It’s not “camp” unless you’re building a fire.

Please help me understand this.

In my field, (un)conferences are the lifeblood of excuses to get out from behind one’s computer and actually (*gasp*) socialize, instead of just talk and write and present and tweet about all things “social” online.  (Crazy concept, isn’t it?) But a very large chunk of these conferences are called “camp” — there’s BarCamp, PodCamp, BrandCamp, WordCamp, GeekGirlCamp, myriad “boot camps,” and I’m sure plenty more.

I’ve been to a few of these “camps” I listed above (for the record: though many tell me I look like Alyson Hannigan, I never went to band camp) and they’re anything but camps. They’re a bunch of geeks in conference centers, usually laptops, netbooks, and iPhones in tow, listening to a speaker, jotting down notes and tweeting as they go. Occasionally they actually talk to each other. Most of the time they dress like this.

But none of this has anything to do with camping. Or campaigns.

When I was growing up, every year my family would drive Up North (that’s capitalized in Michigan) to Clear Lake State Park, get a campsite, pop a tent, erect our screened-in kitchen around a picnic table, and well, camp. We’d build a campfire in a fire pit, and sometimes roast hot dogs or marshmallows. We water skied on the lake, laid out on the beach, played volleyball, rode bikes, and explored trails.

When I went to fifth grade camp, we were put up in cabins but it was nonetheless camp. There was canoeing, swimming, horseback riding, archery, and we had to schlep quite a ways to an outhouse in the middle of the night if we had to use the bathroom. There was a mess hall, counselors, arts and crafts, hiking, and of course, a campfire every night. You know, “Kumbaya” and the whole bit.

So why the heck are all these conferences called “camp”?!

I don’t go popping a tent in the middle of the woods with a bunch of people, make a fire, roast marshmallows over it, and call it a conference, because it’s not. It’s camping. And neither should a bunch of folks gather in a facility that has tables, comfy chairs, big screen projectors, electricity, running water, and keynote speakers and call it “camp,” because it’s not. That’s a conference.

I don’t get it. Halp?

Photo: That’s my dad, camping a few years ago.

If you are not a public figure, you do not need a fan page. Period.

You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake.  You are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else, and we are all part of the same compost pile.  ~Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, Chapter 17

I’ve been noticing something on Facebook lately that absolutely irks me – regular people who are neither celebrities, nor an otherwise public figure, are deciding they need fan pages. I don’t understand why, and I finally tweeted about it last night after I had had enough.

I got a lot of interesting conversation out of it, mainly with Juanita Chronowski, who maintains a fan page for her writing as a way to separate the personal from the professional. OK, that I can understand. Ari Herzog does the same thing. But people who are NOT public figures in any way, shape, or form? Unless somebody else made the page out of appreciation or as a joke – my friend Jen had it right when she said, “that’s flippin’ weird.

Facebook allows personal profiles up to 5,000 friends, and if you actually have more than 5,000 friends then perhaps you do need one. Perhaps you are somewhat of a public figure, and if that is the case, then go ahead and make yourself one.

Call me a purist, folks, but if you are not famous except in your own mind, YOU DO NOT NEED A FAN PAGE. Regular people having a fan page for themselves screams of an ego problem and “look how self-important I am!” — and frankly, makes me question why I would be friends with that person in the first place.

I’m tired of regular people thinking they’re special, unique snowflakes and deserve their own fan page just to boost their own egos. Non-public figure fan pages cheapens the value of fan pages for those who actually are public figures. Don’t believe me? Fan my cat. She’s more of a celebrity than most of these conceited people.

What do you think? Am I wrong here? Am I missing something? Is there a reason regular people who have not exceeded the 5,000 friend limit on Facebook and are NOT public figures should have their own fan pages? This is such a turnoff!

Social media is way too smurfy these days.

[If you know me in person, chances are you've heard this before, but I'm at the point now where I feel it just needs to be written down.]

I hate the term “social media.” Really, I do. Why? Because it’s too hard to define. I’m definitely not the first person to blog about this, and I’m sure I won’t be the last. But here’s the truth:

All media is social media.

Media, at its very ethos, is social. Cavemen didn’t paint cave paintings and not talk about them. Egyptians didn’t carve hieroglyphics just because they were pretty pictures — they told stories. Radio never really was one-way — it encouraged interaction with people calling in. TV may seem one-way but do people not sit around the TV and watch it together? Do people not talk about their favorite shows with each other?

All media always has, and always will, encourage social interaction. Whether it’s immediate as what we understand “social media” to be nowadays or not is a different story.

The only difference between “traditional” media and “social” media is that “social media” makes two-way (or one-to-many, or many-to-many) communication a helluva lot faster. And let’s just face it – this is simply the way the world communicates now.

However, like those folks I linked above, I understand that there is no one, true definition of “social media,” and that alone is a problem, illustrated by a story a few friends of mine relayed to me recently:

A colleague of ours, a rather big name in the “social media world” and a bigwig at a rather large, world-famous company, was to speak about social media at a local event. I did not attend said event, but my colleagues did, because they wanted to hear what he had to say about how he’s used “social media” in/for his company. Based on the questions from the audience, however, it became more of a Twitter 101 class, and my colleagues admitted they were a little embarrassed for him. This was not a marketing fail, as the event was promoted appropriately. Or was it?

My colleagues’ definition of social media was and is much more complex than that of the audience. They were expecting how this guy applied “social media” for marketing/PR purposes. The audience was apparently expecting how to use a tool or two, which is a lot different.

Social media is the new smurf.

Smurfs used the word “smurf” for just about anything, and it was understood without question. Or they used it when they couldn’t think of any other word for something, which is where we are now with “social media.” Hell, any kind of interaction via the internet or mobile now can be considered “social media,” and I can’t believe that for a society as chatty and as articulate as we are, we can’t think of any other words for what the heck we’re talking about.

We need to expand our vernacular.

I was taught that you shouldn’t complain about something without proposing a solution, but honestly? I don’t have one. What I do know is that the more we use “social media” as a term for just about any kind of communication these days, the more confused people get, and the more smurfy things become. I like to be more specific when I speak of expedited communication through ever-changing technology, but I realize that sometimes it’s easier smurfed than smurfed. I know that many times, I still go over peoples’ smurfs and they still don’t smurf what I’m smurfing about, even when I think I’m smurfing on their level.

So what do you smurf? Is “social media” too smurfy these days? Should we be more specific and throw that term out the smurf? Or is it fine and smurfy? Leave your smurfs in the smurfs.

Happy Festivus, for the rest of us! My 2009 airing of grievances.

I can’t believe I almost forgot it was Festivus today. I was reminded by Rico Thomas Rico, who posted his airing of grievances on his blog. Knowing I’m long overdue for a blog post, I’m following his lead and now posting my 2009 Airing of Grievances. Enjoy!

Dissappointing me this year in the world of social media were …

1) Auto-dmers. People on twitter who automatically follow you with a direct message when you follow them. A very amateur move. Especially disconcerting when said person claims to be a social media marketer, or even worse if it’s a “Thanks for following, click my junk!” type of DM.  You people should not be allowed online.

2) People who claim they won’t join Facebook “because they don’t want everybody to know all their business.” Grr … that’s what the privacy settings are for, idiots.

3) On that note, people who over-protect their stuff on Facebook so much that they appear as a faceless “Facebook user” when commenting, and refuse to share ANYTHING. OK, seriously? I’m all about the privacy settings but if you think you have THAT MUCH to hide, that’s called paranoia and there’s medication for that.

4) People who claim to work “in social media” but then say they can’t stand gossip. I got news for you — gossip fuels social media. In a very big way, social media IS gossip. Can’t handle the heat? Get the hell outta the kitchen.

5) Places that start their e-newsletters that I receive with “Dear Communicator” - I have a name, and if YOU were a communicator, you’d know that. You’d also know the %name% function in your email client to insert it so that it wouldn’t sound so generic.

6) People who say they “do” social media as their job. Do you say you “do” the copy machine? Do you “do” the phone? Do you “do” a word processor? No, those are tools you use in order to do your job. Use it as a means, not an end.

7) People who assume I’m a graphics designer just because they hear that what I do has something to do with the internet. I don’t know how many times I hear “I know a guy who needs a graphics designer, I referred him to you…” That’s great, but I’m admittedly artistically retarded. I’ll have to give them a referral to one of the 1000000000000000 graphics/web designers I DO know.

8 ) All these “life coaches” who insist on following me on Twitter. What — you couldn’t figure out what to do with your life so you decided to tell people how to live theirs? For real — go away.

9) Those who do not question “thought leaders.” There’s a term for you that’s not as nice as “thought follower,” it’s “sheep.” See this post.

10) SEO people, especially those who feel the need to put “SEO” after their name. OK, here’s a newsflash — SEO is NOT ROCKET SCIENCE. Having said that, if you are in the Cult of SEO (a.k.a. those who believe you have to be in some kind of secret society and know some kind of secret handshake in order to get SEO), YOU DO NOT NEED TO PUT SEO AFTER YOUR NAME. SEO is NOT a PhD. You do not need a doctorate degree to figure it out, and if your name is “John Jones, SEO” on LinkedIN or Twitter, it does not make you look credible, it makes you look like a douchebag.

Disappointing me this year in the rest of the world were …

1) Whoever took Randa Jawhari. This person is actually at the TOP of my list. My hometown of Fenton has a hole in it because she has been missing since February 2009. It won’t be filled until she’s found. Please give her back.

2) Traffic weavers. I hate you. You people are DANGEROUS. And you know what? Danica Patrick does it a helluva lot better than you. And she’s much better looking.

3) The people who live above me. I haven’t lived here for long but I’m convinced they think their living room is a mosh pit.

4) Kanye West. Do I have to even explain why?

5) People who toss cigarette butts out car windows. Dude, if you absolutely HAVE to pollute your lungs, don’t pollute the planet, too.

6) That guy who warns everybody about being “that guy” but doesn’t realize that HE IS THAT GUY. You know that guy.

7) Ghost bloggers/writers. Pardon me for being a purist, but I find it highly ironic that the very things that would get someone expelled from college (plagiarism) are common practice in the professional world today. That’s nothing but B.S.

So there we go. My airing of grievances for 2009. There’s no doubt in my mind that I have more, but these are the ones off the top of my head. Now I ask you — what are YOUR 2009 Festivus grievances? Leave ‘em in the comments.

Are you creating bad “social currency” on Facebook?

Courtney Engle pointed me to this awesome video by Scott Stratten of UnMarketing and it was too good not to share. Scott’s talking about bad “social currency” and the annoying stuff people do on Facebook:

I can totally empathize. There are many people who say that there’s no wrong way to use social media tools, but I think that’s a bunch of baloney. If you do the things that Scott’s describing, you might not think you’re doing anything “wrong,” but the rest of us want to reach through our computer screens and strangle you.

Scott only scratched the surface of  “Don’t Be That Guy on Facebook” — personally my biggest pet peeve is That Guy who has to post the SAME DAMN STUFF to multiple Facebook groups and fan pages. I’m not going to name names, but I’ve got a couple of Those Guys.

People, please — don’t do that.

When you do that, it floods my (unexplainable) “highlights” section on the home page with the same thing over and over, e.g.: “John Doe added these 5 pictures of Event X to the group __”, and “John Doe added these 5 pictures of Event X to the page __,” etc.

If you have a story or some pictures you think might be of interest to people in similar groups or fans of similar things, chances are they’re mostly the same people and you’re spamming them.

FACEBOOK IS NOT FOR SPAMMING.

When you do this, it may appear to you that you know who your audience is because you’re targeting groups and fan pages of similar interest, but if you were really paying attention, you’d notice that it’s mostly the same people and you’re being rude. If you are in multiple groups and pages of similar interest, so is everybody else you’re trying to reach.

Sure, I could choose to “hide” updates and stuff from the people who do this, but then I’d not get the information at all, and I do want to receive the information. Just not over and over and over again.

So if this sounds like you, cut it out. If it sounds like somebody you know but don’t have the heart to tell them, send them a link to this post.

What other annoying things have you noticed people do on Facebook? Rant away!

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