One of my favorite things about attending We Media, is going in consecutive years. I love catching up with familiar faces and hearing about what they’ve been up to in the past year. I learn about new technologies, new functionality on existing products, and even entirely new companies being created out of the ashes or on the shoulders of what I previously associated with the people who attend.

This year, I caught up with Ben Berkowitz, founder of SeeClickFix, which won the for-profit category of last year’s PitchIt! competition and empowers anyone to report and track non-emergency issues online. The service is having an effect on many local governments as it enables ordinary citizens to easily and efficiently hold them accountable.

As a believer in the opportunities provided by Twitter, I quickly registered the account @SeeClickFix while Ben was up on stage accepting the prize with his team. I apparently startled him a few minutes later when I told him that I grabbed it for him and - well perhaps we should just let him tell the rest of the story.

During a break between sessions last week, and the morning after a sleepless night of helping this year’s finalists refine their pitches, Ben talked about how they’ve been able to use Twitter to help their site grow, where branding fits in and the importance of being genuine.

Ben Berkowitz on Twitter, branding and the importance of being genuine from Genuine Interactive on Vimeo.

GENUINE INTERACTIVE: So a year ago you just won the PitchIt! competition and you had no idea about Twitter? Is that right?

BEN BERKOWITZ: Haha ya, I had no idea. But really I knew what Twitter was, I just didn’t know the purpose of it. So we won, we got off stage to visit the restroom and when I came out there was an eager gentleman by the name of Chad. "I got your Twitter tag!" I thought "Holy shit this guy is holding this thing for ransom." But he was kind enough to give us the SeeClickFix Twitter tag and our presence in the Twitter- sphere was born and it’s been really valuable using Twitter since.

In the last year we have been able to assess the potential competition and our position in the market place, and we have been able to put our stake in the ground to let people know we are here who would not have known that we were in their network. Most recently we used Twitter to send messages to the city of San Francisco 311 department, so we are actually using it as form of communication for generating service requests and they tweet back at us on those issues.

So Twitter has had many implications. It was interesting to see there has been much less tweeting this year (at We Media), I think there are changes happening, last year there was certainly more back channel, but maybe more people are paying attention in real life, so that’s good that more people have their heads up off the computers than last year.

GENUINE INTERACTIVE: I wanted to ask you a question about the growth and the evolution of SeeClickFix, I’m guessing it kind of went from building, building, building with your head down, to looking at a much more branding focus. Is that a fair assessment?

BEN BERKOWITZ: I would say that would be a fair assessment of the next piece. We did a redesign in August and we got a user group and focus group and it really, really helped us. I think there are still a ton of things with the UI that could improve and so we have tackled a lot of the engineering fees like translation and smart phone applications and across most of the smart phone platforms. Now I think there is a battle of these big things and then you have to simplify all the big things and then add more big things and then simply. At least that has been our experience and process so far. I think the next couple of months of SeeClickFix we will be simplifying and making changes to the content we have out there and making the tools more accessible.

GENUINE INTERACTIVE: In terms of your audience, is being genuine important to maintaining your audience?

BEN BERKOWITZ: Yes absolutely. I personally have been an evangelist for the open government space as well as a participatory media and community web 2.0. to use a cheesy term. I think if you don’t believe in your world, and sing it from the roof tops or be celebratory every time it happens, you know it’s not going to be genuine. You absolutely need to be genuine and I think that there are people that have thought about participating in our space and it was clear they were not genuine and it has affected their potential reputation.

GENUINE INTERACTIVE: What has been your biggest accomplishment in the last year?

BEN BERKOWITZ: God, there have been so many. I think collectively, if you look, I sent a tweet out when we were about to be on stage of the SeeClickFix challenge month with IBM smarter cities, it was about 40 posts of people who have used the site SeeClickFix and have had some very positive experiences where some part of their life or community was improved because of the site. It’s a really nice testimonial section, really representative, there have been a ton of specific moments. For example a neighborhood in New Haven that addressed a mugging situation, not by freaking out and running away but by forming on SeeClickFix over the concern of muggings, then forming neighborhood groups in real life and then rallying around SeeClickFix in real life to get the mayor to implement better lighting in the neighborhood. I think those are the kind of stories and it’s what keeps us waking up in the morning.

GENUINE INTERACTIVE: Great!

BEN BERKOWITZ: It has been really exciting!

I'm getting ready to head down to We Media Miami 2010, where Genuine Interactive is a media sponsor this year. As the former web producer for the conference and someone who has attended/worked every one of them since the beginning, there are a lot of reasons why I am drawn to this event. It's eye-opening, thought-provoking and best of all, it provides a glimpse of the future reality that we will all be living in. But that would take too long to fully explain.

Instead, I made a Wordle that lists the sessions, speakers and sponsors of this year's event (click the thumbnail for the larger version).

If you have any requests or comments, email me at chad AT genuineinteractive DOT com, comment here, or @reply to @wearegenuine.

Be sure to follow the #WeMedia hashtag between March 9-11. It's gonna be HUGE. But don't take my word for it. Look at these screengrabs from the two days of the conference last year. At its peak each day, #WeMedia was only competing with Jesus and Apple. 

You can make your own Satan and Microsoft jokes, and of course #iestories had a few of those last year as I recall too.

My latest contribution to MediaPost's Marketing:Health site was just posted: 

I put off a lot of planned work last weekend -- including my first approach to this post -- to tear through the new Seth Godin book, Linchpin. I'm glad I waited.

More on that after we talk about a fast-approaching feedback deadline that might affect us all.

The noon Feb. 28 deadline is for comments on hearings the Food and Drug Administration held this past November to help guide policy decisions on the promotion of medical products via the Internet and social media.

(Read the full post)

Much like a patient who is about to undergo an unfamiliar medical procedure, social media can be a scary endeavor to the uninitiated.

In both cases, the mind can easily drift into anxiety-ridden territory: What if something goes wrong? What if I hear something I didn't want to hear? What if the people operating these instruments are not up to the task? (click here to read the full post)

Last week, Josh Hoekwater (a.k.a. @digitalhoek) and I gave a talk to the New England Conservatory titled "Web Site Basics: Tips for Do-It-Yourselfers"

We weren't totally sure what to expect in terms of the audience, but we did some prep work that covered a variety of areas including hosting, domains, blogs, social media and metrics. The SlideShare version of our PowerPoint is listed below:

In the process of preparing for this, I reached out so some friends and colleagues and got some great insights from a couple musicians and a promoter who are committed to their web presence.

• Montreal-native Chris Velan has released a few solo albums, including his latest Solidago.
• Lou Paniccia is the drummer for a band that’s “just getting started” called Oranjuly. 
• Justin Poirier, a video editor at here at Genuine Interactive, plays guitar for The Hollow Sound.
• Roman Lojko, an HTML wiz at Genuine who "eats chunks of CSS for breakfast" during the day then books, promotes and writes about music at night, runs the web site undressmerobot.com/hmsputnam
• Mike Norman, Genuine’s Director of development, is a guitarist for the band Action Verbs.

I first met Chris online, kind of. During a business trip, I had a free night with nothing to do, and found a listing of musicians playing local bars. I Googled Chris, found his site, listened to some of his music and enjoyed the show in front of a very small crowd because the gig was added very last-minute on a weeknight. I've seen him several times since and am a big fan of his music. What impressed me from the beginning, aside from his music, was how he set himself up for success by already having a robust web presence.

I met Rob through a friend of a friend who used to work with him down the hallway from us at SonicBids.com. (Disclosure: Sonic Bids is a current client of Genuine).

:: What were your goals for your first web site? What are they now? What changed and why?

CHRIS VELAN: My goals for my first website (in 2003) were drastically different than they are now. Then, it was just about getting all of the info and media up on the site in a presentable, cool, well-navigable fashion and that was it. There was not much consideration for making the site dynamic, changing, interactive, etc. Updates to the site were in the hands of the all-knowing web-master. Now it's all about having the Facebook and Twitter feeds on the home page and making sure that I can change, update content as easily as possible. My site www.chrisvelan.com is built on a Word Press platform. I find it works really well.

What changed? A couple of things. The meteoric rise of social networks, the corresponding need for constantly-updated media and a general expectation in the music industry that artists need to foster a close ongoing relationship with fans.

JUSTIN POIRIER: For my band, The Hollow Sound, our first website was a way of creating awareness for the band, and providing an outlet for any and all information about us, that anyone would want to know. While being somewhat self indulgent, it gave us a chance to talk about some of the questions that potential fans might have wanted to ask. We also used it as a place for fans to download our first ep for free.

MIKE NORMAN: We had a MySpace page, because every other band had to have one. We played follow the leader. When it came time, we realized we needed to grow beyond MySpace due to the indicators that MySpace is losing market share and that the market place there is just flooded with bands befriending everyone. While we created a Facebook page (that is actually the best communication tool we have), we didn’t want that to also be the same problem 2 years down the road so we created our own website where we have complete control. And we keep our MySpace page, but message it clearly that the users should visit our actual web site.

ROMAN LOJKO: My friend and I initially just wanted to share the music we loved with other people via internet radio. Eventually, since circumstances changed and we weren’t able to stream music anymore, our website turned into a music webzine, where we tried to give exposure to bands that we thought were overlooked or unjustly ripped apart by other webzines.

:: How do you activate and engage your audience, create a connection with them that extends beyond the music your performing, essentially give them a window into your musical soul?

CHRIS VELAN: It's really about maintaining an active presence on all of your social media sites AND being genuine, consistent, and honest in your postings/outreach. By doing that, you will attract the people you're meant to. You have to consider that a fan is not someone to be manipulated. They're you. The edict, "treat others as you wish to be treated" applies.

Don't be the artist/person you think you should be or think they want you to be. Be yourself.

But be ACTIVE as yourself.

LOU PANICCIA: We post videos of warming up backstage before a gig, or tweet about what we’re listening to in the van on the way to a gig. I don’t see our online content as a way to let people see more about the music as much as I see it as a way for our fans to get to know a bit more about our personalities and what it’s like to be a band on the run.

JUSTIN POIRIER: Currently we take advantage of all the major social networking tools, we have a MySpace with over 20,000 friends (although that is becoming less and less relevant every day), we have a Facebook with over 500 friends, we have individual Twitter accounts as well as a band twitter account, as well as YouTube and Vimeo video channels.

One of the recent things that we did was we began to set up a series of acoustic covers where we asked fans what songs they wanted to hear us do acoustic. We got through two of them before we got distracted, but we've currently got about 6 more songs that we are ready to film and post weekly.

Other than twitter, we try to update our videos on YouTube as much as possible. Any time we go into the studio or on tour we always bring a camera and piece together some tour or studio diaries to give the fan's an insight into our personalities and give them a feeling of being connected to us beyond just listening to our music.

MIKE NORMAN: We use Facebook, Twitter, and the website all integrated together to keep engage our fans, as well as online streaming tools like ReverbNation. We make sure we post a couple of times a week to keep our name in people’s minds. We thank everyone that ever mentions us on Facebook or plays us on the radio to curry favor. As for the giving people a window into our musical souls: that’s not our goal. I dear say that’s the goal of people who have far too much ego in their music.

ROMAN LOJKO: Some artists keep engaging web journals or tour diaries active, and that generates a lot of interest. Some notable examples:

-Troels Abrahmson, a Danish electronic artist, shares all of his deep emotions and thoughts in his weblog: http://supertroels.dk/. For whatever reason his fans love it, and even share comments to almost all of his posts.

-The band Candy Claws actually had an “online world tour” where they went around cities and videotaped stripped down versions of their songs through a blog in each city they were in: http://www.candyclaws.blogspot.com. Everything was posted on their blog and each blog they hit and they definitely generated a lot of interest that way.

:: What tools in the digital toolbox work particularly well for artists to connect with their audience?

CHRIS VELAN: I'm using my iPhone more and more for just about everything. The touring artist is always on the move and needs things to be portable, easy and quick.

I don't have the new 3G phone so I can't yet do video (but I will soon).

I take all my photos on my iPhone (using various photo apps) and do most of my tweeting, Facebook updates, etc on it.

It's a crucial tool for me.

LOU PANICCIA: Profiles on MySpace, Twitter, and Facebook are what connect us to fans. We use our website as a central starting point to direct the fan to the network they want to use to connect with us. Then we use tools like BandCamp, ArtistData, and WordPress to push content from our website to the social networks and vice versa.

JUSTIN POIRIER: Social networking is huge, but it is also completely over saturated. MySpace, which is the leading website for bands, is currently a virtual ghost town for fans, and each fan is constantly bombarded by bands looking for fans. The most effective outlet for breaking bands right now seems to be blogs, if a band can really blow up on a blog, then they can likely draw more attention to themselves from fans that trust that blog. In the punk scene the biggest blog is Absolutepunk.net and in the indie scene it's Pitchfork.com, but if a band can get a number of people from those blogs behind them, they can really widen their fan base.

There is also digital music streaming and selling. If a band does not have their music up online somewhere to be streamed for free, they are not going to get booked and they are not going to get fans, end of story. The process of putting music on iTunes is easier than ever. We currently use a service called Tunecore and have our music up for sale on a number of different sites. Not only does this potentially widen your fan base, but it also gives bands a certain amount of credibility when they can be found easily online. Currently when you look up "The Hollow Sound" on Google our MySpace is the first thing that comes up.

ROMAN LOJKO: Following and connecting with music blogs is by far the most advantageous way a band can achieve early recognition. Blogs are run by people who love music with all their hearts, and they are almost all connected to other people who showcase music locally. These people will do anything to get other people to love the bands they love, and they play a huge part in creating underground global musical “scenes,” which are much more powerful and influential than individual bands.

:: Other than yourself, do you know of any artists - musicians, painters, sculptors, writers, etc. who do a great job using digital tools to create deeper connections with their audience?

LOU PANICCIA: John Hodgman (I’m a PC) actually does really great things with his audience on Twitter http://twitter.com/HODGMAN. I’ve seen several trending topics on Twitter that started with him and his fans (#starwarsbandnames was a personal favorite).

JUSTIN POIRIER: There are certainly a number of people that have used Twitter very successfully to market themselves. Mark Hoppus of Blink-182 comes to mind, as well as John Mayer, but the key that I have seen is consistently delivering high quality or interesting content. One of the more interesting marketing campaign for bands that I have seen lately was by a band who streamed their whole new CD for free but with a different blog sponsoring each song. Another band, had all of their songs for free download, but each song had a commercial for DW drums at the beginning, not only are these good ways to cross market but they are ways for bands to still make money and drum up support.

ROMAN LOJKO: There’s a growing movement of underground, lo-fi musicians that release everything they make free on the internet. By embracing the internet’s functions they gain much more recognition than they ever would otherwise, and their fans respect them for it. They take away the “illegal downloading guilt” most people feel (at least on some level), and make music wholesome once more. If their music is actually decent then when they tour around they have small fan bases everywhere they can make use of, and they didn’t have to pay a cent to get their names out there.