Today around the world, sites will be going black to protest against proposed changes in laws that could effect the entire Internet as we know it.

Known as SOPA and PIPA, they were written to help fight piracy, but in reality could harm more than help. Take a moment to learn more at Google or Wikipedia and then contact the appropriate people in government to tell them not to pass this. Also click on the image above to download a PDF version of the infographic. If you need a funny yet informative explanation The Oatmeal is where you want to go.

Here are two videos that will help explain it all as well. Share these far and wide to help.

As a marketer I’ve worked with companies big and small to advise them on how to properly use online media, how to reach out to influencers and how to be smart about content. After years of successful campaigns I know enough to be able to say what works and doesn’t work.

Combine these two aspects of my life and you can understand why I’m so pissed at the stupidity of Ragu and whoever their agency is.

I’ve never interacted with Ragu on Twitter before and honestly don’t buy their product. So when I got the above @ message from them linking to a video I wondered what it was. A quick look at their Twitter stream showed me that they had @ spammed a bunch of dads with a link to the same video. Here is the video:

As the person in my household who does all of the shopping and all of the cooking I took offense to this video. Implying that dads can only cook the simple things and Ragu is somehow going to help make that easier. Give me a break!

I’m sure there are plenty of couples out there where this might be true, but once again we have a brand who has decided to only focus on the mom side of the parenting equation and play into the stupid stereotypes that dads get pegged with all the time.

When will brands wake up to dads and the active role we play in our children’s lives. I’m sick of seeing every company that wants to have a parenting focus completely forget about the male side of the equation. I long for a brand to embrace fathers and really step up and cover both sides of parenting.

Ragu, you failed. You tried to be clever and you blew it. Whoever your agency is that told you this was a good idea should be fired because they are doing things for you that snake oil salesman are selling companies on every day and you’ve written the check for it. You should have known better. They should have served you better.

I’m sure Ragu doesn’t really hate dads, but after this video I can firmly say that there are plenty of dads who will hate Ragu. I certainly now do.

Update: If you are just reading this, I hope you’ll read my follow up giving advice on how it could have been done better and then my final post after Ragu called me.

You choose who you follow on any social network.

You control what updates you see based on who you choose to follow, how you set up filters and what you decide to read.

Thus, you can not complain about someone tweeting, posting or sharing too much. Complaining about this is like complaining that the water is flowing too fast in the river that you’ve made a point of crossing. Don’t like it? Choose a different river.

It is impossible for someone to “over share” because they choose what they want to share with their community and they control the flow of information. If it is too much for you, then stop following them and be on your merry way.

Thanks for listening.

I’m sure at least a couple of people who are reading this are them.

I’m talking about The Crazies. Those people who due to spending too much time in front of a computer, on their phone, checking in, checking on and doing all the fun things that make a life/work involved in the social web fun – but in doing so have warped their sense of reality.

Every day I seem to run across more and more of them and thankfully I know when to walk away from them rather then giving them what they crave so much. More attention.

Symptoms of having a case of The Crazies may include:

• A higher sense of self-worth due to a ranking on social stats du jour type of site. Most commonly noticed when an envious statement such as “why wasn’t I invited?” or “But, I’m an influencer too!” are uttered from their mouths and they are not kidding when saying it.
• An uncontrollable urge to speak/tweet/post/share before thinking.
• The warped sense that the world revolves around you and that everyone should be paying more attention to you because somehow you’ve earned that attention.
• A never ending river of shared posts and videos, but very little original created content of any variety.
• The lack of basic good manners. Especially visible when discussing/arguing any point online that they don’t agree with. I know our parents raised us better than many act.
• In a face-to-face social setting, getting jittery if they haven’t looked at a screen rather than talking to the person next to them for more than five minutes.

I haven’t worked in an office for over five years. This is not the life for everyone because the longer you spend away from interacting with people you can reach out and touch the higher the chance that you’ve lost some of  the most basic social skills and could be turning into one of The Crazies.

The social aspect of the web is a powerful and awesome thing. We get to connect, share and help people around the globe who we may never even meet in person. But, just because we are behind a screen and at a keyboard doesn’t give us the right to lose our brains and start acting like someone we are not.

Don’t let The Crazies get to you.

The more you know…

But, the ONLY way you are ever going to truly learn a skill is by putting in the time and actually doing the work. Yes, it’ll be frustrating and you’ll bang your head off a wall and scream out in dismay. It won’t always be fun and you won’t always want to continue.

Trust me though, that talking and watching only gets you so far.

Doing gets you to the goal.

I’m loving Google+ and finding a TON of usefulness from it. I also think that businesses of all sizes should pay attention to it and there is a lot of cool experimentation that can be done right now since it IS the early days.

To all the other early adopters out there playing with it and checking it out, I hope my little bit of advice helps. Looking for some more detailed advice? I know there is a webinar from Chris Brogan to help with that and I’m sure there will be others as well.

Benjamin Franklin famously said that time is money.

Any amount of time that you or I spend doing one thing, takes away time that could be spent doing something else.

Now, with that being said, I believe I’m a very giving person with my time and knowledge. I love helping people learn and teaching them everything I know. I attend events, create content and all around do a lot of things for other people’s benefit and don’t make a dime doing it. But, you know what? Giving it all away for free is not a way to make a living.

I’ve been seeing more and more people complaining about individuals or groups deciding to charge for some of what they create. This give ME mentality reminds me of whiney first graders who can’t always get a cookie every time they ask for one. Not only do they want fries, but they want them drowned in gravy, covered in cheese and then fed to them by a half naked waitress with a cute smile. In other words, they want it all and they want it on their terms.

There is no magic formula that works for everyone on what you should and shouldn’t charge for. But, giving everything away for free does not keep a roof over your head or food on the table. Everyone in this world has to have an income flow to maintain a happy life. That amount of money is different for each of us and none of us have the right to judge someone else for what they decide to monetize.

I’m at a point in my career where I’m figuring out that balance. Yes, I still do plenty of things for free, but on the flipside I also have to make a living so I charge for things as well. I haven’t figure out the perfect balance yet, but I would hope that others would respect and support my decisions that I make. If you don’t want to pay for me and what I provide, then there are plenty of others who you could ask instead.

I have to be smart about this because my time is money. Just the other day I had to pass on a very good paying speaking assignment because I had already committed to a free speaking engagement. Yes, that is the choice I made, but when you see that money disappear it is never easy. Given the choice between a free or paid speaking gig, the paid assignment always wins.

I know that most of what I’m seeing out there is good old fashion jealousy from people who are not willing to work as hard as it takes to find the success that they crave. These sort of people hope that by trying to chop down pedestals they will somehow gain attention. To me, they are just cutting themselves off at the knees and not doing any good for anyone.

It is very easy to scream give me, give me when you are standing on shore hoping to catch a fish. Come on and dive in to the deep end where you have to swim to survive and then we can talk.

Now, I got a good laugh out of this because it was obvious to me something was borked on their site (they are having DB issues), but I’m also sure that more than one person out there who hasn’t figured out what truly matters in life had a heart attack when they did their daily check of their score.

But, this raises an important point that I’ve been trying to make to my clients and co-workers for years.

That is that you can not measure online influence by numbers alone.

This is not a slam of Klout because I think their service and business model is an interesting one. Plus, I’ve been on the receiving end of some fun Klout Perks from time to time. They are a very helpful tool to use when looking for people you may want to reach out to on behalf of your company or client.

I’ve pulled together lists for this purpose numerous times over the years. We always used a mixed bag of tools to build our lists because no single tool will ever get it right on it’s own. I’m sure this morning interns somewhere are pulling together an influencer outreach list and if they only used Klout to get that list while they are having some problems there is going to be hell to pay in a few weeks when their list prooves to be faulty.

Numbers are important. But, you’ve got to look beyond them to look at the person behind the numbers. Who are they? What do they do? Just because they tweet about a topic a lot does not make them an expert or influencer in that area.

I’ve watched more than one person take these sorts of numbers and suddenly think themselves more important magically because a system told them they were special. That is both dangerous and a bit sad at the same time. What does it say about a person who only finds worth and validation from numbers?

Klout will fix their bug shortly, but will you fix your idea of how to define and find influence? Please always think beyond just the numbers.

Yes, I’m being a bit snarky today and I think most of you will get that. But, I also have a feeling that when this title hits Twitter, I guarantee more than one person will retweet it without even looking at what it is. Far too many people in today’s world are blind and follow like mindless zombie sheep.

I hadn’t stopped laughing and cheering from reading Peter Shankman’s post on the burning of all social media experts this morning before I saw three different plugs from people promoting their secrets of social media. They all said it a little different, but the timing couldn’t have been funnier to me.

The truth of the matter is that to succeed you need to be creative, hard working and a bit lucky. If you are not those three things then you need to work with people who are.

Sure, I’m over simplifying to boil it down to the absolute bare minimum, but I can promise you that without all three of those you won’t get where you are trying to go.

Now, I don’t want this to just be a big old rant so I’ve got to share this awesome proof of one of our Content Rules – “Do Something Unexpected.” Enjoy.

Dear Lazy Agency Worker Bees,

It has come to my attention that as social media has become more popular, that you’ve decided that taking the easy way without doing enough research would be beneficial to your bottom line.

I’d like to inform you just how lazy you’ve become and why you are not doing it right.

Earlier today I received two separate pitch e-mails that were nothing more then a mail merge fail mixed with a generic form letter. I include them here so that you can appreciate their utter laziness and lack of care for the client that you are pitching.

Exhibit A is fairly typical because since I created Digital Dads I’m automatically added to every mommy blogger list out there. Nothing makes me feel more like a warm, cuddly, feminine woman than a form letter written to a man. (Yes, update your spreadsheet because I’m a man not a woman.)

Exhibit B was a new one for me and I’m not sure if you were surfing for casting couch porn just before sending me the e-mail or something else, but I love that I’m more to you than just an XXX.

I’m writing you this letter because nothing upsets me more then watching an agency take a client’s money and then do poor work for them. Sending e-mails like this not only hurts your reputation, but really hurts your client’s as well.

I love being pitched about relevant topics. If you have something to do with travel, photography, technology, parenting, food, drink or a million other topics then I am interested. I love getting e-mails about things that I’m interested in. But, when you come to be about diapers (my kids are 10 & 12), makeup or anything else that as a red blooded male there is no way I’d be using then you’ve wasted my time and your client’s money.

I ran a marketing agency. I’ve planned and executed outreach campaigns for numerous clients. I teach companies and students how to properly use online technology to do their jobs better. I’m only telling you this so that you realize I in fact do know what I’m talking about.

I’m not sure when exactly you got so lazy, but I’m betting it was after you read one too many Top 10 Secrets to Success posts, watched far to many “expert” webinars and probably bought a few too many instant success eBooks. Your on the hunt for a silver bullet and I wanted to inform you that there are none.

If you want to do influencer outreach, then you need to do the work, research and planning that is required to be successful. Banish mail merge from your vocabulary and send out each e-mail pitch to the individual you want to reach. If nothing else spend five minutes going to their blog and Twitter account to learn a little more about them and use basic old school manners to talk to them like a human.

You’ve gotten lazy and no one likes the way you are doing business. If you ever hope to get my attention for your clients new whatever, you’ve got to put in the time too. Play by my rules or go home. There is no other option.

Peace and be wild y’all.

- C.C. Chapman

I give a lot of webinars and have a bit of a love hate relationship with them.

As someone who thrives off the energy of a crowd, I prefer to present on stage and in person so that I have that direct connection with my audience. But, I also love that I can do multiple webinars in a week from anywhere in the world and it doesn’t require myself or the participants to travel to be part of it. Thus, the love hate.

But, I’m seeing a trend in pre-recorded webinars and I’ve made a decision that I am no longer going to pre-record webinars. The safety net of these makes them not as good as live ones.

I can back this up from years of doing theater productions. While you can do a million dress rehearsals and press runs, there is nothing like the energy that happens on opening night. It is the first time you are doing the show in front of a live audience and everyone knows that they have to be “on” and deliver the best performance of their lives to make it enjoyable for everyone in the audience.

The same thing happens when you do a webinar. You have to be on, animated and fully ready to talk to the crowd as if it is the first time you’ve ever given it.

With Content Rules being out, we are averaging at least one webinar a week. A lot of the content is the same, but each time we give it there is a unique feeling to it based on when and where we give the presentation and no two are ever the same.

Last week Ann and I were together for the first time giving one and we had a caterer making veggie plates ready in the background (photo taken during the webinar). Talk about a live audience! Best part though was that everyone on webinar commented about how they loved the energy level of the webinar compared to many they have ever attended. You can get the recording here.

But, recently I’ve been asked several times about pre-recording a webinar and then doing the question and answer portion live. This is not fair to the people who sign up to take part in the webinar. It is also not smart when this industry changes so frequently and any presentation should always include the most up to date information possible.

I was just asked to pre-record a webinar on Facebook Pages. Talk about a topic that changes every week and I am currently trying to change the organization’s mind. When I agreed to give the webinar, I did not know they wanted to pre-record it. Now I’m going to always ask that up front to any company that approaches me about doing a webinar.

Webinars are powerful content. They are smart things that companies should do. Heck, we dedicated one of the biggest chapters of the book to helping people conduct them better.

I will continue to give webinars and continue to have mix emotions about them.

But, I won’t be pre-recording them for anyone who asks.

Being a nice guy means that I’ll go out of my way to help as many people as possible. If you’re a friend, then I’ll go even above and beyond that to help out. Throughout my life, I’ve been the shoulder that people come to cry on and the ear that people confess their secrets to. It’s who I am. It’s how I want to live my life.

That said, I also have a family, mortgage and bills to pay. I want to send my children to college and ensure that there is food on the table every night for supper. In order to do that, I must have income to cover my expenses.

Lately, being a “nice guy” seems to be getting in my way of being paid. People and organizations make the assumption that in return for them buying me a drink or putting me on stage in front of an audience, they’ll get everything from me, for free. I make a living as a consultant, speaker and creator. In order to continue doing that, I must be paid for the services I offer.

I know that I’m not alone in these thoughts, as I’ve spoken to numerous friends and colleagues who are seeing and experiencing the same thing. An example: Conferences will charge attendees to come, but won’t even cover travel for speakers. Another: The growing trend of “pint consulting,” where in exchange for a cup of coffee or a glass of beer, a company will expect to pick your brain. I want to help the world become a better place, but I also must take care of my life and family.

This post isn’t meant to be a personal pity party. My hope is to shine a light on a problem that is becoming more prevalent. With so many nice guys and girls out there wanting to help people, they’re getting taken advantage of. In this world — where many things can be had for free — people are starting to expect everything for free. That is not sustainable.

So, the next time you think about reaching out to someone to pick their brain or to give them exposure so your company/event/organization can make money, stop and realize that they need to make some as well.

I’ll always be a nice guy. Will you be nice to me is the question?

Once I stopped laughing from the complete absurdity of it all, I figured it was a good time to remind you all that while everyone talks about making viral videos and forcing things to go viral, it is all a big myth.

We talk about it in Content Rules, that you can not force anything to go viral. I always use a quote I heard at SXSW last year that if you want something to go viral just put boobs or kittens in it. Even that isn’t a guarantee.

There is a myth in the marketing world that you can force content to go viral and I’m here to tell you once again: IT IS A MYTH!

The beauty about the world we live in now is that at any moment you can’t guess what might grab the world’s attention. You can’t buy it. You can’t schedule it. You can only create something that is awesome, compelling and invokes an emotional response. After that, you have zero control.

So instead of focusing on how many views, buzz and warm fuzzies you want to get, why not focus on what you hope to get out of the content and then create it in the best possible way.

If you are ever lucky enough to have something go viral, are you even set up to capture that momentum and do something with it? Sure, a lot of people might watch your video, but then what? How does that help your business? How does it make you more money?

They just showed the video and guess what? It was nicely done, but I’ve seen it before. There was nothing original in it. It was an imitation of a sing along that we’ve all seen before. They didn’t even change the song. It left me yawning. They had the chance to create something truly unique and instead they rehashed something we’ve all seen done before.

Anyone got a connection at NBC to have me on to chat about how it could have been done better and the myth of making content go viral?

Don’t embrace the myth and stop spreading the virus.

We’ve all seen them. The people who have an unrealistic sense of reality, followed by an inflated sense of self worth. The really bad ones also have a delusional opinion of themselves in a celebrity/rock star level that goes straight to their head.

They are the ones who actually walk up to a booth at a conference and say, “you really should give me one of your products because I’m a ______ blogger” and then proceed to pimp themselves. They are also the ones who stand in line at a coffee shop and openly say “I really should tweet about how slow the line is to see if they are paying attention.”

Both of these I witnessed while at Blogworld and both times I had to walk away so I didn’t punch the people doing it.

Let me explain something to everyone right now. If you have to tell someone you are influential, then you are not. It IS as black and white as that.

If you want a brand to pay attention to you, do business with you or give you free stuff then spend time getting to know them. If you have a level of influence or a voice that they are interested in then it will proceed from there. No one likes to start a conversation with you telling them how awesome you are and that they should give you free stuff.

We’ve all tweeted in anger. It’s a great bitching platform and we’ve all fallen victim to it’s tempting nature (I sure have on more than one occasion), but next time you have the impulse to WAH out loud, stop and think if it is really going to help anyone? Most of all, think about the light it is going to paint you in if it is all you ever do. Got it?

I’m a business person first and a content creator second. I know how business is conducted and way to many people in this space seem to lack the basic common courtesy skills that will make them successful. Can you believe that during one of my sessions I actually witnessed someone go up to another individual who had just asked a question and started pitching them during my talk? That kind of stuff should not be happening. Didn’t our parents raise us better than this?

If I read one more story about someone threatening bad coverage if they are not given what they want I’m going to scream. Also, trust me when I tell you that the brands are making note of who is full of WAH and who is full of reality. I’ve spoken to more than one company, who has told me horror stories about certain individuals and in case you didn’t know, this is a SMALL fishbowl we are playing in so everyone talks to everyone else.

Get over yourself and start acting better. No one likes a cry baby or an overly pushy blogger. If you want to do business in this space, drop the attitude and figure out that screaming WAH all the time is not going to get you anywhere. Find your sense of ethics, reality and basic common courtesy and then go out there and be successful.

There is a Facebook equation that most people will never need to know or pay attention to until it becomes a problem for them like it did for me this week.

Number of friends + Number of Fan Pages you are a fan of = Must be less then 5,000 total

Now, I never thought I’d have to worry about this equation. I had seen people like Robert Scoble and Jeff Pulver openly complain about this in the past and I didn’t get it. But, now I do. I really do, and I’m not liking it.

I am an open connector on Facebook as well as most other sites. I have a lot of people who want to connect with me because they listen to my podcasts, like my photos, have seen me speak or just because we share a lot of similar buddies. But, the problem is that I can’t add anyone more on Facebook right now.

I set up the C.C. Chapman Fan Page months ago, but never really did much with it. The word “fan” is a strange one to me, so it feels very weird to use that page in the way Facebook intended it. But, now I almost have to send people there rather then to my profile unless we are truly Friends or have more then just a passing connection.

But, where do I draw that line without hurting anyone’s feelings? It is a sucky thing based on a number that Facebook has set and doesn’t seem to want to change. I certainly don’t have 5,000 close Friends, but I do have a community of people that I like to stay in contact with and right now Facebook allows me to do that better then most.

I’m doing my best to figure it out right now. Earlier today I openly said that I wished Facebook would require some message along with each friend request so I can actually know who someone is. I always look at our mutual friends and a person’s profile to get information, but sometimes I just don’t know who they are and have to hit ignore now and I hate that. In the past I’d accept almost any request and then start getting to know them through their Facebook postings.

I also went through and “un-fanned” (is that a word?) a bunch of pages that at some point I had joined, but didn’t make the cut for one reason or another. Now I’ve got to be really selective on what I become a fan of. Show me where that makes sense to Facebook?

It is obvious to me that I have to use my fan page more now. But, I refuse to use it in the shilling nature that it instantly gives me in my stomach as I type this out. I want it to remain personable and ME or else why do it? So please bear with me while I figure this all out and try to find a nice balance that works for me and for you.

Facebook makes the rules and I get that, but I don’t understand this one at all. Then again I never was much of a fan of math. *grin*

I hate to break the news to you, but I’ve got the power in this relationship and you have NONE.

I can write about anything I want. I can say whatever I want. No one but myself chooses when and what I write about or how I do it.

As much as you’d like to influence me and my community, at the end of the day unless you are hiring me in some fashion, then you don’t have permission to nag, pester or bug me in any way since this is a one sided relationship and I can dump you at anytime without so much as caring.

Most of you still need a pitching lesson, but today I want you to realize that after the pitch has got my attention and we are moving on that you can’t turn into a nag or it won’t work out.

Recently I was reached out to by an agency about a new television show. They sent me a USB thumb drive with a copy of the show on it. I get a lot of things like this in the mail so I hadn’t had a chance to watch it yet. I got a polite nudge from the agency asking if I planned to write a review and letting me know that the premiere was upcoming so they hoped I could write it before then.

Totally cool and I wrote them back thanking them (since they had never told me about the date so I wasn’t in any hurry to write it until then) and had every plan of watching it this weekend and writing a review and told them so. There is nothing wrong with a polite nudge and in many cases it is needed and in this case was perfect since I didn’t know there was a time table involved.

But, then for the past two days I got not so polite notes from them asking where the review was and why I hadn’t sent them a link yet.

This is where they blew it. This is where they treated me like cattle that owed them something and I politely wrote them back letting them know that because of their nagging I would no longer be posting a review.

I’ve got a lot of things on my plate. I have a full time job, run several websites, produce lots of content and am an active dad. While getting to see something before the rest of the world is cool and I appreciate it. It doesn’t rock my socks so much that I’m going to put up with a lack of good old fashion common courtesies.

I want you to reach out to me. I want to be part of your campaigns and review your products. I would love to have some sort of professional or casual relationship with you and your brand(s). But, you can’t abandon straight up good manners if you want that too. Pestering will not get you any coverage from me now or in the future. Be polite please?

Just because I follow you on Twitter or we are connected on any other social network, does not mean that we are buddies, friends or instantly connected by the mystical powers of the Internet.

What it does mean is that we’ve begun a relationship and if I’ve hit accept in some form then it means that I’d love to get to know you better. By speaking to thousands around the world via my podcasts, public speaking and other avenues I connect with a lot of people. I’m very open on accepting connection requests on most services.

Lately though I’ve been getting a lot of direct messages (Twitter’s way of sending a message to a single individual) from people I don’t really know asking me to do something. Retweet this. Blog about that. Share with your community.

I know that there is always going to be a certain level of that with the level of exposure I can give to something. But, whenever one of those comes in my first instinct is to unfollow that person rather than checking out what they are trying to get me interested.

Just because you have a megaphone, you don’t go walking into a cocktail party and start shouting out what you do and who you want to meet do you? Same thing online. Take the extra couple of minutes and drop me an e-mail to say hello and tell me about whatever it is that you want me to talk about. If you are really that passionate about it then I don’t know how you can fit that passion into only 140 characters.

I’m the type of guy that loves to highlight good things being done by great people. Anyone that follows me on Twitter will see that I share a lot of links to a variety of topics. I will always do that, but your link will not be one of them if the first thing I’ve ever heard from you is the ask.

Take the time to at least say hello to people online before you start pitching them and asking them for favors. It is the only way you or your company is going to be successful in this crazy world of the Internet.

Am I wrong?

Last night Laura and I went car shopping and what was interesting was just how different we were treated at each dealership.

1. At the first one we were barely noticed and when someone finally did come over to us to let us know that they’d have someone talk to us as soon as they can, we had already made our mind up about the car. Of course we couldn’t open up the back which is something we really wanted to check out and when we asked about it we got a boiler plate, “sorry about that” and he walked off.
2. At the second, as soon as we got on the lot we were greeted. As we walked over to look at a car that fit what we were looking for we had to stop by the show floor so the salesman could get his cigarettes. I thought nothing of it till he lit up while talking to us about the car on the lot. Talk about instant decision never to buy a car from this dealership ever!
3. At the final one we were greeted right away and shown a couple of options. They talked to us about the car and asked if we’d like to test drive it. We took it out for a spin, had a great conversation with the salesman and at the end he thanked us, gave us his business card and encouraged us to call him with any questions we might have.

Each of these left a longing first impression on me and as the saying goes, you only get one chance to make a first impression.

These first interactions will determine where I will spend my money and who I will recommend to others. I’m not alone in this and no matter what your business is you MUST be making a good first impression because everyone has options and no one has to buy from you.

This reaches beyond business of course as well. Each person you meet, you are making an impression on. We all form opinions about you the moment we meet you.

What are you doing to make sure that the first impression you give is a good one?

Photo Credit: Becky Lai (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

This week I ran into a wall when this giving put me in a spot I have been before. Where while it may not cost the person I am helping anything, it certainly costs me time and energy which too often I think people forget are both very valuable resources.

My brain has been noodling around what to say about this and I’m still not sure. In the world we live today, it is more important then ever to help out other people because so many people need it. But, please don’t forget that something as simple as a thank you goes a long way.

So the next time that person holds the door open for you, lets you go first or answers a question you really needed help on show your appreciation in whatever little way you can.

Free is a dangerous word because no matter what you think it always costs someone something.

Then this morning I had the urge to record a Managing the Gray. I wanted to do something different so I sat down on my couch in the living room and gave this new iPhone Application called iTalk a spin. I had tested the audio quality before and was VERY impressed with it.

But, as I played it back in CastBlaster, there was this loud beep every few minutes. It was short and nothing too major, but I couldn’t imagine someone listening to that with headphones and what it would feel like. So I ditched the show. I’ve contacted Griffin about it because I think they have an amazing application, but that one little thing is a deal breaker for me.

One good bit of news (and I talked about it on the podcast) was that I received the new book Tactical Transparency by Shel Holtz and John C. Havens. I can’t wait to read it and share my thoughts.

So while I’m not a golfer at all, I’ve always loved the term for a do-over or a mulligan.

I’m calling a mulligan on this morning and starting over. It’s the only way to keep my sanity. At least until I get about an hour on the water with my canoe which was suggested by my buddy Andy and I love the idea.

Is it just because it is a Monday? I don’t think so because I’ve been in a great mood all day, but this has been bugging me.

People need to stop worrying about how many followers, friends, comments, responses and all around strokes they get and focus more on creating content that they want to produce.

When I find a video, photo, blog post, etc that I like, I tend to look at what else that person has created. If it interests me then I begin to follow them through the proper channels to see what else they create. I don’t care if they have an audience of one or one thousand. They are interesting to me and I pay attention.

Why can’t everyone focus more on being themselves and creating content they enjoy creating rather then focusing on the “reach” or “hits” they get. Don’t get me wrong, I am flattered whenever something I’m involved in gets attention and noticed. Everyone loves that. But, should it be the focus and reason you do what you do? I think not.

I guess I wish more people would stop worrying about how to get the spot light to focus on them and focus themselves on creating informative and entertaining content.

< / rant >

Ah….I feel better. Had to get that one out of the brain because it kept boiling around in there.

I got an invite to check out Quechup from a podsafe artist that I dig so I figured I’d check it out, sign up and see what happens. None us need another social network site, but I also think signing up for an account just to check it out is a good thing.

I had it check my address book and it found a whopping 2 people on the network I knew. I sent them friend requests and then proceeded to check out the rest of the site.

Fast forward a few minutes and my inbox starts filling up with auto return messages, out of office messages and all sorts of other things. I couldn’t figure out what was going on and it turns out that this system WITHOUT MY PERMISSION just sent invites to my whole address book.

Hey staff at Quechup, what gives you the right to do that? I’ll reach out to my contacts when I believe in something, but don’t you dare do it without my permission.

If you got one of these from me I apologize. I don’t ever invite or recommend until I think there might be some value in something and right now I’m not seeing ANY value in this site since they are obviously clueless to how things need to work.

This type of shit really pisses me off. Blatant cluelessness is inexcusable.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R06dAgpmmbg[/youtube]

Rather then blogging I felt a video was in order.

Warning I use the word “whore” in this video and thus I flagged it as explicit because I don’t want a parent to be watching it front of their kids or a working watching it at work without fair warning.

Kaneva is  very interesting mesh between 2-D social networking and 3D viritual worlds. It’s brand new and I was psyched to try it out.

Today and I got an invitation to try out the virtual world aspect and jumped at it. Unlike many people though I read NDA’s before signing them and there were two points in their that instantly made me quit and forget about the system all together.

- You must not represent or be employed by any company, publisher or distributor engaged in developing, publishing or distributing electronic video games and/or virtual worlds.

- You may not publicly discuss your status as a member of the World of Kaneva testing program.

The first one instantly cancels me out because of the work I do in Second Life with crayon.

The second one is just stupid. It’s a SOCIAL network and thus your going to be talking to the people in world and on their site about being part of the program. If it’s on the web. It’s public. HELLO!!!

I really hope the people at Kaneva are watching for conversations about them on the web and can react to this. They have SO much potential, but they are cutting off the community that wants to help make them a success.