I am passionate about sharks and diving with them, if you don’t believe me have a look at: www.oceanicdreams.com, www.flickr.com/photos/oceanicdreams and http://fleander.blogspot.com.  Did I have fear of sharks before – sure, do I respect them – absolutely.   But the more I have been able to interact with them and learn from these encounters the more I enjoy being in the water with them – a guest in their domain.

Wolfgang Leander and Tiger shark (Photo by: Felix Leander)

Over the past 10 years my father and I have had some (minimal) close calls – actually, my dad was bitten in the arm by a 5ft Caribbean reef shark that required over 50 stitches.  I should mention that this incident (as well as the others) was completely his fault – he was teasing the shark with bait to get a better photo and it nipped him in the forearm.  Three months later my dad was back in the water with his friends with fins – he no longer teases them – now he hugs them.

So imagine for a moment that the influencers online you want to reach out to (be it bloggers, forum administrators, twitterers, etc. or communities) are sharks – and I do not mean that in any negative way – remember, I love sharks and think they are absolutely beautiful animals.  Now imagine that you are the overzealous diver who has never dove with sharks before, you may not even get into the water because you are so frightened by sharks and what they represent (thanks to Jaws and the media), or so nervous that you do not know how to behave in their environment.

Freediver and Tiger Shark (Photo by: Wolfgang Leander)

One of three things will happen: 1. sharks are shy and sense your nervous being - they will not come close to you, 2. you will chase them away by bodly approaching them without having observed them, 3.you aggravate them so much that they might give you a love bite.

Freediver and Tiger Shark (Photo by: Felix Leander)

My recommendation…first of all GET IN THE WATER…RELAX, sharks are not out to get you…WATCH, OBSERVE, and LEARN how they behave.  Eventually sharks will become comfortable with you being in their space and will approach you for the winning National Geographic shot…and when a REAL CONNECTION is made – you may even find yourself riding on the back of a tiger shark and feeling like you are part of the pack! (disclaimer – sharks, not bloggers, are still consider wild animals and should be respected at all times – respect bloggers too)

With Brazil being (one of) the most dominant Internet player South of the United States, it only makes sense that Google reportedly has made it their homebase for all LATAM operations.  While there are no official numbers, it is estimated that Google Brazil is making about $500 million in revenues each year.

Orkut, Google’s social network that is predominantely used by Brazilians, has already moved all its operations to Belo Horizonte.  Interestingly enough, Brazil has the second most Gmail account - the social network and email service go hand-in-hand.

Brazil will definitely continue to drive anything and everything that is Internet related in Latin America - but countries like Chile, Argentina, Mexico, and Colombia are getting their groove on as well…

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about having the digital jitters before a trip where I expected to be completely disconnected for close to two weeks. I was prepared for sweats and shakes as my blackberry remained silent, and figured I’d be howling at the moon when my iPhone didn’t ring. Wrong.

My trip was great. Me and one of my BFFs (am I 12?) fished with bears, kayaked with whales, slept on the beach and hugged a glacier. I also made some new friends the old fashioned way - in person. From a digital perspective, I had more connectivity than I expected on the front and back ends when I was in Juneau and then Gustavus, Alaska. In between I camped and kayaked in Glacier Bay and there was no service. None. Even the guide’s satellite phone was sketchy. But guess what? My team and our clients did just fine without me. And I did just fine without an Internet connection.

I confess, I was a little nervous the first day - I’m just so used to checking in that it was odd not to be able to. But by the time I got into the kayak I was ready to forget about work and focus on vacation. There were a few important meetings I missed during the week, and I gave them a fleeting thought, but overall I found being disconnected quite valuable. It made me appreciate my time a little more, and when I got reconnected at the end of the week I appreciated my clients, my colleagues, my connections all the more.

My trip to Alaska was a “ten-years at Burson” gift to myself. And I loved every minute of it. But I love my job, and my company, and I was happy to get back and get connected again. I didn’t get the jitters, but luckily I didn’t lose my enthusiasm and excitement for the business either.

O’Reily Radar recently released a report on Facebook demographics, particularly number of users by country and growth rates.  In the last four weeks, South America and Central America / Caribbean have been the regions the adding the most Facebook accounts percentage wise.  Combined, the regions seem to have a little more than 5 million users.  The country with the highest growth was Chile, followed by Uruguay, and Argentina.

Interestingly enough, about 13.5% of Chile’s online population has a profile on Facebook.  Keep in mind that Facebook recently translated their platform into Spanish and other languages.  I wonder what will happen once Facebook offers Portuguese as a language? Will it dethrown Orkut?

I’ve got the digital jitters. I am in Alaska as I write, about to head on a 9 day kayaking excursion. The adventure begins shortly with a float plane and then a paddle, and then a hike to visit a bear sanctuary. From there we will continue on and explore the Glacier Bay area of Alaska. I’ve heard there is no connectivity out there and I’m quite nervous about it.

This trip was a ten-year work anniversary trip to myself. I’ve been at Burson-Marsteller for ten years now, first as a consultant, and in November it will be ten years as staff. TEN YEARS! When I started at the company we didn’t even have email for every employee - my first email account was a shared one with the design group. Given that my job was to develop an interactive capability I’ve always stayed extremely connected - first via mobile phone, then via email, then via remote access, and of course now via blackberry. So the idea of completely disconnecting for 9 days has me quite nervous.

I have an awesome team so I’m not worried about the work getting done or the clients being serviced. I know Tery, Rome, Chris and others will do an awesome job. It is more that staying connected is an important and fun part of my life. I’ve written about work/life balance before, and my lack of it, but some of that is at my own doing. So, I’m considering this a social experiment of sorts, to see how I do being unplugged, and to just chillax for a few days. I’ll write about the experience when I get back, and am now off to see the bears.

Following is a guest post written by Marco Nunez. Marco is a Program Manager at Direct Impact, a wholly-owned Burson-Marsteller subsidiary that develops grassroots campaigns that achieve local impact for client public affairs, public education and / or corporate reputation initiatives. Marco is also passionate about digital media, both as a consumer and creator of content but also as a strategist. I haven’t met Marco in person (yet), but have gotten to know him via social media and find him to be insightful and a great sounding board for some of my zany thoughts. I hope he’ll post for us again, but in the meantime, here are some of his current thoughts…

Social Media: The Essence of Grassroots Communication

When Erin asked if I would be interested in drafting a guest post addressing grassroots strategies from a “digital perspective” (pun intended, sorry) I jumped at the opportunity.

Until recently, the majority of our relationships have been highly influenced by geography. Since relationships are dependent on the regular communication of thoughts and emotions, this makes perfect sense.

This is the way things have always been.

Chances are that as you were growing up your best friend lived in your neighborhood. As you got older and became more mobile (bicycle, car, etc.), you probably found new friends with whom you shared more in common. Maybe your neighborhood friends went to different schools now or, due to a slight age difference, were in different grades. Whatever the reason, it is likely that your closest circle of friends changed and many of them lived much further away (relatively speaking).

An example: My senior year in high school I was relegated to a “study hall” in the library—population: two. Jason, my partner in solitude (does that make it “dualitude”?), was new to the school, and since we were the only two there we quickly became best friends. Our frequent discussions revealed a common interest in basketball and certain types of music but they also revealed differences. Among many other things, our spatially enabled conversations allowed us to challenge one another’s conceptions and expose each other to new types of music. Through this process, facilitated entirely by geography, we became increasingly similar in some ways and developed a respect for a new point of view in others. (For a more entertaining example re-watch this classic.)

This is the power of proximity.

If you think of the development of relationships in terms of the concepts outlined by Chris Anderson in The Long Tail, the “head” of a relationship curve would be dominated by proximity-reliant factors, while the “tail” would be littered with a nearly infinite array of relationship-builders like passion for music, sports, video games, ideology, watching people fall off of ladders, etc. While the individuals you spend time with physically will still be greatly influenced by geographic considerations, the concepts and abilities foundational to “social media” applications will continue to expand the number of individuals with whom you develop relationships and trust.

For two decades Direct Impact has been a leader in the development of grassroots communications strategies that allow our clients to mobilize influential leaders within communities in support of key messages or goals. An understanding of the importance relationships—built on common social circles, ideologies and interests—has always been central to the grassroots model. The power of this simple concept is what first drew me to the “social media” tools now emerging. These digitally-enabled developments in the way we communicate will continue to evolve and radically alter the way we find, share and evaluate new sources of information.

As you may have seen, there have been several reports over the last few years highlighting the decline of consumers’ trust in sources of information we would consider “mass media.” Top-down, tightly controlled messages, while still powerful means of communicating ideas and information (arguably the most), are being edged off of their pedestal as more and more consumers turn to “people like them” to help mold their thoughts and opinions.

This is the power of “social media.”

Sites like Classmates.com have been around for years but they exhibit severe limitations as you find someone and begin re-acquainting yourselves through letters, phone calls, emails or similar mediums. The conversations are entirely macro-oriented—“I now have a child,” “I am an accountant,” etc. This information is great for recapping the things that have helped you become who you are but do little to shed light on who you really are.

Facebook, on the other hand, possesses the same ability to connect you with former friends or classmates but adds an important element: the ability to share endless little bits of information about yourself, each carrying the potential to strengthen the relationship that you and your former classmate are rebuilding. Along the way you will find yourself exposed to new sources of information, new types of entertainment and, as a result of the trust that has been established, alternate understandings of points-of-view or concepts that were previously foreign to you.

This is the essence of grassroots communications.

Whether you know it or not, there is a very good chance that the ways in which you take in information and develop opinions on its contents are already being altered. Are you taking full advantage of it? Is your company or organization?

This is your chance.

The Internet has had a profound effect on the media industry (just think about where media companies are investing and how they are delivering content) and the way in which we receive, consume, participate and interact with news and entertainment. The result is a rapidly dynamic media landscape and environment where the only thing that stays the same is the fact that it is changing. Traditional media is being forced to rapidly re-create and re-engineer business models in order to survive and consumers today wield as much power, if not more, than the most well resourced corporate marketing teams. Corporations must think on their feet or risk becoming irrelevant in this new economy, they must anticipate the Future of Media.

To that end, Burson-Marsteller will participate as a strategic partner to the Future of Media Summit, an innovative un-conference that will video-link speakers and delegates in San Francisco and Sydney over the 14 and 15 of July. In its third year, the Future of Media Summit is hosted by The Future Exploration Network and its CEO, Ross Dawson.

Ross today released the central framework of the 2008 Future of Media Report, which paints a vision for a continuous flow of content and engagement. He stressed the fundamental role that media will play as an even more fundamental diver of the US economy in the years to come.

This event is a must-do for any media professional, marketing/communications executive, or digerati. Hope you can join.

I got a text message from a number I didn’t recognize yesterday. When I stupidly opened it, I was greeted by a pitch for a male hair loss product. I have lots of beauty problems to be solve, but fortunately hair loss isn’t one of them. Earlier today I got another spam txt with a URL embedded and a message saying , “seen your profile and ur cute. want to chat?” No thanks.

These messages got me thinking. Mobile spam has the potential to present a bigger challenge than e-mail spam, most notably because of the fact that folks always carry their mobile phones and therefore there is more opportunity for spammers to reach people. Therefore, as marketers continue to look for ways to reach consumers via mobile marketing, I think it is critically important that they do their part in preventing spam from the beginning. How? I’m not really sure, but a few initial thoughts include:

• Don’t buy mobile phone lists. Buying names and numbers contributes to spam and doesn’t really generate strong results anyway. Instead, build your list the old fashioned way - by contributing to the community, adding value, and having participants opt-in to hear from you.
• Don’t give your list away. I know there is sometimes great temptation to let partners use your data lists. Don’t do it. If you are so compelled to get your partners’ messaging to your subscriber list simply include them in communications that you send. The messaging will be more relevant to your subscribers and will likely generate better results.
• Establish a mobile privacy policy. You have a privacy policy for your website - you need one for mobile efforts and need to be unassailable in your compliance with it.
• Support regulatory efforts to minimize spam. Marketers need to be involved in setting guidelines to minimize spam and should champion for stronger penalties for spammers who are caught.
• Provide technology solutions. We can’t all contribute to this one, but the technology companies and/or mobile carriers need to make it easier to block and report spam messages. When spam sneaks through my filters via email I mark it as spam and never hear from that domain again. What can we do to create a similar process for mobile spam?
• Work with reputable companies. Sure, this sounds like a plug to work with Burson-Marsteller since we are launching our mobile marketing capability. The reality is that it doesn’t matter who you work with. Just work with a company with a proven track record, that follows MMA and WOMMA guidelines and that can be trusted with your reputation in their hands.

What else should we be doing to limit mobile spam?

We’ve been a little quiet on the blog lately. Things are very busy at work and while i have many posts started I have had a difficult time finding time to finish them. I will get caught up soon.

In the meantime, I have had a social media revelation. A dear, dear friend of mine passed away of his own doing a few days ago. Kevin Haythe was a great colleague and an even better friend. He was in my life for only a short time (about a year and a half) but was tremendously impactful and became one of my closest friends.

One of the great things about Kevin was how he lived life with curiosity. He questioned everything. He was one to live life to the fullest in each moment, and quite honestly he had doubts about social media’s negative impact on that. He believed the change in marketing and communications at the hand of digital media, but he didn’t find the relevance for him personally. I remember when I finally got him to join Facebook he didn’t understand the value. He came around though, and even had a twitter feed and started a food blog, Raisins and Chocolate Milk, in the last few months.

The relevance of social media has taken on new meaning for me this week. I heard the news of Kevin’s death via traditional means, a telephone call, but the majority of other details are coming via social media and most notably Facebook. I created an album on Facebook which people have been commenting too, sharing their personal remembrances around the images. Others have started doing the same, painting a beautiful portrait of what was important to Kevin. Some of his other friends who saw him tagged in images sent me emails to share stories, talk live, or get information on services. And people I couldn’t get in touch with due to travel schedules were easily communicated with via Facebook, email, and text messaging. It is sadly ironic that digital media has more relevance to Kevin’s life in death, but is somehow fitting given his interest in digital and curiosity about it. In fact, he had big plans for digital media and his skepticism helped him see things that others wouldn’t consider.

Folks who criticize those of us who use online as a significant communications channel are in the minority, but to them I’d say, try it, you’ll like it. It isn’t the only way to communicate, but certainly enhances my life each and every day. And, I am so grateful to all of my online and offline friends for their support this week and always, and also thank Kevin’s extended circle for including me in your conversations. I hope our ongoing social interaction helps us all find peace with this soon. And Kevin, I hope you are resting peacefully. I’ll never forget the difference you made in my life, both professionally and even more so personally, and am grateful for every moment we spent together. Rest in peace dear friend.

Today’s marks the end of our second annual Digital Week at Burson-Marsteller. It sounds odd to talk about Digital Week when we live in a digital world but I think it is important to stop frequently and think about the implications of digital media on communications in general and our work as communications counselors.

It is not news that digital has changed the way consumers access and absorb information. What continues to evolve however is the way that companies adopt to the changing preferences of their stakeholder groups. I am proud to work for an organization that celebrates these changes and puts resources against creating dialogue with employees, developing training opportunities, and for adapting to our clients’ needs. Despite our great team and passion for digital, things are fluid and it can be tough to stay ahead of the trends. Thus, Digital Week provides an opportunity to get everyone speaking the same language in addition to celebrating great work from our colleagues around the world.

We’ve had a big week. We launched a self-guided training program, unveiled the next iteration of our intranet, hosted special events for employees, launched a mobile marketing program, created a collaborative internal thought leadership environment, and released the next phase of digital content on our corporate website. More importantly than all that though is the fact that we have demonstrated as a company the reality that digital media presents a personal opportunity for all of us to grow our knowledge and value by participating and a professional responsibility to be current on digital trends and strategies for our clients.

I want to send a special shout-out to the digital team that managed all of the content and logistics for this week. Our global digital coordinator David Ambrose has done a wonderful job overseeing this event with a fantastic team including Ashley Finch, Stephanie Bonnet, Desiree Collier, Felix Leander, Charles Pownall, and Tery Spataro - thank you all. Of course there are dozens of other folks who contributed as well, ranging from IT to design and everything in between, and we appreciate your support too. Thank you.

While it may be true that every day is Digital Day in a Digital World, I still think it is smart to take time to step back, consider what is important, and allocate resources against moving forward. For our employees, i hope you enjoyed this week and found it to be a valuable learning experience. And for our clients, I’d ask you to take a moment and reflect on how you are leveraging digital media within your organization and think about ways to be better, faster, and bigger. It will make a difference.