PRHunter

Julien Smith, co-author of Trust Agents, brought his sometimes-quirky (a good thing) and up-to-the-nanosecond philosophy on social media to Third Tuesday Ottawa last night.

A blurb on Amazon.com describes the book as showing how to tap the power of social networks to build a brand's influence, reputation, and of course, profits.  It describes trust agents as web-savvy people who use the Web to humanize businesses using transparency, honesty, and genuine relationships.

While he offered advice on how to be visible and indexable on the web, he focused on the trust-agent-in-training's mindset – our set of beliefs or way of thinking that determines our outlook and behaviour.  He didn't use that word, but it kept ringing in my brain as I listened, and the part that chimed loudest was the word set.    

If one's mind is set – put in a fixed or immovable position or state – one can miss out on opportunities to explore new territory.  His advice:  break your patterns.  My interpretation: get out of that fixed, immovable state and allow your brain to focus on what can be and not get stuck in what is. 

He used the Blue Ocean Strategy as a guide for what can be, comparing the unfriendly, competitive, over-populated red ocean with the clear, friendly, opportunity-laden blue ocean. 

But it wasn't all philosophy.  He provided several helpful tips, one of them about relationship management –  the core of PR – saying build your network ahead of time and ahead of need, and keep working that network. In his trust-agent vernacular: keep building and maintaining tribes.

I was sufficiently inspired to go home and check out his blog inoveryourhead. I was sufficiently motivated to drag myself out of bed extra early this morning to write this. Giddy with all this inspiration, I also followed his and a colleague's advice and downloaded foursquare on my iphone. (I now have visions of becoming the mayor of my local watering hole.)

Hey, any long trip towards building a tribe can start with one small app.

And before anyone complains that I've shown disrespect for the verb/noun set, here's a good meaning – place in readiness as in ready, set, go.

I'm ready.