Category — business

In OmniGroup’s OmniFocus software, as borrowed from David Allen’s bestseller, “Getting Things Done,” there are discrete, single-step actions you typically do or need to do during your day.  In a very immediate sense, such actions, when undertaken, would be best undertaken in a particular context.  Actions grouped together by a particular intent, form projects.  Projects whose action is driven by the intent in question, which may be expressed as an infinitive verb: “To <Verb>.”

Generally, we think of projects in a temporal, instance-by-instance way.  Projects whose outputs are process-driven, and where such processes are well-defined sequences of actions, can be thought of as templates for particular action.  I would differentiate a Process from a Project as I might a Template from a particular Document using that Template or, in programming terms, a Class from an Object of it’s instantiation.

This occurred to me in the context of embarking on a non-linear video editing project.  I downloaded a trial copy of OmniFocus to complement the iPod Touch app I have already purchased.  I’m a little ambivalent about the price tag, though.

Omni Group charges US$79.95 for a one-person license for OmniFocus.  I already spent a whopping US$19.99 on the App Store for what would be it’s workhorse, OmniFocus for iPhone.  Getting both would add up to just shy of US$100.00.  That’s a lot of money.  Can’t I get away with just the iPhone version?

A good question…

What if I had a little proposition for these OmniFocus types?

OminFocus: Take my idea for adding Process Templates to automatically enter complex, perscribed sequences of actions under the instance of a particular project’s domain.  Take this, implement it as best you can, and give me in exchange one personal, unlimited-machine license for OmniFocus.  And, give me due credit in the creative-commons form of acknowledgement.

I will re-read this in the morning, edit as needed, and send a email to the most inventive contact I can dig up in their company.

Maybe I’ll even Tweet to Will Shipley….

Introduction

In preparing for this post, I did a Google search on “Conversations with Edith Head.” This is the Invisible Theatre play currently in production at the Leicester Square Theatre in London through the end of August (2008).  It stars, and was co-written by the Invisible Theatre’s inimitable Susan Classen.

Google’s very first listing was the production’s very own website!  People would pay a lot of money to SEO “experts” for such a ranking.

Kudos aside, what next surprised me was the realization that, from my first pass-through of Invisible Theatre’s website and other online presences, I had never noticed any link or mention of this website.

Putting that insight on the shelf for the moment (we’ll come back to it), I should stop right here to say a few words about the Invisible Theatre and my engagement with it.

Back-Story

If you’ve read in my first post in this series, you know that my wife, Betsy Kruse-Craig, was taken on staff by the Invisible Theatre as an “Artistic Associate.” As for me, I’ve been fascinated by the phenomenon of Social Media and the possibilities that arise out of it’s emergence, and I have been working for over ten years designing and engineering software.  What you are not aware of is that before my career as a software maker began, I was in graduate school studying playwriting and performance.  It was natural, even casual, that Betsy made the request of me that I turn my attention toward the Invisible Theatre.

Not long before her request, I happened to have begun this blog.  It seemed a good mix to write about my process of developing a Social Media strategy for the Invisible Theatre.

So I did.

The Recent Past

This gave birth to my “Social Media Makeover Series.”

My very first post was picked up by Chris Laning, a producer of the podcast “Your Neighborhood Stage: The podcast for everybody who works or plays in community theatre.”  He emailed me, expressing his interest in an interview.

I was grateful for his interest, we made arrangements, and did the interview.  The unexpected thing about the interview was its context.  Chris had arranged to conduct the interview over the Internet, in the virtual world of Second Life.

If you are unaware of Second Life, you’re in the majority.  It’s a free, online virtual 3D (rendered in two dimensions) world.  In the world, you create an avatar (a personalizable, animated self-representation) and you interact in particular locations in a virtual “world” with other people through their own avatars. And you interact directly through voice.  And it’s free.

Unfortunately I hadn’t gotten the head-up from Chris that the interview was going to occur in a virtual world, so I was only present (hooked into the world) via audio.  But my experience, and the interview itself was enhanced by questions from the virtual attendees.

What a great idea!  An online, interactive virtual reality interview.  The idea was totally novel to me, but made perfect sense.

The Present

Yesterday, Chris published the interview, which you can download and listen to.  He entitled it “Social Media and Theatre.”  My only wish is that I had been better able to convey what the Invisible Theatre is.  In the interview, on that account, I totally Fail-Whaled.  My sincerest apologies to Susan Claasen, my wife, and to any of you who hear that part of the interview.

The Future

Chris has inspired me to add podcast versions of my blog entries.  Although I am not starting that just yet, I have already acquired the basic, essential equipment and software to do so.  I just need to rearrange my schedule to fit in the extra requisite time to put out a marginally descent podcast.  In other words, I have a bit more to learn before you’ll be seeing podcast versions of my blog available.

My current thoughts on the Social Media Makeover of the Invisible Theatre will be hitting the pavement after Susan returns from London in September.

Until then, I will keep posting my possibly but not necessarily unrelated thoughts, and working my way towards adding audio feeds (podcasts).

Here’s how it just happened to me: the same way it usually does, but tonight I noticed.

I went to my Home page on Facebook.  I saw a News Feed from my old friend Michael “Jude” Christodal (Jude IS his middle name). It should also be said that Jude is a trusted and valued friend, who also has great taste generally, and specifically in music.  Following the link, this is what I saw:

Jude Christodal became a fan of Oriana Fallaci.

698 fans - Become a Fan

Writer - See more Pages

The thumbnail was so small I thought it might be some hot new singer my friend is into. So I click on the link “Become a Fan.”

Next thing I know I’m reading about a celebrated Italian journalist:

If you’re implementing some new project, use the social media community for support. If you can budget it, you might even hire one of them. They will be your first round of conversations. And the record of it will help establish yourself in the social media community.

But hire a coach first. And not just anybody — follow your instincts and give prospective coaches a try-out. See if they fit for what you require.

(Image courtesy of cathepsut on Flickr, used via Creative Commons license).

There is such a wealth of information about social media available, it can easily become a situation of paralysis, where so many cards are in your hand you get stuck on what to play first.  I found myself in this position thinking about this series and what next what to post.

I had the good idea to go back and revisit my last post, looking at the Invisible Theatre’s existing website and, as Social Media Guru Chris Brogan calls them, their “Passports.”  In his post “Starting Points for Online Presence,” Brogan lays down some excellent starting points.

As I’ve said, I am not an expert in this field.  I am, however, a good listener and I’m getting better at “editing” in the sense of having the ability to weed through a lot of existing content to find what’s valuable.  And I’m a software engineer who went to graduate school for Playwriting and Performance Studies.  Among several others, I have found Chris Brogan, through his blog, newsletter and the other ways in which he engages his community in a network of conversations, to be a remarkably valuable resource for the applications of Social Media.

There’s a lot of great advice in the post I linked to above but, in thinking about the staff at the Invisible Theatre (IT), I again realize the importance of bringing information to them in an immediately usable way.  Sure I could tell them as a next step to start “Twittering; to join a slew of other social media networks — but as I pointed out in my first installment, they already have an existing presence on some great sites.  Let’s start there.

I brought up IT’s MySpace account.  As a site in itself, it is nicely and simply designed. Over-garnishing your site is often a big issue on MySpace sites.  On this point, they are not guilty.  In fact, it’s quite good.  They’ve even got a nice bit of music that comes up when you bring up the site in your browser.

This is all important, and could be enhanced, as I mentioned in my previous post, by better cross-linking to their other “passport” sites, but I’ll come to that later.  In looking at their MySpace account tonight, what suddenly stood out for me was the fact that they already have 199 Friends!

With this observation came the epiphany for tonight’s installment.

(Image courtesy of krisdecurtis on Flickr, used via Creative Commons license).

Leverage your existing online network.  Obviously IT’s MySpace has been around long enough to have collected 119 friends.  That’s great, but amassing a bunch of “friends” is only the beginning.

Recommendation #1: Use your friends as a launching pad for understanding and increasing your Social Media Network.  How to go about this is pretty straightforward.  Begin my clicking on your friend’s picture, which will lead you to their pages.

CRITICAL POINT:  Engagement.  Your friends want to feel the love!

Recommendation #2: Investigate your friend’s sites and participate with them!  This will certainly take some time and effort but, after all, they’re your “friends.”  Investigating your friends will give you more insight into your Social Media network.  You’ll get to know them a little bit better. In researching them you may also glean valuable nugget of wisdom you never expected.

As a case in point, and to bring this installment to a close, I’m going to chose one of their friends in particular.  Given the fact that MySpace allows its users to make their site visible only to approved friends, I will find a friend with a publicly accessible page.

Good luck! A click on the first “friend” brings me to Shana’s MySpace page.  An interesting contemporary musical selection begins to play.  Without going into too much detail, let me summarize what I find directly on her page:

• Her choice of artwork and music, if I’m savvy enough, tells me something about her musical taste.
• Her tagline, “Never retreat… just attack in the opposite direction” gives me even more sense about her personality, her sense of humor, and how she wants to be perceived
• Her “About Me” section, “Who I’d Like To Meet” section, “Interests” section, and her MySpace Blog entries will also lead me more deeply into her character.

These are all great ways to get more free, publicly consumable insight in an existing fan of IT.  This is certainly gold.  But the real treasure lies in the fact the Shana, herself, is linked to 183 friends.  And you thought you were popular!  And in her “Friend’s Comments” section, it is easy to identify which of her friends are in conversation with her.

(Image courtesy of philchambers on Flickr,

used via Creative Commons license).

Recommendation #3: Traverse your friends networks effectively!

The fact is that your “friends” on your MySpace page aren’t always your real friends.  This is not to say that they might not be people or, in many instances, organizations or bands that would not be fruitful to pursue relationships with, but only time and experience will tell.

Do the homework, research your extended network of friends, figuring out who might be the best candidates to invite into your own network, and invite them!

If you don’t blog directly on your MySpace page, providing links to your website and blog and other “passport” sites will at least allow your visitors to check you out more thoroughly.  If they find you interesting, perhaps they will accept your friendship request and, voilà, you’ve expanded your network and hopefully, in the process, understood your potential audience a little better!

Recommendation #4:  Close the Deal: Develop a loyal readership.

The number one way I can think of to expand your readership, which is the next real step in expanding your social network, is to provide regularly updated content which your audience will find valuable.

Again, Chris Brogan is masterful at this.  He’s not a Theatre guy, he’s an engineer, but his bag is Social Media strategy, and he routinely gives away great knowledge for free.  Due in no small part to this, he has an enormous readership.  One thing which sets him apart, however, is the fact that he has a personal tone to his writing, and often posts personal entries.  Through this his readership gets to know him.  His blog feels authentic, which I think is a critical factor in creating an actual community.  Otherwise, at best, you’re just a  prolific reference point with a readership.

The question for the Invisible Theatre is what content to come up and how to present it so as to be of value to people.  As with MySpace friends, you don’t necessarily want lots of visitor traffic in itself — you want lots of the right kind of traffic.  You don’t want one-shot friends — you are looking to create an engaged community, and a directed one, so it’s important to center your content around to your main business which, in the example of the Invisible Theatre, the business of producing relevant and impactful theatre.

On Deck:  The flatland of SEO, and why worrying about it in itself should be your last concern when blogging.  Stay tuned!  You can expect the next installment of this series approximately within the next 10 days.

It is said that knowledge is power, particularly knowledge of self. “Nosce Te Ipsum,” in the Latin version, was written above the Oracle’s door in the movie “The Matrix,” taken from the Greek γνῶθι σεαυτόν (gnothi seauton).

Lately I’ve been thinking about this dictum in relation to my experiences with the current wave of social networking software. There are aspects of these systems I really like and, predictably, aspects I find missing.

One thing that I appreciate is the ability to learn more about people.

I’ve noticed, generally, that while the systems in place today are organized primarily around the individual, what I find most interesting about them is what you can glean about a person in terms of their relationship to other people.

The observable artifacts of relationships, online or off, are the conversations that take place between people. Immediate interactions certainly can be in the form of spoken conversations, but they also exist in body language or, more specifically, our interpretation of others’ body language. Other interactions take a purely written form.

I have a great appreciation of immediate interaction, which is a large reason why I dedicated myself, at one time. to the art of Theatre. And in this wide arena I found myself both most closely drawn to, and most challenged by it’s written form: playwriting.

From the studies I’ve pursued since my tenure at college, I have come to understand the idea of community in a different way than that which I inherited. The question “Of what is community comprised?” is traditionally answered with “people.” People comprise the parts of a community (or of many communities). On this subject, I declare that this is the conventional wisdom.

Community, as a concept, is complex. Communities, human communities at least, certainly cannot exist without individual persons. They arise, somehow, in their presence. But I have a difficult time seeing people as the building blocks of community. For one thing, people are far too complex. Even the notion of a person is quite difficult, in every way except under the most superficial lens, to pin down.

As an hypothetical example, consider a person who does not speak at all. In an immediate community setting such a person will be a participant in the community simply by the fact that they are perceived by other members of that community. Not only does this person have interpretable body language, but he or she is subject to the conversations of others. This is where things get interesting.

In the mind of the “mute” person, while they may have one understanding of who they are, without direct participation in their community’s conversations, the other members of that community will be free to assign whatever interpretation they come up with to that person. And the interpretation of other members of the community will be based partly upon their direct perceptions of that person, but also heavily influenced (more or less depending upon the affinity of that person to the person opining) by the expressed opinions about that person by other members of the community.

Without privileging any particular person’s interpretation, it may be said that who we are is our network of conversations.

This brings me to my point.

I am actively involved in the research and development of a technology that will, in tracking and in some way organising the network of conversations within a broad community (its user base, to speak technically), empower ourselves and each other in an authentic understanding of ourselves in terms of the conversations in which we participate.

Part of this, difficult but essential, is the ability to not only keep track of as much of our conversations as possible, but to be able to measure our actions against who we say we are and what it is, whether implied or explicitly stated, with what we do.

True power will necessarily arise from the alignment of our words, our being, and our actions. My goal is to design and implement a technology that enables this vision.

Your feedback is humbly requested.