family every other year with a reunion held at various sites in the United States. Besides family, the Doane's love a good mystery and right now the business of the Doane family is a quest to discover exactly where in England Deacon John originated, to uncover the family name of the Deacon's wife, and determine what vessel he used to travel to America.

This year the reunion is at Doane College, a nationally recognized college in Nebraska offering undergraduate and graduate programs across three campuses in Crete, Lincoln and Grand Island. From the Doane College website: "Deacon John Doane was one of the few who bore the title of "Mr." In 1633, he was on the list of Freemen. By 1632/33, he began serving on the General Court. He preferred to be a Deacon in the church, rather than an Assistant to the Governor. In 1644, Deacon John Doane was among those leading the enterprise of new settlement in the Nauset (now Eastham) area of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

It is a known fact that there are good Doanes, musical Doanes (Melanie Doane), athletic Doanes (Shane Doane), inventors and entrepreneurs (Doane Paper and LCDoane), illustrators (Pelagie Doane), and outright Outlaw Doans.

Who have you found in your family tree?

Man or the machine? Predicting the winner

I brought up the success of Redbox this morning and asked, "How many have seen a Blockbuster or a Hollywood Video location go out of business in your neighborhood?"

The response was unanimous. Everyone.

"RedBox proves you can rent videos without employees," I continued, and drew a further conclusion that we will see growth in our business in self-serve advertising. One rep noted we already accept ads online and the customers receive a discount.

The Room—filled with media sales reps—exhaled a collective hee-bee-gee-bee shudder. How can we compete with the machine and its discounts, they wondered.

"Should I find a new career?" asked one respected rep. The question hung in the space between panic and next steps.

"You could," I said.

"Or, you could realize that Redbox would not survive and thrive if there wasn't a ton of marketing for every video in their kiosk. That marketing is not created by machines. It is crafted by creative minds. Our world is still hinged on people and what people can create.

"Sales people need to create the correlation between product and value," I stated, and summed up my recommendations:

Be vital. No machine can replace your expertise, drive for your own success, and desire to help customers succeed.

Keep customers bound to YOU. They may get something cheaper somewhere else...but will it work?!

Assess what works, not just in online but in an overall media campaign. Duplicate what works for your customers.

Study, learn and share. Help your customers understand the changing landscape and demonstrate the value of our products. If you are only contacting your customer to update an expiration date on their ad, you are missing an opportunity to demonstrate YOUR value.

What you don't sell today, will disappear tomorrow if you don't pounce on it. If you lag, someone else will grab your opportunities. Be a pro. Be first!

How is online changing your business?

Never come back here without money

One of my new staff members encountered a difficult client situation. Customer claimed they had not signed a contract for the new 'WebProfile' services which we added to their account in February. The new employee, let's call him Don, researched the situation, found a copy of the original contract, compared the signature with the one for new services and it was obvious the customer had authorized it. Plus, we had received payment for the February billing. So, they'd agreed to it at least once and confirmed with their payment.

There were two brothers involved in the family business running three restaurants and each deferred to the other as responsible for payment. The only way we were going to resolve it was to get the brothers together. Don set it up. I told him I'd go with him and we'd get to the bottom of it.

I knew it would be an interesting conversation.

It was.

At the conclusion of our client meeting I contacted the credit department and asked that the new services be cancelled. We were only five days into the month, I didn't think it would be a big deal. The credit department sent this email to the project coordinator, we'll call her Sista:

Please cancel WebProfile for this account---Carol and Don just met with them.  If it pro rates, we will need to adjust off. Thanks, The Credit Dept

Sista expressed her dismay to me in a curt email.

I canceled it. There is no prorating. They will owe $150 for March. What happened?  -Sista

I considered how to respond to Sista. I could craft a curt email back, I was afterall the manager, or I could demonstrate why it would not serve our purpose to pursue the $150. I decided on the later and sent out the following and copied all the personnel involved:

We were in a no win situation. Client had a Ferris wheel of reps in a short period of time: Rep A, Rep B, Rep C, and then Don.

Client had a print contract soon to expire, was sold 'WebProfile' by Rep A. Client believed he could give us a check each month. Then we told the reps if customer does not have a credit line, the client has to pay up-front for three months. The only other option we gave them was for the client to put a credit card on file. Brother who signed the contract did not have access to the credit card and referred us to the other brother, noting that the other brother who had the credit card needed to approve/sign the contract.

We set up their 'WebProfile' using pictures from a web-site they forgot they had. It had menu prices from five years ago. They felt we were stealing the other guy's work by nabbing pictures from the old web-site. They noted that they never approved our profile site. That is, the brother with the credit card never approved it. The brother who signed the contract saw it and noted Rep A came in took pictures of the restaurant and was very nice during her visit.

I noted we used pictures from their Web-site to help them get started and show them what their profile page could look like. From there they had full access to upload any information or picture they wanted, the program is completely self-serve. They replied with a barrage of complaints noting they didn't understand why every rep we sent  tried to sell them something different: one sold them the print product, another online, and the current rep, Don tried to get them to keep both.

I told them Rep A volunteered to call on them when their prior rep retired, and Rep A sold them 'WebProfile' because she was so excited about it. They must have approved it as they had paid for it in February.

The brother in control of the credit card noted he had given the credit card number to Rep A, but said he never approved the profile site. Which apparently was impossible to do because he became increasingly difficult to get ahold of—he has four kids, he has custody of his kids, he is going through a divorce and due to depression he stopped answering his phone. He told his employees to write down the name and number of each caller and noted that Rep A did try to get ahold of him, but he told his employees "If it's important they will call back." He noted that Rep A did call back.

(Are you enjoying this, yet?)

The first brother told me never to send Don back to his restaurant again because 'he pushed me.' (Definition of pushed me: Don showed him his signature on the contract he claimed he never signed).

He agreed to complete the current print contract, but after that he was done with us. Since Don was kicked out of the restaurant he said I could come in and pick up his check. He gave me two days during the month to do this, and if I'm late I'm toast. He said he was wiping his hands of advertising at that point his brother could handle it. He was happy not have to spend any more time on it.

I asked the other brother if we could call him about advertising the restaurants. He said yes, it was okay to have Don call him. I noted that I have another rep who handles the north county area where he is located and he said he had met the tall, skinny guy who covered that area. "Bob?" I asked. He nodded.

Then the first brother got riled up again and threw in that he was mad because once we raised our prices. I explained commodities—such as paper—have fluctuating costs, but I don't change their ad price every time my costs change (like at the gas station), I explained I hold prices steady for twelve months, but at some point they must change. I detailed that the WebProfile project is our company's way of helping small businesses, that small businesses no longer have to rely on web designers who set up their sites, get paid and disappear. WebProfile puts their online pages in their hands, they control it, they can put their menu on it whenever it changes. They told me that their menu prices didn't change that often, it's too expensive to reprint a menu.

I assured them that WebProfile is a good product and that I/we would talk to the brother (with the credit card) about it again, because it is THAT good. And they are nuts at the moment. I didn't actually tell them that they were nuts.

I told the first brother that at a future date I would be asking permission for Don to be welcome back into his  restaurant. He relented and said, "Don can come in, but ONLY if he's eating a meal." I tapped my pencil to on the table top to the tune of 'Never come back here without money,' and smirked. Some transactions continue to have value.

He asked me if I understood their situation. I sai, "I am trying." I also explained that it was I who instructed Don to push him, and he said, "I'm not mad at you."

That I did not understand as I was pretty relentless to get to the bottom of their insanity and I'm surprised they didn't kick me out.

After I left, and I could speak again, I called credit and asked what was on the books for WebProfile and instructed them to cancel it. If the charge goes through we will need to adjust it off.

Just saying,

Carol

So, that's my conversation and email recap. What was the most interesting conversation you had this week?

Pulled in different directions, only one measurement counts: results

At the moment there is about six of me having six different convos. There’s The Manager writing end of the year summaries of accomplishments and big misses and delivering both tough and encouraging messages during performance appraisals. There’s The Mom trying to understand her teen’s motivation to suddenly change schools. There’s The Friend who is supporting new ventures and cheering each stop toward success.

There is the Northwest Native who is mesmerized daily by how the world morphs physically, and especially now as spring stretches and pokes her Pretty Pansies out from under winter blankets and taunts us by pulling her resilient friend Miss Weeds along with her. Next, there is The Writer scribing her second fiction manuscript, a task that is amazingly easier to tackle than the first.

And lastly, there is The Social Carol, aka The Classic Carol, who explores Facebook, Foodspotting, Foursquare, FriendFeed, Flickr, Gist, MySpace, Picasa, Plancast, Posterous, Shelfari, Upcoming, Yelp, Twitter, You Tube—you name it—and entices others to engage in real life at 'headquarters.'

But let’s start with the manager.

This week I shared a story with the sales staff I read in the book 13 Fatal Errors Managers Make: And How You Can Avoid Them. It was about a farmer, Walter Frank, who contracted a debilitating disease and learned at age 27 he would spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.

Life as he knew it was over. Done.

Farming is a very physical activity. He could no longer craft a successful career in agriculture so he turned to sales, but not inside or phone sales, which would have been easy, he became a Realtor. He learned he could roll up to a house and ask for a listing, but can you imagine the obstacles he faced showing homes? He went as far as he could go and sent his customer ahead and asked them to describe what they saw. He went on to establish his own real estate company in Oshawa, Ontario, Royal LePage Frank Real Estate.

I drew the parallel that we do the same thing with our customers. We can’t be them, own their business and understand all the nuances as thoroughly as they do, but we do ask them to tell us what they are experiencing. We in essence see through their eyes, we listen to understand, assess their needs and match with products from our portfolio. There was some head nodding, as the sales staff relaxed into a good story.

Then I ratcheted it up.

No one would have blamed the farmer had he given up on an active life and left others to take care of him, collected disability and rolled into the sunset. But he didn’t use his disability as an excuse. Are we? The biggest obstacle we face right now is the economy, and no one will disagree when we say it’s hard out there, or blame us if we just get pooped out from hearing no after no. But in the end who do we want to be, the one who gave up, or the person who kept trying?

When you try, even just one more time, sometimes luck happens. Sometimes you’re in the right place at the right time. Maybe it’s not what you’re doing, but merely the fact that you are doing something, moving the air around you and taking advantage of the fresh breeze that blows back and gives you a second wind.

Don’t give up. There is something you can do right now to survive in business, even if its investing $3.50 on a used book from Powell's Books in Portland, or my one of my favorite book shops in Vancouver Cover to Cover Books.

What's your disability?

What are doing about it?

Supported, uncovered, volunteered, stayed... what I should have done

I'm only beginning to get comfortable with mixing online with real life, and my associates laugh at me when I confess I'm trying to keep my professional life separate from my online commentary, because, let's face it, no one wants to be Danah Boyd'ed. Shudder. So, we do what we can to protect our fragile egos, which sometimes means we fail to attach our real names to our e-trail.

But.

A recent post from a co-worker captured my professional name in reference to this blog. So, I'm working on exposing myself and testing it in small venues.

A comment left on Oregon Media Central in reference to my post regarding the We Make The Media event essentially said, huh? "Maybe I needed to be there." Ouch. The event was organized to build a new 'community journalism enterprise' for the Portland metropolitan region. My bad for hitting that send key before corralling clearer and more salient thoughts.

Of course, I realize, it's bound to happen: every blog post is not perfect and someone will create entertainment at  my expense—whether they know me or not. (Note to self: Get over it).

That was not the intention of the Twitter Corner—to create entertainment—as they reacted to the key-note speaker and organizers of the November 2009 WMTM event and texted gut reactions (and not all negative). Nor, was it the intention of the organizers to ignore ideas and feedback from the corner, but, well, we are what we are and we don't always hear everyone's voice as they enter the conversation, and it was with dismay that Abraham Hyatt noted on the #wmtm Twitter stream many voices... exiting.

After the event I arrived home drained and not able to shake off the experience. I'd met well-spoken, thought provoking people and in trying to capture what had distressed and overwhelmed me, that not all the voices were heard, I scrambled my thoughts together and blasted out a post. Then I went twitter-hunting for someone of like mind and connected with Alexander Craghead right after he posted his thoughts on Civics 21.

There is a vast gap in our ages, (I'm estimating), but our #wmtm experience felt oddly similar and our experience of the event began to echo throughout the community. This disenfranchised storm grew and gathered in the Twitter #wmtm stream and pointed fingers at 'old white dudes' who cut off the comments of most of the women, and the younger people in attendance of either gender.

Welcome to the newsroom.

Right about now, you could assume those pale-stale-males do NOT want to have a conversation with me. In reality, that's not true. From what we've experienced in the public-arena-aftermath, those white dudes who were criticized have tip-toed into the fray, some (at least one) have dove in and literally broadcast, blogged and tweeted about what went right and self reflected on what went wrong.

What management has taught me, or to be precise my current director: people who can self-reflect and own their errors are people you can build a team with. I would like to be counted among those self-reflectors, so, here's my confession, borne out of my desire to get what's bugging me (about me) out of the way, so we can work on the real task at hand, crafting our future:

• I should have gravitated to the arena I am not familiar with instead of falling back on what I know. I attended the revenue generation break-out session, but what did I learn that I didn't already know? Had I chosen unfamiliar ground it would have situated me as a listener-learner, and not a 'you need my expertise' persona which I fear I may have projected.
  
  
• I should have supported (interrupted) the male facilitator of our group and directed him toward better practices. Number one: introduce everyone. That should have been required before launching any discussion. We were only asked who we were if we commented. Our group included a gentleman from the music industry, an arena which has faced almost identical concerns of 'content' ownership and distribution issues. (Brilliant post on the music industry woes: Dear Musicians, Please Be Brilliant or Get Out of The Way, by Dave Allen). What could we have learned from his reflection had we uncovered his voice sooner?
  
  In addition, I'm left to berate myself on the voices we may have neglected to encourage because they were too timid to speak. Introductions would have given value to everyone's voice.
  
  
• I should have discovered on the front end who thinks differently. Mid-way through our discourse we discovered there were those who believed we should not sell any ads to support the emerging journalism enterprise. One of the guys proposed a subscription based concept, and also noted he had crafted several successful Facebook ad campaigns. Now, I'm forced to wonder, 'why did he think that? What does he know/think that I have not considered?'
  
  Had we introduced ourselves and given a one sentence hope for our outcome we could have flushed out opposing concepts on the front end and been able to explore alternative paradigms immediately, instead of finding half-way through we were not of the same mind. A missed opportunity for all of us to crystallize our thoughts and seek deeper understanding.
  
  
• I should have volunteered to take our discussion points back to the main group. Our facilitator did a 6o second summary of ... I'm still trying to figure that out. I photographed our flip chart and will capture our notes and reproduce them on the blog. But clearly, he was ill prepared to represent our discussion and scurried through his task as if we were running out of time, or as if he wasn't comfortable speaking in front of a crowd.
  
  We would have been better served had we taken five minutes to summarize our discussion, vote on what we felt the most valuable thoughts, and ask who would be willing to represent it to the group. I seldom skirt the limelight, but ran out of the room with the rest of the crew and left it in our facilitator's and scribe's hands to figure out the next step. (Note to self: boo, bad girl!)
  
  
• I should have stayed to the bitter end and headed to the bar with the rest of the 'hell raisers.' Some of the best ideas come over a beer. Therefore, I owe you all one. How about a pitcher after the next event? Heck, this blog should host the after-party.
  

Let's talk. Let's listen to each other and seek mutual benefit, and I promise we will craft a very interesting, if not engaging and profitable future.

We Make The Media Follow-ups: 

• Alexander Craghead: On cities and citizenship in the 21st century
• Abraham Hyatt: We Made The Media: What went right — and wrong
• Becca: We Make the Media conference
• Becca: WMTM Still Going Strong
• Bill Lascher: Making the most of making the media
• Carla Axtman: Walking the tightrope of talking about race
• Carol Doane: 360 Convos: Building a new model may require listening
• Christopher J. Miller: Journalists, unite!
• Colin Mulvany: Will the touch tablet save professional journalism?
• Digital Journalism Portland: It's time for social hour
• Electrotainment|Podcast: Abraham Hyatt on We Make the Media
• Jeff Bunch: No one-size-fits-all for new journalism model(s)
• Jennifer Petty: We Make the Media
• Jennifer Willis: We Make the Media conference
• Jennifer Willis: A News/Media Incubator 
• Jennifer Willis: Freelance writer vs. entrepreneurial journalist
• Joe Wilson: My views on WeMakeTheMedia event – after the hangover
• Marie: What I think happened at #wmtm (We Make the Media)
• Matt Davis: Too Close to the Sun? | Portland Mulls Nonprofit Media Startup
• Michael Andersen: Why this isn’t a media revolution
• Michelle Rafter: WMTM followup: A Portland journalism incubator, and more
• Oregon Media Central: Update: ‘We Make The Media,’ but who’s ‘we?’
• Oregon Media Central: More Post Conference Posts
• Our PDX Network: The WMTM Roundup
• Our PDX Network: WMTM Redux: Founder Ron Buel Responds
• Portland Media Lab: We Make the Media conference looks at nonprofit models
• Steven A. Smith: We Make the Media” in Portland
• Steven A. Smith: Seeking a better term than ‘hobby journalist.’
• Steve Woodward: The futures — plural — of journalism | Nozzl Medi
• T.A. Barnhart: I'm an "old white guy" too
• We Make The Media: Home Page: 
• Z Twitter Transcript: Transcript for #wmtm – What the Hashtag?!

Other
Fast Company: Automated AOL News: Heralding the Future of Online News Writing?
FTC Workshop: How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age?
Mediactive: Journalism's slow, sad suicide
News Inkubator: What is News Inkubator?
TechCrunch Comment: What Robert Scoble Would Pay for News via Twitter
The Faster Times: A New Type of Newspaper for a New Type of World
The Nation: How to Save Journalism
Vancouver Observer: The Death of Journalism

Building a new model may require listening

After spending seven hours with brilliant, articulate people I feel bereft. I thought breaking journalists out of stank newsrooms where same-o, same-o pushes their creativity into square holes, or opening an avenue for laid off reporters to vent about what would have made the journalism world better, that we’d be humming with energy and ideas. Even if they were impossible.

What are we afraid of? What are we not seeing? What do we need to do differently, radically counter to culture, backstream, upstream, jump out of the stream that will rock this world and make rockstars out of investigative reporters, that will nurture citizen journalists to fill needed gaps, that will energize and create an engaged, vibrant community? Maybe listen.

Passionate people conceived of bringing together the journalism community to brainstorm, propose and walk away with a plan on how to create a new community-driven news project, a sustainable journalistic model.

Here’s my advice: listen, people. Listen.

When a member of the audience stood and asked the session leaders, "When I arrived I had a clear idea of what the break out sessions would cover. After hearing them speak I’m confused. Could you summarize in two sentences your topic?" The answer was, I don’t have anything to add to what I said.

Okay, say it like I’m simple. Except, you can’t?

These are the people we invest our subscription fees in to report the news, to take a world of information, break it down and serve it up in bite size doses that are thoughtful, interesting, and understandable. They work on deadline. I thought they’d be able to think on their feet. Maybe they can only type, not talk, maybe they should have been tweeting.

An outspoken participant took the organizers to task for not reaching into the community of color and marketing the event to them to draw them into the conversation. Whoa, baby. We all came with agendas, and that wasn’t mine, but at least it got people to think.

Okay, perhaps I’m being too hard. Let’s look at the break out session. I have photographs of  eight sheets of notes. The guy who spoke on behalf of our group, our facilitator, mentioned absolutely nothing that we spent an hour and half discussing. Even if everything said in the group was lame you could still put a nice spin on it, but it wasn’t lame.

We had representatives from Portland, Vancouver and Seattle media in our group, and not only from the news side but from the advertising side of the house, and not just from journalism but from the music industry. But nothing we captured was shared with the big group. Our group’s scribe jumped into the plenary session fray and tried to pull out information from one of our group members, but that got shut down by the overall facilitator who wanted to stay on time.

Yes, we started on time and we ended on time. We ended with 25% of the original participants.

Here is the bad news: journalism is not what it was. Newspapers television, and radio are not what they were. And the really bad news: the legacy media will never be what they were again. Ever. That means that we need to be different.

What are we going to do, to be the new media, the new journalism, the new future? And how are we going to get there if we're not paying attention?

My intentional conversation with an unintended audience

In an office environment communication commonly follows a sequential pattern of interaction. The boss says something, the employees listen—occasionally take notes—and take action.

Only it doesn’t work that way.

When I first became a supervisor I realized the best tactic for our group to stay on track during a meeting was to have an agenda. I carefully crafted the notes, boiled them down to an easy to follow agenda, typed the neat schedule and passed it out to each attendee. I thought if the staff knew how faraway we were from the end, it would limit the odd duck question and verbal meandering, and give them a visual clue of how close we were to concluding, thus assuring them the meeting would eventually end.

Only it didn’t last.

I got comfortable with my role, maybe too comfortable, still typed my notes, but stopped preparing an agenda. Here’s what I discovered--I had inactive listeners, I had overactive participants, I had meetings that went on too long, and no one was taking notes. In addition, I found I had to repeat the same things approximately every three to four months. ‘Yes, you can. No, you can’t.’

I decided to create a record of our meeting notes and filed them in a folder on a shared drive. This was an unending WORD document that I added to each week. This was boring. No one references boring, (except me to prove the point, “Yes, I did tell you that. I announced that on February 19, 2009”). I thought making the meeting notes more interesting would solve the not-paying-attention issue. I created a blog: If it's in writing, we'll remember. Because proprietary information was shared on the blog, I locked the public out and announced to the staff they needed to sign up for a free gmail account to access the site.

Oh, my lord, that was a HUGE issue.

Granted, a couple (two, to be exact) jumped on board and said, “This is great!” The others didn’t want to do it. Somehow, having too many passwords floating around in the internet-sphere would cause funds to leach out of their savings. Seriously, a staff member confessed that to me. A handful more got together and made a pact that they wouldn’t sign up. Only one followed through with the pact. Gawh. I had no idea a blog could create that much dissension. A blog, folks, a blog.  Look at it. Does it look divisive?

I decided I would keep doing what I was doing and eventually the staff would figure it out. I decided I would make the online experience fun and add a Twitter account and tweet their successes. Thus, the birth of @TheClassicCarol.

Only I was the only one on Twitter.

@TheClassicCarol started gathering followers. Sheesh, now what do I do? I decided I ought to tweet something that might be interesting to someone other than my intended audience. Then my new un-intended audience wondered why the blog posted on Twitter went nowhere.

After a half year of excluding you I decided to create 360 Convos, my outlet to have an intentional conversation with the unintended.  Welcome, blog visitor!

Now, what have you tried at work that had unexpected outcome?

Oh, and by the way, I’m preparing an agenda for that afternoon sales rep meeting.