Just Full of Ideas by Cayusa

I just finished reading my social media in Government colleague’s Steve Radick’s latest blog post. As per usual, his posts trigger deep thought and a loquacious response on my end. First I would like to say I just started reading “The Tipping Point” by Malcolm Gladwell. It was a gift from my mother who loves thrift store shopping and came across the book. In fact my mother has supplied me with a great deal of good reading when it comes to Government and change (thank you MOM). Her great finds and the people I speak with daily continues to shape my knowledge and opinions of Government 2.0 and where it is and where it is going. Those of you whom have heard me speak, you know I am not fond of the term/meme Government 2.0. But as it is what I apparently live my work-life balance in, I cannot escape it … but that’s another story, another post, another time.

Here is an additional point I would make (based off Steve’s post): It is not only who you know that makes the domino fall, but the right momentum to get that first push. If you do not have substantive information, poignant thought, or a new look on an old way of doing things: all the connectors in the world will expose those weaknesses faster than you can blink. With fact checking at the tip of our fingertips, it is easy to find out if you indeed are the SME or you’re just a johnny-come-lately. In terms of Government 2.0, we saw this first hand when if you watched the Presidential debates on CurrentTV where they infused twitter hashtags #current #debate08 and others to respond to the candidates and fact check statements made. In fact when searching Google for the term “debate fact check” the number one site returned appears to be a “nonpartisan, nonprofit “consumer advocate” for voters” according to their “about page”.

Of course this point of this post is not directed at Mr. Radick, its supplemental. This is just something I thought I should mention, as our digital exhaust becomes our street cred and virtual resumes its best to wear your colors on your sleeve and be who you are and not inflate who you are not. You can build your personal brand to have name recognition and thousands of contacts via social media websites.

For example, I recently went to a meeting in which the person I was meeting with had his people do research on what I can only assume was my digital exhaust from my expertise on social media. They asked me questions based on my “digital resume” and were impressed with my speaking engagements.

But none of these contacts will give you the return on investment you desire unless you deliver first. Why do you think twitter is so effective on finding out the spammers and fake accounts? I know when I get a friend request, be it twitter or facebook, I check who they are friends with, what do they tweet/talk about and what is the value of that connection to me? If a person is doing all the following and not being followed and posting jibber-jabber, we can feel confident it is something we should not waste our short-attention spans. I mean we have enough FOMO and HOLI to deal with, right?

Its not that I am an elitist or think of myself too picky. I follow a great deal of you on twitter and vice versa, compared to some of my colleagues. Why? Well because of the time of our connection I made a brief inquiry to the ROI for the both of us. So going back to the debates and election, when it came down to it, you most likely voted based on your mutual ROI between you and the candidate. For the country en masse, it was President-Elect Barack Obama.

So when you are making your connections, think about what the ROI will be for you and them? Are you just trying to get high numbers or are you more concerned with the content and message you produce?