Social Media Top 5: Five Years From Now, People Will Still be Making Know-Nothing Predictions

“Presentists” and “Everything is Dead (this one counts as 2)

Both Mitch Joel (in a post called “Presentists“) and Danny Brown (“Everything is Dead- didn’t You Get the Memo?”) recently struck close to something that I have long agreed with: making pronouncements, “definitive” lists, and declaring “the end” of things is empty-headed, know-nothing attention seeking. It often works, but at what cost? Does anyone really believe that print will be gone in 5 years, or social media means the end of PR/marketing/advertising/yard sales/whatever? I hope not. I try not too make pronouncements of things that I could not possibly know. Acknowledging emerging trends and keeping one’s head out of the sand is one thing, but trying to look smart (and in the end, failing in my opinion) is not very productive. I think we all know people – including people we respect- who have done this- next time, slap them upside the head and tell them to stop.

Catch 22: Do something to get noticed, but if you’re busy doing something….

I have been a big fan of Tamsen McMahon since I met her at PodCamp boston last year, and am glad she is writing often on the Brass Tack Thinking blog with Amber Naslund (and yes, I have called the blog “Brassy Tactics.” I’m a naughty boy). It’s no surprise that her posts have caught my eye- and my brain, including a recent one called “How to Raise Your Profile, Online and Off.” In it, she writes:

“…you have to do something to get noticed. We can’t just show up anymore.”

The paradox, is that many people are doing things, and are so busy doing things that they can’t do the “get noticed” stuff as well as others might like them to. To many of us, “doing something” is paid work and “getting noticed” is blogging, personal branding, etc. That’s ok, though striking a balance between the two (raising profile and actually doing work) makes sense. I don’t necessarily say that Tamsen is defining things the same way, but that’s how I see it.

“Avoid Narcissism” on Twitter? What kind of hare-brained…

My good friend Adam Cohen thought Twitter should be about “talking to us” not “following us.” To that end, he designed some Twitter badges for companies to use saying so. He has a point. What do you think?

Buh-Bye Google Wave, We Hardly Knew Ye

So Google is halting development on Wave, its open collaboration tool. Did Wave really suck? I don’t think so- I thought it had possibilities and used it effectively for a few projects, but it was hard to understand at first- not intuitive as new users were essentially greeted with a blank slate and no guidebook (not a useful one anyway). Another question– is it really gone? Open standards mean someone could run with it, right?