by Geoff Livingston

Maybe it’s because I was gone for two months on a sabbatical, but returning to my reader has been a disappointment. Let me be more specific. In particular the social media, PR and marketing blog posts about PR, social media, marketing and, yes, the general “conversation,” read like a time warp back to 2007.

From social media consultant and PR bad apple rants to suggested proper RFPs and Facebook vs. Twitter posts, the social media conversation seems to be the same old conversation. The echo chamber seems to be in full effect tripping all over itself.

Hmm, that’s useful.

Meanwhile —-> There’s a mobile revolution going on driving the next generation of the web. And oh yeah, people are using it do really useful things, like raising millions of dollars to help Haiti earthquake victims. We’re talking record breaking amounts raised using mobile media.

Or how about an increasingly important issue raised by the semantic web with privacy? For example, Facebook users’ photos, home towns and friends lists are all public now, and Mark Zuckerberg would redesign the network to make all data open. While harnessing social information to serve users with “smarter” content companies, and increasingly nonprofits, sacrifice that most important aspect of the social web: Human relationships. In return for receiving users information in a trusted relationship, they move away from sincerity and return back to the 1.0 machine of consumer exploitation.

Or what about the incredible fight for viability the newspaper and traditional media industry continues to face? And then there’s the almost complete failure of government 2.0 to provide transparency into government.

What are we as a communications community of bloggers, the people that helped usher in the era of the social web doing to prepare our customers and readers for the web of now? In my opinion, the marketplace trusts us to provide this kind of intelligence. How can the current conversation about the conversation really be considered germane when overwhelming evidence shows a dramatic shift towards application-based and portable media?

It’s becoming a question of relevance. And it’s only a matter of time before people simply tune out.

Notes: Like Valeria Maltoni, I am a link nazi, but because of the sensitive nature of this post I felt it was best to not call out individual bloggers. Special thanks do go out to Ike Pigott for inspiring the title of this post.

In a “blog post” listing the top ten social media speakers, The Speakers Group (TSG) listed voices for “your consideration.” Not one of the speakers was a woman, highlighting a much larger social media services industry problem where women are often overlooked for top speaking gigs, and don’t rank as well as men.

Ironically, this topic first came to mind last week when Allyson Kapin — a.k.a. @womenwhotech — led a spirited DC Media Makers session (pictured below) on the same topic. So when I saw the TSG post, I felt compelled to write. I come to this discussion as someone who organizes BlogPotomac, a successful, regional social media conference that intentionally highlights female speakers; as a blogger who has discussed the social media and PR industry’s glass ceiling both in the office and in the blogosphere; and, yes, as a man who speaks frequently on social media.

There are three problems in the TSG post: 1) A lack of transparency and professional responsibility in the blog post itself; 2) the complete snubbing of women in a highly questionable top ten list, and 3) the larger industry issue that conference organizers apparently want male speakers more than women. For those of you who are used to short posts, I apologize in advance. I am going to handle each of these three issues independently.

No Ethics In This Post

Section Update: Several listed men have stated they don’t have formal relationships with said TSB agency, making the gender point even worse. – 3:45 p.m. EST, 7/29

Section Update: Formal relationships have now been verified as non-exclusive email agreements, as noted below by Chris Brogan. – 8:45 a.m. EST, 7/30

The word “Our” in TSG’s post title is the real clue. Because the entire roster of speakers, which does include four names who are actually recognizable by me, including friends Brian Solis and Chris Brogan, is represented by TSG. But they never disclose that in the post.
Instead, we get this piece of sales BS:

We have scouted books, articles and conferences for the leading authorities and we have assembled a “top ten” list to help you in your pursuit. What are the qualifications to be listed in our top ten?

1. The individual must be established as a uniquely successful practitioner of social media and/or be frequently called on to share his or her expertise in the field — specifically as it relates to corporate and association social media practices.

2. The individual must have a proven ability to discuss social media in a way that is easily understandable and relevant to each unique audience.

3. The individual must be able to effectively engage the audience (every “expert” who writes an article is not necessarily someone you want on your platform as a speaker).

OK. If one is true, why haven’t I heard of more than half of this list, and I am Highly Active in the business? Of the top ten, only two (the aforementioned) really seem to be top ten speakers. Nevermind, that none, as in zero, of the ten are women. But more on that later. Ethical blogging first, then the bigger civil rights issue.

No, what we have is sales drivel. And given that these speakers are supposed to be social media experts, it’s ten times worse because we have unethical, undisclosed relationships at play with a disingenuous representation. How transparent and open is that?

Three years ago, such a post would have been blogged about endlessly. Now, we seem to simply accept this kind of bastardization of social media. Thus, corporate marketing has beaten us into submission as the social media sphere simply moves on and finds more interesting content rather than voicing distrust. Even worse, some of our brightest minds are represented in this particular piece of “social” BS.

People wonder why I have become disenchanted with PR and marketing’s poor use of what could be a great conversational media form. And while I support initiatives like Susan Getgood’s Blog with Integrity, I really think it’s too late and that the train has left the station with corporate’s bastardization of social media. TSG is the norm, not the exception. Now we are left with most doing it poorly, some doing it well. Just like old school corporate communications.

No Social Media Women on TSG’s List

More importantly, TSG’s weak list doesn’t even include one woman. And that’s the big slight. Because we know there are great female speakers in the business, folks like Charlene Li, Allison Fine, Toby Bloomberg, Valeria Maltoni, Beth Kanter, Kami Huyse, Jane Quigley, and on and on.

Because the list is so questionable, TSG inadvertently admits it did not seek out women social media speakers. If they had, there’s no way some of these guys could stand up against the best female leaders. And that makes TSG’s snubbing of women even more egregious.

See, in essence, the message is mediocre male speakers are better than top notch women.

TSG should be ashamed of issuing the list. Really ashamed, because not only is it an unethical post, it’s also clearly sexist. Though one has to wonder if TSG is truly sexist or if the company is catering to their clientele: Conference organizers. And that, my friends, opens the big can of worms.

Women Get Snubbed

There are exceptions to the rule, but the recently unveiled Government 2.0 Summit roster seems to represent the norm: A conference predominantly filled with men (and white men at that). Women get snubbed over and over again. And that’s a travesty, because I know a lot of great female communicators in social media that could talk about Gov 2.0 or just about anything, in general.

Conference organizers are not doing their part to highlight female speakers. That’s the real issue.

As organizer of BlogPotomac, I always highlight at least three female speakers or 43% of my roster. And I always have a lady co-emcee with me. See, its not altruism guiding this decision. Think about the communications business: It’s dominated by women! To me, as a conference organizer, I would be a horse’s ass if I did not represent my stakeholder community — which is predominantly women — accurately and fairly.

If you consider that 43% number versus what I estimate to be at least a 67 to 75% female communicator population, BlogPotomac has more work to do! Since this Fall is the last one, my next conference iteration (if there ever is one) will have to strive to meet that mark.

Yet over and over again, I watch other social media conferences trot out the new boys club (it’s new media, right?). Full disclosure: As a member of that new boys club, I reap the rewards, too, with anywhere between three to ten speaking spots a month. I rarely submit proposals for engagements anymore. I like to think these offered spots are a result of working my butt off to be interesting and create customized content for groups, but fair is fair, and 1/3 of my share should probably be offered to women.

Conference organizers continuously snub women. And that’s just wrong. I don’t claim to have the answers to this societal problem.

Are there things women can do? Sure, I suppose they could be more assertive, but I refuse to believe the whole cause is that by their very nature men promote themselves more. A majority of blogs are written by men, but only 57% in the U.S., so I’m not drinking that kool-aid. If that was the case we’d see 43% female speakers instead of 10-25%.

We need conference organizers to acknowledge the problem first, then clear action can be taken. Until conference organizers get honest, and expose why they are choosing men over women — even if it’s sexism by oversight – we are going to be left debating the issue. Until then, I can only do my part, which is to honor female speakers with my own conference, suggest female speakers to organizers, and continue to periodically blog on this issue.

Throughout this post and below you have seen the many voices on Twitter and Facebook who have offered their opinions, too. What are your thoughts?

Somewhere amidst all of the Twitter hype a really big statistic was achieved, the creation of Ning’s one millionth social network. In a world where follower counts are lauded or decried for sheer girth, where it’s cool to just to be seen using the tool even from space, communities are bubbling to the fore.

One million subject matter specific communities, one million places where specific discussions related to some sort of common interest are occurring. Six million visits a month demonstrate recent features and additions are making their impact felt.

Sure, I know some of them are dormant, but traffic (pictured above) keeps increasing, demonstrating 6,000,000 unique visitors a month to Ning communities. Not too shabby for a social network oft criticized for serving the niche instead of the many, for being too small to be relevant. heck, there’s even a Ning for Dummies book now.

What’s relevant about Ning’s rise is that smaller groups of people are congregating to actively discuss the issues that matter to them. While mass-Twittering matters in the hype engine, the actual development of communities is accelerating.

Because we are so accustomed towards communicating with big channels, Facebook, Twitter, etc. are now the apple of our echo chamber’s eye. Yet online conversations are not about the wide swaths of tens of thousands of people, rather hundreds that actually interact with each other (see Valeria Maltoni’s breakdown of communities and Dunbar’s number). Social media has always offered the counter specialized content to the big mass market channel. And so it is only natural to see further splintering and the movement towards smaller, specialized communities even in the face of Ashton Kutcher.

Blog post title crowdsourced at #NTC09 – Lois de la fuente

by Valeria Maltoni (cross posted at Conversation Agent) and Geoff Livingston

Yup. Times are tough! Whether it’s yourself, a friend or family member, everyone knows someone who has been affected by the economic situation. Jobs are less secure and hard to find, every sector has been hit, the news is bloody awful from week to week, and the Wall Street – Capitol Hill mud fight is just downright painful. But that doesn’t mean your attitude has to go down with current events (image: Worry Face! by dogbomb).

In reality, successfully handling events like these often depends on your own inner solace. That’s not to belittle serious situations, and the somewhat contagious nature of down spirits and news. But as Abraham Lincoln said, “People are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

We thought it would be really useful to provide 25 tips on ways to break out of “stinking thinking” and get your day back on the right track. Here are some of our preferred methods:

1) Go to the gym and exercise: It cleans your head out!

2) Step away from the big picture and ask yourself, what’s the next right thing I can do now? Go do it. Repeat this process until good spirits return.

3) Do some charitable service work, and help someone else out. Sometimes this reminds us others have it worse and we have a lot to be grateful for.

4) Write out a list of 10 things that you are grateful for…

5) Go for a walk and notice everything as if it were the first time you saw it.

6) Get out of the city/town/office/your house and spend sometime outdoors.

7) Have coffee with a friend who you haven’t seen in a while.

8) Spend some quality time with your loved ones and family members.

9) Plan a vacation!

10) Watch the sun rise or set. It’s hard not to see the beauty there!

11) Watch a movie. That’s an instant two hour form of captivated attention that will take your mind off things.

12) Eat a good meal deliberately. Take in the whole experience – appearance, taste, company.

13) If you are spiritually or religiously inclined, meditation and/or prayer can calm the mind.

14) Meet new friends. One of the best ways to renew how we think about ourselves is to have a brand new chance to make a different first impression.

15) Read more, especially good fiction. There is nothing better than a well-written story to get your creative juices going.

16) Be more available for last minute meet ups with colleagues, friends, and peers. Sometimes the best events are unplanned.

17) Write down your ideas. Put pen and paper in easy-to-reach places. You might be pleasantly surprised at the number that has potential.

18) Think positive! Use this as your new mantra: “Blame no one. Expect nothing. Do something.”

19) Ask for help. You’ll be amazed at how a collaborative effort energizes you.

20) Slow down. Sometimes we miss all the good stuff that happens in between point A and point B.

21) Discover classical music. Mozart, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Vivaldi, Albinoni, Chopin tell amazing stories with their body of work.

22) Take an improv class. Learning a new skill that can help you in presentations and public speaking will increase your confidence.

23) Listen more, speak less. It will help you learn to appreciate others in whole new ways.

24) Teach a class at the local community college/school/library. Sharing knowledge is very satisfying.

25) Sing along while you drive.

Happiness is a state of mind and a choice. When you step into the field of possibility, you can do anything you put your mind to. What are some of the ways you use to break out of “stinking thinking”?