Why Jesse Eisenberg is cuter than Mark Zuckerberg

Columbia Pictures will be releasing The Social Network, a flick about the rise of everything-changing Facebook, this October. The movie poster is now out, and Jesse “Michael Cera with more testosterone” Eisenberg will be playing Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

The likeness is pretty good, with the usual Hollywood cutening-up of the IRL protagonist.

Why is Jesse a great choice for the Zuck character?

• Pasty nerd skin
• Unruly hair
• Gentle, geeky demeanour

But Zuckerbergian though Jesse may be, his cuteness exceeds that of the CEO in the following ways:

• More animated, punkier hair
• A steelier gaze, complimented by chiseled cheekbones and a square, manly jaw
• A broader, flatter nose—a nose with just a little more presence, you know?—and a more angular, more defiant chin

I will grant there are a few factors that might make Mark Zuckerberg a better boyfriend:

• Untold billions
• World-changing mastermind abilities

But unfortunately:

• “Mark Zuckerberg girlfriend” is a top search on Google, so the competition will be fierce
• Potential evil genius

Anyways, I’m highly anticipating this film, but wonder if my fondness for Mr. Eisenberg is going to colour my feelings towards Zuck, which are ambivalent at best. This may have been strategic on Columbia’s part.

I’ve seen Mark Zuckerberg speak in person, and he’s disarmingly nice for someone that basically rules the world. We’ll see if the film paints a multidimensional picture, and if MZ comes out a sympathetic character. If we can get past the cuteness.

Social Butterflies: Sacha Chua on women in social media

Last in a series of interviews with female Canadian social media stars! The premise, which you can read about here, investigates how women act towards each other in the quest to be head social butterfly.

Sacha Chua is a Torontonian technology-loving girl geek, by which I mean she’s an application developer at IBM, for Pete’s sake. She’s also an Enterprise 2.0 consultant, helping people understand and use online collaboration tools.

I tend to not think about gender much.

I almost reflexively check the gender balance at conferences (still pretty bad, but better than it was before, although there’s still a lack of women speakers), but I don’t consider gender when I’m helping people or linking to them, and I’ve never intentionally “held people down”.

No point in making things an ego contest. Life is more fun when you share!

Engage unboxing

If you’re not familiar with the unboxing phenomenon, you’re going to think I’m mental, but basically when geeks order something super cool from the internet, they get so stoked to open it that they document taking it out of the box.

My copy of Brian Solis‘s Engage finally arrived, so here’s the reveal. I let my baby do the unboxing, because she really, really likes cardboard.

This book is “the complete guide for brands and businesses to build, cultivate, and measure success in the new web”. I’ll let you know what I learn, how I’m applying it, and what my ROI on the $25 is

“#Curate” is an obnoxious word for filtering

Mike Rhode's SXSW sketchnotes

I’m so into the evolution of language. Ask anybody. I stop hyphenating “email” in like 1977.

As a lover of language, I have a keen appreciation for the nuance and tone of vocabulary. Fluidity of meaning is super, but it has to be totally right.

The word that’s wrinkling my fur is “curate“. You know, that thing you get a Masters in Byzantine art history to do.

“Curate” as a verb for posting links for your buddies has been floating around for a bit. SXSW seems to have really flagellated that horse past all repair, though. See Mike Rhode’s sketchnotes bearing the imperative “Become a curator“.

Scoble started this, and I thank him for bringing the issue to a head. Better we make a decision now than let this linguistic boil fester any longer.

Scoble wants better aggregating tools for when he’s filtering. I’m all for that. I’m sick of taking screenshots of tweets too. But I unhumbly suggest most of what we’re gathering is more “filtered” than “curated”.

Have you read Cult of the Amateur? (God, I need an Amazon affiliate account). It’s about UGC (user-gen content) being the death of expert authority, and all that. I’m not totally down with this book, but the elevation of common man to Curator puts me in mind of this ominous thesis.

Curating is something done by experts. And Scoble, good sir, you may indeed claim that title.

But homo commonis is just a dude with a bunch of interesting (to him) $h1t that he’s gathering up in one place bascially so he can find the links to it later. If he makes industrious use of that $h1tpile by sending it to his tweeps, or his tweeps to it, then we can generously call it “filtering”.

Let’s not drag down the actual profession of curating by overstating link hoarding. It’s pretentious to ascribe more significance to our activities than they warrant with high-falutin’ words.

Social Butterflies: Tara Hunt on women in social media

Next in a series of interviews with female Canadian social media stars! The premise, which you can read about here, investigates how women act towards each other in the quest to be head social butterfly.

Tara Hunt is a genuine Canadian social media superstar (& there is reason to believe she may have once lived, however briefly, in Winnipeg Brandon). Author of The Whuffie Factor, Tara’s actually one of the most freaking influence women in technology. Here’s a Slideshare on her contribution to social media theory, the idea of Whuffie, first postulated by another Canadian futurist superstar, Cory Doctorow.

Social Butterflies: Adele McAlear on women in social media

Next in a series of interviews with female Canadian social media stars! The premise, which you can read about here, investigates how women act towards each other in the quest to be head social butterfly.

Today we welcome Adele McAlear, a Montreal marketer who’s feminist street cred includes being the founding Executive Director of the Vancouver chapter of DigitalEve International, a non-profit organization for women in technology. She also contributes to Technically Women.

In almost 3 years of working in social media, I’ve had overwhelmingly good experiences with women being supportive and helping each other to get ahead. There have been one or two instances that were a little less than pleasant, but I’m willing to chalk those up to people just having a bad day. (Or perhaps I don’t want to bring down the whole gender for the rare instance where all was not smooth.)

For myself, I will help people, regardless of gender, whom I believe are genuine and who treat me with respect. I won’t  go out of my way to help people when I’m made to feel like I’m simply a stepping stone to get someone else. You know, the people who look through you to the next person up the food chain as they stare blankly with a false smile. But, I’ve had that feeling from both men and women, so I don’t think that it’s gender-specific.

I’ve found fewer instances of the “Old Boys” club in social media, but it’s still alive and kicking. I was trying to think of why more people of both genders follow men and I think it comes down to men being perceived as more influential in business. Like the concepts of fame begetting fame; of men making more money than women for the same job, of why women pay more at the dry cleaners.

That said, I have some great cheerleaders who are men. And I have some who are women. I think that my experiences in social media are really just a reflection of society at large.

Social Butterflies: Monica Hamburg on women in social media

Next in a series of interviews with female Canadian social media stars! The premise, which you can read about here, investigates how women act towards each other in the quest to be head social butterfly.

Today we have Vancouver’s own Monica Hamburg. Monica’s a writer and social media consultant/evangelist. She also speaks about social media strategy and tactics, and writes a blog of the weird.

Very loaded topic. Before I address this, I need to remark that I’m a feminist. It should go without saying (but it can’t) that I believe in equality for women – and that I am fully aware of the issues we face. And now to the stuff that will get me hated. Sadly, in general, women aren’t always each other’s best allies. In some cases, there is competitiveness that surrounds the way some women interact with one another. Also, there is not much to be gained from excluding men – while there is a great deal that can be learned from working together. And, in my experience, exclusively female groups have their own issues.

The thesis that women are better at social media than men… well, I think this is one of those “I want to believe that we’re better” statements. Even if we are to assume that men and women have these stereotypically distinct approaches, there are great advantages to the other angle. Sure, women can be chattier are sometimes more intimate – but men are often more willing to state their opinion and allow themselves to remark on things with humour. While this may not always translate as “likeable” it does lead to more instantaneous connections – and a deeper feeling of collusion.

Of course, what it comes down to is the person. I really try to stay away from the “popularity contest” aspect of Twitter etc. The concept of “head butterfly”, rubs me the wrong way. I try to help people who are respectful (among other qualities) – and I make a sincere attempt not to judge someone based on their social web popularity or lack thereof.  It would be profoundly ignorant of me to assume that a person’s value is based on how many followers or connections they have.

Certainly, I’ve seen the concept of cattiness present itself on social networking sites – and I’ve seen men react in embarrassing ways too. I’ve also had a great deal of support from both genders – recommendations for talks, endorsements and the like.

But, if I’m going to make a huge blanket statement – overall, men have been more willing to accept my sense of humour – at least at the beginning.  But times they are a changing.