This post is a test a new service/tool from the mind of Gregarious Narin and his team. It is called, SlideChute. The concept behind this tool, still in beta, is simple… it enables users in a community to upload photos to be included on a page or a post. It seems like a perfect thing for event sites like RETSO, or for event pages on any site. In addition to enabling the direct upload by users on a post or page like this, a “Subscriptions” option allows you to automatically import photos from various social services into your Chute via hashtag monitoring. Right now the subscriptions option includes Instagram and Twitter, with Foursquare integration coming soon. And each Chute has it’s own page as well.

You can choose to moderate or not moderate the uploaded photos. Photos will obey your moderation settings no matter where you import them from. Installation on this site took all of 60 seconds to copy the two scripts required. The first script inserts the upload button. This would not have to be on this page, but for demo purposes, it is. Give it a try by clicking the upload button below.
Your photos will appear below after I approve them. The moderation process takes place inside your account at SlideChute. Here is how the default player performs.

Congrats, Gregarious. Both SlideChute and the Chute backend platform, which allows app developers to incorporate photo sharing into their apps, look like winners to me. Give it a try above and let me know your thoughts. 

This is not to say that edge cases should not be given their rightful attention or respect. They most certainly should. Edge cases teach us where the boundaries are. They help push us. They help stretch our thinking. But there is danger when the edge case becomes the battle cry for wholesale change, or the poster boy for social media apologists, searching for something concrete to pin their beliefs to. Or worse, the model for selling a reckless generic strategy.

One of the problems is that these apologists throw out their link-baiting headlines to articles built on edge case proofs and their “expert groupies” eat it up without so much as a hint of critical thinking. The positive feedback the guru shepherd recieves, in the way of retweets and likes and head nods, is confused with crowdsourcing. It’s not. It’s herdsourcing. The herd nods in unison. The shepherd revels. Self-fulfilling prophecies abound.

Here’s an example from the real estate industry.

Corcoran Group’s use of Foursquare is often cited as an example when others write about the value of Foursquare, especially for real estate agents and brokers. And its success with Foursquare is well documented. Corcoran Group has much to be proud of and there is value in looking at its use as a way of pushing the boundaries of what can and can’t be done with the platform. But Corcoran Group’s use is also an edge case. It is not a model that can be lifted neatly and used by the average real estate brokerage without significant modification. It is unique to the Corcoran Group brand, its strategy and its market.

“Our approach and idea resonates well with others,” Matthew Shadbolt, Director of Interactive Product & Marketing at The Corcoran Group, “but we never advocate ‘doing what we do.’ Others say that ‘about’ us instead. It’s something I struggle with a lot. What I do is entirely geared towards our brand, business development, and the New York City market.” Matthew’s approach to explaining his success is measured and reasonable. He understands his use of foursquare is an edge case for real estate, but NOT for use of Foursquare.

“I think it’s an important point to stress,” Matthew adds, ” leveraging the platform in the best way it can support your business (not the other way around, or copying others, as many advise). In many ways what we do doesn’t pay much attention to the rest of what the real estate industry does (ie we’re not in an MLS, not members of NAR, use platforms uniquely etc.)”

Headlines like this one, “No Corporate Website? You Don’t Need One. Welcome To The Post-Web Era,” drive me nuts. The premise is built on the back of social media edge cases and the headlines are misleading at best, and dangerous at worst. “For those of you who have procrastinated about getting your corporate website together,” Strom writes, “I have some good news for you: you can pat yourselves on the back because you have just saved a bunch of money. For many smaller businesses, you don’t really (need) one anymore. Welcome to the post-Web era.”

Take that “advice” at your own peril. As Todd Carpenter said in a comment, “Transactions don’t happen in “The Community”. There’s only one place where you can properly ask for the sale. Here’s a hint; it’s not on Pinterest.”

“What a dangerous load of BS!,” Jay Gilmore wrote on Google Plus. “Having your own URL and website is a must. You build interest and activity through the other channels like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, forums, Tumblr and others and get them to your site, to your product. Marketing channels will come and go and change but your website is yours. Until further notice, you need a website.”

Unfortunately, a headline like, “You Still Need A Website” probably won’t drive the same kind of traffic. It’s just not a very sexy soundbite.

Sound Advice, Not Sound Bites

This entire post is the result of a challenge Matthew issued on Twitter. “@gahlord @jeffturner @tericonrad I want you to include the word ‘herdsource’ in your next piece of writing.” I don’t believe he was serious, but the timing of his tongue-in-cheek request was hard to resist. I had witnessed every element of this post’s headline in the hours preceding his challenge. From the sensational, misleading, link baiting headline fueled by edge case euphoria, to herdsourced approval by expert groupies expressed in 140 character soundbites. Some days I should just stay off of Twitter.

It’s getting old. Or maybe I am. Either way, I believe we need more sound advice, regardless of how sexy it is, and fewer hyped sound bites.

We can do better.

Playing with a new gizmo brings me an incredible level of joy. This is true even if the technology proves itself not quiet ready for prime time. So I ordered the revolutionary Lytro, the first consumer focused plenoptic camera, also known as a light-field camera, without a single moment of hesitation on the first day it was available for purchase. On Monday, after several months of waiting, my Lytro finally arrived.

I immediately went outside to snap a photo. Looking at sample images and reading up on the technology in advance had prepared me for what was going to be required. To get the best results, I would need to have one object very close to the camera and others further away. To get even better results, I should shoot the photo using the camera’s 8x zoom at full strength. So that’s what I did.

This photo below was my first plenoptic image:

Click on the photo to refocus on the flowers in the foreground or the van across the street. The Lytro certainly delivers on the magic it promised, giving the viewer the ability to refocus the photo. And, I must say, this is some of the coolest technology I’ve ever seen. But my awe was quickly dashed as I plugged the camera into my Mac, the only operating system you can use the camera with, and downloaded the photo for processing.

Why You Should Probably Not Buy A Lytro.

First, the resolution of the images is incredibly low. This is something that will obviously get fixed, but it’s also probably one of the main reasons not to buy the first generation camera. What you see in that first photo above is the highest resolution I can give you. In fact, that format is the only thing I can give you. Which brings me to the next problem.

Second, they can only be viewed using Adobe Flash technology. Considering the fact that Adobe killed flash development for mobile devices four months before the Lytro’s delivery to my house, I see this as a major weakness. Right out of the box, I know these photos can only be viewed on a browser on someone’s computer. In fact, they can only be embedded in web page like this, shared to Facebook, or viewed on my Lytro page via link. Thank goodness they’re at least Pinterest friendly. (Edit: Thanks to Gahlord Dewald for pointing out that they indeed CAN be viewed in HTML5. I had never visited a living picture from my mobile phone. When visiting from a computer, it defaults to Flash, whether here on this page, on Facebook or at the Lytro site.  And thank you to Kira Wampler from Lytro for jumping clarifying it on Twitter as well.)

Third, they can only be processed on a Mac. Since I’ve been using a Mac since 1984, this actually made me smile. But if you’re not a Mac owner, you can’t process the photos from this camera. This is a fairly large impediment to use if you own any other brand of PC.

Fourth, not everyone is a good storyteller. While there is no focusing required, which should mean taking photos will be faster, this is not the case. Because the main benefit of the camera is the ability to refocus, you’re going to want to make the focal points something of value. This requires some thought and planning. ”Issues of composition and sequence are more narrative than straight ahead,” Gahlord Dewald wrote in his real estate focused Lytro review. “The kinds of images that are made with the Lytro require thought and planning in a different–more storylike–way.”

Why I Won’t Be Giving My Lytro Up

I’ve been “playing” with my Lytro for four full days now. Sometimes dangerously. And that’s been just long enough for my initial frustration with the limitations of the technology to fade away.  I’ve moved into “art mode.” It is exactly the “different–more storylike–way” that this camera enables that has me most intrigued. Shots like this one, of Wendy Forsythe and her new business card, have the potential to tell a story in a way other photos may not be able to.

“I strongly suspect that the Lytro will proceed along a path that appeals primarily to art photographers,” Gahlord added, “and will gain traction there slowly due to the low pixel dimensions of the images.” I agree. And I certainly fall into the category of amateur art photographer. So, I’m going to put up with the pain of the technology limitations and the haptic flaws in its design and play with the potential of creating “living pictures,” like the one below from Gahlord. It’s a classic illustration of what Lytro is all about.

Should you buy the new Lytro camera? Probably not. It’s certainly not for everyone. Not yet anyway.

Last week I deleted the Foursquare app from my phone… again. I had deleted it once before, only to installing it one more time for a conference I was attending. It’s a simple way to find out where your friends are. And that’s true. It’s simple. But so is sending a text message and asking, “Where are you?”

If I’m really being honest with myself, I installed it because everyone else was using it and I didn’t really feel like talking about why I wasn’t using Foursquare. I’ve never been a huge fan of Foursquare. And the times I’ve used it most have been “cool trips.” I was in Australia twice last year and used it extensively, and really, that was just an excuse to brag about where I was. That’s a sucky reason to use an app.

Fast forward to last week. I had not checked in on Foursquare in almost a month and the only time I had done so before that was because I felt like I “needed to.” I wish I could explain in more detail the feeling I had in that moment, but in retrospect, it felt a lot like the peer pressure you might feel in high school to be a part of the “cool crowd.” I didn’t like the feeling. So, I deleted the app.

And I wondered if others felt the same way. This morning, someone raised their hand.

@jeffturner I might have to free myself from the slavery soon.:)I do it just b/c I am “expected” to keep involved in social

— Brendan King (@brendanking) March 22, 2012

Stop Doing Things For Sucky Reasons

I knew I couldn’t be alone in my dysfunction. It was refreshing to see someone voicing the same feelings I was having. My response to Brendan was this, “I hear you… I felt similarly… and I think that’s a sucky reason to do anything.” I don’t think I was telling him anything he didn’t already know. I think that’s obvious. Thanks for sharing so openly, Brendan. Perhaps there’s a 12-step program for people like us.

Our short conversation started because I had retweeted this from Ben Kunz, “I don’t see many Foursquare updates in my stream anymore. What do you think? Are people giving up on LBS silliness?” I think Brendan’s first response is probably accurate, people may finally decided to turn off automatic updates to Twitter when they check in. Or perhaps the “location as focus” is giving way to “location as context” inside other social networks. It has for me. I use location in Facebook and Path to provide context for photos, and status updates for example.  That makes sense to me. I may install the Foursquare app again some day, who knows, but for now, my location needs are well served inside other social networks.

And before my location-centric real estate friends jump all over me, I know some of you are having success using Foursquare to connect with users. Tamara Dorris shared some great stories about her Foursquare use yesterday. I get it. I really do. But I don’t do business locally. Location is simply not a part of how I connect with people I gain as clients. And when I’m not travelling… quite frankly, I check in at home and don’t leave much.

So, I wonder, how many others are using Foursquare because they’re “expected” to keep involved in social media, or for some other sucky reason?

Sorry. We all have our issues. This one is mine right now. I really do try to ignore it, but I’m attracted to it like a moth to flame. Or maybe it’s the other way around.

Yesterday, I was minding my own business when my wife posted this link to a Pinterest post about an indoor slide from Zillow‘s Pinterest account on my Facebook wall. My wife said she wanted one. I said go for it. So, what did I do next? I decided I wanted to go read about it on the source. Seems like a reasonable action on my part.

Finding the original source should be easy, right?

I mean, Pinterest terms of service clearly state that if you’re pinning something you must have the right to do so. So, theoretically I should be able to click on the image and go read more about this amazing slide I just saw. Much to my surprise, this was not the case. Ok. That’s a lie. I really didn’t expect to to be taken directly to the source. I also didn’t expect the rabbit hole of search I was about to enter. Over 25 painful minutes later, I finally found the original source. Today I retraced my steps in this video. Trust me, it was even more painful the second time.

Searching For The Original Source Of A Pinterest Post from Jeff Turner on Vimeo.

The Rabbit Hole That Took Me To The Original Copyright Owner

So here’s the trail: Zillow’s Pinterest post >> Tumblr blog home page >> Tumblr post >> another Tumblr blog home page >> another Tumblr post >> another Tumblr post >> a deleted post >> back to the other Tumblr post >> another tumblr post >> the MyModernMet.com post >> Design-Milk.com >> failed searches on Design-Milk.com >> back to MyModernMet.com post >> to HomeDSGN.com home page >> several failed searches on the architect and keywords found in MyModernMet.com post >> search result for “condo slide on HomeDSGN.com >> HomeDSGN.com post >> Arhcitizer.com & Travis Dubreuil >> No luck finding original posts on Architizer. Like I said, it was painful. By the time I got that far, I was way past having the desire to find the original photos on Travis’ site.

It appears HomeDSGN.com initiated all of the original Pinterest and Tumblr love. I suppose they should feel good about getting the ball rolling, but in the end, neither they nor the original sources of the content got all of this link traffic that Tumblr and Pinterest generated. Someone else did.

And this leaves me scratching my head. When the person at Zillow repinned Alex Bohnet’s Pinterest post, did they give any thought at all to copyright? I doubt it, even though the Pinterest terms of service on clear on this subject:

“You acknowledge and agree that you are solely responsible for all Member Content that you make available through the Site, Application and Services. Accordingly, you represent and warrant that: (i) you either are the sole and exclusive owner of all Member Content that you make available through the Site, Application and Services or you have all rights, licenses, consents and releases that are necessary to grant to Cold Brew Labs the rights in such Member Content, as contemplated under these Terms; and (ii) neither the Member Content nor your posting, uploading, publication, submission or transmittal of the Member Content or Cold Brew Labs’ use of the Member Content (or any portion thereof) on, through or by means of the Site, Application and the Services will infringe, misappropriate or violate a third party’s patent, copyright, trademark, trade secret, moral rights or other proprietary or intellectual property rights, or rights of publicity or privacy, or result in the violation of any applicable law or regulation.”

Who’s Going To Be The First To Challenge A Pinterest Or Tumblr User In Court?

I’m not an attorney, nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, so I’m delving into complete conjecture territory here.  I just know how pissed I am when someone uses my Creative Commons licensed photos on Flickr without respecting the simple to follow, free copyright. And I know what the legal definition of copyright infringement is. “As a general matter, copyright infringement occurs when a copyrighted work is reproduced, distributed, performed, publicly displayed, or made into a derivative work without the permission of the copyright owner.”

I have no idea what photo permissions Travis Dubreuil extended to Archetizer.com. I only know that it appears the copyright starts with him, the owner. If so, only he, through a written agreement, can assign those rights to others.  I also have no idea if Zillow did the research I did, though I assume if they had, they would have gone as close to the source as possible and pinned the HomeDSGN.com post.

I have way more questions than answers. Here are a few of my questions: Would Travis Dubreuil win a copyright infringement case against Zillow? Or Pinterest? Or any of the Tumblr bloggers? Is there even a case?  Maybe. Maybe not. Again, I’m not an expert on copyright law. But these are questions I’d probably want to have answers for if I’m Zillow, or any other corporation allowing it’s employees to post on Pinterest.

And there’s one final question I have. Does Travis even care that his photos are travelling around creating traffic and value for other people without his knowledge, permission, reward or recognition?  I’m hoping Travis will find his way here and give me his thoughts as well. His opinion may be the most important.

Google And The New Science

When I read Whittaker’s post this morning, I couldn’t help but think about my favorite author, Margaret Wheatley. I wondered what she would have to say about his description of the recent “transformation” at Google. Google has always seemed, from an outsider’s perspective, to be the embodiment of the new science principles Wheatley outlines in her book, Leadership And The New Science.

Her book is, without question, the most important business book I’ve ever read. In it she looks at how chaos theory, quantum physics, and self-organizing systems challenge old ways of thinking about how organizations can and should be run. Wheatley describes the standard ways of thinking in companies to be tied to “old science,” to old concepts, Newton’s concepts, where the “command and control” organizational foundations drew their energy.

The new science, quantum theory, began to chip away at the underpinnings of Newtonian physics in the early 1900′s. A century later, we are still just beginning to understand the implications of what our new, more accurate understanding of nature and science means to how we interact with it. And we’ve certainly only scratched the surface of how it can play a significant role in teaching us how to better interact with each other in organizations.

“Each of us lives and works in organizations designed from Newtonian images of the universe,” Wheatley wrote. “We manage by separating things into parts, we believe that influence occurs as a direct result of a force exerted from one person to another, we engage in complex planning for a world that we keep expecting to be predictable, and we search continually for better methods of objectively measuring and perceiving the world.”

A Lapse Into Newtonian Thinking?

And this is what struck me this morning when reading Whittaker’s descriptions of the changes made inside Google. “Larry Page himself assumed command to right this wrong.” It appears Google, the company that has been a model of innovation through self-organization, has slipped back a century into a model based on outdated science.

In an interview with Scott London, Wheatley said, “If you’re interested in creating sustainable growth, sustainable productivity, sustainable morale, you can’t do that through autocracy.” There may be notable exceptions, but when a company culture is built on one set of values, shifting to a whole new set of values can be a catastrophe. Especially when thats not the intended goal. Values are the dark matter of human relationships, and inside an organization they are the “unseen but real forces that influence people’s behavior.”

If Whittaker’s description of what has changed at Google is accurate and not merely the rant of a disgruntled employee, then there has been a disruption in that force. And if Margaret Wheatley is correct about how this energy inside an organization works, and I believe she is, that disruption could mean rough times ahead. Google has proven what can happen when a company embraces chaos and empowers people to act as self-organizing co-creators.

I, for one, hope their lapse into Newtonian thinking is temporary.

- – - -

Photo By paul mccoubrie via Flickr. 

Videolicious is a dead simple iPhone video production app.  I’ve been “playing” with it for about a month and can now say for certain, there is a place for this app in my content creation toolset. But it has a few limitations.

First, let’s look at the upside.

It’s ridiculously easy to use. Once you select the template you want, Videolicious walks you through three simple steps. In step one, you select the video files or photos you want to include in your production. Each production is limited to a combination of 10 photos or video clips.

Step two asks you to “Film yourself and talk about the videos and photos in your movie.” In truth, you don’t have to video yourself. You can point the video at anything you wish, but this video is what becomes your voice track in the final production. These videos are limited to 50 seconds.

Step three requires that you choose a song for the background track of your video. Several songs are provided royalty free for use with Videolicious. Once you hit select, the movie begins to render and automatically saves to your camera roll upon completion. That’s it. You’re done. Some templates allow you to share directly from the app to Facebook and YouTube or via email. Some, however, only allow submission to certain places within the app. For example, the “Lucky Magazine” video template only allows sharing to Lucky Magazine via email. Of course, since the file is already saved to your camera roll, you can do anything you with with it from there.

Now for the downside.

As I state in the video example above, the main downside for me is that you can’t record the voice track video and import it at step two. The recording for step two must be done in the app, during production. So if you’re not good at hitting your marks in one take, this will likely be very frustrating for you. In addition, if the app crashes, as it did for me during several trials, you lose whatever work you’ve done, including that voice track it took you so long to get right. I think the app would be much better if you could record this segment, make sure you have it right, then upload in the production process.

The template choices don’t seem to matter. While there are a slew of templates to choose from, I don’t see a significant difference between the styles. The cuts in the video clips are slightly different, but I could just as easily have chosen “Video Thank You Note” or “Real Estate Listing Video” as the templates for the sample video embedded above, instead of the one I chose, “My Day in Video.” They would all look basically the same. So, don’t get caught up in trying to find the “right” template for any video you create with Videolicious. The differences simply aren’t worth the effort.

I like Videolicious. 

The downsides are not huge for me personally. I do see a place for this in my content creation toolbox. For producing a quick wrap up of a day’s activities, or a quick review of just about anything, this is a painless solution. With a little forethought, the final results could be quite good. Plus, it’s a FREE app, so the only thing you have to lose by downloading it and seeing for yourself is a little time. I think it’s worth a shot. I’ll be using it more. If you’ve used it too, I’d love to here your thoughts.

Note: Most of my crashes occur when trying to produce a video with 10 still photos as the basis for the video. It takes a great deal more processing power to turn a photo into a video than it does to splice existing video together. My bet is that if you keep the number of still photos you use on the low end, you will greatly reduce your chance of crashing the app. 

Here are screen captures of the apps main screens.

The New iPad Launched Yesterday. I’ve already ordered mine. I’m not going to go over the insane specs of the new screen or enter the debate about whether it lives up to the hype or not. Much has been written about it in the last 24 hours. More will come. To his credit, within the first few hours after the announcement, Joel Burslem wrote this excellent post, “What the new iPad means for Real Estate.”

“It’s going to make nearly every real estate website out there look, well, pretty fuzzy,” Joel wrote. “Ever tried to watch a standard definition TV signal on your HDTV – looks pretty horrific, right? Those photos and icons you optimized in 1999 for a 56k dial-up modem connection are going to need some serious attention. Stat.” He also talks about how it will give real estate video a “shot in the arm.”

I think his assessment of the potential is spot on. My concern is this – it’s just the latest technology to come with the hope of providing this elusive kick in the butt the industry needs. For different reasons, a similar post could have been written about the original iPad or the iPad 2. In fact, similar words have been written for the last five years. Over and over and over again, with every advance in technology.

Too many real estate photos still suck, and brokers allow it. The plethora of brokers and agents who continue to push out  bad real estate videos will still push out  bad videos when they’re shot in HD and displayed in all the glory of the new iPad’s retina display. The inspiration for wholesale, long-term change in quality is not going to come from these external technology forces.

There were no technological limitations to making these changes happen before yesterday. And there was no shortage of solid business rational to justify the change. Perhaps there are agents this morning saying, “Wow, the resolution on that new iPad screen is amazing. Finally, I have the reason I was waiting for to step up my online game, to take better photos and create higher quality, more compelling videos.” Perhaps.

The source of any inspiration can be internal or external. But inspiration that stems from external forces, like technology, is temporary and needs continual external reinforcement. Inspiration that stems from an internal source has the potential to be long-term and self energizing. What the real estate industry needs to make the shift Joel is talking about is more than the new iPad can deliver.

Great work is never externally motivated.   

What Joel is arguing for is for great work. Inspired work. Great work always contains a palpable element of depth, it goes beyond knowledge and skills. It has a spiritual quality that can only come from an inner fire. Perhaps the new iPad can be the spark, but the fire will to need to be fueled by something internal if it’s going to have any staying power.

Inspiration to fuel the kind of change Joel is arguing for has to come from within each agent, within each broker, within each brand. And if the new iPad is the spark that lights that fire, I hope we’ll be able to look back and say, “Joel nailed it.” I’ll be happy if he did.

- – - -

Photo: Creative Commons license by canon7dude via Flickr.

On Monday, his whiteboard was filled with thoughts about social-media-powered quadrangles under the concept name of “AuthenTWicity.” Go ahead and laugh. Tuesday they were built into the backend of Dashter’s full profile views and named “Dashter Archetwypes.” You can laugh again, we don’t mind. Since an archetype refers to a generic version of a personality, an Archetwype refers to a generic version of a Twitter personality.

Sure, we could have just called them Dashter Archetypes, but we believe that anything having to do with Twitter should have a w after the t. Otherwise, you’re taking yourself way too seriously.

So what is Dashter? Dashter is the self-hosted social media management platform that we launched a few months ago.  It is a WordPress plugin that allows you to turn social interaction into content, and content into meaningful and timely social interaction. Dashter empowers you to interact with Twitter in ways new and exciting ways. Archetwypes are a way to quickly glance at a users’ profile and get a snapshot view of what their Twitter personality is like.

We’ve classified 16 different Archetwypes. Each is determined using real-time social stats from a user’s recent Twitter history using four different measurement criteria. They are Laid Back, Replier, Hey You!, Casual Conversationalis, Random Though Guy (or girl), Conversation Follower, Frequent Flyer, Conversation Maven, Linker, Here, Taste This, Traffic Sign, Little Helper, Link Maven, Frequent Link Replier, Extra! Extra!, and News Maven.

A quick look at a couple of Archetwypes.

Laid Back - This person has a Twitter account. They tweet, they hang out, it’s not the center of their universe. The image on the right is a screen capture from the Dashter full profile view of @mortgagereports. I was not surprised to find that Dan Green’s most recent 150 tweets reveal that he falls into the Laid Back Archetwype.

I’ve known Dan for several years. Our interactions are not limited to Twitter. In fact, the majority of our interaction is outside of the public social networking spaces. Because of this, I know that Twitter is definitely not the center of his universe. His blog, The Mortgage Reports is the center of his universe and his main focus is building readership for his blog, by actually blogging.

My first few hours playing with Dashter Archetwypes was spent looking at people I know very well, close friends who I have interaction with in face-to-face and through a variety of media. It was the easiest way for me to quickly judge whether Dashter was doing a decent job of assessing a persons’ Twitter personality. And whether it matched my sense of how they were using Twitter. For the most part, I think it nailed it. Here’s another example.

Casual Conversationalist - This person is involved in casual conversations and replies to Tweets often to add their thoughts and link others. This will be the Archetwype with the largest number of people. You might call it the average Twitter personality. I don’t see  @nik_nik as average. I would have pegged Nicole Nicolay for a Conversation Maven, like @debra11, @professionalone and @tericonrad.

But the main differentiator between a Casual Conversationalist and a Conversation Maven is the velocity of their tweets, as expressed in average number of tweets per day. Nicole has an average tweets per day of just 2.24, while Debra, Michael and Teri average 10+ tweets per day. When I went and looked back at Nicole’s Twitter interactions manually, it all made sense.

The four data elements analyzed are % of replies, % of mentions, % of links, and posts per day. A person with a high percentage of replies and mentions, with a low number of posts and percentage of links falls into the “Casual Conversationalist” Archetwype.  A person with a low percentage of replies and mentions, with a high number of posts and percentage of links falls into the “Here, Taste This” Archetwype.

It’s a simple metric, but it appears to be effective. I continued to play with people I know pretty well, like @corcoran_group, Mathew Shadbolt, who measured as a News Maven and @bnix, Brad Nix, who measured as a Traffic Sign. I think it nailed both of them.  And as I shifted from people I know well to people I don’t know as well, my sense was that the tool was doing what it’s meant to do. It’s designed to help me better understand who I’m talking to, or who I might want to talk to.

The goal is information, not judgment.

“Archetwypes aren’t about judging the value or worth of a Twitter user,” Dave wrote in the Archetwypes release post. “Rather, we’re trying to give you a quick way to understand the style of Twitter user that you’re looking at. Perhaps you’re only interested in people who are conversationalists; or you want to know whether or not the person you’re thinking about following posts a blizzard of tweets every day – or just a trickle.”

The goal of Archetwypes is to give you a quick snapshot of how someone has been using Twitter over their last 150 tweets. For some, this will be a look back several weeks. For others, it will only be a few days, but the snapshot will give you a sense of their twitter behavior very quickly. We believe that we can build better engagement and relationships if we have just a little better idea of what kind of relationship we’re jumping in to.

We’re not trying to measure influence.

Klout and Kred and other services attempting to judge influence are built for marketers. If you’re looking to advertise, these scores may have some value, though even that is debatable. But those scores really do nothing for me when it comes to determining who I want to have conversations with. We don’t judge our face-to-face friends by their influence, why would we attempt to do it in our virtual lives?

My opinion on this has been made pretty clear. And it’s an opinion that is shared by all of us at Dashter. “Influence” is a silly metric, when you care about relationships and ultimately believe that social media is a human endeavor,” Dave wrote to me last night, “and it’s better when we know whether or not a persons’ social profile actually matches our expectations of them as a person – or if they’re playing a role.”

Archetwypes are not meant to be the definitive assessment of a person’s Twitter use. They are a quick way to get a feel for someone’s Twitter communication style. If you’re already a Dashter user, Archetwypes are waiting for you in the most recent update. If you’re not, perhaps this will motivate you to see if Dashter might be your Twype.

As he drove us to our appointment in what is known as the “Quarry Slums” Andrew Mnjama spoke passionately about his background in finance, his experience with micro-finance, and his desire to make a difference in the lives of the poorest of the poor in Nairobi’s slums, all the while, effortlessly dodging cars and people and ridiculously large potholes.

“What I have learned,” Andrew said, pointing to the women under the yellow umbrella in the photo above, “is that this women selling her crafts along the side of the road is more likely to repay a loan to help her grow her business than a more traditional business.” He spoke from experience and conviction. He spoke with the kind of conviction that only comes from passion. And he spoke with such kindess and hope that I had to snap the photo to make sure I had a visual record of this conversation. This photograph marks the moment I realized I could never look at the world in the same way again.

How Did I Get Here: From Disneyland To The Quarry Slums

“How did I get here?” I found myself asking this question a great deal as I travelled around Nairobi. In this case, the path to that moment in that car was clear. I was introduced to Andrew by a man from Colorado I have never met, Chuck Blakeman. And I was introduced to him by a woman I met only briefly at a Keller Williams Awards event at Disneyland in Anaheim, CA. Her name is Sandra Corrigan. Sandra is an associate of Mariana Wagner, who asked me to attend the event with her as her “date.” It’s funny how life works. We really have no idea where the simplest of decisions will lead us.

Sandra read a Facebook post a few days before I was to head to Kenya with my family and felt compelled to tell me that I should give Chuck a call. I did. And that phone call led to the setting up of a meeting with a woman named Josephine Chavaseki, who, with some help from Chuck’s organization and The1010Project.org, has built the Fairoaks Academy on land located right next to the Quarry (Mathare) slums. The Fair Oaks academy is a Primary School, with several additional rooms dedicated to technical colleges and skills training.

The Recalibrating Continues

Andrew had never been to her project, so he asked me to wait in the car while he made sure we were in the right location. I snapped the photograph on the right as I waited for him to return. This is the entrance to the primary school.

After my educational car ride and my rude awakening to the fact that I had been living with a worldview that was myopic and ignorant at best, my senses and emotions were on overload. Simply put, I was raw. And every step I took around the grounds of the school peeled back another layer of ignorance and preconception.

Josephine is an amazing woman, with a bold vision for Fairoaks Academy. She greeted me instantly as a friend. As we sat in her spartan office talking about her work and her vision, I felt truly connected to this woman and to Andrew, who was sitting next to me. The world suddenly seemed very small.

She was anxious to show me the school. And as we entered the primary school courtyard, the children were playing (photo). When they saw me they all began chanting in unison, “mzungu,” which has come to mean “white person.” They were staring and smiling, and in truth, they were verbalizing what I was feeling. I was out of place, and experiencing the world from an entirely new vantage point. They made me laugh and smile. And comfortable.

One of the projects Josephine was eager to show me was their computer college (photo). In Kenya, colleges and universities are quite different things. But by any definition, before this day, I would never have described what I saw as a computer college. The lone student in the room was diligently working on an assignment as we toured. Josephine was very proud of the college and what it was doing to prepare its graduates to seek work. All I could think while standing there was how woefully inadequate it seemed.

I had more computing power on the phone I took that photo linked above with than all of the computers in that room combined. And yet, the student there appeared delighted to be learning. And what I was delighted to learn, as we walked from room to room, and as I looked at the faces of the children and the teachers, is that the quality of the education being given could not be limited by the weakness of the facilities. It could only be limited by the will to teach and the desire to learn. Neither appeared to be lacking.

Quarry Slum Entrepreneurs

Josephine asked if I’d like to meet some of the business people in the Quarry slum, and I of course, said yes. The walk from her school to the entrance to the slums, a 3 kilometer square that is home to more than 300,000 people, was less than a quarter of a mile. But it was like walking into a alternate universe. Because the government has failed them, the slums have their own rules, their own law, their own feel. And I felt every bit of the mzungu I was. An aimless wanderer.

One of the business owners Josephine introduced me to is named, Florence. I will never forget her. Florence, a graduate of a medical college, runs a chemist shop. It’s a makeshift drug store, where she helps diagnose illnesses in the slums. The “pharmacy” is a tin shed-like structure that is smaller than my bedroom closet. It looks out over the “street” pictured on the right.

There is almost no product on the few shelves Florence could fit in the space. Florence pays $3000 ksh per month for this space, about $36 at today’s exchange rate. Most months, she said, she does not make enough to cover the rent. Her single lightbulb, hanging from a ragged wire, costs $400 ksh per month. The electricity to power that bulb is provided to her via an illegal electrical hookup, and her “security” costs another $200 ksh per month. Paying for security, by the way, is not an option. If you don’t pay for the security, the security company will make sure you pay for it in other ways. This is life in the slums. It was dark and scary, even in the midday sun.

Florence’s husband is a teacher. He teaches at a school outside of the slums and they live in one small room behind the chemist shop. I learned this fact after we had begun to walk back to the school. Even as I write this, I can feel it in my gut. I can’t imagine living in that space. I can’t fathom it. But they can and do. And that realization was just one more nail in the coffin of my old worldview.

Struggling With My New Worldview

Everywhere I looked, from that day forward, I saw business men and women. In the face behind every sugar cane cart, I saw an entrepreneur (photo).  I saw a man or woman, striving to make a better life (photo) for their family and doing everything, the only thing, in their power to make that happen. And I’m still processing it all. In fact, I’m not even sure I know why I’m writing this.

What I do know is this, I’m not looking at the world in the same way I did before I met the wonderful people of Kenya. I find myself laughing at the activities we get all worked up about here in our comfortable world. I find myself recoiling from the hype of social media, the same hype I’m quite certain I’ve helped fuel in the past. And I find myself longing to have my family simplify even more than we have each time Rocky has returned from Kenya. I understand her motivations now. I get it.

Her next trip with Mothers Fighting For Others is in April. And while I have always wished I could go with her on each of the trips she has taken, this time I wish it for a different reason. My worldview still needs more recalibrating.