There is a phrase, spoken mostly by “social media experts,” that I just cant stand. Can you guess what it is?

(drum roll please)

“Its not in my brand”

Yuck.

As social media continues its explosion, and more and more people are becoming “social media experts”and talking in terms of personal brand.

(BTW, “social media expert” is another complete misnomer. Have you noticed that most “social media experts” are socially awkward or inept? What they truly excel in is using the Internet as a way to relate in a non-real way. Thats why I am so impressed by video bloggers who truly just talk into a camera and express their feelings. Its the closest thing to connecting directly with people that is not hidden by social media constraints.)

(another point. I am a bit of a hypocrite here since I am blogging, not video blogging these thoughts, but to my credit, I aint no “social media expert.”)

Back to the concept of personal brand.

There are two types of branding: corporate branding, and this new concept of personal brand.

Corporate branding is simple. Its the concept of creating a good feeling about a product or service with potential customers. So have a concept of “Give the world a Coke,” is a great branding exercise. People feel good about giving and therefore feel good about Coke, with the net effect being more soda being purchased.

Personal brand has become how you present yourself to the world. What people dont realize is this simple fact:

Personal Brand is YOU.

So, there is so separation between your “personal brand” and you. Personal brand, doesnt exist. Its a fake concept, a misnomer, a way for “social media experts” to make a living.

Take for example screen names.

There are people who use screen names that are not connected to their names, when asked why, the common response is that they can “brand themselves around the screen name.” This allows them to keep the “personal” away from the “professional.”

How is this personal branding?

If personal branding is about the person, shouldnt it be about the person?

By using my name (@micah) I create no division between Micah the person and Micah the “online” person. This means that I dont have a Personal Brand, I just have me.

There are other folks who do the same online.

Chris Brogan, Gary Vaynerchuk, Robert Scoble and the king of all marketers, Seth Godin, and others use their names as their online identities and allow their words to define who they are. Are they careful with their word choice and subjects, sure, but most folks are aware of the effect of their conversation with others and on others.

Personal Brand is like Coke. Its easy to get addicted to the concept of personal brand and the need to “protect your personal brand,” personally, I say enter a 12 step program and just be you.

Most of the time, you is pretty damn cool by yourself.

,

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I recently was engaged in a Skype conversation with my friend Aaron Brazell. Aaron recently left b5media where he was the Director of Technology, and has decided to change careers. Of all the things he could choose to do, Business Development happened to be on his list.

So, probably because I am the coolest person in the world (in addition to my status as the #1 douchebag in the world), I asked Aaron to try his hand at Business Development at Lijit Networks.

Its been fun over the past week or so talking to Aaron about publishers and Lijit, but more interestingly is the discussions we have had about business development.

So, back to the Skype conversation.

Aaron and I were discussing a plan of attack for a large publisher. One that neither of us had a warm introduction into. As the conversation continued, I began to explain to Aaron the difference between business development now and during the Great Dot Com Bubble of 2000.

In the “old days,” business development was more about strategic alliances, which was a silly way to say, “lets find a way to drive traffic to each other.” (Notice the word traffic. I didnt accidentally substitute that for the word revenue.)

Many companies owned a certain space and could demand many things for the access to their traffic or data. Business Development was really just sales with out the quota. It was all about traffic and eyeballs, and there was little to no focus on creating bi-directional relationships. As I just explained to another friend:

Business Development is about working with people who want to make your company better while you work to make their company better.

And that, in a nutshell, is the difference in todays world.

The world is smaller. Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and the like make it easy to interact with people all times of day and builds a level of understanding and connection that is unprecedented.

So, what advice would I give a new business development guy? What advice did I give Aaron? Here are my three rules to being a fantastic Business Development guy:

1. Be yourself. You are now intertwined with the brand of the company you are pitching. If you are fake, then the company will be seen as fake. Just be yourself.
2. Do what you would do normally. If you are not a blogger. Dont blog. If you dont like twitter, dont tweet. Basically, chose the communication medium that best suits you.
3. Look for connections. Not just between people, but between companies. Does it make sense for Lijit to work with hardware manufacturers? Probably not. So think of connections in three ways:
   1. Direct: These are people that you know directly or can be introduced directly. In this case, you are looking to directly pitch the person on your product or service.
   2. Indirect: These are tangential connections, where you want to pitch your product or service to someone because of the people that like, follow, respect the direct connection.
   3. Enhanced:  Dont really have a better word for this, but its basically a connection where there may be no immediate business to pitch, but since the two companies are like minded and the product or service is complimentary, that a connection will enhance both companies.

The first type, Direct, is the most like sales. You have something you want someone else to use or pay for, so you explain the features and benefits, and you are off to the races. The second, Indirect, is very much like a Direct connection, but your target isnt the initial person, its the intial person’s fans and friends.

Both of those are necessary for the growth of a company. As long as one is open and honest about it and straight forward, there is nothing shady about the practice.

The third type, enhance, is the most difficult and esoteric for most people. People that are successful at Enhanced Connections usually dont work for commission. They usually arent great sales people. But, they see the potential in both their company, and the target company, and understand that together they are stronger than individually. And most importantly, they understand its about sharing and giving, not just taking.

I also often joke that my title is VP, Favors and Introductions. 99% of my job doing favors, giving introductions or asking for favors or introductions. To me, the only capital I possess is my reputation and the trust my friends have that I will introduce someone that is worthy and wont waste their time.

The key to being successful at this is understanding one simple thing:

To get, one must give, and trust that the gift is compelling enough to have the other give in return.

And that one sentence, is what Business Development in a Web 2.0 World is. Its not wineing and dining, or business trips, or even expense accounts. Its being in a state of constantly giving, making sure that you have given more daily than received. And, most importantly, if, at the end of the day, what you are giving away (whether it is time, connections, a product or service, or even just an ear to listen) is not worthy of the people you are giving it to, and not given freely, you will lose. Every time.

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Comments are a strange part of blogging. I love ‘em, and I hate ‘em. The majority of comments I get seem to fall into the camp of: “Gee, Micah, I really liked what you wrote.”

But, the comments I love are the ones that extend the discussion. Sometimes those comments spill over onto Twitter, or direct emails, or lunch discussions the next day. And those are the comments that I would love to capture. Those comments I would love to extend beyond my blog. Those comments I would love to make interactive.

When I started to get back involved with the Colorado tech scene, I got to know one of the founders of Intense Debate, Josh Morgan. Fantasic guy. Clearly in over his head, but a hard worker. His partner, Jon Fox, is a brilliant developer, but needed direction. Still I really liked what they were doing.

So, I added Intense Debate.

After a couple of weeks, Intense Debate began to really bog down performance wise. Plus, it didnt have trackback support.  Knowing the guys, I finally made the decision to pull it off my blog, and go back to the default comments. I explained why (performance and lack of trachback support). I figured the default comment system would be good enough.

Over the months, I watched Disqus continue to grow and Intense Debate languish. “They will do what they are going to do,” I thought to myself. “I hope that ends up positive.”

And, Disqus continued to innovate and extend their reach. And, finally, Disqus got funded.

And while there has been minimal innovation with Intense Debate, Disqus has continued to add features and even developed an API (which as a non-technical person always means to me that one can do more cool stuff with the product).

And, even more importantly, more and more of the blogs that I interact with were using Disqus.

Still, I stayed loyal, and added no comment system to my blog.

Fast forward several months.

My blog has grown. Many times, I get a dozen or so comments on posts. Its no 100+ that some people get, but its more than 1 or 2. So, I started reviewing comment systems again.

For those that dont know, I run business development at Lijit Networks, and one of my roles is finding additional content sources for our technology to index. At Lijit, we are content agnostic. We will index any RSS/OPML feed or URL.

I often say, “Google wants to index everything. At Lijit, we only index the information you care about.” So, if you want to index Disqus or Intense Debate comments, we want to make it easy.

So, I emailed Daniel Ha over at Disqus and Tom Keller at Intense Debate.

Five minutes later, I got an email back offering development and business development support. Access to a private API, basically whatever we needed. (It didnt hurt that Daniel and his business partner were both UCDavis–my alma mater–*ahem* almost grads).

I was completely amazed at the speed and willingness of Daniel to make sure that the two companies worked well together and produced a superior integration.

And even then, I didnt add Disqus. I stayed true to my word, not adding any comment system.

This post: http://www.jangro.com/a/2008/04/08/hacking-disqus/ became the straw that broke the camel’s back for me personally.

Why? Because the community had begun to choose which comment system they wanted to use by hacking it, and if you read the comments, Daniel jumped right in and has taken some of the hacks, and integrated them into the system. Disqus had embraced the community right back.

Then, with the addition of video comments (something I want to play with, and would rather do than write a comment), Disqus became too good to not use.

So what does that mean? Its simple enough. In this world we all work in, if you dont embrace (and be embraced by the community) you cannot succeed. If you dont continually innovate, you cannot succeed.

Moral to the story: If you dont embrace the community, and you dont innovate, you die.

And that is why I chose to add Disqus comments to this blog. Will they stay? I dont know. It will depend on if Daniel and team continue down their current path. Could Intense Debate produce something that is interesting enough for me to walk away from Disqus? Sure, and frankly, I hope they do. But, for now, Disqus it is.

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