When Social Media Went Mainstream…

Originally uploaded by loscuadernosdejulia

I suppose in a way this may be the indication of spending too much time in Social Media. And yet, had you been in my place, would you not react in the same way to the letters “RSS”?

I have just moved a whole load of posts from another place and will need some time to re-arrange everything. It won’t take long, but please bear with me!

I have not noticed this before, so thought this was definitely worth highlighting. And if we have had any doubts, they can now be put to rest. Yes, Google indexes Twitter.

Last week I gave a presentation on the practical aspects of using Social Media in various sectors, starting with Communities. The choice was pretty simple. In 2005-2006 I freelanced between BBC Radio Manchester and QT Radio (under CSV Media’s umbrella), doing lots of radio programming, interviewing, and presenting. QT Radio and Radio Manchester’s Action Desk (later Interaction) both focused on communities: how to engage them, how to let them contribute positively, etc. In April 2006 I also took part in a mediabridge event that connected a gallery at Manchester’s Cornerhouse with a studio in Tijuana in Mexica. The topic was again how to empower communities through the use of the Media.

I’ve been using various social sites and tools since as early as 2000; my life has been predominantly web-based since 2005 (although I can spend days offline, too). But you can surely imagine the surprise I’ve taken away from an event at The Circle Club in Manchester where three speakers were debating Social Media. It was a perfect deja-vu moment: three years on, communities seemed to be in the same kind of rut. How to gain the voice? How to be heard? What to do to make this happen? Just as they used traditional media (radio and TV) in 2005-2006 to gain presence, so now they were trying to use Social Media to the same end.

Whilst this is a never-ending process of a re-discovery of the wheel, I created this first presentation as a response to communities’ questions, and also as a way to trial the reaction to the possibility of measuring the ROI for communities, individuals, and non-profits. We tend to put a lot of effort and passion in our work, so it is understandable that we are then disappointed with measely results. The thought I was trying to put across is: if there is a reason for publishing something on the web, then we’re on the Advertising territory. People don’t always come to read/see/listen to whatever you uploaded, so you may have to go where people are and let them know. The way to give yourself some spin here is by putting the most basic estimate on your time and effort. And, of course, strategic thinking paired with some humanly possible flexibility is instrumental for success.

I've just written a response to SEW's article about Yandex as the Russian SE. The comment that will go on the article will be a much shorter version of what you are about to read here, thanks to the corrections I had to make. I'm coming across as pedantic in this comment/post. I'm not pedantic, except when it's about things I am passionate about . Search and language are among such things.

1. Rambler was actually the first Russian SE. Traffic details from Alexa: 

Rambler

Yandex

The reason why Yandex has won is indeed because they made it their mission to become the Russian Google. They put a lot of effort into this, and the goal has been achieved. Indexing is not ideal: I still find more results for my query in Google than if I search Yandex. But they are not dissimilar to Google in introducing and integrating various services, and this is one area where Rambler has fallen behind. Having said this, Rambler's Begun (PPC platform) was atrocious in 2007, although they may have improved it.

2. "Russian is a member of the Slavic family of languages, which includes a wide range of languages in Eastern Europe from Polish and Czech to Serbian and Croatian. Most of these languages don't use the Cyrillic alphabet"

This does not make sense. Western Slavic languages (Polish e.g.) use Latin alphabet with variations. South and Eastern Slavic languages (Serbian, Bulgarian, Ukranian e.g.) use a variation of Cyrillic alphabet, similar to Russian.

3. "There is no verb "to be" in the Russian present tense".

There is ALWAYS a verb "to be" in present, past, and future tense in the language. "To be" describes the state of being; it would be bizarre if the language did not describe this. What happens in the Russian language is the verb "to be" in the present tense is often a part of a verbal construction, i.e. verb+adjective. "I am happy" in Russian would indeed omit "am", but it doesn't mean it isn't there in the first place. Also, if one looks at the history of language (which we're not going to do), one will see that in the 17-19 cc. it was not uncommon to use "to be" in the present tense. 

Speaking of omitting verbs: a very famous "et in Arcadia ego" means "I was also born in Arcadia". But in the Latin phrase it is omitted. 

Another example, say, from Latin and Italian: "obi et amo" (hate and love), "penso" (think) – the verbal form implies the presence of "I" as a pronoun, but the pronoun is omitted. It doesn't mean, however, that either Italian or Latin haven't got "I" pronoun. 

4. "Nor do "the" or "a" exist. Russian gets around this by changing the ending of the word."

What is mentioned here are articles and declensions. First, they are not the same. Articles in Russian are often substituted by a specific kind of an adjective or pronoun. 

Declensions fulfil the purpose of forming what is known as direct and indirect objects in English. The English language gets around these by using prepositions and particles "to", "at", "for", "of" etc. The Russian language uses prepositions but also changes the ending of the words. This is a Latin rule, and German speakers will be more familiar with this.

5. "the Russian word "Izvergatch" (which means to "erupt")"

Just for the sake of keeping true to the spirit of my comment/post, the Russian for "erupt" is either "izvergat'", or "izvergat'sja", or "izvergnut'", or "izvergnut'sja". Not "izvergatch" anyway (although we may have just created a new word ). The exact verb will depend on the meaning. "Izvergat'sja" means basically "to erupt oneself". Also, both "izvergat'" and "izvergat'sja" refer to the present tense; they imply that eruption is happening now (akin to Present Continuous). By comparison, "izvergnut'" and "izvergnut'sja" imply that eruption ended or has just ended (Past Simple, Present Perfect). On top of that, there will indeed be a huge host of other forms, mainly nouns, other verbs, and adjective participles. 

And let's not forget about synonyms. In the phrase like "the conflict has erupted" a Russian speaker will not use the verb "izvergat'" or any of its derivatives. They will use a synonym, say, "razgoret'sja" (as in "the fire has erupted").

6. "Added to that, all Russian verbs have an essential partner verb for imperfect or perfect meaning distinctions — and they aren't necessarily spelled in a similar fashion".

I'm not sure exactly what is meant here. There are prefixes and suffixes that help change the form and the meaning of the verb, but it's not dissimilar to English. I.e. "read" and "re-read"; "see", "oversee", and "foresee"; "view", "preview" and "overview". Then there'll be an example similar to the French "se rencontrer": the English say "to meet each other", the French use a pronoun. The Russian kind of follows French in this, but the pronoun is added to the end of the verb.

7. As to why Yandex is more popular than Google… My mother doesn't like Yandex, prefers Google to it, so here's a perspective to you. What is important to remember is that Yandex and Rambler both addressed the Russian language and search landscape. A lot of Russians like myself know English, but equally a lot of people don't. Some may not want to use a "foreign" SE. 

Yandex did the same thing for the Russian Internet that Google has done for the English-speaking web. Just as people are questioning Google's all-embracing authority, there are those who don't quite enjoy Yandex's growth. But Google is the Search Engine of Romanic/Germanic languages, and although its translation tool is imperfect, English is the most widely spoken language, so it's unlikely that the French decide to create a French SE to overcome Google: there's little point.

Yandex has committed itself to and accomplished the goal of becoming the SE of the post-Soviet Russia and its closest neighbours. This is the main point, I think, we must take away from Yandex experience. Its fast growth should not be taken out of context of the actual development of the Russian Internet. Newest technologies and services penetrate Russian Internet market quicker than even 2 years ago. Social Networking and Social Media are also on the rise, and Yandex is good at indexing blogs, and offers a photo hosting service. Another service, Narod.ru, allows to create websites (similar to AOL Hometowns). In short, just as Social Web develops elsewhere, it is developing in Russia, and Yandex does the job of indexing it. It looks like Yandex's monopoly in the Russian Internet, but I cannot see this changing dramatically.

Yandex Money is very similar to PayPal, but to use PayPal would present a language problem for both sides, so Yandex Money filled the gap. Keyword research tool has been a part of Yandex already in 2007, as well as internal analytics for PPC advertisers.

8. Search.Mail.Ru is powered by Yandex, but this was the result of a strategic agreement between the companies in 2006. Mail.ru is not owned by Yandex, and is, in fact, its rival. Speaking of Mail.ru, they focus a lot on Social Networking, and their video hosting service is extremely popular with users. Also, while Yandex tries to do the Technorati job in the Russian blogosphere, Mail.ru invites Russian celebrities to blog on their platform. More about Russian Social Networking.

Facebook’s updating their ToS and then reverting to the old ones has
clearly sent users to the end of their tether. Of course, some points
were potentially problematic, e.g. the word had it that Facebook could
sell the photos you put up on there. Okay, given the quality of many
photos I’d seen uploaded by people, only the notorious yellow press
would be interested in publishing anything of the kind. The problem,
however, eventually grew bigger:

Who owns the content you create and share on the Internet?

In a way, I was even surprised to see this question being repeated
by all. One of the reasons why you’re advised not to host your blog on
Blogger or WordPress, for example, is that, should any of these
platforms go belly up, your content (labour, passion, income, etc.)
will be lost. So, you’re advised to pay for hosting on an independent
server, precisely to avoid Google owing your content if you host your
blog at Blogspot.

The next big question is copyright. Just yesterday at the Social Media Cafe in Manchester
we were discussing this very problem. For a start, a lot of people have
suddenly stopped being overly concerned about their rights. As long as
they’re quoted or their authorship is otherwise acknowledged, that’s
all that matters. It doesn’t end here, though. It gets to the point
when, if you put “All rights reserved” on your Flickr photos, bloggers
(especially, the marketing gurus) are likely not to use your photo.
This is OK, but they won’t even bother to contact you. They will go and
find something that is CC-licensed – even if you don’t actually expect
any money for your picture, but only credit. And of course, the concept
of copyright (or plagiarism, for that matter) is altogether alien to
some of the YouTube users. On YouTube, we not only have duplicate
content, but on occasion the original videos are being ripped off and
reproduced without permission.

Speaking of Creative Commons:
you can use it to license and protect your content, but ultimately the
existence of this content depends on the host, network provider, and
the tools that are used in production. As an example, you can have BT
for a provider, GoDaddy for the host, and many, many tools and
platforms, from TypePad or Blogger to Flickr, YouTube, and Twitter.
Whenever any of these components suffers, so does a part or the whole
of your work. Arguably, while the work as it is was produced entirely
by your creative genius, its existence and availability in the virtual
space is entirely up to those who organise this space.

This pretty much answers the question of the content ownership, in
that we can see that this problem is very far away from getting solved.
But perhaps with the proliferation of Social Networking and Social
Media we will also be coming closer to (re)defining the concepts that
are by no means outdated but require a thorough modification to get us
through the new media age.

(originally published on March 4, 2009)

I have reflected recently on the frequency with which words like ‘content’ and ‘value’ are being used. I googled, one by one, content, value, and “valuable content” (the last one was in double quotes, as an exact match). The results as per Google.com may be surprising or not, but here goes:

Content – 1,480,000,000 results.

Value – 741,000,000 results.

“Valuable Content” – 315,000 results.

What this serves to illuminate is the conflict between the overall
necessity to have (SEO-friendly) content on the website and the
ultimate objective to make this content valuable to people. Strangely
or not, though, the attention is evidently being misplaced, and we
therefore have billions and millions of SERPs for generic terms, and
then mere 300 thousand results for what should evidently be everyone’s
priority.

Having said that, what does valuable content mean, and when does
content become valuable? The answer to the last question should
apparently be “links”: if your post or article generates links
(especially if you don’t request those, and they come in
automatically), then you evidently have produced something very
worthwhile. (Of course, we’re speaking of positive conversation about
your article, not the blazing critical comments on other blogs and
sites). The answer can also be “bookmarks”: if someone adds you to
Digg, Delicious, ReddIt, StumbleUpon, or Sphinn, then once again you
have successfully managed to awe your readers.

The ‘awe effect’ is apparently one of the factors that make people
bookmark and otherwise distribute the content you created. Call it also
the ‘Digg effect’: you have to substantially stupefy people with your
submission. Of course, it also depends on the network you managed to
forge: if you’re a lonely bookmarker, your submissions are likely to be
ignored or re-submitted by more influential users.

Ryan Caldwell of Search Engine Journal goes on to enlist
the psychology factors of link baiting that contribute to converting a
user who is scanning various submissions to someone who bookmarks your
stuff. Same goes for reviews and/or answers to the articles you
crafted. While the tactics of approaching an influential blogger is
widely recognised, ideally the blogger links to your review without you
asking. So, in addition to ‘awe effect’, you can also seek to produce:

• the Overwhelm effect (those typical “1000 Movies to Watch Before You Die”);
• the Flatter effect (make ‘em feel so good that they link back to the piece);
• the Sensation effect (great if you’re running a news site, or if you’re really good at copywriting);
• the Humour effect (you can say it with words, pictures, comic strips, or videos).

These are the most achievable effects, but the list doesn’t end here. For more, click the link to read the full article.

There are loads of posts across the web on how to style the content,
assuming that it is already valuable and SE optimised. One of the
latest articles comes from Redd Horrocks at UXbooth blog, 11 Quick Tips For More Usable Content.
In truth, there are so many articles of this kind nowadays that I, as
someone with over 2 years of experience in regular blogging, recently
admitted to myself: I’d probably find it much harder to start blogging
today than in August 2006. Having said that, there are some really cool
resources and articles that can set you on the right track.

What not many people are speaking about, however, is the value of
the content that you’re creating. It is assumed that content has to be
valuable, and there’s no reason to dispute this. Just today we were
discussing what sort of articles on the topic of fashion would make
people link to them. How would you need to construct the text, what
would you need to write, to make it a killer blog post or press release?

So, I went through my bookmarks to find Social Media Blogster’s post that, very refreshingly, tells all us, online people, that “content is NOT king”. Doug Firebaugh makes a point about ‘content in Social Media‘,
but the entire Web 2.0 is social. Your objective is to have as many
people as possible read you, link to you, and talk about you (with you,
let us add). You therefore have to write for the result and for people.

What this suggests therefore is that the path towards writing
valuable content (and we’re not talking about value or content
separately any longer) is to know whom you’re writing this for. It may
sound like a weird thing to mention, so self-explanatory it is. Think
of this in terms of writing about football: the name “Manchester
United” rings differently to different generations. The tone, the
style, the information you use are determined, in one way or another,
by the readership you’re addressing. How to achieve this? It’s simple,
actually. You need:

• to study your readership (or potential consumers/customers);
• to analyse the statistics of your website or blog;
• to research keywords;
• to watch web trends;
• … and once again, to know your audience, their language, interests,
  and the ways in which they engage with one another on the Web.

We already know how to do all this, don’t we? I said, it was simple!

(originally published on February 19, 2009)

I’m a huge Tracking and Analytics tools fanatic. For my personal
blog I tried nearly every existing analytics solution. When Flickr
rolled out its Photo Stats feature back in 2007, I was all excited. Not
only did it let me see the keywords people used to find my photos, but
it also allowed me to track down the channels through with people found
the pictures.

Why was it interesting, you ask? Very simply because my photos are
published in the space where people can find them and reuse them. Until
recently, I have had All Rights Reserved license; lately I have been
using Creative Commons-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives-Attribute license. I
was never afraid that someone might reuse the picture without my
permission. I was contacted a few times by online publishers with
requests to use a photo for free, which I always authorised. I would
occasionally find that photos or links to them were embedded on
external sites, and that often led to interesting discoveries. I also
sent photos to Digg and StumbleUpon or put them up on external sites.
What was good here was to see what interest those links have attracted
with time. Better still, even though I have this fix about data
analysis, the availability of overall stats for the account usually
saved me time logging into Flickr every single day.

I have always been curious to see how this “search” potential of Flickr
unravels. Strictly speaking, there was no reason for Flickr not to roll
out the Photo Stats feature in the first place – because Flickr was
fast becoming THE photo sharing site. What I particularly hoped to see
was Flickr developing their internal stats further, so as to allow
users to accumulate and download the data. There has been a time limit
of 28 days, but this could be increased to 31 days (or 30, depending on
calendar days) and scheduled to be delivered to the user on a monthly
basis. There could potentially be a service charge for this, but I can
easily imagine professional photographers, non-profit organisations,
analytics-savvy artists, small through medium to large businesses, and
the geeks of all sorts increasing their subscription a little bit to
get the monthly breakdown which they could subsequently organize into a
bespoke report.

Better yet, Flickr could appreciate that as a photo sharing site of
choice for many personal and business accounts worldwide it is already
sitting on the goldmine. SEO-savvy folks are in need for the photo
viewing data to optimize their website copy, so what Flickr could do
was to develop their stats interface further into a proper and powerful
analytical tool. With information about comments, search queries and
referring sites, Flickr is that very Social Media reporting tool.

Since 2007, Flickr was living up to these hopes… until it launched
Daily Visitors stats just days ago. I’m not complaining really. You’re
viewing your photostream data as it is “so far”,
i.e. in real time – which is awesome! You’re also getting your
Yesterday’s stats – how can you complain?! This is exactly the data
Flickr freaks like me have been waiting for since the launch of Photo
Stats.

The only problem is – and this is why I am disappointed “so far” – the overall account stats are missing.
As the Flickr blog explains, you get this data on individual photos…
which is OK when you’ve only got 10 pics in the entire photostream.
What about 100? Or 500? Or indeed, over 2000 photos many of us have got?

Arguably, you can use the Popular option to help identify the photos
you want to track the data for. There, your photos are categorized by
“interestingness”, views count, comments, and the number of times other
users “faved” your pictures. This can help monitor the
“best-performing” photos and to keep an eye on their stats.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t really lift the placed restriction on
your access to the overall, all-time data about your photostream –
which is bad. Instead of being able to take a screen grab of all the
sites where your photos have appeared in the past, as well as to drill
down the search queries from those sites and to see the collective
view/impression count, we will have to do this for each photo
individually. Which is a loss of time in the world where time is money.

As much as I understand the need to manage all the accumulated data on
Flickr’s side, my view is that the drop of ‘All time views’ data is a
mistake, especially since the 28 days limit still applies to the data
served. The very important element of generic stats has been taken
away, whereas it is THE VERY element that must have been retained at
all costs. Perhaps, Flickr could accept that it is already much more
than just a pretty photo sharing site, and that its value is not only
in the provision of search options and data, but also in the
opportunity to accumulate and analyse this data.

And yes, sure, there are externally developed APIs that can potentially
help you get the data you need… but wouldn’t you want it to be
available in Flickr, in just one or two clicks away?

(originally published on March 17, 2009)

Last year I followed the development in the Internet legislation in Italy. As a long-term reader of Beppe Grillo’s
blog, I was curious to look into the proposed Levi/Veltroni law aimed
at online publishers primarily (i.e. bloggers). Considering Beppe’s own blogging rate,
the law could significantly curtail his own freedom of speech. Not to
mention the income of those publishers who offer advertising spaces on
their blogs. Additionally, the publisher was required to register with
the ROC (Registro degli Operatori di Comunicazioni), otherwise he or
she would be considered a clandestine publisher and liable to financial
sanctions and up to 2 years in prison.

In the article on his blog, Beppe stated that 3,000 out of 8,000 Italian towns were without ADSL. He stated further that in his country there has been the great divide between the Internet-savvy younger generation and the web-ignorant elders. I noted that “the
case of Italian sector of blogosphere rises an interesting problem. In
the English-speaking world, bloggers are indeed the independent
publishers. Sometimes they use their websites to earn money. Sometimes
the websites are used to raise money. If so, is the repetition of the
Italian case in Britain or America completely out of question?” And by the look at the articles in the British press illuminating the harmful nature and bullying side of social networking, the usage of Social Media and Networks in 2009 in the UK alone is going to involve a lot of controversy.

But back to the sunny Italy. BBC News report that the archbishop of Modena, Monsignor Benito Cocchi has appealed to the young Catholics to give up text messaging during Lent.
The average Italian sends out 50 SMS per month, that’s the second
highest in Europe after the UK. If that was not enough, the archbishop
also suggested to give up the social networking sites and computer
games – all for the sake of cleansing oneself of the virtual world and
“getting back in touch” with oneself. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

In a way, I feel that I can even share this appeal. The Social
Networking and Internet Usage poll I recently took with Yahoo!
contained some interesting questions. To judge by those, some people
felt extremely lonely and disconnected if their friends and relatives
were not updating their Facebook etc. every day. In such case, the idea
suggested by the Italian archbishop is certainly a holistic one (and
holy too, of course). The only danger is that this precedent may blow
itself out of proportion and thus pave the way towards the involvement
of the Church into the virtual world. Add to this the Levi/Veltroni
law, and we may come to see very interesting developments in the sphere
of the Internet and Social Media control.

(originally published on March 4, 2009)

One of the fears that businesses have about using Social Media is
the potential criticism of a brand. This is usually supported by the
decentralised approach to the overall online marketing strategy,
whereby different departments are advising on, and fearing of,
different pitfalls. While those fears can be well substantiated, it is
important to see the bigger picture.

The bigger picture is such that more and more brands are using
Social Media. The last thing brands can afford is jumping on the
bandwagon and still having no clue of how to use Social Media tools at
the end of 2009. The earlier they consider the opportunities and
options, the better.

Still, going Social supposedly involves giving up the control over
the brand image. This is the main reason why brands stop short of using
Social Media tools and channels. The fear of attracting public
criticism and negative comments is another blockage; the lack of
in-house resource and knowledge to support the effort is the third. But
let us look at each of these fears. Are they really as serious?

1. You give up the control over your brand.

What is true about it?

Whether you start a blog or begin to upload videos to YouTube or
Vimeo, you will no longer be that invincible website where no user can
leave a comment.  You will be an online publisher, and if you do not
know the essential basics of online publishing, you can certainly be
criticised for it. You may also suddenly discover that not everyone
likes your latest product.

What is false?

Whatever you may like to think, your brand has never been
invincible. You have given up control over your brand the minute you
started out publicly as a business. Likewise, you have relinquished the
control over your online brand image once you have created a website.
Do not delude yourself that it is only the dynamic content produced
with the help of Social Media that can lead to harsh online criticism.
From the moment you have started as a brand offline and then created a
website, anyone can profess a view of your venture, and it may be not
the most pleasant one. They can write up a post on an obscure blog; or
they can publish an article in The Times. Either way, if they want to
criticise you, they most probably are already doing so.

2. Negative comments.

What is true about it?

This can happen. As we noted above, not everyone is going to like
your product. Not everyone will be at ease with your customer service.
Not everyone is going to like you (maybe because you are a big player
or very popular for a good reason). And they can certainly leave
comments on your blog, Facebook page, or write blog posts on their
blogs – all for the purpose of telling the world just how much they
hate you.

What is false?

You have surely known, when starting as a business, that you are not
going to be everyone’s cup of tea? And very possibly, even after you
became successful, you have been told many times that you are not good.
Any defamatory comments can simply be moderated and left unpublished.
But what makes you think that every comment that is to left on your
blog or Social Network must be negative? Why do you think that no-one
has got something great and positive to say about your brand, your
products, or your services?

3. We have no bloggers/Social Media people in-house!

What is true about it?

Your staff may be up to their ears in work. So much so that they
don’t even have time to update their status on Facebook or drop a
message on Twitter. Plus, blogging is difficult; blogs can be hacked;
there’s a lot of spam; Social Media is scary and useless; and don’t
mention that Twitter thingy, it’s a childplay!

What is false?

Only a couple of years ago blogging was a “childplay” for quality
businesses. Now every quality business is blogging. If not blogging,
then they are doing other Social Media stuff. Twitter is the same,
although its growth has been much more rapid. Blogging is no more
difficult than doing business. There are many ways to protect your blog
from spamming; and your agency or in-house team will be able to ensure
that your blog is NOT hacked (they do this for the website, don’t
they?) And whilst blogging undoubtedly demands commitment, it is best
to devise your blogging policy, appoint the editor (affectionaly to be
known as “people-chaser”), and designate a team of in-house experts on
every subject you are planning to cover.

What to do now?

While the third point – about in-house social media savvy people –
may seem irrelevant, it is quite the opposite. Your online marketing
strategy will ideally be supported by your colleagues, as well as by
the agency, so it certainly helps if some of your staff are at least
aware of Social Media tools. The company’s awareness, even if very
basic, will help to ensure that the advice your agency gives you is
followed, and the strategy is implemented.

For individuals and businesses alike Social Media is often similar
to a war. We all prepare ourselves to fight against demons, aliens,
journalists, vile competitors, and customers. Personally, I am all for
peace and using diplomacy to solve a conflict (if
it arises), and Social Media allows you to do just that. Don’t forget
that brands are still viewed as uptight and unapproachable, and using
Social Media can achieve the aim of making you a people brand, a
household name. When used correctly and well, its ability to garner you
positive online PR is undeniable. As for comments, whilst their content
is imporant, your response is more important. If you’re asked for help
and advice, give it; if you’re criticised for a good reason, accept,
apologise, and improve.

The last point to rememer is that, in order not to lose control over
your brand, you need to be aware of the talk about it and to respond
timely. You can only be aware if you are where the talk is happening.
And today it is increasingly happening online.

(originally published on March 31, 2009)