If Alexander Graham Bell were alive today, do you suppose he’d call himself a Telephone Guru? Probably not. In fact, no one does. Except maybe this guy.

Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, and Biz Stone certainly don’t call themselves Social Media Gurus (though, they probably could without much resistance).

How many years of analyzing different forms of media does it take to become a Media Expert? How long do you need to study people and social situations before you become a Social Expert? So why does it only take a Twitter account and a merging of those two words to earn people’s trust and the ability to steal their money?

I’ve never met a Social Media Expert, though I’ve met several people who claim to be. I’ve certainly met people who are knowledgeable about certain platforms. But only rarely someone who was so knowledgeable on a specific platform that they should be called “an expert”.

Having taught weekly classes on social media tools, I can safely say that I am not an expert, either. What I can say is this: beware the Guru. Challenge their credentials at every turn, because it takes some serious effort to learn enough to even *teach* these tools.

Clear results speak for themselves; truly talented social media practitioners rarely have to (their audience does it for them).

Take, for instance, last year when I totally botched Brian Schwartz’s 50 Interviews site transfer. He wanted a MultiUser WordPress installation, and I was confident I’d be able to deliver on time.

I couldn’t, Brian had two days of intermittent outages, and I had to face the facts that I had really messed up. I asked Brian to give me a quote I could use to relate the story:

“Moving my site to a new server proved to be far more stressful than I could ever imagined, and Nick probably underestimated the actual work involved in moving 8 different sites to a new server. While I did experience some stress during the 2 days my site was up and down, and while Google even knocked be off many of the rankings.. within a week, everything was back to normal and working smoothly, even Google managed to put me back on the search pages where I had been dropped. I appreciate Nick being available when I called and sticking with the job until all was back to normal.” – Brian Schwartz, 50 Interviews.

When I realized I’d bombed, the first thing I did was tell Brian how sorry I was, cut the project cost to half of what I’d estimated (I had actually done SOME good work there, before screwing up), and repaired the damage for free until everything was set right.

I’m very open about my successes and my failures – 100% transparent. I, sometimes unfairly, expect the same from everyone I interact with. Personal or business, I want straightforwardness and clarity – anything else is disrespectful to our very limited time (yours and mine).

I’m fast to point out anything I recognize as ethical fallacies (even my own); I don’t do it to be a jerk or to drag anyone down, but because I expect everyone to play fairly. In most cases, my criticism is met with a burned bridge.

I’m surprised that grown adults can behave so irrationally; if someone cares enough about you to point out a powder keg on your bridge, why would anyone respond by lighting the powder keg on fire? Burning bridges is an act of war; if I help you by pointing out your douchebaggery (straightforward though I may be), what good does it do to flip me off and continue being a douchebag?

When I f*ck up, here’s what I do – it seems to work pretty well for me:

• Say “I’m Sorry” to any stakeholders – if you stepped on someone’s toes, it’s the least (the very least) you can do;
• Learn the who, what, where, why, when, and how of the situation so you can offer an explanation (if they care) and avoid repeating the problem in the future;
• Bend over backwards (if the complaint is legitimate) to correct the problem to the stakeholder’s satisfaction, or if it was less-than-legitimate, offer a compromise that works for both;
• Actually correct the problem/follow through with the compromise;
• Talk openly and honestly about the whole process, from start to finish – with any stakeholders to the situation;
• Accept the consequences and move on as fast as possible.

It’s impossible to avoid f*cking up entirely, so always mitigate damage whole-heartedly. Feelings and ethics are subjective; if someone cares enough to tell you there’s a problem, it’s important to listen and react objectively. One discontented voice usually becomes a choir, especially if the complaint is completely insane.

Google is bringing fiber optic internet to a city soon. It may be Fort Collins.

To make it happen – create something cool, funny, or post pictures of you begging and then submit it to: http://www.google.com/appserve/fiberrfi/public/options

I’m going to be going around with a Flip over the next weeks and recording some people for Fiber 4 Fort Collins – new a Tumblr site in support of making this happen.

One of my best friends, Kevin Buecher, before I knew him as well as I do today, stood in front of 50-60 inspiration-seekers – showing them that they had the tools they needed all on their own.

I was inspired… Kevin had done what I was hoping to do; he beat me to it, in fact – starting LaidOffCamp in Fort Collins. But I wasn’t mad or jealous; I wanted to help. So I dove in to see what it was all about first-hand.

I led two sessions: one on how to write a better resume and one on how to use social media to expedite a job search.

A month before LaidOffCamp Fort Collins #2, Kevin asked me to come back and lead a few more sessions. He asked because my name kept coming back on the evaluations as the most helpful session. After a successful LaidOffCamp Fort Collins #2, Kevin invited me over for lunch and asked me to help him facilitate LaidOffCamp Fort Collins #3 by kicking off the event.

The evaluations from LaidOffCamp Fort Collins #3 asked for Kevin to kick off the event (haha). I wasn’t phased. Neither was Kevin.

Kevin and I opened LaidOffCamp Fort Collins #4 together; hosting the largest LaidOffCamp in Colorado yet with close to 200 people in attendance. There were so many ideas and so many people wanting to learn or share something new that we filled up two idea boards. That’s never happened before.

LaidOffCamp Fort Collins #5 is just around the corner – March 29th, 2009, and if you’re wondering if you should attend or not, consider the picture below:

This is Si – another of my other best friends. Si is 24. In this picture, Si was entrusted by these folks to facilitate the Job Seekers Over 40 session. Guess whose name was on the evaluation forms this time around?

Si owns his own business, as Kevin and I do. As many of the people in attendance are trying to do (or dream of doing). We’re here to help.

LaidOffCamp is perfect for anyone who needs a little inspiration. Join us!

That’s right. Two separate people Google’d “fatass on a wii fit” and got my site (one came back twice).  Not only that; they stayed for a whole three and a half minutes.

Other popular search terms: patrick stewart bald, skittles porn, sexual candy hearts, and fit ass.

If you ever had any question about what I’m all about, that list pretty much sums it up. Bwahaha.

We made a quick stop-over in Vail, where everyone we met had a French accent and visited a “please rape me now”-style bathroom, down the stairs in a concrete bunker.

Refreshed and ready to go, we jumped back on the highway and headed toward Grand Junction, Colorado where my Great Grandma Bailey was celebrating her 85th birthday (as it turns out, she’s the same age as Warner Brothers – and questioned why they haven’t sent her a present yet).  We all sang Happy Birthday to her and had a good time hobknobbing for some birthday cake and ice cream.

Jumping back on the road from Grand Junction to Salt Lake City, we hit up Wendy’s and totally forgot to grab gas (though, we TOTALLY rocked the tweet exiting town).

The road between Grand Junction and Salt Lake was foggy – but in Utah, there’s all sorts of amazing signage.  We stayed with Deb, who lives with the Minority Leader of the Utah Senate – David.  Deb and David are kick-ass hosts – David makes a killer coffee and Deb makes amazing, custom greeting cards.

Deb shared an amazing diner with us, the Blue Plate, where we were served by Ruby.  The owner, Von, shared the story of the diner and we’ll post that video later.  It’s been the best first restaurant experience we’ve ever had.

We stopped in at Signed and Numbered, run by Leia and opened up 5 days ago.  She’s the first person who knew about the Spiral Jetty – which is where we’re headed today before heading to Portland!

Thursday, Liz got laid off.  Friday, I asked her and Kevin Buecher and Si (Kevin’s roommate) if they’d all like to go on a roadtrip to Seattle… today (Saturday).

I’m crazy like that.  Emphatic yesses all around.  Turns out, they’re crazy like that too.

Today at noon, we’re getting the hell out of dodge.  Our route will take us through Salt Lake City, Boise, Portland, and finally, Seattle.  While there, we’ll be treated to a personalized tour by my buddy Rob!  On the way back, Spokane, Missoula, Billings, Casper, Cheyenne, and home on Wednesday.

We’re going to be taking our laptops and blogging and videotaping our crazy adventures.  If you want to connect with us, (858) 598-3389 is my Google phone number.  Call us and say Hi!

Thought Leaders, by definition, lead the average folk to the promised land and celebrate how much they know by imparting it on others.

I’m more of a Thought F*ck-Up.

We’re the people who look at the so-called “average” folk and realize they’re much more wonderful / scary / devious / smart / amazing than Thought Leaders give them credit for.  We see those “average” folk and realize they individually have much more to teach us than we could ever impart on them.  We know for a fact most “average” folk are anything but average and we celebrate them for who they are.

A Thought F*ck-Up follows a lonely path set forth by the FCC’s definition for obscenity.

You know it when you see it; it’s usually in the opposite direction everybody else is heading…

Some great Thought F*ck-Ups I look up to:

• Kevin Buecher
• Naomi Dunford
• Ron Marks
• Redhead Writing

But, when I read about Space150′s logo design competition, it sounded to me a lot more like “we want to celebrate our audience’s work” rather than spec work.  Taking another example, is Mountain Dew’s can design campaign spec work or are they celebrating their community?

Where and how do you draw the line?

A big problem designers face is that clients -must- understand that they’re paying for art and art seldom comes with a refund policy.

Art is subjective.  The logo may not look 100% like what you expected, but that art didn’t just appear.  It took years of training, experience, and finally, a few more recent hours to put together.

It’s the adage of Picasso walking through the park and being approached by a fan who begs for a self-portrait.  Picasso begrudgingly obliges and then asks for $20,000.  The fan protests, “But that just took you 5 minutes…” and Picasso replies, “No ma’am, this took me my entire life.”

From another perspective, you can pay $7 for a steak at iHop… or you can pay $20 for one at Brooks.  Cooking a steak can be artful – but if you (as the chef) completely mess up a steak, the client gets a new steak at most places.  Others, you get a refund.  I think the problem is that the client doesn’t trust (or doesn’t know about) your redo/refund policy.

Art is subjective; but taste is also subjective.  Designers have a responsibility for acknowledging both sides of the coin, just as clients have a responsibility to pay fairly for completed work.

Blue Beanie Day is a day in support of web standards.  In other words – good websites done right; I’m all about that.  I photoshopped my beanie on, since I don’t have one.