The main reason I made the move was because my HTC Evo shift was beginning to have performance problems, with numerous stalls throughout the day, and there wasn’t another droid on the Sprint market that I was interested in.

This post isn’t to compare droid to ios, because you can find many of those discussions here or here. They can be heated.

Even as I was buying my new phone, the sales rep. continued to tell me why droid was better.

I will say, I love my new iPhone. Obsessively really. I spent most of the weekend reading blogs on users favorite apps.

The one I came across that is now at the top of my list (with Instagr.am as a close second) is Momento.

One of my goals for 2012 is to document more of “the little things” in life. A mini-personal blog if you will. Quick prayers. Small milestones in my children’s lives. A moment of clarity in a difficult decision.

Not a long journal (I have one of those), but just moments where I think to myself, I’d love to remember this.

Momento seems to be the perfect app. for this. Not only does it have a beautiful (award-winning) interface, but it allows me to capture moments however I see fit: with a photo, a Facebook update, Youtube video, etc.

I can even add “tags” to my moments. So in a few months, if I want to go back and read all my moments where I needed peace, or inspiration, or even a laugh, I can tag those moments appropriately, and re-read them. One functionality that a pen and paper wont allow.

What’s your favorite app?

That’s what I heard from someone in a meeting the other day.

Trying to be politically correct, I smiled and said, “well, if you ever want to learn more, just let me know.” But my inner thoughts were:

Really? It provides NO value to you?? So connecting with hundreds or even thousands of professionals that are potential customers, has NO value to you? How long have you spent trying to “get it” before throwing in the towel?  Aren’t you in sales? Aren’t you always trying to “sell yourself”, so you’re annoyed that everyone else is too?

I’m so glad I didn’t actually say all those things during the meeting.

The truth is, I would agree that, at first, learning the Twitter lingo and the “etiquette” takes some getting use to. Let’s say, a week.

I also think the reason people throw in the towel is they don’t know how to manage their account. All they know is “Follow. Follow. Follow. Tweet. Tweet. Tweet.” No real engagement. Just follow people, tweet out information, then cross their fingers that a lead will appear. Magically.

Come on.

Let’s take some baby steps to get you on the right track. I tell our teams all the time to focus on one “lead-type” at a time. Let’s say you’re looking to connect with Online Community Managers (wink).

I’m taking a risk by sounding like a “self help guru”, but here’s your One-Week Plan for “Optimizing Twitter for Lead Generation.”

Monday: Find Them.

1. Go to sites like Followerwonk.com and search on “Online Community Managers.” You can even narrow the search by location.
2. Create a list within Tweetdeck and name it “Online Community Manager.” Follow all those you find at Followerwonk and put them into that list.
3. Open up that list as a new column within Tweetdeck. There you have a very narrowed conversation stream with only OCMs.

Tuesday & Wednesday:  Sell Them. Not Yourself.

1. Go through your new column of OCMs and look at their bios. Do they have a blog? If so, scan their blogs for interesting posts. Tweet one out and give them credit.
2. Comment on their blogs.
3. Make a comment about one of their tweets. Engage them in conversation. You’re in sales, you know how to start conversations.

Thursday: Give it a rest.

1. Don’t be super eager or “Big Brotherish”, but scan their tweets, and if something truly sticks out, it’s ok to say something.

Friday: LinkedIn.

1. You’ve established communication with your potential leads, now send a “warm invitation” to bring them into your LinkedIn network.

Does Twitter take some time? Yes. Should it engulf your day. Absolutely not.

But now you have numerous new leads and LinkedIn connections that you didn’t have last week. Also, one added benefit, people on Twitter tend to connect with like professionals. So your newly found leads are probably connected with hundreds of others with similar skills.

But, if it has NO real value to you……

On the off chance you will get offended at this blog, please note, that my writings come from weeks of research. I mean, any social media “guru” knows I just need to study something for a few weeks and I can be called an “expert.”

A colleague, who I consider a good friend, knew I was writing this post and cautioned “Adam, you’re not a psychologist.” I agree. So please, get off my couch and just listen.

“Passive Aggressive” is defined by Dictionary.com as ” being, marked by, or displaying behavior characterized by expression of negative feelings, resentment, and aggression in an unassertive way (as through procrastination, stubbornness, and unwillingness to communicate) < span=”"> <>passive-aggressive  personality”

You’ve seen it. A recent break-up. A friendship gone sour. Or simply just being unhappy about the way someone treated you. They are all painful experiences. I’m certainly not making light of them because we all know how painful those experiences are. Heartbreaking even.

But then, it all starts to unfold before our eyes in our news stream. A song posted with jabbing lyrics. Changing of a favorite quote to “If someone you love hurts you cry a river, build a bridge, and get over it.” Then like it or not, we are forced to choose sides. Or at least feel sympathy and “like” their status. After all, I’m not a good friend if I don’t publicly sympathize with their pain by clicking my mouse.

I like what Teresa Boarman said in her blog “A social media tip for the passive aggressive:”

“In general you can say anything to your twitter, or facebook, friends or in blog comments, emails or even text messages if you know the rules. Write what ever you want to and just end it with a “:)” or a “LOL”.  It goes something like this: “You suck LOL” or “I can’t stand you I would be surprised if your own mother loved you ”

So friends, I leave you with this: stop being passive aggressive on social media. The rest of us just want to get on FB and see cute photos of your kids, funny things that happened that day, or meaningful updates about your life.

I really would rather not be sucked into taking sides. And if I do take sides, I’ll let you know privately. LOL. =)

Wish 1: Ability to update your profile/pic from Tweetdeck.

I hardly ever log on to Twitter.com except to update my profile pic/information. I should be able to easily do this right from Tweetdeck.

Wish 2: Ability to see followers/following from Tweetdeck.

In our business, seeing who’s connected to who is important. Currently, I have to go to Twitter.com if  I want to see who else a particular person is following.

Wish 3: Add sharing ability to Google+.

I can share information on  Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Google Buzz (uh, what’s that!?), and FourSquare. I should be able to share within Google+ now.

Wish 4: Add functionality of sites like “Followerwonk.com” to Tweetdeck.

You can do basic searches within Tweetdeck. But one of my favorite sites to use to find professionals is Followerwonk.com. I train our Recruiters to use this site to find technology professionals in their area. It would be great if this type of searching was incorporated into Tweetdeck. Then you could run your search and easily add your new followers into a Twitter group.

Wish 5: Share information with only certain groups on Twitter, much like Google+ Circles.

This wish directly relates to wish four. Once I’ve created a group, let’s say “Java Developers,” and I’ve used the new searching feature within Tweetdeck, now I’d like to be able to share Java Development related materials specifically with those in that list. Not all my Tweets need to be separated, but since Twitter is already allowing you to separate your friends, shouldn’t you be able to share specific information with only that group? You could say that Google+ hit the nail on the head with their Circles feature.

Now, if I could just get my wish list in front of Jack Dorsey.

I went to Youtube recently to watch a commercial that someone in the office was talking about. Before the commercial came on, I had to watch another 30 second commercial. Watching a commercial in order to watch a commercial = one annoyed viewer.

But, I must get over it. With the rise in popularity of online video, companies everywhere are trying to “go viral” with their best sales pitches. Which means, other marketing companies will be placing their ads to catch your attention.

I tend to agree with Gary Vaynerchuck in that “Marketers ruin everything!” He said that, among many other outstanding things about social media and marketing, in his recent keynote address at the Digital Summit in Atlanta this week. #dsum11

It’s true though right? Great marketing gets your attention. From there, other marketers mimic the efforts. Which leads to more and more efforts that are similar (call it trends if you will). Eventually, the “market” is saturated with similar tactics and then the consumer chooses to ignore it. Let’s take a moment of silence for Banner Ads, Sponsored Search Results, and Direct Mail.

MATRIX is not immune to this thinking. We know that online video is popular, and we want a piece of it. However, rather than sitting around brainstorming the best way we can “go viral”, we’re evaluating the content that we currently have, and brainstorming ways we can simplify and put it on video.

Now, we’ve created video “case studies” for our Business Intelligence group, fun videos showcasing things about our corporate culture, and highlighting our true heart-felt importance of community service.

Have they gone viral? Hardly.  Do we want them to? Sure why not! Let’s make Kwesi Oseitutu the next Old Spice man!

The point is, MATRIX isn’t trying to spam, nor is our goal to win a Webby. We are trying to provide our customers another insight into our business and corporate culture.

Our most recent “video venture” is taking our technical jobs and putting them on video.  It’s not polished. It’s not over-produced. But it’s real. Real information about the opportunity, the work environment, and the skills needed to land the job.

In the end, we’ll keep testing out different forms of video that work for our business. Scratch the ones that fail, then saturate the streaming web with those that work.

“Oh, I’ve just been busy.”

For most, a short explanation as to why you’ve been busy typically follows: work, family, life in general.

For my wife and I our “busy” schedules seemed to be spinning out of control. For months we had to “just make it to _____” and fill in the blank. [After the project was over, vacation, the weekend, etc]. During one two-week stretch we were in the same town – same house, but we only saw each other for a few minutes throughout the course of two weeks.

Finally, one Thursday evening, following a massively over-committed parade of events, something gave.

Unlike other evenings where we were side-by-side, but really weren’t “there“, we turned off all distractions and did some serious soul-searching. We realized that evening was our first week-night together in over a month.

What followed was the realization that we really were . . . wait for it. . . “too busy.”

I believe in and am privileged to work for a company that stands behind “work-life balance”, but we all know that there are times when 100% just isn’t enough and doing a great job requires just a little more. So you do what you can to manage your schedule.

My wife did have to make some changes to her work schedule, and thankfully her boss completely supported her and even helped her get into a new position that would help with her schedule.

For us though, what we needed was “non-work-life balance”.

Emily (My wife) and I are very passionate people. When we commit to something or rally behind a cause, we are all in. However we were “all in” to so many things that we really became barely-in to events and the people that mattered most.

Seemingly for the first time in our “adult life” we had to truly prioritize our commitments. Which, for me, the fear of disappointing people that I love, and losing the events I cared about had me rationalizing why I needed to stay involved.

Luckily we have a great group of friends and family that support us and understood when we told them that we had to back out of some commitments.

After clearing many things from our schedule, we now enjoy an event that we haven’t experienced in months and seemingly even years – “down time”. Time to, not be lazy and just watch tv, but to give attention, full attention, to people, including our son, and our spiritual life that suffered from our over-committed schedules.

Our hope is that taking a step back in life will really give our relationships “new life”.

I spent over an hour looking through more of her photos on John’s blog. I was lost in the “story” behind each of the photos.

Take a minute and watch the below video about Vivian Maier

I can’t stop laughing at this video with Bryant Gumbel and Katie Couric. I love the commentary about the @ symbol; especially Katie drawing it with her finger in the air.

Ok, so seriously, why is this video worthy of a blog post?

Can you recognize the same conversations being held today? It wasn’t to long ago that many news casters were saying:

“What’s this Twitter thing?”
“How do you tweet someone?”

Do we see the trend here? Once skeptical of email and the “massive computer network,” America’s top news organizations didn’t even know about the internet. Now, they couldn’t do business without it.

Disagree if you will, but I believe that “social media,” and in particular my favorite, Twitter, is doing for our generation what the internet did 15 years ago.

Case-in-point:

• Every late-night talk show that I watch is using Twitter or Facebook to communicate with their audience. This morning on my drive into work, the morning show I listen to was using Twitter to ask  their listeners  to respond to a particular segment – all in real time.

• The most respected news organizations in the world use Twitter to communicate.

• Job seekers are finding jobs by leveraging their connections on Twitter.

• No more sitting on the phone going through the maze of automated hell. Customer service departments are leveraging Twitter to respond quickly to their customers. See a personal example in my own life here.

• Min Xuan evens goes as far to say that Twitter changed her life. P.S. love the 5 stages of Twitter acceptance slide.

When talking someone, I can immediately tell if they understand the power that Twitter has or if they still think it’s a colossal joke or waste of time.

I could list many more useful examples of how Twitter is changing (and has changed) communication, but the point of my blog is not to try and change your mind on Twitter. However, I do want the image of Katie Couric, and her initial conversations about the internet, burned into your brain. So that the next time you start to make fun of Twitter or brush it off as a waste of time, rethink how the internet has revolutionized our lives.

Yet over the past year I’ve seen Twitter move from mindless 140 character crap, to real engaging and informative information shared by some of the most influential people around the world.

Where Twitter has been gaining more sustainability as a true place to gather insightful information, Facebook on the other hand, seems to be  filled with annoying status updates. I even saw one from a friend the other day that said “Hanging out on my back porch!” Hello? Isn’t that what frustrated people about Twitter?

Yes, some companies (and individuals) post insightful information. And no, not EVERY status update has to be helpful or thought-provoking. But is it just ME or does it seem like the pointless updates are getting more and more out of control than every before?

Now before all of my friends get insecure that I’m talking about your status updates, let me preface by saying: Your Facebook page is just that, yours. But remember, whether you like it or not, you are “branding” yourself. You’re telling your friends (and in some instances the world) about the type of person you are.

Try it: Go back and look at the last month of your status updates. Were they filled with pointless updates? Were they fishing for compliments? Or is there a “negative” undertone in all your posts? People really do judge you on your status updates. Like it or not. Your thoughts are out there for all to see.

I saw a quote recently that I think sums up my feeling about status updates:

“It’s not a Twitter account, poetry slam, existential sounding board, or political soapbox. It’s a Facebook status. If it’s not funny, about your physical/mental health, sociological classification, or geographical location, it’s probably not your status.”

I’m not trying to tell you what you should or shouldn’t post on your Facebook page. After all, it’s your “space” to do with what you please.

But, pointless, uninteresting status updates is what annoys me most about Facebook.

How about you? What annoys you most?