Jeff Cutler™ – columns, essays and opinions

Right off the bat, I want to assure you that the word dimmer in the title has nothing negative associated with it. In the past seven months we’ve gone through the undulations of war, stock-markets, Steve Jobs’ health and other news that’s made us cringe, gasp, sneer and react in a dim way. So hang on for a moment, the use of the word dimmer refers analogously to how conversations are best started in the social-media sphere.

Wondering why I put a hyphen in social media? That could be an entire soap-box discussion for another day on the benefits of writing grammatically correct missives in a world that’s married to LOL and ROFLMA and thx and bai and other manglings. But not today. Right here and right now I’m going to talk about why a dimmer switch approach is better than just flicking the lights on when you’re going to share yourself with the Webiverse.

Picture a party scene. You’ve been invited because you live in the house next door and you’re not obviously a nudist, a murderer or a Hare Krishna. Digressing again, if you are one of these things I’m sure you have your reasons. Please don’t fill the comment box with the reasons why it’s better that we all go without clothing.

You step up to the front door of the house, ring the bell and wait. When the door opens, do you:

a – run screaming into the house, shouting your name and throwing pictures of yourself and your family to the guests?

b – see the door opening and dive headlong into the bushes at the side of the porch, quivering like one of those cute, but useless, punting dogs that waifish models carry in their purse?

c – thank the hostess, shake her hand, present her with a bottle of Cabernet and then stride into the room observing the scene – looking and listening for clues about the people and the environment you’ve just entered?

While I’m in favor of the the dive-in-the-bushes approach, the preferred way to gain acceptance, develop a valuable following, and create conversations that allow you to learn and grow is by twisting the dimmer switch up to a brightness you and your audience can tolerate.

Don’t blast the spotlight on the room and yourself by running around in an overbearing and annoying manner. And don’t leave the lightswitch off as you avoid the possibility of meeting some great people with fantastic perspectives and ideas. Just twist the dimmer and allow others – and yourself – to bask in the glow.

From what I’ve found, the casual and consistent approach can be explained by many metaphors, but the importance in social media is being yourself and contributing in a positive manner to the conversations going on around you.

You’ll soon find that the light on everyone else you admire and learn from is strong enough to illuminate the value everyone has to share…even you.

What’s your favorite metaphor for participating in the social-media fishbowl? I welcome you to shine a light on your point of view.

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I’ve been buried in writing projects for a bunch of clients. I’ve also been drumming up new business for corporate clients who are drinking the social-media Kool-Aid. But today I’ve got a couple minutes to share my schedule with you.

Here’s my week in a nutshell – add to it my coverage of Greener Gadgets in NYC on Friday – and you’ll understand why I’ve been looking so harried.

Hope to see you at one or all of these events!

Monday…  Skeptics

Tuesday… BU Career Fair and Networking

Wednesday…

Pechaku Boston 8

Webinar on Social Media for Business

Storytelling at MassArt

Harpoon Brewery Tweet-up ($25)

Thursday

#SMB12 at Ryles Jazz Club

Eat-up at WBUR Boston

Forrester Research Tweet-up

What are you doing this week? Please share in the comments.

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I started this column back in August and have revived it based on the current heat-wave. Bear in mind when it was originally penned the weather outside was far from frightful and my vehicle of choice was my orange scooter named Scootle. Enjoy…

This morning I sat at a local Barnes & Noble store looking the part of the starving writer, composing a column on my iPhone while sipping a black tea.

As I pecked out words with a single finger, I wondered why people gravitate to a venue that offers overpriced food and drink, uninformed staff (except for the lifers who love books), proprietary wifi and skinflinty clients.

Don’t jump on me for calling kettles cheap, I was at this B&N to meet someone. But I will concede I was too thrifty to spend $4 for two hours of Internet access. Especially when I could hop on the scooter and Wijack at the mall or at Panera down the street.

Further characteristics that drag this particular bookstore down are its proximity to towns where the populace is dotted with SUV-driving moms who can hardly manage to pilot their craft in a traffic lane, much less position them in a parking spot. This means the lot I saw out the window was a breathing example of Badparking.com.

Digression seems to make my pecking finger ache, what with all the added typing, so to the point I’ll proceed. Where are all the breakthroughs?

That is, where are the cars that park themselves between parking stripes, where are the intelligent scanners at the doorway that don’t go off when you ENTER the store, where are the coffee clerks who can leave room enough for milk and sugar in a cup of tea or coffee, where are the transporters, and where are the free Wifi zones so people can connect to the Internet anywhere?

Seriously, why does anyone get their coffee poured right to the top of the cup if they’re going to add condiments? They just pour off 1/10 of the fluid into a plastic bag or stagnant carafe at the coffee station. Wake up. You paid $6 for that coffee, stop wasting it. Extrapolate the value and a cup of coffee is 16 times more expensive than a gallon of gas. Would you pay $64 for a gallon of gas and then pour off $6 of it? I didn’t think so.

When my mind wasn’t wandering this morning, my friend Matthew and I spent a few minutes discussing the next big things. We decided that if anyone had any brains at all, they’d be focusing on building the infrastructure to service any number of products coming to market in the next few years.

An iPhone unlocking technician, a flying car mechanic and a coffee recycling centers all over the nation were just the tip of the iceberg. I actually can’t tell you here what we really came up with because Google will likely want to buy our intellectual property soon. But it was along the lines I’ve mentioned above.

Speaking of lines, people can’t keep themselves within those painted on the pavement. In fact, while standing and bidding each other adieux, Matthew and I were almost run into by a woman in an SUV. She pulled into a spot next to my scooter and parked slighly over the line into my spot.

After a slight verbal spar that didn’t come to blows, but could have, Matthew and the woman came to the understanding that she was a female dog and that he should try some anatomically difficult act with himself.

My take on the entire afternoon, from the expensive coffee to quasi-trained staff and idiot women drivers, was that for four dollars I never would have been able to get similar entertainment anywhere else. Not the movies, not the free Internet and not at a coffee shoppe.

I consider it an investment in living. And for $4, that’s pretty darn affordable.

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Sometimes I take the people around me and my circumstances for granted. No, I’m not raking in the cash or appearing regularly on network TV or in movies. But I have a comfy existence and I’m surrounded by people who love me and care about me.

Is the cupcake on the counter the best I’ve ever had? Hardly. But it’s still a cupcake. There are plenty of people around who don’t even have the eggs or the milk needed to craft a cupcake.

And what about the heat?

The steam radiators hiss at me like angry cats every time I jack up the heat. But at least I have the option of turning up the heat and keeping myself warm.

Everyday complaints – like there being no cheese in the fridge, having neighbors who mow too close to my house, owning sweaters that are a little scratchy, and having to wait seemingly forever for the tap water to reach a temperature cool enough to drink – are meaningless in the face of bigger issues.

Like what?

How about people who don’t even have water to drink? Take a look at Charity Water and see that lots of people don’t even have that – then look at what people are doing to change things.

Or my friend’s plight. He worked his butt off for 11+ years and now has millions in the bank. But none of that cash or the success is going to be much solace as his father slips away from him mentally. This guy is only 60 and is predisposed to have Alzheimer’s. It hasn’t hit yet, but the family’s already tense anytime this guy forgets his pants or can’t remember a conversation from a few weeks back.

And this other guy I know is worried constantly about his father’s health. (No idea why it’s all fathers in this story, but it is.) This guy is 68 and battling cancer for the second time in two years. The disease is horrible, but what’s worse is living with the constant stress. Will each time I say “bye dad” be the last time? Will each hug or handshake be the last one?

Sure, the bread truck can round the next corner and flatten you like a pita. Your worries would be over and you wouldn’t be so focused on the water, the heat, the cheese or the family. But I tend to think that if there’s no grief if your life, Charlie Brown, you won’t appreciate the times that everything is clicking along nicely.

You won’t smile at the light snowflakes and the hot fudge sundaes. No giggles as the ducklings swim circles around their duck parents. And no contended sighs or happy tears at the end of a corny sitcom.

Until you take measure of your life in real terms, you can’t really measure the your life’s terms.

Even with a father dying of cancer and a paucity of ducks in the local pond, I have it pretty good.

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