Anyone who is busy likely has, and on more than one occasion, said something like, “I’m so busy I could use a clone.” Being an entrepreneur I decided to actually DO something about it and I commissioned one. It was a remarkably easy process and the clone is quite a handy asset most of the time.

To Wit:

1. The clone is great at helping me be two places as at the same time. I can make appearances at social events, even multiple events in the same evening, and no one is the wiser as no one really cross-checks our check-ins to see if there are issues.
2. He can be out on the town while I’m home being an attentive father and husband.
3. He can clean my desk and catalog all the piles and piles of business cards that have built up over the years.
4. He’s capable at Tweeting on my behalf whilst I’m sleeping and he has occasionally met with troublesome clients for negotiating when I was simply too uncomfortable or emotionally attached to the deal.

The problem? He is gone, as in missing and I need your help getting him back.

From here on out I’ll refer to the clone as “It” rather than as “him.” You might find offense at this, but he (It) is a facsimile of me, not the real me. So “It” is him.

You see, It was never allowed in our home. That was strictly off limits to protect the family. Our children have enough issues without dealing with more than one of me out there and having them make an issue out of It.

Getting It back will be challenging as It’s not easily fooled.

Here are some key signs you’re taking with It versus me:

-       Recognition – You say something like, “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” and, trying to play the part, It will say something like, “Maybe. Did you go to such-and-such event?” or “Well, I’m big on Twitter and I know so-and-so.” or, “I have a really popular blog and …”

• It’s all an act
• Please remember, It knows nothing and no one
• It is trying to play off of my credibility

-       Acknowledgement – It will smile and wave at you thinking It knows you, but It doesn’t.

• It is trying to get something from you. Connections, information, money. Beware!

-       Style – It likes to mimic my style, so this can be a little tricky. What might blow Its cover is wearing of the following:

• Workout Apparel – I own it, but I never wear it to really “work-out” in.
• Working Out – Again, a dead giveaway that It is really “him.” I have a gym membership that I might use annually.
• Hoodie – Again, I own one. I’ve no idea why.

-       Age – Clones don’t age as quickly as we do. Also, It has no responsibilities, pressures or kids, so It will appear to be a younger, more care-free version of me.

Luring and Capture

Here’s how you can help put a stop to It. I need you to lure, detain and help capture It. Like Superman to Kryptonite, It has weaknesses. If you can distract It or even if you see It, call 911 and report any suspicious activity. Here are some ideas on how to lure It.

1. Food – Like me, It really, really likes certain foods.
   1. Nutella – if shopping at any supermarket check the isle where the Nutella is.
   2. Oreos & Milk – if you suspect a positive identification, offer either Nutella (see above) OR Oreos and Milk. Both are very distracting to It.
   3. Socializing – Again, tricky. Remember, Its original job was to attend events on my behalf. It doesn’t like the spotlight though, so It won’t accept speaking gigs like me. It prefers to sit at a table and “act” like It knows people and is having meaningful conversations whilst sipping a Sprite. Or Diet Coke.
   4. Sleep Deprivation – It doesn’t require much sleep. If you see It at any Starbucks or other events before 9:30 am you’ll know It’s “him” and not me.

Lastly, I’m gonna be out of commission for a few days as our new, baby girl is being born tomorrow, April 6^th. ANYONE out and about who looks like me should be a suspect.

Thanks for your help!

Mike

Oh, this statement sounds familiar to you too? I think it was popular for years. Maybe it still is? So what’s the stigma with ditch-digging anyway?

Let’s come back to this in a few moments. What’s more fascinating to me is that the ditch ever gets completed in the first place.

Consider for a moment what goes into digging that ditch by today’s standard:

1. We have to consider the attributes of the ditch
1. Why build it?
2. How much volume should it handle?
3. Big ditch, little ditch?
4. How long should it last?
5. What are the Service Level Requirements (SLAs)?
2. What will it cost?
1. We need a site survey. Anyone been out there recently?
2. What materials will it be made from? Straw, sticks, bricks, etc.?
3. Environmental studies – are any spotted consultants endangered?
4. We better pre-qualify vendors
5. We’d better issue an RFQ
6. Once we’ve reviewed the RFQ responses we need to author and issue the RFP
7. We need to review the RFP responses
8. None of the responses are from the vendor we REALLY wanted. Issue another RFP.
9. Security – what if someone trespasses on our ditch or if the Chinese steal the plans for our ditch?
10. Safety concerns – what if someone falls in our ditch?
3. IT Needs
1. What software do we need to design it?
2. Who’s gonna install it?
3. We need training on the ditch-designing software
4. Is the ditch-digging software SaaS based, because if it isn’t we’ll need a server.

(Um, anyone notice we’ve not broken ground on the ditch yet…)

1. Project management
1. Do we have an experienced PMP certified PM with ditch-digging project experience?
2. Which method are we using? Agile? Waterfall? ILT-9000-2012? (That’s a fake one…don’t hate me)
3. We need an issue-tracking system
4. IT needs a business case to build the issue-tracking system
5. IT has a form we need to fill out for our business case. Anyone seen it? Oh, it’s in SharePoint? Ok then, has anyone actually seen it?
6. We need a Risk Analysis with contingency plans
7. The PM will want software to manage the ditch project
8. Does the PM software integrate with the design software? Call IT. Business Case!

Where do we really get ROI on all of this stuff? Notice we’ve not done a study on ROI yet.

For whatever reason we determined we needed a ditch. Let’s go back to that point I made above.

When I look around me I see everything that’s been made by hands. Hands took tools and built sidewalks, iPads, Pyramids, churches, roads, stoplights and yes, ditches. I know our systems and processes are very useful in optimizing work and the workflow of how we get things “done” in our economy today AND that we’re more productive than ever.

Can you imagine how expensive Stonehenge or the Pyramids would be to build by today’s standards and methods?!

My point -> Don’t ever underestimate the “ditch-diggers” – the employees, the teams, the individuals, the consultants, the worker-bees, the agencies, the companies – the ones who execute against a plan and get it done. They deliver the results. All the planning and analysis, software and systems, science and applications don’t matter if the project is never completed. 

Okay, okay … you get it. At some point THE DITCH NEEDS TO BE DUG.

This post explains a little about why this conference at this time and what’s in it for the attendees.

The Why

• We felt it might be useful to combine some level of 101-level and 201-level content in a one-day conference.
• The producers of Seattle’s Northwest Women’s Show approached us after 301 last year and pitched us on the concept and we felt Social Media Day would be of great value to the attendees and we’re taking a different angle than we have in our prior conferences.
• We considered the types of attendees and Social Media Day is open and valuable for all and we wanted to appeal to attendees of the Northwest Women’s Show by providing the why, what and how fundamentals for engaging in social media.

This event is going to be fantastic for those who know they need to Go Social and for those who have started in that direction and want to fine-tune their efforts. I could not be more excited to present our amazing speaker line-up to you!

The What

We carefully consider the messaging we want to present, what we hope to communicate as value and who would be the best at presenting that message based on their expertise and experiences. With this thought in mind, please let me share what you’ll come away with from our speakers:

• Kathy Ireland – Kathy and I became acquainted via social media. Yes, I’m an ’80s kid and knew her first as a supermodel. Kathy has effectively moved from the “beach to the boardroom” and continues to build a multi-billion dollar, worldwide, B2C retail. She’s also built her brand upon who she is as a person and in my consulting work I find a very common question, namely, how much of yourself should you mix with your brand. Kathy will speak to this very effectively to help you consider what might work for you. See the latest issue of Forbes Magazine with Kathy on the cover!!
• Another note on Kathy – she’s a wonderful example of bringing all of herself, what principles drive her, into her work. Her standards and desires influence her brand and she continues to change the world through more than just social media engagement, but also through her tireless efforts with non-profits around the globe. My words do little justice – check out her website at KathyIreland.org.
• Rod Brooks – As CMO of PEMCO Rod brings a financial services perspective to the conference and – think about this – how the heck do you make a product like insurance “fun?” We all recognize PEMCO’s brand and ads and Rod’s journey into digital media is a fascinating one. He’ll share compelling stories, data and tie the event together as our host for the day. He’s also a member of the WOMMA Board of Directors and Immediate Past Chairman, the leading entity establishing ethics standards, policies and best-practices followed by companies world-wide.
• Jeff Dance – Jeff was the first person I ever heard speak on Digital and Social Media and I was enthralled. I was captivated and I was motivated to get involved. He mentioned dozens of applications that make running business easier via the web and I hadn’t heard of 90% of them and the other 10% he mentioned I thought were worthless (Twitter, Facebook, ODesk…). Coming from a disciplined consulting and accounting background he opened my eyes to the new, digital media evolution. As the Fresh’s founder and principle at Fresh he manages our delivery with our global clients. He’s a recognized leader in creating engaging and compelling digital content that drives engagement brand recognition to generate sales leads.
• Jennifer Houston – Jennifer leads the Studio D team at Waggener Edstrom, one of the largest PR firms in the world. Jennifer knew digital media would be a game-changer and she led the effort in developing WE’d strategy for their global practice areas. How has this affected the economy and where are we going? Jennifer will share her in-depth knowledge and insights from her experience and provide her vision as to what she see is coming in the near-term. A colleague of mine describes Jennifer as “wicked-smart” and from my experiences with her I have to agree!
• Heidi Miller – We all have friends who are so freaking brilliant that at parting we always want to know a little more? Heidi is one of my friends in this category. Her experience in digital media began with podcasting and you’ll hear this in her voice. She’s an amazing speaker and presenter and, like all of the speakers, will put 20 hours into her 1 hour presentation with us. Her wisdom and feedback have been very insightful to me on more than one occasion and she brings a wealth of knowledge, insights and data that support her conclusions. Get ready for a deep dive with many “a-ha!” moments from Heidi as you prepare to Go Social!
• Jenny Kuglin – Jenny’s expertise from broadcast media as an anchor and now in the digital media space with Fisher Broadcasting will open our eyes as to trends in this space. She’ll also share her expertise in training journalists, anchors and on-air personalities of how they need to present and interact online. I’m thrilled to have her joining our panel on the very important topic of developing your social media personality and how that translates into success for your business. She’s lived this and now trains others to do the same.

Hearing from just one of these speakers is worth the price of admission and I know you will come away greatly enlightened with specific action items you can implement and get results. Many of these speakers are my mentors and I’m sure you will have a similar experience at Social Media Day! I hope the above helps explain why I chose this great lineup.

I was just the host at 201 and 301, but this time I am speaking as well and I’ll cover more about my personal journey into digital media. You see, I was a social media skeptic and my whole world has changed as I’ve embraced it. I’ll share some of the amazing experiences I’ve had personally and professionally (like how I connected with many of our speakers on Twitter FIRST!) and how we utilize social in unique ways for our clients.

No social media conference is complete without adequate time for networking with the other attendees. We have specific time for this and you’ll come away connecting not only with the amazing presenters but the other attendees as well. Come prepared to connect and grow your network!

Are you ready to Go Social? Then click on this link to join us at Fresh’s Social Media Day, Saturday, March 3rd!

• Guru
• Ninja
• Expert
• Maven
• Superstar

One of the great things about digital media is experimenting, so I thought I would change the bio to become more descriptive and I edited it to read “Digital Anthropologist.”  The definition of an Anthropologist is the study of humankind, in particular, the comparative study of human societies and cultures and their development, hence the term Digital Anthropologist fits me well.

In other posts I discuss how I came to Fresh Consulting which was a journey of discovery for me that has not stopped. I find myself continually learning as new applications, trends, events, releases and behaviors emerge in the digital space. I find many sources to be valuable and many of my favorite and trusted sources are people in my industry. I’m constantly experimenting with new platforms, tools, content styles, messaging, research methods, devices and more.

With my Twitter bio I once removed the phrase, “All Hail Nutella!” and I received several requests to put it back in! That call to chocolate resonates with lots of you people. Okay, well, me too.

Here’s an example of one recent experiment -

I’m on Instagram as mikewhitmore (you should follow me there too) and I’ve noticed a trend. Instagram has a Popular page where the pics with the most “Likes” are featured. My following continues to grow well, but I’ve not had any pics hit the Popular page yet. That’s not a big deal, but I wondered what type of pics would make the Popular page. I post pics of various things, family shots, our baby, cool pics I find via other sources, even did a contest of “what is this a photo of” and some other types. I then had the thought to try something different.

With her permission I asked my very stunning niece if I could post some pics of her on my Instagram account (again, another great reason to follow me there…) to see if I would get more Likes. Again, just an experiment.

To make a long blog post shorter, the conclusion was that no, posting a handful of pics of my niece did not dramatically have an effect on my follower growth or my Likes, but I did find out something else – and this is consistent on Twitter as well: being perceived as a real person behind the account does have a positive affect.

When I posted her pics I said “this is my niece.” I never said, “Oh, this is me!” Big difference. The pics that I get the most Likes of are the ones that are appealing as photo art (okay) but, even better, are the ones that show I’m just an average guy. I posted a picture this morning of some Bellevue buildings in the morning sun and that one shot might be the most popular one I’ve taken so far.

I’ve seen others on Instagram posing as someone they are not. Once they are discovered or they admit to not being the person they are ridiculed, unfollowed and disliked.

There’s all kinds of great data and conclusions I can make and use with clients from these simple experiments. I’ve found that the principle of being human in digital media consistently provides tremendous value.

My recommendations to you would be:

1. Put a pic of you in your profile. Generally, people want to connect with people, not a logo, not a model, but a person.
2. Make your content reflect your humanity – yes, even if you are a company. (Unless you’re a company that has no people working for it.)
3. Share the real you in your content. Yes, I share work-related content occasionally and you will too. It’s a matter of experimenting and finding the right balance for your audience.
4. You will lose followers and you will gain followers. So what? Don’t sweat it. I call it “optimization” and those who want to engage and follow will.
5. Not everyone is alike – we’re not all clones like Storm Troopers from Star Wars. People will react and respond in unique ways. Experiment with different content ideas and have fun with it.

And that, my friends, is part of what I do as a Digital Anthropologist.

Fresh Cranberry Ice

4 Cups (1lb bag) cranberries
2 Cups sugar
4 Cups water
1 Cup orange juice
¼ Cup fresh lemon juice
Orange rind grated (optional)

Put cranberries into a pan with water. Bring to a boil and simmer gently, until all the cranberries have popped. Press cooked berries through a wire strainer and discard skins.. Stir in other ingredients and pour into a loaf pan, cover with foil and freeze. Stir once or twice while freezing.

My mom serves this on her beautiful table each year in place of a salad. She puts hers in beautiful crystal “champaign” glasses (not flutes….the wide mouthed ones). She just uses small plastic cocktail cups at the kiddie table. It makes the table look so festive and it helps cleanse the palate between bites! so yummy……Especially if you like cranberry!

Not only were the clothes stored, but prior to storing them Deb washed, carefully packaged and labelled the items for any future needs. We wanted at least one more baby. While shopping for baby clothes she would find the occasional item that she would purchase and store for later use as baby shower gifts to expectant mothers.

After Deborah passed away and I married Amy we needed to make some additional room in the garage. Amy went through each of the bins and donated many of the clothes to charity or to other families. One of the most interesting (and fun?) experiences is seeing our children’s clothes on other kids. It’s good to see them being put to good use rather than languishing in the garage.

Then an amazing thing happened.

One of Deborah’s sisters lives in Paris. She and her husband had a baby boy earlier this year. As we packed for our family summer trip Amy discovered one of the baby boy shower items Deborah had carefully selected and purchased for a future expecting mother. You know what happens next …

We had the very touching experience of presenting to Deb’s sister the little baby boy outfit Deb had shopped for and purchased herself, with her own hands, sometime before she passed away.

Just another of the many miracles that touches us all whenever we Whitmores pause and reflect while on this journey through life.

Wait – before I get to that interesting thing – while we were at Five Guys a bunch of my buddy’s teammates from Microsoft also came in for lunch. We truly were practicing Never Eat Alone in this crowd.

Oh, but before that happened, the #2 guy for all of Microsoft was there having lunch too. This guy reports to Steve Ballmer and is responsible for billions and billions in sales world wide. I have no idea which burger he had for lunch…

Anyway, back to lunch with my buddy.

While we were talking I found out that many of may favorite folks I’ve met through Twitter have worked with my friend. We discovered that we share all of these amazing contacts with people and the firms they work with and that these connections are enhanced when we combined the online and offline together. We had a terrific conversation about our connections, knowing them, working with them and how might grow our working relationships with them.

One of my key takeaways in participating in social is that it multiplies valuable connections and deepens them. From my experiences in social media this principle seems to be consistent time and time again.

Other memory triggers fascinate me. Have you ever had a dream about someone you’ve not seen in years? Or perhaps your mind wanders to a place you only vaguely remember yet desire to visit again? How about a memory of a time that something didn’t go the way you wanted and you wish you could change it? Or perhaps again, in a dream, you encounter a person you only met once briefly and many years ago.

Another trigger is music. If I hear The Cars I’m taken back to riding in my buddy’s car in the cool of a summer night before I had my license. Fred introduced me to The Cars, Oingo Boingo, DEVO and, oh yes, the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Fun stuff that. I associate many friends to with the music they introduced me to. Maybe that’s another reason why Spotify is so addicting?

Today as I passed the LEGO store in the mall I saw Darth Vader’s Flagship and it reminded me of another friend and blogger, @Tacanderson, who now resides in London.

Another friend, @AnnKlein, was on vacation in Guatemala and she saw Nutella on a menu and it reminded her of me! How nice to be thought of from half a world away.

Well, today I did something about these fun memories. I let at least one person know that my memory of them was triggered by something as simple as a scent, a song, window shopping or whatever. To me that’s another testament to the power of the internet and yes, even social media.

A takeaway for you?

If something triggers a memory in you today let that person know. Maybe send them a Tweet, a text, a post on their Facebook wall, give them a +1 or some Klout. You may make this crazy world a little brighter by doing this simple thing.

Now, let me say right up-front: I’m thrilled that I purchased Apple Care for 36 months  because Apple knows how to run a fantastic support organization. They were responsive even during the weekend and I could schedule a time to connect with their support operators. They are replacing the hard drive and after all of this the only cost to me has been time.

But this isn’t the point of this post.

What’s amazing to me is that with some simple tools (including a Bluetooth keyboard) I’m able to function using my iPad as a backup. I’m in the midst of writing a handful of proposals for new clients and so far we’ve opted to use Apple’s Pages product for formatting the proposals and templates we utilize. We then send the proposals to the clients in PDF format.

While not as fast or efficient as my full-machine I’m still productive with this setup. I’m authoring this blog post using the same setup – Pages on the iPad with the Bluetooth keyboard.

Let’s just say I’m impressed.