The Dale Carnegie institution conducted investigations that found only 15% of person’s financial success is based on their knowledge and/or technical skills. The remaining 85% is based on human engineering – the ability to create and build relationships.

The biggest mistake I see people make in the social media landscape is too much concentration on the tool and not enough on the relationship. Listen up, A HAMMER does not build a house by itself. Someone has to know how use the hammer properly to get the job done.

In social media, you need to have the right mindset in order to be successful using the tools. Here are six questions to ask yourself to determine if you have the right mindset. If you answer yes to all, you have a head start on becoming a social media maven. If you answered no to any of the questions, let me know why in the comment section and I will guide you on how you can turn that no into a yes.

1. Do you believe relationships matter?
2. Have you set social media relationships goals?  (Do you know what types of relationships you want to build using social media tools?)
3. Have you created a targeted list of people you want to connect to you using social media?
4. Can you give real reasons why someone wants to connect and/or know about you or your business?
5. Do you know how others perceive your communication style?
6. Do you always practice the golden rule (do on to others as you would want done on to you) and know how to continue practicing this online?

Do we understand enough about the present to predict the future?

As  a social media enthusiast (note: I did not say “expert”), I can honestly say I know more than most but still can’t keep up with what is going on if I am always talking about it (to paraphrase the old saying: “Those who can’t, lecture.”) So instead, I read a lot. I think a lot. I listen a lot more. And most importantly, I am social. I interact with all types of people, I hear their stories and work to help them socially, whether that means helping them be more comfortable in social interaction (online and off) or helping them communicate to their customers in a way that is engaging and beneficial both to their brand and to their bottom-line.

I personally don’t want to make predictions about social innovation when we are stuck in the midst of self-promotion. Instead I prefer to reminisce, reveal unspoken vulnerabilities and share my “hopes” for the future.

REMINISCING – There are three key happenings of the past that have been clear indicators as to why social media blew up.

1. Abundance in Marketplace = Abundance in Ad Space.

With the rise of the internet, businesses have seen more opportunity to market their offerings to larger audiences. As the space crowds, so does the push to use extremes tactics, forcing the customer to question, distrust, and ignore information all together, eventually developing “banner blindness.”

As marketing models began failing, savvy marketers had to look at the one model that has never failed: word of mouth marketing. And who spreads word of mouth marketing? The consumer. So the inevitable question was asked: “How can we use the internet to harness word of mouth marketing, and how can we get the consumer talking?”

2. Reality Television – You too can have your 15 Minutes of Fame.

While marketing leaders are thinking about how word of mouth marketing and social media can deliver on their business goals; pop-culture generations are thinking of how it can gain them popularity. Research from the University of Buffalo and the University of Hawaii concludes young people who watch reality TV are more likely to accept a large number of unknown friends than their peers who do not watch shows like American Idol and Survivor.

The researchers deemed the younger generations – with the “quantity approach to friending” – are responsible for the early adoption of online social networking and for promoting use to later generations. The quantity approach however, decreases the effectiveness of word of mouth marketing – how do you know whom to trust for information when everyone is talking at frequencies that cause many internet users to tune out all together?

3. The Financial Crisis / The Ultimate Tipping Point.

Whether you were let down, surprised or could foresee the collapse coming, the result was a massive cry for accountability and transparency. These themes inspired social media usage as people understood they could get direct information from people within companies and government and from people outside that had information they were willing to share and were not confined to keep private for any reason.

Now here is the catch: while I summarized the above points in regards to history, they are not really historical points. I personally believe each one of them is still happening now and is relevant to how the future social media landscape will shape up.

UNSPOKEN VULNERABILITIES –

Have we really asked the right questions to reveal what is actually going on? Here are some assumptions worth exploring:

Social Media Assumption #1 – Everyone using social media knows how to use it to their advantage. Really? Well, only half of Facebook’s 350 million people bother to log on daily. And a recent study done by Barracuda Labs said only 21% of Twitter’s 19 million users qualify as a “True Twitter Users” given the following (not-to-demanding) parameters:

1) User has at least 10 followers

2) User follows at least 10 people

3) User has tweeted at least 10 times

Clearly, the majority of people using social media are not even sure why they are doing it, how it can be helpful to them and/or why they should take steps to learn more about it. How can we expect social media users to perform and act as we want them to in connection to our promotions? In my personal relationships I’ve learned that “unspoken expectations” are usually what kills the relationship. Isn’t the same true here? People are lead to social networks by infomercial-styled promotions that promise “proven methods” and value for everyone without consideration of the individual’s social and internet skills. Everybody has a different rule book they follow, however we have not done so well matching the right rule book up with the right person.

Assumption #2 – Social Tools help people become more social. There are two types of people that are most likely to embrace social media tools; those that are already very social and those that are technologically curious. When they are both, then it’s no wonder why people at SXSW were talking about Geolocation “being the next big thing in social media.” But what if someone lacks social skills and they are uncomfortable in a social setting? Geolocation tools do nothing for you if you only have a few friends and find it difficult to make new ones. Most people stay in the small groups they know. If we want more people to embrace and use social media we need to help them understand how social interaction benefits them personally. We also need to help them be more comfortable socially. A recent study at the University of Michigan pointed to a link between physical activity and social skills. The study suggested physical activity through team sports and exercise classes helps develop leadership and empathy toward others – two crucial skills needed in successful social navigation. As we all seemingly convert to technical means for communication (email, text, Skype, online social networking) we can’t forget that true social development happens via live activities. In short, if we are comfortable in real life social settings we understand and do better in online social networks.

Social Media Assumption #3 – Online relationship work differently and/or interfere with relationships offline. There are no shortcuts to relationship building. As soon as someone develops a formula for trust, someone else breaks it by using it for manipulation. Whether relationships are created for business or personal reasons we can measure their effectiveness yet we can’t sell or force a relationship where there is no curiosity in the first place. I am purposely speaking in broad terms here. Life online can’t exist in a bubble. It still creates a real connection to people, places, businesses and brands. Spending too much time in social networks is an effect of something else, not a root of a problem. As such, businesses who outsource conversations they should be having personally with their clients will be perceived as disingenuous.

FUTURE HOPE FOR SOCIAL MEDIA – I interject a lot of hope into what I see in the future because I don’t want the space to implode on itself. I want people to get it. I want people to use it strategically and benevolently to achieve goals that best serve them. I want businesses to use it ethically to find their best customers and offer them what they need. To that end I see social innovators of the future focusing on one of the three areas:

1. Filtering - Clay Shirky, author of “Here Comes Everybody,” said it best when he stated: “It is not an issue of information overload, it is problem of filter failure.” The internet has a lot of information in it and when we use social media to share it, it can get rather noisy. Everyone has a different tolerance for privacy and for “small share” (code for small talk in social networks). The more we live and learn in social media the more we are going to need to be able to set our own privacy and filter controls. Whether you believe in Dunbar’s study that we can only manager 150 meaningful relationships at one time, the 80/20 rule proves over and over again, success rates are based on quality not on quantity.

2. Mutual Thinking – The most successful social media campaigns and social innovations happen because of careful consideration to mutual energy. Groupon.com gets this so well. They are harnessing group buying – and group “desire” – to offer incredible deals to the consumer while creating quick sales for business. The site is easy to use and understand and they pay $10 for each first time Groupon user someone refers. Everybody wins for sharing information. If theirs is an example of mutual thinking, here is one that is not: Retailers like Crate and Barrel continuing to think like retailers. Last month I received a Crate and Barrel catalog in a custom four-color envelope, enclosed with the catalog was a sheet of 10%-off coupons. I couldn’t help but wonder how much money Crate and Barrel  could save by not printing and mailing the catalog, and how they could then use the social media space to announce what they did and how they were going to pass the saving onto the consumer by lowering their prices for the duration of the print freeze. Would people be eager to shop Crate and Barrel if they announced a price drop in consideration to their customers? Would those customers be thrilled to talk about this in Social Media? And would Crate and Barrel ultimately see a profit gain because of it? I think so however they are not thinking about what is best for their customers and allowing companies like catalogchoice.org to think innovative on their behalf.

3. Positive Psychology/Social Media Interaction –If social media tools allow us to connect with anyone and everyone then why not use these tools to connect in the most optimal way? I hear complaints about social media usage all the time. The number one complaint is always about sharing and/or pushing useless information. That complaint is easily solved in so many ways, so why are still talking about it? There are so many positive attributes to social networking; so many things we can do with the tools to positively impact our health, happiness and success. (causecast.org, socialvibe.com and creativecitizen.com come to mind)  I am pretty sure the computer hackers who were the first innovators of social media were not thinking about the positive psychology attributes when they started out.  I would like to see the next innovators be a collaboration of technical, psychology and sociology experts who equally care about social responsibility and wellbeing.

“Behavior is just motivation filtered through opportunity,” said Clay Shirky at SXSW. If we can create mutually beneficial opportunities using social media, behavior will shift for the better. This is the future that I see and look forward to participating in.

In the middle of a busy travel schedule, positive

What inspired you to study the science of happiness? I never expected to get to go to Harvard, so when I did, it seemed like such a privilege.  In the midst of stresses, exams and snows, I never lost the thrill for being there. If I was challenged by people in my classes because they were smarter than me, I just felt happy to be among them.  As I held my optimism and connected with other students who viewed the world with gratitude and happiness I realized there was a connection. Students who maintained their optimism continued to perform better and better. Those who lost their enthusiasm for the privilege became stressed and focused on complaining. This negative mental attitude drained their brain’s ability to create positive change and ultimately prevented them from learning. This fascinated me, so I spent the next 12 years at Harvard studying how happiness changes success rates.

Through your research what has surprised you the most? I expected the wealthy and educated to be the most resilient during down times.  In 2009, I traveled from Zurich to Zimbabwe. In Zurich, I worked with Swiss bankers who were devastated over losing their bonuses. In Zimbabwe, I talked with farmers who lost their field; their entire income. Their currency had completely collapsed; a chocolate bar might cost you a trillion there! The farmers remained positive and believed they could endure the collapse and whatever life has in store for them. This surprised me, I thought I could predict a person’s happiness based on their external world yet it is 90% about the person’s makeup inside and 10% about external world.

What do you think is the biggest obstacle standing in a person’s way of happiness? It is the failure to believe that our behavior matters.  To me, happiness is the joy we feel striving after our potential (as a business person, family person, mother, friend, athlete, musician, etc.). We lose our happiness when we feel that we stagnate and do not grow.  If a person does not believe their behavior matters, they are less likely to create positive habits, less likely to perform acts of kindness, and less likely to pull themselves through a challenge.  If you think you don’t matter at work; you hate work.  If you think you can’t get better at something; you stop trying.  If you think you are unhappy and can’t change; then your brain is less likely to change.  The key to happiness is to remember we can keep growing and taking responsible for our own behavior. How we respond to reality can change that reality.

What are the best ways to make sure our brains operates in happiness? First is to practice gratitude.  I don’t mean be a grateful person.  I mean practice it.  Every day, for 21 days, write down three things you are grateful for on a sheet of paper or say it outloud to someone.  And be specific, why are you grateful for your health or children?  When you do this, your brain will begin to scan the world around you in a more positive way for the rest of the day, and you can train your brain for greater optimism.  In addition, journaling for 5 minutes a day about a positive experience, meditating, exercising (which is the equivalent of an antidepressant) and doing a conscious act of kindness.  Happiness is a work ethic.

What is Positive Psychology? It is a new movement in social psychology which studies happiness, optimism, hope and success.  In other words, instead of a disease model, positive psychology studies people who are above the curve for health, happiness and success.  It studies what works rather than what is broken.

Do you believe everyone is capable of working from a positive optimal level? Yes.  The science is unequivocal: while we may start at different places based on our genes, everyone (except in the rare cases of brain damage) is capable of training their brain for more positivity.

I believe a person’s success can be measured in their ability to create and maintain relationships. Where do you believe happiness fits in this equation? Social support, your relationships, is one of the greatest predictors of happiness.  A study at Yale School of Management found social support contributes to personal success and even greater business success. This research study found that neither the collective IQ of a team or the number of years of experience the team has is as predictive of the profitability and success of that team as social cohesion–the quality of relationships.

How does happiness fuel success? My entire book coming out this Fall, The Happiness Advantage, is based on explaining this and how we can use happiness to increase performance.  In short, when we are positive, our brains process more possibilities in our environment.  Dopamine turns on all the learning centers of the brain causing us to adapt quicker and use more of our intelligence.  Happiness correlates with higher productivity, three times higher creativity, less burnout, greater energy, and fewer sick days.  One meta-analysis found that across 200,000 employees, employees who were positive have an unfair advantage over those who are negative or neutral because people tend to rely on them to do more work. We all know this.  We get more work done when we enjoy the work and feel invested in it.  The problem is that common sense is not common action.  I just spoke with a stock trader in NY and he told me if he sees a member of his team smiling, that person is not working hard enough.  Ironically, stress and negativity turn off the brain and cause us to make worse financial decisions. Happiness raises success and business outcomes.  We have a lot of work to do to get our companies working at their optimal levels given that in January we found the highest rates of job dissatisfaction in 22 years of polling.

I know you have done research on how positivity and negativity spreads…what surprised you there? What long lasting results did each have? I went into KPMG, a large accounting firm, and trained half of their managers for three hours about The Happiness Advantage then tracked them over time compared to a control group.  We found that when you get individuals to make positive habits, it creates lasting impact.  The managers I trained one week after the training showed significantly higher levels of life satisfaction, optimism and energy compared to the control, as well as less stress.  But then remarkably, when I tested them again four months later, the managers who had been exposed to positive psychology still showed significantly higher levels of life satisfaction (quality of life).  Happiness cascades into greater positive change.

Relationships come in both forms; positive and negative. What tips do you have to avoid the negative and inspire the positive? Negative people either were rewarded for being pessimistic or they believe that their behavior and mindset do not matter. If you can help a negative person change one of those, you can help them be more positive.  Second, negativity and positivity can spread.  If you have a person that you realize you are not immune to, you might need to decrease contact with that person, or find ways of increasing your emotional immune system by doing one of the positive daily habits I mentioned before.

What else can you tell me about your book, The Happiness Advantage? It is being published by Random House in September and I’ll be doing the audiobook for it as well.  It is about changing the formula for work.  The old formula, used at most schools and companies, is if I work hard, then I’ll be successful, then I’ll be happy.  This formula is broken.  Every victory we have, we merely move the goalposts of success further out.  But more importantly, our brains work in the opposite order.  Happiness raises success rates and gives our brains an advantage.  Happiness then is a precursor to success, and by finding ways to raise our happiness, we can reap the Happiness Advantage at our work.

Care to share anything about your personal experience with happiness? What challenges your happiness? Happiness takes practice.  I gave 140 talks last year in 36 countries.  That travel schedule definitely challenged my own happiness.  Yet, I’m so grateful, not only for the opportunity to share the research, but it forced me to put positive psychology to practice in my own life.  Here’s the problem, information is not transformation.  We can know all of this information, but we won’t move past New Year’s resolutions that only take us to January 5 unless we find ways to practice and consciously hone our happiness. Happiness and optimism are learned skills. Happiness does not just happen.

Last question, what do you hope your work inspires? I want companies and schools to start realizing the truth: if you sacrifice happiness and mental well-being, you decrease success, not increase it.  If you want a child to flourish, if you want a company to thrive, you cannot work them to exhaustion and you cannot focus only short term outcomes.  We need to take time everyday to consciously practice the happiness that keeps us moving forward and believing that our behavior matters.

To Learn more about Shawn and his work visit: www.shawnachor.com

(Credit: Chris Matyszczyk)

Thanks Chris, I am hearing what you are saying.

From the article, “Why People really do care about Privacy”

Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET.

More about Chris: http://www.chrismatyszczyk.com

1. Thinking mutually benefits everyone.
2. Social etiquette trumps social caste.
3. There really is nothing to fear but fear itself.
4. Positive thoughts equal positive actions.
5. Love is all we need.
6. A conversation is like a pushup for the brain, pump it up.
7. Little things do matter.
8. Inspired surprises are the gifts everyone remembers.
9. Be present, now.
10. Regret will never find a home in your heart when you know how to learn and forgive.

Computer keyboard- face to face communication + social media =weapons of mass destructive words

Maybe social media feels like a wilderness of the unknown, yet I assure it is not. It is about basic communication; communication and interaction with REAL people. What we say here should be in consideration to real people and communicated in the SAME way as if the person we are interacting with is right in front of us.

It is both comical and sad what people will say to each other with no regards to how it coming across. This pattern is prevalent in emails, texts, social media networks and review sites like yelp.

Last week, after I posted  a discussion topic similar to this post in a LinkedIn group the moderator sent me a message telling me the post did not meet their guidelines; that message I understood and respected yet he went on to say, “You do not need to send me a message saying OK or sorry and you definitely do not need to send me a message debating the deletion.” Wow!  I have to wonder, why is this person a moderator for a “communications forum” when he appears to lean towards monolog instead of dialog? Maybe he is overworked? Maybe there are lot abusers in the group? Who knows? All I can do is not take it personal.  How can I? This person doesn’t know me.  If I wanted to engage him further my best defense would be asking him questions to better understand the situation before I “assume” where he is coming from. (You know what the say about assuming – makes an ass out of you and me)

Here some things to consider when communicating online:

1. BE KIND.
2. Assume Nothing.
3. Ask Questions.
4. Think in Terms of Solution and Collaboration.
5. Time is Precious – be productive with yours and honor the value of other people’s time.
6. Marketing is Monolog. – There is nothing social or interactive about pushing an agenda or using marketing message in social network forums.
7. Dialog is Desirable. – Successful people are measured by their ability to create and maintain relationships, understanding how to engage people in conversation is the foundation to that success.
8. Take it Offline. – Don’t make someone else responsible for not understanding your intention and/or message. Maybe you need to communicate in a different way. Don’t forget the importance of face to face interaction.
9. Be Prepared to Keep Moving. -  Definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. If you are not getting what you want out of your interaction online, find another place to play. There are thousands of social networks to choose from, seek out ones that seem to attract your target demographic.
10. Take the Time to Choose Your Words Wisely. – It is worth the extra time to start off on the right foot with someone, first impressions can never be reversed.

Here’s what the application would do:

1. Allow user to preset goals and interest; any information coming in is filtered and screened based on settings. Settings can be changed at anytime.

2. Application would rate and determines tone; anything classified as gossip, spamming, or negativity gets filtered out.

3. When you “friend” someone, you get to  privately rate how  important the relationship is to you and set communication reminder triggers based on desired frequency of interaction. Think of it this way:  You “friend” someone you are really interested in learning more about and making a valuable connection with, if you are not seeing their updates the chances for interaction, conversation, and relationship building might never happen. Wouldn’t it be nice to get a reminder to reach out to them or receive a scheduled summary of their updates?

Until social networking development companies understand the need to marry psychology and sociology to technology, it is up the user to muddle through the overload and noise pollution of useless/mindless information. How can we do this? Take the See, Speak, Hear No Evil Social Media Challenge. Try one or more of the following:

• Set Goals. Nothing new about this concept, yet it is completely necessary today. The more capable you are at understanding what is important to you, the better you will be able to determine how to spend your time, filter information and understand who you need in your social network.
• Stand for Quality vs. Quantity – Take the time to clean out your social networking accounts and apply some standards for communication and connecting.
• Rewind and Be Kind. – Do we say the same things with the same tone in a text, email or online that we would say in person? Humor is great, sarcasm can hurt people, take the time to rewind and think about your words before posting.  Kindness is Cool; pay it forward and spread the word. If we think mutual, our actions will reflect this. Let’s use social media tools for collaboration and innovation and be conscious of noise and information pollution.

Several time in the movie the characters would say, “I see you,” to each other, to other animals and to nature. The words were spoken with such a meditative loving pause I could not help but think how special I would feel to have those words spoken to me in a way I could actual feel the other person taking a careful pause to appreciate who I am.

Whether you say, “I see you, I hear you, or I feel you,” taking the time to mean those words when you deliver them to someone seems like a really special gift. The kind of gift that no matter if you are the receiver or the giver, both parties benefit from the greater gift of connection.

Whoever choice the words “I see you” for the movie, I want to say to them, “I feel you.” I am going to work on slowing down every day so I have the opportunity to say to someone else, “I see you, I feel you, or I hear you.”

One of most powerful examples of contagious good vibes is the work of director Michael Gracey. He has staged and recorded huge flash mob/impromptu performances that capture the capabilities of human hearts connecting in purest form. I can’t watch these videos with smiling, shedding a tear of joy or getting goose bumps. Note: if you wondering how these events happen know that there is group that is “in the know” to inspire the energy yet the majority of the people participating join in on their own.

Four of my favorite Michael Gracey’s videos: Oprah’s Kick Off Party with the Black Eyed Peas, Sound of Music Central Station Belgium, Hey Jude Sing a Long, Liverpool Street Station Dance and Sing. (CLICK PHOTO TO WATCH)

I am utterly devoted to living my life as a participant in a happy flash mob, anyone want to join me?