The trend started a couple of years ago, when a woman would’ve got an iPod for her birthday.
Not an expensive jewel.
Not a precious garment.
(not a hoover)
No.
Something that she’d call “technology”. But was like a jewel: beauty, design, emotion.

It’s been a turning point.

At this time, I don’t know about any revolutionary impact of the iPad on society, uses, business models or whatever. But I have the feeling that women will like it.

Particularly because men seem to think that their wife will like it! (follow link to see the search on Twitter for “my wife ipad”!). Isn’t it a sign of times changing?

I liked this Tweet in particular:

Inspired by this one, too (French):

Are we witnessing a slight social shift? A breath of freedom for women?

[The hoover is over! ]

A lady told me today: "Merci, Mademoiselle!"

And, as a starting point, I am looking back at 2009 results. It has been a very exciting year on many levels, for Sosoftware, culminating at Telecom, and for me, as a marketer.

As Jean-Claude Biver, charismatic Swiss entrepreneur, head of Hublot, recently stated it in a business review (this site is really missing its point!): working with little (marketing) resources will make you learn creativity, and learn quickly, as far as you are independant, fearless and endurant to work-load.
This is pretty much what I’ve experienced last year. And it fitted perfectly to the wave of social-media being much talked-about and progressively adopted for business purposes. These combined circumstances made it the ideal period to experiment, analyze and learn.

It brought out a big impact on general visibility and, over the months, leads acquisition. The tools have proved to be powerful, reactive, specifically the global mix of digital tools and offline actions. But still, slicing the figures into more specific ROI-oriented results is not yet highly meaningful.
So, in 2009, it’s been mostly the sexy part of the job!

What about 2010?

In order to harvest the fruits of the tools that have been rolled out, to grow and in order to stick to market trends, I will focus my attention on 3 keywords: content, metrics, mobile.

Part of it will still be experimentation: I’m not a fool ! :-)

And you? On what will you focus your energy this year? Do you have 3 keywords that could drive your actions ?

Have I been influenced by this article by Chris Brogan? Maybe. Anyway, reading this article could help you prioritize your actions for the coming year.

Image: taken a couple of days ago, next to my place. This frame inspires me a lot, it can be the metaphor of framing and at the same time the opposite, “framing out”. And it’s always changing.
Credit to @MAMK, who inspired me with his great post.

Technology has made the act of sharing (others content)- to your community-ies (friends, followers, readers…) so easy, a click on “share” on Facebook, a click on RT on Twitter, a blog post mentioning another post, that it has become very easy to shine through others’ content.

But am I really the reflection of what I republish? The “re-publish” notion can be extended to pictures taken at an event, where the people I capture are the value rebounded indirectly on me, the same with quick videos.

At some extent, I would answer in a positive way. Yes. Yes, what I share to my community gives them a good picture of what I like, what I find of interest. Even of my skills. I offer them the value created by someone else. In doing so, it would be hypocritical not to recognize that a slight part of it will be redirected on my own image.

But in my opinion, this can be done in a very transparent way, giving credit to whom deserves it, linking to the source, quoting the original article, quoting the person who published it. Otherwise, it would become “robbing”, as states it Valeria Maltoni in her recent, striking article. Shining through someone else’s content/opinion is easy.

These last weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot on that issue. For 2 main reasons:
First, there’s been a lot of noise around some big event recently, bringing along tons of pictures, videos, tweets, RT’s, etc.. but empty of real meaning. Or there were a thousand of people gathered for a major event that had nothing new to bring to the crowds, or the noise was too big on social networks and the efforts of “translation”, of value- addition too light. Or maybe both !
Secondly, I’ve been recently challenged by a question that sounded like: ok, you share Mashable or Techcrunch articles, great, but this is easy. Implied: what is your real “value-addition”?

So, sharing makes sense when you add your own opinion, colour, take.
Or, better, when you create your own content. Which opens other questions, deserving interest (and another post :-))
This will turn into long-lasting trust into what you think, you share. And, yes, you’ll be a little bit what you share.
But not only.
And you? Did you notice what are the favorite people you follow and why? Do they give a special meaning to the information they share?
I would love to have your opinion!

Image credit to Alex King

  
Download now or listen on posterous

05 El payande.m4a (7118 KB)

And here the mp3 file, just in case:

Her biography in wikipedia.

During about one month, I could feel my heart suspended to a text message, the bip!bip! echoing to living internal pulsatings. Life at the other end of the world was infusing life on this part of the Atlantic. The rythm of my heart, bong, bong, was following the bip, bip of my phone! Life is well done: I survived with very few bips! Since then, I am seriously thinking about buying an I-phone to my daughter, with this incredibly useful application, for her next stay in the States!

The enfranchisement of the Code of Silence came up this way: a group of children went on holidays with a parent of theirs. What was supposed to be cool holidays turned out into something heavy, stuffed with small hurting sentences. But the kids had grown up. They had an individual opinion and the will to have it respected. And they had a mobile phone! Game over.
That’s how, naturally, they decided to call their parents and ask them to go back home.
The mobile phone had freed their word. The mobile phone brought to the light some dark hidden aspects of human relations, allowing young people to access to a more integrated individuality. It looks like a shortcut to individual assesment, bridging generation’s gaps, accelerating a personal autonomous statement.

We all have in mind surprising, even subversive examples of the impact of the mobile phone: what are yours?

This yawning slipper opened the small window of the doubt.

Finding the right balance is not a linear process.
The pitted slipper arrived precisely when I was experimenting a similar situation as Valeria Maltoni, that made me wonder, like her: “Do You Ever Feel Like Giving Up”?

This kind of tiny incident is the opportunity to stop and think. To weigh in different elements and restaure a better balance.

Do you also have your “wholed slipper”? Did it lead you to important decisions?

But, after having felt the wind on my face, the smell of the trees, of the ground, during holidays in Majorque, I just couldn’t fancy me on a terrasse anymore.
And that’s how, one day, courageously, I took my bike, put on my helmet and rushed into the countryside.
From then on, every time I go out for a ride, a multitude of thoughts and feelings cross over me, some little tiny, others deeper.

Here are some thoughts “out of the wheel”. One thing is sure: I smile more on the road!
* sunglasses help flyes from hurting your eyes, gloss make them stick on your lips. A chance I never attracted a bee!
* music in my ears, wind on my arms, smile on my face and a midge on my teeth! Don’t smile, don’t wear gloss, and midges pass their way. Or smile, stick.
* Starting thinking in 140 characters. Am I really learning a new language? Is it the sign of mind’s concentration, going to the essence of things, or rather the sign of superficiality? It made me think of a new word.
* being one with the bike with the road with the land make me love more and more this – new – country (Vaud), as if I could touch their inhabitants from their roots, their grass up to their global appearance.
* Did I really put that good old song of The Cure on my ipod?
* Oh! These cute little bad grass with heart shaped leaves! They grow everywhere. Like love. A thought for Sandi.
* The magic of a smile’s exchange with an unknown lady. No midge.
* Those newly born little lambs jumping awkwardly one on the other! So funny. A burst of laughter! No midge.
* And, almost arrived, seing those old people loaded with stuff they bought during their trip (the german pullman is there to witness..) make me smile again. No midge.

So, lipstick or not lipstick, midge or no midge, smile!

And you: what are your “thoughts out of the wheel”? The link with music? With yourself? Do you have the feeling to “go on” or to go round” or other?

Some things were clear, though: first, I had to dive into that field, would it be only for professional purposes. Actually, how could I ever be able to counsel, roll out general marketing strategies without even having tested a slight, but important part, of social media? I knew part of the theory, time had come to go on to practice! Secondly, I also wanted to experiment that playground to express a personal point of view agregating personal and professional interests. A kind of convergence, that lead naturally to “Convergent Tracks”.

So now, one year later, about to starting Lift09 (my third consecutive year), I take this opportunity to make the point, see a bit of what happened during this past year and how it lead to a personal convergence.

My mind broadened at Lift 08. It is hard to explain, I know I’m not the only one, but after having heard people like Genevieve Bell or Paul Dourish, I felt I could’nt just stay on the side of the road. I had to ride my engine and start off!
Freedom, breaking limits, thinking out of the box: a track was born! Internal.

Then, another intimate event happened: my uncle’s passaway. He was a visionair. A missionnair. His death acted on me like a trigger and, sadly, but happily at the same time (it’s in concordance with his spirit), brought me to my first post. The idea of converging tracks.
Convergence, yes. Ok. But where? To what?

At that time, I started to analyze plethora of blogs, news, and others. I already related that part here, the Mad Link, and From Conversation to Conversion. I started creating public profiles, a Twitter account, linking to like-minded people, linking all these links together, commenting and so on. Always genuily. Following my personal moral code.
The contacts springing out of this were nice, warmful and inspireful, helpful and open. The idea of converging tracks. Again. Slightly more on the public side.
But I also started to integrate the company I work for (and with and in) into my social/public flows. Another convergent track, yet.

Then, a personal “event” happend: the jump into the 40’s!
Short before: plenty of questions, doubts, hesitations.
Then, the birthday. Yes, I think the word “Birthday” has its full meaning, here.
If I could have had any unrevealed dreams, they all happened at that moment! (or close)
At that very moment, in the middle of all the people I so preciously loved, I felt totally INTEGRATED! My inner “me” was integrated.

My past, my origins, my aborted dreams, my friends, my family, my choices, my passions, all had become fully integrated!

The counsciousness of this opened for me an unlimited space of freedom.
Integrating this feeling to what I had learned and experimented during one year lead me to now: A FULL CONVERGENCE, from Lift 08 to Lift 09, from intimate to global convergence.

So, it is with wide open eyes that I am going to first day of Lift09.

What’s next?

Image: by my friend, Lats Kladny, CEO of www.inox.com (you know, the guys that make Uma Thurman say: “What are you made of?, for Tag Heuer” Or Eva Herzigova, for Chopard, Luxury Jewels..?
Follow me on Twitter @claudiafalt for realtime LIFT09 ideas, news, insights…