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The Declaration of Social Media Business Interdepence

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Forgive Me Thomas Jefferson …
but we do share the same birthday.

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On the Internet, July 4, 2010

The Declaration of Social Business Interdependence

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for people to band together, to connect, and to assume among the powers of the market, the innovative, competitive, and collaborative marketplace to which the Laws of Economics and of Human Behavior entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of all — customers, vendors, clients, coworkers, partners, competitors, consultants, C-suite executives, family members, friends (excepting the unethical, the liars, thieves, and gamers of the system) requires that we should declare the causes which impel us to the do business.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that life online and offline are both real life, that each is endowed with certain unalienable connectivity, that among these are conversations, relationships, transactions, and the pursuit of bandwidth to build dreams into realities.

–That social networks are instituted among creators, curators, crowds of fans, leaders, listeners, thinkers, and caretakers deriving their just powers from the consent of the community.

–That whenever any business, any site or any platform of interaction, any relationship becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to abandon or to abolish it. They may lay a new foundation on like values and organizing its powers that protect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence dictates that long established platforms should not be changed for light and transient causes — with the result of exporting information and friendships into chaotic ubiquity; and accordingly experience hath shewn, that people are more likely suffer bad code and crashing sites, than to change their social networking habits and passwords.

But when the possibility of abuses, misuses and usurpations — particularly of personal information, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off what might harm their reputation and their future security.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the social web, solemnly publish and declare,

  • That these social networks are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent (excepting those offering extraordinary paid content).
  • That we will navigate the social web with appropriate caution tempering our transparency, rising to the belief that TMI can be not only dangerous to personal identity, but a passive invasion of others’ privacy.
  • We throw down, block, and abolish all content thieves, spammers, scrapers and people who hijack our Twitter streams to try to sell things as soon as they meet us.
  • We shun people who get to know us for the purpose of exploiting our networks.
  • We ignore Twitter breakdowns and glitches at our pleasure and make no promise to continue to do so.
  • We distrust people who say they know social media, but have no online presence and no social networking profiles.
  • We curse bad links and outages that interfere with getting our work done so that we might spend time with our families.
  • We will never forget that no amount of talking or attention getting will help a product or service that is woefully lacking. Social media cannot fix bad hires, faulty product, or other failings..
  • We commit to being social offline and online in equal and equivalent measures to build trust through predictability.
  • We protect each other when we see something happening that could cause a fail. We will not take pleasure or participate in huge social media bashing sparked by bad advertising, bad employee behavior, or human error. Discussion will not require beating a horse that is dead already or fueling a fire unnecessarily.
  • We refer business to the people most qualified in our networks by value of their intelligence, competence, integrity, and interpersonal skills, not by value of their number of followers or their friendship.
  • We strive to grow our businesses, our relationships, and our personal awareness so that we might have more to offer. That growing and knowing will allow us to align our goals with strategic partners to build stronger business, relationships and communities.
  • We do not click links or open attachments from people we do not know … ever.
  • We recognize the value of our cooperative, respectful, authentic interactions with like-minded people and value every tweet, comment, blog post, and that we share as we build our businesses and rebuild the economy of the world interdependently. .

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other time of our Lives, participation in our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

We declare our interdepedence as people who work on the web.

—–
We’re not starting a revolution. It’s already started.

What will you declare?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

I’m a proud affiliate of paid content worth investing in …

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The Declaration of Independence

Beach Notes: Seeing Creatively

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by Guest Writers Suzie Cheel and Des Walsh

One of our favorite beaches to walk on, which is also a bit risky to swim at, is Froggy’s, so named because someone about twenty years ago noticed that one of the many rocks looked like a frog and painted it accordingly. The paint seems to get refreshed from time to time.

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( map reference http://amap.to/h2r7g)

We think it shows someone’s creative imagination.

Do you see creatively? How does it change your view of the world?

Suzie Cheel & Des Walsh

On Writing: Hesitation, Aspiration, Being – Faith in You and Me

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cooltext443809437_relationships

I’ve often said that at night people get … more relational.

What’s this fear of being real?
Weren’t we all born authentic?
Why is it such work to get back to the person we are again?

Every day I meet with people who … hesitate.

Do you really want to live what time of your life you have doing that?

Hesitating. … even the word doesn’t look real.

Wouldn’t you rather be …?

How do you bring the music into what you’re feeling?

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aspiring

it means breathing toward …

to live for, to breathe for, to be for
something you believe in?

I have faith in you, in me.

Let’s be that.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

I’m a proud affiliate of

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How Would Changing Your View Change What’s Happening in Your Life Now?

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cooltext443860173_ive-been-thinking

Yesterday, I had a change of plans. A simple flight from NYC to Chicago turned into two cancellations and a few hours of waiting that weren’t on the program for how I’d had my day laid out.

I had no choice about the horrible weather that was changing airline schedules making no certainty of arrival. Saying “Rain, rain go away,” has never worked for me. All I could do was repaint my picture of how the day might go.

More than anything I try to change how I’m seeing the world …

  • Be a big fan of seeing unplanned interruptions as adventures. Adventure mode helps me gather good energy. My quest is usually to get to the end of the adventure with my good humor still going.
  • Like watching how other folks respond. Watching other folks I can see how they make their situations worse. That woman on the phone complaining about the weather and the delays isn’t having nearly as much fun as the one who is playing with her child in the airport. The conversation I had with the off-duty pilot would never have happened if I stayed inside a world of my own.
  • Get into discovering new opportunities. A walk through a bookstore gave me ideas for my blog. A dinner in the sports bar gave a celebration of an overtime game in the world cup with an excited, engaged crowd.
  • Watch for other possibilities and fuel them with a smile. In the shuffle of several boarding passes my baggage claim check left me and my bag wasn’t on the carousel when I arrived home. I gave a second’s thought to the contents of the bag; then went on to the possibility that my “adventure-inclined” luggage might have taken a route of it’s own. Sure enough it was safely waiting for me in another part of the airport.

Now I’m not saying that a wider world view or adventure mode will win anyone a ton of money or change the weather to a sunny day. But I’m saying that it will make what comes a lot easier to work through.

Living in the opportunities is always more fun than being stuck in a problem.

It’s all in how you view the world. When you have room to move, breathe, and smile, people respond.

How would changing your view change what’s happening in your life now?

Liz's Signature

A Dozen $100,000 Brand Ideas for Celebrating Our Heroes Through Social Media

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poppy

I’ve been reading about the history of Memorial Day, before it became about blow-out sales and backyard bar-b-ques.

And the words I’ve found take me back to when my mom still called it “Decoration Day.” She’d buy a paper poppy from the man at the VFW to put in the button hole of my coat. Then she’d take me with her to put flowers on the graves of those we love who lay sleeping while we could still stand, reflect, kneel to say, “thank you.”

Memorial Day is about gratitude, reconciliation, and honoring heroes who paid the ultimate price. They gave and we got.

Rebranding Memorial Day

In his series for Fast Company, Steve McCallion says:

So far we’ve explored how Memorial Day lost its meaning, but how can we get it back? How can we remember Memorial Day in a way that is authentic and relevant today? In this era of instant gratification, can we come together as a nation to recognize the sacrifices that have been made for our freedoms?

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Click through on the image for his marvelous ideas on how to rebrand to remind us what Memorial Day means.

A Dozen $100,000 Brand Ideas for Celebrating Our Heroes Through Social Media

Social media is about honoring our heroes and connecting people, isn’t it? If anyone knows how to do that we do … big companies, little companies, individuals don’t need to do much to put the celebrating and gratitude back into remembering those who sacrificed for our freedom.

Here are a few ideas …

  1. Apple might sell a limited yellow version of the iPhone — or simply choose any yellow iPod product — to donate a portion of sales to hire a social media team to help the White House Commission on Remembrance or The Memorial Day Foundation get their message out next year.
  2. 3M might build a Post-it Note Quote Community by inviting friends and families to publish quotes of their fallen heroes.

    My son would always smile and say, “There’s lots of apple pies, but I’ve only got one mother.”

  3. Berskshire Hathaway might find a volunteer team of social media mavens among their thousands of employees. If that team put out a penny-match challenge, I bet they could pitch a penny campaign that would travel across Twitter and fire through Facebook. Perhaps the collected money go toward health insurance or college scholarships for children of fallen soldiers.
  4. Johnson & Johnson already has communities of nurses and caregivers. They could send out a call via their site, Twitter, and Facebook. They could connect with nurses and caregivers who have shared the final hours with fallen soldiers. Imagine the wealth of history in those stories. If they partnered with the VFW or the Military Channel, that content could make an incredible interview series.
  5. Kodak or Polaroid could build a YouTube channel or a flickr collection for customers and employees to retell the stories of fallen soldiers. With the help of Scholastic, they package them as primary source materials with lesson plans for teachers to share with kids studying history. Teachers could upload comments, videos, and new ideas to add to the community.
  6. Kraft Foods or ConAgra could build the recipe book of heroes. How hard would be to use social media to ask the families of fallen soldiers to share the favorite recipes of loved ones who served our country? Imagine if the Food Channel cooked each recipe and shared the videos on YouTube?
  7. Hallmark Cards or American Greetings could invite the families of fallen soldiers to share cards they received from our heroes and tell the stories behind the cards. Suppose they tweeted a new free Hero ECard for a year?
  8. Starbucks or Panera Bread might print the pictures and a simple memorial statement on the cups that hold their coffee and tea. Folks could Tweet and Facebook their nominations.
  9. Lands End or L.L.Bean could offer a yellow ribbon discount to honor fallen soldiers. Instead of a promo code they might ask for 140 characters in tribute to our heroes. The promo codes could forward to Twitter, FriendFeed, and Facebook.
  10. Sony Music or Universal might put together a collection of songs for heroes by celebrity artists and donate the proceeds to HireHeroes. The songs could be on blip.fm and tweeted. We could DJ a Friday night hero Twitter party.
  11. Netflix could partner with the major studios to sponsor a $1 day of movies and documentaries about our heroes. Ambassadors from families could help chose the appropriate titles and be featured as recommending them. MailOurMilitary.com and milblogging.com might help promote a cause like this one. Netflix might challenge corporations and foundations to add matching funds to support grants to families of fallen heroes.
  12. Southwest Airlines, Marriott, and CNN might partner to offer veterans incredible deals to gather together in D.C. on Memorial Day 2011 to share the stories of fallen heroes.

What would the companies and brands get? They’d get the respect and loyalty of employees and customers who honor our heroes. People remember generosity that connects them to authentic, relevant meaning.

Any nation that does not honor its heroes will not long endure. – Abraham Lincoln

Isn’t that also true of our businesses?

I know you probably see a thousand ways to expand on each of these ideas — ways that each could be tweaked or twisted to fit another business. Take ’em and use ’em. I’d love to hear how you might re-invent an idea or what new ideas came to mind while you were reading.

How will you remember our heroes?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

I’m a proud affiliate of

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