What struck me is something quite simple: It takes practice. If you are trying to build a serious social media oriented brand, personal or business, it doesn’t happen overnight. I’ve spoken to a number of people who have thought of starting their own blogs or even video blogging themselves. I’ve even thought about doing a few video posts myself. Often (I assume like people early in TV careers but who knows), there is apprehension of getting in front of and speaking into the camera. Writing for me was just easier to jump into, it feels more protected. But video blogging is very interesting and adds a whole different dynamic. It certainly makes it more personal.

Anyway, whether you are writing or using video as your medium, it takes practice. Just like everything else. Because the web makes everything easier, I think we fall into the trap that everything on the web is easy. Starting a blog, building a business, writing an iPhone application. If you want to be good (and gain a comfort) doing something, you have to practice and put in a good deal of effort. And for some, it comes naturally easy and they need less practice. For others, they need more. Just like everything else in life.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xg2MukcqbdE

So, Gary is spot on. Everything can captured and those that elect to participate are even more visible obviously. Everyone can be the media. So the question is what is good, what is bad? Often times, the definition is unequivocal. I am not thinking about those scenarios, I’m more concerned about the “gray” area. Back to Jeremiah’s twitter, what is professional and what is unprofessional? Same thing, more concerned with the “gray” area. Twitter is a service to express “what are you doing?” It is not a feature of LinkedIn where you express “what are you doing professionally today?”

So how are blogs, videos, tweets that are more personal perceived? Going out for drinks with co-workers ON A TUESDAY in the middle of the week! Gray? Bad? Unprofessional? If you blog or twitter a couple of years ago that you never wanted to work in a certain industry but fate has brought you exactly there, is all hope lost? They will know. Yes, I swing the pendulum to the extreme to make the point. But it will be very interesting to see where the meme heads.

It used to be that your resume was your personal brand. Just the other day, I was having a conversation with a co-worker about why people still insist on placing “less-than-professional” home email addresses on their resume. It is so avoidable but it is still done. And this is now a such a small set of bytes on one piece of digital paper and is now the least of concerns, a small drop in the ocean of information that could be more readily available with a small amount of investigation.

So in closing, of course, do not be “bad”, do not be “unprofessional”. There are a lot of things that are clear in the views of most. But with all things, people do not define things or form opinions the same way. So now, more than ever, the divide that is closed through technology is going to play an even greater role.

This vlog will surely be one of my first subscriptions when I get my new video iPod which I just discussed in an earlier post. Anyway, take a second (or 15 minutes) to check out Gary and his wine coverage, great stuff.

Thanks again to Prescott (and his dad) for bringing this site to my attention.