New media has knocked on the doors of the White House and the rest of the U.S. government twice in the last week or so, but it looks like no one is answering (so to speak).

 

First, a partial two minute 45 second video of USDA political appointee Shirley Sherrod giving an NAACP speech was posted by influential blogger (Who some people in the media still claimed not to know? Please. He's like the new Howard Stern.) Andrew Breitbart, which led to a knee-jerk reaction to it, and her subsequent firing. No need to rehash precisely what the video content was. But post-firing, the entire video came out, and as it turns out she was saying precisely the opposite of what the edited video made it seem like she was saying… because it was out of content.

 

Breitbart is blamed.

 

Second, the "whistle-blower" site called WikiLeaks has posted what it claims are tens of thousands of authentic Afghanistan war documents.  White House national security advisor James Jones "strongly condems" this action and complains that the website did not make efforts to contact the government before posting.

 

WikiLeaks is blamed.

 

These examples are not necessarily highly unique, but they are recent and back to back.  What's common between them is that (1) someone published information, (2) everyone affected is surprised, (3) the publisher is blamed.  What's interesting is that (1) is obvious, (2) is outdated, and (3) does no good.

 

I don't want to call him out in case he disagrees with this, but a wise Department of Defense person commonly says that the new media environment is "not a fortress to defend, but rather a field to maneuver within."  I think he is right.  Yet, despite some progress towards "open government" or "government 2.0" and an increased use of and reliance on new forms of media (check out DoD's new Social Media Hub), most leaders seem to not completely grasp its impact on the world around them.

 

The world has changed.  Everyone is a publisher and they do not adhere to journalistic standards and other quaint attitudes and rule sets and guidelines.  I am not making a value judgement here about what either Breitbart nor WikiLeaks do or did; however, people in the government – not to mention every other person in the civilized world – need to come to terms with the fact that they will do it and will not stop doing it.

 

The real question is not how to get back at them, nor how to stop them, nor how to regulate them, nor how to control information better, nor any one of a number of other issues that seem to get debated.  Those issues are largely irrelevant because they involve "defending the fortress" of information.  The issues that are relevant are those that involve "maneuver within the environment" of constantly published digital information. 

 

The true essence of "open government" is not adopting new tools, nor collaborating better, nor even providing better services to citizens.  That's all important.  But the true essence of open government is adopting a workplace culture that accepts the changed environment of media and adapts to it.  

 

Getting a Twitter account, a blog, and a Facebook fan page is not the end of the race. It's the starter's pistol. It's not graduation – it's the first day of class.

 

As I get ready to launch a new website, I've been thinking about what my priorities are with it, and how to measure if I'm accomplishing what I want to accomplish.  And so, one issue I've been thinking about is whether measuring things like blog hits or unique visitors or time spent on site is important (regardless of community), or if providing value to a community of people I help to build is the most important (regardless of size).

 

I tend to lean heavily towards the idea of building a meaningful community that I provide value to, and get value out of, online and off.  And while, of course, I'll run some analytics to see how I'm doing (I'd be sad if my posts got like, less than 100 hits or something), I'm not really concerned with pageviews.  What I really want are new community connections, invites to events where my presence could be useful, and emails where people thank me for consistently producing the website.  On some level, sure, 10,000 readers are better than 1000, and 1000 is better than 100.  But don't I want to get them organically rather than through some form of artificial insemination?  I think, yes.

 

Look, if your business model is to build a blog that gets lots of pageviews, and that in turn allows you to sell ads, I think that's fine.  I don't even have a problem with getting those pageviews at any cost.  But I think a lot of people are going about that wrong, tactically.  So, here's my advice for pumping up those pageviews and really building a highly trafficked web property.  Ready?

 

(1) Delete your current blog. It's really not worth the effort.

(2) Start a free blog using Blogger or something.

(3) Search Flickr for photos that are legal to use via Creative Commons.

          (3b) Make sure those photos are of beautiful people.

(4) Add some personalization using free photo editing software.

          (4b) Be creative with lolcat captions ("I POKE U LONG TIEM") or funny mustaches.

(5) Post photos relentlessly.

(6) Get to know everyone doing the same thing and link it all up.

(7) Measure pageviews and sell ads for lubricants and dirty movies.

(8) Count your cash on your brand new yacht.

 

Operating costs = $0 / year

Time spent working = 4 hours / week (Tim Ferriss would be so proud)

Estimated earnings = $1,000,000 / year

 

If you think this is silly, well, maybe it is.  But when it comes down to it, if the thing you care the most about, if the thing you are most competitive about, is eyeballs viewing your page, why spend time interviewing people at events or researching technology trends or giving opinions about sports?  I could beat you out in a tenth of the time with out-of-focus bikini shots that someone else took with a kiddie camera.

 

Oh wait – you want to do something meaningful? That's cool. Then don't worry about the pageviews and uniques and ad rates and all the rest of it.  Worry about great content that builds a community you can activate.  I know people who can declare a meetup and fill a huge restaurant with people on a few day's notice. I know people who can turn a city topsy-turvy with a festival.  Can you activate your community to do useful and interesting things, or just game them into clicking on links?

 

I guess the real question you have to ask yourself is, What business are you in?

 

Few people saw the gigantic housing/financial crisis coming, but independent investor Michael Burry did – back in 2005.  Terrific author Michael Lewis (Liar's Poker and others) has an excerpt from his new book The Big Short in a recent issue of Vanity Fair, called Betting on the Blind Side (double meaning, gotta read it) which is very interesting in itself.  But I took a few lessons from it that I think are useful to businesspeople, startup founders,a nd technologists. Here are a few of my thoughts.

 

Don't be afraid to be different, or original: Burry grew up different; he lost an eye and had a fake one. He was also later diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. He acted differently, he thought differently. He used that to take an original course in life, and make original, insightful investment decisions, even when his investors didn't necessarily believe in what he was doing.

 

Make a change to something you're passionate about: Burry started his career as a medical doctor, but it bored him. He learned about investing in stocks on the side and got interested in computers. That led to some investing, and also some blogging, and that eventually led to him leaving his Stanford residency to start a hudge fund in his home.

 

Give valuable gifts and you shall receive them: When he was a doctor, he would blog about value investing and trades he was making or thinking about… and bigger fish were reading his blog and making money off his ideas. But when Burry started Scion (his fund), his first investor was his biggest fan – a big fish in New York. That's how he made his first million.

 

Don't stop believing: In 2005, Burry started moving a lot of his investing interest from stocks to credit-default swaps on mortgage-backed securities. When many of his advisors became aware of this, they weren't happy and wanted explanations, and even their money back. Burry defended his idea and told them to hang on until 2007, when he made $100 million personally and $750 million for his investors.

 

Be happy with yourself: After the bubble burst, a lot of things changed in investing and in life. Burry made a big profit, auctioned off the rest of positions to banks, liquidated and then closed up shop to concentrate on his personal life. He ditched his unhappy (enriched) clients, pulled away from the big (unwise) banks, and continues to do is own thing, which presumably pleases him.

 

People in the blogosphere are very interested, and even congratulatory, on location-based service FourSquare's new round of venture funding, to the tune of $20 million. I've used the technology, it's very interesting. It was even "fun" for a time, which I think is important for building communities. And I've seen a lot of new friends and acquaintances checking it out.

 

But I also have no choice but to wonder – where is it going? In general, the fun aspects of the service – badges and points – are worth nothing, and when they are, there is often confusion about them – for example, numerous blog posts written by people unable to get Starbucks freebies.

 

In order for this – free stuff for checking in, basically – to work, there needs to be coordination and trust among four groups of people. Namely, (1) the geo-services company, (2) the users, (3) business owners and managers, and (4) line staff. I have personally seen a number of disconnects in which (for example) a manager advertises a special for being Mayor and a waitress has no idea what you're talking about.

 

I commented as much on ReadWriteWeb's article about FourSquare and its funding, which San Francisco Chronicle writer Nick Saint seems to have taken a bit out of context. But what I wrote is true: I was a bit excited about the company personally, tried reaching out to do something work-related with Microsoft and their publi sector business and had trouble connecting with anyone, and then became a bit dejected.

 

Far from what Nick Saint wrote, I don't think FourSquare will "fail" (I never wrote that), but I do think there's a fairly narrow discussion happening in the whole "geo-app" space. I don't necessarily see why FourSquare or Gowalla or even Facebook will necessarily be the market leader. People generally speak of these three as if they're predertermined.

 

That's based on the geo-app environment not changing. But it could change very easily. It goes back to trust – who do you trust for local information as an average consumer or user? Something like FourSquare or Gowalla? Or what about something like Yelp (which is now sometimes discussed)?

 

Let's take this a step further. What other location-based services do you broadly use? Maybe it's EveryBlock + MSNBC. Maybe it's OpenTable. Maybe it's CraigsList. There are probably a dozen or more similar sites that you trust, use, and that contain geo-information about businesses and other locations.

 

I look forward to seeing a lot more in this exciting location-based services space. From my personal vantage point, I think this: Deploying the app and making it cool isn't the real challenge. Building trust among the userbase is.

 

A recent story, titled "Twitter to hire White House liaison to help policymakers 'tweet more effectively'" reported that Twitter, Inc. of California plans to hire its first employee outside headquarters – in Washington, DC.  Great idea, except that the position seems like something useful from one or two years ago.

 

From the Telegraph UK:

The company, which has yet to employ anyone outside of San Francisco, is looking for someone to be the “closest point of contact with a variety of important people and organisations looking to get the most out of Twitter on both strategic and highly tactical levels”, according to the job advert.

The ‘Government Liaison’ will be responsible for helping Twitter understand what it can do “to better serve candidates and policymakers across party and geographical lines”. They will also “support policymakers use of Twitter to help them communicate and interact with their constituents and the world” and help set the culture and approach of a “fledgling public policy department”.

Twitter, Inc. needs a dose of reality here. Besides people like me who were using Twitter and other tools in and near government two years ago and more, there are now countless consultants working inside the Beltway to develop and carry out plans for using the service in combination with other tools for diverse government missions ranging for public affairs to military recruiting to national security. And while savvy senior leaders may certainly meet with someone from Twitter, they certainly don't really need Twitter's help to figure out how to use it for diplomatic relations; sorry, the State Department is better at using new media in a holistic manner than any group I know.

This appears like a company out of touch, hopping on a bandwagon. Good luck with this initiative Twitter Inc., but in all honesty, one person in DC to "advise policymakers on tactical issues" is trivial, and the help is really not needed. (Ironically, the leaders of Twitter are not the best at tactically using Twitter to help their company communicate with stakeholders … I'd rather see someone like Guy Kawasaki advising government public affairs on creatively communicating.) On the policy side with regard to telecommunications or privacy or related issues, it is not obvious that Twitter is as big of a player as say, Facebook. I'm curious to see who gets this job and how they make the most of it, but if I were Twitter, I'd get a better feel for Washington DC and then rewrite and advertise this six months from now.

 

What Twitter Inc. line employees really need to do is show up and participate and get some ground truth. I recently attended the wonderful Gov 2.0 Expo (in… wait for it… DC) and Personal Democracy Forum (in Manhattan, not exactly a hardship assignment) events, where people from Twitter could have mixed and mingled and listened and learned. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think anyone from Twitter attended. They must have been busy writing an uninformed job description from a San Francisco ivory tower.

 

Twitter's chairman Jack Dorsey is perhaps the single employee most in touch with Washington, DC.  As I type this he's in town, at least partly for a political fundraiser last night that used his innovative new device, Square (side note: I think Square is revolutionary and totally underappreciated as yet), and he among other things has participated in some work with the State Department and spoke at the Government 2.0 Summit last September. If nothing else, his advice might be more valuable at headquarters than people think.