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Hey hey hey. It's Vaspers the Grate Presents. Welcome to Vaspers New Reformed Blogorama podcast show on Blog Talk Radio.

Check out my interviews with big stars and key thought leaders in the social media and business world. Experts and innovators like BL Ochman, Yvonne DiVita, Wayne Hurlbert, Toby Bloomberg, Becky McCray, Billy Dennis the Peoria Pundit, and more.

Also be sure to catch my infamous Vaspers rants and tirades on web usability, small business strategy, and social media, including special audio essays on blogocombat against trolls.

I blog to hear myself blog

“I blog to hear myself blog.”


With that explosive remark, I officially re-launch my old, original blog: Vaspers the Grate. This inflammatory statement, with "please go away" overtones, is in response to a post by [blogger name deleted].

Yes indeed -- I blog to hear myself blog.

I blog primarily to improve my writing and to sharpen my thinking. I blog to render my ideas in a concrete form, to push them out of my head, and to then move on to other thoughts.

Comments, likes, shares, followers, fans, friends — they mean absolutely nothing. Such "ratings" can be easily gamed, spammed, and artificially (non-organically) manipulated. Digg, Empire Avenue, Blog Shares, and Stumble Upon are great examples of easily gamed social popularity sites. I have no use for such nonsense.

Trying to drive your numbers up is just using social media as a video game and scoring points. That’s okay with me if others treat blogging and Facebooking and Twittering in this manner, but it's not my cup of tea.

Popularity contests are silly because the wildly popular junk is boring and irrelevant to me, like popular music or popular movies. If it’s popular, it’s generally MEDIOCRE and just trendy and hyped fluff and nonsense.

I wrote about Readerless Blogging in May of 2005. Since that time, my conviction has grown in clarity and intensity.


This is not reverse psychology. I am completely sincere when I say "I don't blog for any audience or to be liked by anyone." I admit that long ago, I did labor intensely to become famous, accepted, respected. But now, all those goals are gone.

Nowadays I blog only to express myself -- to myself. I have no desire to address any audience, market, or niche. I blog for basically no audience at all.

At best, I strive to create a body of work (Pluperfecter) that embodies my personal beliefs and private dreams. I seek to have some opus to point to when a potential client wants to see samples of my writing. But even in that case, I prefer to provide them with dead tree magazine articles I've written on various web usability, social media, and business topics.

When I first started blogging, I did indeed try to form relationships and interactions with other bloggers. To accomplish this goal, I used blogrolls linking to favorite bloggers, and I posted tons of comments on other blogs.

I even compiled a book called Secrets of the Blog Pros, based on a micro-questionnaire of two questions that I emailed to all the top bloggers around 2006, most of whom answered the "Blog Pro Survey". I think I had about 100 responses. O'Reilly was going to publish it, but then declined at the last minute. That's okay with me.

After about 4 or 5 years of this futile endeavor, I finally saw the light. I quit blogging to an audience. I stopped posting comments on other people’s blogs.

While I did attract a lot of attention when I was “trying to become popular”, and a legend rose up around Vaspers the Grate, and I still have some hardcore loyal fans…

…I now reject all that and care absolutely nothing about popularity. 

I have a strong desire to be obscure, ignored, unpopular.

I deliberately publish only a few posts a month (8-10) instead of daily.

I don't post comments on other people's blogs.

I don't include blogrolls on my blogs.

I don't have a Facebook page.

I use Twitter primarily to rant about politics and religion, which a business blogger, like myself, should NEVER do if they seek popularity and the respect of colleagues and peers.

Even my Str8 Sounds music is done under the radar, with no effort to make money or please any audience.

I now please only myself, and if one or two people benefit or enjoy it, that’s their fault, not mine. It’s purely accidental. I do not seek or encourage it.

I despise popularity. The greatest art is usually unknown or dismissed during the life of the artist. What I seek now is a tiny handful of like-minded colleagues to collaborate with and to inspire and be inspired by.

I reject fame and fortune. I do not want to succeed. I want to accomplish something far more subtle and subversive.

I am not anonymous or paranoid, but I admire the ascetic hermits who lived in caves in the desert. I seek to share my insights and to help others, but I prefer to do it with no acclaim, no accolades, no appreciation.

I do tweet links to my occasional blog posts and my podcasts, but I prefer, as Seth Godin once said, to be stumbled upon, than be discovered via heavy promotional campaigns.

When nobody cares about what you do, you are far more free to create what your vision dictates to you.

When you’re famous and admired, you’re a prisoner to fan and entourage expectations, a slave to doing whatever it takes to retain the celebrity status, please the disciples, and compromise your integrity and vision.

My favorite people are obscure, barely known to the masses, popular only to small groups of specialists.

For example: Harold Garfinkel (founder of Ethnomethodology), Iannis Xenakis (inventor of stochastic music and noise music), Langdon Winner (author of Autonomous Technology and exposer of the tyranny of The Technological Imperative).

Unpopular. Unknown. Uncared about.

That’s the ideal condition for a creative, innovative person.

Should you then continue reading this blog, or listening to my podcasts or music, or paying attention to anything I do?

That's up to you. But I strongly advise you to think carefully about your decision. You see, if you become aware of my writings and music and lectures, you may experience a deep and fundamental transformation at the very core of your being.

A change you may not be able to control.

A transition to a very different mode of being, that will make you unpopular, disliked, and rejected by employers, family, friends, and others.

It won't be my fault. You will have brought it on yourself, after having been warned.


Sincerely not yours,


Vaspers the Grate aka Steven Streight

corporate honesty in social media

Blogging and social media usage has a netiquette and a clear, if not always publicized, set of ethics and morals, a consensus list of rules for conduct. Not to limit creativity or innovation, but to use the new tools most effectively. This means deviating from old school corporate fluff, we-orientation, and MSM hype.

What are some of these new values that are reigning in the new media?


Authenticity. Passion. Transparency.


Three of the values that some old fashioned organizations consistently violate, thinking they can get away with it.
Incentivized opinions are not wanted, nor respected, in the social media realm.

It’s like your husband being secretly paid by a university, in an ethnomethodology experiment, to say romantic things to you, at $10 per statement. Once you found out he was being paid to seduce you, you’d surely be quite disgusted and upset, never trusting his advances ever again.

It’s PayPerPost and other compensated, coached, inauthentic recommendations, or slurs and reproaches, that will poison, pollute, and make worthless the peer-to-peer recommendation system of the social media sphere.

Corporate use of social media cannot be a crass, greedy gaming and exploitation of the online community members. Such BS will backfire. It's marketing suicide, and will be very time-consuming and expensive to correct.

Target has been caught in such deceptive antics. See: "off target".


[QUOTE]

newsletter (issue #107) from Target Rounders saying:

Your mission: try not to let on in the Facebook group that you are a Rounder. We love your enthusiasm for the Rounders, and I know it can be hard not to want to sing it from the mountaintops (and the shower, and on the bus…).

However, we want to get other members of the Facebook group excited about Target, too! And we don’t want the Rounders program to steal the show from the real star here: Target and Target’s rockin’ Facebook group! So keep it like a secret!

[END QUOTE]


Lying is, unfortunately, a prevalent advertising, and PR practice, that is rejected in the social media realm.

Bloggers are feared, because they'll bash, flame, and destroy any company caught in such immoral and counter-productive behaviors.

Social media communities tend to keep things ethical, creative, and of great practical value. You can insert your messages into the blogosphere, but try to make the core of that message e around this implied attitude:

"Your problems are understood by us. Here's how our products can solve them efficiently, economically, and reliably."

enforcing Terms of Service violations

If you provide Terms of Service (TOS), are you ethically or legally obligated to enforce them? Let's look at the Twitter TOS controversy, from a simple, common sense point of view.

Ariel Waldman is a Twitter user. She complained to Twitter about another user who was harassing her on Twitter. This was beyond mere disagreement or a casual "you're nuts" type comment. The harassment involved filthy language.

Twitter, not known for being open to user requests and suggestions, not only did not enforce their own Terms of Service. They also shamed the victim, whined about their small staff, and declared they were "offended" at the victim accusing them of not caring about users.

This is not the proper way for a company to respond.


Some relevant items from Twitter's Terms of Service (due to change soon):


[QUOTE]

4. You must not abuse, harass, threaten, impersonate or intimidate other Twitter users.

...

Violation of any of these agreements will result in the termination of your Twitter.com account.

While Twitter.com prohibits such conduct and content on its site, you understand and agree that Twitter cannot be responsible for the Content posted on its web site and you nonetheless may be exposed to such materials and that you use the Twitter.com service at your own risk.

...

We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason at any time.

We may, but have no obligation to, remove Content and accounts containing Content that we determine in our sole discretion are unlawful, offensive, threatening, libelous, defamatory, obscene or otherwise objectionable or violates any party's intellectual property or these Terms of Use.


[END QUOTE]



Did Twitter stand true to their TOS, and account removal policy, in Ariel's case, or were they negligent?

Here's the TOS / Ariel Waldman debate on the Twitter blog.

http://blog.twitter.com/2008/05/
twitter-enforces-tos-cares-about-users.html

More here: Summize archive re: Ariel.

And here: Twitter refuses to uphold Terms of Service.

It's not "mediating disputes between people" that's the issue here. It's enforcing your TOS.

You decide if you like Twitter's tone and handling of this situation. Personally, I do not.

blogs are the NASCAR of the internet

Corporations can learn a lot from NASCAR.

People are losing faith in corporations, for many reasons. People are sick of the aloof, pompous, unapproachable nature of many CEOs and companies. Customer service is often reluctant, insincere, and even outsourced to individuals who don't speak good English.

Blogs can repair much of the damage to public perception of corporations.

If the CEO, or some passionate and informed company spokesperson, has a blog, then trust can be built. Customers and prospects can post comments, which may be questions, suggestions, or criticisms. A smart business values all input, both positive and negative.

Increasingly, in the new digital world we live in, if you don't have a blog, you don't exist.

If you don't have a blog, you send this message:

"I don't care about starting conversations with anybody. Why form relationships? Why be transparent? Why value customer input? I value only customer dollars. Buy my product now."

Dale Earnhardt, Jr., in his book Driver #8 (page 5-6), said:

"Being a Winston Cup driver means being accessible to the fans. This accessibility is the basis of NASCAR's popularity...

The drivers have known for years they weren't anything without the fans. So they signed autographs, did interviews, and they let the fans get close and see them. The fans felt like they knew the drivers personally, and the result was fan loyalty.

This continues today. When a lot of other sports see declining loyalty among fans and players, NASCAR fans remain faithful."

Blogs enable your customers to get close to you.

Implemented correctly, a CEO blog can be far more effective than any sporadic damage control PR. To ignore the blogosphere is to remain stuck in Business As Usual, which leads to Business As Over.

12 tips on live streaming video

Today I received an email newsletter from UstreamTV, regarding best practices for live streaming video shows.


[QUOTE]

“What are the keys to a good stream?”

The basics are pretty simple:

* Make sure you have good lighting - This is super important.

* Make sure you have a good internet connection - this prevents frame loss and choppy video.

* Make sure you close programs on your computer that you aren't using - computers bogged down by other programs can cause your stream to be lower quality.

Lastly...have good content!

[END QUOTE]




To expand a bit on that message, here's my list of some additional best practices. These tips will help your live streaming video show be more interesting, enjoyable, and successful.




(1) Purpose

What's the goal of your show? To ramble on about anything that pops into your head may work for some, especially pretty females, but generally, it's a formula for failure.

Share your expertise, passion, skill, or hobby, in a way that will benefit or entertain others. Make them smarter or make them laugh. If you can do both simultaneously, you're a genius.

Have a unique comedy show. Play music. Present tutorials. Do something that people will want to view live or in the archives, something of value, something that lends itself to visual display, like art or poetry readings or technical how-to instructions.

I recall how on Justin.TV, there was a woman who, with a swimsuit on, read her poetry while sitting in a bathtub. That was weird, funny, and unique!



(2) Audio Quality

Bad sound, or volume levels that are too high or low, can ruin a show and make people decide to never return. Music bands often encounter this problem, but few have the expertise to solve it.




(3) Appropriate Environment/Decor

Barren rooms are bleak and not interesting.

Why not have a sign in the background that identifies you, by name, or by the title of your show? All music bands should have the name of their band displayed on the drums, on tee shirts, or on a big sign, during live shows in both real world venues and live streaming video.

Have a nice, or bizarre, or ritzy setting for your show, whatever style is appropriate.

Vary the decor or even the location, as much as you can. Go to thrift stores to find inexpensive, but eye-catching props, which could be toys, paintings, backdrops, or mannequins.

Have the URL for your blog or website on a sign behind you. Display your email address if you want people to contact you. Don't just hold up a sign for a few seconds. Keep the sign visible all through your show, for latecomers.



(4) Appropriate Length

If your shows are too short, it will look like nothing could possibly be going on. If your shows are too long, people will get bored part-way through, and probably never return.

Remember, your show is actually two separate events: the live performance and the archived performance.

Viewers may tolerate a long show while it's happening live, but people who check out your archives may be turned off by anything that's longer than 30 or 60 minutes, depending on who you are and what your show is about.



(5) Planned Content

While some web-casters can get away with being spontaneous, as a general rule, improvised shows are vulnerable. You may suddenly not know how to continue, things could fall apart, and you'll look too amateurish, too disorganized. Viewers will get impatient watching you fumble around and grope for some way to fill the time.

At least have a basic outline of what you want to cover. Don't count on viewers providing great questions or comments via the chat panel. When a web-caster relies on audience participation to provide direction for your show, you will probably flounder around and look ridiculous.

If you do react to live chat input, do more than just answer a question with a few sentences. Use the question or comment as a springboard to move to a discussion, but don't ramble on too long.

Have a back up plan if a scheduled guest doesn't show up, or some other aspect fails to come off right. Try to have more options than you think you'll need, just in case.



(6) Varied Content

Treat your fans to unexpected experiences. Have a guest speaker, a live debate or panel discussion, or let some other band perform. Play some public domain or non-copyrighted material in the background or incorporate it in your show.

Dress in unusual outfits or wear a uniform that you wear at your job. Put on a wig or a pair of really far-out sunglasses.

Avoid doing the same things over and over again.

If you're in a band, don't play the same songs every time. And never assume that "band practice" is of any interest to anybody. Live streaming video shows should not be "practice" or "rehearsal", but should be polished performances, unless your band is so famous, people will watch anything.



(7) Delete and Re-do


After a show is presented, saved, and archived, view it immediately. If there are major mistakes, like horrible sound or visuals, delete it and re-do it, even if all your live viewers have left.

A music band that I help did a crap show last Saturday. They left the soundboard audio levels up high from a recording session, and forgot to turn them down for the live show. So the entire 60 minute episode was rotten, unlistenable, unbearably bad.

I suggested they do a quick re-do. They took a break, then jumped back in and did a 17 minute show that was much better.

Think in terms of archives. You don't want people to check out the archived shows and see a terrible show. A short good show is always better than a regular-length crap show.


(8) Audience Interaction


Be sure to interact, as much as possible, with viewers, via the chat panel. This will make your show more interesting, and you'll be considered more friendly and approachable. It's all about connecting with people and sharing your life with them.



(9) Kick and Ban

If your video stream site enables you to kick trolls and filth-talkers off your channel, and ban them from ever visiting again, do it. Don't be shy. Why let some jerk ruin it for everybody?

Female web-casters especially need to exercise this kick and ban functionality.

Some men will stalk these live streaming video channels to find women to prey upoon. They'll "innocently" say things like "I don't see a man around. Are you single? I saw your daughter. It must be tough to be single mom. Living alone can be a drag, huh?" and so on to get the woman to let her guard down and reveal things she should not reveal.



(10) Missed Episode Notification


If for some reason, you must skip a regularly scheduled episode of your show, at least put up a sign in your photo slide show that explains it. Or do a brief show prior to the regular one, in which you personally tell your fans why there's no show coming on the date and time they normally expect it.




(11) Regular Schedule


Commit to a definite time and day for your shows. For example, every Saturday at 5 PM CST. Do not deviate from this, and try not to miss any episodes.



(12) Good Equipment


Don't use the cheapest webcam you can find. I recommend the Logitech UltraVision for HD sound and image.

Try some effects for a bit of fun. Have a friend who knows something about film-making or using a webcam do your video. Vary the angles. Use a bird's eye view by hoisting the webcam up high above the scenes. Put the webcam on the floor and point it up. Try a black and white episode.


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As a final note, be sure to watch other live streaming video shows, and try to figure out why some shows are far more popular than others. Interact with other webcasters and contribute nice comments to their shows. This can drive traffic to your show, and you may make some good friends of other webcasters, too.


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