A family friend unexpectedly passed away a couple weekends ago. He was much too young for death so it was extra sad for everyone who knew him.

As most news now-a-days, word of his death spread virally to all relevant parties and the grievances started flowing in. Instead of traditional grievance letters to the family, I watched in awe as tons of people turned to his Facebook profile as a way to say their parting words. I’ve read about this phenomenon a few times across the web, but this was my first time experiencing it first hand, so wanted to share some of my feelings…

• It’s both sad and comforting at the same time. The sadness set in as I read through all the personal stories people shared about him. The comfort set in because I realized how many people knew and appreciated him and I wasn’t alone in my feelings.
• His final status update is immortalized forever and without over-analyzing it too much, it was a totally normal update for him, but it’s there for us to interact with…forever. His final gift to the world. His parting words, whether he wanted them to be or not. Which gives him this sense of immortality because somehow, now I get to interact with him and “talk” to him. I know I use a few auto-email tools and have some things scheduled out for future release. If I passed away today, several people would get emails from me as if I were still alive. The social web gives us an odd immortality.
• Lastly, our family friend was too young to die, and nothing about his latest interactions hinted at warning signs of a coming death. So as I look at his Facebook pictures, reflect on my experiences with him, and read through his latest status updates, I realize how close death really is at any moment. If it can happen to him unexpectedly, why not me? 

Watching the grievances of death, especially when it’s unexpected, unfold on a Facebook Profile, is a cold shot of reality about how fragile life really is.

It’s an odd feeling, and I don’t yet know why or where it comes from. But when I’m out in public and looking at Facebook, I feel like I’m being judged. Whether at work on my laptop or on a plane on my phone, I feel judged. But as Facebook creeps towards 1 billion users, the chances are that anyone who would see my screen would also have a Facebook account and use it regularly. So why the sense of judgement?

I think it comes from two places:

1. When I Facebook, I’m most likely not doing what I actually should be doing at that moment and thus wasting time. So I’m reflecting the judgement of myself through others. Though I should note that a part of my work does involve connecting with people via Facebook.
2. My Facebook profile is filled with so many personal memories and artifacts about me and my life, so it’s odd for a complete stranger to look over my shoulder and see so much about me so quickly…without even saying hi.

What about you? Do you get this feeling too, or is it just me?

Between Facebook, multiple Twitter accounts, Google+, Google’s address book, and our internal CRM system for Swift Kick, I have so many different names for groupings of the people I follow, that it was getting extremely confusing to bounce between each network. I know my network is my net worth and it’s paid me back infinity+1, but that only happens when I can access the correct network at the correct time. So I set out to determine a default list of groupings that I could use across the networks. Here’s where I’m at…

PROFESSIONAL CONTACTS:

• Student Leaders
• Student Affairs Professionals
• Alumni Professionals
• Entrepreneurs
• Investors / VCs
• EO Members
• Speakers
• Education PR People
• Other Education Folk
• Other Professionals
• CrowdFunding / MicroFunding Professionals

PERSONAL CONTACTS:

• Family
• Extended Family
• Colberts
• NYC Friends
• Chicago Friends
• College Friends
• Highschool Friends
• Forum Members
• TechStars NY
• Swift Kick
• SuperCamp

ORGANIZATIONS:

• Student Affairs Accounts
• College Accounts
• Alumni Accounts
• Alumni Organizations
• SA Organizations
• CrowdFunding / MicroFunding Organizations
• Other Companies

OTHERS:

• World News / Info
• NYC Happenings
• Randoms

Speaker friend, Jon Vroman, asked me this question on Facebook, and since it’s something I’ve actually thought about a lot, I knew it needed more than just a Facebook response.

Going back to the beginning of my college career, I had this idea planted in me that I’d find “the one.” Not in terms of love, but in terms of mentors. I’d have “the one” teacher that, almost like an awe inspiring alarm clock, this person would show me a whole new world I’d never seen before. I waited, and waited, and waited, but “the one” never happened. Well it almost did.

He was an older adjunct teacher for my intro to entrepreneurship class at Aurora University. He’d created and sold multiple companies. He truly seemed like my “something from nothing” hero.

On the first day of class, he filled us with motivational war stories from the front lines of entrepreneurship. I couldn’t get enough, I was in awe and knew there was no where else I was interested in being. Then it happened…

We were in a discussion about who should sit on a board of directors and my newly minted hero said, “for me it was always filled with men because there just wasn’t a need to have women in the boardroom.” My head sank. The whole class went up in arms.

Turns out his views on women were from an era gone by and no one told him. To his credit, he did actively listen to the criticisms of the class and by the end of the term he had changed…a bit. But the damage was done. My hero was no more.

Beyond him, no one else came close to being “the one” for me.

I continuously hear people talk about how a specific person changes their life forever. As if it were some magical moment where this perfect image of a person came down from above and it was meant to happen. Maybe I need to keep waiting because it makes me feel like I missed out on something in my life.

In the mean time, I’ve built up an amazing support group of people, and networks, around me. Theses are people who individually each have something that is awe inspiring to me. But as well have flaws and things that I know I don’t want to emulate. Put each individual piece together and then I’d have “the one.” It’s piecemeal on my part and maybe that’s ok, because no one is perfect by themselves. We all have our flaws.

Which brings me to my final note on this topic. I know some people I’ve connected with look up to me in awe and use my life as inspiration (or maybe I just think they do). And I’ll do my best to be their “the one,” but they should know that I come with my flaws too. I hope that what you like about me doesn’t blind you from my flaws and you piecemeal the best parts for your life instead of an all or nothing approach.

I lied, one more thought. This is also why I don’t find myself gravitating to any one religion or way of life because in each I find the pieces I like and pieces I don’t.

While hanging out with friends, someone asked the group what our first online screen name was. We all shared and laughed as each one was more obnoxious than the previous.

• BigBlueEyez22
• LookAtMe_LookAtMe
• Itz*MEEEEEEEEEE
• TheKooliest
• sportygirl9
• footballdemon
• i<3puppies
• CrappyMcCrapper

Luckily we’ve all grown up and realized that those names, while fun and cool when we were in Junior High, are a bad reflection of our professional aspirations. So most of us now use either our real name, or something very close.

A couple years ago, I wrote about a Time Magazine article that showed how the adolescent brain develops from childhood into early adulthood. In short, the research in the article showed that the part of the brain that is responsible for making smart decisions based on long term thinking, is the last part of the brain to develop around the age of 25.

In the past, this wouldn’t have been such a big deal, but in today’s world in which every action we take is digitally recorded forever, it sets up all sorts of issues.

Let’s go back to online screen names…

It could probably be assumed that a right of passage into teenager-dom, is to set up your first Facebook account. During the sign up process it asks you what you want your special, unique, never-to-be-changed URL to be. And with a fully charged teenage brain, and more and more of the common names already taken, teenagers will resort to online screen names they think are funny and cool among their peer group…

• tazmebro666
• bobinator501
• caped_crusader
• JustShootMe
• Coldleftoverpizza
• pooptarts92

Now, fast-forward to when the teenager goes to college and finds out that college admissions officers use Facebook to screen applicants. The grown up teenager now wants to change her online screen name, but unlike when I grew up and it was easy to do, sites like Facebook don’t let you change your URL. So you will forever be known as the silly, stupid, goofy, socially not acceptable screen name your teenage brain created back in the day. Oy vey.

Ok I made that word up, but before our etymologist readers split for the hills, hear me out as to what it means.

We help run the social media accounts of a couple eduction related companies. Every month we run an analytics report to measure what’s working, what’s not working, and the overall growth of the accounts.

One particular client has over 20,000 “Likes” on Facebook. A poll or link generates a ton of responses on their Page. If I post that same link on another client’s Page that is 1/10th the size, the response rate is extremely low.

Without “perspectivizing” the data, the smaller client would and should feel unhappy about the online engagement we’re generating for them in comparison. But if we calculate the average level of online engagement per Fan (ALE), we find a different story.

Our 20k Fan client generates a .096 ALE whereas our 2k Fan client generates a .153 ALE.

Applying an ALE score helps both big and small players really see what’s going on with their accounts.

Here’s how to calculate the ALE of your account…

1. Log into your Facebook Page Insights.
2. Change the date to the date you want to calculate.
3. On the “Overview” page scroll down to “Post Feedback” and record that number.
4. Click on the “Users” page and scroll down to “New Likes.”
5. Toggle “New Likes” to “Total” and hover over the end of the time period and record that number.
6. Divide the “Post Feedback” number by the “Total New Likes” number to determine your Page’s ALE number.

Once you’ve calculated your ALE, please share it in the comments below.

NAME:
Booshaka

URL:
http://www.booshaka.com

WHAT IT DOES:
Attaches a point-scoring system to the activity of your Facebook Fans to help you discover your Top Fans through an engagement dashboard.

MY TAKE:
Long time readers of the Swift Kick blog will know that I talk about the 90-9-1 rule often when it comes to community engagement, so to have a tool that really brings this rule to life is a big deal and something I’ve been waiting for. It’s not perfect yet as it seems to only track month-to-month, but I’m sure in due time, they’ll have a full data dashboard.

The actionable outcomes of having a visualization of your Fan’s engagement will be huge. You’ll be able to identify your trending leaders. You’ll be able to reward the top engaged users every month. You’ll build a game layer ontop of engagement. You’ll be able to…what else? How do you see this being valuable to your work?

SCREEN SHOTS:

Q: What’s the best way to engage with successful and driven people online? – N. Beil via Facebook

A: The internet opens up a lot of possibilities that allow you to engage with successful and driven people. The first step is to focus in on what topic/industry you want to network in. Once you’ve narrowed your focus, here are four ideas for engaging your hero…

1) Personal Blogs – Do a Google search for the person’s name and see if a personal blog/website shows up. If so, subscribe to their RSS/Email list to get updated on new posts. Then start engaging by reading and commenting on the person’s posts. Make sure to make your comments/questions insightful verses just saying “That was great!” or “Thanks!” While those type of comments are nice for a blogger to get, they won’t help you get on their radar. Another tip is instead of commenting directly to the blogger, find comments from other community members that you can respond to and respond. This tactic will not only get the attention of the blogger, but also positions you as a host or leader of the community. 95% of people will comment directly to the blogger, stand out by spending your time commenting on other’s comments.

2) Twitter – Search (NAME Twitter) on Google and see if a Twitter account shows up. Make sure to do this search on Google verses Twitter as the Twitter people search is unfortunately bad. Once you’ve found your hero, follow them. Instead of jumping right to asking questions, build up your credibility with the person by commenting on their Tweets and reTweeting their content. Once you’ve built up credibility, then you’ve earned the right to ask them a few questions.

3) Personal Projects- Everyone is working on something. Find out what project your hero is currently working on and offer your time (for free) to help grow the project. Some ideas are…

• Researching content
• Data entry
• Data gathering
• Event volunteering
• PR support
• HTML help

4) Facebook Fan Pages/Groups -  On Facebook, search for your hero and find their personal/company Fan Page/Group. Like it. Then, just like with your hero’s personal blog, comment on posts and engage other users. Additionally, upload multimedia (video/pictures) content that relates to the topic. Just make sure it’s relevant.

These are four ideas that will get you networking in no time. Just like with washing clothes, the goal with all of these actions should be to rinse and repeat. Become a regular in your hero’s world as someone who keeps providing value. Over time that value will start paying you dividends.