First off, I hope someone from HOA reads this because they need to know that this tool needs some usability tweaking. So many people I work with day-to-day are used to their iPads and other Apple-y type user experiences that eliminate features in order to simplify interfaces. G+ and HOA are definitely designed for an advanced user. That being said, I was able to simplify it enough for the parties involved that the experience went quite smoothly so I thought others would find my tips and tutorial interesting, too!

Why Hangouts On Air?

There really isn’t another free tool out there like it. There are plenty of group video applications and lots of ways to meet via video online, but nothing that publishes directly to YouTube AS IT HAPPENS. There were a few ways to broadcast what you were doing that came out over the years, but I love the combination of getting together a group while broadcasting the interaction. It’s a great way to conduct a panel on a topic or, like what I worked on, create the opportunity for a public figure (politician, celebrity, CEO of a major brand) to interact casually with their audience – answering questions in real time.

The upsides of HOA are:

1. Free to use
2. Can involve up to 10 accounts logging in at  a time (in our case, dozens of people were at each account)
3. Streams live to YouTube, so more people can watch and comment there

The downsides of HOA are:

1. It’s a bit buggy
2. Can’t get a URL on YouTube to promote the event until you actually start the HOA gathering (which is a pain)
3. It’s not the most smooth user experience and requires some mega technical guidance for most

All things considered, it is a really nifty tool.

How to Plan Your Hangout On Air

There are all sorts of catches to planning a HOA. The more people you involve, the more you need to deal with varying levels of tech savviness, different time zones and all sorts of other factors. The job of organizing and running an HOA is to mitigate the risk and plan for as many potential disasters as possible.

The first thing you’ll need to do to get all of your participants to get G+ accounts so they can get familiar with the platform. Though many more tech savvy people I know have gMail accounts, not everyone will. But I found it easiest to have people create their G+ accounts after getting them to set up a gMail account.

The instructions I sent were, “Click the +__(yourname)___ in the dark grey bar in the upper left part of your browser screen” and I would add a screenshot:

Google will have you jump through a few hoops, but once you are in your Google+ account, it should look like this:

Start poking around to set your name and avatar. Click on the left hand menu items like PROFILE where you can edit your profile, adding a photo, changing your display name and adding any personal relevant information about yourself:

Once you set up your account, it’s time to do the ‘following’, which is called ‘adding to circles’ in G+. (Feedback for Google – this should be a next level feature, not a first level feature. I should be able to find and follow people, THEN organize them later. The circle thing is incredibly confusing.)

In order to make this easier, I asked the participants to send their Google+ URLs and sent them a screenshot of how they can find their URLs (not pretty by social web standards. Hopefully Google will fix this soon):

They needed to click on PROFILE and then copy and paste the https://plus.google.com/u/1/reallyreallylongnumber/ and send it to me.  I’d add them to my circles, which would notify them so they could just add me to theirs.

This step isn’t 100% necessary, but I created circles especially made for the participants of each HOA so I could just invite them all at once.

I also did a test run with as many of the 16 participants (8 in each HOA) as I could ahead of time. We scheduled a time where I’d launch a HOA and invite them. 9 times out of 10, they didn’t receive the invitation, so I sent them the URL from the actual HOA. They would click on it and join instantly.

So, in order to make sure everyone felt more comfortable and things were set up right, I did a practice run with everyone I could. It takes only about 15 minutes and it made things run MUCH more smoothly. I also helped them set up and save their Lower Third, which I’ll explain in a bit.

The Basic Tips to Send for an HOA Ahead of Time

Because I couldn’t coordinate with all of the participants ahead of time, I sent instructions on setting up:
A. What you will need:

a. a laptop with camera  (NOTE: does NOT work with an iPad)
b. LAN connection – plug in for connectivity – so there is no delay

B. General Tips:

1. make sure you have good lighting – this is very important
2. make sure you are in a quiet area. Using the laptop mic will be fine, but no ambience (tv, radio, people talking in the background, etc).
3. MUTE YOURSELF anytime you are not speaking.

C. Setup Steps:

1 hour ahead of the time we are starting the broadcast:

1. go to: https://plus.google.com/

2. log into your google+ account

3. You should see a RED number by your avatar:

Click on that. There should be an event invitation that looks like this:

4. Click on the arrow and JOIN HANGOUT to join the event.

5. This will open a new window with the hangout.

IF YOU DO NOT SEE THIS NOTIFICATION by 45 minutes ahead of time, check your email inbox. I will be sending you a very ugly URL to click on. It will look something like this:

https://plus.google.com/hangouts/_/edf2850dc489dcacf72187f288b4cdeae6534b96?authuser=0&hl=en-GB

Clicking on this URL (or copying and pasting it into a new browser tab or window) will allow you to join the Hangout instantly.

6. Next you should create your LOWER THIRD. A Lower Third is that fancy bar across the bottom of the screen that tells us who you are and where you are coming from:

You will need to install the Hangout Toolbox to do this. If you don’t already see the Toolbox in the menu of your left hand menu bar, you can install it by clicking on the “…” on the bottom of the menu on the left bar:

+ Add Apps

7. Then click on Hangout Toolbox:

+ Install hangout extension

8. You will now have a new RIGHT sidebar menu (right of your image) that looks like this:

Click on the first FACE + bar icon in the tab.

9. In the ‘Lower Third’ section, type in YOUR NAME + YOUR LOCATION + select ON (pick whatever color you’d like)

It will look like it is backwards, but don’t worry, it’s just a reflection of what everyone else will see.

10. When you have created your Lower Third, you can save it as a preset in case you need it later, then go back to your left hand menu and click chat so we can all communicate behind the scenes during the event.

What I Learned from my HOA

Sound and lighting is vitally important. The times when things didn’t work were when we got awful feedback because people didn’t mute their microphones or we couldn’t see the participants very well.

I would also advise that there be at least two of me (and presumably you) that are super well-trained to run the event. One to be like me and get people set up and moderate and control the show, the other to be able to run around, provide technical experience while things are going down and to make sure the ‘star attraction’ (in this case, Justin Trudeau) is set up, mutes the mic while he’s not talking (or can unmute it when he is) and is also being queued from that side.

Next time I’m going to have a more sophisticated system where we have walkie talkies or the like between the technical people behind the scenes.

Another issue I’m still trying to resolve is how to get the event promoted ahead of time other than through merely a HOA event listing on my Google+ page. Without initializing the event, I don’t get a URL on YouTube and I can’t just send people to the YouTube page. I’ll update this post if I get some tips for this (or a response from Google). I’d imagine that people that do Hangouts on Air want people to watch them, so it’s most likely a frequent request.

Yes, Hangouts themselves can be nice and casual ways to communicate and an HOA is a pretty hip way for someone to communicate with their audience, but there is a higher level of sophistication that should go on in the background to make it look as nifty as the Google+ promotion of HOA:

First off, the title of this post is misleading. There is no formula, everything is social and it’s not about the content at all.

But with that out of the way, there IS a different philosophy to creating social content and the key to uncovering it lies with a theory posited by Isaiah Berlin*, a philosopher in an essay called “The Hedgehog and the Fox” where he refers to a poem by the ancient Greek Archilochus, who describes the two characters as follows:

“The fox knows many little things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.”

Foxes are multidisciplinary, adaptable, self-critical, tolerant of complexity, cautious and empirical, while Hedgehogs are specialized, stalwart, stubborn, order-seeking, confident and ideological. While Hedgehogs look for evidence to support their beliefs and are highly susceptible to confirmation bias, Foxes tend to appear to the outside world as uncertain and a bit scattered.

Bear with me here. This matters.

Quite often, people seek out things like formulas and best practices and all sorts of ways to ensure the best outcomes. Books and posts and articles and infographics are gobbled up whole in order to satisfy an eager marketers desire to implement a ‘highly impactful’ content strategy. These types are Hedgehogs. They will see a popular 700×700 inspirational quote being passed around Facebook like wildfire and think, “A-ha! That’s the key! We need to create more square inspirational quotes!” This results in something like this:

Not saying that these sorts of techniques are without merit. Hell, it’s been shared 225x and liked 1,274x. I, myself, have deployed a few of these bad boys and achieved great results. But when analyzing any data behind the content I’ve produced, there just isn’t enough evidence to support that a formula alone makes for good, sharable, interesting content. And formulas grow tired and have declining returns.

Hedgehogs use formulas and pump out content that satisfies formulas and when the returns on that content decline, they look around and find new formulas to mimic. This is not only unsustainable, but it’s insulting to the people who are following your content. These messages speak to the choir (who will sing on key), but will rarely incite others to join in.

Foxes, on the other hand, approach content very differently. They may pick up ideas from what’s hip and happening and learn from other successes, but they spend WAY more time figuring out what it is that their customers really care about and work on delivering THAT. This takes all of the multi-disciplinary, adaptable, self-critical, tolerance for complexity and empirical talent they have. They can’t “plan” a calendar months in advance. That would be ludicrous and a waste of time. Their content morphs and bends with too many variables, the biggest of which is the needs of the audience itself.

I wrote about these Foxy creatures at length in my last post on content. It’s not hard to find them, either. Just look at the YouTubers that are killing it with subscribers. Two of them stayed at my house last weekend and when Carlos asked them about their ‘secret sauce’, they looked at him puzzled. In their minds, there was no such thing as a ‘secret sauce’. They just run around with a camera and whatever they think is funny, they record and post. When I told them there were some basic principles, they pushed back and said, “If you start using rules, you stop using your instincts.”

IF YOU START USING RULES, YOU STOP USING YOUR INSTINCTS.

That is a phrase very much worth repeating. Whether it’s Roman and Dennis of SerialPranksters or the incredibly funny Jenna Marbles or my personal fave Hanna Hart, there is no way you can decipher a formula for success. The only things they have in common is that they are naturally funny, have great instincts for what others will find funny and just keep producing. Sometimes they produce huge hits and sometimes they produce misses, but they are consistent and adaptive. (and uniquely themselves)

I’ve tried to explain to clients over the years that the best gauge of what will be well-received is something that they, themselves, would find entertaining or useful. But Hedgehogs have a very tough time shifting to this perspective.

“I would find my PRODUCT entertaining and useful. It’s the BEST!” they answer.

This is where the self-critical aspect comes into play. Most Foxes will say that they are really bad salespeople, but in actuality, they are great salespeople…especially in a cynical world. They don’t think of themselves or their product as “the most amazing whatever”. They never stop wanting to improve and, as a result, end up growing rabid fan-bases because of their humble approach and customer empathy. Many beloved brands I’ve studied carry the self-critical gene: Zappos, Threadless (their motto was actually, “We are never good enough”), Etsy, and Southwest Airlines…just to name a few. They are more focused on their customer’s happiness than their own any day and it shows with loyalty and sales.

But back to content. There is no secret because ‘secrets’ and ‘formulas’ and ‘best-practices’ belong in the realm of Hedgehogs. But if you are a stubborn Hedgehog, and you admit it, there ARE a few ways to become more Foxy:

1. put down the content calendar and just hang out with your customers (AND your competitors’ customers) more. Not with a clipboard taking notes or with the desire to convince anyone to try your product. JUST CHILL and absorb.
2. stop thinking of your audience as content consumers. They do not live for your ‘sharables’. They aren’t sitting with index fingers hovering over the like button, eagerly awaiting your next witty post. They have lives and you are a small, teensy part of their daily thoughts. If they don’t think of anything else other than you, you have a bigger problem on your hands.
3. go to a movie, read a book, subscribe to blogs, skim through magazines — outside of your industry and outside of your comfort area. Embrace diversity and different points of view. Have conversations with people you would never dream of having conversations with.
4. think really hard about what you are truly passionate about. What makes you laugh, cry, sing…what inspires you. What are you drawn to? Think about this honestly outside of the context of your business. Do more of that. Learn how to trust your instincts again and when they lead you astray…
5. don’t fret. Some things will work and some things won’t. But keep going and learning from those mistakes. Take criticism with a grain of salt and start to learn what is constructive and what is not. Being experimental and open doesn’t mean you have to bend with every whim either. You’ll learn over time and hone that instinct beautifully.

The ‘secret’ to great social content is about a new approach to thinking. One that is service-oriented and empathetic. A question I always pose to people I work with on content is, “Is this going to make people feel better? Smarter? More in control of their lives? Help them look good to their friends? Help them make more friends? Give them tools to grow? Save them a headache? Time?” If the answer is no, you are really just adding noise. If a tv, paper or magazine constantly put out content that did nothing but serve their own interests, they wouldn’t last long. Every brand has to think like a newsroom now (while every newsroom has to think like a brand, really).

So the secret? Think like a fox, stop following advice and tap into those instincts.

———————————————

* credit where credit is due: I read about Berlin in Nate Silver’s awesome book The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail-but Some Don’t - where the theory inspired this entire post. And I can’t help but point out that I did not gain inspiration for a post by reading a social media book, but a book about statistics, predicting outcomes, sports and politics.

As Internet Freedom Day approaches once again, I reflect on how this amazing platform has provided me with a voice I couldn’t have accessed otherwise. And I wonder, “Where would I be TODAY if it wasn’t for the internet and it’s openness?”

I was born and raised in a small town. It was a lovely town, but I always felt out of place. It was difficult to connect with like-minded people. The closest friend I had growing up lived a 2 hour drive away and calling her was long distance, so I was limited in my interactions with her. I met her at a summer camp and for years afterwards, our letters back and forth and all-too-brief visits made me feel like I was sane.

It wasn’t until I was 19 (it was 1992 – don’t do the math!) that I was introduced to the web. I was pregnant and going to night classes to learn some office software skills so I could get a better job after my son was born. A classmate introduced me to IRC and Usenet groups. I was incredibly blown away that there were people all over the world who shared ideas, stories, triumphs and defeats with near-complete strangers. But it felt right for me instantly. I meet dozens of new “friends” online who I felt closer to than most of the people around me.

As the population grew on the web, so did the tools and it became easier and easier for me to find like-minded people as well as people with opposing views who I learned so much from. I learned to do basic coding and built myself web pages. I sent notes of support to people half way around the world. When I started blogging in 2003 (I was late to the game. Most of my friends had started in 1999. I didn’t think I had anything interesting to say.), I discovered a whole new level of camaraderie and connection online.

Every time I was lost, the internet found me. Or rather, the people on the internet did, but without the platform, it wouldn’t have been possible. Because of the internet, I found a voice, I built a career, I wrote a book, I became a public speaker, I travelled all over the world, I met (and meet) thousands of interesting people I wouldn’t have otherwise, I started movements, I joined movements, I met my cofounders, I met the love of my life, I adopted my dog, I keep in touch with my son, I learn and grow every single day…I don’t know if I could even imagine a world without the web. My IRL world and my virtual world are interlinked so deeply that there are no clear boundaries.

So where would I be without the internet? Lost. Still looking for my voice. Probably still feeling isolated and somewhat of an oddball. I remember life before the web and, well, it wasn’t awful, but it certainly wasn’t what it became AFTER the web.

So I salute Internet Freedom Day and everyone who fights to keep it open and accessible and makes sure we focus on what it does for people like me. Thank you for finding me and giving me a voice. xo

It usually starts something like this:

Hey! Everyone I know is on Instagram! We should start an Instagram for the company!

The suggestion in itself isn’t wrong per se, it’s just not made with much of an understanding of how these social platforms work. It takes less than 5 minutes to set up an Instagram account (if you have an iPhone or an Android). That’s the simple part. But then the real work begins.

People who rarely use social networks love platforms…even when they, themselves, admit to not having enough time to use them. That’s pretty much what they see: platforms and the numbers. “Why aren’t we on Pinterest/Foursquare/Tumblr/Google+/You Tube/Instagram/etc?” they’ll ask. They’ll tell you about all sorts of other companies who have set up multiple accounts on multiple platforms and how they read about it on Mashable. They’ll hint at being concerned about your expertise or ability to execute because you haven’t created accounts everywhere. They may even say, “It takes 5 minutes to set it up!”

But what people who don’t use social networks much fail to understand is that picking a platform means that you need to create ongoing content for that platform. Content requires a strategy and ongoing production of said content. And monitoring, measuring and tweaking of that content (and strategy). And community management of the inbound reactions to that content, especially if, heaven willing, you do a great job of the content and your account on said platform gets very popular. And all of these things take a lot of time and deep understanding of your audience, your competitors, your product, the overall trends, current events, knowledge of the industry (and surrounding industries), analytics, what are best/worst practices, gathering of ideas, photoshop skills, camera skills, editing skills, a good eye for a shot skills, writing skills, translation skills, people skills and technical skills.

Creating content for a brand (company, organization or individual) is like running a news room…but even more complicated because it needs to be interactive. You need to plan out a certain amount of content (ideally daily for weeks in advance) for each platform like you would for each segment, then you also need to be on top of current events and issues to be able to switch it out on the fly to seize opportunities in the moment. You need to keep people entertained and continue to grow with your audience. You need to be relevant and entertaining, but create enough deep engagement that you are building a solid loyalty base.

In addition to this, you need to achieve your own goals through the content. If you are selling something, it’s number of sales leads. If you need sign ups to your app, you need to drive people to your site (off of whichever social network) to sign up. If you are raising money for a cause, you need to compel your followers to go and give money. There are several things you need to balance: building an audience and driving people to your goal (often off-site) and the two are mutually dependent. If your content isn’t entertaining, you’ll lose your audience, and have nobody to build loyalty and long term sales with, but if you only entertain and never convert them to buyers, you are wasting your time. And the balance is tricky.

And I haven’t even started to talk about how each platform needs to be approached from a different angle with unique content strategies. Cross-posting content between platforms rarely works. There are different rules (Twitter, for instance, is limited to 140 characters, while blog articles can go more in depth to make a point). There are different tones (Tumblr is fun and casual with a hipster flair for design, while Google+ takes a more information sharing and analytical tone). There are different audiences (Pinterest is dominated by women, while Reddit is male-heavy). There are different functions (Foursquare is great if you have physical locations to promote, while Quora is a fantastic way to show your expertise in an area). Different platforms work better with different media (YouTube is all videos, while Instagram is all images). And some platforms are richer than others (Sure Twitter allows for posting images and video, but the real time rapidity means you should focus on the text, while Facebook posts thrive with images and other ‘sharables’ and text falls flat).

All of this is to say: content doesn’t just appear magically out of thin air with a wave of a magic social fairy wand. And there have been many of my colleagues beating this drum for years, but their message is more and more prescient over time as every brand is expected to be on practically every platform, but have no idea what that means.

Why they hire interns or outsource to people to create this crucial content that is SUCH a crucial part of their marketing and customer relationships is beyond me. But part of it is education and part of it is the plethora of ‘gurus/ninjas/polkaroos‘ who know the buzzwords and how to copycat content, but not how to create relationships. People, you get what you pay for. But why should I be surprised? Companies spent decades outsourcing their customer service – the point of the best opportunity to create a lifelong loyal customer and evangelist – and have focused on new customer acquisition over the more lucrative current customer retention and growth opportunities for as long as I’ve been on this earth.

/rant

What I mean to say is: CONTENT IS IMPORTANT. And there is a specific skill and finesse to doing content well that may seem like magic to most people. It requires left/right brained people with sharp critical thinking skills. The type of people who have big libraries of books (that they actually read) and are constantly checking their mobile phones for the latest news and world events. This person consumes more content in a day than most people consume in a year. S/he has so much knowledge in her/his head from so many different industries and disciplines that s/he will connect dots you would NEVER think to connect and sometimes the connection is only clear in her/his head (but it is usually innovative). This person studies people and networks and gets giddy when the data uncovers counter-intuitive evidence. Her/his instincts are sharp even though s/he can’t fully explain where her/his idea comes from. This is not a full or completely accurate description of this person. But it’s a start. And that person should really be internal to your organization.

The thing is, it IS magic, but in the Arthur C. Clarke way (“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”). It rarely takes years of school to hone this skill. It’s not brain surgery or rocket science. But it does take years of life* (and some severe ADHD). And most of all, it takes a huge amount of respect…for the customers, the importance of content, the brand and the media.

There is a magic content wand, but most of the world are Muggles, and those of you with the magic should understand that it’s not so simple to describe magic to a Muggle. (so if you circulate this post, remove this last bit)

* I, by no means mean years as in one has to be older to be good at this. I know lots of 20-somethings that have ‘the knack’.

We see so much of this in politics now. It’s commonplace to have a political ad or statement be an outright lie and have the lie teller get away with it. Fact checkers during the 2012 Obama/Romney election went crazy. Even during the debates, stats were fudged and statements were made that were bold-faced lies. And even though fact checkers were quickly setting the record straight, the original lie stuck with more people than it should have.

And all of this was just exacerbated with social media. Infographics with half-the-story statistics spread around Facebook faster than the latest Kimye rumor. I started to get weary of sharing anything as every time I did, I’d get a slap on the wrist from followers (while dozens of others spread the not-so-accurate graphic).

We are all aware of this, but very few of us know where it came from or why it’s so damned effective.

It didn’t 100% start with Lee Atwater, but he definitely put on a great show of what you could get away with if you had no scruples. PR spinners had been effectively massaging the facts and pulling the wool over the eyes of the masses since the days of Eddie Bernays, but even these spinners had limits and played it careful. I highly recommend the movie to anyone who is curious about how attack ad in politics got it’s start (btw, Karl Rove is a ‘student’ of Lee Atwater, though I’d say he’s a much clumsier version. Atwater had a special level of apathy to what he was doing…until his deathbed when he realized that he had created a monster.).

But the origins are easier to stomach than the fact that negative political ads work so effectively at the end of the day. Even the Obama campaign deployed them heavily during this last election. The question has been asked and explored: Do Negative Political Ads Work? Well, in a way YES.

According to research, the way in which negative ads DON’T work is:

1. they won’t increase voter turnout

2. they don’t change the minds of people who already have a political leaning

But the way they DO work is that they get the attention of the people who are undecided. And really, that’s who all ads target, right?

According to an article on the Discovery network, human beings “are emotional creatures, wired to pay attention to harmful information.” We pay more attention to the negative stuff because paying attention to the negative stuff contributes more to our survival. The negative ads are stressful, but they make us engage and pay attention.

This spells bad news for the future of politics everywhere, even Canada, where attack ads are definitely on the rise. There is an upside to the downside: negative politics actually engages the disengaged at a certain level and even those who could care less about politics start to remember the issues. And this wouldn’t be so bad if the negative ads were fact based, but because of Atwater’s legacy, many strategists realized that lying is just no big deal.

But there is good news, too. It seems that the over-saturation of attack ads lessens the effect. A researcher and associate professor from the University of Miami, Juliana Fernandez, showed in experiments that the overuse of attack ads renders the ads less effective than no advertising at all:

In one experiment, Ms. Fernandes showed participants a 30-second negative advertisement one, three, or five times. Results indicated that that positive perception of the candidate sponsoring the ad was highest when the participants saw the ad three times and lowest when they saw it five times.

Which, thankfully, means that we have our limit. And according to the 7:1 ratio of negative to positive political ad placement in the last US election, I’m hoping we’ve reached it.

So how do you combat negative attack ads? Well, here is first what you should NOT do:

1. respond with negative attack ads

2. be silent/ignore them

3. dodge and change the topic

Past political candidates learnt the hard way that neither of these ‘reactions’ work well. Bill Clinton was a classic dodger and it earned him the nickname, “Slick Willy”. Michael Dukakis tried to ignore Bush’s attacks on his political past with stone cold silence and he paid a dear price for it (when one ‘side’ is delivering a sticky message, it’s best you respond quickly). Anyone who has responded to negativity with negativity has just come out looking like they were defensive (and thus guilty). The best way to combat negative ads is to do what we were taught as young children:

Counter with honesty and openness…and a little humor never hurts.

This works especially well now with the web and the public’s increased desire for ‘human’ and authentic interactions. Barack Obama, though his campaign was quite negative in itself, won HUGE points during the campaign when responding to negative ads by using honesty peppered with humor. One of my favorite moments was Barack Obama on the Tonight Show discussing the negative campaigning Donald Trump had been doing against him:

I’m hoping Obama’s ability to step up and be open, honest and have a sense of humor about it becomes the anti-Atwater of the next era of political campaigning. Messages delivered through humor are also emotionally sticky and we need more of the funny emotions sticking than the angry or fearful emotions.

I recommend everyone watches Boogie Man to understand where the attack ad came from so we can figure out how to move beyond it.

Here’s an excerpt:

4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 36,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 8 Film Festivals

Click here to see the complete report.

It started with Transition in 2008, and Thrive in 2009, then moved along to Achieve in 2010, then Reap in 2011 and finally Give’r in 2012. The thing these #themewords had in common was hard work and growth. And that’s great. I’ve worked hard. I’ve grown. I know I still have lots to learn, but after 5 years of hard work and growth, I’m looking forward to some awesome payoff and 2013 feels like the right year to go bullish on the themeword.

Triumph is an awesome word, too. It’s not only amazingly dramatic and bigger than life for a word, it is also the name of an awesome Canadian 80′s hair band and a pretty sweet and sporty motorcycle. I feel pretty brazen about this word and I look forward to this awesome year.

I have lots to feel bullish about this year. For many years, I struggled with Buyosphere and, before that, was figuring out who I am and where I wanted to go. These years have been challenging, but in the past half a year, I’ve re-entered the workforce and taken on some exciting new work that has put my skills to the test. I can now say I finally know what I’m doing and feel professionally solid.

I also have a wonderful relationship with an amazing man, my son is growing up to be a fine young man and I’m happy with who I am and have let go of many of the insecurities of my youth. I turn 40 in 2013 and I’m excited for it. I no longer dread that milestone.

Yep. This year is going to rock. I’ve fought the good fight, now it’s time to rock out and roll on. ;)

1. it’s in one of my favorite magazines

2. I share the page with one of my heroes

3. the distinction is pretty darn awesome (no really)

I did giggle a bit at ‘Authority’ (reminds me of Cartman saying “Respect My Authoritah!”) as I still feel like I’m a lifetime away from really being an authority on anything. But hell, next time someone questions my recommendations at work, I’ll wave the magazine in front of them. That works, right?

Kidding aside, it’s an awesome distinction and I am alongside amazing company. Jane McGonigal (the aforementioned hero), whose ideas on how we can improve real life through learning from games changed the way I think; Sophia Amoruso, whose online fashion shop took the startup world by storm; Linda Rottenberg, whose business Endeavor was rocking the entrepreneurial world long before Y Combinator; Olga Koper, a NANOTECHNOLOGIST; the amazing Yael Cohen whose F*** Cancer social business has given people hope worldwide; and Maria Flynn whose biotech company frees people from pain.

Are you KIDDING me? I’m on this list? Seriously. I know I’ve accomplished quite a lot in my lifetime. I know I’ve done some great work and I’m proud of my contributions and my growth. But this is a pretty darned humbling list. Thank you Entrepreneur for picking me!

Now quick…before they realize the error they made, pick it up and revel in this with me! :)

NOTE: I should add that I’m NO LONGER WITH Tuxedo (as of just over a month ago). Unfortunately, I was interviewed for this article when I was still there and they couldn’t change it. :/

But something happened over the years. Year after year, I lost interest in Canadian politics. And I’m not alone. Voter turnout in Canada declined terribly since a pretty good number 1988 (75.3%) with only a slight improvement in the last election (61.4%). Still, considering how quiet Canadians are about politics compared to our southern neighbors (57.5% of population voted this last election), it’s not awful. But I have noticed a general apathy amongst the newest voters that is troublesome. In fact, it’s their disengagement that is leading to the majority of the decline in voter turnout. My son, who will be 20 in March, hasn’t voted in a Canadian election (though he could have) and is much more engaged in US politics than he is in his own Canadian politics.

But I completely understand where he’s coming from. I was glued to the web from the Primaries in this most recent US election. Part of it had to do with my previous involvement in the 2008 election (I volunteered and donated to Obama’s campaign while living in San Francisco), but that wasn’t it. I was also completely enrapt with the whole circus of it.

Some of that circus was painful to observe. I wasn’t a fan of the political ads and smear campaigns. But I did love the passion that practically oozed from the voters. And the passion I was most enrapt with was from the nerds. And the king of those nerds was Nate Silver and FiveThirtyEight.

Of course Harper Reed, Josh Thayer, Mark Trammell and the rest of the Obama nerd core were pretty amazing to watch, but I had FiveThirtyEight consistently open in a tab for months leading up to the election and I may have been more engaged there than I was in Facebook. And of course, there were the debates on YouTube and the exciting election hashtags on Twitter and the neverending stream of self-appointed pundits on Facebook, but nothing made me feel as good or as concerned as the graphs on FiveThirtyEight.

I love data and have heard multiple explanations of what is behind this simple chart, but I’m still enthralled by it. It’s math. It’s logical. It’s straight forward. But wow, it’s stunning and magical.

And what is the most stunning and magical part about it is the story behind the project. Nate was a baseball stats nerd (I used to think that sounded really boring, but then I read Moneyball and watched the movie, and realized there was nothing boring about it) who turned his formulas to politics when he got interested in the 2008 election. He built an application and a website and, ultimately, a huge following of people like me who relied on his math to give us some insight into the election.

He wasn’t paid to do this. He wasn’t employed by any campaign. He just got interested and built something really really amazing that he probably had no idea would blow up so much. Of course HE was fascinated by it, but did he know where it would lead? He didn’t buy Google Adwords or run a Facebook campaign or put banners on sites all over the web. News about this amazingly geeky and potentially accurate site just spread through the networks organically. And now he is king of nerds.

This is why I love the web. And democratization. Because people build stuff  out of passion. And I love US politics because it makes people so passionate they want to do this. And nerds are SUCH great builders of interesting stuff out of their passion.

We are still just over 2 years away from another Canadian election. This is plenty of time to build the type of passion for our politics that we could birth our own Nate Silvers. And hint. Hint. ThreeZeroEight.org is available (.com is being squatted by a reseller). Just in case you read this and think, “Hey! I love Canadian politics and I could totally do this!”

Please do.

Because I’m going to stop being apathetic myself. This is an amazing country that we have LOTS to be proud of. And rejoice over. And vote to maintain and grow. And hell, maybe I’ll crack open my old statistics text books and try to figure this stuff out myself. Because Canadian politics needs more nerds.

UPDATE:

There IS a FiveThirtyEight for Canada…I’m not sure why I failed to look up the full number:

http://www.threehundredeight.com/

Followed! It looks super promising. You can also follow Éric on Twitter.

[cover image: Nerd by Bayat on Flickr]

Shame Flag on Flickr

I was describing my startup experience to a woman I admire the other day, when out of the blue, she asked:

“Was it worth it?”

I hardly hesitated at all and said:

“The only thing I’d change if I could go back is that I’d integrate the incredible lessons I’ve learned during this time.”

And it’s true. I couldn’t have learned any of what I’ve learned in a book or a seminar. I feel like I’ve taken the ultimate MBA. But it took her asking the question for me to realize that. Before she asked the question, I was feeling lots of shame. Why? Because I was focusing on what I didn’t accomplish instead of seeing what I DID accomplish.

The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel. – Steven Furtick

The truth is that we (my Buyosphere team and I) did things that the vast majority of people never even attempt:

• We raised venture capital (even if it wasn’t enough)
• We built a social web application from scratch – multiple times – and for those who haven’t built a social web application, here is something to know: building a website is a challenge, building a social website (that people interact with) is another level of challenge and building a social web application (that people interact with and it changes with that social interaction) is a WHOLE ‘NOTHER level of challenge. There are so many moving parts behind the scenes. I have mad respect for anyone that builds web applications now.
• We stuck to it through thick and thin, through lots of questions and uncertainty and through not knowing how we were going to make payroll in a few days time.
• We learned to work together – fighting like cats and dogs at times, but having uber respect for one another while disagreeing.
• We hired and fired people – learning the importance of hiring talented people who could teach us a thing or ten.
• We budgeted, planned and balanced a very small amount of cash to make it stretch as far as it possibly could.
• We took that leap that lots of people talk about, but only a sliver of the population takes and did it wholeheartedly.

And, nope, we didn’t become the next Facebook and fell short of our dreams for Buyosphere, but we built something to be proud of and we did it with all sorts of odds against us. Hell, we’re still getting featured in major publications as their Super Clever Click and it isn’t over quite yet. Who knows what could happen going forward? I don’t think we built any of it in vain. Maybe it’s ahead of it’s time (I know from experience that brands aren’t quite ready to grasp this concept). As SF Fashion Tech said in their review, ” It’s hard to draw an apt comparison because there’s nothing similar to this right now…” We’ll see and I haven’t given up hope.

YOLO as the saying goes and it’s true. Anyone who takes a risk to do something that isn’t easy and has little certainty should be high-fived. There is no shame in taking that leap and falling on your face. There IS SHAME in talking about taking that leap, never doing it, then pointing fingers and laughing at those falling on their faces.

Before all of this happened, I didn’t really know what people meant when they said, “Failure is good. You should fail several times in your life.” I thought that sounded like the most awful advice ever. But now I understand. Experience is the result of failure. I’ve known people who have it easy (connected to money and people and luck) and sail through to big success without learning anything only to arrogantly go at it again and fall on their faces. Any one of those people I’ve talked to has said to me, “I enjoyed my flop much more than my success.” Why? Because of what they learned. And how slowly, but surely, they grew as individuals who had much better lessons to convey.

And yes, if I could wave a magic wand and change the outcome to Buyosphere being an IPO’d/acquired company that lined my pockets with millions of dollars, of course I would! But what I’m saying is that I don’t regret that it turned out differently. Not at all.