Nathan Snell :: The Technopian

How I came to work 65 hours a week and love it

I got a new job which is why I haven’t been writing. Actually, I lied. About both. The job is a few weeks old, so it’s only sort of “new” and I haven’t been writing because I wasn’t feeling it. I had writers block. Then I talked to Penelope about having writers block and she said I was just whining. So I got over it. As to the new job- it’s amazing. I’m the Vice President of Web Development for a startup called National Speed.

I must say, startups are a blast to work for. National Speed is no exception, except maybe being even more of a blast to work for because our team is amazing and our plan is great and we’re going to succeed. No, I don’t think that’s what everyone who works at a startup says.

Part of what makes a startup such a blast is that you define the company, its culture, its brand, and ultimately its success. Being that you’re a startup, you’re also usually doing all this business stuff without the amount of resources you realisticaly need to do the job, so it’s hard as hell. It means you’re constantly building the company. Constantly. As it is now, I love every minute of it… but to be honest, I wasn’t sure I would.

I always knew believed told myself I was the entrepreneurial, startup type. After I graduated, however, I wasn’t so sure. Having put so many hours into college, the thought of a 9-5 job where the time after work was my own sounded appealing. OK, so I really didn’t put that many hours into college. I spent most of my time working on side projects. But I put in a lot of hours during those 4 years one way or another, and the visions I had of doing whatever I felt like after work looked nice.

The only thing about most 9-5 jobs is they tend to be dull. Or maybe I got unlucky and a lot of other people got unlucky, too. But all the 9-5’s I’ve worked at in the past left more bored, having finished everything I needed to do earlier that morning. This usually left waiting for an exciting moment at work like a school girl waiting for a boy to tell her he likes her (an odd circumstance since I have no idea what it’s like to be a school girl.). It’s there I told myself I would rather work 65 hours a week, having more to do than I could shake not just a stick at, but an entire tree at.

See, instead of wasting time attempting to prevent my inevitable insanity by figuring out how to stretch 20 hours of work into 40 hours of “something to do” for the week, I could just have 2 years of work to do in a week (I realize that’s not possible). A completely practical argument.

That, to me, meant it really came down to either becoming OK with being mediocre, or taking the step and manning up to the task of building a company. A much more practical and convincing argument.

I chose the latter, as the title so kindly indicates, and I have yet to regret it. Except for maybe that one night a week where I wake up in a cold sweat after dreaming about how the company failed and it’s all my fault. But really, I dared to follow my passion for a startup life, and I will never regret it even if it means working 65+ hours. That doesn’t mean it’s for everyone, but if at the very least you’re debating taking the dive into a job with long hours but that you know you’ll love- I’ll tell you the plunge is worth it.

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Social Media Marketing from a Pendulum

Think about a pendulum in business terms for a moment. One side (2 balls) is marketing and the other side (2 balls) is your target audience.

Like a pendulum, your target audience can experience the effects of your marketing without ever having been directly in contact with it. Our side moves, and our customer’s side moves, but the center ball doesn’t move. The real question is what is the center ball?

It’s important to remember that not as many people use the same tools as us. The average person just hops onto their iGoogle or email account, does their thing, and then they’re done. That doesn’t make the tools at our disposal worthless for businesses. It means that we need to figure out how to use these sites and services in such a way as to effect the things that the majority of the population does use or does interact with. We need to find that center ball.

Wow. Enough Zen posting from me. I almost didn’t post this. Hope you enjoy a more abstract one I let slip by :)

*Photo by Mazz

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The Two Sides of Social Media

I’ve frequently heard complications come up as to whether PR should handle or be involved in social media or if marketing should primarily be involved in managing a company’s social media efforts. The truth is what you commonly hear: both should. I want to make it simpler, though.

There are two sides to social media: reputation management and promotional efforts.

Reputation management is really PR’s area, and involves a company’s presence online, commonly referred to as their web presence. Web presence for companies is nothing new. If they have a website, then they’ve got a presence, or so the thinking was 5 years ago. Web presence is different today. It goes beyond just your company’s little corner of the internet (your website). Your company’s web presence now spans to anywhere a literal conversation is being had about your company or product online, and your reputation depends on how you engage in that conversation. Dell is a great example of how reputation management can be done well.

The promotional, marketing components of social media, which make up the second side of social media, gets more into the nitty-gritty aspects of social media. The promotional side of social media deals a lot more in the current tools, communities, and medium’s of communication currently available.

Fundamentally, however, promoting content online is much different than the Promotion from the 4P’s has been. It’s not about blasting as many people as possible with a message. It’s about engaging an individual, even if it’s just one. It’s about forging a relationship with an individual, and then doing it many more times, with many other individuals. Is that a scalable promotional strategy? Hardly.

The point here is if the mental framework is instilled into those relationships you first forged, then the community you’ve grown will handle the scale. It’s then your job to simply continue to uphold the framework and engage your customers in a meaningful way. Nikon is a good example of the promotion side when it comes to the latter part. Seesmic is a good example when it comes to everything I’ve described on the promotional side.

The difference between the two sides that I want to make clear is that the promotional marketing side of social media deals with actively promoting (and engaging) your company to its audience, where the reputation management (PR) side deals in more of a passive mode, listening to the conversations while responding when appropriate (or outright necessary). Really, what should occur is your promotion will drive your reputation management, and that’s a correlation that should be seen.

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Holy Crap Pants

I’m alive. It’s true. In fact, I was just up at BlogCarolinas in Research Triangle Park a few days ago, so I even have evidence of my livelihood and that this isn’t in fact a ghost writer trying to cover up my assassination (because, you know, I’m important enough to be assassinated).

So what’s been my deal? Well, I graduated from UNCW this past weekend, which is pretty much awesome, but took quite a bit of my time over the past month or two, as you can imagine. Now I am working on finalizing where I will be working this week. With that, my advice would be to not lowball yourself. I generally don’t, but Rolf from Shoeboxed gave me a kickass-challenge of an interview. Seriously, he fired questions faster than I type words (122 words per minute) or faster than immigrants hop across the border. Good questions, too! It was a blast. But I cracked slightly under the pressure (hence forth came my lowball). Damn.

On the same college note, I will have to say, I hate academics. I love education. I read business books all day, but the standard scenario in college (from what i’ve seen) involves a teacher who sucks at teaching, or has had the passion, curiosity, and worthwhile sucked from their eyeballs (shooooooooock!). That said, while not all the teachers in the business school at UNCW were good, Tracy Meyer and Steve Harper were two individuals that made coming to college entirely worth it. That still doesn’t mean I like academics anymore than before.

In addition, and I am sure this is of no surprise, I’ve also been slightly preoccupied as I’ve been playing around with a side project. It’s a website I suspect to get to usable measures come the end of this week (or slightly into next). I look forward to the challenge of marketing it as I am planning on using entirely unconventional methods (or near unconventional). More on this later.

I have also been researching/learning/developing an online community development plan for a social networking site. While it doesn’t pertain specifically to marketing (or social media in the normal sense) if you all would like, I can post my findings, methods, and so forth here (I almost said “y’all”. That would have been dreadful).

There are a few posts in the rafters here that I am working on unborifying (oh, that’s a word). They should have some relative intrigue to them. If nothing else, it’ll be a little something-something for your brain to nibble on before shoving into the recess of your mind until you’re in a meeting later, recall it, and then sing my praises (insert evil cackle).

In the mean time, thanks for sticking with me. As my life shifts from balancing college to working full-time doing awesome stuff for a company, I look forward to shifting my posts in a similar fashion of awesomeness (that actually is a word) for you all :)

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Balance

A phrase you often hear in regards to life, especially when you’re in college. The importance of “having a balanced life” is emphasized time and again by adults, mentors, and most of all parents.

All through my academic career I was working toward “balance.” The balance between teaching myself everything I wanted to know, learning about businesses, helping small businesses, and doing well in school, receiving the education others deemed entirely necessary. I aimed for a balanced life where I juggled school, life, relationships, hobbies, friends, outside projects and more.

As I look toward graduation in one week, I get to ask myself a new question. A question I probably should have asked myself long ago. What kind of balance do I want? Then I would have realized my answer is “I don’t.”

I don’t want balance, not right now. I want to be engrossed with making a change. I want to be an integral part of a company’s fruition. I want to work side by side with people who despise balance, love knowledge, and want to make dreams happen. A lot of people may not get this. But one type will. Entrepreneurs.

Where does your balance lie?

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Where Has All The Writing Gone?

For the small number of souls that were curious as to just where I went, or if I ever did come back from BS08, rest assured, I have been back. Since I’ve been back, there have been a number of events that have kept me at bay. Two in particular, actually.

The first is half sparked from a fantastic Q&A session put on by Ryan Paugh and Penelope Trunk for the Brazen Careerist. During this session Penelope made one comment in particular that I find especially interesting. It was in part a response to a question I had asked on inserting more of my personality into posts. Penelope had said posts that have strong opinions can’t help but have a lot of personality.

Of course, the other side of having a strong opinion is having an opinion that people actually care about. “Care about” is the wrong way to state that. What I mean to say is, it’s not just having a strong opinion, but having a different opinion as well. A significant enough personal twist or thought that makes people interested.

“That’ easy!” I thought at first. The number of posts that have occurred since that session, a week or so back now, is partial evidence to both the lack of ease and the results of trying too hard. Part of the issue, as I see it, is I agree with a lot of the people whose blogs I read (which are marketing and tech bloggers). At first I thought this made sense. It doesn’t.

Marketing, at least the kind I talk about, takes place on the edge. The funny thing about the edge is it’s all about what’s worked, what hasn’t worked, what you think will work, and more or less making it up as you go. Obviously in that sort of environment, it shouldn’t be difficult to find things to disagree with (in some instance it’s not, it’s just not substantial enough to write about). What’s happening, however, is the echo chamber of crap that keeps bouncing off the walls, from one blogger to the next, is growing. In most cases, you see generally the same thoughts being written about over and over again. This isn’t every blogger, but it’s a lot of them (I’ve been victim of this as well).

So here’s the deal from my end. I don’t want to be an echo chamber, and I don’t want to regurgitate the same stuff most everyone else is. That’s what my focus will be on when it comes to providing information that you all care about. This has been my focus over the past month or so (and I can see the results). What I want from you all is patience and input, if you’d be so kind. I may not post every day (especially as the next two weeks marks the close of my college career), but I will post as often as I can with stuff that will hopefully be great. If it’s not great, or if I missed something you wanted to know more about. Tell me and we’ll go from there.

Oh yeah, the other project that’s been taking up my time is that my business plan made it as a finalist in UNCW’s business plan competition. I do the final pitch of it this Friday. I plan to win.

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Gone to BS08

Blogger Social 2008 is finally here! At first it seemed like it was too far out, now it’s hard to believe I fly out to New York tomorrow (ahhh, NY, I am visiting you again so soon!).

It will be an amazing experience to meet so many of the awesome people I’ve interacted with for some time, as well as meeting new people, too!

If you’re curious as to what all is going on, you can check out the BS08 website (linked above) or Ryan Karpeles nifty googly summary (I did in fact manage to end all 3 words with “y”). Never seen that Google Maps feature before (if it is one), but I will definitely be utilizing it in the future.

Anyway, if you’re curious as to how it will all be going. I will be updating my flickr and twitter periodically while I am there. Also be sure to watch the BS08 flickr group.

The downside of heading to BS08 is my blog will be silent (at least on my end) until Monday or Tuesday of next week (I have to sleep at some point, we certainly aren’t doing it at the social!). Rest assured, I will resume to the best of my ability then :)

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Just A Job

If it’s “just” a job, then why are you there? Why aren’t you at a place where it’s the job, or your job? People can tell when it’s just a job. It matters.

Had lunch with Mike Duncan yesterday and he sparked this thought when he spoke of the employees he worked for. If a company highers for people who want their job, makes you think about what the company is like.

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Smaller Content. Bigger Spread.

Break your content into smaller chunks and disperse it on as many websites as you can. The act of chunking your content increases the chance others will take hold of it and pass it on (distribute it).

Today, most marketers work on having some component of their campaign viral. When done right, giving away small chunks of content greatly improves the chance of your campaigns’ viral spread, and spread in general.

Let’s take a look at a few sites/products that naturally provide a way for you to break your content into chunks.

Flickr allows people to upload pictures for the purpose of sharing photos. This fundamentally is the idea of chunking, where each picture is an easy to share chunk. Not everyone will want all of your pictures, but there are certainly some who would like a few. When a user shares a picture, they often build a link into the picture, and this creates the means by which the small chunk of content on flickr begins its viral travels.

Flickr also built a mashup of their chunked content (pictures) into another form - slideshows. The slideshow is an enticement for users to distribute their content more. For example, without a slideshow, I may only share a picture or two from my trip to New York. The slideshow ties all the chunks together in an attractive, but still shareable format. It makes the content seem like something new, something you want to share again. You can see my slideshow from New York, here.

YouTube is another example of chunking content. YouTube allows their content to be chunked and distributed by letting any YouTube user share a video they enjoy on any site. In addition to being able to put a YouTube video on any site, YouTube spurs more exchange and interaction of their chunked content by suggesting other videos the user might like. You can take advantage of these suggestions by creating multiple videos with very similar tags, creating a chunked content stream.

When it comes to chunking content, Facebook did something really neat. They built the Mini-Feed.

Facebook’s Mini-Feed takes actions users already do on the site, like write on their friend’s “Wall”, and wraps those actions into small chunks of content they call updates. Facebook then sends these updates to the mini-feed of all the people who are friends of the user.

For example, if it’s my room mates birthday and I write “Happy Birthday!” on his wall, ~100 of my other friends will receive an update (chunked content) saying I wrote “Happy Birthday” on my friends wall. If they’re friends with him, they will then do the same, which will then send updates to all of their friends, and on it goes.

When you’re creating your next piece of content, think about how to make them smaller and more easy to distribute. Consider the services that they might fit into to help them spread. But make sure not to skimp on the quality of the content itself. It’s easy to figure out a way to break them down into smaller, distributable pieces. It’s much harder to create content worth sharing. Focus on content that people want to share first, then build it into a system that let’s that happen.

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Theme Songs: So Long Status Quo, Danger is Go

You could ask Chad (the guy I am co-founding Profile360 with) and he will tell you I pretty much always listen to music when I work. The right songs simply pump me up. Gets me in the mood.

Lately I’ve heard two songs that pretty well identify my business ideals. The 2nd song is much closer to my preferred style of music (European Melodic Metal, etc).

Brave by Nichole Nordeman with a chorus of “So long status quo…”

Danger is Go by Powerman5000 and, well, the song speaks for itself.

Anyone else have songs to add that identify with their view of business, creativity, or some other passion in their life? Let us know :)

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