What’s New at BusinessCard2 (week of November 9, 2009)

There have been many recent additions to BusinessCard2.  Here is what’s new:

• Statistics: Track the performance of your card and how many new people are discovering you.
• Facebook Application: Now you can post your BusinessCard2 right within Facebook.  Grab the application here: BusinessCard2 Facebook App.
• Contacts: Collect and manager other BusinessCard2’s.
• Internal Messaging System: Send and receive messages with your contacts within BusinessCard2.
• Redesigned “Edit Card”: Editing and improving your BusinessCard2 has become even easier with the complete overhaul of the “Edit Card” section.
• Share Card: Now you can directly publish your card on major social websites from you card with the “Share Card” feature.
• Image Cropper: Time to give yourself a facelift? The newly launched image cropper will help you make your picture look its best.
• Billboard: We’ve been calling BusinessCard2 the “world’s tiniest billboard” for some time, but on Saturday we actually pushed out a tool called “Billboard” that helps you create an image ad right inside your card.  You can see an (albeit rudimentary) example here: http://lieflarson.businesscard2.com.
• Domain Resolved: Now your vanity BusinessCard2 URL resolves from the www variant.  For example, http://www.lieflarson.businesscard2.com resolves to http://lieflarson.businesscard2.com.
• Knowledge Base: This is in it’s very early stages, but we’ve created a BB forum for support, community, and how-to’s.  You can visit it at: http://support.businesscard2.com/bb/.

BusinessCard2 is the new way to connect with customers. Because of great users like you, BusinessCard2 has recently been covered on CNN.com, Wall Street Journal Online and Dow Jones MarketWatch. We are continually improving BusinessCard2 to make it an even more powerful tool for managing the way customers see you online.

You have many choices for your online marketing.  Thank you for choosing BusinessCard2.

What is Weltschmerz and how to get rid of it?

Have you ever heard of the word Weltschmerz?  It’s an interesting word for which I’ve not been able to find an English equivalent (synonym).  Weltschmerz comes from the German for “world pain” and is a general sadness over the state of the world.  If you’re still curious about the word, you can find a little more at Wikipedia.

A combination of H1N1, macro recessionary economic conditions, and fashionably pessimistic friends have many of us walking around in the fog of Weltschmerz.  And who can blame us?  A person only goes to the moon for the first time once, right?  What is the next milestone in human achievement we can aspire to?  We all need something to put on a pedestal; that special something to give us hope that new opportunities exist right around the corner.

I’m pleased to say that over the last several days I finally shed myself of my Weltschmerz.  No, this didn’t happen by me being sick and tired of being sick and tired.  Rather, I discovered that the Kryptonite of Weltschmerz is connecting with people at a hyper personal level.  This singular act of understanding the human condition that governs other peoples’ lives makes the world seem a more joyous place to live in.  It is egoless empathy that enables us to replace the “world pain” with shared optimism.  When you can recognize the promise in those around you, it makes groundswell plausible.

I’m seeing the slow but steady adjustment in people’s demeanor.  People are starting to build (or at least talk about building) their own businesses.  I’m hearing whispers of a slow, but noticeable uptick in commercial activity.  I’m hearing people talk more about the things they cherish (rather than those they renounce). I’m witnessing incredible technological advances in computing, environmental awareness, and medicine.  What an incredible time to be alive!

If you want to free yourself of Weltschmerz, sit down with a couple of people and ask them what makes them hopeful. Ask them what inspires them and what they are working towards.  In the process, you might just find the optimism you’re desperately seeking.

UPDATE: You have to check this out if you don’t think the future holds anything new & exciting: http://www.terrafugia.com/index.html.

Your Social Network is Limited to 150

Dunbar’s Number and Social Rules as they Apply to Business, Online

For those of you who know the BusinessCard2 team, you’ve heard us talk at almost every occasion about the Rule of 150 (also know as Dunbar’s Number).  In short, the Rule of 150 suggests that we are limited in our ability to manage our social networks as a rule of social nature.  Although the Rule of 150 certainly applies in the authentic world, we also feel strongly that this law applies to social networking on the web as well.

See, in both the real and virtual worlds, you can accumulate as many friends/contacts as you wish, but there are limitations to managing all those relationships.  Your time, your channel of communication, your frequency often means that you’re simply not able to maintain some of these relationships.  Even under artificial methods (such as automated emails or responses) it is nearly impossible to fulfill the fine details of actually maintaining the relationship.

In both the real and virtual worlds, we have people coming in and out of our 150 circle all the time.  Some stay in the circle and never leave (a spouse, best friend, etc.) and some enter and leave quickly (a teammate on your softball team) and some are there, leave, and come back again.  For every person who enters your circle of 150, there is an equal and opposite reaction with someone leaving your circle.

No doubt there are instances of incredible social butterflies who can legitimately manage say 200 or 250 people, but that is the extreme and not the norm.  Likewise, there are people whose circle is probably limited to 75 or 100.  The point is that there are theoretical limits to maintaining enough intimacy in your social network relationships for them to qualify for your circle.

In both the real and virtual worlds, people argue us on whether the Rule of 150 applies.  The naysayers swear that they are living proof this 150 limit can be broken.  These skeptics say advances in social networking technology are helping them supersede the theoretical limits.  Yet, a survey of those they claim are part of their network quickly exposes a myriad of people that don’t consider the naysayer in their circle of 150.  This is a point of great distinction: someone is only in your circle of 150 if they too say you are in their circle of 150.

A couple of weeks ago we had the opportunity to meet with and attend a great presentation by leading blogger Seth Godin here in Minneapolis.  Seth is a respected thought leader in the evolution of tribes, and someone who well understands the social implications of being a human on the internet.  To quote his recent blog post, “Dunbar’s Number isn’t just a number, it’s the law.”

The Rule of 150 is especially important as companies of all sizes strike out to find customer gold on the web by using social networking.  If you could do more business with your online network, you already would be.  Growing your business online is about connecting with NEW PROSPECTS AND CUSTOMERS.  Your professional life will be made much easier if you accept that your circle is limited to roughly 150, and you turn your energy from trying to tap the network you have to the prospects (nodes) that you don’t already know.

How do you connect with those you don’t already know?  The answer isn’t your social circle.  Rather, you need to find points of need.  For example, if a prospect needs a new purse and goes on the web, she will probably run a search.  If she knew that you sell purses already, she would have probably just called you or visited your website.  The fact is that she doesn’t.  The problem for you is that you also don’t know about her and that she’s on the market for a new purse.  So, you need to find a way to tap her interest/need.  We all know how advertising with Google Adwords works: we can capture her eye by advertising at the point of need in a search engine.  But, let’s take this approach to a social network situation…

Say she mentions, “I’m looking for a new purse” on her Facebook page or Twitter feed.  If you don’t know her and don’t follow her, you’ll never know about it.  Now maybe one of her friends or followers will read about the fact she is looking for a new purse, but unless her friends recommend you as a great purveyor of purses, you’re still missing the intersection of need with your solution.  If you’re following the point here, you’ll understand why it’s so difficult to use social networking for commercial purposes.  To grow your business you are looking to connect with new prospective customers (not just the customers you already have).  Since there are limitations to your prospects’ social circle, the idea that they will follow you or seek you out is an unreasonable expectation.

To discover and connect with new customers, you need to think like an engineer.  The question to ask yourself is, “How to I build a bridge between two previously disconnect points?”  That is, how does someone that doesn’t know about you connect with you, and how do you connect with someone you don’t already know?  In the real world, it’s called leads and referrals.  On the web, it’s discovering prospects at the point of need.  In the highest percentage of web-based social networking this will not work, because of the Rule of 150.

[Note: if you have created new customers by using Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twtter, please share your story.   How did they find you and how did you convert them?]

[Also: Read, "Is the Promising of Social Media Enough? What about ROI?"]

Personal Reputation and Social Media

Our vendor, Cision, just sent me a link to a short slideshow on “Personality 2.0: Eight Ways to Control Your Personal Reputation and Social Media Brand.”  It’s sort of cute/funny, but more importantly I think it’s spot on.  If they really evaluate this space, I think their eight tips could have been more like fifty tips, but a good start nevertheless.

You can watch the slideshow here.

Weekly Round-Up for BusinessCard2

This week Lief Larson spoke to the Minnesota State Bar Association; the presentation topic was Lawyer 2.0.  For any lawyers out there interested in websites where they want to grow their online presence, just send a message to Lief through his BusinessCard2.  Part of the discussion was on whether people who follow you on Twitter actually read your tweets?  The advice was that only a small percentage do, but that is mostly because merely following someone by name or company doesn’t always mean that their posts are relevant to all the followers.  Interestingly, Kevin Rose who founded Digg, has been working on a side project called WeFollow.  Digg acquired Kevin’s service this week.  WeFollow has interesting implications because it helps people interested in specific and relevant content to follow thought leaders based purely on relevancy of subject matter (something desperately needed).

Behind the scenes at BusinessCard2, we’re working on some new features… several of which will be pushed live over the weekend.  First, we are nearly completed with testing of “Inbox”, which is basically an internal messaging system.  We still forward all messages to your email address of record, but now we’re also providing tools for management of those messages in the web app.  Second, we will be releasing “Contacts”, which has been long awaited.  With “Contacts” you can now store other people’s business cards (it’s like a Rolodex).  Third, we’re wrapping up some work on “Slideshow”, which basically helps you to compile and presents photos in a slideshow format in your BusinessCard2.  Lastly, we are very near to powering video playback in the card (thanks to Danny Patterson and the YouTube Chromeless team for months worth of work on this.)

If you really want to geek out, please stop by and say “hello” to us at DeFrag ‘09 in Denver on November 11-12.  BusinessCard2 is a sponsor for the event and it promises to be a great conference.  Thanks to Erik and Kim of DeFrag for your tremendous efforts in putting this one-of-a-kind event together.

Opinion on Social Media ROI

As BusinessCard2 grows, I’ve been spending much more time speaking with the media and networking events around the country.  This has provided me the opportunity to shed some light on how I perceive the tangibility of social media in moving the needle for your business, as well as feedback from audiences on just how confusing it can all be.  One of the biggest questions I get is, “Should I do it at all?”.

For anyone who is using social networking, the answer to this question is almost always “yes, you should be doing social networking.”  I think that people naturally answer with a YES! is because they want others to either join in their misery or bliss.  The reality is, maintaining a social networking presence, for many, can be a time vampire that provides little or no tangible or intangible return on investment (ROI).

It is a mistaken belief that just because an audience migrates to one place, that means you need to have to be there too.  Before embarking on a social media campaign, the three questions I recommend you ask are: 1) Why do I want to be there?, 2) What can it do for my business?, 3) How will I determine/calculate if it really matters?

I am and have been convinced for the better part of five years that social networking is only tapped for ROI by a select group of people and companies.  Typically those who are successful have invested time in understanding how social media works and how they will successfully use it, as well as investment of financial resources to see successful implementation of that planning.

At the end of the day, the 1-2 hours spent maintaining a social presence is 1-2 hours taken away from another part of your life.  It is time you will never get back.  Social networking can be a novelty where not all experience windfall.  It needs to be carefully thought out, attempted, and scaled back if it can’t be measured.   Note: Reality Digital is helping calculate social media ROI.

So let me be clear, so their is no uncertainty in my opinion: social media can be one part of overall marketing tactics and a vehicle for integrated marketing communications, but it is not always a worthwhile trade-off of your time in resources unless expectations can be realized.

BusinessCard2 as a Part of Good Netiquette

One of the challenges, and opportunities, in making new connections on the web is being approached by, and approaching new people.  BusinessCard2 is different way to manage this challenge.  At BusinessCard2 we don’t see the web space much differently than the real world.  You want to connect with new people to grow your business.  You do not want to be limited by degrees of separation.  You do not want to have to pay to freely make connections with new people, especially when you’re doing the work to find them.  You are willing to be transparent about who you are, and you carry the digital version of yourself with the same decorum as you do in the authentic world.

Still, how is the other person you are approaching supposed to qualify you?  How are they to trust you?  How are they to know that entering into a new relationship with you is a worthwhile exercise?

These questions are the same ones we’ve had in mind for the last several years while engineering BusinessCard2.  The underlying premise and intention has been one of solving the problem of making online connections with those we don’t already know, but would like to.  The concept of the business card was a natural solution, since it has a 350 year track record of creating connections in the real world.

Historically speaking, the business card is really just the evolution of the calling card (also known as visiting card).  Calling cards were used by nobles as an essential tool for formal introduction.  A person would typically send the calling card ahead of a visit, thus introducing an impending arrival.  The calling card helped qualify the experience of entering into a new relationship.

What is so difficult today on the web is that we don’t know who we can trust.  Each of us carries around a certain level of suspicion about those we come across as we navigate the web.  Some of us choose anonymity in defense.  However, it is increasingly commonplace for many of us that we’ll give up anonymity (be identity transparent) if it means a greater likelihood for opportunity and success.  Still, it can be uncomfortable to be approached online by someone we are not familiar with; the internet does not convey human qualities such as facial and hand gestures, and tone of voice.

BusinessCard2 is specifically designed as your calling card for the web.  It is designed as a method of formal introduction.  It is also a firewall to protect against jumping into a relationship before knowing more about the other party.  It is a dignified and orderly way to expose you who you are, what you do, and why it matters.  It is a polite ice breaker for possible conversation, supported by ample data for due diligence.  It is your best foot forward to digital manners.  It is something more friendly than the impersonality of bits and bytes.

Netiquette is the set of rules by which we govern our online conduct.  Increasingly we are seeing BusinessCard2 used specifically as a convention of online conduct.  So, we thought it appropriate to start a short list of best practices for BusinessCard2.  Note: this list is not inclusive and only suggests ways in which BusinessCard2 may be more useful for both the card owner, and the intended recipient:

- Be honest and transparent in your card.
- Be professional in your card.
- Share your card where and when appropriate.
- Have a colleague edit your card, for thoroughness.
- If you want to be contacted, leave contact information in your card.
- Use information, pictures, files, and links in your card that tell your story.
- Share your expert knowledge in your card.

[If you have additional suggestions for best practices, I'd love to know.  Lief Larson]

Vote for HyperHairyDingleberry2HyperDrive

!!!WE NEED YOUR HELP!!!

We’re working behind the scenes at BusinessCard2 on a delivery technology.  This internal effort basically started in 2008.  It helps people who have a BusinessCard2 with a “set-it & forget-it” delivery mechanism.  It’s sorta marketing, sorta advertising, but really, really simple (like push one button simple).  Basically we take your web business card and put it on other sites for you.

Anyway, back a number of months ago we needed a name.  We started with the term “identity broadcasting”, but didn’t like that because it was too ambiguous.  Then about seven weeks ago we decided on the term “PUSH”.  It was short and simple.  Basically we’d be pushing the cards out to various places on the web.

Then two days ago the whole conversation came up again when a couple of team members who didn’t have a vote on PUSH decided it needed to do a better job of saying what it is.  I didn’t want to use any terminology associated with the word advertising because I think it’s more than advertising.  However, I was outvoted by the team and we settled on the brand “adcast” yesterday (even though the two team members who didn’t like the term “PUSH” but wanted to use something about “advertising” were not present to vote, but we assumed they would like it because it had the term “ad” in it, signifying that it constituted some type of advertising).  Note: During that same meeting the term “CardCast” was suggested.

Well, we emailed the two other team members that we’d decided on using “AdCast”.  To our surprise, they didn’t like it.  Totally independently they emailed back with the suggestion of “CardCast”.  ‘Great!’ I thought.  Something we can all agree on.  So I send out an email saying it is official.    Well, not so quick…

All of a sudden a fraction was created for and against CardCast.  Emails were being slung to and fro with arguments for and against.  Here are some quotes from the email, just to give you context:

“Team. After much dialogue & debate, I’m making the recommendation that “push” becomes”CardCast”.  Randy/Gordy independently arrived as this name (as did we).  I’m personally convinced that there will be some level of explanation that will have to occur regardless of the name.  I think CardCast is verby enough to differentiate this as something special/different/beyond merely having a card.  I think there are legitimate concerns about being categorized purely as advertising.  Lastly, the trademark activity around the term “AdCast” is questionable enough that we might have difficulties in securing protection.  From my research we have complete freedom to operate with CardCast.  Unless there are any major objections, I think we should commit to this trademark and move on…Lief”

Then….

“Hello all, here are my thoughts: The original argument against “Push” that really resonated with me was the education we would have to do for our users for them to understand exactly what this was, and was there a better name that would help a new user better grasp what “Push” was? I’m not sure that “CardCast” does this much better…..we’ve replaced “Push” (a synonym for “advertise”) with “cast” (to throw off/out). In the context of our website, and in appearances outside of our website: ‘BusinessCard2 CardCast’,  I still like AdCast better….not repeating ‘card’ twice would be nice there….’BusinessCard2 AdCast.’ Also, after our conversation about it yesterday, I warmed up with using ‘Ad’ because we moved away from some of the negative connotations of ‘advertise’, but still kept some transparency on what was going on. I dont mean to be negative, if everyone else is unanimous on it, lets just move forward on it. We’ll build such a kick ass service with this that we could call it HyperHairyDingleberry2HyperDrive, and it would still be awesome, but I still wanted to share my 2 cents and see if that opened up any further discussions…..Tanner”

Then…

“I vote for HyperHairyDingleberry2HyperDrive….Randy”

“See, here we go……I’d like to replace Dingleberry with Dinglehopper….Gordy”

Anyway, WHAT DO YOU THINK?  We’d like to know your vote.  What should we call it?  AdCast? CardCast?  HyperHairyDingleberry2HyperDrive?

And Just Who Exactly Makes Your Personal Brand?

(A hint: it isn’t just you.)

Your name is your name. Your name in funky lettering is your logo.  But neither is your personal brand.  Instead, your personal brand is what those who know you and work with you say it is.  Managing your personal brand is an exercise in influencing how you exist in the mind of others.

Others form ideas about you.  These ideas are based on attributes you exude.  What do you look like in dress and physical appearance?  What types of information do you convey verbally and with gesturing?  What are people saying about you?  Are you trustworthy? Are you charismatic?  It is these questions – not an evaluation of the benefits you offer – that will lead people to construct your personal brand and ultimately want to do business with you.

You can always see the people with charismatic personal brands stand out in popular culture.  Steve Jobs, the energetic pitchman and CEO of Apple Inc., has immediately recognizable personal brand qualities: black shirt, circular glasses, intellectually stimulating conversation, powerful speeches, and self-assuredness.  In addition, hard to quantify things like success, style, innovation and creativity are what many observers associate with the name Steve Jobs.

Although Fortune noted Steve Jobs “is considered one of Silicon Valley’s leading egomaniacs,” many tech fanboys and consumers have translated his larger-than-life persona into trust and dedication to the products his company creates.  It is no wonder than that the company’s stock took a hit after his health problems were made public, or that there is tremendous buzz around his possible appearance at the Apple event tomorrow.  Here is a recent comment from Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster:

“We expect CEO, Steve Jobs, to announce a new iPod lineup featuring cameras in re-designed iPod nanos, iPod touches, and the iPod classic. We believe investors will view the new products as a non-event, as iPod growth slows and the segment becomes less of an investable theme. However, we also believe Steve Jobs will present at the event, a first since his health-related leave of absence, which would likely be a slight positive for shares of AAPL and the first public confirmation of Jobs’ health since his return to the company.”

Can your personal brand influence the stock market?  Well, maybe some day.

There are no boring people, only dull personal brands.  If you want to understand how to better influence people’s perception of you, these are the three questions to ask yourself: 1) Who are you?, 2) What do you do?, 3) Why does it matter?  The exercise of answering these questions will lead you to the qualities that differentiate you.

Next, be distinctive.  Consider going against the crowd.  Be open to standing out; most ”visionaries” started life as contrarians.  This is an exercise in creativity over logic.

Then, be trustworthy.  I’m not talking about credibility, but rather giving people something that they can come to expect from you with some level of consistency.  Be human.  Allow people to know you make mistakes and you’ll help your personal brand agents form bonds with your personality attributes, thus further enhancing your personal brand value.

Finally, solicit feedback.  Ask people what they think about your persona and messaging.  As your personal brand rises, pay careful attention to the conversation.  In this dialogue you’ll discover just who makes your personal brand.

MarketWatch & Wall Street Journal Online

This last week leading up to the labor day break has been an exciting one for us.  Emily Glazer, a writer for DowJones mentioned BusinessCard2 in her article “Digital business cards move networking off paper.”  The article was featured in the online edition of WallStreet Journal and was a cover story on the homepage of MarkeWatch.com.

We’re really proud to have been worthy of the coverage, and the validation of our efforts.  The traffic increase to BusinessCard2 due to the story has been absolutely wonderful and we’re very happy to be able to put many of our great users of BusinessCard2 in the spotlight.