Janet Fouts

I heard about this amazing project in Detroit called Loveland on NPR. You can hear the full story here but here it is in the compressed version.

Jerry Paffendorf bought a relatively useless plot of land in Detroit and then portioned the entire thing up into 10,000 square inch plots of land. He sold the plots to people (inchvestors) who wanted to own a piece of Detroit. Technically they don’t “own” anything. They don’t get to vote in Detroit or pay taxes, but still the sense of ownership is real. There’s a Facebook page, a Twitter page, Vimeo channel, Google maps pinpoint plot locations, and the whole thing is quickly turning into an active virtual world where people can interact with “superfunexcitementoffandonlineadventure”…

People from all over the world bought 1-2 or several square inches. One of the biggest investors bought 1,000 squares. All in all he sold 10,000 inches to  588 inchvestors. Some had lived in Detroit or had fond memories of a visit there. Some had family and some just thought it would be a cool thing to own a piece of “Motor City”.

So what’s this got to do with social media? What, I need to hit you with a brick??

Something like this is a perfect example of creating an idea and letting the community run with it. That’s what makes community work. It’s almost never the person who came up with the idea that makes it a success. It’s the community adding their love, their money and their ideas it suddenly becomes something bigger, more interesting and more valuable than the original owner could conceive.

That’s what you need to do with any social community you create. You need to be a catalyst and allow reactions to happen and things to evolve organically. Come up with ideas sure, nurture the relationships, especially with the ones who become passionate about what it is you’re doing.

Then let the community guide where you go with it and what it becomes. The people who can express their passion through your community will pay you and the community back for all you do in ways you simply can’t predict.

I’ve got two large conferences coming up in the next two months and I’m busy planning so I can get the most out of these opportunities possible.

The first conferences is South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi)and although I’m not speaking at this one I’m still very excited about being there. Why? Are you kidding? This is one of the hottest conferences for Film, Music and Interactive media around.. Even though I am attending mostly the interactive portion of the event it’s an amazing opportunity to learn about the film and music industry and get to know a lot of my interactive and social media friends at the same time..

The parties at this thing are legendary, but honestly (really) I’m not much of a party animal so a lot of my events entail actually going to the panels, coffee, dinner and good wine, or a glass of fine single malt with friends and conversation.

The second conference is the Nonprofit Technology Conference put on by NTEN. This is my second year presenting at this one and I’m really excited. I can’t quite explain the energy you get from being surrounded by over 1,000 people engaged in non-profits of every stripe, but I guess I’d sum it up as inspiring. The stories you hear from these people are passionate and engaged and everything a good community demands. You leave feeling like the most important thing you can do is work for social good and that’s something that is deeply important for me as an individual and for my businesses.

Besides speaking I’ll be participating in the Day of Service program, and if you are going and haven’t signed up yet get your butt over there now and see how you can help. Even if you don’t have technical expertise to lend there is definitely something you can do by volunteering a few hours to help a non-profit organization.

So, what’s my agenda for both conferences?

Promote the Social Media Coaching Center to consultants and companies who don’t have time or resources to train all of their clients/staff on the applications and skills they need to know to effectively execute their social media strategies.

Learn, learn and learn some more. This is what I do for fun. Expect posts and videos to follow on the Coaching Center as well as this blog.

Meet people who can hire me as a social media coach, need implementation like Wordpress installs, product demos, web sites or in-house training on social media apps or are looking for a speaker for their own conferences or workshops.

Promote both of my books. Social Media Success! and the very soon to be released Social Media for Nonprofits that Beth Kanter and I pulled together just in time for NTC by crowd sourcing ideas with people who work in nonprofits and social media.

I plan to focus more on listening than talking and helping than selling. If you’re going to be there let’s connect. Email me at janet @ JanetFouts.com, ping me on Twitter @JFouts or call me on my cell 415.990.3991 and let’s make some plans.

Oh, and I’m also planning on looking for a saddle for my horse, so if you know of a good saddlery in Austin let me know! Yeehaw.

Whether you are an amateur blogger or a professional blogging for a company you need to clearly understand the FTC’s rules for bloggers or suffer the consequences.Like up to $11,000 in fines!

Scary? Well it’s supposed to be, but quite honestly if you abide by good old common sense and treat people honestly in the first place this probably won’t be that big of an issue.

That said I’m not a lawyer, so downloading the rules and reading them for yourself is a very good idea! Here’s a link to the code FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION 16 CFR part 255 (PDF)

Here’s a quick summary of the high points

• If you blog about a product that was given to you to review, you are an affiliate for or you are paid to review in any way you must disclose that information clearly. This includes but is not limited to: ad revenue, testimonials for individuals or products, banner ads for the product “conveniently near” the post you wrote.
• If your blog is sponsored by anyone you must divulge this clearly. No writing about laundry when your sponsor is, say… Clorox, without divulging that fact.
• If you are in any way compensated by the company or parent company of a product you write about. You must disclose it where the reader can clearly see it.

Really when you think about it this isn’t as big a deal as it sounds. It may mean the days of free swag are gone, but then again probably not. Magazines and newspapers have been dealing with this for years as have TV and radio. If we want blogging to be recognized as a professional industry we should be happy to be categorized with the rest of the publication industry.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Marketing to Mommy Bloggers and The FTC (cindikate.com)
• FTC Blogger Rules Carry $11K Fines (mediabistro.com)