Monthly Archives: September 2012

September 6, 2012 · 8:26 am

Nuance

Does anyone remember nuance?

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(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You know – the subtle differences that are out there in the non-virtual world.  Maybe it’s why some folks see Azure, Cyan, or Turquoise while others just see Blue.  Nuance is why some people who can read the words really can’t understand the meaning of what they’ve read.  It’s for sure why some managers have issues with their staff and peers – they can’t hear the nuances in tone that are so critical in interpersonal communications.

I worry about nuance from time to time.  Most of the communication we all seem to have these days is via the written word – email, social posts, and texts.  None of those things have nuance.  I think that’s in part where emoticons came from.  They can help add nuance to social posts (and are totally inappropriate for business communications, kids).  I also think that we all have been on these lengthy email chains from time to time because someone is missing the nuance in one of the notes.  Ever wonder why a brief phone call or in person meeting resolves the back and forth issues?  Nuance.

It’s not just written stuff that lacks nuance.  A lot of the evolving social scoring or influence measurement totally misses the nuance of influence.  Two of the most influential people in my life can barely turn on a computer and are invisible on the social web.  They have neither Facebook nor Twitter nor other social accounts.  The people who are influencers in my life that are online don’t have tons of followers or friends.  I checked one of my friend’s Klout score and it’s in the teens but people online and offline come to him for advice and guidance all the time.  Quantity certainly misses nuance and even attempts to measure the quality of his user base fall short.

What matters isn’t how many Twitter followers and Facebook fans you have or your business has.  What matters is how you and your business turn those embryonic links into real relationships – ones that involve nuance in the interpersonal communications.  That leads to buzz but it also leads to more satisfying bonds with your friends, your staff, your clients, and your customers.

You see the nuances?

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September 5, 2012 · 9:49 am

The One Man Band Battle

I got a note from a regular reader of the screed who was kind enough to send along today’s topic.  I’ll let him tee it up (not, it’s not golf) for you. He’s a smart developer who works solo, like so many of us do these days.  Here’s the situation:

I will be provided with an RFP shortly, along with 4 other entities. Although I think I have the inside track, I am battling the perception from the CEO that I am a one-man-band. My estimation is that the project is 4 man-months of work if I do it single-handedly but the CEO wants to go from RPF to implementation in 2 months.

To win this contract I must partner with others to combat the one-man-band perception and to get the project completed within the desired time-frame.

As a sage man of business, you could probably  give me some good advice on how to battle the negative perceptions so I can win this contract, which I would appreciate. I also think my predicament might serve as good subject matter for your blog.

Indeed it does!  My advice to him was to do a little sales jiu-jitsu – turn the negative into a positive.  In a time when it seems everyone I meet is either a consultant, a contract employee, or even a short-staffed manager, none of us are one man bands.  Everyone I know pulls in additional folks from time to time and I’m willing to bet the CEO (or his managers) do that as well.  A big advantage we independent folks have is that we’re no/low overhead operations.  You’re not paying for a nice building, multiple layers of staff, or large benefit programs.  Most of us are generally very senior and have been fully vetted and battle-tested.  There are no junior people on your account and it’s much easier for us to adjust to the right size team whilst people with entrenched staff can’t just up and hire and fire.

Another big advantage is the trust factor.  Those of us with lengthy high-level careers can generally be trusted to get the job done within the allocated time frame and budget and to let you know ahead of time if it’s going to be an issue.  If the CEO in question is dubious, build in some safeguards – penalties if the job isn’t done on time or additional fees if it’s done ahead of schedule or under budget.

Am I being self-serving here?  Maybe.   Then again, perhaps one can be right and self-serving at the same time.  Hit up the comments and let me know, and keep those topic suggestions coming.

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September 4, 2012 · 8:59 am

Fake Traffic

You probably have read about fake Twitter followers.  Most people have some (1% of mine are), famous people have lots (Justin Bieber has 14%).  You can check out the fake or inactive counts at Status People.  Obviously I haven’t gone out to acquire fake followers but like every part of the interwebs, Twitter has its share of  spammers and other flavors of cretin and they leach on to legitimate folks all the time.

That’s very different from folks who create fake accounts to add to their follower totals and very far removed from folks who go out and buy followers.  I suppose that the quantity of an audience is important to some people who market themselves based on their Twitter base or Klout score.  It’s been interesting as I pitch new business to have potential clients ask about that and how their minds change a bit after they understand how the system can be gamed.  Caveat Emptor if you’re hiring based on that and not on business acumen – it’s much harder to buy!

One way a system is gamed that I find really disturbing is the sale of web traffic.  No, I don’t mean impressions being sold to advertisers as ad space but the sale of bulk traffic to websites looking to increase their numbers.  There are a number of firms – I’m not going to plug them here – who will generate visits to your website for a fee.  Need 100,000 visits quickly?  $250 will get them for you.  Obviously for sites that sell based on rate bases or on impression guarantees, this is a form of fraud.

How do they do this?  Some companies use bots – automated scripts.  Others pay people to do nothing but click on the list of pages they’re given.  Still others push pop-unders which display the purchasing site when a user hits some other site the vendor controls.  Others use redirects from abandoned domains.  Pretty questionable stuff.

I’m told that some rather prominent sites use these firms near the end of a month when their traffic is kind of light.  I sure hope not.  This is exactly the kind of thing that will set back digital advertising 10 years just as it’s getting a fair amount of traction.  I can’t imagine what these folks are thinking.  Like the lightweight consultants who buy followers and game the reputation system, once this found out, those same systems will be used to spread the word about their duplicity.  Skeevy, right?

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