Online & Offline By Liza Sperling

posted on 14.11.09 Effort
A year ago I was commuting to Palo Alto daily, seeking to be a part of
a community, yet unsure how to make it happen. Today, I am sitting at
my local coffee shop, where I know every barista’s name. The Creamery
is one node in my local community that reminds me that I have managed
to join many communities, but how? We don’t become a member of a community by default, by moving or
getting a new job. Being a part of a community requires time,
patience, effort, investment and supporting the community and it’s
individuals. Sounds like a lot of work? It is, and maybe it’s not for
everyone. For me, every ounce of effort results in compounded returns.
Relationships are no longer linear, but take on new dimensions. I
support others’ efforts across multiple communities, and I see others
doing the same. It’s not utopia. There are barriers to entry,
disagreements, misunderstandings in any community. There is, however,
one shared goal: to keep the community thriving. It’s just not
possible to maintain a thriving community without each member’s
effort.

You are probably a part of many communities, too. Do you agree? Do
you work to maintain your community and its members? How did you
join/select desired communities? Do your communities overlap? If so,
do you work to create areas of overlap? If not, do you prefer the
separation? I’d love your feedback as I nurse my coffee and ask myself
the same questions.

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posted on 05.11.09 The Need For Speed
The more technology races ahead, the faster we want to go, the more we
want to cram into every second of every moment and, accordingly, we
are less tolerant of even minor delays. We complain when systems
crash or the fail whale interrupts our tweets, While it’s exciting to
see how technology allows us to automate and expedite many things we
once did manually, I wonder if this expectation of speed is setting us
up for disaster. Not everything can be expedited. Example, the
learning curve. Starting a new job has left me giddy with admiration for my coworkers,
yet eager to get up to speed - yesterday. I want to know all of the
systems, learn every aspect of the product and be able to communicate
all of this knowledge to others flawlessly. I know it is impossible to
do so from the get go, and yet, the learning curve feels like an itch
I can’t scratch.

Learning a new role is not as simple as downloading an app. It’s time
to accept that I am no robot and to tolerate, perhaps even enjoy, the
ambiguity of not knowing. It does not come naturally, but it beats
being a robot.

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posted on 03.11.09 Business Cards: Do Titles Matter?

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Today was my first day at Scout Labs. When I started my first full-time job out of college at Morgan Stanley in 1998, my first day was devoted to paperwork followed by an entire month of training. Today I started with a brief, yet comprehensive overview of Scout Labs and the online brand monitoring landscape from Jennifer Zeszut, ran over to hear Margaret Francis speak on a panel at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference, and got up to speed on the systems and technology. The most painful part of the day? Choosing a title for my business card. Everything sounds either too narrow to encompass what I actually do or too broad to convey any meaning. My role involves a variety of responsibilities - this is becoming more common today in a world where nearly every industry is questioning and reshaping its business models.

My solution, to leave the title field blank. Does a business card require that I define my role? Isn’t that my job? A business card provides contact information, and if I can’t leave a meeting or conversation without an individual knowing what I do and/or knowing why we should stay in touch, then my business card is likely to end up in the trash anyway.
What do you think?

Liza Sperling

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posted on 02.11.09 Hotel Metrics: Taking Soup Metrics On The Road

Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, California

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In social media, we measure, quantify and analyze even seemingly intangible concepts like trust, authenticity, even friendship. When Tara Hunt (aka @missrogue) wrote Soup Metrics, she defined the soup metric as “the number of people in your social network that you know would bring you soup if they knew you were sick and/or get your back in any other real friend way – to help you feel better OR help your career.”

Soup metrics gauge relationships well if you are in your hometown, but for those of us who have scraped together resources to attend conferences all over the country I have seen another metric emerge: the hotel room metric. I know it sounds far less wholesome than chicken soup, but the definitition is 100% innocent. The hotel metric is defined as the number of people at a conference who will offer up an extra bed or a place to crash without expecting anything unsavory in return. I have shared rooms, taxis, meals and even toiletries at multiple conferences to save money, and I am not alone. The social media community that gathers at conferences is not as uniform as one would think. Many conference attendees have free tickets to conferences but can’t pony up airfare, hotel expenses, etc… Let’s face it the economy is rocky, and it’s impossible to know who is in need unless we make our needs known.

It was not until the 140 Conference in LA last week that I noticed the hotel room metric reocurring over and over. Fortunately I was offered a place to stay in LA, which was a pleasant surprise, until the offer was rescinded. I spent a hectic morning dragging my luggage down Hollywood Boulevard and did my best to ignore the feeling of being homelesss in a strange city to stay. I shared my problem with people and I was overwhelmed by those who offered up solutions, some of whom I had literally met that day. Ultimately, the lovely Sarah Kennon put my name on her room registry and left a key for me at the front desk. A hotel room has never felt so inviting as the Hotel Roosevelt that evening. Later the same day, Zane Aveton, a dear Twitter friend I met in person for the first time at the conference, sent me a text message. She needed a place to stay. I reached out to Rich Greenberg, who had an extra bed in his hotel room. He was pleased to donate the spare to Zane, although they had never heard of each other.

Let me be clear - I don’t encourage anyone to show up in a random city for a social media conference expecting free digs or a hotel room. If, however, you do find yourself stranded at a social media event, reach out to the people in your network. My guess is each of us have friends who are willing and able to help. You never know when the person in need will be you.

Liza Sperling

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posted on 01.11.09 I Am Joining Scout Labs

Image by inju via Flickr

I am thrilled to announce that I am joining Scout Labs. As a natural born evangelist, it is what I consider the ultimate role: to promote a brilliant application that addresses companies’ needs to interpret online conversations, determine consumer sentiment and identify signals in the noise.

In my quest to find the this opportunity, I have focused on the caliber of people as much as what the company does. My goal all along has been to find a company whose product is as mind blowing as the people. If I am going to devote most of my waking hours to a company, I want to be as impressed by the people as the technology. After several dozen conferences, meetings and interviews and researching hundreds of people and companies, Scout Labs impresses me on both levels, but if it were not for a random offline encounter I may not have found this opportunity.

I met Mars Hall at my local coffee shop. I asked him what he was working on, and he explained that he is a developer for Scout Labs. He was kind enough to give me informal demo, and I probably drooled as we discussed the technology. Mars laughed because he does not meet many strangers at coffee shops who are fascinated by online brand monitoring or understand what sentiment analysis actually means. Our conversation was not limited to Scout Labs, however. Mars and I discussed yoga, hiking and his love of Austin, TX. In short, it was an opportunity get to know a member of the Scout Labs team from both a personal and professional perspective. Mars and I exchanged contact information, and shortly thereafter, Jennifer Zeszut, Scout Labs’ CEO, emailed me to meet for coffee.

It is ironic that offline interaction lead to an opportunity to join Scout Labs, a company that monitors online conversations. I am intrigued by online communication, and I spend a lot of time interacting online, but I continue to say over and over that it is impossible to replace real world interaction. For those of you who spend a lot of time online developing connections and interacting, don’t forget about about the local coffee shop, taqueria or happy hour. Don’t forget to show up.

P.S. Mars, I know I sound like a broken record, but thank you.

Liza Sperling

Online & Offline by Liza Sperling