Speak Geek to Me

As I really am that much of a geek! And I embrace that fact.

So, on Wednesday I went to see Tee Morris (author, podcaster and social media specialist) speak geek to a theatre full of people at Te Papa - who by the way, big ups! Free speaker. Love it.

So, Tee's focus was on social media and as he pointed out, the social media that he knows, uses and most importantly, understands. To be fair, a lot of it wasn't exactly new information for me, but it is always nice to have what you know reaffirmed by someone else. Because of this I am not going to simply reiterate everything Tee said - if you want to see it I'm pretty sure Te Papa are going to be putting it up on You Tube, I will update with a link when I find it - but pick out some of my favourite takeaway comments.

1. Podcasting is much easier and cheaper than most people think. Tee talked about how he used podcasting to push the sale of one of his books - he literally podcasted the whole thing chapter by chapter and simply mentioned that if people so wanted, they could purchase a hard copy of the book, and it worked. He pointed out that (and we know that sometimes allowing your consumers to choose how much to pay for ones creativity doesn't necessarily work out - radiohead's "pay what you think its worth") people are often willing to stop and support an artist/author even when they are willing to give the information away for free. As a tangent, I have heard a bit about this before, but not necessarily the whole book - have heard about authors publishing the first chapter of an e-book under creative commons license to give people a taster - Tee's idea is a bit ballsier, dare to be courageous.

2. Protect your networks.
Part a)This is one of my favourite points he made. There was a question in the audience about the blurring of lines personal and professional, considering the extent of information available on the internet, Tee was absolutely on the mark, it is up to the individual to set the limits. I totally agree on this one. For me, Twitter = personal/professional. Facebook = Personal (there are some work related people but different people have access to different things) Blog = mostly professional. Different parts of my life. They should be kept separate.
Part b) Know who is following you and who you are following. Have a look at people before you follow them - do they tweet regularly? have they put any real information up about themselves? Are the tweeting about something you are interested it? Are they another 'Entrepreneur'?

3. Just because someone calls themselves a Social Media Expert/Guru does not mean they are. Tee rightly pointed out that he talks about what he knows - he is not signed up to everything possible and therefore claims to understand. This was related back to the audience too, he pointed out that as there are so many options, it is up for the individual/business to try some out, learn, test and if it works, then hold onto it. Once you have a good solid understanding, then move onto the next thing. Don't try to do everything - no one has that much time in the day.

I could go on and on, but this is getting long as it is. I do think that a conversation about Creative Commons needs to sit alongside the Social Media conversation - especially when it turns to podcasting and flickr, but I'll keep that for another day.

Follow tee @teemonster or I believe the hashtag was #socialNZ.