Josh Shear

It started off innocently enough.

He of course meant the Italian hazelnut spread Nutella, but you get the picture. Thing is, Matt said that while drinking Nutella hot chocolate, a pretty mild combination.

Frank called him on it.

Well, we'll see.

So Frank offered to put up $10 for the Josh's Beard project (fighting childhood cancer) if Matt ate meatballs (plural) with Nutella on them.

Matt was thinking sure, we'll have spaghetti and meatballs and I'll put some Nutella on a couple. But then Todd upped the ante.

Tracy, Amanda and Dan also jumped on board for donations.

Here are Tracy's posts:

» The preview
» The proof

And here's the video:

I've made a conscious effort to post something every workday of 2010, taking off only the New Year's holiday and weekends. But I'm going to indulge myself for two weeks.

As many of you know, I have decided to accept a fantastic opportunity with Data Key Communications as of February 15. I end my 4.5-year tenure at syracuse.com on February 11.

I'm making myself concentrate on the transition by not blogging for my final week at syracuse.com and my first week at Data Key. I'll see you Feb. 22.

Read the full play (no, I didn't). Via Mari.

It's a little out of season for this, but my baby sister (OK, she's in her late 20s, but she's still the youngest of the three of us) requested it. This is a recipe for salmon at that time of year when the apples first come out, but it's warm enough to want to cool off with a peach during the day. You'll need to plan ahead for this.

Overnight, soak salmon fillets in apple cider (or apple juice and cinnamon, but if you can do the cider, all the better). In the refrigerator, of course. You don't want to give anybody food poisoning.

You'll cook the fillets in the cider (fish side down first; the pan will get hot enough to deal with the skin side later). But the magic here is in the topping.

In another pan, melt some butter, then soften some chopped walnuts. Add chopped peaches, raisins, cinnamon, and maple syrup. Drain the liquid before you serve it over the fish.

I finally read The Catcher in the Rye last year. I probably should have read it in high school – I was much more likely to learn from it then than I am now. Of course, the books I was actually taking my cies from then were Brave New World and Animal Farm, and they've had a much bigger impact on worldview than Catcher ever could.

Let me say I mean that purely from a story and character perspective. I could have learned a lot more about writing from The Catcher in the Rye than I ever could with three years of high school composition.

You probably know that author J.D. Salinger died last week. I learned about it on Twitter, from posts like this.

Salinger's family and close friend and neighbors will no doubt miss him. But why the oh nos from the general public? Not only will you not miss him as a person – you almost certainly never met him (this guy barely did) and probably never heard, read or saw an interview with him, what with the seclusion and all – you won't miss him as a writer: if his Wikipedia page is to be believed, his last work was published in 1965. His death did not deprive the world of forthcoming wondrous literature the way, say, David Foster Wallace's death did (or didn't, what with the posthumous novel).

Salinger belonged uniquely to the people he chose to surround himself with. He is their loss, and they have requested privacy, even noting there won't be a funeral. He is clearly one who lived by the words he wrote. I hope he does have people to miss.

Do you have a passionate engaged community? Maybe you meet in person once a month, have incredible get-togethers with powerful energy surrounding something you're all very interested in.

How do you know when it's time to move such a community online? For many organizations, the time comes when one or more of the following is true:

• Your members need online tools to communicate more easily and more frequently than they meet in person
• You're ready to reach out and expand your community
• You want to connect to other communities in other geographic locations
• Your members want an outlet to do something more

Once you have the online tools in place – blogs, Twitter, Facebook – you can't just sit and hope people will use it.

Blogs

Let's say you have five people with varying passions. Ask them to each write once a week – and assign a day. Teach them the software, and explain to them how to schedule an entry so that they could churn out two, three or more at a time.

Have them check and respond to their comments regularly, and have them comment on each other's entries. My new favorite phrase, courtesy of Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, is "yes and." If they don't know what to say about each others' posts, have them start with, "yes, and then..." That's how ideas grow, and next time they see each other (because you're maintaining the community offline as well), if they forget what they were talking about, there's a record of it.

Twitter

Follow a few people here and there, in your field. Tweet about what you do, but don't go overboard. Connect with people, but only after you've been reading them long enough to understand what they tweet about and how you can help them. Retweet at will, but only those tweets that are in line with your organization's focus.

For every reference you make to your own website, make at least three to other people's or organizations' websites.

Keep your following to followers ratio low. Try not to let it get to more than 3:2 until you get 150 followers, and once you hit that level, work toward having more followers than people you're following. You'll still benefit from others' wisdom, but your organization appears more professional.

Facebook

Don't hit your Facebook page more than once or twice a day -- probably no more than seven or eight times a week. Monitor comments, respond to them, and pay attention to what your fans are saying.

When I wrote about the things I liked and disliked about the Kindle for iPhone app, one thing I hadn't tried was the Notes function.

It's the ability to leave a note in the margin, and stick a Post-It Note on the page so that you know where you left the note.

My brief review on Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith is that it's important for you if you're trying to use the Internet to advance your business, your career, or your brand. I think the same thing about Gary Vaynerchuk's book Crush It.

Both have action items, and both will help you – greatly – if you understand how to apply the lessons these folks share to your own situation. These books have action items, but they are not how-to-become-the-next-Chris-Brogan-or-Gary-Vaynerchuk books. If we all tried to be the next Chris Brogan, we'd have a world full of Chris Brogans and nobody to manufacture car parts or make peanut butter.

Lowell D'Souza gives a brief overview of Trust Agents. Go read the section numbered 1-6 (the rest is D'Souza commenting that the book is so-so, but then, he was looking for a how-to), and then come back.

These are the notes I, er, wrote in the margins.

Action item: Build a listening station. This is a step-by-step list on how to keep track of what people are saying about you or your business. This is not just a matter of running an occasional Google search for yourself; Brogan and Smith teach you how to set up a feed reader and get search feeds from various searches sent to you easily.

You don't have to be born with it. Forget the people who say you have to be born with a talent to be good at something. You get good at something by practice. Sure, chess might come easy to some people, but if the other people work hard at it, they'll do just as well.

Be good to people. Here's a direct quote.

In this chapter, we're talking about taking advantage of systems, not people. People are real, have real feelings, and always deserve respect. Always consider what's right and wrong when it comes to this stuff.

You Win by Having Goals. This is something that I will be working hard on in 2010. I understand the tools, I just have to set milestones that I want to achieve using the tools.

There's plenty of room on the Web. You don't have to directly compete with someone. There is plenty of room out there to work together, or do something similar, or collaborate, but not try to do the exact same thing someone else is doing. Find your niche.

Know which systems are open. Brogan and Smith use Pacman and Ms. Pacman to explain this concept. Pacman is a known system. As boards progress, prizes progress predictably, and a perfect game consists of a set number of points. Ms. Pacman, though, uses a random prize progression – at any given point, you may get a 100-point cherry or a 1,000-point banana (I made up the numbers, don't trash Brogan and Smith for it if they're wrong).

In real life, mastering a closed system (Pacman) means you are the best at something. Cal Ripken Jr? Best at playing consecutive baseball games. Barry Bonds? Best at hitting home runs (steroids or not – he has a number to prove it). But who's best at walking down Main Street in Toledo? It's an open system. We don't even know what being the best at walking down Main Street in Toledo looks like – it's all trial and error, and we're kind of making the game up as we go along.

Action Item: Affiliate Marketing Brogan and Smith outline some affiliate marketing strategies.

Forge partnerships. I don't think this needs any expanding. If you want to know what Brogan and Smith have to say, read the book.

Agent zero. We all have our personalities and roles in organizations. Agent Zero is the person who connects the people who need to know each other. I'm glad there's a name for this.

Maintain relationships. I'm horrible at this. I've been getting better, and Brogan and Smith offer good tips (like pay attention to the birthday calendar function in Facebook).

Yes and. I love this concept. The idea is that someone says something, and you not only agree, but build. An improvised story might start with someone saying, "The bear sat on the sofa and read the sports page," the next person continues by saying, "Yes, and he bemoaned the Giants' season coming to an end." The first person picks back up with, "Yes, and..."

And so, too, should go your discussions about collaborative projects. You build on what the other person says, rather than poo-pooing something that you don't yet see the point of.

Web site and book recommendations. Here are some of the books and sites the authors recommend throughout the book.

• Akoha.com (social media reality game)
• Spinvox.com (voice mail as text)
• Jott.com (speak into your phone, have it transcribed as an email to you)
• Kayak.com (travel help)
• Serious Creativity by Edward de Bono
• How to Be More Interesting by Edward de Bono
• The Long Tail by Chris Anderson
• The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey

» Chris Brogan on Twitter
» Julien Smith on Twitter