I was at an my son’s 8th grade graduation last week, and the commencement speaker, Steve Cochran (WGN radio) warned the students about being part of a “society of whiners.”  I got to thinking how true this was.

Social media has made it so easy to complain. Most of the posts I see on Twitter and Facebook are people whining about something.  Sure, there are helpful and motivational posts along the way, but a lot of it just seems to be complaints about bad customer service or dumb things people are doing.

Now, I am not totally innocent. I like a good whining rant like the rest of us, but can we whine but then offer a solution?  I attend too many business meetings where people complain about what is going wrong.  I get that, but can you suggest a solution or how we should do it differently going forward?

Whining may make you feel better.  As they say, misery does love company, but just complaining does not change anything.  It just brings all of us down in the long run.  Whine with a solution in mind.  It will make a world of difference!

Are we a society of whiners?  Or do I have it all wrong?

Alison Bennett and Mindy Byers

Last week, I spoke at the Bigfoot Social Networking Conference outside of Seattle.  It was the first annual conference organized by Frank Kenny at the North Mason Chamber of Commerce.

In one of the breakouts, I listened to Mindy Byers (or Mega Mouth Mindy as she is called) talk about how to make true connections with people and stop focusing on the number of followers or friends.  I know we can get all caught up in the number of friends and followers.  It becomes a currency to determine how popular or successful we are.

Mindy talked about how most people are “socially inept” because they are afraid of “the true cost to expose” of themselves online and IRL (In Real Life).  She believes that we should think about who is invested in who you are and focus on real connections with these people.  In a social media connected world, she believes that you are your business.  There is no disconnect there.

How do you truly connect with people in a social media connected world?

Liz Strauss, CoFounder of SOBCON

This always seems to be the busiest week of  the year.  Personal commitments only allowed me to be at SOBCON 2010 for one day, but here are great things I heard:

1. Hands are important for building business relationships. (@lizstrauss)

2. Put your fear aside, and step out from behind the curtain. (@lizstrauss)

3. Don’t try to build a coliseum, raise a barn.  Remember, if they build it, they will bring their friends. (@lizstrauss)

4. In order to be successful, you need to have a renewable tribe. (@jonathanfields)

5. When you choose not to execute, you risk failure for sure. (@jonathanfields)

6. The question is not is the glass half full or half empty, but what is in the glass? (@hankwasiak)

7. When you trade places with people, you can better see their truth. (@hankwasiak)

8. Find your mighty cause.  True power comes from your soul. (@hankwasiak)

9. To hell with perfection. (@hankwasiak)

10. Make desire more important than fear. (@hankwaisak)

11. Who is on your Mount Rushmore? (Who do you admire?) (@hankwasiak)

12. Never use these words – “How hard could this be?” (@beckymccray)

13. Generate paying customers while you are testing a new business. (@beckymccray)

14. The narrower the target is, the wider the opportunity will be. (@beckymccray)

15. Paper and pen always boot up. http://www.,twitter.com/sheilas)

16. Look for the “desperately” interested people. (@beckymccray)

17. I am a redneck.  I learned to shoot before I learned to multiply. (@beckymccray)

18. If your new company has no competitors then you probably have no business. (@chrisgarrett)

19. Breakthroughs happen one small step at a time. (@sharnquickbooks)

20. Live your legacy now. (@hankwasiak)

What were your favorite things you heard?

Look for my photos of SOBCON at my Chicago Now Blog.

Mari Smith

Mari Smith has been called  “the Pied Piper of the Online World.” She is one of the most sought after Social Media Keynote Speakers, Trainers and Consultants. She helps entrepreneurs and business owners accelerate their business profits using an integrated social marketing strategy, with particular focus on Facebook and Twitter.

On a special segment of Business Insanity Talk Radio, we talk about:

1: How to design a powerful social media strategy for your business using the right tools.

2: How the average business person out there establishes themselves as a thought leader in the industry.

3: Simple strategies to powerfully leverage visibility and brand.

4: How to drive a flood of traffic to your website and blog.

5: The do’s and dont’s of “tweeting.”

Tell us your social media strategy tips!

Listen to Mari now!

Here are the superstars I met at the conference that you need to know:

Aliza Sherman (@Aliza Sherman) Hailing form rural Alaska, I finally got to meet Aliza in person (after only have met her on Second Life). She is a web pioneer on the web since 1987 and built her first community in 1992. She  started the first woman-owned Internet company – Cybergrrl, Inc. – and the first women’s Internet networking group – Webgrrls .

Wendy Piersall @eMom.  She is known for her expertise as an online publisher and social media marketing authority. She founded Sparkplugging Blog Network, and just sold it in the fall of 2009 to private investors. She is now working on Woo! Jr., a kids activities network.

Cali Lewis

Cali Lewis (@calilewis) I have been a big fan of Cali’s on from Geekbrief.tv since I love gadgets. But after I saw her in bed with Chris Brogan at Blogworld, I was hooked. You can learn alot from Cali on how to do videos and podcast right.

Becky McCray

Becky McCray (@BeckyMcCray) I met Becky for the first time at SOBCON.  She is an entrepreneur from a very small town in Oklahoma and owns a retail liquor store and cattle ranch. Becky also works with small businesses to maintain their web presence and help city governments with project management and grant writing. Full disclosure: We are writing a book together on what we can all learn from rural entrepreneurs.

Who is on your list?

One of the panels at Blogworld was a group of celebrities: Singer Jermaine Dupri, Actor Anthony Edwards, choreographer, Robin Antin and entertainer Matt Goss.

What the celebrities liked about tweeting was that it was a direct way to reach their world and not go through someone else. With social media, they can find out what the world thinks positively and negatively.

Anthony Edwards (Revenge of the Nerds, ER) also thinks that social media also has a lot of entertainment value. He compared it to a circus where there are clowns, jokes and high wire acts. You’ll find all the same types of people on FaceBook and Twitter; people with their own causes and people who are clowns.

I got to wondering since we all have fans on Facebook and followers on Twitter, are we now all celebrities to someone? When I was at Blogworld,a guy sitting near me tweeted, “Holy Smokes, @Barry moltz is sitting 3 seats away from me! ”

For just a moment (less than 15 minutes) I was almost famous.

What do you think- are we all celebrities to someone now?

Richard Jalichandra at Technorati, gave the keynote at Blogworld. He revealed that  75% of Americans read blogs. This should not be a surprise. We all saw the impact of blogs and social media in the last presidential election with Barack Obama. According to Richard, this is the first year where we see the rise of the professional blogging class; unlike me, there are people that make money doing this. In fact, we see mainstream media try to emulate bloggers and become as Chris Brogan says, “more human:”

Technorati does an annual survey of 2900 bloggers and these are the results:

2/3 Male and 60% are ages 18-47 (now I am in the minority!).

Overall, bloggers are affluent and educated.

Only 6% claim that blogging effects their family relationships (I am now in the majority).

Richards advice for having a successful blog is to be passionate. None of the professional bloggers started out trying to make money. Later in the conference,  Brian Clark (@Copyblogger ) said that you need to have a blog for two yeas before you try to make money from it. Okay, I have been doing this for 8 years…so maybe for some of us, it takes a bit longer?

There is no doubt that social media is changing the face of journalism.

Brian Solis stated at Blogworld  that there are over 400M tweets a month and 2B pieces of content posted on Facebook a month. As a result, he said that you can’t bring people to you but need to go where people are. Web 2.0,  according to Paul Colligan is you on the web on your customers terms.

Don Lemon (@donlemoncnn) explained at Blogworld  that the “Twitter News Network” (news from peoiple tweets) has forced him to up his game because if he does not get it right, then people wll call him out. Instead of rejecting social media, Don states that journalists need to embrace it. “It is a social media is a power shift to the masses.”

What do you think?

BTW- See what Don has to say about customer service at my BAM site!