Well now… I've just landed a gig. As the (Insert JOB-TITLE here - S&M something and/or other) at PlaceSpeak; another in a long line of startups I've plied this stock-n-trade of mine at… This one? …this one is, without hesitation more than just jim-dandy, more ultra-special for me. As the (S&M something and/or other) at PlaceSpeak, my overriding role will be "marketing"; in startup terms, obviously, simply this means and includes "all" of that, a little this and whole big bunch of everything else. My focus? …traction & revenue and… of course, revenue! AND, beyond this focus on, revenue? Well, I will be focussing, directing every ounce of effort, in one way or another, towards… did I mention, revenue.

About PlaceSpeak… from PlaceSpeak...

PlaceSpeak is revolutionizing the online public consultation business. Public consultation is required broadly as part of the democratic process. Governments at all levels directly or indirectly require consultation on a range of issues, most of which are geographically defined. PlaceSpeak taps into that need to consult and adds value by generating verifiable data to support public policy development and local decision-making. PlaceSpeak takes the guesswork out of online consultation.

AND…

PlaceSpeak is a Vancouver-based online public consultation platform that uses ‘geo-authentication’ to allow participants to claim their place in the community and become influential contributors to open dialogue on matters of community interest. Municipalities, government and non-government agencies, development companies and consultancies are using PlaceSpeak to offer enriched opportunities for citizens to be involved. 

PlaceSpeak has intellectual & solid business Bona Fide; but Let's let Michael Harcourt tell you more about this.... [56 second youtube video - worth watching, and sharing]

My oh my... here's my opening thoughts...
On a deep and profoundly personal level… PlaceSpeak is far more than just another job placement, more than just a good gig, (oddly enough, I don't believe if I've ever really had "just" another job placement)… PlaceSpeak sits squarely at a major intersection in my life! More accurately, it dances at the intersection of online, interaction, collective community… social influence... at the corner of the power of this medium I've been working in, on, under, over, around and straight on through this entire adult life… and the corner of democracy. (NO, not dreary n' dreadful politics...) ...Democracy that almost broken down lover of ours. The dear old gal who we've let wither and age and deform… I find myself at the corner of Social & Guv... (smiling)

It's not just the new job; It's the... new mission; and quite honestly, it could not be more on plan, nor more… mission critical?

PlaceSpeak… from my mission perspective?
Using the power of these internets, lets involve (the all inclusive) us in the "fixing" of, or better yet, simply "using as we should" this democracy of ours through collaborative contribution. Enabling the "hive" to enrich the honey? Encourage the participation of us swarming masses to influence the decision making process, the outcomes? - Implement, finally, a more participatory democracy… with meaning? 

…drawing from this now (finally, ubiquitous) online community (once and for all) those folks most impacted by a particular issue; empower us through a consistent and easy to use set of tools to contribute on the decisions that impact us directly, geographically, locally... those issues most affecting our lives, in and around the space we most closely occupy, the 'hood. Oh come now… how many million ways are their to describe this… goodness! (obviously PlaceSpeak is not to first, middle nor last to try this... but, why not keep trying? - this one IS it.)

Eh hem (that's a lot of chest-beating)… and my focus? …revenue.

Who doesn't like a good business model? (sigh, most times I ask this, the room does go quiet)… who likes a good business model, I do. 

Unlike most "Social Media" plays I've been drawn to, looked at and or kick the tires of… PlaceSpeak does not (please repeat this)… PlaceSpeak does not draw it's revenue from a veiled marketing scheme in support of and in aid of advertisers, we are quite bluntly, frankly, honestly NOT in the business of selling yours, mine, ours data to marketeers or advertisers… 0% Marketing, none… nada… zilch.

Through a pretty basic and familiar SAAS model, PlaceSpeak offers a system, a mechanism to those mandated to seek public consultation, public input… A system that saves them time, effort and that improves the quality of the input… ease of use, MUCH better data… better results… improved outcomes. simple. 

Reminder... NO revenue derived from MARKETING! 0% (zero%)

So... The new Mission Numero Uno… find and convince "proponents"... municipalities, government and non-government agencies, development companies, advocacy groups… people & businesses, et al. - affect behaviour, drive self-serve sales and deliver leads to our salesforce... entice participation.

...get another big, hefty snowball rolling... here we go again. AS ALWAYS... Smiling!

(...to be continued)

As much as it seems somewhat ridiculous after all these years (to some, not me)... I say hey, why not show a little gratitude on this good Friday, simply because, it is, a good Friday? I've grown to re-dig the whole notion of thanking our new followers n' friends. I'll even thank some old dear ones, each and every Friday (i'll even risk a day or two in twitter prison to do so)...

I've added a little spin to this and extra day, thanking my most engaging(est) interactors the following day on oh good gracious, not good... "Grat-urday" - I get up, caffinate then sit to gather up and grab all those folks on the week's "connect" listing... (I settled on grat-urday as an "own invention", it was an independent thought, but most certainly I know it's NOT a unique notion, nor an original undertaking - in all fairness, and for creative-commons copyrighting purposes, it was as much a guttural reactions to my disdain for cute n' cuddly cats and kittens).

Grat-urday has proven to be an even more risky-business; the folks in logarithmics-gymnaticlike-department like to shake their fists at my thanking people who may not be my followers. I grit my teeth and carry-on, sally forth and charge up the mountain of grateful-goofballed-goodliness, all the same.

AND... here's a whole-hearted key to all this. Regardless of how pat-silly, contrived or alteriorly-motivated it appears to be; undertake these tasks with a genuine-osity in your heart! Breath in once or twice AND fear not to be seriously gratuitously goofy when going about the task of thanking your new friends for following along and/or interacting with even the remotest of seeming interest in what you just said... Be happily thankful for each new-old buddy a pals and even our oh-so-serious business connections.

If done properly, well then you've just sealed a bit of your own friendly-fate. You've assigned two days of these seven were, for even just the mere minutes it takes to undertake... you've put some real thoughtful effort towards that most contagious of wonderful human... is it an emotion (?) - genuine gratitude... goes along way and is an extra-essential part of being well... social! - Happy Follow Friday, and we'll see you tomorrow at the Grat-urday picnic... good folks! :-)

OK, forget for a moment your (and mine) conspiracy theorist conjectures that Google is an arm of the CIA, apparatchik of US Government Inc, Suspend this disbelief and simply ask yourself, does Google ever get anything wrong (don't answer that, not enough time)? I'm simply floored by how right they get so many things; be them gmail, youtube and currently, Google+. That they seemingly let G+ sit in the weeds so long… by design (spooky)? 

At the risk of sounding totally gushing, I sometimes forget that they essentially re-invented search AND defined how one advertises over the internet… I forget this, even as a fella who has at times sat in front of google adwords for months, years at a stretch…

It's without any bravado, nor fools pride that I mention my having sat in front of and been submersed in all this stuff for some better or worse part of 20 plus years; in many ways this has hurts my approach to "earning" in this space as a market as much as it's helped. Many times I've lost an edge, simply as I could not understand how anyone could not see these (now called) social networks simply being analogous with what we used to call, the "real world."

By no means are these networks my entire "real world", I enjoy touching and breathing on people as much as the next fella, but they are so ingrained and imprinted on me that simply, they are as integral a part of my own "real world" as any "place" else. I've stopped making a distinction, stopped explaining myself and apologizing for my involvement… they've simply become as fundamental as… any "thing" else. Perhaps this begs the question, could I survive without these networks, the inputs and the relationships I've developed over them? Certainly. I also believe that given the right vollyball, I would likely survive for a time alone on a desert island somewhere out there in the (real)-"real world" (actually, I've always told people I'd need a volleyball, a copy of excel and a copy of illustrator, all set)…

Get on with it and how about that first review of Google+ already, and admittedly about a year or two after any review of Google+ warrants any attention at all…

Each and every one of these networking tools, these successful implementations of "community" over the internets have a valid purpose for me; both as an internet business person (I've been called too many things, by way too many groups of young people over the ions)… AND as a human (there is a difference apparently). MySpace and Fark were able to draw what, at the time were relative hordes of "real" people into these online communities I'd been involved in for years. - For those who were not there, honestly this was all in motion within these little walled enclaves called BBSs for about a decade or more before you arrived and/or were born. No judgement, just context. MySpace and Fark were not giant leaps forward in anything other than design and, how you say "comfortable-invited-ness". Obviously you cannot deny that they appeared just as the IPs were loosening up cost of full-on hard-core high-speed access for about the third iteration… The migration to, and explosion of Facebook was no big surprise, Facebook is… a world changing success story. When the folks at Facebook finally sorted out how they were gonna manage my pictures, even a fifth as well as Flickr, the die was cast, my you know what's were simply in their tight little grip…

…this isn't a history lesson. We all know what happened; the explosion of tools, 3rd party features, some rolled into Facebook, others made to work through the exquisite development of APIs that allowed these separate tools to interact, enhance each of the other through this… inter-functional-connectivity-suite. AND herein lay a big part of the frightening wonderfulness of Google+.

We all sat there staring at G+, alone, for years, waiting for it something, to happen. Every time Mr. Zuckerberg erred on the side of "he's such a baby goof-tard" we clicked open G+, pouted and lamented, where are my friends? OR, we spent an afternoon bitching to everyone and no one on twitter, or looked at pictures (or, egads, worked). Then…

Then... about just over two years ago, totally frustrated with the solid brick walls of Apple's closed garden closing further and further in upon me; I switched… Jumped headlong into gmail AND Google Enterprise as a foundation for my oh-so-mini-micro-enterprise solution. Total sweetness this; plus zero learning curve given its invention by the folks whose adwords system I'd sat in front of for months, years at time…

Then… I changed my attitude slightly, lamented the days of MySpace's wonderful emphasis on meeting new people over Facebook's dogged requirements not to bug people you do not know… I forced myself back onto to twitter (for the umpteenth time) in search of… New people (I also did some naughty things with one of my, hmmm... dum dee dum alternate Facebook accounts) that got me back into full swing of "damn I love this place"… (yes, I admit it has been love vs hate for years; isn't that the sign of a healthy…)

Then… almost in gang-style unison, my whole new-crew jumped headlong, two feet first onto G+

Google+ is frightening because… and remember, this is a first review folks; here is the skinny. Applying basic ancient attitudes and the attraction of meeting new people; you find yourself in the seemingly ever growing universe of Google, forget for the fact it so seamlessly integrates with the Google/Chrome/Android world we may already be living in… As the API system seems to implode upon itself in the Post social-IPO world of separate entities who need to constantly stroke the penisis over at Goldman Sachs; Google+ simply offers up all the elements of twitter, pinterest, instagram and… all an integrated tools, incorporating all useful methodologies for doing business, all this, simply built in (still no check from Google in my mailbox)… And, I guess that's why it's frightening.

After this last year, I find myself using my other networks less and less. At times it feels the only reason I'm posting on these other networks is to half-heartedly maintain a decent Klout Score (first rule of Klouts Score… oops)…

So upon first, late, better tardy than ever review; I only have one more opening slavo-esq question to ask (myself)… Do I really want to dive headlong into a system that encompasses so much of my "real world" that is wholly owned and operated by one company that may very well be the CIA, the NSA or simply apparatchik of US Government Inc.? - I guess, this raises the speculation… do I have any choice in this matter at all?

Until next time, next review (wherein I may actually describe how I use the damned thing)... Hey, Edward are those Soviet pierogi all they're cracked up 'n better than Polish pierogi I've been told they'd be? AND Can you help me out here, toss me some insights into you-know-who here?

OR, ...your content marketing monster is at the door, and she looks mighty peckish… 

The other day, one of my more favorite bloggers, Joey DeVilla, an old (and dear) associate of mine posted another of his more clever blog posts to his… blog. Joey is definitely adept at keeping his various content feeds fresh n' lively and well, un-self-conscientiously comedic. I find myself chuckling along with at least more than half of the blog posts he post and often re-post them as content for my own feeds. I've been reading his particular schtick for close to 20 years now, and doubt I'll ever grow absolutely tired of it… 

Joey's post was a well deserved back-handed slap at some, likely well meaning adver-twitterer who'd decided he'd simply up and break "The first rule of…" the social media marketeers own version of "…Fight Club"… FIRST RULE OF Klout Score… you get the picture…

Joey's post can be found here…

Now on with my own not-so-private project mayhem…
Joey's blog post focuses primarily on the central issue of "how utterly silly does one have to be to break the first rule of Klout Score."… What momentarily-mental hiccup of good sense must one suffer, not only speak of this score, but decide that a press release would be the appropriate mechanism for announcing that his score simply went from XX to XX+1 (pardon me for just a moment but I feel rather than eat my own words, I'll abide strictly to the rules already stated)… I immediately felt the twinge, a cringe similar to that Joey must have felt... then saw the whole affair for something it so obviously was; you know… This poor fella simply… ran out of somethings to say.

These days, running out of somethings to say is far more a tongue twisted problem than ever… How big the crisis…? How utterly unimaginable and horrible it must be knowing that your feeds have hit empty, your stream has run dry. You've momentarily been excluded from the cacophony... your clients and customers lost solely in the menacing grip of the messaging of your more crafty competitors… You have, all but... disappeared.

I do try to tread lightly around the content component of any social media marketing proposals I've chucked out there from time to time. It is certainly an important component, AND most certainly, if you can sell it properly, can be a beautifully blank check that can self-generate dozens of additional zeroes and create dozens of jobs simply on anxiety alone. But honestly, and experientially, we all know that this only blows back upon us. Even the most smartly budgeted, scheduled and paced content strategy is going to run out of steam one day; maybe two days or even more days in a row. Let's not even touch the numbers of likes, shares & plusses, needed to validate even the flushest of day when our clients have topped up the babble-pipes properly… that day when it dawns on our client that even the steadiest of streams is being read no less than by half of the folks than the number of the good people in their employ who they can see if they just glance out of their glass office door…

…pace and persistency may be a fool heartedly dangerous pitch to propose except for those courageous enough to trade perhaps quality for quantity, but hopefully not meaning and purpose, for... Meaningfulness of message… Quality of voice… Substance AND style wrapped in an evergreen package… Should work.

Of course "filler" is fine, but if filler is all that there is, that'll get noticed right off the bat. Is your customer's business even suited? If mom and pops haven't done something different for 25 years, is there anything there (outside a possibly epic episodic recounting and retelling of how wondrous these 25 years have been and why they've not had to change… a thing.) Indeed, there's good and bad content everywhere, but forcing it upon them is like force feeding the monster no? As it's quite well known that an over-forced fed monster can only want… more, and then some.

-------------------30?---------------------

OH AND speaking of more... As always (if not recently), there will be more on this from little old me! You should know this by now… after all, It's an old horse I like flogging AND I do have my own content monster to be fed, and more story-time sales nightmares of my own to be shared...

A NOTE ON (my own embarrassing) GAP in this n' that stream of contentedness…

Hello dear friend(s)

Please don't mistake the complete lack of content rolling off these pages these last few months as my having nothing to say. I got busy with a project, then went away, then got hit with sad news then got busy again… I simply fell out of my own slow-paced sync. No worries over "nothing to see here, lets move along"... we're now into the fall and my own little squirrel cheeks feel full enough to start spitting these last few months of nutty notions and ideas back at you. 

Wish me luck, as there is always a chance of further distractions… But I'm banking on a most recent moment of inspiration to get me over any future humps n bumps and stinky old burps from (you know who…)

Whether this is a good thing or not… well, we'll let the monster decide.