Today being April Fool’s Day a fellow speaker listed today as his birthday as a prank to pull on Facebook to see who would wish him a happy birthday and who really knew it was in a different month. For the last couple of years this has been a funny joke to John. As one person in the know best put it, “In a society that is a bowl of Cheerios, John you are a Froot Loop!”

Sadly, John passed away in December and his Facebook page is still up. Those who have him as a Facebook friend but not a real life friend are leaving cheerful birthday wishes which is unfortunate since they didn’t realize he is no longer with us. Yea, I found it sorta creepy, like actually being there at Weekend at Bernie’s  and knowing what is going on.

Those who know he is gone are still leaving birthday wishes hoping he is having the greatest party of all wherever he may be. Is this in honor of their friend? For the relatives of John?

This raises many questions about social media:

• Do Facebook pages of the deceased become pages in honor of fallen friends? (Pretty cool idea I think)
• How many “friends” in social media are actually contacts, connections, admirers, lurkers, or friend collectors who really don’t know their friends?
• How many on your Facebook friends list “know” you as a real friend?
• What is the social media definition of “friend?”
• When a person dies, what happens to social media profiles, blogs, websites, and information available on the internet?
• We have birthdates on Facebook, should there be a death date as well for those who have passed?

I think these are but a few questions created about how social media is redirecting the habits of society and what new societal protocols will be. And finally, to John; listing a fake birthday on April 1st is genius even when done posthumously.

Have you ever been to a Meetup? Tweetup? Flashmob? Social Media event? What about using Foursquare to connect with people in the same location you just checked into?

Do you even know what these are?

These gatherings have no attendance requirements and have no annual fees. You pay as you go for the events you want to attend and sometimes they are simply free.

Rotary groups have an attendance requirement and a rigid schedule of meetings at least twice a month. Chambers of Commerce are constantly struggling to come up with services to justify membership. Both require annual membership fees. Why? Mostly to support overhead that may no longer be necessary. This is what is wrong with these groups: the model no longer fits the business world. Today’s business world is fluid, leaders are schedule challenged, and people only want to pay for exactly what they want and attend only those meetings that interest them.

Tell me I’m wrong – have you never gone to a Rotary meeting only because you felt you had to even though the presenter was of no interest to you?

Tell me I’m wrong – when it came time for your annual chamber dues check to be written, have you hesitated, wondering how to justify spending the money since you no longer feel you are getting your money’s worth?

Remember buying an entire album or CD for the one or two songs on it you really liked? Today people pay by the song, when they want it, 24/7. No more paying for what you don’t want to hear and no more waiting on store hours to buy it. Business gatherings are now the same way.

I have attended open invitation gatherings of local business people connected by Twitter (tweetups). I have made great connections over these lunch gatherings.

What exactly is a tweetup?

An organizer announces on Twitter a gathering at this restaurant at this time on this day. Those available and interested come and exchange business ideas over lunch. All of us know the best exchange of information at any chamber event or Rotary meeting occurs in the side conversations, so why not just have those? That is what a tweetup is to our group. Sometimes we have 12, sometimes we have over 30. The point is it is fluid, come if you can, and you only pay for your lunch. Simple and organic. No annual fees or restricted membership.

I also attend social media events. For these I pay a small fee. Once again no membership dues, I only pay for a ticket to attend those meetings that interest me. I obviously don’t get to as many meetings as I would like because of my schedule. Business travel just doesn’t allow for it. Were I paying an annual fee or had an attendance requirement, I’d probably drop out of the group, and that is what is causing Chambers and Rotary groups to lose members.

As one CEO told me when he got a letter from Rotary informing him his attendance was lacking, “They say they want movers and shakers, but today moving and shaking is very different from the 1950s.” Needless to say, he dropped his membership.

In addition, the younger generation of upcoming leaders are more expense focused, more immediate results oriented and more mobile. They do not identify as closely to their geographic location, traveling freely for business and pleasure and often working for companies hundreds of miles away.

I argue that membership fees are a trap for bad programming. If your meetings or offerings were that awesome, people would flock to your meetings and pay to get in Like TED conferences.) The fact is the majority of the people attending current functions are doing it out of obligation, not desire, because they have been trapped by membership fees. As more and more people are realizing that, memberships decline.

If Rotary groups and Chambers of Commerce want to increase involvement and attendance of younger, more active leaders, they need to create better programs and drop membership requirements, attendance requirements and overhead. Flash gatherings and meetings of substance are thriving with business leaders who make a difference. The traditional model just needs to be updated to attract them.

In the age of over-sharing led by the communication generation, people are using Facebook, Twitter, and other social media site as an opportunity to broadcast every detail of information, have publically viewed arguments, and create a permanent record of TMI (too much information).

Employers are watching, clients are watching, co-workers are watching, and those with ill intent are also watching for opportunities. Self-censorship is becoming less frequent, especially for the young people who have grown up with social media as a given for expression. Cautionary tales abound, and here are four pieces of information you should resist sharing.

1. Personal Proclivities

I have friends of all ages on my Facebook and Twitter accounts and I’ve read many self revealing comments that are better left for a counseling session than a public broadcast. People have shared their affairs, use of illegal drugs, driving drunk, and overindulgences. In some cases, they add photographic proof of their exploits.

People have lost jobs, marriages, and respect by drunk tweeting. People regret what they’ve posted on Facebook once they realized they have over-shared, and there is no real way to clear the record once it’s been digested by those who have read it.

One study showed that last year 8 percent of employers fired an employee for misuse of social media. Open sharing means anyone can read it. Just because you don’t friend your boss or parent doesn’t mean you can’t cause serious damage to your important relationships and yourself.

2. Personal Information

How much personal information do you express on your posts? Do you have your birthday date, year and city you were born? According to a study done by Carnegie Mellon University, a person equipped with that information could predict most if not all of the numbers in your social security number?

Identity theft is a significant concern with the wealth of Internet Information floating about, not to mention the sharing of where you went to school, what year you graduated, what your weekend habits are like, where your “go-to” spots are, and when you are most likely to be there. A good experiment would be to take one of your Facebook friends and see what all you could learn from their online information if you were a complete stranger. Now imagine if someone were looking at your information the same way. How well would they know you?

3. Personal Plans

One of the most frequent posts I see particularly on Facebook deals with personal plans, specifically when a person is going to be away from home. Either on vacation or on a night out, people are constantly sharing when they are not home and where they can be found.

Do we really want to announce to the criminals and vandals when we are not going to be home? When Facebook and Foursquare first got started I used to announce the city I was speaking in and when I was at airports (hey, look how cool I am!) until I realized how idiotic I was in letting everyone know I wasn’t going to be home for days. I have a greater responsibility to the security of my family than I do to be thought of as cool.

4. Personal Rants

I’ve read the follow posts on Facebook:

I hate Mondays because I hate my job.

If my boss was on fire, I’d grab a bag of marshmallows.

I am so hung over I wish my boss would go to the meeting so I can get a nap.

If you want to know what hell is, ask me, I work there every day.

Ranting about your job, customers, co-workers, your spouse, your kids or your friends in social media will surely come back to haunt you. People lose jobs and won’t get hired for such posts as these. Employers are looking at social media accounts to get insight to the people they are considering hiring. It’s a public record. It’s due diligence research. It is the new way of conducting pre-employment research and executives find it effective.

Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Linked In, and YouTube are here to stay and will continue to grow in subscribers and those who over-share. Know how to properly use these social media sites so they don’t harm you in the long run.

The Social Media Pool Rules

Before you dive into the social media pool you need to know the pool rules.

By Russell J. White

1. If you don’t want your boyfriend, girlfriend, BFF, wife, husband, mother, father, grandmother, priest, doctor, local newspaper, national press, TMZ, Huffington Post, current employer, previous employer, future employer or any current or ex-friend to read it; don’t post it.

2. Anything you post is part of the public record and will be treated as such.

3. The best privacy protection for social media occurs between your brain and your keyboard.

4. Not everyone in social media can be trusted. Ask yourself: What if criminals read this information? Because they have and will continue to do so.

5. We don’t care what you ordered at Starbucks.

6. Just because you thought it doesn’t mean you should post it.

7. It’s great to wish someone a happy birthday, offer congratulations, condolences, support, love, respect and recognition. Otherwise, negative personal feelings might be better left to a private message.

8. Private messages can easily become public.

9. Don’t SPAM.

10.  If you did something great, let us know! If every day in your opinion you do something great, we will get tired of hearing it quickly.

11.  Adding attractive “friends” doesn’t suddenly make you a stud.

12.  There is a difference between networking, voyeurism and stalking. Know what it is and act accordingly.

13.  Keep in mind those party pictures you post could follow you for decades, even after you have removed them from your page.

14.  Deleting someone from Facebook doesn’t actually make them go away.

15.  Even “nom de posts” can lead back to the real person – with consequences.

16.  Never meet a Craig’s List purchaser in your home or their home.

17.  Links are great to share unless they always lead back to something you are selling or have written.

18.  Being opinionated is fine. Expecting no one to be offended is unrealistic.

19.  When talking about your job, customers, boss, fellow employees or the company who employs you, you are speaking as an employee.

20. Geo-location software is a criminal’s new blue light special. Don’t announce every time you leave your home.

21.  If you monitor your friend, fan or follower counts and brag on them, your ego is misplaced.

22. If you spend hours on your “farm” or in your “Mafia,” you might want to evaluate where you could otherwise use that time to improve your life.

23.  If you automate tweets, posts or responses, there is nothing social about your social media involvement, so stop it.

24. Nurture the social relationships that are most important to you.

25. Zuckerberg’s law: The less you want your social information to fall into the wrong hands, the more likely it will.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

There is nothing that says free speech won’t have consequences nor does it protect you from an employer expressing his right to enforce business policies about conduct unbecoming an employee, especially in a work at-will state such as North Carolina.
I’ve heard argument about the waitress’s right to privacy. She should’ve exercised that right between her brain and her keyboard. Facebook is a public forum and to expect your words not to be noticed; well, it goes against the intended purpose of posting them to begin with doesn’t it.

The younger generation has been beguiled into thinking Facebook is like a diary for your inner most thoughts. When in fact it is the most public of forums and should be used with caution and care.

Two weeks ago a daughter of a close friend posted with excitement she was engaged. I was surprised to know this and texted her father for details. Based on the “de-friending” I received from the daughter followed by her post, “I hate Facebook” I think the father learned about the impending nuptials from my text message.

This week a neighbor’s son received a red T-top Trans Am for his 15th birthday which he immediately posted a picture of on facebook with the caption “My new whip.” He and his sister then got into a friendly sibling rivalry publically about who had the nicer car, to which one friend commented, “Rich kids…”

I recently read information that a couple in Louisville, KY announced on facebook they were going to a concert only to return to a ransacked house. The security camera caught the robber in the act. Turns out it was one of their facebook “friends.”
Do you really know what that high school friend from 30 years ago is like today? Do you add friends to build your numbers? Do you really need to inform people of your every move?

Instead of bantering on about the first amendment to the Bill of Rights, maybe we should be talking about the creation of a new document entitled The Internet Information Code of Conduct.

Why is this necessary? Aside from the illustrations I’ve already mentioned, a man was killed and his son beaten by the couple who showed up to purchase the diamond ring he advertised on Craig’s list.

Thieves are using non-MLS real estate listings to check out the pictures of the rooms for the valuables such as TVs and computers, etc.

Speaker friends of mine like to post what cities they are flying to and if they are using geotagging software such as foursquare or Gowalla, it gets picked up by the website robmenow.com And the stories can go on and on.

Some things are better left unsaid as I hope the fired waitress now understands. There are times when using discretion is the responsibility of the individual. It’s time to reconsider what information truly has a need for public consumption and what should be kept privately. In some cases, information may not even need to be shared at all.

What is foursquare?

Foursquare is a smartphone application that allows the user to “check-in” to an establishment and get points for doing so. With the right combination of check-ins a person unlocks badges and scores points. This “game” is shifting how word of mouth on businesses is transferred.

Anyone can enter a business into Foursquare, in fact the first person to enter a business into Foursquare gets additional points, meaning as a business owner you may not even be aware you have a foursquare page. I recently entered the Anytime Fitness location I am a member of and told the owner I had just done this. She gave me a blank look as I explained how it worked and what it could mean to her business. She blew it off.

Why is Foursquare important?

Every time a person checks into a business using the Foursquare app they have the opportunity to enter a comment or a tip about the business. Foursquare also allows the user to set up notification to all Facebook and Twitter friends and followers they have. In my case that means when I check into a business 1100 Facebook fans and over 6800 twitter followers see what I enter.

Bad service? I let almost 8000 people know in an instant. Do a great job for me? I let 8000 people know! Research shows repeatedly how word of mouth marketing is considered the best and most reliable and with the new technology friends comments become instant information to thousands.

Grab opportunities

The person who checks into your business most frequently with Foursquare becomes the “Mayor” I am the Mayor of a local grocery store, a local lunch spot as well as a hotel I stay at in Louisville, KY and Gate B4 in the Louisville airport my flights always use.  What should this matter to a business? Plenty.

Customers love to be the insider and foursquare users take great pride in being the mayor of a place. Want to drive good word of mouth? Treat your mayor special. Giveaways, thank you notes, even marquee recognition gives an organization a chance to be part of the game, while also driving positive word of mouth.

Imagine the next time I check into the Louisville hotel I am the mayor of that I am greeted with, “Mr. White thank you for being a gold member (which I get every time I check in here) and I see you are our current mayor! Here is the chocolate coin for being a gold member and as mayor you get breakfast complimentary.” You think I won’t be telling close to 8000 people about my mayor breakfast?

Foursquare is an emerging marketing opportunity savvy businesses will enjoy creating customer insiders who will spread the good word.

Burning man is a one week retreat in the middle of a dust bowl with no food, no water, no showers, no cars, just what you carry in on your back or bike. It is intended to be an “out there” experience and from what people who have attended told me, you will see anything and everything going on at this retreat. When I say everything, suffice it to say, it is impossible not to be shocked at Burning Man because it attracts the freest of the free spirits and the edge is pushed more and more each year. I would guess not many CEOs attend Burning Man.

Which brings the question for all executives: What is proper to share on social media? The challenge with social media is that your personal and professional lives collide and for the “In the full disclosure of who I am” category it is actually a great resource for people to investigate who you are. Everything about who you are.

Employers are looking at social media pages such as facebook, twitter, and linkedin to see what employees and prospective employees are saying. The same goes for executives who are being “checked out” by employees, clients and competitors.

I have a number of clients who follow me on my personal pages as well as my fan page www.facebook.com/russelljwhite2 and they get the full me. But where is the Too Much Information (TMI) line drawn?

Would I share about my Saturday night in the strip club where I got 5 lap dances, had 8 beers, and was escorted out of the club by the bouncer for rude behavior? Would I share my disappointment about my employees letting me down? Would I go on a rant about how I hate Mondays?

Curiously, I have read each of these remarks by people who at that moment were employed somewhere. Is there a different standard for executives? I don’t think so.

Based on my observations the level of TMI has more to do with the age of the person posting than anything else. The younger people feel more open with their expressions and are willing to broadcast an almost open stream of consciousness. Conversely, some executives resist any contact with social media and prefer to remain a closed book. In either case, this is a misuse of a medium that is here to stay in some form or another.

Everyone needs to find their comfort zone. As with all media, there are the extremists on both ends of the spectrum who enjoy the shock value of what they put out there. Everyone has their hot points where they enjoy a good rant. For some people social media is their bullhorn to the world. Just keep in mind each post is an entry into your internet record which has public access.

The best advice I’ve heard about social media postings is to consider everything you write, link, or post would appear on the scroll at the bottom of a TV program and everyone you know or has contact with you is watching.

As a three year old I apparently walked into the middle of a ladies group home meeting and announced, “This is what my daddy does in the bathroom.” And I started to grunt. A three year old doesn’t know the difference between what public knowledge is and what should not be shared. As a three year old doing this, the ladies’ laughter to the point of tears was an expected reaction. What if I had been 18 year old? I image the reaction would’ve been very different.

Some things are best left unsaid in an open forum. As a guide for your social media postings, find where you audience is comfortable with your level of TMI, instead of where you are comfortable with your level of TMI.