Gavin Baker

There has been some public outcry against the growing trend of social media titles at companies.  Often this is a community manager or social media manager type of title.  There is pushback from those that “understand” social media because it’s not a marketing discipline that’s in a vertical it’s a tool to be used the same as a phone or email.    Or as Trey and I talked about last week it shouldn’t be in a silo, which is what larger companies tend to do.

Now of course that ruffles my feathers a bit because I don’t like people that are smarter, more successful and wiser than me say that what I do for a living is wrong.

Here’s why I don’t think it is wrong – first large companies need internal people they trust to help them navigate the channels of new technologies, particularly older large companies.  Many chose the consultant route, which is fine but there is a level of internal engagement that is missed by not being fully engaged internally.

Second, I agree on naming  Social Media XYZ isn’t always the best.  Of course there are exceptions to every rule but often the title doesn’t line up with the role (also common in large companies).  I’ve been talking with vendors and others internally who always ask about my role – what do I do exactly – and in the last two months  I’ve spent a lot of time thinking and learning.  Most of the the things that come across my desk have one singular thing in common.  They involve new technology.  It could be a facebook this or that, or twitter or yammer or iPhone, Android, etc.  At the end of the day they are new ways of communicating via technology both communicating internally, and communicating to guests and customers.   And as it is with the new frontier or the wild, wild, west (pick your metaphor poison) there are lots of possibilities and few opportunities.   So I’ve adopted the phrase “emerging media” to describe the area I work in, and the adjectives “discover and vett” to describe what I do with those few gem opportunities I find in the emerging media space.  I like where I’ve landed on the phrase and it seems to be a bit more encompassing than social media, or web 2.0, or new media.  However, if you’ve got a better one phrase – shoot it at me.

Confession: I’m not sure I’m the typical iPhone app downloader. I say that because while I’ve had an iPhone for almost one year, I currently have TWO game apps (one of which I added yesterday) while anecdotally there seem to be more game apps than anything else.

I’m all about simple, useful and utility.  One of the apps I downloaded yesterday that fits that criteria was PhoneBook. (iTunes link) which is what the name implies, a phonebook.   I’ve already got Contacts, but PhoneBook was too cool to pass up. At start it up it asks for your mobile password (AT&T only) and it takes that data and dynamically creates a pictorial directory of those you call most often. If you so chose it will use Facebook Connect to grab contacts pictures (not sure if it grabs anything else like, phone number, birthday, email, etc.) and sync.  My first page ended up being pretty much my favorites list (but may not be for you). 

My only complaint is that when you click a contact it pulls up the ability to email, call, text, etc. But when you pick call it then opens the iPhone OS dialog to ask if you want to call that number. So it takes FOUR “clicks” to make a call.

Found by perusing Mashable http://mashable.com/2009/07/23/facebook-iphone-apps/

To go on the record: I hate messages that aren’t email (I don’t really love email, but at least it’s standardized). Facebook messages, twitter DM’s, Linkedin messages and a host of other isolated systemic proprietary messages are perpetual pricks in my side as I attempt to stay connected and informed.  Why you ask?  Because each of those sites (except twitter) makes me use their interface to reply.  Which I understand drives their page views and impressions and helps drive their revenues and/or valuations, but leaves me in a lurch when I read the message you send me on facebook in my email and then I neglect to jump over to facebook.com and write you back, thus killing the exchange.

Not to mention, like most of you I’ve got a lot of these accounts hiding out, and I’d like them all to be connected.  You know, so that when someone sends me a facebook message I can find that in my giant file called “Archive” in Gmail as well as the reply I sent them back when I search for communications from them.  So like Michael Arrington called for an imap for our facebook inbox I’d appreciate that type of interconnectivity between my email and my facebook.

But recently I had an epiphany. (Well at least call it a moment of enlightenment) – Facebook is that giant folder, at least for my address book.  Let’s take the following scenario.  I want to email connect with a friend from college.

Pre-my enlightenment I’d look him up in my address book and see what the address I had for him was.  Maybe if I was lucky he’d be on Plaxo and would be updated.  If not, I’d then resort to polling friends and trying to see who had his info.

Post-my enlightenment I just hop onto facebook and shoot him a message.  I don’t need his email (though facebook would have that too) because we’re both on facebook.

Truthfully, I’d still like to have his updated email in my address book and not stuck in facebook – but for now, I’ll take access to him over no access.

What about you?