Can social media and social advertising help us find a way out of this economic turbulence I think they can. I wrote about my opinion on social advertising and the new definition of ROI on Mashable today.

Last night was Part Two of the Gender Gap and Technology/New Media Episode on my podcast Topics on Fire. Panelists for the show were myself, Leslie Bradshaw, Jen Nedeau, Meg Fowler and Shireen Mitchell. On the first episode, we had Chris Brogan, Aaron Brazell and Micah Baldwin offering the male perspective as we hammered out what the issues were, but for this episode, we were an all-woman solution generating dynamo.

We took a look at the issues from the previous episode in a “big picture” perspective with the intent to come up with as many concrete, real world solutions as possible. The issues covered were how the gender gap intersects with education, opportunity, confidence, communication, perception and objectification. All of the panelists did a great job staying on topic and making valuable contributions to the goals we reached. I can’t thank them all enough for sharing their knowledge and passion and bringing attainable ideas to the table.

What concrete ideas did we come up with? Perhaps the biggest were the Strong Women in Tech campaign and grassroots mentoring in education, as well as a concerted effort to change how we promote our fellow women in tech. The Strong Women in Tech campaign is an idea that has the lofty, but attainable, goal of bringing some of the strong female names in technology to girls in school to act as role models and inspiration.

The idea is that these women, all beacons in various aspects of technology, engineering, social media, gaming, software and more, would embark on a national campaign to inspire today’s girls to pursue careers in any of the various aspects of technology and new media. Using the tools available to us to jump start the campaign, I created a Ning group called Strong Women in Tech, which you can find at http://strongtechwomen.ning.com/. The idea behind the group is to have a place to plan this nationwide campaign using the most powerful weapon in our arsenal - our networks. Please join us, and help find women to stand as role models and help get this campaign off the ground in earnest.

The Ning group is also a hub for some of our other ideas, which we all thought fit well under the umbrella concept of Strong Women in Tech. One of these ideas was to generate a grassroots movement in social media to bring education and inspiration to the teachers who are out there in the trenches. We want to empower them with an understanding of technology and new media and how it can help them. To that end, we hope to embark on an effort to have every strong woman in tech start to either mentor local teachers in how to use these tools or create a network of local mentors to do so.

We all thought it is much easier to inspire and encourage girls to stay on a technology and new media path if there is understanding. By creating a network of resources for teachers we can help them find ways to relay a love of learning in these fields to the girls (and boys) in their classrooms, which will have lasting benefits for the work force and for fostering innovative ideas. Keep in mind that while the conversation was centered around women, all of us think that part of empowering women is to learn to teach to each individual instead of to gender stereotypes. We feel that the powerful people in our social media and offline networks can make that happen through reaching out and mentoring. We also hope that some of the teachers from our education in technology episode will also sign up and help us start to pool resources into one place for teachers.

We covered some heavy ground in just over an hour, including how to use cultural differences to inspire students into careers in technology, new media, sciences and maths. The most interesting point made here was how encouraging other cultures were to students who wanted to learn, and how the often competitive, rote nature of education here in the States can hamper that enthusiasm and desire to stay on the technology or science path in school. That’s another issue we hope our grassroots campaign for mentoring will address, incorporating the cultures of some of our immigrants to make our own eduction system that much better.

Each of us also offered up tools fro our personal arsenal in how we dealt with various degrees of gender issues online. The advice each woman gave on communicating and overcoming communication differences was great, including an interesting discussion on what it means in perception for a woman to “speak with authority” and how to push past the often negative connotations of that. We also addressed the issues of objectification of women in technology and new media, and tendency for looks to over ride worth on the road to success in these fields. The answer to that was to create an effort as part of Strong Women in Tech to change how we market each other.

The greatest asset a woman has is the innate ability to collaborate, communicate and build consensus. We hope to change how we promote each other and thus the face of the stereotypical woman in technology to be more the face of every woman, and not just the face of shallow beauty. We hope to empower women to promote on worth, not on popularity. We understand that popularity will always play a part in success, as will image, however, popularity and image should not rule success. It is up to women to help other women succeed on more than just the “homecoming queen” mentality that can often prevail.

We want all women in tech to find a way to be a strong woman in tech. We want our daughters and grand daughters to live in a world free of gender bias, where it is the individual that counts. We know that Blog Her and other organizations are tackling the network building part of the issue, and now we want to use that network to branch out into the real world. It’s up to us. I think we are powerful enough to do it. If you agree, please come participate in the Ning group. We need your ideas, your connections, your networks and your time. See you on the Strong Women in Tech site!

I highly recommend giving the podcast a listen. It is about an hour and fifteen minutes long, and it captures the details and individual advice far better than I ever could in a simple recap. I’ve embedded it below.

Brief after show recap: This was a great episode where we got some major goals accomplished. I will be writing a full recap tomorrow here. Meanwhile, I encourage you to listen to the podcast and join the resulting Strong Women in Tech campaign network as well.

The final panel for Episode 6 of Topics on Fire has been set and the topic will be Part Two of Gender Gap / Technology/New Media. Myself (Leslie Poston), Shireen Mitchell of Women Wired In, Leslie Bradshaw (recently featured on CSPAN covering the conventions), Meg Fowler of MegFowler.com (currently helping promote SM4SC.com), and Jen Nedeau will be paneling this discussion. Tonight’s podcast will be solution focused, as Part One zeroed in on defining the issues.

“Follow” the show on TalkShoe or stop back here for updates on each episode and notifications that a new episode is coming.

The first podcast on the Gender Gap and Technology was a lively one. As you all know I am always trying to push for real world solutions to the problems we talk about, and we didn’t come up with takeaways in the limited time the panel had to discuss it. Because of that, I’m scheduling a Part 2. I’m hoping that the same panel is willing to come back and take a different approach: instead of rehashing the existing and past issue of gender and technology, as valid as that is, I’d like to start Part 2 by stipulating that the problem exists and acknowledging that strong men and women have done much to pave the way for women in technology. Then I’d like to make the sole goal of Part 2 finding tangible ways to help women feel less disenfranchised in technology, to help women get access to technology for careers and educations and as many other solutions as we can think of in an hour of positive, focused, goal oriented discussion.

Future Topics on Fire Episodes include:

(as panelists confirm I will post them next to the podcast)

10/19 11PM Eastern Episode 7, Politics and Technology (Leslie Bradshaw, remaining panelists yet to be determined)

FaceBook released an iPhone App for the iPhone 3G a while back that had everyone underwhelmed. It shut people out from their favorite features and it made it impossible to make or accept friend requests and other oddities. Version 2.0 of the FaceBook fixes these issues and many more, making it a better application over all.

Mobile social is the new hotness, but most mobile applications and sites still get it wrong, reducing function for users. Having full featured applications available for our favorite sites is key to the continued growth of the hot mobile social sector. Everyone from FaceBook (iPhone App) to Verizon (SocialLife) seems to be picking up on the importance of the mobile social arena, but FaceBook may be one of the few who have gotten it right with this upgrade to their iPhone App.

The new app includes the full news feed now, which is nice for following many friends - it helps you keep up with the ones who are active. It also lets you add and request friends from your iPhone now, an essential component to using FaceBook. The fact they launched the first version without this feature floored me.

The folks at FaceBook also improved photo functionality, and made it easier to handle your FaceBook inbox and outgoing messages. They even included a better attachments model. also included is photo tagging and other options previously left out of the application. Overall I think this new version is a vast improvement on the original. Now if someone would just get on a decent mobile app for Twitter and for FriendFeed we’d be set with the big three.

Many in the online space remember Heather Armstrong, better known as Dooce, and how she was one of the first people to get fired for their blog. That seemed to be in keeping with the corporate climate then and now, but I’m going to let you in on a little secret: that needs to change. Almost every company should be tapping into the resources they already have to reach this new online space, especially in these times of a tight economy.

One of the first things I tell a new client is that part of the evaluation I make of their office is determining the existing resources they have to create a successful social media presence without undue expenditures on their part. I consider the employees of a company part of a company’s social media resources. I always recommend having me help them set a policy in their employee handbook that handles online presence and covers issues like privacy and basic conduct online, then include their existing staff in my training sessions.

Every employee has down time. Even the most over worked have a few minutes each day to play around online. I think companies who frown on corporate time used for a bit of personal fun are missing the mark. Yes, clear guidelines should be in place to make sure that your employees aren’t posting confidential information, and I do recommend choosing one or two “point people” to become the bulk of the company presence online, but there is no reason why your other employees can’t also disclose that they work for you, talk a bit about what they (and the company) do, and help make your brand more accessible.

The one or two “point people” you choose should be people able to get things done within the company. These people should become your help channel, your news conduit, your marketing source for social media. Think of them as the @comcastcares or @zappos for your brand. Then you should have other employees as minor points of information and news (Zappo is a great example of this in action as they have a number of employees on Twitter and other platforms). Above all else, everyone in the social media space for your company should be personable and make sure to include fun, personal tidbits in with the corporate. It makes your brand seem more likable, more accessible and creates a fan base for your service or product.

It is my opinion that anyone telling you to hire one person to be your company spokesperson online is leading you astray. Yes, you absolutely need social media training, a guide, if you will, to come in and help you and your employees learn the best practices of social media. This includes helping you pick the social media platform (or platforms) you are most comfortable with (not everyone needs Twitter, people) and learning how to use them in an effective and efficient way. It is much more cost effective to pay someone (yes, someone like me or others who do what I do) to come in and teach you how to help yourself online than it is to spend loads of money on an annual salary for one person to “brand you”. You are not a cow. Brand yourself - use existing resources, get some outside training and best practices in place, and let your employees really be part of the process. I think you will be pleasantly surprised at the results.

Topics on Fire, Episode 5: Education and Social Media/Technology on Sunday, September 21st at 11:00 PM Eastern on TalkShoe

Tonight’s podcast will be a good one! We’ll be discussing education and new media, social media and technology with Dave LaMorte, John Herman and E. Christopher Clark.

I’m hoping to cover a lot of ground in an hour, so I won’t be opening up the phone lines until the recording is over. I know I usually let listeners call in ten minutes before the end, and I will be doing that again in the next podcast (part two of the gender gap topic). Our panelists are all active educators and need their rest for Monday morning school. HOWEVER, that doesn’t mean you can’t come participate in the lively chat room. We can see it while in the call and can handle questions live on air that way.

If you want to be notified of future podcasts, sign up for a TalkShoe account and “follow” the call. I send a reminder the day of the call to those who follow it.

See you there!

NOTE: We also have a new forum to give you a place to carry the discussions from the podcasts over into the real world, submit topic ideas, talk about social media, promote events, etc. You can SIGN UP FOR THE NEW FORUM right here.

Tonight’s Call:

Next Topics on Fire continues the conversation on Gender Gap and Technology, this time focusing on solutions and not rehashing the problem:

10/5 11PM Eastern Topics on Fire: Episode 6, Gender Gap and Technology Part 2 (Panelists: Corvida, Leslie Bradshaw, Micah Baldwin, Meg Fowler, Jen Nedeau)

Future episodes and panelists include:

10/19 11PM Eastern Topics on Fire: Episode 7, Politics and Technology (Leslie Bradshaw)

FaceBook recently made news by starting to delete the user accounts of people who had joined solely for the purpose of playing a game called PackRat. Many are giving FaceBook kudos for deleting the accounts because of the spammy nature of the game, while others are condemning FaceBook for trying to dictate not only how people use its service (as evidenced by the recent forced ‘upgrade’ to the new design) but why they join in the first place.

Since FaceBook has given us a way to ignore all requests from any given application and a way to block applications, the first part of the equation doesn’t interest me at all. FaceBook users who think an application is spammy need only click “Ignore” to never see that application again, from anyone (trust me, after getting eleventybajillion Little Green Tree and Werewolf requests, I wanted to kiss FaceBook’s feet when that button came about).

What really grabs me is the second part of the equation. How much a site can and should dictate how new users find it, how they use it, and why they join in the first place has my undivided attention. Do I think PackRat is a spamaliscious application? Absolutely. Do I think there are more spammy application and (shudder) app-vertisements in our future? You know it. Do I think sites like FaceBook should ban people who join to play one of the games like this that could be considered spam by someone who isn’t into it? No, absolutely not.

I know that it isn’t the popular stance to take, but even on sites like Twitter I think that it isn’t why someone signs up that should be penalized. I think in the end the better thing to monitor is contribution. If the person signed on to play a game, and they “friend” other people who like to play the same game - that’s fine. That’s their community. Social media is about building your own community, after all.

Now, if they were trying to friend a ton of people and send them advertisements or other spam, I could see taking action. Twitter has a bit of an issue with spammers who have out of whack follower to following ratios and leave trojan-riddled links and such on their Twitter pages. I don’t want Twitter to block people for me, but when they see these spammers who are so obvious about abusing the system it is nice when they remove them. FaceBook should have similar criteria.

What do you think? Should the users of social network like FaceBook be able to dictate the kind of community they build, or should FaceBook?

By popular request I’m starting to offer a new service here at Uptown Uncorked, Individual Mentoring. Authors, musicians, comedians, actors, contractors, bloggers, self employed sole proprietors, or just people looking to figure out the occasionally overwhelming sea of social media sites and applications can now have me help them figure it all out. Think of it as having your own personal guide for where you need to be online, how to be online and the best use of your time while there.

Individual mentoring is something I get asked for more often than almost any other service I offer. I understand - when someone like Ben Grossman* talks about the need for a social media aggregation program and uses a series of three jam-packed slides that show only a partial list of the social media possibilities out there overwhelming people, the need for help learning what would be the best tools for you and how to use them for what you need without consuming your life or annoying people with things like link spam while you learn becomes clear. It’s easy for someone who isn’t an “early adopter” type to give up before you really get a chance to start playing with the possibilities because there is just so much to choose from.

What does Individual Mentoring entail? After we decide to go forward, an initial comprehensive evaluation of what you need, your goals, your available time to commit to maintaining your social media presence and more. I’ll use this to create a custom program for you to follow so you can jump start your use of social media. I will then keep an eye on you and give you pointers here and there on how you are doing and what could be better - teaching you how to engage people online using the platform or platforms that work best for you in the time you have to do it. You’ll find that after a short time you will take to it like a duck to water, and not only will you be able to fly on your own, you’ll probably be branching out in to other aspects of social media - once you understand it you find yourself using it more and more. The benefits to you come in the form of brand recognition (personal and business brand), contacts and network building, interest building, and often indirect monetary benefits (on occasion direct sales, but social media is more about indirect monetary benefits).

If you think you or your small business would benefit from Individual mentoring, give me a shout via email or call me at 800.501.4049

*Ben’s slides, Creative Commons Licensed, used with permission

It is highly likely that I won’t be able to attend this Sunday’s New Hampshire Media Makers, but I highly recommend you go whether I am able to or not. It is a fabulous group of truly creative and smart people, and you will both learn and be inspired to new levels of creativity and excellence. The best part of the Media Makers groups is the support and connection you feel right as you walk in the room.

For those unfamiliar with the concept, the New Hampshire meetings are held at Crackskulls in Newmarket. Newmarket is under construction, so parking is both strange and scarce right now. Don’t panic. Bring your towel. If you drive past the coffee house you will see a parking lot on your left you can use, then just walk back down the hill. The coffee house has limited seating, but makes up for it with WiFi and good company.

There is a meet and greet session at the beginning of the morning, from about 10:00 until 10:30. Mingle! Bring business cards or slips of paper to write on, or your smart phone, laptop or camera to take photos and notes. At 10:30 everyone settles down to talk about what they are doing, what they want to be doing and share ideas and help. It’s a great time, and everyone has three minutes to talk about projects or events.

If I can go I’ll be talking about my upcoming BlitzCall, the next Topics on Fire podcast and my need for educators using social media and technology in the classroom on the panel, my new writing gig at Mashable (they are giving me a forum for my pet topic social media for social change in the real world), my upcoming Mac podcast for my gig at Blorge, a new feature of my company Uptown Uncorked where I am offering individual mentoring on using social media (just like my classes, but for individuals who thrive better one on one), and more. Heck, if John’s dad Jack is there and I can get there I’d thank him for doing my generation gap podcast - he was outstanding. The audience loved him. I’d also show off my HTC Mogul’s new ability to take Qik videos - thanks to the folks at Qik for letting me beta test the program for my phone model.

On a side note: there are photos and videos. Lots and lots and lots. If you are not comfortable being online, sit in the back. I will say that the guys are usually pretty understanding - if a photo of you gives you heart palpitations online, they will swap it out for a better photo of you from the same meeting, but… a photo or video of you will be posted somewhere, at some point, at this meeting. It’s easier to just deal with it. You’ll have a better time.

Maybe I’ll see you there but if not - have fun without me and keep me posted!

Part two of the ongoing Social Media for Real World Social Change series is up at Mashable. Go here to learn ways to create a local support network for change.