Social Networking: Such is the Way With Asshats and Defending Your Honor

A recent lunch with a colleague prompted a line that rang oh-so-true: “I spend an inordinate amount of time cleaning-up the mess that a previous firm has left behind.”

Such is the way with asshats and defending your honor. I run into the same situation repeatedly, and this week, I’m taking aim.

I spend an inordinate amount of time hanging out and chatting with folks just like me – consultants. Small business owners. The fact that we’re not of epic proportion doesn’t mean we don’t bring value – it just means we foot the bill for our own health insurance. But there are people in my own backyard that ooze their smarm and I’m sick of it.

Check out this dude. According to his LinkedIn profile, he’s been an “expert” on LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitter since 1990.

Ummm…Yeah. Here’s the thing: YouTube was launched in 2005, LinkedIn launched in 2003 and Twitter in 2006.

He’s keyword stuffing, obviously, but it reeks of douche-tastic overtones.

This guy is in my own backyard here in Denver, Colorado. Ew, ew, ew. If you’re going to put yourself out there as a LinkedIn and social media expert, Mike – can I give you a few tips?

Do your research and don’t establish yourself as an expert in a field before the field or platform…even existed.
Don’t have a Twitter stream that filled with 90% broadcast-only messaging. Twitter and social media are places for conversations. Or do you charge people for that tasty nugget of knowledge?
It’s awesome you’ve “figured out” LinkedIn and self-published a book on the subject. After reading your profile, I”m tempted to self-publish a book on the top 10 worst LinkedIn profiles with yours at the top as an example of self-indulgent keyword stuffing in bogus job fields. Fail, my good man. Fail.
Really – you charge between $1,500 and $10,000 to show folks how to set up social media profiles, a basic WordPress blog (kinda like yours here, hosted ON WordPress.com?), and create Twitter & Facebook pages? Holy hell. Remind me to raise my prices, m’kay?

The reality is this: these people exist. How do you defend your honor against the asshats? Here are a few tips:

References. If you’re like me and the identity of your clients is often confidential, let your prospective clients know that and offer to connect them with your clients confidentially.
Best Practices. Follow them. Don’t be an expert – be a continual and willing student. Social media is a slippery slope and the best you can do is develop a solid knowledge base that’s going to morph (and delightfully so) with every footstep.
Know Who You Are. You’re not going to be everything to everyone. Align yourself with those who cook what you can’t.
Know Your Shit. In the end, only you can win a client. Clients will buy what they’re willing to be sold. I get clients day in, day out who were sold a bill of goods and then realize things aren’t working. I understand. It’s then we get to work setting them in the right direction.

There is no business that’s purely a number game. Twitter followers, Facebook fans, LinkedIn connections…they’re numbers, pure and simple. What you choose to DO with your network is one thing. How you choose to BUILD it is another. And here’s a hint – if you don’t do one of them properly, then the time you spent on the other is worth…well, jack.

PS: Check out an excellent read about competitors by @ShellyKramer – because really, Mike – I don’t want you to change a thing.

Have an outrageous Monday!

http://geeksdreamgirl.com/ E. Foley – Geek's Dream Girl

2010 is only 98 days old.

So… 3 years and 98 days is 28,632 hours. (1193 days * 24 hours)

Assuming he sleeps say… 7 hours a night, that's 8351 hours we can't count.

This brings him down to 20,281 hours.

Let's assume that he spends an hour of each day doing things like showering, shaving, peeing, pooping, doing his hair. That's 1193 hours we can't count.

This brings him down to 19,088 hours.

Let's also assume that each day he spends an hour for meals. 20 minutes per meal is a little more than the American standard, but we'll assume he eats at nice places that require more time to savor. That's 1193 hours we can't count.

This brings him down to 17,895 hours.

We can also assume that after sleeping 7 hours, bathroom duties for 1, and eating for 1, he's probably not working for the other 15. What else could he be doing?

Oh! Well, he could be FLYING or DRIVING to places where he's doing presentations! Since NY to LA is a 6 hour flight, we'll say the average flight is… oh, 2 hours in the air. But there's also the pesky part about getting to the airport, security, etc. Really, to fly anywhere, you lose a full day (1/2 on the departure, 1/2 on the return).

Mike's bio says he's delivered over 300 sessions in the past 3.5 years, and we'll be nice and assume half of them were out of the local area. So… 150 sessions times a full day of travel (aka not working) = 3600 hours we can't count.

This brings him down to 14,295 hours.

See where I'm going here? I'm also going to assume Mike has a life and friends and doesn't always work on weekends. There are 104 weekend days in an average year. That's 2496 hours we can't count.

This brings him down to 11,799 hours.

I'm also going to say that no human being works 15 hour days every day. (Remember, 24-7(sleep)-1(potty)-1(food).) Let's cut him down to a 12 hour work day (but of course, only for those non-weekend days). That's 2190 hours we can't count.

This brings him down to…

*drumroll please*

9609 hours do not an expert make.

DISCLAIMER: I am a liberal arts major, thus my math skills may be a bit off. I think my point is dead-on, though.
http://twitter.com/doylealbee Doyle Albee

HR people (full disclosure, I'm married to one, so I have a little authority, I guess) consider a full-time year to be 2,080 hours. Thats's 40 hours /week for the year. Given that stat, we can all do the math from there, and you're on the right track.
http://occamsrazr.com Ike Pigott

Erika, it's rather interesting that his wordpress.com site is now down, and he's pointing to his Rock the World site. (Yes, I know how to create a hyperlink in comments, and I know when *not* to.)

I wonder if Jann Wenner would think as highly of his photoshop skills as you do of his social media skills?
http://geeksdreamgirl.com/ E. Foley – Geek's Dream Girl

Ha! Thanks for making the math easier! As usual, I did it the long way. Hehehhe…
http://www.redheadwriting.com The Redhead

Yeah, MIke had indicated that he “fixed” the WordPress.com site in an earlier comment. Funny – he said he never used it and, coincidentally, I found it via one of his tweets.

Your Photoshop comment is making me LOL. Thanks for stopping by, Ike!
http://www.redheadwriting.com The Redhead

Man, my math skills suck. Nice work you two.
http://www.rocktheworldbook.com/ LoriRuff

Thanks for making this a bit easier Doyle. Mike has been an active member of LinkedIn since early 2004 and has been training, consulting, and speaking since 2006. That's 6 years of active (in Mike's case hyperactive) personal use including 4 years more than full-time in the business (and anyone who knows Mike knows he works more than 40 hours a week, often 12 or more hours a day).

So everyone can continue to criticize specific comments he made or specific items they don't agree with, but on the whole, I don't know anyone in Denver or anywhere else that can hold a candle to his level of experience on LinkedIn. Mike even brought LinkedIn training to the Denver area all those years ago. Kevin Johansen recently told me that as a result of Mike's consistent evangelism, Denver has the third highest per capita engagement of the platform in the country.

Several people mentioned that social media is an evolving environment and this post and resulting commentary just highlights that a) not everyone gets everything right all the time, and b) we all have a lot to continue to learn and c) this is all about relationships.

Since we all seem to agree that it is about relationships, it amazes me how caustic and vengeful this commentary has sounded. Again for those who know Mike, they know he is a generous man with a lot of people he calls friends, including you Doyle. That doesn't mean a friend can't call you out and wake you up, but the relationship should be honored (as in the part of the title that says “defending your honor” or defending the honor of your friends).

So we've all taken part in giving Mike a great wake up call. Those who care about him might care to check in and tell him that no matter what they think about this topic, they do still consider him a friend. As I said earlier, some lessons are hard learned.

Continue to attack him if you like, but we have to get back to work.
http://www.rocktheworldbook.com/ LoriRuff

You might have seen his blog post yesterday about the Ghosts of Blogs past… it's a hard decision to shut down a blog with active links out on the internet, even if you convert to a new one. The conversion was made over a year ago to the Integrated Alliances Wordpress.org site and the Rock the World site was put up late summer to start preparing to promote the book.

It was past time to take the old ones down, but when do you think, “Hey, today's the day I should go do that” unless something prompts you. Kudos to Mike for taking the time to clean up his act this week.
http://twitter.com/timeforcake timeforcake creative

Hey Doyle – did you see I totally got your back on that point (him saying you'd love his book) in my comment above? I actually read his statement TWICE as I could not believe he'd say that. Wow.
http://twitter.com/timeforcake timeforcake creative

This dead cat comment is friggin' hilarious. I love it.
http://www.paulhummer.org/ Paul Hummer

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_Perso...
http://www.rocktheworldbook.com/ Mike O'Neil

Of course my LinkedIn book establishes some expertise so you don't want it showing here. Your point loses some of its edge. Why you don't you ask Doyle Albee why he hired me (of all people), to train his best customers on LinkedIn and to speak at his inaugural Metzger New Media breakfast event?

I know you will delete this so go ahead. You deleted anything else that was supportive of me. At least I know you got the message.
http://www.redheadwriting.com The Redhead

Mike, I deleted ONE comment of yours as it was a blatant advertisement of your book. As it THIS comment.

I'll just let Doyle respond to this one himself. He hired you – let's see what HE has to say.

My point loses none of its edge, by the way…I'm here at 11:36pm MST responding to comments on my blog. Nite nite!
http://www.redheadwriting.com The Redhead

For the record, Mike's most recent comment has been deleted AT HIS REQUEST. Mike and Doyle are going to take their conversation offline.
http://www.redheadwriting.com The Redhead

For the record, Mike's most recent comment has been deleted AT HIS REQUEST. Mike and Doyle are going to take their conversation offline.
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Taran A Rampersad

… and it's actually worse in 3rd world countries where people only read about social media in… newspapers.
http://www.redheadwriting.com The Redhead

and that gets a w00t!
http://www.bhaskars.net Bhaskar

Wow…go to the profile in question now and everything has changed.

One of my first realizations when doing social media is- don’t fricking lie. You will get caught and it will be ugly. Expert schmexpert be damned
http://www.redheadwriting.com The Redhead

Shocker that it’s changed. Perhaps he decided to check it before he wrecked it – like getting kicked off of LinkedIn.
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Social Networking: Such is the Way With Asshats and Defending Your Honor

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