Social Media and Why No One's Listening

Social media is good for a plethora of things.  It keeps us connected and informed and often this connection is with people we may otherwise not maintain a relationship.  This can be viewed as beneficial or not depending on how it's used.  To some it is a gateway into the lives of people they care about but don't necessarily have the time to interact with in a traditional sense.  To others, it's a convenient excuse to avoid human interactions with people very much needed in their lives.

Like most of us, I enjoy soical media.  What does Twitter have to say about my favorite sports team after that last game?  What was the name of that new hire that I just can't quite recall?  Thanks Facebook, much appreciated.  This doesn't even take into account the countless ways businesses and various institutions use the platforms.  

However, there's another side to social media.  We all have opinions.  Even those who don't think they have opinions have them.  Posting something on social media not only supports our ideas but promotes them right? Social media is a great place where opinions go to die.  Huh?  To die?  How can that be?    According to a Newsmax ariticle in 2012, of 2000 respondents in a YouGov poll, only 8% reported being "influenced" by social media in regards to the candidates.  The debates, friends & family, and news reports all registered significantly higher numbers (source).  Why then do people invest so much time and energy into discourse via social media?  

Well this is a difficult question and one noone has a complete and perfect answer for.  However, I would argue that people believe their social media dialogues are making a bigger impact than they are.  Sure there are examples of influential people rallying the general public to their cause of choice.  However, you average Facebook or Twitter user engaging in debate with friends, family and acquaintances likely have an inflated view of the effectiveness their posts have to change minds.  

Second, the lack of genuine dialogue make truly knowing and fully understanding the topic less necessary.  That's not to say that all social media posts are ill-informed or lacking in preparation, but the stereotype exists for a reason.  Many people make assumptions about a lack of legitmacy due to the frequency of biased and under researched content.  

Why is this important?  In our busy world, we perpetually feel the pressures of busyness on our lives.  How often have you said "if I just had time" or "there just isn't enough time to do....?"  Well, as it turns out, we spend countless hours every day, week, and year dialoguing on various forms of social media.  If we knew how little impact many of our digital diatribes actually had on others, would we still invest as much of our invaluable time doing it?  Maybe I'm way off base on this and the internet will hate this silly author's perspective as well, but maybe social media was made for our cat & baby pictures.  At least then our friends and family will care about what we have to say.  Maybe the "what I did today posts" that our parents and siblings gobble up like candy are the posts with the most impact and are at least liked and applauded by someone.  

Maybe, just maybe...

Let me know what you think in the comments below.  

Baseball: more than a Game

It's late September, and that means it's a time that baseball really takes on a meaning of it's own.  The desire for October relevance takes on a feverish and desperate tone.  Even fair-weather and casual fans start dialing in to see what's happening in America's past time.

However for me; I was born with baseball in my blood.  There was never a series, a game, and inning that I can remember not caring about.  In elementary school I'd tune in or record the games of my favorite baseball team, the Minnesota Twins.  We're talking about a time in the mid and late 90s when the Twins were consistently losing 90 plus games.  It never mattered to me because I loved and still do love this game.  

My earliest memories include playing catch with my grandpa, taking batting practice in my spacious front yard, pitching a tennis ball against the garage, and of course competitively playing the sport I loved all through high school.  There was never a moment I didn't have my glove with me, and the two of us were always the best of friends.  Luckily I had real friends who were as impassioned toward the great game as me, and we continually played pick up ball, swapped cards, and listened to the game while pouring over freshly printed stats.   Baseball is without question always associated with my fondest memories.  

That's why when the Twins surged early and became relevant again for the 2015 season, it didn't matter to me that their chances would dwindle late.  As of this writing on 9/26, the Twins have a projected 6% chance of making the postseason.  I could bore you with every detail concerning where the organization could have made this decision or done that and likely have pushed these probabilities higher, but I won't.  That's a discussion for another blog, conversation, or day.  By now you've realized that their playoff chances depleting from 30% 12 or so days ago to 6% now doesn't get someone like me down.  

Baseball is so much more than the outcomes, the stats, or the sum of its parts.  It's an experience that some of us hold so sacred because it represents our fondest memories in so many stages of life.  Those are the kinds of experiences that stay with you forever.  That is why Baseball will always be America's Great Pastime for as long as I have breath.  

Do I take this "sport" and "game" too far?  I probably do, just as my grandfather before me did.  But baseball will always represent excitement, friendships, competition, joy, and even pain for me.  Baseball to me, truly is, more than a game.

Abercrombie CEO Discriminates Against "Fat Women"

Although there are a million reasons people blog, mine is simple.  Its a release. Therapeutic would be a good way to describe it.  When something beneficial has a positive effect on you, its good to focus on that act.

Initiating a new blog was a natural reaction to this need to write more frequently.  The start of a new blog does not mean an end to "The Issues," my politically motivated blog.  It simply means there are countless other things worth writing about, and I have a lot to contribute to those discussions as well. So this blog is my "commentary" on anything and everything, and thus the birth of something different and new (for me.)  

While relaxing on the couch during a much treasured River nap (River being our 14 month old son), my wife asked if I had heard about what the "Abercrombie & Fitch" CEO had said.  Being a man of zero fashion sense, I advised her that I hadn't.  She then sent a link from an "Elite Daily" article to me about why Abercrombie doesn't carry XL or XXL clothing for women (source.) CEO Mike Jeffries states, “In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids,” he told the site. “Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely. Those companies that are in trouble are trying to target everybody: young, old, fat, skinny. But then you become totally vanilla. You don’t alienate anybody, but you don’t excite anybody, either."  

Let's get the negatives out of the way here.  Thinking like this makes you arrogant, selfish, and to most people, despicable.  However, what is Jeffries actually saying?  He's saying, we have a target market, and we're not afraid to admit it.  Most companies will target, advertise to, and attempt to saturate a segment without ever overtly admitting it.  In this regard, Jeffries is doing what everyone else is, but he's overtly admitting to it.

Does this make him better or worse than the competitors?  Foolish for segmenting, or smart for targeting a niche market.  Try and put your instinctive disgust aside and be objective when answering these questions. What do you think?