Time was, you made your reputation over many years, and only people that came in contact with you, or those close to you, would have any idea what that reputation might be. We first got indoctrinated into the reputation culture in high school where both young men and women could “get” a reputation by doing something bad. As screwed up as high school years were, it was hard to tell if it was better to have a reputation, or to be invisible. Continue reading →

So do you believe yet? In the space of a few weeks, the Huffington Post – which is a blog – sold for over $300 million, a few countries in the Middle East have revolted using Facebook and Twitter as new weapons, and Charlie Sheen started a Twitter account and promptly set a Guinness Book record for adding over 1 million followers in 24 hours. Continue reading →

When I talk about online reputation management with audiences, I continue to get the questions about how to handle the unfair, unwarranted, or untrue statements that a customer makes against an organization. My first thought is always to say, “you haven’t seen anything yet.” We are just in the very earliest days of consumers starting to learn that they can take out their frustrations on a brand. The deadly cycle we are about to fall into will be that companies will work harder to reach out to consumers that say negative things online in a desperate attempt to minimize damage to their reputation and the more consumers see this, the more they will say bad things – in order to get attention. Continue reading →

App Epidemic

When there is an app for everything, and many of them are free, we overindulge at times. Depending on how old you are, you might remember (as I do) the old days when there were very few software applications for our personal use, and each one of them was expensive. Borland Software came out with a model where applications that were previously hundreds of dollars, were then $30 to $50 and we thought that was stellar. Today as I mentioned many of the apps we use are free, and a large chunk are now somewhere between $.99 and $10. I used to have apps just on my laptop or desktop, and now I have them on a mobile device, an iPad and my laptop, and I need them to be synced in real time. I used to spend 90% of my time using Microsoft Office, and email client, and a browser. Times have changed.

I also used to dread loading and unloading applications on my Windows based system because it invariably cluttered the OS and I had to blow away the whole system and reinstall periodically just to keep it running OK. Now I have a Mac, iPhone, and iPad and can install, and delete with the click of a button without damaging the performance at all. In other words, there is no practical reason, nor financial barrier, between me and the installation of five apps a day just to see which ones might provide value. Add to this all the cloud based hosted applications I can now just run over a browser without any installation, and you have a recipe for a few new dynamics that are intriguing…

The first is that we now have the ability to build a tool box full of applications that help us have a better quality of life, and perform at much more productive levels in our career. A massive toolbox for some of us – oh and we are still in the early days of Web-based tool development. The toolbox we each build will have an increasing impact on our ability to succeed. This toolbox will define how we network, how we subsume information and learn, and how productive we are when we perform a task. I already judge young potential employees by their ability to use the tools they have assembled. I have no patience for someone that is behind the curve with their hardware, or software. It seems crude to me that someone would play the game without the best equipment – kind of like a golfer that shows up at the course with boots on, and six clubs in a ratty bag.

The second dynamic I find interesting is the difference with the young generation versus the old in how willing they are to use new tools. I worry about anyone over 40 years old that has any resistance to using the latest gear and experimenting with new apps. I am getting weary of older people telling me all the reasons why young people overdo their technology addiction when the truth is a younger person with a great tech toolbox is becoming more valuable that an older person with experience and weak tools.

Which leads me to the next dynamic, the interesting situation that occurs when someone falls behind in using the latest tools. Today, if you take a year off from upgrading your hardware and software, you will lose touch with the shared tools that many people will pick up. Not being able to use shared and collaboration tools when needed decimates your value because no one cares how smart you are if you cannot share it. Once upon a time, I would not hire someone that did not know how to use MS Office tools. Today the list is much longer. For example if I ask you to Skype me and you tilt your head at me like my confused Labrador, we have problems. Same thing if I tell you to add your idea to Basecamp, or to setup a new column in Tweetdeck.

I guess you can look at the world as a place where you are overwhelmed with the options we have for applications, or you can revel in the fact that we live in a time with an explosion of tools. One thing for sure, the quantity of tools, and the sophistication level is not going to drop any time soon. I suggest we all build personal strategies for keeping up on the latest, and most beneficial new tools coming out and invest the time to relevant. The alternative is a man/woman child will blow by us.

Scott Klososky
Scott@klososky.com

When I was a kid, we were told that it was critical to learn the three R’s – reading, writing, and arithmetic. Set aside the oxymoronic fact that these do not all start with R, and ask yourself the question “what is critical for kids to learn today?” I have a few answers that I hope society pays attention to because it will have far reaching impacts. Let’s start with this… the traditional model of learns was the Jug and Mug concept. The teacher was the Jug of wisdom and he or she poured out their wisdom into the mug of the student. This by nature limited the knowledge transfer to the limits of what the teacher had, and the speed in which they could pour. Continue reading →

I am pretty sure that most people in the world have not given a lot of thought to the exploding dynamic of online rating systems.  Angieslist.com is becoming a rating site standard for just about any service or professional that you might want to hire in your city.  There are also independent sites that rate doctors http://www.ratemds.com/ lawyers http://www.lawyerratingz.com/ teachers http://www.ratemyteachers.com/, hotels http://www.tripadvisor.com/, restaurants http://www.yelp.com, and just about everything else.  These sites are quietly supporting a whole new way for people to make decisions on spending money.  It is time for us to examine what this trend will blossom into in the near future. Continue reading →

“Generation M, born after 1982 – mobile, multimedia, multitasking – are already showing their distinctive differences. One of these differences is the advent of the supercommunicator. There is growing evidence that the internet augments physical relationships rather than displaces/replaces them. We do have to worry about the digital divide risk though. It is critical that we focus on inclusiveness as we drive this forward globally.” —JP Rangaswami, chief scientist, British Telecommunications Continue reading →

One of the things I enjoy about being an older guy is that I have had the experience of watching human dynamics through a number of cycles.  This creates a perspective if one is willing to use it. Continue reading →

It is a wise policy, if you are a highly paid speaker, to be as accurate as possible when predicting the next big things. Every once in a while, I will make a big deal out of a new concept that will be coming, and I miss-time it. For the next two years after that, every audience member I run into reminds me of how I said something was going to be hot – and it is not. For example, thank God I never said hover cars would rule the world. Continue reading →

Being the kind of person that is forced to think big thoughts for a living, I am always on the hunt for new things to learn. It is a knowledge economy after all so the smart people win and I like to win. This is actually one of the things that became crystal clear for me this year –smart people have a distinct advantage. That sounds simple so let’s at least unpack the word smart… Continue reading →