Jim shares his thoughts on the trends from SXSW 2013.

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“The New Serendipity”

By: Unknown; Overheard in a group of people
Takeaway: Put yourself in a position to succeed
According to Wikipedia, the word serendipity means a “happy accident” or “pleasant surprise”; specifically, the accident of finding something good or useful while not specifically searching for it.

Trying to describe what goes on at the SXSW Interactive conference can be difficult, and so can choosing a single trend that emerged from it. In past years, major launches from Twitter (Microblogging) and Foursquare (Geolocation), made it easier to define a bigger trend in new media.

So whether the person I overheard talking about the term was referencing the panel with Kevin Rose called The New Serendipity, or just the overall trend of it, as referred to in the Wall Street Journal (Serendipity Is the New Synergy), I think we’re on to something.

Because our digital world is so fractured, there isn’t one trend or company or way of doing things that is right. Rather, our lives both inside and outside of work are made up of hard work, luck, and chance encounters. Pay attention, then put yourself in the right places at the right times for serendipity to happen.

Let’s explore some quotes from panels I attended to see what else emerges.

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Advertisers can no longer create a commercial then sit back and enjoy; it’s all about real time interaction

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Also see: Super Bowl marketing recap from 2011 | 2010 | 2009

Super Sunday

One of the great things about having your own blog, is that you can create a little platform over time – for free — to broadcast your opinion to the world. The question of course, is getting someone to listen.

For every post where you might go off on a random topic (such as Japanese toilets), you need to work really hard to provide value to your readers, such as providing them a detailed, real-life case study of how to work remotely in a foreign country.

Contrast that with a Super Bowl commercial.

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Gary Vaynerchuk threw out the idea of interviewing a person per day in 2013. What would we talk about if he chose me?

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So here I am with the last podcast of the year. I’m getting on a plane in 19 hours, I need to crank out one more show, and I need a topic. I was thinking about a way to talk about trends.

Through social media, I saw a post that Gary Vaynerchuk was thinking about interviewing a different person every day of 2013 to have fun and support up and coming blogs.

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Jim interviews Helen Todd, CEO and founder of Sociality Squared to talk Facebook, Pinterest, MySpace and Mobile trends – and pet peeves.

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Social Media Trends for 2013

Every once in awhile I record a podcast interview and am not sure how it turns out. You’d think I’d have this figured out after talking to around 70 people, but I had a few things working against me… it was late, I had just taught a class for 3 hours, and I was pretty tired. I felt like the show might have wandered a bit and was a bit too slow to my liking.

Fortunately, the person I was speaking with was Helen Todd, the CEO and founder of Sociality Squared, a social media agency proudly located in Manhattan, New York (more on that later).

For when I listened back and edited the interview a few days later, two things became apparent.

The first was that the pace of the show was actually great, and probably even a welcome change for my listeners when they get a Jim-Only rush of audible caffeine. Perhaps it was Helen’s direct and simple pace, and perhaps it was having a good friend on the show that made me kick back and relax as if it was a dinner conversation and not a radio-style interview, but I thought the back and forth banter really worked.

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Jim has a high-energy interview with author, speaker, and social media pro Krista Neher.

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This week I had a great interview with with author, speaker, and social media pro Krista Neher.

As usual, for the full interview — and trust me, we had great energy and lots of fun sharing stories — make sure to download and play the podcast. The summary below highlights what we cover:

Krista’s background
- Her start at Proctor and Gamble
- Working on marketing for brands like Tide and Folgers Coffee
- Her transition to a startup
- The founding of Bootcamp Digital, which teaches companies how to use the web and social media to build their business

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