There’s been a lot of conversation lately about names and social media. Google caught flak for requiring people to register their real names on their account or risk banishment to some Googlitary Confinement where no one hear you search. There’s also been a lot of discussion around using your real name on LinkedIn (I would advise doing this) and whether or not Twitter would ever require you to use your real name on your profile. If you are thinking that this debate is black and white, you may want to check out this list of social sites before setting up your account to decide if you want to use your real name. One other quick note: This list is for personal users, businesses should always be transparent and disclose their name for branding purposes. Alright, here we go:

Always list your real name on these sites:

• LinkedIn. Why? Because being found is the name of the game here. If you don’t want to be found, avoid LinkedIn altogether.
• Google. Why? Because when your content takes off, people will Google you. Without your real name, they won’t find you. Not only that, the odds are that Google will require it someday anyway, might as well get ahead of the game.

Almost always list your real name on these sites:

• Your blog. Why? Because you want advertisers or organizations to be able to contact you, and you want to make sure your name gets spelled correctly on the check. Why not? If you are only blogging for fun and don’t care if anyone finds it. Also, if your writing may be considered polarizing or place you or your loved ones in danger, you may want to consider using a pen name.
• Facebook. Why? Like LinkedIn, the purpose is to be found, so why not be found?  Why not? Certain professions (teachers, supermodels, security guards at the Louvre) may not really want certain interested parties sending friend requests or messages to them simply to get something out of the deal (an “A”, an autograph, vault access codes). Others may just seek a general anonymity from old flames or may not have a desire to connect with anyone from their past. Be transparent whenever possible, but if you must, you must.
• Twitter. Why? It helps people to connect the dots where you’re consistently transparent and use your real name across channels whenever possible. It also helps when you connect with your Friends From Other Networks (FFON) know who you are right away when you follow them. Why not? Twitter doesn’t require it, so you can call yourself anything, really. Again, if you tweet polarizing or controversial things, better to be safe and use a pen name.
• Foursquare. Why? Again, its connecting the dots when you connect with your FFON to get them to add you in return. Plus, when you get that Mayorship, you want everyone to know exactly who’s the boss. Why not? Three words: Location-Based Stalking.

You can pretty much go out from there with how you dictate your naming-yourself policy, I’ve just hit the highlights. I’d love to her your thoughts on this as well, so as per usual, if you think I’m way out of bounds or am missing something, chime in in the comments!

Selling via social is no different. Analogies can be a very powerful tool in reaching out to your customers and potential customers because you can build that same bridge to equate something they don’t understand with something they do. True to form, I’m going to give you a quick example and some analogies. Ready?

• Your company sells running shoes, but they also sell rain-resistant hats for runners to wear to avoid catching pneumonia when they run. Your customers are hardcore runners who feel like hats are for wimps, so your hats are selling poorly. You need a strong comparison to help the customers understand the need while helping you sell more hats. So what’s the message to promote? “Running in the rain without a water-resistant hat is like trail running without bug spray.”
• Your Non-profit needs to raise money for building a shelter for homeless kids. Instead of the traditional “1 in 5 kids is homeless…” an analogy works better. Try “leaving kids homeless is like leaving kids hopeless.” See how that makes a bigger emotional impact that calls more people to action?

I use social media as the avenue for my examples, but really they are applicable to any vein of marketing, outbound or inbound. Finding something that reaches your customers and potential customers at a deeper level of connection not only shows that you know and can relate to their passion, but it also might just have the potential to land you some sales. Failing to relate to your customers correctly is like shouting instructions in an empty room…great plans, zero ears.

What’s your secret for using analogies or for selling via social? There are a ton of ways to sell in a less direct way, what makes yours the best? Let me know in the comments!

You don’t have to look far anymore in the news to see the grim financial news we are facing: roller-coaster stock prices, crumbling fiduciary and monetary systems around the globe, and joblessness all seem to be contributing to a global financial crisis which hits households from Kenya to Kansas. With U.S. consumers alone holding over 609.8 million credit cards and averaging $15,799 in debt per household, we begin to see the makings of a society focused on using credit on a regular basis. Aside from our credit cards, we are also becoming a society focused on smartphones to do more and more for us all of the time. They have become our source for entertainment, Internet access, and social interaction.

Now imagine if we were to infuse a credit card into a smartphone so that you would no longer need to carry a credit card and cash? Taking a look through three current services,each has good points and bad points, but all have the potential to move yourAmEx to your Android.

Isis

The first mobile payment solution is Isis, which plans to launch in the first half of next year in Utah and Austin, TX  at first, but will be available worldwide shortly thereafter. Isis formed as part of a partnership between Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile to provide a mobile payment system using Near-Field Communications (NFC) antenna available on select smartphones from BlackBerry and HTC in conjunction with a mobile payment application. Initially, the service garnered little interest from vendors and businesses, at least until the group had agreements with Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover.
Isis is the first service to havethe support of all four major credit card companies. This is a new venture for these companies, however many within the respective organizations have a great deal of faith in NFC technology, and with Isis having backing from credit card companies and some banks, they have even stepped up their integration timeline and may launch even earlier than next year.

Google Wallet

Not to be outdone, and with partnerships of its own, the recently launched Google Wallet is the search engine’s dive into a competing NFC-based mobile payment technology. Google Wallet uses the same NFC hardware, but instead pairs it with Google’s own proprietary smartphone application. Like Isis, Google Wallet has agreements with Visa, MasterCard American Express, and Discover. However, unlike Isis, Google’s carrier agreement is with Sprint and First Data only.

The major downfall for both Google Wallet and Isis is that there are simply not enough NFC-enabled handsets currently in the market to attain a strong adoption of the service; however Google’s recent purchase of Motorola has many industry leaders feeling very strongly that a rash of NFC-phones are coming soon.

Magneto

Taking a step away from NFC technology, there are several smaller mobile applications vying for preferred status among smartphone users, including an organization called Magneto, who sells an entire white-labeled ecommerce solution for online vendors. Magneto differs from Isis and Google Wallet in that customers are not able to use their smartphones to pay at the register, but they are given the option to buy from a vendor’s physical store, online through their computer, or through a mobile application using the Magneto infrastructure.

As of this writing, Magneto is only available for iPhone, but since the application is not dependent on a handset or a carrier, many smaller vendors can implement the entire ecommerce solution through Magneto for much less than they could if they were to install NFC readers in their businesses. Also, Magneto is available worldwide and able to be implemented in a very short time and with very little infrastructure commitment, making it very appealing for a small business owner who wants to offer customers a multitude of ways to pay for products.

Conclusion

Smartphones have changed our lives, and there is nothing to suggest that people will start resisting that change. As technological advances continue to give us faster smartphones and faster browsing, software applications will continue to grow to best utilize the provided hardware. Mobile payments are a relatively new concept for all of these three organizations and carriers, however market research and continuous customer interactions have ensured the stakeholders in these organizations that they want mobile payments via smartphone, and NFC or mobile payment options seem more than poised to make it happen.

We are obsessed with failure
Steve Jobs departing from Apple has raised more than a few voices of dissent on the Web, Groupon seems to have trouble keeping its mouth shut, and HP’s tablet keeps dying and being reborn. Every day we seem to see more stories in technology predicting some company or product’s failure. So much so, that I think I can safely say that normal human behavior is now obsessed with watching failure. We have websites dedicated to it, blog and comment about it online, and share stories about it on social networks. Face it: We love failure and love it even more if we predicted it ahead of time.

Why?
So why are we so drawn to failure? I feel like it goes back to the car crash scenario. When there is a car crash, things get backed up because people can’t help but to slow down and look, and I feel like failure on an enterprise level is no different. I also feel that some bloggers who are hungry for ad dollars and eyeballs are seeking to validate their station in life as valid news providers. As a blogger, I defend these folks for trying to make a living, but I also think that people need to give these blogs about as much validity as the trashy tabloids at the local supermarket.

Wrapping it up
In addition to sharing this post, I’d like you to share a positive story (hopefully you can find one) in the news about someone’s success. With the help of the roughly 3,400 people that read this blog, maybe we can spread success news and help turn our obsession with failure around.

What do you think, readers? Why are we obsessed with failure and why do we love to predict it? The comments are yours!

You don’t have to be a geek or a marketer to realize that news moves at a break-neck pace these days. In fact, many blogs have achieved notoriety by breaking stories first or by always being ahead of the other news outlets. It’s no different with fan sites. Heck, I’d like to write the first hands-on review of Madden 2012 for PS3 just to say that I reviewed it before anyone else, not to mention the traffic it would drive. I would forever be the guy who gave the inside view of a popular game to the unwashed masses before anyone else. So how could this advance in technology and news reporting be a bad thing?

When you’re wrong. Carrying my analogy further, let say that I played Madden 2012 and thought it was terrible because of a problem that was unrelated to the game itself, or worse: what if I was pushed for a deadline and didn’t even play the game? If I’m a video game review site, the stakes are raised because a lot of potential customers could be influenced not to buy the game based on my review.

False rumors and incorrectly reported information on blog sites rarely degrade the journalistic integrity of the blogger as much as they degrade the reputation of the brand. The number one reason for this is due to the fear that these blogs have of being “scooped” on a story. Other blogs reading your story don’t take the time to confirm the rumor, so the false rumor spreads to all of the major blogs before a company spokesperson has a chance to get a response written.

As a blogger, I think its only fair to the brands involved in these stories to get a voice of some kind before we run with a news story that may not be true. In this way, you can be known for getting the right story instead of just the first story.

 I’m therefore seeking someone who can make suggestions to me based on experience. Ideally, I need something that supports MS Office creating and editing of documents, has a ton of RAM, preferably a 64-bit Windows 7 environment, and I‘d like at least one full size USB port for external backups and thumb drive data transfers. Any suggestions, readers? The comments are wide open! Thank you!

There are a lot of people in my position who wouldn’t know if they could handle it, but I feel the environment is one I can enjoy long term. They expect work to get done, they hire people that “get” the social media and digital realm, and they value the employees who care. Best of all, when they asked me if I had a problem with pressure and deadlines, I smiled and remembered the time when 30 users were standing outside my server room waiting for the Exchange server to be fixed. Pressure and deadlines? No worries, guys.

So how does this post of personal reflection and love-fest help you? I’m glad you asked. for those of you who may be an unemployed or freelancing marketer and facing an opportunity to join an agency, here’s my top 5 pieces of advice*:

• Don’t give up. This may not be the world you’re used to, and you may feel like you’re doing everything wrong, but everybody has to start somewhere. There will be days where you rock and days when you bomb, but the more you learn and the better you get, the less you will bomb.
• Don’t get too arrogant. A healthy bit of pride or machismo about your work is an asset, but keep it in moderation. working for an agency is about your clients, not about your ego. A bruised relationship could cost millions, a bruised ego can be fixed with good friends and adult beverages.
• Know what’s expected of you. Agencies value their clients above all else, and every client’s expectations are different. Know what your client likes and dislikes about working style and follow suit.
• Make changes. After you learn the way things have always been done, research ways to do it better and put a constructive plan together to make a change. Even if your agency doesn’t want to do it, at least you are showing initive.
• Learn. This is last but not least, for sure. Learn everything you can about your clients, and share that knowledge. Don’t assume that because someone at your agency has a long relationship with a client that they know every single detail about them. the more you know your client and their products, the more valuable you are to their brand.

Most of this is common sense, but common sense isn’t always so common. It should also be noted that if you find you don’t fit the culture, it may just be the agency. Don’t swear off agencies for the rest of your life or you may miss a great opportunity down the road.

*-Yes, I’ve been working at an agency a whole week and I feel I am qualified to give advice. If you disagree, let me know in the comments. I have a thick skin, so let me have it!

Actually, I'll pass on the window cube...

Change always happens. The only difference between a change that makes you and a change that breaks you is the tango step you take when life goes from the slow-step to the quick-step. My declaration of going independent and ramping up freelance customers was going swimmingly, but life started to feel like it was a bit too slow for the tango I enjoyed so much.

So back to the quick-steps! TAB and I had made the decision to move to Chicago so she could be closer to work and I could work with local businesses in Evanston to help market the start-up and smaller businesses taking hold here. TAB also told me that I would find a much wider world of opportunities if I wanted to pursue full-time work status, as well. I was heavily dedicated to staying independent, however, and only expressed interest in a select few too-good-to-pass-up opportunities in Chicago. I barely had the boxes unpacked in Evanston when one of those opportunities paid off.

There are lots of digital PR firms I respect in Chicago, but Edelman was one I truly enjoyed and wanted to be a part of. Hurriedly unpacking and setting up my scanner to return their paperwork, I accepted a position as a Senior Account Executive on July 1^st. I would be lying if I said I wont miss being independent, and I was quite good at it, but being part of a team again will be a blast, and working in the Aon Center (in the shadow of the famous Chicago “bean” at Millennium Park) just feels right. Major agency, major city, major skyscraper, social media brat…the stage doesn’t get any bigger for me. Bring on the next quick-step, maestro.

I had read the first part of the above quote before, but upon recently reading the remaining part, I knew I had a blog post. Since TAB and I are both bloggers, we have both developed the bad habit of saying “I need to write a blog post about this” every time something profound happens or some bit of exciting knowledge or stupidity falls from the proverbial tree and hits us. Social media blogging tools have given us the ultimate outlet for expressing our thoughts and situations, and thus was my course upon reading this quote.

When we look at our lives in terms of a daring adventure, it sounds so much cooler, doesn’t it? However, it doesn’t feel as cool to think about security as a superstition or as something non-existent, does it? My mind wants to reject this notion, but the fact remains that Helen is more right today than ever. Thanks to the break-neck pace of our socially connected society, change is moving things along faster than ever. A mistake made online can echo much further as everyone from Anthony Weiner to rioting Canuck fans can attest to. So what do we do? We certainly can’t go back. We have a taste for hyper-speed now, so returning to the days of pay-phones, car phones, and Fieros is out. It’s here that we have to remember what I like to call “The Rule of the Knife”.

The Rule of the Knife is simple. A social network is a very powerful tool with a ton of uses and applications, just like a knife. A social network can be used to help people, save lives, and share something singular with many, also just like a knife. A knife in the wrong or disrespecting hand can cause injury to one’s self or someone else, and so can a social network. Having a plan, respecting the tool, and using good judgment all work to make using a knife safer. Guess what? It makes using a social network safer, too.

However, as Ms. Keller said, security is a superstition. Even the safest chef or online marketer cuts himself, and so will you. With a smart plan in place, though, you will ensure that the cut will be small and all will heal quickly.

What are your thoughts on Helen Keller’s quote and “The Rule of the Knife”? Am I on to something or did I just cut myself? The comments are yours!

- Publilius Syrus

I don't relish the thought of anyone posting someone regrettable online

The recent news of Anthony Weiner tweeting pictures of his junk to women and this great post by friend and social media smart-guy Jason Falls prompted me to weigh in with my own opinion of this whole twibacle^TM (patent pending). Jason was frustrated by the fact that, as one of the thought-leaders on the subject, he was being asked ridiculous questions by traditional media outlets about social media. Specifically, they were asking why social media turned regular people into idiots (Jason was far kinder in his post), and Jason’s response was that you can’t blame the medium used for people doing silly things, we need to take responsibility for ourselves and blame the person doing the stupid thing.

Social media tools give us the ability to share the things we love faster than ever before, but with this newfound freedom comes a responsibility to use is wisely. I’ve always followed one major rule with everything I post online: In my mind, I picture walking up to the kindest, sweetest person I know (my grandma, in my case) and saying what I am about to update/tweet/etc. to their face. If I don’t feel like I could do that without feeling embarrassed or ashamed, I don’t post it.

I also reject the thought that Weiner made a typo and instead of sending a direct message to the girl, he sent it as an “@ mention” (pronounced “at mention”). Not only because he sent it through TweetDeck, which I know for a fact makes it drop-dead simple to send one or the other, but because he also used a public photo sharing service (YFrog) to send it out, so it still could have been discovered by the public on YFrog.

So what’s the takeaway? The point is that we all need to be careful what we post, but when we do make a mistake, there is no one to blame but ourselves. Weiner admitted his wrongdoing, and hopefully the media moves on, because we do have other problems in this country, you know.

What rules to you use to govern your actions online? Have you ever posted something you wished you hadn’t? Feel free to comment below!