Comments on: Fresh Thinking: Against Guruism, Unconferences, and Social Media Experts http://searchviz.com/blog/2010/01/10/fresh-thinking-against-guruism-unconferences-and-social-media-experts/ SearchViz: Get found. SearchViz is an inbound marketing agency that optimizes discovery and findability online. We offer search engine optimization (SEO) and marketing (SEM), web analytics, email marketing, social media consulting, and web design, all with the intent of generating leads and conversions. Tue, 02 Mar 2010 05:14:36 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 hourly 1 By: Freddie http://searchviz.com/blog/2010/01/10/fresh-thinking-against-guruism-unconferences-and-social-media-experts/comment-page-1/#comment-175 Freddie Tue, 12 Jan 2010 02:44:06 +0000 http://searchviz.com/?p=231#comment-175 Ed, I can always count out on you to be more ambitious and farther out/ahead in your thinking than I. I think global communication/collaboration tools are great, and I hope that we see them continue to see wider spread adoption. But I also think that we have another generation of traditional office-based startups and VCs who will position leaders and build geographically oriented strength, and I'd rather see Nashville at the forefront rather than the rear (or even deep middle) of those hubs. Though maybe we could somehow catalyze startups that do this. 37signals, though fiercely Chicagoan in some ways, has staff all over the world. Ed, I can always count out on you to be more ambitious and farther out/ahead in your thinking than I. I think global communication/collaboration tools are great, and I hope that we see them continue to see wider spread adoption. But I also think that we have another generation of traditional office-based startups and VCs who will position leaders and build geographically oriented strength, and I’d rather see Nashville at the forefront rather than the rear (or even deep middle) of those hubs. Though maybe we could somehow catalyze startups that do this. 37signals, though fiercely Chicagoan in some ways, has staff all over the world.

]]> By: Ed Dodds http://searchviz.com/blog/2010/01/10/fresh-thinking-against-guruism-unconferences-and-social-media-experts/comment-page-1/#comment-174 Ed Dodds Tue, 12 Jan 2010 01:03:20 +0000 http://searchviz.com/?p=231#comment-174 As an IT wannabe who came into the field via the script kiddie route, I concur about the value of knowing the internetworking plumbing as well as the rest of the CS outré sciences -- and I intend to be a life-long learner capitalizing on the various open educational repositories available. But the sad reality of the market system is that just because something is valuable doesn't mean that the client will value it -- and institutional stock holders and C-Suites DO NOT value CS degrees -- relative to what the C-Suite is paid. The same conversation goes on re: STEM higher education, the amount of money university's dedicate to their computing infrastructure vs. the amount spent on athletic programs. The corporate trend to push IT to commoditization (outsourcing, off shoring, clouds, H1b visa abuse) butts up against the refusal of Nashville tech start ups to adopt results-only work environments which allow folks to work from whatever part of the globe they happen to be in using modern collaborative communication tools. Clearly, we’re doomed… Who wants hot chocolate? As an IT wannabe who came into the field via the script kiddie route, I concur about the value of knowing the internetworking plumbing as well as the rest of the CS outré sciences — and I intend to be a life-long learner capitalizing on the various open educational repositories available. But the sad reality of the market system is that just because something is valuable doesn’t mean that the client will value it — and institutional stock holders and C-Suites DO NOT value CS degrees — relative to what the C-Suite is paid. The same conversation goes on re: STEM higher education, the amount of money university’s dedicate to their computing infrastructure vs. the amount spent on athletic programs. The corporate trend to push IT to commoditization (outsourcing, off shoring, clouds, H1b visa abuse) butts up against the refusal of Nashville tech start ups to adopt results-only work environments which allow folks to work from whatever part of the globe they happen to be in using modern collaborative communication tools. Clearly, we’re doomed… Who wants hot chocolate?

]]> By: Freddie http://searchviz.com/blog/2010/01/10/fresh-thinking-against-guruism-unconferences-and-social-media-experts/comment-page-1/#comment-173 Freddie Mon, 11 Jan 2010 22:17:21 +0000 http://searchviz.com/?p=231#comment-173 Kate, I might need to distill this out from the post: I'm not attacking social media or its practitioners/enthusiasts. I'm on Twitter. I use it personally and professionally. It's not my chief source of I because I don't expect to get more than marginal R, but my model is different from many. I'm mostly suggesting that Nashville being one of the top cities on Twitter is not indicative of our being a sustainable technology town, which is what I keep hoping we'll become. One other crucial piece of this puzzle that I didn't address is the role of colleges and universities. Kate, I might need to distill this out from the post: I’m not attacking social media or its practitioners/enthusiasts. I’m on Twitter. I use it personally and professionally. It’s not my chief source of I because I don’t expect to get more than marginal R, but my model is different from many. I’m mostly suggesting that Nashville being one of the top cities on Twitter is not indicative of our being a sustainable technology town, which is what I keep hoping we’ll become.

One other crucial piece of this puzzle that I didn’t address is the role of colleges and universities.

]]> By: Kate O'Neill http://searchviz.com/blog/2010/01/10/fresh-thinking-against-guruism-unconferences-and-social-media-experts/comment-page-1/#comment-172 Kate O'Neill Mon, 11 Jan 2010 20:57:49 +0000 http://searchviz.com/?p=231#comment-172 Wow, you cover a lot of ground here. :) I agree that flown-in social media gurus are probably not providing value over the cost of admission. I enjoyed Chris Brogan's presentation, and I mean no disrespect to Chris, but I'll admit that I probably didn't get $40 worth of practical, applicable value in his comments, however insightful they seemed. (Of course, just to be fair, I should note that that cost included a complimentary copy of his book, too.) Social Fresh is a bit frustrating to me, because I contacted the organizer offering to speak on deriving ROI from social media marketing, but wasn't ultimately invited to be on the schedule. This isn't sour grapes; I'm talking about the fact that there are people here (and I'm un-humbly including myself) who are doing real work on building and proving models for this stuff, and who have case studies to speak of, but because they want to charge an arm and a leg, they have to fly in experts from elsewhere to make it seem worth the cost. It turns out best that I wasn't part of the lineup since I had to be out of town. But I'm skeptical that attendees are really getting $300+ worth of value from the event. What can speakers possibly say that isn't widely available on topical blogs? What networking can happen that isn't already happening at the 20+ events each month geared at the same audience in Nashville? Anyway, the rest of your post deals with the need for support for developers and a genuine software development culture, and I couldn't agree with you more, so I'll end my comments there. Wow, you cover a lot of ground here. :)

I agree that flown-in social media gurus are probably not providing value over the cost of admission. I enjoyed Chris Brogan’s presentation, and I mean no disrespect to Chris, but I’ll admit that I probably didn’t get $40 worth of practical, applicable value in his comments, however insightful they seemed. (Of course, just to be fair, I should note that that cost included a complimentary copy of his book, too.)

Social Fresh is a bit frustrating to me, because I contacted the organizer offering to speak on deriving ROI from social media marketing, but wasn’t ultimately invited to be on the schedule. This isn’t sour grapes; I’m talking about the fact that there are people here (and I’m un-humbly including myself) who are doing real work on building and proving models for this stuff, and who have case studies to speak of, but because they want to charge an arm and a leg, they have to fly in experts from elsewhere to make it seem worth the cost.

It turns out best that I wasn’t part of the lineup since I had to be out of town. But I’m skeptical that attendees are really getting $300+ worth of value from the event. What can speakers possibly say that isn’t widely available on topical blogs? What networking can happen that isn’t already happening at the 20+ events each month geared at the same audience in Nashville?

Anyway, the rest of your post deals with the need for support for developers and a genuine software development culture, and I couldn’t agree with you more, so I’ll end my comments there.

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