Community Guy – Jake McKee

Life is funny. Enjoy it.

Most of the time, pain and suffering isn’t something you want to see on display. But let’s be honest: sometimes misery is funny… assuming you’re only observing someone else’s pain.

The internet is a great tool for helping to remind us that we’re all going to hell for laughing at said misery. Here’s a few of my favorite tools for fast forwarding that journey to the fire-filled great beyond.

• Post Secret – The original “put raw emotion on display” site. People send in postcards anonymously with some sort of information about themselves, often sad.
• Texts from last night – a running display of text messages sent to people who then share with the world. If even have of this hilarity is real, I’m saddened by our place in the evolutionary cycle. I’m laughing, and it’s funny, but it’s also a bit sad. But funny. Really, really funny.
• It was over when – a collection of stories about when people knew their relationships were over.
• FMyLife – If you’ve seen tweets or status messages that include “FML”, you now what it’s about. It’s short for: F*** My Life and is basically a collection of reasons people claim that’s true.
• Passive Aggressive Notes – We’ve all seen those notes people put up in front of cash registers or on the fridge at work. They’re annoying when they’re in our own workspaces, but hilarious when viewed out of context.
• People of Walmart – Photos of the craziest people that shop at Walmart. Ouch.
• Lamebook – A collection of amusement from facebook status updates and conversations.
• Tweeting too hard – “Where self-important tweets get the recognition they deserve”
• The “blog” of “unnecessary” quotes – When quotes go wrong.

While these things might seem pointless, or even cruel, they’re anything but. Well, at least partially so, anyway.

These sites provide amusement in the mundane, the every day, the stories that we can identify with. The humor isn’t just that we look at other people’s lives and say “oh geez, at least I’m not that bad!” We’re also seeing ourselves reflected back by these mini-stories. Whether we like it or not, the snark provides a connection to the world around us. Whether we laugh at it or feel better by it, it’s the world we live in.

And damn, are some of these funny….

Bonfire Builders Interview

Over at the Feeding the Puppy blog, John has baked up an interesting concept to describe the social stuff vs. traditional advertising: Bonfires & Fireworks.

For whatever strange reason, John has branded me a Bonfire Builder and interviewed me for his blog. Here’s a snippet.

How do you persuade others of the need to build social bonfires alongside setting off advertising fireworks?

The answer to this question is a bit different if you’re talking about being an employee of a company working inside the enterprise towards change versus working as a consultant helping those folks see change through to completion.

Looking at the work that needs to be done inside the organization (since that’s where the buck stops), I’ve always talked about the strategy of “Success by 1000 paper cuts”. Start with the smallest element you can effectively do with minimal budget, little managerial approval, and minor legal team approval.

Nothing breeds acceptance like success. Even tiny successes excite people to see more. Succeed, expand your efforts a little, succeed again, rinse and repeat. Before you know it, you’ll be launching huge programs but with far more support than if you tried to launch a big program straight away.

Check out the post for the full interview.