After a bit of a hiatus over the holidays I am back with my 10 Questions series of Interviews. This is my attempt to ask people in the tech and social media field that I really respect a series of 10 questions – questions that try to go beyond the typical fluff and help us learn something new.
One of the ladies in the social media and marketing field that I have great respect for is Liz Strauss. So I was very happy when she agreed to take part in my interview series.
Oh and as a teaser I have another great lady lined up (sensing a trend here?) as soon as I can pull together all my questions for her.
For now though with my thanks to Liz here is her 10 Questions interview.
Contact
Blog: Successful and Outstanding Blog(ers)
Twitter: @lizstrauss
Interview
1. I noticed while doing some catch-up reading about you that you were at one time a teacher. I am curious given some of the hype around how social media – and the Web in general it seems – is dumbing down our children do you feel that this is the case? Is the Internet and things like Twitter and texting really causing any type of stupidity curve?
Liz: Let’s start with that they said same thing about television … Different isn’t wrong, worse, or dumber.
What the web has to offer is new and robust ways of accessing information and ideas. What I worry about is that schools and the system that is set up to protect students also puts up barriers to exploration and creativity. It’s slow to change and slow to take advantage of what the new technology offers. So there’s a lag. Kids aren’t getting good training in how establish good skills in sorting information and forming strong relationships.
To say that texting caused a stupidity curve would be the same as saying that writing in code did. It’s actually just learning another language. Language is organic and evolves … We learned to say "cool" and "OK" at one time those were improper too.
2. You are often noted as being a great listener of people and I was wondering if like the majority of the Social Web you listen to people who generally fall in line with your thinking? I often say that you don’t learn anything unless you are willing to listen to people who don’t agree with you – is this something that you, as a listener, would agree with? If so why? If not why?
Liz: I like to listen to people who can teach me something, especially people who bend my ideas in new ways. If I only agree with you, it gets boring. What use am I to you?
The best new ideas get formed out conflict. It’s great to meet where we agree, but build where we find our differences. You say, "This doesn’t work for me." I say, "what if we do it this way, or this way, or this way?" We find one that works and it’s better than either one of us might have come to alone.
Can’t get there if we don’t listen to the folks who don’t think the same way we do.
3. You’ve been involved in the online world for quite some time. Do you think that anything we are calling Social Media is really new or is it just a new shade of lipstick for the same old pig?
Liz: The tools are new. The need to trust people we can’t see is leading us to a new set of cultural rules and new skills. But the fundamentals of relationships being the basis on which we build our business and social lives is as old as the hills.
4. There is a lot of talk about Social Media being all about "the conversation". Do you really believe that this is what is happening or is it more about the phrasing of ‘marketing speak’ to sound like it is the conversation we believe is happening?
Liz: Both. As ever, deep down inside some folks will always be buzz word shallow. They’ll use the words as quickly as they hear them and never explore what they mean. But my experience that many folks take social media integration and team values seriously.
"Social media gotta live it." is not just a mantra, it’s what many new marketers do. They want customers and companies working together, looking in the same direction, achieving mutual goals. Some brilliant conversations are starting to come from that.
Is the norm? I doubt it. Will it ever be? Probably not. But it has the power to separate a truly great business from one that just performs. It always has.
5. One of the more important questions it seems for companies looking to get into the Social Media world is how do they track their ROI. Do you believe that all the intangibles that make Social Media work can be tracked in any real substantive way to satisfy the numbers game that businesses need to justify expenditures that are needed in order to make those companies an effective partner in Social Media conversations?
Liz: Companies engage in so many activities that have no direct ROI — CEO appearances, company picnics, trade shows, fast service with a smile — yet through time we’ve learned the loss when they’re missing and then we’ve learned to track the difference.
You have to have goal before you start. Short term goals — quarterly — might work best. What is it that we want social media to do? Get more traffic to the site so that sales can convert it? You can measure that? Get more online customers talking about the product? Tools can measure that too. Improve service? We can track white mail, service calls, and complaints via the website and Twitter as we make ourselves more available via social channels.
How do you measure a great employee or a productive and valuable vendor?
6. It seems that much of the attention in the Social Media world is being garnered by men. Personally I have noticed far more women appearing on my radar lately who are producing much better – and varied – content. Why is it that the women in the field aren’t getting the same kind of attention but when they do it seems to be centered on the negative (e.g: Kathy Sierra and Penelope Trunk)?
Liz: I wonder the same thing. It’s complicated. I grew in an all boys neighborhood. Guys communicate and related differently than women. I’ve worked in a predominately male industry and a predominately female industry. The cultures are built on different values. Both environments have their strengths. The best is when both sexes work together.
A few ideas on the subject …
Men tend to be task oriented. Women tend to be more relational.
You can quantify a task, but you can’t quantify a relationship.
Social media grew out of the tech world … the Internet where men were first.
Maybe it’s just that guys communicate more efficiently with other guys and women communicate more easily with other women.
I’ve sometimes sent a guy to deliver a message for me, because I knew the guy at the other end would more quickly to a male messenger. The sad part is that I’m betting the guys don’t even realize their bias that way.
Maybe it’s that we want our dads to be strong and powerful. We want our moms to be caring and supportive …
Any one of those could be the reason.
7. There seems to be an never ending circuit of tech/social media conferences that go on each year. With SOBcon what was your reason for jumping into that circuit and what does it do differently that other conferences? As well why does there seem to be a dearth of women speakers for conferences outside of the "mommy-blogger" circuit?
Liz: SOBCon grew out of "event" on my blog called Open Comment Night. In 2007, http://www.successful-blog.com/open-comments-at-tuesdays-at-7pm/ the folks who came to the comment box every Tuesday wanted to bring that conversation to life in Chicago so that we could all meet in person. It’s really more of a think-tank and work retreat than a conference. The idea is that everyone in the room is as valuable as the folks who present the content.
We work as teams to explore 6 content blocks over two days in this way. This year the theme is business strategy and tactics online and off. I’ve invited the best in the business to present the content. Each presenter speaks for 20 minutes with Q&A and then leads a panel chose to fill out the idea further. After that we work in mastermind teams applying that topic to our business then and there.
You can check it out here: http://www.sobevent.com/program-2010
8. There’s a lot of ‘celebrities’ in the blogging / social media world and yet for as well known and respected as you are you haven’t fallen into that ‘celebrity’ status. Does this bother you or is it a situation that you are happy with? Do you think that the ‘celebrity’ tag often associated with the ‘rockstars’ of the business actually detracts from their work or is a good thing in that it highlights the business?
Liz: I’ve always been aware that no matter how well known we get on the Internet any one of us is only well known in our own "neighborhood." If the people who know me well know what I truly value and respect that, I’m good.
I don’t want to be on a pedestal. People who raise you up without knowing you … define you on their own terms — terms you can’t possibly know. Then when you do something that doesn’t fit with their definition, they feel betrayed. Not good.
9. There’s a lot of talk about how social media services like Twitter and Facebook as well as services like Posterous and Tumblr are replacing blogging as the go to places. Steve Rubel with his move from a dedicated blog to using Posterous for his ‘lifestreaming’ is probably the most well known. Do you think that blogging is being replaced by these other lightweight services? Or do you think that blogging will always have a valuable place in our social media world, and if so why?
Liz: Some folks will leave blogging to talk in these shorter, easier forms, but I don’t think that blogging will go away. We need longer, deeper thoughts and conversations too. I see my blog as my defining space. The place where people can go to find out more about what I know, what I think, and who I am. It’s hard to do that with elegance and grace in a short form stream that people catch randomly.
10. I’m am probably well known for my distaste of ‘marketing’ especially when it comes to services like Twitter. Do you think that Social Media as a whole could suffer a backlash from both consumers and companies because of this increasing pressure to turn the social media experience into one of a ‘marketing conversation’?
Liz: I believe the best form of "self-promotion" is to promote the good work of other people. The folks who are always talking about themselves will end up always talking to people who always talk about themselves. The folks who like to talk about ideas will find other folks who like to talk about ideas.
On Twitter as in the concrete world, we get to pick the people we listen to. We define our own experience.
Bonus Question: What is the short term and long term effects that you see Social Media having on our society?
Liz: It will be as good as the people we choose to share it with.
