Social work habits: Reboot every now and then

In my role as a Creative Director, as in many jobs, an important part of each day's learning is to connect with colleagues. It's really one of the most powerful learning processes. Associate with smart people and you'll get smarter, that's what my Dad always said, and I know it to be true. Just about every day, I get into the office, grab a cup of java and on my path back to my desk I start the day's "conversation" by stopping in for a quick touchbase with Tom, Chris or Theresa. Usually in these short, informal discussions, I can count on getting and giving some bit of information that is going to make the day, and sometimes even the business, more productive.

Sounds normal and pretty much how business has been conducted for centuries, I'm sure. Only, this is Silicon Valley and this is now. In the last few months new people have been added to my morning walk and the "walk" has been changed to shorter bursts of conversation that last throughout the day. These people are from all over the globe and I converse with them via several means like @jgavilla on Twitter, netvibes, their blogs, linkedin and a few others. In just the last couple of years the tools have been created for anyone to easily expand their associations and daily conversations beyond their immediate, physical world.
Just this morning, I was turned on to Snocap, which I'll share with all my musician friends, a good article on social media spending, found out a good friend was going to be featured on CNBC tonight, and found a much easier way to blog using ScribeFire, which, incidentally has just about killed my preference for Safari (especially combined with PicLens!). And I haven't even gotten into the office and poured a cup of coffee...yet.

As the adoption of these tools become mainstream for business, pleasure, entertainment and more, how will the course of business and even society in general change?

Dad was right indeed and there has never, in the course of human history, been a better environment than the social web to associate with smart people, learn and share.

Social tech, future rock stars and brand fans.

One way or another, everybody wants a fan base of some sort. Could be your parents, your spouse/partner, if you're lucky, your kids. Ask any rock star, nothing is more valuable than your own legion of loyal fans. Social technology is creating, and reinforcing brands faster than ever. You don't have to look far for the evidence. Robert Scoble, Jeremiah Owyang, and Seth Godin are by all appearances building nice brands for themselves using, reporting and evangelizing social media and technology. 

And now, smart marketers are asking if, when and why they should sit up, listen and engage their customers in the course of building a brand fan base. Look, the Genie is out of the bottle. People, and companies are all benefitting from deploying a social media plan.

Is it luck, or can you orchestrate the building of brand fans through social technology? I like to think it's a little of both. Frankly, you can build a fan base if you have some social technology out there and good plan to use it. Here's a simple and true example:
Over the weekend of April 25-27, the school my children attend has their annual Spring festival. I run the entertainment for the weekend and was lucky enough to book a fantastic alternative rock band, called Punchface. These guys are fun, entertaining, great musicians, in other words, deliver on their brand promise in spades. They also had every teen and a lot of parents in a rock frenzy. By the end of their 2 hour set, I heard at least two new fans tell the lead singer that they had already visited the band's myspace page and signed up to be Close Friends of the band.

Two hours, two new super fans (who each bought a t-shirt and probably the iTunes downloads). Not bad, and it happened because the band was ready with the brand, product and social tech.