Talking Sociotech Advances, The Value Of Our Content, & Going Paperless

This is an excerpt from an interview by John Zipperer for Northside, a San Francisco neighborhood newspaper, April, 2012

So tell me about Global Niche. What is it? Who is the audience/customer?

Global Niche is my startup with my partner Tara Agacayak based on our combined 20 years of expatriatism, my experiences as an author building her publishing platform (that’s where you demonstrate your expertise, your reach, your ability to draw an audience) and the rising notion of creative entrepreneurship (which is where who you are is what you do best -- doing what you love).

Global Niche is a life-work initiative for global citizens, mobile progressives, cultural creatives, independent professionals and any one who finds themselves in a situation mismatch. In this day and age we should be able to operate independently of traditional limitations like geography, time zone, culture, language. I call that achieving “psychic location independence”.

There’s a place in the world just for us, where we can be both as unique as we want to be, and as big as possible. We don’t even have to leave home to find it, and build it out -- and our progress in doing so is reflected in a professional web platform. That’s where the world finds you. It’s about making ourselves a global microbrand.

By combining recent sociotech advances that digital nomads take advantage of, like mobile devices, online education and the social web, the Global Niche philosophy supports your effort to make your life work in straitened situations. To live a globally unbounded life.

I call it “creative self enterprise for the global soul” but our audience don’t have to be expats, world travelers or professed globalists to tap into a bigger view of themselves -- and gain access to a wider assortment of opportunities for community, lifestyle and work.

Anyone in a disadvantageous situation -- for instance, recent school graduates who are discovering a thin resume doesn’t get their foot in the door, corporate refugees, stay at home parents and people forced into early retirement -- can also use Global Niche’s “creative self enterprise” approach to build a more empowered life and livelihood.

You've mentioned a new product or service you're rolling out in April. Tell me about it.

It won’t be launching in April, but we’re close!

It’s a content packaging program inspired by the content marketing movement (and once again, a concept borrowed from the publishing world, of a building an author platform -- you don’t have to be a writer, just think of yourself as the author of your life).

That is, letting your content support your aims, whether you’re positioning yourself as an expert in a field to land jobs or funding, or you’ve got a product or service to sell.

Whatever you want to do, you’ll need help and support and part of that is going public with your process, to gather likeminded people to your cause. The kind of people who are interested your stuff, can help you develop your plan, the kind of people who will form the basis of your network.

Many of us have generated a lot of content in our lives which is not actively working for us. Hobbies we’ve poured ourselves into. Independent research we’ve done (and no one around us thought was a good use of our time!). Things we alone are very knowledgeable about. The older we are, the more boxes of stuff we’ve got that we’ve never used for anything. Photos that haven’t seen the light of day. Artwork in the basement. Things we may consider failures.

I imagine many of us are sitting on a mountain of it, at the same time wondering how we’re going to make ends meet, or finally leave this job we hate. Or actualize that dream we’ve always had. But if we consider that earlier output not as failure or a waste of time, but instead a chain of events that make us who we are today, then we start to get an idea of the arc of our lives and how what we’ve done in the past can help us get where we want to go in the future.

At Global Niche we’ve created a 6 week group program to help you wrap your arms around your content and link it with your goals. We’ll also be releasing a self-study guide.

Describe a typical day for Anastasia Ashman these days.

After breakfast with my husband, we both settle down to work. We’re on the dining table with our double monitors at the moment.

I’ll scan my emails, which I have almost down to nothing by judicious pruning of subscriptions and automatic filing rules.

If I receive things that aren’t personal, I’ll adjust my email rules to make sure I don’t see that kind of correspondence again. I’ll peruse, bookmark and participate on my Twitter account (my favorite social media platform to swim in deep, intellectual waters. I’ve been a top ten user in Istanbul in 2009, top 20 women entrepreneurs according to Forbes.com in 2010, and this year a top 50 follow according to another business personality).

I’ll have a Skype call or two with people in other time zones about collaborations or a Webex call with a TEDx Women Entrepreneurs group in Silicon Valley (we’re creating a pitching support group after TEDxBayArea), and maybe an hour-long Linqto video chat with my Global Niche partner in Istanbul, a guest expert on creativity coaching or women’s leadership like Tara Sophia Mohr along with all the members of our community who also log on for these live monthly events.

Throughout the day I’ll share links relevant to my field and interests and my own work, at multiple Facebook pages, Twitter and Google+. Reading news and other links I’m directed to by my Twitter network.

I’m building out my Pinterest account too, a place to visualize my handful of cultural projects in a fresh light, as well as discover more likeminded people.

I’m going through my research and web bookmarks to find ways to bring more previous work to light and familiarize myself with sources after a hiatus. Most of this is preparation for what’s coming: as this relocation displacement comes to an end, I’m preparing to begin a huge memoir rewrite based a plan devised last fall with my editor and agent.

If I met someone the day before I’ll connect with them on the social media platforms and then throw out their card. No more paper!

What's ahead?

Just further along on the path and projects I have simmering now. Offering life-work solutions for the globality of us, through Global Niche.

Running a transmedia production house for all my cultural entertainment projects like my Byzantine princess art historical soap opera about the forgotten woman builder who spurred an emperor to beat her with the Haghia Sophia, and my Big Fat Greek Wedding meets Meet the Parents tale of culture clash at my Istanbul wedding.

I can see having the staff to enact some of the ideas I’ve had for producing the work of others. For instance, having a stable of illustrators working on digital graphic novels based on unproduced screenplays, that’s an idea whose time has come and with a huge amount of polished writing lying fallow due to the high barriers to entry of the past.

Speaking at storytelling and innovation conferences, producing retreats and summits of my own.

At that point I hope my memoir is released, and optioned for film, so I may be involved in book tours and writing the screenplay, or involved in the production.

Talking To Intel Free Press About Early Adopters Of Tech In Turkey

"Turkey is a very young society, I told reporter Ken Kaplan in an interview for Intel Free Press for his article "Turkey Bets on Tech, Youth to Grow Economy". "One early adopter can get a group or whole family into a new thing almost overnight,"  which drives quick adoption of computers, smartphones and Facebook.

Sucker Punch Time Zone

With the ambient awareness of social media, my Istanbul time zone (GMT/UTC +3) was ideally civilized for global interaction. That time zone made me feel competent. I could be dressed, caffeinated, fed and through all my emails before urbane London came online. Yes, I missed happenings in Asia, but I could catch up on the headlines and communicate with foodies and expats and culturalists in the Far East.

Then I'd be at my afternoon best when New York and the East Coast appeared, ready to Twitter-attend their conferences and swoop into their conversations with a European knowing.

I'd be a well-oiled social being at night when early morning California finally showed up, including my editors at the publishing house and family.

The converse was not true, however. When my a.m. Twitter path crossed California, I had out-of-sync exchanges with late-night LA snark which I invariably misread with early morning earnest. No longer. Had to unfollow since who wants to build new relationships on chronic misunderstandings?

Now that I'm back in California (UTC-7) I can't believe how late and lazy and slow the time zone makes me feel.

I marvel at how people from here don't seem to notice the world spun without them. I was once one of these people.

I sense I've missed the day. I've overslept my life. Like a particularly undignified Groundhog Day, I awake to a worldwide sucker punch.

Friends and colleagues in NYC are already well into their conferences and commentary on the day's news, and soon enough they're unwinding with cocktails when I'm needing an afternoon coffee.

By the time I start firing on all cylinders, the world has slipped into a long night.

The empty expanse of the Pacific's never been more palpable since my awareness has become global, and real-time.

Time zones were created to organize the activities of a geographical region. For those of us operating globally, with friends, family, colleagues and other parties of interest scattered around the globe, and with a way to be ambiently aware of them, there is no longer a time zone for social (and work) purposes.

Hiring A Social Media Hand = Hiring Someone To Manage Your Relationships

For a new project, an acquaintance (I'll call her Denise) hired someone to handle her social media (I'll call her Sara). Good for Denise. It's great to get on Twitter when you have something to bring to the world. But if you do it in a way that makes people wonder if you're for real, not so much.

I was disturbed by what went wrong and how it could damage my acquaintance's brand. I drafted the below overkill of a response to Denise making a colleague quip, "She must be a very good friend since you just gave an entire free Twitter lesson to someone who pays thousands for someone else to mis-tweet for her."

But she isn't a good friend and now she's unlikely to ever become one. My Twitter soul is offended.

The social media hired hand broke a bunch of Twitter conventions in engaging me in the name of the brand she's being paid to take care of.

Here's what happened. I tweeted congratulations to Denise on the launch of her project.

Sara thanked me for a retweet concerning Denise's project.

I didn't know who she was or why she'd be claiming I had retweeted her. I hadn't retweeted anyone on the topic of Denise's project.

Then I saw a duplicate tweet thanking me for my non-existent RT coming from Denise's branded account.

Both tweets used a hashtag. That means Sara put the tweets to me into a larger stream of topic-interested viewers so it was meant for a larger audience, to link me to the project. But why, I wondered, if not to tell those folks that I was RTing her account. That's like a recommendation of the original tweet, if not an endorsement. And it's poor Twitter etiquette if it's not true.

Was this a new ploy of spambots to grab other people's tweets and send them around under their own account, and to pretend to engage with people on false pretenses?

In four years on Twitter this was the first time I'd been thanked for RTing when I hadn't done so. Spambots do evolve!

I responded to Sara and asked for clarification. Her @-replies to me were broken by a "." That usually means that she'd want her followers to see the conversation even though in this case they were not part of it.

I noticed her tweets to me did not tell her followers anything they could use on their own. They also wouldn't be able to track the on-going conversation because her replies to me were not linked to my tweets. I figured this was probably just a bad practice on Sara's part but it breaks a usability feature of the Twitter service, and looks fishy besides.

Sara's tweets to me didn't make it  clear who she was in connection with Denise's project -- and her Twitter bio and Denise's project's Twitter bio didn't mention Sara's involvement.

I think it's a good idea to mention somewhere that a hired hand is running your social media.  If not in advance, then immediately and clearly when someone might ask. Sometimes when several people tweet from one account they initial their tweets. President Obama does this so you know it's him.

I scanned Sara's feed to see if it could make sense of it, and there was no mention of Denise or her project. Nor mention that Sara's doing social media for Denise...

To go back to that first tweet, if Sara had thanked me for the shout out via Denise's company account, and made clear that even though I addressed Denise she was a third party tweeting for Denise (and given her name at that point) it would have been clear and totally fine.

And then she could have retweeted my shout out, achieving in one keystroke exactly what she had hoped to do. Show her followers that I was aware of Denise's project, and excited about it. If she wanted to show people interested in that topic but not her followers, she could have appended a hashtag to my original tweet.

Ultimately, paying someone to run your social media is like paying someone to manage relationships for you.

If you know very little about social media, however, I wonder how you intend to parse who might be able to do a good job for you.

Migrating My 2-Year Old Creative Entrepreneurs Facebook Page & LinkedIn Group To GlobalNiche

After two years, Tara and I are closing our Creative Entrepreneurs Facebook page. Members of this group are scattered all over the globe. We are working in a variety of areas and are hybrids of some sort. We identify with being suspended between multiple worlds and find ourselves challenged by culture, geography, language and time zone. But we believe that limbo state is our secret weapon.

We are looking forward to more discussions about how you turn disadvantages into springboards, and how you flourish in the niche you create for yourself.

What we've been doing here and at our LinkedIn group we've been taking to the next level at our GlobalNiche page for more than six months. Come join us there and keep evolving your creative enterprise...

Our mission at this page and at LinkedIn since 2009 is to aid creative entrepreneurs poised to maximize the benefits of social networks by actively connecting with each other and pooling resources and inspiration.

Creative entrepreneurs tap into their own skills, talents and circumstances to develop work tailor-made to their interests and lifestyle.

Social media provides creative professionals the ability and opportunity to leverage web technologies to build and grow their projects and businesses.

When You Ask For A RT, Give Us Something That Stands On Its Own

I got a message from an organization I am associated with. They want people in their community to retweet their live coverage of an event. Great, I'm all for it.

But then I took a look at the choices. There weren't any original tweets from their official account that made sense to retweet.

One of the keys to sharing and resharing on Twitter is that a tweet has context and verve and clarity. I couldn't find anything like that to RT.

Tweets suitable for retweeting have to stand on their own and include all the information needed to be understood. They need to be in decent, understandable English/whatever language you're using with specifics other than "amazing".

Some suggestions for any organization to deepen impact on Twitter for both live-tweeting of events and general practice:

• Whoever's dedicated to tweeting can prepare some of the tweets in advance based on preparatory materials so they read well.
• Any person being tweeted about should be referred to by their Twitter handle, that's how people get found on Twitter. Look up everyone's handle in advance if need be.
• Use other hashtags besides your own organization's because people may not be looking for that. This is a good way to catch the attention of people who may not have ever heard of your organization. Use a few tag related to what you're about, like #entrepreneurs #women #leadership #inspiration, etc.

Recommended By Top Expat On Twitter In Telegraph UK

Thanks to former banker, veteran expat and expat coach Evelyn Simpson for recommending me and my GlobalNiche partner as top expats on Twitter to readers of The Telegraph UK.

Simpson suggests following me on Twitter if you're interested in knowing more  "about using technology and creativity to get the lifestyle you want wherever you are."

How Pinterest Is More Like Twitter And Less Like Facebook

A fellow transmedia storyteller I encouraged to try Pinterest just let me know I am "flooding her stream so she has to unfollow".

I imagine an active bout of pinning by anyone you follow will put a flood of images into your timeline. That's the nature of the beast.

If you follow too few people or too few boards, you'll probably be like this woman, wanting people to post less so you don't suddenly see a ton of images of one topic or from one pinner if what you want is more variety in your timeline. (Algorithmically, perhaps, like you might expect at Facebook.)

But the beauty of Pinterest is the customizability (for instance, you can follow a pinner's specific pinboard rather than all of that pinner's activity).

And this isn't Facebook where one might be right to worry you're becoming a nuisance (to the limited numbers and strong tie relationships of most people's Facebook accounts) by posting every five minutes.

The reason we're on Pinterest is to pursue our interests -- it's a network of weak ties based on interests -- it's not connect to people we happen to know (nor are we concerned on Pinterest with making people we happen to know think we are behaving non-annoyingly on Pinterest).

The reputation I generate on Twitter or Pinterest is going to be about the quality and subject matter of what I share and interact with. I'm much less inclined at those services than at Facebook about whether what I pin or share pleases the people who follow me. That's for them to decide and adjust as necessary. But telling me not to do it, or do it less, however indirectly? Nope. Just go.

This is the exploration of my interests. You can come along if you want, but I won't be curtailing my pinning because someone who follows me can't figure out how to handle it.

Much like at Twitter, at Pinterest I usually favorite images at a fast pace then add them to my boards/share them with my followers at a much slower rate. And I consume much more than I produce. I still may post more than you can handle. At Twitter, I put high volume accounts on a list I can dip into so they don't overwhelm my feed. Pinterest could certainly use more flexibility in this area.

Make Top 50 Women Entrepreneurs To Follow On Twitter

Thanks to Evan Carmichael for including me in his top 100 women entrepreneurs to follow on Twitter list. A friend points out, "No, you made the top 50." :-)  

Playing Big With Your Global Niche: Tara Sophia Mohr

Building your global niche -- the place you belong and operate to your true potential -- is about being both as unique and as big as you can be. This week Global Niche invites you to a live, interactive, online conversation with writer, coach and personal growth teacher Tara Sophia Mohr.

Join us in our Linqto* web room on Friday, January 13th at 10am ***Pacific Time*** [be sure to convert to your local time] to talk about optimizing who and where you are.

Tara Mohr will share the tactical skills she teaches in her upcoming Playing Big program [http://bit.ly/zeasyU] which we can all use to hone our specialties and deepen/broaden our impact in the world.

Have a question for Tara? Post it at our LinkedIn Playing Big discussion here: http://lnkd.in/4JmGgS

If you can't make it to the call, we'll release the recording soon after.

* Instructions for entering the Linqto space - go to http://www.linqto.com/rooms/taraagacayaklive test web cam and mic, if you wish to ask questions on camera enter the room enter a screen name

Here's a calendar of our previous and upcoming events: http://www.globalniche.net/conversations/

A Facebook Connection is Not An Email Subscription

A very sweet email I received from a new connection included these lines: "I wanted to let you know that you're receiving this email because I lovingly friended you via Facebook and was hoping you wouldn't mind if I occasionally sent you what I was up to. If not, it's totally cool, you're welcome to unsubscribe below and my feelings won't be hurt one bit."

I'm glad I'm not going to be hurting someone's feelings if I choose to stop receiving something I never asked to receive and didn't know existed.

Unfortunately, sending me email I must to choose to stop receiving amounts to an automatic email subscription when the current standard for list subscription is the double opt-in.

The added twist of piling a list subscription onto a Facebook connection muddies the water even further.

Maybe I just wanted to connect in an ambient way.

Maybe I use Facebook and other social media services as my new contact book. (That's exactly what I do!)

Maybe I don't know yet if I want to receive news from you in my in-box, the most intimate of social medias.

Give me a chance to figure it out without making me reject you first.

What might work better: posting about the list existence on Facebook, where I can see it and decide to take action.

Even better:

Post on Facebook things I'm going to want to know more about. Things I'm going to start wanting to be sure I don't miss. Then I'm primed to get on your list, and I will.

Community Crowdsourcing My Move From IST to SF

As I relocate from Istanbul to San Francisco, we're crowd sourcing the psychic transition. Whether you're familiar with Istanbul or have a little bit of San Francisco in your past or not, the Global Niche community is full of experts on the growing pains of displacement -- and replacement.

In your opinion, what connects Istanbul to SF, and vice versa? What are the biggest differences?

Care to share your favorite places to see, eat, relax, exercise, work in SF? What Bay Area 'hood can you see a global citizen like me settling in? Suggestions of who I MUST meet in town?

FOREVER GRATEFUL! ....for helping me say my goodbye to Istanbul -- and hello to San Fran. (And be sure to let us know when you need the Global Niche crowd to help you process a displacement of your own!)

GlobalNiche.net

How Do You Support The People In Your Network?

That was a question posted by small business marketing coach Stephanie Ward, at the GlobalNiche LinkedIn group. She suggested 5 ways. Here's my answer:

I like to share job leads and pass on assignments I'm offered but can't personally pursue.

Also, when people approach me to collaborate somehow and I'm unable to I usually suggest an alternative for them -- whether it's access to my audience, or an intro to someone else I know who might jump at their offer. It feels like flow -- things come to me, they're right for someone else, I try to make that connection.

Stephanie also asked how we introduce ourselves to a group. (Here are mistakes she notes.)

My response:

It depends on what group you're introducing yourself to: Emphasis may be different, type of info required may differ. You may use jargon if it's an industry event, or simplify how you describe your work if you're at a more general networking affair -- or make an analogy. One intro does not fit all.

Stephanie says, " It's always smart to tailor your introduction to the crowd and event."

Stephanie also asked what we do to follow up after a networking event. "Networking is about building relationships over time."

My reply:

After a networking event, I find the people I met on multiple social media platforms, and toss their business card. If we talked about stuff in particular I send them leads and links, and introductions. Then we keep in touch *ambiently* ....

Stephanie says, "It's smart to reach out across platforms."

Suspended Between Multiple Worlds -- Challenged By Culture, Geography, Language or Time Zone? What I Did About It.

Do you ever feel suspended between multiple worlds -- challenged in your pursuits and interests by culture, geography, language or time zone? Welcome to the club. In fact, after fourteen years of expatriatism and through my cultural identity work as a writer/producer I’ve come to see this psychic limbo state about who we are and where we belong -- familiar to people with transglobal lives and culturally hybrid lifestyles -- as our secret weapon.

To start at the beginning, we’re all born global citizens even if that knowledge gets trained out of us. As we mature, a global identity seems nebulous, and ungrounded. Better to bond with the more concrete: family, culture, nation. Our schoolmates, colleagues, neighbors.

There’s a problem with concrete, though. It cracks over time and in quickly changing conditions, and sometimes even under its own weight.

I’d even venture to say that ‘our people’ today are not who they used to be. We’re unbounded by the communities in our physical midst. Now we can find inspiring new kinship in interest and outlook.

Expats and international types have more reasons than most to find a way to operate independently of where we happen to be physically.

With today's economic uncertainties no matter who or where we are, we all have to embrace an enterprising view of ourselves -- a way to operate unlimited by the options directly surrounding us.

With recent advances in virtual technologies like mobile devices and the social web, we have tools at our disposal to help us live a globally unbounded life.

Now we don’t have to be a tech expert or social media guru to build a micro-yet-global base of operations with a professional web platform and virtual network for continuing education, professional development, and a close-knit but world-flung set of friends. We can be digital world citizens and achieve a cutting-edge state of being -- that is, what I call ‘psychic location independence’.

I coined the concept of a global niche -- defined as a ‘psychic solution to your global identity crisis’-- at expat+HAREM, the online community of global citizens, identity adventurers and intentional travelers I founded in 2009. The group blog was inspired by the global community that gathered around Tales from the Expat Harem, an anthology by foreign women about their lives in modern Turkey that I coedited in 2005 with fellow Istanbul resident Jennifer Gokmen.

Expatharem.com was also informed by the idea of an ‘expat harem’ itself, where all the writers in the book and the readers drawn to them are cultural peers in a virtual realm.

My partner Tara Agacayak, a creative enterprise consultant from Silicon Valley who’s spent the past 10 years in Turkey, and I launched this new work-life initiative here at GlobalNiche.net. We’re applying the innovations we've been exploring in the past few years in our professional communities of creative entrepreneurs and social media proponents along with our expat experiences. We've realized that a robust online presence that helps us reach our offline goals is the most important independent survival skill of international people.

Archiving expat+HAREM

After two magical years, we’ve amassed 175 neoculture discussions and 2,800 insightful, funny, poignant comments from globalists, culturati and hybrid lifestylers like you. Can you believe it? Please accept a huge round of thanks: to our generous guest posters, our lively blog participants, our loyal audience. As expat+HAREM's founder, I recognize the culture and identity issues we’ve tackled at expat+HAREM are evergreen. So I'll be keeping them live and available for you here at expatharem.com during my transition to GlobalNiche.net.

By now you probably have a clue what GlobalNiche.net is going to be. Here’s more.

This hands-on venture is my new life-work initiative to put into practice expat+HAREM theories. I'm calling what we'll be practicing "creative self enterprise for the global soul."

Global Niche is a practical evolution for expat+HAREM and I hope you feel the next step on this journey holds relevance to the life you lead, too.

We’ve identified ourselves and found resonance with each other. Common ground, ways to talk about our lives and experiences with meaning and precision. Now how do we transform?

How do we do whatever we’ve somehow felt geographically or culturally disadvantaged to fully do? 

It’s time for action.

I'll be partnering with creative enterprise consultant Tara Agacayak to explore with you (and other mobile progressives, cultural creatives, indie pros and displaced people of all kinds) exactly how to build a micro-yet-global base of operation -- a global niche. I'll also be a guinea pig and sharing my own global microbrand-building results and revelations along the way [eek!]

I hope you’ll  choose to stick with us for this exciting evolution. Our approach is going to be email blogging -- that means we'll be contacting you through email, not at a blog on the open web. The best way to stay in touch is to join the Global Niche list. If you're on the expat+HAREM mailing list already, you're covered.

Thanks for your time and your community, I cherish it.

My Global Niche: An Interview With Today's Zaman Newspaper

American reporter in Turkey Brooks Emerson asked me about the foreign edge, and the challenges of finding my niche in Turkey for his series on expat success stories in national English-language newspaper Today's Zaman. In the far-ranging interview, Emerson asks me what the initial impetus for my success as an expat was, and how I've evolved.

No surprise to those who know me, foreign language adoption has not played much of a role -- once I realized that taking business meetings and doing live television interviews in Turkish literally was rendering me mute! But mentoring in all realms of my personal and professional life has been a "secret weapon" in the creative entrepreneurship of self that I aim to practice.

Emerson asks me how the environment affects the outcome of an expat's endeavors. I tell him how sense of place can inspire a sense of self.

"Anastasia says that she has always been attracted to places with an amalgamation of people and cultures. However, the biggest pull is “the idea of crossroads … like Rome, where [she] studied in college … and now here on the Bosporus,” where she senses a positive energy and vibration for self-discovery and reinvention.

"Anastasia believes that working and living abroad is an excellent way to discover new self-potential."

Read Emerson's entire July 2011 interview "The global niche of Anastasia Ashman" online.

Social Media Consumption, Filters, and Overcoming The Reluctance To Share

From a discussion at the GlobalNiche LinkedIn group about creatives being reluctant to promote themselves that morphed into a discussion about the opposite issue of dealing with sources who share more than we can handle: This is another reason to use Google+: you can put useful-but-prolific sharers into their very own circle if need be, then dip in when you want. You can also do that with Facebook lists but apparently very few people have exploited their existence. I use mine all the time.

It's why I directly visit NPR reporter @AndyCarvin's Twitter account but don't have him in my main feed. I also have him in a list but cannot see native RTs from him that way.

As Clay Shirky has famously said years ago -- the problem is filter failure, not info overload. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10142298-16.html

Would I want @AndyCarvin to cut down on what he shares and how he works because I can't figure out how to best access his stuff? No.

Maybe we're not in his position yet, but what would happen if we reframed our challenge to be "how do I become someone whose content and contact-style people will want to find a way to use that works for them"? The tools are there.

On the other hand, the tools are there for us content sharers too. I use SocialOomph to schedule tweets in advance, and an autoresponder series on AWeber. I think I could contact people more than I already do. I know I am leaving tools on the table. We can offer our audience options at various stages of the game: "Do you want more like this? A weekly digest?" via our newsletter provider, etc.

We can take the guessing out of it -- I bet we pull back long before we reach our audience's limit because we don't like to promote ourselves. We can do split-tests and get the stats on our side like Tim Ferriss.

On Pro Networks At Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Plus And Diaspora

In a discussion at the GlobalNiche LinkedIn group about BranchOut, here's what I had to say: BranchOut hopes to be the LinkedIn of Facebook -- we're getting that meta now -- but I have to say I've heard a lot of complaints about the way it works (and auto-posts things for you). I joined a while ago, did nothing with it. Not sure I'll need it either. But if it fills a gap in the way Facebook pro connections work, then it may be useful since Facebook is increasingly my contact book.

And, if it at the same time fills a gap in the way that LinkedIn works, then great. Those kind of solutions are really interesting to me.

I try things and see if they are useful. Plenty of things haven't been, other things were useful for the time I used them and then I was done. Still other apps have yet to show me what I might do with them.

In the end we have to use the networks that provide what we're looking for.

Personally, I am working on developing my weak ties and creating a diverse network that will not only help spread my content to their own groups, but also supply guidance and info and perspective that perhaps my stronger ties/morelikeminded contacts cannot. I don't know that I will spend even a minute on BranchOut, but it's not a random network (it's Facebook!) and for that reason worth it for me to be part of in whatever limited way.

I've tried other things like that open source network DIASPORA and no one was there! Great idea, maybe before its own time. Now Google has its own Facebook like network, Google+. Will eventually try that too. If it only amounts to having a profile there, not much trouble for me.

BTW, here's what's what about GOOGLE+ (for writers and publishers, but applicable to creative entrepreneurs): http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/what-publishers-authors-need-to-know-about-google_b33317

If you're on Google+ please connect with me! (So lonely...) Then we can test the group video chat HANGOUTS.

P.S. Here is Chris Brogan on 50 things about Google+ http://www.chrisbrogan.com/googleplus50/

Measuring Social Media Influence: Klout & Empire Avenue

In the GlobalNiche LinkedIn group, designer and writer Catherine Salter Bayar shared this piece from the New York Times -- "Got Twitter? What's Your Influence Score"  -- and asked the group if we've looked at Klout. I said that I took a look this week (actually checked out Klout a while back -- so now I have an OG badge there....as far as I know "OG" stands for "original gangster" so I'm not sure what they could possibly mean by it, ha)

There are strangenesses, like their claim I am influenced by @GigaOm, which is an account I don't even follow.

Most interesting to me is the STYLE matrix: Today I'm a "broadcaster", yesterday I was a "specialist" and I'd like to be a "tastemaker" like @brainpicker. The change in my score (today is 62) must be due to some large retweets I got today on topics other than the narrow ones they ascribe to me). What models do you aspire to on Twitter and where are they in the matrix of your followed accounts?

Writer and artist Rose Deniz said, "My Klout score is erratic, too, so I don't put a lot of emphasis on it in terms of influence, and I do notice that it's fluid based on your activity level - how sensitive it is to daily fluxes, I don't know."

"I've found Empire Avenue to be a better indicator (and more interesting) - it just tracks more stuff," responded global marketing strategist Kirsten Weiss.

"I think any sort of measurement system is bound to be full of flaws," said social media educator Charlene Kingston.

"At first glance, not sure I love Empire Avenue's verbiage - banking terms repel more than attract me," said Catherine Bayar.

Content Curation Is The New Black & Scoop.it Is The New Squidoo

Announcing Scoop.it.  Anyone who wants to demonstrate their expertise in a subject area will benefit from this new tool to scoop web content into a graphically-displayed archive. Takes minutes to get started. It makes those bookmarks enticing rather than a list of text links. I believe this is an improvement on Squidoo's "lenses", it's not as complicated and easier to share. "If you can't be the source, be the resource" is the thinking....but you can also be the source.

Here are some related links:

IS CONTENT CURATION THE NEW BLACK? http://www.jonathanfields.com/blog/curation-is-the-new-content-black/

CONTENT CURATION: WHY THE NEW CURATORS ARE BEATING THE OLD http://curationservices.com/content-curation-why-the-new-curators-are-beating-the-old/

CURATION IS THE NEW CREATION http://lindaziskind.com/curation-is-the-new-creation

And a Scoop-it page of one of GlobalNiche at LinkedIn's creative entrepreneurs:  Jan Gordon

http://www.scoop.it/t/content-curation-social-media