While we’re narrowing down our options, reviewing speakers, and the value we’d get for our time out of the office, tell us how you decide on what conferences to attend? If you are coming to any of these conferences or headed to Atlanta for the first time, let’s be social and connect while you’re here. (Know about a conference we missed? Send us an email and let us know.)

*Thanks to Scott Lockhart (@scott_regator) for sending us the info on Mashable’s Atlanta event on Sept. 30.  And to Lane Bailey for sending us info about REBarCamp on Oct. 1. We knew this town was busy.

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Are you careful about what you say in public places? Do you ever really know who you’re talking to at a party? Do you mind if people eavesdrop your conversations at Starbucks? Do you let people read your laptop screen while you sit on the airplane? You’re probably socially attuned to all of these and careful about information that you’re revealing when you’re interacting this way in the real world, but you think differently about privacy in the online world. People tend to have this inflated presumption of privacy and they’re less careful about what they reveal. If fact, your privacy expectations and behaviors may be altered if you begin to think about a reality analog to the different types of social situations that you’re encountering through social media. You would probably be surprised how much people can learn about you because of the way you’re treating the online world differently than you act in the real one.

Let’s look at real-world analogies of the most common social networking sites and see how it might make you think differently about your privacy expectations. When you interact with people on Facebook, think of it as how you might act at a wedding reception. You either know everyone there or you have met a lot of them or, at the very least, you trust that they’re ok because the bride and groom invited them there. So you can let your guard down a little bit, share pictures, even drink a little too much and say stupid stuff. But you don’t really know everyone there, do you? You can’t be sure that everybody there was invited to the wedding. So you can’t completely trust everyone there, but on Facebook you pour your heart and personal information out on the table for everybody to sort through it.

If Facebook is a wedding reception, then Twitter is neighborhood bar on a Thursday night. You know a couple of people there, maybe even some good friends, but you have to assume everything you do and say in that bar might be heard by anybody. And you have no idea who those people are or if you can trust them. And who is the creepy guy that’s hanging around and listening to everything you have to say? You might reveal some personal things to your friends, but other people are listening.

If Twitter is a neighborhood bar, then social sites like Chatroulette or adults in MySpace are a shady nightclub downtown. You can’t really trust anything you hear or see there, but you might go there to let loose and have fun sometimes. Or maybe you just go there for bands that you like. You’re definitely going to see a different crowd at that nightclub then you might at the wedding reception last weekend, so you probably are going to put your guard up a little bit. You definitely can’t trust much of anything you see or hear there, and there might even be illegal things around. Plus, nightclubs never seem to stay open for very long.

If you don’t go to bars, then LinkedIn is much like your last professional networking meeting. You go to those types of events to meet like-minded people and to make contacts for business development, job searching or to just grow your network. You have casual and professional conversations with people and hand out business cards, but you don’t normally walk around handing out resumes. But that’s what you do on LinkedIn, right? Except on LinkedIn, the whole world can read all of those details, not just the self-selective group at your networking event. And again, these are people that are a step above strangers off the street, but you’re still not going to reveal tons of personal details to them until you get to know them, or when you run into them at a wedding.

If people thought about these real-world situations a bit when they are interacting socially in the online world, perhaps they would reveal a little bit less. Would you walk in a bar and tell everyone all of that?

If you’re on social media, guess what? You reveal more than you know.

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What could a person like me find out about, say, some people they met at recent networking events?

From a recent handful of business cards I gathered at a networking event, I poked around on social networking sites to see just what people reveal about them to the rest of the world – without cookies, spyware, or other data-gathering tricks. This was a simple search to see just how much I could learn about four people.  What’s surprising is that I found a lot of details that I’m not certain these four folks know just how much they’ve put out there. Among the details, I learned:

• where they went to college
• where they went to high school
• how old they are
• where they live
• where they were born
• what nationality they are
• what religion they are
• everywhere they’ve ever worked
• how many kids they have (I even got to see photos and videos)
• what their spouses do for a living
• who they voted for in recent elections
• what their primary hobbies are
• what movies they had recently seen
• what bands/music they like
• what books they’ve read in recent months
• what restaurants they’ve been to in the last month
• and where they’re traveling to right now

Remember, this was just me, looking at public info they’ve posted on social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and others. 

So what are you opening revealing about yourself? Perhaps more than you know.

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Fear no more – we’ve created 12 tips to help you be a successful, confident and memorable panelist, rockin’ it with your very own name tent.  Look below and takeaway tips that allow you to bring value and expertise without being “sales-y,” repetitive or, quite honestly, predictable. (And if you’re the moderator, check out these great tips here and here.) Now panelist, read on:

1. Meet the moderator. Even if it’s 5 minutes before the panel, intro yourself and reiterate your expertise in a few memorable lines (you may want to mention your expertise, book, columns, etc…).  Reiterate how you hope to be of help to them and the audience today.
   1. So few people do this and it’s an easy way to get questions directed to you by the moderator (which = more opps for your messages).
   2. Can you e-mail the moderator this week, just to make an intro?
2. Be the expert: this is the place to offer insights, opinions, and comments; the audience expects your participation.
   1. Think a quotable interview as a good panelist: clear, concise, distinct, informed and intelligible (avoid jargon if at all possible).
3. Keep the audience needs foremost in your mind.  They are there to learn about X topic, focus on that when you present or answer.
   1. Ever been to a panel where the topic offered was not the topic given? What a waste.
4. Pop the opening: Know what you want your intro/opening to convey: set yourself as an expert and an approachable resource.
   1. Make eye connections with 1-3 people across the room – if you convey connection with those people, everyone in the room will feel connected.
   2. Sit up straight, sit on the edge of your chair and on your coat bottom if you can; keep an open body stance whenever possible.
   3. Keep your voice as strong at the end as it was at the beginning; do not trail off the volume.
   4. Let the audience know you look forward to their questions.
5. Kill the closing: Know your closing comments in advance – so few panelist have this down and wing it.  Remember “winging it” is for the birds.
   1. Be prepared for the closing comment and if it isn’t offered, say “Before we finish, I’d like to say…”
6. Build a simple framework to define the problem and the solution at the core of that panel: getting C-suite buy-in.
   1. Use anecdotes or analogies if you have them that people can easily relate
   2. Even better if you can convey the story through a current customer in a similar industry/size.  Let the audience hear your solution for this customer so they can visualize themselves solving it as well.
7. Enumerate: Whenever possible, tabulate or enumerate: humans remember numbered lists if they are short – no more than 3 things.
   1. One good tactic is to say something as tabulated, as in “I’ll share three key points that your executive team will want to know before they buy in to the benefit of XXX…  Those three things are:…”
   2. Or if you can use letters instead of numbers, e.g “Just remember “BAIT- benefit, automation, integration, testing.”
8. Keep your answers brief.  When you are confident and prepared this is easy.  When you don’t know your point, you’ll start to ramble which is a credibility killer (there is one on every panel, don’t be that one).  Make your point and close.
   1. It’s respectful of other panelists who may want to answer.
   2. It’s respectful of your audience b/c they can ask more questions.
   3. You can always start by saying “That’s a good question, let me offer a brief answer and if you want more details after, just let me know.”
9. Be prepared to “add, subtract or disagree with your co-panelists.”  Some easy transitions to do just that:
   1. “I’d like to add to that point…” (be sure you are adding!)
   2. “Before moving on, let me add a brief/direct point or point of consideration…”
   3. “From my experience the approach that worked best for [target audience] was…”
   4. “I’m coming at that question from another angle…” (when you disagree)
10. Avoid the “selling” game or the company’s “talking head” syndrome.  Audiences need info to make decisions – if all you give them are specs or product details they will shut you out (remember they’ve got the brochure).
    1. Phrase your products into solutions…”Let’s say you’ve got a product with 20 options and you need to XXXX quickly, one solution is to have your product that…”
11. Cue the listener, nail key transitions. How do you get to say “Company Name” 20 times without saying the name every time.  With key transitions.  Let me share a few, but have these written down on a piece of paper that you keep in front of you for the panel:
    1. “Let me start by saying…” (insert key message)
    2. “The one thing your executive team will want to know is…”
    3. “The one thing you should take away from this is…”
    4. “What’s important to remember is…” (typically this frames something into a bigger picture)
    5. “There are options available including (our product, but use its description/benefits)…”
12. Be available. Always let panelists know you are available after the panel, and you’d be happy to share your contact info with attendees who may have additional questions.
    1. Hang out after the panel… a good line is to ask an attendee if they were able to take anything useful from the panel (let’s hope they say one of your numbered items, or one of your key transition messages!)
    2. Invite people to the booth (if you has one) to continue the conversation

Fear no more panelist! You’ve now got 12 tips to help you be valuable to the audience.

Now, what might you add?

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So break out the doodle pad and share with us: what do you do to spark visual creativity?

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And here’s the better part: you can save $50 off of registration by using the discount code CLOUDSPARK. Register by July 9 and take advantage of early registration rates. (Psst, wanna know what we’re doing with our $50? Sneak a peek!)

If you decide to go, let us know, we’d love to meet up in beautiful San Diego.

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For now, Facebook efforts to own the new social web are facing  a backlash from its blatant invasion of your privacy (and the privacy of your friends). The company has made it ever-challenging to keep control of personal data on the side of consumers using its services. With changing updates coming in rapid succession, defaults set at opt-in, it’s easy for consumers to not know, or be confused about, what they are agreeing to share and to disclose.  For Facebook, their trappling of privacy is another rung in their effots to control data, remember it wasn’t that long ago that Facebook asserted content rights over nearly all data: writing, photos, art, etc.

While you might use Facebook for personal relationships, the complexity its privacy policy and consumer concern may translate to businesses using a Facebook platform like Facebook Open Graph. As a business will you be able to answer your customers concerns about how Facebook and how you are using their data? Will Facebook’s challenges translate onto your brand and consumer trust? These are important question to ask (and answer).

But start here, do you know how complex has Facebook’s privacy options gotten?  See for yourself: (prepared by the visual team at the New York Times):

Now how are consumer supposed to easily navigate the complex privacy settings?  In an increasingly complex social web, consumers are right to question just how their data is collected, used and ultimately shared. Facebook should make it easier and more transparent to understand how their data is being shared. If Facebook becomes a company that consumrs don’t trust, what will it mean for the whole social web? And what will it mean to you?

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And just for a note of inspiration, I stated the presentation with this new video channel on YouTube. In our opinion, it’s a near perfect blend of brand/sponsor, global event and the fan experience.

What social media examples might you want to share?

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We frequently present on Twitter for business. It’s so important to help people get started, especially businesses, that Twitter posts a Twitter for Business Guide on its homepage.  But before you get there, let us help you with the first steps. 

This presentation was given at Atlanta’s Freelancer’s Forum last week.  While a lot of learning happened off the screen, these are the basic steps to get start in and understand more about the world’s most popular short-message platform.

Let us know if it helped you!

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Now wait, if someone tells you they can make a viral video for you, stop there. You (or your agency) can’t make a video viral, you can make it great. Only your audience, your customers, your fans, can take it viral. No matter, even if you think you have a tough product or service, there is always a visual story.

We’re sharing this new branded YouTube page from The Coca-Cola Company. It’s a soon-to-be-classic example (created by Sapient Nitro – deep talent over there) of just where video can take a customer. Coca-Cola a global leader in the refreshment category has taken the World Cup ritual (the on-field celebrations) and asked fans to share their own celebrations if they were playing on the field. Here’s why we think Coca-Cola succeeds:

1. It lets people (the fans) participate directly: send in video, artwork, photography (branded or not)
2. The content is seemingly new, refreshed, all the time and it’s easy to share
3. Coca-Cola can tie-in the campaign with actual events (note the videos with the branded banner)
4. The music is universally appealing, borrowing beats, harmonies from different cultures
5. For a global brand, the World Cup is a near-perfect opportunity to showcase its near-universal appeal

What videos do you think stand out as examples of a great visual story? What would you add?

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