I'm nobody... who are you?

Frappr'ized, courtesy of nobody Craig Jolley

Craig Jolley, our nobody for the Southern Ohio district, has put us Nobodies on Frappr. Graciously, he has given "somebodies" a chance to mark themselves, too.

Nobody knows everything

The BBC News front page highlights today (Tuesday 11 May) a piece on its Business pages titled Business Bites the Blogging Bullet. For most of us in the Communications industry, it won't say anything that we haven't already heard a hundred times before in similar articles (that savvy businesses are starting to wake up to the 'army of online commentators' in the blogosphere and that engaging with them 'can [result in an] amazing piece of market research that you can get for free' - Matthew Yeomans, Custom Communication).

For me, the key phrase in the article comes from Hugh Macleod when he says 'It's all virgin snow and we're still dealing in unknown quantities, but that's what makes it exciting.' Whatever your take on the Edelman/Walmart situation, it goes to show that even the big fish, the 'somebodies' don't have a magic formula when it comes to harnessing the blogosphere for PR purposes. Countless bloggers offered their opinions and no doubt some of them will have got it right, at least in part. My point is simply that nobody has the answer but together, as Nobodies, hopefully we might be able to get a bit closer. Vive la nobody.

PS – possible venue for a UK meeting of the I.A.N?

working on a nobody manifesto

just to map up the past, present and tata.. future..

any ideas ? I will post it shortly...

any other ideas to grasp this as fully as possible - in the smallest ammount of time ?

Ten Reasons Why It Is Important To Be A Nobody

Nobodies don’t fear that sharing knowledge and experience will diminish them.

Nobodies must impress only clients.

Nobodies pause to learn the why so the how is successful.

Nobodies move easily with the currents of change because change doesn’t threaten.

Nobodies take clients personally as well as seriously.

Nobodies take risks so clients reap the rewards.

Nobodies are writing the case studies, while others are waiting to read them.

Nobodies embrace the wisdom of crowds (there are a lot of nobodies).

Nobodies build the companies somebodies buy (Flickr, MySpace, Weblogs.com come immediately to mind).

Nobodies get to decide who is a somebody.

Such is the gift of insignificance.

Semantic Tricks

I guess this must be a Nobodies Anonymous meeting, so: "Hi, my name is Sallie, and I'm nobody."

You see, there are quite a number of people around the world who have no idea that I'm nobody.

In starting this meme off by referring to our Fearless Leader Allan Jenkins, David Murray violated one of Jeffrey J. Fox's key rules of rainmaking: "Everybody is somebody's somebody." In other words, deal politely and respectfully with everyone you encounter, because you never know when the bratty teenager is going to turn out to be the nephew of the CEO whose business you're desperately trying to get. (Of course, one could also phrase this as "because a duck could be somebody's mother.")

If this is true, then nobody is "nobody", because everybody is somebody. And, in fact, "everybody" and "nobody" might be semantically equivalent in this situation. If you're just like everybody else, then you're nobody special.

But remember just how useful it was to Odysseus to be "Nobody" when he encountered the Cyclops. Think about how many companies, committees, and projects suffer from having too many chiefs and not enough Indians.

This business of being a nobody could be pretty valuable, when you get right down to it. You could even say that being nobody is my business. A big part of my job as a ghostwriter is to let another person be the "Somebody" while I remain invisible behind the scenes. Maybe I'll take that as my new elevator speech: "I get paid to be nobody."

Another example of a Web 2.0 meme-storm

Fellow nobody Lee Hopkins, on his Better Communication Results blog, wrote yesterday about "How to create a global project management tool in 72 hours."

He was writing about us, of course, but let me share the tale of another Web 2.0 meme-storm that predates us by about 15 months.

Within hours of the Southeast Asian earthquake and tsunami, three bloggers started Skyping, wondering what they could do to help. They turned to social media -- a Blogger blog, a wiki, Skype, and IM (all of it free, or nearly so). Within three days they had attracted 100,000 visits and 50 volunteer bloggers, wiki specialists, networkers. Within eight days, their SEA-EAT Blog & Wiki had attracted over 1 million visits, and 200 volunteers -- all unpaid, with no "organization chart" or "director" or "fundraising staff". They just did it.

Dina Mehta's early posting on the topic (5 days after the event), her later personal account and this Information Week article are well worth a read, if you would like to know more.

I first heard this story from Dina herself at last year's Reboot conference, and blogged about it in "We don't have the tools is OUT as an excuse." And I still believe that (and Web 2.0 skeptics should wake up to this): if three Bombay bloggers who had never met each other can form a distributed 200-volunteer charity information network in eight days... think what rich companies and associations can do.

Technorati Tags: International Association of Nobodies, nobodies, Dina Mehta, SEA-EAT, tsunami

How Can You Be A Nobody...

...if EVERBODY wants to be a NOBODY?

The first thing I thought when I saw this meme sprout, weed-like, last week was, "Gosh, that's an esteemed group of smart, caring, thoughtful people.  I'd like to join them." 

So, first off, thanks for allowing me to join the Club.  I don't know how much farther this Nobody thing will go, but now I'll always be able to look back and say, "I was a nobody, once."  In fact, isn't that a goal for most of us? ;)

With a dash more seriousness - it is fascinating to consider how the blogosphere has empowered a widely-dispersed group of like-minded professionals to coalesce around a handful of topics each week, and make an incremental impact on the state of our industry. 

Do you foresee a day when the PR blogosphere is a "place" where our best practices are shared, evolved, standardized?  Isn't that starting to happen, already (e.g., the Wal-Mart/Edelman brouhaha)?

Do you envision a world in which the PR blogosphere (all of us, not a single spokesperson) is "asked for comment" by members of the media - or  by members of different interest groups?   

I can see such a day dawning.  And it's cool.  Not bad for a bunch of nobodies.

Nobody knows

Nobody knows the power of nobodies...

do I want to be in a club..

that would accpet me? Guess so: the Nobody club. Does it mena I can give anonymously because nobobody will know who I, a nobody am? (will leave what "give" means in ambiguity because I gather that somebodies might flame some nobodies, not naming names, of course, in the spirit of being positively nobody (but you stopped reading already, eh?)...what will we do when the Nobody Group gets so well-known that we, well, become... I think I'll go sculling

Nobody, but you... David Murray

Nobody could have spurred on the growth of this community more than David Murray.

This blog, with the accompanying wiki, Google Group, podcasts and more is a perfect example of how a select group of people - with shared interests - can take social media (blogs) and turn them into a fun network sharing ideas and opinions.

David, you asked for essays to help you understand social media in your recent journal editorial.  I say, "David, read this blog and those of the contributors, and think of it as one broad essay 'loosely joined' (thanks David Weinberger) which can serve you in helping to understand why social media might mean something."

OK, I'm only sort of kidding.  But, David, you should be paying attention.  You have now been thoroughly taken to task in a number of blogs (as has your employer, Ragan Communications) and those blog posts will be showing up in Google/Yahoo! searches.  What will that say?  Well, it will say that Ragan Communications hasn't grasped that social media is a force to be reckoned with these days.  It will also say that you don't know how to handle it, either.

Now the interesting thing is, we don't claim to "get" it all, either.  The real purposes of everyone's online activities - via blog, wiki or any other channels - is to discuss these ideas and share information whereby we all do a remarkable thing.  We learn.  We learn from each other and allow others to comment on our thoughts and opinions, too.  David, don't you think that such a task can be accomplished with employee communication?  Firms are using intranet blogs and portals to do it every day.  Didn't you know about that?  What does that say about Ragan Communications and their ability to share valuable advice with their readers?

Your Ragan Communications site and Journal of Employee Communication Management don't necessarily do that because you are stuck in the old one-way communication model.  No comments allowed.  No trackbacks.  No links to those you deride.  So, you won't learn from your posts.  They have no link to you because they can only email you.  That, David, is just the most basic of aspects about social media that you haven't yet grasped.  And, you don't link to people when you write about them.  That, David, keeps you from enjoying these learning conversations.  New words for you, today, David.  Trackbacks.  Links.  Comments.  Try them.  You'll see that they can be useful tools.

I hope you're enjoying the ride, David.  I'd get involved and take part in the conversations.  It can only help you.  We're really only talking about new tools and tactics, not the next big thing.