There are a few topics we cover in small talk that covers the spectrum of our lives in relationship to the world…the weather, food and entertainment. These are the conversations that make up the social fabric we live in, the foundation of our constructed reality.

How can you participate in the conversation? Check-in on FaceBook next time you get to a restaurant. See if anybody comments. No smartphone? Write a review on FaceBook as a status update or even on Yelp. Maybe post a reply to someone’s check-in, tell them what you ate or what movie you went to afterwards. See what happens. Find out for yourself if anybody cares what you think about a movie or concert or sporting event…

Do you know what I had for breakfast?

Listen More. Hear what people are saying. Whether you are meeting someone for the first time or they are an old client or friend, listening for the conversational cues that communicate what you need to know. When somebody says “call me,” they mean it. Avoid being the person who always says “let’s get lunch sometime,” and never follows up with an email or phone call. Be the person who calls, asks people to get together, stays in touch.

Listen More. I have a lot of information to share and I love to talk with people. This is a dangerous combination. I am committed to listening more, hearing what your ideas and/or problems are and finding out what kind of solution you are looking for. Remember, people generally know their business very well, they hold the secrets you need to mix in with the tools you bring to the party. In the best situations conversation is natural, this means we need to pay attention more to listening and identifying exactly how we can be a resource to someone. In the worst situations, you need to ask questions and get people talking. Find out what rubs them the wrong way and get yourself some material to engage with.

Why is this such a funny topic for social media? Whenever we post a status update or tweet, we are talking. Listening has become harder and harder. Easy ways to listen are as follows:
1) Search your name on Twitter (really easy thru the Twitter site or any of the software programs). Are people talking about you?
2) Read your friends posts on FaceBook, comment, “like” stuff, engage their media. FaceBook will become a lot more fun. and interesting. You will need to implement and fine tune your Lists on FaceBook if you are going to do this.
3) Check LinkedIn daily and see what kind of updates are coming thru your network. Read your connections recommendations, answers and their updates. Occasionally comment, always participate.

These are three easy ways to start listening more on your social and professional networks. As you listen more, you will get better at it and it will become easier. Listening Better – What We Need To Do in 2010. Start Now!

The future of business next year is LOCAL. Meaning get your local business integrated into Social Networks. Help them find the right aesthetic, communicate the most compelling message and truly be engaging. The message of customer service and discounts is very much 2008. The race to the bottom is on, the cream will rise to the top. Your local business does not need to “listen” to you, they need to find their voice and communicate their essence that makes you spend your money with them. This takes time, energy and commitment. As you connect up with your local businesses, remind yourself to support them (shop there). Increasingly, I am trying to eat local, shop local and work local. Become a Locavore, Go Local in 2010!

Education and social media has a long way to go. These websites are software, it takes time and a teacher to understand how to use them. If you are in the know, share it and help people use these tools more effectively. The smarter everyone gets with social media the more interesting these networks will get. This call to action starts at home – helping your significant other, spreads to helping a friend and then bringing your skills to a local business. When I look at the landscape, I don’t see big changes coming. Yahoo will continue to consistently fail at social networking, GoogleWave (sonicallstar@googlewave) is interesting but a very slow moving wave right now and I don’t see anything else really interesting happening. This means we need to focus on fundamentals (Back2Basics). Get really good with FaceBook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn. Learn how to Blog. Even if you are not an expert, engage people in the discussion and help them use their tools better. Each One Teach One!

As we hit the holiday season, I am increasingly obsessed with the idea of how can we help people. You may have seen me asking about KIVA recently. I asked people what they were doing in a Wave on GoogleWave and got 2 great responses. Susie Sharp mentioned she is putting in elbow grease and donating her time and energy. I love this and have encouraged her to Blog! Robert S. said “provide all possible assistance to people seeking work.” The more I thought about this simple and pure statement, the more I have become convinced it is the secret to ending the current recession and becoming an innovative and productive society again. If each of us helps someone we know get employed or even just stay employed we can get this economy back on its feet one person at a time. This is truly a grass roots effort.

As a bridge builder, you know that I love to introduce people to each other. Sometimes it is simply hey you both like this and I like both of you. Usually it is an introduction that I think will improve the business opportunities of both parties. My friend Mark J. hosts a wine and tequila night at his house to introduce people to each other and get his mutual friends working to help each other. In today’s market, it is about keeping people working. If you know someone that needs a job or wants to grow their business, keep an eye out for people or situations that will help them, then facilitate the introduction. In my not-so-humble opinion, this is the BEST thing you can do today! You can make a difference in the world! Start Now…We Are The World!

After advising you to get rid of some friends, I want to make sure you make some new friends. Susie is a 2009 friend who randomly entered my world of FaceBook. For the first month I debated hiding her as she posts a lot of links. Each day as I looked thru my news feed, I’d think…”Oy Vey…this crazy lady is going to kill me.” Yet each day, something Susie posted would interest me enough to keep her around for another day. Also, because I effectively use Lists on FaceBook (see earlier post), her frequent posts did not negatively impact my news feed. People like Susie keep FaceBook fresh and interesting, she is solid gold.

Along the way, we got together for coffee before work and got to know each other beyond FB. Instead of wanting to hide Susie, I look forward to seeing her around town, like last week at the Imagine Benefit. She stopped by to say hi and make a donation to help save kids enslaved in Nepal. As she met my family, I was reminded of the importance of going out. You will almost always run into people you know and be reminded of activities you should be following up on. Susie took the opportunity to remind me of the local blogger meet up by the Lake Erie Moose Society. I was planning on going, but the gentle reminder was enough to make me verbally commit. Susie is a VERY effective networker and I love the picture above, it really captures the exuberance Susie brings to everything she does.

As you are out over the holidays, keep your business cards handy and make some new friends. Follow up quickly on a network like LinkedIn and make plans to get together in January when all of our schedules slow down. Whatever you do, avoid letting those cards you collect sit in a pile gathering dust. You might put on a few pounds as you lighten the wallet eating lunch or breakfast out, but it is critical to your future that you stay social and engaged with your friends and network. Email, call, text, IM your people and get plans on the calendar. The more you listen, the more you share, the more you will find opportunities for you to help people and work together with people. Be More Social.

The title is a song we used to sing at the Windham Tolland 4-H Camp as we left Time For Thought. I sing it to Olivia today as it is still relevant to me and an important reminder. “Make New Friends, but Keep the Old…One is Silver and the Other is Gold.” I might have lost some of the words along the way, but I always hum a few verses and sing it somewhat randomly. What does this song mean to you???

Yes, I understand some of you are going to drop me after reading this post, I know I am fat to some of you (more ways than one). Yes, I will miss your status updates on FaceBook and recommendations on LinkedIn, but if I annoy you or simply don’t add value to you, then now is the time to cut me. Our social and professional networks have grown dramatically over the last two years. You are being overwhelmed by information and have to learn how to manage it. I think it is natural and healthy to add some random people over the course of the year. With trees and plants, sometimes you have to cut them back for them to grow, this is true for your networks as well. Open up some space in your life and then fill it with some new people.

I understand this may appear on a superficial level to be anti-effective networking. Fahgetaboutit. Yes, you should be using Lists on FaceBook and have edited your options at the bottom of the newsfeed so you can see more than 250 people. Yes you must check-in on LinkedIn regularly and look at your connections regularly. Still, you need to trim that 10% fat and add some new fat. Your online life will be more interesting as a result. If you dump me after this, no hard feelings – hopefully we can connect again in the future. See you on the other side.

Continuing with this line of thought, FaceBook added a similar feature to the Fan Pages. Now when you post as an Admin to a Fan Page you can specify what language or country you want the post to be seen by. This may only be useful to Fan Pages with large groups of Fans right now, but this is also a potentially powerful communication tool.

The good news to me is I am increasingly feeling like FaceBook is implementing well thought out logical features. The reality of FaceBook is you need to play with the features to get it. This is complex software that looks and feels very simple. It is not. If you want to dig deeper, you will find a high powered sports car waiting for you to drive it. By the way, I am pretty sure FaceBook is currently hosting more photos than any website in the world, put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Here comes the ReTweet features of Twitter! This should be an exciting feature to unfold. Itis nice to see Twitter evolving their product. This is just the start of a potentially powerful feature. While power users have been ReTweeting for a “long time” (fine not more than 3 years), software developers and users have really evolved this functionality and given Twitter reason to work on making this form of communication and sharing useful. One exciting feature is the ability to “undo” a ReTweet. It will be interesting to see if this truly works. I tried it and according to Twitter it worked

What else is exciting? You may have noticed Twitter is starting to get back to real time. You can see your messages piling up, encouraging you to refresh or simply click on home. FriendFeed started experimenting with the Live Feed several months before FaceBook purchased them. The Friendfeed real time engine truly works. Whether it is a scaling issue or simply integration FaceBooks Live News Feed has not been moving in real time for a few weeks. I suspect they are fine tuning this functionality to keep people from freaking out when they see their newsfeed updating without them doing anything. The geeks all complained a lot on Freindfeed when it was implemented (too fast too slow etc.). Because Twitter crashes so often currently, I fear what will happen when they actually start updating the feed in real time, with any luck they will license the technology from FaceBook.

In FaceBook, I use Lists to make it easy to keep up with all of my friends and connections. By managing my Lists effectively, I can slowly get to know as much as you share about yourself with me. I still have to check FaceBook regularly to keep up with the flow of information. On LinkedIn, I have to look at profiles and learn what you have done or are doing. I have to read the answers you post to questions and the recommendations you write. This is how I get to know you better. Twitter, I have to look at your links, analyze your content and get you offline and into the real world for coffee or wine…otherwise my memory does not retain enough information to match the face to the person.

Why is this important? Every day there are opportunities to connect people and make introductions. The better you know people the easier it is to see how you can help them. I put the work in to try and get to know you better, because I want to make the world a better place for all of us. This means looking at business cards at 11pm, following up on that email from this morning, commenting onthe micro level news occurring on various networks,  as well as sharing the seemingly boring details of our lives. Talk with me about food, wine, sports, politics and life. Share your pictures, passions, successes and failures. This is the only way we will get to know each other better.

Put the Work in. Grow Organically.  Develop deep strong roots. Bend – Be Flexible, it is better than simply breaking. Whatever you do, participate. We are waiting for you.