TRUTH: That’s the funniest thing I’ll hear all day..!
HONESTY: That’s the funniest thing I’ll hear all day, if I’m five years old.

Both statements are true. One is a little more honest.

“Honey, do these jeans make me look fat?”
TRUTH: No, those jeans don’t make you look fat.
HONESTY: It’s your genes that make you look fat!

I bring these as examples to get at the heart of an ongoing debate about online communities. This is the era of openness and transparency in communications. The Internet is democratizing communications, and we should all be empowered to say exactly what we mean, right? Well, not exactly.

The implications are huge. Total openness makes for a wonderful platitude, but do you really want your e-mails to be on open pages for all to see? For that matter, what about your innermost thoughts? Something can be “the Truth” and nothing but “the Truth”, and still leave out some key details. There are things I can say to a friend directly, and there are some things I ought to pass along anonymously, so as not to injure the friendship.

A Fork in the Road

There are many who will disagree with me here, but let me explain what this has to do with “Social Media.” There is a time and a place for anonymity, and there is a time and a place for transparency. Knowing the difference between the two is crucial for any business that wants to be genuine in building and creating communities for its clients and stakeholders. Ignoring this reality is detrimental to any group moving into this terrain – naivety at best, and communications suicide at worst.

I have been a member of an online journalism forum for nearly a decade. I’ve seen it go through several iterations, and have seen first-hand how changes in the rules and the expectations altered the baseline of behavior. With several thousand registered users, and hundreds of active users, we have a fairly representative sample of personality types. It might surprise you at first to hear that for a profession that is steeped in the quest for the Truth and Facts, that only a handful of people write under their own names. Most use handles.

For some, there was a sense of self-importance – that a viewer might stumble on a political rant written under the journalist’s name, and it would then be used as “proof” of some sort of bias in coverage. In this case, most would understand that expressing true feelings and tendencies is done under the cover of an assumed name. Less transparency, a little more honesty.

Ideas at Face Value

Here’s where it gets interesting. The vast majority of those on this media forum were not on-air personalities. They were behind the scenes, either in production, or as writers and editors. And they didn’t want to use their names either. Why? Because their ideas became stronger when offered in a “faceless” manner.

Here’s a personal example. I helped dozens of young up-and-comers with writing and career advice. What they didn’t know is that I was not a gray-bearded grizzled veteran of the Ron Burgundy days. I was a few years their senior, and willing to share my advice. Had I been writing under my own name, there are many who would have discounted the advice from the outset because:

• I’m not as old as they thought.
• I didn’t work in a top-5 media market.
• I work in the southeastern United States.

Add all of those up, and that is the ad hominem kiss of death. Why would you pay attention to anyone with that crappy resume? Yet when my ideas and advice were shared under an assumed name, they were applauded and lauded. To this day, I remain a respected member of that forum – because it became a “meritocracy” – a place where positive contributions matter. There is a time and a place for anonymity online.

Takeaways

Not every online community is a meritocracy. And there are many, many instances where not disclosing who you are is an unpardonable sin. But you have to go in with an open mind and a willingness to learn. Mastering Social Media takes time. As my good friend Kami says, there is an “anthropology” to this stuff, and we’re still learning the basics. You have two ears and one mouth for a reason – because you should listen twice before speaking once.

Essentially, these communities and forums provide a litmus test for personal integrity. How you conduct yourself in Social Media reveals a lot about your character. The questions to ask: are your actions designed to shore up the truth, or to limit honesty? “Harobed” from the Whole Foods/Yahoo business forums had an agenda, and withholding that identity was designed to harm. Not every anonymous contributor has the same nefarious agenda in mind. Are you building up? Or tearing down?

I’ve been busy the last several days, doing my part to help spread the word about the American Red Cross response to the wildfires in southern California. It is my job, after all.

My piece in this has been helping with the creation of online disaster newsrooms, and in experimenting with the best ways we can use social media to reach out and be more responsive and relevant. We (in the non-profit sector) can be smarter in the ways we engage and inspire our supporters and donors – and it’s analogous to the same results in a for-profit setting.

One thing we all need to remember as we try new things and new tools is that no matter how noble your effort or righteous your cause, there will always be cynics who see what you do as “just PR.”

Show, don’t tell.

In the last couple of years especially, those of us tasked with telling the Red Cross story have seen a change in the way our message gets out. We used to rely very heavily on getting “face time” with local reporters and video crews. Get out there and “tell the story.” Make sure clients know how they can get assistance – make sure donors know where their gifts are being used – and make sure everyone makes that connection between the act of charity and the services being offered. That goes for disasters, health and safety training, military casework, and many other programs.

However, now that we are operating in a new media environment, the 24-hour news cycle has changed the landscape. Getting “on TV” to explain these things is not enough. The new model of “emotional storytelling” and filling that news hole has reduced us in the eyes of some journalists as merely a conduit to finding those “Amazing Survivor Stories” that are oh-so-promotable.

With any luck, social media gives us an additional outlet to show our relevance as an organization – a way to “show, not tell” the impact. With that in mind, I experimented with a series of slideshows at Slide.com. With very little fanfare and little promotion, we started posting the slideshows on the newsroom, and offered them up to others who wished to carry them.

A sour note.

The early comments seemed rather supportive, but it didn’t take long to find a cynic. He logged in as “cynic”, and wrote:

“especially with the text, seems like PR”

Well, I should hope that it does. I would hate to think that my job would be to post every single picture, even the ones out of focus or poorly framed. I shudder at the expectation that I should wait until there is “bad news” to balance the information I am sharing online.

The fact is that “PR” is still a four-letter word for many. They are tired of being spun or twisted or led. You can’t win them all – you can only do the best you can at making information available. Social media and social networks can extend your reach – just be ready to hear from some who don’t trust you.

Five Thoughts Before Jumping In

With that in mind, here are some tips for engaging in new networks:

1. Be transparent. You don’t have to post every bad picture, but you do need to be up front about who you are. In this instance, the Slide.com account is branded as “American Red Cross.” The url to reach the slides is http://redcross.slide.com.
2. Allow dissent. I didn’t edit or delete Cynic’s comment. I posted it as soon as I had the access to. If you build a reputation as someone who avoids criticism, you foster the notion you have something to hide.
3. Give-give-give before you take. One thing is conspicuously absent from those slideshows. You will not see a donation link, nor a call to give. A reading of the Terms of Use for the site does not specifically forbid solicitations or commercial use – but this isn’t a case of “can” but “should.” The goal here is to share information and cement for people the notion that we are in fact on scene and delivering services. Not to shake them down emotionally.
4. Don’t worry about winning them all. Some people will never support your cause, and will go fiercely out of their way to not do business with you. Social networking is a personal activity, but you can’t let that get to you. You can’t win everyone over, so just be yourself, be genuine, and tell your story.
5. Don’t start a community without being in one first. Online communities have their own flavors and personalities. Before getting active in one involving your business or group, try being a member of some that are unrelated. Get a feel for the sorts of activities that promote relationships, and the kinds that drive people away. Take “social media” for a test drive before committing yourself to it as a way to reach people. You’ll be smarter about it, and less likely to shoot yourself in the foot.

Dear Ike –

I’ve got an employee who says he’s getting news from a Twitter on his computer. I didn’t think a high-end speaker would be compatible with his PC (I had IT remove the sound cards), but apparently he’s found a way around it. Can I implement Twitter on the other machines here and save money?

Mark C., Dallas, TX

Hi Mark, and thanks for writing!

I wish there was a way to simply use software to replace expensive speakers – that would be a real maverick idea! Unfortunately, the Twitter your employee is using is a Web 2.0 messaging service. What you need to know is that Twitter is simultaneously a blog, a Rosetta Stone, and a sheet.

Okay, the blog I get.

Think of it as a Micro-blog. I know that’s hard, because it doesn’t look like any blog, and the entries don’t have comments. It limits you to 140 characters. You can’t dress up the fonts. You can’t post pictures, and can’t make hyperlinks. But it still has many of the conversational elements. You can choose to “follow” certain people, and they can follow you back. You can make your entries (Tweets) visible to the world or only those you allow into the inner circle. You can even reply back to others’ Tweets, by opening with @username – which creates a rudimentary trackback link. You can have conversations or just Tweet to the wind – just like you can on a blog.

A Rosetta what?

Forget about that language software. (We all know that farm boy has no chance in hell of landing that Italian supermodel. Ciao, Jethro.) We’re talking about the original Rosetta stone – found in the late 1700s and finally deciphered by a French archaeologist. For centuries, Egyptian Heiroglyphs confused the hell out of historians. They didn’t know if they were dealing with a pictogram language, an alphabet, or something in between. There was no reference point for the language, until the Rosetta stone was discovered. It had the same message repeated three times – once in Ancient Egyptian – once in a more modern Egyptian – and once in Greek. Well, every archaeologist worth his salt knew Greek, and it was a simple matter to compare up and learn how the ancient language was put together.

With that in mind, I want you to think of Twitter as a modern-day Rosetta Stone – bringing together the babble (Babel) that is blogging, RSS, Instant Messaging, and Short Message Service (cell-phone texting.) Now you don’t have to be tied to one particular portal to reach those who follow you, they can do so on any of the above simultaneously. One message runs concurrently through several protocols, and you reach your subscribers where they want to be found. (And if you don’t want to hear from certain people on your cell-phone, you can even control which users come to you.)

Well, sheet.

That’s the spirit. I call Twitter a “sheet” because it can be so many things to so many people. A sheet can be, well, a sheet. Or it can be a toga. Or a sarong. Or a drop-cloth to keep paint off your carpet. Or an impromptu privacy screen in the backyard. Or a liner for the doghouse. Or a ghost costume for parents who remembered Halloween at the very last minute. It is what it is – and is ill-defined enough to be what you need it to be at the time.

For some, Twitter is an additional means to advertise new blog entries. For others, it is a way to share links and interesting insights. It’s a way to scream for help, and pick the brains of like-minded individuals. It’s also a way to talk about what you had for lunch, and your bowel movements. (For the naysayers, I could write out my bodily-function schedule on a sheet and hang it out the window, and I doubt you’d rant about how bedsheets are silly and useless. Just the information carried.)

Like a blog, it provides a medium for chronological expression of thought and conversation.

Like a Rosetta Stone, it bridges across communication divides.

Like a sheet, it is easy to define in form and impossible to fully describe in potential function.

Unlike a coupon to CompUSA, it won’t add free audio to your PC.

More from the mailbag:

Dear Ike:

I heard one of our executives asking about our s’s. He just watched a webinar, and said our competitors had our s’s, and was worried about how this would affect our logo. I told him that all of the keyboards in our department still had s’s, and there was no cause for alarm. Still, I am worried because I don’t know about these newfangled technologies, and concerned our rivals might actually have a way to get our s’s. Help!

Andy G., Santa Clara

Andy – don’t worry. All your consonants are belong to us!

Seriously, you need to gently educate your bosses about “RSS“. It means Really Simple Syndication. It’s a way to hide information in your communications so programs and machines can read it better.

Behind the scenes, every bit of text that is a little unusual is ‘marked up’. In the previous sentence, ‘text’ is surrounded by tags that tell your browser to BOLD THIS, ‘unusual’ is told to be rendered with underlines, and so on. Well, the same goes with RSS, except the message is encoded with information that says ‘this is the title,’ ‘this is the content,’ and so on. Now you don’t have to look at the data on a webpage for it to make sense anymore – the message has been set free and is nimble enough to make sense on many platforms. You enter the information one time, and your audience can choose to consume it as a website, or an e-mail, or as a pdf. There are even services that convert an RSS-enabled item into speech!

It’s a great tool for flexibility. It doesn’t require any additional work on your end, and makes your message more convenient for those receiving it. You can use RSS externally, or even internally within your company. And if your using it internally, that would be the only time I’d be concerned with your competitors ‘stealing’ your RSS. Even though RSS is about sharing, you can still lock it down with password protection with a so-called ‘authenticated feed.’

From a different perspective internally, just think of all the ways you could use RSS to pull in data from branch offices and the field. The data comes to you, and because it is internally tagged (using something else called MicroFormats), it can flow into several different applications, databases, and reports instantaneously.

RSS is your friend, indeed. Here are some other resources where you can learn about RSS, and why you need to get on the bandwagon:

• RSS Explained
• 11 Uses for Business
• Home Delivery (CFO.com)

Time for one more letter…

Ike Pigott:

Please visit http://canadianpharmmanmax.com for your high-discount low-anxiety V1a6ara and C14l1s enhancement meds.

Sincerly,

Hugeness Q. Cojones, Manila, Phillipines

Thanks for the offer, your Hugeness. Maybe you ought to run that through the spell-checker next time.