Why Austin Rocks (and Why You Want to Work Here)

There's something unusual going on the universe. I'm not sure what force is behind it but about 3-4 years ago, a new set of "railroad" tracks of sorts -- that of the virtual variety -- were laid down coming from locales north, east and northeast to a little old town in Texas called Austin. Well, Austin's actually not that little. And it happens to be the capitol of Texas. But that's besides the point. The key here is that some of the smartest social business minds in the country are flocking in droves to the live music capital of the world.

While I don't necessarily consider myself in that set of "smartest social business minds," I have worked in the community/social media for business space for the last five plus years. And two and a half years ago, that same force I referenced in the first paragraph drew me like a migratory bird to the ATX (a cutesy little name we like to use to reference the capitol city). Of course it didn't hurt that my former company, Powered, was recruiting me to become their CMO. But that was only one of a dozen factors that played into my attraction to the great city of Austin.

At the risk of rambling on for too long, you'll notice that in this post [orchestrated by one of those great minds, Peter Kim] that a number of the Austin transplants I referenced earlier have weighed in on why they decided to move here to work (or in some cases, stay).

Peter Kim's post is here.
Virginia Miracle's post is here.
Kathy Mandelstein's post is here.
Greg Matthews post is here.
Spike Jone's post is here.
Kate Niederhoffer's post is here.

And to directly "borrow" Peter's closing quote...

"Our town will soon welcome 15,000+ visitors for SXSWi. You might be one of them. If so, while you're here I encourage you to think about the nice people, great weather, low cost of living, live music, nationally recognized public schools, BBQ and breakfast tacos, and the growing community of your peers that call this town home. I know all of the people on this post are seeking great talent to join their firms and you might want to drop an inquiry or two while you're here. (Click here for [WCG's] open positions.)

I have no regrets about leaving that brand new house behind in Boston, because we're building the social business capital of the world.

Any interest in joining us?"

I'm 'Checking In' at WCG: As Head of Location Based Marketing (aka Truck Day)

UPDATED as of 8:15 AM CT
A good friend who is much smarter than me gracefully hinted at me moving the meat of my news further up. So I've created a few bullets at the top of the post for those of you that like to skim.


The News

• After 2 1/2 years, I'm leaving Powered/Dachis and headed to head up mobile/location based marketing and social strategy at WCG, a global agency offering integrated creative, interactive and marketing communications services to clients in healthcare, consumer products and technology.
• As you'll read below, I have nothing but mad respect for Jeff, Peter, Kate, Natanya and all my former teammates at Powered/Dachis. But this opportunity was too good to pass up.
• For any of you that don't know, I'm writing a book on location based marketing w/ Mike Schneider - more on that later.
• The full press release and a short video I did with my new friend and colleague, Paul Dyer, can be found here.

Pluralitas Non est Ponenda sine Necessitate

For those non-Latin speakers out there, you are asking yourself right now, what the hell does "pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate" mean? Literally, it means "plurality should not be posited without necessity." It's a theory made popular by 14th century friar, William of Ockham, and is better known as Ockham or Occam's Razor.

Why am I thinking about 14th century friars and Latin phrases about plurality and necessity on the day after Thanksgiving you ask? The short version of the story is that my friend, Kyle Flaherty, recently shared a great post with me by analytics wizard, Avinash Kaushik. Avinash writes a well known blog called -- get this -- Occam's Razor. After reading his lengthy, but thought-provoking, post on social analytics, it got me wondering about the inspiration for the name of his Avinash's blog.

Now I think it's mandatory that we all learn about Occam's Razor at some point in high school or college but of course that, along with billions of other pieces of knowledge that don't fit into our everyday lives, somehow fell out of my head along the way. But after reacquainting myself with this concept of seeking the "simplest answer," I've been thinking a lot about streamlining my work and personal life these days. In particular, slimming down my information sources and my day to day work flow.

I wrote about taking steps in this direction several weeks ago following my brief retirement from Twitter. But the place I've really fallen down is on keeping up with my Google Reader. I know some people like Bob Scoble have abandoned their readers altogether but I realized the other day that there are a dozen blogs, mostly written by friends, that I haven't been keeping tabs on as closely as I would like. And the reason was because their quality content was getting drowned out by the 50 plus other blogs that I was keeping in my Google Reader, many of which contributed to my reader consistently registering 1,000 unread posts mark.

Maybe I'm unique in this fashion (although I doubt it) but thinking about 1,000 unread posts is just too daunting. Instead of going in and chipping away, I tend to ignore my Google Reader and thus miss out on dozens of great posts by people like Kyle, Peter Kim, Rachel Happe,  Tim Walker, Greg Verdino and others. So in a fit of "pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate" (which is really more about the concept of "the simplest solution is usually the correct one), but inspired me to "simplify" or slim down my reader to about 15 blogs.

The result is a much more manageable, 137 posts, all of which I was excited to read. The downside is that I will miss out on the good posts on ReadWriteWeb, ChrisBrogan.com and the HBS blog. But the way I look at it, it's better that I read a few blogs all the time then have lots of great blogs that I never look at.

What about you? Are you able to keep up with it all? If so, how?

Experts in the Industry: Peter Kim (7 of 45)

Peter Kim, Sr. Partner at the Dachis Group, is one of my favorite people in the "social" space right now. Partly because he spends a good chunk of his time in Austin so I'm able to grab him for the occasional coffee or dinner, but mainly because of his no nonsense approach to blogging and business. Interestingly enough, Peter and I actually worked together briefly at Fidelity Investments but really got to know each other over the last year and a half.

Onto the questions from the Experts in the Industry: 45 Interviews in 45 Days series:

In one sentence, please describe what you do and why you’re good at it.

I think about disparate, ambiguous information and analyze to create opportunity - currently in support of building a new software + services company.

How did you get into the world of online community, social media or social marketing?

After working in strategy consulting and digital marketing, I merged my personal inclinations with my professional investigations - first as an industry analyst and now as a business builder.

 

If you had $10 million to invest in one company and one company only based on their use of “social,” which company would it be and why?

My own, of course.  We operate by the principles and structure we advise companies to adopt.  Other than mine?  Cisco.  They're not using social technologies just for point solutions like marketing campaigns.  Social is in their culture and approach to business.

 

Which business leader, politician or public figure do you most respect?

Tough question.  I don't idolize anyone and skipped this question on all of my college application essays.  All of us are human with strengths and weaknesses, capable of influencing one another equally.

Would you join a toothpaste community? Why?

Maybe.  But I've never been invited to join one! [NOTE FROM AARON HERE - MY FRIEND SARA DORNSIFE JUST ALERTED ME TO THE PRESENCE OF SOMEONE THAT ACTUALLY PLAYS IN THIS SPACE - http://toothhugger.com]

 

Freeform – here’s where you can riff on anyone or anything – good or bad. Or just share a pearl of wisdom.

I believe that we haven't yet seen the potential of what social technologies can do for the enterprise.  I'm building a company to address this opportunity that happens to be in Austin, so I look forward to connecting with anyone heading down for SXSW who wants to discuss further.

5 Ways to be a Better Twitter Spammer

Ever notice that spam has a way of making its way into any new medium, particularly after that medium starts to hit critical mass. Sadly, microblogging tool/service, Twitter, is now experiencing the joy of "get rich" or "get women" messages from people we don't know and don't care to know. Rather than complain, I'm going to try and fix it. How? I'm going to tell the spammers how they can do their job better. Plus, I promised Peter Kim that I'd do this post as he's tired of the same old "he same asian girl01 showing me how to make $4k monthly" tweets.

So listen up all you Twitter spammers because here are five ways you can be more succesful getting your message out to the masses:

1. STOP putting numbers at the end of your twitter handles. The second you do that, there's at least a 98% chance that you're a spammer and that I'm not even going to look at your profile nevermind follow you. I know it's easier to write a program that takes a name and adds new digits onto it but technology has evolved to the point where you could get more clever. For instance, run a query against the list of top names in the Social Security database and add it to common last names like Smith, Johnson and Williams. That's good for at least several thousand new accounts right there.
2. When you spam people, put a few real tweets in between your spammy "Just Posted: Getting a Girl - Getting The Girls + SPAM URL" tweet (thanks to spammer @datingschool for the example). For instance, a few "watching the latest episode of The Office" or "just downloaded the latest Coldplay album" would help add a little credibility to your account.
3. As a follow on to tip number 2, try @-ing a few folks, even if they're fake accounts. I can tell in about 1 second that either a) you're a spammer or b) you don't know how to use Twitter if I scan your tweets and none of them are directed toward anyone.
4. STOP using the picture of the hot girl as your avatar. While I appreciate the asthetics of an attractive woman when I click on your profile link, I am immediately skeptical of any account where the picture is of model-esque, scantily clad young woman. Try picture of a 35 year old guy once in a while. Or a slightly overweight woman. It's all about being authentic!
5. Work a little harder on your follower/followee ratio. When I see that you're following 1,723 people and are being followed back by 36, it's pretty easy to tell that you're a spammer. While I know it will take longer to build a more respectible ratio, it will be worth it to get people to read your message.

How many spammers do you think will read this post? Probably zero. But it was worth a shot. Am I missing any good tips or tricks that you can think of that would help our spammer friends?