Managing the Gray #26 Transcript – Working in the New Media Word
Intro: Welcome to the brand new world of digital marketing consumer-generated media and no control PR. The rules of engagement are no longer black and white. You need to change, to evolve, to manage the gray, and how do you do that? You let C.C. Chapman help you.
C.C. Chapman: Welcome to Managing the Gray #26. I am C.C. Chapman, how are you guys doing? You know me. I am the VP of Marketing over at crayon, podcaster-crazy man. I am just an all-around new marketing type of guy. I really love new media, love what we are doing in this space and everyday I think I find something different that excites me.
This is an example, before we get to the meat of the show today, one of the things that was fun this morning was, Crayon hosted an event in Second Life called Coffee with Crayon. Now, this is an extension of — if you have not heard about it, do a Google search on Coffee Mornings. It might be coffeemornings.com when I think about it, but if it is not, what these are is all around the country people are getting together. Imagine that, getting together one day a month just to discuss topics of new media or art or anything but they are getting together. It is just bringing like-minded people together whether that is real life or Second Life. The fact that it is happening is a good thing. So, Crayon wanted to jump on it and start doing it in Second Life. So, every Thursday morning at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, that is 6:00 a.m. Second Life time, same thing as Pacific, imagine that, we are just going to get together and talk about whatever it is.
Today, I just kind of threw the idea out there about predictions for 2007 and we went on this path of talking about transparencies and fake blogs and just kind of went all over the place. We are soliciting ideas if maybe next time we break out into separate areas, if people want to talk about different things, who knows? But it is very casual. There is no agenda. It is very informal. I gave out coffee mugs to everybody that had the Coffee with Crayon logos on it. Thank you Britney Mason for hooking us up with those, You rock! It was a really good time, really good turn out, I was very excited. If you go over to crayonville.com/blog, you can read the transcript from it. It was very exciting and it was neat that people were discovering Crayoncast as well. If you have not heard about it, we are doing this podcast, doing things a little different at Crayon where every week, every employee, from the CEO down to the youngest intern gets to record a 60-second sound bite of what excited them that week, something that caught their attention and then the Crayoncast is just those all chained together. When I first read the idea I was not too sure about it. I thought, “Yeah, maybe,” but then when we started putting it together, it was a lot of fun and I look forward every week to hear what people say because I do not listen to them before I put it together with CastBlaster on purpose because I do not want them to influence what I am saying. So, it is a lot of fun, crayoncast.com, take out your iTunes and check it out, just some fun things that are happening I wanted to talk to you about before we jump into the meat.
Now, today’s Managing the Gray is all about the fact that I work from home now. I work in my office, I work online. A lot of you are in this situation where even if you are not at home, you are always connected, this world does not turn off anymore. When you start working with people on a global nature, people around the world, who are like-minded like you, who are online all the time, it gets interesting and there are some problems. All of this sparked from a conversation I was having with Matthew Ebel. He sent in an audio comment. By the way, thank you for the comment on the last show. Someone said, “C.C., you gotta put your call-in number into the show.” So, I will do that from now on and the call-in number if you ever want to call in is 206-309-GRAY; that is, 206-309-4729, whether you got a question for a show. I know I have got another question. The next Managing the Gray is already queued up with another great question someone sent in. Or you can email me at managingthegray@gmail.com. Let us get into Matthew’s question. It is directly about IM etiquette. That kind of led to the bigger conversation, which is what I want to focus on today, which is the whole working in a virtual world and things to keep in mind and things that I have learned just in the past few months of doing it. So, here is Matthew Ebel.
Matthew Ebel: Hey there, C.C. This is Matthew Ebel from Nashville, Tennessee. I have a, I do not know if it would be a question or just more of a concern lately about the way etiquette is going in the world of instant messaging. Obviously, things like ICQ and AOL Instant messenger have been around for a long time now and at least 10 maybe even 15 years, but I have noticed that for some reason, people who would normally be very cordial and very formal in the way they conduct business seem to lose all tack when they get on to instant messaging. I am not talking about what they are saying but I am talking about things like away messages and idle time and basically ignoring people. I have noticed that I have had conversations with people who suddenly stopped talking in mid-conversation. It would be like standing in front of somebody and talking to them and in mid-sentence they suddenly just turn and walk way and like hail a taxi and get the hell out of there. So, I do not know if it is just me but I feel a bit put off by this. Other things like away messages, like people who just leave themselves marked “in” all the time even if they are out or in the bathroom or something like that. You know from talking to me that even if I am going to go hit the litter box for a couple of minutes, I will mark myself “out” just so people know if they message me not to expect a quick reply. I do not know, it just seems like, considering how much business we are doing in the new media, considering how much business we are doing via the internet these days, there should be some kind of etiquette. Even somebody who runs a little coffee shop will put a sign that says “out for lunch, back in 5 minutes” on the door if they need to close up. So, hopefully, you have got some thoughts on this and you would care to share and hopefully set some people straight so we do not have a bunch of businessmen getting ticked off at each other and maybe, just maybe, we will actually get some business done. Thanks a lot and hope you can help me answer these questions. Talk to you later, bye-bye.
C.C. Chapman: Matthew brings up an interesting point and that is what sparked the idea of this show. It is funny. I am like, “You know what? I am not going to give best practices,” because I can only give what works for me. So, this is kind of a how-to-work-with-C.C.-virtually and what I have learned over the past six months and hopefully it will translate to you and it will also spark some discussion because I sort of disagree with part of what Matthew — so, I will start with IM. Instant Messaging used to be something where you only opened it when you were in the mood to chat. You would get in AOL and it would pop up. I know I used to turn it on when I was on at night and I was comfortable chatting with people. I was engaging. I started it. I said, “Yes, I want to chat with people, I will open up chat.” Now, the minute my computer turns on, Google Talk and Skype open automatically. Trillian used to too but I do not use AIM as much as I used to since mainly everybody I am talking to is on one of those, Skype or Google Talk. Thus, it is always open and it is a though thing. You will notice if you have ever tried talking to me, Skype is almost always set as not available or not here, not do not disturb, there is a difference. That is mainly because I have so many people that will just IM me for the social aspect and I cannot always talk with them at the time because I am working.
People need to realize that when someone is actually working, just because they have — you know IM has a very social angle to it that is why a lot of companies have banned it. It is very difficult sometimes when I will have literally 8 to 10 IM windows open, some are of a social nature, some are of a business nature and I want to have conversations with everybody and most people are respectful when you say, “Listen, I’ve really got to get back to work,” but should I set my IM to say, “Working hard, do not bug me?” Maybe and I have done that when I really need to but at the same time I view IM as sort of a quick email note rather than sending notes back and forth via email which can be done and I do it all the time. IM is something that happens.
I know sometimes literally I have done exactly what Matthew was talking about, walking away in the middle of the conversation and it is not that I mean to. It is the equivalent of typing an email and then something distracts you and you have to go away. The difference is IM is real time and it is a difficult thing and I tried to always be like, “I’ll be right back,” but when you have got 10 things open and all of a sudden you get a Skype phone call, you know business phone call or someone calls, I mean my office line is my Skype line, if someone suddenly calls in, I have got to go. I cannot go to all 10 windows and say, “Sorry, I am busy right now.” That is a hard thing, it is hard and
I get that. I do think that what is important is setting your away messages in an appropriate fashion. What I love about both Google Talk and Skype is the fact that you can customize it completely. It is not just the fact of “away,” “not here,” you can actually type whatever you want. So, you can actually have fun with it. You can actually type in what you are working. I have put on things you know, “Head down.” It can also be used as a marketing tool, “Check this out” and put a URL or this morning when I did Coffee with Crayon, that is what I was doing and I put it and I already have people ask me, “What’s Coffee with Crayon?” So think about that.
It has been funny because like the other night — it is important if you do that though, you need to stay on top of it because people are in fact paying attention to it. Even if you do not think they are, they are. The other night, I said “dinner with the family” and then I forgot and I shut down the computer later that night. I get up in the morning and that was still there and somebody immediately said, “Dude, you’re still having dinner?” It took me a second to figure out what they were talking about.
So, keep that in mind. It is something to think about and if I ever do pause in the middle of a conversation, I promise I will be back. I will try to be back. What is always awkward is if and I try to do this and I would recommend it to everybody, I am at fault for doing this too, where the IM conversation pauses for whatever reason and when I come back, the person is gone. A good practice is to email them and say, “Hey, sorry we didn’t get to chat too much,” or “I left.” Apologize and send them an email and let the conversation continue there.
One other thing that is weird, especially with Google Talk, I talk to all sorts of people via Gmail. A lot of it sometimes is very, not anonymous, but random, you know, an email comes in to the show, comes in to Managing the Gray or Accident Hash or something like that and I respond. I am like “Hey, what’s up?” and I will talk to them but then three weeks out, I might get a Google Talk from this person and I do not always remember who you are and that can happen in this world where we are all meeting so many people at conferences, we are meeting so many people in just the podosphere, the blogosphere. The other day I got an IM from someone I had only seen them through Flickr on their photos, so I did not know their real name.
I mean this always feels awkward to me but I think people need to realize it is okay to ask, say, “Sorry, who are you again? I apologize.” It is even worse when you get into Second Life where avatar names you have no control over. Oh, Roxy is barking at the UPS man. It is okay to ask questions, “Sorry, I don’t recall where I know you from.” Be comfortable with that and also be comfortable when people ask you. Do not be a jerk about it, be okay with it.
Roxy is really barking. UPS man is not here for me. So, we will keep moving forward. So, that is my thoughts on IM. I am not sure Matthew if that answers your questions. I know I disagreed with you a little bit but it is something to think about and I am curious what other people think on this. This would be a great conversation starter because I am curious what you guys do because I know so many people who have IMs open all the time and it is a difficult thing.
So, some other things I have learned about working remotely and working from home. One of kind of goes back to that is the timing, you have got to manage your –
well that was the first time I have ever done that. I actually paused a podcast recording to go deal with life. See, kind of like dealing with IM. You never know when things are just going to pop up. I have never actually done that. In the past, I have gotten so stressed I just stopped, but today I hit the pause button. The UPS man was coming here and Roxy freaked out even more to the point where I just had to stop. Okay, dealing with stress in a virtual environment is always fun. Usually, I would start it over and that has only happened once or twice in my whole time podcasting. So, back to what I was talking about, I was on time.
I was talking about one of the biggest things about working remotely is you need to make sure that you know time with socialization. What I mean is, it is what I was talking before about IM. The same thing can happen in Second Life really fast. You can go into Second Life or you can go into a website and just lose yourself. You want to socialize because that happens. Anybody who plays in the new media space is into socialization. You like it. You like to engage with people, but all of a sudden you get an IM conversation and you have lost 10 minutes, you have lost half an hour or you have lost an hour. You could easily do that walking around Second Life exploring. What do you do then?
You have got to really stop, keep yourself in check. One of the nice things is that — I have got now this big monitor, which is one of the things I am going to suggest to you. Granted, I know you are going, “Yeah, my wife or my husband is going to let that.” If you can do two monitors or a large monitor, it makes such a world of difference for things like this because I can open a Word document and be working on it and still be doing Skype or IM over on the side because I have got the real estate to do that. Just make sure you manage your time effectively because it is very easy to lose yourself. Do not count the minutes, do not count the hours.
I also suggest saying, “I got to get away from the computer for 10 minutes.” The world will be there, do not worry. Even if someone is IM-ing you, make sure you say your away message correctly, of course. The world will be there in 10 minutes. If you need to get up, go outside, play with the dog for a minute, get a quick walk-in, get some fresh air, get a cup of coffee, take those breaks, you need to. You are going to need them.
So, I was talking about the monitor. I firmly believe this now. I can kind of use it as sort of an excuse when I was getting this monitor but at the same time now I firmly believe it. The more real estate you have, the better. I actually am running two computers right now. I have my laptop. It has always got Crayons’ email open. That is what is always on that one, always. That is what I am looking at.
On my other monitor, I have this 30″ flat panel Dell. This is not sponsored by Dell. God, would I love them to be a sponsor! Imagine if I have two 30″? Anyway, what I am getting at is that the real estate is great. Right now, I have got my Gmail open. I can see CastBlaster. I have got Skype and Google Talk is actually closed at the moment but usually they are open. Usually, I have Google Desktop open. The other night I was watching film in a window while working on a Word document and having a Skype text chat with a colleague and that is a powerful thing. Productivity for working at home is a very important thing so I highly suggest that if you can do that, do it.
Another productivity tip I have learned from working at home is if you have one notebook, one notebook for everything, one notebook to rule them all. I used to have one for my show notes. I used to have one for Crayon. I used to have one for whatever else. That gets dangerous because then you forget which one you write it in because you grabbed the nearest one. I now have one notebook about this Moleskine. Do you say Cahier, C-A-H-I-E-R, Cahier, I do not know, but everything is in it. I am looking at notes from a Crayon staff meeting, I have got the show notes from an Accident Hash the other night, I have got some Second Life notes, all in one. It is just a lot easier and it is a great productivity tip that I highly recommend.
If you have not used Google Talk, one of the things I like about it is that it stacks the chat so literally I can close and maximize and there is one big stack of Google Talk windows, which is nice. Skype does not do that yet. They do not do tabbed browsing. Hopefully, they will add that. If you have not done tabbed browsing or tabbed IMs, it changes your whole world. Firefox and I know IE 7 has tabs now. It just changes the way that you do everything and go with that.
Back to the time thing for a minute, my notes are all over the place, sorry. Respect my time. What I mean by that is I am working from home, yes. My computer is pretty much on from 6:00 a.m. until 11:00 p.m., almost solid. Does that mean I am at the computer all the time? No. People need to respect other people’s time like that. I get away from the computer, make dinner and have dinner with my family every night. That is not up for question. That is part of my life and people need those boundaries.
I get on the computer in the morning and I usually have conversations from like 5:45 to 6:30 a.m. and then I go to the gym. People have learned that is when C.C. is at the gym, leave him alone. You need to set those boundaries too and keep that in mind when you are talking with people is that they may not be there. If I am not here, I will get back to you in one form or another, I promise. It is my own fault.
Anybody who is still listening from Babson will notice or anybody who works for me at any other company, I have this notorious habit from the minute you send me email, I will write back immediately, just right away, so that way I do not forget about it. That is a great tip, but it also sets you up for expectations. People start expecting you to get right back to them. I was actually earlier today on a Skype call with somebody and they said, “Oh, you haven’t responded to my email yet.” They sent me an email while I was talking to them on Skype and I kind of laughed in my head, I am like, “Wow.” The fact that I am expected to multitask like that was funny especially when I am looking at one computer and my emails are over the other. So, be careful. It is a good thing to reply right away. It sets expectations. So, just keep that in mind as something to think about.
The phone is a big thing when you are working remotely. I am not a phone guy. I just am not a phone guy. Something is weird with by cell phone right now. By the way, if you are listening to this and you have left me a voicemail, I seem to get them like days later and it is starting to really tick me off. So, I got to figure out what is going on. I think it was Chris Penn from the Financial Aid Podcast who was teaching me that usually the voicemail and the actual phone calls are in like separate networks so that can happen.
So, I am curious if like I am in a dead zone for my voicemail numbers. I seem to get voicemail when I go out and go someplace so I am not sure what is going on with that, but a good rule with C.C. specifically — yeah, this show is way focused on me, but I am hoping it gives tips to everybody, it is the goal. If you really want to get a hold of me, email me or IM me. Do not leave me a voicemail and that is true for every job. I used to tell everybody at Babson, “You want to get a hold of me, email me. You’ll get a response right away. Phone call, you might never get it.” One of my problems is there is no easy way to know I have a voicemail and remind myself to reply unless I write it down. Emails which are right in my face, it is in my inbox, until I reply to it and then I move it, I archive it. Voicemail, I got to get better at that.
A huge help if you are going to be working remotely, especially if you are working for a company that is remotely and you are going to have employees working for you remotely or freelancers, I highly suggest you make them invest in a web cam. It does not have to be anything expensive, just get a webcam. What is amazing is that a little bit of video makes it so much better. The fact that I can have a Skype call with somebody via video is a huge, huge improvement. It just adds that level of intimacy, an intimacy not in that way that some of you are thinking, but in the way of I get to see your face. I get to see how you are reacting to what I am saying.
It is very difficult, especially when you have not met a person face to face in reality. It is very hard to get all that interpretation from an email or to get it from IM, but when you actually see their faces, it adds something to it. By the way, let me put a callout. Does anybody have any recommendations for things where you can do multiple person video chat that is not an open like chat room type of environment? I know there are plenty of them like that like Skype where I could say, “I want to talk to these four people and only these four people.” Skype does not support multiple people on video yet, only one on one.
I am looking for something where I can get four people together or five and do video. I understand. I think iChat does that on the Mac, at least three maybe, I do not know, but I am curious for PC-based or web-based solution for that because that would make it so much easier. I missed not having video. I think everybody in Crayon is going to have to get a video camera at some point, but like I said it does not have to be anything expensive, just get a camera, stick it on and go from there and just roll with it.
My final tip, my final tip if you are going to be working from home or working remotely is get up. Get up and get out. Seriously, I do not do it enough, but I get up. If I got to get a cup of coffee I will actually stand up and walk around for a little bit or when I let Roxy out back I actually go stand outside and feel the fresh air.
I need to find a second office meaning I need to find a coffeehouse office and just get out and work in a coffeehouse. I can work from anywhere with an internet connection and just get out to see people and engage. I mean yesterday I had a lunch meeting and it was so awesome just to be outside. It is really important that while you are still connected to everybody virtually, nothing will ever beat face to face. That is my firm belief.
This Coffee with Crayon this morning was awesome and we could not have done that in the real world because everybody is all over the globe, but would I have loved to have done that in Boston? Yes. I know there is a Coffee Mornings happening in Boston. I cannot make it this month but I am planning on it next month because I think the face to face is so much better and it is always great when you can get out and meet people.
So, get out. Talk to people. Go to conferences, all these unconferences, all the PodCamps that are happening. PodCamp Toronto is coming up. I know I am in PodCamp NewYork. If you want one in your area, just go to I think it is podcamp.org. I am almost positive it is. Chris is going to yell at me, he is going, “Yes, it is!” Organize one. Get people together. Just send out a message, saying “Hey, I want to talk to like-minded people.” There are people out there but doing it face to face is always better when you can.
This show is definitely different from Managing the Gray. When Matt sent that comment in, I just went this could be so much more. People have been asking me how it has been going working from home and while getting up and working in flannel pants and a baseball cap is very cool, it is tough sometimes and it is difficult to work through it all, but you know what, I am having a blast doing it. In this new media space, more and more people are going to be doing it. You have got a laptop, you have got an internet connection, you have got connection to the world and you can do whatever you want and to those of you out there going, “Man, I wish I could work from home,” do it.
Start something. Find someone who will let you. What is interesting is you are seeing people using bloging and podcasting in whole new ways. I saw a job posting. Chris Brogan posted a job posting that Pulver Media is looking for a web designer. I am not looking for a job, obviously, but I never would have seen that if it was on Monster and I am sure they are doing it that way too, but it was on a blog. So, keep your eyes out there. Get doing it. Do not be afraid to start doing this stuff because we are all having a blast doing what we are doing.
So, I am going to get out of here. This is Managing the Gray, the New Media Marketing Podcast is what I like to call it. I have not come up with a tagline yet. Again, the call in number if you did not have it is 206-309-4729 and you can find Managing the Gray everywhere but managingthegray.com is the main place, of course. We are on MySpace, we are on Gather, managingthegray@gmail.com, mtg.podshow.com, we are everywhere. Managing the Gray is part of the PodShow. PodShow is doing some great things. Managing the Gray is going to be doing some new things in the next couple of months. I am going to try doing some video stuff, maybe doing some more interviews, may some group podcasts. I am not sure.
Let me know what you want on Managing the Gray because what is cool is this is a two-way road. Everybody gets a voice if they want it. You know what? I want to hear from you guys. I want to hear from everybody out there. What is cool is this one is going out on Sirius Satellite Radio. So, Sirius listeners, welcome to Managing the Gray. Again, managingthegray.com if you want to find out more because you are missing out on some things over on Sirius, it is the way it is.
Sorry, I took a big pause there. I need water. But, so anyways, I really thank you for listening to Managing the Gray. I am going to go back to work. I am going to open up my IMs, check my email, and get back into the world that I love so much, the world of new media and I thank you for being a part of it and I thank you for listening to the show. I am out of here. Peace. Be wild, y’all.
Closing: Thanks for listening to Managing the Gray. Tell your coworkers. Tell your friends and tell us what you think by leaving a comment at managingthegray.com.
