How I Got Here

When I was younger, I was reluctant to deal with the ramifications of my idiosyncracies. At the University of Florida, after not picking a college until threatened with expulsion, I quickly switched course tracks from Journalism, to Public Relations, and, finally, to a PR sub-track for Magazine and Feature Writing. It was the newest program in the college and offered what I was unconsciously seeking: the fewest constraints on form and style. It was a great fit for me. For instance, I once conducted an interview with the vending machines at my fraternity house – the resulting story was used as an example of correct interview article form for several semesters. My graduating class in Magazines was only six people; as I recall, all of us were misfits.

My greatest passion is communications innovation. I love finding new ways to combine existing ideas, concepts and methods to leverage better results. I’ve created, managed and publicized strange-but-successful events; navigated around outdated policy to assure that my organization’s positions on issues got press; developed methods to analyze people’s past behavior to get wins in political and marketing campaigns; and, crafted off-beat business and project models when the “normal” ones provided no way to connect with important audiences.

I have always had an affinity for the biographies of people like P.T. Barnum and Bill Veeck. The advent of Web 2.0 and Social Media offers lots of opportunity for people like us. And so, here I am, awestruck by and giddy about the possibilities I see within a communications mode shift that rivals the the changes brought on by printing press, radio and television.

The Old, One-Way Street Gets Paved Over

Print, radio and television share a fundamental communications shortcoming in that they are all primarily one-way modes of communication. While feedback loops in these mediums do exist, i.e., people can write and have letters to the editor published, the exchanges do not usually foster conversation. Plus, anything approaching true conversation in the old media is short-lived, with the exception of talk radio. The same might have been said of the Internet until the concepts that make up Web 2.0 came along. Yes, discussion groups and on line chat have existed, but they were hard to find, ephemeral, unfriendly, cumbersome or too disparately situated from the original source messages to broadly be conversational.

Now things are different. With Web 2.0 and Social Media tools multiplying like rabbits, not only is personal and business communication moving more toward a two-way standard, it may be evolving into a multi-way standard. Not only are we seeing things become more conversational, we’re seeing conversations take place with a high level of permanence; an on line conversation about a hot topic that took place last year may have petered out, but it can be rejoined instantly when some event throws the issue back on the front-burner. New participants can engage conversations from their points and times of origin, wherever and whenever that may have been.

According to a just-published study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, about 13% of all web users are currently using at least one Social Media tool daily. While I’m not quite sure of the trend-line, based on my off-line conversations with friends and colleagues, I’m seeing an increased awareness that the tools exist, albeit ignorance regarding their practical application prevails.  Having been an evangelist in several past technology adoption curves, I’m convinced that we are not far from the tipping point at which these “secrets” go mainstream. I’m far from the only one betting on it; Social Media savvy folks in business are already leveraging it well. For instance, Comcast is using Twitter to respond to customer complaints and Dell is using it to interact with prospects and customers.

After the fold – Permasations

Permasations?

The mode that all this new stuff facilitates is really beyond what we usually consider to be “conversation” and may need a new term to adequately define it. We might as well call this new way of interpersonal engagement the “permasation mode,” a joining of permanent + conversation. I considered dubbing it “perversation mode” but I didn’t want to give the impression that all we are talking about is politicians’ fidelity patterns. So, what you “tweet” on Twitter, follow up with on FriendFeed and share at FaceBook or Del.ico.us or SecondBrain or Disqus can been viewed as accessing multiple channels of the same concept in “permasation mode” for entertainment, personal enrichment, business and, yes, profit.

From a broader perspective, what the advent of permasation means is that any entity that strives to maintain a public brand consciousness, from individuals to corporations to government departments to political campaigns, will have to learn to navigate on fresh intellectual turf. I don’t know that old adages like “tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them, and tell them what you told them” are going to work very well going forward. I believe our new mode is going to require more of a “tell them, then tell them again, and again, and again, etc.” approach. If you have a brand to manage, permasation mode communications about it will take place and have the potential to define it whether you decide to participate or not. I’m particularly impressed by the power of the permasation when I browse through a clever new site I discovered, BrandTags.net. I believe you’ll get a clearer picture of what I’m talking about if you take a look at the sort of virtual territory Comcast is navigating already.

Consistently Precise Semantics

In looking at the previous example link, I believe it proves that the semantic precision in how you repetitively tell your story is going to be vital. Because people are getting more and more attuned to using search engines to learn and internalize messages, it probably means that we not only need to have our web sites tweaked toward search word optimization, we also need to start being more consistent with our phrase and word choices when we communicate about ourselves. In essence this means that we will need to communicate in a way that helps optimize our tag clouds; that is, mindful of visual depictions that represent the prioritization of words, phrases and concepts that define us both in the search engines and in the spaces in which permasations take place.

What Might a Permasation Mode Communications Plan Look Like?

I’m going to put an idea out there for you that I’ve been toying with for several months to see if I can get some feedback, um, engage in a permasation about it: I believe that if we are going to manage our reputations and brands through permasational planning, we had better: 1) figure out what our optimal “tag clouds” (maybe we need a new term) should look like; 2) use these tag clouds to build rough structures (mind maps or outlines) for all communications planning; and, 3) strive to fit most of our communications activities within the parameters of these structures.

When I realized that tag clouds are a way of starting to to plan in this new mode communication process, I created one based on my resume. It wasn’t useful, or pretty:

Bob Finch Wordle.net Tag Cloud - Before

So, I decided I would build one that is more descriptive of my desired path and personal brand:

Bob Finch Wordle.net Tag Cloud - After

While this definitional freeze-frame still needs a few tweaks, when I look at it I see that it does a pretty good job of defining me.  In a greater sense, it is a picture of what fulfills me.  I envision organizations building these types of tag clouds and putting them up as artwork in their offices as aids for the internal reinforcement of messages and brands.

This tag cloud exercise is just the start of a whole new process I really want to engage my readers in creating. I’m not going to lay claim to whatever comes of it and would rather this be a public domain project. With that in mind, I have put this entire site under a Creative Commons License. You are free to take whatever text you like from here and publish it elsewhere, but please give proper attribution wherever you publish or post it.

Summing It All Up

I am completely convinced that we are all going to be affected by the advent of the permasation mode and the new, emerging vision of what constitutes effective communications. It will be easier for the younger generations to handle; they are growing up immersed in it.  People like me came of age in a world in which we had no true choice but to accept or dismiss messages being transmitted one-way from radio, TV, magazines and newspapers as “the way things are.” The only alternative we have had was to totally tune out of important cultural streams.   We’re not accustomed to interacting with or engaging mass messages or the messengers behind them, but we must learn to do so.  The new mode I’m describing is already working well right now, mostly within and among a small cadre of habitual permasators. These technology evangelists are on the cusp of a very cool revolution that I believe will inevitably affect us all, enhancing old relationships and fostering new ones.

Post Script

This is the sort of content you can expect if you frequent this site. You can subscribe to one of the feeds at the upper right corner of my site to keep up with what’s going on.   Of course, I’d rather you come a bit closer and engage me in the comments section. I promise that we will all learn stuff to make what we do easier to get done, and if time equals money… well, you do the math.

Whoa!  That got my attention!  I guy I respected in the business was talking about something I had dismissed out of hand.  What was I missing?

I’m an early-adopter who hates not being aware of all things new, so I decided to find out what was going on.  I joined Twitter.  And I posted. Mundane stuff.  At first I stuck to answering the question that Twitter suggests you ask yourself before posting: “What are you doing?”

Well, within a week or so, I was not only growing bored with sending out short, 140 character comments, but I was also getting a little peeved that nobody was following me (boo hoo).  Plus, my mind hadn’t made the proper connections to figure out how big this thing really is.  I also talked to several of my friends and learned none of them was using it… yet.

What was Zimmerman talking about?

“I’d better find out how people get followed, and figure out who I need to follow,” I thought.

And so I spent an hour or so Googling all things Twitter.  And gradually I saw the light.  This isn’t just kid stuff.  I’ve identified and follow several thought leaders I want to get to know, along with a small but growing cadre of Tallahassee Twitter Users.  Several of them are following me, too.

Having used it for a while, I know that for the uninitiated Twitter pretty much defies explanation. It just does. The only proof that I can offer is that I know the unique mode of communication that Twitter has tapped into is going to be something huge. Rather than try to explain why, here are three fictitious but already-have-happened business examples:

Example 1:

Joe has a little sandwich shop. One of his teenage employees spends her break time “tweeting” (Twitter posting) on her iPhone with friends. It comes up in conversation.

“All your friends are on it?” he asks.

“Yes, and I also follow my older brother who just graduated from college and all of his friends. It’s a great way to build relationships,” she says.

“Relationships?”  Joe asks.  “Tell me more.”

The next day Joe puts up a sign next to the cash register that says, “Follow Me on Twitter For Great Meal Deals” and includes his Twitter address. For the uninitiated, next to the sign he places a stack of instruction sheets explaining what Twitter is all about and how to sign up and follow him.

Soon, Joe has followers.  So, a couple days a week about an hour before lunch, he tweets out a daily special that begins: “Show this tweet for cheap eats!  Today’s special is…”

On rainy days, he sends out reminders about his delivery service.  Before holidays, he tweets about his party platters. Joe is a happy Twitterer.

Example 2:

Fred is in sales in a midsized Midwest town.  He reads blogs by the thought leaders in his industry.  He knows from experience about how long it takes for a new “next big thing” to work its way from New York or Boston or LA to his little burb.  Reading blogs has helped improve his sales but it’s also been very time-consuming.

One day he learns that some of his favorite bloggers are also using Twitter, so he gives it a try.  He starts following the people he’s been reading.  And then he starts following some of their followers.  Over a couple months, he builds a great base of social network friends in situations similar to his in different podunk towns across America and they all start sharing sales ideas that help him. While he didn’t comment often in the blogs, he finds it less difficult to initiate conversations with people who told him (and the rest of the world) what they had for breakfast.

Example 3:

Mary is the customer service manager for a large chain of small retail stores. Her son tells her that he was playing with Twitter search and put in her company name.  What people were saying mostly wasn’t very good.  So she sets up her own Twitter account, starts regularly searching for keywords related to her company, and when she learns of complaints she sends direct tweets to those with problems, takes the conversation off-line and resolves the issues.

The bottom line:

Twitter is about a lot more than just the everyday happenings in its users lives.  But it appears that those doses of personal texture and flavor facilitate types of connections among former strangers that don’t usually happen in the “real world.”

As for me, I’ll just have to get over not being like some of the hard core Twitterholics with ten gazillion followers… they’re in big cities.  I’m in the boonies.  My time will come.

Note: In later posts, I’ll cover some of the most popular Twitter web applications and real-life examples of how people are using Twitter to get wins in their businesses and careers.