Sensei Blogs

I’m Taking Back my Influence; Opting Out of Klout

sam_fiorella@hotmail.com(1 Sam Fiorella) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 00:00:00 GMT

So after almost a year of complaining about the evils of Klout and its minions, I’ve finally been told to put my money where my mouth is. And I’ve accepted the challenge by opting out of Klout.

Make no mistake, this is a business.

As a business, I admire Klout. But I also firmly believe that Klout has deteriorated the value of social communications by shifting the focus from open, transparent social communication for the betterment of the whole to calculated, incentivized communication for the benefit of the individual.

Case in point: Klout broadcasts the fact that your score will go up if you engage with people socially that have a higher score than you. Then they list Twitter followers by highest score so you can work on gaming your own position and earn Perks and bragging rights. In the end, it’s all about you and not the community. And isn’t that the opposite of what social engagement is really all about?

Klout is a business engine powered by thousands of hamsters running on a wheel…and we’re the hamsters. It’s engineered to train people to behave a certain way – and with such frequency – that it can harness the attention generated and sell it to the highest bidder. We hamsters are fed with ego-stroking points and trinkets (Perks) provided that we keep the wheel spinning for them.

So when I consider the business of Klout (and make no mistake, it is a business), I think “Kudos”. Frankly, the entrepreneur in me wishes I was smart enough to have thought of it first.

As a business, I have no issue with Klout.

So what’s the problem?

Well, first it’s the fact that they claim to “measure influence”, which they then qualify with: “uses data from social networks to measure true reach, amplification and network impact”. What they’re really doing is tracking your social metrics. In my mind, there is a disconnect between social metrics and establishing a true indication of influence, which I define as one’s ability to influence the public to purchase products they’d not otherwise purchase or believe things they’d not otherwise believe.

The fact that you become influential by communicating with the few Klout-annointed influencers who have higher scores than you says nothing about your true ability to influence the vast majority who have lower Klout scores. You know…those that you’ve essentially ignored to achieve the higher Klout sore in the first place? Klout now tell us that you’re influential because you’ve engaged a few influencers and not because you’ve influenced the masses. Is it just me or is this backwards?

Secondly, it’s the fact that sheep, er, people believe it. How can a non-scientific concept be measured with a scientific measurement? It’s akin to looking for an answer to the meaning of life by running a Google query. True influence, like beauty is in the eye of the beholder, which is not created by you but bestowed on you by your followers based on unpredictable, inconstant situational factors. Essentially unmeasurable.

Why did I opt out?

My introduction to Klout was just under a year ago when a potential employer asked me what my Klout score was. I didn’t know what they were talking about but I certainly figured it out after I was refused a second interview for a senior marketing role due to my low score (at the time it was somewhere between 34 - 37).

I didn’t realize I had a score before this but the value that people blindly gave it created an impression about my qualifications to perform a marketing job and influence people that the credentials on my resume and recommendations from clients would contradict. However, as sheep do, they followed the herd without thinking and made the judgment call.

In the aftermath of this event, I figured that with no way to opt-out I might as well have the best score possible so I experimented with different engagement techniques and tools to aid in increasing my rank. As a result my score peaked at 75, which by most people’s standards was quite impressive.

What struck me recently was that none of these new engagements, the job I was successful in obtaining nor the many contracts I’ve won and managed since were generated or impacted by my new higher Klout score. The Perks I was offered due to my score had no real value to me and the recognition I was receiving as a result of the score were from people that had absolutely no awareness of my true credentials or skills. So what was the point of the higher Klout score? Trinkets and bragging rights? Driving Klout closer to an IPO? And there's the A-HA moment. It's not about me at all. It's about building up Klout's business.

The lesson learned was that neither a high nor a low Klout score had any real-life bearing on my abilities to perform my job or quality of real-life connections with my community. Yet, businesses and people continue to put so much faith in – and base too many decisions on – a meaningless set of metrics that really only benefit Klout's sales.

Klout has lowered the industry standard instead of improving it. So I am taking a stand; I'm jumping off the wheel. I’m taking back my influence and putting it back in the hands of my real-life community.

MY BUSINESS CARD IS MY EXPERIENCE. It is no longer my Klout score.

I’m opting out of Klout. But, I am only one man. I am curious to see who will join me.

Sam Fiorella
Feed Your Community, Not Your Ego
Follow on Twitter

P.S. The person who was hired instead of me, the one with the higher Klout score at the time but less real-life experience....lasted only 5 months.

The Vision that Steve Built

sam_fiorella@hotmail.com(1 Sam Fiorella) — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 00:00:00 GMT

I wrote this post just after Steve Jobs resigned from Apple, but it's become more poignant now that he has passed. Personally, I never developed the militant fanaticism for Apple that Mr. Jobs had so successfully cultivated in others but I’ve always been a honest admirer of the man’s ability to communicate his vision.

A vision that built, and continuously reinvented, what is today the world's biggest and most valuable brand.

I've always had the habit of jotting down great quotes from leaders that inspired me in a business journal and among the online chatter and articles written that speculated “what’s next” for the brand in the weeks after Mr. Jobs resigned from Apple, I was reminded of one that I documented a little while ago:

Don’t waste time living someone else’s life. Stay hungry. Stay Foolish. ~ Steve Jobs

And when I skimmed through the other quotes, I realized that many were attributed to Mr. Jobs. They have served me well over the years; helping me successfully manage business and teams and so I’m presenting my list of Steve’s most impactful leadership quotes in hopes that they may inspire you as they do me. This is the vision that Steve built.

You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new. ~ Steve Jobs
Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected. ~ Steve Jobs
The people who are doing the work are the moving force behind the Macintosh. My job is to create a space for them, to clear out the rest of the organization and keep it at bay. ~ Steve Jobs
Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations. ~ Steve Jobs
Kick-start your brain. New ideas come from watching something, talk to people, experimenting, asking questions and getting out of the office! ~ Steve Jobs
Your customers dream of a happier and better life. Don’t move products. Enrich lives. ~ Steve Jobs
We think the Mac will sell zillions, but we didn’t build the Mac for anybody else. We built it for ourselves. WE were the group of people who were going to judge whether it was great or not. WE weren’t going to go out and do the market research. We just wanted to build the best thing we could build. ~ Steve Jobs
It’s only by saying ‘no’ that you can concentrate on the things that are really important. ~ Steve Jobs
That’s been one of my mantras – focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains. ~ Steve Jobs
Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes, the ones who see things differently – they’re not fond of rules…because the ones how are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do. ~ Steve Jobs
It took us three years to build the NeXT computer. If we’d given customers what they said they wanted, we’d have built a computer they’d have been happy with a year after we spoke to them – not something they’d want now. ~ Steve Jobs
Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design IS how it works. ~ Steve Jobs

I’m a PC. However, the visionary Steve Jobs has always served as an example of what beliving in your vision can do for a business, which has impacted my career. Thank you Mr. Jobs. RIP.

Sam Fiorella
Feed Your Community, Not Your Ego
Follow on Twitter

This post has been modified from my original version posted on the 12Most Blog site.

Finding Inspiration to Write

sam_fiorella@hotmail.com(2 Jeff Wilson) — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 00:00:00 GMT

Today I was part of a great Twitter chat #SOBcon. Lots of smart folks and a question came up that I found intriguing because of the dialogue it stirred in everyone.

Where do you find your inspiration to blog or write

The stir came when it was suggested that inspiration and having an editorial schedule could be polar opposites. Many agreed with this notion, some did not and sliced it down the middle.

The issue came down to this conundrum:

1) If you have an editorial schedule you risk putting out drab content for content sake.

2) If however you wait for inspiration to write, you risk being unreliable for actually publishing content for your readers.

3) Which opened up a third question of accountability to your audience and to your company (for whom you blog).

Maybe its the simple farmer inside me, but I figure, why cant we marry the two and have inspired editorial schedules that produces superior, authentic works? I have never created artificial boundaries for myself so this notion works for me.

I have always believed that limiting your perspective and beliefs are what hold you back in almost everything in life. To this end, I have always passionately clung to a child-like sense of wonder about everything around me, most especially human behavior. This perspective has enabled me to find inspiration absolutely everywhere I look and in every experience I have, both online and off. Does it all lead to writing? Of course not. But it all contributes.

So I wanted to share some of the ways I find and shape inspiration into my work and my writing.

Become an adventurer

Dont sit and wait for inspiration, go explore and find it. Improving your sense of curiosity and asking good questions is a great way to begin this journey. Every single environment and interaction holds the potential for discovery if you think and act like an adventurer.

Rekindle your passions

This is important because in order to find external inspiration, you need to inspire within. Yes I know, the whole chicken and egg thing I have found that being passionate about your writing is the best inspiration. This requires you to shift your beliefs a bit so that you can spark your passion at a moments notice. I have described it as the ability to create a positive charge in your mind, body and spirit. In short its your energy.

Make a commitment

An editorial schedule is a commitment to yourself, your company and your audience. It gives you some accountability and process. It also helps create modest expectations.

This has been my biggest challenge while building my personal brand. As many know, I put a lot of effort, research and thinking into my writing and that takes time. Therefore, my posting has been irregular (to be kind). My #1 goal is to become regular its about adding fibre to my writing diet to find that happy medium.

An inspired editorial schedule?

Does such an animal exist or is this another fabulous creature like the unicorn? For me, my editorial schedule is inspired and ever changing both to meet the needs of my audience and to fuel my passions. I write no less than ten posts at any given time, gradually contributing to each with new research or thinking. I use Evernote religiously online and listen to the folks on my Great Thinkers and Marketing Content Twitter lists. I use mind maps avidly to explore deep concepts and test my own logic. I actually hang a pen around my neck on a tether and carry a pocket sized moleskin to capture individual moments on paper. I also use a digital audio recorder when I am driving to capture and work through ideas.

I have given myself no excuses to not find, experience and capture inspiration when we meet and it is often from the most unlikely of places. So the schedule? Hell, that just comes naturally out and helps to reaffirm my goals.

Changing your perspective

This is not only about how you see the world around you but how you present yourself to the world around you. It is also as simple as changing your surroundings out of your typical routines. Some of my best writing has been done in cafes and pubs. Whatever works.

A story to illustrate my point

I am blessed to have 3 beautiful, imaginative children and this story was inspired out of my commitment to being a Dad.

It starts with my adventure to build my first backyard skating rink for the kids. While doing so, I found myself overcome with inspiration for my social sales software and here is how

My challenge was that I didnt have the proper rink kit to make the skating rink and everyone told me i needed one. I was stuck. But in speaking with a friend, he suggested using the snow as the form. A great idea to be sure.

But wait a minute, if I use snow as a form, my rink is no longer constrained to the tired old rectangles of my youth right? Suddenly I could creatively use the entire backyard including a massive loop around my back garden to make a unique skating experience for my kids. The ability to shift from rigid thinking (I need forms) to abstract (snow creates any form) I was able to overcome a challenge and find inspiration. But it didnt stop there.

What if I applied the same thinking to my software interface? What if I looked at it like snow and shaped it into a simpler, more powerful natural form that takes me away from tired old tradition. Since that point, I have been re-designing and simplifying the software.

To close it out, I believe inspiration is all around me and that boundaries only exist when I create them.

Are you limiting yourself? Try a being an adventurer for a day and see if inspiration can be found instead of waiting for it. Not only could this lead you to exciting new paths, but you may find you can keep a balance between inspired writing and keeping a schedule.