Facebook | Social Media University, Global (SMUG)

Blog Birthday

Today we celebrate the second birthday of this blog. I don’t know how big the “we” doing the celebrating is, but it has definitely grown in the last year.

When I started it as “Lines from Lee” with these three posts on July 30, 2006 I had no idea what a great adventure I had begun. In fact, it was more than a month before I wrote another one. But by the end of September I had pretty much decided to go for it. I described the first full year a year ago today with this post: Looking Back: One Year of Blogging, which closed with this:

It’s been a great year of learning, and while I’ve invested some time, the financial cost has been zero.

Where else but the blogosphere can you learn so much at no cost?

I’m looking forward to continuing my education!

Little did I know that just a few months later I would become Chancellor of an on-line institution of higher education!

In that last year (and particularly in the six months since Lines from Lee became Social Media University, Global – SMUG), traffic has increased by about 600 percent. The number of RSS subscribers is up 800 percent. And we have 134 members of our SMUG Facebook group. This is my 530th post over two years, and Akismet has spared me nearly 50,000 spam comments. Thank you, WordPress!

While in last year’s wrap-up I highlighted some specific posts, this year I would just direct you to my Rebranding the Blog post and others from January. They describe what we’re all about at SMUG:

using free or ridiculously cheap social media tools

to learn how to

use free or ridiculously cheap social media tools

for real business/work-related projects and for more in-depth relationships with key stakeholders.

But as I think about it, there have been a few other key highlights I should mention:

My 12-Step Social Media Program for PR Professionals was a precursor for SMUG, in that its popularity helped me see the need for an orderly, step-by-step introduction to social media. And while I’m not aware of the post being translated into any other languages, it has been edited and adapted for publication in magazines or newsletters for association Executives and veterinarians.

Other posts and pages that have gotten significant traffic include:

B2B Facebook: Limited Profile (which has since been improved and updated by Facebook 210: Professional Profile, Personal Privacy)
Facebook Business
Top 10 Facebook Business Uses, and
The SMUG Curriculum

But the best part of blogging has been the people I’ve met through this journey. Among those I’ve gotten to know a bit without meeting face-to-face (yet) are Ben Martin, Kelsey Thompson, Scott Meis (a Chicago snowstorm prevented our meeting), Brycie Jones, Steve Levine, Sidney Williams, Toby Palmer, Jennifer Texada, Hilary Marsh, Rick Sauter, Aruni, and Peggy Hoffman. I hope that in the coming year they’ll become in-person acquaintances, like Chris Heuer, Rick Short, Katie Paine, Chris Martin, Tim Collins, Susannah Patton, Hillary Weber, Scott Hensley, Kevin Hoffberg, Michael Masnick, Bonnie Sashin, Sally Falkow, Jeremiah, Erik Giberti, Lee Odden, Charlene Li, Dennis McDonald, Jim Long, Sallie B, Michael Brito, Andy Sernovitz, Adam Brown, Michael Rubin, Kami Huyse, Chuck Hester, Paula Cassin, and many others. Daniel Rothamel is an in-between case: I haven’t met him, but we did talk via Skype videoconference.

These are just a few of the folks with whom I’ve gotten connected over the last year or so, and they all have enriched my life. So have the scores of additional people I’ve met through conferences, or virtually through Twitter, blog comments or the SMUG Student Union. For those whose names I should have mentioned but didn’t, please just chalk it up to the lateness of the hour.

And of course, Facebook has helped me reconnect with many friends from the foggy, distant past.

If you haven’t taken the social media plunge, I encourage you to immerse yourself. To borrow a phrase I heard someone use in the last few months to close an on-line video:

“If you enjoyed it half as much as me, that means I enjoyed it twice as much as you.”

But even if your social media enjoyment is 10 percent of what mine has been, you’ll find it well worth the effort. And you could start by clicking any of the links above, which would introduce you to an interesting person. These are can’t miss recommendations.

SMUG Diversity – Extra Credit Weekend Assignment

As described in Salon, Stuff White People Like is

a satirical blog about a particular segment of Caucasian culture. It’s like an extended “you might be a redneck if” joke recast for a more upscale set. It gently mocks the habits and pretensions of urbane, educated, left-leaning whites, skewering their passion for Barack Obama and public transportation (as long as it’s not a bus), their idle threats to move to Canada, and joy in playing children’s games as adults. Kickball, anyone?

I first became aware of this site about a week ago (which is further evidence of my non-whiteness, at least according to Mr. Lander’s criteria), when people at work started sending me “Have you seen this?” notes regarding this post announcing the Stuff White People Like Facebook application.

I don’t know what would be the basis for calling the Mayo network the whitest on Facebook — whether it’s the number of installs of the application, or the scores of those who take the “whiteness” test. I’m just glad that I’m helping to bring diversity to Mayo. 😉 I did get whiteness points for liking Apple products, however.

That got me thinking: How diverse is the student body at SMUG? Among the 123 current members of the SMUG Facebook group, I know we have at least 10 countries on five continents represented. So I’ve come up with a just-for-fun weekend assignment for SMUG students. It’s completely optional, but then again all of our coursework is completely optional.

Assignment:

If you haven’t already done it, Enroll in SMUG and be sure to join our Facebook group. This is your chance for a free education in practical use of social media in your business or other organization.
Visit the Stuff White People Like Facebook application and take the “Whiteness Test.”
Enter your score and whiteness percentage in the comments below.

YouTube 102: Broadcast Yourself Globally

This is a more philosophical follow-up post to “7 Steps to Getting the Most Out of YouTube.” While the former gave you some practical steps, this one looks at how advances in video equipment and the Web make it possible for anyone to be a worldwide broadcaster

Let’s take a minute to reflect on how the world of video has changed in just a quarter century (or to fit my personal example below, it’s more like 27 years.)

In 1981, most local television markets had three commercial network affiliates, and in some major metro markets there would be a PBS affiliate and occasionally an independent station. Station owners paid millions of dollars for FCC licenses, cameras, studios, transmitters and staff to create programming and pass it along to local viewers. Sometimes they had to pay fees for the exclusive right to broadcast events. Then they had to hire commercial sales staff to sell ads to car dealers, furniture stores and other local merchants, so they could interrupt your viewing pleasure with messages hawking their wares.

Today, by contrast, you can

buy a Flip video camera for $150 or less,
use a computer you already have (there are a few hundred million computers in the U.S. today) and free video editing software, and
create and upload programming that can be seen not just locally but worldwide, for free.

And frankly, a lot of what is being produced by amateurs today is of better quality than the professional grade of the 70s and 80s. For example, here’s some video from the 1981 Minnesota High School Boys Basketball Tournament:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9i6l-T00AA]

The vintage video has degraded somewhat over the decades (as has your Chancellor’s physical condition), but if you compare the professional-grade graphical titles from ’81 with what comes free in iMovie today, and the clarity of picture from today’s $400 camera with what we used to see from cameras costing tens of thousands of dollars, it’s amazing to see how far technology has come. Also, the fact that I even have this historical footage is due to a friend who recorded the action with his $1,000 VHS VCR (which would be about $25 today!)

Here as a more recent example is your Chancellor’s daughter, jumping center at Target Center in this year’s Minnesota Girls Class AAA Tournament:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxcieNu84oo]

Of course, the even better thing is that you don’t need to get to a state tournament in order to see yourself “on TV.” In fact, here’s the Facebook group I set up for my daughter’s team, where I uploaded videos from almost every one of their games from this past year.

And thanks to Facebook and YouTube, the members of the team (and their parents) will be able to share highlights of their special season with family, friends and descendants for decades to come.