It’s good to have diversity in thinking and for people to voice their opinions. But at the end of the day, when the military command looks up, it sees us — the minister of defense and the prime minister. When we look up, we see nothing but the sky above us.

Ehud Barak said that. Delightful.

In whatever kind of a ‘race’ life may be, I have very abruptly become a finalist.

An amazing life and an amazing mind.

Social networks exist to sell you crap. The icky feeling you get when your friend starts to talk to you about Amway, or when you spot someone passing out business cards at a birthday party, is the entire driving force behind a site like Facebook.

Because their collection methods are kind of primitive, these sites have to coax you into doing as much of your social interaction as possible while logged in, so they can see it. It’s as if an ad agency built a nationwide chain of pubs and night clubs in the hopes that people would spend all their time there, rigging the place with microphones and cameras to keep abreast of the latest trends (and staffing it, of course, with that Mormon bartender).

Probably the best thing I’ve read all year on the web.

If ‘social’ is in our nature, why does it feel like there are so many people offering to help us or our businesses socialize online? I think part of the answer to that is due to the technological age of the services. If the web has just taken the training wheels off, social sites are still in diapers. New services beget new services and there’s no shortage of good-intentioned people willing to offer advice on how to ‘get on the new train and ride’.

I won’t speak in absolutes here but it seems to me that if we can agree that people are social animals and have been since birth, there is no reason to believe that a business’s approach to Social Media should be different from what they already know. Social Media best practice seems to assert that you should follow the social norms that we already abide. If someone is talking to you, listen and respond. If someone is looking for help, offer your assistance. As far as I can tell, these are the two most common bits of advice offered up. It isn’t magic, it’s common sense. Be ‘social’.

Here’s an interesting thought though. Google’s on Twitter (3,737,560 followers of @google), but they don’t talk to anyone. There is no back and forth on their channel, only output. Apple’s on Twitter by way of @iTunesMusic (1,328,172 followers as of this post) and follows much the same practice, only retweeting artists and pushing promotions or new releases. There is no conversation here. And here’s the thing, that’s all most would want from them. Twitter is not a support channel for Apple or Google, it’s a promotion channel and there is nothing wrong with that. There is no reason to say either are doing it wrong though to listen to some, they are doing everything wrong.

The important thing to realize here is that because of Social Media’s infancy, there are no right or wrong answers. There is no best practice outside of what you, the social animal, already know. All the other stuff is still being learned as ‘we’ go along. You are already on the new train because it’s the same as the old train. If your business is on Twitter or Facebook and you don’t know how to interact with your customers there, you probably don’t need a ‘Social Media Expert’, you more likely need a psychiatrist.

In ‘97, I got my own personal computer, a Power Macintosh G3. On that machine, I learned the tools of another growing passion (Photoshop 4, QuarkXPress 4, Macromedia Dreamweaver 2) while playing music through SoundJam, which you of course now know as iTunes. That machine was a revelation to me and it did, quite honestly, change my life.

I used that G3 right up until the Macbook Pro was released in 2006. I’ve owned two of those. I’ve bought an iPod, iPod Touch, iPad, iPhone, two Apple TVs (one of each generation) and my current 27” iMac. I’m a Fanboy. There are things that just ‘click’ in your life and the IIc and G3 were two of them. Because of those two machines, other things just started to ‘click’ for me as well.

I’ve had people I idolize in my life and I reserve that spot for those I greatly respect like Ian MacKaye and Corey Rusk. Years ago, I added Steve Jobs to that list. Outside of the flash and sizzle of Apple’s keynotes and marketing, there was a man who made a difference in my life regardless of the products he helped create. There’s a challenge that Steve Jobs laid out that resonates with me as I grow older and look for direction in my own life. Do what you love and do it well. “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”

Thanks so much Mr. Jobs. You’ll be missed.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

From Steve Jobs Stanford commencement speech.

Nobody cares about your Facebook fans. Again, not abstract. There has never been any point in time where I’ve thought “I need x service. I better head over to Facebook and check x’s Facebook likes to determine how they are as a company.”

Nobody cares about your inbound links. Obviously it matters but customers don’t care how many inbound links your site has, they care about how many inbound links their site has. Also, this number is easily gamed. Build sites? Throw your logo and a link to your site at the bottom of every page on every site you build. Is it organic? No, not at all but it gets you those links back. Is it ethical? I say no but I know there are those who disagree with me. If I’m providing a service to a client, my job is to represent and push their brand, not my own. I’m pretty firm on that because, you know, it’s my job. And I’m really comfortable with my business ethics.

So what does matter? What you deliver. Period. Do the right thing for your clients, deliver what they need and not what you need and let them spread the word for you. I’d much rather have you tweet for me and then, if it meant anything, I’d much rather your Klout score be high.

There’s no shortage of small to mid-sized ad agencies that propose to offer a full range of design services. From advertising to branding, web design to social media marketing, agencies try to offer it all. From where I sit, there are a couple of reasons for this; a marketplace that puts pressure on agencies to provide these services (though I’m of the opinion that the agencies created this market) and/or an inability for agencies to relinquish any amount of control over the clients they serve. As I embark on my own practice with Happy Camper, my goal is to offer ‘full service’ but not be ‘service full’.

Full Service to me means offering as much as I can to a client within the confines of my discipline. If it’s my intent to offer web design services, my hope is to offer the full breadth of those services and not an inch more. Certainly, I could offer advertising, branding, and print design but each of these things is outside the scope of my expertise and I’m not ashamed or embarrassed to admit it.

Within my own town, there are innumerable shops set up to deliver these services and I’m stoked that they exist. If a new-to-market client came to me as their first stop, I wouldn’t hesitate to send them to a local shop that I respect first to get brand and collateral taken care of. I’d welcome the opportunity to work closely with an agency when there’s a mutual understanding that I’m not stepping on their toes and they aren’t stepping on mine. Each of us servicing a different aspect of the client’s needs without compromising the quality of our own work and each benefiting financially seems like an awesome proposition to me but I get the feeling I might be in the minority.

Personally, I’m not entirely opposed to RFPs. I don’t like the idea but I can see the benefit. If I’m at a restaurant and I see ‘Hamburger: $3.50’ I’m less likely to see any value than if I see ‘Hamburger: A quarter pound Angus beef burger flame broiled to your taste and served on our house-made sesame seed bun. We top this big boy off with two slices of bacon, fresh lettuce, hand-dipped onion rings and our savory hickory BBQ sauce. $7.50’ I understand what that means and I know what I’m getting. There is, however, another side to that coin. If we’re playing ball then that playing field has to be even. If I gotta pitch, you gotta pitch. To me, your pitch to me has to include answering any questions I have without hesitation…in writing. It means that your RFP has to be as well thought out as the proposal I’m going to submit. You’re RFP should indicate a budget if you’re asking me for an estimate. If I have to work, you have to work and the more reluctant you are to work for me, the more reluctant I am to work for you because it indicates you’re not really playing ball or at least you’re not playing fair.

Look, a portfolio doesn’t tell the whole story. Granted, a portfolio supplemented with case studies tells a better story but there are some things that can be revealed through the RFP process that might not otherwise be apparent. I don’t mind telling you my process and I don’t mind loose sketching my thoughts (yeah, no, not creative, just thoughts) up front as long as that field is level. If we’re both playing a game we should admit it’s a game and we should keep score. If I’m hitting home runs, I expect to see them on the board.