Bill Cammack

I can’t tell you anything about the actual Fast Company Influence Project because I never clicked on it. I never came close to clicking on it, which is where I feel we will discover some of the myriad lessons to be learned from this situation.

First Impression

The first time I heard of the project, I didn’t hear of the project.

What I mean by that is that I didn’t realize that I had had a run-in with the project before I realized that a) there was a project and b) people didn’t like it. Read the rest of this entry »

Two years ago, in May 2008, I wrote “Fame, Popularity & Star Power” and then “Fame (Part 2)” two weeks apart from each other. The main point was that I was trying to figure out how to articulate my thoughts about fame in order to respond to an opinion my friend Dave had expressed about why I do what I do.

I never actually figured out how to exactly articulate the difference between what I’ve done for basically my entire life and what a lot of people do now. Today.. Due to circumstances beyond my control, I ended up watching a video where someone interviewed Melyssa Ford. Read the rest of this entry »

I dropped my e-Stalking series in 2008.

At the time, I was talking about asynchronously getting to know someone by reading their blog posts, listening to their podcasts, watching their videos & live streams and coming to your own conclusion about who they are, what they’re like and what they like to do without them ever knowing that you exist.

e-Stalking makes perfect sense because people tend to share what they care about online to the degree that they’re willing to be judged by what they wrote. Trust Me.. You can learn way more about someone in 20 minutes of consuming their media than you can during 20 minutes of banter with them and three other people standing around at an IRL social function. Read the rest of this entry »

Let me tell you how Social Media works…

There are two layers. There’s the online layer and then the offline layer.

The online layer is where we all say whatever we want about ourselves and expect people to take our word for it. The offline layer is where you have to PUT UP OR SHUT UP. You’re either the same person IRL (In Real Life) that you claim to be online or you’re not. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the things I find laughable about Social Media is that it’s sold to people that don’t know anything about Social Media.

This makes it possible for people who are ABSOLUTE GARBAGE at creating and maintaining their own online presence to make money telling other people how THEY should represent themselves or their companies online.

I’m not the type of person to knock the next man’s hustle, but that’s exactly what it is.. A HUSTLE. Smoke & Mirrors.

There are LOTS of people who are legitimate and present great solutions to their clients, but some people are just embarrassingly horrible at Social Media and still they’re heralded as gurus amongst their fans. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, there was an horrible earthquake in Haiti that measured 7.0 on the Richter scale‎. We won’t know until the sun comes up how horrible it was, because electricity AND telephone service was knocked out.

My long time friend and college homeboy, Pascal Antoine is Haitian. He founded and has been maintaining a website called HaitiXchange.com for a lot of years now.

I normally don’t watch the news at all, but I’ve been fascinated by the recent trend of channels showing 3% news and 97% punditry (people giving their OPINIONS about what the news means instead of showing us a bunch more news stories). So I turn on the television around 8pm and flip to CNN, where the slot says “Campbell Brown”, so I’m like “*yawn* Here we go!”, and she has a different look on her face and the marquis below her reads something like “Hospital Collapses In Haiti”. Read the rest of this entry »

As we move forward into 2010, Guilt By Association is going to become a major issue. This year, the civilians found out about Twitter and flooded it with new connections. Sites like Facebook have seen dramatic increases in membership, bringing increases in connections and shared media. If you’re involved in “the game”, sooner or later, you’re going to be associated with someone controversial either on a local scale or an international scale. When/if that time comes, you’re going to have to decide how you’re going to deal with people’s new perception of you based on something you had nothing to do with, whatsoever. Read the rest of this entry »

So I just ruined an experience for my friend Keith when I posted a Facebook status update about who won the Carano vs Cyborg fight last night. That’s my fault, and I hate it when that happens to me… Except it brings up an interesting point about the real-time nature of the internet these days.

I already know to avoid *ALL* areas of Social Media between the time that something happens that I recorded on my DVR and the time that I watch it. For instance… If I intend to watch an episode of “24″ and it airs at 9pm EST and I don’t want to hear anyone spoil it for me, I’m not going to look at Google, eMail, Social Media sites, Instant Messenger programs, my own blog or ANYTHING ELSE until I watch the episode.

This is because this is 2009. People are LIVE-BLOGGING events at this point. I’m sure you could have hit Google ten minutes after the fight concluded and found the results, the exact time the fight ended, how it ended, who won and people’s opinions about the entire thing. By the next morning, you can see pictures of the event as well as video from the post-fight interviews. Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s say you have something that you do well. One thing. Just one. Next thing you know, you find out about Social Media and all the good things that are now available for everyone to take part in. Before you jump in the pool, consider that you might not be able to swim. Don’t get in over your head with Social Media, because the effect is going to be *YOU* looking unprofessional, AND broadcasting that YOURSELF to the entire world.

Let’s say you’re a football player. Let’s say you have lots of IRL fans and it seems like a good idea to you to start utilizing sites/apps like Twitter, Ustream, Qik, Youtube, Livestream, BlogTV, Tinychat, Tokbox, Facebook, MySpace, etc etc to increase your numbers of “followers” and increase your international visibility. To a degree, this will work for you. If you overdo it, you won’t be able to spend the required amount of time to maintain your position in any or potentially ALL of your endeavors. If you don’t maintain your positions properly, people are going to start recognizing you for SUCKING at Social Media more than they recognize you for playing football.

Of course, this is infinitely worse if you’re supposed to be a Social Media Expert (SME). Do. Not. Get. Caught. Slippin’. in your Social Media if you want someone to pay YOU to handle THEIR SM for them. Read the rest of this entry »

Rox, Grace, Bill & Laura – April, 2008

I had an interesting experience happen two months ago back in May, which I talked about in “Who Are You?”. Basically, I sent a friends request on Facebook to someone I was friends with in Elementary School and she had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA who I was! :D

Now, of course, there are like a million people I’ve forgotten since Elementary, so her perception of me (or lack thereof, haha) isn’t a big deal. My perception of her happened to remain fresh because she’s an actress and shows up in films or on television every couple of years, so I pretty much couldn’t forget her if I tried! :D

However.. The situation made me consider what I’ve done… or perhaps how my mind works when it comes to my friends. My system retains what I’ll call positive, negative or neutral remembrances of people or they exit my mind entirely. All the time, I’ve run into friends that I haven’t seen for years, and we picked up our conversations and hangouts as if we had just seen each other yesterday. That’s because my system operates on a kind of suspended-animation basis.

In my mind, I don’t stop being friends with someone because we’re out of contact. I either have a generally good, bad, neutral or “zero” (forgotten) feeling about them when I run into them the next time, and then we take it from there. That’s partially what makes me who I am as a video editor. I can see footage and retain it in my mind and then make the video from memory instead of having to see it physically on the screen. I never “rough cut”. I’m always laying video and audio down exactly as I wanted it in my mind, checking it and then adjusting it. Read the rest of this entry »

I joined Twitter a little over two years ago, around the time of SXSW 2007. I was already about a year behind its launch. I wrote Twitter Has “Ruined” My Life in June 2007. This picture is on that post, and includes Mike, Justin, Anil, Kenyatta, Debbie, Grace, Eric & myself and was taken by Jared. I fully expect to see 5 if not 6 of these same people later today at an IRL get-together.. two years later:

Photo Credit: Jared Klett

The reason I joined Twitter is the same reason I joined any Social Media site. There were people that I ALREADY KNEW that started using a new site, app or tool and I wanted to be involved in this new (and hopefully BETTER and INNOVATIVE) way to contact them or keep up with what they’re doing. What that did was give Twitter a particular flavor for me. It was the place where I went to receive up-to-the-minute information about people that I was keeping in contact with anyway via newsgroups or forums or email or their blogs or whatever. Read the rest of this entry »

Facebook Username availability may affect the popularity of using one’s Twitter handle (like @BillCammack as identification.

Bill & Jody

I never used @BillCammack as identification because Twitter is a tool, not a home. The only reason for someone to go to my Twitter page is to click “Follow”. After that, they’ll be following me in whatever app they choose, so my Twitter handle is now worthless to me as a “home base”.

Personally, I tell people to Google Bill, because I’m me. That probably won’t work for you, so we’ll skip on past that one. :D

If you’re branding yourself properly, your screen names will be redundant across networks. This is because when something new shows up, Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce, ustream, livestream, blogtv, whatever.. People that know who you are and what you do are going to look for you as the same name you used in the previous social site. Therefore, your lineup should look like this:

Website: http://BillCammack.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/BillCammack
Facebook: http://facebook.com/BillCammack
Ustream: http://ustream.tv/BillCammack
etc, etc, etc…..

So, even if you couldn’t just Google me, you would be able to find out what I’m doing by using the username you already know me as on the next new popular site.

The question, then… is now that you have the opportunity to easily identify yourself as:

a) Your own website,
b) Your twitter handle, or
c) Your facebook page,

Which one will you gravitate towards to represent you in your social media interactions, and why?

~ Bill Cammack

Twitter: BillCammack
Facebook: BillCammack
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