Come for the Ride!

Unlike the other posts on this blog that talks mainly about the growth and lessons learned of EasyAutoSales.com, this post will focus on another Atlanta grown service called BackNoise. I guess I should put a disclaimer noting that the thoughts and opinions in this post are of my own, and not of this blog or the company.

For those of you who read this blog and have no idea what BackNoise is, it’s basically a service that hosts localized chat channels that allow participants to pass notes and share ideas – similar to the paper notes we used to pass back in middle school and high school during class.  Although the website states you can create conversations on the fly to talk about TV shows, meetings and class, I’ve only seen this mole pop up during Atlanta social media conferences and events.

In my experience, BackNoise for the most part have been used for snark (evil) and it has been labeled as the “dark side” of discussions at IgniteATL and created disruptions such as group/room level rick-rolling at Startup Riot 2009.  More recently, at New Media Atlanta which I did not attend, it sparked this post by Stacy Williams who stated that BackNoise comments can be toxic and ruin an otherwise well planned event.

While I commend Stacy on her blog post calling out BackNoise, and Keith McGreggor‘s willingness to patch the service based on user feedback, I can’t help but feel that something just feels wrong here in how the two sides are addressing the situation.

Social Media has always been about giving people the power to challenge traditional ways of broadcast messaging. As we are all learning, just because Joe Wilson calls the President a liar, it doesn’t mean Joe Smoe from elsewhere can’t quickly look up real facts about the issue, make a blog post to challenge the statement and make that post popular through Digg or other social sharing services.  Knowing you have the power and the ability to speak up in a world of 6 billion people is a good thing – it stops us from accepting whatever is presented to us without ever challenging it. This is how science started… but I digress.

I don’t claim to know Keith’s original intentions with BackNoise but with the inability to search for channels, the ability to stay anonymous, and a name like BackNoise; one can only assume that this service was meant for the “cool kids” who have learned about this underground chat room through previous interactions.  The problem with BackNoise is not that it needs more features or more filtering. In fact, I’m sure one of the most hated features for its regular users is the buzzkill feature.  The problem with BackNoise is that it should have never been publicly broadcasted to let everyone know of its existence because the service is not meant for everyone.

For those in the social media scene who goes to or have been to almost every event that is hosted in the Atlanta area, BackNoise allows for many of our ID‘s to come out and play and speak what we’re thinking internally.  While it’s important to network and reestablish old contacts, let’s face it, many of the conferences here repeat the same subjects with little or no new information – at least not for the people who make regular appearances at these social events.

If you work for a large corporate company and they paid for your attendance to NMATL, then BackNoise is not for you. Go sign up for Twitter, follow the hashtag and start marking useful tweets as favorites for a later followup.  If you’re learning new ideas and want to apply it to your job, BackNoise is not for you. Again, you can start following people on Twitter and make notes who you want to network with and build up those relationships.  On the other hand, if you’ve already heard the same schpeel over and over and need to pass the time because you paid for an event but don’t want to sleep through it, then BackNoise may be for you; and that IS who BackNoise is for.  Yes, more often than not the commends are mean, lewd and disrespectful but on BackNoise, we’re all friends here.

Paul Freet said it best when he made the comment

“…in my experience, the quantity and tastelessness of the Backnoise is indirectly related to the quality of the speaker/presentation. Want a better reception? Don’t bore your audience.”

I too have found this to be the case.  For those of us who have been to a few meetings on similar topics, we can easily spot a great presentation with information we need to digest.  If you’re teaching us something new, the regulars will pay attention and minimize the snark.  If we don’t learn anything new, don’t blame us for drifting into something more interesting.

From Linda Farley who made the comment…

“Although I am immersed in technology, I do not believe most people can listen and learn well while texting, tweeting, surfing, doing email, etc.

Too bad these negative audience members actually chose to pay to have an opportunity to attack others.”

I agree with you 100%!  Maybe kids these days can multi-task by doing homework, listening to music while texting and playing video games, but most of us can’t.  When I’m reading BackNoise or Twitter, I’m not paying attention to the speaker as much as I should but there’s a reason for that – I probably already know what’s being covered.  However, please know that many of us who attend these events (repeatedly) are trying to show support for the community, not to make it worse.

Finally, Carol Flammer made this comment in her reply to Stacy’s blog post.

“Backnoise was definitely a bit unnerving for me as a speaker. And, I’m sure I will mispronounce Kayne’s name again!!! I don’t know why, but when I see it is writing I always mispronounce it! It looks like Cane or Cayenne to me. Besides that, anyone who knows me knows I’m not much for the bling bling of the stars, I just don’t keep up with actors, singers, sports figures, etc.

Backnoise did an excellent job of demonstrating my point about the 2% who will NEVER be happy no matter what you do. These unhappy Joes can take charge of or ruin your reputation.”

First off, I will admit that I too called Kanye “Cayenne” as recent as the VMA’s.  As a person who apparently also has a hard-to-sound-out one-syllable name (WEI), and have had Starbucks spell my name in 20 different ways except the correct one (i.e. whey, wade, wayne, way, wee, wii, walt, wie, wang and so on…), I should have known better.  Thankfully with a few jokingly jabs from my wife and a constant reminder of the mistake, my pronunciation of Kanye has been corrected.  However, back to the above comment, I don’t see how your poor excuse and unwillingness to fix your problem is any worse than whatever was said on BackNoise.

As a minority who moved to the states from another country, I’ve already had to learn your ENTIRE language on top of our own.  While our names may not be Bill, Michael or Mary, they are meaningful and beautiful in our native language and I’m pretty sure my parents spent time picking out the perfect name to maintain what is our culture.  It really disgusts me when people try to sell me stuff or ask for help when they don’t even have the courtesy to get my name right.  For Kanye’s outburst, he apparently has a problem/demon large enough to warrant rehab.  What’s your excuse for the above?  Laziness?  To claim ignorance cause you’re not into “bling bling” or keep up with “singers or athletes” is simply not acceptable – had I been at NMATL, I probably would have joined the mob in highlighting the error.  As a public speaker, if you’re going to address anyone by name, you should take the 10 seconds to learn their name and get it right.  What would we think of President Obama if he’s constantly “axe-ing” the country for support instead of “asking” us for support? It’s pretty much the same thing.

So yes, BackNoise may be crude and brutally honest but sometimes that is necessary.  Sure, there will be nonconstructive comments at times… but beyond the useless comments, there are usually some diamonds in the ruff.  There have been many times I wish people would tell me the brutal truth whether anonymously or in my face.  If it’s more truthful being anonymous, I’ll gladly take it in that format (provided you know what it is that we’re trying to do). Atlanta can be way too nice hiding behind its polite and proper ways. However, if BackNoise is what’s needed to get the dirrrrrty south out in the open, I welcome the brutal honesty and frankly don’t think anything about it should be changed.

As confident, well-spoken speakers, you should not have to fear any criticisms.  Public feedback whether useful, tasteful, or otherwise will only increase with time when services like Twitter and BackNoise make it easy to do so.  If nothing else, take a page from celebrities and keep a healthy attitude when reading your own reviews (or don’t read them at all).

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