I saw a lot of great stuff in the last few days. The “Worst Website Ever” panel was definitely a standout. (I really hope those slides get put on slideshare, because “the fap store” and “40 chan” were truly hilarious.) I got to see Matthew Inman, who writes and draws The Oatmeal, a site that I read nearly every day. He’s just as funny in person, and I’m glad I stayed even though I was in the beginning stages of a bangin’ migraine. My friend Kelly Feller from Intel also did a great presentation about using contests for social marketing. But the most validating and one of the funniest presentations I saw was from Gary Vaynerchuk about the same subject as his new book, The Thank You Economy.

I have been a fan of Gary’s for a long time. He’s an engaging and energetic speaker, he knows his stuff when it comes to community and social media, and he swears a lot… just like me. One of the reasons his session was so validating for me is that his new book is about how brands need to be humanized, and genuinely interact with their fans instead of just shoving marketing down their throats. This is so much of what I do in my day job, and it’s something that my team and I are really dedicated to. We work really hard to be human — we respond to comments, we make small talk, we share behind-the-scenes of our offices. We know the fans that interact with us by name, and our fans know us by name, too. We let our personalities shine through and we have reaped the rewards for it. Yes, we market too — it is part of our job, after all. But brands that think of Twitter as 140 character press releases are simply doing it wrong.

One of the things Gary mentioned in his session… something I truly thought was not an actual thing that would ever happen… is brands exploiting the tragedy in Japan for their own gain. But as I am catching up on my social media streams from the last few days, I was shocked to see that this really is happening. It’s incredibly tacky and crass. And (hopefully!) it’s about to bite these brands in the ass in a big way.

Bing (and Microsoft) have already apologized for their RT campaign wherein they pledged to donate $1 per RT of their content/link, up to $100k. And they just donated the $100k. Mastiff, a video game developer, is pledging to donate $100 for every 100 people that “like” them on Facebook, up to $25,000. Voskos yogurt is also pledging to donate $1 for every “like” they get on Facebook. And I sort of get where they are coming from. Especially in the current economy, not everyone can afford to give money. A lot of people want to help out, and beyond giving money, they don’t know how. So it’s easy for a brand to see it as a win/win — they get to donate money to a great cause, they get new people to market to (or, in the case of Bing, get their name and content out), and people get to feel like they did something to contribute without actually paying out money.

But what’s really easy to miss is how incredibly tacky this is. It smacks of opportunism, of holding relief dollars hostage for selfish marketing purposes. Because essentially, what a company like Mastiff is saying is that they are willing to donate $25,000 to the Red Cross, but if they only get 500 new fans, they’ll only donate $500. So, you know, it’s our fault that the Red Cross (and the people of Japan) missed out on $20,000 because we didn’t click the “like” button. That’s why Bing did the right thing with their apology — they gave the full $100,000 they had pledged.

If you are going to give money, give money. If you want to donate profits from sales of your product, do that. All of those things are perfectly noble and acceptable. But exploiting victims of a terrible tragedy for your own marketing purposes is just reprehensible. These companies should be ashamed.

OK, now that that’s out of my system, I need to go pack. Since, you know, I have to get up in 5 hours to go the airport.

You’ve probably seen them all over Facebook or Twitter. It seems like nearly every other person these days is calling themselves a “social media expert” with little to nothing to back it up. They have no professional work experience in community or social media. (And no academic education either, because it doesn’t exist.) Their main qualification is that they have a blog, a twitter account, and 500 Facebook friends. It’s annoying, and frankly it’s insulting, to someone like me with over 10 years in the business.

In my reading the other day, I came across a link to this article on Social Media Explorer by Jason Falls. It’s about the explosion of so-called “social media experts”, and Jason’s opinion is that we all just need to get off our high horses and stop being worried about them and what they are doing to our industry. And I don’t think he could be more wrong.

I’ve never really been engaged in a serious business conversation with one of these folks, as I’m usually pretty good at scaring them off once they realize that I actually do know what I’m talking about. But I’ve always imagined the conversation to go something like it does in this video.

Jason opens his article by asking “can we please get off the ego-driven, high-horse pedestal and shut the hell up about “social media gurus?” to which I can only answer… NO. Because this is important.

These so-called experts are giving all of us a bad name. The problem stems from the same problem that caused them to want to hire an expert in the first place. They don’t understand social media. At all. So they don’t know what to look for in an expert. I mean, I don’t know a thing about accounting, so I doubt that I’d make a great hiring decision on our next corporate accountant. So they hire an “expert” that looks good on paper (and the internet), and uses all the exciting buzzwords. And they probably do a few things — make a Facebook page, set up a Twitter account — and that’s it. The company may or may not feel ripped off… but they basically were. These “experts” are preying on people’s inexperience with social media and their fear of getting it wrong (because they’ve seen others do a big painful bellyflop and want to avoid that at all costs).

Jason’s point is that we shouldn’t attacking (or in his words, “whining” about) these people because they are young and trying to make their way in the world. Well, yes but no. In some ways, the influx of “experts” is inevitable because there is huge demand to hire people who are knowledgeable about social media, but there’s no formal education in the field. You can’t (to my knowledge, and I’d love to know about it if I’m wrong) get a college degree in online community or social media. The only way to get experience is to do some stuff ad-hoc (be a moderator on someone else’s forums, for example) or to get on-the-job experience. Take that small bit of experience and combine it with the hiring manager’s inexperience with social media, and you get where we are. So I don’t mind young people trying to make an honest start into the field. In fact, I try to help them along as much as I can. But I think a lot of these “experts” aren’t trying to make an honest start into the field, they are trying to make a quick buck preying on inexperience and fear. I also have an issue with taking on the label “expert” right out of the gate. It was only after 10 years of experience that I started to feel comfortable with that label. Thinking you’re an expert because you have 500 Facebook friends is like me saying I’m a doctor because I’ve seen every episode of ER. It just doesn’t work that way.

So how do we solve this problem? There are a lot of components, and it’s more complex than it seems.

1. Academic education. We need to start seeing actual academic degree programs on an undergraduate level, so that young people can get the background they need to make a solid start in the industry. I have beaten this drum often before, but it’s because I think it’s so important and nobody else is talking about it. The program could probably take from existing business, public relations, and marketing courses, but will need some custom-designed courses. Things like reputation systems and metrics could make for whole courses in and of themselves. Until we start giving people proper education and training for the jobs that are out there in community and social media, they will continue to invent their experiences out of thin air to compensate.

2. Corporate education. Someone, somewhere in every organization needs to know enough about community and social media to make a good hiring decision. They don’t have to be experts, but they need to know enough to spot the actual expert in a field of bullshit buzzword artists. Companies need to stop hiring the first person that sounds like they know what they are talking about because they are so afraid of doing nothing. Until companies stop hiring these “experts”, they will continue to burn companies and sour them on the idea of social media expertise at all.

3. Mentoring programs. Until we do implement the academic programs needed to make this career path sustainable in the future, we need to do something with the new people filling the demand for social media expertise today. Because there is no formal education available in the field, most people’s stories start like mine, with “I fell into it by accident when…”. We all have to start somewhere and climb our way up, and we’re working without a net in this industry. The more experienced among us need to work with people who are just starting out to help them get established, get experience, and get a solid foundation that will serve them (and their employers) well into the future. Until we start sharing our knowledge and experience with up-and-comers in the industry, we won’t have any growth of actual experts in the field. And that hurts all of us in the long run.

4. Certification program. I was at the Online Community Summit last week. During lunch, I was sitting with a group of friends that I do consider to be experts in this field, and the conversation turned to all of these faux experts. One of the things proposed to help solve the problem was some sort of certification system whereby people get accredited as experts (or knowledgeable or whatever) and can use that as currency when interviewing for a job or taking on new clients. I think that this idea has a lot of potential, but also a lot of pitfalls. It would be great to have something that companies and hiring managers can see and rely on when hiring someone. It would also help up-and-comers have something solid to put on their resume. And it’s a decent stand-in for pre-employment education. But who oversees and administers the program? How to they and the program gain the respect necessary for the certification to carry real weight and meaning? These are all things that would need to be worked out.

So yes, I do think that the influx of social media “experts” is bad for our industry. That someone with so little experience calls themselves an “expert” is insulting to the years I and many others have worked in this industry. That companies are falling for their schtick is a big problem. I agree that we can’t be afraid of the new wave of people in this fast-growing industry, but I think that us first-wavers have an obligation to differentiate actual experience and expertise from anecdotal expertise. I also think we have an obligation to continue making the pathway more smooth for others who follow in our footsteps.

I was in the doctor’s office last week (I injured my shoulder) browsing the magazines, and the cover story of The Economist caught my eye. The story was “Sex Laws: Unjust and Ineffective” and it’s an in-depth look at how we classify and punish sex offenders in this country. And, as the title suggests, we don’t do it that well.

As I mentioned in a previous entry, I have a BA in Criminal Justice. Although it’s not the main focus of my work these days, I maintain more than a passing interest in the issues regarding the law, the courts, and the prison system.

It’s never been popular to be against sex offender laws. Certainly, no politician could ever get elected (or re-elected) by being against them. But thankfully I am not a politician. And I am, for the most part, against the current laws most states have regarding sex offenders.

There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of terrible stories about children being harmed by real predators — including Megan Kanka (for whom Megan’s Law is named after) and Adam Walsh. But just as real are the stories of people who are branded sex offenders for what most people would believe are minor offenses. According to the Economist:

A report by Sarah Tofte of Human Rights Watch, a pressure group, found that at least five states required men to register if they were caught visiting prostitutes. At least 13 required it for urinating in public (in two of which, only if a child was present). No fewer than 29 states required registration for teenagers who had consensual sex with another teenager. And 32 states registered flashers and streakers.

These are not violent offenders. These people are not harming others. And they are certainly not harming children. Yet most people automatically assume that all sex offenders are violent child rapists and molesters. And why wouldn’t people paint all sex offenders with the same big brush? Their government and laws certainly do. Again from the Economist:

The Georgia Sex Offender Registration Review Board, an official body, assessed a sample of offenders on the registry last year and concluded that 65% of them posed little threat. Another 30% were potentially threatening, and 5% were clearly dangerous.

Yet there they all are, lumped into one big pile and treated as if they are all the same. And in most states (and thanks to a 2006 law passed by the US Congress, soon all states) these registries are available online for anyone to peruse, map, and generally freak out over. This is also ultimately ineffective. More from the Economist:

Publicly accessible sex-offender registries are intended to keep people safe. But there is little evidence that they do. A study by Kristen Zgoba of the New Jersey Department of Corrections found that the state’s system for registering sex offenders and warning their neighbours cost millions of dollars and had no discernible effect on the number of sex crimes. Restricting where sex offenders can live is supposed to keep them away from potential victims, but it is doubtful that this works. A determined predator can always catch a bus.

So, at this point you’re probably asking yourself why, outside of just stating my opinion, this is on my blog. It’s because of all the hysteria surrounding sex offenders on social networks like Facebook and MySpace. It’s about Facebook removing registered sex offenders from its registrations. Which, on the surface, sounds like a good idea. We want to keep kids safe online, right?

Well, no. Because again, it’s very easy to get on the registered sex offender list for something as simple as urinating in public. And most of the offenses that land a person on the sex offenders list have nothing to do with children. And most of the people on sex offender lists pose little threat.

But it’s more than that. The bias and fear-mongering are right there in the words they use to describe the situation and the reasoning for it.  From MSNBC:

“The message … is [that] Facebook has an equal stake in solving this problem of protecting children,” said Blumenthal, who along with North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper has led an effort remove sex offenders from the social networking Web sites.”They have an equal stake in the predator problem and its solution.”

What they won’t tell you is that registered sex offenders make up approximately the same percentage of Facebook and MySpace registration databases as they do the general population. Barring all registered sex offenders from social media won’t protect children any more than requiring someone who was caught visiting a prostitute to live 1000 feet away from a school protects children. But none of that sounds like good PR.

I think we all genuinely want to keep children safe from predators. But we have to do what reasoned research tells us is right, instead of taking the shotgun approach that we have in the last few years. We need to act logically, not out of panic or outrage. Treating all registered sex offenders like lepers and cutting them off from the online world is just not the best way to achieve the goal, and it’s incredibly unfair to the people who get lumped in along the way.

I have been a big fan of danah boyd for a while. When I think about my own aspirations and what I’m interested in learning more about, her name routinely comes up in my reading. Her work looks beyond the norms in online community research — how to be a better marketer, get more followers, get better ROI. Her research delves into the architecture, the politics, and the culture of communities and social media.

At the end of June, she gave a speech at the Personal Democracy Forum called “The Not-So-Hidden Politics of Class Online”. In it, she shared her research on exactly who was using MySpace, who was using Facebook, and why. The results were interesting and sometimes surprising.

Before I read her talk, I would have told you that hardly anyone uses MySpace anymore. I would have told you that most people have transferred over to Facebook. After reading her talk, I understand why I thought that, even though I was wrong.

The talk started with danah asking the audience to raise their hands if they used Facebook, and then again for MySpace. 90%(ish) of the people used Facebook, but only a few used MySpace. This reflects my experience (I was never a heavy MySpace user, but I don’t use it at all now. 90% of my friends, business associates, and acquaintances use Facebook and not MySpace, too). However, danah points out that while we’re touting Facebook’s growth, we’re missing a crucial piece of the puzzle — that just as many people are now using MySpace as they are using Facebook. While Facebook’s numbers have been growing exponentially, MySpace’s numbers haven’t changed.

Two weeks ago, comScore released numbers showing that Facebook and MySpace were neck-and-neck in terms of unique user visits in the U.S. The meta-narrative was that Facebook was winning in the States and that MySpace was dying. I would argue that the numbers can be read differently. The numbers show that MySpace has neither grown nor faded in the last year while Facebook has expanded rapidly and has finally reached the same size. Of course, this is not to say that Facebook isn’t doing tremendously. In a business environment where monetization is shaky, the only definition of success is “growth.” Given that, it’s reasonable to see Facebook as more successful than MySpace this year. But we still need to account for the fact that as many people visit MySpace as Facebook and that, as exemplified by the people in this room, that’s not because there’s a complete overlap of users. Even if you think that Facebook is winning the game, we need to account for the fact that *70 million* people in the US visited MySpace. That’s not small potatoes.

When danah dug deeper, asking teenagers which site they were using and why, the answers were astounding. Some cited feature differences, but many of the answers were around culture, and by extension, class. One teenager called MySpace “ghetto”, while others said that Facebook was more high-class, more adult.

Craig (17, California): The higher castes of high school moved to Facebook. It was more cultured, and less cheesy. The lower class usually were content to stick to MySpace. Any high school student who has a Facebook will tell you that MySpace users are more likely to be barely educated and obnoxious. Like Peet’s is more cultured than Starbucks, and Jazz is more cultured than bubblegum pop, and like Macs are more cultured than PC’s, Facebook is of a cooler caliber than MySpace.

If this language seems harsh, danah says that’s with good reason.

In looking through my data, I found that teens who prefer Facebook are far more likely to be condescending towards those who use MySpace than vice versa. Teens who use MySpace may lament teen Facebook users as “stuck-ups” or “goodie two-shoes” or the “good kids.” But they’re not nearly as harsh in their language as Facebook users are of those who use MySpace.

I agree with danah’s characterization of what happened when people abandoned MySpace for Facebook — it’s a modern-day, internet-based white flight. Whites, the educated, the suburban, the wealthier were all more likely to leave MySpace and go to Facebook. Given this, descriptions of MySpace as “ghetto” and Facebook as “more cultured” take on a whole new light here. To help illustrate this, danah talks about the sociological concept of homophily, which basically means “birds of a feather stick together”. You are most likely to know people like yourself. And how this is one of the driving forces behind why people choose MySpace or Facebook — they are attracted to the spaces where the people they perceive to be like themselves are.

This concept of homophily also shows why I would have told you that nobody is really looking at MySpace anymore. I don’t, and most of the people that I know are like me. Although my group of friends, acquaintances and associates are fairly diverse in terms of race and sexual orientation, they are almost entirely liberal/Democrat, well-educated, and wealthier. Because of who I am, and because of homophily, the people I know are less likely to choose MySpace over Facebook.

The implications of this, as danah rightly points out, are increased social divides.

We can accept when people choose to connect to people who are like them and not friend different others. But can we accept when institutions and services only support a portion of the network? When politicians only address half of their constituency? When educators and policy makers engage with people only through the tools of the privileged? When we start leveraging technology to meet specific goals, we may reinforce the divisions that we’re trying to address.

If you want people to connect around politics and democracy, information and ideas, you need to understand the divisions that exist. Many of us in this room see social network sites as a modern day incarnation of the public sphere. Politicians login to these sites to connect with constituents and hear their voices. Campaign managers and activists try to rally people through these sites. Market researchers try to get a sense of people’s opinions through these sites. Educators try to connect with students and build knowledge sharing communities. This is fantastic. But there isn’t one uniform public sphere. And if the ways in which we construct the digital public sphere reinforce the divisions that we’ve been trying to break down, we’ve got a problem.

I can’t recommend enough that you read the entire text of danah’s talk. It is just this kind of research and critical thinking that we need to understand where we are, why we are where we are, and where we are going. We need to consider a world outside of ourselves and our own experiences. Until we understand it, we can’t compensate for it, let alone work to make it better.