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Medium vs. Twitter and The Tech War in San Francisco – ContextMatters Episode 4

Medium vs. Twitter

Have you used Medium the >140 version of Twitter? During the early days of social media, platforms such as WordPress and Blogger offered technology and networks to anyone with something to say. Over the years, blogging would give rise to a new generation of authoritative, engaging and entertaining voices that might not otherwise found their stage. At the same time, new social channels would emerge that would introduce a subtler more rapid form of publishing that focused on conversations and real-time sharing. Twitter would lead the way for a micro-blogging format which as we all know gave voices and connected audiences to millions and millions more.

What is the state of blogging vs. micro-blogging and does Medium introduce a new layer of meso-blogging?

Geeks vs. ?: Tech Culture War in San Francisco

If you lived in San Francisco during the famous days of Web 1.0 and the dotbomb bust, the bitter taste and hazy memories it left still linger. But now with the rise of Web 2.0, social media and entirely new waves of technology booms, San Francisco and Silicon Valley is harking back to the days of once-forgotten lore. Although this time, some argue, it’s worse. Legions of bright and hopeful geeks are rushing to San Francisco for the big gold rush of our time. Flush with cash and dreams, long-time residents and local establishments are unwillingly thrust into throes of change. For reasons that are justified and others that aren’t, some of those not in the tech community are starting to fight back and protest tech’s new footprint.

Is this behavior justified and is the tech community helping or hurting itself? Where are local government officials in all of this?

Listen to ContextMatters

Episode 4

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The 80s Called, They Want Their Contact Center Back

Customer experience is meant to be evocative not reactive…

We are entering an era of customer-centricity, mostly because we have to. But also, because employing a customer focus is the right thing to do. I guess businesses lost their way at some point. Blame quarterly earnings. Blame technology. Blame politics. But over the years, we overlooked the importance of the “C” and “R” and instead scaled the “M” in CRM. It didn’t hurt that we found ways to save time and money in the process of promoting management, cost-control and efficiency over customer experiences.

I don’t believe executives aim to deliver substandard experiences. I really don’t. In fact, 88% of all businesses actually believe that they deliver great customer service. Yet only 8% of their customers agree. Saying that there’s a disconnect is an understatement at best. But it is representative of a significant experience gap that exists between the experience we promise and the experiences people have and share.

A large part of the problem is how we see the role and value of customer engagement in overall business. Anyone working in the game knows all too well that investing in customer retention is a far more cost-effective strategy than that of customer acquisition. Yes both are important. But by reducing anything related to the experience of existing customers, you’re essentially pushing them out and relying on customer growth programs to find people to constantly take the place of deserters. It’s a revolving door where you only win if more people come in than leave. Who wants to do business that way?

Intelligent speech processing technology company Nuance Communications commissioned a survey of 1,000 American consumers to reveal current perceptions about customer service departments. The study found that nine out of ten consumers report that a company’s customer service has a significant impact on their decision to do business with them. More so, the majority of American consumers (74 percent) did not rate the customer service they’ve received in the last twelve months an “A” grade.

On the other hand, many consumers also said that they respond positively if they receive good customer service. In the Nuance study, 80 percent of consumers say they’ve taken action following a good experience. For example, more than one-third said they have recommended the company to friends and family or conducted more business with that company (34 percent).

If excellent customer engagement works, then why is it that I have to take the time to write this article? And, I’m not the only one bringing this up either.

The answer is that customer service and support are functions that are still viewed and run as cost-centers and not as strategic investments in customer experiences. This is a shame because study after study shows that a wonderful customer experience boosts customer loyalty and advocacy and establishes a tremendous competitive advantage.

Speaking of cost centers…

The 80s Called, They Want The Contact Center Back

Just look at the call center as one example of just how far we got away from prioritizing meaningful and delightful customer experiences. It should hurt. It should cause duress. It shouldn’t force people away from us.

If you’re like me and if I’m like you, we dread calling any company. We know that we’re going to have to lose our minds pressing buttons until we get a human being on the line. We know going in that we’ll completely suffer from a complete loss of sanity from having to re-explain ourselves over and over as we are transferred between departments.

It shouldn’t to be this way, but it is unfortunately. In most cases, we have no choice. We need to accomplish things and by calling, we’re committing to getting an answer or mission achieved in the moment.

The problem is that though customer experiences are paramount, investing in and measuring their success is elusive or under appreciated or both. Businesses tend to favor quantity of customer engagements over quality and also expediency over experience.

The call center is in need of a renaissance in both purpose and focus. To do so, executive teams also need to undergo a renaissance to move from management to that of leadership. And, that starts with vision and puspose.

With roots traced to the late 1950s to 1960s, call centers were initially designed to scale outbound and inbound calls. As time went on, new technologies and behavioral engagement strategies enabled call centers to handle greater volume and responsibilities. Suddenly call centers were the go to model for facilitating all forms of mass engagement ranging from sales to customer service and support to customer retention. As time went on and capabilities expanded, soaring costs and management challenges ultimately made the case for many businesses to contract outsourced call center solutions. To save money and also to ramp up resources quickly, some of the largest outsourced facilities resided outside of the United State in countries where English was a second language at best.

Why the rapid-fire history lesson on call centers?

For the most part, call centers served their purpose over the decades. Everything was fine until it wasn’t. That time to change is here. Actually, it’s overdue. What the call center was designed to do and how it was both valued and also measured for success are part of an eroding mode of business that has no place in the future of customer experience.

The great irony here however are the words customer service or customer support. Clearly, we are missing opportunities to provide service or support in ways people value. Actually contacting customer support almost seems like a last resort. In fact, customers are taking it upon themselves to find answers online with 82% of consumers agreeing that they only contact customer service when they can’t find an answer online according to Nuance. It’s often just easier or more pleasant that having to talk to the a company’s customer support front line.

We hate them. We need them. But with purpose, renovation and some serious unlearning, these existing assets can be rebuilt and retrained to deliver exception customer experiences, cultivate relationships and drive business value.

Customers have repeatedly expressed that they will gladly pay a premium for products if they believed that a premium customer experience was a given. It’s sad but true that customer experience can become a competitive advantage rather than a commodity, but so be it.

Customer support, service, and form of customer engagement really, are clearly ripe for disruption and innovation. Price, process, technology, et al., further distanced us from customers. But the same set of ingredients can bring us closer than ever before.

Call centers are on the front line right now. They can do better. But we need to first accept that the role they play today is not actually shaping customer experiences but hindering or degrading them.

Experience takes vision and it takes architecture.

Imagine if technology, process, systems, metrics, were driven by a higher purpose?

Sales, service, support, loyalty, every facet of the customer journey and lifecycle, could and would be improved. Customer-centricity would truly form the center of our intentions and work. Then and only then, would meaningful relationships become a byproduct of the experiences we set out to create and cultivate.

What a wonderful world it would be…

Connect with me… Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook | Youtube | Instagram | Pinterest

Angry Customer Picture:

Customer Experience is Meant to be Evocative not Reactive

We are entering an era of customer-centricity, mostly because we have to. But also, because employing a customer focus is the right thing to do. I guess businesses lost their way at some point. Blame quarterly earnings. Blame technology. Blame politics. But over the years, we largely overlooked the importance of the “C” and “R” in Customer Relationship Management and instead sought to scale and optimize the “M” in CRM. It didn’t hurt that we found ways to save time and money in the process of promoting management, cost-control and efficiency over customer experiences.

I don’t believe executives aim to deliver substandard experiences. I really don’t. In fact, 88% of all businesses actually believe that they deliver great customer service. Yet only 8% of their customers agree. Saying that there’s a disconnect is an understatement at best. But it is representative of a significant experience gap that exists between the experience we promise and the experiences people have and share.

A large part of the problem is how we see the role and value of customer engagement in overall business. Anyone working in the game knows all too well that investing in customer retention is a far more cost-effective strategy than that of customer acquisition. Yes both are important. But by reducing anything related to the experience of existing customers, you’re essentially pushing them out and relying on customer growth programs to find people to constantly take the place of deserters. It’s a revolving door where you only win if more people come in than leave. Who wants to do business that way?

Intelligent speech processing technology company Nuance Communications commissioned a survey of 1,000 American consumers to reveal current perceptions about customer service departments. The study found that nine out of ten consumers report that a company’s customer service has a significant impact on their decision to do business with them. More so, the majority of American consumers (74 percent) did not rate the customer service they’ve received in the last twelve months an “A” grade.

On the other hand, many consumers also said that they respond positively if they receive good customer service. In the Nuance study, 80 percent of consumers say they’ve taken action following a good experience. For example, more than one-third said they have recommended the company to friends and family or conducted more business with that company (34 percent).

If excellent customer engagement works, then why is it that I have to take the time to write this article? And, I’m not the only one bringing this up either.

The answer is that customer service and support are functions that are still viewed and run as cost-centers and not as strategic investments in customer experiences. This is a shame because study after study shows that a wonderful customer experience boosts customer loyalty and advocacy and establishes a tremendous competitive advantage.

Speaking of cost centers…

Just look at the call center as one example of just how far we got away from prioritizing meaningful and delightful customer experiences. It should hurt. It should cause duress. It shouldn’t force people away from us.

If you’re like me and if I’m like you, we dread calling any company. We know that we’re going to have to lose our minds pressing buttons until we get a human being on the line. We know going in that we’ll completely suffer from a complete loss of sanity from having to re-explain ourselves over and over as we are transferred between departments.

It shouldn’t to be this way, but it is unfortunately. In most cases, we have no choice. We need to accomplish things and by calling, we’re committing to getting an answer or mission achieved in the moment.

The problem is that though customer experiences are paramount, investing in and measuring their success is elusive or under appreciated or both. Businesses tend to favor quantity of customer engagements over quality and also expediency over experience.

The call center is in need of a renaissance in both purpose and focus. To do so, executive teams also need to undergo a renaissance to move from management to that of leadership. And, that starts with vision and puspose.

With roots traced to the late 1950s to 1960s, call centers were initially designed to scale outbound and inbound calls. As time went on, new technologies and behavioral engagement strategies enabled call centers to handle greater volume and responsibilities. Suddenly call centers were the go to model for facilitating all forms of mass engagement ranging from sales to customer service and support to customer retention. As time went on and capabilities expanded, soaring costs and management challenges ultimately made the case for many businesses to contract outsourced call center solutions. To save money and also to ramp up resources quickly, some of the largest outsourced facilities resided outside of the United State in countries where English was a second language at best.

Why the rapid-fire history lesson on call centers?

For the most part, call centers served their purpose over the decades. Everything was fine until it wasn’t. That time to change is here. Actually, it’s overdue. What the call center was designed to do and how it was both valued and also measured for success are part of an eroding mode of business that has no place in the future of customer experience.

The great irony here however are the words customer service or customer support. Clearly, we are missing opportunities to provide service or support in ways people value. Actually contacting customer support almost seems like a last resort. In fact, customers are taking it upon themselves to find answers online with 82% of consumers agreeing that they only contact customer service when they can’t find an answer online according to Nuance. It’s often just easier or more pleasant that having to talk to the a company’s customer support front line.

We hate them. We need them. But with purpose, renovation and some serious unlearning, these existing assets can be rebuilt and retrained to deliver exception customer experiences, cultivate relationships and drive business value.

Customers have repeatedly expressed that they will gladly pay a premium for products if they believed that a premium customer experience was a given. It’s sad but true that customer experience can become a competitive advantage rather than a commodity, but so be it.

Customer support, service, and form of customer engagement really, are clearly ripe for disruption and innovation. Price, process, technology, et al., further distanced us from customers. But the same set of ingredients can bring us closer than ever before.

Call centers are on the front line right now. They can do better. But we need to first accept that the role they play today is not actually shaping customer experiences but hindering or degrading them.

Experience takes vision and it takes architecture.

Imagine if technology, process, systems, metrics, were driven by a higher purpose?

Sales, service, support, loyalty, every facet of the customer journey and lifecycle, could and would be improved. Customer-centricity would truly form the center of our intentions and work. Then and only then, would meaningful relationships become a byproduct of the experiences we set out to create and cultivate.

What a wonderful world it would be…

Connect with me… Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook | Youtube | Instagram | Pinterest

Angry Customer Picture:

ContextMatters Episode 3: Brian Williams, The Future of Social Media + The Anti-Vaccine Movement

Three weeks in and three episodes are now online. Chris Saad and I really got into these topics in the latest episode of ContextMatters. There are parts that are charged and definitely NSFW. We stray a bit away from tech to tackle timely subjects related to journalism and the future of social media as well as the hotly debated topic of vaccinations.

Schedule

Topic 1: First up is Brian Williams and the controversy surrounding his news coverage in Iraq. We discuss this, the state of journalism in a real-time world and also how social media affects The 3C’s of Information: creation, consumption and curation.

Context: Brian Williams was caught telling multiple versions of a helicopter attack while in Iraq covering the war. He has since taken a voluntary leave of absence. We also explore whether or not there is a rising lack of credibility in mainstream media. And, what role does good old fashion trust play in the audience exodus?

Topic 2: The Anti-Vaccination Movement and Silicon Valley

Wired Magazine uncovered alarmingly low vaccination rates at some of the biggest Silicon Valley tech companies with onsite day care centers and the impact this has in society.  We also discuss the rise of anti-vaccination and anti-science conversations and (mis)information in a social media world.

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Companies Profit When Customers Suffer

You’ve heard it a million times, a happy customer tells a couple of people and an unhappy customer tells everyone. Yet to this day, executives tend to run business strategy with an emphasis on transactions over experiences. More so, business value is expressed in short-term performance metrics and reports to an audience of shareholders and stakeholders over the very people who keep them in business…your customers. It’s all a bit absurd when you think about it.

I know, I know…it’s only business. But, what if business were personal again?

The other day, I read an article that made my jaw drop. In fact, it’s still bruised from hitting the desk with such incredible force. The title of the piece hit home, which is why I clicked through without haste, “Why Airlines Want to Make You Suffer.” The article was written by Tim Wu for The New Yorker and in it, he shares the gut-wrenching but sense-making reality of why flying sucks and why the customer experience with many airlines comes down to three letters: WTF.  Turns out there’s money to be made in not just transporting people around the world at 500 mph, that’s yesterday’s business model after all! Instead, squeezing customers for extra dollars in every way is part of a program airline executives employ that can be best described as “strategic suffering.”

See, the more a passenger hates the experience, the more they’re willing to pay  incremental fees to avoid repeating it. That’s the theory anyway. These include the following uncommon anomalies some hopeless passengers may endure…

Waiting in line to check in at the counter.

Pushing your way through the cattle call when boarding commencing,

Clamoring for that last overhead bin space that someone else seems to always get.

Doing a last minute repack when you learn your bag weighs just over the maximum allotment.

Having to push their knees against the seat in front of them to mimic a comfortable seating position.

Tussling with your neighbor over space because seats are practically stacked on top of each other these days.

Beg to be treated as a human being by airline representatives.

Losing status because you fly a lot but you don’t pay premium prices for premium seats and services.

Indeed, we’ve all been there.  As Wu notes in his article…

Hate the Flying Experience? You’re Welcome

Bill McGee, a contributing editor to Consumer Reports who worked in the airline industry for many years, studied seat sizes and summarized his findings this way: “The roomiest economy seats you can book on the nation’s four largest airlines are narrower than the tightest economy seats offered in the 1990s.”

So, why do we suffer this? Why do we tolerate such intentionally shoddy experiences? I believe the answer is as simple as it is profound. It’s because we have to. And if we don’t like it, we can pay for a better experience.

More seats means more revenue.

Wider seats with more legroom equals more revenue.

Guaranteed space in the overhead bin equates to more money.

You get the idea.

It’s not unlike the pain and misery consumers cope with to have the privilege of subscribing to cable or wireless companies. I laugh when I receive emails and txts from these faceless service providers asking if “I’m likely to recommend said company to someone.”

Um, how about no!?

The point is that customer experience should trump everything. Customers have preferences. They choose to support companies that appreciate them. And you know that we live in a sad state of affairs when good customer service makes us feel at ease. You know things are pathetic when today’s customers are willing to pay a premium just to avoid a negative experience.

Wall Street vs. Customer Experience

JetBlue for example has stood up for the everyday flyer over the years. It’s one of the reasons customers love the airline. In fact, they are loyal to the company simply because they’re valued and as such, the customer experience is at the heart of everything. As such, JetBlue refused to follow the pack of hoodlum airlines that colluded in the standardization of extra fees as part of this “strategic suffering” campaign. JetBlue was rewarded for this stance having posted consistent profits and a rising stock over the years while other greedy airlines have underperformed.

But no, the market, meaning Wall Street, won’t have it. They can’t see the benefit of customer experiences and the impact of positive reinforcement on the bottom line. I guess you can’t trade on something so fluffy. Instead, Wall Street analysts and shareholders alike accused JetBlue of being “overly brand-conscious and customer-focused.”

Cue the screeching brakes.

Wall Street has spoken and JetBlue CEO Dave Barger was replaced by Robin Hayes, someone Wall Street hopes is willing to embrace extra fees, narrower seats, and diminished customer experiences…unless they’re willing to pay for something better.

Stifel analyst Joseph DeNardi who pushed for the ouster of Barger celebrated the concerted moans of customers everywhere with a monologue worthy of a Bond villain, “JetBlue is in a nice position where it can do no wrong. Bad news is good news because they will be more likely to pursue a more shareholder friendly business strategy.”

If only shareholders flew like the rest of the people whose experience they’re deliberately compromising.

Now Hayes is wrestling with the balance between appeasing passengers and Wall Street.

To appease investors, Hayes recently announced that JetBlue will add a fee for the first checked suitcase. It’s estimated that this new perk (note the sarcasm) is estimated cash in an additional $200 million annually in the next two years. To ease passenger frustration and improve in flight customer experiences for those in economy, JetBlue will also add 15 seats to its current layout. Profits up. Legroom down. Why does personal space matter anyway?

The most interesting thing here is that JetBlue’s brand was built upon a foundation of customer experience. What happens when the experience dramatically (and intentionally) wanes?

Profits go up sure. But what happens over time? Brand value falls and shareholder value rises for a while. Then what?

It’s Time for Us to Go Our Separate Ways: It’s Not Me, It’s You

What if we cared enough about people to deliver incredible experiences that naturally fed profitable transactions? Said another way, what if we invested in customer experiences so that they were meaningful and more so, what if we rewarded customers not just for their business but also for their digital influence? That’s right, positive conditioning.  Investing money, time and resources in the very thing that creates a community of customers willing to pay for a better customer experience at large?

See, investing in strategies that makes doing business with you so incredible eliminates or voids religious metrics such as Net Promoter Score (NPS).

It’s “would you refer someone?” vs. “did you refer someone?”

The answer comes down to the experience someone has and shares. That takes intent and design. Furthermore, the answer to either question should never be an unknown, a surprise nor assumed. The answer is designed as a result of the intentional investment made in meaningful and valued customer experiences. Any brand that places stakeholder or shareholder value above customer experience are simply out of touch with customer preferences, expectations and their power to demand something better. Because, given time and opportunity, they will.

Profit is important. But, a little empathy goes a long way. What starts with experience ends in long-term relationships. And, that’s priceless. People shouldn’t dread doing business with you. Nor should we make human beings pay to suffer a little bit less. In the end, customers and their experiences, are everything.

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Photo Credit: LIFESIZE / GETTY IMAGES via TIME

ContextMatters Episode 2: T.J. Miller and ‘Bitchgate’ and CNN’s Sex, Drugs and Silicon Valley

Welcome to the second episode of ContextMatters. My co-host Chris Saad and I are having fun recording this series. More so, we’re enjoying expanding the community beyond our world here in Silicon Valley to explore the things that affect business, tech and culture.

In this episode, we take out our macro lens to look closely at the strange fascination with what could best be described as Silicon Valley’s unconventional behavior.

Listen (also embedded below).

Schedule

Topic 1: We attempt to unravel the bizarre incident involving “Silicon Valley” star T.J. Miller at The Crunchies award show.

Context: T.J. Miller lambasted Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and his girlfriend (also an exceptional violist) Gabi Holzwarth with racist and sexist jokes from the stage. The 8th annual Crunchies, tech’s most infamous award show, will now also be known as “BitchGate.” It also made headlines at TMZ of all things and launched a Web-wide debate as to whether this behavior was offensive or whether Silicon Valley needs to get over itself.

Topic 2: Love is in the air. And according to CNN’s controversial new series, “Sex, Drugs and Silicon Valley,” there’s so much of it [love] in Silicon Valley that people are choosing non-monogamous relationships among other things.

Context:  The new series hosted by Laurie Segall, has already broadcast episodes that explore the undercurrent of Silicon Valley relationships, swinging parties, psychedelics, smart drug use, burning man and more. Why? The answer is because it’s a big part of what makes the culture of Silicon Valley what it is for better or for worse.

Behind the Scenes Bonus Material: We interview one of CNN’s featured subjects on the topic of non-monogamy aka polyamory Chris Messina. Chris is also a dear friend of ours and is widely known globally for his creation of the popular #hashtag on Twitter and other social networks. He’s also a pretty amazing person. Listen (#NSFW).

 

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GetVOIP: The 35 Best Entrepreneur Blogs

GetVOIP published a list of the “35 Best Blogs” to help entrepreneurs pursue their dreams. Brian Solis was ranked number 1.

Excerpt:

The road of the entrepreneur can be challenging and exhilarating, frustrating and isolating, inspiring and exhausting, sometimes all in the same week. For people invested in starting their own business, the perspective of others who have been there, who are there right now, can be invaluable. Blogs play a huge role in sharing information, opening up experiences, and encouraging entrepreneurs to take risks and work smarter. But wading through the thousands of blogs out there to get to the really good stuff is a daunting task. To get your 2015 blogroll off to a great start, we’ve rounded up a list of excellent blogs aimed at small businesses just getting started. In no particular order, here are 35 of our favorites.

1. Brian Solis

Blogger, author, speaker and self-proclaimed digital analyst/anthropologist/futurist Brian Solis has a lot to say about how disruptive technology intersects with our lives, both in business and in society as a whole. He works at the principal of the Altimeter Group, a research and advisory firm.

Click here for the rest of the list.

Attention is a Precious Commodity: Earn it and Spend it Wisely

There’s an oft-shared quote that I’d also love to share with you here, “If I had more time, I would have written you a shorter letter.”  French mathematician, physicist, writer and philosopher Blaise Pascal essentially captured the essence of thoughtful and purposeful communication with a bold but confusing statement in 1657.

At first blush, his words almost seem counter-intuitive. I mean after all, how can spending more time writing a letter equate to its downsizing?

That’s the point.

That’s the elusive yet magical nature of this attention economy. And, it’s both a challenge and also an opportunity to compete in it and for it.

In a digital world, we, you and me, have created an incredible human network. We each part of it and we each model it. In many ways, Gutenberg’s press democratized information by allowing enterprising individuals and groups to produce tangible and shareable content at scale. That was 1439. Of course, digital has only made the platform for moveable type and the ability to create and publish content far more efficient. The ability to create and distribute information is now pervasive. It’s easy, maybe too easy.

I used to say that news no longer, it Tweets. Information shared on Twitter, when the network effect kicks in, spreads faster than the world has ever known. In some cases, even the most remote news can break around the world in minutes. This is the power and the awe-inspiring nature of the human network, the fastest, most efficient way for information to spread while making its way to those who are looking for or open to it.

This human network, those individuals connected by the relationships they form across social networks, online communities and mobile apps, complements the freedom and ubiquity of content creation with a global, high-speed, always-on peer-to-peer or human-to-human distribution network. That’s the allure and fascination of this social media.

Information finds its way to people through other people at implausible speeds. It’s a network effect I refer to as connecting social objects to audiences with audiences with audiences of their own. And what makes it so fascinating is that as information travels across networks, the common interests that form every relationship qualifies and routes any given topic to those who would or could find it interesting or relevant. This amazing efficiency will only advance with technology and practice.

For the people by the people. That’s what this is about.

No more sucking from the exhaust pipe of big media or corporate content engines. Now we are the press. And to be honest, this is both a blessing and a curse.

But with social media comes great responsibility.

Information is power as they say. In an odd twist of fate though, it is this ability to readily publish, share and remix information, that can contribute to a diminishing return on relationships. That’s not what this is about.

Sometimes we move too quickly.

What we find interesting and in turn share through our networks contributes the nature and state of our relationships. Just because we have the ability to share doesn’t mean we should do so without regard or intention.

These marvelous relationships in which we forge and invest blossom into living and breathing organisms that reach and touch people around the world. When you stop and think about it, it’s all pretty wonderful. What we share and create sparks engagement, communication and collaboration. And what’s truly inspiring about all of this is that those interactions and the value of the communities in which we invest are OURS to define and shape.

As my friend Steve Rosenbaum believes, by sharing what’s interesting to us must also find interest in those with whom we’re connected. This thoughtful sharing creates a curation nation where the relationships and the byproduct of our connections is not only valued by all who contribute to the community, over time it helps us grow as individuals.

We learn. We discover. We gain perspective. We garner new insights. In turn, what we share and how we share it contributes to the enlightenment and entertainment of those around us. We develop and progress as people and as a group simply by what we share and how we participate.

This brings me back to Blaise Pascal. Our communities are defined by the sum of what we create, curate and collaborate. By spending more time before doing so, taking into consideration the very people we wish to engage, we strengthen our personal relationships while also upgrading the global potency of the human network.

And I think to myself, what a wonderful world…this could be.

To create is divine.

To curate is human.

The preceding work is an alternate foreword I wrote for Steve Rosenbaum’s latest book, “Curate This,” which helps readers learn the ins and outs content curation. The final foreword that made it to print can be read here.

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Why is AirBnB Singled Out by Government When Web 1.0 Competitors are Ignored?

Bloomberg’s Christian Thompson recently published a story on AirBnB and how it is and isn’t different than many Web 1.0 sites such as HomeExchange or HomeAway. Although only one or two lines from our discussion made the final story, the question and the answer are significant enough to share in this short post.

Bloomberg: My question was why an outfit like Airbnb gets all this heat when something like Home Exchange doesn’t? My French in-laws use it all the time to swap their apartment in Nice with someone’s abode here in the states, and it doesn’t seem like there’s any noise about that. Is there a difference, real or perceived, in the eyes of the law or regulators, between those two kinds of operation?

Brian Solis: HomeExchange, specifically, is a very popular service that plays by Web 1.0 rules. Its users are Web savvy and also understand the home exchange/property rental game. If you think about it, exchanging homes is a very specific usage application where people get something for something where money is usually out of the transaction. An exchange is an uncomplicated way to participate in the sharing economy. I’d argue that AirBnB though is not sharing or collaborative, it’s good ole fashioned renting. As such, it opens up new doors to complicated financial and legal scenarios that the company and its early adopters under estimated or overlooked.

Some people are renting properties that violate their leases. Others are evicting long term tenants to turn assets into short-term rental profit centers. An unfortunate user or two learned the hard way about renting out property longer than 30 days and the issues that opens up especially in California. A few have had their rental properties trashed only to find out that AirBnB wasn’t going to help. The list goes on and on.

AirBnB opened up the short term rental market to owners and lessees which meant that a lot of people were figuring things out en masse all while playing out challenges and issues in the public spotlight. For better or for worse, these experiences served as the foundation for great PR for the company which of course earned the attention of regulators, lawyers and the like.

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ContextMatters Episode 1: Uber, Microsoft HoloLens and Why “Women Shouldn’t Code”

I’m proud to introduce you to “Context Matters,” a new podcast hosted by my good friend Chris Saad and yours truly. This is a long time in the making and we finally committed to this series as a long-term program.

Context Matters explores discussions at the intersection of business, technology and culture. My co-host, Chris Saad (@ChrisSaad) is a geek at heart and a long-time player in the startup community. Saad the co-founder of The Echo Experience Studio and spends his time building products, ecosystems, standards. He also starts and advises many startups.

Our premier episode tackles some very timely and in some cases sensitive subjects including Uber, Microsoft HoloLens and why  “Women Shouldn’t Code.” Before you react to the last part, take a listen. It’s in quotes because it’s in reference to a headline of a controversial article we discuss.

Episode 1 Table of Contents:

Topic 1: Uber is evolving its pitch to “Job creator” and “Environmental champion”

Context: ReCode and BusinessInsider

Topic 2: Microsoft announces HoloLens. How does it compare and contrast with Google Glass and Oculus Rift? Where will this kind of technology go?

Context: The Verge

Topic 3: Why Women Should Code

Context: “Women Shouldn’t Code” – At least according to Francine Hardaway (Note: It doesn’t play out like the headline suggests) and Rebuttal by Kelly Ellis

Follow ContextMatters on: Soundcloud | Facebook | Twitter| iTunes