Digital ID Coach

Digital Identity and PodCamp Hawaii

November 12th, 2008

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Last month Hawaii saw it’s first PodCamp/WordCamp. Roxanne Darling of Bare Feet Studios rallied an amazing line-up of sponsors. Over 400 people (including some representing their businesses) came to learn from a diverse and talented group of speakers, who were talking about WordPress and blogging, tweeting, Podcasting (video and audio-casting), Social Media, and Business Uses of these concepts.

What does this have to do with identity?

Everything. The tools we learned about are all tools for self-expression. The Web, audio and video are tools to help us show and explain the world that we are part of. They give voice to the beautiful, the ironic, the funny, and the learning parts of life. We have the power, expanded by these tools, to share our own stories.

What did PodCamp Hawaii have to do with business?

Everything.

Businesses have an identity and express themselves too. Marketers call the business identity a “brand,” and protect it with intellectual property laws (copyrights, trademarks, etc.). Sounds so cold, doesn’t it?

It doesn’t have to be. Businesses can (and many do) use social media tools to express themselves in a more personal way with their clients and customers. Businesses are “reaching out” and learning to interact. Just like any learning process, some are better at this than others. It takes practice.

Coaching moment: we use language to show or withhold respect for others. Before your business engages in using new tools, check your language and metaphor defaults: have you “won” your customers because of “successful campaigns” on the marketing “battlefield?” Or have you welcomed your customers to help make your business successful? The former is closed and hostile. The latter opens doors for all kinds of beneficial conversations.

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