Need Testing Help

BusinessCard2 is testing new tech.  If you have a web site you’d like to test on it, please let us know. http://businesscard2.com/findapro

The Limits of Social Business to Actual Business

Back in October 2009 I wrote the Post: Your Social Network is Limited to 150.  I grow ever convinced that to generate more business you are limited by this social theory, and thus need to find ways to connect with new nodes (those who you were previously disconnected with).  My industry colleague Stowe Boyd sees it different.  In his post, he dispatches the notion that Dunbar’s Number applies to anything other than the “largest stable social group”.  I guess Stowe and I can just agree to disagree.

This morning, Forbes published the article Friendships in the Digital Age.  In this article (in my estimation) they rightly cite concentric circles (surely one circle of which would apply to the stable social group) and Dunbar’s Number as the limits of individual organizational structure.  There are two points in this article that I’d like to hit on:

1. Detailed Personal Knowledge Missing
If you don’t know how a person thinks, acts, what they look like, how they behave, can they really exist in your social network?  Sure, you can plausibly contain that person in a contact list, but I would hardly say that the fact they follow you on Twitter qualifies that person as part of your social network.

2. The Attributes of your Personal Social Network
Trust, direct knowledge, activity, peer pressure, behavior, and motivation matter in qualifying the personal social network.  In short, if you don’t need to trust these people, if you don’t have direct knowledge of these people, if you don’t conduct activities (whether on or offline) with these people, if you don’t have some sense of peer pressure from these people, if you don’t consider your behavior around these people, and if you are not motivated about these people, then they are NOT part of your social network.

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.

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.  If you draw this in a communications model, you are a node and your customer prospect is a node, and the two of you are disconnected (the signal has not been tied).

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.

In summary, despite my deep respect for Stowe Boyd’s wisdom, I’m still a firm believer that Dunbar’s Number applies and that there is a limit to our social network.  As it applies to business, one is best served by acknowledging these limits and not accepting the pretense that you can turn a contact list into a your social network.  Instead, you can work within the limits of 150 and strike out to form connections/ties with customers both outside of your 150 and even outside of your contact list.  These “ties” can be enhanced by treating the customer prospect in much the same way as you treat those who qualify in your 150: build trust, provide them knowledge about you, give them a way to interact with you.  However, don’t expect them to accept the same behavior you might use with your 150 (because although you’ve given them the power to form a tie, they are not and likely never will be part of your social network, but at best part of a contact/customer list.)

Create a Slideshow with BusinessCard2

Now it’s incredibly easy to create and display a slideshow in your BusinessCard2. Slideshow is the newest way to communicate and engage with people visiting your card. Slideshow is also a great way to tour prospects through your product or service offering.

Using strong visual elements, your Slideshow can help strengthen the way you present your professional self. You also have an “info” area for slide descriptions (so customers can read data while viewing your Slideshow).

BusinessCard2 Adds New Billboard Tool

The new BusinessCard2 Billboard tool allows you to upload a custom, full-size image to your card.  Here are some ideas on how to use Billboard:

• Place images that attract customers.
• Display customer incentives.
• Customizing your card to your style.
• Catch the eye of prospects.

Billboard is easy to use with the new image cropper tool. Simply find the image you want on your computer, upload it, and crop it the way you want it to appear in your card.

BusinessCard2 Captures YouTube

We’re please to announce that you can now integrate your YouTube videos into BusinessCard2 within seconds. BusinessCard2 has merged the power of YouTube to make video a reality in your card. Use the Video tool to introduce yourself, broadcast information about your products and services, and provide on-demand demo’s to educate your prospects.  The possibilities are limitless.

Why Not a Ranking System for People?

My friend Dan Schawbel, founder of Personal Branding Blog, put on his futurist cap and wrote the post, “The Personal Brand Marketplace of the Future. Are Your Prepared?”  In this, Dan made the point that we rate products and companies, so why not rate people?  That is a good question Dan, so let me tell you why I think we don’t rate people:

In 2007 we launched a little web product based on an algorithm we wrote here at Workface Inc.  We never marketed it, and it never took off, but we for a very short period of time allowed for the rating of people.  The service is called PeopleTrusted.  You can find a link to the people rating site here.

The reason a company like ours has such a problem ranking people isn’t the fact that it would provide value to some other person or group of people, it’s the CYA problem (CYA as in cover your ass).  Rating or ranking a specific person (vs. a company or product) has substantial (libel) defamation of character implications.  The nature of providing a service like this comes down to the courts historical preference in protecting a person’s name and status, and awarding damages for those who inflict any harm on their name/status/personal character.

I agree with Dan that having nothing but positive fluff out there doesn’t help other people in making decisions.  In most cases when you rate a vendor in Ebay, you’re really talking about your buying experience with that person, but Ebay can avoid the slander and defamation by calling them a vendor.

How many negative recommendations have you seen in LinkedIn?  If you’ve every seen one, I want to know about it.  Of course you haven’t.  The recommendation system is filtered by the respective account owner.  There are only good recommendations in LinkedIn, NEVER bad ones.

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.