We traveled to Hong Kong, Tokyo, Bangkok, & Singapore for multiple Credit Suisse shoots.

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Here are some photos from our travels and film shoots. Check out our Facebook page for our complete album of photos.

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Social media is changing the world for the better.

I know this because of the conversation I have, over and over again, every time I run a social media workshop for companies. It starts with an honest and understandable question: “What if we get on Twitter and people say horrible things?”

For companies who aren’t yet engaging with customers on social media, this is a worst-case scenario. People will be complaining, in public, and these complaints will be visible to everyone, and other people who see those complaints might not like us anymore, and then the good times will be over. Providing a soapbox on which our customers can advertise their dissatisfaction runs counter to every protective instinct we have.

The problem, of course, is that those complaints are already being aired online. Anyone upset enough to go to your Facebook page and tell you what they don’t like is upset enough to tell their friends and followers in your absence. Staying off social media doesn’t stop the problem; it merely removes the discomfort of having to deal with it. Being on social media at least gives you the chance to respond.

And here’s where the second question comes in: “What if we respond the wrong way? What if we say something stupid?”

On social media, we’re afraid of the same things we were afraid of back in eighth grade: that people will be mean to us, and that we’ll make fools of ourselves. For the most part, we’ve overcome these fears for our personal Facebook profiles and Twitter accounts; as companies, though, it’s still the first day at a new school.

The good news is we’re grownups now. We get a chance to do it again, and do it right. To allay those anxieties, I propose Two Golden Rules for Not Making Your Company Look Stupid on Social Media:

Rule 1: Act With Integrity

The first rule isn’t about turning your company into a group of enlightened monks or save-the-world superheros. Integrity is about being consistent. It’s about (to use a horrible consultant phrase) living up to the brand promise. It’s about making sure that what you see is what you get.

Sometimes, what you see isn’t peaceful, or wholesome, or spiritual — and that’s fine. But where companies get in trouble is when they pretend to be something they’re not. SIGG found this out the hard way, when their “eco-friendly” water bottles turned out to have BPA in the liner.

Rule 2: Admit Your Mistakes We all mess up, especially on social media. But the optimal way to deal with a mistake is to admit it, take any steps necessary to correct the situation, and then move on.

A few years ago, Hugh MacLeod shared an email he’d filed under the category: “When It’s Time To Bitchslap The Newbie.” The message was a clumsy and overbearing link-exchange request; MacLeod was gracious enough to anonymize it and spare the sender visits from his readers (one commenter complained: “Aww, you should have given the url so readers can troll the crap out of it”).

Imagine for a second you’re the person who sent the email. Imagine you’re seeing those responses, and imagine further that the original post doesn’t mention your name or your company. What would you do? Me, I’d want to run for the hills — after all, nobody knows who I am. The email’s author, however, took a different tack, and left the following comment on the post:

Hugh – First of all, sorry for starting off on the wrong foot and creating a bad first impression with you and your readers. After more than 10 years in traditional media, we are learning this new way of talking and we’re just taking our first steps. So thanks for not biting our heads off.

Secondly, a big thank you to the folks who commented – especially Rachel and Joaquin – for pointing out what we did wrong and how we can go about doing it right.

Like everyone else, we’re learning as we do and your post is a lesson for us. And this time we’ve learned our lesson.

Cheers

Johnny Boston

CEO Raw Digital

Cheers to you, Johnny Boston. Well done for acting with integrity and admitting your mistakes. When more companies make that shift, the world will be a better place.

Do you believe social media is changing the world for the better? Let me know, in the comments or via @kcolbin.

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Last week I wrote about NY’s best current asset being online video. Afterwards I had the chance to meet with another video company based in NYC named Raw Digital. They have created shows for television and are now focusing on online video. I sat down with Chief Creative Officer Johnny Boston (love that name) and here are my notes.

Johnny has been in the industry for many years and has produced some of the top music groups music videos. One of his most popular new online efforts with Raw Digital is a video show that is in production called The Revengers which is a group of women who go after everyone who has done them wrong. Check out a sample clip on The Revengers page.

Johnny talked about the importance of creating good content and then interacting with the audience to create something very powerful. But the key is that people want to watch good content.

Raw Digital was staffed about 6-7 months ago and has signed some major deals for distribution including Hearst publications.

One of the discussion points we disagreed on was around monetization. From what I gather, Johnny believes that you must be able to completely monetize (on a large scale) before beginning production of the video show. While I believe having some monetization in place, it’s also important to move forward. Though I understand that creating a video production is different than a blog or Web application.

Lastly, we reviewed another show called One Minute Tricks. I really like this idea and think it has some viral/user generated potential. I have embedded one of the videos below. This could work similar to 5min in that users could upload their own one minute tricks. These tricks are great ice-breakers and conversation starters.

See the article here

F.M. Esfandiary

I met F.M. Esfandiary for the first time in 1979. I was nine years old. A bit of a rebel, I naturally found him to be a very unconventional, an interesting sort of adult, as well as a warm and charismatic individual who understood my pre-adolescent mind and accepted me for what I was, a growing, angry & confused young boy.

So strong of an impression he made on me, that by the time I was eleven years old, I had finished reading two of his books, Optimism 1 and Tele-spheres.

During our long walks around London, I had many opportunities to question him about various different issues. FM believed there was not just one way of learning, for school as an institution could not teach you all about the world and its many realities, and that sometimes reading and traveling could open one’s mind more than lectures did. Of course the idea of not having to go to conventional school appealed to my sensibilities. I often antagonized my teacher by quoting FM’s disdain of conventional education. We also discussed a number of family issues, including the concept of ownership or belonging within the family nucleus, and how this was a breeding principle of neurosis, which also made a lot of sense to me.

At the age of thirteen, during a trip to the United States, I visited FM in LA . Over a meal at restaurant called Montys, I expressed my attraction to the American lifestyle and he invited me to live with him for a while. I was thrilled by the offer. I would leave England behind me and start a new adventurous life in California, away from the conformities of a gray land. Of course my parents did not allow this, and my dream only came true seven years later. FM valued experimentation greatly as a necessary tool for the discovery of one’s true self, and the future. He always supported my creative aspirations, and allowed me to come to terms and accept my indecisions. He believed that not knowing what path to follow could actually be the quickest way to finding one. He possessed a naturally philosophical outlook on life, for he, like all great men, understood that any given situation can be looked at from a myriad of standpoints. It was almost as if he were observing the world from a different dimension, a very special observation deck.

I never viewed FM as a mentor or a role model I actually liked him and respected him as a friend. He was also my confidant, a person to whom I could tell anything – without being judged. I was always fascinated by his great psychological insights in his writings, which are philosophically positive, but yet intellectually accessible.

Since a very early age I enjoyed futuristic literature, particularly the works of famous authors such as Isaac Asimov, and Aldous Huxley. Consequently I was prone to find similarities and differences between Aldous Huxley and FM. Both strived towards the advancement of human possibilities, but in Huxleys Brave New World shows a universe devoid of indidualism, FM’s concept of optimism thrives upon it.

FM always seemed to have a new view We often spoke about movies, but his way of analyzing them was very peculiar. He did not usually enjoy violent films, but preferred comedies – he loved Peter Sellers. He was was unconventional and certainly didn’t tow the popular line when “American Beauty” was hailed the landmark film and the best film in ages: he described American Beauty, as a self-indulgent film, a rehash of suburban insecurities, another film dwelling on the psychological deficiencies of average America. its dealing with unoriginal issues was nothing new he said.

As I grew up, I challenged FM into more and more discussions. I used to interrogate him almost, for our conversations always stimulated me greatly, they made me think, and awoke the truth-seeking side of my personality.

He thought that human beings were becoming less and less violent. I did not understand this idea, for the last forty years appear to me as one of the bloodiest in human history. Although I’m still not convinced, FM presented me with an opposite and compelling response to my point of view. He believed the last forty years have also witnessed the growing phenomenon of human rights and peace movements. Our primitive instincts for killing are still present, but since the sixties, our sensibilities have evolved towards the creation of a more global and peaceful society.

FM was a purist in terms of science. He did not indulge in the concept of God or religion, while I was brought up within a somewhat traditional Jewish atmosphere, and have continuously questioned the role of faith within one’s life. To me religion still holds the consolation of a peaceful transition between being and nothingness, an illusion of a reward that can sweeten our departure from the world, as we know it. On the other hand, the scientific solution seems to me still a bit harsh, for one either is a part of a bigger organism or dead matter. FM’s belief in the possibilities of the future made the bleakness of science easier to swallow. He used to talk very passionately about the leaps and bounds that we were conytinually makingn – he spoke of the human genome project 20 years before it became a rreality. He was very optimistic of the fact that my generation would be able to achieve immortality. He thought the essence of who we are – is contained in the brain, not in the soul, hence his decision to be cryogenically preserved.

Near his death I saw him once or twice, he did not want to see anybody, he didn’t like people to see him ill. That was also a very sad time for he genuinely believed he would still be around for the next thirty years. His disease angered him. Somehow technology could not catch up with this man’s visions.

Like all great minds, he was a man considerably ahead of his time. A man with a name appropriate for a future society, when a concept of nationality is replaced by that of globalism. A man who once told me “If I wrote a best seller, I would be doing something wrong, and I would not be ahead of the game”. He wanted to be a catalyst not a savior, whose legacy are his books, the people he always helped, and his ideas.

FM was a very charismatic individual with a charitable and benevolent character.

He was a visionary. We were like opposites sides of a coin, he loved life, I have always been a little more pessimistic. Our twenty-year long friendship was like a gift to me, I was blessed to meet him.

January 2001, New York

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